Amazon in Talks to Buy AMC Theaters - <AUTHOR> https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/05/11/report-amazoncom-in-talks-to-buy-amc-theaters.aspx <comment><USER2> Other sources say it's AMC Networks and Daily Mail got it wrong.

[https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/amc-tv-company-stock- pop...](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/amc-tv-company-stock- pops-210603748.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Once I was turned away from entering into the Amazon physical bookstore 15 minutes before closing. I thought OK, I'd just go to Barns & Noble. The problem is Amazon the company is not like Barns & Noble.

I'm afraid of the ever real chance that one day, for somethings, the only convenient place to shop is an Amazon store and they have the power to turn people away and we won't be able to get the stuff we want or need elsewhere.

On a related note, it's depressing to be in a Whole Foods with Amazon Flex. Seeing another person like me, carrying their daughter and shopping for another family, hurrying from one aisle to another, makes me not very hopeful for the world where Amazon takes its Amazon-ness to its logical end.

<comment><USER4> Certainly monopolies are something to fight against.

I'm not sure the examples are Amazon specific though. If Amazon disappeared tomorrow, stores would still have closing times and grocery delivery would still exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since when is Daily Mail a reputable source?

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems like Amazon is getting dangerously close to the Buy n Save (or whatever) corporation from Wall-E. The problem is no individual acquisition is suspect or bad for consumers.

<comment><USER7> It was Buy 'N' Large and the creators of Wall-E said they modeled the brand after Costco. Not that it doesn't apply to Amazon. Maybe even better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They would make great warehouses

<comment><USER9> Yeah, that and all of the defunct malls would field a good distribution channel in dense areas.

I don`t personally shop on the popular Chinese aggregate retail sites, but consumers going direct to the manufacturer may become a phenomenon here in the States as retail goes thru its next cycle.

Amazon giving customers a reason to let them broker every transaction for a fee has worked well up to now, but ordering direct has taken off with farm-to- door sales during the shelter in place orders. Whats next?

I haven`t switched gears after reading this article yesterday, but cutting out the middle-corporation/man for larger retail purchases to capture additional saving is the level of loyalty Amazon is working with.

[https://jalopnik.com/this-is-how-much-buying-the-cheapest- ne...](https://jalopnik.com/this-is-how-much-buying-the-cheapest-new-car-in- the-wor-1843396488)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Getting A list as part of a prime membership could be an awesome perk.

</comment><comment><USER11> two months of next to $0 revenue

</comment><comment><USER12> How about we have the governments break up Amazon instead ? I do not like the idea of one conglomerate (is this a congolomerate?) having influence on so many areas of my life.

<comment><USER13> Break it up for what exactly?

<comment><USER14> I bet they'll totally be onboard for screening a movie that depicts a large corporations doing evil things.

<comment><USER15> Just replying here since your other comment is dead - thanks for linking the Corbett report. You might be interested in [https://coronacircus.com/](https://coronacircus.com/)

<comment><USER14> Thank you! Is the censorship that bad here? I thought people wanted access to both sides of the story.

<comment><USER16> Both sides? Would you mind naming the two sides for us?

<comment><USER14> Brain on / Brain off.

<comment><USER16> Nonsense and not productive in any way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


75% of Ikea's Catalog Is Computer Generated Imagery - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/3034975/75-of-ikeas-catalog-is-computer-generated-imagery <comment><USER2> This is surprising why? I suspect 75% of car commercials are CGI as well. There are forums (I used to participate in one) where members would show off their "renders" and given the computer power available its not really a big deal for anyone to make really really good pictures (or insert silly things into other pictures)</comment>


How an Angelpad startup got from 0 to 1000 paying customers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pipedrive.com/2012/04/pipedrive-now-has-1000-paying-customers-and-how-we-got-there/

<comment><USER2> Looks like a great story, keep it going!</comment>


BART Pulls a Mubarak in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/bart-pulls-mubarak-san-francisco

<comment><USER2> In addition to this submission, here are more:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2877771>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2878807>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2879546> <\- Much discussion

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2879772> < 2 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880028>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2881851> <\- Dead

I'm pretty sure there were more.</comment>


Why Hacker news uses tables? - <AUTHOR>

I had a quick look at the html of hacker news and saw tags that reminded me of how we made web pages 10 years ago. Why is this? Any particular rationale or just the good old 'if it works, don't fix it'? <comment><USER3> If you read the thread JeremyBanks points to, you can see that pg thinks it's a waste of time to be hand crafting, to be optimising when it's already so small and to be following recommendations beyond what is needed from standards bodies.

More importantly it's about where you spend your time. Pg's a busy guy but HN is good advertising for his business. He does spend time optimising the whole thing though, technology _and_ community. Just look at the experiment, now finished, to see whether displaying average comment scores would alter community behaviour in a desirable way. These and the other tweaks - <USER2> comments fading toward background colour, the front page algorithm, the effect of flagging and associated moderation, when people get voting rights - are the things which improve the website. There are plenty of places and forums with which are standards compliant and have a lot of seemingly whiz-bang features, but their commentary sucks and their community has an aggressive tone and is ridden with trolls. Too many people here think it's all about the technology when there are other factors.

Even if pg held a "redesign HN" competition, to which many would respond for free, reviewing the submissions and implementing the changes into the server would be a waste of time compared to the opportunity cost of trying out something else to improve the community and defend it against degradation.

<comment><USER4> I do think of HN as one big social experiment for PG. It seems he wants to show reddit that the community does not have to degenerate after a number of members (but of course reddit wanted to make money and they are).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> PG discussed this in this thread three years ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=100595>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

<comment><USER6> But 1. point, in this post, IMHO, is not completely resolved.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=100699>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tables are good for _tabular_ data, they are also quick, easy and very cross- platform, the semantic zealots seem to overlook this. Using tables to lay out images or for a faux column effect is sloppy but really the whole table-hate thing is overblown.

EDIT pg made the same comment about tabular data in the linked thread.

</comment><comment><USER8> Using tables is not a bad thing. I don't know how people came to this conclusion.

gmail lists emails using tables. What's wrong with that?

<comment><USER9> Here we go again. A preemptive note on semantic HTML: This is not a question of DIVs vs TABLEs. Those who litter DIVs everywhere are just as misguided. The idea of HTML is to meaningfully represent the content it's describing. Sometimes this means using tables (for tablular data), other times it involves wrapping elements in a div container.

Now whether or not HN's front page is tabular data (my vote is not) is left to debate.

<comment><USER10> How is a table with one column not meaningful? The meaning is obvious: it's a list.

That HTML has specialist elements for lists is nice, but I don't see how that implies that a table with one column isn't _also_ appropriate for a list.

<comment><USER9> A table with one column may very well be appropriate, however that's not the case here. A table has been used for layout. You will notice the up-vote icon has its own cell for example. Not to mention, various deprecated style-related tags like center are used as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe this is a question worth revisiting by pg, because the site doesn't look good on mobile devices, even on the iPad.

Using css might make it easier through @media queries to adapt the site to different devices (I actually only care that it looks good, so a table based solution is actually fine with me), but nevertheless the site does need a revision.

<comment><USER3> HN works fine on my iPhone 3G, much better than those vile mobile sites which somehow disable zooming.

edit: Another example, on reddit I have to use m.reddit.com to make it light weight enough to be tolerable whereas HN works faster and more cleanly without losing the capacity to vote and comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> To me, I find it more limiting that child comments are not nested within their parents. For example, implementing a show/hide children feature is annoyingly difficult to do, as is showing trails leading to the parent. IIRC, all HN comments are DOM siblings of each other.

