Show HN: Proxino -- Monitor and Debug your JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://www.proxino.com/

<comment><USER2> For hackers:

        window.onerror = function(m, f, l){
          var err = JSON.encode({ message:m, file:f, line:l })
          (new Image).src = '/errors?e='+err
        }

For Google Analytics users:

        window.onerror = function(m, f, l){
          var err = [f, l, m].join(' : ')
          _gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Errors', 'App', err, null, true])
        }

Analytics will allow you to filter by OS, browser, and all the other environment data it already captures. And nice graphs as a bonus :)

<comment><USER3> For some reason I thought they were doing more than this, like proxying your JavaScript (hence PROXino), instrumenting it with try/catches to provide robust stack traces, but apparently not: <https://www.proxino.com/p.js>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what the old version of Proxino did... but potential customers didn't like the proxy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are already services (like Sentry) that track errors well. I want a service that focuses on the non-error logging part.

I typically develop my JS with a lot of console.log calls. Let's say a hundred at page load, and more for each user action, and when there's new data coming down from the server. I'm trying to fix a bug that my friend is having on my new project, but I can't reproduce it locally. I want to see those console logs from her sessions. There's no tool that's designed for this right now. For example, most analytics platforms send an HTTP request on every event.

I'm already using this wrapper [http://paulirish.com/2009/log-a-lightweight- wrapper-for-cons...](http://paulirish.com/2009/log-a-lightweight-wrapper-for- consolelog/), which wraps console.log and keeps a history client-side. That would be a good starting point. Just push that history up to the server, up to once a second or so.

I should be able to filter by user and browser window session, and ideally other features of the client or log contents, but really the user+browser session are the most important.

Does a good solution exist?

<comment><USER5> In the Proxino video, I believe it said you can log arbitrary messages which can then be accessed via the web backend. You could probably just make a wrapper for console.log which both pushes the message to Proxino and logs it in the console.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I saw that. I'm hoping Proxino will add more structure to that data and ways to interact with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seriously, the beacon/tracker JS requires the whole jQuery (1.7.1)? <https://www.proxino.com/p.js>

<comment><USER2> Wow. jQuery is 80% or more of the whole file. It could be loaded asynchronously, and completely avoided if it's already loaded (which is very likely).

Worst of all, it uses exactly _one_ function, jQuery.ajax, which could be replaced with a `new Image; image.src = message` call or a 10 line XHR wrapper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> More and more of the world is occurring in browsers in javascript, so this problem is important! I'm going to try it out.

</comment><comment><USER8> @unignorant are you the dude in the demo video? I haven't met a more modle- esque JS developer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I am.

<comment><USER8> Awesome~

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think you could better communicate potential objections and overcome them with your copy/video.

One I have is, how's this going to impact performance?

Also, once I sign up for the free trial, I'm presented with an account screen but not really told what to do next. Sure, I figured it out, but I think it should be more welcoming.

Good luck! I may use this.

<comment><USER9> One more suggestion, don't send emails from firstname.lastname@example.com. Especially considering that your registration email comes from here, and is sent to potential customers who may have a quick question before buying.

noreply@ says you don't want to talk to me.

Make is easy to answer questions and help people. Utilize a tool like Zendesk, if needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does this compare with <http://errorception.com/> ?

<comment><USER11> I've only played with both for a few days, but to summarise: Proxino's UI is drastically nicer, whereas errorception has been around longer and is more reliable.

Proxino is still in beta, so I wouldn't use it for mission-critical websites yet. But Proxino seems to be fixing problems and iterating quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who made your demo video? It is quite good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :) It was an in-house production.

<comment><USER13> I'm curious how much effort it needed. The images where beautiful and professional. Excellent work.

The voice was lacking some testosterone, but it's a detail. I'm sorry about the critics on the technical aspect of your app. There are indeed some true JS hackers around. I hope you get over it and collect all the good ideas to enhance your product.

I'm no JS hacker and I wasted allot of time trying to figure out why m app wasn't doing what I expected it to do. There is a problem there that needs a solution. As you see hackers have their own tricks to get around this problem. Collecting them and offering them in one plug and play product would be very usefull for all the people out there who aren't hackers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looking forward to trying it out, but the fact 'localhost' is not changeable is tough since nothing I build is direct on 'localhost'. typically it's site.dev or a local version of the site.com hostname, sometimes with a port to better simulate the real project. any chance you can add the option to change the 'localhost' on the fly in your console?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point... I will likely fix this.

<comment><USER14> fantastic, thanks for the quick reply. best of luck with the launch!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How does this work with minified/obfuscated production code? Some of the other comments suggest that proxino is listening to and logs on 'window.onerror'. If that is the case, I don't think you can get stack traces in all browsers, and the line number for a minified file will alway be 1.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmmm. Didn't this launch like a year ago? I remember emailing them about some questions I had a couple times and never got a reply, I assumed they shut down. Too bad since during this time a few competitors have come up: Sentry, ExceptionHub, etc

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a new product (made by one of the same people) with the same (old) name. It does have some functionality in common with the old product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I tried to test this out but even on localhost it kept throwing:

status: "That domain isn't registered..."

And I don't really feel like paying $10 to TEST if the tool really works, let alone if I want to use it. Working demo please.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you set the API key? You should be able to test on localhost with a free account. I'm happy to help over email if you like (email@example.com).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The only pimple on this beautifully designed site is the lack of a favicon =)

</comment><comment> c-oreills Does this handle cross domain errors? We're currently doing this in house but some of our script errors are very nondescript as some of our JS is hosted on another domain.

</comment><comment><USER19> Question: The service has a workaround about the errors with the message "Script Error." in scripts hosted on externals domains (for example, a CDN)?

</comment><comment><USER20> I really like the landing page and the video. I'm not sure how the product itself can be better than window.onerror+Google Analytics though.

</comment><comment><USER21> doesn't work with mobile browsers(most of them) that don't support window.onerror

</comment><comment><USER22> exceptionhub.com is also good and gives nice stack traces.</comment>


Are Disqus, Tweetup, Facebook and Twitter Slogging Your Blog? - <AUTHOR> http://borasky-research.net/2010/11/19/are-disqus-tweetup-facebook-and-twitter-slogging-your-blog/

<comment><USER2> Yes, absolutely. Facebook is the worst offender by far, here - it loads separate resources (CSS, extra JS, different URI but equal in content) for every button on the page. Blocking it results in a startling faster web browsing experience. I don't have benchmarks on hand, but if you use Chrome's profiler and inspect heap sizes in pages like Techcrunch and Mashable, the heap size when you block Facebook assets is ~50% of what it is otherwise. It's pretty bad how badly those widgets slaughter page performance.</comment>


Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spotify-lawsuit/spotify-hit-with-1-6-billion-copyright-lawsuit-idUSKBN1ER1RX <comment><USER4> I was one of the original engineers on MP3.com.

Shortly after our music locker service debuted, we got sued by all the major labels. I spent 4 months writing tools to pull all the discovery data for their lawsuits.

When it was apparent our court case was going south, the major music publishers sued us as well (lead by Harry Fox Agency). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits.

When those court cases trended badly for us, we got sued by every 2 bit operation that owned a partial percentage of the country-based rights to a song (ie, one company may of owned 4% the rights of a song in the United States and 10% in Mexico and 9.3% in Ireland, with another company owning 1.3%, 40%, .5% respectively). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits.

Finally, after we where acquired by Vivendi Universal and they took on our liabilities, I spent almost a year writing tools for them to pay these partial percentages. Have you ever had to split 1 cent via check between 3 parties? It's not fun.

Moral of this boring story is Spotify better win this fast and clean or they are in a world of pain; I can never get those 2 years of my life back.

<comment><USER5> If you don't mind me asking, is there any particular reason you didn't just leave? I'd imagine this fits the kind of situation where you aren't obligated to stay.

<comment><USER6> $

<comment><USER5> How does that work if the company was being sued? Do they have some kind of reserve to pay current employees with?

<comment><USER7> Being tied up in a lawsuit does not grind a company to a halt. Most of the Fortune 500 is probably getting sued right now for some reason or another. Also, when a company loses a lawsuit, the court doesn't automatically debit the damages from the company. Winning a case and collecting damages are 2 very different things.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the explanation, wasn't sure how that kind of thing works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what _type_ of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is _not_ "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do _not_ have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carries requirements for notification and payment that Spotify claims are onerous.[2]

Thus, I'd re-write the lede of this story to:

      Music streaming company Spotify was sued by Wixen Music
      Publishing Inc last week for allegedly using thousands of
      songs... without [the right kind of] license and
      [associated kind of notification and] compensation to the
      music publisher.

[1] [https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_li...](https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_license.html) \- Incidentally, this is HFM, the same firm Spotify uses for "third-party" licensing. They define a mechanical license to include the right to "reproduce and distribute copyrighted musical compositions (songs) on ... interactive streams and other digital configurations." Seems a little damning for Spotify.

