Feds Bust CEO Allegedly Selling Custom BlackBerry Phones to Sinaloa Drug Cartel - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/a34b7b/phantom-secure-sinaloa-drug-cartel-encrypted-blackberry <comment><USER2> This line shocked me: "We made it—we made it specifically for this [drug trafficking] too," Ramos told undercover agents, according to a transcript included in the complaint.

Rule #1 for managing products with grey-market applications: never acknowledge the existence of the illegal market (or any activity that opens you to up to material civil suits).

That instantly exposes you to all kinds of criminal and civil liability; the fact an individual said it vs. "the company" likely makes you personally liable as well, the corporate veil won't help you much here.

You're not making cheap guns for gang members to kill people with, you're developing affordable security options for lower income citizens who are exercising their 2nd amendment rights.

You're not creating tools that help criminals hide their past, you're helping good people clear their record from legitimate mistakes and errors... or evade privacy invading snoops... etc.

Always talk about the white hat applications, never the sinister ones...

<comment><USER3> Out of curiosity - how do people who employ these marketing tactics reconcile this? do they drink their own Kool-Aid or do they willfully turn a blind eye to the grey/blackhat clients because they don't want to think about it?

<comment><USER4> You could, basically, say the same about guns. Guns kill 10s of 1000s of people in the US each year. Any manufacturer who makes, for example, semi- automatics and other military style weapons knows that it's for killing people, not deer. But they still make them. Why? Ostensibly, due to the 2nd Amendment.

So why doesn't the same apply to these phones vis-a-vis the 1st Amendement? Sure, you could use the phone for drug transactions; but that's not what it was designed to do; just like you _could_ use a car to carry drugs, but that's not what it was designed for.

<comment><USER5> Plenty of hunting rifles are semi automatic. By "military style" do you mean "black guns"? Because you can hunt with black rifles as well. And lots of people simply like guns and have fun taking them out to the shooting range. And they have absolutely zero intention or desire to shoot another human. And by "lots" I mean the huge majority, most likely.

<comment><USER6> I'm an avid hunter and have never known, seen, heard of, or even imagined using an AR15 (for example) for hunting. Although I'm sure some people will claim they do. The modern AR15 a semi-automatic "retail" version of a gun designed to be optimally efficient at killing multiple humans in combat scenarios.

And absolutely you're 100% correct. The vast majority of owners are law- abiding and just enthusiasts who like customizing and shooting their semi- neutered human killing tool at the range. Hey, I agree, the AR-15 is cool looking and fun to shoot in "safe" environments.

However, humans are unpredictable, unreliable bags of irrational emotions. The future is going to be marked by a steady removal of humans from things they are unreliable and unsafe at doing (ie. driving, etc). If you think 100 years from now Bob is going to be driving himself to the range to go shoot whatever absurdly powerful handheld-railgun-type-instrument-of-death exists in the future I'd say you're comedically on the wrong side of history.

<comment><USER5> You probably hunt big game then. AR-15s are very popular and fun for "varmint" hunting. It is open season on wild hogs in several southern states right now due to their invasion and subsequent overpopulation. And you really need a semi-auto if you are going to take down several of them quickly when they run in packs.

>humans are unpredictable, unreliable bags of irrational emotions

Ya, but not really. Death by mass shooting is so rare, like winning a big jackpot in the lottery rare. There are so many opportunities for humans to make mischief and commit violent acts day in and day out, yet they don't. The only reason mass shootings get so much attention is because it is so rare. Guns in America aren't going to go away anytime soon. 100 years in the future, maybe, but with the advent of cheap 3d printers that can create firearms, and the fact that there are simply so many firearms in the US already that will essentially last forever with minimum upkeep, the future may be just as full of guns as ever.

Not to mention there will likely always be a community of enthusiasts. Just like 100 years ago, some people predicted no one would ever need to use horses in the future, but today, millions of people have horses. As noted in another HN article, today, there are more available models of fountain pen and ink than ever before, even though fountain pens were obsoleted many years ago.