I couldn't care less about divs vs tables or spacer images. However, I really feel tree structured data should be encoded as such, especially when the document itself is tree structured. It seems more difficult to do it otherwise.

Not that it really matters that much. I have bookmarklets that add nesting and trails, but it was just annoying to make them. I realize I'm an edge case, and overall HN is hardly as impacted by it's markup as it is by the community.

</comment><comment><USER13> Are you driving the exactly right car vehicle for you? Let's all figure it out.

Of course, you have all of the information we'll require to make this decision, so you'll have to answer all of our questions.

Oh, sure, we could just trust that understand the options and your own specific situation and have already weighed everything and taken the path that makes the most sense. But how would that be any fun?

</comment><comment><USER14> Hi, I made a quick mockup of HN's frontpage using semantic markup and CSS. There are some issues as my CSS skills are not the greatest, but I think it's a very good start.

<https://gist.github.com/719217></comment>


Rich more likely to walk away from mortgage - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/business/economy/09rich.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> Both my girlfriend and I have been pursuing strategic defaults on our primary residences in the state of California. Her property is underwater by 300K. Mine is about 250K. Neither of us are wealthy, but the financial upside of pursuing this route is very compelling.

In California, if the loan on the home is a purchase money loan, which is the one used to purchase the home, and not refinanced, then in a foreclosure situation, the banks are not in a position to pursue you for a personal deficiency. In other words, they cannot sue you for the loss on the home. We had our lawyers check this out and it's due to laws dating back to the Depression era.

At the time that a house is sold, there are three parties agreeing to the price: the buyer, the appraiser, and the mortgage lender. So if a home goes down in value, all parties share the risk. It's no different than a VC investing in a small business. If the business fails, the VC cannot sue the managers of the business to get their money back. The same holds true with foreclosures in California. In the depression, this same situation happened, property values fell, people lost their jobs and were sued by the banks to pay them back. Bad stuff.

We are both pursuing short sales of our homes, but are perfectly OK with a foreclosure. In both situations, our credit ratings will take a huge hit, but they recover in 7 years for a foreclosure, and in 2 years if it's a short sale. So we asked ourselves, is our credit score worth 300K? And with some simple financial modeling, we figured that it was about 10 years for the property values to break even. And the trade off was simple.

The short sale does turn into cancelled debt, though, and the IRS will get a 1099-C. Cancelled debt counts as income, which makes it taxable. Except the US govt passed the 2007 mortgage debt relief act, which makes cancelled debt from a mortgage tied to your primary residence an exception. You do not have to pay income tax on it. This is valid through the 2012 calendar year.

At the state tax level, if the home has cancelled debt, it's still seen as a loss sales against the orginal value of the home. And losses are not taxable.

So this is a great situation financially - no liability to the mortgage company, no federal or state tax. Really bad credit for a couple years :(. But as a question of opportunity cost, this seemed to make the most sense.

In order to pursue this, both of us had to stop making all payments on the mortgages. We both got harrassing debt collection calls for awhile, but once you get into the foreclosure process, they eventually die down. We each will get 6-12 months of living in our homes for free, so in some ways that is a loss recovery.

Hope this helps some of you...

<comment><USER3> Do you lose any sleep over the ethics of it?

<comment><USER4> I lose sleep over people suggesting it is unethical. That is buying in hook, line, and sinker to the propaganda these companies would like you to believe. Deciding not to service debt is a tactical business decision made every single day. The same companies suggesting it is immoral in order to increase their own profits at the expense of struggling homeowners have all done the same exact thing without anyone ever suggesting it is immoral. You are choosing to exercise a clause of your contract and have every right to do so.

Also, declaring foreclosure is doing a great public service. It helps still inflated housing prices reach affordability. Californians spend more on housing than residents from any other state. If we were able to spend less money on housing it would have a positive impact on quality of living here.

TL;DR: I would trade my credit score for $250k in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER5> There is a clause in all of my software licenses that offers a refund, no questions asked. I am able to offer that clause in the faith that people will use it responsibly. If folks exercised it routinely on the theory "Hey, he lets me do it and that puts $30 in my pocket", I'd have to snip it or go out of business.

The extraordinarily lenient treatment of foreclosures, particularly in California, is also premised on them being rare events caused by black swans like personal financial catastrophe. If folks use them merely when they're net beneficial, the generous leniency afforded folks in personal catastrophe will _not_ be extended next time.

Banks understand this. This is why, when they write contracts between each other, defaults do not result in "Oh, sure, keep the property for another twelve months and then mail the keys in and we're even stevens."

<comment><USER6> At first, I thought your argument was really compelling. But I think your analogy fails. You are implicitly equating taking a mortgage, not repaying it and continually living your home with buying your program, getting the refund, and continually using the program.

If you could remove the users ability to use the software when you refunded them $30, like the mortgage lender can when the homeowner stops living in it, you'd probably still be in business even with your clause.

On the other hand, if all of your users bought your software, thought it sucked and never used it again, and then got their refund, well, you should probably be out of business.

The OP's situation is not analogous. He is not free riding.

Edit: On the other hand, the year's worth of free rent before being evicted is to me a bit morally shady.

<comment><USER5> But he _does_ get to stay in the house (for a year), because of the implicit assumption that knocking him out on his hindquarters when he stops paying would be discompassionate in the face of the catastrophe which caused his default.

As an aside: I do a functional-limited trial rather than a time-limited trial precisely because 100% of the use of the software for 48 hours satisfies the need for 95% of my customers. "First year free" would wreck my business pretty comprehensively if folks took advantage of it.

<comment><USER7> Him getting to stay in the house for a year is due to the lengthy foreclosure process, a legal artifact, not due to any compassion on the bank's part.

I'm confused why you're using the word "compassion" at all, and coaching your argument in terms of how "compassionate" banks will be in their terms next time around.

Banks exist to make money, the terms they offer are a balance of how much risk they are willing to take, how much return they can earn, government regulation, and competition.

The OP does not owe the banks anything other than the terms of his contract, and the terms say that if he doesn't pay his mortgage he'll lose his house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is absolutely no moral or ethical dilemma in "jingle-mail". These banks handed out huge no-money down loans like candy to people who bought way more house (and in some case multiple houses) than they could legitimately afford. Both parties were complicit in a transaction that should never have occurred. Now that the inevitable has occurred and the music has stopped, the only thing that matters is the letter of the law regarding the contract. If the bank proposed/agreed to a no-recourse loan, just walk away.

Morality aside, jingle-mail is also the healthiest solution from a market perspective. The faster banks are forced to take their lumps, move these foreclosures through the market, and return lending standards to their historical norms (e.g. 20% down), the sooner the housing market can return to normalcy.

</comment><comment><USER9> Banks and businesses have been doing this for years. They weigh the economic impact of supporting an unprofitable entity versus the impact of letting it go. I don't see why people insist that other people are "morally" obliged to continue to pay a mortgage.

A mortgage is a business contract. The banks evaluate you in terms of risk of not paying and you evaluate the prospects of the mortgage contract they write for you. There's no blood oath or secret brotherhood you join.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here are some earlier submissions on this and similar topics:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1491252>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1175576>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011716>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=726110> <\- This has lots of comments

</comment><comment><USER11> There is a big difference between regular debt and _collateral_ -backed debt. The whole point of a loan backed by a collateral (in this case, the house) is that the lender gets said collateral upon default. Mortgage lenders are not "screwed" by foreclosures - they would love a foreclosure on a house whose value is up.