[2] [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-dont- compa...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-dont-compare-us- napster-1034247)

<comment><USER9> It's kind of a gray area, the whole performing/mechanical rights system was obviously invented before streaming. Radio stations pay for performing rights, so the question arises whether streaming is more like radio broadcast or manufacturing and distributing physical copies (e.g. CDs)? Without further legislation, ultimately only the courts can decide that.

My guess is that ultimately streaming rights will end up as their own category, separate from performance, mechanical or sync rights.

<comment><USER10> On a logical level it should be treated the same as broadcast radio, however it gets hazy because you can store playlists and play tracks on demand so its really not clear cut. With radio you can hear the song if it happens to be playing but there is no on demand, no playlists.

<comment><USER11> There is replay; you can search many radio stations playlist for a specific title and play it.

What about Youtube? It seems most / all music is on YT, what licence do they use? Streaming services seem a lot like YT.

<comment><USER12> I think only music owners are allowed to post to YT, so they don't need a license like Spotify would.

<comment><USER9> But you see, the thing is with commercial music is that the music owner is not a single entity. There is a composer, if there are lyrics there is a lyricist, if it was translated then there is a translator, if it's a cover or remix there is an arranger, there is a publisher that published the music, there might be a sub-publisher, then there is a record label… One of the main reasons behind the existence of this complex system of rights is the complex ownership structure of the copyright and related rights.

<comment><USER13> Isn't this the reason vevo exists? youtube pays a single royalty based on playback and leaves it to the uploader to split it up between all the interested parties.

<comment><USER9> Yes, that's a common arrangement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Added another source to assist discussion for more context: "[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify- hit-16-bil...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify- hit-16-billion-copyright-lawsuit-tom-petty-weezer-neil-young-songs-1070960")

And Quote :

"The Settlement Agreement is procedurally and substantively unfair to Settlement Class Members because it prevents meaningful participation by rights holders and offers them an unfair dollar amount in light of Spotify's ongoing, willful copyright infringement of their works," ...

"In reaction, Spotify has been questioning whether Wixen has really been authorized by its clients (including Andrew Bird, Kenny Rogers, and Jim Morrison's heirs) to take its aggressive actions. Songwriters have administrative agreements with Wixen allowing the publisher to negotiate licensing deals, but Spotify has pointed out these agreements are silent about litigation."

<comment><USER15> This is a bit confusing. My understanding of how music publishing works is that the copyright is usually assigned to the publisher (for a limited amount of time), so any rights of the copyright holder are rights of the publisher. They wouldn't have to explicitly assign litigation rights to the publisher.

Disclaimer: IANAL, and with big artists, publishing deals can be very very different from boilerplate.

<comment><USER16> There are creation rights and performance rights, which may be treated differently. Plus artists can recover their copyrights after 35 years, under 17 U.S. Code § 203.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The pieces don't quite fit together here - Harry Fox handles a LOT of licensing (they're one of the places you can get mechanical licenses for cover songs via self-service) and I'd assume that a big contract for an organization the size of Spotify would include at least some indemnification for any legal issues.

And, naturally, the damage amount is wildly unrelated to actual revenues - <USER2> quite the "one download on Napster == $250k" levels seen in copyright litigation against consumers, but still almost half of Spotify's likely revenue for 2017...

<comment><USER18> It's just a starting point for negotiation. Same way people slip in a store and sue for $1M, even though they end up settling for 50k.

<comment><USER19> And think about the timing. Just before Spotify wants to go public? Nobody wants to go public with a pending lawsuit, so added pressure to settle.

<comment><USER20> > Nobody wants to go public with a pending lawsuit

I'm pretty sure every large company in the world is involved in multiple lawsuits at any point in time (both offensively and defensively).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This article adds a bit more context. Spotify claims that Wixen is overstepping their authority as music licensors and suing on behalf of clients who have not given Wixen that authority.

[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify- hit-16-bil...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify- hit-16-billion-copyright-lawsuit-tom-petty-weezer-neil-young-songs-1070960)

<comment><USER22> Reminds me of the 2010s, when a company named RightHaven was hired by media companies to sue bloggers/message boards upon finding copies or excerpts of news articles. Ostensibly Righthaven had the authority of the clients, but were ruled as not having the legal standing to sue [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > In May, the Stockholm, Sweden-based company agreed to pay more than $43 > million to settle a proposed class action alleging it failed to pay > royalties for some of the songs it makes available to users.

This number seems closer to reality. It may be Tom Petty, Neil Young, and the Doors, but they're not worth nearly 10% of Spotify's valuation, and that certainly wouldn't match a compensatory amount in revenue that Spotify failed to pay.

Are they aiming for some punitive measure? Or are they going to settle for 5% of this in the near future?

<comment><USER24> That's not how damages work though. A factory worth $1 million can create hundreds of millions of dollars of damages with a spill or accident.

<comment><USER16> Plus copyright has statutory damages, so they don't even need to prove actual damages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Giant lawsuit filed shortly before the IPO to encourage a quick settlement.

<comment><USER26> Shake-down / quick settlement, 100% agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This doesn't shock me at all. I recall a while back reading how Spotify allegedly started their service with downloads from The Pirate Bay: [https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate- mp3-files...](https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files- some-from-pirate-bay-170509/)

<comment><USER27> Which is evidence that copyright hold back innovation.

<comment><USER28> This is a controversial stance but I too don't understand why patents are generally limited to 20 years but creative copyright is granted until 70 or more years _after the death_ of all participating authors. If you cannot make money off of your work within 20 years, it's highly unlikely that this will change.

<comment><USER29> I don't think companies like Disney lobby to extend copyright endlessly because they can't make money in the first 20 years, but because they can continue making money after 20 years and would prefer to do that than not. Especially with things like Disney cycling availability of older films and stuff, I'm sure they make loads of money on their older material and just want to keep doing that even if it was successful when first released.

<comment><USER28> This is exactly my point. It only benefits the already big successful cooperations and people. It does nearly nothing for small artists while actively hindering people from enjoying cultural goods. Every song that is being created today will still be under copyright when you die. Meanwhile if someone creates a new way to manufacture a certain product, it's "only" protected for 20 years (which is fine).

If Taylor Swift lives until she is 80, her songs will be free in the year 2140 - maybe even later if someone like a composer lives longer. Isn't this just absurd?

<comment><USER30> When an artistic pursuit is personal, it seems like it could maybe be passed on in a will or something similar. This might be a ridiculous idea, but I guess I find complaining about someone's artistic endeavors _not being free_ to be absurd in it's own way.

<comment><USER31> Tell that to Disney when he made snow white.

<comment><USER30> Elaborate

<comment><USER32> Many Disney stories (including Snow White) are copied from earlier works by authors unaffiliated with Disney.

<comment><USER30> Copied? Snow White was a groundbreaking feat of animation brilliance, a result of tireless effort, craftsmanship and detail that experts widely agree rivals any animation project produced to date. It was literally the first feature- length color animated film with sync audio ever produced, and you're cutting it down for it's screenplay being inspired by a fairy tale? This is no weakness. This is consistent with filmmaking tradition and the nature of humanities efforts in general. The line is not a sharp one, but in terms of Snow White, if I understand your accusation correctly, your point is lost.

I am open minded but, with all due respect, it appears you might not be aware of some critical truths of how art gets made.

Either way, what do you suggest?

We probably generally agree on the topic at hand. I am saddened seeing many early films eroding which have yet to be digitized because they are not accessible.

<comment><USER33> >you're cutting it down for it's screenplay being inspired by a fairy tale

That wasn't my reading of the parent at all.

Snow White the animated film wouldn't have been made if copyright was perpetually inherited and some distant Grimm relative refused to give Disney permission to make the film. This is relevant to your original point - that "I find complaining about someone's artistic endeavors not being free to be absurd in it's own way." You may find it absurd, but if it were not so, a work you seem to admire might never have been produced.

There is a cultural component to art. It draws from the culture and gives back to the culture. Long copyright terms - and I find current copyright terms very long - prevent future artists from drawing on the culture to produce new, transformative works.

Disney was able to draw on cultural material from the prior 100 years to make Snow White. But if the current copyright-extension-cycle continues, it seems plausible that Disney films - and all works created in the same period - <USER3> _never_ fall into the public domain in the USA, and future artists will not be able to enjoy the same free use of cultural source material as Disney itself has done.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for posting your response. This makes a little more sense.

Of course, my point was about _distribution_ of _original works_ , not inspiration or even creative appropriation. Maybe I needed to specify that? Or maybe this was well implied by the wider conversation around Spotify's distribution of _original works_. Either way, it's a separate discussion.

To be clear, Disney _did not_ publish and distribute copies of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

And let's consider what Disney would have done if prevented from using the Snow White tale for his animation project? Would he have just given up?? Let's not kid ourselves. He would have done what great artists tend to do: be creative and find another solution. There were mountains of hurdles in making this film and that would have been a mole hill. It would have been a different film, sure. It may have been better. We do not know.

The modern Disney corporation is a separate entity, to be sure.

