Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price  - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38082/Valve_Piracy_Is_More_About_Convenience_Than_Price.php <comment><USER2> TLDR: "The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates," Gabe Newell said.

<comment><USER3> But it should be noted that Steam's pre-release anti-piracy has no yet been broken. So it's not like they don't do DRM...

Having said that, the conclusion is pretty much in line with what many gamers and pirates have been saying: Stop screwing the customer and creating pirates of them.

I'm lucky enough to live in an English-speaking country, but I'm sure that if I lived in a country that typically sees long delays before localization, I'd find a way to get it early. Even if that meant learning English and engaging in piracy.

These companies understand hype and the way it drives sales, and then completely fail to use that knowledge when it comes to other countries. They won't wait! The hype has pushed them into getting it NOW, by hook or crook.

<comment><USER4> > I'm lucky enough to live in an English-speaking country, but I'm sure that > if I lived in a country that typically sees long delays before localization, > I'd find a way to get it early.

Localization isn't just bureaucratic nonsense that was conjured up to aggravate gamers in foreign countries - the games actually need to be translated to the local language.

As for if you were living in one of those countries as an expat, as you suggest, that's a very small market and not worth pursuing.

<comment><USER5> But yet they pirate the games anyway. My guess is that you'll find that a large percentage of "gamers" in non-English speaking countries speak English well enough to understand most games and don't want to wait the 6+ months required to translate the game to their local tongue when they could be playing online against US players.

This was especially true a few years back, when some publishers wouldn't release games in the UK until the "European" translation was finished!

<comment><USER6> It depends. A shooter? Yeah, piece of cake. An RPG? Sorry, but depending on the country no that many people could understand it well enough to follow the story.

TV Series do get around the moment they get on a torrent site, but many many people can follow them thanks to the subtitles provided by fellow viewers. If not they would have a harder time following them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >"We don't understand what's going on," he admitted. "All we know is we're going to keep running these experiments to try and understand better what it is that our customers are telling us."

That's refreshingly honest, I like that. No bluster about how it must have happened because they're so awesome and made such brilliant calculated decisions.

</comment><comment><USER8> The only 'piracy' I've done recently is to purchase a Kindle book using convulted means (fake US account, Proxy service, using gift card) then crack the DRM on the books so I can read it on my Kindle.

I'm sure the publishers and licensing people think they are very clever restricting content to people in other countries, but in reality, they are shooting both feet off.

The old ways are gone. There is now one global IP market, whether they like it or not. They either get with the program or they lose money and die. Sucks to be them, but that's creative destruction at work. You can't differential price, you can't licence in one market but not another. You either release the content for sale to everyone, or you will be worked around.

<comment><USER9> This is a massive sticking point for me as an Englishman living in Japan. The huge delay in getting films and, especially, TV over here coupled with the IP address and other restrictions in place by certain providers is a huge encouragement to me to Bittorrent instead. Luckily I now have a UK and US iTunes account that serves me well for most things.

My biggest gripe is with the UK sports companies - a lot of American friends can legally stream NBA, MFL and baseball via a global site that charges for high quality content. The English Premier League and cricket bodies are absolutely blind to this - there is no way for me to legally watch these sports via the web (and cable TV here isn;t possible in my apartment), even though I'd happily pay through the nose to get a fix. Because of this, I'm endlessly looking for ways to catch games via means that they spend huge amounts trying to chase and shut down.

Now that language and communication face such a low barrier, staggered releases and restrictions by market make no sense.

<comment><USER10> Have you tried using UK and US-based VPNs to get through to the region-locked content? I've spent a couple months in China with a California-based VPS, and I'm able to SSH tunnel to watch everything I want on Hulu.

<comment><USER9> I;ve tried, with some success. This kinda makes my point though, using shady means to download content because I am of one nationality and living abroad - not exactly an edge case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://www.blackrimglasses.com/2008/08/23/the-frustration- of...](http://www.blackrimglasses.com/2008/08/23/the-frustration-of-wanting- something-you-cant-buy/)

I worked in an industry (still do sort of) that took a huge hit from piracy, and reacted by making it more difficult to do things rather than respond to what piracy exposed.

While I still worked at a major I wrote this.

TL;DR summary:

I heard a song on the radio, and used Shazam to look it up. The song was "Forgotten Years" by Midnight Oil, and it was 2008. I tried in vain to buy this song legally before having to finally get it through illegal means (torrents). To offset this, I donated directly to the lead singers political campaign in Australia.

As I stated then and I still believe:

"I believe that the ultimate challenge for media providers is to make systems of actualization which narrow the gap from desire to the fulfillment of said desire. The only true way to fight one form of ubiquity is with another form of ubiquity."

PS: Ironically the video embedded in my blog post is now blocked because it was uploaded by the band's non-US label.

</comment><comment><USER12> In the olden days, pirating was hard. Hard to get the pirated game, hard to install the crack, hard to get it working again when a new patch came out and often the cracks didn't quite work and you had to find another one in the middle of your playthrough or even restart from the beginning because it broke something in your savegame. Just buying the game meant installing and playing, no hassle.

Today, installing a game you bought is harder than pirating it. You have to activate it, type in a 25 digit code you found on the box (wait, is that a B or a 3? Damnit.). It'll need an internet connection to activate, but the activation server is usually overloaded and doesn't work on launch day. Then it wants to patch itself before letting you play, because the stuff you got on the DVD you bought is actually out of date by the time you get home. You also have to sign up for some stupid web service that you never wanted, and have another login and password that you must not forget (or else you can't play anymore and your savegames are gone with it). Except if it's GFWL (Microsoft's Games for Windows Live). Then you also have to figure out why that damn thing gets stuck in an update loop and makes you log into things just to play an entirely offline, single player game (then you have to install xliveless, which avoids that). Pirating is so much easier. You torrent the thing, unpack it and play, just the way it should be.

I'm glad Gabe Newell gets this, and it's apparent in Valve's Steam (except for some reason they permit GFWL infested games, but at least they warn you about it).

</comment><comment><USER13> I pay for DirectTV, Verizion FIOS, Netflix, and have an Apple TV, yet I still can't get content delivered how I want it.

The only thing the big networks get right is sports.

If I forget to record something, I have to go to Hulu, where I can't stream it to my TV in HD unless I buy another device. My alternative is to pay 99 cents (or more) on iTunes.

I also have to buy a switch so I don't run out of HDMI ports, and it's a pain in the ass to switch between all of my boxes.

Yeah, piracy is starting to sound good.

Oh...forgot to mention that Netflix's selection currently sucks big time.

<comment><USER14> I don't mean to sound critical but why do you think networks get sports right? I actually feel like this is one of the worst offenders. Say I want to watch every Chicago Blackhawks game this season (or any other hockey team). Well, then I need to sign up for Versus. In order to get that I need to sign up for a Cable/satellite service. But I don't want all the channels, I watch what I want on broadcast or rent/stream. I just want to be able to watch a game when I have the time. I don't like watching normal shows TV on cable (can't stand commercials), so I rent DVDs or stream it on Netflix. Now there really aren't any options for me to just get sports, without paying way extra for a bunch of crap I don't want.

I can sign up for NHL Center Ice (Internet streaming), but then I don't really get to watch every game online, most are subject to blackouts, playoff games are spotty, Stanley Cup games are nonexistent. And since I don't have cable, I miss local games because it's subject to black out in my team's region.

Maybe it's better with other sports, but I really wish there was an easier way to select a team I want to follow or pay to watch games as I watch them, and only pay for that. The only station that I thought got things right was Telemundo during the world cup, even though I don't know any more spanish than "no hablo espanol". I watched all the games there since I didn't want to sign up for cable to get ESPN for two months.

Basically I'd just like a way to pay for season passes (and actually get all the games) or get a decent sports channel without paying for a bunch I don't want.

Edit: Sorry if this seemed nonsensical, my frustration with finding an easy way to watch certain sports has gone on for a couple years now.

<comment><USER15> Living in the UK means I don't have to put up with blackouts, so ignoring that I can say that options for watching US sports are immense compared to what we have in Europe.

The fact that I can pay a hundred bucks and watch any MLB game live or on delay, on my PC, iPad or TV, in HD, with pausing, skipping to inning or batter, picture in picture, and more... that's mind-blowing for me.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, that sounds very awesome and like exactly what I want. Is this using the MLB streaming service?

I really wish I could do the same thing with hockey games. I just really despise the idea of either paying a chunk of money and not being guaranteed of watching every game, or paying way more for a bunch of stuff I don't want to get almost every game.

Out of curiosity, what sorts of options do you have in Europe?

<comment><USER15> Yeah, that's with an MLB.tv Premium subscription - and same thing for NBA.

In Europe sports leagues (or at least the ones I've cared about) don't provide their own media options, it's all through TV networks. So you can subscribe to Sky Sports channels which are something like $50-$70/month, you can subscribe to ESPN which is something like $20/month (figures off the top of my head), etc. And then you can watch whatever games they chose to show.

