Apple Wants To Make Jailbreaking Worthy Of Jail Time, $2500 Fine - <AUTHOR> http://consumerist.com/5153597/apple-wants-to-make-jailbreaking-worthy-of-jail-time-2500-fine <comment><USER2> Apple seems to be getting eviler by the day. It's the same kind of attitude they're taking with Palm and the Pre—threatening legal action to scare people away from doing things they really ought to have a right to do. I guess that's what happens when you're at the top of a market.

<comment><USER3> All of this news of Apple becoming the next evil corporation really pushes me away from buying a Macbook for college in the fall. However, it makes a Product (red) Dell with Ubuntu look even better...

<comment><USER4> Look, don't buy a computer based on what you think of the company. If you're serious about getting stuff done with your computer, get the best damn computer you can, regardless of company reputation, regardless of what other people think about it.

If you think that you can live with Ubuntu, with all its problems, then get Ubuntu - but get it because it's cheaper, because it's more tinkerable. Don't get it because of Apple's dickery. Of course Apple is a dick. They insist on having complete control over your user experience. As an Apple user, I will attest that I love it. Some people get a kick out of supermodding their computer. My cofounder loves Linux for that very reason. I like Apple because they do everything for me without thinking.

I think this case is over-the-top, but I don't necessarily disagree with Apple's reasoning. If I made a product that had a built-in application system designed to my specifications, I'm not sure if I wouldn't be pissed off at the people who wanted to get around that either. Jail time seems a bit over-the- top, but if it's in Apple's contract that by buying their product you agree not to mess with it, and I'm fairly certain that's been the deal since the iPhone came out, then you might not like that, but _if_ you don't like it, you don't buy the thing with intent to break the law. You get a different phone, one that lets you modify and tinker with things. If you get caught, then you'd better have known that there was a chance of it happening from day one. It's risktaking: always has been, always will be.

People get into a bunch of arguments about evil and not-evil. It's not about _evil_. It's about _intent_. Apple's intent has always been to control every aspect of their product. They insist on controlling hardware - so you can't get OS X on another company's computer. They insist on controlling software - so you can't free up your iPhone. Some people disagree with that, but it's their prerogative as a company, and it's let Apple consistently create the best products in their respective markets with little debate. If that's evil, then I guess I'm evil, because I think they have the right and I wish more companies were that restrictive.

So think about that when you get your computer. Don't worry about all this bullshit arguing either way. Think about the computer itself.

<comment><USER5> _If you're serious about getting stuff done with your computer, get the best damn computer you can, regardless of company reputation, regardless of what other people think about it._

I'm not sure how this is an argument in favor of Apple. OS X is missing many modern OS features, like automatic updates for all your software and programmable window management (a la Xmonad). If you are just going to use emacs, Firefox, and xterm, using OS X is going to waste a lot of your time compared to a slightly-tweaked Linux install. (With that in mind, if you use GNOME or KDE, you are also going to have your time wasted, although at least everything updates itself in the background, and it's no worse than OS X or Windows.)

 _Of course Apple is a dick. They insist on having complete control over your user experience._

Including sending you to _prison_ if you don't do what they tell you. I don't think you quite understand -- if you don't follow their rules, you lose your job, your house, your freedom, and your way of life. (This is not really Apple's fault, since they didn't make the law, but the fact that they are interested in "taking advantage" of laws like this show that they are truly evil. Nobody has threatened me with jail over modifying my OpenMoko phone.)

Finally, it's important to keep in mind that Macs are just Dell machines in a pretty case. Intel makes reference designs, and everyone uses those. Macs are truly pretty, but that's all -- they are not particularly functional. In my group of friends, there is about a 50/50 split between Apple laptops and Thinkpads. Among these people, there is not one broken Thinkpad, but there are _three_ broken Macs. All the problems are keyboard-related, so they have to carry around an external keyboard until they have $1500 to buy a new computer. Apple won't fix them.

Incidentally, I have watched someone accidentally spill a bottle of water onto his Thinkpad, and the thing still works fine. The water drains through the little drainage holes that go through the laptop, and it's easy to disassemble everything so it can dry out properly. Not so with a Mac -- I hope you like external keyboards.

So anyway -- you are not really depriving yourself of anything if you go for a Linux box. The software you'll run on it is the same as anything else. The hardware is identical to what you get in a Mac. The price is probably the same. In fact, I think you'll find that the increased customizability will make the Linux box a better deal.

<comment><USER4> _I'm not sure how this is an argument in favor of Apple. OS X is missing many modern OS features, like automatic updates for all your software and programmable window management (a la Xmonad)._

Most of my software _does_ automatically update. I'm not entirely certain what programmable window management is, to be honest, so it doesn't seem entirely necessary.

 _I don't think you quite understand -- if you don't follow their rules, you lose your job, your house, your freedom, and your way of life._

As I said in my other response post: I'm not standing by Apple. I'm saying that I won't go out of my way to vilify them for this. I believe really firmly in an artist's right to control their creation, and I think that Apple's work qualifies. Jailbreaking is also removing a lot of profit from the app store developers. I think that's a damn shame. People are pirating the App Store applications.

Jail time is pretty severe. But I won't criticize Apple for going after people who're refusing to play by their rules, because in all honesty, if I was in their position I don't know if I wouldn't be just as harsh.

 _Finally, it's important to keep in mind that Macs are just Dell machines in a pretty case. Intel makes reference designs, and everyone uses those. Macs are truly pretty, but that's all -- they are not particularly functional. In my group of friends, there is about a 50/50 split between Apple laptops and Thinkpads. Among these people, there is not one broken Thinkpad, but there are three broken Macs. All the problems are keyboard-related, so they have to carry around an external keyboard until they have $1500 to buy a new computer. Apple won't fix them._

It's an old adage that design isn't how something looks, it's how it works. Macbooks have far more elegant functionality. This is much contested, so let's not have yet another debate about this, but the computers' designs are leagues apart. I'm also a bit biased because the Apple Store has fixed my messed-up keyboard, and because I've spilled OFTEN on my Mac with no problem.

This is a debate that has a lot of different perspectives. In my college, three Dell computers have died on my floor alone. No Macs have. There's a different story in every group.

 _So anyway -- you are not really depriving yourself of anything if you go for a Linux box. The software you'll run on it is the same as anything else. The hardware is identical to what you get in a Mac. The price is probably the same. In fact, I think you'll find that the increased customizability will make the Linux box a better deal._

I know this'll provoke another rant, so I apologize in advance, but again and again: if that's how you look at computers, yes. Linux will be better. I don't look at it that way: I look at built-in experience. I think that customization is a waste of time. My computer uses the graphite theme and a black background, no custom icons, and half the software I use is default Mac software. Out of the box, Mac offers more. That's my perspective, and the two of us have bitched back and forth about this enough that having this damn argument just doesn't seem worth the time.

<comment><USER6> You think customization is a waste of time? Ok, you want to get stuff done, thats reasonable. How about those of us who think that its the killer feater? I've been disassembling and tinkering with things since i was 4 years old. List of things i've broken while messing with them as a child: a turntable, 3 tape players, most of my toys. My favorite toy was duck tape and wires, because at 6 i still haven't learned to solder and that was the way i connected batteries to motors, lights switches(all taken from broken toys).

This is the type of person i am, so are a lot of HN users. Computers are like crack for us. Here is a machine that can do everything i imagine, no force can get me away from my pc, it is my playground. I've broken my Linux install countless times(before i started using linux, i did the same with Windows) i mess with everything, hell, im addicted to this.

Why does apple think we are some sort of barbarians with no taste? I get the feeling that they feel that if they give people more control, they will somehow shit all over their egos or something.

I mean, i don't want to shit on anybodies ego, but i want to play with stuff. I'm sure the other Steve understands.