You open up a new basket of issues here. For example, films are commonly produced from narrative works in other domains, personal accounts, etc. The royalty system allows for more than simply profit. In films, it also protects from the original authors, or storytellers and their families from what can be something like libel. It allows them to deny permission when accounts are exaggerated for audience appeal, when it may unjustly disgrace their reputation. This is only a basic example of why these things exist. It does _sort of_ sometimes suck for artists but artists but they tend to better understand the issues at hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There is a little (understandable) confusion in some of the comments here.

The issue here is not that Spotify is infringing copyright (so it's nothing to do with BitTorrent etc) but rather that Wixen says that it has not been paid correctly for the mechanical exploitation of the copyrights it administers. This is complex for several reasons.

First of all: the recordings in question have without doubt been legitimately supplied to Spotify by the record labels of the artists in question.

Secondly - a record label controls only one of the two copyrights in a song - the recording copyright.

It is impossible to record a song without using the other fundamental copyright in music - which is the song itself. The literal words and music.

This is the copyright that the publisher controls - and which Wixen claims has not been properly accounted.

Third point: When the words-and-music copyright is reproduced by mechanical means for commercial gain the publisher is due a royalty - this royalty is known as "mechanicals".

In the "old" music business when a label pressed a record they paid out the "mechanicals" to the publisher directly - for every record pressed they owed a set amount. So this was easy to track and it meant that the money flowed directly from label to publisher based on volume of records manufactured and sold.

Point number four: Spotify's licensing regime is complex. They need to pay a royalty for the use of the sound recording. This generally goes direct to the label or artist if they self release often via their distributor).

The mechanical reproduction of the words-and-music copyright is much less straight forward in terms of how the money flows.

The reason for this is that songwriters and the performers of a song are not always the same person - though they may also be the same person. This is where publishers come into play. If I write a song, I may not be able to record and perform it sufficiently to generate good revenue from that work. So if I can persuade a high profile artist to perform and record it I will probably make much more money from my words and music. A publisher's job is to maximise the commercial exploitation of my words and music. This can be done in several ways - first of all, they go and shop my song around to labels in the hope that an A&R at a label (basically someone a bit like a product manager in a tech company) will see a good fit between my song and an artist that they work with. The artist records the song and I generate money in two ways - first of all the mechanicals previously discussed, but also from "performance" royalties - which is where my song is performed live to an audience. So a prominent artist performs my song on a tour - the audience in the arena have paid good money for tickets, and the artist would not have any material without my song and other songs. This also needs to be compensated, and this is done through a "performance royalty" which is generally a split of Ickes revenues.

There are other revenue streams as well, and a publisher's job is to manage and administer these revenues as effectively as possible.

Now: I mentioned Spotify has a complex licensing model. When you play a song through Spotify it is being mechanically reproduced (the data that makes the audio waveform is being transmitted from one machine to another) but the audio is also being performed by the Spotify application on your computer. So Spotify needs to pay out a mechanical royalty and a performance royalty.

It used to be that the mechanical royalty was paid out by the label - but as the label is no longer pressing discs the "replication" of the music has passed to Spotify, and so Spotify is liable.

In the "old" music business once you bought the record or CD the revenue flow ended: your CD player manufacturer was not continuing to benefit each time you played a disc. So the "performance" of the music did not have a revenue stream attached to it, assuming that you were enjoying the music in the privacy of your own home.

But Spotify can be seen to benefit each time you play a song, because you pay an ongoing subscription for access to the music.

So a performance royalty is also due.

Now: further complexity. In many territories songwriters and publishers assign the management of performance and mechanical royalties to third parties. In the U.K. for example a songwriter will join PRS - the performing right society, which administers performance copyright for the words-and-music copyright in a song. They should also join the MCPS - the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society - to collect mechanical royalties. These organisations and others like them in other territories are known as Collective Management Organisations or "CMOs".

Spotify has deals with these two organisations (PRS/MCPS) - and generally also with the equivalent CMOs around the world. Spotify says "this song was streamed X times and so we owe Y for mechanical royalties and Z for performance royalties. This money is then paid trough the CMOs to the publishers/songwriters. You cannot - as a publisher or an artist - get this money directly from Spotify.

This works on one level because it means that so long as a work is correctly identified in the database of the CMOs and that whoever is performing or mechanically reproducing a song submits accurate data showing how and when hat song was reproduced and what revenue is attached then it all works perfectly. More critically the CMO mechanism makes it possible for services like Spotify to exist (and even for live concerts to happen) because otherwise anyone who wanted to put on a concert would need to obtain the permission of every songwriter individually before their songs could be performed.

However - you need to keep in mind that this system was invented when sheet music and clockwork pianos where the main way that words-and-music copyright was mechanically reproduced, and performance was limited to someone standing up and singing the song in a concert hall.

So far, so complex.

To add a further few layers of complexity:

There is no authoratitive database that says "this words-and-music is the copyright of Tom Petty". Additionally, when a record label ingests music into the Spotify catalogue there is no requirement to specify who wrote the words- and-music.

The way it works is that (in essence) Spotify sends the CMOs a list of everything that has been played and the CMOs say "I represent that words-and- music copyright in X territory - so you owe me $X representing Y streams."

It's a pretty clunky system - but as yet, no one has really come up with a better solution. Technology moved faster than copyright admin.

Add into the mix that some artists may not register with the appropriate CMOs; some artists may not have a publisher; some labels may be releasing cover versions of songs where they have not directly obtained the permission of the copyright holder - but this is ok because in theory the words-and-music royalties flow from Spotify through the CMOs to the copyright holders.

So it's a very complex case and hinges on whether the relevant CMOs had been delegated authority by songwriters/copyright holders/publishers to exploit those works and whether Spotify was accurately accounting and paying out for the use of the copyrights.

So it's not about BitTorrent or Spotify having pirated music and is everything to do with how technology, the exploitation of copyright and how money flows through music are all a bit out of sync with each other.

<comment><USER35> Wow this a great explanation! The level of complexity is higher than I thought at first. Thanks for this!

<comment><USER34> Music licensing is really complex. As someone else has said in another comment thread it also varies territory by territory in how this is managed - but then also who is owed what can vary territory by territory depending on other deals at play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I hate to be that guy but maintaining records of who owns which license for which song seems like an actual use of blockchain tech.

<comment><USER37> It's also an actual use of you know... A database.

<comment><USER38> Well sure, but who owns the database? Where is it hosted and who vouches for its accuracy? What happens if it goes down or its maintainer goes out of business?

Of course, all these questions can be addressed in one way or another with conventional database tech. But blockchain has some undeniable appeal in an application like this.

<comment><USER39> It doesn't. Because you assume that blockchain will magically identify and attribute every single of 30 million songs in Spotify's database.

<comment><USER39> Oh. I just realized another thing. 30 million songs can easily fit into a database running on a Macbook Air.

Stick it on a medium-sized server, and you can already serve thousands of users.

Blockchain meanwhile... something something ... 4 txns/second ... 1 terrawatt per txn ... up to several days to clear a txn when network is congested

<comment><USER40> UMG, Warner, Sony and Spotify cannot share bills for running a common database on AWS today without creating yet another corporation and relinquishing power over the data to it.

Blockchains are not the next big thing in databases. They are here to revolutionize how existing organizations co-ordinate, enter into contracts with each other, and even allow individuals themselves co-ordinate directly with each other without intermediaries through novel org structures.

You are trading computational scalability for social scalability.

[http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/02/money- blockchains-a...](http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/02/money-blockchains- and-social-scalability.html)

<comment><USER39> > Blockchains are not the next big thing in databases

Blockchains are the next big thing in nothing. They are not here to revolutionise anything [1]

> hey are here to revolutionize how existing organizations co-ordinate, enter > into contracts with each other etc.

Nope. There are about zero things in blockchain that help with that. Because at the end of the day someone has to do all the job of, you know, adding all the info about who owns what percentage of what song in which region of the world.

Oh wait. Which song was that? A Japanese LP that's 2 seconds longer than the original single released in Europe? Or that remastered song on a "Best of album" that was published by a different publisher than the remastered version published on the "Remastered" album that is published by a different combination of publishers than the original 1960s album that is different from that singular French copy of a concert in 1995...

All that for a single song that ends up being attributed to the same singers and songwriters, except that one cover by all the same people sans that one guy, and except that different cover that will be attributed to the same songwriters, but a different singer, and except...

All that info has to be: standardized, assigned to every single one of those 30 million songs, and any new releases should contain the same standardized info.

You know, something the publishers could agree on right now, and they don't. So how in the seven hells is blockchain going to help?

[1] [https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up- with-...](https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use- case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100)

<comment><USER41> > Blockchains are the next big thing in nothing. They are not here to > revolutionise anything [1]

I beg to differ [1]

> So how in the seven hells is blockchain going to help?

It's not a silver bullet, and most things are not ones that were not possible before. But it facilitates some combinations, makes some things a lot more practical, and opens space for innovation.

