Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL - <AUTHOR> http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/legal/2013-July/004100.html

<comment><USER2> The github issue is amazing reading: [https://github.com/rxrz/exfat- nofuse/issues/5](https://github.com/rxrz/exfat-nofuse/issues/5)

Normally you expect the copyright issues to be going in the other direction at gpl-violations, but kudos to them for noticing the problem and dealing with it quickly.

<comment><USER3> > Basically, I did microsoft's job, they even owe me money for the time I've > spent fixing the code to work on modern kernels and "throwing the GPL tag on > it".

Wow.

<comment><USER4> Oh it gets better. I had to stop reading the thread on Phoronix out of fear that my brain would pop out of my head and leave for Portugal.

> People with emotional insecurities are trying to make up something > depressing and horrible, point a finger and make lots of noise.

> For me it was just sad to see people complaining more often than being > grateful or happy about something.

> I hope they will patent and release a license on negative thinking.[0]

Actually, the entire Phoronix thread is an amazing display of incompetence.

> Were do you assume "this source code is not under GPLv2"? Source of this > please? This implementation (code) was on github, that says something to > you? [1]

My mind is boggled so hard right now. This better be a conspiracy to discredit FOSS, otherwise I'm losing yet another piece of trust in human sanity.

[0] [http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?81642-Native- Linux...](http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?81642-Native-Linux-Kernel- Module-Is-Out-For-Microsoft-exFAT&p=339638#post339638) [1] [http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?81642-Native- Linux...](http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?81642-Native-Linux-Kernel- Module-Is-Out-For-Microsoft-exFAT&p=339294#post339294)

<comment><USER3> Wow, again. Also found:

> Now, putting it publicly on github qualifies as distribution, and therefore > this code is also under the GPLv2 license implicitly. The act has already > been done, and even if it does contain copyrighted bits by MS, the released > version is now forever GPL.

so, yeah.. by this logic I can take my company's code, put it on GitHub under a GPL license and now everyone is free to use it under GPL. Doesn't matter that I don't have the right to license it..

<comment><USER5> I can _sort of_ see is logic. If a company has a private stash of GPL code (say, Google is running a special fork of Linux), and it gets leaked, even though the leak was illegal the code might still be distributable under GPL.

But ... this code was never (afaik) legitimately GPL. Maybe Samsung had based it on GPL code (in which case, it's GPL), but we'd need some proof.

<comment><USER6> Here's a couple of related answers at the FSF GPL FAQ: [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#InternalDistributio...](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#InternalDistribution)

Unfortunately, the question isn't really directly answered.

The most relevant passage seems to be, "If the [unwittingly distributed] version in question is unpublished and considered by a company to be its trade secret, then publishing it may be a violation of trade secret law, depending on other circumstances. The GPL does not change that."

So I think a court would rule that the original leak does not qualify as "distribution," and thus the company is not required to distribute the source and everyone distributing the leaked code is under copyright violation.

<comment><USER7> I was confused for a minute, then I remembered that you don't actually have to accept the GPL as a user, only as an intentional distributor. So while the base version is GPL, the private version isn't - by default it's a hybrid of GPL and proprietary code.

<comment><USER8> Actually, you have to accept the license as a user to be able to use it. However, you don't give up your right to keep any change for yourself if you don't distribute it in a different format (e.g. binary). Whatever you do in your house is your business. That's probably what you meant (in spirit so to speak), though law wise it is very different.

<comment><USER7> >Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.

Why do you say you have to accept it?

<comment><USER9> Because running software involves making copies of that software. This requires you to have permission from the copyright holder. The GPL provides you with that permission, without adding any further conditions if the copies are just for the purpose of running the software.

[http://www.digital-law- online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise20.html](http://www.digital-law- online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise20.html)

 _It is now well-accepted that copyright protects computer programs and other digital information, whether they are in readable source code form or are an executable program that is intended to be understood only by a computer. Copies are made whenever the program is transferred from floppy disk to hard disk or is read into the computer's memory for execution, and those copies will infringe the copyright of the computer program if they are not permitted by the copyright owner or by copyright law._

<comment><USER7> 1\. Even if that's the current legal theory it's bullshit, and I can run code without having copies in ram if I need to.

2\. 'if they are permitted by copyright law' Fair Use is part of copyright law, has that specific defense been challenged when it comes to software execution and caches in RAM?

<comment><USER10> Regarding 1, I really don't believe you can run code without copies, or copies of a derivitave work, being made in the process.

That said, I can't read a book without reflections in my eyes...

<comment><USER7> I could run it directly out of a ramdisk, or maybe transfer it to an embedded processor that can run it directly off the flash chip without even a processor cache. There's a whole variety of ridiculous things I could do to avoid the ridiculous restriction.

In practice I would trust fair use and try to use such as a defense if sued.

<comment><USER10> > I could run it directly out of a ramdisk

Hard to do when you were shipped a DVD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't this is a general trend with Android/Cyanogenmod hackers? If you go on something like xda-developers then there's a sticky saying "please don't post GPL violations".

Early Cyanogen releases were fast and loose with redistribution of Google proprietary apps, which got the author in a spot of trouble IIRC. Right now the distribution of these ROMS is IMO pretty suspect - they include whole swathes of binary blobs that they really shouldn't be redistributing willy nilly. If you want the proprietary pieces that belong to the manufacturer of your phone, you should have to pull them off yourself. The ROM creators shouldn't be pulling these bits off of their phones and re-distributing them.

The fact that so many prebaked ROMs are distributed though megaupload-alikes is a bit of a giveaway as to the general philosophy of that community.

<comment><USER12> Cyanogenmod ROMs aren't distributed with Google's apps anymore. If you want Google's Play store and Gmail, one needs to download and install a separate archive (I just did that yesterday :))

Of course, the distribution of that archive is still suspect. The licensing of those apps is the only leverage Google has for controlling the companies that distribute Android, like Samsung. It is meant for the likes of Samsung and HTC, not Cyanogenmod, which is why I think Google lets it be for now.

On the other hand if you want to use bare-bones Android, the biggest pain one experiences is the lack of Google Play. I can live without Gmail, I can live without Google Maps, but unfortunately most apps are only on Google Play, which is awkward, given that as a publisher with Android it isn't a big effort to publish apps on your own website, in addition to Google Play.

<comment><USER13> Unfortunately, bare-bones Android may get barer and more awkward over time, if they migrate more services from the core OS into "Google Play Services". As an example, the new geofencing APIs that they announced at the last Google I/O (intended to replace the buggy core "proximity alerts") are part of "Google Play Services", not the core OS --- and therefore not available on devices which aren't part of the Play borg.

(To be fair, their announced reason for this is that it gives them a way to make these APIs available on devices that aren't getting regular manufacturer updates. That said, I'm sure it hasn't escaped their attention that it also adds a point of differentiation between Play-enabled devices and, say, the Kindle Fire...)

cite: [http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.ht...](http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.html) (Note that step one in using this API is verifying that Play Services is installed.)

<comment><USER14> Meh. Don't know how much this really sucks the usability out of things. On my Android, I confess I'm already so bought in to the Amazon ecosystem that I almost resent the room that Play and the likes are taking up. Is particularly obnoxious when the phone complains that I need to make room, and the only crap I can't move to an SD card is the Google stuff.

<comment><USER15> The real issue there is that Android partitions its internal storage into System and "Internal SD" space.

So your 8GB phone will only have 2GB that can hold apps. It's awful.

(Apparently this depends on the phone and OS version to a degree. It's true on GT-i9100s running Android 4.0 at least, and true on all 2.x OSes)

<comment><USER16> Nexus devices use one big data partition for everything, so you won't have that problem.

Downside is, no more offline backups or increasing the storage capacity by a quick swap of the card.

<comment><USER15> Awesome. Thanks for clarifying that! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> GPL, and probably other licenses, were constructed to work with copyright law. Such cavalier dismissal (by rxrz) is disrespecting those who created the licenses, the legal system, and the open source community, at large. We live in the real world, not "The Matrix".

<comment><USER18> Sadly, this is a typical thing that goes on in the Android User development community. Lots of casual attitudes by hobbyists that modify the Linux Kernel and rattle off some sort of excuse for not posting their sources while distributing binary copies.

Others end up "relicensing" similar to the guy on github, thinking that because they changed a few lines of code, they can claim to own the license to the software now. I'd say that is probably much more prevalent since there's a general assumption by many that the license most Android based software uses, Apache 2.0 means "do whatever you want".

Even worse is the fact that many users in the community are also quick to defend them blindly because they know little of development and why following licenses matter (even after all the facts are laid out and explained).

<comment><USER19> > _Others end up "relicensing" similar to the guy on github, [...]_

Hmmm...

[https://github.com/rxrz/exfat- nofuse/issues/5#issuecomment-2...](https://github.com/rxrz/exfat- nofuse/issues/5#issuecomment-21393678) :

> _And I don 't need any permissions from anybody, I'm a big girl._

Fun fact: Females also do stupid stuff.

