North Carolina man arrested for not returning VHS tape rented in 2002 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/24/north-carolina-man-arrested-not-returning-vhs-tape <comment><USER2> If this holds, we're all doomed...

Seriously, it's interesting how he can still be arrested 14 years later. I'm sure many more serious crimes would belong to the statue of limitations after this amount of time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always thought a society where (current) laws are enforced absolutely would be dystopia.

Let's see what happens to him.

</comment><comment><USER4> My best part is Tim Green's apparently disbelief that someone would actually rent Freddy Got Fingered. Although maybe it is not so surprising that someone would completely forget about it the instant they stopped watching it.

</comment><comment><USER5> The man has a right to face his accuser in a court of law, and it sounds like that entity does not exist any more.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wat.</comment>


The case against peer review - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2116244/

<comment><USER2> My experience being on the reviewer side of the process is very limited. As a frequent reader of papers in CS I'm of the opinion that peer review is accomplishing very little outside of checking theoretical results with proofs that can be vetted. I can count on one hand the number of papers I've read in the past month or two describing an implementation of a technique where the implementation described was available publicly. In all other cases, I had to take the authors' words for it. Given the poor handling of data for publication I've seen in the past, I'm not especially inclined to do that.

I also don't believe that the current conference / journal system for publication of results works especially well. There's a well-documented bias against the publication of negative results. It encourages authors to "save up" interesting work for publication when pieces of it could have been independently examined much sooner. In combination with "publish or perish" metrics, it discourages valuable or interesting work that might not ever rise to the level of a full journal publication. The format is incredibly stifling; important information is left out to satisfy page limits, code mangled to fit within columns, and interesting data visualizations not even considered because of the constraints of the media.

I think it's inevitable that the current common publication system will be recognized as a relic of the paper era, but I fear that any fix will only make superficial changes to the system. I think it'd be much more useful to have a publication system that allows work to be published with full data in a format that allows evolution in response to open reviews. This obviously wouldn't work well in areas where protection of patient privacy requires data obfuscation; I don't have a good answer for that. In all other areas, especially where the research is funded by public money, full data and code transparency ought to be key, especially where raw data must be adjusted or normalized in order to be useful and in situations where bugs in modeling programs could subtly affect results.

Edit: see also this excellent article from last month's Atlantic: [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/11/lies- damne...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/11/lies-damned-lies- and-medical-science/8269/)

<comment><USER3> "As a frequent reader of papers in CS I'm of the opinion that peer review is accomplishing very little outside of checking theoretical results with proofs that can be vetted."

As a frequent reader and reviewer of CS papers I totally disagree. Peer review helps narrow a huge incoming flood of new research into a smaller stream of results that are the most novel, important, and correct. Without explicit review, your options would be to either waste your time wading through the mess or use reviews from sources whose advice you consider on an ad hoc basis. I'm sure there are better systems that take advantage of the Internet, the wisdom of crowds, data aggregation and mining, etc. The current system of peer review does adequately perform a major service, though.

<comment><USER2> Given the huge number of niche conferences and journals out there, is the filtering that takes place actually useful? I'm not convinced of it. I've engaged in venue shopping myself. Meanwhile useful, novel work is published in the open every day and my brain hasn't collapsed from the inrush of poorly filtered information. I run across junk, but I find published junk too. At least the former usually has the decency to not waste my time with a bunch of academic boilerplate language and a page of barely relevant citations.

<comment><USER3> Niche venues cater to specialists in an area. Even in specialized areas there is more output than an expert can keep up with, and these smaller venues generally perform valuable filtering as well.

"my brain hasn't collapsed from the inrush of poorly filtered information" Of course not. However, you are either wasting a ton of time or you are using some other indirect method to decide what papers are useful to read. I'd love to hear if you think your personal approach to filtering non-reviewed content is superior to relying on peer review.

<comment><USER2> Once again, I'm not convinced the specialists are actually filtering usefully instead of juat defining the boundaries of their niche.

You've assumed that the non-reviewed content I'm reading is in the form of papers. It isn't; it's blog posts and code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Peer review is _not_ "the gold standard of modern science." It is the very first step in a long process of communal collection and evaluation of data. Everyone knows it's badly flawed, but it's better than nothing. It's only when scientific results are reproduced and (more importantly) built-upon that an experiment or finding becomes widely accepted (and thus "true").

The problem comes in when the media pounces on every wild claim in the literature and re-states it as fact before the ink is dry. Actually it's not just the media's fault, a big part of the problem are the press-releases that are becoming a standard part of publishing in high-profile journals.

EDIT: An analogy: saying that peer review is the gold standard in science is like saying that _releasing_ open-source software is the gold standard for security. Just because something is open/reviewed doesn't mean it's been deeply vetted.

<comment><USER5> Right. Peer Review doesn't mean "this paper is correct", it merely means "this is interesting enough to be worth a look." It's a way of filtering out the clearly bogus and the trivial/repetitive. True progress starts after peer review and publication, when other scientists look at the same model, write their critiques, and do their own experiments.

I'd think this would be old hat to anyone who went to grad school in a technical field. I know in my department, all students were expected to read and discuss several peer-reviewed papers each term. Finding methodological weaknesses, oversimplifications, or outright mistakes was common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The guys behind arXiv have some interesting thoughts on the subject:

<http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~ginsparg/blurb/pg02pr.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> If not peer review then what? Centralized review? Is there any hope that that won't collapse under its own weight? Public review? That hasn't done all that well in the Open Source world.

<comment><USER8> Come now. Out of literally thousands of peer-reviewed articles that hit the journals every month, the author provides one example of a bad paper from 2001 and some vague handwaving at problems in the early '80s.

Clearly this means that the system is a total and utter failure and should be tossed ASAP.

Leaving the sarcasm behind now, peer review is but one element in the scientific process - and okay, it failed for the example paper. But another element - free and frank community feedback (ie: no sacred cows) - killed the paper, by the author's own admission. It's but one element of a series of checks and balances.

Besides, although I've only published one paper, the feedback from the peer reviewers made that paper tighter and more professional - so for my solitary data point, that element of the process did improve the quality of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> the case for peer review: <http://www.mcafee.cc/Papers/PDF/EditorExperiences.pdf></comment>


Google Web Designer - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/webdesigner/ <comment><USER3> This appears to be a fork of the Ninja Authoring Tool which was made by Motorola Mobility over a year ago as part of the Montage project. Now Google owns Motorola Mobility.

[http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/ninja-...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/ninja-power-open-source-html5-toolset-hopes-to-unleash-the- web/)

<comment><USER4> Historical context, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most important feature of this (to Google(?)) is the built-in ad editor.

It's the last point on the feature list page, but it's very telling that it's the _first_ thing on the "Create New" screen.

[https://support.google.com/webdesigner/answer/3261498?hl=en&...](https://support.google.com/webdesigner/answer/3261498?hl=en&ref_topic=3261495&rd=1)

<comment><USER6> I think that makes sense -- a lot of Google's (paying) clients have been using Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash to make ads for years; if Google wants them to adopt HTML5 technology they need to make tools that are as easy to use as Flash was.

<comment><USER3> That's the purpose of my startup :); we've been making an HTML5 animation tool for OS X for the last two years:

[http://tumult.com/hype/](http://tumult.com/hype/)

<comment><USER7> How do you feel about having Google as a direct competitor?

<comment><USER3> Google itself doesn't scare me; it is really just team vs. team. I think we've got the best product and engineering expertise for this market. Clearly I'm biased :) so I'd encourage anyone to try Tumult Hype and let us know your thoughts (we've got a fully functional 14-day trial on the site).

While Google hasn't announced pricing, it is probably safe to say it is going to be free. This is a business for us, so we charge $29.99. I don't like competing against free, but that just means we'll be continually pushed to provide that much more value!

<comment><USER8> I would love to check out your product, but it only runs on OSX. You might consider a port to drastically expand your potential client base.

Google's free offering is cross platform already.

<comment><USER9> "Drastically?" The vast majority of the web developers I know use OS X.

And, I guess, most of the marketers, too.

<comment><USER10> > "Drastically?" The vast majority of the web developers I know use OS X.

I'm guessing most (all?) the developers you know work in the US?

Mac OS is close to nonexistent in that area in the rest of the world.

Trying to sell an app competing against a free product from Google is already challenging enough, you should seriously consider the original advice and extend your tool to work on Windows as well.

<comment><USER11> Dutchman here. Most _designers_ use MacOsX here. Developers go with Windows. Design-savy or iOS developers use both.

<comment><USER12> Also Dutch here. Developers go with Windows if they do not get a choice; unfortunately, most major companies demand everyone uses Windows.

