Microsoft technet for free, surely this is a mistake - <AUTHOR> https://om2.one.microsoft.com/offer/technet_emea.aspx

<comment><USER2> Bizspark only costs $100 for startups, and you only pay after 3 years of usage. It's a similar package to Tech Net. You essentially get free licenses to almost everything MSFT owns for 3 years if you're a startup. [http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/BizSpark/Pages/At_a_Glan...](http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/BizSpark/Pages/At_a_Glance.aspx)

I've been using the service for 6 months. It's dreamy, and I haven't seen a single string attached. It's worth it just to get copies of Office Unlimited.

MSFT is the low cost option for startups.

<comment><USER3> I wonder why Adobe doesn't offer anything similar.

<comment><USER4> I think it's because Adobe doesn't really have any competitors in its marketspace (aside from Flash).

Adobe's bread and butter is still the Creative Suite. It doesn't view GIMP, Inkspace, etc. as a big enough threat, so why give it away for free?

Microsoft on the other hand, is competing with Java for most developer mindshare (in the "conventional" space) and RoR, Django, PHP (in the "unconventional" space). Microsoft also knows that the GNU C++ compiler isn't half-bad, and additionally with the license change in Qt, it's even easier.

Microsoft wants to nurture small microsoft shops in case they become big microsoft shops one day. It's a way to keep the ecosystem thriving!

Once Adobe has a competitor that can compete on technical merit (and not just, "use this b/c it's free!"), then maybe Adobe can consider something similar.

It's very, very, hard to compete on price. If that's your business strategy, you're going to fail in the long-run. You have to have some amount of technical innovation in your product.

<comment><USER5> If MS's Silverlight catches on, Adobe and Flash will have some competition. But it seems most designers I know have some sort of serious pathological dislike of Microsoft so it seems rather unlikely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/06/03/free-1-year- microso...](http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/06/03/free-1-year-microsoft- technet-plus-subscription-consumer-services-professional-pilot/)

<comment><USER7> FTA: "WARNING: Using the trick above to subscribe to TechNet Plus without participating in the research activities is in fact illegal, and the subscription may be revoked and made inactive anytime (proof from 1/1/1900 expiration date)."

I don't know about _illegal_ , but it might very well violate their terms of service, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The link submitted is for UK. Not sure if it makes a difference, but there are different links for US <https://om2.one.microsoft.com/offer/technet_na.aspx> and Canada <https://om2.one.microsoft.com/offer/technet_can.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER9> It's down now.

"Server Error in '/offer' Application."

</comment><comment><USER10> just received an email letting me know they've deactivated my account:

"Microsoft contracted with us, Intrepid Consultants, Inc, to conduct the TechNet Plus Pilot Study program research and manage the activities of the pilot study. Our records show that you have recently signed up for a free TechNet Plus subscription through a registration link that was made available without authorization on a public blog.

The registration link is part of a proprietary study and the party that shared the information was in violation of the terms and conditions to which they agreed to participate in the study. Membership to the Pilot study is limited and all members of the program are required to first meet survey requirements and then complete tasks and assignments over a two month period in order to qualify for and have access to the free TechNet Plus subscription. Since this was a privately conducted pilot study, at no time was it ever intended that a free TechNet Plus registration link would appear on a public internet site, which was done in violation of the terms to which participants agreed upon registering to participate in the pilot study.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience, but for this reason, we have deactivated your subscription, as well as all other subscriptions resulting from the unauthorized publication of the TechNet Plus Pilot Study program registration link on a public blog. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience.

Kind regards,

The Intrepid Consultants Team "

</comment><comment><USER11> It says "Pilot". Could it be a trial of some sort?

<comment><USER12> A year's trial, and this is awesome. Verified as costing £0.00 !

edit: keys generate for me just fine (I'm using Opera as it doesnt seem to work in IE7), and the downloads also work.

Make sure you have registered your Subscriber Benefit Access Number (BAN) number on your receipt to activate your account!

<comment><USER13> I've also subscribed and subscription expiration says: 1/1/1900

<comment><USER3> Product keys don't seem to work though...

EDIT: I mean the site won't generate any keys for you.

<comment><USER14> Use internet explorer (never thought I'd say this). You need to accept an add- in called "MS transfer manager".

The site generates keys but seems a bit buggy, also can't verify which of these products need a key.

At least it generates a key for Applications > Office XP > Office XP Professional - CD (English) : JPXQJ-...

Some keys show up others don't, I'll upgrade my IE to 8, let's see what happens.

Edit: After update to IE8 I get a descent error warning: "An Error Has Occurred: There was an error error while trying to retrieve requsted key information and we cannot process your request.

You can try to:

\- your browser and retry the operation again in a few minutes.

\- Contact Support

\- Read the On-Line Self Help

Reference Id: 19497582

This error has been logged with the reference number noted above. Please use this reference number if you contact support."

<comment><USER15> I did have a few keys that worked (Office XP, 2003) but most do not work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> phish?

</comment><comment><USER17> it doesn't include VAT (value added tax)

</comment><comment><USER18> I can confirm that all the webpages in the sign up process are broken! No wonder MS can't create a browser that works they don't appear to have heard of the W3C validation tools - 49 errors and a few warnings on TechNet receipt page!

I had to hack the page to hide elements just so I could enter my details ... incredible.

<comment><USER18> why all the negatives? I did have to hack the page to use it, still signed up though.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Colleagues built free Tableau connector for Adobe Analytics, FB and more - <AUTHOR> http://cognetik.com/cloud-tableau-connector?utm_source=out&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nhc <comment><AUTHOR> Hello,

My colleagues built what we think is the first free Tableau Connector that integrates Adobe Analytics, AdWords, Facebook Ads, FB Pages, Bing Ads and Kochava data inside Tableau dashboards.

We're also getting ready to roll out a bunch of new features this week, including data blocks, preview, custom calendars, and a Youtube connector.

Would you mind giving us your thoughts and/or feedback on it?

</comment><comment><USER2> pretty cool tool

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Did you try it out?</comment></comment>


Show HN: A mobile-friendly, web-based, countries of the world game - <AUTHOR> https://geogee.me <comment><USER2> As someone who is kind of awful at geography I think this is pretty great. Kind of a Duo Lingo for countries of the world.

However, I found the population ones frustrating because there were multiple answers kind of in the same ballpark. For example, I think it makes sense to teach people a country of 20 million vs a country of 100 million but 57,100,000 vs 57,200,000 is a bit of a trick question to me.

Also, when I did get questions wrong I found the app very unhelpful to correct me. As others have stated, those info boxes are much more useful after a wrong answer than a right one. Most of the ones I got wrong was a guessing game to randomly pick something.

<comment><USER3> Looks like there's a bug there. I got two identical answers to choose from:

[https://imgur.com/a/kvHCOrb](https://imgur.com/a/kvHCOrb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great. I'm a big fan of anything that makes memorization and learning fun and iterative.

Is it appropriate if I share one of my own creations?

[https://ablakey.github.io/state- machine/index.html](https://ablakey.github.io/state-machine/index.html)

The State Machine is a little geography game I made that I think can be addictive due to its simplicity.

<comment><USER5> Your stupid sort page made me laugh. You should create more stuff for [http://todays.pointless.click/](http://todays.pointless.click/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The "back" function seem broken on mobile. Also, it's not a fun learning experience if you don't get the correct answer when you get something wrong.

It's also not "unlucky" to be wrong, don't patronise your users.

<comment><USER7> You just can't go back, I think it's wanted.

You get the answer, when you get something wrong the question is asked again at the end until you get it write.

<comment><USER8> That's fine, but I had to click the back button a dozen times to get _out_ of the game, which is annoying.

<comment><USER9> Long-press the back button.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, for some reason on my firefox mobile (stable) the history list disappears immediately after releasing the long press, making the selection of a specific history item impossible :S

In any case, why does the site pollute the history with what are effectively noop items?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Neat! Happy it works on mobile web. FYI, there's a short pause after getting a wrong answer that almost seems like the app is waiting for me to try again. Sadly if I tap during that moment, the ui updates and then I get the next one wrong too. Maybe hide or grey out the answers once you get a question wrong? Or as a sibling comment said, just show the extra info right or wrong. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> On the to-do list. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks pretty and feels good :-)

Reminds me of the 'Ultimate Geography' decks for Anki [1].

Would love to see some kind of a multiplayer version.

[1]: [https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2109889812](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2109889812)

</comment><comment><USER12> Breaks the back-button.

Would be kinda nicer if it didn't store so much data in the URLs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thought I could get away with breaking the back button because it's a game but I agree it is a bit annoying. Regarding the URLs. The reason for them holding so much info is that I wanted a structure that would allow them to work even when offline

<comment><USER12> I clicked on one category, didn't like the question and couldn't go back. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice!

I like the idea and design

Two things that bugged me:

1\. I'd like a fast mode, where you just get immediate feedback on the answer (with correct answer displayed) and then onto next question immediately without showing the country info bit

2\. who's flag -> whose flag (or "which country's flag is this")

<comment><USER14> > I'd like a fast mode, where you just get immediate feedback on the answer > (with correct answer displayed)

I'm really annoyed by unnescesary delays, this mode with improve it tons for me. Even leaving the info could be fine, but it took ~1s delay for it to appear..