And some games in some sports are shown on free to watch channels such as BBC and ITV, but these are highly limited. For example in football (sorry, soccer) you don't get any league games on BBC/ITV, but they will do the world cup (big international tournament every 4 years), and a few other things now and then.

I'd love to be able to pay for a digital service that gives me all Premier League (top level of soccer in the UK) matches - I tried, with a US proxy, Fox Sports' offering in this area, but the matches on offer were limited, and the video quality was truly terrible. It was painful to watch on my PC, yet alone TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are plenty of people who pay between $10 and $100 a month to have access to a dedicated seedbox in order to maintain ratio requirements on private torrent trackers. These people are a clear example of existing willingness to pay for access to content. Whenever content providers figure this out and can provide a service that has similar selection, availability, portability, and quality, they'll be sitting on a goldmine.

Resistance to change can be blinding. I have my doubts that such a service will exist anytime soon, however much sense it might make for their bottom line.

EDIT: this is in reference to TV/Movie industries, where this is much less of a solved problem than games and music.

<comment> Anti-Ratfish Very good point. Here in NZ much of what I want is literally years away from coming out and paying for it through legal means isn't an option. But paying in the form you suggest is an option. It's annoying to have to resort to illegal measures which actually cost money to get something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's also interesting to see how piracy builds a market in third world countries without the companies even being present there.

Like their example, Russians were pirating games and software long before Valve or other companies had a presence there, and as soon as they came in, they already had clients.

It was the same with Microsoft's Windows and Office - people got so used to them, for example, in Poland, Latvia, Romania, that they just bought licensed versions when they became available (government orders alone must've made them hundreds of millions in revenue).

<comment> ryan-allen I wonder how much of that was deliberate or a seized opportunity at a later date? It never was very difficult to pirate Windows and Office back in the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nowadays if a game isn't on Steam I just won't buy it. Mainly because keeping game CDs around is too much a hassle. When I buy something on Steam, I know I have that game for life and can re-install it quickly on any computer.

<comment><USER19> > I have that game for life

Not for life, but rather for the life of Steam as a platform. I don't see Valve going away anytime soon, but you never know...

<comment><USER20> Rumor has it that if Valve went under and Steam was shut down, they'd release a patch to allow their games to continue to function.

<comment><USER21> But how could you back the games up or move them to another computer?

<comment><USER22> Same way that you do it now - copy the relevant files out of ~/Steam/steamapps/ to wherever you need. I've gotten around re-downloading huge games because everything you need is in there (when I've already done it once before on a different machine, or when I'm getting a game a local friend of mine already downloaded). The only thing stopping you from playing it is the DRM on the executable, but the mythical Steam-is-dead-here-you-go-patch will solve that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> [http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ky29p9QR161qzu090o1_500.jp...](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ky29p9QR161qzu090o1_500.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER24> Steam used to be a great way to get games at the same time as the USA for the same price. Now it allows access at the same time but with significantly higher prices in Australia.

In this case it _is_ about price. I don't like being ripped off, even if the amount I'm being ripped off is slightly less than if I went into a physical store to buy the game.

So far this behavior is limited to AAA titles from publishers other than Valve, so I'm happy playing indie games and waiting for Half Life 2: Episode 3.

<comment><USER25> Do yourself a favor and get a (preferably pro-rated) host based in the US and set up squid on it.

<comment><USER26> Not much use without a US billing address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Convenience of purchase or convenience of ownership/control? I am refusing to use Steam since I cannot be sure that I will be able to play when and however I like. In fact, I can be sure that at some point I would not be able to play my games because I lost internet access and Steam does not let me play (do not reply with "there is offline mode", that mode is a joke as you have to enable it whilst being online).

<comment><USER28> Just FYI, they fixed not being able to start directly into offline mode about a month or so ago.

<comment><USER27> Nice! Does that mean I can purchase a game and then play it offline for all eternity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If only broadcast media organisations would take this on board. If a movie or an episode of a popular show is released even one day later via convenient streaming media channels than it is through other traditional mediums, it'll be pirated. Piracy is an international issue and will never ever be solved, or at least reduced significantly, until these companies accept the internet for what it is -- a ubiquitous global distribution channel -- and release content everywhere simultaneously.

</comment><comment><USER30> What people don't realize about DRM, is that it's asymmetric warfare, and the _corporation_ is in the role of the guerrilla! If you have a popular product and everyone in the universe wants to play your game, then your few development groups (formed against bureaucratic friction) are going up against the vast resources and nearly frictionless meritocracy of the internet. Don't take the pirates on head-on! Be sneaky. For example, err strongly on the side of false negatives (be forgiving) and greatly separate in time pirate detection from any consequences. Never set up a situation where one crack gives the pirate the keys to the kingdom. That's like facing a huge army in a set-piece battle with your guerrillas. Only depend on a given detection scheme for a short while.

<comment><USER25> Sounds like a great way to give your game a reputation as a bug-ridden piece of shit. This happened to The Witcher.

How about a delivery mechanism that uses technology in a sane manner and doesn't punch paying customers in the face with stupid bullshit?

<comment><USER30> _Sounds like a great way to give your game a reputation as a bug-ridden piece of shit._

Sounds like the same knee-jerk reaction. (Which usually shows you haven't really understood what I'm proposing.) If the consequences are greatly separated in time from detection, and there is strong bias towards false negatives, then the result will be to give the cracked copies a reputation as an incomplete, half-baked piece of crap.

In any case, DRM should never manifest as anything resembling a bug in the game. It should only manifest as a failure of the pirates to do their job and reduced access to online and downloadable content. Remember, guerrilla warfare is about _the long term_ and not the short term. In the short term, there are defeats and retreats for the smaller force, but in the long term, the larger force is persuaded that the effort is no longer worth the reward.

Absolute containment is the essential failed strategy of regular armies taking on the guerrillas. It's also the source of everything you find objectionable about DRM. (Analogy: the armed force that's _unpopular_ with the local population.)

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I get it. It's not a very complicated idea and it's been tried before. Your mistake is that you assume people are going to attribute the bugs to the cracked copy and not to the game itself.

People will look up the game and see that a level fails to load or the game otherwise breaks at some point, but no mention by the person reporting it that they're using a cracked copy. So they decide not to buy the game.

I'm not even going to bother presenting the evidence that DRM tends to increase piracy rates because I'm sure you've seen it and have simply chosen to ignore it. Just as you've ignored the truly best strategy for deal with guerrilla rebels.

<comment><USER30> _People will look up the game and see that a level fails to load or the game otherwise breaks at some point, but no mention by the person reporting it that they're using a cracked copy. So they decide not to buy the game._

Here's a prime example of not understanding what I'm proposing. This would be the manifestation of DRM as a bug -- which is one of the things I say you should _not_ do!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think that people are still willing to pay for PC games as a service. That's what massively multiplayer games are effectively doing. These days, you can often download the game client at the cost of the bandwidth to do it ("free" in the eyes of many), but you pay for access to the servers that are maintained for the players, and you may also pay for expansions.

There are pirate servers, of course, but those suffer from instability, as well as the high probability of disappearing once Big Company X goes after them. That's not a risk that many players want to take, given the time investment that is often made in such games; so they pay to play.

</comment><comment><USER32> Of course. From games to music to movies, when you limit the utility of a legitimately purchased product you will only serve to make the pirated version that much more appealing. Case in point: I can buy a movie from a Hollywood studio in Japan, but I play it on my US DVD player. If I were to pirate that same movie - I can save $20 and watch it anywhere! Localization and DRM = terrible concepts.

</comment><comment><USER33> When I can get a game for free that has fewer restrictions than something I pay for then the system is broken.

Looking at you Ubisoft.

</comment><comment><USER34> Piracy has never been more convenient in gaming than the traditional route, even with DRM. How convenient is it to download 4GB, follow cryptic instructions, apply a crack, be banned from online play, be unable to update patches, etc. I'm sure a small few pirate games due to DRM reasons but price is the main reason.

<comment><USER35> Hmm? Piracy is incredibly convenient. Cracks are consistent and easy to use, updates generally appear regularly, you can pass the installer to your friends offline, and you can happily play without internet connection long after the official servers die out.

Online play is a different matter, since you might have centralised server- side authentication. Online multiplayer is a definite advantage to going legit. Otherwise, piracy is nothing if not convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> he's totally right. I have almost bought more games in a year of having a Steam account than in the last 10 years and i prefer to buy them on Steam for the "convenience" of it's "cloud based" service.

</comment><comment><USER37> I know that I didn't buy games before Steam, or at least as much as I do now. But price is also a factor. I really have to think about it when a game costs more than $15, but Steam usually has good games on sale anyway. Steam and other digital distributors have made me more of a gamer.

<comment><USER38> I buy, play, then sell games.

Steam does not let me do this; thus those games are more expensive to me. I do not buy Steam games.

<comment> ryan-allen Unfortunately for you, the game's industry is slowly and inevitably moving towards personal subscription based purchases.