<comment><USER20> Among all aspects of that discussion, the author's gender is about the most uninteresting detail. "Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position."

<comment><USER18> Agreed. I didn't even take the time to find out what their gender was since it's not any related issue. "Guy" was just used in a generic sense[1].

[1] [http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/generic-s...](http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/generic- singular-pronouns?page=all)

<comment><USER19> I apologise, I am not familiar enough with the usage of 'guy' to know it is generic in singular (I know it is in plural).

<comment><USER18> No worries :). I just think of it as another way of saying "dude".

<comment><USER21> Bad example because officially dude is also male. The female is dudine, dudette, or dudess.

But like like guy, dude because gender neutral in common speech.

<comment><USER22> Just to nitpick, guy and dude are not gender neutral, they just happened to be heavily used by the community in general, mostly because people assume users are men by default.

<comment><USER7> Speak for yourself. A lot of people use it as a real gender neutral.

<comment><USER23> For a different point of view see [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html)

<comment><USER7> There are two related but subtly different uses here. A word like 'he' is a _default_ , which can lead to problematic implications. A word like 'guy', to some people, is a true neutral, implying gender no more than the word 'somebody'.

Even if we were talking about 'he', your link would be out of place. Calling out the use of a gendered default as bad is not in fact another point of view on whether it _is_ the default.

<comment><USER23> I have never heard of a female being addressed as "guy". Phrases such as "hey guy", "what's up guy" and so on have always been directed to a male.

<comment><USER18> Sometimes I will use it in a conversation when referring to a third party unknown to the person I am talking to and the subject's gender has no bearing (like in my first comment).

For example, "Oh, I know a guy that knows X," "I know a guy that is a fan of X" or in a less positive manner "That guy just cut me off [on the freeway]!" (since you rarely see who it might be and their gender doesn't matter)

I could say "dude" as well, but sometimes dude might be too informal. I could reword it with a number of other pronouns, but it depends on context and whom one is talking to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's a severe fault in rxrz's logic here, if I'm following this correctly:

"This code was originally under a Samsung proprietary license" Wrong.

exfat_version.h:/* - 2012.04.02 : P1 : Change Module License to Samsung Proprietary _/

this is version p2. I could've technically stripped those comments and changed the version number to /_ \- 2012.02.10 : Release Version 1.1.0 */ But I didn't. Originally, it was either public domain or GPL.

Nobody would've ever found out by the code alone, which version this actually is."

Let me pull out the key statement here:

"Originally, it was either public domain or GPL."

That's an assumption. Samsung placed a license on it, and rxrz assumes that prior to that, it must have been GPL or public domain. However, the driver was unknown and didn't exist prior to rxrz's release. It seems likely something could be classified as public domain when it was kept under lock and key.

My guess is, this was given a license when the code was finished and bundled for distribution. Assuming otherwise seems dangerous, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER25> The title makes it sound as though this has been accepted into the Linux kernel when in fact it has not been. It is designed to work with the Linux kernel but it is in no way associated with Linux. FUD much?

<comment><USER26> Did Samsung, in fact, distribute the code in Android devices? If the answer is "yes", wouldn't that make it GPLd?

<comment><USER27> Not necessarily, no. There is a long history of people releasing closed source drivers, particularly on embedded platforms.

So far as I can tell the kernel devs think it's harmful and A Bad Thing (TM), but not a violation.

Also as has been pointed out below, it wouldn't automatically make it GPL. It would make it in violation of GPL and releasing under GPL would fix the violation, but it wouldn't make it GPL.

<comment><USER28> There's a 10-year-old post to LKML from Linus saying the GPL nature of kernel modules is a huge grey area. I don't think it's been resolved since then.

<comment><USER29> Correct. Link:

[http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312.0/0670.h...](http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312.0/0670.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Samsung may not have intended it as such, but aren't all derivatives of GPL- licenced code also GPL by definition?

<comment><USER31> No. The authors of GPL-licensed code has no say in how other people license their code they don't own the copyright on.

Derivatives of GPL-licensed code is either: 1\. GPL-licensed 2\. Illegal

If it's not explicitly 1 by the license on the derived work, it becomes 2. It is not automatically "forced" into category 1.

<comment><USER32> By illegal you mean illegal to distribute. If Samsung used this code internally and it was leaked accidentally, they are not in violation of the GPL.

<comment><USER33> If Samsung ships binaries produced from this code to customers and this code is derivative from GPL code, they _are_ in violation of the GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Originally, it was either public domain or GPL."

He's claiming that this is actually GPL code that Samsung claimed as proprietary (which they can't do). Is he wrong?

<comment><USER27> It's hard to tell - there doesn't seem to be any proof of this and in the case of leaked code I'd be wanting proof.

<comment><USER34> I think judge should force Samsung to release all the information they have on history of this code. After all Samsung is suspected of violating the license. Shouldn't they be able to prove copyright before they can claim it?

<comment><USER27> The only reference I've seen to suspected license violations is the assertion in the git history that it was at one time under GPL or maybe public domain. There's no provenance here.

I doubt this will ever get before a judge, more likely a combination of DMCA takedowns and exclusion from the mainline kernel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is a quite interesting case from a legal standpoint. IANAL but my 5 cents are:

* If it's true that Samsung distributed this driver as part of the Linux kernel source code tree then it is arguably a derivative work of the Linux kernel.

* If so then these two sections of the GPL seem relevant:

> 4\. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except > as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, > modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically > terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received > copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses > terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

> 6\. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the > Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original > licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms > and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the > recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible > for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

* I'm not absolutely sure what that means for rxrz. Section 6 seems to imply that rxrz may have a license to the driver, and that that license is indeed the GPL. On the other hand section 4 seems to imply that the redistribution to rxrz was "void". Does that mean rxrz does not have the rights under section 6?

If I where rxrz I would at least toy with this idea: a) wait for the DMCA take down notice, b) challenge it claiming to have a license under section 6 of the GPL and c) hope that Samsung does not have the nerve to go to court and risk a decision that would clarify that their license to the Linux kernel has been irreversibly revoked. :)

But where does that leave us concerning legality? Is it clear that what rxrz has done is illegal?

<comment><USER27> >> If it's true that Samsung distributed this driver as part of the Linux kernel source code tree then it is arguably a derivative work of the Linux kernel.

Did Samsung really distribute the source if it was published by accident by one employee?

Even if they did, it's under a proprietary license and it's not clear that proprietary kernel modules are necessarily derivative works, they are commonplace.

Even if they are derivative that may make Samsung in violation of the GPL but not actually make their code covered (these are be separate issues).

And even if they are in violation, this usually has to be challenged by a copyright holder, not simply by a recipient of the binaries. And that's if rxrv even received any binaries...

Section 6 is interesting there - "Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions."

I could see a lawyer arguing that the "Program" in clause 1 and 2 are the same, but if you distribute a work based on the Program the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program itself but _not_ the work based on the Program, as that is not enumerated in clause 2.

And this is before we even get into the patent violations that any use of such code involves.

<comment><USER35> > Even if they did, it's under a proprietary license and it's not clear that > proprietary kernel modules are necessarily derivative works, they are > commonplace.

True, proprietary kernel _modules_ are commonplace, and not necessarily derivative works. But you very rarely see proprietary drivers "in-tree" (that is where the source code file is placed into the Linux kernel source code tree and built as part of the kernel build process). I remember reading an argument by Torvalds that any driver built in that way is a derivative work of the kernel (even if it is built into a module) but unfortunately I can't find it now.

> Even if they are derivative that may make Samsung in violation of the GPL > but not actually make their code covered (these are be separate issues).

Mmm... I'm not entirely sure... Normally I'm a "separate issues" kind of guy, but here I'm hesitating...

To make this interesting let's say Samsung has distributed to rxrz in binary form and that the driver is a derivative work. Then the driver is part of the Program distributed to rxrz under the GPL and Samsung has granted rxrz this right (as per section 1 of the GPLv2):

"You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program."

Isn't that exactly what rxrz has done? :) Why would rxrz not be allowed to argue that in court? I agree that normally the issues are separate, but in my mind the GPL ties them together in this case. I'm not saying that rxrz is right, but it's not entirely clear-cut to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> you know, it'd be interesting to see what the open source community could produce if we all took his approach to licences for a little while.

<comment><USER27> A mess of lawsuits, withdrawn devices and shut down code repos most likely.

<comment><USER36> i didn't necessarily mean for practical use, i just meant, what sort of finished (hah) product could come out at the end!

<comment><USER27> We might have better interop with proprietary software. Maybe. It's possible that the BSDs would have more hardware support as they could just borrow it from Linux.

Companies would probably keep an even tighter guard on their code. They may stop contributing to FOSS completely without the protection of the GPL.

We'd probably find all sorts of weird binaries being thrown around the place, as seems to happen in the android scene, where people just splice stuff together without considering any of this stuff. Support and consistency would be a nightmare. People would be less able to build on each others work as there would be no necessity for anyone to publish anything if they didn't want to or couldn't be bothered.