Banks do not count on your paying off the house - if they did, they would not explicitly demand your house as a collateral upfront. They are exactly like the pawn shop owner who takes your wedding ring in exchange for some cash. It's not a moral obligation on the part of the owner to buy the ring back if the price of gold goes down to the point where it's cheaper to buy a new ring - so why is it a moral obligation on the part of the home owner to buy the house back from the bank?

Perhaps those rich people are not "ruthless" - perhaps they are rich _because_ they understand things like that.

</comment><comment> bsnss-mn-cdr Quote of the day: "The rich are different: they are more ruthless"

<comment><USER12> Not necessarily ruthless, but money literate.

I'd rather reserve my kindness and good manners for actual people. Banks are, in a way, abstract machines made of policies, rules and procedures. You do not gently talk to your computer; you type the command as outlined in the _fine_ manual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It makes sense if you took out an overblown mortgage and are in a big negative equity situation. If that's the case then getting rid of the property as soon as possible is really just about cutting your losses to the minimum.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's fucking pathetic that both banks and homeowners look for a bail out from the tax payers who were fiscally responsible. Why is there no punishment for people being stupid and why should responsible citizens help you keep the house that's bigger and better than theirs with a government bailout? Does anyone have any integrity or pride in themselves anymore?

Walking away from a mortgage you signed is about as responsible as the banks asking for bail outs!

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm currently in the process of walking away from a home out of state. I moved from Delaware to California close to 3 years ago due to a really good job opportunity. I couldn't take the hit in selling our house at the time since it was underwater, so I wound up renting it out. Through that time I have had 2 renters on the property, both of whom wound up walking away from their leases. The last renters trashed the place and I could not afford to get it fixed up enough to rent it out again.

So I was stuck with an unrentable home out of state that I could not afford to fix up and could barely afford the mortgage payments on. Therefore I just decided to simply walk away from it.

Given that context, I simply cannot understand how people can say it's either immoral or unethical to walk away from a house. The loan modifications that banks try to shove down your throat are generally shitty deals, they simply want recapitalize all of your late fees and missed payments back into the principle, putting you further underwater. Working out a more equitable deal with the home retention folks is damn near impossible. Not to mention all of the collections calls and come ons from unscrupulous firms that want thousands of dollars to try and work out a deal for you. Walking away is an act of last resort and the financial and credit penalties are there to mitigate it.

<comment><USER16> "I simply cannot understand how people can say it's either immoral or unethical to walk away from a house"

You signed a contract. That's what makes it unethical to walk away. You put yourself in the position that you are in. You may think you took a better job offer, but actually if you had considered your circumstances, the job offer was not that great because of the obligation to the mortgage company where you lived for the house that you bought.

You say that you could "barely" afford the mortgage payments which implies that you could afford them. The last paragraph of your response is just a list of excuses to make yourself feel better about the course of action that you have taken. Your part of the problem, not the solution.

<comment><USER12> The contract carefully outlines what is it to happen in case the borrower finds himself unable to make payments. It is not as if he's stolen the money; he's loosing the property AND the percentage of mortgage payed so far.

The lender is to keep all the cash received so far, and the ownership of the house as well. If the property happens to have been so overpriced that he's loosing money anyway... so bad. They are supposed to be professionals asserting the risk. If they chose to ignore those risk in order to push a deal more attractive to the customer/borrower, guess what, they gambled and they loose!</comment></comment></comment>


Library of Congress: Copyright is killing sound archiving - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/11/library-of-congress-3.html

<comment><USER2> Not just sound archives, but film as well. Almost all of the silent films shot in Ithaca have been lost because they were left to rot in their containers due to copyright laws.

</comment><comment><USER3> Something I don't understand is that the Library of Congress is in charge of writing the guidelines on copyright, do they not have any leeway to be able to stop or reduce enforcement of the law in this case?

<comment><USER4> Well, they can't change the law, for sure. And they're not the ones that control enforcement. They have some leeway to interpret open-ended parts of the law, but there aren't many of those left.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the UK there are copyright libraries - you must give a copy of your work to these libraries if you want the government to prosecute copyright for you. The British library (equivalent of LoC) is one.

<comment><USER6> It may have changed, but to register your copyright, you send (I think two) copies to the LoC with the registration. The issue isn't whether LoC gets a copy, the issue is their ability to backup or transfer the information in the event the media deteriorates or for other risks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sadly, even if they get this ironed out for their purposes, I doubt it'll translate to increased freedom for consumers. The LoC isn't a _person_ , so any legislation will probably be special-cased for them.

Nice to see them recognizing and admitting _some_ problems around the super- locked-down world of audio / media, however.

<comment><USER8> It's something to wave in the face of the pro-Copyrighters that ride a campaign of "more restrictive copyright for a brighter future."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It surprises me there isn't a gentleman's agreement that the Library of Congress can make and store as many copies as they want for the sole purpose of archiving, and that the copyright holders don't press charges since it's not as if they'd loose anything by it.

Seriously, the LOC should just go ahead and do it. Aren't copyright rulings supposed to include damages? Any competent judge would rule zero damages on the off chance that someone _did_ bring suit.

<comment><USER10> It's been a while since copyright lawsuits had anything to do with proving actual damages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I never did understand why media companies weren't lining up to get their works into the LOC. Hey, free archiving by what are ostensibly experts in the field.

Lets face it, the "Disney Vault" is more moldy cardboard box and less giant bank safe with mouse ears.

<comment><USER12> I'm fairly certain that the "Disney Vault" is well preserved, guarded, insulated and insured. Unfortunately our children and our children's children will be paying for Cinderella's dry cleaning for a long time to come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I understand this could be an issue for older films/audio but in the modern era i think the internet is doing a fine job archiving everything that ever existed.</comment>


Stealth Tank Unveiled by Poland - <AUTHOR> http://www.funker530.com/pl-01-future-stealth-tank-unveiled-by-poland/ <comment><USER2> "which incorporates technology that makes it invisible to enemy thermal imaging"

I call bullshit on this one. The US M1 Abrams has a 1500HP gas turbine engine. To develop 1500HP means producing at least another 1500HP in waste heat, if not more like 3000-5000HP. Let's conservatively say it's 1500HP * 732W/HP ~= 1MW

How in the world do they think they're going to hide a 1-5MW power plant? From the second video: Peltier plates on the exterior.

That's great, but it doesn't do jack to the huge plume of exhaust jetting out the back. And since they've got some kind of fancy exhaust cooling system they've got to be sucking up and discharging MASSIVE amounts of air to dissipate several megawatts without increasing the air temperature too much.

Even then, it's not too hard to turn up the sensitivity on the thermal systems a bit so you can spot these things.

<comment><USER3> What if it had some sort of, uhm, "thermal ballast" that would be refrigerated during normal operation?

Then when danger is expected, run the peltier modules in reverse, transferring heat from the outer layer back into the center for a short period of time.

<comment><USER2> Peltiers are notoriously inefficient. Hideously. Reasonable numbers are in the 10% range. So in order to remove say 5kW of heat from the skin (1.5 tons of refrigeration) which is pretty conservative would require say 50kW of power. Most of which would end up as heat in the metal of the structure of the tank.

If you figure the chassis and armor are say, 50 tons, and steel, you can do a little math to figure out how quickly it would heat up. 50 tons is 50,000 kg and the specific heat of steel is about 0.5kJ/kgK. We're putting heat into the chassis at the rate of 50kJ/sec and things cancel out pretty nicely. You'd heat it up at about half a degree C per second, or about one degree F per second.