This is slowly driving down the price of games (which is a good thing), and hopefully it'll lead to higher revenues for publishers so (the good ones) can continue to make more and better games.

More money for publishers and cheaper games for individuals? I think it's pretty win-win. The second hand game market really short changes the publishers, and it's very expensive to make a top title!

Imagine how much Portal 2 cost Valve to make, was it worth it?

<comment><USER39> >Unfortunately for you, the game's industry is slowly and inevitably moving towards personal subscription based purchases.

It's my guess that this model will work until the first major publisher, for whatever reason, collapses - or simply stops bothering with providing access to older games. Then people will realize how insane and retarded this entire system of "paying for access" is. Same goes for cloud computing, by the way.

Besides, you are confusing publishers and developers. Valve is a rare case where both are one and the same, making them a very weird exception, but in general, direct distribution is bad for publishers (which is a good thing). It's really the same as with the (major) labels.

>Imagine how much Portal 2 cost Valve to make, was it worth it?

Valve is also a rare case in that they still make games worth playing. Most of the rest of the industry is a sea of bland, uncreative genericness with fancy graphics. I acknowledge Valve for this, but I still refuse to pay for access to games. I want a copy that plays where I want, whenever I want, and that still works three decades from now.

Until this insanity stops, I hoist the black flag. Yarr.

<comment><USER40> You should check out the roaring indie game scene. The Humble Indie bundle (<http://www.humblebundle.com>) has given me spectacular gameplay for very little money. (No, I don't pay pennies for the bundle).

<comment><USER39> I know a bit about and highly respect the indie scene. They are, in my opinion, the future of game development in general. I paid for the second bundle, and was highly entertained for quite a while. It's a very cool project.

Slightly offtopic, but Wolfire has also written one of my favorite articles/blog posts as of recent, as well - [http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game- deve...](http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-developers- part-1)

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the link! The concept from part 3 of treating the axes as unit vectors that default to (1, 0) and (0, 1) but can be rotated at will really helped bridge the gap in my mind between rotating vectors "manually" and using matrix multiplication.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Towards greater reproducibility for life-sciences research in Nature (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/news/announcement-towards-greater-reproducibility-for-life-sciences-research-in-nature-1.22062 <comment><AUTHOR> An example of the checklist can be found here:

[https://static- content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs414...](https://static- content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-018-07864-w/MediaObjects/41467_2018_7864_MOESM3_ESM.pdf)</comment>


New study identifies molecular aging 'midlife crisis' - <AUTHOR> http://med.miami.edu/news/new-study-identifies-molecular-aging-midlife-crisis <comment><USER2> My take.

We are already "long lived" compared to other species. That is, our heart lasts about four billion beats while other mammals have hears good for a billion beats.

Given that, eventually we get into a regime which is different from other animals thus we need a different system for longevity regulation.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Paper: [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.12970](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.12970)</comment>


The relevance of IP addresses in the tracking ecosystem [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://hal.inria.fr/hal-02435622/document <comment><USER2> IPv6 improves this situation (now). At first, ipv6 was actually a lot worse, since the back 1/2 of your address was your MAC address, allowing your device to be tracked around the internet no matter where it went.

People quickly realized this flaw, and updated the standard so that basically your client gets to pick the second 1/2 of your address now. And the nice thing is, most major platforms will actually run multiple addresses in parallel, allowing new connections to use a new address while old connections keep using the old one.

So while ipv4 adds some protection by having multiple clients behind the firewall, ipv6 actually makes it better by looking like _even more_ clients behind the firewall.

Combined with a browser that blocks fingerprinting you get slightly better privacy with ipv6.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely not. Most ISPs will allocate you a fixed /64\. You may well have privacy IPs in this /64, the prefix will always be the same.. A though day for privacy activists

<comment><USER2> Sure, just like with an IPv4 they allocate you a fixed /32.

But you get slightly more privacy by having the client able to randomize the other 1/2 of the address and use multiple addresses, which would confuse trackers. Or the trackers just look at the first /64 and ignore the rest and you're no worse off than you were with your ipV4 /32.

<comment><USER4> You are worse off as now you have some introspection into computers on the other side of that firewall; with NAT you could have thousands of computers and they would all get melded together as one, but unless you very carefully generate a new IP address for every single connection you make (which is how you can get back to where you were with NAT), you now have the ability to somewhat differentiate users who before would have been mixed. So it is at best the same but probably worse, at which point why not use the thing that is always at least as good if not much better?...

<comment><USER5> Sounds like we need shorter IPv6 leases and more rotation between the prefixes, but that somehow goes a bit against what IPv6 should provide us - freedom to hold on to an address.

<comment><USER6> Some systems already have a solution for this, since devices can have multiple IPv6 addresses at once. They have one permanent IPv6 address which is not used for outgoing connections but can be used for incoming connections, and then temporary IPv6 addresses used for outgoing connections which can be rotated arbitrarily often. The first address is permanent but can only be used if you already know it.

An improvement on this would for services to request the machine to hold a specific address, permitted if the address is valid on the current network and not already in use. Then services could each have their own address (generated on first use and then requested when they start) which is effectively permanent but not the same as the addresses used by other services on the same machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> from the abstract....

"In this paper, we study the stability of the public IP addresses a user device uses to communicate with our server. Over time, a same device communicates with our server using a set of distinct IP addresses, but we find that devices reuse some of their previous IP addresses for long periods of time. We call this IP address retention and, the duration for which an IP address is retained by a device, is named the IP address retention period. We present an analysis of 34,488 unique public IP addresses collected from 2,230 users over a period of 111 days and we show that IP addresses remain a prime vector for online tracking. 87 % of participants retain at least one IP address for more than a month and 45 % of ISPs in our dataset allow keeping the same IP address for more than 30 days."

</comment><comment><USER8> I worked on a document a few years back on anonymizing IP addresses. If you find yourself in a situation where you need to balance anonymization of IP addresses with research needs, this paper may be useful.

[https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rssac-040-07aug1...](https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rssac-040-07aug18-en.pdf)

</comment><comment> kube-system The big conclusion to be drawn from this paper is that IP address tracking can be combined with client-side tracking techniques to perform reidentification.

</comment><comment><USER9> IP is just one more data point. There are already so many ways a browser can be fingerprinted, it doesn't make things that much worse.

While you can limit your exposure a bit, I long ago reached the conclusion that strong privacy is impossible in the current client/server web model. There is too much surface area.

</comment><comment><USER10> I suppose this only works if you combine IP with some other information, like username or browser fingerprint. Otherwise you could be tracking multiple 'users' at the same IP.

<comment><USER11> The whole multiple-users-on-one-ipv4 thing always feels like it distracts from what a tracker's goal really is. It is definitely beyond sufficient identification and more than needed for a tracker to start targeting you with ads and what not.

In some ways the fact that IP only tracking is lossy but still good enough is something to be afraid of. It is easy to 'taint' an IP and your households behind-the-scenes profile over a google search by your guest using your wifi.

<comment><USER10> Advertising that is relevant to my wife probably isn't relevant to me, using IP is not good enough. The title and focus here is on _user tracking_ , which is the goal I'm commenting about. Its quite common to have multiple users behind the same IP, those users and their actions may or may not be related (I have no idea what my co-workers might be doing for example but we share a static IP).

I honestly didn't follow your Google search/wifi example.

<comment><USER12> > using IP is not good enough

Define "not good enough"(for who is it not good enough? for advertisers?).

I used to work on a project linking cookies together in anonymous profiles (for advertising), initially the plan was to separate household/individual profiles using different heuristics, but I think eventually it turned out that nobody cares that much - the advertisers just wanted a rough cross-device profile, not perfect accuracy. I mean sure, for marketing purposes (as well as engineering/ "performance" reasons) you needed figures to brag about accuracy and whatnot. But it's really really hard to get those figures right, and ultimately the thing that will convince advertisers is "using cross-device profile improved conversion rate by 10%"; everything else is a detail in comparison.

<comment><USER10> The title and focus here is on _user tracking_ , which is the goal I'm commenting about.

<comment><USER12> I have no idea what you mean by _user tracking_ , can you explain?

<comment><USER10> A user is usually defined as a human being. I'm a human being and I did not come with a network connection. The world, generally, does not assign IP addresses to human beings - thus an IP address cannot track me as a human, a human computer user.

The paper/study here used a combination of IP address and a UUID to track 'users' which are presumably but not necessarily individual humans. It was the use of this UUID that allowed the authors to draw conclusions about how often a given user is seen at the same IP address. The IP address by itself did not provide enough tracking to draw the conclusions in the paper.

Is IP address identification 'good enough' for advertising, maybe. But IP is no where near definitive for identifying individual humans.

The paper does not say how often they found multiple 'users' using the same IP address. The paper focuses on individual reuse of IPs. How often did they find different users using the same IP in their study?