<comment><USER5> _Why does apple think we are some sort of barbarians with no taste?_

To be fair, most people just want a computer that loads Google and writes Word documents. Apple serves that market fine, perhaps even better than Windows does.

But if you are a programmer, OS X and Windows are not good choices unless you are writing OS X or Windows apps (or you've watched too many Ruby on Rails screencasts).

<comment><USER4> Bullshit. Apple's got emacs and vim, if you're a hardcore coder. Better yet, Apple has some incredible development tools. I use Coda, because I work mostly with PHP, and let me tell you that if you haven't tried Coda before you're missing out. It is a sheer joy to use.

Every programmer is different. Stop making these arbitrary little boxes and assuming that how _you_ work is the best and only way.

We Mac users GET this. We don't get anal and piss the rest of you off by assuming that our way is the only way. PLEASE return the favor, because I HATE that these _fucking arguments happen every fucking day_ and that there's really no need, and that it's wasting all our time. I'm fed up. Hacker News is _much_ better than this.

<comment><USER5> > Every programmer is different.

Yes, some think that their blub is perfection. It makes me a little sad, actually.

> I HATE that these fucking arguments happen every fucking day and that > there's really no need, and that it's wasting all our time.

You don't actually have to reply to every reply you get, you know. If you think you stated your views in the first thread, there is no need to rehash them. I ignore replies all the time, for this reason. (Or simply because I have something else to do. It's a social news site. Who cares?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Linkbait.

Apple wants to retain status quo (which is "may or may not be illegal under DMCA but not decided by court") whereas EFF wants an explicit temporary DMCA exemption.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's simple: Don't buy an iphone, buy some other phone that does not require jailbreaking and let them stew. If enough people do it then they'll get the message and change their game.

<comment><USER9> Yes; I think Mark Pilgrim said it best: "I don't understand this continuing obsession with buying things that you need to break before they do what you want." [http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/10/04/if-wishes- were-i...](http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/10/04/if-wishes-were-iphones)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Has Apple explicitly asked to make jailbreaking an iPhone a criminal offense?

<comment><USER11> No. They are just using the anti-circumvention rule from the DMCA. Jail- breaking an iPhone is no more illegal than ripping a DVD. Jail time comes into play if you break copyright fro profit.

<comment><USER12> I think for some of those things, it is legal to do yourself, but not legal to provide a program which does it -- so basically nobody will know enough to do it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#Impact_on_research)

[http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer- users/2003-March...](http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer- users/2003-March/031760.html)

Can someone comment on this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Microsoft: concrete prison cell with a wooden stool with splinters for you to sit on.

Apple: glass and steel prison cell with an Aeron chair for you to sit on.

<comment><USER5> Bad example. It's very easy to install (and write) software on Windows Mobile phones. Up until a few years ago (with the advent of OpenMoko and Android), Windows Mobile was the most open mobile phone platform.

<comment><USER13> I should have been more clear. My point was intended to be more general than just mobile apps.

Both MS and Apple have business strategies and practices that strive for lock- in and monopolization, which is their prerogative, but it clearly deprives their users of many freedoms to use their hardware/software.

Apple makes it look and feel more comfortable, but it's fundamentally the same philosophy. Differences between the two originate from Apple primarily selling hardware and MS software.</comment></comment></comment>


Ideas for a non-web software startup? - <AUTHOR>

I'm pretty depressed about the current Silicon Valley startup scene. First, it seems that everyone is chasing after the finite pool of ad money, i.e. the game is (at least somewhat) zero-sum. Plus, although AdBlock is right now limited to the tech circles, it will eventually spread to everybody. Second, none of the startups have interesting tech. For example, reddit or digg are just marketing + some pretty interface. There only place where powerful algorithms are employed seems to be at Google. What market should someone who is interested in working with algorithms enter? Is there a bright future in bio-informatics? I want to write software that will actually make a difference, not be the next twitter or facebook clone. Those are fun to play with, sure, but I highly doubt that it changed anyone's life the way Google did or genetic testing will. <comment><USER3> Just a few comments about bioinformatics:

\- most of the work to be done is the same boring stuff you do at a startup: maintain the server farm, deal with flaky libraries, tune the database. The interesting algorithm work is done by PhDs... at universities.

\- the bullshit factor at bioinformatics companies is as high or higher than the trivial startups you mention. You are ultimately working on tools that people don't really know how to use and trying to sell them to people that probably don't need them. The only "real" customers are pharma companies or larger biotech firms. This makes the environment much like working for an enterprise software vendor which everyone knows isn't very fun.

\- the bioinformatics companies are either in glamorous places like New Jersey, Boston suburbs or... Silicon Valley. So, you're unlikely to be able to escape from the SV scene anyway.

\- at a startup these days, you at least can use slightly less painful tools like ruby and python. In bioinformatics, you are stuck with ancient Perl/CGI scripts or some VB/Java time bomb.

I spent 2 years in bioinformatics and will be forever grateful that I was given the opportunity to escape and work on silly, pointless consumer entertainment software instead.

<comment><USER4> menloparkbum, if you are interested in solving the problems you mentioned, then please get in touch (my email is my profile page). One of the aspects of my start-up is to solve the problems you have mentioned.

<comment><USER4> Hashbucket, if you're interested in applying powerful algorithms to semantic searching within science, including bioinformatics, then get in touch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've found Dr. Richard Hamming's talk to scientists, "You and Your Research," to have useful advice on the subject. <http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html>

In particular, he talks about keeping track of a set of important problems worth solving. Then, whenever you find an interesting new technique, compare it against your library of problems, and see if there's a good fit. I expect the reverse is also similarly useful: keep a good library of techniques on hand, and look for one that's applicable whenever you run across an interesting problem.

This type of approach isn't necessary for building twitter or facebook clones, but it may well be ideal for looking for new ways to apply machine learning and other types of advanced algorithms, because it's primarily applicable in cases where there's an actual problem to solve.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hi there. If you have a good idea, then do it - there are LOADS of companies that make good money out there. You may not have heard of them, but they pay the bills for their founders and a whole lot more. Here's an interesting, if possibly dated, article about Ultraedit, a PHP Editor and how the history about how the founder quit his job. From what I understand he makes very good money from this:

<http://www.ultraedit.com/company/IDM_full_story.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> "marketing + some pretty interface"

Best description yet of "Web 2.0"!

I feel much the same way, which is why I've been learning Eclipse RCP this year. Not everything has to be a killer website (although RCP apps can be made into web apps with RAP).

There are still many applications that don't quite fit into the "web 2.0" mold. For example, think of applications that deal with data users want to keep private, or share only on their own terms, not through a trusted third party, however benevolent they claim to be.

Instead of trying to convince users they need to trust their data to your web app, bring the application to them!

</comment><comment><USER8> So, on a daily basis, what piece of software really pisses you off? What task can you just not find the right solution for? What do you hear your friends complaining about and think, yeah, I feel ya?

Build that solution. Sell that solution. You'll have done two things: solved your problem, and solved someone else's. If you make a few bucks along the way, so be it!

</comment><comment><USER9> To point out one startup using cool math: Powerset.

Google may use cool math, but be careful calling it the "only" at anything. There are tons of companies you probably haven't heard of doing awesome things. Everyone knows about Google, though, so it's easy to point to it as an "only".

I hope that made sense.

</comment><comment><USER10> Well, again, look for everyday pains. If there is something on some of your customers' minds when they wake up, find that something and solve that for them, so they have one less thing to worry about. Really that's what even Google says AND does, focus on the customer and everything else will follow.

Having said all that, use your skill as a tool! Let's take Octopart as an example - the founders' pain was they couldn't find their parts easily online. So, they put their skills (algorithms [well, technically, they were physicists, but any good physicist is a good mathematician]) to work - <USER2> built a great search that Google doesn't cater to.