In this case, in particular, what comes to mind is:

\- there's a replicated consensus of all this attributions. Every single company agrees and has a shared database of the rights and the licensing. \- the disintermediation: there's not necessarily a need to have a middle man managing this informations and agreements. \- auditable, notorized, unforgeable history: you have this immutable record of when songs were released, who held their records, who and when licensed them, etc. \- open information: if you design this system as an open network, any interested party can join and get the information it wants without needing APIs, etc.

All this without getting into tokens and handling the payments and distribution of royalties on the chain, and other innovations that the capabilities of the blockchain can bring.

[1] [https://blockchaintechguide.com/a-blockchain-based- future/](https://blockchaintechguide.com/a-blockchain-based-future/)

<comment><USER39> > there's a replicated consensus of all this attributions. Every single > company agrees and has a shared database of the rights and the licensing.

Riiight. They can't agree on a standard describing their music and licensing now. But blockchain will magically create that shared database out of thin air.

BTW. Again. That same word, database. Nothing a relational database couldn't handle with much more ease and efficiency.

> there's not necessarily a need to have a middle man managing this > informations and agreements

Riiight. Because every single company will provide an up-to-date complete information with no omission and mistakes. Magic of blockchain!

> you have this immutable record of when songs were released, who held their > records, who and when licensed them, etc.

Riiight. Because there's not even a consensus on what to define as a song, it will somehow magically be solved by blockchain which will automagically identify and attribute eve ry song/track/music correctly, completely, and without omission.

Just some brain teasers for you:

\- is a single in Europe the same song as the same single released in Japan?

\- the single in Japan is 12 seconds longer, though.

\- The authors and the singer are the same. The publishers are different.

\- There's the same song, with the same people + a different drummer released two years later. Is it the same song?

\- All three variations appear on fifteen different albums in 7 different countries, spanning 4 major and 5 regional publishers.

\- Oh. I forgot to say, it's the same classical Tchaikovsky music which is in the public domain. Yet surprise! You still have to pay money (you may research why as a part of your answers to the brain teaser).

\- Also, the global and regional distribution, performance, streaming, and radio rights may or may not be be different for each of those.

> ny interested party can join and get the information it wants without > needing APIs

Because blockchain is a magical technology that transmits all this information directly into your brain without the need of APIs.

Also, the article you linked is a bunch of demagoguery with zero practical applications that for some reason equates blockchain with TCP/IP and not, let's say, Tamagotchi.

<comment><USER41> > But blockchain will magically create that shared database out of thin air.

It won't, and it's a strawman you are setting up. Of course you have to design your business logic and rules and answer all the questions. There's nothing a blockchain, a relational or a nosql database will do for you there. They will give you different options and different tradeoffs. The point here is that this distributed solution has interesting trade-offs and opportunities that makes this a good match for this particular problem, regardless of rules of what defines a song or how licensing rights rules are defined.

> BTW. Again. That same word, database. Nothing a relational database couldn't > handle with much more ease and efficiency.

Yes, sure. You can have a third party with a central relational database that does all that, and all companies trust it. The proposed solution is more akin to a relational database replicated between all interested parties. All the parties having the same vision of immutable data allows interesting tradeoffs for this particular problem, that's all. No one is claiming it will identify or classify songs for you.

> Because blockchain is a magical technology that transmits all this > information directly into your brain without the need of APIs.

No, because you can design a solution where any interested party can join the network and have a copy of the data. Or not. Trade-offs.

> Also, the article you linked is a bunch of demagoguery

I think it's a very pratical way of understanding the oportunities and capabilities that open up with new technology, particulary if you have a knee- jerk reaction such as shown above. Scepticism is healthy particularly given all the hype and magical promises around it but if you look at it through the framework proposed there I hope you can see how it opens design space that was unpractical before.

<comment><USER39> > It won't, and it's a strawman you are setting up.

It wasn't set up by me, was it? Let me remind you:

"Of course, all these questions can be addressed in one way or another with conventional database tech. But blockchain has some undeniable appeal in an application like this."

So far no one has shown that "undeniable appeal". Moreover, every person who roots for blockchain in this conversation comes up with easily refutable claims.

> Of course you have to design your business logic and rules and answer all > the questions. There's nothing a blockchain, a relational or a nosql > database will do for you there.

Let's see what one of the proponents said: "UMG, Warner, Sony and Spotify cannot share bills for running a common database on AWS today without creating yet another corporation and relinquishing power over the data to it... They are here to revolutionize how existing organizations co-ordinate, enter into contracts with each other, and even allow individuals themselves co-ordinate directly with each other without intermediaries through novel org structures."

And yet. Suddenly. "Oh, you have to agree and design your business logic and rules and answer all the questions." Why the hell would I need blockchain for this?

> You can have a third party with a central relational database that does all > that, and all companies trust it. The proposed solution is more akin to a > relational database replicated between all interested parties.

Oh wait. Let me remind you: "Every single company agrees and has a shared database of the rights and the licensing."

Moreover, it means that every single company agrees that anyone can just write whatever they want to this database, sure. And probably fork it at some time, splitting it further.

Remind me again, why blockchain?

> No, because you can design a solution where any interested party can join > the network and have a copy of the data.

Oh cool. Data is useless without access to it though. Hence, APIs. You are not a programmer, are you?

> I think it's a very pratical way of understanding the oportunities and > capabilities that open up with new technology, particulary if you have a > knee-jerk reaction such as shown above.

It's not a knee-jerk reaction. It's a healthy scepticism based on experience and actual understanding of some of the inside workings of music industry.

Your "solutions" are basically "let's add blockchain to it because it's this new cool new thing even though I have no idea how it will aid the problem in question". _All_ it does according to you is letting everyone have a copy of some data. Oh my god. I am _so_ sold on this idea :-\

Just count the number of assumptions you make to make this work:

\- everyone has to agree to use this shared database

\- everyone agrees on a standard way to define songs, define licensing, define song metadata

\- everyone agrees to provide exact truthful complete metadata for every song and track they release at any point in time (hey, remember the brain teaser I gave you? Try answering _that_ first)

\- everyone agrees to have this shared database as the one and only source of truth even if everyone can write any data to it

\- everyone agrees to never under any circumstances fork the database or create competing copies of it (we know how well that worked for Ethereum etc.)

Oh, golly. I sure am sold on the opportunities and capabilities. Blockchain surely "has some undeniable appeal in an application like this." and will "revolutionize how existing organizations co-ordinate, enter into contracts with each other, and even allow individuals themselves co-ordinate directly with each other without intermediaries through novel org structures." "All this without getting into tokens and handling the payments and distribution of royalties on the chain, and other innovations that the capabilities of the blockchain can bring."

BTW. Blockchain cannot handle either payments _or_ royalties. It can hardly handle a few payments without buckling under its own load.

<comment><USER41> > It wasn't set up by me, was it?

Yeah, you are the one claiming that blockchain has to somehow identify and categorize songs automatically in order for it to be in anyway useful. The undeniable appeal claimed is about how organizations coordinate and share information.

> Moreover, it means that every single company agrees that anyone can just > write whatever they want to this database, sure.

No, you can design it with whichever rules you want on who can write, on what's written, and how the consensus is determined if that information is accepted.

> Oh cool. Data is useless without access to it though. Hence, APIs. You are > not a programmer, are you?

This makes no sense. If I have a copy of the data, I can access it. Yes, I'm a programmer.

> Just count the number of assumptions you make to make this work:

Aren't those mostly the same assumptions you have to make to have music licensing work at all? Through an intermediary, on a relational database somewhere? Everyone has to agree to use this system, to provide truthful metadata, and use this intermediary's information as the only source of truth?

> BTW. Blockchain cannot handle either payments or royalties. It can hardly > handle a few payments without buckling under its own load.

Again, don't take Bitcoin's limitations for Blockchain limitations.

<comment><USER39> > Yeah, you are the one claiming that blockchain has to somehow identify and > categorize songs automatically in order for it to be in anyway useful.

Nope. Not me. I've even quoted the claims.

> The undeniable appeal claimed is about how organizations coordinate and > share information.

Once again. I asked several times: the organisations cannot organise and agree _now_. Why would they agree in the case of blockchain? Just be cause you say "blockchain" it won't magically happen.

> Aren't those mostly the same assumptions you have to make to have music > licensing work at all?

Yes. So. Once again. What's the _undeniable appeal of the blockchain_? You need all of the exact same assumptions that don't work or work very poorly in the first place, and you decide to add a blockchain on top of that because somehow it will magically make everything work.

So, once again. What exactly does blockchain bring into the equation if _everything remains the same_?

> Again, don't take Bitcoin's limitations for Blockchain limitations.

Riiight. There apparently exists some magical blockchain that doesn't have any of the limitations that every single blockchain on the market has.

<comment><USER41> > So, once again. What exactly does blockchain bring into the equation if > everything remains the same?

I did state it, repeatedly, but it doesn't count because everything else remains the same and it doesn't magicaly makes everything simple and easy. Allright.

<comment><USER39> You did, and it breaks immediately, because everything else (the things that actually don't work) remain the same, and you for some reason expect them to work in your blockchain.