In internet advertising no one expects every ad to trigger a sale. Since there is some amount of acceptable waste in the system this paper has decided that IP is 'good enough' for targeting - because its okay if we are throwing away 20% or more of the ads (we didn't expect any traction from them anyway seems to be the thinking).

And the authors admit that a larger or different dataset might show different results.

<comment><USER12> I was replying to your claim:

> Advertising that is relevant to my wife probably isn't relevant to me, using > IP is not good enough.

Advertisers do not care about what you as a human do in the same way that e.g. some government agencies might. Both the paper and you talked about "user tracking" in the context of advertising. My claim is that "IP address identification is actually 'good enough' for advertising" (for some kinds of advertising, at least, but the discussion here is complex and I really don't want to get into it - on short, the problem is not so much with the 'tracking'/building the profile, but with being confident enough that you're not targeting the wrong person/household member during the delivery of the more sensitive ads; and with not spooking/startling the user with "how the hell do they know this about me" \- sometimes the user needs to be e.g. logged in so that he understands why he received an ad).

In particular, there are large swaths of companies that don't care whether it's you, your wife or your child - Disney e.g. will happily serve you ads based on activity performed by your children or wife, and will make no effort to figure out if it was you or them because it doesn't matter.

<comment><USER10> Its only good enough when you expect some non-trivial number of the ads to be wasted. If you care about that waste then IP is not good enough.

For some brands, like Disney in you example, spraying ads everywhere is good enough. For other brands that is not good enough, feminine hygiene products would be an example (both age and gender specific where IP alone would be a poor indicator).

<comment><USER12> How do you even define "non-wasted ads"? One ad = one buy? One ad = one interested person?

Targeted ads, even imperfectly-targeted ones, are "less wasted" than other kinds of ads. They are not perfect, by far (thankfully, if I may add so!), but "not good enough?" Come on, what exactly is good enough, then?

<comment><USER10> >Targeted ads, even imperfectly-targeted ones, are "less wasted" than other kinds of ads.

How do you know that your 'targeting' is working? If you target females how do you measure how many females saw the ad? Targeted ads should go to the targeted audience or they likely went to waste - at least the advertiser didn't get what they paid for. The quality of your targeted audiences matters to your advertising customers.

<comment><USER12> You get better conversion, in aggregate.

<comment><USER10> Even if that is true it comes at the expense of a lower signal to noise ratio - you are adding noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Most users will at the very least use two IP addresses - home broadband and mobile SIM broadband.

Then you have wifi hotspots, friends wifi. The average user uses many IP's and not limited to the range of one ISP.

SO whilst you can fingerprint devices and usage patterns, the IP address will by itself be useless to identify such users, it may well augment a little but is no solution.

But then IPv4 shares many IP addresses across mobile and broadband users in various ways. Most do not have a fixed IP and even those that do, do not have a fixed IP upon their mobile data activities - unless they VPN into their home broadband. Though if they use service VPN offerings, then another layer of IP ranges.

So the potential towards false assertions based upon an IP and user usage may well trip up and fail. Imagine using an ISP with dynamic IP and the next user of that IP uses it for crime, well with some bad logging and aggressive association, you can mislabel somebody for a crime they did not commit.

Roll on IPv6 and with that, mobile carriers would of been the obvious benefit of that, yet I'm not aware of any progressing that in any timely manner and chug along using a pool of IPv4 and various tricks to make those cater for many.

<comment><USER14> However in this paper the authors tried to show is it's stability over time. So overall their "findings" indicate ip addresses should not be overlooked in privacy protection.s they stated as follows:

"... Over time, a same device communicates with our server using a set of distinct IP addresses, but we find that devices reuse some of their previous IP addresses for long periods of time. We call this IP address retention."

<comment><USER13> As somebody who tracks and logs their IP's given via ISP etc, I can attest, not that distinct over time.</comment></comment></comment>


Shoppyst: A shopping inspiration and discovery community. - <AUTHOR> http://www.shoppyst.com <comment><AUTHOR> Shoppyst is looking for beta testers to sign up. We just got featured on Betalist.com [http://betalist.com/startups/shoppyst](http://betalist.com/startups/shoppyst)</comment>


Server Fault now in public beta - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/05/29.html

<comment><USER2> Hey guys, can you please beautify StackOverflow and ServerFault a little bit with some rounded corners?

Believe me, it looks way nicer with just a little touch of css:

.nav li {-moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0;}

#tabs a {-moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0;}

.module {-moz-border-radius: 6px;}

.narrow .votes {-moz-border-radius: 6px 0 0 6px;}

.narrow .status {-moz-border-radius: 0 6px 6px 0;}

Try for yourself in firebug and let me know.

Use -webkit and -opera to cover all other browsers, well except IE, but who cares, they can enjoy their squared corners as they are right now.</comment>


Modelling the World of Blade Runner with Haskell's Type System - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/therewillbecode/modelling-the-world-of-blade-runner-with-haskell-s-type-system-41af <comment><USER2> technology increasing faster and faster very nice post thanks for sharing this information</comment>


Dot-dash-diss: The gentleman hacker's 1903 lulz (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228440.700-dotdashdiss-the-gentleman-hackers-1903-lulz.html

<comment><USER2> _" I will not demonstrate to any man who throws doubt upon the system," he said at the time. Fleming, however, fired off a fuming letter to The Times of London. He dubbed the hack "scientific hooliganism", and "an outrage against the traditions of the Royal Institution". He asked the newspaper's readers to help him find the culprit._

This kind of hubris looks so quaint from 100 years on, but powerful institutions and people get treated as "serious" for the even higher levels of nonsense today.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I imagine if Maskelyne did that today it would not have resulted in a spirited debate amongst scientists, it would have ended in jail time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" I can tune my instruments so that no other instrument that is not similarly tuned can tap my messages," Marconi boasted to London's St James Gazette in February 1903._

Yet another reminder that it's no challenge to create a cryptosystem that the inventor themselves cannot break.

<comment><USER5> I was just about to post the same quote, and say that making bold claims that something can't be done will always been seen as a challenge.

Reminded me of when my computer teacher in high school said there was a game on the computers, but it was impossible for us to play because he had it 'locked down'... I had to sit at a special desk in the front of the class for a week.

<comment><USER6> Haha, that's awesome. Our teacher told us each school had a different game, and ours was some lame math puzzle. I found out how to get on the district- wide network (back in DOS days) and access the moonbase sim game at a neighboring school. Eventually he instituted a policy of "no games unless you write them yourselves", which likewise prompted me to code up pong, light cycles, and breakout, all in turbo pascal. Good memories! I don't know if he was intentionally trying to inspire me to a career in programming, but that's what happened.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft wants you to pay for Solitaire, again, in Windows 10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2953158/windows/microsoft-wants-you-to-pay-for-solitaire-again-in-windows-10.html

<comment><USER2> I think solitaire is pretty well free everywhere, so if you want this specific app, what are you gonna pay a couple bucks? I'm on the fence, on the one hand I like when companies are called out on nitpicky stuff, but on the other hand if it were free, something else will be charged to make up for the hours of dev time used to streamline it.

all in all with Windows 10 this is pretty minor. Turns out that buying a deck of cards and playing solitaire still costs money for the deck of cards which people (labor) ultimately were responsible produced and shipped. And the real card decks don't automatically shuffle itself, keep a tally or set up games for you.</comment>


Oxite - Unofficial ASP.NET MVC based open source blogging and CMS - <AUTHOR> http://www.codeplex.com/oxite <comment><USER2> Oxite has caused a big brou-ha-ha in the .net community. Apparently the ALT.NET crowd wasn't very happy with how Oxite was created, and it is recommended that it shouldn't be treated as something to emulate with your own code.

[http://codebetter.com/blogs/karlseguin/archive/2008/12/15/ox...](http://codebetter.com/blogs/karlseguin/archive/2008/12/15/oxite- oh-dear-lord-why.aspx)

I think most of the ALT.NET community over-reacted and started acting like a bunch of jerks instead of providing more constructive criticism. I like the way Rob Conery handled it better by actually providing suggestions to make the application better.

<http://blog.wekeroad.com/blog/some-thoughts-on-oxite/></comment>


The Information: Beyond Google, a Search Battle Brews - <AUTHOR> http://go.theinformation.com/3d71ec <comment><AUTHOR> An in-depth analysis into the market split for Apache's Solr & Elasticsearch that Steve Nellis from The Information published this morning. Interesting read breaking down the two major players in enterprise search, and both are OSS and have different licenses.

"There's a shift happening in the software that big companies use to search their internal data. Solr, a decade-old nonprofit-backed technology that's most popular, is being overtaken by Elasticsearch, free software backed by a for-profit firm selling paid add-ons."

What are your thoughts on the rise in popularity with ES over Solr? Is the ES way of charging for add-ons the future of OSS?

Disclaimer: Site is a paid subscription news publication, but the article can be unlocked using my share link.

</comment><comment><USER2> Google is the epitome for paid search/advertising.,...