So yes, I think it is very likely that some people will drive themselves to a shooting range with their vintage non-self driving car and shoot off some rounds.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention the connection between mass shootings and AR-15's completely falls apart unless you're looking exclusively as white kids in school and factor in just how popular they are across the entire country. Including among police.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This has a lot of parallels to the guy arrested for making secret compartments in cars. The compartments weren't specifically for anything illegal but close enough.

[https://www.wired.com/2013/03/alfred- anaya/](https://www.wired.com/2013/03/alfred-anaya/)

<comment><USER9> Alfred Anaya's conviction is quite a story. He really got the book thrown at him and then some, while much bigger fish in the drug trade got half of his 24 year sentence because they opted to bargain with the government.

Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yesterday I was pondering what the ultimate "side-piece" phone would be (that is, a secondary phone you use for OPSEC when leading a second life.)

Unlike a burner phone, you wouldn't constantly be throwing it away (just getting new SIMs every once in a while) so cheapness would not be the #1 priority—but it _would_ still be #2 or #3, since this is still a whole 'nother phone you have in addition to the phone you usually use. And you'd want it to be ergonomic to text on, so a 1990s candybar dumbphone wouldn't quite cut it. It wouldn't need apps like a modern smartphone (other than maybe messaging apps.) And battery life would be important—it's often hard to find private time to charge a secret phone—so a big screen would be a drawback, not a positive.

Ultimately, I figured that an old Blackberry would be perfect for this use- case. Guess I deduced correctly.

<comment><USER11> Both the SIM and the phone's serial number are available to the network. An analyst looking to correlate your activities can do so trivially. In fact, this is how Italian investigators were able to prove the link between a CIA cell and the American embassy. No one used the same SIM to talk to both groups, but they did use the same phone.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwGsr3SzCZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwGsr3SzCZc)

<comment><USER10> Yes, sure, the IMEI is accessible; this is why I referred to it as a "side- piece phone" rather than a "burner phone." They're separate OPSEC profiles: evading a state attacker, vs. anonymizing some of your traffic from the view of a private individual attacker (e.g. your spouse.)

<comment><USER12> Step 0 is to correctly identify the threat model. If you're just hiding an affair from your spouse, any old smartphone on a prepaid contract will do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if they will give fine the perp and give him deferred prosecution if he promises not to do it again.

[https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hsbc-holdings-plc-and-hsbc- ba...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hsbc-holdings-plc-and-hsbc-bank-usa-na- admit-anti-money-laundering-and-sanctions-violations)

<comment><USER14> A recommended read for anyone looking to find out more about the near-immunity that the corporate elite enjoy:

The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives

<comment><USER15> By executive do they mean big co executive? The pattern with most regulators & prosecutors is they go after the easy to prosecute. If your hard to prosecute then they stop doing it because it doesn't look good for their career numbers.

<comment><USER14> Yes, sorry, that is what I meant by "corporate elite".

I'm not so sure it applies in this case as I don't really see the corp in question as being big (relatively speaking).

To your point, this is basically what the book covers. It is the logical conclusion of both fiduciary duty and the overwhelming effect that strong legal representation has on the justice system. At this extreme, the legal representation outright prevents prosecution instead of simply affecting the outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm still unclear from the article what the actual alleged crime is here? They sold a product that was not illegal to perform a function (encrypted communication) that is not (yet) illegal but it is alleged it was used to arrange illegal activity by a third party?

Ford's CEO isn't arrested when a mustang is used as a getaway car in a bank robbery, even though speed and acceleration are features they sell the product on that are clearly useful to an escaping bank robber. McDonald's CEO isn't arrested when a cartel hitman eats a Big Mac while waiting outside his target's house. When exactly is the line crossed? Is it when explaining how the features of the product are useful to a client who intends to engage in illegal activity?