I'm fortunate to be working for a consultancy company that just gives everyone a budget to buy their computer. Most people have a Macbook, with the odd exception that simply has a hatred for Apple or can't get used to it.

I would argue that development tools are much better for OSX. It's like Linux, but usable. A lot of commandline tools just work out of the box under OSX, where you have to go through hoops, hope there's a port, or install a bash emulator under Windows.

Of course, .NET developers will be using Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Downloaded. Opened. Drew a rectangle. Filled with #FF0000.

It spit this out:

[https://gist.github.com/JacksonGariety/6766626](https://gist.github.com/JacksonGariety/6766626)

(after struggling and realizing CMD+S wasn't saving my file)

I feel sorry for whoever was tasked with making this application.

<comment><USER14> My favorite part is the WebKit specific code... Don't be Evil and something about standards right?

This is like IE4/Netscape Communicator days all over again, except now with more than two dominant browsers...

"I was a web dev in the 90s and all I got was this lousy XMLHttpRequest object"

<comment><USER15> Hi,

While editing a file, Google Web Designer uses -webkit prefixes. However, when you publish your content, the publish dialog allows you to specify additional vendor prefixes (or no prefixes) in the output so the content works in different browsers.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, Nivesh (Google Web Developer)

<comment><USER16> Can you explain the reasons behind this behavior?

<comment><USER17> Hi,

Google Web Designer (GWD) uses the WebKit HTML rendering engine inside the application's workspace and reports the styles that are actually applied to the content during editing.

Thanks, Google Web Designer team

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ok, the war is on. Does anyone know of a good HTML5 ad blocker?

Flash was _awesome_. It made it _really easy_ to block animated ads. My browsing experience had been wonderful ever since I installed a Flash blocker a few years ago. Also did wonders for my battery life.

Please, please help my browsing experience remain wonderful. Thanks.

<comment><USER19> such entitlement! do you have any idea how publishers make money on the web?

<comment><USER20> Entitlement? He _is_ entitled to not download and view content that he doesn't want to.

No one is obligated to alter their own behavior in order to sustain someone else's business model. How publishers make money is _their_ problem to solve, and if they're publishing content on the open web that's viewable with web browsers, then it's up to them to decide how to deal with the fact that some web browsers aren't going to download the ads.

They have plenty of alternative options: they can block _all_ of the content unless ads are downloaded; they can put all of the content behind a paywall, etc. But most websites _don 't_ employ these methods, and _do_ leave their content accessible to people who block ads.

<comment><USER21> _No one is obligated to alter their own behaviour in order to sustain someone else 's business model_, that's why it's totally okay to shoplift if it's more agreeable and convenient to you.

<comment><USER20> No. Your obligation not to steal is not derived from any more fundamental obligation to sustain other people's business models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting that this is being released as a native app, rather than a web app.

It uses Chromium Embedded and a fairly custom UI, so it looks like it's all HTML anyway. Maybe they packed it up as an app to get better FS permissions (amoungst other things).

<comment><USER23> i was surprised by this as well since google has moved away from desktop apps to web apps with a few exceptions.

<comment><USER24> If Chrome is the host Google will be perfectly happy to move back to desktop apps with a cloud storage back end. It's easier to corral users that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Think this is mostly an alternative for Flash in display ads (which still primarily use Flash for animation). Guess is based on it being announced through Doubleclick's twitter stream.

[https://twitter.com/doubleclick_pub/status/38471531196005171...](https://twitter.com/doubleclick_pub/status/384715311960051712)

<comment><USER26> It certainly looks that way. The name seems like a bit of an overreach though - "Designing the web" = creating animated ad banners?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I tried to open an existing html file and got:

 _" Unable to open file due to the following error: The file was not created in Google Web Designer."_

So, basically, Google is just creating their own proprietary format that's built on HTML. Even if you are just using it to construct ads you'll be somewhat locked-in to this toolchain. Since HTML is inherently open people will be able to build converters but it's still a bad precedent.

<comment><USER28> >So, basically, Google is just creating their own proprietary format that's built on HTML. Even if you are just using it to construct ads you'll be somewhat locked-in to this toolchain. Since HTML is inherently open people will be able to build converters but it's still a bad precedent.

Adobe's Muse does a similar thing - if you publish to Business Catalyst using it it locks you into a proprietary "format" that forces you to stay on the platform and edit the site through Muse, or else it no longer 'compiles.'

<comment><USER29> Not sure where you got that info. Muse generates standards based HTML and CSS, you can take the HTML and CSS files and do what ever you want with them. Note, at that point your editing code, not visually designing. Even if you've published to Business Catalyst, you can just take your file and export to HTML and CSS later on.

<comment><USER28> I'm willing to push past my visceral dislike of WYSIWIG editors to try it out again. I need to get a Cloud account sooner or later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Looks like it's a rebrand of Motorola's Ninja:

[http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/ninja-...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/ninja-power-open-source-html5-toolset-hopes-to-unleash-the- web/)

via @ElliotGeno

</comment><comment><USER31> Fantastic. I've been waiting for this to happen, and not the least bit surprised it's coming from Google.

I've been super excited for the HTML5/Canvas/JavaScript takeover of web interactivity from the grips of Flash, but the one thing I kept seeing in almost every single tutorial is that it's mostly - still - hand-coded stuff. That's cool for programmers, but the reality is that the "mass" market (among designers) isn't going to really adopt HTML5 until there are well-established visual tools.

Procedural graphic design is a fun exercise, intellectually interesting, and can have some amazing results, but the market for that type of design work is really limited.

This should help drive a real, solid, mass-designer-market adoption of the new standards. Cool.

</comment><comment><USER32> Might be useful to let marketing department guys crank out ad banners without bothering any devs. I'm still waiting for [http://macaw.co/](http://macaw.co/) for responsive site & application prototyping.

<comment><USER33> As someone who's trying to get into web development (not professionally), apps like Macaw makes me want to buy a Mac. Windows is so limited compare to Mac in this regard.

<comment><USER34> It sounds like Macaw will (eventually) come to Windows:

[https://twitter.com/macawco/statuses/378215232512208896](https://twitter.com/macawco/statuses/378215232512208896)

<comment><USER33> That's great to hear!

However my point still stands. Windows is really behind Mac in regards to development software (or any type of software in general). Maybe I'm underestimating the Windows ecosystem, but that's been my observation over the years. I'd like to be proven wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> You can color me skeptical until we see actual HTML5/CSS spit out by this - regardless of who writes it, I'm always doubtful of the efficacy of any automated/wizard-driven code generation in the general sense.

I'll lump this in with Dreamweaver for now.

<comment><USER36> This is exactly my feeling. If it's cranking out noisy code, then I don't want anything to do with it.

<comment><USER37> It's clearly meant for the advertising space, so compression is actually what is being desired here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This will die a quick death just for its deceptive name. It should be called Ad Designer.

<comment><USER39> It's fairly easy to turn it into a full-fledged site design application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> "Available for Mac and PC". I'd say it doesn't sound very attractive.

<comment><USER41> why

<comment><USER42> no Linux support, I'm assuming - GNU/Linux is my preferred workspace environment.

<comment><USER43> You could always try to run it in WINE (I've seen people running Windows only apps this way in Ubuntu, e.g. MS Office, Noetpad++).

<comment><USER44> But you'd have to go out of your way to get your hands on it since the Download button is inert unless their javascript can confirm that you are in fact using Windows or so. Doesn't seem to work with wine's built-in browser, and I couldn't get past the clickwrap EULA with an old chrome-based browser running under wine either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm really happy that it looks like Photoshop and not like GIMP. Good UI is essential for widespread adoption.

<comment><USER6> It's necessary, but not sufficient. Look at Microsoft Blend for Visual Studio (formerly Microsoft Expression Blend), for example.

<comment><USER46> I don't think it was such a bad tool, it just targeted a dead-end platform (Silverlight)

<comment><USER47> And a not-so-dead-end platform (WPF).

<comment><USER46> Well, that's been killed off too effectively. All focus is on WinRT (that hardly any are using)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Interesting that this is a desktop program and not a web application. Not even "coming soon to your Chromebook".

<comment><USER4> I'd laugh if I didn't think it was so pathetic. Google seems to have more of a disconnect in what each hand is doing than Microsoft...and that's saying a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This sounds a lot like Tumult's Hype:

[http://tumult.com/hype](http://tumult.com/hype)

One of the primary complaints about Hype is that its HTML / CSS / JS output isn't very clean. I wonder if Google's tool produces better output.

EDIT: Looks like not: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6470640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6470640)

<comment><USER3> Tumult Hype's exports are essentially 3 lines of HTML so it is easy to embed in other documents and output mostly takes the form of JSON animation data and a JavaScript runtime file. It isn't meant to be hand-edited or even read, since we minify heavily to keep file sizes extremely small.