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is cool. One nit: The "read more about" button isn't a button, but a clickable div. So it doesn't look like a clickable element to Vimium, screen readers, etc.

Otherwise, good job.

</comment><comment><USER16> I thin you should gather people's mistakes for each question and present correct answer together with some of the most mistaken ones.

I got 6/7 capitals right (7th on second try) just by eliminating insane sounding ones and without actually being able to name the capital of any country I was asked about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That is something that will be added soon. The push notifications already work off a similar idea

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just a simple game I made to keep myself occupied on flights and on the metro. Still very much a WIP.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think the 'some info' page should be shown after every answer, especially on answers that were marked as incorrect. How will I ever learn if it doesn't tell me what the right answer is? Other than that, nice work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think you are right about that. I'll try work something in at lunch tomorrow. Cheers

<comment><USER18> It's the punishment for not getting the answer right! I thought the same initially, to show the explanation after every try but the explanation comes as reward once you get it right. You get unlimited chances to guess the wrong ones so might as well force the learning of the question and reward it with the info.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looking at the URL: [https://geogee.me/-ze-a1-ah-za-a2-xa4-zg-aa-zg-a4-zg-ab- zg-a...](https://geogee.me/-ze-a1-ah-za-a2-xa4-zg-aa-zg-a4-zg-ab- zg-a5-za-a3-b8-zg-af-bd-zg-b5-ze-a6-ze-ag%22Ljubljana%22-zg-al-d200-zb- ag%22Yerevan%22-zg-al-d010-zb-ag%22Sana'a%22-zg-al-d242-zb-ag%22Anju%22-zg- al-d160-zf-za-a7-ze-ag-c200-zg- ay%22Ljubljana%22-zg%22lnglat%22%3A%5B14.81666666-zg46.11666666-za-ak-e200-zg- al-d200-zd-be-ah-zf-zf), it seems that the answer is always the last city name mentioned in the URL, so you could cheat at this pretty easily

</comment><comment><USER20> Love it. Especially like that it's actually difficult. I used to think I'm good at geography, but after getting just 4/7 on the capital cities quiz, maybe I'm not so hot after all.

</comment><comment><USER21> I too was annoyed by the broke back button. But that's a great game. I enjoyed the chance to get it right by the end of the quiz and the educational content after each question.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just as a heads up since I don't see it mentioned in the comments yet, I got a description of Palestine for Peru, apart from the hiccup it's definitely a lot of fun

<comment><USER23> I also got a description of some British protectorate for Åland, but it's otherwise really cool

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not sure if the "Maps of X" games are titled appropriately. They should be called "Shapes of X". Even after learning shapes of various countries, I don't learn where they are on a map, though I can recognize them by searching a map and eventually identifying them by their shape. Maybe in the info section after you guess it right, you can show a map and show the country you just identified highlighted on the map.

<comment><USER25> There's a map theme in the settings that gives you approximate location in the background. The actual location is hidden away behind the questions (at least on desktop).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Another good "countries of the world game" which is more based on maps is: [http://click-that-hood.com/](http://click-that-hood.com/)

Especially the Africa variant: [http://www.youdontknowafrica.com/](http://www.youdontknowafrica.com/)

</comment><comment><USER27> When asked what country boarders France only Switzerland is marked as correct, picking Spain is marked as incorrect.

</comment><comment><USER28> Bugs:

1\. spelling error: Who's flag → Whose flag

2\. Nepal's flag shows a white background, it needs to be transparent!

3\. There's too much artificial delay, eliminate it to vastly improve the UX. Compare with your competitors; in the time it takes to complete only seven quiz questions on geogee I can tear through dozens of them on kgeography v0.9.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. fixed 2\. cheers. still doing some work on the flags sprite 3\. I will consider adding a 'fast mode' in the future

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice work. What's your stack and did you do the site design yourself? It's quite nice.

</comment><comment><USER30> Quick comment.

I got 3 incorrect questions on population wrong.

In the "try again" mode at the end, I couldn't actually remember which ones I answered incorrectly for each question.

So it might help to indicate which answers you already got wrong in that phase.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Totally agree. I've been considering on how best to handle that in a way that helps the user learn. The game is still very much a WIP and I hope to have an update to the that feature quite soon

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I got a question about the Chinese flag. It being black stars for some reason, I thought it's another country and guessed wrong three times. Check your flags, something seems to be wrong with the colors.

<comment><AUTHOR> ah, thanks. Not sure how i didn't notice that one. There are a few rendering issues with some of the svgs because I am rendering them as a svg sprite. Will add that to the list of fixes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I made something similiar, but it is not nice looking like this :/

</comment><comment><USER33> Found a bug: [https://imgur.com/a/mVVi5a8](https://imgur.com/a/mVVi5a8)

Very cool though! :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice one. I do take a bit of a risk by lazy loading some SVG sprites. Guessing that's the cause here

<comment><USER34> Here's another bug: SVG of the Pitcairn Islands flag renders incorrectly on Firefox 63.0.3:

[https://i.imgur.com/Xoh51Ui.png](https://i.imgur.com/Xoh51Ui.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I don't see the point of this except it is open-source. Take a look regarding how you load the SVG as well.

<comment><USER36> What's wrong with the SVG loading? Can you be more specific?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Nice.. sort of like Sporcle in style.

It keeps adding to the URL with every answer... will it eventually crash from that?

</comment><comment><USER38> featured requested - want list of countries which offer work visa(permits)

<comment><USER39> It sounds like you might be looking for this Show HN from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640880](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640880)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is it open source? Would love to contribute other languages (I am Dutch)

<comment><AUTHOR> probably not quite open source ready yet but you can keep an eye on it here: [https://github.com/whatever555/geogee](https://github.com/whatever555/geogee)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whenever I select an answer I get thrown back to the homepage.

Do you know why?

</comment><comment><USER41> This is brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is really beautiful. And it even made me think about how sad it is to know nothing about so many small, "unimportant" countries. So I bookmarked it, and thanks.

Also thank you for making something that is not yet another app that didn't have to be one. Making a mobile friendly site that looks great on desktop is certainly possible, and that's the side we should err on IMO.</comment>


Ask HN: When will I be able to have "duplex" good quality audio over Bluetooth? - <AUTHOR> In the current year of the lord 2020, I still get horrible playback audio quality when the microphone on my bluetooth headset is active. E.g, listening to music while being in a muted Skype-call or something.
This has been an issue for as long as I have used Bluetooth products.
Will this ever get fixed? What's the problem? Surely there is enough bandwidth over Bluetooth to fit say 128 kbit/s audio in both directions?
Or does it actually work with some devices? <comment><USER2> High quality audio over Bluetooth is carried by a mechanism called a2dp, which can go in either direction. However, on Android at least, while it can act as an a2dp source, it does not have a corresponding a2dp sink. Bottom line, it's possible, but not with the current Android

<comment><AUTHOR> The same on all recent iOS/Mac devices I've tested. Dosen't work on my new work Thinkpad either.

Does the headset need to support bidirectional a2dp also somehow?

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. I'm working on this at the moment, using a raspberry pi, and that does support 2 way a2dp, it still won't work until Apple and Android support it.</comment></comment></comment>


@Snowden - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/snowden <comment><AUTHOR> verified: [https://theintercept.com/2015/09/29/edward-snowden- twitter-s...](https://theintercept.com/2015/09/29/edward-snowden-twitter- snowden/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Pretty cool to see Neil DeGrasse Tyson chatting with Snowden. It's like all the internet's heroes got together in one room for a photo op.

<comment><USER3> > It's like all the internet's heroes got together in one room for a photo op.

That's about all they do. Market themselves, hype, clickbait and spam their brand.

Nice to see all the internet meme brands in one room, it's almost like it's not just more self promotion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really curious if he acquired the @snowden handle from somebody that was sitting on it, or if it actually wasn't taken until now.

<comment><USER5> According to the Intercept[1], the account was squatted and unused for 3 years, and Twitter released it to associates of Snowden upon request. Considering Jack Dorsey's response to the matter, it's not surprising they'd acquiece.

I've heard Twitter can be pretty accommodating when it comes to squatted usernames when there's an official reason like a trademark or strongly worded letter from a law firm citing brand confusion. Maybe Snowden's legal team or his associates at the ACLU just asked nicely :-)

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2015/09/29/edward-snowden- twitter-s...](https://theintercept.com/2015/09/29/edward-snowden-twitter- snowden/)

[2] [https://twitter.com/jack/status/648894111634857984](https://twitter.com/jack/status/648894111634857984)</comment></comment>


Tesla patents cable easier to manipulate by robots to automate production - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2018/10/12/tesla-patents-structural-cable-easier-robots-automate-production/ <comment><AUTHOR> While I haven't read the patent itself, I'm hesitant to consider more rigid cables by just that property itself as worthy of a patent.

But I understand the problem, although why couldn't it work by making "cable modules", ie rigid structures with a bunch of cables attached to it and so that it more or less has to be placed and connectors pushed into place?

I can imagine the connectors needed work too - shape so that they are guided into place, while robust so it doesn't break by the forces, and stays in place despite vibrations when on the road.

Also found the following interesting:

> Musk said that Model S has about 3 kilometers of wiring harness and Tesla > brought it down to 1.5 kilometers in length for the Model 3 > Tesla aims to > bring it down to just 100 meters starting with the Model Y.

