Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project - <AUTHOR> http://magenta.tensorflow.org/welcome-to-magenta <comment><USER2> Having recently spent some time browsing the submissions of /r/deepdream and seeing how far computer generated imaging has come, I have no doubts that one day we will be listening to wonderful sounds that are generated by artificial intelligence. However an intrinsic part of the music (to me, anyways) as an art form, is the humanity of it. A computer can generate lyrics that are relatable on the surface, but knowing that there isn't a person behind those words, feeling what I'm feeling, definitely detracts from the experience of the whole.

That being said, this is incredibly exciting to me, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses, and probably challenges my ideas of what music is

<comment><USER3> > but knowing that there isn't a person behind those words, feeling what I'm > feeling, definitely detracts from the experience of the whole.

I recently had a discussion about this with a musician. I said that I didn't like when music was produced (and certainly lyrics written by) somebody else than the performer. I said it took away from the experience of 'getting to know' the person I was listening to.

She basically replied, that I was being extremely old fashioned, and that this 'idea' of music was very harmful for the business. She said it prevented people from working together and each contributing what they did best.

If she's right, I guess we just have to interpret the music on its own, and not see it as a mental state of some individual creator. Maybe this is related to, when authors are annoyed that people identify them with their main characters. In any case, non-individual art doesn't seem to be going away.

<comment><USER4> I only really care whether the singer is able to convey the emotion behind the song. In reality I don't even know who writes a given song most of the time, only the performer.

We can argue whether, for example, Adele is better at conveying emotion because she wrote the song. What we shouldn't do is claim that it's impossible for someone to do so if they didn't write the lyrics themselves.

Now, once you abstract that, does it matter whether the original writer was human as long as they produce something a singer can then connect with emotionally and then project? I don't know. I feel like ignorance would be bliss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What this will change probably isn't pop music, it's soundtracks for TV commercials, video games, shows, movies etc.

Currently to put music in something you need to license it somehow, in most cases the generic music you hear in most media is sourced from a company that has a library of royalty free songs that they sell for a pretty hefty license fee.

Imagine being able to instead go into some software and punch in some keywords to describe the scene, the duration, track what happens in the scene on a timeline of some sort and let the computer render original music for the score. No middle men, no musicians, no royalties or licenses other than for the software. It would change the industry overnight.. and make being a professional musician even less promising of a career choice than it is today...

<comment><USER6> That's a really good point, there's a market opportunity for a soundtrack generator that does a decent job of producing usable generic music for video productions.

<comment><USER7> There is and yamaha (?) owns one, but I can't find it right now. It was like band in a box, but even better.

<comment><USER5> Well, I just googled around and found my idea is not super unique.. already found 2 teams working on it:

[https://www.jukedeck.com](https://www.jukedeck.com) [http://juke- bot.com/](http://juke-bot.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People want and need other people around, doing human things. Even if the musical output was impressive, I can't think of people developing a deep relationship with it outside of novelty. Algorithms are cold, and music is usually very much the opposite - I can see an "uncanny valley" effect cropping up with the imitative forms: people hearing something that is supposed to come across as laden with emotion, instead leads people to revulsion. What do we get out of computers composing songs that are supposed to relate to the fragility of the human condition?

Sure, the algorithms, once sufficiently advanced, could probably trick us into thinking that certain examples of generative music were made by a person and then later reveal its algorithmic origin to prove that "the humans are stupid" and "the google algorithms are clever" but what are we actually proving here?

Can a computer devise new artistic forms that have some genuine impact on people - can a computer come up with Bacon's Triptych of George Dyer outside of regurgitating fragments of what it already has seen? What do we get out of a computer aping the alcohol-fuelled sweaty anarchic performances of The Black Lips?

The interesting stuff will be to see if this goes to other places that music has not yet gone - some new composition method - manipulation of frequency in ways that humans have not yet devised.

<comment><USER9> I see this sort of application having a lot of use in the kinds of derivative pop music developed by ensembles of songwriters and manufactured purely to generate radio hits. Bacon's Triptych of George Dyer is genius. The average person listening to Taylor Swift just does _not_ care about Bacon's Triptych of George Dyer.

In a way, Magenta's job is not besting Bach. By the definition of Bach (a human being who changes the way we view and enjoy music), a non-human being cannot best Bach. Magenta's job is besting a much simpler, if equally challenging role - Max Martin, or the writers of "Let it Go".

As it turns out, this kind of music is already pretty formulaic. Much has been written on repetitive chord progressions being spammed across hundreds of famous singles. In a way, artists shouldn't fear the potential of these technologies besting them - they should thank them.

Freed now are artists from loading their albums with eye-rollingly generic lead singles that they immediately get sick of ("Stairway to Heaven", "Creep", "Smells Like Teen Spirit") because record labels know that's what will get the most radio play. You can just let the machine do those. Now, an artists' reputation is determined purely by his relative mettle against other human artists.

<comment><USER10> The average person listening to Taylor Swift is thinking about Taylor Swift, and not what they're listening to.

Pop is maybe 75% performance, sex, status, and charisma. The music isn't irrelevant, but it only really needs to be a committee-produced mashup of contemporary cliches to do its job.

The rest is posing and attitude.

>As it turns out, this kind of music is already pretty formulaic.

But it's less formulaic than it sounds. Discovering that it uses Standard Chord Sequence Number 7 (from the small standard pop set) won't get you close to an interesting song.

A lot of creative detail goes into the production, arrangement, and the vocal performance. Not the MIDI file.

Basically there are huge gaps between a MIDI cliche machine - buildable now, and not particularly difficult - to a full virtual artist who produces even moderately successful tracks without human help, to a musical AI genius who produces completely new musical styles that capture the human imagination for centuries.

You need a model of mind to do that last one, and we're at least 50 to 100 years away from that.

<comment><USER11> > The average person listening to Taylor Swift is thinking about Taylor Swift, > and not what they're listening to.

I think this is a grand oversimplification. Personality certainly _contributes_ to pop stardom, but the music is still #1. Before anyone knew who Taylor Swift was, they connected with her through one or more song.

> A lot of creative detail goes into the production, arrangement, and the > vocal performance. Not the MIDI file.

Of course, but even having an autonomous "songwriter" that could write _a_ hit would be a gamechanger for music (though obviously most immediately applicable to top 40 / pop)

> You need a model of mind to do that last one

I disagree. Machines already produce what would otherwise be considered "experimental" music, you just need some deep reinforcement learning to know what has mass appeal.

<comment><USER12> > Before anyone knew who Taylor Swift was, they connected with her through one > or more song.