While everything has its tradeoffs, we went with this approach because:

\- Our app has a lot of animation and interactivity capabilities not meaningfully expressed through anything but JavaScript. For example, we don't use CSS3 Animations nor transitions because they aren't powerful enough (pausing, synchronization, etc.).

\- We have better control over how we express the DOM to the browser. There's plenty of browser bugs or incompatibilities which sometimes require us to on- the-fly change the DOM structure or which properties we are using.

\- The user could easily bork the output so it could not be read back in

\- No tool will ever produce output that will appease everyone :)

We provide lots of hooks in and outside of the runtime for your own JavaScript and HTML so you can still customize quite a bit.

So it isn't that our output isn't very clean (in fact I'm quite proud of the runtime and how we've been able to add features without increasing bloat); it is that edits are meant to happen from the app itself.

<comment><USER49> Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I do in fact agree it is probably unreasonable for people to expect automatic code generation to be hand- editable without disturbing the machine-editable workflow, but it is something that comes up a lot.

I see that Google's tool also seems to produce rather inscrutable output (see my edit to my original post). This does sound like one of those really hard problems where is pretty much impossible to balance the needs of the machine- modifiability with human-readability.

Thanks again for the reply!

<comment><USER3> Yes, we ultimately felt it was a fool's errand, especially because we're a startup with limited resources so we need to focus on the right problems. When we launched version 1.0 long ago it seemed like this wasn't necessary for a "minimum viable product" considering we're targeting graphic designers who might not have as much coding experience anyways.

There hasn't been much that's swayed us otherwise -- I think it was the right call.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Another product without linux support from Google. This is getting frustrating.

<comment><USER51> Yeh, it sucks. But don't worry, when enough people get hooked on it, they will move it online, before integrating it into google+.

<comment><USER52> Or end of life it. One of the two. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Tested it out here: [http://raymondgh.link470.com/googlewebdesigner/](http://raymondgh.link470.com/googlewebdesigner/) Google Web Designer [http://i.imgur.com/xEQZdx5.png](http://i.imgur.com/xEQZdx5.png) Aurora 26.0a2 [http://i.imgur.com/FElMNKj.png](http://i.imgur.com/FElMNKj.png) iOS Safari [http://i.imgur.com/Miqw6bq.png](http://i.imgur.com/Miqw6bq.png) IE 10.0.9 [http://i.imgur.com/yqXaJlL.png](http://i.imgur.com/yqXaJlL.png) Totally different appearances

</comment><comment><USER54> It's surprising to me how many people are complaining about the lack of a Linux version. A Linux version would be great! but let's put our idealogical hats aside, and think like a business.

The intersection between their target audience, and Linux is minute! Unless it came for free, investing in a Linux version of the app would have been a terrible use of resources

<comment><USER55> Linux runs the web, this is a "web design" application we are talking about. Imagine Ford releases a new car model but just for Airplane pilots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> 1\. The Google web Designer is not bad. 2\. It't more intuitive than Dreamweaver--by far. 3\. I think they should deemphasize the Ad functionality. 4\. They should offer a few basic templates--maybe be I missed them? 5\. Templates were important in my learning curve. Trying to memorize WC3 examples didn't work for me. Experimenting with a template helped me a lot--plus I could put up rudimentary websites quick. 6\. If anyone from Google stumbles upon this; remember you have multiple generations of people out there that would love to learn how to put up a web page. 7\. Put up some video tutorials. You are hemoraging money, but I've noticed you seem to depend on customers to post "how to videos", or maybe hire some out of work 30-65 year olds to produce the videos. Some of your older users know how to communicate without using too much tech lingo--isn't that the purpose of ths Editor? If their videos do the trick pay them, and don't expect them to move to your campus-let them work at home. Working at home has some benefits.

</comment><comment><USER57> Does anyone know what this program is written in. Just out of curiosity, it looks like it's something custom, does not use default widgets on OSX. It does not look like Java, I think it's all HTML5.

Just wondering.

</comment><comment><USER58> Judging from the output, Google has resurrected Frontpage 2000...

</comment><comment><USER59> I got very surprised when I saw the download-button. Will the Chromebooks be able to run this?

</comment><comment><USER4> You know what would be useful? An app like this from Google that outputs Google index-optimized code for SEO purposes.

In one fell swoop Google could educate the masses as to what search engines consider "good" code and simultaneously destroy the "machine-gun-the-fish-in- a-barrel" approach marketing people use for SEO.

Instead, we get Adobe Motion 2.0 HTML5 Street Fighter Edition Now Featuring Blinky-Movey-Thingies.

</comment><comment><USER60> This is what Adobe should have created when they realized Flash was going to die.

</comment><comment><USER61> As an engineer it's interesting to be on the receiving end of software replacing a bit of what you do. I suppose the market will always incentivize replacing expensive labor (high wages for developers cut both ways).

Granted, there have long been wysiwyg editors and this is a relatively simple part of the job of a web dev, but it's just another example of software eating the world.

</comment><comment><USER62> I think this looks like a great tool. I can almost imagine this being built 100% for ads, and then someone higher up at Google saying "Wow, this thing is so powerful it could build websites" and then it morphed into this existence. Just pure speculation but it's a little weird to call it Google Web Designer when everything else puts ads front-and-center.

<comment><USER63> I second that. The support page almost screams that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> With Webflow, Adobe edge, and others coming on the market what do prognosticators say about the future of the web design business? Is Roger McNamee's notion from two years ago going to come true? [http://www.businessinsider.com/roger-mcnamee- video-2011-7](http://www.businessinsider.com/roger-mcnamee-video-2011-7)

</comment><comment><USER65> No Chromebook support? Interesting.

</comment><comment><USER66> [http://web.archive.org/web/19970210151434/http://www1.sausag...](http://web.archive.org/web/19970210151434/http://www1.sausage.com/hotdog32.htm) this was state of the art in 1996 :-) It was killed by places like GeoCities where you build your site "online."

All through the 90's web sites that let you build web sites were quite the rage, and then pagemaker/frontpage/et alia seem to just take over. Not entirely sure why but they did. Now here we are 17 years later doing it again.

I spent a number of years "liberating" my data from FrontPage by basically creating a new CMS and sucking it from html scrapes into a modifed version of markdown. I hope that Google learns from that experience and always provides for an 'easy' way to liberate your content from their tool so someone doesn't get stuck.

</comment><comment><USER67> Hello All,

First I want to thank you all for taking the time to check out Google Web Designer and giving us your feedback! Keep it coming!

Over the last 24 hours we have received a ton of great feedback. One of the biggest questions/comments that I keep hearing is in regards to the broadly scoped name, "Google Web Designer". We chose this name intentionally. We know that it is a lofty name, but we have big plans on living up to it.

It is true that in our beta offering there is a strong focus on rich media. With the proliferation of mobile and Google being a huge player in advertising, we think that rich media was a solid first use case to tackle. Over time we plan on growing our tool set and functionality so that you can create any web content that you so choose.

This is just the beginning. You have the ear of the entire product/engineering team and with your feedback we hope to shape this tool into something special.

Thanks again!

Tony Product Manager | Google Web Designer

</comment><comment><USER68> Installed. Tried it. Uninstalled.

Interesting, but unless you're designing ads, this release is probably not worth your time.

</comment><comment><USER69> Just gave it a spin on the Mac.

I was very surprised to see that there are no templates...which makes it very hard to determine stuff like...is there any way to align columns and text?

Here's what I made in about 15 minutes:

[http://so.danwin.com/googltest.html](http://so.danwin.com/googltest.html)

It's quite easy to place things and the animation is pretty straightforward. What is extremely painful is how things behave when you click on things...like, it took me some time to figure out how to edit a Text box that I placed, and also how to change it from a paragraph to a headline.

In terms of usability, I can't image how this will be productive for anyone, including newbies. In the medium to long term, most people would be far off better learning how to do basic HTML in a text editor, GUI be damned here.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm happy to see this tool because we do need to get those ad developers/designers (whoever they are!) to stop producing output which consumes high cpu. But if this doesn't fix that problem then we're spreading the issue to our non-flash tablets and mobile devices, which could be a painful change from the static ads we currently enjoy on those devices.

However, I'm disappointed to see that this deals with fix-sized units exclusively. The web is supposed to be fluid, ads and other content should be encouraged to be percentage-width based, or at least responsive to different screen sizes and layouts. This tool produces fixed-size ads, when they could have used it to encourage a big change towards responsive advertising.

</comment><comment><USER71> Reminds me a similar tool by Sensha: Sensha Animator. [http://www.sencha.com/products/animator/](http://www.sencha.com/products/animator/)

Do you know if Google developed the technology themselves or if it is from an acquisition?