I don't think it would be any sort of utopia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> If it's a derivative work of the Linux kernel (links to internal kernel API) it should be GPL. If Samsung distribute it to users then it should do that under GPL.

Samsung should be the first to relicense it.

<comment><USER28> Morally you might be right. Legally it's a grey area, and practically it's almost certainly a no-go.

<comment><USER34> So basically company can take your gpld code, extend it, slap their license on the whole thing it and redistiribute binaries without the source code and nobody can slap the gpl back on where it should be because it's a gray area?

<comment><USER38> You can't, in general, do that.

The kernel developers and the FSF have always claimed that loadable modules (like the exFat driver) are "derived works", which has a specific meaning in copyright law. In particular, the GPL very clearly says that derived works must be re-licensed under GPL.

The vendors claim that "derived works" doesn't include linked code, or plug-in patterns. They say that they aren't really releasing their own kernel, just releasing the stock kernel with a bunch of proprietary applications on top, along with their proprietary kernel module.

Like that guy said, it's a gray area.

<comment><USER35> > The kernel developers and the FSF have always claimed that loadable modules > (like the exFat driver) are "derived works"...

Not true [1].

1\. See e.g. [http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel- modules....](http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel- modules.html).

<comment><USER38> Ah, sorry. I should not have been so blanket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> When the code is out there, is it possible that a third-party will modify the existing exFAT projects based on this "leak", and get them to work properly and out of userspace?

<comment><USER40> It would be very bad if they do, since that would open the existing exFAT projects up to legal action.

Anyone who has read the Samsung code is "tainted" with the knowledge of Samsung's proprietary techniques which may be copyrighted, so those people may well introduce copyright violations into the code.

In clean-room reverse engineering projects, the people who are examining the system to be reverse engineered are never the same people that actually write the new clean code, thus avoiding the taint of proprietary knowledge.

<comment><USER41> Not just copyrighted. Microsoft claims a whole bunch of _patents_ related to exFAT. This means you can't legally implement exFAT without a license to those patents, even if you've never even seen the Samsung code. This is the reason why exfat-fuse is not part of any large Linux distributions.

<comment><USER42> It's also most likely one of the reasons exfat even exists: so Microsoft can exercise some control and have licensing income from a filesystem format being in common use, which they don't have/lost with FAT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> latest commit says "Change Module License to Samsung Proprietary"

[https://github.com/rxrz/exfat- nofuse/commit/dbf695748ab5e90a...](https://github.com/rxrz/exfat- nofuse/commit/dbf695748ab5e90a48cf9987d84c3d8a3177491f)

</comment><comment><USER44> Why not just use this?

[http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/01/23/2142213/open- source...](http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/01/23/2142213/open-source-exfat- file-system-reaches-10-status)

<comment><USER45> Apparently the Fuse-based driver hasn't got very good performance and is not quite production quality yet (according to the Phoronix article).

In addition, the person who put the leaked driver on GitHub seems to have a negative opinion on Fuse (in some of the forum threads where he's ranting), which does not seem to be based on facts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> the ways of the tin foil is strong with the repo's maintainer.

<comment><USER47> Do you really think its worth saying this considering how much of the tinfoil conspiracy shit has become reality.....

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I agree with the actions of the repo maintainer.

Why should we play along with unjust copyright laws? GPL sheep are just part of the problem, creating their own nest of licensing woes everytime you touch their code.

<comment><USER49> Even if you don't want to play along with copyright laws - and I can perfectly understand why one wouldn't - that's not a reason to deceive people by claiming the code to be GPL licensed and make them liable if they redistribute it.

If one wants to say "fuck copyright", putting a copyright license in the code is not the really the most appropriate way.

<comment><USER34> I think deception is a valid tool for creating chaos and chaos is a valid tool for bringing down systems.</comment></comment></comment>


Swiss to vote on $25 an hour minimum wage - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/16/swiss-minimum-wage/9166687/ <comment> workhere-io Before you compare it to American wages, keep in mind that Switzerland has one of the highest costs of living in the world. [http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/rankings_by_country.jsp](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/rankings_by_country.jsp)

<comment><USER2> Before you dismiss it so fast, the question of how can a person live on $7.25 an hour still deserves some thought? $1,200 barely enough for rent, food and a bus pass.

Maybe $25 is too high, but $7.25 is low.

<comment><USER3> Yet somehow, billions of people worldwide live on far less than that number _after adjusting for purchasing power_. The average Bulgarian subsists on roughly a US minimum wage salary (after adjusting for purchasing power - before adjusting for PPP it's about half a min wage salary). The average Indian subsists on far less.

How do they do this?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

(Hint: roommates, cooking at home, long commutes or less desirable cities, giving up luxuries which are common in the US like a car.)

Note: don't say "cost of living". The numbers I cite adjust for that.

<comment><USER4> There are social, cultural and infrastructural factors which you completely trivialize by neglecting to mention them. In Thailand, for example, working- class people do often live with others in small spaces, but either they are strangers in factory dorms or they are extended family members in small apartments.

The crucial role of the extended family may be the hardest for modern Westerners to appreciate. It is not our feel-good notion of family. My brother in law has spent the last 15 years continuously working out of country as a truck driver in Singapore, living in a ramshackle shelter on construction sites while sending most of his earnings back to his wife and kids. This is a somewhat extreme case, but milder instances are commonplace. People often have to work away from their families for years at a time to make ends meet and accrue any sort of savings.

Then there is transportation. Every day you will see mothers on scooters carrying several toddlers who are certain to die in even minor accidents. Another common sight and a less egregious example would be pickup trucks with the backs piled full of day laborers, or commuters casually hanging off the back of high-speed songthaew busses. This is highly efficient in monetary terms, but the human cost is huge.

It's a complex issue that is not reducible to PPP numbers.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why you say things aren't "reducible" to PPP numbers - low PPP- adjusted income corresponds quite well to the low consumption levels you are describing.

In any case, I'm glad we are agreed that unreal37 is incorrect, and it is possible to "live on" $1200/month. It's not anywhere near as nice as American poverty, but it's hardly clear that $7.25 is too low.

I'd propose an alternate direction for the discussion - if we believe the American poor are lacking in some necessary good or service, lets be specific and name it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The vote is tomorrow and has almost no chance of getting passed.

[http://www.gfsbern.ch/DesktopModules/EasyDNNNews/DocumentDow...](http://www.gfsbern.ch/DesktopModules/EasyDNNNews/DocumentDownload.ashx?portalid=0&moduleid=677&articleid=1077&documentid=443) [german, pdf]

</comment><comment><USER6> This is the key sentence in the article:

>However, 90% of Swiss workers earn well above the proposed minimum and are already among the highest paid in the world.

<comment><USER7> This law aims at the 10% that don't earn well.

The US isn't a poor country either. In fact, Americans are also among the highest paid in the world [1]. It's just not evenly distributed.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage)

<comment><USER8> Due to the marginal utility of money dropping rapidly as you get more, uneven distribution is much worse than it sounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Didn't the Swiss vote on basic income recently? Seems like it would be a much better alternative. Such a high minimum wage is likely to discriminate against the very poor by favouring automation and reducing demand for unskilled workers.

<comment><USER10> Automation is never bad.

<comment><USER9> Different schools of thoughts have differing opinions regarding that. As a libertarian, I'd argue that the free market is better than government at deciding what needs to be automated. Minimum wages effectively impose a tax on human labor which in turn artificially incentivizes automation. Basic income might suffer from the same problem to some degree (by disincentivizing people to do lower paid jobs) but at least, it would accomplish the stated goal of minimum wages (that is, helping the more needy).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like a fast way to get rid of immigrants.

<comment><USER12> And in the process lower the standard of living of the rest. Or tank the tourism sector, since they might have trouble paying this wage to the low- skilled workers they need. If they don't have that trouble, then even immigrants don't care, most of which already earn well above the proposed minimum wage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Let's say the Swiss set the minimum wage to $25/hr or even half that, $12/hr, what kind of ripple effect would we expect on other salary groups? Would they increase by the same proportion?

<comment><USER14> The effective minimum wage (what you have to pay to attract workers) is already probably over $12/hr in Switzerland.

Everything is already expensive, so I would expect the ripple effects to be slight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The actual dollar amount of the wage isn't the same as real income in terms of what goods and services you can buy relative to the wage, so sentences like this are useless: "would make mostly immigrants here in agriculture, housekeeping, and catering among the world's highest paid unskilled workforce." It's actually likely that the higher minimum wage will lower real incomes by driving up production costs.

</comment><comment><USER12> There seems to be a pattern here: Swiss referendums more often than not follow the opinion of the government. In cases where they don't, they seem to be quite problematical.

In the vote for "restrictions on EU immigrations" the swiss want to throw out immigrants. But not those they know personally. Or those on whom their economy depends. So basically the government has the choice between not implementing the proposal as intended, or to harm the economy badly. As far as I know, they haven't solved this Dilemma quite yet.

