A Jupyter Kernel for SQLite - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jupyter.org/a-jupyter-kernel-for-sqlite-9549c5dcf551 <comment><USER2> If you're interested in this, you might be interested in Datasette: [https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/](https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/)

Which seems to me to be farther along in providing advanced querying/faceting/visualization/sharing capabilities on top of sqlite.

(I love jupyter, and this kernel seems neat; not trying to throw stones at anybody, just to link a project in a similar domain)

<comment><USER3> Having to rerun the query and reload the page just to change the sort order on a small dataset is very 1997

<comment><USER4> You gotta re-run the query or you're limited to sorting just the visible results.

I guess I could let it spot when there are less than the page-size of results, but then I'd need to be confident that the JavaScript sorting algorithm exactly matches the underlying SQLite sorting algorithm - taking into account character sets and custom collations and suchlike.

I've been deliberately avoiding adding any JavaScript to core Datasette almost to make a point: you don't need it. HTML pages load faster than so-called "modern" SPA monstrosities. They work really well. They don't require a bunch of extra steps to avoid breaking the back button etc.

But... Datasette provides a JSON API for everything, and supports plugins. There's nothing to stop someone who really wants no-page-reload query execution from implementing it as a plugin.

I myself have built JavaScript plugins for things like bar charts and line charts ( [https://github.com/simonw/datasette- vega](https://github.com/simonw/datasette-vega) ) and map visualizations ( [https://github.com/simonw/datasette-cluster- map](https://github.com/simonw/datasette-cluster-map) )

So yeah, my personal bias here is that building websites like we did in 1997 is deeply undervalued.

<comment><USER3> The UI needs to be such so as to make the users understand that by clicking a column header they would be sorting the results of a previous query rather than re-running it with a different sort column and that the two are not generally interchangeable, likewise with instant in-results search.

At least with the server being on the internet and the example setup I disagree that the current way is faster or even near a modern webui

<comment><USER4> Can you think of a way I could make that clear in the UI ("this will sort all of the data including the rows you can't see" v.s. "this will sort the rows that are visible to you right now")?

<comment><USER3> I think this is the natural expectation of anyone familiar with spreadsheets, reporting tools or data grids with sortable column headers, but a message along the lines of

"Sorting results of the previous query, click 'Run SQL' button again to query with ${column_name} as the ORDER BY column"

and a "got it" hyperlink to be stored in your session state store of choice upon first click on a column header would probably make it clear.

<comment><USER5> I tend to disagree.

I find that data/UI tools that only sort the visible results, and not re- populate the paged view of the data, extremely counter-intuitive.

Even old libraries like ExtJS supported easy re-querying the server upon the column sorting event - though it has to be said, many lazy implementers didn't use this feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is very cool. SQL is a great interactive language, we added it to repl.it too: [https://repl.it/languages/sqlite](https://repl.it/languages/sqlite)

<comment><USER7> Oh my god! That's so cool! Thanks for sharing it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool hack, but probably wouldn't install a separate kernel or run an entire notebook just for sqlite work.

What would be useful is for the kernel of your language of choice to provide a magic for sqlite and return results of queries in language-native data structures.

Something like this: [https://pypi.org/project/ipython- sql/](https://pypi.org/project/ipython-sql/)

<comment><USER3> Alternatively: a new type of cell in jupyter itself alongside 'code' and 'markdown' for sql work available regardless of kernel choice.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I had this idea at first, but it's not trivial to run more than one kernel at the same time. I know some examples of people who did it, and some projects that I could plug in and try to make it work with my kernel, but this was a first version to see how the community responds! Let's see, might do something like it in the future. I think it'd be really cool and powerful to make it interact with Python for example.

<comment><USER8> Yes this is a great first step. Would absolutely love a way to use this alongside my Python code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. It never even occurred to me that this was missing from Jupyter -- but in hindsight seems _so_ obvious.

Congrats to the Jupyter team on this!

<comment><USER7> Thanks! <3

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Incredible, but wasn't this kind of available though psycopg2 (postgres connector), SQLAlchemy or any other kind of database connection library ?

I realise the difference between the kernels altogether, but how is one better than the other?

<comment><USER11> Not really. You could use the python kernel and embed your SQL code within your python code but you couldn't run cells with just SQL. It made for a very poor analyst experience.

Microsoft got it right with Azure Data Studio.

<comment><USER12> Does ADS support SQLite? I already use it for SQL Server, and I'd tried the PostgreSQL add-on but couldn't get it to work for some reason (but that was when it was first released so it might've stabilized since then).

<comment><USER11> No. I've seen success with Microsoft SQL and PostgreSQL.

I've also experienced instability issues, it needs that VS Code level polish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like this. Previously I've used notebooks to explain a data pipeline from different perspectives. One notebook showing the ETL process going from raw data to RDF triples in a store; one SPARQL notebook showing the raw queries; and then a final decision support notebook using a Python binding to the underlying SPARQL query library. It seemed to work well.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is awesome! Makes sql as accessible in the classroom as python—-we waste so much time installing SQLite and trouble shooting for students (b-schools). As soon as this is accessible in colaboratory (google), or similar, super light web interface and notebooks become trivial... THANK YOU!!

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting. Wonder if it'd be possible to embed it for visualisation in a Go web app?

Was adding basic online chart capabilities to our SQLite publishing website a few weeks ago (eg:

[https://dbhub.io/vis/justinclift/Marine%20Litter%20Survey%20...](https://dbhub.io/vis/justinclift/Marine%20Litter%20Survey%20%28Keep%20Northern%20Ireland%20Beautiful%29.sqlite) )

But if people could do Jupyter notebooks and visualise them like this too, that could be useful.

Hmmm, should probably set up some kind of survey on our website to ask... :)

<comment><USER7> Hit me up on [https://gitter.im/QuantStack/Lobby](https://gitter.im/QuantStack/Lobby) if you think I can be useful. I'm @marimeireles there and on Github too! :)

<comment><USER15> Thanks, will do. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Excellent! I usually just type up my SQL in triple quotes and execute it from python, which gives me a little bit of templating too. Excited to give this a try (and start using more views.)

</comment><comment><USER17> This looks nice. Now if only somebody wrote a Jupyter kernel for (power)shell.

<comment><USER18> Have you seen Azure Data Studio? It uses the same code base as Visual Studio Code and has first class support for notebooks. It includes a PowerShell kernel

<comment><USER19> On the .NET team, we're working on a polyglot Jupyter kernel that includes C#, F#, and PowerShell support. We're collaborating with the Azure Data and PowerShell teams. It's in preview now. [https://github.com/dotnet/interactive](https://github.com/dotnet/interactive)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How's this different from let's say BeakerX or Zeppelin?

<comment><USER7> Zeppelin is not Jupyter. And I'm not sure how BeakerX works tbh, but it uses a whole docker image all the time to run right? So, might be very resource consuming, this kernel was implemented on C++. I honestly have no idea of how good is the tooling around SQL in BeakerX but might be a better alternative if you don't care about the docker image and doesn't actually need SQLite, that's different from SQL, which is what they're offering.</comment></comment>


Show HN : Retweet Retract - Correct the people who retweeted your hacked account - <AUTHOR> http://www.rtrt.co/

<comment><USER2> Care to fill us in on the process?

I tried a sample tweet and the following page wasn't particularly helpful in terms of 'what happens next'.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really an alpha version to validate the idea. Working on the code to show you your recent tweets that got retweeted so you can pick from them instead of retyping. Step 2 would be a pre-constructed tweet linking to the correction that you can retweet yourself. Step 3, @rtrtweet tweets the first 100 people who retweeted you with the correction. Trying to build this in Golang to learn the language.

<comment><USER3> Shouldn't there be some sort of login? Otherwise anyone can "retract" anything and no one will trust your handle.

<comment><USER2> This is exactly why I asked the question. I simply want to know how they go about getting a retraction request executed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Site will be going live tomorrow with retraction executions. Care to take another look and let me know what you think <http://go.rtrt.co/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems like the kind of thing that would almost necessitate use of Twitter's API and an authenticated user, right? What exactly is someone supposed to paste into the tweet box? The link to the tweet? Or the full text? I'm assuming the former, but the form input shouldn't be a textbox then.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is just the user validation version. The actual service will 1. Require you to authenticate with twitter OAuth, 2. Pick from an actual list of your tweets that have been retweeted, 3. Give you a tweet with the retraction, 4. Direct tweet the retraction to the first 100 people that retweeted you</comment></comment>


Parasite SEO - <AUTHOR> https://affiliateinsights.com/subdomain-leasing-affiliate-white-label/ <comment><USER2> This article is wrong on many levels. no wonder so many ppl try this and make no money.