The only big change will come from a truly multilingual search. Some projects in the EU are addressing this need.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are, but I think it's interesting what's happening outside Google's reach. It's become increasingly cheap for companies to store information about each customer, which drives customization throughout that company's product offering.

There's a library built on ES that I have been watching on Github which promotes results based on ecommerce conversion data: [https://github.com/ankane/searchkick](https://github.com/ankane/searchkick)</comment></comment>


Mermaid: Markdown-like generation of diagrams and flowcharts from text - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/knsv/mermaid <comment><USER2> Mermaid is great, and I've used it for architectural diagrams of how tech stacks are put together, or data flows between apps. But it only produces marginally nicer-looking diagrams than Graphviz, and it optimizes badly against unnecessary line intersections (e.g. it's far too easy to end up with this, even in trivial diagrams: [https://imgur.com/Tkpa9fD](https://imgur.com/Tkpa9fD)).

My wish is for a diagram renderer with a smarter layout algorithm that heavily optimizes for direction and cleanness, understands grouping really well, and comes with easy ways to apply SVG styles. I like Google's diagrams in this regard:

[http://donatz.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/google- cloud-a...](http://donatz.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/google-cloud- architecture-beautiful-on-with-regard-to-real-time-bidding- architectures-1.png)

[http://donatz.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/google- cloud-a...](http://donatz.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/google-cloud- architecture-lovely-on-intended-designing-etl-for-a-native-data- warehouse-5.png)

[http://donatz.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/google- cloud-a...](http://donatz.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/google-cloud- architecture-fine-on-intended-for-platform-blog-understanding-pricing-6.png)

<comment><USER3> I would love a GraphViz like tool which produces more beautiful graphs. Example:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/gigile/3505955900](https://www.flickr.com/photos/gigile/3505955900)

Note how well the overall graph fits into the rectangular format. GraphViz sucks at this. This image is not perfect though. There are a few unnecessary crossovers.

Another thing I miss in GraphViz are line jumps:

[https://support.office.com/en-us/article/add-or-remove- conne...](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/add-or-remove-connector- line-jumps-1a5516db-0212-4352-90dd-fc9cfd4018ed)

<comment><USER4> The following code is pretty easy to hack:

[https://archive.codeplex.com/?p=graphviz4net](https://archive.codeplex.com/?p=graphviz4net)

I started to customize it but lacked times. The biggest challenge was to be able to convert the WPF rendering into something else, which I couldn't figure out. I changed the canvas for another one with a better zoom function but couldn't export or print the canvas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should also check out [http://plantuml.com/](http://plantuml.com/) An online editor/renderer is available at [http://planttext.com/](http://planttext.com/)

<comment><USER6> Main issue is being able to render in-browser. Which mermaid can. Wish plantuml can be ported to js.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't it?

Graphviz can be ported to JS, I found an example although I didn't try it.

<comment><USER8> GraphViz in the browser was made possible by `emscripten`, which is essentially a JavaScript compiler target. In that sense, there's not a implementation in a language besides C++ that's gotten much traction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really like this, it's a bit buried in their "sibling projects" but there is a live rendering version as well:

[https://mermaidjs.github.io/mermaid-live- editor/](https://mermaidjs.github.io/mermaid-live-editor/)

Very cool project.

<comment><USER10> Good find. This should be linked in the readme

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> graphviz [http://www.graphviz.org/download/](http://www.graphviz.org/download/)

also the DOT language has been around for ages.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I'd like a comparison to graphviz/plantuml, not sure how this is different.

<comment><USER13> It's almost identical, and it's a shame they didn't just make a Graphviz compiler for te browser.

<comment><USER14> There is an emscripten compiled graphviz already. Works fine.

<comment><USER15> Yea, I've used [http://www.webgraphviz.com/](http://www.webgraphviz.com/) for quite a while. Toss in a tiny script to click the button after every keypress, and voila: live-editing graphviz stuff. It's magical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I understand that Mermaid is designed to generate diagrams into HTML DOMs, not my use case. I have experimented over the years with text based diagram tools to replace OmniGraffle for figures in the books I write.

My writing process is fairly streamlined and efficient, except for generating OmniGraffle figures which takes some time.

My day job is in machine learning (30+ years) and I have considered creating a model to map my hand drawn figures to something nicer - not too difficult, except for a lack of training data.

<comment><USER17> Have a look at drawexpress which turns hand gestures into shapes. It's excellent, one of my favorite apps.

[http://www.drawexpress.com](http://www.drawexpress.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Typora ([https://typora.io/](https://typora.io/)) can render mermaid and is useful for local markdown editing in general. It's quite cool.

<comment><USER19> Any idea if it supports Asciidoc? It wasn't obvious to me where to find info on the supported markdown languages on their website.

<comment><USER20> It is supported by asciidoctor-diagram.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Diagram panel plugin for Grafana uses this, you can attach metrics to nodes in the diagram and color them according to a gradient. I like using it instead of single stat panels for giving a quick overview of the state of the system, then including detailed graphs underneath. [https://grafana.com/plugins/jdbranham-diagram- panel](https://grafana.com/plugins/jdbranham-diagram-panel)

</comment><comment><USER22> See also markdeep:

[https://casual-effects.com/markdeep](https://casual-effects.com/markdeep)

<comment><USER23> > Markdeep is a technology for writing plain text documents that will look > good in any web browser

I couldn't read their website on my mobile...

<comment><USER24> Me neither, on desktop: ERR_BAD_SSL_CLIENT_AUTH_CERT

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Oh wow, at first I thought this was another ASCII-art to image generator like ditaa[1]. This is much more practical.

I'll give this a shot next time I might have otherwise reached for Graphviz or Lucidchart.

[1]: [http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/](http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER26> Not to knock Mermaid but the interesting thing about Markdown to my mind is that it's still readable in raw format.

By which I mean it looks like a well annotated ASCII text file rather than a raw markup language in text.

Ditta looks like at least has the potential for that. If github had the ability render Ditaa it would be brilliant.

I think the main problem is that you still need the right tooling to draw it efficiently and Markdown doesn't really require that. Eg editor plugins for reflow and drawing/resizing boxes.

<comment><USER27> Mac only, but Monodraw is pretty cool:

[https://monodraw.helftone.com](https://monodraw.helftone.com)

<comment><USER28> Asciiflow is nice: [http://asciiflow.com/](http://asciiflow.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like this! I'd love it if Github rendered Mermaid diagrams in their Markdown.

<comment><USER30> Gitlab.com supports Mermaid in markdown.. [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/markdown.html#mermaid](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/markdown.html#mermaid)

<comment><USER31> I just found this feature in our installation at work. It's so much more convenient than lucidcharts or Visio or really any GUI option.

<comment><USER32> Yes, we use it at GitLab and it has been a game changer in making sure diagrams are open to contributions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you have a grafana stack this is great with their plugin.

[https://grafana.com/plugins/jdbranham-diagram- panel](https://grafana.com/plugins/jdbranham-diagram-panel)

I was able to do architectural diagrams and post them as dashboards. Showing a top-level metric, then make that block red on a thresh hold breach. It gave not only a top-level view, but a performance over view as well.

An example would be the frontend web requests and average latency response, to api request count and latency than the actual database backend. All as separate blocks with individual metrics.

</comment><comment><USER34> blockdiag [0] has several helpful types of text to diagram processors with several output filetypes like svg and png. In particular I like nwdiag (network diagrams), rackdiag (server rack layout) and packetdiag the most.

There is also an interactive web form [1] to try it out. You can switch between the types of diagram in the top right dropdown.

[0] [http://blockdiag.com/en/](http://blockdiag.com/en/)

[1] [http://interactive.blockdiag.com/nwdiag/](http://interactive.blockdiag.com/nwdiag/)

<comment><USER35> I second blockdiag and it's variants. One of my half done side projects is an automatic network scanner and mapper that is versions so you can walk back in time on the network with netdiag. The only downside to me is the non gpl license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Protip: Gitbook has a Mermaid plugin, and they make for a sweet combination.

</comment><comment><USER37> What do you mean by "Markdown-like"?

<comment><USER38> Plain ascii text with as few special characters as possible and simple line oriented syntax.

<comment><USER39> I think the main advantage of Markdown is that the source is equally readable without having to run it through a processor.

I don't think this really applies to this Mermaid library. For a Markdown-like I would expect more of an ASCII-art like input, which would look like the rendered chart also in its ASCII form.

<comment><USER38> > _I don 't think this really applies to this Mermaid library._

Well, it is easy to just read and understand what it talks about (as opposed to some more opaque format) and only has the bare minimum annotations needed beyond the text labels and node names.

> _For a Markdown-like I would expect more of an ASCII-art like input, which > would look like the rendered chart also in its ASCII form_

I don't see much value in such a scheme (even though there does exist such a program), because to produce (and later edit/update) the ASCII-art would be as tiresome and evolved as producing the final graphic document.