Maybe this "element of direct democracy" has less impact on the actual "democraticness" than some believe it has. At the very least it poses a serious risk for long term investors or entrepreneurs. Any harebrained idea that comes up in this process has a non-zero chance of being implemented just by the power of low participation or ambiguous opinions.

At best, governments already take the "pulse" of public and expert opinion when setting policy, making referendums futile or redundant.

<comment><USER16> > At best, governments already take the "pulse" of public and expert opinion > when setting policy, making referendums futile or redundant.

So you're saying a referendum is futile because it forces the government to (preemptively) do what the people want? That's exactly it's purpose!

<comment><USER12> I have not said that, and you deliberately misunderstood me to make a point against practical democracy.

In any country with a practical, working, real-world democracy you can see the government mostly following opinion polls.

Finding out "what the people want" is extremely hard, at least if you aren't a populist politician or their adherents. The task doesn't get easier if you pose simple yes and no questions.

I think it is dangerous that people in western democracies increasingly equate referendums and votes with democracy, leaving out the conditions of the vote, the environment, the institutions and the state of the human rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In Sweden there's no minimum wage at all. We let the market set it.

<comment><USER18> Nice.

However there is an implicit minimum wage linked to welfare. Any wage must be above what welfare pays or people might not bother working at all.

<comment><USER19> Do youmean that if someone doesn't want to work he can easily get welfare ?

<comment><USER20> "doesn't want to" is an awkward way to look at it.

It's more of a catch-22. If you simplify 'welfare' to "If you're not above the poverty line, you're entitled to assistance", then a job which does not bring you above the poverty line is zero-sum - you're still entitled to assistance.

An example I see here quite often, is people who can only find part-time work, and still receive assistance. It's not unusual to find people in the position where they're working <20hrs/week, but do not want to work 20<n<30 hours a week because it'll interfere with their benefits.

This is _not_ the "don't want to work" trope - they'd take 40/hrs week in a heartbeat. But if 20hrs/week + benefits is better than 25hrs/week sans benefits, who would realistically take more work for less pay?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> $25 in Switzerland is gets you about what $12 in the US does. So this really isn't as high as it sounds.

</comment><comment><USER22> Switzerland's need to export stuff and to do business with the surrounding EU- countries is bigger than the EU-countries' need to do business with Switzerland. Putting a minimum wage this high will naturally impact the prices on goods leading to a shrinking export market. I wonder how they came up with $25/hr and not, let's say, $17,50/hr?

<comment><USER14> Switzerland is already very expensive; a meal at McD's will run you at least 12 CHF. This rise in the minimum wage is not going to affect exports at all (which are all very high end...and how many bankers make minimum wage?); it will make some things slightly more expensive (on top of already being pretty expensive).

<comment><USER22> Switzerland exports more than just bank services, e.g. grocery products like cheese and chocolate which are products produced with low wages. And yes it'expensive, I'm currently living in Gèneve and paying more than enough for my kebabs (it's cheaper to pay for the tram to Annemasse in France and have the kebab over there).

<comment><USER14> The farmers are well protected in Switzerland, while the chocolate making is highly automated.

What the higher minimum wage will do is push either for automating or exporting lower wage tasks, which will reduce immigration (since those jobs are not really done by swiss citizens anyways), and there are surprisingly a lot of xenophobic people in Switzerland that are OK with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The effect is that lower skilled swiss citizens will emigrate now that they can no longer be employed in their home country. It is the wolf of eugenics under the sheep's clothing of leftist charity.

</comment><comment><USER24> Fact here: If you convert $ to euros with the current rates, that makes minimum wage 4380 Euros a month.

I worked for a year in Switzerland and I am telling you, you can barely live with that kind of money. Everything is so expensive over there at least Zurich.

So yes expect a Swiss Tourist coming in the US buying everything and have a lot of funs, but in Switzerland with that wage he won't be saving anything.

</comment><comment><USER25> and how much does a loaf of bread, gasoline, rent etc etc cost there? It's all relative

<comment><USER26> cost of living is about 1.5 times higher than the US. Source is somewhere in this comment thread

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I love when people give us opportunities to empirically measure their bad theories.

<comment><USER28> Those "bad theories" have led to a far higher quality of life than the US.

<comment><USER29> Yeah because you can directly compare Switzerland and the US. Where does the high income of Swiss people come from? I don't think the same thing would be replicable for the US (for starters, the US is not a tiny neutral country surrounded by Alps).

<comment><USER30> So? Even if that were true, it's irrelevant to the above poster's counterpoint to the previous poster's statement.

<comment><USER29> How so?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Government intervention in the free market is never a good thing. If i would have a citizenship i would have voted no.

<comment><USER12> I can see various situations where government intervention in free markets is most decidedly a good thing.

For example, food and health industry needs to be regulated. The incentives for self-regulation otherwise are so low, that lots of people die and suffer until the market reaches its supposed optimal equilibrium of high safety standards.

Antitrust regulation is an intervention in a free market, though one could argue that without antitrust regulation, there is no free market...</comment></comment>


100% Free Machine Learning Course - <AUTHOR> https://gscode.in/machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> Call me old school but after watching numerous people try and fail to learn online with courses and especially YouTube videos, I'm pretty convinced that to learn ideally people need to read textbooks.

This isn't a question of learning styles - and I do believe that online courses and videos are valuable supplementary materials. But none of them compare in richness and direction to a well written and organized book.</comment>


Ask HN: What non-agile process (or variant of it) are you using at your work? - <AUTHOR> So we're doing Agile at work - Scrums, Sprints, stand-ups, - the whole lot.
I'm not here to rant, since rant has already been done before. The best example of the rant was this one
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5406384
With which I can't help agreeing.
Apart from strictly following the agile process, I'd like to know what different types of "processes" you guys are using. Do you like it as a developer? If yes, care to share? Why is it working? (or not)? <comment><USER2> After my team made a half-hearted attempt to adopt something vaguely resembling agile scrum, I suggested we simplify by just using a Trello kanban board.

The ease of adoption makes it a good way to just get started, which is what we needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> My take is that the success of any workplace process is more a matter of trust than methodology. And the placement of that trust has to be in the organization. Agile or waterfall or whatever, it doesn't matter if the organization doesn't engender the trust of the team members. Your comments suggest that that's the case here. Changing the process without changing cultural and structural dynamics in the workplace is going to be an empty exercise.

Good luck.

<comment><USER4> Just my take here.

Agile and other systems exist to remove trust from the equation. If you want a consistent result, you remove all of the variables that cause inconsistency. Trust is one of those things that can't be put on a spreadsheet. The cost of a software feature can be quantified through a process that filters out uncertainty and intangibles.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't clear.

Trust is an element of workplace culture not production procedure. A lack of trust will manifest itself as a lack of faith in production procedures. My thesis is that that lack of faith is independent of the feature set of whatever procedure is currently implemented be it agile, waterfall, kanban, or clusterfuck.</comment></comment></comment>


Thousands of Istanbul citizens walking to protest government - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/enginayaz1/posts/10100625543118373 <comment><USER2> Media is censoring the events. Only information channel is twitter. Right now , on the bosphorus bridge that connects asia and europe: <https://twitter.com/tunaarman1/status/340667624432205825>

<comment><USER3> The BBC is covering it pretty well.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22739423>

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately this is not happening with the NYTimes, only a story link in the "International" section towards the bottom of its front-page. Across the Atlantic the BBC, Le Figaro or der Spiegel have made it their top story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The primary ISP provider has been slowing down / blocking port 80 / 443 packets going to facebook and twitter hosts. They are gradually blocking social media right now.

3G works as the cellular providers maintain their own internet structure. However they deployed signal jammers to protest locations.

So.. We are basically fucked. Media outlets are still running cooking shows.

<comment><USER5> Gotta add, before this; people used twitter really well during the protests.

They tweeted street names where help is needed. They tweeted doctor / laywer phone numbers. Called Veterinarians for stray animals affected from police gas. Shared ways to deal with gas (like using acid reflux medicine on your face)

So, the government must be really afraid now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That were all empty teargas cans, <https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLn89fZCIAA0Gwd.jpg> doing this, <http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLevznnCQAEOR1j.jpg> and made in <http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLnx94jCIAE8yQ9.jpg>

This man is pronounced dead, but maybe he survived with major injuries. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbRgMqkSvRg>

</comment><comment><USER7> More photos [http://www.odatv.com/n.php?n=gezi-parki-yikiliyor-haydi- taks...](http://www.odatv.com/n.php?n=gezi-parki-yikiliyor-haydi- taksime-2805131200)

<comment><USER8> it s like a scene from Avatar. Turks are revolting to stop the killing of 75 year old trees, police reacts violently and protests turn against the government.

Trees are leading the people..

<comment><USER9> And protesters are destroying stuff around. Fantastic.