Only if by 'connected with her' you mean heard her debut hit over and over and over again on radio until it became an earworm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem is the reliance on midi but it shouldnt be hard to build a credible house music generator even with midi byt relying in midi music data for training wont get you something that sounds like a jimi hendrix. But doing automated dance music makes sense.

<comment><USER13> > But doing automated dance music makes sense.

This has been done with LSTM[1][2]. Impressively, the NN is generating waveforms and not MIDI notes - at around 3:50 it even attempts some singing.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VTI1BBLydE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VTI1BBLydE) [2]: [https://github.com/MattVitelli/GRUV](https://github.com/MattVitelli/GRUV)

<comment><USER14> Very cool! I actually think Jazz improvisation would not be very hard to do:

One of the things you realize if you study jazz improvisation deeply, is that it isn't that random. Someone like Charlie Parker learned over 100 interesting riffs or patterns, then learned to play them in any key (transposing as necessary), and when improvising, transposes each into the chord the band is currently playing, and arranges them in a unique and interesting order.

Indeed, this is why many great Jazz musicians learn to improvise by transcribing solos of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, etc, and learning their riffs in every possible key. Transposing is one of the best possible ways to learn to improvise, because it teaches you to listen and hear notes, as well as the patterns/riffs that everyone copies from each other.

There is even a great book called "Patterns for Jazz" that captures many of the most powerful riffs used by these musicians.

The really interesting thing about this is while most of the listening public assumes jazz is pure improvisation, much of it is copied riffs just rearranged in unique and interesting ways. I don't mean to detract from it; jazz is still a great musical style, but like all styles results from derivatives of previous works.

edit: grammar

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Keyboards have been popping out automatic C-maj, A-min, F-maj, G-maj progressions for fourty years now. And with the typical toolset for electronic music, it will be easily capable to create something similar.

But the masterpieces of music demand something altogether different. Beethoven's break with consistency by switching keys in the adagio of the 5th piano concerto. Wagner introducing the Tristan chord, Berg using C-major only as a joke in Lulu, when the word money is mentioned.

Add to that ingenuity the personal drama behind music. Bach's crisis of faith leading to 'What God does is well done' to Mahler losing so many of his children that he composed the Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children") to the origins of a simple pop song such as 'Tears in heaven' that moves people tremendously... Music is shaped by our biological life cycle, not by that of a computer program.

<comment><USER16> Regarding Kindertotenlieder, he didn't actually lose any children until _after_ he wrote it. Quoth Wikipedia [0]:

"I placed myself in the situation that a child of mine had died. When I really lost my daughter, I could not have written these songs any more."

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

<comment><USER17> Wow, those poems are wrenching, even in translated form. They really are an open door to somebody's personal grief.

<comment><USER18> Have a look at the Todesfuge: eg [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVwLqEHDCQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVwLqEHDCQE) or [http://www.celan-projekt.de/todesfuge-deutsch.html](http://www.celan- projekt.de/todesfuge-deutsch.html) and [http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com.au/2010/01/paul- celan...](http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com.au/2010/01/paul-celan-death- fugue-from-german.html) (the translation doesn't seem nearly as wrenching as the German to me, though).

Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought that music and art would be what we were doing when there were no jobs left, hopefully nobody creates an AI bot that travels for us :)

</comment><comment><USER20> If AI generated music works out and becomes popular will people actually optimize for quality of music or instead you would have an Engineering team design the next Pop star which would be optimizing for Profitability and marketability.

<comment><USER21> Pop stars are already engineered. You have guys like stargate, dr. luke, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The more interesting application of this IMO is not replacing current popular/practicing musicians and artists but enabling non-professionals who have some musical inclination but limited time/skill/etc. Imagine a synthesizer for dance music with knobs for high level parameters like "grimy- ness" or "shine." Rather than auto generate a complete song with no user input, semantic control could be offered using learned models, allowing a rewarding experience with musical creativity without having to spend a lot of time learning the technical intricacies of these semantics.

<comment><USER23> Many of the tools you describe are already out in the field. Ableton Live and MAX4LIVE really opens up whole new sectors of tools for those who might be interested. There is a learning curve for music making software though, and it can be rather steep. That said, Instant Haus [1] does sort of what you describe, though it is targeted more for practicing musicians. I'm a fan of GarageBand's "Drummer" as well.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoIcewM8sKY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoIcewM8sKY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> They can just program the AI to use the 4 chords most pop songs already use?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpB_40hYjXU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpB_40hYjXU)

</comment><comment><USER24> Now I see the scifi story: a disruptive future where culture is created by computers so Google doesn't need to pay any creator in YouTube.

<comment><USER25> AI celebrities with distinctive personalities will be fun. I can't wait to see a real-life (as it were) Hatsune Miku making her own content.

EDIT: And then the inevitable schism among fans about what their base personalities should have been like, and the resulting clones, throwing the AIs into an existential crisis when confronted with their alternative versions..

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's music and then there's music. I'm glad they are at least thinking about long narrative structures.

Ultimately I don't think this is a very worthwhile because I personally believe the entire definition of art and music is a production that is filtered through the human experience. The same piece of music would mean more to me coming from a human than from an AI or program. If someone told me it was from a human and then later told me it actually came from an AI, it wouldn't really accomplish anything deep; it'd just make me feel tricked.

<comment><USER27> Well, look at it this way: The AI is really not so different from us in intelligence (although presently dumber), but it's different in motivation. It's has only one single "desire", namely to understand you and write music that connects with you. It's not trying to fool you, it's trying to understand the human experience itself, and tell back to you what it is seeing.

Isn't it OK to let ourselves be moved by its love letters to humanity?

Every Monday, there are hundreds of tweets from Spotify users who declare that the Discover Weekly algorithm understands them better than anyone, that they want to marry it etc. (This is a remarkable testament to neural network AIs. Not many people want to marry Netflix or Amazon's recommender system, to put it like that!)

Of course that only finds music for you, it doesn't create it from scratch. But given the immense size of the library it searches through, that's impressive enough that many really get the feeling that it knows you, understands you. I hope generative algorithms will be that good one day, and I won't waste time worrying that it's fake once they are.

<comment><USER28> That's an interesting thought. I have no idea how complicated this is, but I wonder if a Spotify or Pandora has a chance to some day develop something that can _generate_ music tuned specifically to the listening habits of individual users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If their view of music is a sequence of notes (in midi) then the product won't be very interesting. In a lot of modern music genre sound design is as important as composing the note sequence.