<comment><USER17> > _what [is] the actual alleged crime...here?_

"Attempt and conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances" and "obstruction," according to the complaint [1]. Creating an encrypted phone is probably legal. Creating an encrypted phone for drug traffickers is not. Intent matters to the law.

[1] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4406486-Vincent- Ramo...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4406486-Vincent-Ramos- Complaint.html)

 _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice._

<comment><USER16> One of the other comments in the thread linked that original complaint and yeah it makes the whole thing look even more dubious than the original article did. The evidence presented there seems extremely weak and it will be interesting to see if these charges stick. Clearly law enforcement hates private communications and are trying to put the pressure on companies that provide them on the basis of highly questionable entrapment efforts and tenuous evidence.

This case really highlights how destructive the drug war has been to individual rights. When you have a victimless 'crime' like this where all parties to the transactions are willing participants and there is no victim to complain to law enforcement then the only way for charges to be brought is entrapment, oppressive surveillance or encroaching on fourth amendment rights. The logical progression is to attack parties providing otherwise completely legitimate and legal private and secure communications.

<comment><USER17> > _When you have a victimless 'crime' like this_

Consider two knife makers. One sells cooking knives. The other sells similar knives and tells people they're designed for stabbing. (The handles may be made so lifting prints off them is intentionally difficult.) Two stabbings happen, one with each of their knives. The government may have a case against the latter knife maker in being party to the crime.

Trafficking drugs is illegal. (It is also far from victimless.) If you intentionally make devices to aid drug traffickers, and then confess that to a federal agent, the government probably has a case. I say all this as someone who believes in de-criminalising most recreational drugs.

 _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice._

<comment><USER16> Both knives designed for stabbing people and guns and bullets designed for shooting people exist and are sold in the US and I'm not aware of their manufacturers or retailers generally being held liable when they are used to commit crimes. I don't think your analogy holds.

Selling drugs is victimless in the sense that there is no legal ''victim" bringing a complaint - both the seller and the buyer are generally willing participants in the transaction. This is why so many drug prosecutions must rely on stings, undercover cops, informants, surveillance, etc. This is not to say that nobody suffers any harm as a result of the drug trade.

In this particular complaint there is no victim and all the evidence comes from undercover cops and informants.

<comment><USER18> While there are certainly guns that are suitable for shooting people, have you seen a gun manufacturer advertise its products as being suitable for any illegal purpose?

They are extremely careful with their marketing language, and I have never seen any reference to shooting another person without it being heavily couched in castle doctrine / home defense language. They're not out there marketing their wares as being better for hitmen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They don't seem to be the brightest criminals:

Multiple undercover agents, posing as drug traffickers looking to expand their operations, also met Ramos in Las Vegas in February 2017, the complaint continues.

"We made it—we made it specifically for this [drug trafficking] too," Ramos told undercover agents, according to a transcript included in the complaint.

<comment><USER20> I don't think they actually said the part in the brackets. It's an editorial insertion, and probably from the person who wrote this article rather than from the transcript being quoted.

<comment><USER21> "We made it—we made it specifically for this shit too,"

probably said something like that

<comment><USER22> So basically "our product is specifically designed for your application, please give us your money"?

Yeah, because people never stretch the truth when trying to make a sale

<comment><USER23> Stretching the truth should have consequences too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Recently I decided to have some fun "going dark" with my phone update. I wonder how far I got:

\- I purchased iPhone8 from the store using cash. I gave fake name to print out receipt.

\- I purchased empty sim card from eBay with cash at $5 value

\- Finally on my way back, I picked up $500 pre-paid card from Wallmart. The lady at checkout wanted my ID because as she said "the purchase is over $500 with cash" (I had few other items) but I complained that this is BS and she probably doesn't like my accent, and she let me go without authentication.