>You find a high DA site that allows user generated content to be added and indexed. (the host)

>Common parasites include Medium, Amazon s3, Github, Linkedin, Quora, Youtube, ect.

Google rank does not apply to subdomains. The subdomain does not inherit any of the rank of the parent. That is why blogspot and s3 will never work in this regard.

Parasite SEO boost only works if the link passes ranking, the page itself has a lot of SEO authority, and there are not too many outgoing links. Medium will not work for this reason unless you get your link on a very high ranking medium page. Just posting your link on a new medium blog is useless. Same for Github, Quora, Youtube, linkedin for these reasons.

<comment><USER3> Google WAS actually giving additional ranking benefits to subdomains like this. Especially subdomains like coupons.domain.com.

However, just recently Google hit these sites hard--giving those subdomains penalties.

So this "parasite SEO" is really no longer an issue, especially the subdomain "trick".

See [https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penalizing-subdomains- le...](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penalizing-subdomains- leasing-28203.html)

<comment><USER2> that does not surprise me. as soon as something starts to work even just a little bit too well, google just keeps making things harder and harder

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> SEO Expert: Those techniques don't work anymore! Google is smarter than that.

Google: Correct! We don't use those signals anymore! We're soo smart.

Me: But my competitors are blatantly using those techniques and they outrank me.

SEO Expert: Ummm, yeah but one day it will stop working!

Google: Pretend like we don't exist, focus on your users!

Me: But I need to make a living now and I don't have any users.

 _crickets_

<comment><USER5> I work as a software developer in the SEO game, and this is exactly how it is. Except theres a client in the middle, reading blogs and telling us how to do it right. Moving from an SEO analyst to Software was the best decision I have ever made.

<comment><USER6> How is that better for you? I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make and I'm interested in your opinion...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ahhh affiliate marketing, still trucking along, still the lowest form of digital marketing

Though influencer marketing has been having a good shot at that title in this past 5 years

<comment><USER8> I find a decent percentage of influencer marketing is still just affiliate marketing with a slightly different delivery channel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> World needs a Coupon Stock Exchange, like NYSE. Then bundle fake coupons into CDOs.

</comment><comment><USER10> Let's be clear here: the content doesn't rank because it's on a subdomain or folder of the strong domain, it ranks because it's there AND gets lots of links from most/all pages of that strong domain. The links are the relevant part, you'd have similar (albeit not as strong) results if you had site-wide links from top domains to your separate domain.

Google already has a rule to deal with this: buying and selling links (and, by extension, renting links) is against their guidelines. They just don't enforce it for big publishing companies.

<comment><USER11> From the medium article they link they show that most of the visits come from search though

<comment><USER12> OP does not say the traffic comes from the links, he said the internal links make the site rank, not the fact that it's on a high da subdomain/subfolder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This shit is what now fills up over half of my google searches with listicals and generally fake sites touting deals on any of my search terms.

What annoys me now is that copy catting a decent article and just filling it full of ad shit, ranks so well. :( gone are the days where googling for something felt good, it's now a web of sales tactics and copied texts.

<comment><USER14> Fuck SEO and fuck those in this very thread who work with SEO. Congrats, you've ruined the internet in your race to the bottom for more pennies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 'Google Issues Warning About Leasing Subdomains Or Subfolder'

[https://www.seroundtable.com/google-warns-about-leasing- subd...](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-warns-about-leasing-subdomains- or-subfolders-28059.html)

<comment><USER16> I like the line in that article which said that they wrote about it "1.5 months ago". It's an oddly precise measurement with an imprecise unit.

</comment></comment><comment> martin-adams I've seen this type of links against s clients domain which wasn't initiated by the client. We can only think it's a negative SEO attack, but honest have no idea what the motive behind it is.

<comment><USER17> Boosting some competitor if you fall?

<comment> martin-adams That's the only reasonable conclusion we could come up with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What does "DA" stand for?

<comment><USER19> Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages.

[https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority](https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain- authority)

<comment><USER20> "You can view a website's DA by using MozBar (a free Chrome-extension), Link Explorer (a backlink analysis tool), the SERP Analysis section of Keyword Explorer, and dozens of other SEO tools across the web."

Why wouldn't I just type in the domain at moz.com and look it up there ? </retorical>

[1] [https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain- authority](https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _Common parasites include Medium, Amazon s3, Github, Linkedin, Quora, > Youtube, ect._

Ironic typo; was that supposed to be _common hosts include_? ;)

</comment><comment><USER22> I have a personal blog and about 80-90% of all comments to my posts are these.

In the beginning I just deleted them when I saw them, but then I had to turn on moderation.

<comment><USER23> People often point to social media as to why personal blogs died off, but I'd wager comment spam had just as much of an impact. Blogs were huge just 10 years ago, but eventually the sheer volume of spam comments with links to "Air Jordan, Gucci, Givenchy, work from home", really took out the communal feel of the comments section.

Wordpress and Disqus didn't act fast enough to auto-detect this spam and prevent them from being published, and it wasn't long before conversations started moving to FB, Twitter and Medium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> _As with any SEO tactic that is viewed as shady or potentially underhanded within the community, those who ignore critics and "play to win" by aggressively chasing the opportunity see the best financial outcome._

 _Even if Google deindexes these subdomains tomorrow, tens of millions of dollars have been made in a 1 year time period from this tactic alone._

People say things like this and then wonder why SEO has a bad reputation.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is it really "parasite SEO" if CNN decides to use their domain name clout with Google to make a (substantial) profit promoting coupons?

Seems like more of a savvy business move on behalf of CNN instead of scummy/greyhat/parasite-seo type stuff, no?

It's right up their alley, too. They sell advertisements. Coupons are advertisements.

<comment><USER10> > Is it really "parasite SEO" if CNN decides to use their domain name clout > with Google to make a (substantial) profit promoting coupons?

CNN doesn't. Somebody else "rents" the subdomain from CNN, and they are the parasite that is feeding off of CNN's brand.

<comment><USER26> It's usually a 50-50 rev share

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Imagine if the "trusted domain" used for the whitelabel site on a subdomain was google.com.

Constantly referring to "Google's algorithm" misses the real issue. Google can do whatever it wants. Google can "trust" anyone or no one but itself.

Google has all the traffic, not the coupon websites.

Do we need laws that govern such middlemen?

<comment><USER19> "Google can do whatever it wants" \- wouldn't this be anti-competitive behaviour if they stated favouring certain sites in their algorithm?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that they get audited to make sure they don't do this, although can't find the link.

<comment><USER28> I would think they're perfectly allowed to favor certain sites over others, especially with good reasons for doing so.

What I would expect to be illegal would be overly favoring _their own_ sites/services over those of competitors, since they are so big and that would be abusing their search marketshare to spread into other markets.

<comment><USER29> > What I would expect to be illegal would be overly favoring their own > sites/services over those of competitors

They've been doing this for years in search results, progressively so.

<comment><USER28> Didn't the EU get on them for that and they had to pay a large fine? Can't recall the details of what was the offending behavior.

<comment><USER29> Yes, but specifically for their shopping product.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/06/27/534524024...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/06/27/534524024/google-hit-with-2-7-billion-fine-by-european- antitrust-monitor)

The practice continues (and continues to _worsen_ ), at least in their US version. I can't speak for their European sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As this post says, Google is taking action against this blackhat method of SEO.

Several people have tried to rank as #1 using s3, but Google's ranking algorithm eventually pulls or removes the content from being listed entirely.

We're talking about Google here, I'm pretty sure they're aware of this type of SEO hacking.

<comment><USER31> The Google algo still loves PDF's. They will review individual URL's if they receive a DMCA, but after looking at Ahref's, I can see the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" PDF (Which I'm guessing can't be legally distributed by the person who uploaded) has been live since July 2018 and is still ranking in Google: [https://i.imgur.com/Mp7prUn.png](https://i.imgur.com/Mp7prUn.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interestingly, most of example sites given were launched within the recent year.

</comment><comment><USER33> In the next 1-3 years I'm sure Google will update their algorithm against these such of strategies

</comment><comment><USER34> It took a couple of paragraphs for me to realize what the article was about. I thought it was "Parasite CEO", that the boss is doing nothing while also stealing company resources.. arguably a somewhat common phenomena.