<comment><USER10> No protestor is doing any harm around. These are Civil disguised cops trying to make reason for their aggression. Been there seen it.

By the way I can't believe we still have blind believers in RTE's virtual democracy.

<comment><USER9> Sure. They burn stuff for warming up. <http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/izmir_yangin_yeri-1135843>

Assuming you know Turkish:

"...Gediz Üniversitesi'nin Çankaya Yerleşkesi binasının camlarını kıran ardından Şair Eşref Bulvarı üzerindeki Mc Donald binasını da taş yağmuruna tutan eylemciler, Talatpaşa üzerindeki Sevinç Pastanesi'nin önündeki yolu kapattı."

<comment><USER10> These fires are barricading against cops. Police is trying to kill. Using unbelievable force and still you say having some garbage fires are looting?

By the way I say I have seen civil cops looting and protesters preventing them. But sure main stream media is the best news source.

Edit:

I believe these are also protesters trying to kill wounded cops? [https://twitter.com/Kadirkaymakci/status/340791432891748352/...](https://twitter.com/Kadirkaymakci/status/340791432891748352/photo/1/large)

<comment><USER9> Conspiracy assertions like "trying to kill us" and "civil cops looting" make me no longer want to continue this thread.

<comment><USER10> Conspiracy? Yeah I have an unbelievable photoshop ability.. [http://25.media.tumblr.com/ec39e9f4899e57c0d20ee6777c706c6d/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/ec39e9f4899e57c0d20ee6777c706c6d/tumblr_mnprmefZqz1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://25.media.tumblr.com/9d9be489e91384e67e0709923d80834f/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/9d9be489e91384e67e0709923d80834f/tumblr_mnpr1301QE1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://25.media.tumblr.com/85b02a038c893bb3aecf82a7f08c7d6b/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/85b02a038c893bb3aecf82a7f08c7d6b/tumblr_mnpkjckvpr1ste7qoo1_500.jpg) [http://25.media.tumblr.com/839abf4bc4709268dea470b3efbd6a19/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/839abf4bc4709268dea470b3efbd6a19/tumblr_mnpkl33qmE1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://24.media.tumblr.com/4b9c64f573891519df441fb2665479fe/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/4b9c64f573891519df441fb2665479fe/tumblr_mnpk9bwmRn1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://24.media.tumblr.com/ff7423721c396bea87d0ad6ca86e1bca/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/ff7423721c396bea87d0ad6ca86e1bca/tumblr_mnpicpt9vc1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://25.media.tumblr.com/b93996ce1ac8e1c065fcd006f9d2bdaf/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/b93996ce1ac8e1c065fcd006f9d2bdaf/tumblr_mno0mtnTNA1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://24.media.tumblr.com/34473d61e1310ecaa6b9d4104941630d/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/34473d61e1310ecaa6b9d4104941630d/tumblr_mnotf0y5dy1stgjbvo1_1280.jpg) [http://25.media.tumblr.com/152f04b33dfc749d9330d06156e53037/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/152f04b33dfc749d9330d06156e53037/tumblr_mnora6Lt2u1stgjbvo1_500.jpg) [http://24.media.tumblr.com/629ff449dd6e268bdbd16f4ff4e0a89c/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/629ff449dd6e268bdbd16f4ff4e0a89c/tumblr_mnop3lo7da1stgjbvo1_400.jpg) [http://24.media.tumblr.com/2dfad9145b36fe427bdb5adecc95b1da/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/2dfad9145b36fe427bdb5adecc95b1da/tumblr_mnohpeerie1ste7qoo1_400.jpg) [http://24.media.tumblr.com/7606851a4219d0695dfa1072ddb57282/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/7606851a4219d0695dfa1072ddb57282/tumblr_mnog34Nf7S1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://25.media.tumblr.com/37814ed78bbc6fedd99b16c2b00c539b/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/37814ed78bbc6fedd99b16c2b00c539b/tumblr_mnofamgMhK1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg) [http://25.media.tumblr.com/10a8aec55104afb106b6a28daf677266/...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/10a8aec55104afb106b6a28daf677266/tumblr_mno63v4Vqy1ste7qoo1_1280.jpg)

<comment><USER9> Police using excessive force? Perhaps. Some people are standing against pressurized water and gas shells expecting nothing will happen? Absolutely.

These pictures proves nothing on your assertions "they are trying to kill us" and "civil police looting". Good luck on your protests.

<comment><USER11> You not being in those streets wouldn't have the faintest idea how it feels; and meanwhile, you didn't even offer a SHRED of evidence for "protesters are destroying stuff around". You kind of make me sick, actually.

[edit: I am sorry for that last bit. Such dismissal of (even emotional reactions to) police brutality (by people facing it), makes me kinda sick. I haven't been on many demonstrations, but even in Germany I've seen cops gleefully rush, shove around and arrest utterly harmless school kids for protesting Chirac when he visited; I wouldn't want to be a protester in Turkey, that's for sure, and godspeed to all involved. Still, sorry for attacking you personally, that was uncalled for and is part of the problem.]

<comment><USER9> I have given a link and quotes from a newspaper. I am not a supporter of government, police or later protesters. That's it.

<comment><USER11> In my books there is a (huge) difference between destruction for the sake of destruction, and making barricades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is a gallery

<http://imgur.com/gallery/WJnz6> #direngeziparki

please take a look at this to get the cruelty and violence exposed by the police:

Help us spread the freedom cry of the people of Turkey !

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd just noticed someone created this on my web app <http://picsho.com/HYFSbbl1/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 3.30am, Turkish capital. Hundreds of university students left their dormitories, passing through the working class neighborhood to join other protestors in front of the parliament building.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r1-SEZKxGqw#)!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More photos: <http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/>

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm Turkish. Let me try to shed some light on what's going on.

What started as a small protest to prevent the demolishing of a park to build a mall on it turned into full-blown riots after some stunning displays of brutality by the police. The commentators are saying that the Turks had lots of pent-up anger over the years and this allowed them to let it all out. The result is the largest series of riots Turkey has seen in recent years. At least in my lifetime, and I'm 28. I don't live there right now, but my Facebook feed is full of updates from friends and sometimes it moves faster than I can follow. There's lots of people, especially in Istanbul and the capital city of Ankara, but also in others including Izmir, Bursa, Antalya and my hometown, Adana.

And it means fuck-all.

People on the Internet - Reddit, especially - are sensationalizing the hell out of it and blowing it out of proportion, saying the government is about to fall. The reality? The government has not even acknowledged what is going on. Prime Minister Erdogan probably received some updates from his staff and then went to bed. He must be up now having his breakfast. He knows his regime is not in any danger, especially since he gutted the military over the past decade. The irony is that those same people who cheered his efforts to eliminate the military's influence in politics (saying it's "undemocratic") are the ones who are protesting on the streets now. I want to ask them, "how does it feel when you destroy your own insurance against fascism, idiots?" But it doesn't really matter. Hindsight is 20/20.

I certainly hope I'm wrong. But regardless of what happens, I know one thing: if there's a Hell, Erdogan will burn in it.

<comment><USER15> Let me get this straight - you think military influence on a government is what can _preserve_ democracy? Because you think that in the case of a government that is heavily military based, that military part of the government would be _for_ people?

You're free to believe that, I suppose, but you'd be ignoring most of the world's history. Revolutions happen when normal people rise up against the government, no the military. The military is usually busy shooting those people.

<comment><USER16> In most of the world, revolutions come bottom up. In Turkey, they came top down. It was the military that toppled the "sultan" and established the parliamentary system / Turkish Republic. And later it was a former general who set up the multi-party system (and didn't get elected).

I know it sounds off, but what the Founding Fathers did for the US, the generals did for Turkey. Not a very healthy one I agree, but at least they established whatever form of democracy Turkey has today.

<comment><USER17> > It was the military that toppled the "sultan" and established the > parliamentary system / Turkish Republic

The Young Turk Revolution, while supported by one army corp didn't topple the Sultan. The Sultan (Mehmed VI) was deposed by the Grand National Assembly of the Turkish Republic, a political body.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My girlfriend is vacationing in Turkey and in Istanbul currently. I spoke with her last night and asked what was going on, she said a small amount of people were protesting trees being removed from a park. She said she believed it was a little more than that but nothing very extreme. It was interesting to hear her view after seeing it and then read the reddit/hn talk of government overthrow, rampant police brutality, and revolutions. I suppose it will be interesting to see what happens. And then uninteresting to see how few of these comments are relevant.

<comment><USER14> Your girlfriend is probably not near the same park where the protests started. People are literally rioting on the streets - there are photos all over Facebook and Twitter documenting this.

<comment><USER18> Certainly possible, she said Gezi park which I had heard come up so I just assumed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Summary in english

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zdVS0mGwD3I#)!

<comment><USER2> And from BBC : [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10fa2s_bbc-in-az-onceki- ya...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10fa2s_bbc-in-az-onceki- yayinindan-01-06-2013-04-00-tsi_news?start=225#.UamRckAwfis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> More fascinating photos from several contributors: <http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com>

</comment><comment><USER20> Multiple people are claiming access to Facebook and Twitter is being blocked.

