Safari browser growth outpaces Chrome in July - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/01/safari-browser-growth-outpaces-chrome-in-july/ <comment><USER2> Does this have something to do with the release of Lion? Maybe most of the users who upgraded decided to try Safari for awhile to see what changed?

</comment><comment><USER3> _"That's the largest single increase in a single month for Safari, with iOS devices making up more than a third of the usage for the browser"_

So they're adding the iOS browser numbers and making it sound as if it's the same browser and therefore its market share grew.

I find that very misleading. It reminds me of when Asymco added the iPad growth rate (which was something like 200% bigger from a year before) with Mac sales growth rate, which were something like 20% or whatever, and then saying "Apple computers had a growth of 220% year over year!". Very misleading, but it's actually pretty common for Asymco to do this. But what worries me is that I've seen other sites employ this tactic of adding iOS browser share+Safari and calling it one and the same, and then even arguing that it's outpacing Chrome!

The browsers are not the same and they shouldn't be counted together, but if at one point they become pretty much the same, then at least they should do it count their share across _all_ platforms for all browsers, not just Safari.

<comment><USER4> I think if you're going to call Asymco "misleading" then you should, at least, cite the specific article by URL.

I have found them to do a very good job of adding proper labels and caveats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I moved back from Chrome to Safari after installing Lion. Mostly because I'm a sucker for eye candy and the back/forward gestures with page sliding effect are absolutely great. I might return to Chrome soon though as there are couple of things that annoy me in Safari. a lot.</comment>


At Doomed Flight's Helm, Pilots May Have Been Overwhelmed in Seconds - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/world/asia/indonesia-plane-crash-last-moments.html <comment><USER2> They say that most accidents are a sequence of several failures, but from what's in this article it sure seems to me like 100% Boeing's fault.

If the only maintainence problem with this aircraft was a broken sensor, then that is almost irrelevant because sensors can break during flight too.

If it's really true that a mere broken sensor can cause the computer to ram the aircraft into the sea, then someone at Boeing really fucked up. Where are the redundancies and sanity checks?

<comment><AUTHOR> From my complete layperson perspective, this flawed-sensor/autopilot failure feels even more inexplicable than Tesla's Autopilot failing to stop for stationary objects. In the latter case, I can grasp how it's difficult -- or at least an open-ended problem to train a system to distinguish such objects in real time. But the heuristics for stable flight seem much more bound to hard-coded heuristics and physical facts -- isn't there a calculable, mostly- predictable limit -- for any given altitude -- to how much a plane can correct for a stall by nosediving. And when this limit is approached, shouldn't the plane's autopilot cede more control to the human pilot, if there's no indication that the pilot is otherwise incapacitated?

But it sounds like there's still a lot of unknowns about sensor readings and chain of events -- for all we know, it's possible the plane made a reasonable auto-correction, but the pilots misinterpreted the sensor readings and inadvertently caused the plane to go into an uncontrollable dive. Given that this is the Boeing 737 Max 8's first major crash, and it happens to be with one of the most unsafe budget airlines, it seems premature to say Boeing is at 100% fault. OTOH, 1 crash/189 deaths of a new plane, of a model that has had just 2 years of service so far, is not a statistic that justifies giving Boeing the automatic benefit of the doubt.

edit: Also, the Lion Air plane was said to have had the same major glitch with its airspeed indicator in all of its 4 final flights [0]. Even if Boeing's design is found to have shortcomings, Lion Air choosing to _not_ ground the plane despite 4 consecutive flights of buggy behavior is a huge indictment of its safety culture.

[0] [https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/airlines/a24568956/l...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/airlines/a24568956/lion- air-flight-jh-160-red-flag/)

<comment><USER3> > isn't there a calculable, mostly-predictable limit -- for any given altitude > -- to how much a plane can correct for a stall by nosediving. And when this > limit is approached, shouldn't the plane's autopilot cede more control to > the human pilot, if there's no indication that the pilot is otherwise > incapacitated?

There is, but there will always be a dependency on sensors to feed the input values into these funcitons. Modern flight computers are far better at pretty much any flying task than humans. Other than communicating wiht traffic control and raising/lowering the flaps and gear (none of which are absolutely necessary), a modern airliner can take off, cruise and land entirely on its own, with no human intervention.

I agree that it's probably a combination of bad maintenance, a not quite perfectly fault-tolerant system design and human error of the pilots. One factor that hasn't been mentioned is that even the newest versions of the 737 contain ancient, obsolete technology. A newer airliner will probably have more redundant and more fault-tolerant systems.

<comment><USER4> > Other than communicating wiht traffic control and raising/lowering the flaps > and gear (none of which are absolutely necessary), a modern airliner can > take off, cruise and land entirely on its own, with no human intervention.

Yeah no. This is obvious patent nonsense.

Relevant: I am a licensed pilot

<comment><USER5> A single operator handles multiple military drones. A large part of this is they can takeoff and fly to a specific location, and or land from a specific location on their own.

Their are many reasons a 747 is not setup to do this is, but it's not technology that difficult. Ex: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland)

<comment><USER6> Just because other aircraft can to this today does not mean "a modern airliner can". No modern airliner currently has the capability to make remote controlled flights.

<comment><USER7> Hm. Autopilots have been able to fly the whole plane for decades, from runway to runway. They're not permitted for whatever reason; there has to be a pilot in the seat. But honestly for most flights of airliners (not even just modern ones) the autopilot is in control almost all of the time.

Can they be remotely operated? I'm thinking putting a plane into autopilot has to be a remote operation by now. Its so trivial, how can they have left that out?

<comment><USER8> They can't and don't fly runway to runway by themselves because even the smallest problem/perturbation/deviation from the norm knocks the plane out of the higher levels of automation and requires a human to intervene. The automation is great at making small adjustments to keep a plane flying stable, but give it a complicated, unknown airframe and it would fail miserably

<comment><USER7> CatIIIb can surely land, even with fog or other perturbations

<comment><USER8> Fog yes, but one of the three redundant guidance units malfunctioning? No. In fact, pretty much any hardware problem or malfunction will prohibit CatIIIb landing, which is common in current aviation. Craft will regularly fly with "minor" hardware or sensors in an inop status.

Basically to let the plane land itself, first the stars have to align

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I recall the prior discussion in HN correctly, the flight path was abnormal well before the impact. This contradicts somewhat that it was a surprise nose dive. Also, the pilot asked for return to the departure airport without indicating an emergency. The last discussion speculated somewhat about unsafe center of gravity which I found more convincing. We'll see.

</comment><comment><USER10> It seems to me that aircraft with a lot of automation should have a single big red button to turn it all off.

In most situations, of course, the automation is good, preventing pilot errors like stalling or exceeding safe control inputs, but these are fundamentals that every pilot learns in the first few hours of flight training. Unlike some fighters that are inherently unstable, a 737 can be flown safely without the computer overriding the pilot's control inputs so long as the pilot flies reasonably.

I've had a similar experience in a car. Antilock brakes are designed to override an erroneous control input: braking too hard for the available traction. In the event of a wheel speed sensor malfunction, they can override a reasonable control input: moderate braking well within the limits of the available traction. This is _terrifying_ , and there's no way to override it in the moment. It can, however be overridden in most cars by pulling out the fuse for the ABS.

<comment><USER11> There are risks associated with an aircraft having different operation "modes" as well. For example, in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447) the aircraft detected that some of its sensors were no longer working, and switched into a more manual mode of operation, with appropriate warnings to the pilots. The pilots couldn't get their heads around this, and stalled the plane into the sea.

<comment><USER10> No doubt, though I think a compounding factor here is the automatic switching between modes. The pilots didn't seem to understand what the plane was doing and why.