<comment><USER3> It looks like this is based on the Ninja Authoring Tool which is an open source project, but also Google would have gotten as part of their acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

[http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/ninja-...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/07/ninja-power-open-source-html5-toolset-hopes-to-unleash-the- web/)

[https://github.com/mikestowe/ninja](https://github.com/mikestowe/ninja)

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> This will almost solely be used for making ads. It's Google's answer to Apple's iAd Producer [https://developer.apple.com/iad/iadproducer/](https://developer.apple.com/iad/iadproducer/) and Adobe's Flash Pro.

</comment><comment><USER73> Well I suppose 'better than Flash' can't be a particularly high bar to jump.

</comment><comment><USER74> Couldn't open existing HTML files. Seems files must be created in GWD to be edited.

</comment><comment><USER55> It says available for the PC. the button is grayed out for me? Surely people as bright as Google knows PC != Windows? Surely PC means PC running mainstream operating systems like oh I don't know...Linux?

</comment><comment><USER75> I'm a PC user who wipes Windoze off my hdd as part of setting up my preferred working environment.

Is there any plan to include Linux, and, or, BSD versions of Google Web Designer any time soon?

</comment><comment><USER30> Mac users may find the Windows layout confusing or frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER76> Ugh, glad I have a grip on HTML/CSS now and dont have to rely on tools like this or Dreamweaver.

I think Dreamweaver actually helped me code better because after class I would always work at cleaning up the shoddy Dreamweaver auto-generated code. Kids kept wondering why I always passed validations after writing code, I stopped using Dreamweaver unlike everyone else in that class.

</comment><comment><USER77> Is this "any platform" as long as it runs Chrome?

Getting tired of more and more Google products apparently not being tested to work in Firefox.

<comment><USER78> Nope, I'm using Ubuntu and instead of download link see this message: "Available for Mac and PC"

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> look at the code it produces. It makes MS FrontPage look clean and elegant.

</comment><comment><USER80> As someone who works in a museum designing web and html5 exhibit media, it makes me a bit sad that upon opening all the defaults are specific to creating advertisements. I know that's the business that Google is in, I just wish they would stop pretending that they have the same goals as their hypothetical "World History Museum."

</comment><comment><USER81> As the market gets more mainstream designers need differentiation - <USER2> beyond even HTML5. So I'll give a shout out for another of the little guys - just launched...

[http://www.digitalworkshop.com/products/opus- creator.shtml](http://www.digitalworkshop.com/products/opus-creator.shtml)

Paul

</comment><comment><USER82> I just started playing around with it. It has a very simple learning curve. Within 10 minutes, I was comfortable using the application. I would love to see some figures on cross-browser compatibility. It's an excellent tool for making HTML5 animations. This is my only apprehension right now.

</comment><comment><USER83> This is really cool. While it's obviously aimed at people making ads (which makes sense for Google), this seems very useful for any kind of interactive element on a web page. I'm pretty sure I'll use it.

</comment><comment><USER84> Cue the sensational headlines heralding web developers becoming obsolete. These tools keep getting better. Instead of rendering web developers obsolete, they just force everyone to be better.

</comment><comment> johnx123-up Am I the only one to get the below error (in XP)?

      The procedure entry point GetSystemDefaultLocaleName could
       not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll.

<comment><USER85> Same here, in the German version of XP:

      Der Prozedureinsprungpunkt "GetSystemDefaultLocaleName"
      wurde in der DLL "KERNEL32.dll" nicht gefunden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> No thanks, Google. I'll use free software to make web pages.

<comment><USER17> Hi,

Google Web Designer is free. ;o)

Thanks, Google Web Designer team

<comment><USER87> I think they meant _actual_ free software: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software)

Unless your wink is an attempt to mock them.

<comment><USER17> Hi,

No, we misunderstood what davexunit meant by "free" and are sorry for the confusion.

Thanks, Google Web Designer team

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I notice it's retina-ready on OS X. Definitely appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER89> You know what this looks? Chromium OS will be integrated in Android, as a HTML5 application framework.. running side by side with the Dalvik apps..

So they are investing in productivity tools for people to create apps for this new platform that will make it soon in the Android platform

This is a nice strategic move from Google.. since their ecosystem(the one they profit over) are the web.. the app ecosystem may be a shot on its own foot, since they cant control the cloud consume behavior by the device owners on apps in the same way they can on the web "platform".. (like the android forks from amazon and possible other big players)

<comment><USER90> That was a long stretch there pal.

<comment><USER89> Not if you remember who is in charge from the android ecosystem now.. there's certainly a fusion movement between Android and Chromium OS happening..

So its easy to think of some HTML app ecosystem showing up in android, without switching off the current Dalvik ecosystem..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> I would call it "Google adds designer" instead.

</comment><comment><USER14> We need a head-2-head with Adobe Edge: [http://html.adobe.com/edge/](http://html.adobe.com/edge/)

</comment><comment><USER92> Let's hope this isn't the new Dreamweaver!

<comment><USER93> Is Dreamweaver heavily used anymore? I don't honestly know, I haven't worked with anyone that used it in at least 7 years or so.

<comment><USER94> Sadly it is introduced as industry standard for many students. Mainly for design schools where they also require Photoshop.

<comment><USER95> You never used Dreamweaver in your life. It has a great template system which make it easy to generate static websites, live inspection with an embedded webkit engine , and a very good style manager. Dreamweaver is definetly productive when it comes to integration or prototyping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> I don't understand: can you just use it to create graphics and effects or you can also work on logic to build something interactive?

</comment><comment><USER97> My corporate network policy blocks the installation. They need a standalone install that doesn't require google update.

</comment><comment><USER98> Up until now, how has the typical animations you see on landing pages been achieved? Is it all manual animation via code?

</comment><comment><USER99> If Google decides to couple this up with their cloud services, I wonder what does this announcement mean for Weebly?

</comment><comment><USER100> Why are people accusing google of this really being an ad tool when on their help page they call it an ad tool?

</comment><comment><USER101> [http://html5maker.com](http://html5maker.com) looks more promising...

</comment><comment><USER102> If the Web Designer team are reading this, I would really recommend renaming the tool to ad designer.

</comment><comment><USER103> They should learn a thing or two about marketing Everytime I see a google product - it mentions ads !

</comment><comment><USER104> No Chrome OS version? Disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER105> Well there goes my web design job...

</comment><comment><USER106> Ironically it looks like the UI is a straight design rip from Microsoft's expression suite.

</comment><comment><USER107> Does anyone know what was used to build this? is this using the Chromium Embedded Framework?

</comment><comment><USER108> Makes sense to me.

Easier to make websites --> More websites --> More ads --> More money for Google.

<comment><USER95> That's why google wanted flash on Android at first place , ads+drm. Google always like flash unlike Apple and even ship with it's own Flash plugin.

But Adobe decided Flash was too expensive to maitain on mobile and fired 700 employees and outsourced the rest of the Flash team to india. The remaining employees are now working on Bracket (...). And Sencha is more profitable than Flash division at Adobe.What's left of Macromedia? nothing, They should have stuck with Livemotion and Golive ... lol

The result is that the last version of Flash (CC) has less features than the previous ones ( some drawing tools gone...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> so why did they make this? flipping thru the help docs, seems to be for creating responsive ads (not a surprise I know) -- so they want to kill off flash but maintain the animations and flash ad style things out there for youtube and what not?

<comment><USER110> Ads with animations are more profitable because more people click on them. Since flash is dying, they want an alternative that runs anywhere, so they can display interactive ads anywhere and profit more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> If this thing came from Adobe named Adobe Dreamweaver 2013 nobody would take notice.

</comment><comment><USER112> Finally! A tool to direct people whose websites I don't want to make to use.

</comment><comment><USER113> Oh good, another way for front end developers to avoid learning how to code.

</comment><comment><USER114> Just started taking web design courses, can't wait to give this a try.

<comment><USER115> Be sure to stick with your courses. Understanding the underlying technologies are more important than familiarity with toolsets that come and go. This is just the next phase of a long lineage of web design tools including Hot Dog, Homesite, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc.

Its day too shall come and pass...

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> Hotdog!

</comment><comment><USER117> This is nice, I wish google's web designer was an actual WEB app

</comment><comment><USER118> Would this work as a tool for indie game designers instead of Flash?

</comment><comment><USER119> >that can run on any device >not available for Linux

</comment><comment><USER120> No Linux version Not open source Proprietary file format

</comment><comment><USER121> Had my attention for only three minutes!

</comment><comment><USER122> Why does this use absolute positioning?

<comment> ux-app why not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER123> I wish this were a self-hosed web app.

</comment><comment><USER124> What will be output? WebGL or canvas?

</comment><comment><USER125> Still a desktop app - there you go!