Lessons: 1) They identified pain - no search for parts 2) They used their skillset - math (algorithms) 3) They are making the world a better place* (as in much more of an impact* than those playthings you mentioned). *-very very relative

As about bio-informatics, who knows? Heck, no one really knows about any industry's future. If someone claims to know, he/she is trying to sell something - may it be an idea, prophecy, or plain bull-shiitake mushrooms :) Point is that if you have really identified your customers' pain, then they will happily send their wheel barrows full of love AND money towards your solution.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's been brought up a couple times here that email software sucks for people who get a large volume of mail. This is the problem Xobni started with before they moved in a different direction. I think a lot could be gained by applying machine learning to this problem. This is the sort of product people would pay for if it was good. Life changing? If you have 20000 unread messages in your inbox, it just might be.

Not that there's anything wrong with bioinformatics.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are some pretty amazing algorithms at work every day in the financial markets. If you're interested in that, I can personally recommend Palantir Technologies as a great place to thrive doing just that. They're applying real computer science in problem spaces that desperately need it.

<http://www.palantirtech.com/>

My profile has contact info if you'd like an intro.

</comment><comment><USER13> You need to recheck your assumptions. There is no finite pool of ad money. Ad money is infinite as long as people are buying products and services online and offline. Reddit & Digg are algorithms none the less. Writing powerful algorithms need MARKETS willing to pay for your time and provide returns to your investors. Anyway, if you want to change people's life; its very easy. Think about Darfur and software that can help. Think about an algorithm that can use GoogleMaps, RFID, GPS, SocialGraph, CommodityPrices, UNICEF api. I am sure such a project will be challenging and help with your depression. Goodluck.

<comment><USER10> Second that AND if you really want to make a huge impact, write a "social responsible" network for the mobile phone; Android dev contest rewards well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm re-reading "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis, and everything he describes about baseball scouting at that time (i.e., every team is chasing players with relatively unimportant characteristics while the guys that really contribute to victory are undervalued) feels similar to what SV considers "important" right now.

</comment><comment><USER15> So what are you interested in? Making money or changing people's lives? I kind of don't understand what you are depressed about. You say everyone is trying to be a twitter or facebook clone and/or chasing after ad money. Isn't that a GOOD thing for you since you are trying to do something in bio-informatics?

</comment><comment><USER16> What makes you think that "software that will actually make a difference" is non-web software? A lot of web-based fluff is being churned out these days, but that doesn't change the fact that almost everything that has made a difference lately has been web-based, too.

Counterexamples welcome.

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's a product that I want to buy, that I don't want to build: I want a small, waterproof (or at least water-resistant) audio device that has a single speaker and three (or so) buttons. Pressing the first button plays a long audio file of hurricane and storm noises. The second button plays a long audio file of pirate battles. The third button plays a long audio file of WWII submarine combat sounds. The audio quality has to be very good. I'll pay up to $20-$25 bucks for this without thinking twice.

Why? Tubby time for the kids! Of course, I _could_ set up something myself, but I'm too lazy.

Future iterations could include other similar devices (e.g., one with space sounds), or a "fourth button" that allowed custom sounds to be downloaded.

</comment><comment><USER18> First - If you want to "write software that will actually make a difference", your best bet is to stop worrying about advertising markets and twitter clones and focus on exactly that - finding some problem in the world and fixing it.

Second - the advertising dollars in the valley are not zero-sum, because the potential market, while finite, is not nearly what it could be. How to do effective brand advertising or video advertising on the web are very much unsolved problems, and whoever solves them will substantially increase the size of the pie that everyone is fighting over. These aren't technical problems, but they could have technical solutions (Ooyala in the video advertising space is a good example).

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel a bit like you, web development can be incredibly boring. However, lately there is a bright light on the horizon: social networks analysis should provide for lots of opportunities to run some interesting algorithms. You could always start with the Netflix Challenge (not sure what interests you).

Also many people seem to make shitloads of money with "ad opmtimization software", tools for people to help them optimize their spending on ads. OK, that is ads again, but I think an area where you could run wild with algorithms.

What about image analysis? Google doesn't translate images yet...

</comment><comment><USER20> Not all these companies are doing lame things. Particularly check out 23andme and the stealth bioinformatics startup; <http://snaptalent.com/ads.html>

</comment><comment><USER21> Here's the thing -- as has been pointed out here many times, investors are conservative. Once a meme catches on everybody rides that wave for a while hoping for the point where there's some consolidation and those startups get snatched up.

Doing really cool stuff is riskier. Scarier. There are no rules laid down yet for what sort of value you're generating.

That said, there are hard algorithms more places than you expect. When trying to scale something that looks simple on the surface, problems often become complex enough to be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just an idea: try to bring programming to the masses. I see a lot of non-IT people that to solve their everyday work tasks need to write code even if they don't realize it very well. Currently the mainstream application to do it is... excel. An environment where people can write code almost without realizing it to solve specific problems can make the difference.

</comment><comment><USER23> Watch this, hashbucket. Seriously. Take the time. I hope this gives you another angle to think about.

[http://www.justin.tv/hackertv/98115/David_Heinemeier_Hansson...](http://www.justin.tv/hackertv/98115/David_Heinemeier_Hansson_Creator_of_Rails)

</comment><comment><USER24> programmers are always saying that they don't get to work on interesting algorithms. you know who gets to work on interesting algorithms? traffic engineers.

</comment><comment><USER25> Forget about Silicon Valley and startups. Think of something that needs to exist. Then build it.

The first step is the only hard one.

<comment><USER11> If it's really something that needs to exist, the second step may be harder.

<comment><USER26> Maybe, maybe not. As discussed here before, many hacker types don't tend to think outside of a very limited domain of problems very well, leaving lots of potentially useful programs unwritten.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Get PayPal To Freeze Your Account in Four Easy Steps - <AUTHOR>