In the best possible scenario you're talking about no more than two minutes worth of stealth (perhaps only 30 seconds in reality) and that's with the tank not moving and only idling its engine, just enough to produce the necessary 50kW. It's a neat trick, but I'm not sure it's worth writing home about.

<comment> xkcd-sucks Storing the heat chemically, in an easily reversible endothermic reaction including but not limited to phase-change, could be much more efficient than using Peltiers to cook the crewmwmbers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Poland is using the strategy of "Showing Teeth" \- which means that it is doing everything to actually make any country think twice before attacking.

Having huge stockpile of artillery and armoured vehicles it is very difficult enemy to have.

Recognizing this as perfect way to deter enemies (mainly Russia) Poland have been investing resources on growing woods (for hiding) and developing newest artillery and "hit and run" vehicles and equipment.

You would be surprised what they have in development at the moment. After all - Poland just started huge shopping spree - they started enormous arm up project, so we will see more of those ultra high tech stuff showing up soon.

<comment><USER5> Poland is going to be a very interesting country to watch over the next 10-20 years. It has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, a sizable population, and geopolitically speaking, a very long memory. Tensions with Russia are going to mount in the coming decades as Poland's economy grows, and Russia's slows down. I doubt they'd come to blows, least of all in the near future. But Poland is going to gear up, just in case.

A lot of this will come from Poland's desire to reduce its dependence on the US. Poland and the US have cooperated, militarily and politically, more reliably than most European countries have. But in light of recent events in Eastern Europe, the US is starting to look like a less-than-reliable backstop.

<comment><USER6> Why would Russian economy be slowing down exactly again, seems to be doing quite the opposite last I checked.

<comment><USER5> The vast majority of Russia's economic growth is coming from oil and gas reserves, especially the latter. That's a notoriously shaky ground on which to build an economic expansion as rapid as Russia's has been in the last few years. Extremely volatile over the long run. It doesn't help that most of that wealth is being captured by a handful of government-sanctioned plutocrats, and by government officials themselves (Putin most especially; he is rumored to have a personal net worth in excess of $70 billion). A very small proportion is actually being reinvested into productive and petrochemical-diverse industry. To make matters worse, the country suffers from some major demography issues. Its birthrate is problematic, and its population is old. It is one of the few major industrialized nations whose population is expected to contract significantly over the next century.

There is very little stability underpinning Russia's economy. It's wobbly, as is, right now. It'll be wobblier still over the next 10-20 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here is a discussion of up-gunning main battle tanks to 140mm guns to keep up with advances in armor.

[http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/ar/t1514.htm](http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/ar/t1514.htm)

A few interesting points:

Larger cannon are going to be harder to protect. Computerized weapons that can directly target cannon from sufficient ranges could severely degrade a force with conventional main battle tanks.

 _The cost of logistics can be related to as the eighth power of the tank's weight (for a tank of the weight we're discussing). Therefore, the logistics slice of a 80 ton tank would be roughly 5 times greater than an existing 63 ton tank!_

O(N^8) is nasty! A technology that can get one out of an arms race involving such unfavorable scaling would be game changing.

If remotely guided/autonomous surveillance and munitions vehicles could be made that out-range main battle tank weapons, then stealthy carriers of such weapons would rule the battlefield. This, of course, comes with the caveat that another arms race of countermeasures could ensue. It's hard for me to envision countermeasures that aren't themselves vulnerable to purpose built missiles, however.

</comment><comment><USER8> Do note that the vehicle in the pictures is just a Swedish CV-90 with some plastic bits on it, a (probably) mock barrel and various systems. To my knowledge no prototype hull has been completed to date so I find various claims that speak of a target of 2018 for mass production hard to believe. Furthermore, it's not known whether the actual design will pan out.

<comment><USER9> Here is a movie from 2011 of this vehicle. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6OjpB...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6OjpBUvbz78)

They show how they activate and deactivate the heat camouflage and you can clearly see the difference. It's not fully invisible but if you don't know what you are looking for you will miss it. The camo can also be activated in only certain spots so in one scene they make it look like a normal car in IR by only partially cooling down the exterior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like something you would see in the Battlefield game series, more specifically Battlefield 4. Quite clearly Poland feels threatened with the events taking place in Russia and Syria and wants to show that it is not some small place that can be pushed around. To be honest, I honestly do not blame them, the world is a dangerous place and it only continues to grow even more dangerous. Russia is growing increasingly unpredictable and who knows will be stupid enough to follow them or any other reasonable threat country into war if it ever comes to that?

Completely unrelated, but I recently travelled to Poland and it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. The people are super friendly, picturesque surroundings and a mixture of historical and modern buildings. If you ever get there and visit Kraków, head to Moaburger for some of the biggest and best burgers you will ever feast upon. I have seen their nice side, I would hate to see their bad side if provoked, I would not want a stealth tank sneaking up on me, especially in winter.

</comment><comment><USER11> All those angles remind me of the wire-frame tanks in the 1980's video game called Battle-Zone [1] - who would have guessed a stealth tank would make me reminisce?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_%281980_video_game%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_%281980_video_game%29)

</comment><comment><USER12> Considering how expensive stealth coatings are to maintain on airplanes, I wonder if this makes sense. Airplanes generally have more options about when they are exposed to the elements than tanks as well. I also wonder how many ISIS or Taliban soldiers have radar or thermal support.

I suppose it's meant to be a show of readiness against Russia, but there's no reason Russia can't adopt the tactics of ISIS and co (you could argue it already has).

</comment><comment><USER13> The Polish have a history of quite innovative military equipment. Here's a very ambitious fighter from the late 80s that was very much ahead of it's time: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL-230_Skorpion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL-230_Skorpion)

</comment><comment><USER14> The thermal camo is likely from BAE who corroborated on this project: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pftna34TbJU&t=0m46s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pftna34TbJU&t=0m46s)

I do find the missile protection feature to be interesting; active protection been proven to be useful several times, but doesn't seem to be widely used by any country, except for Israel who do use use them on patrols.

<comment><USER15> Active protection is quite common on high end Russian tanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This seems like the sort of cutting-edge high-tech war machine that sounds fantastic on paper, and in practice is hugely expensive and impossible to maintain in field conditions. In particular, the technology for a completely unmanned, turret with an autoloader replacing the human loader and camera systems replacing "stick your head out and have a look", has been around for decades; there are reasons it's had only limited use.

Gosh, it looks neat, though.

Anyone know what the "Active Protection System Launchers" are actually launching? At first I assumed it was fancy smoke grenades, but then those pigeonholes around the sides of the turret turned out to be smoke launchers. So...Anti-missile chaff/interceptors? Anti-personnel RPGs? Something else?

Oh, one other thing. The second video says it weighs in at 35 tons. Unless they've left off most of the armor for the display model (which is possible), this can't possibly be a main battle tank; there's no way it's got enough armor to take a shot from a full-size tank gun. It seems like they're going more for infantry support and possibly ambush hunting.

<comment> Tuna-Fish > In particular, the technology for a completely unmanned, turret with an > autoloader replacing the human loader and camera systems replacing "stick > your head out and have a look", has been around for decades; there are > reasons it's had only limited use.

It seems to be headed for wide use now -- all new major afv designs are now as small boxes as possible with remote-controlled turrets on top. Look up the Russian Armata and the German ifv Puma.

> Anyone know what the "Active Protection System Launchers" are actually > launching?