I'd rather write e.g something like:

      label a = "start"
      label b = "end"
      a -> b

than draw 2 ascii art boxes, place the labels myself, and draw ascii art arrow between them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> There is also 'Markdown Preview Enhanced' for Atom and VS Code which can render Mermaid.

[https://github.com/shd101wyy/markdown-preview- enhanced](https://github.com/shd101wyy/markdown-preview-enhanced)

</comment><comment><USER41> Wow, that's awesome, I was looking for something like this a while ago to visualize a state machine. I ended up using graphviz, but I'll have a look at mermaid for presentations, my diagrams always look super embarrassing.

</comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone know of something similar for architecture diagrams?

I've tried PlantUML's component mode ([http://plantuml.com/component- diagram](http://plantuml.com/component-diagram)) but wondered whether there were any other options out there, as being able to write maintain source- controlled diagrams as code/text would make me very happy!

</comment><comment><USER43> Why does the text for flowchart end lines with semicolons but the other diagram types don't?

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm waiting for TikZ on the web.

<comment><USER45> Client-side is not really feasible (emscripten TeX has been done, but the packages to load are just too huge...).

Server-side, [https://tex.s2cms.com/](https://tex.s2cms.com/) does a nice job and outputs svg; [https://upmath.me/](https://upmath.me/) by same author is markdown editor integrating it - see tikz examples there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This isn't markdown-like.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is wonderful. Just being able to generate (and modify) a sequence diagram from a text description is worth hours of work.</comment>


Two Eagles – World Record Balloon Flight Across the Pacific Ocean - <AUTHOR> http://pacificballoon.com/ <comment><USER2> We've had people fly around the world in balloons before…

Can anyone explain what's different about this effort and what record they broken as it's not clear to me?

<comment><USER3> It's a gas balloon, which doesn't have a burner.

Their website isn't super informative, but this page says it the most directly:

[http://www.pacificballoon.com/Introduction.php](http://www.pacificballoon.com/Introduction.php)

<comment><USER2> Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: DealSauce, A visual UI for deal discovery - <AUTHOR> http://www.dealsauce.com/pin/category/gaming

<comment><USER2> Hi there, took a look at the site, here's some feedback:

I liked the overall look, it's a fairly clean design. The #1 issue I have is that the boxes around each deal are scaling in size with the number of lines of text in the item description. This throws off the next element below so that nothing lines up. It might be an OCD issue on my part but I think it is distracting.

Next big thing I noticed is that your first row of deals is rather stale. The first couple I clicked on were both 2 weeks old. They were both in your highlighted section of the first row. That gives me the impression there isn't a reason to come back any soon. Maybe I just need to refresh a few times....

You should always check out your competition so....

For comparison, slickdeals.net has daily deals and pictures for each of their items, local deals on the sidebar, and a huge variety of items. I think your site needs a better 'hook' than just a 'visual UI for deal discovery'.

Your site seems to be a bit more focused on the social aspect of shopping.(sharing deals with friends) That brings up the old chicken-and-egg problem of socially based websites. You need users for a compelling product but you can't get those users without a compelling product.

I suggest you follow the founders of reddit and fake it.

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/reddit-founders- made...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/reddit-founders-made- hundreds-of-fake-profiles-so-site-looked-popular/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detailed feedback.

Yeah, the gaming category is a little bit stale because I've been manually seeding the deals. I figured people on HN would appreciate the category more and that's the only reason I put it there. My goal is to combat that with through automation initially. I recently built out the ability to consume feeds from retailers. I think most of the actual deals are going to come from the merchants themselves and I want to automate that process.

I'm also building out a pretty cool UI that aggregates the merchants and allows you to filter and follow them. The goal is to build a UI that will allow users to follow their favorite merchants or categories and get a personalized visual deal feed as soon as they login.

Like you mentioned, building critical mass will be difficult but I'm hoping that when I have an audience a natural community effort will emerge to identify the best deals and bury the stale or bad ones. The Popular deals link has a simple algorithm that does this already <http://www.dealsauce.com/pin/popular> I'll probably apply it to all categories instead of using a recency sort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clean design. But what if I don't want to follow everything from a merchant. I don't care about women's fashion from Target but electronics I do.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can follow individual boards from merchants. For example, when you're logged in you can follow Target Electronics <http://www.dealsauce.com/target/electronics></comment></comment>


Starcraft AI bot war - <AUTHOR> http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1597

<comment><USER2> I was hoping someone had finally reverse engineered SC/BNet to make an AI design platform for the game. Booh.

The analysis of this game is pretty empty - Protoss will always do better with more resources, because they're just a more resource-consuming race. Humans will do worse with a general AI, because smart micromanaging of terrain units is what gives them a strong advantage.

<comment><USER3> "Protoss will always do better with more resources, because they're just a more resource-consuming race."

Not quite. As the article says, Protoss do better even without more resources, it is just that the remaining Protoss players often run out of resources before one of them is eliminated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that people are still playing Starcraft restores my faith in humanity

<comment><USER5> Still playing? People are SERIOUS about Starcraft. Here is a youtube video from Korea: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jen46qkZVNI>

Check out the size of the crowd around 2:30

<comment><USER4> wow, okay I take it back, now I've lost faith again

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"You DO remember where your Starcraft disks are, don't you?"_

It's like he can read my mind! They're a four hour drive from here, if I could even find them. I guess I'll have to wait for SC2.

<comment><USER7> what's the latest word on the release date?

<comment><USER6> Blizzard won't provide an estimate. You can see a nice preview at <http://www.starcraft2.com/>, and if you look at the FAQ it talks about release (but gives no date).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this should have been run on a symmetrical map with the same number of players of each race.

<comment><USER9> It's really hard to see a completely symmetrical map that's played by people. I don't think the choice of the map was his worst fault. I think the biggest problem is that he didn't do a series of 1x1 matches. Although, by what he said, protoss should win because they'd just rush and fight each other. Or maybe not, because their armies could meet in the middle of the map or something. Anyhow he should do something like:

Terran x Terran

Terran x Zerg

Terran x Protoss

Zerg x Zerg

Zerg x Protoss

Protoss x Protoss

<comment><USER8> An extra resources version of Blood Bath, maybe? It also eliminates the randomness of expansions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> the ai checks players' hotkeyed groups? i hope this doesn't spark another korean war.

</comment><comment><USER11> I like to do this sort of thing with Age of Empires II.

</comment><comment><USER12> well the Protoss have the higher scores probably because they are the last left in the game and would have fought for more time. if the AI would be more developed then playing against 2-3 computers would be impossible. I think the AI scripts are for training benefits.</comment>


Where your ideology says you should live - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/17/where-your-ideology-says-you-should-live/ <comment><USER2> Population density alone isn't a great measure of how "urban" an area is.

I got Lester, IA which apparently has an off the charts population density of 464,912 people per square mile! Total population is only 294 though...

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, and dead-on. The zip code it chose for me is the one that borders my current zip code to the west, and happens to be the same one the article's author mentions. #3 is the one I currently live in, and #4 is the last one I lived in.

also, in case anyone cares: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_(Seattle)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_\(Seattle\))

<comment><USER4> Yeah. Tweaking "I prefer urban areas" (I like both), to "Agree" also go me within spitting distance of where I was born, raised, and have retired to.

GeoIP would not seem to be a strong component, for the "Don't Include" and "Disagree" options were a long ways away (both near the state capitol, in fact), although in my Purple state with two big cities there's really a lot of areas for everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I got Takoma Park, MD. Looking at the stats, I guess the nickname, "The People's Republic of Takoma Park" is pretty much accurate.

The place I actually live was #3 on the list, so close enough I guess.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. I got my current city as choice #2 for my state (Lookout Mountain, GA). My fiancee and I are considering moving to Greenville, which is my top result for SC.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great. According to this I should be living in Bolinas, CA where the cheapest house currently for sale is $1,249,000. I'll get right on that.

</comment><comment><USER8> As far as I can tell, California & Democrat = live in San Francisco. If I say "non-urban" it puts me... outside of San Francisco.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I got Inverness. My answers were the obvious liberal ones, except gun control which I'm not fanatical about in either direction, but I don't believe increased gun control is a real and practical solution to any problem we currently have as a country.

I think I'll be staying in San Diego, though; it skews fairly conservative for California but like most places you can find plenty of people with similar views to your own here if that's what you're after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if the data is accessible. What I'm interested in is testing my theory that people in urban areas are more pro-environment.

</comment><comment><USER11> This doesn't seem to weight the "prefer to live in urban areas" item very highly. It placed me in a town of 207.

</comment><comment><USER12> I already live in the zip code it said I should ideally reside in. And #3 was my previous zip code. Hm.

</comment><comment><USER13> Small nit-pick: "Pro-gun" is not an ideology, it's a position that _might_ flow from an ideology e.g. libertarianism, or might just be a stand-alone position.

<comment><USER4> "Pro-gun" is an utterly reliable touchstone. Granted, it doesn't say if you're e.g. libertarian or paleoconservative, the two that are reliably pro-gun (I'm some of both), but it's a really really good marker.