For an apples to orange comparison, about the Airbus A380:

> We have around 500km [310 miles] of cabling, compared with 300km on an A340</comment>


N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/nsa-leak-booz-allen-hamilton.html <comment><USER2> What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

<comment><USER3> I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an _open_ process.

But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

<comment> vertex-four The Constitution is a piece of paper, and might influence certain parts of Government to some degree, the same as any other piece of paper. But the beliefs of the people are what really matters. And if the people don't actually entirely agree with the Constitution to the point that they're willing to fight for it and drag their representatives out of Government over it, it's as useless as any other piece of paper.

<comment><USER4> Have you ever tried to get a group of people to protest anything? Like seriously, the black lives matter are more effective, than people regarding the NSA, privacy, or encryption. Even though some of the stuff we know about the government is WAY scarier.

<comment><USER5> Not to downplay the NSA issues -- but it's a lot scarier for a black/brown person to realize their life can be ended when they get stopped for having a tail light out.

<comment><USER4> I do agree that people will think that way, but it's actually not scarier. Giving the government the power it has, implies the government can basically do what ever it want. It has secret courts, secret arrests, and secret police. That is way more horrifying than the very small risk of being shot - which the numbers don't even fully support that it's getting worse, unjustified, or even preventable. I recommend the Through the Wormhole episode: are we all bigots?).

That being said, I do think we whould always be wary of police and generally question the government. It's important we keep into perspective what's actually a threat and whats just unfortunate. Both should be improved, but one (the NSA) can prevent any sort of improvement, the police shooting rate seems to be more of an over reaction and mistake that almost everyone agrees should be fixed.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why- a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so- controversial/)

[http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the- wormhole/...](http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/are- we-all-bigots/)

<comment><USER6> I don't think you can say what is scarier for another person.

<comment><USER3> What's the difference than someone saying it _is_ scarier? This reasoning "only people who are X can say what it's like to be X" makes no logical sense.

<comment> vertex-four "Needles are scary."

Well, actually... no, I don't find needles scary.

To be scared is an emotional response, and you can't really tell pother people what their emotions are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's the criminal complaint. Check Paragraph 12, sounds like he just liked to take work home with him. I'm leaning on the side that this IS NOT ShadowBrokers.

[https://lawfare.s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com/staging/2016/Mart...](https://lawfare.s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com/staging/2016/Martin%20Criminal%20Complaint.pdf)

EDIT: Yeah, Martin is not even being charged with unauthorized disclosure. Not ShadowBrokers, sorry to burst everyone's bubble.

<comment><USER8> Whilst trying to remain as politically neutral as possible, isn't this basically what Clinton did?

<comment><USER9> Nobody has managed to find any documents that passed through Clinton's email server that were labeled as classified, let alone Top Secret.

(One or two documents had classified sections, which were labeled with small (c) marks. The document should have had big CLASSIFIED marks, but since it didn't, missing a (c) next to a paragraph is not an arrestable offense)

<comment><USER10> > Nobody has managed to find any documents labeled as classified, let alone > Top Secret.

Really? So you can just delete all the classification labels and send the document to a yahoo account. Look no labels, so it is fine? You better ask your friendly Security Officer about that (actually don't you'll be highly suspicious doing that).

She had 10 or so TS/SCI satellite images in there. Other people would go to jail for that...

She deliberately set up her own separate server, that wasn't an oops I slipped, one doesn't accidentally stumble and end up with a separate email server. Then classified documents up to TS/SCI were found on that server. Imagine an NSA or NRO employee doing that.

"So yeah, Jim, I just set up my own work email server at my house, just send work email there". "Oh, you found some satellite images there? You think you got me, however, see, classification markings are not there so it's fine"

<comment><USER11> > one doesn't accidentally stumble and end up with a separate email server.

Have managed email servers. Can confirm. Would be more likely to arrive at Mordor on foot.

> Imagine an NSA or NRO employee doing that.

Well, one kind of did, but we like him. He's one of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Want to see something really scary???

Here's his house: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,+email@example.com,-76.600954,3a,75y,149h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTxLrvauce4d-rYPt3MTJAQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTxLrvauce4d-rYPt3MTJAQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D392%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D149.19705%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b7fcfe81adf90b:0xfbc37b77559c0a0e!8m2!3d39.161058!4d-76.600697!6m1!1e1)

<comment><USER13> Not sure if you know this, but you can ask Google to blur a Street View address by filling out a form. I'd guess he did this himself versus any sort of conspiracy thing happening.

<comment><USER14> I gave it a shot and couldn't find the form. Before I got anywhere near it, Google Help seemed to suggest that the address to be blurred needed to be a violation of Google's policies or something.

<comment><USER15> just open Streetview and click "report a problem" at the very bottom right of the page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I ask myself what I should be more upset about: that someone walked away with government hacking tools, or that our government knew about existing exploits in critical American company technologies and kept them a secret?

<comment><USER16> Understandable complaints, but isn't the latter just standard procedure in modern cyberwarfare? I think I would be more upset if America didn't have any offensive zero-day weapons to strike with. If we only had capability against foreign companies software, everyone would just buy American and be immune.

<comment><USER17> Would Americans be more or less secure in that world?

On account of (a) unjust governments being more likely to abuse power than just ones, (b) unjust governments are more dangerous than unjust actors and (c) the belief that just governments are plausible, I would say "more".

If you live under an unjust government, their curtailed power is a plus. If you live under a just government, your threat profile from unjust governments is decreased. The threat from unjust actors may increase, but that is a fair trade-off per (b).

<comment><USER11> This is what the USA has forgotten, and why they are such a disappointment to the rest of us. Unjust government can be as abusive as it likes. Just government gains its strength from justice _alone_ and its acts of abuse are its first step towards its inevitable _un_ justice.

Additional: Abuse is seductive. Abuse from power is absolutely seductive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> He didn't learn much from Hillary's case.... Always claim that you didn't know that there was any classified material and always bring your attorney along, even if it's a voluntary interrogation.

<comment><USER19> And make sure your attorney gets immunity, and make sure that the FBI promises to destroy your hardware once it's done with it!

<comment><USER20> With hammers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is why things like mandatory escrow and encryption backdoors are an horrible idea. However much the NSA would like us to use them.

</comment><comment><USER22> DoJ press release:

[https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/government-contractor- cha...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/government-contractor-charged- removal-classified-materials-and-theft-government-property)

</comment><comment><USER23> I understand curiosity of sensitive data. I think everyone wants to know more.

I also understand that some people think that no one should have this power and want to stop it. I wish that, if you feel this way, you renounce your citizenship and find another country that acts as you believe they should and just leave the other country alone, unless you feel they are threatening you or those you love and you must do something about it, and even then only if can do something to help in a way that won't hurt anyone now or in the future. Yes, I know it's not always that easy.

But, if you live in a country, through your taxes and your citizenship, you pay for and are recipient of the work of people whose job it is to protect us and all other citizens of your country. And if you didn't know how they defended you, you do now. It isn't always pretty, to say it lightly.

I don't want people to do bad things in the name of good or defense. It'd be better if every country had a large number of grown up boy scouts to protect that country in the most honorable way possible. But, we have what we have. Sure go ahead- expose it if you want, but the more you harm it, the more you'll end up with a group of people that are even more secretive and do things even worse to try to ensure that security. I really don't want that to happen. Things need to get better instead!

Many in the US say that we need to protect people from themselves, and then criticize or harm those trying to protect us. Why?

I used to be much more paranoid and just group people into the "trying to hurt me" bracket. But I grew up. I realized that almost everyone in the world I meet wants to do good or at least has a motivation to try to accomplish something they believe is right.

</comment><comment><USER24> At some point is there an actual employee on the NSA side (maybe an HR rep.) asking the account manager on the Booz Allen Hamilton side: please stop sending us these guys/girls, they're just not working out, ok? ;-)

</comment><comment><USER25> "Two officials said that some of the information the contractor is suspected of taking was dated."

So, only some of it. The rest was up to date then. And the old stuff is helpful for figuring out how they think.

</comment><comment><USER26> If the accusation is true, nothing about this is related to whistleblowing. It's closer to sabotage and espionage.

</comment><comment><USER27> After reading this article a second time, I noticed that it's crafted to suggest the suspect had stolen software. The evidence given in the article only admits the suspect had documents, some of them classified, at his home. To suggest that many computers and code was found at a programmers home is quite ridiculous. Late in the article, the F.B.I "suspects" that he may have stolen code. What this article lacks in evidence, it makes up in sensationalism.

</comment><comment><USER28> here's an unsubstantiated claim that gave a great laugh:

> "For the N.S.A., which spent two years and hundreds of millions, if not > billions, of dollars repairing the damage done by Mr. Snowden, "

</comment><comment><USER29> Wonders if this is Shadowbrokers...

<comment><USER30> >the highly classified "source code" developed by the agency to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Sure sounds like a plausible candidate considering what Shadow Brokers were touting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> For purposes of discussion, let's say he did take the data to leak. I'm honestly curious as to the response. From everything out there, nothing he took had been used for anything beyond espionage and counter-espionage in the manner that any sane person assumed was happening. Finding a motive (unless he planned to sell it, which I haven't seen any indication of, and would wildly change the story) seems tough. Was he really just taking it to leak, being a radical transparency advocate? Why just this?

</comment><comment><USER32> Embarrassing? You expect at some point that people will try to steal and leak secrets whether that's for money or moral conscience.