But it's about Parasitic Search Enginge Optimizations.

<comment><USER32> I thought the same. A parasite boss may be a common phenomenon but searching didn't bring up any interesting articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> this is not 2007 anymore.Google changed algos considerably over the past decade to make this much less effective.</comment>


HN's "I'm Feeling Lucky" - <AUTHOR> http://ysimonson.tumblr.com/post/2428362801/hns-im-feeling-lucky

<comment><USER2> When I'm browsing HN on my phone I often tap the wrong link by accident. I've come to accept clicking on the wrong link,, however, as regularly the article is one I wouldn't have clicked on otherwise, and the content is interesting. The other day I went on a 50 minute detour reading about Cambodia based on such a mistap.</comment>


Butterfly raises $250M for portable full-body ultrasound scanner - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/27/butterfly-raises-250-million-for-portable-full-body-ultrasound-scanner/ <comment><USER2> I have been recommending this system to people for over a year now after first discovering it. It probably single handedly is one of the best startups to invest in.

Just months before hearing it, my pregnant wife and I were researching how hard ultrasound devices are to build, and were very surprised at how ultrasound can be used to detect/diagnosis an insane amount of common illnesses.

The hardware and physics behind ultrasound isn't nearly as technical or as advanced as you may think, and nowadays it is mostly a software issue. Combine the imaging with personal baselining and machine learning across similar body types fitted to 3D human model templates, you'd get Star Trek's medical scanner.

The technology here could be used to eliminate 99%+ waste and inefficiency in the medical industry, effectively bankrupting the current institutions and disrupting the industry with better, cheaper, healthier, less-annoying care. This is a future we should be fighting for.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very excited for this, I try to use bedside US daily in my hospitalist work but the portable US in my hospital is on a heavy cart and having to use elevator vs stairs makes it not worth it.

Also, the article makes the common typo writing HIPPA instead of HIPAA. Otherwise great article.

<comment><USER4> > writing HIPPA instead of HIPAA

Ouch. You'd think in 2018 spellcheck would have solved this for newspaper.

<comment><USER5> Tangential but interesting: conventional spell checks, in my experience, tend to turn off for all caps words, or words that start with a capital. Turning it on always can be annoying, so you need something smart, which detects common errors, but doesn't hose you with false positives.

Tangential to this tangent: Google Docs spell check catches wrong use of "flower" vs "flour" based on context. Try this: open a new doc, type:

      Flower

No error. Now add:

      Flower, eggs, sugar

Error on flower. But if you do:

      Flower, sugar, eggs

No error. Milk also works.

ML? Or regex?

<comment><USER6> They probably use a bloom filter and populate it with a bunch of 'probably spurious' word pairs. The combination of 'Flower' and 'eggs' will evaluate as 'probably spurious' but the combination 'flower' and 'sugar' evaluates as 'not spurious'. This is probably a manually populated bloom filter of common spurious word pairs.

For reference, a bloom filter is an extremely space efficient, probabilistic data structure that acts a bit like a set and can answer the query 'does the bloom filter contain this entry'. The bloom filter will respond with either 'definitely not' or 'possibly/probably' depending on how it is tuned.

You could conceivably automatically populate this (still hardcoded) bloom filter by doing a brute force language corpus search for heavily correlated word pairs that have one or more of the two words having phonetically similar misspellings. E.g. 'sea' and 'breeze' would be heavily correlated. 'Sea' has a phonetically identical misspelling 'see'. You could then automatically add 'see + breeze' as a spurious pairing to the filter.

<comment><USER7> I think Google has pretty good deep learning-based word prediction for their Swype-style Android keyboard.

There was a period, maybe 1.5 years ago, during which text input prediction got substantially worse, then gradually improved. Along with the change came the ability for text input to change the estimated word after you entered the next word, using the combination of your entries to both words to estimate both simultaneously.

If they have language models which perform that task at a level worth pushing out to consumers they can do some smoothing of entries in a list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks similar to the Philips Lumify: [https://www.lumify.philips.com/web/](https://www.lumify.philips.com/web/)

<comment><USER9> One-time purchase cost of Lumify is closer to $8,000 USD or a $199/mo subscription (which leaves you never owning the transducer).

At $2,000 this is a lot cheaper which will hopefully drive wider deployment.

Even in more developed countries, wider-scale use of imaging would be amazing: primary care being able to directly use ultrasound without referral to a specialist, and with smart image analysis, could cut diagnosis times significantly. In my case I waited 3 weeks for an US appointment on the NHS and that could have been avoided entirely.

<comment><USER10> True enough but would your GP have the specialist knowledge for all possible uses of ultrasound is the real issue.

<comment><USER11> They are also lowering the bar for knowledge required to successfully operate the probe:

"Computer vision algorithms ingest footage from the handset's camera and detect the probe's location in real time, directing users through augmented reality (AR) prompts precisely where to position it. (Butterfly calls it "Tele-Guidance".)"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What can it and cannot detect compared to MRI, CT and xray?

I know it's used for pregnancy, never saw other contexts for US so far, so would of course love to know if this will have more applications more easily available!

> The cloud storage service to which images are uploaded is AES 256-bit > encrypted and SOC II certified

Um... Encrypting with aes 256 is easy. But will the keys be properly handled?

<comment><USER13> It's useful in a ton of situations, here are just a few examples:

In a cardiac arrest patient, it's useful to know if the heart is actually moving or not (i.e. you may be seeing electrical signals on an EKG, but the heart isn't physically responding). It's also useful to look for a buildup of fluid around the heart, called cardiac tamponade (which squeezes the heart and prevents it from working effectively).

In trauma patients, a "focused assessment with sonography for trauma" or "FAST scan" is a quick way to check the common sources of major internal bleeding (which can provide useful guidance for treatment decisions in a very time sensitive setting).

It's also useful for "routine" stuff like the placement of IVs. Ultrasound can be used to positively identify and locate veins that are otherwise difficult to feel through the skin.

<comment><USER14> It's also commonly used for diagnosis of kidney and bladder issues like looking for kidney stones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Finally a shipping low cost ultrasound device (not just hype/promises). This is a game changer for the 3rd world.</comment>


Ask HN: What tech presented in research papers are you waiting to be mainstream? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Tooth regrowth. All sorts of battery tech. Lab-grown meat.</comment>


Why Not Self Publish a Book? - <AUTHOR> http://bennesvig.com/post/4551286044/why-not-self-publish-book

<comment><USER2> The biggest reason to go with a publisher: marketing and distribution are much easier for publishers with a large stable of books and ongoing relationships with resellers than for lone authors.

I said a bit more about this, in the context of ebooks on a writers.sx thread: [http://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/1002/publishing-a...](http://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/1002/publishing- and-selling-ebooks/1008#1008)</comment>


Donate to the Pizza for GitHub Fund - <AUTHOR> https://life.indiegogo.com/fundraisers/pizza-for-github

<comment><AUTHOR> We're trying to raise money to get the GitHub Ops team some delicious pizza for their on-going hard work mitigating the attack traffic.

Would be great if you could spare anything.

(We realise chinese food might have been better/ironic haha)</comment>


The Crisis of Credit Visualized - <AUTHOR> http://www.crisisofcredit.com/ <comment><USER2> Awesome video, I was coming here to post it and found this.

The thing that bothers me about the whole thing is this:

Why did the borrower have investments that were basically slices of his, and other peoples, mortgages. I mean honestly, 4 or 5 middlemen just so my RRSP (401k) can own a portion of my own house? Sounds like a pretty inefficient investment/tax scheme to me. People should have an emergency fund, but pay off those debts before buying assets, especially assets that are just repackaged debts.

</comment><comment><USER3> That took a lot of work, very impressive. Even if this whole crisis thing doesn't interest you watch it anyway for the clarity of the production.

</comment><comment><USER4> This does a 302 redirection to 127.0.0.1 ... ? Tried from multiple nodes.

<comment><USER4> Looks like it's redirecting to youtube now.

Production quality is really good, would be so nice to have something (shorter) like this for marketing and documentation (along with text versions of course).