<comment><USER14> What's a 'paleoconservative'? (just curious)

<comment><USER15> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoconservatism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoconservatism)

<comment><USER4> Skimming the beginning of the article, it looks pretty good.

The origin of the name is in part in reaction to neoconservatives (the real ones, not the silly, almost meaningless epithet it's become post-9/11). They were Communists/socialists/liberals, err, the latter are now progressives again, who lost faith due to the manifold failings of the Left. There's of course a lot more to say about them, especially their attitudes towards change, the distinguishing characteristic is that paleocons never had a phase when they were on the Left.

<comment><USER15> I love how names change and mean totally different things depending on the era. Just the change in meaning of the word "Liberal" could fill a book and tends to bring confusion to some current pundits.

<comment><USER4> In this case it seems to be a brand equity issue. I gather that starting with Wilson, the label Progressive---that I'll note not exactly Leftist Teddy Roosevelt self-identified as---accumulated damage, and by the time I was politically aware, circa 1970, it had for quite some time been replaced by Liberal.

By 1988 George H. W. Bush was successfully using the word to attack Michael S. Dukakis (although Bush was rather liberal, as the word was used then, e.g. anti-gun, but Dukakis was outright radical, so it worked), and now it's back to Progressive. Or is it Forward! to it ^_^?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Propose HN: Pinned explaination when significant posts are buried - <AUTHOR> In interest of transparency, when front page posts are mod-buried, it would be great to have a pinned comment at the top explaining why. Especially when the news involves a YC company. I imagine it could look something like this:<p>- Post is a negative rumor, so it was removed from the front page. Full disclosure: YC invested in this company.<p>- Comment thread devolved into a flamewar, so it was removed from the front page.<p>I know this is done sometimes when comment threads are detached (great!) but how about doing that for posts that have significant traction when they are buried? <comment><USER2> As a mature person, I would like to have this. However, have you ever told your two year old _why_ they can't have ice-cream for breakfast?

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you trying to create more meta-flamewars? HN's benevolent dictatorship works well enough; in any case, inviting (more) meta-drama would not be an improvement.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is called censorship. If you're new here, you should know how censored this place is.

<comment><USER5> > If you're new here, you should know how censored this place is

There has always been a trend of people creating 'throwaway accounts' on here, I mean, you know, if you really want to get heard. Some of the best comments on here are from these types of accounts

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What classifies as significant traction?

Just from my anecdotal experience, posts votes vary wildly over several days, as does comments on them.

A popular post can have ten votes and fifty comments.

Or two hundred votes with no comments.</comment>


Terahertz Gap - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_gap <comment><USER2> I'm curious if this means our sky survey of EMF radiation in space is also missing this band? I don't know our space telescope history and capabilities, but can anyone who knows more comment on whether or not we are missing this?

<comment><USER3> Not an astronomer, but it looks like the Herschel Space Observatory was in the THz gap [1]. Interestingly, the limit to its lifetime was how much liquid Helium they could keep onboard to cool their detector.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory)</comment></comment>


HackerLunch - an interesting new way to meet interesting new people - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackerlunch.com/ <comment><USER2> No way to search for anyone near my area. No sorting.

How do you think this will help planning a meetup? Everyone will end up adding their plans or be overwhelmed by endless unsorted plan to look for one that is interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think the implementation is very good at all, but the idea is interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> another good one is this: <http://www.grubwith.us/eat/san-francisco>

That's specifically to meet YC alumni. A great networking opportunity.</comment>


Announcing https://GitHub.com/RedHatProductSecurity/Certificates-Shipped/ - <AUTHOR> http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2015/q4/374 <comment><AUTHOR> Whole text (but this is just the start of the thread, click through to read a handful of replies on the OSS-SEC list):

      Announcing https://github.com/RedHatProductSecurity
      /Certificates-Shipped/ From: Kurt Seifried
      <kseifried () redhat com>
      Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 21:38:35 -0700

      [1] https://github.com/RedHatProductSecurity/
      Certificates-Shipped/

      The idea is to create a comprehensive list of
      shipped certs/keys/etc by open source
      vendors/distributions/projects so that:

      1) we have a list of secrets maintained by
      external parties that we rely upon
      2) we can audit them and make sure we
      should be trusting them
      3) also spot changes more easily (since the
      existing corpus is available)

      I'm guessing there are some surprises
      waiting for us.

      --
      Kurt Seifried -- Red Hat -- Product Security
      (...)

[1] Split to avoid long unbreakable line in pre-text-box on hn:

[https://github.com/RedHatProductSecurity/Certificates- Shippe...](https://github.com/RedHatProductSecurity/Certificates-Shipped/)</comment>


Ask HN: Why there's no a quick guide for setting up a VPS? - <AUTHOR>

Is it just me, or are there other developers out there struggling with this every time, all the basic security and webserver configurations and so? Or everybody is just using PaaS? <comment><USER2> [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials)

[https://www.linode.com/docs/](https://www.linode.com/docs/)

[http://articles.slicehost.com/](http://articles.slicehost.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Linode's tutorials for setting up a basic VPS and protecting it are wonderful:

[https://www.linode.com/docs/getting- started](https://www.linode.com/docs/getting-started)

You don't have to have Linode to use the tutorials either. They're a great resource for learners.

</comment><comment><USER4> Consider server administration to have the same learning curve as picking up a new language: everything will feel unfamiliar at first, but once you get used to it, you'll start recognizing patterns and similarities between each tool that you use.

Let's say you're deploying a new Debian VM; at the bare minimum, you need to know:

\- Basic Linux commands (top, tail, cat, cp, mv, ls, cd, rm, mkdir, et cetera)

\- Casual vim/nano usage

\- Casual less usage (mainly Ctrl-B/F)

\- Knowing that `man [command]` and `[command] --h` are the easiest ways to decipher a tool

\- iptables/fail2ban (security)

\- Basic MySQL setup (almost everything can be done in a gui)

\- Basic Apache2 configuration (vhosts, enabling mods)

\- How to manage packages (apt-get update; apt-get upgrade; apt-get install [whatever])

At that point, you just need to read a few tutorials to fill in the gaps, and to figure out how to get Apache to serve files from your language of choice.

The easiest way to go about all of this is to setup a VM locally, document each step you take while configuring it, then repeat that a few times until you feel comfortable. Then you can figure out how to automate everything!

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm the founder of [https://commando.io](https://commando.io). We provide a way to write scrips (in bash, perl, python, ruby, go, or node.js) and run those scripts against servers. This saves you time, but also provides a repeatable way to install packages and configure services on servers. Perhaps we can help you.

</comment><comment><USER6> Because things like [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8478159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8478159) happen. There is no quick guide, because you can't quickly learn system administration and security.

</comment><comment><USER7> y, it's a pain setting up a VPS from scratch, each time you get faster but it still takes time.

I've been developing with Laravel since last fall.

I've been using Laravel Forge, it's $10/mo put well worth it as it handles setting up the VPS (on your linode, DO, etc) and code deployment, very nice.

[https://forge.laravel.com/](https://forge.laravel.com/)

Watch the laracast, link is on that page.</comment>


Simple is better - <AUTHOR> http://david.padilla.cc/posts/6-simple-is-better

<comment><USER2> I am not sure I follow the issue about hangouts.

I use it constantly with people outside of my circles. Just open [http://hangouts.google.com/start](http://hangouts.google.com/start), and share the redirected link. Or just enter their email in the form that automatically opens. You can bookmark the /start url to instantly create new hangouts.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is certainly potential in WebRTC, BUT...

How do you keep track of the people you want to talk with?</comment>


Microsoft Shipped 2 Million Units of Windows Phone 7 Software Last Quarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-26/microsoft-says-it-shipped-2-million-windows-phones-last-quarter.html <comment><USER2> I moved from my iPhone (which finally bit the dust) to the LG Quantum. The nice things:

\- Zune Pass. It's like Netflix for music, but you can carry your queue around with you even if you're off-signal.

\- I stayed with AT&T, and have significantly fewer dropped calls and better signal quality than on my last phone.

\- A single start screen with all the apps, auto-updating so you can see weather and other info without having to launch the app is really fantastic.

\- No iTunes. The phone can just sync over WiFi, and there's no weird tethering-to-one-machine garbage.

\- The keyboard! It's got two modifier keys (shift and FN), and the keys are large enough that I can type pretty quickly. I need to port a mini-emacs and a terminal window ASAP. It's that usable.

The not-good:

\- The App Market really isn't there. And where there are similar apps, the ports smell of outsourced development, as many of them (Yelp and Kindle, I'm looking at you!) crash and/or just don't have a very smooth feel.

\- Location services seems to have a lot of trouble figuring out where I am to anything smaller than a zip code.

\- I'm not on Facebook or XBox Live, so I feel like some of the social integration is a bunch of work they did that I just miss out on. Fortunately, I could just remove those apps from the front screen.