</comment><comment><USER33> John Schindler (former NSA counterintelligence officer) called this back in August:

[http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside- nsa...](http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa/)

This would explain how the Russians ended up with the source code for TAO's toys.

<comment><USER34> He is one of the worst personalities on twitter. For someone who could perhaps add a lot to the discussion his contributions frequently boils down to "I know better than [you or some other person] and so I don't have to explain [some insulting thing he said about someone]."

<comment><USER33> Nature of the twitter beast. You can't actually educate or do much more than say, "read any of the 20 articles I've written on the subject" in 140 characters. And there are a _lot_ of people who are very wrong about the sorts of things he talks about.

He knows his stuff. And he's dismissive and rude. The former forgives the latter, for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Whatever happened to the other "second Snowden" where it was reported DoJ was reluctant to prosecute?

[http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second- leaker...](http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker--for- snowden-reporters-165741571.html)

</comment><comment><USER36> "New Theft of Secrets", as if whistleblowing was a bad thing.

"he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments"

"different in nature from Mr. Snowden's theft"

What's next, NYtimes, calling people "rats" for reporting a homicide?

<comment><USER37> Are you of the opinion that whistleblowing and espionage are the same thing?

It's one thing to call attention to warrantless wiretapping and unconstitutional practices. It's an entirely different thing to take and distribute the source code of a tool used to access foreign government systems. The former is illegal the latter is literally the reason why the NSA was created.

<comment><USER38> The article clearly implies that Snowden's actions were "theft"

<comment><USER19> Which they were. Also, espionage. Also, treason.

And — also — not whistleblowing, because _nothing he has alleged is illegal_.

<comment><USER39> > nothing he has alleged is illegal.

At least one surveillance program revealed by Snowden has been challenged in US courts and found to be illegal, whether any others revealed were illegal remains a disputed point.

[http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/07/politics/nsa-telephone- metadat...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/07/politics/nsa-telephone-metadata- illegal-court/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> they got him a month ago. gat'damn.

the US Government is playing a different game right now. Play time is over.

</comment><comment><USER40> This dummy was caught red handed. Documents, hardware, etc.</comment>


Dark Matter Is in Our DNA - <AUTHOR> http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/140/dark-matter-is-in-our-dna <comment><USER2> is it just me or this article has extremely click-bait-ish title and top of that is extremely vacuous in content?</comment>


Idea: Include web libraries right in your browser - <AUTHOR> http://maxmackie.com/2012/03/23/Idea:-Include-web-libraries-right-in-your-browser/

<comment><USER2> was spoken in a moment on this between developers of Chrome but then found that there were too many problems in implementation. Not everyone wants that your browser interpret everything by default and other causes over which you mention, that's why I put aside that idea to include them by default in the future maybe there is something similar in browsers. For my part would be better to make an addon that includes the libraries and spread it for users who want this to install on your browser.</comment>


Top Bitcoin maximalists to follow on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/coinmonks/top-10-bitcoin-maximalist-tweets-of-all-time-8857bc28767c <comment><AUTHOR> I was mentioning that we should write a list of top 10 anti bitcoin maximalists as well, does anybody had anything?</comment>


GTD is a piece of crap - <AUTHOR> https://filipmolcan.squarespace.com/blog/2013/11/6/something-is-wrong-with-gtd

<comment><USER2> Can't disagree, but again, some things work for one type of people other things work for other type of people.</comment>


Twitter has a huge problem, and it's in your head - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/04/29/twitter-has-a-huge-problem-and-its-all-in-your-head/ <comment><USER3> I have to smile at the revelation of this problem. Nearly 30 years ago I discovered Usenet - and I was able to follow & read _every_ post. That lasted for about 3 days. For "there's too much on Twitter!" to suddenly be a news item is ... funny.

Since then, I've followed the rise & fall of dozens of social media sites & sources, watching each follow the same pattern: within about 7 years, each site started, caught on, became _the_ place to be, sagged under the weight & dreck of everyone wanting to be at _the_ place to be, the signal-to-noise ratio collapsed as meaningful content found a slimmer medium, the self- important/trolls/spam/etc piled on, and the site (still existing) vanished from the public awareness. Oh, sure, Usenet continues, AOL continues, MySpace continues, ... but seem flotsam of the past. I've no doubt Twitter, Facebook, etc - whatever the current cultural imperatives are - will carry on for some time, but will likewise fade into oblivion as interesting content finds fresher ground and the S/N ratio collapses.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious why the S/N ratio collapses like that. Is it because those who contribute to the noise level are slower to move to new platforms? Is it because those who contribute to the signal are faster to move to new platforms and/or adverse to popular platforms? Perhaps a combination of both?

I suppose a part of me wonders if the answers to these questions could lead to a more stable platform. Yet that seems unlikely, since platforms don't seem to be holding traction longer than their predecessors.

It seems like Reddit might be at least one possible evolution that could lead to increased longevity. Their trick is to have user moderated sub-communities as a first class feature, and keep the churn high on those communities (subreddits). That seems to be a way to allow the cyclic birth and death of platforms/communities to occur, but still keep people within the overarching Reddit umbrella. Though I think ultimately Reddit will suffer the same fate as Digg; it's only a matter of time before management makes enough mistakes or corruption reaches critical mass.

<comment><USER3> When ongoing worthwhile conversation appears on a small board, the S/N ratio goes very high fast. Word spreads, and people are attracted to a high-interest low-noise signal. As more people join in, everyone can be heard ... but not everyone _should_ be heard. The growing noise starts drowning out the signal, which gets frustrated and heads for less noisy grounds. The sheer mass & momentum of the noise sources keeps the place going for a while, but more "signals" leave over time, leaving a shrinking population. Various mechanisms are put in place to suppress noise, with varying degrees of success (HN's is pretty good).

"Freshness" is also a factor. After a while, each forum just starts showing its age, not keeping up with spiffy new forms & forums. People get bored and move on.

"Us vs them" is also a factor. A growing subgroup may decide they just don't want to be around the base. Prime example: Facebook and the alleged "kids don't use it because their parents are there".

Embrace the lifecycle. It's real; instead of fighting it, manage it with the understanding that it will eventually fade and users head to newer quieter forums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a weird "problem" to me. I follow about 300 people (@edropple) and never feel overwhelmed. I've never used lists or filters or anything. I dip in and out of Twitter as I please. Basketball game's on? Twitter's on. Working? Twitter's off. The best analogy I can think of is that it's portable bar chatter. You go when you want to bullshit with friends, you don't when you've got other things going on.

Maybe the problem is trying to follow the entire Internet and lacking the self-control to pick and choose.

<comment><USER6> ^this. It's only a problem for those who have given up on controlling their behavior, the information gluttons, if you will. And in this sense, that's anything but a problem for Twitter ('oh no, people can't stop opening our app and engaging with it').

<comment><USER7> It is alot more stressful for content creators like youtube personalities who tweets out constantly instead of being a consumer. Because you have to make sure you don't miss any import people tweeting at you. And you have to make sure you make your audience happy. Most youtube stars hate twitter because it's such a burden to having to keep up with their audience.

Twitter can't afford to loose these people because they are the ones who create all the tweets most people come to twitter to consume.

<comment><USER5> And those people won't use Highlights.

<comment><USER7> If highlights brought them all their most important fans tweets so that they only had to check their twitter feed once a day why woudln't they want to use it?

Granted they would still use it to promote their stuff. But they wouldn't have to check their feed which is the cause of stress and info overload

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> disagree.

Twitter's problem is that they invented a great communication channel with no clear way of monetizing it.

Like inventing email.

They're now trying to build walls around their protocol, shutting down APIs, etc. Imagine if the people behind email would have done it.

For me, Twitter is a great news reader. And Google shutting down their Reader product should explain the problem with this kind of products.

<comment><USER9> No clear way of monetizing? They are grossing more than a billion on 300 million users. Seems like they are quite capable of monetizing.

<comment><USER10> Spending a dollar to earn $0.50 isn't sustainable.

I use Twitter daily, and would hate to see it disappear. But how much of current revenues are a product of companies still "experimenting" with the Twitter ad ecosystem? What happens if those channels provide less ROI than everyone expects? That's the way the trends appear to be heading.

<comment><USER11> Can Twitter disappear? If they can't find a way to monetize can they just shut the thing down and return money to investors? At this point Twitter seems to be used by a lot of organizations and government to communicate important information. I wonder if they decided to fold if they would be sued and forced to figure out how to monetize.

<comment><USER12> Excuse my ignorance but have other businesses been "sued into existance"? Seems a little far fetched.

<comment><USER11> Not that I know of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In the media, where joining Twitter is almost a requirement, I've met a few people who, while not enthused about having to be a part of Twitter, are obsessed with trimming their followings lists and making sure that they follow only worthwhile people who don't clutter their feed with "what i had for breakfast posts"...because these people feel that now they're on Twitter, they _must_ keep up with all the important conversations that may be going on and read their timelines to completion for the day. It's kind of sad...these people have lived 20-40 years just fine without the need to see a realtime feed of random 140-character messages from the Internet, and now they feel like they have to bear the burden of constantly consuming it. If there's one thing I've learned from the Internet it's that there's always too much going on and you'll never be able to keep up with it...and when you do miss out on some piece of timely information, guess what, there's always plenty more where that came from, so no need to feel remorse about it.