A reasonable response in that situation might be to hit the big red button, removing any question about the behavior of the flight controls. It may not have been enough in this scenario, as the pilots didn't seem to be paying appropriate attention to the angle of attack indicator, which was apparently functioning and clearly indicating a stall, but it may have put them in the right frame of mind to correct the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If this was an anti-stall manuver, wouldn't they have been given a cue from the auditory warnings and the stick shaker as to what was about to happen? I know that stick pushers (that literally take the yoke out of your hands) are common on these aircraft, but I'd be surprised if it was actually so strong that a human could not overcome it.

<comment><USER13> Stick shakers aren't a fix. The pilot in the Colgan air accident kept pulling back even though the plane activated the stick pusher; he kept pulling back until that disengaged.

Even the best designed plane will eventually meet a pilot that can fly it out of the air.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find it weird that the article tries to blame everyone EXCEPT Boeing. This appears to be clearly Boeing's fault and the article smells like a shoddy PR damage control attempt.

<comment><USER15> I want to add to that:

> "The problem is, the less-desirable airlines are the ones with the least > resources that are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of human > resources," said Martin Craigs, the chairman of Aerospace Forum Asia, an > industry advocacy group in Hong Kong.

Fuck you, NYTimes Journalist, for including this quote in a story that seems to inescapably point at a combination of Boeing equipment failure and Lion Air's upper management.

<comment><USER16> Note: somewhere around the second paragraph I realised this is very indirectly relevant, if at all.

I think poor working conditions in the Asian textile industry is a relevant analogy.

A textile factory collapses due to inexcusabe management decisions or incompetence. The management pulled the trigger, so to speak. However, it's the abusive dynamic of the free-market that incentivised management to cut costs to sustain the business. If they had not met the price offered by the big brands, the contract would go to someone else, i.e. there's an abundance of low-cost supply.

In the Asian textile market, the manufacturers, working at thin margins, are incentivised to cut costs to unreasonable levels, because they'd lose business. The local regulators are incentivised to not regulate, because the demand would move to another jurisdiction.

My point is that sometimes, there's two sides to the guilty coin. There's the isolated incident and the general atmosphere that breeds those incidents.

I can not relate this to the topic of Asian airlines, but you might find this interesting nonetheless.

<comment><USER17> that doesn't make sense, surely the average airline customer prefers being unable to afford a flight over dying in one.

inability to compete does not justify negligence

Edit: I agree with your remarks about the textile industry though, the customer does not feel the death and destruction for the workers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How bad was the problem of stalls that Boeing needed to add this aurocortect feature, given that it has caused critical events on multiple occasions?

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if these aircraft contain any accelerometers, and if they do, how many?

<comment><USER20> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9pvG_ZSnCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9pvG_ZSnCc)

I don't know how much an accelerometer would help. See, you can be upside down and still feel like gravity is pointing downward depending on the flight conditions.

<comment><USER21> With an accelerometer and gyro, one can "dead reckon" to know the groundspeed and angle of attack. Augment with GPS and those results can be near perfect. Sign the GPS data and have a clock onboard the aircraft and it can't be spoofed. Combine with weather predictions delivered from a satellite and I bet you could get enough information to fly a plane with no external sensors at all.

The whole "sensors were broken" thing should never be a reason for a plane to crash if this alternate mode of flying is possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reading through the report via the NYT reminds me strongly of Junger's _The Perfect Storm_ and it's description of the last minutes of the Jolly 110. Specifically: Task-Saturation.

For reference to set-up the situation[0]:

"On 30 Oct. 1991, United States Air Force Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk, assigned to the 106th Rescue Wing, nicknamed the Jolly 110, New York Air National Guard, headed out into a hurricane that would become known as "The Perfect Storm." Aboard were Major C. David Ruvola, pilot; Captain Graham Buschor, co- pilot; Staff Sergeant James R. Mioli, flight engineer; and pararescue jumpers Technical Sergeant John Spillane and Technical Sergeant Arden Rick Smith. Their mission was to attempt a rescue 250 miles (400 km) out to sea.

Due to the severity of the storm—a weather buoy located 264 miles (425 km) south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, reported a wave height of 100.7 ft (30.7 m) on 30 Oct., the highest ever recorded in that part of the Atlantic Ocean—the Pave Hawk crew was unable to make the rescue and had to return to their base.

Having already refueled from the Lockheed HC-130 Hercules tanker three times during the mission, and with low fuel, a fourth refueling was needed for the helicopter to make it back to the mainland. Because of the the extreme turbulence and lack of visibility, Jolly 110 could not make contact with the refueling drogue trailing behind the airplane.

Major Ruvola made more than 30 attempts, but finally both drogues had been damaged by the severe conditions. With just twenty minutes of fuel remaining, Jolly 110 would have to ditch in the middle of "The Perfect Storm.""

Now, from _The Perfect Storm_ :

"Ruvola finally breaks out of the clouds at 9:28, only two hundred feet above the ocean. He goes into a hover and immediately calls for the ditching checklist, which prepares the crew to abandon the aircraft. They have practiced this dozens of times in training, but things are happening so fast that the routines start to fall apart.(Aside: for a good look into the _utter chaos_ of helicopter underwater egress, see this video from SmaterEveryday[1]) Jim Mioli has trouble seeing in the dim cabin lighting used with the night vision gear, so he can't locate the handle of the nine-man life raft. By the time he finds it, he doesn't have time to put on his Mustang survival suit. Ruvola calls three times for Mioli to read him the ditching checklist, but Mioli is too busy to answer him, so Ruvola has to go through it by memory. One of the most important things on the list is for the pilot to reach down and eject his door, but Ruvola is working too hard to remove his hands from the controls. In military terminology he has become 'task saturated' and the door stays on. " (pg 184, _The Perfect Storm_ , S. Junger)

Now, those Lion Air pilots had better weather, much better, but the time in which they had to react was much less. Though I know nothing about how those cockpits are set-up and what the protocols are, there is a strange similarity to the Jolly 110 ditching and 'Task Saturation'.

[0] [https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/30-october-1991/](https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/30-october-1991/)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-53kaP6dZeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-53kaP6dZeI)</comment>


The Pixel Factory - <AUTHOR> http://acko.net/files/gltalks/pixelfactory/online.html <comment><USER2> What is not ready for mobile devices, is not ready for the Web , nowadays.</comment>


From exec to indie: One family's wild ride ends today with debut of dream game - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/25/from-executive-to-indie-developer-one-familys-wild-ride-ends-today/

<comment><USER3> What happens behind the scenes of articles like that? Just to be clear, I am very happy for this guy that he took the indie leap and is shipping, and I hope his game does great.

But why is there a 2 page article about it in a semi-high profile blog? Neither him nor his wife has previous fame from past projects; the game's twitter (@druidsduel) has less than 1k followers, they didn't do a Kickstarter or something crazy that would have brought the spotlight, etc. I follow a fair amount of indie game devs, and hadn't heard about this until today.

So again - congrats to him on shipping! All the best! But there are many indies following that route (saying the market is saturated would be an understatement), and they don't get 2 page articles. What's going on here?

The only thing I can think of is that he has a publisher, which is unusual for first time indie game devs, and that perhaps the publisher just knows the right people to make stuff like this happen.

<comment><USER4> Slow news day... human interest.

(Yeah, I'm jealous, trying to hustle my game's launch with dozens of indie blogs got me almost nowhere...)

<comment><USER5> I skimmed your HN comments and personal site but didn't find any mention of a game. Are you hiding details somewhere I'm not looking?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey everyone! This is Kris Szafranski (@druidsduel), the guy in the article.

I have often wondered the very same things, so hopefully I can remove the mystery here for others.

There is nothing particularly special about my story. It's something of a combo of what wallflower and GuiA wrote already: opportunity, making connections, and tons of hard work.

I have a publisher, Surprise Attack Games. They contacted me after seeing the game on IndieDB.com. This was after the Kickstarter, which was indeed very small. The KS was my experiment in self-marketing, something I have very little experience with and in the end it got funded, but it was a struggle and a dose of reality. I hired PR help during the KS as I knew very few people in the industry media directly and social media only gets you so far. I also started attending as many local meet-ups as I could, getting to know the game dev community around me. They had amazing advice and support.