If something doesn't already work, adding something that's completely orthogonal doesn't help it, or solve it. All other perceived benefits are just not good enough, and blockchain brings enough problems of its own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Almost as big as SeeqPods multi-billion dollar copyright suit (which we got kicked out of court) [https://www.beet.tv/2009/02/seeqpod-gets-hit-with- multibilli...](https://www.beet.tv/2009/02/seeqpod-gets-hit-with-multibillion- dollar-lawsuits.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> US copyright has _way_ too much international authority.

Spotify wouldn't even exist without illegal file sharing on the outset.

</comment><comment><USER43> At the bottom of the article is says "SPONSORED". But I can't find who sponsored it?

Edit: Ok thanks for the screenshots. I disabled my adblocker but they're still not showing up. Probably just something broken.

<comment><USER44> For anyone concerned, there's nothing to worry about! This specific article isn't directly sponsored. It's just a generic ad network at the bottom that's 'SPONSORED'.

<comment><USER45> Ah, I see. My ad blocker blocked the ads, but kept the word "Sponsored" just floating around with no context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Seems opportunistic. They file for IPO and this lawsuit comes out at the same time? Almost certainly not a coincidence. This is arguably when Spotify is most vulnerable and when they will be most likely to settle -- investors hate uncertainty, so settling, even for a large amount, would probably be good for the IPO.

</comment><comment><USER47> Isn't this just another grab by middlemen trying to take a bigger cut of streaming revenue because CD sales are dying?

When Spotify was in a spat with Taylor Swift's former label, the two companies couldn't even agree on how much in royalties she was making a year. [https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213775/taylor-swift- spo...](https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213775/taylor-swift-spotify- borchetta-royalties)

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm seeing several comments here that assume the lawsuit to be over recordings, but Wixen manages "mechanical licenses" (rights to melody and lyrics), not recordings.

Mechanical licenses are governed very differently from recordings. For one, they are subject to compulsory licensing, which allows you pay a statutory rate to license them, as opposed to directly licensing them from the rightsholder. The suit alleges that Spotify did neither in this case.

</comment><comment><USER48> Thinking about it, part of the reasons music labels got big is for economy of scale when mass producing CDs for example. Of course, such economy of scale was not needed anymore with the move to digital distribution. This didn't work well with the current debt-based economy where shareholders depends on stocks always going up for things like retirements. I assume that Hollywood has similar problems, right?

</comment><comment><USER49> Isn't every streaming music service basically being sued by major record labels constantly?

I was under the impression it was standard operating procedure for them.

</comment><comment><USER50> I wouldn't be surprised if it's found out later Apple helped convince others or fund research for this lawsuit in some hidden deal on the down low

</comment><comment><USER51> I hope there's a way to export Spotify playlists.

<comment><USER52> Not as far as I can tell.

My backout plan is to manually copy over all the artists I'm following. It'll take an hour or two, and I'd have to remember which of their albums I liked the most.

For custom playlists? Currently you're shit out of luck, you'll have to do it manually.

<comment><USER53> They have a nice API for working with playlists. Dozens of services would pop up for ripping them if spotify goes EOL.

<comment><USER54> It's definitely an API. I'm not sure I'd say it was -nice- going off my experiences with it (caveat: they might have changed it since 2013 when it was the bane of my life.)

(Horrifyingly crufty playlist backup: [https://github.com/rjp/spotify- playlists](https://github.com/rjp/spotify-playlists) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So the music "industry" waits for the cow to get big and then starts milking it. A sudden and unexpected turn of events.

<comment><USER56> It's more of the people making the milk realizing they're making pennies on the dollar compared to those machines that distribute the milk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> You would expect Sean Parker to learn how to avoid this by now.

</comment><comment><USER58> this is one of the reasons why YC doesnt encourage music startups.

</comment><comment><USER59> Where did they even get the songs if they weren't provided by the owner? Bittorrent?

</comment><comment><USER60> This is the first post on HN that make me want to have downvote powers!

</comment><comment><USER61> ...and Lars Ulrich is cheering from his grave.

<comment><USER62> Why would he do that? He's not dead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> What a headache of an industry to get into. Seeing the direction that Pandora, Soundcloud, and others have gone, I wouldn't touch this vertical with 10-ft pole and a billion in capital.

<comment><USER64> Got a billion dollars? You can send a person to the moon, but don't even dream about getting into the music streaming industry!

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Let's be clear what this is really about: Spotify is rumored to go public next year.

</comment><comment><USER66> * Tinfoil hat *

Large music labels prefer revenue/relationships with Apple and Apple music and will use their monopoly to hurt or ruin competitors like Spotify.

<comment><USER27> They really don't care _who_ , they only care about squeezing every penny they can out of copyright.

<comment><USER67> I would think that the authors/rights holders of the music really should get the majority of the revenue. The underlying technology is of little interest to the end user.

Who would really install and pay for spotify if the entire library consisted of a two minute track of street sounds from Los Angeles and thirty seconds of doorbells? Basically no one. Nobody really cares about the technology, what they want is the music, without which even the coolest technology is uninteresting.

<comment><USER12> Yes, but without the underlying tech, there is no way for the end user to access that content. So the question is, which is more scarce? The infrastructure, tools, and millions of paying customers using your streaming service, or the music itself?

There are a lot of music producers and publishers. There aren't many streaming services that have a large customer base and the tech to service it.

<comment><USER68> > many streaming services that have a large customer base

And arguably Spotify only has a large customer base because it has the content people want. It's very similar to a chicken and egg problem.

<comment><USER27> Copyright holders demand control over distribution, which makes smaller competitors less lucrative to rightsholders, so the rightsholders pick larger incumbents, and force smaller businesses to fail via litigation.

The problem is that copyright has an unreasonable amount of authority.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Growing Our Team with Retrospectives - <AUTHOR> https://blog.plaid.com/growing-our-team-with-retrospectives/ <comment><USER2> The effectiveness of a retro rests upon the empowerment of the entire team. If the team isn't empowered to own their own success/failure, then there is no point in doing a retro.

From my experience, business units need just as much coaching on agility as development teams. It's hard to change culture, but it's essential the BU gets out of the way (let the team own how they plan on delivering a solution) and facilitates empowerment of change for the team to thrive.

Again, from experience, the main driver of apprehension is middle management feeling the squeeze from making everything transparent. They're use to being the routers (worst case, bottlenecks) of information and work, when in reality their role should be to empower the team with the resources they need to own their work. The shift in focus from delegation to facilitation is essential to the whole process, making retros more effective once realized. Empowerment builds in psychological safety for the team to sink their teeth into their own issues and solve those issues themselves.

Another main driver of apprehension is power within the team. If there are only 1 or 2 main members of the team that dictate the pace of the conversation, that crowds out the rest of the team from buying in and/or providing their insights. The entire team needs to be empowered to own their success, not just a handful of members.

<comment><USER3> > If there are only 1 or 2 main members of the team that dictate the pace of > the conversation, that crowds out the rest of the team from buying in and/or > providing their insights. The entire team needs to be empowered to own their > success, not just a handful of members.

I notice this all the time, some folks might be really outgoing, and love to talk and drive conversations, while others are content with staying silent. But all opinions on the team are valuable.

I've experienced this first hand where I've worked on great teams, and we all got involved in discussions about equally. I think it's easy to get someone quiet to speak up (if they have thoughts about the topic at hand they aren't saying), the more difficult challenge, at least for me, is trying to quiet down the team members that go on tangents.

<comment><USER4> A good practice is to ask people to write as opposed to speak. You can give some space for everyone to put their thoughts on post-it notes before the conversation starts (or to put things in a doc before the retro meeting).

There are so many dimensions: shy v. not, or introverted v. extroverted, or active v. passive thinker, or oral v. written communication, etc. Ideally you shape practices that can account for this diversity of thought.

And +1 to setting expectations so that people who are very vocal don't take up all of the space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Retrospectives are great if they actually lead to change. Unfortunately that's often not the case. The same issues keep coming up repeatedly and soon the retrospective is just another chore.

I would love to see retrospectives where managers one or two levels up attend (usually it's just the devs), listen to issues and address things that need support from a larger point of view. Agile theoretically should transform whole organizations that way.

<comment><USER6> In my experience retrospectives are just lip service. Managers who attend use them as an opportunity to make excuses for the company and focus on what's wrong with you, the employee, and what you can do better. People eventually realize that the smart thing to do is to stop making yourself an easy target for down-sizing by not speaking up. Then when someone has a complaint about the development process a manager can say, "If you had such a problem with it you should have mentioned it in the retro."

Employers who want to hear from you will foster an environment that is open to discussion and even polite dissent. When an employer formalizes that mentality and slaps a label on it you can be sure that it's a managerial con.

<comment><USER4> One point of the post is that if you do constant retros (say every 2 weeks), within teams with the engineering manager, you can help foster an "an environment that is open to discussion and even polite dissent" (as you put it).