I love at the end how the family getting a sub prime mortgage is depicted drinking and smoking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome.</comment>


Ask HN: Coinigy Alternative for Crypto Administration and Accounting? - <AUTHOR> Looking for an alternative to Coinigy that is not buggy, and enables tracking of trades not conducted via their API. Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> Try Coinigy again in a month or so

<comment><AUTHOR> you work there or something? or have roadmap you can share?</comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Any good .NET books? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for resources to learn C# & the .NET platform.  I've got a lot of experience with Java, Ruby & Clojure.  I'm interested in anything from "C# in 21 days" to works about how to write a CLR language compiler.  What books and other stuff can HN recommend? <comment><USER2> I would check out these books: C# in a Nutshell ([http://www.amazon.com/C-4-0-Nutshell-Definitive- Reference/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/C-4-0-Nutshell-Definitive- Reference/dp/0596800959/ref=pd_sim_b_9)) CLR via C# ([http://www.amazon.com/CLR-via-Dev-Pro-Jeffrey- Richter/dp/073...](http://www.amazon.com/CLR-via-Dev-Pro-Jeffrey- Richter/dp/0735627045/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281111125&sr=8-1)) C# in Depth ([http://www.amazon.com/Depth-What-you-need- master/dp/19339883...](http://www.amazon.com/Depth-What-you-need- master/dp/1933988363/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281111147&sr=8-1))

<comment><USER3> I'll gladly second Jon Skeet's 'C# in Depth'. The second edition is currently available through MEAP @ <http://www.manning.com/skeet2/>, with the print edition coming in September.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely Don Box's Essential .NET ([http://www.amazon.com/Essential-NET- Common-Language-Runtime/...](http://www.amazon.com/Essential-NET-Common- Language-Runtime/dp/0201734117)). For the concurrency aspect I recommend Joe Duffy's Concurrent Programming on Windows ([http://www.amazon.com/Concurrent- Programming-Windows-Joe-Duf...](http://www.amazon.com/Concurrent-Programming- Windows-Joe-Duffy/dp/032143482X/)).

</comment><comment><USER5> Consider this another vote for Richter's "CLR Via C#" [http://www.amazon.com/CLR-via-Dev-Pro-Jeffrey- Richter/dp/073...](http://www.amazon.com/CLR-via-Dev-Pro-Jeffrey- Richter/dp/0735627045/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281111125&sr=8-1)

Get the latest edition, covering .NET 4. The chapters on concurrency and I/O alone are worth the price of admission.

</comment><comment><USER6> Try: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/531329/best-c-book-for- an...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/531329/best-c-book-for-an- experienced-programmer)

Personal Recommendation (after learning the language) <http://www.amazon.com/CLR-Via-C-Pro-Developer/dp/0735621632>

</comment><comment><USER7> First I'd recomend learning about Visual Studio as if you don't know about the IDE it can slow and even impede your programming. Wrox's Professional Visual Studio 2010: [http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Visual- Studio-2010-Progra...](http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Visual- Studio-2010-Programmer/dp/0470548657/)

Second, I'd say that for a general book that's informative and not too hard to learn use Wrox's Professional C# 4 and .Net 4. I prefer Wrox books as they are usually the same format book to book and most have you complete a project to practice what you're learning: [http://www.amazon.com/Professional-4-0-NET- Wrox-Programmer/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Professional-4-0-NET-Wrox- Programmer/dp/0470502258/)

Depending on what you're using for your data store I'd also suggest reading up on ADO.NET 4 but I don't have any experience with books on that topic so perhaps someone can suggest some.

</comment><comment><USER8> I recommend the "Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries" book.

[http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Design-Guidelines- Convention...](http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Design-Guidelines-Conventions- Libraries/dp/0321246756)

</comment><comment><USER9> Scott Guthrie's weblog: <http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/>

<comment><USER10> I will say Scott Guthrie is more focussed towards the ASP.NET. But his blogs are really good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Best one for really understanding the CLR and .NET is Jeff Richter's "CLR via C#".</comment>


Germany 'systematically spied' on own allies on grand scale - <AUTHOR> https://www.rt.com/news/321183-germany-spying-surveillance-bnd/ <comment><USER2> although not obvious from the title, this is _not_ in reference to WW2... this is _present-day_</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg Votes to Keep Peter Thiel on Facebook Board - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerberg-votes-to-keep-peter-thiel-on-facebook-b-1782276509 <comment><USER2> Gawker owns Gizmodo and has a vested interest in painting Peter Thiel in a bad light since he has contributed to the legal expenses of their victims, so I'm unconvinced of the newsworthiness of this piece.

<comment><USER3> That doesn't make the headline any less accurate.

<comment><USER2> Zuckerberg voted to keep others on the board, too. It's routine. This isn't news. It's a swipe.

<comment><USER3> The TechCrunch headline is "Peter Thiel was not kicked off Facebook's board" which is actually _worse_ than Gizmodo's headline.

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/20/peter-thiel-was-not- kicked...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/20/peter-thiel-was-not-kicked-off- facebooks-board/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really wish the restrictions can be reduced so board of directors (like @pmarca) can tweet more on the companies.

<comment><USER5> Last time this happened, pmarca ended up offending a country and zuckerberg personally had to apologise twice.

<comment><USER4> That is not a good reason not to do so.</comment></comment></comment>


Where is the DNS headed? - m-app https://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2020-06/row.html <comment><AUTHOR> If I understand correctly, the author presents a case for securing DNS by moving away from a shared directory toward application-specific directories. At the end, he takes a sharp turn to worry that such a move will tear apart the openness of the internet. I suppose an analogy is moving from phone numbers, with shared telco-managed directories, to chat apps managing their own directories. You can't contact me on Instagram with my HN handle because they don't use shared directories.

Ok, but there are more important reasons. Walled-garden directories is a symptom not a cause. For that matter, SNI and path-based load balancers are examples of the application-level address resolution overlay already in practice. Those techniques merely implement, not drive, balkanization.

Basically, application-layer DNS doesn't pass the "but for" test. As in, it is not correct to say "but for application-layer DNS, Facebook/WeChat/Google couldn't build walled gardens. With it they can."

</comment><comment><USER2> There are a lot of arguments about how DoH with TLS 1.3 will give us privacy etc by the proponents of DoH(not this article).. but it's basically moving the trust from ISPs to CDNs. There are fewer major browsers and fewer major CDNs than ISPs, I suppose.. so not sure if it's a good move.

<comment><USER3> Why can't the ISPs run DoH too?

I agree that due to _social_ issues the problems are fairly real (ISPs ain't gonna do shit). But on a purely technical level DoH should be fine.

<comment><USER4> They can. But the problem lies with Browsers (looking especially at Firefox) just ignoring that. The technical aspects of DoH (or DoT) are fine.

<comment><USER5> Mozilla provides a clear policy for how you get your resolver onto their list. US ISPs (the DoH resolver is only enabled by default in the US) _could_ obey that policy and apply to be added to the list.

But it seems like none of them have done that. Maybe the policy terms are objectionable? Let's see:

"Only aggregate data that does not identify individual users or requests may be retained beyond 24 hours."

But how will the poor ISP make extra money selling DNS query information?

"When a domain requested by the user is not present, the party operating the resolver should provide an accurate NXDOMAIN response and must not modify the response or provide inaccurate responses that direct the user to alternative content."

An ISP that obeys this can't put up advertising banners or sell search engine redirects when you typo a name - they'll have to actually earn money providing Internet service instead.

<comment><USER4> Mozilla can't verify that the providers behave. Apart from the obvious NXDOMAIN answers (not many providers will do so).

Also it is questionable why a free service would be better then a paid one. If one assumes that the ISP is evil, DNS providers are not suddenly less evil.

<comment><USER5> As with its Trust Store Mozilla operates in public. If you believe that providers aren't behaving you can and should present evidence to the community.

Mozilla isn't suggesting you choose services based on how cheap they are, but on whether they implement these policies.

NextDNS, who are on Mozilla's list, offer a paid service if you want advertising filters or porn filtering or whatever but if you're damn sure you "get what you pay for" then pay them their subscription fee and don't switch on any filters.

<comment><USER4> >Mozilla isn't suggesting you choose services based on how cheap they are, but on whether they implement these policies.

Mozilla doesn't know if they do. They can't verify it. So if Mozilla says "Cloudflare and Nextdns adhere to our policies" it's not verifiable by me and neither by them. I don't see a "trust but verify"-implementation. This is my gripe with this behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is DoH a net loss to decentralization (by moving to a few major cloud providers) when DoH is merely encrypting the information to prevent MitM spying? Surely nothing stops your favourite ISP or any other local startup from providing DoH services right? Presumably the DNS servers will still talk to each other on the backend over plain text, but if a DoH front-end can be provided by ANY DNS service then how can it be accused of centralising the Internet?