Surprise Attack is an indie publisher and I am not a Big Client. I thought my odds were best with a publisher and the deal didn't come with any advance or other investment. So aside from the KS, the game is self-funded. I only went with the Surprise Attack after we agreed that Steam would be included. Until then, it was more of a distribution deal, which they publically offer to indies on their website.

The publisher used a well-known gaming PR person to handle the release. We pitched the author of the article two ideas and she liked them, combining them in a general human-interest type thing. A similar story ran locally last year in Minneapolis where I am based. My former gig was at a popular local company and my work their gained me supporters. This past experience has helped me a ton at having the confidence in networking and talking about my game.

In the end it's just one article and my game's success or failure is still very much up in the air. I just followed others' advice: talk about your game all the time, to everyone. Know your audience and make them something they want to play.

I'll happily answer any other questions you have have.

</comment><comment><USER7> Howdy folks!

I am the PR guy that Kris mentioned that set up this interview and feature.

I understand that most people think that there's some kind of nepotism going on, and in fact sometimes this really is how an industry (any industry) works. Not in this case, but I understand why you'd jump to that conclusion.

So why this game? Why this guy? Well the answer is in part because it is important to run this kind of article now and then to remind everyone that it ISN'T always about the guy who has all the connections or about the company with the billions of dollars to spend.

Games, especially indie games, are about the PEOPLE behind them. You are all correct that basically this article could have been about practically ANY indie (I work hard for my clients in hopes of making them the target) - <USER2> the important thing is the article its self gets published to remind us that for at least one person a game is more than a game, it is a statement, it is a life change, it is a dream come true.

In short, I believe this article is to say that in our days of ever increasing hype and flash that there's a human behind the scenes making what he loves and that GamesBeat is strong enough to talk about it. Plus the game is pretty damn good :D

-Joe Lieberman Indie Game PR Guy

</comment><comment><USER8> Cool, looks like a re-imagining of Archon...</comment>


We're in a new age of obesity. How did it happen? (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/15/age-of-obesity-shaming-overweight-people <comment><USER2> Sugar and refined flour.

It's not a mystery, people. Only a conspiracy.</comment>


Big Trouble at 3nm - <AUTHOR> https://semiengineering.com/big-trouble-at-3nm/ <comment><USER2> 3 nm is nuts. I used to perform molecular dynamics simulations in boxes that were 10 nm on each side. You can count the atoms lined up within 3 nm of space.

<comment><USER3> The actual gate pitch of a 7nm process is 54nm, and the interconnect pitch is 40nm. Though the name is "7nm", it's far from it.

<comment><USER4> The way I (not EE) understand it the size of a process considers just one dimension. So transistors can be tightly packed along that axis and less tightly packed along the other axis of a wafer.

Have the gate pitch / interconnect in the range of 40-54nm hit a more difficult limit than the 7nm aspect? It seems like there is significant space for improvement in those dimensions where you could still double density. Should process nodes be referred to as 7nm x 54nm where new generations drop gate pitch too?

Is there something inherent to the process that fixes the other dimensions when you have a "7nm" node for that particular metric?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where does the increase in Software expenses for IC Design stem from? [https://semiengineering.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/06/nano3...](https://semiengineering.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/06/nano3.png)

<comment><USER6> Good question. That's a strange graph in general. I think most items have little to do with the node choice.

From the article:

> The $1.5 billion figure involves a complex GPU at Nvidia

I think the graph shows how much it costs a company in total to design a chip at different nodes. In general, chip vendors add more functionality with each generation. That seems to be what the graph shows.

The article says the graph comes from International Business Strategies. Their web page tells me to install Flash, which was enough to prevent me looking further:

[http://www.ibs-inc.net/#!reports](http://www.ibs-inc.net/#!reports)

Also, someone should tell them that IBS stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems that Intel already is in the Big Trouble at 10nm, so 3nm seems even more unrealistic goal.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is decreasing the spacing of gates and increasing the density of chips the only way to squeeze more performance out of chips?

<comment><USER9> It's not just decreasing spacing.

It's decreasing wire resistance and gate capacitance. That's what makes the most difference. It is also about making things cheaper, because your costs are constant for a wafer, but the use is measured by gate count.

That said, things are not that simple for a long time already.

<comment><USER10> Wire and contact resistance has been steadily increasing and FinFETs actually increased gate capacitance.

<comment><USER9> As I said, things have not been that simple for a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> TL;DR: FinFETs are running out of steam without a powerful "scaling booster"* so GAA-FETs ?, wires suck and continue to suck and development costs are going up so let's misrepresent that and use ridiculous numbers for it.

*Debatable: [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7890390/](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7890390/)</comment>


Ask HN: Good, Affordable Work-from-Home Setup? - <AUTHOR> I will be working from home for at least 4 weeks as a result of COVID-19.  At work I have a wide monitor and a spacious desk.  At home I have a pretty tiny desk and no external monitor.<p>What kind of setups do people have at home, enjoy, or recommend?  As it will be primarily used on a short-to-medium-term basis, I'm looking for a setup that when all of this is over, will not go to waste. <comment><USER2> you're in luck, the new generation the Ryzen [3,5,9] 3000 series CPUS and X570 chipset motherboards are finally breaking the generational gap. A decade ago I got an i7 desktop and it serves me well today. These new systems look to be (a) worth the upgrade, in terms of better performance, and (b) hopefully well made enough that some might last out another decade.

I don't know if Intel will manage to blight innovation and keep the market static as they have the last decade, or if the "upgrade cycle" will begin to make sense again down the road.

Also: 4k monitors are worth the price. Pixels will make you happy.

Finally, I advise spending at least twice what you initially think necessary for the mouse, keyboard, etc ancillary interface stuff. People skimp on these and then spend years with a crappy keyboard and growing RSI. Buy the good monitor stand and the wide mouse mat or fancy trackball or whatever.</comment>


Ask HN: What Mail Server Do You Use? - <AUTHOR>

Hey Hackers,
I am looking to move some of my personal projects and portfolio site from WebFaction over to DigitalOcean. Right now I use WebFactions mail servers for a few of my custom domains.
And was wondering what you guys use for mail servers. Do you use a hosted mail server, or do you host your own? Free, Paid or open source? Any recommendations for a small scale email server to use?
Thanks guys! <comment><USER2> I use postfix, self hosted with some outside assistance.

Yesterday swombat pointed this out to me:

[https://github.com/al3x/sovereign](https://github.com/al3x/sovereign)

There might be something in there for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya that project looks awesome. There are a few things he has I don't think I will run, but I think I'll start with it and go from there. Thanks man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Mandrill gives you 12000 free email transaction per month. On top of that, they offer integration with MailChimp. Therefore, I recommend mandrill!

[http://mandrill.com/](http://mandrill.com/)

<comment><USER4> Anyone knows if something like this exists for python?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the late response. But from looking at the Madrill site, it looks like the API is a RESTful API so you should be able to use it with Python. And also should be possible to build a Python wrapper for it.

EDIT: And as I clicked on another link, it looks like they already have a Python wrapper built. Check out [https://mandrillapp.com/api/docs/index.python.html](https://mandrillapp.com/api/docs/index.python.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dovecot on an Arch DigitalOcean droplet. Then pull the mail into GMail for ease of use and because I don't trust my own sys-admin skills not to blow up in my face.

<comment><USER6> Do you pay anything for the gmail integration?

<comment><USER5> No, you can add POP3 accounts to Gmail

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.hmailserver.com/](http://www.hmailserver.com/) works really well

</comment><comment><USER8> Postfix. Self-hosted for privacy/confidentiality.</comment>


Customizing the Cocoa (OS X) Text System [2006] - <AUTHOR> http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw that it was news to at least one HN reader that ctrl-a can be used to navigate to the beginning of the line in a shell. I suppose there may be quite a few OS X users who aren't aware of the flexibility of OS X's text fields.</comment>


Going Beyond Rejection Therapy with Accuracy Therapy - <AUTHOR> http://samsnyder.com/2011/01/10/going-beyond-rejection-therapy-with-accuracy-therapy/

<comment><USER2> I think accuracy in prediction happens when you're exposed to a lot of information in aggregate over a long period of time. You begin to see attitudes change and trends unfold at their earliest stages, sometimes even beforehand (backlashes to a popular concept for example).