</comment><comment><USER30> For the generation part, it might be a good idea to separate "music" into its parts (like bass, drums, melody, chord-rhythm, chord-ambient-background, and other stuff like secondary melodies, horn section arrangements or whatever). A unique model for each one of those could learn differently. Each of those parts could be broken down even further too.

</comment><comment><USER23> Strange, the article doesn't link to the output:

[https://cdn2.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6577761/G...](https://cdn2.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6577761/Google_-_Magenta_music_sample.0.mp3)

I had a listen yesterday. It's okay. Nothing revolutionary. Competent though.

<comment><USER31> Sounds like something you'd hear as a soundtrack to an ad for a computing device.

<comment><USER23> Yeah it's not too far off from what a generally smart music algorithm would crank out. I get that it's a different approach though.

I think it's funny they added drums to make it a bit more listenable, because otherwise I think people would generally tune out after about 1/3 of the tune because it's okay but not really engaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I can't wait for the AI pop charts!

</comment><comment><USER33> Evaluating the output of generative models is deceivingly difficult.

<comment><USER34> Quantitatively evaluating them, yes. _Qualitatively_ , they all tend to suck ;-) For art and music anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This sounds like a trademark lawsuit waiting to happen.

T-Mobile holds the trademarks for T-anything, Magenta, the color Magenta, etc for not just communication and networking, but also music etc.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is interesting, but it feels a lot like a moonshot, and it isn't even groundbreaking. The approach may be novel but folks have been trying this for a while [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2010/05/ill_be_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2010/05/ill_be_bach.html)

Can code generate a catchy pop tune? Im sure it can. Would I qualify it as music? Probably not.

Music can pull from sources that are EXTERNAL to the music: Heres a modern track that does just such a thing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvtNS6hbVy4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvtNS6hbVy4)

Music can have some very non traditional structure that most would qualify as "noise" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYaWND9n9h0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYaWND9n9h0)

Hell music can even be "silent" [http://rosewhitemusic.com/piano/writings/silence-taught- john...](http://rosewhitemusic.com/piano/writings/silence-taught-john-cage/)

Ultimately, I think that it is possible for a machine to generate music, but were going to be talking about something that is more or less an AI at that point, after all music has a soul.

<comment><USER37> I don't know about that. The whole idea of "having a soul" is so nebulous that it's hard to build a view on top of it. Do we have souls? If yes, is it possible to mechanically replicate a soul? If not, why not? What's a soul?

If instead you define art as the communication of things that can't be fully expressed by direct sterile language, that's something I can get behind. Going that route, I think that getting AI to create real art has some pretty clear challenges, but there are also ways whers I could see it being better than humans.

Depending on how the AI learns and analyzes it has a chance to have a unique perspective on human communication. From there, it can find new and innovative ways of identifying gaps between primal human experiences and sterile human communication - and with a unique understanding of human communication could come up with fascinating ways of bridging those gaps.

This is all spitballing, but I think AI could eventually be the main new frontier in art.

<comment><USER38> That statement "music has soul" to me merely characterizes the emotional attachment that people put on music. I'm not sure how that could be 100% programmed or machine-learned at this time.

That being said, musicians have been creating machine-assisted composition (sequencer driven, stochastic, etc.) for a long time. I can imagine great art coming from AI, _if_ the composer is there to help "guide the AI tool" in the direction he or she wants. AI as a means to an end, I don't see greatness from that... AI as an instrument, that could be very interesting...

<comment><USER39> Without sounding too nerdy - music doesn't have soul, brains apply the "soulful" property inside itself to aesthetic signals where it makes sense to do so. Music like all other sensory stimuli is purely aesthetic and lacks depth, it's the brain that connects the dots and fabricates the story, and in that sense an AI's output can have many different possible stories. Personally I really like artificial and alien music and art, and it can for example make us more aware of peoples place in the universe and our environment and the future, and connect the brain to novel atmospheres and ideas. This notion of a guy playing a guitar being the only thing that's music is very outdated to me and not interesting at all.

And yes - musicians use accidents both digitally but even in the acoustic world all the time, that suddenly makes for interesting listening. Music has never been 100% human.

And the last point is if you want computers to be able to fabricate the stories themselves, and maybe create output that tells or "exploits" such a story, then yes maybe it isn't a human story, or maybe they can emulate our story, but in the end we come down to what is consciousness, what is intelligence, and all of this. But if intelligence can be artificial similar to humans, then AI's can in theory create vast and amazingly intricate stories that would be even more fascinating than what a human could come up with.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Verizon's $9bn media bet became almost worthless - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/62e4f3be-fd91-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521 <comment><AUTHOR> Why on earth would anyone try to buy the Yahoos of the world for a 10-digit sums ?

How does a deal like this take place ? Its bizarre</comment>


Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On - <AUTHOR> https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/ <comment><USER2> >"Using the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on will not prevent site owners from using other tools to measure site analytics. It does not prevent data from being sent to the website itself or in other ways to web analytics services."<

this stops the google analytics, but still allows others to do what google does, im betting it goes around in a big circle right back to google.</comment>


Ask HN: is it possible to open source an iOS app and protect it from copies? - <AUTHOR>

I want the benefits of contributing to FOSS and getting feedback from the community and making the app free, while still generating revenue from it and protect it from imitations though code steal.
What would the most appropriate license be for that?
Is there any way we could get funding from VCs/angels for such an app? <comment><USER2> I have a FOSS port on the app store[0] (3 actually, [1][2]) and have posted the code on Github. Barely anyone has even noticed. I wouldn't worry too much about someone stealing your app. The apps are GPL, Apple didn't seem to mind.

[0]: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marathon-1/id419805412?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marathon-1/id419805412?mt=8)

[1]: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marathon-2-durandal/id421697...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marathon-2-durandal/id421697209?mt=8)

[2]: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marathon- infinity/id42277554...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marathon- infinity/id422775548?mt=8)

[3]: [https://github.com/dblezek/marathon- ios](https://github.com/dblezek/marathon-ios)

</comment><comment><USER3> Obviously keep the keys to the castle out of version control.

I wrote a small blog post [0] on a similar topic not too long ago.

I went with the BSD 3 Clause license for the project I am working on [1][2]. I am not a lawyer so I have no idea if this is a good license or not. I was going for one that would force people to retain the copy right notice.

Obviously you would control the developer account and name of the app. So it would take some effort and money for someone to rename and republish under a new app name.

[0][http://www.wlaurance.com/2014/01/A-Different-Approach-to- Pro...](http://www.wlaurance.com/2014/01/A-Different-Approach-to-Protecting- IP)

[1][https://github.com/t3mpus/tempus- api/blob/master/LICENSE](https://github.com/t3mpus/tempus- api/blob/master/LICENSE)

[2][http://www.t3mp.us](http://www.t3mp.us)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure about funding from VC's and Angels, but you could license the source under the GPL license.