<comment><USER7> > How is DoH a net loss to decentralization (by moving to a few major cloud > providers) when DoH is merely encrypting the information to prevent MitM > spying?

It is not merely encrypting the information. Hand-in-hand comes running the resolvers (which, as you noted everyone can) and having all the DNS-using software use them.

Which is much bigger problem, that causes the centralization. Applications are coming today hard-coded for a specific resolver. Configuring it is application-specific and not-automatable, and certainly not automatable in generic manner for all applications. I.e. as a network operator you cannot say that everyone should be using this or that resolver, as you can with the plain old 53/udp DNS and DHCP.

Users are not going to reconfigure each and every application every time they change their network. They will leave it at the default value. The net effect is that the centralization will _just happen_.

<comment><USER8> Applications can choose to ignore the system resolver regardless if it's over UDP or HTTPS. DoH/DoT is showing up in operating system resolvers just not as fast as apps like browsers were willing/able to add it. Standard DHCP options for defining DoH details are still missing though (I think, haven't checked in a while)

<comment><USER7> > Applications can choose to ignore the system resolver regardless if it's > over UDP or HTTPS.

They can, but up until Firefox legitimized this practice, they didn't, maybe except some malware.

> DoH/DoT is showing up in operating system resolvers just not as fast as apps > like browsers were willing/able to add it.

The browsers were so fast, that they skipped the discussion about ramification of this change with the rest of community and just abused their position. One might even wonder, why.

Does not make for good relations in future.

> Standard DHCP options for defining DoH details are still missing though

Yup. Here, browsers are not using their position to finish their push, so maybe the situation is acceptable for them.

<comment><USER8> On one hand you say browsers are to blame because they went too far too fast bypassing the OS DNS and on the other you say browsers are to blame because they didn't go far and fast enough bypassing the OS DHCP client.

Again are your arguments actually about DoH causing centralization or are you just talking about browsers causing positioning centralization irrespective of the technology?

<comment><USER7> > On one hand you say browsers are to blame because they went too far too fast > bypassing the OS DNS

Yup, they shouldn't have do this.

> On one hand you say browsers are to blame because they went too far too fast > bypassing the OS DNS

No. I'm saying, that once they did what they did, they should have finish the job. They left it unifished.

> Again are your arguments actually about DoH causing centralization or are > you just talking about browsers causing positioning centralization > irrespective of the technology?

My point is that _the way_ DoH was implemented is causing centralization. DoH could be implemented without causing this effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There will always be a need for a shared global namespace, and DNS needs to improve its security and privacy as the world continues to rely on it. I don't think DoH is the answer since it just shifts trust from ISPs to CDNs[1]. On the security end, there's a new DNS protocol called Handshake ([https://handshake.org](https://handshake.org)) that's trying to shift the root of trust from CAs to a distributed ledger. It's still early but it shows promise with NextDNS.io and Vercel.com supporting it.

[1] CDNs are a lesser evil than ISPs but I still wouldn't want to need to trust them to protect my privacy.

<comment><USER10> > CDNs are a lesser evil than ISPs

This keeps being repeated, and I simply do not understand it. Could you elaborate how you arrive at this conclusion that CDN > ISP?

My take:

An unsavory ISP is the only thing I can "vote against" as an end user. I can boycott it by switching elsewhere, I can pick from a ton of mobile providers, I can use a VPN to "subcontract" my connectivity experience to an order of magnitude more providers, or if I am really so inclined I can shuffle all of that by the likes of Tor.

There is _NOTHING_ I can do as an individual to avoid a CDN, aside from never visiting content backed by that CDN.

<comment><USER11> Every ISP I have access to performs DNS-based blocking; to the extent of intercepting ALL UDP DNS traffic (i.e. using other resolvers doesn't work). DoH gets around that.

And I think from the context of the parent, you _can_ choose your CDN('s resolver) -- my version of Firefox (77 on macOS) has NextDNS among the default DoH providers.

<comment><USER12> The issue isn't whether you can choose your resolver _for Firefox_ , it's that it balkanizes the namespace resolution mechanism.

Sure, Firefox is using CDN resolver #1, "optimized for the browser experience", while Spotify uses the CDN resolver #2, "optimized for music discovery".

The namespace will balkanize, and with that the control moves to the owners of the resolvers. That would be a natural evolution of the infrastructure purely due to literal "network effects".

If data can be gleaned from current DNS requests, what data can be gleaned from a browser sending metadata? Who controls those DoH servers?

At least the current DNS namespace, nominally, is devolved, particularly with the explosion of TLDs. That has other disadvantages, but there are advantages too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> s/HTML/HTTP/c in a few places.

<comment><USER13> What does the "c" flag do?

<comment><USER14> "Confirm". It prompts for verification before substituting, in vim:

[https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/vim-tips-basics- sea...](https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/vim-tips-basics-search-and- replace/)

<comment><USER3> oh gawd I just type the `c` out of habit now. that wasn't intentional at all.

<comment><USER14> Confirmed ;-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Please read /noobstories and flag posts - <AUTHOR>

I just flagged 10 obvious spam posts, spread over the past 8 hours.  I realize that most of HN has been asleep for approximately these hours; but please join me in reading http://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories and flagging the spam.<p>PG: Please make this easier by putting [flag] links directly onto the noobstories page. <comment><USER2> The European side of HN needs to earn some more karma in overall so we have a 'solid' 24/7 moderation on HN :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes a quicker flag option would be immensely helpful.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ok, will do. I'm also thinking of adding more types of flags: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006589>

Edit: There should now be flag links on noobstories.

<comment><USER5> It would be great if you allowed us other hacker news copy-cats to have rapid updates to your version of sources. Also many thanks for writing hacker news, it is a great, simple piece of software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> clicky: <http://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories>

<comment><USER7> While we're on the topic of adding features, I'd like to know why links aren't clickable in the main submission. Is there a specific reason? Seems like an inconvenience enough that a "clickable links" comment is nearly always voted to the top.

<comment><USER8> This would encourage editorializing on submissions</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone ever bought a business off a site like BizBuySell.com? - <AUTHOR> Anyone ever thought about buying a business off a site like BizBuySell.com? or Flippa.com? <comment><AUTHOR> Been thinking alot about taking the plunge some have absentee type setups with a manager. Wondering if I could really net the kind of cash flow listed on some of those businesses.

</comment><comment><USER2> Sabine</comment>


Civilization VI removes Red Shell ad-tracking software - <AUTHOR> https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/07/20/civilization-vi-removes-red-shell/ <comment><USER2> Can someone confirm if I've understood this right?

When you view a red shell enabled ad, a script on the page (or perhaps the ad server itself, based on HTTP headers) computes a fingerprint of your browser (IP address, browser version, fonts installed, screen size etc.) and stores (ad_id, fingerprint) in a database somewhere.

When you install and run a red shell enabled game, it computes the fingerprint of your machine and sends (game_id, fingerprint) to the server, which stores this in another table.

By joining these tables on the fingerprint, you can get some info on which ads are correlated with which game purchases.

Apart from this, red shell does NOT modify your browser settings, inject code into all pages you visit, add a browser toolbar, constantly run in the background, MITM your TLS or anything else like that. [EDIT: not trying to defend red shell here, just checking whether I need do a full reinstall of my PC to get rid of this thing]

<comment><USER3> Why fonts? Or do they use fonts as an ID?

<comment><USER4> Fonts are part of the fingerprint, especially if you know the OS. You take the set of installed fonts and subtract the set of OS default fonts, and you are likely to arrive at a unique key.

Take my corporate domain for instance: you could identify any machine on my domain since we'd all have a custom typeface installed (used on our company letterhead.) You could further identify our marketing coordinator, because she has a lot of strange typefaces used for signage and promotions. You could probably further identify me as a web developer since I have a lot of WOFF2 packaged fonts installed.

<comment><USER5> Side question -- do/could type foundries find pirate companies by looking at IP addresses using paid fonts without a license? Hardest part would be linking paid licenses to IP addresses, making individual unpaid usage harder to nail down. But if a company with dozens or hundreds of users at a single IP address all had a particular font installed, that IP was linkable to the company, and company didn't have a license, wouldn't that be pretty damning evidence?

Typeface piracy is otherwise pretty difficult to detect isn't it? Is it part of normal enterprise asset tracking / inventory systems?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I set up a separate gaming rig specifically to isolate these kinds of problems. That's where I run all my games and nothing else.