It's more subconscious than conscious. You just have to let all this information wash over you. There's no way you can mentally grapple with it all.

<comment><USER3> Even if it's subconscious, if one could come up with a way to measure this "accuracy in prediction", I think it could be trainable.</comment></comment>


Brand/Marketing Advice Available - Reformed Ad Guy - <AUTHOR>

Creative Director for top-5 global digital ad agency based in SF offering marketing advice to startups. First session is free. If you like what you get, we can discuss how to take things from there. My background: First, ten years of traditional, madison avenue type agencies in the USA, Netherlands and UK. Now deeply involved in digital, social and mobile marketing for Very Big Brands that you have heard of.
I have to be coy as I have a day job. But if this ends up being interesting, I might just leave it.
To be clear, I have little to no Valley experience. I don't know any VC's. But I'm smart,I've created and planned brand launches and ad campaign for beers, cars, shoes, software and even razor blades for chrissakes. I'm brand-literate and I get technology. (most of it at least. I still can't figure out what Hadoop is)
Interested parties should reach out to @reformedadguy <comment><USER2> Im interested. I reached out to you via twitter.</comment>


Lib-Ray: Non-DRM Open-Standards HD Video Format - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2144275086/lib-ray-non-drm-open-standards-hd-video-format

<comment><USER2> _Free and independent film are experiencing an incredible boom right now, and the Blu-Ray eco-system with its DRM (or TPM) , region codes, and exorbitant patent licensing fees denies us access to that. So, I think it's time to do something about it._

Like stop distributing movies on physical media?

<comment><USER3> As much as I wish you were right, digital does nothing toward stopping region coding/DRM if we're talking completely legal means. Though, the licensing fees, sure.

As much as I'd like to say you're right, I think there are still too many people (here in the US) that just don't have access to the kind of pipes make this feasible. Even considering so many places here that DO have DSL or cable as choices, you have to make the choice of EITHER streaming video OR doing something more intense than web browsing.

I was at my cousin's today and ran into the trite example of downloading something on Steam while someone else was trying to watch Hulu. First the quality went to crap, then it just stopped, and Steam was only ("only") pulling 600Kb/s.

Sure, there's probably enough of a market to make it a niche business, but you'd have to strike gold to make it turn into a reason for better Internet service. I mean bigger than Netflix. And with ISPs trying their best to turn us into a "pay per GB" society, I don't see physical media going away any time soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Video File Format: MKV container file with VP8 video and FLAC or Vorbis audio (this standard is similar, but a little more permissive than WebM, and is optimized for use on fixed media rather than downloads)._

It doesn't seem like they have strong arguments to create a new standard that is almost but not quite compatible with WebM. The inclusion of FLAC is not a strong argument, rather a bad idea, cf <http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html>

<comment><USER5> It's not just ability to use flac - there's a bunch of other restrictions on the MKV format for webm. These include chapters & menus (and ability to use separate media streams for each), support for variety of subtitle/closed caption formats, plus the ability to add attachments like fonts, textures and images for use in those streams.

Some of these features have been re-invented in the webvtt format, which is inferior to what was already available.

<comment><USER6> If they have good reason to break compatability with WebM, then they might want to use Opus (Xiph's follow-up to Vorbis) as the audio codec. It's possible that its combination of voice and wideband audio could be ideal for video soundtracks.

<http://opus-codec.org/>

<comment><USER7> Opus is optimised for low-delay, relatively-low-bandwidth audio for stuff like VOIP. It doesn't make much sense for recorded media where you can quite easily hide a few hundred milliseconds of latency.

<comment><USER6> Opus is actually designed to span from low to high bandwidth (see the diagram here <http://www.opus-codec.org/comparison/>) and since it performed surprisingly well against aac and vorbis the developers are currently working on tuning the encoder for standard music/soundtrack type workloads at higher bitrates.

I was thinking that the mixed speech mode of Opus might be excellent for documentaries and such with lots of dialogue at Youtube or web bitrates but you're right, I forgot in this case we're talking Blu-ray size video, in which case you can just play it safe and ramp up the vorbis bitrate instead and it'll be a drop in the ocean compared with the video bitrate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd have a little more faith in it if he was asking for more money.

Also I think he is belittling what Blu-Ray has to offer. Blu-Ray doesn't just provide 'menus', it provides an environment for writing Java applications that can do serious tricks with video (such as picture-in-picture.)

In fact, from an authoring pov, a Blu-Ray disk is more like an Android application with 25 GB of storage attached than a media file. Blu-Ray players have streaming media capabilities so it would also be possible to make a disk that is a "season's pass" to stream all the Red Sox games for a year.

Now, you can make a case that this is surplus capacity and that people would do fine with DVD menus or no menus at all. Maybe you're right. Certainly the full potential of Blu-Ray is hardly touched, and I know movie industry people are quite baffled about what to do with it. You can certainly find disks that make you watch annoying trailers -- on the other hand, I can point to many Blu-Ray disks that "just play" and that come with 6 hours of documentary content, commentary and other good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> >The player will be written in Python with the python-gst, pywebkitgtk, and python-gtk

Why ? It would much more useful to me (and much less work for the developer) if you could write a VLC plugin.

<comment><USER10> Not that everyone uses VLC - I thought the intention was something a little more flexible.

<comment><USER11> But the people who don't use VLC are able and willing to use python-gst, pywebkitgtk, and python-gtk?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If they are trying to create an interoperable standard the work plan seems to be missing the two most important parts.

1) Test suite of sample encoded files with expected decoder behaviour documented. This shouldn't be a random selection of different people's encodes but a carefully selected set of those pushing the boundaries of the spec. This should be used to test decoders rather than having a reference decoder that has to be copied bugs and all.

2) The counterpart to the above is a file validator that checks as much as possible that any given encoded file meets the specification.

Reference decoders only really make sense for codecs where you will expect a particular bitstream output for any input.

If they don't do both of those things it doesn't seem much more useful than just making some encoding recommendations for compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's a noble goal, but a little too ambitious for one person to undertake by themselves though isn't it? Why not just start an open source project with the cash and get some developers on board? Use the money to buy tools and hardware needed, then let others help write the format and test.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't quite understand what this is about. it sounds to me that mkv already does most of the things?

<comment><USER5> Misleading title - the project is about a player, not the format. The player happens to use mkv etc. As to why he is reinventing menus is questionable though, since they're already supported by the mkv format.

<comment><USER15> Matroska does not have any menu spec whatsoever.

<comment><USER5> Oh, right you are! I had assumed they would be in there by now, as it was over 5 years ago when there was discussion about adding them. Appears to still be a draft idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I sincerely hope that this project gets fully funded but I think this comic (<http://xkcd.com/927/>) is very relevant in this context.

<comment><USER17> I was under the impression that this is about patents, and not standard- hipsterism. I could be wrong though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How is this better than a standard video file for the job that people hire a movie to do? I don't think I have ever been glad that I had a movie menu to play from, clicking a file is faster, more portable and more future proof.</comment>


Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/stop-doomscrolling/ <comment><USER2> "as humans we have a 'natural' tendency to pay more attention to negative news."

Here's a huge study for anyone interested: [https://www.pnas.org/content/116/38/18888](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/38/18888)

This will never change. News will always mostly consist of bad news, since it sells well. I wonder if desensitization will ever reverse this trend?</comment>


A student claims to have replicated the full size version of OpenAI's GPT-2 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jonathanfly/status/1136705747235037185 <comment><AUTHOR> I thought his manifesto on Medium was pretty thought-provoking. I would identify as a curious-hacker.