In addition, look at this[0] discussion about open source software on the Mac App Store.

And, for what it's worth, there used to be an app called DocSets which was on the iOS app store and open source on GitHub[1]. I believe it sold rather well.

[0]: [http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/59495](http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/59495)

[1]: [https://github.com/omz/DocSets-for-iOS](https://github.com/omz/DocSets- for-iOS)

</comment><comment><USER5> Timely question, I'm considering doing the same for a project I am working on now. Could you turn it into an app with a recurring SaaS component (e.g. I will make the app available on github & for free on the App Store, but require payment for server-side data storage)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm wondering the same thing. So far the only thing I can come up with is to leave out the storyboard when pushing to github. With some effort, they can still replicate it though.

<comment><USER3> Its all about the activation energy to replicate the app. Open sourcing lowers that amount significantly.

<comment><USER6> I didn't think this would be a problem at first. But according to other developers of popular apps, it is.

In the end, I decided not to open source my app, because there was nothing ground-breaking anyway.

It's still a good thing to open-source any libraries though because it usually still takes a significant amount of effort to implement and turn into a complete app.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Nodino – Simple URL shortener built with ExpressJS, React and Redis - <AUTHOR>

Hi there,
I've just built this simple web app to play a bit with node/express on server and React/Stylus on frontend.
http://nodino.herokuapp.com/
NOTE: demo has a safe-mode option that expires links after 30 minutes. This should reduce spammers impact.
Source code is available at: https://github.com/apeacox/nodino
Comments and feedbacks are welcome :-) <comment><USER2> URL invalid error for every url i try... :(

<comment><USER3> I think it's the [http://](http://) that's important.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it should really default to "[http://"](http://") though.</comment></comment></comment>


Subgraph OS: Adversary resistant computing platform - <AUTHOR> https://subgraph.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a step in the right direction (in the sense that we should sandbox applications harder), but in my opinion we have to change fundamental aspects of our stack (e.g. Proprietary Firmware <=> Linux <=> GNU-System-Libs <=> X <=> GTK <=> Evince), to gain more security.

In particular I think it is harmful that all applications share the same view on the FS and have in principal the possibility to use e.g. full unixoish capabilities. My bet is that the solution is via better type systems, e.g. an application that is a desktop game could have something like

      exec :: GameConfig -> WindowControl ()

where GameConfig is e.g. some CFG specific to the game and WindowControl is similar to IO () however limited to interacting with a drawing library (e.g. OpenGL) and input systems (keyboard and mouse local to the window).

At the moment every application just implements `main()` and is good to go and we separate between kernel- and user-space (and a VM on top e.g. Android and Apple), and maybe this is too coarse.

I think pledge ([http://man.openbsd.org/pledge](http://man.openbsd.org/pledge)) is also a step in the right direction however I would prefer it to be the other way around: an application goes through a setup process where it _gains_ the capabilities it needs (in pledge it's the other way around, you ask to drop them).

<comment><USER3> The well-developed, well-security-researched, well-deployed application platform you're looking for is the web. You get exactly this sort of setup if you use WebGL: you interact with an API that expects to be called by unprivileged hostile applications, instead of with a library that helps your direct access to the graphics card driver. Every individual application lives in a separate protection domain (an HTTP origin), and communication between them is limited to message passing with the consent of both sites. The language itself avoids all assumptions of direct access to system resources.

Running everything in a web app is, admittedly, a fundamental change in the stack. But it's fortunately one where a lot of people have independently put work into making this happen. I do my most security-sensitive work on a Chromebook (using the SSH and mosh apps from the Chrome app store) for precisely this reason: it's the right security model, and it's available in my local computer store and works.

<comment><USER2> You are right, that is the most secure platform at the moment to distribute graphical user interface programs, but I think it should go further.

E.g. I would go so far, that it shouldn't be possible by default for the server to send me a huge HTML/CSS/JS blob that does all kind of weird stuff (e.g. reporting to the host, mouse movement analysis, etc.).

I am probably in a minority with the following opinion, but I think a page shouldn't even have the ability to enforce a layout which in the end draws pixels on your screen. The web is a step forward and HTML is a good idea, but it is not used anymore in its intended form - it works very well for text distribution, but richer applications have to resort to JS.

Now if you disable JS you could in theory render it as you like, but this is far from trivial.

//edit:

Lets consider a bus company offering search to find offers that get you from A to B (i.e. a route planner, trip finder, ...).

This app shouldn't ship you random HTML/JS, but just the information you need to query its database, which is simply some GETing and POSTing of specified requests. When connecting to the app (going to [https://trip- search.example.com](https://trip-search.example.com)) the host could disclose it self as an application having type `(From, Date, To, Date) -> Maybe TripList` or something like that (I think one gets the idea).

The web is great, but I think security should and must go further, I do not want run random Turing machines.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I get why enforcing a layout is a problem from the point of view of application distribution - if nothing else, an app should be able to embed a text renderer and draw onto a <canvas> itself. (It's probably a terrible idea, but it should be _able_ to, because a text renderer is just a program that takes in data and outputs some pixels, and that class of programs is useful.)

I do certainly agree that we need a way of distributing hyper- _text_ content efficiently and in a standard way. Unfortunately the web seems to be moving away from that goal, and AMP isn't quite right and has its own problems.

I'm not sure how I feel about permissions by default. I think permission fatigue is definitely a thing, and for most apps I don't actually care about them exfiltrating mouse movements to the host, as long as they can only exfiltrate it to the one host. On the other hand, I'm a little weirded out that if I plug my piano into my Chromebook, JavaScript can receive and send MIDI events without any permission prompt.

EDIT to your edit: I'm totally okay with running random Turing machines, if their execution environment is constrained (which it is). The only resources that an arbitrary Turing-complete programming language can access are any external resources that it's specifically given an interface to, and time/memory/power consumption. The web platform is pretty good (though, yes, not perfect) at locking down the interfaces given to JS. So it's just a matter resource limits, which is fairly easy; I'm not always thrilled with how much CPU and battery life Twitter takes, for instance, but it's always killable. (Again, in theory.)

You can construct something that's capable of using plenty of memory or power out of any sufficiently powerful Turing-incomplete language. See, for instance, CSS. (I bet with the mechanism you're proposing, you can end up chaining server-side APIs in ways that let you DoS the client, because the server is always more powerful.) And given how easy it is to achieve Turing- completeness by mistake, it doesn't seem like a productive constraint.