Anti-missile/bomb defense.

> Unless they've left off most of the armor for the display model (which is > possible), this can't possibly be a main battle tank; there's no way it's > got enough armor to take a shot from a full-size tank gun.

Armor has greatly improved since the 80's. Especially ceramics have improved by leaps and bounds. This, combined with the much reduced and streamlined internal protected volume, and greater allowed armor volume make a high level of protection possible with much lower weight than current designs. Even still, they only promise STANAG 4569 5+ for the 30t main design, and require 5t of additional applique to be fully resistant to guns from front.

In the eternal technological contest between armor and weaponry, we are currently at a _very_ high point for armor. The combined development of radar- guided active defenses that defeat all slow projectiles and semi-reactive ceramics that shred and destabilize ke projectiles as they travel through them, given a 60t weight budget no reasonable design using current-level armor and weaponry could penetrate itself from any angle. Of course, given enough time this will just result in better guns, but as direct upscalings of modern tank guns have proven to be unworkable and abandoned by everyone, they will have to use some exotic new tech.

In the meantime, if fighting against 80's tank guns, yes you can get full protection on frontal arcs at 35t or less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow - that is substantially cooler than I had expected - I would not have associated Poland with such innovative design, so I must revise my assumptions! Showing my age, it instantly reminded me of _Battlezone_ :-)

<comment><USER18> Thanks, that brings back memories. Looks like Poland decided to do a prequel :)

[http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs27/f/2008/144/9/8/BattleZone___...](http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs27/f/2008/144/9/8/BattleZone___Sabre_views_by_NoStr0m0.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is it just me and my personal impression or did we pass a local maximum of peace after the end of the cold war and the world is becoming a worse place in recent years?

<comment><USER20> Almost exactly the opposite is true: [http://www.pcr.uu.se/digitalAssets/66/66314_1armed- conflict-...](http://www.pcr.uu.se/digitalAssets/66/66314_1armed-conflict-by- intensity.pdf)

<comment><USER19> I also searched and found this report [1] showing an increase since 2010. So it is probably more nuanced and depends on you definition of conflict.

[1] [http://ploughshares.ca/programs/armed-conflict/armed- conflic...](http://ploughshares.ca/programs/armed-conflict/armed-conflicts- report/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It seems to have muzzle brake on main gun. I wonder why they chose to use it, it seems none of the current tanks have them for a reason.

</comment><comment><USER22> Did a double-take at the pictures, thought it was a promotional event for a sequel to Arcticfox…

</comment><comment><USER23> I thought the tank era had passed us. Once that tank fires a single shot, its location is revealed and an artillery or air strike can be ordered against its approximate location.

We are well in the era of air superiority and moving ever closer to the era of drones. Tanks are relevant for the previous wars only.

<comment><USER24> _its location is revealed_

... and? Tanks don't have to rely on stealth to be effective. Air strikes are only reliable if you have some degree of air superiority. And tanks can move - depending on what kind of artillery you're facing, they might not be able to chase a moving target.

There were tank-on-tank battles in the US's invasion of Iraq, so they're not that out-of-date. Plus, while there aren't going to many tank-on-tank battles, tanks are an important component of combined arms tactics - you need infantry to take urban areas, and infantry is more effective with armoured support.

<comment><USER23> Infantry support in urban areas don't benefit from a stealth tank.

I'm not arguing that tanks have 0 value. I'm saying their value has diminished. In WWII they were the dominant technology, and if total war broke out during the Cold War it would have been as well.

But, today their role is diminishing to newer technologies.

I think we'll see the same happen to aircraft carriers, they'll be usurped by smaller drones that could launch from cruisers or destroyers.

It's not unlike computer tech. We are seeing SSDs replace hard disks. The platter disk still has a role, but we all see the writing on the wall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ok, seriously... lens flares?

<comment><USER26> I'm glad I wasn't the only one bugged by the really obvious PS lens flare effects

<comment><USER27> You weren't. And it is the most lazy version possible, Render->Lens Flare

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've wondered for a while why they haven't developed an elite cavalry unit given their geography, position in Europe, and the historical importance of their cavalry.

I might also have a bit too much fondness for paintings of winged hussars...

<comment><USER29> I suggest, sir, that you go to a store, buy a hammer, and use it on your head.

<comment><USER28> To what end?

I freely admit that my fascination with winged hussars is immature. That doesn't change the fact that Poland is a state in search of security like all others, borders countries it regards as untrustworthy (Russia and Belarus), and has a largely flat topography that allows armored assault by those countries.

Of course you can argue that being a part of NATO means that they are under the US nuclear umbrella and therefore it is non-rational for them to invest money in military hardware. However a nuclear umbrella depends entirely upon the protector nation being able to credibly communicate that it is willing to use weapons in the defense of the client nation. This gives the client nation incentive to demonstrate that it has a spine of its own and is willing to pay a reasonably high cost to defend itself. Otherwise, who would believe that the larger nation would defend the smaller when push comes to shove? Why else would Poland have gone to war in Iraq?

The winged hussars are still silly, but a well-known elite cavalry unit doe support the narrative that Poland is a bulwark of the alliance against an assault from NATO's traditional enemy. Also, they could better support and possibly train their ally Ukraine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Tanks are so noisy, you can hear one from miles!

</comment><comment><USER20> Okay, I give up. It's time to bring back the Polish jokes.</comment>


Zynga's CityVille Now More Than 25 Percent Bigger Than FarmVille - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/28/zynga-cityville-farmville/

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised Zynga doesn't have a StartupVille game...come up with an idea, build a prototype, get traction, pitch your idea to investors, get media coverage, and even IPO. They can sell in-game items like hosting. You'd have to avoid things like DDoS attacks and competitors. Sounds like it could be fun, and a lot less risky than actually building a startup!</comment>


Continuous Client - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/26/a-modest-proposal-the-continuous-client/

<comment><AUTHOR> I found myself wanting exactly this recently - a single conversation stream for each IM peer and multiple views into the stream, synchronized between themselves.

Found Trillian beta that appears to support it, but I am very wary of it, because previous versions were the buggiest software products I had a misfortune to use. Any other implementations with native clients and with the hook ups into ICQ and others?</comment>


DBase IV splash screen (when data was not sexy) - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/170123504 <comment><AUTHOR> This was THE database when I leartn to code. A good old DOS application. This version included some SQL support, but alsost everything was made using their own language (xBase [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBase) ).</comment>


Twitch is currently playing the stock market with one man's $50,000 - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/30/15714850/twitch-plays-stock-market <comment><USER2> I assume once Robinhood's compliance team finds out about this, his account will get shutdown, or maybe he'll be asked to collect KYC information for all the people trading on his account.

Maybe it helps that users vote instead of directly invest.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is actually very cool.