The bit about the human-blockchain of trust being the best defense against babbling language models made me wonder whether that would force us to go back to a time before the Internet when there were gatekeepers of information.

For instance, if the web were flooded with false claims created by bots, would a claim like this particular one even get any attention? It is coming from an unknown entity, after all.</comment>


ReactOS, a 17-year quest for an open-source Windows, has a new release candidate - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/reactos-open-source-windows-clone-173145859.html <comment><USER3> I've always been strangely fascinated by this project. I don't understand it. I appreciate the technical skill involved, and the amount of effort expended. But, I can't imagine working on it.

From my perspective, Windows is an inferior system to any UNIX-based system on almost every front. It has a very strong application ecosystem, but technically it's unpleasant to work on (for me). So, given that, if there's something I want an OS to do that Linux can't do, I would be motivated to work on making Linux able to do that thing so I could do that thing on an Open Source OS I enjoy using, rather than work on replicating Windows so I could do that thing on an open source OS I don't enjoy using.

But, it seems there are people who genuinely enjoy Windows more than Linux (or BSD), and are willing to work for _17 years_ in pursuit of being able to run an Open Source Windows version. I admire them for it, but still can't understand it.

<comment><USER4> IMHO the nixes have a far superior CLI, but Windows' GUI is (at least pre- Metro, i.e. Win32 desktop) superior to the many disjoint alternatives that the Linux/BSD/OS X/Solaris/etc. world has. Instead of Qt, Gtk, and all the others, Windows just has Win32 and all apps have basically identical look-and-feel (except for those that go out of their way to reinvent the standard GUI elements, but in my experience this is much rarer on Windows) and it's relatively easy for them to interact.

(I've been writing Win32 apps for over a decade, so maybe I'm biased that way, but I definitely prefer (ba)sh over command.com/cmd.exe. My ideal environment would be a pre-Metro Windows GUI with a UNIX-based filesystem and command prompt...)

<comment><USER5> > Instead of Qt, Gtk, and all the others, Windows just has Win32

No, Windows has Qt, Gtk and all the others, too. Virtually any regular user Windows install has 2-5 Qt apps on it. And Windows has been _infamous_ for apps reinventing standard UI elements with skinned monstrosities.

<comment><USER6> It's been about 5 years since I was a regular Windows user, but I can't think of a single Qt app I used on a regular basis. Care to name some examples?

<comment><USER7> Skype might be the most popular.

<comment><USER8> Skype was written in Delphi originally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is one OS I've kept my eye on forever, though it feels as though Microsoft will go open source before ReactOS can catch up if anything. I wouldn't mind if certain parts of Windows were open sourced, or replaced by open sourced alternatives at least, not all of Windows. We saw this happen to the Open Live Writer.

<comment><USER10> Microsoft already kinda went open source, unintentionally :) [http://www.opennt.net/](http://www.opennt.net/)

interesting thread documenting start of OpenNT project [http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=33250](http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=33250) from broken code base that would not compile to booting ~Windows 2003 compiled from source.

<comment><USER11> Avast gives me a Win32Evo Trojan warning when downloading NT 4.5 binary or ISO images. Is it a false positive or did they accidentally introduce a Trojan into the code?

Anyway Avast won't let me download NT 4.5 due to a Trojan warning. So I can't test it out unless I disabled my AV.

Edit: Why the downvote, scan it with Avast yourself if you don't believe me. I refuse to use it unless it is verified to not have a Trojan. Even if it might be a false positive.

<comment><USER12> Antiviruses are useless and you probably shouldn't be using one in 2015. Run the ISO in a VM if you don't trust it. (I didn't downvote you.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone working on digital and physical security for human rights defenders in the field, I've followed this project closely. I would love to have a version of TAILS which had the Windows friendly attributes of ReactOS. Unfortunately, far too often the people most at risk just cannot really make the leap to a Linux based system, so a free, locked down version of something like ReactOS mixed with many of TAILS features, would be awesome. I know TAILS have tried to mirror some of the visual features but realistically it will never be the same.

</comment><comment><USER14> A serious question: When will we see a truly new OS built from the ground up? If there is a space where there seems to be little innovation it is in the space of new OS paradigms. Flavors of Windows or Linux - are there really any commercially ready alternatives today or in the very near future?

<comment><USER15> How about an operating system that doesn't execute native code directly anymore. No Segfaults. All programs live in the same VM space.

<comment><USER16> Isn't that kind of what Android does?

<comment><USER15> Well, if the JVM was the basic layer of the operating system, then yes. But really it's some form of Linux, there's a lot of native code running, system calls, user and kernel mode etc. Apps can use native code too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ok, played with it in a virtual machine. Good to see they are making progress.

My experience so far from today's experiment run, .. it still is quite unstable, saw several BSODs (about 7 of them varying from processor locked to the real blue screen) Most of the times I lost data during the crash. Files disappearing etc.. Good part is that it reboots really fast.

VMware Tools installed -albeit complaining- and I could use VMware shared folders which was convenient.

Of course this is a release candidate and we are not at 1.0 so stability really isn't a promise. If they manage to get it more stable then it is starting to become usable.

</comment><comment><USER18> ReactOS may be impressive from a technical standpoint, but judging from the release candidate its still got a long way to go in terms of stability. While I was able to install it after puzzling over the correct hardware options, it still hanged during installing drivers at boot.

<comment><USER11> ReactOS runs best in a virtual machine. Running it on bare iron is risky. Driver support is limited and they are still working on it. For example they just added Wifi support and printing support.

I donated to their Indiegogo campaign to get the community edition developed, that campaign allowed them to hire developers to get to the 0.40 mile stone.

<comment><USER19> Isn't one of the goals behind ReactOS that you can "simply" use the large existing base of Windows drivers on it?

<comment><USER20> That's the aim, but the circle of developers working on it is not that wide and even at the level of Windows 2003 (the project's compatibility aim) there already was a pretty large surface of binary compatibility to be covered. Many drivers already work, but many do not yet (because hey, it's not even in beta stage yet).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Quixotic_ is a characteristic I appreciate more and more in software projects as I get older, as my own efforts seem to increasingly tilt at windmills.

</comment><comment><USER15> At this point, I wonder whether it wouldn't be easier to bundle linux and wine together.

<comment><USER22> I've thought this as well. I agree there's value in aiming too-high, but the amount of effort which has gone into ReactOS would have served Wine really well.

<comment><USER23> There's a ton of shared code between Wine and ReactOS. They are rather complementary.

<comment><USER24> Only 5%

<comment><USER23> One is an operating system and the other is a Win32 compatibility layer for *nix. I'd say 5% is a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> An OEM Windows 7 disc is under $50 at Amazon now (down from $80 which is what I paid a couple of months ago). At a certain point, why not just buy the real thing and not have to fuss so much about compatibility? Almost every recent Mac can bootcamp Windows now, and Linux can also dual-boot, or else maybe install it to VirtualBox.

That's also why I've stopped updating my Crossover for $40 every year or two. Basic laptops and desktop boxes are so cheap these days that it becomes a question of whether your time is worth fussing around with compatibility software.

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure it's entirely clear what you can use an OEM Windows disk for. Isn't that just for new hardware? And that's at least 50/vm if I understand things. The thing to compare reactOS to is probably a datacenter licensed copy of Windows server. Productivity applications will (mostly) run in Wine - <USER2> don't think anyone expects ReactOS to be a viable alternative to bare-metal Windows install for gaming.

<comment><USER27> Exactly. The Windows "OEM" or "System Builder" edition is only valid for computers that are sold on to the final end user. They aren't legal for personal use by the original purchaser. [1]

[1] = [http://www.howtogeek.com/197232/microsoft-is-misleading- cons...](http://www.howtogeek.com/197232/microsoft-is-misleading-consumers- with-windows-8.1-system-builder-licensing/)

<comment><USER28> Interesting. I bought Windows 8 System Builder and used the "Personal Use License". Some point thereafter I upgraded to Windows 8.1. I'm sure I agreed to the new terms of use (after all, I wanted to get back to my computer), and was suddenly breaking the license.