You'd think it'd be more expensive to have another machine specifically for gaming. But the slowing of CPU advancements means that old systems can be usefully repurposed. I grabbed the husk of an older desktop from a few years ago, its CPU and memory being more than enough for gaming. Threw my GPU over to it (not needed for work or personal desktop usage), and I had a dedicated gaming rig for "free". Now I don't worry about scummy studios releasing malware masquerading as games.

For those more technically inclined, you can do a gaming VM. That used to be my setup prior to having a separate machine. GPU passthrough allows you to give your GPU to the VM. I had it running under Ubuntu, with Windows as the guest. Near identical performance. That was a cool setup, but kept breaking on OS updates so I decided to just use a separate physical machine.

But these are ultimately just defenses and are no excuse for knowingly running malware. Gamers should make it a point not to buy games or other software that plays loose with their privacy. These studios should be ashamed of themselves. But it's impossible to always know ahead of time what horrors lie within your software. So at least I sleep better at night knowing these "games" at least have their own cesspool to writhe around in.

<comment><USER7> Nice setup. I run all my games from a separate partition with its own copy of Windows, but your way is even better. I'm not looking forward to the world where we need a separate machine for each piece of software in order to ensure privacy, but sadly we are heading there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They did get quite a few negative reviews on the Steam store page about this issue, and there's also a large thread with users complaining ( [https://steamcommunity.com/app/289070/discussions/0/17095641...](https://steamcommunity.com/app/289070/discussions/0/1709564118762025388/) ) which probably led to this action.

As an aside, complaints might have been even more numerous if the game were actually good, as of now Civ 5 has a peak of 30K users playing daily, while Civ 6 a peak of only 20K.

<comment><USER9> > As an aside, complaints might have been even more numerous if the game were > actually good, as of now Civ 5 has a peak of 30K users playing daily, while > Civ 6 a peak of only 20K.

A question to the gamers on HN: What makes Civ5 in your opinion/in the opinion of many gamers better than Civ6?

<comment><USER10> Generally for the Civ games the new one doesn't become overly popular till a few expansions are released. It was the same when Civ V came out, a lot of people were saying Civ IV was better. Civ VI is a good game I think most people will switch eventually, just takes some time.

<comment><USER11> It is more about modding outside of the general player base that already played, and dropped it.

The sustained users are ones that have good mods that improve the AI, and other aspects of the game. Civ 6 hasn't released the DLL, so us as modders, are in a holding pattern. Most of the major modders have quit (as have I) until the DLL is released.

As an AI modder, I just can't improve the AI without the DLL.

<comment><USER3> // The sustained users are ones that have good mods that improve the AI, and other aspects of the game. Civ 6 hasn't released the DLL, so us as modders, are in a holding pattern. Most of the major modders have quit (as have I) until the DLL is released.//

That's it right there. The Civ5 mod(s) "vox populi" is a must in any game I play. And it changes much of the game. Not possible to do in Civ6.

Also, I don't like the cartoon graphics of Civ6.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone have a list of the domains these guys use?

I'm curious if these are in the DNSLB easy lists or the lists used by PiHole.

If they aren't I'd like to add them to my blacklists on Pfblocker-NG.

<comment><USER2> redshell.io is already in uMatrix' list of blocked domains, so it looks like the easy lists are up to date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Funnily enough (and not that it makes it OK) you didn't have to accept the agreement to play the game (just click "I don't agree" or whatever the option is). Not sure if they still continued harvesting data though...

</comment><comment><USER14> Does the game show adverts in-game? Is the game free or do you pay for it? Sounds insane! I'd be upset enough about the ads nevermind the added salt of tracking!

<comment><USER15> No ads in game - this is supposed to be a campaign effectiveness tracker.

Since you buy these PC games through Steam there's no easy way to associate an ad impression with a resulting purchase like there is on mobile. Red Shell creates a device fingerprint for each ad and each play session and compares the two sets to see which ads were followed by purchases.

So on one hand, no ads in game and unlike Superfish or something it's perfectly reasonable info for devs to want. But on the other hand, it's achieved by way of a deep fingerprint which is uniquely identifying, and which could in theory be matched to other device fingerprints elsewhere.

I'm glad to see it gone, but I'd be fine if it came back as something fancy like a client-side hash of the data; the ad correlation is fine with me, the retained fingerprint isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think something like Red Shell is obviously good for society and consumers are hurting themselves by overreacting.

Better targeted ads == less money wasted on ads and more money spent on development == less people annoyed by ads they're not interested in == better games. Shame.

<comment><USER15> This seems like a misunderstanding of the complaint. I know people do oppose targeted advertising, but that's not why they're mad about Red Shell.

The _way_ Red Shell targets ads involves building and storing full device fingerprints when you play a game. It's a privacy risk totally separate from the targeted advertising question. And yes, individual devs could do that also, but at least I've chosen to deal with those devs, and my data can't be tracked across different games by different companies.

If Red Shell switches to something like a device-side hash of the fingerprint, so that it can recognize returning users but not give out (or lose) the underlying data, I'd feel vastly better about it. Basic targeting analytics don't bother me, and "did this game ad work?" is vastly more justified than most tracking. I just don't want it tied to an externally-stored device fingerprint.

<comment><USER16> I guess I don't understand in what way that's a privacy risk. They have the device fingerprint, isn't that just the device id, like a name? This is only meaningful if paired with another piece of information, like your personal identity or other tracking. In this case it's game sales which I think is definitely a positive thing. I mean if they were tracking other things or keylogging or something I would be mad but...

<comment><USER17> They are apparently also logging the Steam ID which is unique for each Steam account. In my eyes the Steam ID is PII as very few people with more than one game on it will change their Steam account.

<comment><USER18> Although making a one way hash is the right way, having no opt-in is not in the EU. Also, you'd be surprised at what counts as PII in the EU. I know I've been after I read a lawyer's blog on the matter (sadly in my native language).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Grayscale Phone Except for Photos - <AUTHOR> Does anybody know if its possible or know any launchers that can grayscale everything on your Android phone except when taking photos and viewing photos? <comment><USER2> I can't even imagine how that would have to be implemented. I think your best bet is something that can be turned on and off easily.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think grayscale is a great way to reduce phone addiction, but when I need to take or view photos, it would be nice if they were color.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A MUD-server using lua coroutines - <AUTHOR>

I recently finished a round of tweaks on my barebones mud-server and thought HN might be interested.
https://github.com/endgame/MudCore
It sits somewhere between socketmud and a full mud like tbamud in that it handles all the socket work and telnet negotiation, but it makes no assumptions about anything else. The other interesting thing is that it can talk to other services using ZeroMQ.
I'm interested in reactions, particularly in terms of coding style, documentation quality and so on. It's my main "presentation piece" so far, in that it's some of the first code I actually feel proud to have on the internet.
(Someone posted this 248 days ago, but it generated no discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2707979, I hope the repost is OK.) <comment><USER2> I love the concept; I used to play a lot of MUDs back in the day, and this brings back all kinds of awesome memories.

So... you're looking for reactions. That's my first one :). Now for the constructive ones.

The documentation may be fantastic, but it's relatively unapproachable for me; not because of the content, but because of the format. Before I download a project like this (that is likely to consume a bunch of my time), I want to flip through the API documentation and get a good feel for what I'm getting into. Github will automagically format Markdown documents; browsing through that is a lot simpler than trying to install texinfo on my Mac, especially if I'm not yet convinced that I want to sink time into your project.

As far as the code goes, this looks very similar to my own personal C style, which means I approve :). Not much to comment on here, it seems reasonably modular and straightforward to follow. I wouldn't call myself either a ZMQ or a Lua master (although I have dabbled in both), and I find this pretty easy to understand.

A final thought relates again to the "barrier to entry" I mentioned regarding the documentation. Looking at the source, it runs the source from boot.lua after starting up. This file, though, is completely empty. It might be worth it to spend a few hours making a few examples; this can significantly lower the amount of effort required to get started with the project.

While making it _easier_ to get started with it, you get an additional benefit (and responsibility) from having example code; the style and the patterns you use in your example code will set the "standard" for code that others will write. I've had to explain this time and again to friends and co-workers: example code is documentation, and often it's the only documentation anyone will ever read.