(I guess this same thing could be made about Zero-Inboxers)

<comment><USER14> FWIW, obsessive focus on filtering for high quality information and "a realtime feed of random messages from the Internet" are basically the the opposites of one another.

But I will say this: without judicious policing, the channel does gets noisy, and fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The thing about Twitter that doesn't seem to get discussed that often is that it's a heavily unbalanced platform between content producers (tweeters) and consumers (readers), and there seems to be a perception problem with how it's supposed to be used.

The people I most often see talking about how amazing Twitter is are those that get to reap the benefits of having a large following -- sure, if you have 10,000 followers and you can just pop on and write "Hey Twitter - <USER2> suggestions on a new ...?" and you get flooded with responses, of course you're going to think the community is amazing.

Now, as a _consumer_, Twitter can also be amazing -- if you curate who you follow, and understand that you're basically there to read and consume.

But then these folks see that "tweet" button, and they dip in to being a producer, and they're effectively screaming into a crowded room. "Hey, nobody's paying attention to me - this Twitter thing sucks" and then they shrug and walk away.

So Twitter's biggest problem, it seems, is that Twitter is actually different things to different people, and it needs to better differentiate what its purpose is so expectations are set properly.

<comment><USER16> Indeed. You need to ride on the coattails of the people who have followers for quite some time before you can expect activity for your own tweets. Engaging in a discussion that's already there is much easier than trying to start one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I got on twitter on day two or three (I'm user 1019 I think) and... it was incredible boring back then. I mean really, really boring. I stopped using it immediately.

Eventually I picked it back up, once there were more accounts I found useful/interesting.

Today they have the opposite problem: too much disconnected content: my feed is filled with 100s of random, disconnected headlines, links to top 10 lists, random comments from fiends, etc.

I don't feel overwhelmed, but it's hard to _casually_ engage twitter and feel edified by the experience.

I think to win the long run, Twitter has to be more valuable than just a seemly chaotic feed of information rushing by. They have never solved this problem well. At least, not for the casual user.

If they did, I think they would see their user adoption rate increase. That doesn't solve the monetization problem alone, but it would sure would help.

Update: fixed some spelling.

<comment><USER16> These best RT's of the day/week and other automated lists seem not unlike Facebook's excessive Game app messages. They were a proper nuisance until you became able to hide them. Twitter needs some tools for self-curating. For example some manual filter that you could teach which kind of messages to hide. Vast number of people will never adopt any third party options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love Twitter the most out of any social platforms. I think their problem partially is that the software stack is too expensive. This problem often missed because everybody is focusing on capabilities and features. Performance, and being efficient is a feature.

[http://blog.codinghorror.com/performance-is-a- feature/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/performance-is-a-feature/)

</comment><comment><USER19> When I tried twitter, I found myself ignored and not hated and not loved. I stopped.

<comment><USER20> It may be that Twitter didn't list your tweets in the search results. That's what happened to my first tweet, which is apparently an anti-spam measure Twitter employs.

Knowing no one else who used Twitter, I had no other use for the service and promptly logged off permanently.

<comment><USER19> Nope, tweets with all the right hash tags over a few weeks. I got a favorite and maybe a follower on somewhat random remarks, but usually nothing.

<comment><USER21> Just because you yell into a cave full of people doesn't mean you'll solicit a response.

Maybe you could easily have engaged conversation with other people on twitter?

On this point, twitter is not designed to facilitate conversations. Twitter is a wall of announcement megaphones sort of thing it seems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think between long @addresses and a few #hashtags, there is not enough characters left to say something interesting.

The result is cryptic gibberish.

I think @addresses and #hashtags should be moved out of the 180 char limit.

Also, web links should have their own field so you can say 180 characters of something interesting about the link.

</comment><comment><USER23> What a strange post: "If its service is inherently cognitively stressful, it can't possibly persuade new users to sign up."

How do new users know that until they use it? The problem this article discusses would seem to have nothing to do with getting new users (the problem discussed here) and everything about people stopping use of the service (churn) once they hit a tipping point of following too many people and getting tweet overload.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think Twitter's problem is that it somehow makes people turn into vile hate filled people. There is so much harassment on Twitter I just can't believe it. Sure it exists on 4chan, reddit, and others, but I think Twitter seems to channel it the most.

<comment><USER14> I've been on Twitter since 2008 (@alexqgb) and I've unfollowed a lot of people since then, but I can't think of one who lost my interest because they _became_ a raging troll. Anecdotal, I know, but I've seen exactly zero evidence to support this theory.

My most common reasons for dropping feeds are fleeting interest passing, people's interests getting boring, and deeper interests diverging. But changing personalities? No. Personalities are remarkably stable things.

If you're an awful person on Twitter (a) you've probably been that way from the day you started and (b) it probably isn't limited to your online life.

<comment><USER24> I didn't describe it well. I think Twitter is like an echo chamber for SJW's and it seems to spawn digital riots, swattings, doxxing, etc. That's the problem I was trying to describe, the nefarious use of Twitter.

<comment><USER25> If you use the term "SJW" you really might want to look in a mirror before accusing others of being "vile hate filled people."

<comment><USER26> But what if there are vile hate-filled people on the internet who do self- identify as SJW?

<comment><USER14> Nobody self-identifies as an SJW, unless they're being extremely ironic. The term was coined by overt misogynists as an expression of abuse, derision, and hate and nothing's removed its nasty connotations since then.

<comment><USER26> I think the term SJW has been around a bit longer than you think it has, been used more often in more situations than you seem to think, and I don't think it was necessarily started by misogynists as an insult to feminists.

<comment><USER14> Then maybe not coined, but certainly adopted and popularized. Point being that whatever more benign associations may have been associated with it at one point have been permanently altered by GamerGate.

<comment><USER26> Well, I appreciate your opinion on the matter but I simply disagree. As a fan of such disagreements, I find them quite educational about ideologies, I have seen the term used many times in several ways for years now.

For example, urban dictionary has entries from four years ago with the very definition described. You may disagree with the usage of the term but don't change its history.

It was not popularized by GamerGate and many would say it was adopted by the hashtag because it describes many people within that debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> >As Lucy Jo Palladino, a psychologist who studies attention, explains, the brain is a muscle like any other, and it can't run on empty.

Possibly the best mixed metaphor (I know it's not a metaphor, I don't know a better phrase) I've ever read in my life.

<comment><USER28> It _is_ a metaphor:

"A metaphor is a figure of speech that identifies something as being the same as some unrelated thing for rhetorical effect, thus highlighting the similarities[...]"

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > For comparison, 34 gigabytes = two times the memory of the entry-level > iPhone.

Thats not very helpful. Can anyone tell me, if you were to print that out on paper on an inkjet, how much the ink would cost?

</comment><comment><USER30> A tool to help combat distractions like Twitter* and focus on one thing at a time: [http://focusr.co](http://focusr.co).

*Although I'm pleased with Twitter's self-awareness here, and I'm not saying there's anything intrinsically wrong with services like these. You just aren't going to see many successful entrepreneurs wasting their time on these services (unless they're directly responsible for engaging users through it).

<comment><USER31> [http://cronster.com](http://cronster.com) \- Working on similar concept, though not the same.

Threads revolve around chronological events created/added/managed by the user - think running race, wedding, conference, concert, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Totally agree with the post. It's like all data and we need platforms to derive information from the stream. Probably something like [http://summly.com/](http://summly.com/) for your lists?</comment>


Bootstrap 3 plans - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getbootstrap.com/2012/12/10/bootstrap-3-plans/

<comment><USER2> The @font-face glyphicons will be a great change, it'll make sizing the icons a lot easier. I'm confused about licensing though - it seems from their site [1] that the vector versions are only available with a $59 pro pack...

[1] <http://glyphicons.com/>

<comment><USER3> That's true. It's possible that they will reach a licensing deal with glyphicons to use the font.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Dowango – Connect shoppers with e-commerce stores - <AUTHOR> http://dowango.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I recently created a website, Dowango, that helps shoppers find (online) stores that specialize in their niche, allowing them to access more information about the product while simultaneously helping small e-commerce shops get more traffic since giant stores bombard the google search results (cough cough Amazon). In short, this site shows users the top niche stores for the product they are looking for. This service is free for both the shoppers and the shop owners, who can easily add their stores.

I am looking for people who have an online store to add their websites to Dowango. To start advertising this shop to potential shoppers, Dowango needs to have a strong collection of websites. I hope to help all of you, e-commerce (Shopify or not) shop owners, in gaining traffic on your sites. Thanks for your help!</comment>


Show HN: A HN or Reddit like social network for musicians and music learners - <AUTHOR> https://www.acho.io <comment><USER2> This is a cool idea, I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

One comment on the layout: the line breaks in comments are quite jarring because they break on letters rather than words. (word-break)

e.g. [https://www.acho.io/post?id=5a73a65ff366940014d2621a](https://www.acho.io/post?id=5a73a65ff366940014d2621a)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, just fixed this

<comment><USER3> I still see this issue happening on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> lol, I made the change but forget to deploy to server. now it looks good

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excited to see this. Hope it gains some traction.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just showed this to my brother, who is starting out as a music producer and audio engineer, I am sure he will be able to use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> So excited to see people has interest in it, and would be more excited if you or your brother can provide some helpful feedback and advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome! Been wanting to do this with another niche community; can I asked how you built it?