</comment><comment><USER52> Is there a countdown clock yet for when this will be end of lifed?

</comment><comment><USER126> urgh, can't download with linux

</comment><comment><USER127> Please for the love of god less of these generated development tools. I remember having to clean up a frontpage/dreamweaver generated codebase, kill me...

</comment><comment><USER128> comes with rootkits. a typical googleware</comment>


Jaguar Land Rover is building a test fleet of 100 semi-autonomous cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/13/12170612/jaguar-land-rover-self-driving-cars-uk-tests <comment><USER2> I owned a Land Rover Discovery 3 for several years. It was the most unreliable and expensive vehicle I've ever had. The thought of semi-autonomous JLR vehicles on public roads horrifies me.</comment>


Microsoft reorg: the missing answer - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/15/microsoft-reorg-missing-answer-monday-note

<comment><USER2> The thing about declining PCs is ... misleading. Intel has always sold its chips with 10+ years life. As long as you replace some capacitors on the MB, a PC can last a long long time. The whole industry was just lucky they got obsoleted after 6 months. And around 2006 we got PCs that were good enough. So people are replacing less PCs or commissioning them for other roles.

The second blow on MS - they did it themselves. XP showed that an OS can last a decade and Office is stagnating since 1997. So what is the hurry in upgrading?

The PC is very healthy. It is just that it is not profitable. Until we have quarters of declining commissioned PC-s - then we will have to say it is in trouble.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Microsoft reorg: the missing answer:

       {bald white elephant in the room}'

i.e., Not.</comment>


Calendar Alternatives for Linux Users - <AUTHOR> I use i3 (Distro = !important), but I'm struggling to find a good alternative for a calendar manager... I'm using radicale for personal stuff, but need to use outlook calendar for work, and would like to add also google calendars.
Now the important part here, is that I'm looking for something simple, that can minimize to tray. For long I was able to get away with thunderbird and lightning, but it lacks the "minimize to tray" part... I just want to click on the tray and see what's in for today for instance...
Anybody has ideas? <comment><USER2> I'm in the same boat. I've tried a number of packages but they all have flaws:

* GNOME Calendar - ridiculous 100% CPU usage at all times, poor reminder handling, restricted to a few providers

* Thunderbird - poor reminder handling, out of place look/feel, clunky email integration, no minimize to tray

* Wavebox - basically an Electron wrapper around Google Calendar, incredibly expensive for what it does ($120+/year to have a calendar that minimizes to tray)

* Evolution - no longer supported

Of all that I've found, Evolution was my go-to for a long time but its age is showing and it frequently crashes on modern Ubuntu. Wavebox is a good runner up for Google Calendar but the cost is easily an order of magnitude more than the value I get from it, so that's a no go.

I'm very interested in other solutions!

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually thought about looking at evolution, and started to evaluate gnome calendar, but the lack of features and that I can't minimize it to tray, is a big turnoff... :/</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you do now that you'd pay 1000$ for? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> One time fee: IDK. Probably nothing. Thats a hell of a lot of money. I only own two things worth more than that. A car and a computer.

Monthly: Definitely nothing. The only thing even remotely worth that amount that I absolutely need is housing. Odds are, the reason I'm doing "the thing" is to save that $1000. And if I'm not doing it, I obviously won't pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> On demand lawer, bookkeeper , hr person for my company / startup

</comment><comment><USER4> Investing Crypto

</comment><comment><USER5> An assistant.</comment>


MinecraftLANProxy - <AUTHOR>

A father's gift to his daughter - MinecraftLANProxy to help her play Minecraft with her friends.<p>https://github.com/WonderfulVoid/MinecraftLANProxy<p>"I wrote this little hack because my daughter wanted her friends to be able to join her Minecraft worlds even when not on the same LAN." <comment><USER2> Great! How old it's your daughter? I also want mine to play with minecraft, but she's only 7...

<comment><USER3> My 5 year old daughter has been playing since her 4th birthday. Your daughter will do great at Minecraft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm working on easy end user setup of vpn for this use case. Problem is, I don't know much about minecraft. Mind if I ask you a few questions? firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This program was developed by a former colleague for his daughter.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cute! Have you looked into using VPNs?

<comment><USER6> I did some research for VPN solutions but I think they are too complicated to set up (we are talking children here). Also I don't want to open up my whole network to others. With this little hack, I just start a instance of mclanproxy on my network and tell my daughter's friends what to enter in Minecraft's Direct Connect menu.

<comment><USER7> I'm guessing this is Linux only? My other plan was to create a custom minecraft server on a spare PC.

<comment><USER6> mclanproxy is plain C using Berkeley sockets but uses ip_mreq and getopt which seem to be slightly non-standard. Should work on most Unix/POSIX environments I think, possibly cygwin as well.

<comment><USER7> I might give Cygwin a go. Anything more complicated than that is beyond me...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Google Public DNS: A new DNS resolver from Google - <AUTHOR> http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/12/introducing-google-public-dns-new-dns.html <comment><USER2> I'll do a blog post about this later today for those interested in my perspective on them entering the DNS space.

:-)

Edit: Here it is: <http://blog.opendns.com/2009/12/03/opendns-google-dns/>

<comment><USER3> From the blog post: "Third, Google claims that this service is better because it has no ads or redirection. But you have to remember they are also the largest advertising and redirection company on the Internet. To think that Google's DNS service is for the benefit of the Internet would be naive. They know there is value in controlling more of your Internet experience and I would expect them to explore that fully. And of course, we always have protected user privacy and have never sold our DNS data. Here's a link to our privacy policy."

davidu,

You have excellent points but you could have made them without bashing your competitor.

This response makes me think that you are afraid of your competition and using fear to convince people to use OpenDNS.

<comment><USER4> " ... and using fear to convince people to use OpenDNS."

Is the fear justified? Is it plausible enough that people should take it into account when picking a DNS service?

Google's self-interest is a legitimate factor to consider.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is what a quick comparison looks like from NYC (in ms):

                        Level 3   Google   OpenDNS
        lifehacker.com  21        22       19
        facebook.com    20        22       19
        manu-j.com      21        44       42
        reddit.com      30        73       20
        tb4.fr          125       22       157
        bbc.co.uk       103       22       98

The IP's used are 22.214.171.124, 18.104.22.168, and 18.104.22.168, respectively.

Using the script provided here: [http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns- alternative-google-dns-ro...](http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns-alternative- google-dns-rocks/403/)

<comment><USER6> Doing a single query for each domain isn't entirely fair.

        $ dig tb4.fr @220.127.116.11 | grep Query
        ;; Query time: 274 msec
        $ dig tb4.fr @220.127.116.11 | grep Query
        ;; Query time: 9 msec
        $ dig tb4.fr @188.8.131.52 | grep Query
        ;; Query time: 9 msec
        $ dig tb4.fr @220.127.116.11 | grep Query
        ;; Query time: 36 msec

Also, query time only tells you how long the server took to respond, and doesn't include network latency.

<comment><USER7> _Obviously_ subsequent queries are going to be faster - at that point it's cached. That's the point of aggressive/speculative caching: it's so the _first_ (and in practice this will be your _only_ ) query is faster. If you want to accurately average across multiple measurements, you need to space those measurements hours or days apart.

<comment><USER6> What you really want to do is log performance under real conditions over an extended period of time and then evaluate the results.

Given that the differences in query time between various DNS solutions are significant but minor, you will almost certainly find differences in performance that you hadn't thought about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Google Public DNS telephone support * 877-590-4367 in the U.S. * 770-200-1201 outside the U.S."

 _Telephone_ support from Google? At first I thought this might be some kind of joke, but I then called and it's just automated help.

<comment><USER9> Makes sense to have telephone support - I mean, if your DNS is hosed, then web-based support won't do you much good.

<comment><USER10> Make sure to write down the phone number while your DNS is working...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For what it's worth, I've been using Level3's DNS servers for a while now, due to the fact that they have insanely low latencies:

22.214.171.124... 126.96.36.199 (or thereabouts). Not sure what Google's going to have on those. Are they gonna be even more super-duper-fast? I mean, if you look at the line-up of the best DNS servers out there, they're pretty damn fast already:

[http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19982548-DNS-Fastest-DNS- Se...](http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19982548-DNS-Fastest-DNS-Server)

Also, for what it's worth, I've never quite understood why you'd use OpenDNS when level3 have open DNS servers that don't redirect you to their own pages when there's a missing record...

<comment><USER12> I believe those are Verizon DNS servers, actually.