<comment><USER21> Well, they're lying. I'm sitting in istanbul on FB / Twitter / YT without issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Follow the Turkish rabbit, my Millennial friends (or are you with Cypher: "Ignorance is bliss."). Knock, knock: [http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay13/politicizing- GenY5-13.ht...](http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay13/politicizing- GenY5-13.html)</comment>


Ask HN:  Successful pivot stories - <AUTHOR>

I have a few websites that are pretty stagnant and in need of a new direction.  Before making a decision, it would be interesting to learn about  successful pivots made by other websites or startups. <comment><USER2> I seem to recall this pivoting was one of the topics at the very first Startup School (in 2005, IIRC). It related to flikr, which started as some kind of social-type site for young girls (IIRC), then evolved to a gaming site, and then to "flikr". Originally, what we know as flikr was just a simple way for people playing the game to share photos online, then the photo sharing part got way more traction than the game part.

The basic lesson at the time was a version of "release early, release often", react to user experiences, and if you have money in the bank, keep throwing ideas against the wall until something sticks.

So, I don't think there is a whole lot to "learn" from similar sites, other than pay attention to your users and try new things. One thing to keep in mind is that a user base of any appreciable size can be very valuable, so if you do pivot, try to make it fluid enough that you can somehow carry existing users along with you.

If your sites are stagnant to the tune of a couple dozen users and monthly traffic that barely registers, IMO you are not pivoting, you are starting over.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two come to mind in recent memory--AdaptiveBlue (GetGlue) and Hashable</comment>


Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg Under Attack - <AUTHOR> https://joelx.com/facebook-and-mark-zuckerberg-under-attack/14708/ <comment><USER2> This article doesn't spell anything out very well.

The anti-facebook audience is very engaged .. so it's a profitable topic to publish content on, and media companies like NY Times directly compete with Facebook for advertising spend, so they kind of have an incentive to try to attack Facebook.

Facebook has plenty of legitimate things it can be criticized for, as well.</comment>


Call climate change what it is: violence - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/climate-change-violence-occupy-earth <comment><USER2> Call climate change what it is: the biggest financial opportunity civilization has ever seen</comment>


A Map of Every Building in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/12/us/map-of-every-building-in-the-united-states.html <comment><USER2> Oh wow that Microsoft dataset!

I played with a dataset like this from OpenStreetMap, and other Geographic Information Systems data (did you know the US government makes freely available 10 meter resolution heightmaps of the entire continental United States? And in some places better?). It was a lot of fun, and a mild bit unsettling, looking at this publicly available data, and tracking down childhood homes in backwoods communities and seeing very accurate footprints of houses.

The GIS community has built absolute metric craploads of tooling to work with all this data and play with it. Check out [https://www.gdal.org/](https://www.gdal.org/) if you are interesting, and QGIS [[https://qgis.org/en/site/](https://qgis.org/en/site/)] for an open source data viewer.

I used all this support and data to build a silly script to take in that heightmap data and turn it into a 3D model that could be imported into Blender (or other software). I'm currently "stuck" at trying to overlay freely available road data over that terrain.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Just wondering whats the size of the entire dataset download?

<comment><USER4> Not very big at all, I'm mirroring the whole thing, an individual state ranges from 29MB (Idaho) to about 375MB (California).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently heard about a short story by a French author about a map making- obsessed country who covered their whole country with a 1:1 scale map. For years I've had the idea for an indie game about trying make it from one side of the USA to the other with a crappy car and little money - basically a modern-day reimagining of Oregon Trail. However a challenge would be rendering interesting buildings and cities. So something I thought about is what if the game also uses the idea of the whole country having a 1:1 street atlas map draped over everything? You could give hints of there being buildings and other interesting things peeking through rips in the map, while most of the modeling / graphics is really just open street map data textured over a height map.

<comment><USER6> There's a game similar to what you're describing, except in the USSR instead of the USA:

[https://store.steampowered.com/app/446020/Jalopy/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/446020/Jalopy/)

<comment><USER7> Wow, that's like My Summer Car [1] but with a goal.

[1] [http://www.amistech.com/msc/](http://www.amistech.com/msc/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The image to me looks like mold growth, which made me think about whether or not there are any parallels between human infrastructure growth and bacterial/fungal colony growth.

<comment><USER9> Yes: [https://www.wired.com/2010/01/slime-mold-grows-network- just-...](https://www.wired.com/2010/01/slime-mold-grows-network-just-like- tokyo-rail-system/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting converse idea would be a map of everywhere on earth essentially untouched by humans. Places with virtually no buildings, farms, roads, human- made trails, or any other modern human development.

Obviously humanity has left its mark on just about every corner of the world, but a map of the shrinking relatively untouched areas would be neat.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm always interested in what exists in this kind of dataset. Near me, they have my neighbor's stables and garage, and the covered picnic tables behind my church.... but have neither of my barns which have been here since the 70s, and are about 3 years behind on the homes being built.

</comment><comment><USER12> This really puts the environmental impact of humanity into perspective for me. Not including secondary or tertiary effects, look at how much of the world that humans have physically, immediately touched! And to put this map even more into perspective, the US isn't even close to being the most densely populated. Imagine what the the maps of China, India, and the EU look like!

<comment><USER13> Buildings are only a small fraction of humanity's impact on the world.

A lot of land that isn't built up (and therefore doens't show up on the NYT map) is used for farming. After all, we have seven billion mouths to feed.

Most forests that aren't used for farming have probably been clear-cut a number of times already, and are still being managed artificially. We need timber for the buildings.

There are forests in Europe that appear peaceful until you realize that the reason nobody goes in there is that the ground is chock full of unexploded shells from two world wars.

And in case you find a desert where nothing useful can grow, you might want to check if we've detonated a couple of nukes there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's a super cool dataset. It does drive the more philosophical question of "what constitutes a building" though.

Looking at the map, it seems that large liquid storage tanks count as buildings, but pipelines do not. Other large industrial facilities (e.g. distillation towers) seem to be hit-or-miss. Docks and other offshore platforms seem to be missing although it wouldn't surprise me if there are intellectual property or security issues around some of these things.

Edit: The statue of liberty counts as a building, but the map seems a little bit confused about various Washington DC monuments.

Edit2: Amphitheaters seem hit-or-miss. Playground structures and pools seem to be out.</comment>


Spin up instances of full-stack software to try it before installing it - <AUTHOR> https://show.layerci.com/ <comment><USER2> Looks pretty cool. How does this compare to bitnami? Bitnami's community list of stacks is pretty extensive: [https://bitnami.com/stacks](https://bitnami.com/stacks). So I'm wondering what the advantages are of layerci over bitnami and their pre-made stacks.</comment>


In-Depth View of Wave Computing's DPU Architecture, Systems - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/08/23/first-depth-view-wave-computings-dpu-architecture-systems/ <comment><USER2> Fairly certain a true dataflow machine doesn't have 50% the amount of instruction RAM as it has data RAM.

Also putting all the "tensors" (I assume this means activations and weights?) into the external memory is downright dumb.

Only having 16MB of memory on die is also probably not a wise decision.

The use of GALS is certainly interesting though.

<comment><USER3> Are you qualified to make these criticisms?

<comment><USER2> Absolutely not, I'm very biased (see my profile) :)

I do think the criticisms are valid regardless though. Data movement is far more expensive than computation, so having so little on-die memory is almost definitely a bad decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know how general-purpose the cores are on this and other parallel architectures? As I recall, the first video cards couldn't do things like branching, so it wasn't possible to program loops or flow control. I'm concerned that if these new processors can only run niche frameworks like OpenCL or CUDA that it will create friction slowing the adoption of concurrent programming in languages like MATLAB/Octave/Erlang/Elixer/Julia/Go etc.

There seems to be an opening in the market for truly general purpose processors having say > 16 or 32 cores. So it would be nice to have a curated list somewhere of multipurpose chips.

<comment><USER2> Processors like these do not even run OpenCL or CUDA, they execute computational graphs devoid of conventional control flow.

The Adapteva Epiphany or the Rex Neo is probably closer to what you're looking for. However, once you ask for anything that handles control flow well, you pretty much end back up at the general purpose CPU, which is highly inefficient for a reason. For example, even your GPU today will become very inefficient with control flow due to branch divergence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article is [only] a write up of the Hot Chips presentation (I was there). Without a an external validation of the claims it's merely pretty pictures. _Iff_ their claims holds true, then there's some interesting elements here.

This is far from the only data-flow architecture out there (my favorite is the TRIPS instance of EDGE), but so far none have succeeded in the market.

The self-timed part is using NULL Convention Logic (NCL). Wave have dubbed their implementation of this WTL (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11469749](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11469749)). There are some very interesting questions about exactly how they use this, but it sounds like the synchronization between compute nodes is using NCL, but the compute nodes are conventional synchronous logic, clocked by the completion signal from NCL. That would certainly be an interesting hybrid, but the 6.7 GHz results begs a lot of questions.