As first-time entrpreneurs, we have of course hit many bumps and snags along our path to launch.  But none have been more painful, irrational or bloody our perpetually-losing battle with PayPal.  I have written the following to help other startup founders using PayPal fail faster.
How to get PayPal to Freeze your account in four easy steps.
1.  Be a bootstrapping startup.
With no funding, transactions or big names behind us, we set up our PayPal merchant account like any innocent first-time founders would: by following procedure.  We provided our Employer Identification Number, a summary of our business, a summary of how we would be using PayPal for our transactions, and all the other good details you'd a payment service to require.  All good?  It seemed so, but then we got greedy.  We wanted to use PayPal Pro to streamline our transactions.
2. Apply for Payments Pro.
We first get a phone call from a representative at PayPal informing us that Vayable is conducting illegal activity by running a business without a Travel Seller's license from the State of California.  Without this license number, they tell us, we cannot use PayPal's service.  This is the first we've heard of needing to acquire a Travel Seller's license, as we're not actually selling travel, but I go ahead and look into it.  Turns out, the State will not issue us a Travel Seller's license even if we wanted one: they're reserved for sellers of transportation, like airlines and bus companies.  We do not do this.  We are a community marketplace for individuals to buy and sell unique experiences from one another.  Think Etsy or Airbnb for EventBrite for unique travel experiences-- Or whatever marketplace startup du jour you want to throw before "unique experiences." (Note: Etsy, Airbnb  and Eventbrite all use PayPal).
I call PayPal back and tell them that we in no way fall under the state's definition of a Seller of Travel and therefore not only don't need the license, but wouldn't qualify for it.  "Then we're going to have to decline your application for Payments Pro" I am told by three different representatives. (I'm always a believer in calling back to talk to someone else if the first person doesn't give you the answer you want).  In this case, no one was giving us the answer we wanted.  Time to pivot.
3.  Comply with PayPal's requests.
After failing to qualify to use Payments Pro, we decide to go with another one of their merchant products:  Express Checkout, a free and streamlined merchant service PayPal released last fall that does not require a lengthy application process.   While building it into our site,  we receive a notification from PayPal that our merchant account is going under review (note: we have yet to test a single transaction yet).  They are concerned that we are are not a real business, they say, and ask us to submit our Articles of Incorporation as well as our EIN number (which I had already submitted several times) in the enrollment process) as well as a statement of how we intend to use PayPal for our transactions.  Of course, we comply. Within an hour of receiving the email from them, I have uploaded these documents to the Resolution Center, as requested, and wait.  And wait. And wait.  After several days of hearing nothing back, I call PayPal.  I talk to a guy in their customer support department who informs me that the account is fine, but they just need to verify that the business name is actually Vayable.  This sounds odd to me.  So again, I provide them with the material and am assured by customer support that the account will be restored to good standing as soon as they look over the paperwork I've provided.  Ten days later, our account status has not changed and I still cannot get any more information from PayPal customer support.
4. Stay Loyal. With no new information, we decide to charge ahead and implement PayPal into the site. After all, we need transaction on the site and PayPal is the most widely recommended and seemingly accommodating platform.  After a painful implementation process (which involved the server-side technical problems from PayPal throughout, making it nearly impossible to test and use the sandbox), we finally got our Express Checkout up and running.  Seamless and perfect? Far from it.  Functional and secure?  Yes.  Less than 12 hours after getting the service us and running, I receive the following email from PayPal:
Dear Jamie Wong,
Thank you for your response.
Per our Acceptable Use Policy, under credit card association rules, PayPal cannot permit the use of the PayPal service as a funding method for payment processors to collect payments on behalf of merchants.   Upon review of your account, it appears that you are offering an aggregation service that allows multiple merchants to process transactions that are against various Acceptable Use rules.  The service you provide allows said merchants to circumvent our policies.
While we wish you the best of success in your future business endeavors, we respectfully ask that you seek another method of payment for your online business.
Your PayPal Account has been limited and there will be no appeals to the decision.  Any remaining funds in your account balance will be held for 180 days from the date of the limitation.  Once 180 days has passed, the funds will be available for withdrawal.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.
Sincerely, Julie PayPal Compliance Department PayPal, an eBay Company
Responses to this email address are not monitored.  Please send any additional questions that you may have to firstname.lastname@example.com.
Translation: Your account has been frozen and there's nothing you can do about it.
Upon referring to PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy, as they suggest, I find nothing to suggest we are not in compliance.   In fact, we seem to be the exact kind of merchant PayPal would want using its services.  We are bringing them new users by requiring our customers to pay with PayPal, we are building a global marketplace that is ideal case study for PayPal's robust risk management and fraud management and we're a budding new startup that enables a brand new community of merchants and transactions, off of which PayPal will be able to profit.
We're still unclear why PayPal froze our account, but we've got a pretty good idea of how it happened, which really started with following procedure, followed by compliance, followed by loyalty to their service.
PayPal doesn't want their cut of tens of millions of dollars of revenue we project in the next two years.   Any idea of who does?
-Jamie Wong
Co-Founder, Vayable.com http://blog.vayable.com <comment><USER2> I can't say I really blame them, you're in a high-risk business which tends to have lots of credit card chargebacks and you can't guarantee delivery of service. If you went the merchant bank/credit card processor route you'd probably have to put down a substantial deposit.

If you're operating a high-risk business you can't really expect PayPal or a merchant bank to absorb that risk on your behalf unless you're willing to pay for it.

PayPal's policies do forbid the kind of marketplace aggregation you're doing (Unless you're using their Adaptive Payment split payment mechanism which is designed for this sort of situation; but from your description I assume you're not)

</comment><comment><USER3> > tens of millions of dollars of revenue we project

Paypal's revenues are well over $3 billion/year and growing. They are also known around these parts as a fraud detection company with a payment processing component. Respectfully, I would first suggest you be happy that those millions are still just projected and not sitting in limbo in a frozen PayPal account.

Next, check out some other payment processing options. Here is a great place to start: [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#toc85)

</comment><comment><USER4> Your solution here is obvious. Several times per week it seems there's a thread here lamenting paypals policy's. My advice to you would be to start a competitor to paypal. (yes they're owned by eBay, but remember that there's potential antitrust issues if they harass you too much or refuse to allow you to integrate your payments widget into the listings.) You certainly aren't alone in your struggle, and were I in your position, that's what I'd do. Just my $0.02.

<comment><USER5> Aren't there already many competitors to Paypal? They're not as well-known, but I don't think starting another web payment service is a very good business plan. For example, I know Netteller has been struggling pretty much.

I agree that Paypal needs a bigger competitor though. They're really making a mess of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your site looks pretty sketchy. Try to make it look more trustworthy, then re- apply for Payments Pro in 2-3 months. They might reconsider.</comment>


Wikipedia seeks photos of 20M artifacts lost in Brazilian museum fire - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/wikipedia-seeks-photos-of-20-million-artifacts-lost-in-brazilian-museum-fire/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised this search isn't advertised on Wikipedia's homepage [0]. Nevertheless it is a wonderful cause and I hope some of the museum's visitors find this and share their photos.

Going forward, is there a protocol for imaging and storing the characteristics of newly discovered artifacts?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)</comment>


Rare HTML Tags - <AUTHOR> http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/10-rare-html-tags-you-really-should-know/

<comment><USER3> please read the comments of this article before reading its content or upvoting this anymore. it's grossly inaccurate. in particular, this comment which mostly nails it. again, i'm not the author of this, just quoting Paul Armstrong:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

It's most unfortunate that you mis-used half of the items in this post.

cite should be used when you're actually _citing_ something from a source, like if you're using a blockquote or q element.

optgroup should contain a set of options, not be closed before the options. Your "live demo" doesn't show any visual difference because of your improper usage.

acronym is used for acronyms. Defining acronym, "a word formed from the initial letters of the several words in the name"… The usage in your example just hurts my brain.

According the HTML specs, address is used to denote the address of the page creator: "The ADDRESS element may be used by authors to supply contact information for a document or a major part of a document such as a form. This element often appears at the beginning or end of a document." See: <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.5.6>

Pretty sad that you didn't use labels in your fieldset example.

The abbr example is a better example of an acronym. abbr, or Abbreviation is a "shortened form of a word" like 'management' -> 'mgmt'.

rel should be used to describe the relationship of the text to the current tag. W3C says, "This attribute describes the relationship from the current document to the anchor specified by the href attribute. The value of this attribute is a space-separated list of link types."

wbr is not in any HTML spec. It is a non-standard tag that was added by Netscape, and later dropped around Netscape 4 or 5.

I'm incredibly disappointed by the inaccuracies that you're giving people who might not know better.

<comment><USER4> We were discussing a <wbr> found in one of our webpages only yesterday - <USER2> were a few puzzled expressions as to what the heck it did! Apparently the answer is remove it.

<comment><USER5> Replace it with

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another semi-useful one is <base>. Most probably have never seen it, but it's an easy way to direct all your relative links to a separate server. One can use it for simple load balancing.

</comment><comment><USER7> The only neat idea from the article was using rel="clickable" for doing inline ajax editables, makes a lot more sense than adding a class. Everything else was kind of fluff.

<comment><USER8> It wasn't just fluff, it was actually misleading and wrong.

acronym should never be used - it is superseded by abbr, and only kept for backward-compatibility reasons. If you _are_ going to use it, then it should be used for tagging acronyms. "Twitter" is not an acronym for "Founded in 2006".

Where's dl/dt/dd? Where are the labels for the radio buttons?

Flagged.

<comment><USER9> I use  for parenthetical remarks (that is, these) when I write. Is that acceptable usage? I would have rendered the line above, on my blog, as:

        I use <abbr> for parenthetical remarks when I write.

Having found that well-written anchor text just flows as part of the body of a document, the link itself becoming invisible if you were to reformat the text to remove it, I tried the same thing with parentheticals. So far, I think it's worked wonders for my writing. Anything I want to say that's orthogonal to the main point, but still interesting, can still be there in a sort of "director's cut" view, but instead of having all my extra clippings forced upon you, you have to decide to look.