As a VP Eng, I've found that it can definitely hurt for upper management to get involved in retros. I try really hard to create bottom-up empowerment where individuals and teams can solve problems and improve their processes independently. That kind of ownership is really powerful. Retros really help with that. Plus, from my perspective, I can just read retro-notes to find common threads across teams that may require my help to improve or fix (e.g., if we're consistently underinvesting on testing or if aren't providing enough avenues for career growth or ...).

I obviously can't speak to your experiences, but what you're describing sounds really dark: management "conning" management. I hope you've been able to get away from such places!

<comment><USER7> This is literally what I did as a VP Eng. I let the teams drive the improvements and kept my role to a) ask questions to help the team identify areas of improvement and b) help implement the changes when necessary. The result was that I had many teams with fairly different processes, definitions of ready & done, etc. but that was the whole point. It's all about what helps the team work best, and ownership of the process along with the result goes a long way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The present team I'm on is really good at being open and honest during our retros but we can never seem to do anything with the action items for improvement that comes out of them. We've tried everything from mentioning it explicitly in our daily stand-up or making it a zero-point story in our current sprint but nothing seems to work.

<comment><USER9> What do you mean by "nothing seems to work"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Retros are great when there's follow up! We always make sure to document things that come from the session.

</comment><comment><USER11> Do you know those screenshots from what product are from? Look a bit like.. Confluence pages?

<comment><USER9> I believe that's a Confluence page. Confluence already has a "Retrospective" template for this occasion.</comment></comment>


The New Innovation Battlegrounds Are City Hall And The State House - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2013/08/06/the-new-innovation-battlegrounds-are-city-hall-and-the-state-house/ <comment><USER2> A thought experiment, at the risk of being downvoted to oblivion:

Imagine a new online service, which allows people to rent out their existing accounts at various other SAAS services to tenants, in exchange for a cut (specifically eg. you can share your seomoz account with 2 other people, tossing the $99 + cut inbetween them, each tenant taking one of the slots).

Consumers benefit from radically lowered prices, enabled by "more fine grained transaction in property".

Would you accomodate this sort of usage on your own sites? If not, what specific principle would you suggest, which still allows for AirBNB?

<comment><USER3> "Imagine a new online service, which allows people to rent out their existing accounts at various other SAAS services to tenants, in exchange for a cut (specifically eg. you can share your seomoz account with 2 other people, tossing the $99 + cut inbetween them, each tenant taking one of the slots)."

Isn't that analogous to a sublet arrangement at an apartment? You take a, let's say, 3 bedroom apartment and sublet two of the bedrooms to room-mates. Many landlords allows and welcome subletting, as it allows them to more quickly find tenants for their larger units. At the same time, other landlords don't see the hassle and potential drama of subletting as worth the cost and prohibit the practice.

In the same way, I can see SAAS providers going two ways on this. Some might welcome your "sublet as a service" and explicitly take advantage of it as a way to broaden the market that they serve. Others might view it as a way to exploit their service and explicitly write anti-subletting terms into their terms of use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Much of this has to do with the systemic aging of our elected officials.

Look at the federal level, where the average age of a Rep is 59 and Sen is 63. These are folks who not only don't empathize with modern technology, they've got established connections to big industries that are threatened by innovation.

I'm not meaning to come off like a ideologue, it's just economics and incentives. Until younger folks get more involved, it likely won't improve much. (like SOPA/PIPA, but more consistent in advocacy and running for office).

Clinton ran for congress in his 20's, lost, but was elected Governor in his early 30's. Joe Biden was a U.S. Senator at the age of 30. People in their late 20's and early 30's just aren't positioned to run for office in our generation. Debt, schooling, careers, etc prevent many from being able to do it, even if they wanted to.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like a good theory, but I'm not sure the data backs you up. Obama is the 5th youngest president at 47. Clinton was the 3rd at 46.

Take a look at the average age of...

Republican congressmen in 1949: 54.9

Republican congressmen in 2011: 54.9

Democratic congressmen in 1949: 50.4

Democratic congressmen in 2011: 60.2

The democrats have gotten older, but not by much more than the general population. The senate has gotten older, but not dramatically so.

[http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info- CONGRE...](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info- CONGRESS_AGES_1009.html)

<comment><USER6> I am honestly a little shocked that the two numbers for Republicans are _identical_ to 3 significant digits.

Also, your numbers are for House Representatives, not congressmen.

<comment><USER5> I'm not trying to be overly pedantic, but I was curious if I was misusing the term. Wikipedia says that in the US, "the term Member of Congress applies to members of both houses, the terms Congressman and Congresswoman usually refer only to members of the House of Representatives."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Congress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Congress)

<comment><USER6> I have heard that, but I've never really noticed it. Your usage is probably more correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone pick up on how fundamentally insane this whole deal is? Why exactly do we have to submit to this nonsense?

A world where it's possible for people to ambiguously decide whether or not it's okay to simply organize taxi rides, or share a room you own and operate, because some government-sanctioned oligopoly doesn't like it… How did we get here?

I'd love it if people would venture to refute me on this rather than simply downvoting my posts.

<comment><USER8> If you live in a Condo, you've agreed to the by laws of the association.

If you lease, you've signed a contract with your landlord.

<comment><USER7> Voluntarily at that, isn't that great?

Your landlords should not be encouraged to peek into my apartment.

<comment><USER8> Why do you feel you can ignore the terms of a contract you voluntarily signed ?

<comment><USER9> The root comment of this thread was talking about government regulation. You responded with a comment about contracts with landlords or condo associations, to which the response was that those are voluntary agreements (by contrast with government regulation). Nothing in that is talking about ignoring the terms of a voluntary contract; the point is that the government regulations that affect businesses like Uber and AirBnB are _not_ voluntary contracts.

<comment><USER10> > the point is that the government regulations that affect businesses like > Uber and AirBnB are not voluntary contracts.

In the AirBnB case, I don't think of it as much different. Homeowner's associations are the way you'd arrange land-use regulations for a large area through contract law, and are becoming the more common way of doing it in places like Texas. In other areas it's done by municipal governments, the more traditional method. But the impact on freedom is more or less than same: by buying property in the jurisdiction of one of these entities, you agree to use the property in accordance with [long list of rules], plus any future rules that may be made in accordance with [procedure]. And the way to avoid it if you don't like the rules, is to buy property not within the homeowner's association or municipality whose land-use regulations you don't like. This happens through both private-sector and public-sector mechanisms pretty similarly, just the private-sector ones are developing more recently.

There are other important differences between homeowners' associations and municipalities, such as general police power. But this particular one, whether you can turn your home into a hotel in a particular area, is one where municipal governments are basically equivalent to a standardized bundle of contract law, as evidenced by the fact that in some areas the same regulations are literally being implemented as a standardized bundle of contract law.

<comment><USER7> But who would buy a house, with a non-negotiable contract preventing them from using it to house some people temporarily for some minor profit?

If your road maintenance company doesn't care, and you own the land, what's to stop you other than a voluntarily win-win association?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I read this and kept thinking whether the hotel lobby is really the reason why Airbnb runs into trouble. Or, for that matter, even whether the Taxi Lobby is what is really hitting Uber.

Yes, hotel owners and taxi drivers are not exactly pleased about the disruption. And, yes, they have lobbyists to further their causes. But don't think for one second that these people wanted the regulation to begin with. Absolutely not. The regulators wanted to protect the public and put in zoning, licensing, etc. The initial regulation had very little, if anything, to do with turn-of-the-century lobbyists.

For the most part it seems these new companies are facing not some nuanced part of the law, but like basic, prehistoric regulation that is practically universal in the Western world, designed to protect people from surpassingly likely horrible practices--like getting kidnapped by an unlicensed driver. Something not that unimaginable -- at least according to London public service posters everywhere. Some laws have very murky reasoning, I'll give you that. But zoning and licensing in these cases do not. So to say that Cities are stifling innovation by enforcing some of the most basic laws of the modern state, then it's a bit glib.

Incumbents are mad because they are following the rules and some of these new firms are clearly not. But the incumbents aren't the biggest problem, which the article more or less hints as the culprit. No, the problem for 'innovation' is convincing people why they should let the other half of their duplex run a youth hostel without a license. And no, saying your K-nearest neighbor algorithm's got it covered is not going to be enough.

Some might compare this to copyright. And this is where they'd be right. It's not very obvious who copyright protects. No one has ever had a GB of songs cause them to wonder whether their neighborhood is safe anymore. You might even make the same case for fin services. Why regulate those? Well, I'd grant you there too. How many people died from the fin crisis again? Perhaps we are pushing it. Either way, in the land of the physical universe, the universe where Uber and Airbnb are so clearly inhabiting, the reasoning behind the laws is remarkably obvious.

<comment><USER12> > And no, saying your K-nearest neighbor algorithm's got it covered is not > going to be enough.

This is sheer assertion. What do you think is better? Uber - where you can see your driver's name and photo, know that he has a five star rating with 47/50 positive recommendations, and know that a third party is tracking your GPS location at all times...or the city government's antiquated taxi medallion service? Ditto for Airbnb.