Any idea how much he can make from the twitch stream? Given that he is putting down 50K (25K really) on the project...</comment>


Study: free markets superior to patent monopolies - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/study-markets-provide-an-alternative-to-patent-monopolies.ars <comment><USER2> Actual paper here: [http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~debrah/papers/kp080403submitted....](http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~debrah/papers/kp080403submitted.pdf)</comment>


NanoVM - Java for the AVR - <AUTHOR> http://www.harbaum.org/till/nanovm/index.shtml

<comment><USER2> Does this count as "mobile", and would Oracle have arguably the same patent objections to a non-Oracle but compatible VM? Reminds me of the promise of JINI, at least with hobbyists. The pros that I know that use microcontrollers want actually _less_ cruft between them an the circuit, and have expressed to me that the lack of good sub-millisecond timing of AVR, and other stuff in the standard image, puts AVR at a disadvantage for efficient embedded devices.</comment>


Ask HN: Marketing job boards? - <AUTHOR>

Where are the equivalents of weworkremotely / hired / quality job boards for areas like marketing? <comment><USER2> [http://growthhackers.com/jobs/](http://growthhackers.com/jobs/)

[http://www.growthhackerjobs.net/](http://www.growthhackerjobs.net/)

[http://www.producthunt.com/jobs](http://www.producthunt.com/jobs) (not purely marketing - but startup related in general)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://inbound.org/jobs](http://inbound.org/jobs)

</comment><comment><USER4> there is also [http://adexchanger.com/](http://adexchanger.com/)</comment>


Compressing log files *twice* improves ratio dramatically - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/lz4c/DcN5SgFywwk/AVMOPri0O3gJ

<comment><USER2> This is not at all a surprising outcome. The result of the very redundant input file is (as a result of the limited range length of the compressors and the fact that they output chunks of literal data) a smaller, but still somewhat redundant output file. The subsequent passes are simply operating upon the redundancy created by the compression algorithm itself.

Try compressing a file of nulls and look at the output with hexdump or a hex editor. You'll see the patterns left over by the compression algorithm:

       dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=1024 count=102400
       gzip -9v test
       "look at contents of 'test.gz'" -- lots of redundancy
       gzip -9v < test.gz > test.gz.gz
       "look at contents of 'test.gz.gz'"  -- looks more random

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm imagining that the byte-aligned LZ matches (e.g. one match emitted for timestamp and another for the remainder of the log-line) in the first pass are using relative offsets, so they are actually exposing a deeper pattern to the second pass.</comment></comment>


Never again the "Unknown or Expired Link" in HN - Chrome Extention - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bldhjkmbdomhijjjnmckgchocnfhkpnd#

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, i am the author. Just to tell that i just added a new functionality to "Chrombinator"; now you will never get the "Unknown or Expired Link" again.

Check the link to see the other functionalities it adds to Hacker News.</comment>


Can anyone identify these early Apple employees? - <AUTHOR> I recently got this photo of an early group at Apple. Can anyone identify these people? I would appreciate it!<p>Link: https://imgur.com/a/tqrdFSL <comment><USER2> 3rd picture down...

[http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&gal...](http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&gallery=1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


I made $5,428.91 in 3 days with a side project - <AUTHOR> 72 hours ago I launched Dracula PRO (https://draculatheme.com/pro).
Here are some thoughts and behind the scenes of that process.
Conclusion #1
It's possible to make money with open source.
It's not only for massive projects like RedHat, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, etc.
Conclusion #2
Here's the geographical distribution of traffic this week.
United States: 5,449, Brazil: 4,303, Germany: 1,060, United Kingdom: 1,021, India: 910
The US alone has 23% of total traffic, that's important to know especially when it comes to distributing content at the right timezone.
Conclusion #3
I tried sharing on Reddit, Product Hunt, HackerNews, and IndieHackers.
Even though they brought some traffic, Twitter still is the number one referral source.
Twitter: 1,788, GitHub: 1,279, Hacker News: 750, Indie Hackers: 527
Conclusion #4
Net Sales are $5,252.47 (after Gumroad fees, refunds, chargebacks, and affiliate fees);
Total Costs are $120.40 (Mailchimp, Typeform, etc);
Net Profit: $5,132.07
Staying lean is very hard, but I'm focused on maintaining the operational costs as low as possible.
Conclusion #5
Now I'm trying to think of ideas to keep the momentum going.
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Looking great! Congrats!

To keep the momentum you probably need other websites to talk about your project or engage developers that bought it to talk about it.

Either with quotes on their social media, or being picked in an article like "10 best tools for devs" You can even write your own for HackerNoon or Dev.to

I am curious what do you use the Typeform for?</comment>


Some of the Great GNU/Linux Distributions - <AUTHOR> https://unixsheikh.com/articles/some-of-the-great-gnu-linux-distributions.html <comment><USER2> Mandrake and SuSE are part of the great GNU/Linux distributions of all time, as for this list bah, just embrace systemd.

Commercial UNIXes, the real UNIXes before Linux was even a thing, never embraced UNIX philosophy,and all of them at one point did introduce systemd like subsystems.

Sometimes it feels there is some kind of cargo cult, putting UNIX philosophy into a pedestal that it never had.</comment>


Linkedin and twitter join forces - <AUTHOR> http://wisdomtalks.com/linkedin-and-twitter-join-forces/

<comment><AUTHOR> Now its easy to update your status in Linked-In while Twitting.</comment>


How to Pick the Right Idea for your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/64782/How-To-Pick-The-Right-Idea-For-Your-Startup.aspx

<comment><USER2> I've never understood this "Make a startup, then think of an idea" approach. If you aren't in love with your idea, why are you working so hard on it? Why would you commit to working so hard on an idea before you've even had it?

<comment><USER3> Although they may want it for a myriad of reasons, most founders probably want to get rich. From <http://paulgraham.com/start.html>:

 _And that's kind of exciting, when you think about it, because all three are doable. Hard, but doable. And since a startup that succeeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies getting rich is doable too. Hard, but doable._

<comment><USER4> i think it's kinda the opposite; most founders who want to get rich generate an idea (or create a clone) before committing to their startup full-time. they also most likely fail if that's their sole mission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Fulfilling an existing need" seems somewhat misguided. In many cases the need is not always so obvious, especially at the conception stage. Its hard to imagine whether or not people will adopt something, at which point a need (previously unknown) is fulfilled. The iPad comes to mind off the bat as something many initially dismissed as not fulfilling any needs, only to meet runaway success when people figured out how to integrate it into their lives. What that means to me is that we should not always look to fulfilling existing needs, but to imagine new needs as things evolve. Its that kind of forward thinking that creates great products!

</comment><comment><USER6> do what you can't be happy if you will not do it.</comment>


The Itanium processor, part 2: Instruction encoding, templates, and stops - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/07/28/10631038.aspx

<comment><USER2> VLIW processors with dynamic configuration of the opcode instruction group has a lot of potential in the future, in my opinion. E.g. 128 or 256 bit "opcode groups" with variable-size opcodes, using their own temporary registers, even custom programable opcodes for ad-hoc opcode compression, etc.

The failure of the Itanium because of cheap x86 chips doing "macro-op" execution, more efficiently than the Itanium explicit VLIW, is the other side of the same coin: no matter if explicit or implicit, the way to increase single-thread IPC (instruction per clock) rate is doing more in parallel and hiding execution latency. So, explicit, or as hidden abstraction, VLIW-esque execution seems to be unavoidable.

<comment><USER3> Parallel, speculative execution is what's unavoidable. The VLIW idea of statically compiler-scheduled parallelism and speculation has not been successful for general-purpose code. The last generation of Itanium abandoned explicit, statically-scheduled parallelism and switched to out of order execution, like every fast general-purpose CPU uses.

<comment><USER4> > _has not been successful for general-purpose code_

Let me interject that it has also not been successful for AMD's line of videocards - they used a VLIW architecture before transitioning to a SIMD architecture codenamed Graphics Core Next or GCN in 2011. nVidia had been using SIMD for quite a while before that, but some of their latest cards have a few VLIW features like the option to explicitly specify parallelism between instructions.