Wonderful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If ReactOS provides a Windows 98/ME like interface and icons and rest of the UI/UX, I would definitely donate to the project and will install it on one of my home computers. I love when software reminds me of my childhood. :)

</comment><comment><USER30> I think ReactOS is still targeting XP/2003? The way things are going, Microsoft may open source Windows before ReactOS catches up, likely with a more permissive license.</comment>


Working Lego pinball machine built from 15,000 bricks - <AUTHOR> https://www.brothers-brick.com/2018/05/09/working-lego-pinball-machine-built-from-15000-bricks-features-benny-in-all-his-classic-space-glory-exclusive-feature/ <comment><USER2> Wow. That is truly impressive work of art and engineering. Great work, Bree!

I recently dove back into building a LEGO Technic model, 25 years after last building anything in LEGO.

It was such a joy and pleasure, and so relaxing to just sit and build while listening to an audiobook. I highly recommend it to others, who like me, have a hard time relaxing.

LEGO therapy FTW.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to have to try this, and do it old-school. Just sit on the carpet with the LEGO set in the box and go to town. Thanks for the tip, I still have all my old bricks neatly categorized in a large container.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. Two of my old fetishes rolled into one. And it does seem to play at least a somewhat decent game of pinball as well.

<comment><USER5> For pure pinball design, the legas dampen the thrash and clang that metal and hard plastic have... which also make pinball fun.

But that's obviously not the point of the project which is impressive in so many ways!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh my God, and it's themed around Benny the spaceman too!

</comment><comment><USER7> My seven year old daughter is a lego fanatic, showed this to her this morning and her eyes glowed. Really fantastic job building this.

<comment><USER8> Same here, I showed her the web site, and now she wants to submit her creation. It's fascinating to see her building a dream house and to see how she wants to have it. Last time she put a pool close to her bed in her bedroom :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> She isn't a true lego nerd until we hear her opinion on snot. That's big thing in the lego community. Google it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Now this is what I come to HN for.

The video is really worth watching. This work combines design, engineering, execution, and taste to elevate it to a truly great accomplishment.

</comment><comment> c-smile At Singularity time "Super AI" will provide us everything people will need for living. Automated food production, all that. Human will be excluded from production chain. Communism will come, want we it or not.

And so what 10 billion of us will be doing? Constructing pinball machines from Lego... and that's in the best case ...

</comment><comment><USER11> Someone get this girl a scholarship, stat.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'll never understand the fascination with Legos. I had a Gilbert Erector Set, which used nuts & bolts and was made of metal, not plastic.

<comment><USER13> I may be wrong about Erector/Meccano, but it's my understanding that Lego has a bunch of advanced components (that can be easily interfaced with regular ones) that those two don't. The obvious one here is the Mindstorms, but even when I was growing up I enjoyed the air hydraulic system and the electric powertrain.

Meanwhile, the metal is interesting if you need the strength, but otherwise, what's the advantage?

<comment><USER12> The Gilbert had an electric motor with various power takeoffs.

There's no doubt that Lego, with their immense popularity, has every imaginable add-on. But to me, snapping brightly colored plastic bricks together with plastic wheels just makes plastic toys. It doesn't tickle my engineering sensibilities, while screwing together girders and brackets and metal pulleys produce things that look (and behave) like machines.

Granted, putting the tiny nuts on the tiny bolts could be difficult for young hands, but I got very good at it. These days I see even teenagers who have problems getting a large nut started on a bolt, and/or have difficulty using a screwdriver.

<comment> vertex-four I don't think that creating machines out of metal is inherently "more real engineering" than creating them out of plastic - both are more-or-less irrelevant to engineering as a discipline, and it seems that people can build things of rather incredible complexity in Lego.

Perhaps early familiarity with screws and whatnot might make building shelves a bit easier, but... frankly speaking, if you can't figure out how to use a basic set of tools just by looking at them and figuring out which parts fit in which holes - or figuring out that there might be a video on youtube to explain how to do whatever you're doing - there's bigger issues than which set of toys you grew up with. If that's the case, your entire learning environment from ages 2 to 25 has failed to provide you with the tools to understand how to gain knowledge, and whether you were provided with Lego or Meccano isn't going to help you cope with life.

<comment><USER14> My reply isn't connected to benefits and disadvantages of Lego vs other construction toys.

> if you can't figure out how to use a basic set of tools just by looking at > them

Reading the thread[1] about types of screw heads shows that many people don't in fact understand much about screws.

I'm pretty sure that most (not all!) HN users don't know how to correctly use different types of screw driver.

And we haven't got to "advanced" stuff like choice of types of washers and locking mechanisms.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17011388](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17011388)

<comment><USER12> It turns out for young hands to be surprisingly difficult to use a screwdriver. The blade has to be held in the slot without slipping out, a normal force applied along with a twisting one. After a while one learns to spin the screwdriver with the fingers while keeping it in the slot.

Not to mention the feel of getting the tiny nut threaded on to begin with.

It takes the kids a while, and they get frustrated. Legos have the appeal that such skills are not necessary.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Winklevoss  - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/?p=393 <comment><USER2> An article making fun of some guys' last names.

Very insightful.

<comment><USER3> Na, look at 'em. They look like total pricks.

<comment><USER2> Making fun of them because they also "look like pricks" doesn't make it less juvenile, you know.</comment></comment></comment>


How About 30-use Free Trials Instead of 30-days? - <AUTHOR> http://evhead.com/2011/05/how-about-30-use-free-trials-instead-of.html <comment><USER2> To be honest, a lot of demo ware is used rarely just to test functionality, then left to rot in the old file system, sometimes uninstalled entirely and never thought of again.

It would make sense if it was 30 uses, instead of 30 days, but with the same token, the frequency of use is often the telling sign of whether the software is worth purchasing or not.</comment>


Ask HN: Will Y Combinator taking Sequoia investment hurt the YC companies? - <AUTHOR>

Does taking YC money blended with Sequoia money lead to unfavorable terms down the line if raising VC?
As you probably know, YC is taking money from Sequoia to help fund YC companies this term: http://ycombinator.com/party.html
Chris Dixon (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-problem-with-taking-seed-money-from-big-vcs-2009-10) and Venture Hacks (http://venturehacks.com/articles/options-open) put forward the following argument: Although Sequoia does not get right of first refusal, having a single VC participate in a company's seed funding can nonetheless hurt the company in the long run.
What do people think about this potential downside? <comment><USER2> Top tier firms like Sequoia already have a de facto right of first refusal on the entire startup market. They already see every deal. So if Sequoia passing on a deal deterred other funds from investing, they wouldn't be able to invest in anything.

Which in turn is why Sequoia was willing to invest in us without imposing any conditions. Because the top tier funds already see every deal, it's in their interest merely to increase the number of startups, just as, because Google has such a big percentage of the search market, it's in their interest merely to increase Internet usage.

Sequoia does get an early look at all the startups, but this was not a condition of the deal. They always have. (All the speakers get an early look at the startups; it would be hard for them not to; and since winter 2006 the VC speaker has always been Greg McAdoo.)

<comment><AUTHOR> My understanding of the Chris Dixon + Venture Hacks argument is: VC participation in a seed round means that they have a deeper understanding of the company than if they merely see a deal and pass on it. This implied deeper understanding gives them greater leverage in controlling the terms of a future financing.

So Sequoia passing on a deal doesn't deter other VCs because they might just say: "Well, Sequoia might not have given this deal enough scrutiny to see the value." But if Sequoia is already a seed investor, it is more difficult for other VCs to convince themselves of that.

Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

<comment><USER2> Sequoia doesn't participate in the seed rounds in this case. They have the same relationships to the startups we fund that Sequoia LPs have to startups they fund. They're entitled to a percentage of our returns, but they don't pick the companies or own stock in them.