</comment><comment><USER6> is this similar to what graphcore.ai is attempting?</comment>


Make your OS X finder logo awesome - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vsinha/classy_finder

<comment><USER2> Any chance you're going to release a nude version of classy finder?

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like the idea, but the logo looks plain next to the others...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, yeah. Any ideas for a less plain logo?</comment></comment>


Asana Raises $28M At A $280M Valuation - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/23/workplace-collaboration-tool-asana-raises-28m-at-a-280m-valuation/ <comment><USER2> Congrats to the team. Asanas future is bright.

</comment><comment><USER3> At least the valuation sounds rational.</comment>


Recent Startup Trends - <AUTHOR> http://codingvc.com/recent-startup-trends

<comment><USER2> I see more and more investments pouring in to business/enterprise SaaS. Analytics, whilst not normally considered SaaS, is certainly strong in the mindset of investors and when companies start understanding how they can use their analytics data, they will see fantastic returns. At the moment, it seems that only small business ~<$10m really understand true analytics or conversion optimisation.

Data Science startups/apps are an extension of this and my money would be on them if they can easily show ROI to their clients.

</comment><comment><USER3> We've seen several of these trends already for 2013 and are really seeing a buildup for 2014. My startup is a mashup of analytics, targeting neglected industries, SaaS, and quantified self.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've never met a data scientist that would talk about tableau as if it were anything fascinating. In fact, tableau is squarely in the target market of accessible data science tools.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can someone help me out, is Data Science the new term replacing Business Intelligence (BI) or is this just an extension of BI.

</comment><comment><USER6> Trends: Because the best way to disrupt an industry is doing the same thing everyone else is doing.</comment>


Testing on Emulators vs. Real Devices - <AUTHOR> http://blog.testmunk.com/testing-on-emulators-vs-real-devices/

<comment><USER2> One thing we experienced is that the major devices often use different chipsets on the same model. So Samsung may source a Broadcom and an NXP chipset for NFC for the same Galaxy S model to prevent a vendor-lock-in. However this may result in different behaviour across users of 'the same device'.</comment>


Show HN: Fleetzen – "Uber for moving large items" - <AUTHOR> https://fleetzen.com <comment><USER2> I have some very serious doubts about this. Uber may be able to skirt the law for transporting people, but if these drivers are acting as commercial haulers, they really probably need both a CDL in the US, and their vehicles need DOT numbers and the service to be registered as a freight broker, as well as everything that comes with that turf. This is one of those things that really is regulated for a good reason. If the DOT's treatment of other people around here skirting around without DOT numbers moving freight commercially is any indication, this probably won't (and shouldn't) end well.

<comment><USER3> I suspected similar, but did a bit of Googling, and to my surprise it appears a CDL would not be required. The criteria for when you need a CDL seems to be based on inherent characteristics of the vehicle (weight, number of passengers it can carry, for example) rather than on what you do with it or whether or not that is commercial.

Drivers just using ordinary SUVs and pickup trucks and vans appear, on first Google, to be fine with an original drivers license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are the individuals moving the things insured? Will they get worker's comp if a refrigerator falls on them?

Mentions screening, driving record etc., but I didn't see anything about this in a quick scan.

<comment><USER5> Yeah where Uber have been skirting the law because issues usually don't arise with passengers, this is going to plough straight into a whole bunch of them.

Load sizes, damage, loss, personal injury. This is going to be a problem very quickly.

<comment><USER6> Not necessarily. Driving a regular sedan, you can easily smash into a person, car full of people, or even a building and do $500k+ worth of damage.

If you have a few packages in your car, each worth a few hundred bucks, you're not significantly more risky for the company underwriting your insurance policy.

So I doubt that a commercial policy for parcel delivery is going to be much more expensive than a personal policy. It's just that the driver would need to get one.

Also, a company like Uber or Fleetzen would be able to keep it cheap by insuring all of their drivers, who would be screened and immediately fired upon having an accident.

When you have a personal policy and never get into an accident, your premiums stay really low. It's when you get into an accident that they skyrocket because people who get in accidents tend to account for a disproportionate share of total accidents. Put another way, if you have never been in an accident, you're unlikely to ever been in one.

Uber and Fleetzen would immediately remove accident-prone people from the risk pool, which would keep the premiums down.

<comment><USER7> I haven't tried getting commercial transport insurance, but my gut feeling based on moves and mailing items says that insurance claims in moving cargo are _way_ more common than in moving passengers.

With passengers, the only real risk is a traffic accident, which are reasonably rare.

With cargo, traffic accidents are still rare, but it is much more likely for the movers to damage something while loading/unloading or when boxes shift in transit. It's hard to accidentally damage a passenger, while it's easy to drop a TV while carrying it down the stairs.

Perhaps these risks can be minimised if the owner is responsible for loading/unloading and for safe packing of boxes in the truck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is Fleetzen registered in Washington and/or with the FCMSA as a freight broker and compliant with all state and federal requirements for brokers?

Are your drivers properly registered and compliant with state and federal requirements for household goods carriers?

If not, what is your rationale for believing Fleetzen and your drivers are exempt from registering and complying with state and federal regulation of carriers and carrier brokers?

<comment><USER2> This is probably another case of someone (ab)using "regulatory arbitrage" just like Uber, but I think the DOT will clamp down way harder on this (as they really should) if this is the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not to be the cynical one of the bunch but...

1) Become Fleetzen driver in Atherton or Beverly Hills using stolen identity (post my own Criagslist ad soliciting drivers for my fictional startup VanZen asking candidates for all the info that Fleetzen asks for, then just forward the info from an unlucky applicant to Fleetzen to get my driver credentials).

2) Wait for expensive item to be given to me, sell it, and profit.

Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER10> You're thinking too much.

Far easier to just break into an expensive house, grab jewelry, and fence it. In and out in minutes, none of this potentially traceable internet crap.

<comment><USER9> That's pretty high risk, while being handed the item isn't. Also theft (failing to deliver said given item to its intended destination) and burglary (breaking in and stealing things) are two entirely different crimes, with burglary carrying a much stiffer sentence in most states because of the potential for violence. The point of my comment was that services like this would be attractive to some criminals.

<comment><USER10> You are still thinking too much!

I've known a bunch of let's say, less than savoury individuals. The average criminal doesn't plan much, crime is mostly opportunistic. They aren't typically thinking "this is theft vs. burglary and so I'll get a different sentence." They simply just don't think about getting caught in the first place and assume it won't happen.

The criminals who _do_ think about what they are doing will aim for much more profitable behavior, such as targetting a number of homes or businesses all at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So I work for a startup in Hong Kong doing something like this. We're called GoGoVan, and doing really well in the region

[http://gogovan.com.hk/en](http://gogovan.com.hk/en)

What's perhaps different is that with GoGoVan you can ride with your stuff.

(Which resolves some of your worries about security and trust)

We're currently thinking of building our next version in elixir.

And of course we're hiring!

<comment><USER12> Elixir huh. Great language, but how did you end up choosing it?

<comment><USER11> So we're a Ruby shop and the backend is _all Ruby_ right now.

But as the company has grown, it's become apparent that what we need to become is a Global Soft-Realtime Logistics Platform.

We could scale with Microservices and Go (something like Hailo in the UK)

But actually, if our most important properties are real-time, and zero- downtime, then Elixir and OTP seem like a great choice.

<comment><USER13> Interesting. Thanks for sharing a bit about your situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not having insurance for this utterly terrifies me. I'm absolutely fine with self-insuring the cost of the objects being moved (because you know what your loss is going to be), but if the driver gets injured, or injures someone else, ruh roh -- maybe your homeowners insurance will help?

Also, no idea what the actual parameters are on this. I fairly routinely move >500 pound objects, and if the driver doesn't have the right load handling equipment, it is vastly harder. Even a 100-200 pound load is a lot easier with appliance dollies and straps and ramps.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe it's just me, but I'm quite leery of using the services of a company that doesn't have a physical address, let alone a phone number, listed on its website. Those two things are dirt cheap nowadays - mailing addresses and phone numbers. Call me paranoid, but I don't trust things like that. Just my two cents.

<comment><USER16> I'd take an email address that goes to someone who can help instead of a phone number that goes to someone in a call center reading from a script any day. And a mailing address? I can't remember the last time one was useful for interacting with a company.

<comment><USER17> I'm guessing it's more from the standpoint of "what address do we serve you papers at".

<comment><USER15> That's a good part of it, yes. Without a service of process address, how can anyone be certain this is a legitimate company?

It has little to do with customer support, and everything with being able to feel like you're dealing with a real company and not someone who does this part time from his/her basement. Especially for services like this one where liability is an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> People don't want an option for tips. Then it will bother their conscience if they don't.