</comment><comment><USER7> Woot</comment>


Matcha: Mobile apps in Go - <AUTHOR> https://gomatcha.io/ <comment><USER2> Put the product itself aside, that home page is wried.

In the "Examples" section, every <video> is nested in a <a>.

Because of that, I can't play any demo by directly click the play icon (Even one on the control bar) at least on Firefox.

Luckily my cat told me that I can just right click on that demo and select play on the pop menu. Otherwise I could never see those demos in my entire life and just close that page instead.

<comment><USER3> I don't have the problem on Firefox Nightly, even though the nesting is still questionnable...

<comment><USER2> Guess that's why professional front end developer and their experiences is so important :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this compare to flutter?

<comment><USER5> It's similar to React Native - meaning it's very hard to write once on two platforms. You could get somewhere with writing two UI's for two platforms and keep shared business logic.

So, this is nowhere near Flutter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Because mobile apps just have to be written in Go? There's just nothing else out there that can handle the highly special and rare use case of UI programming? ;)

Probably a cool hobby project (and there's nothing wrong with having hobbies!) but in it's current state I don't feel this to be too useful.

Just thinking aloud from my rear end: how about making a cross-platform framework with Swift? It already works well in the other major platform :)

<comment><USER7> kotlin might be a better choice - there's already projects like robovm (...bought & killed by MS), multi-os engine(intel-backed), and so on...

<comment><USER8> You don't even need those anymore – Kotlin/Native targets iOS directly: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15712015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15712015)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems to have a weird bridge it has to serialize things and send them across to get them to the native side... ala React Native. I say weird, because go should be native by itself, thus no need for this hoop-jumping.

</comment><comment><USER10> What would you recommend to use for desktop GUI apps written in Go?

<comment><USER11> I search for a good Go GUI toolkit ever now and then and there aren't really any satisfactory ones yet.

There is Walk but it is Windows-only.

<comment><USER12> [https://therecipe.github.io/qt/](https://therecipe.github.io/qt/) I've seen this being used in a few projects.

<comment><USER11> Yeah but I feel like if I'm going to use Qt I may as well write it in C++. Part of the reason I like Go is that it makes easy-to-distribute binaries. Adding Qt back in gets rid of that benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> how does it compare to go mobile?

[Edit] Looks like go mobile, still needs Mac/XCode to develop iOS apps and Android Studio to develop android apps. I haven't found another mobile development tool, other than Adobe AIR SDK, which supports developing iOS apps on windows and supports developing Android apps without Android SDK.

<comment><USER14> For games I believe Unreal Engine 4 works on Windows for iOS as long as you stick to Blueprints and no C++.

<comment><USER13> didn't know this. Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks promising! Is it implementation wise more comparable with Flutter (flutter.io) or Cordova?</comment>


Ask HN: What note-taking application do you use? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone know of a note-taking application that has that ability to add labels to notes, has advanced filters and has regular expression search? <comment><USER2> May I suggest taking notes by hand? There was at least one study that determined taking notes by hand forces you to summarize the information, and so you end up increasing your recall as a result. ([https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning- secret...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t- take-notes-with-a-laptop/))

<comment><USER3> Humanity survived without apps for quite a long time. I'm not sure though the comparison would yield the same result for information retrieval.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> VIM + ((vim)?grep|ack|at|...)

That said. I also liked TiddlyWiki.</comment>


Apple Introducing OpenDoc Technology - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFJdjk2rq4E <comment><AUTHOR> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc)</comment>


We Never Paid for Journalism - <AUTHOR> https://idiallo.com/blog/we-never-paid-for-journalism <comment><USER2> Former news editor here. I left the journalism world about eight years ago because of the poor shape the business was in. But I still love journalism and hope it finds a viable business model.

I wanted to address a point that this blog post brings to mind.

There were advertisers then, and there are advertisers now. The advertising market hasn't dried up.

So why was the business model robust then and in shambles now?

Well, one explanation that people often point to is that there are now many more places to advertise. Back then, newspapers were one of the best places to advertise if you wanted to reach a lot of eyeballs. Now you can advertise on Google and other search sites, you can advertise on any number of blogs and other sites through AdSense and other ad delivery networks, you can advertise on social media, you can place classified ads on Craigslist, etc. So newspapers now have to compete against all these other properties in a way they didn't have to do in previous generations.

But there's another consideration that is just as important and doesn't really get talked about as often. With the dawn of digital advertising, where every view, click and conversion is neatly accounted for, advertisers have come to realize that newspaper advertising has always been a low-return-on-investment marketing avenue, even when it was the only game in town. They just didn't have the metrics to prove it.

What we know now is that click-through rates on news sites are really not substantially better than click-through rates on Joe Schmo's random blog -- but they _are_ substantially worse than in certain other business segments, like search.

So the real battle isn't even a battle for advertiser's attention. It's a battle to remain viable even though the advertisers would be better off advertising elsewhere.

<comment><USER3> As a consumer, the biggest appeal of print newspaper advertising (as opposed to web, social media, etc) is legitimacy.

No fly-by-night scam operation will be able to afford a full page ad in a reputable magazine, and I hope newspapers also do due diligence on the advertisements they run, as their reputation (and possibly even legal liability, especially in certain fields like medicine, etc) is at stake.

This means I can be confident an ad in a magazine won't be an outright scam and I can somewhat trust it (sure, it's still trying to sell me something that I wouldn't have otherwise bought, but if it's relevant and I'm confident it's not a scam or low quality crap, then why not?).

The same does not apply to digital advertising where there's plenty of shit, no human actually reviews the ads and given the ads are very targeted there's little chance anyone else sees the ad (in a magazine, everyone sees it, so an expert in the field can speak up, unlike for a targeted ad where only the people in the targeting criteria - who often lack the knowledge to make an informed decision - see the ad).

The other advantage of the lack of tracking is that I get exposed to ads outside of my daily workflow. I work in IT, and if I were to browse without ad blockers (cancer blockers as I call them) I would just see IT or business- related ads all over the place. I don't want to see those - I already know what products I need for IT and have the knowledge & experience to do my own research. On the other hand, a print ad which knows nothing about me might show me an ad for cat food - I want that; I know nothing about the subject and am willing to trust the magazine's reputation behind it.

<comment><USER4> I hate to burst your bubble, but fundamentally, all advertising is a "scam". It's to get you to buy stuff you really don't need.

Also, the print newspaper industry isn't as clean as you think.

[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

You shouldn't be trusting any ad, wherever it is. Actually, the most reputable the platform, the more skeptical you should be since you are more trusting of the platform to begin with. The easier you are to be duped.

<comment><USER5> How do you find the stuff you need then? Go to the big product box in the sky?

<comment><USER6> Brick&mortar stores, Consumer Reports, magazines[0], product catalogs, trade shows, yellow books, discussion groups, word of mouth. Basically, everything that's pull (vs. push) and limits itself to providing information about products and problems they solve (vs. playing on your emotions, or delivering sales tactics).

\--

[0] - See this subthread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21348886](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21348886).

<comment><USER5> I agree with the dislike for over-extended advertising techniques online. But those are all ads, as such don't really answer my challenge to the parent poster. Ads on some fundamental level provide a service to the recipient.

<comment><USER7> I feel it's a bit disingenuous on the part of advertisers to claim that any commercial information source is an ad. This basically makes any discussion impossible because if everything is an ad then nothing is. It's a dirty trick of the ad industry.

did the creator of the X pay a third party to present X? is X an essential part of its context? is the recipient of X seeking X itself or something else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would encourage anyone interested to read Edward Bernays (nephew, through both parents, of Sigmund Freud). He lays out why journalism is a loss leader for people who want control. It makes a lot of otherwise confusing market dynamics around media make sense. Making money, directly, on journalism is almost never the idea.

<comment><USER9> That's a somewhat conspiratorial take. While there are publishers that heavy- handedly tell their newsrooms what to write (i. e. Murdoch), the vast majority does not.

Many publishers are typical corporations, with a large number of shareholders, none of which get to even talk to the journalists.

Even among those owned by individual billionaires, the evidence is lacking. The Washington Post, for example, has broken quite a few (often negative) stories about Amazon. The Seattle Times recently broke much of the 737-MAX scandal, even though they are faily dependent on Boeing. The New York Times doesn't even write much about Mexico, let alone topics related to Carlos Slim's financial interests.

The motivation to own these reputable papers seems to be far easier to explain as a status thing. Kinda like NFL teams, but for the more intellectual billionaires.

<comment><USER10> As laid out in Manufacturing Consent, the understanding is implicit, not explicit. I would classify this as ideological, not conspiratorial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While the 50 cents per edition that newspapers charged was not enough to cover their costs, it sent a signal to advertisers that they were getting a certain type of eyeball. An eyeball that had 50 disposable cents per day to buy packaged news in a local market. That 50 cents was an important signal. Newspapers would find other ways of getting those same eyeballs, by striking deals with hotels and airlines and essentially supplying papers at a deep discount, but making it up with the fees they could charge to advertisers based on their access to travelers, who have a lot more than 50 cents to spend. Some publications took it one step further: they covered business and their readers could put the subscription on their corporate cards as a business expense. Personally, it cost them nothing. This is the strategy of the WSJ, the FT, and what the NYT would like to be with DealBook, etc.