If that isn't proper, I hope there's an  tag in some upcoming version of HTML; it's at about the same "semantic" level as <q>.

<comment><USER10>  is in HTML5.

 would be incorrect for this usage. You could, perhaps, stretch the use case of the "i" element (not "em"), though a simple span would probably be the way to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> <keygen>

[http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg- whatwg.org/attachme...](http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg- whatwg.org/attachments/20080714/07ea5534/attachment.txt)

[http://web.archive.org/web/20070826111420/http://wp.netscape...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070826111420/http://wp.netscape.com/eng/security/ca- interface.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow, <optgroup> could be very useful. Great way to prevent the dreaded expanding wall of text.

</comment><comment><USER13> Another underutilized set is definition list tags. They work well when you want to create a box with paired text and images.

Term

Definition or description

<comment><USER14> I use that one quite a bit. Especially when I think of data that occurs in key/value pairs. The only problem is that I wish that the markup was

 so that I the key/value pairs were in their own 'box' that could be styled more intuitively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you haven't seen hixie's web authoring statistics (collected over a billion html docs) then you should. <http://code.google.com/webstats/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER16> Upvoted for wbr. I kinda wished for something like this. I wonder if it actually works in modern browsers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Works in IE and FF. Buggy in Safari. Does not work in Opera. Ref: <http://www.quirksmode.org/oddsandends/wbr.html>

<comment><USER17> From the browser compatibility chart there, I find that  would be better for the purpose than <wbr> failing only for Firefox 2 which at this point should be negligible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seriously, how did  make this list?

<comment><USER19> Too many websites don't use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> These are not really "rare" HTML tags. More like. . . common XML tags.</comment>


Hotel WiFi Test: Find Hotels with Fast WiFi - <AUTHOR> https://www.hotelwifitest.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm always shocked at how bad hotel WiFi is. It seems the nicer the hotel, the worse the WiFi.

I'm sitting at the airport now returning from vacation. Can't wait to get back to civilized WiFi.

<comment><AUTHOR> This article from The Street[1] references a survey saying that business travelers rank WiFi as their second most important thing behind a comfortable bed, but 81% report poor WiFi experience. Its amazing that the big brands haven't updated/invested in this service.

How hard/expensive it is to swap out some older access points?

1: [https://www.thestreet.com/story/12793880/1/why-hotel-wifi- su...](https://www.thestreet.com/story/12793880/1/why-hotel-wifi-sucks-and- what-you-can-do-about-it.html)</comment></comment>


The history that James Baldwin wanted America to see - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-history-that-james-baldwin-wanted-america-to-see <comment><USER2> If you're not into reading, "I am not your Negro" is a great introduction to Baldwin.

It's on Amazon Prime video: [https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0FJUJ2Z2H5U07TO08RQWCZPIPB...](https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0FJUJ2Z2H5U07TO08RQWCZPIPB/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r)

Official Trailer: [https://youtu.be/rNUYdgIyaPM](https://youtu.be/rNUYdgIyaPM)

<comment><USER3> I'd also recommend watching Baldwin's debate with William F Buckley. It's fascinating to see his clarity of thought, and how much it still ties to arguments of today. Different words, different terms, and more euphemisms now but same arguments of thought.

The topic of the debate is "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American negro?"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ&feature=youtu.be&t=843)

Or even just watch the first 10 mins in from the youtube link point. The first 5+ mins slowing build to his point. Just watching their debate styles is fascinating.

<comment><USER4> Transcribed the end of Baldwin's speech for those that don't have time to watch (but you should):

 _If the American pretensions were based on more solid... a more honest assessment of life and of themselves, it would not mean for Negros—when someone says "urban renewal"— that Negros are simply going to be thrown out into the streets which is what it does mean now. This is not an act of God; we are dealing with a society made and ruled by men.

If the American Negro had not been present in America, I am convinced that the history of the American labor movement would be much more edifying than it is.

It is a terrible thing for an entire people to surrender to the notion that 1/9th of its population is beneath them. And until that moment, until the moment comes, when we the Americans, we the American people, are able to accept the fact, that I have to accept for example, that my ancestors are both white and black. That on that continent we are trying to forge a new identity for which we need each other. And that I am not a ward of America. I am not an object of missionary charity. I am one of the people who built the country. Until this moment there is scarcely any hope for the American dream. Because the people who are denied participation in it, by their very presence, will wreck it. And if that happens it's a very grave moment for the West._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Baldwin and so many others have a very strong point, and the ideal picture of America is too enticing for many.

The blunt reality is that the country I've grown up in was facilitated by bloodshed and presumed superiority. Every step of the founding and growth of "America" was paid for by the blood of others.

There's no easy way for a lot of people to accept that their entire existence comes from a horribly tainted history.

What I realized over my formative years is that no one is exempt, and everyone has the choice to try to make life better.

And a lot of people still fall in that category of "It is hard to convince someone of facts when their identity depends on ignoring those facts."

<comment><USER6> It's actually worse. Since humanities is essentially controlled by Anglo-Saxon nations, all the former brutally suppressed colonies are also given native histories which reflect those that are just as brutal. This has changed to an extent over the years (notably with Native Americans), but is still canonical as far as India is concerned.

<comment><USER7> Is there really any argument that once resources became strained anywhere on Earth at any time humans existed they fought for control of them violently? What is the alternative narrative?

I feel like Native Americans were either disparate or were pretty similar to other groups of humans if the area was populous.

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

<comment><USER8> There are multiple violent narratives as well. The colonial narrative never ceases the violence. The fascist narrative tuns techniques of colonial domination inward to use on its own people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My proposal to the statue controversy: erect statues that celebrate the culture of the south. The food, the music, the inventors, the blue collar workers that built the region (both black and white), and some symbolism of unity and coming together to build a better future. Move the civil war statues out of town squares and to former battlefields in remembrance and for historical sake.

<comment><USER10> You are still keeping statues of people who don't deserve statues though. Why would you put a Confederate general statue anywhere as opposed to a union general statue, given they freed the slaves. Unless of course you want to remember those who tried to keep slavery because you hold racist views.

<comment><USER11> Well some people think Robert E. Lee handled the defeat of the war in a noble way. While I've heard many perspectives, I'm not sure of the origins of the war or the implications. President Lincoln was a legitimate racist, so his opinion compared to a slave owner's mind are both horrific representations of humanity. If it was solely for slavery, and there was no other way to end it, then it was worth 600,000 Americans lives.

I am, however, for keeping all statues. They aren't the reason for wealth inequality or racism. It's a diversion than only helps the powerful.

<comment><USER12> Other parts of the world ended slavery (when?) without civil wars, which strongly suggests there were other ways to end it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> zenit-mf-1 In this video, James Baldwin responds brilliantly to Yale philosophy professor Paul Weiss on the Dick Cavett show. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZQQ7o16yQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZQQ7o16yQ)

</comment><comment><USER13> I've found it pretty interesting how the South lost the civil war, but there's still plenty of people waving the flag and revering figures from that side of the war. I think in most places if there's a war, the losing side doesn't get that kind of treatment.

One thing I always wondered what what the "Southern way of life" means to people. Aside from slavery, which most modern people don't defend, what are the distinguishing characteristics? What makes it worthy of admiration? I ask because I hear the idea brought up a lot, but there's never any explanation about what exactly is different. Is it perhaps to do with religion?

<comment><USER14> I don't think there is a single "Southern way of life" since the South is a pretty big place.

I'm not particularly interested in history, but from the little I paid attention, the part I grew up in was too steep, rocky, and poor to have (any?) slaves. What we did have was a large number of Scotch-Irish who have a strong tradition of:

\- insularity

\- contrarianism

\- hardscrabble self-sufficiency

\- anti-authority

\- love nothing more than maintaining a good feud

\- religion (protestant roots)

\- loving "the land" (hunting, your farm, etc.)