\- I brought all this home when I have whole house covered with VPN from one of top 5 VPN providers (altho I connect thru USA - any connection from outside makes life much more complicated, like multiple verification screens etc)

\- The sim card company website gave me some issues using prepaid card; but as I remembered that gift cards should not be used for ongoing charges, I just unchecked "autopay every month" and it went thru.

\- I registered mail.com email address without phone # or optional recovery email

\- I fired up new iPhone with new empty sim card. I went thru setup process using new email. Here it was harder. iTunes did not like my prepaid card. I had to use my VOIP app (not Google, an app I use from Netherlands) to call iTunes and complain. I think it was a matter of one flag because it took them five seconds. I had verified complete iTunes account with valid payment method on it.

\- Of course I turned off as much localization/icloud/blahblah stuff I could

\- I decided not to use my new phone and new number for incoming or outgoing numbers due to number matching techniques "they" use; instead I use a VOIP app to call my people.

\- I did sign up to my regular mailbox but did it from BlueMail iPhone app, not the native one.

I wonder how hard it will be or how long it will take "them" to match me back...

Edit: altho this is my last "iteration" with regular phone. NExt one on my list is [https://www.silentcircle.com/](https://www.silentcircle.com/)

<comment><USER25> > I purchased iPhone8 from the store using cash. I gave fake name to print out > receipt.

Did you buy this from the Apple store? What precautions were taken to avoid their obvious & hidden cameras

> I purchased empty sim card from eBay with cash at $5 value

Now the dealer you bought said SIM from has your name, address, and email, plus some card details from PayPal.

> Finally on my way back, I picked up $500 pre-paid card from Wallmart. The > lady at checkout wanted my ID because as she said "the purchase is over $500 > with cash" (I had few other items) but I complained that this is BS and she > probably doesn't like my accent, and she let me go without authentication.

Uhh, Walmart shares their security camera feeds with multiple private companies: [http://fortune.com/2015/11/09/wal-mart-facial- recognition/](http://fortune.com/2015/11/09/wal-mart-facial-recognition/)

They may also be sharing them with law enforcement.

> I brought all this home when I have whole house covered with VPN from one of > top 5 VPN providers (altho I connect thru USA - any connection from outside > makes life much more complicated, like multiple verification screens etc)

So now your VPN provider is a failure point, as they can totally screw you over: [https://invisibler.com/lulzsec-and- hidemyass/](https://invisibler.com/lulzsec-and-hidemyass/)

Use Tor if you want (as close as your going to get to) bulletproof anonymity. Youtube even works over Tor!

> The sim card company website gave me some issues using prepaid card; but as > I remembered that gift cards should not be used for ongoing charges, I just > unchecked "autopay every month" and it went thru.

The cell carrier and anyone interested can do a Home Location Register lookup (aka HLR) and find out which tower and cell your phone is registered on. Worse yet, your carrier or MVNO can use certain E911 features to locate your phone down to a few hundred feet.

> I fired up new iPhone with new empty sim card. I went thru setup process > using new email. Here it was harder. iTunes did not like my prepaid card. I > had to use my VOIP app (not Google, an app I use from Netherlands) to call > iTunes and complain. I think it was a matter of one flag because it took > them five seconds. I had verified complete iTunes account with valid payment > method on it.

Don't bet on the country of origin to protect you. Most VOIP providers do jack to protect your calls even part of the way in transit, and that call was definitely intercepted since it came a provider overseas: [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/bush-lets-us- spy-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/bush-lets-us-spy-on- callers-without-courts.html)

> Of course I turned off as much localization/icloud/blahblah stuff I could

Not that this will save you, these are essentially "user comfort" toggles that turn off features, but don't stop the data your looking to protect from leaking. Intel and AMD both do this too with Computrace and their various management engine implementations.

\- I decided not to use my new phone and new number for incoming or outgoing numbers due to number matching techniques "they" use; instead I use a VOIP app to call my people.

So back to my prior point, since you picked a foreign VOIP carrier, your ensuring the NSA has all of your calls recorded!