> designed to protect people

Let's be real here, city government regulations "protect people" in the same way the TSA "protects people". Which is to say they don't and pretend that they do. You're responsible for protecting yourself. The police can't protect you from wandering into a bad neighborhood or even stop you from getting mugged; they can only clean up the mess after the fact. And no cab driver license will replace exercising your judgment before you enter a cab. Moreover, to be "kidnapped by a cabby" is a rare event. It's like soiling our pants over the threat from terrorists, which we've done quite a lot of over the last decade. Enough already.

<comment><USER10> I trust the city government to keep the neighboring landlord from turning his apartment buiding into a ghetto hotel without the proper noise-mitigation measures, more than I trust AirBnB to do it.

In many areas AirBnB isn't a problem, mainly when it's being used as a way for regular people to rent out spare rooms or their apartment. But in NYC and London, people are starting to run larger-scale traditional hotel operations, only without following any of the regulations for traditional hotels. There, AirBnB's failure to implement any kind of replacement for municipal regulation is most noticeable, especially in its impact on other people's property.

<comment><USER12> > I trust the city government to keep the neighboring landlord from turning > his apartment buiding into a ghetto hotel without the proper noise- > mitigation measures, more than I trust AirBnB to do it.

You do? Section 8 ring a bell? Many more landlords and governments agencies have turned apartments into ghetto hotels than individual Airbnb hosts. And the result has been a spike in the murder rate:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american- murder-mystery/306872/)

So USG is using tax dollars to move in murderers next door, and landlords are taking those dollars. Yet one trusts USG to "protect" you from a ghetto hotel?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I agree with the author in all points he made. But his advices sound to me like he is "preaching to the converted". I don't see a judge or a regulator reading this and considering it a new point of view that may change his analysis of future cases.

I imagine that these regulators already have "the focus on customers". And if they don't, it is not because they don't know they should have. Give the "benefit of the doubt" to innovation? Why? "Keep an open mind"? "Use the service"? I don't see any of these arguments as particularly relevant to anyone in power to regulate these markets.

I think we (those who stand with innovation) should pay more attention and think harder on our arguments in order to win those battelgrounds.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't like the phrase "sharing economy" because I think that's a misdescription of what's actually happening. There is no sharing, in the sense of concurrent use. What's happening, instead, is that technology is enabling more fine grained transactions in property. If you imagine a set of property rights as a multi-dimensional space, technology lowers the transaction costs involved in splitting up and transacting in sub-spaces of the larger set, and so makes such transactions practical. See: Coase's "The Nature of the Firm."

Sharing is something different. Sharing involves concurrent use of resources mediated by tort-like systems, rather than property-like systems. A real "sharing economy" in cars might be what you end up when cars become self- driving. You won't own a car, but will use whichever car is nearby, and the law will punish various relevant anti-social behaviors instead of violations of property rights.

This distinction is very relevant to things like Uber or AirBnB, because the regulatory challenges there are various issues attached to property rights (e.g. zoning restrictions attached to houses, monopoly privileges attached to taxi medallions).

I agree with Genachowski that state and local governments are a battleground for innovation, but he makes it seem simpler than it is. It's not just a matter of preventing local governments from enacting laws that restrict innovation. It's more basic: renegotiating various privileges that have been negotiated into and priced into property rights. E.g. for better or worse, those who own cab medallions bargained for the monopoly they have, and gave up certain things in the process. Municipalities bargained to create telephone monopolies to serve rural areas instead of building infrastructure themselves. People who bought houses in residential neighborhoods did so pricing in the fact that those neighborhoods would not host hotels. Everyone thought these were reasonable policies at the time. Upsetting those settled expectations in property rights is going to be a very complicated process.

E.g. my personal regulatory interest is in spectrum sharing technology ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_spectrum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_spectrum)). Technology is getting close to the point where real "sharing" should be possible in radio spectrum. Not just fine-grained subdivision of property rights, but concurrent use mediated by tort-like mechanisms of enforcing "sociable" behavior. I think that technology needs to be rolled out all over the TV bands and the cellular bands. But it's not just a simple matter of flipping a switch. Verizon and AT&T paid billions for their spectrum, under the assumption that there would be nobody else playing in it. You have to kind of see their point of view in opposition to measures to enable sharing on their property. Same for all of the TV companies. They didn't pay for their spectrum, but they made tremendous investments based on certain assumptions, and they've got a right to question changes to those settled expectations.

Incidentally, this is not a new problem. The whole point of property rights is to settle expectations. When the situation changes dramatically, either because of technological or sociological changes, it is a political challenge to accommodate that change without trampling over those settled expectations.

<comment><USER15> >People who bought houses in residential neighborhoods did so pricing in the fact that those neighborhoods would not host hotels.

but they didn't price in the risk of technological innovation like AirBNB.

the corner stone in your logic (and in modern economy) is property rights. With my background (USSR), i'm used to think of property rights not of as something God given, instead as of something that was invented at some point and has been very useful so far in the development of our civilization. The property rights itself has evolved, from slavery societies to the modern day, from people as a property to ideas and RF spectrum being considered as property. The property rights will continue to evolve, and probably, God forbid - my townhouse is well over-water now, real estate rights disappear, while rights for DNA or human soul(mental footprint, dreams, etc..), something like this will come, or one day property rights, as exclusive license on something, will just stop being useful for human civilization at all.

<comment><USER16> >>but they didn't price in the risk of technological innovation like AirBNB

Actually that's what they did, since residential usage like AirBNB is generally against zoning in these areas.

And you're focused on the selfish aspects of property rights without considering the benefits towards the commons they can confer, like keeping quiet residential areas quiet residential areas rather than high-traffic transient areas just because someone threw up a website.

<comment><USER15> >Actually that's what they did, since residential usage like AirBNB is generally against zoning in these areas.

you're missing my point that property rights and laws(zoning) change with (in response, forced by) technological development and innovation.

>And you're focused on the selfish aspects of property rights without considering the benefits towards the commons they can confer

again, my point was that specific property rights have their time when they are actually helping advancing the civilization, yet they are meaningless before their time and delay progress after.

As AirBNB helps more fully utilize buildings, it seems it is a plus for civilization and the laws/zoning preventing effective use of resources start to become obstacles in the way of progress.

<comment><USER17> Your comment didn't provide any support for the notion that property rights evolve in response to innovation. Ending slavery is more of a moral awakening. In fact, Wikipedia claims that the cotton gin, invented in 1793, actually led to more slavery in the South.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article claims that some regulations exist to protect certain industries. The proof is the fact that these regulations are harmful to various new startups but not to existing industry. But that's not proof: that's correlation without causation. It is just as likely, if not _more_ likely, that certain regulations were instituted to protect the public or to perform a public good, and the current industries have evolved, like an organism, to coexist with the regulations. Just because an industry has adapted to work within the law does not mean that the law was put in place to protect that industry.

For example, NYC regs which are harmful to AirBnB exist to protect other tenants from the insecurities that stem from a revolving door of transients in their buildings. Simliarly, taxi cab medallions restrict supply in order to prevent a tragedy of the commons whereby too many cabs fight for fares in congested city cores, taking up all available road space.

In this respect, these startups are not innovative--just stupid enough to operate extra-legally. Just because something can be done more easily with technology does not mean it should be done.

</comment><comment><USER19> So essentially the "New Innovation Battlegrounds" can also be described as "Lobbying."

Which sounds more like the last gasping death throes of innovation. None of these businesses involve any kind of technological breakthrough that could really disrupt anything, they're basically my business model is better than your business model. Which leads to the obvious question - better for who?

<comment><USER9> That's exactly the point. When two businesses come up against each other, the correct response from government is to step back and let them fight it out, not to favor one over the other. Lobbying to curry favor for your business is abominable; lobbying to eliminate favors given to your competitor and level the playing field is completely reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A shining counter-example to this article's core argument is the city of SF. They release tons-and-tons of data in hopes more people make cool new apps with it in ways they didn't think of. [http://sfpark.org/how-it-works/open- data-page/](http://sfpark.org/how-it-works/open-data-page/) [https://data.sfgov.org/](https://data.sfgov.org/)

In general though, NYC especially appears to leading an ultimately bankrupt, economically-ignorant policy of pandering to monopolies. Killing innovation hurts the economy and makes cities like NY less desirable. Disruption is competition, and these monopolies better adapt or die.</comment>


US sales of Tesla Model 3 plunge 74% in January according to outside estimate - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-sales-plung-20190201-story.html <comment><USER2> More likely, US registrations declined that month as numerous model 3's are diverted to foreign markets.</comment>


Quantum computer calculates exact energy of molecular hydrogen - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-01/hu-qcc010810.php <comment><USER2> _When a quantum computer is put to work on a problem, it considers all possible answers by simultaneously arranging its qubits into every combination of "zeroes" and "ones."_

This has _got_ to stop.

<comment><USER3> What do you mean?

Quantum mechanics is indeed a different viewpoint

As I recall, the Feynman diagram approach assumes that every conceivable interaction between particles that could happen does happen with a given probability depending on the interaction's complexity.