Also, within the industry the phrase "passing on a deal" does not mean anything as casual as it sounds. It implies that an investor has scrutinized it fairly closely and made a conscious decision not to invest.

<comment><USER3> Founders who can't take a "pass" and investors who can't stomach investing in one will not make it long term anyways. Those are just egos talking. Great teams will breed success and Sequoia is another great team to add to the YC concept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Disagree. Chris's point regards direct seed-stage investment from a VC, where a "pass" on funding an A-round indicates that the VC lost interest over time (suggesting that they might be disappointed in execution, think the market is no longer there, etc.).

My understanding is that Sequoia is simply providing more capital to YC, and that YC handles all the decision-making with regards to company selection and investment. For Sequoia to "pass" on investing in a YC-funded company after the seed stage is not the same situation.. they never "selected" the seed- stage funding recipient in the first place.

Edit: Regardless, this is all a silly thing to be concerned about. If your idea is even remotely viable, your execution is solid, and you have determination, you will find traction and success (and investment, if you really want it). If you're sweating things like this, you're getting distracted from the things that matter.

<comment><USER5> >If you're sweating things like this, you're getting distracted from the things that matter.

Agreed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> When your existing investors don't maintain their pro rata in a new financing, prospective investors will wonder why. This assumes that the existing investors: (1) Have already invested in your company (duh), (2) Have some knowledge of the company (e.g. served on the board), (3) Make it a habit to invest in follow-on financings like yours.

You can still get around this if you have a good excuse, e.g. "Our existing investors are out of money". And your existing investors confirm your excuse when prospective investors inevitably call them.

So if USV didn't participate in the latest Twitter round, the company and USV probably had a good excuse, e.g. "Our fund isn't structured to make acceptable returns at $1B valuations". When a random angel who isn't on your board doesn't invest your Series A, most prospective investors won't wonder why.

Regarding YC-Sequoia:

The firms who are likely to invest in post-YC companies are likely to be mavericks who can think for themselves. That's the kind of investor you want anyway. You don't want to tell prospective investors that Sequoia spent three weeks intensely studying your company and decided to pass. But the fact that Sequoia could have looked closely at your company, but didn't, will probably be irrelevant.

On the other hand, if Sequoia and other YC insiders are cherry-picking the best YC investments before they hit the mass market, good investors are going to get less interested in demo days. That will hurt YC companies.

I don't know how these forces and other forces will play out in the marketplace. And since we're talking about game theory, the existence of this thread will influence the outcomes.

<comment><USER7> I don't see the direct harm to YC here. If Sequoia and other YC insiders are cherry-picking the best YC investments before they hit the mass market, incoming entrepreneurs will correctly see YC as an awesome automatic networking opportunity. Sure, the opportunity doesn't always work. But the chance is valuable.

If there is any possibility of damage it would be because YC could come under pressure to recommend companies to go the VC route when that is not in the company's best interest. Why would that not be advisable? Well VCs interests are not always your own (see <http://www.paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html>) and particularly not if there is an opportunity for a direct acquisition (see <http://www.paulgraham.com/vcsqueeze.html>).

<comment><USER8> The issue is around how many deals Sequoia funds. If other investors think that Sequoia already has the best 3 companies in any class sewed up before demo-day, why come to pick up the less interesting companies.

Chris Dixon wrote a good post on this recently: <http://cdixon.org/?p=1746>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a Sequoia company I can tell you that if you have the chance to take their money do it. Quickly.

Being an SC company has given Mahalo a HUGE advantage... let me count the ways:

1\. We got a much higher valuation on our Series B.

2\. We get constant pings from VC firms that like to follow SC.

3\. We get a constant flow of potential team members who want to work for company that is backed by the company that invested in YouTube/Apple/LinkedIn/Google/Yahoo/Zappos/Atari/Cisco/etc.

4\. The partners at SC are amazing... Roelof Botha is on our board and he has been tremendous.

5\. We get an absurd amount of press due to our Sequoia affiliation.

6\. We can get any meeting with any company, organization or advertising agency by saying "we're backed by the VC who backed INSERToneOFtwentyAMAZINGcompanies." You can be absolutely sure I do this all the time.... and it works.

7\. We get massive discounts from vendors due to the affiliation (i.e. think a technology provider who would like to build a relationship with Sequoia).

As far as I'm concerned YC + SC = DREAM COME TRUE for entrepreneurs.

If anyone ever wants to talk to me about Sequoia as an investor you know my mobile number: 310-456-4900. I love these guys.

best email@example.com <http://www.twitter.com/jason>

</comment><comment><USER10> The investment means YC will now advise more companies in every batch, so it will have to spread itself thinner when it comes to advice and introductions.

<comment><USER2> It's not true we have to spread ourselves thinnner when it comes to advice. The startups we fund book office hours with me online. I can tell when demand is satisfied, because there are slots still open.

And we couldn't spread ourselves too thin with introductions, because the supply of those is not even limited. Later stage investors are delighted to hear about any good startup we can send them. If we send an investor twice as many good deals, they're twice as happy.

<comment><USER10> I see.

Are office hours a good measure of advice? What about the dinners?

Is the advice really completely stateless?

Some of the benefit of YC comes from networking between the teams. I think this benefit may diminish as the group grows.

Just thinking up objections.

<comment><USER2> I don't think my advice has gotten any stupider. If anything, probably better, because I've seen so many startups' paths now.

It's funny you should use the word stateless, though, because one of my tricks for scaling is to keep all the state on the client. E.g. I tell the startup "remember to tell me x next time we talk." I've been doing that for a while, and it seems to work fine.

Networking between the startups has actually increased. The more startups there are, the more likely you are to be in the same batch with another one that would be a natural beta user for your product, or that happens to be expert in some technology you have questions about. Maybe there would be problems with startups connecting if there were 1000 in every batch, but between 8 (summer 05) and 26 (summer 09) things just get better.

<comment><USER10> Very cool, thanks for those responses.

I remember 'stateless' from last year's 'Be Good' startup school talk.

<comment><USER2> Ironic; I didn't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not ironic, since you are following your own advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is an informed discussion on this issue by a serial-entrepreneur-turned- VC fellow who specifically addresses the points raised in Chris Dixon's piece and generally comes out in favor of startups being able to take VC seed funding without serious risks: [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/10/18/vc-seed- fundin...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/10/18/vc-seed-funding-is- dead-long-live-vc-seed-funding/).

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a useful discussion.

"I'd also say that I'm not quite as negative about funding someone else's seed deal anymore. I now know that the mega funds that did too many seed deals aren't paying enough attention to them. So I'm not put off by the fact that I'll be used as a stalking horse or that there is something wrong with the company provided I've spent quality time with management and can make my own assessment about the team and business."

Perhaps as entrepreneurs become more educated about the Chris Dixon and Venture Hacks argument, they can essentially use this argument to justify to other VCs why the first VC passed on the deal ("First VC wanted to low a valuation, knowing that they could signal to other VCs not to take the deal unless I agreed to their low valuation"). However, some other commentators on this thread have mentioned the VC "herd mentality" syndrome, so perhaps it requires a shift in VC mindset too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think there's that much mystique around getting rejected by VCs right after coming out of YC -- most of the YC companies don't raise VC immediately.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I interpret their argument correctly, they are not talking about raising VC immediately after YC. Their argument is that, at some point down the line, if you try to do a VC round then the sole VC that participated in your seed round has undue control of your first VC round.

<comment><USER12> I think that's a misunderstanding of the YC / Sequoia relationship. YC raises from Sequoia just like a VC raises from their limited partners. What you're describing sounds more like if YC were doing a syndicate seed investment with Sequoia, which isn't the way the deal works.

<comment><AUTHOR> This clarification makes a lot of sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What if the founders don't seek investment from Sequoia after the initial YC investment. In this case Sequoia would never have had the opportunity to pass.

I imagine there is no 'you have to request funding from Sequoia' clause that comes with the YC money. In fact, from my understanding, you don't have to take any investment in the future if you so choose.