\- Trying to browse the Metro UI media app is a real pain. If I'm listening to a song, do I use the back button or swipe in a direction? Well, it depends on how I _got_ to the Now Playing screen, and there are a few cases where I've been just stuck and had to close and re-open the app so that navigation would reset and I could get back to a artists list.

<comment><USER3> On Android the back button also has problems. It's definitely noticeable when the developer hasn't gotten it right. I recently tried out K9 (an alternative mail client), and you can end up navigating in circles (which causes application state confusion - is the state of the program global, so if I press back enough times to end up on the same menu, it's updated, or did I just travel back in time?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's easy to calculate. They claimed to have shipped 1.5Mio to carriers on the 21th of December. Now they claim it's 2 Mio. I'd expect that the carriers only order new phones after the old ones have been sold, so one can wager that the carriers sold around 500.000 phones since december the 21th.

So that's around 500.000 / 37. That makes it around 13.000 activations a day.

So given that the device was introduced beginning of November, it has been on the market for 2month and a couple of days. So then we have 13.000 * 85days = around 1.1 mio devices sold. The rest is waiting on shelves for eager customers. Doesn't sound too good.

<comment><USER5> Although today WP7 has the least global reach of any of the major smartphones. Android is on all carriers. iPhone is on fewer carriers in the US, but more worldwide, and Blackberry is everywhere.

W/o Verizon and Sprint they'll continue to struggle. And frankly they should have made sure they were on Verizon before iPhone. A US CDMA launch would have likely been better than a global GSM launch.

And the phone still has many holes in it. It looks like a great foundation, but they need to fix the holes a LOT faster than they've been doing.

Not fixing the holes is frankly inexcusable. And IMO probably the best indication that MS is culturally broken. I get having trouble rev'ing Office or Windows -- those have huge existing user bases (deeply entrenched inthe enterprise) so you have to be extremely careful and move with great deliberation. With phones they have no legacy, no current customers, aren't in the enterprise at all, are playing catch up, and have huge holes. If this isn't a time when you rev hard and fast, I'm not sure when it is. And they have a great model in Chrome of a team that can do it with high quality.

MS not being agile with WP7 would worry me more than threats to Office and Windows, because it indicates an inability to react.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems that this is licenses sold rather than activations.

I'd be interested in knowing their total activations for the quarter though it's certainly lower.

Doesn't compare well with the 300,000 activations/day Google claim to be doing.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, 2 million shipments over 3 months is around 33,000 a day, which is only 10% (or less, given Android's accelerating growth) of the activations that Google sees. And of course, not all those shipments are activations.

I wonder if they're not telling us about the activation numbers out because they're too low? Why else hide that information that every other company is bragging about? Not a quarter goes by where Apple and Google don't _both_ release their activation numbers.

<comment><USER8> Because most of these are bundle deals to HW makers.

Samsung buys 10M OEM licenses for Windows7 for netbooks and MS throws in 1M Win7 phone licenses for free to make it's numbers look good.

It's like newspapers handing out free copies to hotels to boost their circulation figures.

<comment><USER9> > It's like newspapers handing out free copies to hotels to boost their > circulation figures.

With the important distinction people actually read those newspapers.

<comment><USER10> Um -- have you seen what happens to the newspapers given away in hotels?

<comment><USER9> Have you seen what happens to WP7 licenses that are not used in actual phones?

Me neither.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My own like/ dislike list:

Likes: 1\. Games - need for speed and others are very cool. 2\. facebook integration just works. When reading an email it is nice to see the sender's photo (pulled from FB if he is in FB friend's list). 3\. Amazon Kindle reader - the list of free books helps. 4\. Voice search in Bing (needs no training) 5\. Tiles for different apps looks cool and easy to use. 6\. Boots up in less than 30 seconds. 7\. Zune manages podcasts quite good - this is a good way to use the office transit time 8\. Market place is actually decent.

Dislike: 1\. No serious API yet, for example no access to camera or compass. 2\. battery life on HTC Mozart is 1 day after fairly good amount of talk time + wifi + GPS + gaming. This is actually not a problem because it runs for atleast one day - but it could have been better.

</comment><comment><USER12> Both people I know who got one recently bought it because it came with a free XBox 360 as part of the plan. In both cases it was their first "smartphone" and one of them explained how confused he was by the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER13> At $8-$15 per license they are charging, thats $16-$30M. They still have some ground to make up on the $1B or so dropped on the Kin. Does not seem like this can ever be a profitable business for them - especially compared to the $149-$499 they get per Office license.

<comment><USER14> > They still have some ground to make up on the $1B or so dropped on the Kin.

Did they really spend $1B on the Kin? Do you have a breakdown on what they spent that much money on?

<comment><USER13> $500M spent to buy Danger in 2008 plus assumption of debt and the $260M write down they later took on discontinuing the Kin in 2008. So probably around $.75B - that is still a ton of phone licenses they would need to sell to recoup.

And that isn't even taking into account the R%D spent on the Windows 7 phone, which they are said to spend $400M on marketing for.

If Apple was only selling OS licenses for the 14M iPhone4's it shipped at MS's price, they would only have made $112M-210M in revenue.

[http://gorumors.com/business/microsoft-kin-revenue- loss/6154...](http://gorumors.com/business/microsoft-kin-revenue-loss/61542) [http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/26/microsoft-half-billion- doll...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/26/microsoft-half-billion-dollars- windows-phone-7/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if that number includes giveaways? I recall they gave away approx 100K phones to Microsoft employees alone.

<comment><USER16> IIRC, it was actually an option to purchase a WP7 phone and get a full refund from the company. Essentially the same thing, but there are plenty of people who haven't exercised the option and are sticking with WM6.x or other devices for the time being.

Edit: The giveaway was also different between each branch of MS, EU was handled differently than the US.

<comment><USER17> I think it was even worse- I think if they signed a 2 year contract with a carrier, they got a refund on the subsidized price of the phone (which is usually a trivial amount).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've one :) got because of BOGO deal. Samsung Focus's screen is awesome the SuperAMOLED really shows anyone who sees it really likes the screen and that includes iPhone and Nexus owners and others.

Marketplace really is not there, the apps are junk and even the marketplace app itself is slow to load on cellular connections and it really shows. the search is pathetic it seems they intentionally show you the songs along with apps even if all I want is apps

MS needs to update the OS and they need to do it fast and frequently otherwise in next six months to year they'll be out of this game forever

<comment><USER19> > MS needs to update the OS and they need to do it fast and frequently > otherwise in next six months to year they'll be out of this game forever

There's an OS update on the way :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have the HTC Trophy from Vodafone here in New Zealand, I really enjoy the UI, for some reason it really clicks with me compared some the other smartphones.

As a developer my biggest gripe is the limited access to some of the phone features, the largest one being the limited API for Live Tiles which clearly is one of the major selling points for the WP7.

</comment><comment><USER21> Good for them.

Yes, we can speculate on whether this is marketing FUD or real numbers but the bottom line is that MS made a good product that is helping to innovate the mobile space by increasing competition.

</comment><comment><USER22> Microsoft can't build the kind of developer community that Google and Apple have. The interface is smooth, and the Zune Pass is great, but there has to be more.

<comment><USER23> _Can't build_? Why not? Developers in general love their tools (Visual Studio), the language has a huge user base (C#), and they're leveraging a rapidly maturing framework (Silverlight).

If anything, when it comes to getting developer mindshare, it seems like Microsoft has a huge leg up.

<comment><USER22> Microsoft is the development platform of choice for big business. The hottest startup to use their stack in recent memory is StackOverflow. Generally speaking hackers choose not to use Microsoft's platform when they have a choice. Personally I use c# at my day job, but I barely considered building something for the WP7, and am instead working on iPhone and Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow, that's a big warehouse full!</comment>


How to Find a Co-Founder Success Story: Mobiplug, TechStars 2012 grad - <AUTHOR> http://www.cofounderslab.com/find-a-co-founder/success-story-spotlight-mobiplug/

<comment><USER2> Very cool story addressing a key problem for entrepreneurs: finding a co- founder</comment>


Why Nokia Won't Beat Apple's iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/10/why-nokia-cant-.html

<comment><USER2> This does not make any mention of Nokia's mobile content push. Nokia is quickly becoming more than just a handset manufacturer. If you dont believe me just look at all of the startups they have acquired recently. If I were Apple I would be very concerned.

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... This does not make any mention of Nokia's mobile content push. ..."_

Also the way Nokia is opening up their toolset by choosing open source tools. As new tools are developed, ported (cite Mozilla coming to the N800) users will be able to take full advantage of this.

The killer in my view is the restrictions on usage. Not everyone wants to use one service provider. While Nokia can still slip-up, using open tools and not tying users to one telco drives down cost and hurts Apple in the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't think it's a great argument. Perhaps Apple will beat Nokia in America, but since America is about 5 years behind Europe/Asia in mobile technology it's pretty irrelevant anyway.

</comment><comment><USER4> Funny pictures (love the iSheep), but very week argumentation.</comment>