<comment><USER12> Is that the 50c really signalling disposable income? Or just that it signalled that the newspapers were being read by humans and not just sitting in a pile somewhere?

To my intuition 50c per day doesn't signal a useful amount of disposable income even in 2006 dollars.

<comment><USER13> This is more than a Netflix subscription. And people still share their subscriptions with friends and family to reduce costs.

$0.50 a day is real money, even today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The LA times peak circulation was in 1990 when they delivered 1,225,189 > papers daily.

Wow, I had no idea that city papers had such robust delivery networks back then.

I can almost imagine an alternate timeline where papers might have survived by leveraging that network to deliver books or other items from a catalog before Amazon.

I suppose their scale was in part only possible due to their consistently sized product and how much abuse a newspaper can take, but still wonder if any papers took a stab at delivering other print products before the internet era.

<comment> jagged-chisel The other major distribution network already visited every addressable location and took packages of varying sizes: the postal service.

Newspaper delivery was closer to 'real-time' \- it was printed this morning, and arrived for consumption during morning coffee. Many children took paper routes for some cash and delivered on their bikes. You slow down paper delivery when you start sending along multiple shipments, weighing more, for various customers.

<comment><USER15> I never thought of this angle before, but imagine if a SV startup started a distribution model in 2019 depending on young teens riding their bikes around neighborhoods early in the morning before school. There'd be endless articles shaming them for child labor and for foisting their costs on to vulnerable workers.

Really not sure what to make of that. Other than maybe our outrage triggers have been honed to a razor's edge

<comment><USER16> Outrage about child labor in the bicycle delivery business is well over a century old, and for good reason [0].

Newspaper delivery, on the other hand, was a short before-school/after-school job (back when evening papers were a thing) that didn't particularly interfere with schoolwork, and had already been displaced by adults in cars in the 90s after our society ceded street space as automobile death zones instead of treating it as public space that children could be expected to ride bikes along safely[1].

[0] [https://mashable.com/2016/07/20/bike- messengers/](https://mashable.com/2016/07/20/bike-messengers/) [1] there was plenty of resistance, but ultimately American society evolved into a technological dystopia where we permitted a new technology to be introduced to public spaces in spite of massive safety issues, ultimately overwhelming traditional uses [https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/street-safety- am...](https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/street-safety-american- history-dutch-cities-traffic-protests/599566/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a somewhat obvious take on the decline of paper journalism. Yes, you paid for that newspaper / magazine, but the majority of money is in the ads space. Even that payment? A screening tool for advertisers -- if you don't read the paper or more importantly see the ads, you'll presumably cancel and save the money.

There was a tweetstorm by some journalism prof I can't recall that was basically saying newspapers killed themselves, by consolidation, mergers and over-reliance on classified ads and news-by-wire. By the time Yahoo! news came along started publishing AP news wire feeds, and Craigslist allowed free listings, they had already cost optimized away local news they'd need to compete against new entrants. Perhaps someone will find that twitter thread for me.

<comment><USER17> Found it!

[https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyLittau/status/1088503510184...](https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyLittau/status/1088503510184927233)

A few choice quotes:

> For those who aren't quite sure why these media layoffs keep happening, or > think "it's the internet!" or "people don't pay to subscribe," there's a lot > more going on.

> Classified ads were a damn boondoggle. $500 in a mid-metro to place a car > ad. The more expensive your item, the more you got charged. No wonder people > rebelled the minute they were offered the ability to do it for free. Newmark > didn't kill classifieds; news publisher greed did.

> Profit margins for companies like Gannett and Knight Ridder were commonly > around 30-40%.

> So chains started gobbling up papers all over the country in the '80s and > '90s. They took on debt to do this because with 40% margins, there wasn't > much downside in that model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Today, the advertisers see's exactly how many times their ads have been > viewed, and pay accordingly. The rise of Ad blockers did not improve the > situation.

I eschewed ad blockers until around 2016, when the (relatively mainstream) sites I was frequenting started getting hit with a lot of malicious ads. I'm happy to support content I enjoy, but not at the expense of my own security.

<comment><USER19> I started strongly encouraging my family and friends to use adblockers around the same time, when nytimes.com was hit by a malvertising campaign.

I understand the economic model of free access with advertising, but I'm not going to put my computer and data at risk for it. Allowing ads to include executable code was idiotic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It used to be that the "profit" from advertisement paid for journalists to write stories that would get you to look at them.

Now the profit from ads largely goes to engineers to build products for the web, (and shareholders of tech companies).

Both journalism and web stuff provide public good, but we need to figure out how to replace the revenue that financed journalism. The public was getting it for "free" before, and when it moved online we continued to want to get it for free, but the advertising model did not survive the transition.

<comment><USER21> What would it look like to "engineer" journalism?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Journalism is in such a disastrous state, I feel like/hope there's a growing appetite for a source that is of genuinely high quality and has an uncompromising approach.

No ads, no clickbait, no partisan nonsense, no dark patterns, no hit pieces, no mixing of news and opinion.

Just uncompromisingly focused fact-based journalism (of course there will always be some bias and mistakes, but there's a lot you can do to mitigate these things).

I wonder if there are enough people that would pay $X/mo for this to make it viable. I'd happily pay at least $20/mo.

<comment><USER23> You pay about $20/month today for a digital subscription for one of the global brands like the New York Times, Economist, etc. which still have ads to a greater or lesser degree.

They're doing kinda/sorta OK with digital subscriptions but basically journalism is expensive to produce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I subscribe to:

* [https://www.economist.com/](https://www.economist.com/) \- good coverage of various subjects worldwide.

* [https://www.washingtonpost.com/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/) \- good coverage of US politics

* [https://www.bendbulletin.com/](https://www.bendbulletin.com/) \- because I live here and they're the only ones that always have someone at things like city council meetings, county commissioner meetings and the like.

</comment><comment><USER25> The rise of Craigslist is one factor. But I'm surprised that nobody is talking about local advertisers vs national. National business and websites are more likely to advertise on a (local) news website, compared to your local business. For example, twenty years ago a local mom and pop pizza joint would be apt to advertise in a newspaper, due to a captive local audience. But today, they'd be less likely to advertise on a local newspaper website. So there goes that revenue. And you're not going to find them pushing ads to the Huffington post.

Also the rise of online business review websites (Yelp, Google Reviews, Trip Advisor, ect) are now more useful and specifically targeted to an audience looking for local eats. (And also killed the Yellowpages.)

</comment><comment><USER26> The actual content begins in the 4th paragraph. The first part made my eyes glaze over.

<comment><USER27> Reminds me of the one snark that said "style" is because the journalists really want to be novelists but can't finish a full length one or get published so they slip it into their day job.

In all seriousness it seems like an attempt to fill a minimum word count without much research or math like say percentages of revenue by ads vs consumer sales over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I was going to buy a physical newspaper recently thinking it would make for cheap packing material, only to find that the Sunday edition of the NY Times is like $6 now. It's not as fat as it used to be either it seems.

<comment><USER18> Someone keeps leaving physical papers in my driveway despite me never asking them to or subscribing to anything. They usually go directly in the bin, but I also usually feel guilty that I'm not saving them all for some unknown future project.

<comment><USER29> You're playing an important role in the economy of unread newsprint. Just keep throwing it away and someone gets to keep their job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The model I've wished for is a large micropayment network covering many to most online news sources charging, I don't know, a penny or two per article. Maybe no charge if you close the page after two seconds. Ad views are worth less than that, and I can easily afford ten or twenty cents a day to read the news across a variety of sources.

I want to pay for news. But I don't have the budget to pay $20/mo each to six great newspapers all equally worthy of my attention, and nor do most other people.

Ten or twenty cents a day is lower than the fifty cents for a paper copy- but the marginal overhead is also zero.

<comment><USER23> $20/month is pretty much the rate in current dollars to pay for (at most) one "great newspaper."

<comment><USER30> Sure, but I think it's just one local optimum. The price is so high that few people will pay it, which means the price has to be high. But if the price was low and paying was painless, far more people might pay and generate the same or better revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "At the end of the day, the price that you and I pay, whether it is for the print copy or digital, it is only a very small part of the revenue. The price paid for the printed copy was by no means sustaining the newspaper business. It was advertisers all along. And they paid the price for the privilege of having as many eyeballs the newspaper could expose their ads to."

Is it possible to keep a newspaper in business by purchasing subscriptions. Think about that the next time someone suggests subscribing to some popular newspaper to counter the effects of declining journalism.

</comment><comment><USER32> As an unrelated note to the author if he reads this, it helps readability a lot to not write large amounts with all digits ($3,260,060,000) but abbreviated ($3.26bn). Think what you would do with file sizes.

</comment><comment><USER33> Most newspapers are just the equivalent of retweets - as mediocre journalists rewrite AP and Reuters reports. These jobs are going to go away. Real journalism costs money. And it will go to the real journalists in time. I predict that in the next 30 years we'll have the Taylor Swifts, Kanye Wests, and the Beatles of journalism suck up all of the revenue while the low-effort rewriters are demolished by machines.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why read news at all? [https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/01/the-low- informati...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/01/the-low-information- diet/)

</comment><comment><USER35> The same is true for TV in most places, shows are/were carefully constructed to maximize the odds that you wouldn't change channel during the commercial break

</comment><comment><USER36> The 50 cents probably covered delivery of the paper, right?