</comment><comment><USER14> _"... What do people think about this potential downside? ..."_

The downside is more than balanced by the upside of having VC connections post YC funding.

</comment><comment><USER15> Many applicants; few chosen. Since almost all are passed anyway, the Sequoia factor is noise.

<comment><USER16> I think the argument is that since they're all passed anyway they are now passed by Sequoia which may hurt their further chances for VC.

<comment><USER15> Presuming some superior ability by Sequoia to choose wisely. If in this particular case Sequoia is already "ambulance-chasing", hanging around YC's alley door hoping to pick up strays, I presume they are relying on YC's expertise, and simply expanding the opportunity to invest in worthy startups YC could not affort to fund. Otherwise why aren't they running their own show? Not to criticise Sequoia; I've been in 2 startups they funded. But VCs are notorious for herd mentality.

<comment><USER16> > If in this particular case Sequoia is already "ambulance-chasing", hanging > around YC's alley door hoping to pick up strays,

That's a wonderful analogy, thank you for that one!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Netgear router exploit detected - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34491583 <comment><AUTHOR> I for one really hope that someone figures out how to do automatic router upgrades safely and securely with minimal downtime. Anyone aside from Google that is.</comment>


Wikileaks kicked out of Amazon's cloud - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/12/wikileaks-kicked-out-of-amazons-cloud.ars <comment><USER3> Choose your news source:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959697> \- techdirt.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959655> \- cnn.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959633> \- arstechnica.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959607> \- bgr.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959335> \- npr.org

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959328> \- guardian.co.uk

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959308> \- readwriteweb.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959305> \- reuters.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959257> \- techcrunch.com

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959142> \- foxnews.com

<comment><USER4> I like the commentary on the TechDirt one:

"Look at who's complaining the most about Wikileaks and you realize that it's the people who benefit from not being held accountable for their actions."

<comment><USER5> At this point is it really about that? I think it has gone past that point to the criminal with Assange. I realize that isn't a popular opinion. I get what he thinks he is trying to do and all but that isn't how the world really works nor is it going to bend to wikileaks. Some of this stuff _should_ be secret because that is how countries trust each other. I have no sympathy for him at all.

<comment><USER6> Read Secy Gates' response to the notion that this leak will hurt them or that countries work with the US because they trust their interactions will be kept secret:

[http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/11/quotable- secretary-...](http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/11/quotable-secretary- gates-on-wi/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oscar Swartz[1] is the man behind Bahnhof, the Swedish company that Wikileaks are using for their infrastructure needs. Oscar is a man of principle and would never sell out to the establishment the way Amazon did.

There's acutally a bunch of swedes that are standing up for the internet as we know it. Among them the guys over at the pirate bay. What's cool about this is that when you have people being activists in their own ways, for a certain cause, things tend to work out.

There's been a lot of news coverage on these things in Sweden and people got really upset when an internet surveillance bill was passed in the swedish parliament. So we've figured it out in Sweden, but we can't do it alone. Most of the internet-hostile bills in Sweden are a result of EU policies, there needs to be a wider movement in Europe.

Also, people like Joe Lieberman have to be stopped, first "the internet kill switch" and now this? Come on, give me a break. These people are taking it too far.

[1] = <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Swartz>

<comment><USER8> The Pentagon has claimed that they could have shut Wikileaks down if they wanted to, but decided not to, reserving "that capability for threats of much higher consequence." Generally, the rhetoric coming out of the Pentagon is not nearly as charged as that emanating from overwrought, fear-mongering senators like Lieberman

Senator Lieberman: "WikiLeaks' illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world. No responsible company—whether American or foreign—should assist WikiLeaks in its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials."

Secretary of Defense Gates: "Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest."

Pentagon Press Sec.: "At the end of the day, as you heard from the Secretary of Defense yesterday ... this creates some awkward and embarrassing situations for the United States government, it clearly puts those who cooperate with us, even some of our diplomats, in difficult positions (hopefully not endangered situations). But, at the end of the day, it does not, at least over the long term, adversely impact America's power or prestige."

<comment><USER9> > "The Pentagon has claimed that they could have shut Wikileaks down if they > wanted to, but decided not to"

WikiLeaks the organisation, or WikiLeaks the site? I bet they can shut the site down for most of the world simply by messing with internet routing in crucial points. But then, what would it do? The information is sent to news organisations directly before the public release. Torrents don't depend on their site. Everything works like before.

If they meant WikiLeaks the organisation - that would be interesting. Who exactly would they stop and how? I don't believe they know every source, or there would be no serious leaks to begin with. Also, I believe that J.A. is the same to WikiLeaks, like J.Wales is a to Wikipedia - a face, creator of some guidelines and the ultimate moderator. Even if he disappeared, we'd see some new leaks. He's probably not even reachable for the original sources - <USER2> he was, finding him would be trivial, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER10> If they did it would put them right up there with China and their great firewall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can download the Pentagon Papers on your Kindle

[http://www.amazon.com/Pentagon-Papers-U-S-Vietnam- Relations-...](http://www.amazon.com/Pentagon-Papers-U-S-Vietnam-Relations- ebook/dp/B0038HEOL8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital- text&qid=1291247579&sr=1-1)

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow, it would be one thing if Lieberman wrote a bill to ban all US ISPs from hosting Wikileaks content, but in this case he is simply using his clout and acting like a thug by pressuring Amazon (an e-commerce retailer first and foremost) right around the holiday season.

</comment><comment><USER13> Homeland Security Theater - keeping you "safe" by covering your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER14> > " _WikiLeaks'_ illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our > national security and put lives at risk around the world," he told AFP. "No > responsible company—whether American or foreign—should assist WikiLeaks in > its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials."

I love templatizable statements like this where you can just replace a key slot and the result gives a refreshing clarity to the moral context of it:

" _The Bush administration's_ illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world," he told AFP. (...)

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if wikileaks outing the primary internet stakeholders (US and industry) will cause a clamp down on the internet...

</comment><comment><USER16> They're back up...

</comment><comment><USER17> Makes sense to me. Wikileaks is violating laws by posting other people's private and classified information. Amazon has no business aiding them in criminal activities. Free speech != exposing classified documents.

Free speech is about original content. You can say / publish whatever you want online. But you can't take other people's content and post it, especially when it could endanger lives.

<comment><USER18> is it illegal, did for example the nytimes violate any laws? it would be good if someone expands on this.

<comment><USER19> i won't expand much, but it looks pretty simple to me: it may be illegal to publish 'Sentence A', but reporting that someone did it is not. \- 'X is a liar and a thief' = illegal \- 'X is a liar and a thief, says Y" = legal</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Side projects for marketing guy? - <AUTHOR>

I feel like doing more with my time. Currently I give >12 hours a day to my company's work but now I want to start a side project which will enhance my skills and diversify my life.<p>Considering I'm a marketing and business guy what would be some good side projects? <comment><USER2> Help me market my side project, Octopus. ([http://octopus.org](http://octopus.org))

<comment><USER3> What does Octopus do?</comment></comment>


LibreS3 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.skylable.com/2014/04/libres3-released/

<comment><USER2> I'd totally use this if it added features that didn't S3 didn't support - which shouldn't be aproblem since S3 isn't a standard anyway. Two major features that come to mind: Batch operations and querying objects by metadata. Right now if I want to rename 100 keys to 100 other keys without making 100 requests I'm kind of out of luck - which makes S3 useless for having a data store back-end for say, a document management solution, unless you flatten the file system (which is what I end up doing)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is also Riak CS, which is S3's API ontop of the very ops friendly Riak distributed database</comment>


The Dunkirk Soundtrack Is Way Cleverer Than You Think - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/world-of-music/the-dunkirk-soundtrack-is-way-cleverer-than-you-think-18f5dc155d91 <comment><USER2> Technically interesting, but the actual real-world effect was an annoying slow-motion siren that just made me want to leave the theatre.</comment>