<comment><USER2> > I'm not sure I get why enforcing a layout is a problem from the point of > view of application distribution - if nothing else, an app should be able to > embed a text renderer and draw onto a <canvas> itself.

Yeah, but in my opinion that is already a _specific_ type of application, like e.g. a computer game, PDF viewer, plotting application.

It is totally different from e.g. an application like Wikipedia or a news page, that provides mostly text and images.

In the end there should just be more of the functionality on client side (rules how to render news pages, how to render wikipedia, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does Subgraph isolate USB and network? The isolated serviceVMs for USB and network are in my opinion a very strong value proposition of Qubes.

Furthermore, is Subgraph supposed to be an OS for everyday use, like Qubes, or just for anonymous usage like Tails or Whonix? If its the former I don't understand why all traffic should be routed via Tor by default - it wouldn't make sense to route non-anonymous traffic (banking, personal mail, etc.) via Tor. It wouldn't be anonymous anyway and also because of the unnecessary risk of exposure to malicious exit nodes. In this sense I believe the Qubes approach with its optional WhonixVM is superior.

If Subgraph is supposed to be for anonymous usage I'd like to read more about what kind of threat model it is trying to address. I don't think there are any amnesic features like in Tails nor strong isolation between gateway and workstation to prevent IP leaks like in Whonix.

<comment><USER5> > Does Subgraph isolate USB and network? The isolated serviceVMs for USB and > network are in my opinion a very strong value proposition of Qubes.

According to Joanna Rutkowska, developer of Qubes: "Unlike Qubes OS, Subgraph doesn't (cannot) isolate networking and USB stacks, or other devices and drivers."[1]

[1] [https://secure- os.org/pipermail/desktops/2015-October/000002...](https://secure- os.org/pipermail/desktops/2015-October/000002.html)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for that - it pretty much answers my question. In this case it seems that Qubes exposes less attack surface.

<comment><USER6> I'm from Subgraph and I disagree.

On Qubes OS the networking VM runs a standard Linux kernel with no special security hardening at all apart from the simple fact that it runs in a separate Xen VM. If an attacker is able to compromise NetVM, they may not have direct access to user data, but they have dangerous access to perform further attacks:

      - Attacks against hypervisor to break isolation
      - Side channel attacks against other Qubes VMs to steal cryptographic keys
      - Interception and tampering with networking traffic
      - Attacks against any internal network this Qubes OS computer connects to.

So if you assume that remote attacks against the Linux kernel networking stack are an important threat, the consequences of a successful attack even against Qubes are pretty bad.

Subgraph OS hardens the Linux kernel with grsecurity, which includes many defenses against exploitation which have historically prevented local exploitation of most security vulnerabilities against the kernel. Exploiting kernel vulnerabilities locally is so much easier, probably never less than an order of magnitude easier. It's so rare to reliably exploit kernel vulnerabilities remotely even against an unhardened kernel that teams present papers at top security conferences about a single exploit:

[https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- usa-07/Ortega/Whit...](https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- usa-07/Ortega/Whitepaper/bh-usa-07-ortega-WP.pdf)

I know it's contentious to say so, but I don't believe that anybody will ever remotely exploit a kernel vulnerability against a grsecurity hardened Linux kernel, especially since RAP was introduced:

[https://grsecurity.net/rap_announce.php](https://grsecurity.net/rap_announce.php)

The threat of remotely attacking the Linux kernel through the networking or USB stack was always low in my opinion, but as the threat approaches zero it raises some questions about how justifiable the system VMs are in Qubes OS considering the system complexity and usability impairment they introduce.

<comment><USER7> I agree with your comments about grsecurity making the kernel much more secure. However your comments about remote exploits and Qubes are somewhat contradictory. You claim that a remote kernel exploit is very rare/difficult, therefore the Qubes NetVM must be very difficult to attack because it runs no applications or services. It functions as a router and does essentially nothing else. By your own argument it would be very difficult to attack the NetVM. It is only the AppVMs or any others which run applications that are vulnerable, and if these are attacked, Qubes's design will likely prevent a permanent backdoor from being installed in that VM and make it difficult for the attacker to gain access to any of the other AppVMs.

I still think Subgraph looks promising and I look forward to your future work.

<comment><USER6> I'm answering a comment chain about how Subgraph OS does not 'isolate' the network or USB stacks which is frequently brought up as an important deficiency in comparison to Qubes OS. My point is that this isn't a significant advantage of Qubes because such attacks are rare and difficult, and because they're even harder to perform against Subgraph OS.

I wasn't talking about AppVMs at all, but you can of course persistently backdoor Qubes AppVMs in numerous ways by writing to the user home directory. In Subgraph OS we design our application sandboxes to prevent exactly this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They try to avoid saying it, but it's mostly a patched Linux.

<comment><USER9> Hi, I'm an SGOS dev. I don't know what you mean by "mostly a patched Linux", but here's what Subgraph OS is so far -- and it's a young project: we have a kernel patched with grsec/PaX/RAP, but we have also developed our own application sandbox framework (namespaces + limited fs + seccomp bpf whitelisting), app firewall, event monitoring subsystem, usb disable on desktop lock (based on grsec), etc. Here's a walkthrough of our sandbox framework:

[https://github.com/subgraph/oz/wiki/Oz-Technical- Details](https://github.com/subgraph/oz/wiki/Oz-Technical-Details)

<comment><USER10> Hey, cool project! Any chance you could give a quick rundown of how this compares to Qubes? Like, the tradeoffs, etc.

<comment><USER11> You may find this talk between the Qubes, Subgraph and TAILS representatives helpful:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nol8kKoB- co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nol8kKoB-co)

I believe Joanna from Qubes also set-up this forum for discussions on secure operating systems:

[https://secure-os.org/](https://secure-os.org/)

Joanna also talked a bit about the trade-offs between the two here:

[https://secure- os.org/pipermail/desktops/2015-October/000002...](https://secure- os.org/pipermail/desktops/2015-October/000002.html)

I believe initially there were some discussions to integrate Subgraph into Qubes as a TemplateVM (just like the Debian VM, Ubuntu VM, etc), but the Subgrapth guys thought Grsecurity wouldn't work well with Qubes OS. I think that situation has improved, and there is some progress in making Grsecurity work with TemplateVMs and AppVMs.

[https://twitter.com/Phoul/status/801114260881424384](https://twitter.com/Phoul/status/801114260881424384)

However, even if it does work, I'm not sure how excited the Subgraph guys are about making their OS "just" a Qubes OS TemplateVM. They may think that's the wrong business strategy for them as a company. I'm just saying this as someone watching from the outside. They may actually not believe that at all.