<comment><USER13>
      ~% whois 188.8.131.52

      OrgName:    Level 3 Communications, Inc.
      OrgID:      LVLT
      Address:    1025 Eldorado Blvd.
      City:       Broomfield
      StateProv:  CO
      PostalCode: 80021
      Country:    US

      NetRange:   220.127.116.11 - 184.108.40.206
      CIDR:       220.127.116.11/8
      NetName:    LVLT-ORG-4-8
      NetHandle:  NET-4-0-0-0-1
      Parent:
      NetType:    Direct Allocation
      NameServer: NS1.LEVEL3.NET
      NameServer: NS2.LEVEL3.NET
      Comment:
      RegDate:    1992-12-01
      Updated:    2009-06-19

<comment><USER12> Huh, I thought those were originally GTE's, and that they eventually became Verizon's with all the mergers and name changes. I stand corrected.

<comment><USER14> No, you're spot on.

      184.108.40.206.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net.

Even though the IP space hasn't been SWIP'd to GTE/Verizon, the server(s) behind that IP are evidently theirs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another source of interesting data about internet usage for google. You can find their privacy policy here: <http://code.google.com/speed/public- dns/privacy.html>

Quote from "What we log": "In the permanent logs, we don't keep personally identifiable information or IP information. We do keep some location information (at the city/metro level) so that we can conduct debugging, analyze abuse phenomena and improve the Google Public DNS prefetching feature. We don't correlate or combine your information from these logs with any other log data that Google might have about your use of other services, such as data from Web Search and data from advertising on the Google content network. After keeping this data for two weeks, we randomly sample a small subset for permanent storage."

Even if without any reference to the user that actually visited those sites, mantaining information about the "cluster" of urls visited during a browsing session could form a useful source of data not only to optimize ads and searches, the most obvious use could be build something like a recommendation engine (something that some kind of internet users could like, but i admit that something like this could be useless from the google point of view).

</comment><comment><USER16> The information they gather from this could be the best thing ever for Google. They are now literally going to see how people go from site to site to site and direct ads and content to them based on that. Good move buisness wise Google.

<comment><USER17> Comments like this are pretty common for every new product Google releases, but the fact remains that Google doesn't actually do this.

<http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy.html>

In other words, your comment is anti-Google FUD.

<comment><USER15> From your link : "we randomly sample a small subset for permanent storage." Even if anonymous that data is really valuable as it allows to identify traffic patterns. I don't see anything "evil" in collecting anonymized data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Something to remember be it Google Public DNS or things like Open DNS: Most CDN's use DNS to map you to one of their servers.

E.g.: Assuming your physical location is in Asia/Europe, and let's say you use Open DNS, IP anycast will map you to their London DNS servers ( _Last I checked that's the only location outside of N. America OPEN DNS has servers_ ). Let's say the website you visit is delivered by a CDN, this CDN's servers in London will deliver content to you even though there might be CDN servers in your ISP.

<comment><USER19> That's assuming DNS based geolocation, though. Some CDNs (including Cachefly, who we use) are anycast driven, so it doesn't matter where your DNS servers are located.

<comment><USER18> I know, which is why I said _Most CDN's_.

<comment><USER19> That's not what your post said when I responded. :)

<comment><USER18> It did. Original post had _Most CDN's_.

<comment><USER19> Wow, maybe I just read it wrong. I didn't see anything about DNS in my original reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Quick setup: the DNS servers are 22.214.171.124 and 220.127.116.11

<comment><USER21> 8 is a lucky number. 126.96.36.199 is owned by the US DoD. I love the idea of vanity IP addresses.

<comment><USER22> It's kind of disappointing Google didn't get 184.108.40.206 though.

<comment><USER23> Sadly the 1 block is unallocated, so they would have to make a special request to the IANA to get that address.

Then again, they are Google, so who knows what they could get if they asked...

I'm also curious who Halliburton merged with in order to get the entire 34 block. Surely they weren't around at the time those were handed out so foolishly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I tested this and it is consistently offering better results than OpenDNS and 18.104.22.168. The results are here [http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns-alternative- google-dns-ro...](http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns-alternative-google-dns- rocks/403/)

The results posted are from India

How are the results from inside US ?

<comment><USER2> Where are you located?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If they can blacklist websites from their search engine, they can blacklist them from their DNS entries too. Doesn't this raise some concerns?

<comment><USER26> from the post:

 _Google Public DNS complies with the DNS standards and gives the user the exact response his or her computer expects without performing any blocking, filtering, or redirection that may hamper a user's browsing experience._

<comment><USER27> And, best of all, there's no spammy default site for unresolved names!

<comment><USER28> I would see it as a feature - most of the time Google's (spell|domain) correcting is very useful if I have miswritten something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Using this DNS service will degrade your performance to almost any non-Google rich media content, pure and simple.

If you use Google's DNS service, because Google has your client IP, _they_ can serve your content the fastest from the closest POP, however by using this DNS service you are actually _creating_ an issue called "resolver proximity" for every CDN on the planet. This will be especially evident to those of you not in North America who unwittingly point to these servers.

In most global markets your best strategy is to use your local DNS resolver so the people who deliver everything from Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, ustream, (etc, etc, etc) understand that you're not in San Jose or Northern Virginia but really in Tokyo or Malaysia. If your ISP uses a DNS server that's "far" away from you (in terms of network latency) you should complain loudly.

</comment><comment><USER30> 126.96.36.199 and 22.214.171.124?

Even solely for the fact they are so easy to remember I bet this are going to be the most used DNS resolvers in the world in a few months.

<comment><USER31> _I bet this are going to be the most used DNS resolvers in the world in a few months._

I doubt it. I suspect a good 90% (or even more) of regular users just use the DNS servers provided to them by their ISPs when their connections come up.

<comment><USER32> I would be astounded if 10% of users had ever heard of DNS, much less knew what it was and how to change which one they were using.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's funny, I was thinking just yesterday about how much Comcast's new Domain Helper "service" makes me want to strangle them ([http://blog.comcast.com/2009/08/domain-helper-national- rollo...](http://blog.comcast.com/2009/08/domain-helper-national-rollout- begins.html)).

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone know who provides the bulk of the ads on these re-direct/ad DNS servers that ISPs are using these days? My guess is it's probably not Google or why would they offer an alternative? It sounds like a very clever way to attack their online advertising competition to me. Obviously they'd get into some hot water by trying to compete directly with their own advertising based DNS. Instead they attack the entire market of re-direct/ad DNS by offering a clean alternative that happens to hurt their competition. Very clever. It wouldn't surprise me to see some of the Google software (Toolbar, Chrome, Notifier) offer an option to use Google DNS in the future. For the end user it's a good thing -- for Google's competition it's pretty terrible.

<comment><USER35> Actually, a fair amount of this kind of advertising is Google. Also Yahoo, MS and any number of other providers.

Sure doesn't make DNS hijacking right, though.

<i>Disclaimer: Work for Google.</i>

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A DNS I can actually remember.

A Quick comparison with OpenDNS (shameless plug) <http://chanux.tumblr.com/post/267873772/googledns-vs-opendns>

</comment><comment><USER37> Dangerous Signs? From their FAQ:

>> Is Google Public DNS based on open source software, such as BIND?

>> No. Google Public DNS is Google's own implementation of the DNS standards

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks to be a pretty neat DNS benchmarking tool: <http://code.google.com/p/namebench/>

I think I'm behind a restricted proxy or something (on some hotel WiFi), because it's not really working for me, but I'd be interested to hear others' results.

Compare to Level3's 126.96.36.199-3 and OpenDNS's 22.214.171.124 and 126.96.36.199 (they really need a more memorable IP). Any other good ones?

<comment><USER10> My results run from a SliceHost slice: <https://gist.github.com/00a8976d0b76e796996a>

        Mean response (in milliseconds):
        </comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
         SBC/AT&T Global- ########### 45.11
         OpenDNS-2        ############# 56.75
         OpenDNS          ################ 66.40
         188.8.131.52          ################# 70.29
         22.214.171.124          ###################### 96.20
         UltraDNS-2       ######################## 104.35
         UltraDNS         ######################## 104.68
         Level 3-2        ######################### 106.95
         SYS-220.127.116.11 ########################### 114.93
         SYS-18.104.22.168 ###################################################### 231.97

</comment><comment><USER38> Some comments get clouded in politics and suspicion. If this move has a commercial reason then perhaps it's easily explained as to compete with OpenDNS.

Complaining that a search engine collects information seems crazy: surely that is a sign of a good company. The important thing is choice/competition. Google is a good competitor, whether you like them or not.

</comment><comment><USER39> Previously:

<http://code.google.com/p/google-dnswall/>

</comment><comment><USER40> Distributed internet services is generally considered to be better than centralized ones. Google's entry into this, along with its other services, is beginning to give me pause.

I'm glad they've worked on this, but I think I'll stick with DNS as it was intended to be.