<comment><USER3> Apparently they switched because VLIW wasn't good for GPGPU workloads, which is in keeping with the general theme, that VLIW works very well on certain highly-specific DSP-ish workloads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is the Itanium bundling described in the article a pretty common pattern in cpu architecture? The only CPU architectures I knew fairly intimately (Analog Devices Blackfin and SHARC - neither particularly mainstream) had a limited version of this and, at least in Blackfin's case, was pretty key to achieving reasonably performant code.

<comment><USER6> It's fairly common in newer ISAs.

For a very modern take, [shameless plug] the Mill CPU instruction encoding talk is very entertaining: [http://millcomputing.com/topic/instruction- encoding/](http://millcomputing.com/topic/instruction-encoding/)

(Mill team)

<comment><USER7> It's also very common in _older_ ISAs, especially DSPs. As pointed out elsewhere, it's common in VLIWs (which is generally "older" ISAs).

A good example is the Motorola 56K DSP family. Instructions are 24 bit wide (24 bit wide memory!). They come in a few formats, which can be broken down into two major types: complex instruction, or simple instruction plus up to 2 memory moves and address updates.

It's basically designed around performing a single-cycle 24x24->56b multiple- accumulate with two memory reads and address increments, with zero loop overhead. The rest of the ISA really, really suffers for it :) But it's impressive when it's doing exactly what it was designed to do! It's a great example of a domain-specific ISA.

Also worth noting that in 56K, there is no score-boarding or other dependency tracking to automatically insert pipeline bubbles. That's the job of the hand- writer/assembler/compiler. If you get it wrong, it simply does something undefined. It's "fun" when this happen.

<comment><USER8> Yes - this seems to be a common design in DSPs. TI's c64x series is similar - 'instructions' are 32 bits wide and 8 of them are bonded together and issued simultaneously for a mammoth 256 bit instruction 'packet'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Itanium is the first processor architecture in whose design patent lawyers were heavily involved. (I try to spend my personal learning time on tech that isn't patented.)

<comment><USER10> Honest question: like what technology? Is there an area of technology that is relatively patent-free?

<comment><USER9> No one talks about patents on programming-language features. So, there is an example for you. In the 1990s or early 2000s, the designers of a programming language named Curl out of MIT tried to protect their design with patents, but they were a very small minority among PL designers (at least at that time and since that time), and I don't think their PL has any remaining users.

Because of the nature of the patent system, it is impossible to state definitively that none of the currently-popular PLs currently have any patent encumberances, but we can say that none of the project leaders or main contributors to the design of any of the popular PLs have been accused of pursuing patents on their creations. Nor does anyone AFAIK complain or warn about any popular PL's being patent-encumbered.

Although most designers of instruction-set architectures that have seen significant economic use _have_ pursued patents on this or that feature or technique, Itanium is AFAIK the only one where the patent lawyers were involved in the _early stages_ of the design of the architecture.

<comment><USER11> This is the first time I see PL used as an acronym for programming language.

<comment><USER12> It's used quite often among PL nerds: [http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Tools to make an API from *any* website? - <AUTHOR>

I'm searching for tools that let you automate the extraction of data from any website, which might mean making an API or RSS Feed out of any website. I'm thinking something similar to the old Dapper[1] or Mozenda[2]. Also, what I'm not searching for are scraping libraries and frameworks to use in an application that I would have to develop myself.
What are the tools available?
[1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dapper [2] http://www.mozenda.com/ <comment> saiko-chriskun <http://diffbot.com>?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly the kind of tools I'm interested in. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Perhaps <http://www.scraperwiki.com> unless you need it to be real time. Scraping: yes, develop or yourself: no.

</comment><comment><USER3> ( _shameless plus_ ) Our startup does exactly that, create RSS feed for any webpage - <http://feedity.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.feedsapi.com> could be what you are looking for.</comment>


Fool Britannia: the future of the UK has never looked so grim - <AUTHOR> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/fool-britannia-brexit-uk-great-britain/article37137569/ <comment><USER2> Slightly on the positive there was a poll published last weekend in the Mail of all places saying

"And there is clear support for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal. One in two say there should be a second vote when all the talking is done, against 34 per cent who are opposed."

I mean if we can see what is actually on the table and the majority of voters still want it then I guess fair enough. It seems iffy though to ram Brexit through regardless of how bad it is on the basis of an ill informed vote a while back.

<comment> T-A I find it hard to conjure up a realistic scenario where there is enough time to hold a second referendum before March 2019. Just getting a majority to agree on holding it, and on the exact question to be asked, seems hard enough. And getting the EU to agree on how to handle a reversal would be a giant can of worms on top of Brexit negotiations.

<comment><USER2> The EU would probably be up for extending the deadline and cancelling the whole thing. The main argument against a vote at the end has been the EU would give us a crappy deal to make us stay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is an incendiary, one-sided opinion piece.

The author's forgetting that there was a referendum. You know, that thing where the populace actually gets to decide democratically on something, for once.

<comment><USER4> A referendum where the Leave campaign was based on a pack of lies, unfortunately. So many people blamed the EU for their woes, when really they should be looking at the damage the Tories have done to the UK.

<comment><USER5> Remain too. We were told that on the day after a vote to leave there would be an immediate crash of financial markets and recession. That didn't happen.

<comment><USER6> Sensible heads weren't predicting an instant crash but greatly reduced growth and loss of value of the currency.

If you're cherry picking daft predictions there were plenty on each side.

<comment><USER5> The Treasury's document today says: "A vote to leave would cause an immediate and profound economic shock creating instability and uncertainty which would be compounded by the complex and interdependent negotiations that would follow".

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-to- cr...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-to-create- instant-diy-recession-warns-george-osborne-a7042886.html)

<comment><USER7> That did happen, didn't it?

No "immediate crash of financial markets and recession", but it doesn't appear that they predicted that.

<comment><USER5> Why don't you try to refute my general point? There was FUD on both sides. I'm just seeking to point this out to those with selective memories that bleat on about the £350m claim as if the remain side were whiter than white. They were not! Just accept it.

And after some more research I can confirm the Treasury actually did predict an immediate crash. You are exactly 100% wrong.

<comment><USER7> > Why don't you try to refute my general point?

I'm not arguing against you. I'm pointing out that you haven't made an argument.

A claim with no documented basis is not an informed one, doesn't add anything to the debate and is useless to everyone involved.

> And after some more research I can confirm the Treasury actually did predict > an immediate crash. You are exactly 100% wrong.

Again, you've failed to provide any citation for your claim. Until you provide a citation, readers should disregard your comments as if you haven't said anything.

<comment><USER5> 'Brexit would prompt stock market and house price crash, says IMF'

[https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/13/imf- warns-s...](https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/13/imf-warns-stock- market-crash-house-price-fall-eu-referendum-brexit)

'How bad could it get? Morgan Stanley warns British stocks could lose nearly 20 percent in a Brexit win scenario. Bank of America Merrill Lynch believes U.S. stocks could lose upwards of 7 percent. Citigroup sees European stocks down 20 percent. Deutsche Bank sees 10 percent downside risk.'

[https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/could-brexit-vote-cause- a-s...](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/could-brexit-vote-cause-a-stock- market-crash/)

'Unemployment would rocket. Tumbleweed would billow through deserted high streets. Share prices would crash. The government would struggle to find buyers for UK bonds. Financial markets would be in meltdown. Britain would be plunged instantly into another deep recession.

Remember all that? ..It hasn't worked out that way. ..it is obvious that the sky has not fallen in as a result of the referendum, and those who said it would look a bit silly.'