However, I did also notice the relationship between the two projects got a little colder, at least for a while, and in public, after Edward Snowden called Qubes his preferred secure OS.

<comment><USER9> It was me, at Subgraph, that setup the Secure Desktops mailing list and website. We hope to collaborate more with other projects in the future. There is already interest from other projects in things we've built for Subgraph.

As for Subgraph in Qubes, being a template OS, etc, maybe later? We haven't even had a real release yet and are still building. I wouldn't recommend it anyways unless all of the Qubes VMs have hardened kernels by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I rather like the graphic with this post. Is that based on pixel art, programmatically combined to resemble orthographic projection, or is it generated by WebGL? (Using one of the available blocks libraries in Javascript.)

<comment><USER9> It was drawn by hand using a vector illustrations tool, based on a sketch that I had made. We think it is very cool and will produce more conceptual illustration in this style.

The artist goes by Sephy Ka: [http://www.sephyka.com/box- stories/](http://www.sephyka.com/box-stories/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ill give it a shot. Ive been feeling quite vulnerable on 16.04 due to the absurd amount of unfixed bugs. I have a couple of questions

\- its mentioned that it __does not __have access to documents and downloads within the user folder. When it wants /needs read access, how am I told?

\- if it doesnt have access to these folders, does it only write to its own subset?

\- is it possible to make my home downloads folder an aggregate of the application downloads?

\- when uninstalling/purging, since its sandboxed it deletes all of the content or keeps it? Can I force removal as well?

\- how does subgraph deal with shared services/folders/info? Can I share a service with another user? Can I share the network setting modifications with other users?

\- how can I prevent an application from using the network without my knowledge?

\- are the tools like nethogs/top for subgraph that can take advantage of the compartments to show a more realistic view of whats going on?

I think this has a lot of potential!

<comment><USER9> These are great questions. We have a Gnome shell plug-in to move files into sandboxes while an application is running. Certain applications also have shared directories (e.g. "Downloads/TorBrowser", "Documents/LibreOffice"). This is a UX work in progress though, neither of these are adequate, though together they're workable.

re: Applications and network access: we have an application firewall, unique to Linux-based OSs. It's basically Little Snitch for Linux. There is a screenshot here:

Keep in mind that the project is very young. We are just getting started, tbh. With questions like these you should idle in our IRC channel where we talk about all of this stuff: OFTC/#subgraph.

<comment><USER13> Will do! Im very excited for this. Containerization and safety is a very important problem to me. Im not particularly interested in running a docker instance or a vm just to use an application. And if I do, id prefer it being automated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I come late to the party but I installed the ISO on virtualbox. It seems after boot, I can't apt update or anything network related.

I tried disabling the firewall too, to no avail.

I see that /etc/resolv.conf is only having nameserver 127.0.0.1 I guess that's ok (resolv made through Tor maybe ?) but I wonder how to activate the network :/

Is there a way to discuss things related to Subgraph ?

thanks

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks interesting. I'm looking for a more secure minimal OS, for use with backend services. Would it make sense to use it as a server OS, or is it primarily for desktop use?

Also, is there a docker image that is ready to go? That would be immensely useful.

<comment><USER9> It's a desktop OS, and the hardened kernel is an important part of the project (i.e. no docker image).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Adversary-resistant" is an extremely bold claim. While the architecture does look promising, and (at least intuitively) reasonably-designed, I think it's a bit too soon to make a call about adversary resistance.

<comment><USER17> The word "resistant" is qualitative so they are not really making a bold claim.

<comment><USER11> Yes, just like water-resistant vs water-proof. Subgraph OS is like hacking- resistant, not hacking-proof.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I need to know who/how they made the graphic image. I love it.

<comment><USER19> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13026642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13026642)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For a second I thought this was about a new linux-distro for servers that featured outage resilient services and such.

Oh well, this is good enough I 'spose.

</comment><comment><USER21> Care to put out a vm image, invite folks to hack it?

That is a lot more interesting.

<comment><USER9> You can install/run the downloadable image in a VM. Lots of people do. We test with VMWare Fusion/kvm/Virtual Box.</comment></comment>


Things Crash with No One at the Controls - <AUTHOR> https://hmmdaily.com/2019/03/14/things-crash-with-no-one-at-the-controls/ <comment><USER2> I know that upon entering office, the president has to appoint 1200 individuals - heads of various departments. The president hasn't filled these position and the ones he has have been incompetent or against its mission.

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis document this.

 _"Take Trump 's choice to head National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Commerce Department agency that, among other responsibilities, oversees the National Weather Service. For that critical position, Trump has chosen Barry Myers, who is CEO of the private forecasting service AccuWeather. As Lewis points out, AccuWeather repackages the weather service's own data and sells it to private concerns for a profit. Myers at one time argued that "the government should get out of the forecasting business." In other words, you want to know if it's going to rain tomorrow? Or which way that hurricane is tracking? Well, buy our app, or subscribe to our forecasts. Myers has yet to be confirmed."_

</comment><comment><USER3> This is completely empty rhetoric and not based in reality:[https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2019/02...](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2019/02/07/editorial- end-foot-dragging-trumps-nominees/2791925002/).

</comment><comment><USER4> This is disturbing. Is it accurate?

<comment><USER5> It's more or less a writeup and summary of the reporting on the Trump administration. I recall reading about most of these issues in reputable press outlets.</comment></comment>


Meg McLain Singled out by the TSA, Cuffed to a Chair, Her Ticket Ripped up - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJGvsAgpfig

<comment><USER2> With various professional air-industry unions now protesting and individuals now getting truly fed up, have we finally started to reach a point where enough is enough? It's already demonstrated that the TSA doesn't appear to be capable of preventing people from bringing bad things onto aircraft, of the hundreds of millions of searches, x-rays etc. every year that they do, they don't actually seem to stop anybody, we regularly hear in the news about people with bizarre and/or dangerous items on aircraft.

Now we have full-body scanners or invasive full body pat-downs take your pick. And the TSA says this is because they've been letting stuff through. So what happens the next time somebody tries to light their underwear on fire or gets on a plane with a mask or a prosthetic with a hidden compartment? Nude searches? Then what? Cavity searches?

There's not a whole lot further you can go after that. Let me repeat that, _we're two steps away from nude cavity searches in the security line while trying to get on a plane._

At some point, somebody has to just realize that this theater of security isn't really doing anybody any good, and the trade off is that we've all lost our individual rights and privacy so that the government can ensure the expensive flying metal tubes don't get damaged.