<comment><USER41> The problem is that local ISPs (or national/regional like Comcast) are poisoning the well by resolving non-existent DNS entries to their own advertisement-laden web servers in an attempt to increase their bottom line. At least open DNS servers exist like Level3 (4.2.2.[1-4]) or now Google (22.214.171.124,184.108.40.206)... (and to a lesser extent OpenDNS, which is 'open' but tries to pull some of the same advertisement stuff).

In general, the distributed aspect of DNS was to reduce latency and network traffic. While this might not keep network traffic within your ISP's internal network, it can severely reduce latency even if you're on a large ISP like Comcast/Qwest/TimeWarner. My only guess as to _why_ this appears to be true, is that most ISPs don't really give a crap about their DNS servers just so long as it's still running and hasn't imploded.

<comment><USER40> You're right on all points. However, given Google's entry into this now, what motivation does any ISP have left for running its own DNS servers?

<comment><USER41> Keeping traffic on it's own network vs having all DNS queries making a round- trip between their network and Google's DNS (ala Level3)?

It's not like ISPs have ever needed an excuse to try and 'cut costs' by skimping on services. The difference is a greater majority of their customers use DNS than USENET.

<comment><USER40> DNS doesn't occupy a lot of bandwidth. DNS servers on the other hand can be irksome to deal with if you don't have to.

Small ISPs are merely resellers; if their DSL customers f'rinstance use Google's DNS servers instead of the ISPs, the ISP actually has _less_ network traffic coming into their racks. Plus, they no longer have to admin a DNS server.

For larger ISPs, it may still be less trouble to just let their customers use Google's DNS instead.

<comment><USER41> Point taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Good move. I've been using 126.96.36.199 and 22.214.171.124 for a while now since I found out a few years ago that cable/DSL provider's DNS servers are flaky. It's amazing how often I go to somebody's house or cafe and find DNS to be the weak link.

</comment><comment><USER43>
        dhcp-107:~ 66% host -t ptr 184.108.40.206.in-addr.arpa
        22.214.171.124.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer any-in-0808.1e100.net.
        dhcp-107:~ 67% host -t ptr 184.108.40.206.in-addr.arpa
        Host 184.108.40.206.in-addr.arpa not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

</comment><comment><USER44> They're _not_ listed in <http://www.dnsserverlist.org/indexbeta.php?oby=Q_RTT>

</comment><comment><USER45> It's pretty obvious what Google gets out of this: they get your browsing history. My guess if that they'll uprate search results if lots of people visit them.

</comment><comment><USER46> All I wanna know is: Can I tunnel IP traffic through it? <http://thomer.com/howtos/nstx.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> From a quick test (from NYC), and it seems not at all faster than OpenDNS. Still, a whole lot faster than my ISP's default DNS servers.

<comment><USER47> in NJ, the ping is higher on google's servers than it is for OpenDNS (about 20ms vs 13ms) for me.

<comment><USER26> More interesting than ping is the resolution speed. Try something like dig to get a better measure of real performance:

<http://www.madboa.com/geek/dig/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This comment will only be funny for Swedes that knows who Ulla-Bella is, and what number he/she always dials...

</comment><comment><USER44> <http://twitter.com/googlepublicdns>

</comment><comment><USER49> No way, I like my DNS resolvers to be a little stupid. They know way too much about me.

</comment><comment><USER50> two reactions:

Wow!

Nervous :(

</comment><comment><USER51> wonder how much a vanity ip like that would cost

</comment><comment><USER52> my opinion on why they are doing this.... to track where you are going. and make sure that site is indexed.

</comment><comment><USER53> This was inevitable, and will give OpenDNS some major competition. Google could make tons of money from ads and sponsored results on error pages.

<comment><USER21> Actually the whole point of this is to _not_ redirect error pages. If you read the blog post, you'll see that they address this (and privacy concerns). DNS redirection is pretty evil and I'm proud of Google for working against it.

(Disclaimer - I'm a Google employee, I didn't work on this and my opinions are my own.)

<comment><USER53> Is displaying a "that domain doesn't exist" page considered redirection? Otherwise what would you see in your browser?

I wouldn't say OpenDNS is evil. Offering an ad-supported free service is how many things are allowed to continue existing.

<comment><USER54> Your browser has a built in page for "domain does not exist". Google cannot place ads on it. On the other hand if you set up OpenDNS and then go to "doesnotexit123411452345.com", it will likely redirect you to something like "ads.opendns.com/?search=doesnotexist", which breaks DNS, life and the Universe. OpenDNS provides an option to turn off this type of redirection, but if you have a residential connection with a dynamic IP, all of a sudden that setting might just disappear.

Avoid OpenDNS and IPS's that do this.

<comment><USER40> One of my corporate clients had their ISP move to OpenDNS for DNS services. It caused an endless stream of headaches for me as all of the various scientists employed there started complaining about the OpenDNS result pages (which also broke some other user habits they had -- they were used to being able to type "wikipedia" into Firefox's address bar and be redirected directly to wikipedia, for example).

I couldn't get the ISP to budge and the client didn't want to change ISPs, so I ended up setting everybody up on some public SBC DNS servers I know about.

With all respect due to davidu, this "functionality" in OpenDNS has caused me to feel a raging hatred for it every time its name is mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So how does google benefit from me sending them my dns requests . . . , They can serve me "domain not found pages" w/ads (works for OpenDNS), unless I'm a server. If enough people/servers use it they can control how traffic is sent to specific domains (this would be evil). I don't necessary think my request will be a lot faster adding ms, per extra hop. What I don't like about ISPs is there disregard for TTLs. They set their own TTLs so they don't have to make a new request. With a large distributed cache it could mean less hops, I'd love to see a diagram of their dns infrastructure. I've used 22.214.171.124 - 188.8.131.52 (level3) in the past.

<comment><USER55> So I thought about a bit. Google is not interested in redirection $$. They want to own the experience. As far as collecting your browsing behavior, they probably can easily do that with the toolbar. There operating systems can benefit from having geoDNS ip responses. Anyone know if this was a project worked on using the 20% do what you like google perk?

If google decided to do something evil. ISP can easily redirect port 53 udp/tcp traffic to their own servers.</comment></comment>


If You Don't Date Your Work It Sucks (date as in time, not as in romance) - <AUTHOR> http://www.protocolostomy.com/2010/01/18/if-you-dont-date-your-work-it-sucks/

<comment><USER2> One compelling reason to not date your articles is that age sometimes destroys perceived value even if it doesn't destroy actual value.

For example, I have a bunch of stuff writing about customer service written in 2006/2007. That field has not evolved so much that "Don't curse at your customers" is bad advice in 2009. However, if one of those were posted here, the first comment would likely be "Dude, mark in the title this is from 2006", because the audience here is socialized to assume that the new and shiny is what they want to be exposed to and the old and crusty is largely not valuable with the exception of a few classics.

I have sites where I have no visible dates for exactly that reason: I intend the content to be evergreen, and if it is evergreen you don't need to know what year it was planted. (Edit to add context: elementary school teaching activities. I am not a textbook publisher so I have no incentive for ripping up my multiplication activity every year and coming out with New Shiny Multiplication 2010 Now With Numbers You Totally Couldn't Have Multiplied Last Year!)

<comment><USER3> Shouldn't the judge of evergreen-ness be from the reader, and not the author? If it really is timeless, people will come back and link to it again and again. I see the Norvig posts on learning to program in 10 years come up again and again here.

It sounds like if you wrote books instead of blog posts, you'd rip the covers off so readers can't judge it by its cover.

<comment><USER2> Why rip covers off when I can instead obsessively A/B test them and remove elements that hurt the business value of the IP I spent so much work creating, like dates?

Here's the fundamental difference between me-as-employee and me-as- businessman: I will get paid for my labor of January 19th on February 30th, and will never see another penny of it even if what I do today has lasting value. What I do after I get home, though, I get paid for every year if it has lasting value. I will not cheat myself out of that lasting value by setting an auto-expires header on it.

<comment><USER3> I've had the same frustration as the OP where the date wasn't included when I was looking for time-sensitive information. It was a disservice to me-as- reader, and I ended up not reading the article and looking elsewhere, since I couldn't be sure of its timeliness.

If that article was timeless, it's because I hear about it again and again from other readers linking to it, not because there was no date on it.

Of course, I don't know what you write, nor have I seen the results of your a/b testing. So shrug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"... What happens when you don't date your articles? ..."_

I read a lot of articles and going through through them is a bit like undertaking an archeology dig for useful bits of information. The best sites include subtle hints that convey context. Useful if you are evaluating, _"do I continue reading?"_

How?

Authoritative sites are good because they convey more meaning than just an article. They tell you _"who"_ is writing, _"when"_ it was written and most important their viewpoint and intent, the _"where"_. You find this out using subtle hints.