Ignoring the morals of the situation, from an economic perspective the North could afford to give up slavery. They were richer and their more industrialized economy wasn't based on slavery. The Southern economy was (completely?) reliant on slavery, and when the Northerners legislated their economy away the rebellion was somewhat predictable. Painting anyone involved as a racist is easier and true to a large extent, but there were strong components of "don't tell me what to do" and just not having any viable economic alternatives that also contributed.

In my mind at least, a lot of modern day Southerners of a certain type (the poor white trash type, not the Gone With The Wind aristocratic plantation owner type that doesn't really exist any more) just love telling outsiders they can fuck off, and waving the rebel flag/preserving statues are pretty handy avenues for that.

<comment><USER15> > _a lot of modern day Southerners of a certain type (the poor white trash > type.._

It's amazing to me that someone can type something like this and no one bats an eye. Imagine stereotyping any other class of a people as "trash" and it being wholly acceptable.

<comment><USER16> I don't see anything wrong with calling racists "trash". The Confederacy fought for slavery, hence it's fair to say that anyone who waves around a Confederate flag is trash (as is anyone who wears a Nazi uniform).

He never said that all southerners are like that.

<comment><USER9> Now you're conflating being poor and white with being racist...which itself is a bigoted claim and underscores your ignorance of that community.

<comment><USER17> I would point out that they called rascists trash rather than white trash, but perhaps the two are synonymous in the US.

More generally, those that are poor and/or unemployed can be stirred up using a scapegoat. Speaking from personal experience, working class Brits have blindly followed the claim that EU immigration was the cause of all employment problems when the recession was really to blame. This was of course the result of what the government of the day claimed and partly why Brexit is a thing. These attitudes were present long before Brexit was a thing, Brexit just so happens to be the result (so far).

Moving back in time further, there was great animosity between native inhabitants of Bristol (the same place that threw a statue in a harbour) and Welsh migrants to moved there for work post-WW2. Again, the perception was that the Bristol jobs were being taken by those that had no right to them. Now, no one looks twice if you drive an hour across the border.

Rascism in America has deep roots, so obviously the issue is much more complex and can't be explained this simply. Nonetheless, it's not hard to manipulate people against others that have look different, have different values, a different background or a different religion. It's just playing on ignorance. These days, American politicians focus anger on Mexicans and Muslims, but it's the same story playing out as before.

<comment><USER18> > These days, American politicians focus anger on Mexicans and Muslims, but > it's the same story playing out as before.

And other politicians focus anger on people who have concerns about, for example, the effect of immigration on the economy at the micro level.

All of this is as you say: playing on ignorance. But I disagree that it's _just_ that (although I doubt you intended strong emphasis on that word)...what's _actually_ going on is _a whole bunch of things_ , some of which humanity and science has knowledge of (but largely ignores, depending on the topic of conversation, for complicated reasons), and a whole bunch of other stuff that we do not have knowledge of.

In an abstract conversation, most everyone can agree that we have very little understanding of how humans work, but when the discussion is of a specific, object level idea, we seem to lose access to that abstract knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> History is a narrative, and States all want to write a particular narrative to make the governance of their communities easier. It's always been an absurdity that the USA somehow decided that maintaining a bunch of tacky statues of traitorous assholes built a half century after they lost a war is somehow key to creating an American history; after all, we don't commemorate Tojo with a statue at Pearl Harbor.

But what is a narrative US governments can write now that everyone, across all the many demographics that make up our nation, will consent to? In the case of public monuments, I cannot imagine any subjects that could unite the US today or in the near future. Just yesterday, protesters tore down the bust of Ulysses S Grant in Golden Gate Park; statues of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt offend racial sensitivities; name a President from Washington to Trump, and someone will rage at their manifold evils.

You can argue that that's all for the best, as every leader of US government has a lot of blood on their hands. But I find that troubling: you can simultaneously recognize that people have a mixed legacy while also celebrating their accomplishments. And there's a fair bit of hypocrisy in the style of critique as well: many progressive heroes themselves have mixed legacies, but for some reason I doubt many of the statue-topplers today would applaud someone vandalizing statues of white supremacist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (though who knows; today's hero is tomorrow's unperson), to say nothing of other more polarizing cases like Angela Davis.

Perhaps relinquishing the use of history to build a sense of an American nation is the only way to go. But I guarantee that giving up our imagined community of "America" will be deadly to progressive goals and racial harmony.

<comment><USER20> I don't understand what you are advocating.

<comment><USER19> Not advocating anything here. Just pointing out that every nation has heroic myths that the government nurtures, and those national myths make many (good!) things possible that wouldn't otherwise be.

<comment><USER12> Do national myths need to be heroic? When we started virus measures (lasting two months), the government didn't invoke William Tell, instead leaning on the spirit of "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno."

Two american songs that resonate most with my head-canon of the "American Dream" are:

"Coat of Many Colors" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYAdKXzGtcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYAdKXzGtcY)

"This Land" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRnHx3yVuf4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRnHx3yVuf4)

neither of which are particularly statue-wise heroic. But it's been a long time since I've been in the States. What are some current national mythos songs there?

<comment><USER21> I don't think you'll get an answer that. Everyone in the US who's sophisticated knows it's a mark of said sophistication to show aloof disdain towards 'the US'.

<comment><USER22> That is a ridiculous take. It is also possible people with education can see the flaws in the US myth too. I love a lot about this country but we have all manner of fractures and do a poor job trying to impose a single vision on to lots of different experiences.

<comment><USER21> They see the flaws in the myth, and thus move to deconstruct the myth. As they go, people become less connected, have less in common, as the shattering of the dream spreads down from the academies through social leylines, leaving behind atomisation as it goes.

You could describe the same process as 'late-stage capitalism'. Cynical detachment not unlike the death of god. The problem is, the flawed lie was at the base of what people had in common, and quickly-constructed replacements don't have staying memetic power.

<comment><USER12> As to quickly-constructed, I'd thought my suggestions too old and too outdated ("Coat of..." being 50 years old, and "This Land" nearly 75).

I'd look for older national myth songs, but I'd rather hear from someone who is committed to, not merely interested in, the future of the US.

Anyone? Bueller?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Remote Code Execution in GitLab 5+ - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gitlab.org/gitlab-ce-6-2-and-5-4-security-release/

<comment><USER3> no wonder, it's ruby developer, what can be worse? I'll tell ya - <USER2> developer :)</comment>


Lisper responds to Dynamic Languages Strike Back - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike-back.html?showComment=1210600080000#c4154142829624462932

<comment><USER2> I don't think RPG (Dick Gabriel) had anything to do with the actual Symbolics corporation, other than perhaps cheerleading from a distance. (I was working at MIT at the time, using the original AI Lab LispMs. Loads of fun.)

<comment><USER3> Oh - I thought I heard an interview with him - he sounded like a founder/owner of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just for the record, the "Lisper" in question isn't me, it's Dan Weinreb.

<comment><USER3> He must have been a symbolics founder like Dick Gabriel? (Dick now does the IT conversations stuff, and seems like a good guy to advise and mentor a new generation, except sadly we don't seem to want to learn from the past in this industry).

Personally if I meet someone who was around in the 80s, spent time with xerox machines, or (sometimes) at some great lab/company, I plant myself, and hoover their brain dry. I can't get enough of software history, there is gold in their experience. I just wish it was more common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love reading the comments on Yegge's blog. They all read to me like, "Wow, this guy just wrote 10000 words about himself, and now I feel useless. If I reply to him nitpicking a point or two, I will be as awesome as him!!11!".

This one especially.