Anyway, hope that's helpful :) This looks like a really neat project, and I wish I had time to actually noodle around with it more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your points about documentation are sound and something I haven't thought of before. I'll have to set up a post-commit hook or something to keep some generated documentation up to date.

Putting something useful into boot.lua and developing some examples are both very good ideas and a bit easier to set up. I'll have to do that.

Thanks for the detailed response.

<comment><USER2> No problem! It took me a long time to realize how important the examples are, both the positive side (that it makes it way easier for people to get rolling with a library) and the negative side (that your example code is probably going to end up being a template for 99% of your users).

Mostly, those realizations came from conversations with co-workers:

Me: "Why on earth did you write that code that way?" Coworker: "That's how the example showed..."</comment></comment></comment>


Beestar launches centimetric motion tracker for teams and individuals - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/10/beestar-launches-with-ultra-precise-quantified-self-device-aimed-at-pro-sports/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, do not miss the indiegogo campaign: [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/quasp-wearable-sensors- for...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/quasp-wearable-sensors-for-team- sports/x/4711284)

<comment><USER2> I'm sure this is thrilling to folks interested in tracking their sports performance; it does seem like a somewhat new and useful product for that field. It's not my area of expertise at all, I just looked at it due to general gadget/sensors/tracking interests triggering.

I found the campaign page lacking in technical detail, it repeatedly states that it's "accurate", but never becomes more specific than saying "inch- accurate". What does that mean? That the position of the device is tracked with an accuracy of +/\- 1 inch? Globally? Without extra hardware "in the field" (such as that used by the tractors discussed here just a few days ago)? The title here uses the word "centimetric", but that's not repeated on the campaign page.

Also, $200 _feels_ expensive to me, but again I'm not in the market, perhaps it's magically cheap if you simply could not do this before, but now you can.

<comment><USER3> Exactly, it would be interesting to get a bit more insight into the technology given the extraordinary claims of accuracy.

<comment><USER4> Good point. We're going to be adding a paper about the technology in the next couple of days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting, it looks something I've never seen before despite my many years in the field.

I'm very curious to see it in action, and eventually try it!

</comment><comment><USER6> A very interesting solution that could be used in different context of interest for the people, for the service company but specially for the Pubblic administrations

</comment><comment><USER7> That is actually quite a good idea. Makes me wonder what other "Quantification as a Service" ideas are out there.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great!

We want to see the system in action

</comment><comment><USER9> Great idea</comment>


Online CBT is no more effective than usual GP care for depression - <AUTHOR> https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000366/online-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-is-no-more-effective-than-usual-gp-care-for-people-with-depression?utm_content=buffer3572b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> The study did not seem to separate the results of those who completed online CBT from the majority who did not.

An interesting excerpt: "Take-up of computerised CBT was low, despite regular calls to encourage participants to use the programmes. The median number of sessions completed was two out of eight for Beating the Blues and one out of six for MoodGYM. Only 18% of people who started Beating the Blues completed all modules and 16% for MoodGYM."

Online CBT definitely is not effective if patients don't complete it despite receiving phone calls. I can imagine that getting the motivation to log in and do it is really difficult when you're already feeling hopeless-- even not- depressed people have enough trouble building and sticking to habits as it is.

But I still wonder if online CBT was effective for the small portion of participants who did complete it? What were the characteristics of those who did complete the app? Perhaps we can learn something.

CBT app builders should also consider that self-care options for depression have existed for a long time in the form of books. Can an app do a substantially better job than books? The idea of solving medical issues remotely has been tried for decades.

<comment><USER3> > despite regular calls to encourage participants to use the programmes

People aren't going to use it if it sucks or isn't giving them value. I looked into Beating the Blues a while ago - it's not exactly a great experience. Being reminded just isn't enough.

> Can an app do a substantially better job than books?

I think so.

Books are passive content that you consume in your own time. And, it certainly is helpful. But an app can do so much more towards offering a much richer, more engaging experience. But - and this is crucial - you have to get it right. And I think it is MUCH easier to get a book right, than an app. A book is just the content - an app is a manifestation of that content; if the book could talk, what would it say? ask? how would it do it and how often?

We'll see. My side project is to scratch some CBT & behavioral itches I have had with an app. I could be entirely wrong, but I wont know till I finish and see if it is of use for me.

<comment><USER4> Hey, any chance you'd be open to telling me a bit about what you're working on? I'm on a bit of a... journey to get beyond the 'shitty contract webdev work', and the direction I'm looking to go is technology applied to psychology (therapy and/or lifestyle, in particular). My first thought was also some CBT- related app.

<comment><USER3> Sure. Well, It's an app to help you be a better person of your own design. CBT is one of the libraries to choose from, but there are others for leadership, relationships, health and so forth.

Hrm, I would not identify it as an appification of CBT - You can use it to help implement CBT or other behavioral/cognitive changes, but the actual understanding would need to be done previously, to get the most benefit. Although I suppose even without any previous knowledge or awareness, some value could be derived.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As I recall, some influential people in NICE and/or the NHS _really_ wanted this to work because it's vastly cheaper and more available than in-person CBT. This result is consistent with a longstanding but controversial hypothesis that the overall quality of the therapist-client relationship is far more important than the nuts and bolts of whatever theory the therapist follows [1].

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

<comment><USER6> I recall something that supports this hypothesis.

there is good evidence that merely _reading_ the book "feeling good" by David burns (father of CBT) is as effective as medication.

this indicates the relationship matters, because we're talking about people who didn't _act_ on the book, but merely _read_ it.

<comment><USER7> A link for that would be appreciated.

<comment><USER6> Well, this may not have the supporting info you want, but it might help you track it down: [http://holisticonline.com/Remedies/Depression/dep_bibliother...](http://holisticonline.com/Remedies/Depression/dep_bibliotherapy.htm)

Here's one relevant quote: "The effectiveness of stand-alone bibliotherapy was evaluated in five published studies by a team of investigators headed by Dr. Forrest Scogin from the University of Alabama. These researchers evaluated the effectiveness of Dr. David Burns' "Feeling Good" as well as Dr. Peter Lewinsohn's "Control Your Depression," as self-administered treatments for depression. The investigators concluded that Feeling Good was as effective as a full course of individual psychotherapy or as treatment with the best antidepressant drugs."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "is no more effective than usual"

Hm, interesting phrasing.

Is this another way of saying "was found to be just as effective as the more expensive standard treatment"?

> There was no significant difference between usual GP care, Beating the Blues > plus usual care, or MoodGYM plus usual care at four, 12 or 24 months.

No significant difference, so it's every bit as good.

> CBT delivered online or via a computer was thought to offer a potential low- > cost alternative.

And it costs less.

So yes, they found it is less expensive and works just as well as the standard treatment, but choose to phrase it in a way to indicate the study had failed by saying "is no more effective" which misleadingly implies it might be less effective, rather than the more accurate "is just as effective", which is more clear and accurate given that there was "no significant difference".

<comment><USER9> I think you're misreading the results.

> There was no significant difference between usual GP care, Beating the Blues > _plus usual care_ , or MoodGYM _plus usual care_ at four, 12 or 24 months.

So if "usual GP care" is the baseline, online CBT doesn't add to that baseline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those of us who don't know:

CBT - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy GP - General practitioner (normal doctor?)

<comment><USER11> Yeah, "general practitioner" in the UK = "primary care physician" or "family doctor" in other countries, more-or-less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I played with a free online cbt and got much further than their average participant in this study.. I'm not sure if there is any use to cbt for depression, but I would suspect that it would work better in a preventative fashion.

I.e. I did notice that I can let thinking about some social interactions go where they would bother me in the past, but if I was depressed when I played with it, then maybe I would just notice how bad I was at benefiting from CBT at the moment where I should be letting something go.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Submitting this because some people on HN have said they're building apps to help mental health treatment.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can recommend:

1\. Mindful meditation [free] -> Daily practice (30+ minutes)

John Kabat-Zinn [0] masters the link between science and meditation and has published very valuable books (including guided/audio meditation exercises) [1]. There are a couple of scientific studies which prove effectiveness [2] [3].

2\. LSD [$5-10/dose + $25/multi-use test kit] -> One-time experience (every 6 months max.)

Benefits (mid- and long-term) are similar to those of meditation. It however requires one to literally read/understand/know everything about the substance before applying it (minimum literature: "The psychedelic explorer's guide" by Fadiman). Also, order a test kit and test before you ingest. Certain "edge cases"/people should not try it. In addition, you may be able to access your spiritual dimension, which increases quality of life even further (it is less immediate with meditation).