Indeed, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is quite a mind fuck - if you know the exact speed of a particle, the location of particle become _utterly_ uncertain to the point that it could be anywhere in the _universe_.

So what _specifically_ is your problem with the above quote?

<comment><USER2> Your comment is painfully embarrassing to read. Instead of attacking what I said (or me), try asking: "could you elaborate on what you think the article is misrepresenting?".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an example of quantum simulation, which is considered significantly easier to achieve than general quantum computing.

Several quantum systems can be modeled with other, unrelated quantum systems, to solve the dynamics of those systems. The cannot unfortunately be used for general quantum gate operations that you hear about.

And as usual, for QC stuff, I'll defer any real comments to Michael Nielsen, if he happens to see this submission.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is arguably one of the most important breakthroughs ever in the field of computing.

<comment><USER3> If it scale and lives up to the general description it will be. Whether it will do that it another question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nchem....](http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nchem.483.html)

<comment><USER6> How can I read the full article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> After reading the paper here: <http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0887>, I think that this wasn't actually done on a quantum computer, but rather simulated via PyQuante: <http://pyquante.sourceforge.net/#>

It's still impressive, but goes to show that we're a long way from practical quantum computing.

<comment><USER8> I don't have the time right now to slog through what is probably a very interesting paper, but this did catch my eye "We perform a key algorithmic step the iterative phase estimation algorithm in full, achieving a high level of precision and robustness to error. We implement other algorithmic steps with assistance from a classical computer and explain how this non-scalable approach could be avoided."

It sounds like they claim at least part of it they did with real quantum computing. Scanning the paper I think they did some calculations on "real" one and two qubit systems.

<comment><USER7> Ah yeah, I'm pretty sure you are correct after re-reading that part.</comment></comment></comment>


Adhearsion - next killer app for Ruby? - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/08/adhearsion-next-killer-app-for.html <comment><USER2> My Startup(engineyard.com) has just finishing building our phone system in adhearsion. This handles our global support line with tons of features:

Provides a complete IVR written in Ruby, with helpers for menus, multiple dialing, etc. Provides a complete user interface written using Ruby on Rails, for an easy to use configuration tool for both users and administrators. Supports PSTN numbers as extensions, providing a completely virtual PBX. Supports automatic creation of workgroups, including insertion into the dial plan, right from the Ruby GUI. Supports workgroup scheduling from the user interface, so you extension only rings when you tell it to. Supports dialing multiple phones and employees to answer an inbound call. Forwards voice mails to everyone in the workgroup Supports click to dial, call history, etc. from the GUI

The cool part is we're going to open source this thing in the next few weeks. It's probably the biggest adhearsion app out there yet and will serve as a great example for folks looking to do cool stuff with adhearsion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please let us know when/where you open source your phone system app. I am very interested in learning from your experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not just adhearsion. It seems like Ruby is becoming the defacto sheepdog for shepherding the unwieldy Asterisk. I think its great news speaking as one who has lost one too many dialplans thanks to asterisks wonderful handling of "minor" upgrades.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is it just me or are dialplans not really that hard?

Also, AEL is pretty powerful too. All of the asterisk "pros" recommend using the dialplan extensively for performance and stability reasons.

Ragi has potential in my opinion, however.

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone looking at this should also consider Telegraph (telegraph.rubyforge.org).

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting idea. The name needs some marketing consulting.

<comment><USER7> adhearsion is not a startup, it's an open source project.

<comment><USER8> Two things:

1\. Naming is important for open source projects as well.

2\. From Jay Philips' Blog ([http://jicksta.com/posts/what-were-not-admitting- about-aster...](http://jicksta.com/posts/what-were-not-admitting-about- asterisk)):

"Here's what I'll let out: its name is Adhearsion Inc. and it's not consulting. We're currently seeking private funding. If you are or know of investors, send me an email at jay-at-adhearsion-dot-com. We think we know how to turn the industry around."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks promising.</comment>


Show HN: My Google Sheets add-on to get crypto-currencies prices and other info - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cryptofinance/bhjnahcnhemcnnenhgbmmdapapblnlcn <comment><USER2> Was looking for something like that, works great!</comment>


Why is the font color for this one HN user profile name green? - <AUTHOR> profile name of HN user "Rabble_Of_One" shows up in green font. While for other users, it's default. What's the difference. <comment><USER2> What follows is extracted from my comment 1543 days ago to exactly this question, and lightly edited.

You do know that pretty much every page has a search box ...

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=green%20usernames&sort=byPopul...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=green%20usernames&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

It's even the top result (for me) on Google:

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=green+username](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=green+username)

You can many, many, _many_ answers from Google if you also add "hacker news" to the search string:

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=green+username+hacker+news](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=green+username+hacker+news)

I know that here on HN it's generally regarded that if you start with "I know I'll get downvoted for this ..." then you simply shouldn't say it.

But having said _that,_ there are times when unpopular things need to be said. I'm genuinely not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely not trying to be rude, and I'm genuinely not trying to be superior. I genuinely think people really ought to do some homework before asking questions.

When we create a web site we often provide a FAQ, and we hope that people will do some homework and check the FAQ before calling the support line, or sending an email.

Why don't we ask the same of ourselves? Why shouldn't we ask that people at least wonder if the answer has been asked before, and then search.

So I'm not providing the fish, I'm trying to teach you how to fish. I'm not going to give the answer yet again, I'm telling people how to get the answers for themselves. It shouldn't be necessary, and yet it is.

It's possible that people will downvote me, but understand that I'm actually trying to help the community. The question is, and it's a genuine one, how _can_ we say RTFM without sounding snarky?

<comment><USER3> If a thousand people ask "Why is this username green" we can say it's problem with those people for asking, or we can just accept that the UI for HN is opaque and difficult to understand.

And a bunch of it is _not_ documented, so searching does nothing.

The fact that the algolia search is suboptimal doesn't help.

<comment><USER2>
        > And a bunch of it is not documented,
        > so searching does nothing.

And yet the search does return comments that contain the explanation.

        > The fact that the algolia search is
        > suboptimal doesn't help.

And yet the search _does_ return comments that contain the explanation.

A search doesn't always return the answer, but (a) in this case it does, and (b) _people should try the search first._

I agree with you completely that aspects of the UI for HN are opaque and difficult to understand. But if people want to understand them then _they should search first._ If they can't find the answers they can then say "I've tried this search, I've looked here and there, and I can't find the answer - could you help me please."

Trying to find the answers on-line should be part of the Hacker ethos, and should be tried _before_ asking other people to spend their time answering questions that have been answered before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> New users have a green name.

This is supposed to allow existing users to give gentle advice about how HN is supposed to work. sama (or maybe pg, or dang) said that they check /noobcomments regularly and upvote the good comments and provide a bit of advice if needed.

</comment><comment><USER4> new users are always green ;)</comment>


A Man Who Flies Around the World for Free (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/ben-schlappig-airlines-fly-free-20150720 <comment><USER2> Any updates on the Hobby?</comment>


Ask HN: Is it possible to hack the election and get a 3rd candidate to go viral? - <AUTHOR> What if the HN community started a movement bring awareness of a 3rd option and tried to get someone like Gary Johnson to go viral and to alter the outcome of the election? <comment><USER2> Hackernews is not your personal political tool/arsenal. Please take this elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> Speak for yourself. I'm happy with one of the candidates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you even watch this debate? Neither candidate could properly answer the questions.

<comment><USER4> Seemed like one of them answered questions really well. The other one, not so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No.</comment>


Ask HN: How to Build a Portfolio as a #MachineLearning Engineer? - <AUTHOR> Hi! I am a Data Science/Machine Learning engineer and I'd like to ask few questions regarding Data Science Portfolio. I find this [article](http://varianceexplained.org/r/start-blog/) helpful.<p>My question is about blogging, research papers, and open source projects.<p>- I am intending to start blogging as well. While I use FB/Twitter to express my interest and opinion, I am willing to keep my blog as a space to showcase open source experiments. In this case, do you see it as a duplication (Open Source on Github with Readme file + blogpost on how to re-build things and lessons learnt ). The idea behind the blog and the website is to find a new a job, so it would be a place to show what I can do. My interest and work is around data science and data engineering.<p>- I interned at research Centers (R&D), so I was involved in writing and publishing some papers. As an engineer, do you find (Applied data science ) papers helpful in my career (papers that doesn't come with novel ML ideas, but novel ways to apply ML).<p>- If you are manager, recruiter or an interviewer, what do you want to see in the resume of a data science engineer ?. I have mixed signals, some people want to see more in-depth knowledge of data science, and others skills on how to process, query and analyze datasets.<p>- Do you have examples of good data science portfolios. Feel free to share links. <comment><USER2> Take a look at minmaxir's posts on HN, his website, and twitter. From what I gather from here on HN, he worked on his site and portfolio and transitioned into a data science role. I don't know him other than seeing his posts on this site and then following him on Twitter, but it seems like he did a good job of it.</comment>