<comment><USER6> I didn't get that impression from this comment. It just struck me as someone very interested in talking about Lisp.</comment></comment>


How to Find Your Brand's Voice - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/4-steps-to-finding-your-brands-voice

<comment><USER2> I like that there are concrete examples of companies that are doing this well.</comment>


Gmail finally gets an update on iOS – 3 years later - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gmail-email-by-google-secure/id422689480?mt=8 <comment><USER2> Question: just me or the filters to skip inbox are now gone? i've plenty of emails in the inbox that i use to filter out and move them to labels without passing by the inbox

</comment><comment><USER3> I prefer the older one. Is faster.</comment>


IPhone 5 Website Leaked? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedenveregotist.com/news/national/2011/august/10/iphone-5-website-leaked

<comment><USER2> I just went to the Apple Germany website. It's not there.

And, the image quality is a bit shoddy in the video, though this could just be because the site is a mockup... assuming of course that this is real.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's fake. But a really good fake.</comment></comment>


A way to use Twitter for comments on your Website - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/zesty-tutorials/54d6bd7c8b99

<comment><USER2> We implemented this on our Brandisty blog - worked great!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is long time coming. Thanks!</comment>


Pls Feedback for my startup... Pls... - <AUTHOR> It is an Android Iphone Application called "My Circle". It creates sharing platform for users who lives in the same neighborhood. Positive or Negative feedbacks doesn't matter. Write me your opinions :)
thnx
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xdk.intel.ad.circle
IOS : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-circle-local-craigslist/id970232536?l=tr&ls=1&mt=8 <comment> T-A I think this kind of thing has been tried many times. Even I made one several years ago, mainly as a way to try out a few different cross-platform tools.

The difficulty is not implementing it, it's getting a critical mass of people to start using it. It's hard enough to get anyone to try _any_ app these days, and you are up against that difficulty squared: multiple people geographically close to each other must all be using the app at roughly the same time, or they will just try it once, say "nobody on it" and forget it.

If I were desperate to get traction for something like this I would focus on one spot with lots of potential adopters, maybe a school or college campus, and come up with a way to get lots of users there onboard, fast. Then you might get to a critical mass which can sustain interest and maybe even expand, like Facebook did starting from Harvard, then expanding to other colleges and high schools, and finally letting in everybody and their dog.

<comment><AUTHOR> thnx for your options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I would look at it if it was a website. Apps have too much security and privacy problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not web site. It is Hybrid application. I am using push notification and gps so I need a lot of permission. I will try to reduce the permissions thnks for your feedback</comment></comment>


Ed Moses : Clean Fusion Power This Decade - The Long Now - <AUTHOR> http://longnow.org/seminars/02010/jun/16/clean-fusion-power-decade/ <comment><AUTHOR> The Long Now podcast series is one of my top rated. It's worth listening to every single one of them, especially the early ones.

Ed Moses is building laser fusion and he thinks it's gonna work. Also, you get to hear about the National Ignition Facility. <https://lasers.llnl.gov/></comment>


Artificial intelligence is evolving all by itself - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/artificial-intelligence-evolving-all-itself <comment><USER2> This process seems to just use common genetic algorithm or evolutionary computing techniques (not new), and applies to AI models, which I'm sure has already been done before. Can someone point out what I'm missing?

<comment><USER3> you are not missing anything

Most AI 'experts' take things that are very specifically NOT INTELLIGENCE

such as

Machine Learning Big Data Evolutionary Algorithms Neural Networks

and pretend they are 'the machines becoming sentient and intelligent'

 __ __At some level it is sort of understandable - that 's how they can get a lot of funding

at the same time

it's ridiculous from both a scientific standpoint and from a programming standpoint</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which stick computers are the most hackable? - <AUTHOR>

I've recently grown interested in stick computers, those devices, usually based on ARM processors, that have roughly the dimensions of a USB stick and run a general-purpose OS. Which of these computers are most amenable to hacking, by either replacing the image in internal flash storage or booting an alternate image from a microSD card? Bonus points if one can rebuild the Android image from source. Extra bonus points for my current intended use if the stick has a headphone jack. <comment><USER2> I haven't done a whole lot with it yet, but I am very intrigued with my Gumstix Overo Fire: [http://www.gumstix.com/](http://www.gumstix.com/)

The OpenEmbedded Linux source can be had from [http://www.gumstix.org/](http://www.gumstix.org/)

While some work was done towards an Android port, it's not really working yet; I'd like to contribute to that but have not done so yet.

My aim in purchasing my Gumstix was to have a login shell and local development tools for use in experimenting with ways to make mobile software consume less electrical power through software refactoring. For the most part I do that by reducing cache misses.

[http://www.warplife.com/tips/code/performance/kids-these- day...](http://www.warplife.com/tips/code/performance/kids-these-days.html)

All the Gumstix boards have a selection of daughtercards for various kinds of I/O. I don't recall the name of the card I have for my Overo Fire, but it has quite a lot - more than the Raspberry PI.

While the design of the Gumstix CPU cards is proprietary, that of the daughtercards is open source. The Gumstix company's aim is to encourage the development of Gumstix-based gadgets, perhaps with custom-built daughtercards; they make most of their money by selling Gumstix cards in bulk.

The Overo Fire and at least some of the other Gumstix cards use TI OMAP "Video Processors". These are heterogeneous multicore CPUs. Mine has two cores, one an ARM Cortex A8, the other some manner of TI c6000 DSP. Gumstix.org doesn't provide source for the DSP but one can get SYSBIOS (formerly DSP/BIOS) free of charge from TI.

TI's Code Composer Studio is somewhat costly, but one can get a fully- functional eval version, whose evaluation is long enough to develop typical DSP applications.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought these Baytrail based ones would be cool: [http://liliputing.com/2015/02/beelink-preps-three-intel- mini...](http://liliputing.com/2015/02/beelink-preps-three-intel-mini-pcs- including-one-based-compute-stick.html)

How great would those (USB3) be for bare metal hosting service. But it turns out they are only going to be USB2 after all. I would love to find a really low cost Intel based USB3 or SATA SBC if anyone has recommendations.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not totally certain if it's "hackable", but Intel's compute stick seems pretty cool, not to mention that it's sold with the option of a Ubuntu install.

[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute- stick/intel-c...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel- compute-stick.html)

It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but then again you never said your purpose.</comment>


East End Toy Manufacturers of 1917 - <AUTHOR> http://spitalfieldslife.com/2017/05/19/east-end-toy-manufacturers-of-1917/ <comment><USER2> [http://spitalfieldslife.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/SMC-M...](http://spitalfieldslife.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/SMC-MFD-0117051710300_0001.jpg)

"Machine Gun with rotary action. Fires imitation shells with great force and precision".

Sounds like a fantastic toy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't know we were in the 100th year of Razor Scooters. Cool!

<comment><USER4> Funny how the main anachronism is the guns and rah rah militarism.

Even parental concerns about the type of paint persist through time</comment></comment>


Introducing the first Current.com integration – payments for slack - <AUTHOR> https://current.com/slack <comment><USER2> busted ssl, no cookie 4 you.

<comment><USER3> ssllabs says a+? [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=current.com](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=current.com)

What was broken for you?

<comment><USER2> My apology, I looked at the logs and saw somebody was trying to intercept the traffic. "The system worked"</comment></comment></comment>


Concurrency in Python: CSP and Coroutines - <AUTHOR> https://bytes.yingw787.com/posts/2019/02/09/concurrency_with_python_csp_and_coroutines/ <comment><USER2> About 6 or 7 years ago I was searching for a language that had great concurrency built in and a sane enough model of concurrency that would allow me to get things done.

Eventually I found and fell in love with gevent because I could write fairly straightforward code in a synchronous fashion and reason about the code a lot easier than other models. But then I found some warts with gevent: what about good community support? What about exploiting parallelism? Monkey patching 3rd party libs is a bit ugly and not 100% without faults.