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/20/brexit...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/20/brexit- eu-referendum-economy-project-fear)

'To the shock of many — not least business titans who bankrolled the Remain campaign — the instant collapse doesn't seem to be happening.'

[https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/that-brexit- apocalypse-i...](https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/that-brexit-apocalypse- it-just-isnt-happening/)

Somehow I doubt you would be so scrupulous in asking for sources for generally known facts if they were not so inconvenient for your position. I'm also interested to know in what world you think 'immediate and profound economic shock' does not correspond with a stock market crash.

<comment><USER7> You said, above "And after some more research I can confirm the Treasury actually did predict an immediate crash"

But your links seem to be the opinions of others and not the Treasury.

Where in your "more research" have you found that the Treasury predicted a stock market crash? Or do you still not have any evidence for your claim?

<comment><USER5> OK so disregard the Treasury then if it makes you happy - my general point stands, despite your effort to split hairs - there was massive concerted lies and deceit from leave, and subsequent 'despite Brexit' stories from the BBC etc in their attempt to distract from the egg on their faces. Care to address the leave FUD directly? I suspect you've exhausted your rhetorical armoury by now.

<comment><USER7> > ...there was massive concerted lies and deceit from leave...

I assume you meant "remain" there. But in any case: from whom?

So far you've cited an American news network, financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup, and some UK journalists referencing hearsay. In what way did these commentators represent "leave" or "remain"?

On the other side you've got Leave.EU, an actual group campaigning to leave, misleading people with the NHS funding claim on their campaign bus.

You are conflating groups who actually actively campaigned for one side of the referendum with some random general groups who stated an opinion - some of whom are not even associated with the UK!

Of course you're going to be able to find some people who thought that bad things would happen; just as it is possible to find some people who thought that good things would happen. But the ability to find people who had some opinion is meaningless in any debate.

There's a long way to go from there to then claim that people who predicted bad things were "massive concerted lies and deceit" as if that's somehow equivalent to a campaign group misleading voters that at one point aimed to be the officially recognised electoral campaigners for the leave vote.

So no, your general point doesn't stand. You have not demonstrated FUD from the remain side.

<comment><USER5> Do you honestly believe there was no FUD from the remain side? If so you are obviously a troll or out of touch with reality. There literally hundreds of hits if you google brexit scaremongering or similar that reference scare tactics both within and outside of the UK, but no doubt you will refuse to accept that that proves anything either, so I wish you well with getting back in touch with the real world.

<comment><USER7> > > You have not demonstrated FUD from the remain side.

> Do you honestly believe there was no FUD from the remain side?

Do you really not understand the distinction between these two statements?

<comment><USER5> Stop avoiding the question: do you honestly believe there was not FUD from the remain side? I suggested you google brexit scaremongering to enlighten yourself. Did you do that? You are obviously a troll :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder why every single article is just about what a clusterf*ck Brexit is, and not about who might be behind it and who are the actual benefiters of it.

<comment><USER9> If you look around, you will find that info quite easily. Here is just one example of good analysis on that topic: [https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/legato-brexiteers- fa...](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/legato-brexiteers-favorite- think-tank-who-behind-them.html)

<comment><USER8> I meant somewhat mainstream media. Sure there is a random source in any topic, with pro and counterarguments.

<comment><USER10> Carole Cadwalladr has been doing very good work on this in the Observer (the Guardian's Sunday sister paper, but with a substantially independent staff even though its content appears online at theguardian.com).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Donate to Zed Shaw's Mongrel2 Fund - <AUTHOR> http://mongrel2.org/wiki?name=Donate

<comment><USER2> I've just donated a bit, I've been using Zed Shaw's work a lot over the years so it's good to try and help him have time to work on that :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> After reading the manual I had to donate.

1\. Entertaining manual 2\. Made me excited about a new technology for the first time in a long while.

</comment><comment><USER4> I never found any success with donations. Instead I'd suggest creating a new pain while solving a problem. So then you charge for that...

<comment><AUTHOR> Only a single data point, but in 2005 I had several thousands in donations over $several months for a basic online service (only a Perl CGI script at the time..!) and my buddies over at Phusion have had a crazy level of success with them: <http://pledgie.com/campaigns/2975>

Given Zed's stature, I doubt he will have problems getting enough donations to keep him sustained for a while even if it's not a permanent situation.

<comment><USER4> A 'few k' is a lousy return IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah? For just hanging out your shingle and asking, anything seems like gravy to me. In Phusion's case, I know that the $13k in donations made a huge difference for getting Passenger 2 out of the door and in my case it validated the business idea (a little) and was a factor in the angel investors approaching me.

But your milage might vary and if you have to struggle and beg for those donations, you are probably right. Time may be better spent elsewhere. I can't see Zed having that problem!

<comment><USER4> I suspect he'll make a few k, but in truth I can't see it being too fab. Also it lowers his valuation in some peoples eyes, who will say 'look Zed's broke' which strangely changes the dynamics of many relationships. When people see your desperate they generally dismiss or avoid you.

<comment><USER5> I'm not desperate at all, in fact I had saved up money to fund the project myself for a couple months. The donations are because my goals in Mongrel2 changed once I realized I could actually change the lives of programmers and maybe put an end to at least a tiny bit of the language religion that seems to infect the web programming world. With a bigger goal and one that needs me to give the software away for it to succeed, I decided to ask for donations.

The donations serve two purposes: They make it so I can work on Mongrel2 for a while and get something awesome started. It _also_ demonstrates that other people are backing what I'm doing. When you don't have a large community at the start, people will take monetary amounts donated as a sign that the project might go somewhere.

I can't say I agree with folks who judge a project's success by donation amounts or community size over technical capability, but I can understand it.

<comment><USER4> I would like to qualify that I personally don't equate lack of monetary success to failure or such, however, I once ran a large successful electronic design manufacturing and distribution business, while I was extremely successful from the outside looking in, on the inside I was suffering. I hence gave it all up, at which point a markedly evident change occurred in family, friends, business associates, perception of me which was a clear as ice. You would not be alone I'm sure facing the dialema of making something cool but not making financial success from your efforts : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1563441>

<comment><USER6> Zed Shaw should just contine to make no cash and ask for donations, because they will pay his bils for a few months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gotta hand it to Zed, the guy never skimps on quality documentation.</comment>


Show HN: A better HN Android app with cards UI - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.elephants.hn

<comment><USER2> I love going through HN apps people have made, so here's what I think of it after using the free version a little bit.

\- Comments could use some work. I feel like the comments are a bit too small. Maybe have it so you could swipe a parent comment and it'll fold the children? The layout in general looks a bit awkward when there is a long chain of comments, but I'm not sure how that could be approached differently.

\- It'd be awesome to have it so swiping back from the comments page / link would take you to the main screen. It'd make browsing feel more smooth.

\- Some sort of difference between read posts and unread posts would be a good idea, too.

\- A night theme is pretty much a dealbreaker for me since I use my tablet most at night. That's just me being picky, though.

All in all, it feels pretty smooth, but feels more phone-oriented than tablet oriented due to everything being so small (comments, headers, etc.). Comments could use some work, but for an initial release it feels pretty solid. Great work!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I'm the developer of Clementine. This is just the initial release, we'll be adding features like account login and submission at a later date. We have a free version (with ads) available here: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.elephants....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.elephants.hn.free)

<comment><USER3> Is this using the official HN API? [http://blog.ycombinator.com/hacker-news- api](http://blog.ycombinator.com/hacker-news-api)</comment></comment>