Date is an important clue for understanding context. Writers who don't including perceived affordances such as date, mark themselves as the writer equivalent of a first time ice skater constantly tripping over. A writer newbie, who doesn't grasp the concept of readers who use context to search and evaluate. Some sites where I have found a motherload of stuff:

\- <http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/>

\- <http://htmlarchive.scripting.com/>

\- <http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/>

\- <http://paulgraham.com/articles.html>

\- <http://www.avc.com/a_vc/archives.html>

I read these sites again and again, because the value of the posts are increased by the _"perceived affordance"_ of details such as the date a post was written.

</comment><comment><USER5> Now I want to display a random date to each viewer of my blog, and record that date when they make a comment. Then I will see if the commentary changes based on the date they think the article was published. (The dates on the comments will also be changed randomly.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Same thing applies to tutorials which don't mention version numbers and such...

</comment><comment><USER7> Depends on the content. If you're dealing with broad timeless subjects dating isn't a big issue. You could read an article 50 years old dealing with male/female relationships and get some value out of it. If you're dealing with technical issues, or any subject that moves fast, it's more than a little irresponsible not to date your work. I've personally hosed multiple Linux systems trying to follow old out of date HOWTOs. I know better now of course but I still have to filter through hundreds of outdated results for almost any technical search I do these days.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'll add here that more people should date comments in code! Don't know how many of you are collaborating on projects, but It's a personal pet peeve of mine to see something like:

      // Updated for the new login system

...which of course has other problems too, but it's really annoying to try to figure things out when comments are out of date.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another thing to consider is that dated publications may help in the future if someone accuses you of stealing their idea (or vice versa).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> On a related note update the copyright date on your websites to 2010! I updated ours at JTV on Friday, Youtube is so 2009 :-)

<comment><USER10> Just make it automatic.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is of course the correct solution ;-)

<comment><USER11> I also do this. But, theoretically, it's not entirely legal. In other words, if you have a piece of content which has not been changed, but for which you've "automatically" updated the copyright date, you are basically lying about when the content was created. Not sure how this affects any future standing you may have. It's also not really a concern for a reasonably dynamic site, including things like JTV.

<comment><USER9> Untested hypothesis: maybe adding some nearly-trivial randomized content, such as a quote from a public domain quote database, can allow you to claim a new copyright each time the page is served?

<comment><USER12> Can you legally do something like 2009- _2010_ where the year in italics is updated automatically?

<comment><USER10> I think this amounts to something like _(c) Current_. I do not think it is legal! But maybe there is a way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Articles lacking a last-modified date are annoying as well—'About' pages are a classic case in point.

</comment><comment><USER14> Agreed.

Wayback machine is another strategy to date articles. <http://www.archive.org/>

</comment><comment><USER15> I feel the same way as the auther. It drives me nuts when I'm reading something and I don't know the time context it was written in.

</comment><comment><USER16> I completely agree and I can't help but think that it relates to "The Last Responsible Moment" approach to decision making where delay = more current data, so if an article has no date, its value is seriously suspect.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you don't date at work, it also sucks (romance, not time)

:D In all seriousness, people spend a ridiculous % of their lives at work, sometimes it happens, and sometimes it works out!</comment>


America Is Officially in 'Fuck It' Mode - <AUTHOR> https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/america-is-officially-in-fuck-it-mode/ <comment><USER2> This is rather un-motivational to those of us actively stopping the spread by staying home. We can chastise those who fail to fall in line, or we can praise those who are choosing to do the right thing, and focusing on the latter may be more beneficial. Doom-and-gloom headlines make one ponder "Why bother?" and further incentivize not trying, which is the opposite of what's needed at this time.

<comment><USER3> > This is rather un-motivational to those of us actively stopping the spread > by staying home.

Newsflash - staying inside is unhealthy and spread of the virus is _more likely_ indoors. Using a mask and practicing social distancing outside is in fact healthy and low-risk.</comment></comment>


Notes on the Google SRE book - <AUTHOR> https://danluu.com/google-sre-book/ <comment><USER2> I had sent an email to my team last week about the book. I'll pass this on, thank you.</comment>


Need your feedback on my startup: tubri.com - <AUTHOR>

How do we live in our real life? Do we behave same with everyone we know? Do my co-workers get to know what I'm talking with my family or friends? Never.
We live in groups. Different groups and different relations. All current social networks on the web allow you to keep only one group of all the people you know. Thats how they are designed. So any update/photos you share, gets visible to ALL. This is where many people stop socializing online.
We have developed a new kind of social network: tubri.com which is based on real-life groups. It allows you to create separate groups of people and interact with them differently, send them different updates or photos.
For example: No one in group "friends" can see what you are talking about in "family" group or other groups unless they are a member of that group too.
1. Groups are personal and no one gets to know which groups you have created or which group you have kept them in. 2. No need to send any group join invitations to anyone, just arrange your people.
Here is a short video explaining Tubri:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVg3lN8UHcA <comment><USER2> I think it would have been easier to give you feedback if you hadn't tried to explain it to us first - that way, we could have a look at your site and give you feedback from the perspective of a new user, rather than someone who is already educated about the product.

That said, I really like the idea of being able to separate friends and family from colleagues and clients. Unfortunately, it's not compelling enough to make me and my 200 or so "friends" (and their friends, and their friends friends) on Facebook all jump ship to a new service.

Perhaps it would be better released as an app for Facebook that handles friends groups and post privacy settings for you in an easier to manage way.

(you did know, that this pretty much already exists in Facebook didn't you?)

</comment><comment><USER3> A few things:

1) The intro video is amateurish and uncompelling -- nobody wants to see a deck poorly animated with black bars on the side.

2) The web design needs some work. I'd recommend hiring someone with more modern sensibilities/tastes to redesign the front page. There are little things: the first signup button isn't centered, the bottom one is way too small and laid out wrong.

3) "Wait, does Facebook do that?" Answer this question, clearly.

4) Show your product. I should be able to see it, get a taste of it without signing up for it (this matters more in the beginning/without network effects which is where you're at).

5) What are your USPs? What is Facebook not doing? The major two problems are context collapse, which you're addressing, and privacy. Think about addressing that as well. That was the major reason for the fundraising success of Diaspora. Their home page is closer to how a landing page should look in 2010 as well: <http://www.joindiaspora.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks AmitinLA, your suggestions are quite helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Three things will help you immensely:

1) Screenshots of the features you describe below

2) A section that shows all the members you already have (show their profile pictures)

3) A new video. Make it shorter, more punchy, put in some sound, and some better animation. I suggest that you look at Wistia's video: <http://wistia.com>. I took inspiration from their video, because it seemed like anyone with no background in video editing/design can come up with a Wistia-like introductory video. But it's simple, short, and tells people what they need to know, which is what I like about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your suggestions fezzl. Would surely try these.

We have made some changes to the homepage, explaining privacy protection and some common QA.

Would like to know your thoughts on the changes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I agree with social groups being interesting, how is this different than making a 'list' on Facebook?

<comment><USER6> how do you say that my next wall post should be only viewable to list "Family"? Or the album I posted can only be viewed by a certain list?

<comment><USER5> For status updates, to the left of the share button there's a dropdown menu where you can customize who can see it.

If you're trying to write on someone else's wall, but only want certain people to view it, you're better off sending a message instead. You can send a message to a list by just typing in the name of the list in the 'to' field.

You can customize who can see any album in the edit album info tab, and selecting the privacy dropdown and clicking customize.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi _harr, there are only these options available while posting a status update: everyone, friends of friends, friends. And an option to customize further with lots of steps involved. The lists you create don't get visible there. Though this can be changed in just one night by FB, but that would still be an addon. The difference is in focus.

In tubri, we are focusing completely on human relations (groups) and its visible everywhere in the network.

For the wall case, we don't have any wall/scrapbook in Tubri, because we believe a user should use Private Messages for that purpose.

With groups thing as the foundation of the network, there will be more redesigns of the existing approaches to make it look more like real life network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is short presentation on how tubri protects user's social privacy: [http://www.slideshare.net/jeet232/how-tubri-protects-your- so...](http://www.slideshare.net/jeet232/how-tubri-protects-your-social- privacy)

</comment><comment><USER7> Clickable: <http://www.tubri.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Groups is a social network feature that I definitely think is valuable. But, is it enough to get anyone to move to a new social network? Are you at all afraid that Facebook might just release this feature one night?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi vyrotek. This group concept is not a feature which can be integrated in any social network so easily. For this, a social network would have to make heavy changes (not technical) which gets difficult because users are used to of their old design.

In tubri.com, we have designed the whole network based on this groups concept. But we are trying to make a network which is like real life, which people find complementary to real socialization. This groups concept is a start.</comment></comment>