<comment><USER2> Japan's funny take on the whole thing.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEeRD26hDDw>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It staggers me that no one came to her assistance.

Disgrace to the TSA - but far more so to the onlookers. 'Sheeple' indeed...</comment>


Audacity 2.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/news?id=2012-03-13/2.0-release

<comment><USER2> Wow; I was one of the first developers to work on Audacity way back in 2001, but I haven't kept up with its development in a long time. It's exciting to see a new major release.

I'm always amazed and proud at how widely I see Audacity being used. Most recently I spent the 5 weeks as a juror on a criminal trial, and I saw Audacity installed on the prosecutor's computer.

<comment><USER3> It sure has been a long time, hasn't it? Audacity 2.0 has been in development since 2005 (in form of the "unstable" 1.3.x series)!

haberman and I first met when I started contributing to Audacity more than a decade ago. Later he helped me apply for a job at Amazon.com and we became teammates. Since then we've drifted away from Audacity development, both left Amazon to work in startups, and haberman is now at Google while I ended up at Mozilla, but we are still good friends and keep in touch -- and also debate technical minutia on HN. :)

Audacity has always been short on developers for a project with such a large userbase, so development has often been slow. But the contributor community was one of the friendliest I've been involved in, thanks in large part to the great stewardship of Audacity's creator Dominic Mazzoni. If you use Audacity, please consider checking out the code and fixing a bug or two!

<comment><USER2> Yep! Not to mention Dominic also helped me get the jobs at both Amazon and Google. Working on Audacity in college and meeting all these people was such a great experience and opened up so many doors. One time I even picked up Monty of Ogg Vorbis fame from the airport to go to an Audacity Hackathon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this app, that it's free and easy to use for the hospital radio station I help run. So thanks to all those involved.

Is there anyone with some design chops who can't help them out though?

</comment><comment><USER5> I use Audacity all the time: with customers' permission, I will record short bits of our Skype calls if I think that later I might want to refer back to directions, requirements, etc. This saves needless note taking.

Great app!

<comment><USER6> Sorry, but I haven't used Audacity in a while ... how exactly do you record Skype calls with it? Is there some sort of integration with the app or your sound card?

<comment><USER7> This isn't what he's doing, but if you use an audio routing system like jackd on Linux or Soundflower on Mac OS X, you can capture audio output from one application (flash youtube videos, Skype, iTunes, etc.), mix it with your system input, route the superposition of both signals to Audacity, and record everything into the same stream. You can also use audio routing to mix a conversation into the input of an icecast server. That way you can stream a live Skype conversation mixed with music and sound effects into an Internet radio show while also recording and monitoring it.

<http://jackaudio.org/>

<http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/>

<comment><USER8> OS X: Audio Hijack (USD 32) <http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/buy.php>

<comment><USER9> Save $32:

      apt-get install jackd2

<comment><USER10> You mean:

      brew install jack

<comment><USER9> Haha. Definitely not for me, but you are correct given the impetus brew is more apropos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Summary of release notes:

* Many effects significantly improved, especially Equalization, Noise Removal and Normalize. Vocal Remover now included plus GVerb on Windows and Mac. VAMP analysis plug-ins now supported.

* Improved label tracks with Sync-Lock Tracks feature in the Tracks Menu. Multiple clips per track. Tracks and selections can be fully manipulated using the keyboard. Many more keyboard shortcuts.

* New Device Toolbar to manage inputs and outputs. Timer Record feature. New Mixer Board view with per-track VU meters.

* Automatic Crash Recovery in the event of abnormal program termination.

* Fast "On-Demand" import of WAV/AIFF files if read directly from source. FLAC now fully supported. Added support for optional FFmpeg library for import/export of AC3/M4A/WMA and import of audio from video files.

This hardly seems to justify a leap from 1.3. That and the fact that selection and playback _still_ work in the most counter-intuitive way imaginable.

<comment><USER3> _> This hardly seems to justify a leap from 1.3._

Audacity uses even/odd version numbering for stable/unstable release branches, like the Linux kernel once did: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Odd- number...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Odd- numbered_versions_for_development_releases)

So when Audacity 1.0 was released, new feature development moved to the 1.1 branch, while the 1.0 branch received only bug fixes. When the 1.1 branch was considered "finished" it became the new stable version 1.2.0, and the 1.0 branch was abandoned. Then new feature development moved to the 1.3 branch, which has now been released as the new stable version Audacity 2.0.

If I remember right, many of the major changes between the 1.1/1.2 series and the 1.3/2.0 series were under the hood, such as support for new versions of Portaudio and wxWidgets (which added compatibility for newer hardware and operating systems), improvements to the file format, and enhancements to the importers.

<comment><USER12> Why not release it as 1.4?

<comment><USER3> Since there's no "right" answer for version numbers, it's hard to answer questions like this. If the developers feel that 2.0 is a good number for their new release, then who are we to argue with them? (And why should we care in the first place about what number appears in an about box somewhere..?)

It's been eight years since Audacity 1.2 was released (and at least six years since 1.3 development began), and the code has seen pretty major changes in that time even though they happened gradually and not all are obvious from looking at the UI. I think it's fair to call 2.0 a major upgrade from 1.0 and 1.2.

Or to look at it another way: If you haven't changed the major version number after ten years of development, then you'll probably never change it. And if you're never going to change that number, it's redundant and you might as well drop it. (This is roughly what the Linux kernel did when it switched from 2.6.x.y to 3.x.y after fifteen years of 2.x releases.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love audacity, it started me and my bro off on our music recording road. My bro recently produced his album with it! "Shaky Horse" <http://declandoherty.bandcamp.com/>

<comment><USER14> Nice songs, I would love to see them a bit more produced though. The guitars are beatifully recorded but the voice is somewhat more irregular. Keep the good job!

<comment><USER13> thanks for taking the time to have a listen, I agree with you on getting them produced a bit better also!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whenever I have used audacity to do simple audio edits I feel like I am using an elephant gun for a fly swatter. For some reason I never feel the same way when I use gimp to do the equivalent minor image modification.

<comment><USER15> Really? I find the opposite; gimp has a two minute load time and an interface that expects you to study it. Audacity opens up and gives you big obvious buttons for the simple things - if anything it looks too simple, as if all you can do is basic cutting and splicing.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. I use Paint.NET for most of my work with images; GIMP is used as a last resort, if PDN is missing a feature I really need at that moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Audacity is a great free tool in the arsenal of a budding musician and transcriber. You can slow down tracks without changing pitch to try to understand what notes are being played.