You may combine micro-dosing LSD with meditation for accessing the meditative state easier (it's quite a challenge for depressed people).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat- Zinn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn)

[1] [https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4180277/Mindful_Way_Through...](https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4180277/Mindful_Way_Through_Depression_- _Guided_Meditation_Practices)

[2] [http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks- to...](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better- brain)

[3] [http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214697/meditation-brain- neuros...](http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214697/meditation-brain-neuroscience)

<comment><AUTHOR> _How dropping acid saved my life_

[https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/jan/08/how- dropping-...](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/jan/08/how-dropping- acid-saved-my-life-ayelet-waldman-books-depression?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The original title is "Online cognitive behavioural therapy is no more effective than usual GP care for people with depression" which by no means is the same as the title here because CBT, ahem, has other meanings. Sorry.

</comment><comment><USER15> If the GP care was ineffective, of course the CBT modeled after that care was equally ineffective. To expect any different is just silly.

I would be interested to see a study of obvious alternatives - perhaps an online interactive exercise program, something that provided a positive social interaction, or how the use of a sleep tracker could affect depression.

</comment><comment><USER16> to echo df3's point: this study showed that online CBT wasn't that helpful but didn't couldn't tell if it was a compliance issue or a modality issue.

This is a classic problem in drug trials as well: you get data on how the drug works in a controlled setting (when the patients are monitored) but in the real world: do people take their meds reliably?

It may be that many people suffering depression benefit from the (not specifically trained -- this is the point) GP talking to them as a forcing function. The diet companies know this well.

</comment><comment><USER17> Couldn't the headline read: "Online CBT as effective as usual GP care for depression"?

<comment><USER18> The online stuff was in addition to GP care, not in lieu of it.

<comment><USER19> >>The online stuff was in addition to GP care, not in lieu of it.

And it made no difference.

From the article: >> There was no significant difference between usual GP care, Beating the Blues plus usual care, or MoodGYM plus usual care at four, 12 or 24 months.

So I would say there was no indication that the online CBT was of any benefit whatsoever.

<comment><USER20> Or that both hit the ceiling on CBT effectiveness.

<comment><USER19> There was no indication of that either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If one is familiar with acronyms used in BDSM it is really hard to read CBT and interpret it as its non obscene version...</comment>


Ask HN: How to get users/traffic who are actually interested in this webapp? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I've launched a web application earlier this week called www.organizemysearch.com
The idea is to let users organize things like used car searches, apartment rental searches, or other types of searches they do online.
For example, if someone is looking for a used car, they will go to several different sites and look at various car ads. This website allows them to save all the ads found on different websites (automatically loading all the data). This way the user can more easily see all the ads he is considering and have everything in one place to sort and compare all his/her options.
The problem is I can't figure out what keywords I should use that would actually represent what the application does accurately, which is "a tool for organizing your online searches" (eg. organize your used car searches, organize your apartment rental searches, organize your search for 'blueberry muffins',etc)
I would like to optimize the site so people who are actually looking for such a tool will find it easier in search engines, but I'm not sure what approach I should take. I don't even know what category this web application falls into?
Most searches about 'organize' on google are things about physically organizing your garage, home, garden or apartment. And anything with 'search' in it gives very generic or non related results in google searches.
Example of some keywords I've tried:
organize search [very generic, most google results are articles about seo and search engines] organize car search [1 hit on google] organize appartment rental search [no results] organize shopping items [tons of articles about how to organize your groceries]
Any ideas on how I can better market this web application, or optimize SEO for this website so I can attract people who are actually looking for such a tool? <comment><USER2> Your problem is that people don't know that they would find your product useful until they have it. Who is actually going to be looking for your tool?

Drew Houston has talked about this in respect to Dropbox (<http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/262672510>) - who knew they needed Dropbox until they found out about it? USB sticks and email work just fine, right?

I have exactly the same issue with Synctus - VPNs and Terminal Services work just fine, right?

What you need to do is find a channel. People who are already in the business for whom your product is a value-add.

For example: for Synctus, I am reselling through IT professionals - the people who might recommend and install VPNs and Terminal Services for their customers.

In your case, you might see if you can approach specialist car search and real estate search sites - if you can work out something that you can give them which will add value to their service too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps you could work with some of the classified sites themselves (start with smaller ones) to add an "Organize My Search" widget. Pitch it as a way for them to increase engagement and drive more return visits.

Also, many car enthusiast forums have "Cars for Sale" sections, and they're utter disasters. It would be valuable to be able to save those listings easily (bookmarklet?). A little word-of-mouth campaign on a forum can go a long way, and you can kick it off with a forum sponsorship with commercial posting rights.

(Side Note: The question in your header is implied -- don't state it, just answer it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I was thinking about the car forums approach actually, but the widget idea is a good too. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excuse my buzz word but I think the only way you can make it spread is to embed a virus. One of the things you can do is to enable user to share his search with friends/family over facebook, twitter etc. They could help him adding additional elements to the search (i.e. if they find something on the web that user is looking for they can submit a link), or give other advice.

SEO will not work - as it didn't work for Dropbox. Nobody is waking up one day and start searching for such a tool that you provide.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Excuse my buzz word but I think the only way you can make it spread is to embed a virus".

I guess I can't take that as a compliment, but will acknowledge much room for improvement of the website :)

As for SEO, I'm not just looking to optimize it for SEO as the main method of 'putting it out there', but rather looking to figure out ways to market it and place it in it's niche (which I'm still not sure of).

</comment></comment><comment> adam-_- By the way, the homepage is bit of a mess on Safari + Mac (I know you're not asking for that kind of feedback but yeh...).

Side-scrolling main frame thing is just awkward. Some of the images overlap as well.

I don't think this is something that people will know they need, or at least, not know what to call. So approaching potential customers through forums, reviews on relevant blogs, widgets/partnerships sounds like a reasonable route to take.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out. I have rushed a bit through the css part in order to get it out there, otherwise bugs and ideas keep piling up and you never release (even small apps like this).

I have planned to switch to Blueprint css framework to simplify the design part (design is not my strong point).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure who your target audience is. I've searched for apartments, a car, and a house. Every time I used a spreadsheet to keep track of those things and it worked great. From my quick look at your site, that's all you really seem to be offering. I'm not sure what extra value you're adding.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you, and thanks for the feedback.

The idea of this webapp however is to do things more than that. You could say some people prefer using even bookmarks or in my case sometimes I used to use notepad for keeping track of car ads for example.

But the websites has some advantages.

1) It parses out data for you automatically [unlike excel or notepad], like car mileage, color, price, etc (or in the case of other types of searches - parses out relevant information like monthly rent, number of bedrooms,etc) (which allows the user to really sort and compare all the options)

2) With future enhancements it will automatically detect ads which have expired from everything you saved (not easily done with bookmarks)

3) Also it can be accessed anywhere, being a web application

4) But most importantly it saves one time to look through everything, eg. all options.

For people who really take their time to make decisions when buying certain items like a used car, an apartment rental, or something else, it would be useful to be able to really compare everything you found for things like best price or lowest mileage across all ads you found from different websites.

Try doing that in notepad or with bookmarks and it quickly sucks up your time (which was one of my main personal motivations for creating it).

<comment><USER5> Cool, sounds like you have a lot of features there. I didn't know about the parsing part. What I would love is if you would poll those sites daily and then alert me whenever a car of a certain model is listed for a specific mileage and price. That would be amazing. It sounds like you have the parsing part already done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. The parsing works for websites that are 'monitored' by organizemysearch.com (and more will be added as the website grows). So if you paste in a car ad url from cars.com it will parse the basic info for you (eg. mileage, price, make, model, etc).

The advantage here is the user can add their own fields which they think are relevant to a car search. So someone could add something like "my comfort level in the backseat" and anytime they add another car ad they could specify something like 'good','average','bad' which will be associated with that car ad so in the end they can sort things very easily and weigh their options better.

As for your alert idea, I can see that being an add-on product perhaps. However I know that most of the major new/used car websites provide alerting capabilities based on certain criteria, so that functionality may already exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think you're a feature. A perhaps sorely missed feature, but still a feature. I agree trying to drive traffic is hopeless. You need to find partners that want to embed your functionality. You shouldn't be a destination, you should be a service for destinations.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I forgot to add a clickable link <http://www.organizemysearch.com>

feel free to use user/pass:hn/hn to test it out if you want!</comment>