So imagine how I felt when I found that Go offers this model of concurrency CSP with support for parallelism due to the M to N threading model. Also a not quite but close enough Python looking syntax and at that point I never looked back.

Sure there other models of concurrency and other languages that are also proving to be useful. But Go has been a good bet...at least for now.

And I know this is controversial...but Go's time is running out...other languages are getting there with more advanced support for asynchronous programming...so I imagine in due time I'll be onto the next thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for commenting and sharing!

My experience with golang was pretty short; this was back in the days of `go get` and I just couldn't get used to the dependency management system. I think others have had the same problem: [https://bluxte.net/musings/2018/04/10/go- good-bad-ugly](https://bluxte.net/musings/2018/04/10/go-good-bad-ugly)

IMHO a language is a combination of different factors: the community, the spec, the libraries, the support, the toolchain, etc. and the concurrency model is only one small part of that. If your concurrency model is CSP, the truer that statement may be, because CSP allows you to write highly stateful code, and because given time all user code trends towards the properties of the language and CSP doesn't really enforce a whole lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Check out [https://www.pykka.org/en/latest/](https://www.pykka.org/en/latest/) as well which is based on the actor model. My understanding is that it's used by [https://www.mopidy.com/](https://www.mopidy.com/) and actively developed by them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for commenting! I checked out pykka in a previous blog post about actor models: [https://bytes.yingw787.com/posts/2019/02/02/concurrency_with...](https://bytes.yingw787.com/posts/2019/02/02/concurrency_with_python_actor_models/)

I did a deep dive on thespian instead, I think it's used at scale by GoDaddy. One of the issues I ran into with both libraries is that there's not much of an OTP-like library built on top of them, which makes them difficult for production usage.

<comment><USER3> By "OTP-like" library, do you mean basically supervision trees and things like that? I think one of the issues Pykka (not sure about Thespian) would run into is that they're using python threads as one of the backends, and I can't see how you could implement this safely on top of that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, some framework to encourage reactive design patterns.

At least for Thespian, it allows you to use different system bases like multiprocTCPBase or multiprocUDPbase to run your actors on, which all inherit from a common systemBase class, so you can swap out your base without changing your user code. It's nice for testing b/c you can explicitly split debugging overhead into different parts based on the systemBase you use.

But yeah, one of the difficulties of using these Python concurrency libraries is that the language and runtime don't really help you out. You have to retrofit a lot of your own stuff on the language to enforce certain properties of the model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great article!

Reminds me of a discussion with Guido van Rossum about adding Go's goroutines to Python:

[https://groups.google.com/d/topic/python- tulip/BO3KPIgQ_x4/d...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/python- tulip/BO3KPIgQ_x4/discussion)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for commenting and sharing! While I was writing this up I saw this Google Groups discussion about difference between Python's coroutines and goroutines: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang- nuts/Onswx7Fp...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang- nuts/Onswx7FpdxY)

Russ Cox also makes Guido's point of how channels are baked into golang's runtime, whereas a Python channel would be implemented as an object on top of the runtime. Very interesting to see how things similar at face value differ underneath the hood.

</comment></comment><comment> iso-8859-1 I don't understand the goal of this post, it seems like it is just a list of short summaries of whatever libraries have CSP in the their name. What problem are you trying to solve?

Are you trying to number-crunch across many machines? In that case, I guess MPI is standard, but how is CSP related to this?

If you're trying to concurrently download ten files, why not just use asyncio/trio and async/await? You're mentioning await/async, but you're not explaining how it is relevant to either MPI or CSP, or whatever this blog post is about.

You claim that CSP helps "efficiently abstracting away dependencies on underlying hardware", but how is this relevant to CSP? Any decent piece of software is portable, it isn't a property of CSP. "CSP provides [abstraction from hardware primitives] by multiplexing and scheduling coroutines on top of a CPU thread pool". Well, which concurrency frameworks don't do that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for commenting!

This is mostly an academic exercise for me personally. I'm not familiar with different concurrency models as I'm starting off in my career and don't get a whole lot of exposure to it in production. I was inspired by Paul Butcher's book on seven concurrency models in seven weeks, where we actually does solve problems with different concurrency models in languages that have good support for them. So I thought if I could write down my thoughts and explain it to other people I will have gained some sticky understanding for me.

I think Paul took a year or more in order to research and write his book, and it shows. Conversely it shows how my posts are sort of link aggregations because this series has taken about two months so far. Python's also not terribly great for CPU-bound concurrency work in Python code.

As to your points, I saw MPI and async await as primitive constructs on top of which you could build something like CSP. Not all software is portable; one example, if you want MKL acceleration in numpy, you have to use Intel CPUs.

The next blog post I'm writing I'm writing about is hardware-based parallelism. IMHO this is Python's bread and butter, and I should be able to demonstrate how Python comes in handy with code samples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article. mpi4py is the ideal solution presented, but I am wondering how hard the error tracking will be on Python since MPICH2 doesn't help much natively.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for commenting! Yeah I think with CPU bound work a lot of the popular effective Python libraries are going to be mostly C-based with Python bindings. I'm not sure how error handling between Python and C currently is but for Python and Java it is difficult to capture even logs thrown from one side to the other for various reasons.

I was reviewing gevent (greenlets plus event loop) but that didn't make it into the post, I'll take another look at mpi4py!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are recommended tools for OLAP for event data with durations - <AUTHOR> We have a need to query on "activities" which exist over a period of time. EG Consider a user tracking their time online, if we want to track efficiency and show trends over time of working vs messing about on distracting sites, which datastores are good for this? I was looking at Druid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid_(open-source_data_store) And ElasticSearch. Elasticsearch is a fulltext search first and happens to be able to do some of this but it can't really calculate things based on data. Eg if for 10 minute buckets I want to capture productivity % and then be able to also recalculate productivity % at 20 minute buckets, hour buckets, and show trends over time, I need to recalculate the productivity %. I'm wondering if there is a good set of tools for doing this. This isn't my forte so really appreciate some direction. <comment><USER2> Take a look to Yandex ClickHouse, this is open-source append-only analytical database. It offers ultimate performance of OLAP queries and data like events log, and its SQL dialect includes a lot of specialized functions for metrics calculation.

</comment><comment><USER3> How much data? Probably plays a big part in picking a solution.

I've most recently been using BigQuery for stuff like this -- streaming the data into BQ, running rollups using SQL there and either saving those results into new tables or pulling back the resultset and inserting it into another database.</comment>


Michigan eLab: New Ann Arbor venture capital firm fights Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.freep.com/article/20120805/BUSINESS06/308050113/Michigan-eLab-New-Ann-Arbor-venture-capital-firm-fights-Silicon-Valley?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

<comment><USER2> As an Ann Arbor Start-up guy myself I say Congrats! I'm excited to see what companies come out of Ann Arbor. It's a vibrant community, with supremely intelligent and young hard working people. This is a step in the right direction if Ann Arbor wants to be considered a serious contender for start-up resources and talent. The University's moves, also help (Masters of Entrepreneurship and TechTransfer Incubator, among others).</comment>


The Book of PF, 3rd ed, signed by the author. First Copy signed - <AUTHOR> http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Book-of-PF-3rd-ed-signed-by-the-author-First-Copy-signed-/321563281902?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the first physical copy of The Book of PF, 3rd edition ever handled and signed by its author.

The proceeds of this sale will go in its entirety to the OpenBSD Foundation, as outlined in my blog post at [http://bsdly.blogspot.no/2014/10/the-book-of- pf-3rd-edition-...](http://bsdly.blogspot.no/2014/10/the-book-of-pf-3rd- edition-is-here.html)

The item is new, as I'm writing this the ink is barely dry and I will fill in the amount and winner's name after the acution concludes.

The regular product listing is at [http://www.nostarch.com/pf3](http://www.nostarch.com/pf3)</comment>