Coupled with Reaper, also free if you're a big cheapo, somewhat analogously to the WinRar model, you get so much great functionality for so little.

</comment><comment><USER18> it works great but some visual polish wouldn't hurt...

<comment><USER19> Agreed. I was really hoping that with 2.0, there would be at least some attempt at refining the interface.

Compare the interface to Reaper (The Cockos team has three main contributors, right?), Cubase or Vegas, or if you want to get shiny, Propellerheads or Line6.

A fresh coat of paint goes a long way.

<comment><USER20> Sorry to be snarky; but, compare $0 (Audacity) to $225 (reaper), $500 (cubase), $600 (vegas), $130 (Propellerheads).

<comment><USER19> Having bought and upgraded Vegas & Cubase, and evaluated Reaper (which is $0 for cripple-free evaluation & $60 for a non-commercial license) I am fully aware of the cost. Winamp (made by one of the guys behind Reaper) was free, even before AOL bought Nullsoft, and still managed to look better than every other MP3 player out there.

There are people who have offered their services, presumably free of charge. I think Audacity would be a lot more inviting if more effort was put into the look and usability of the interface. Need money? Come up with a plan and a Kickstarter page.

I'm not saying it should be a DAW. I'm just saying it should look like something that was released in 2012, rather than something that was released in 1998.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love Audacity. The only thing I'd like to see changed is labelling/splits. It is a pain in the ass to the point that I usually just cut the start and end off save that and then undo.

</comment><comment><USER22> To all my Mac users out there: What are you using to record Skype calls? Anyone know if Audacity 2 will allow Mac users to record system audio?

<comment><USER23> Audacity plus Soundflower will do the trick.

<http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/>

<comment><USER24> SoundFlower is a little buggy on Lion still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Love it whenever one of these great free apps get major updates. Been using Audacity on and off for years.

</comment><comment><USER26> _> The Audacity Team is elated to announce the release of Audacity 2.0 for Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, ..._

Seems weird it's specifically _GNU_ /Linux they support, yet they can't be dependent on GNU userland or GNU libc if they support Mac.

<comment><USER9> RMS would say its weird that you think there is anything other than GNU/Linux...

<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy>

<comment><USER27> Not quite.

<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#linuxsyswithoutgnu>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I use Audacity to record live radio shows, DJ mixes, edit sounds for games and even for the odd bits of quick and dirty sample manipulation for music production. For the price it's a really great piece of software. :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Audacity is sweet - now if they would just get someone on board to cleanup the UI - maybe some new buttons?

<comment><USER30> i'd prefer them to spend the time making sure the button works correctly. why is the UI so odious?

<comment><USER31> in UI design, polish and usability == working correctly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> OH CRAP, IT HAS REAL-TIME EFFECT PREVIEWS haha no just kidding</comment>


LetsLunch is looking for a php developer - <AUTHOR>

I'm reposting this based on the feedback from my unfortunate first attempt (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2199669).<p>We are a startup which just launched a week ago and we really could use some help. We help you network with your peers by scheduling relevant lunches. Right now, we operate in Silicon Valley with entrepreneurs, but we want to expand. <comment><USER2> no offence, but you should also get some design work...

some honest feedback: website color palette does not look professional, hi-res logo graphics needed, background color change will be good</comment>


Adobe tackling 'Flash cookie' privacy issue - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20028397-264.html <comment><USER2> Get the 'BetterPrivacy' extension for FireFox and it will help remove the Flash cookies. You can manually remove the cookies or have it automatically clear them on browser exit.</comment>


Show HN: RemoteShot – On Demand Photography - <AUTHOR> http://www.chilledlime.com/remoteshot/

<comment><USER2> Still not launched, so what is there to see?</comment>


I Started a No-Code Powerup SaaS Business – Story of Jetboost - <AUTHOR> https://oyestartups.com/interviews/jetboost <comment><USER2> And a no-link post on HN. What's next? A no-reply to this comment?</comment>


Cowpie, gruel and midnight feasts: food in popular children's literature - <AUTHOR> https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/cowpie-gruel-and-midnight-feasts-food-in-popular-children-s-literature-1.2885193 <comment><USER2> More recent books are no slouch in this department; there are vivid descriptions of all kinds of goodies in the Harry Potter series, and the "Redwall" books are so well-known for their evocative culinary imagery that the author has added a companion cookbook: [https://www.amazon.com/Redwall- Cookbook-Brian-Jacques/dp/039...](https://www.amazon.com/Redwall-Cookbook- Brian-Jacques/dp/0399237917)

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps it's a cultural thing, as I was born and raised in ranching country, but cowpies (that is, dinnerplate-sized piles of cow manure, hard or soft) are not something I tend to see eaten in literature. Stepped in, frequently. Maybe even burned for heat. But never eaten.

<comment><USER4> In the UK, those are cowpats. There is definitely a risk of a particularly horrible misunderstanding here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also a pretty cool article on this subject

[https://daily.jstor.org/turkish-delight/](https://daily.jstor.org/turkish- delight/)

I also admit when I first heard read the book when young, Turkish Delight seemed like this otherworldly thing. In reality, its interesting, but nothing I would go out of my way for

</comment><comment><USER6> I've noticed that in the Chronicles of Narnia (written in the early 1950s), C.S. Lewis frequently included rich, detailed descriptions of the food. Knowing about the situation with rationing in the UK at the time helps put it in context. Or maybe Lewis was just a foodie.

 _It was a fine meal after the Calormene fashion. I don 't know whether you would have liked it or not, but Shasta did. There were lobsters, and salad, and snipe stuffed with almonds and truffles, and a complicated dish made of chicken-livers and rice and raisins and nuts, and there were cool melons and gooseberry fools and mulberry fools, and every kind of nice thing that can be made with ice. There was also a little flagon of the sort of wine that is called "white" though it is really yellow._ _" The Horse and His Boy," Chapter V_

<comment><USER7> Not to mention Anne Mcaffery's Dragon Rider of Pern books. I've heard GRRM does a lot of food porn in his fire and ice series, but have never read those books.

<comment><USER8> The companion book, "The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern" featured recipes for "Hearty Herdbeast Stew", gather pies, and the coffee-analog "klah".

My attempts at gather pies never seemed to work all that well, but klah was pretty much just cinnamon hot chocolate, which was pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > such tales as Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908), where food > denotes cosiness and plenty.

This. Grahame's account of the animals' Christmas meal is my favourite secular evocation in literature of the 'goodwill to all' spirit of Christmas. If I remember, I find this book and re-read this passage sometime over the xmas period.</comment>