</comment><comment><USER37> TL;DR - Advertising was always the primary business model, even in the print age.

</comment><comment><USER38> We need to have a way to pay for digital content with micropayments. Anyone remember Xanadu?

Here is what I plan to get done in 2020: [https://qbix.com/QBUX/whitepaper.html#DIGITAL-MEDIA-AND- CONT...](https://qbix.com/QBUX/whitepaper.html#DIGITAL-MEDIA-AND-CONTENT)</comment>


Cowboy Proves That E-Bikes with Removable Batteries Can Be Beautiful - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/8/18656321/cowboy-e-bike-preview-price-date-removable-battery <comment><USER2> Electric bikes with a removable battery are standard-issue "MamaChari" in Japan. Every city mom has one that carries two kids and/or groceries. Every grandma/grandpa has one (without the kids seats), too, to tackle the long hills!

Ebikes in Japan cost about $1,200 in USD equivalent, more or less.

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2017/11/18/lifestyle/going...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2017/11/18/lifestyle/going- electric-celebrating-japans-powerful-e-bikes/#.XP0OYyUpDDs)

I also notice that Chinese-style ebikes have taken root in a big way in NYC's delivery business. Those cheap Chinese ebikes (and strange little service garages for them) are everywhere now!

<comment><USER3> All true. But they are not what many of us that are used to road bikes would call beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just bought an ebike last week. I ended up looking at bikes that were "ugly" (no attempt to hide what it is), cheap ($1250-$1500), and fast (class 3, up to 28 mph):

[https://www.aventon.com/products/aventon- pace-500-complete-b...](https://www.aventon.com/products/aventon- pace-500-complete-bike)

[https://ride1up.com/product/city/](https://ride1up.com/product/city/)

[https://www.juicedbikes.com/products/crosscurrent-s](https://www.juicedbikes.com/products/crosscurrent-s)

Out of those I went with the Aventon, which had a local bike shop selling and supporting it.

50-mile impressions: it's fun; being a cross between a motorcycle and a bike is the fastest way I know to get around Boston at rush hour; it feels safer than biking, because I can almost always go the speed of car traffic and take the whole lane without getting passed; 28mph is handy, even in rush hour city traffic.

It's interesting knowing that these things can be made much more beautifully -- it's still such a young industry that there's lots of room to figure out new standards that will improve things for everyone. It will be neat to see them evolve.

<comment><USER5> Wow, that is really fast for a bike. Are you allowed to drive these bikes on all bike paths and such? Where I live (Sweden) they are limited to 25 km/h (~16 mph).

<comment><USER4> California is the farthest ahead in regulating them in the US. 28 MPH is the top speed for a "Class 3" bike, and is barred from some bike paths in California:

[https://currentebikes.com/ebike-classes- california/](https://currentebikes.com/ebike-classes-california/)

In practice I ride it like a car when I'm going car speed, and like a bike when I'm going bike speed -- my goal is for it to always feel safe to people around me given where it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a thinly veiled advert. There are nicer looking ebikes out there if you are into form over function.

<comment><USER3> Some of them manage to combine form and function (lower weight, securely stored and weatherproofed batteries). One of the best review sites is EBikeTips¹¸the sister site of road.cc.

I like the looks of the Ampler range a lot but am sadly not within their distribution area.

1\. [https://ebiketips.road.cc/content/reviews/electric- hybrid/ri...](https://ebiketips.road.cc/content/reviews/electric- hybrid/ribble-hybrid-al-e-1879)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suppose it has a certain aesthetic but it's pretty far from what I consider a "beautiful" bicycle. This one is a lot closer: [https://www.instagram.com/p/BsVu9Idn8AO/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BsVu9Idn8AO/)

Also I am not sure someone like the author with an "aggressive" riding style can be trusted with the extra power from an ebike. People like that are aggravating enough with a standard track bike.

Not sure I want that kind of smarts in a bike either. App enabled, GPS tracking? How long until a "my left shoe is bricked" firmware update, or the company goes out of business and no one can unlock their bikes?

<comment><USER8> > I am not sure someone like the author with an "aggressive" riding style can > be trusted with the extra power from an ebike.

Agreed. I have an ebike that peaks around 1250W (technically not legal). It's a mountain bike with a mid-drive motor, and it can reach 35MPH on a flat road. It definitely feels nice to have that kind of acceleration, but I fully understand the reason for software speed limiting. Past about 20 MPH, it doesn't feel very safe. At those speeds, I intuitively know that if I fall, I'm in real trouble because I'm not adequately protected. The ebike is also fast enough that the bike lane feels very slow. I definitely wouldn't want to put this in the hands of annoying teenagers who will try to race each other through the city, they'd kill themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks nice, but hopefully someone that has owned an E-bike can explain something for me: should you remove that battery when you park the bike (for fear of theft) or just for charging?

<comment><USER10> I don't own one, but I rode quite a few and sold a lot of them (mainly powered by Bosch systems) in a previous job.

It obviously depends where you live, but most of the time, it's recommended to remove the battery for fear of theft, protection from the cold (part of the year), and (obviously) charging. Protection from theft because a battery generally represents a significant amount of the total cost of the bike. A 500 Wh Bosch battery runs around $1K, and I've seen more exotic ones run up to about $2.4k. Also, they're not that easy to steal, but someone with the intent of stealing could also damage the battery enough and compromise the weather sealing (for example) which could be a significant security risk.

edit: clarification

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It may not be ugly, but I wouldn't want one.

You want the weight as low down as possible. The heaviest thing is the battery, so at a minimum you want that mounted near the peddle crank. The next heaviest thing is the motor. Modern setups make the motor drive the pedal crank.

Beauty does not mean functional. cf: high heeled shoes.

</comment><comment><USER12> Forget the battery, I'm now cursed with knowledge that I've chosen colors clownishly wrong and did the lights horribly wrong on my last bike. Especially compared to those VanMoofs.

</comment><comment><USER13> The bike looks great! But why choose the low handlebar?

Especially since this isn't a sports bike or a mountain bike (without mudguards, imagine).

Do people really fancy being hunched over during their commute?

<comment><USER14> People all over the world favor looking cool over being comfortable. Americans extend that to bicycles as well.

<comment><USER15> To look cool, you want to be visible, so I would think looking cool is harder with low handle bars. ([https://www.google.com/search?q=cycle+chic&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=cycle+chic&tbm=isch))

<comment><USER14> Half of the bikes in those photos have drop bars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Beautiful bike? It looks like any other e-bike over here. And why would such a subjective thing be put front and center?

We are better than this HN! Don't upvote!

</comment><comment><USER17> This bike is very bad for your back.

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice although I prefer a crank motor.

<comment><USER19> Why? Could you explain the difference?

<comment><USER20> You can have actual gears like on an ordinary bike so you can ride it normally without the electric motor operating

<comment><USER21> Can do that with a front hub motor as well, a very valid option

<comment><USER19> Does this particular bike (Cowboy) allow that?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I approach poorly made web sites with better designs? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a college student and would love some extra money, and I have some experience with web development.  Do you think it would be worthwhile to approach small companies and venues whose web sites appear outdated and poorly maintained with the offer of making them a new web site on the cheap?  I'd love to get some feedback on this, and I wonder if it's already maybe done a lot already? Thanks!! <comment><USER2> It's certainly something you could do, but don't be discouraged when you realise that your potential clients aren't too fond of being told their current online presence sucks. Perhaps also approach local businesses that don't even have an online presence at all and sell them on getting one to supplement for that risk.</comment>


Open is Dead - <AUTHOR> http://johngeraci.com/blog/2011/10/open-is-dead/

<comment><USER2> " Open is a means to an end. It's a means to a better, leaner, more reciprocal, more win-win ecosystem. And EVERYONE understands those terms. "

What? Those buzz words? They're even more fuzzy than "open" when you're talking about politics.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yet another "XXX" is dead post.

<comment><USER4> Yet another "yet another 'xxx' is dead post" comment.</comment></comment>


Partnerships - Values vs Success - <AUTHOR> http://davidperel.net/partnerships/

<comment><USER2> Great post. I have had several family members and work colleagues get burned by partnerships, but can point to one or two successful pairings. I wondered what the deal was.

You present a compelling thesis, and I look forward to finding out what they (the successful partners) think of it.

It would have been a stronger article if you could have talked about methods to keep values in sync.</comment>


Wow: IPCC scientists hacked, emails leaked, damning… - <AUTHOR> http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/ipcc-scientists-hacked-emails-leaked-damning.html <comment><USER2> Random thought ...

Let's suppose, as a hypothesis, that "Global Warming" is not being caused or significantly contributed to by CO_2. The natural conclusion, then, is that we don't need to worry about burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) because the CO_2 they produce is not causing global warming.

Problem: Even if they aren't causing (or significantly contributing to) global warming, they are still running out.

Observation: Even if the consumption of fossil fuels isn't causing (or significantly contributing to) global warming, we should still try to stop using them, because that way they'll last longer, and give us longer to develop alternatives.

Think of the global warming drive to lower fossil fuel consumption as an aid to getting to "ramen profitability." It's a way to be able to pause and draw breath, and to work out what to do next. Lowering their consumption gives us more time.

Of course if CO_2 emissions _are_ contributing to global warming, even more reason. But it's not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sure, because when a bunch of 'damning files' appear on the internet just in time for a major conference it must be true.</comment>