<comment><USER19> Exactly - that's the point. Same reason Square / Grubhub / most other mobile checkout options usually default to the 2nd lowest tip amount. You need to psychologically be okay with being less generous to move it to 0. Most are too guilt-ridden to move it to 0 so that the server / delivery driver still gets some compensation.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is an interesting insight on the customer behavior. In our current design we have set the default at 5% (mostly with an intention of providing a visual hint of a tip in the bill and expecting customer to change) and are seeing lot of customers don't change it to anything else most of the times. On the other side we have seen that the customers, who decide to tip in cash, slide this to 0 and pay as high as 25% of the invoice at times.

<comment><USER20> Please tell me you didn't really expect people to change the default!!???

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It might be me, but it took me a minute to see the link for what cities you cover. You might want to make that more prominent and you should _definitely_ have an email signup form to alert me when you come to my area (DC). It's worth it for the ability to track interest alone.

</comment><comment><USER22> Pretty weird to see the exact same baseline than [https://www.buddytruk.com/](https://www.buddytruk.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> There was a story on HN about a month ago saying Texas was cracking down on these illegal freight hauling startups.

</comment><comment><USER24> The website gets an F on the ssllabs.com SSL Test:

[https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=fleetzen.com](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=fleetzen.com)

<comment><USER25> They're using the Amazon Linux AMI (2014.09 most likely). It might be the default Apache config that ships with it, since it's super terrible. The F could be easily fixed with a slightly revised cipher suite list, but it would still be pretty low from all of the other problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think their is definitely a market for this. My question is, isn't Uber doing this already & has much more sophisticated logistics infrastructure in place? Uber Pool (future potential) = efficient pickup of parcels / deliver - on-demand.

<comment><USER27> Uber's only UI is their app. Their app will never be optimized for renting trucks. Thus, fleetzen will have a permanent advantage here that will only increase if reinforced with an advantage in terms of the availability of drivers.

<comment><USER6> > _Uber 's only UI is their app. There app will never be optimized for renting > trucks._

First of all, you're wrong. Uber also has an API, which is for another kind of user, but it's still an interface that enables selected developers to access all of their functionality.

Second, what makes you think Uber couldn't create a new app that connects to the same backend in under a month? There is no such thing as "permanent advantage" (or some companies would live forever), and there sure as hell is no such thing as an advantage based on UI.

<comment><USER13> > _there sure as hell is no such thing as an advantage based on UI_

I agree with the first part of your post, but... I have quit all kinds of services for a competitor because of a shitty UI. Now that being said, I think having (and not being able to escape) a shitty UI is symptomatic of more intrinsic problems. But there _is_ a business advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is that different from Dolly?

</comment><comment><USER29> You screenshot shows tax - how is this calculated? Do service fees typically require tax, or are you paying some sort of municipal fees? (Sales tax is only applied to sales of products, correct?)

<comment><USER30> Some states tax both goods and services (ex. Hawaii, New Mexico, South Dakota).

<comment><USER29> According to the site though the app is only live in Seattle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Pretty sure _Uber_ is going to be the Uber for moving large items.

<comment><USER32> I happened to look for "uber moving Nashville" (my city) and it looks like Uber has partnered with a company called Bellhops to do just that. So, yup, they either do it directly or indirectly.

<comment><AUTHOR> We did look into that. Bellhops provides packing/moving personnel (mostly students) but no vehicle. Think of them as professional apartment/house moving helpers (they don't cal themselves movers by the way). You need to procure the vehicle. Uber just enables the interaction between you and the bellhop. Fleetzen will dispatch a helper plus pickup truck in real time to location of your choice (think IKEA, Home Depot, Craigslist purchase etc.,)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> That refund policy though?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the lively discussions. I am the co-founder of fleetzen. We are a two-person startup that went live about 4 weeks back and now we are in the process of operationalizing it. Like many of you have mentioned we have a long list of operational and technical challenges to consider and address and I really appreciate you for the time and thoughts.

As a business we create value for three main constituents.

For customers – The core experience we want to deliver is that a driver/helper with a vehicle is available at the pickup location in less than 30 minutes, on-demand, regardless of the source of request (be it stores, Craigslist, an estate sale, or an apartment etc.,) and we want to offer the service at a competitive price. They no longer have to ask favors from their friends or wait for days for the stores to deliver, or drive to rental places such as U-Haul. It will be a "cab" like experience for moving stuff. It is convenient, saves ton of time and less expensive than other alternatives.

For drivers – A 2nd or 3rd job, an opportunity to make some additional income while doing some of the similar work that they used to do for free or as favors in the past. They are not the cab drivers who wait around the block. We do envision a world where, if we are successful in generating volume, they might wait around the block which could cut down our time to arrival. But we are long away from getting there.

Businesses - The direct effect of the above to the businesses and sellers is that, goods clear the shop floors faster with little to no overhead to them and probably increased sales.

Let me try to address some of the comments below.

CDL: As tzs mentioned our drivers do not need CDL to provide services. Washington state DOL has a nice flowchart at [http://www.dol.wa.gov/driverslicense/cdlrequired.html](http://www.dol.wa.gov/driverslicense/cdlrequired.html) that can help you understand how we meet this requirement. We do not carry super heavy goods and most of the items can be carried by two people (just like you and your buddy would). Pickups are not designed to carry loads that breaches this criteria.

Insurance: I cannot probably cover all the aspects of this subject here. We are in the process of procuring insurance for the Cargo that our drivers carry and it will meet or beat the state requirements. As some of you have mentioned the damage to the goods is likely and we will be able to address it. What separates us from likes of Uber in terms of liability is that we do not let the customers ride with the drivers. If we did, it will put us in a whole different category of transport (a taxi) and liability exposure. Basically we do not expose customers to any accidents on the road. For these reasons we are less risky from insurance company stand point.

Trust: Chance of drivers stealing customer's stuff is highly unlikely. The drivers go though a rigorous background check (criminal plus driving history) and we ensure that there is nothing in their past that could be damaging to the customers or to fleetzen as a brand. They are as trustworthy as any outsourced help you hire. In addition we review the driver performance on a regular basis.

Permits/registration etc.,: Fleetzen, in it's current form, is a "buddy with the truck" concept. The drivers are not movers per se. They do not provide any packing services etc.,. When customer books the service, they get a vehicle and one driver/helper. We are relying on the requirements listed at [http://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=480-15-181](http://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=480-15-181) that exempts them from needing a household goods permit. It is essentially a customer assisted move. That is one way we are able to provide a great experience at a competitive price. We have business license to operate in Washington and we are Delaware corporation.

About Uber: Never even for once we think that Uber cannot roll-out something similar to fleetzen and crush us. They have the resources (financial and technical :)). They have an incredible infrastructure that can reach a customer in matter of 5 minutes and that is enabling them to unlock plethora of customer scenarios. Most of their "non-car" based offerings (ice cream trucks, mariachi bands, pets etc.,) have all been delivered through partnerships. The closest they have come to moving is when they partnered with Bellhops, who only provide muscles for your moving needs. As far as we know the market for large item delivery using an Uber like model is still in it's early stages with few other players including us are trying to solve.

Technical recommendations: Thanks for the suggestions on SSL, email, tips. We will look into it.

Contacts: We are a registered Delaware corp with address at 701 5th Ave, STE 4200 Seattle. Our toll free number is 1-844-329-3299</comment>


White Dwarf Lashes Red Dwarf with Mystery Ray - <AUTHOR> http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1627/ <comment><USER2> "These high energy particles release blasts of radiation that lash the companion red dwarf star."

It would be really cool if we were witnessing an ancient battle between Type II Kardashev civilizations.

<comment><USER3> More like a kid flicking the light switch off and on again.

Damnit, Billy, stop messing around with the light switch! You'll burn out the bulbs.

<comment><USER4> Billy, it's not nice to vaporize planets! Now you go over there right now and apologize to those nice galaxy overlords!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It really makes you appreciate the power of a beam of relativistic electrons, when you consider that it's managing to cause a star to basically flicker.

<comment><USER6> it's not just a matter of velocity but also of flux. you couldn't use the LHC to make a star flicker. It's just enough to melt a car.

<comment><USER7> Exactly how ridiculous would it be to create the flux needed to use this to modulate our star? Or what about some _other_ star? Could it be used as a means of communication? Sure, other means are _easier_ but this would be visible even to a very low tech civilization and people who had nothing better to do used to watch the stars a lot.

I'm guessing we're several orders of magnitude away from the kind of flux that could do that sort of thing, but I have to wonder...

<comment><USER5> I mean, it would probably help to have a white dwarf that you could two around and manipulate somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Raise your hand if you thought this was a post about a new Dwarf Fortress patch....

</comment><comment><USER9> Why can't we just get along?</comment>


Up and Running With Rails, AngularJS & Yeoman - <AUTHOR> http://staunchrobots.com/blog/2013/10/14/up-and-running-with-angularjs-and-rails/

<comment><USER2> Great job Ulrich, the best guide to start in the angular + rails world</comment>