\- I did sign up to my regular mailbox but did it from BlueMail iPhone app, not the native one.

Apple puts much more of an emphasis on end user security than nearly any other company, which is part of why Siri is still garbage and their neural network/AI based offerings all center on operating on device. The built in mail app is likely more secure than BlueMail.

<comment><USER24> > Did you buy this from the Apple store? What precautions were taken to avoid > their obvious & hidden cameras

Apple store. Wear hat and somewhat darkening glasses.

> Now the dealer you bought said SIM

Sorry I mean BestBuy... you cant buy stuff from ebay with cash.

> Uhh, Walmart shares their security camera feeds with multiple private > companies

Same story.. hat and somewhat dark glasses.

Thanks for other info, very informative!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So it seems that there would be a good market for simple secure handheld devices straight from the factory... Why are these shady custom shops necessary for this?

<comment><USER27> So how's the Blackphone doing lately? It looks like they don't want to sell to the general public now.

<comment><USER28> They seem to still be popular over at the DoD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Same article, but the non-AMP link: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a34b7b/phantom- se...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a34b7b/phantom-secure- sinaloa-drug-cartel-encrypted-blackberry)

</comment><comment><USER30> Raises a lot of questions, how is PGP more secure than your normal EndToEnd Encrypted messenger? Why are the Feds afraid of one but not the other?

<comment><USER31> PGP might be easier to clone (duplicate private/master keys?) without tipping off the other party like many end-to-end messengers do when you switch devices.

 _B told Justice Janice Dillon that he sent a message to Kim on a Blackberry that had been cloned from one belonging to the UN associate._

[http://vancouversun.com/news/crime/former-gangster-says- dhak...](http://vancouversun.com/news/crime/former-gangster-says-dhak- contracted-un-to-kill-enemies)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting that they remove the camera and mic.

<comment><USER32> Camera, built-in mic and accelerometer are the first and most important bits you want to lose.

<comment><USER33> Right, now imagine you are the NSA. And you have access to tons of android devices. If you filter out those which surprisingly don't seem to have these parts - now these are interesting for sure.

<comment><USER34> Feature phones that run android will lack an accelerometer, might lack a camera, but any phone without a microphone would certainly be strange.

Nonetheless, there's nothing preventing a system bus from reporting that a virtual device exists, even if there's no physical hardware to match. Besides, as soon as you plug a headset into the audio jack, the microphone becomes available.

<comment><USER33> You can reason about what kind of device is this and in general basically look for statistical patterns. Which is what they seem to be pretty good at. If you have modified device then it's likely that you are an outlier.

<comment><USER35> I doubt all devices are constantly reporting their capabilities to the NSA so they can look for outliers.

<comment><USER33> Well I'm only thinking for a few seconds before writing a comment and they have some pretty smart heads working full time, but you could imagine compromising infrastructure of some popular app and adding your shiny bits there. The famous black box of radio also has some pretty decent hardware access. Gemalto sim cards hack etc.

When you help with some specific operation like drug trafficking you can probably limit amount of devices that you need to monitor by location. Then maybe deploy some zero cheaper zerodays there (or fivehundreddays, not everybody cares about the updates).

I agree that this is kind of paranoid talk. Maybe removing these parts does indeed help. If it does though, then I definitely wouldn't want to provide info about these modifications to the press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Vice appears to be acting as an FBI propaganda outlet these days if this article is any indication. The way they imply that producing devices for privacy conscious users is "shady" made my skin crawl.

</comment><comment><USER37> If they really cared about drugs:

\- They could have stopped Afghan opium farmers.

\- They could use airborne spectrometry to detect Colombian/Mexican crops.

\- They could map out possible drug dealers in American land using their phone patterns alone.

</comment><comment><USER38> IANAL however I read through the affidavit and while I agree that they had probable cause to arrest the CEO I don't believe this case is a slam dunk. A fairly competent defense attorney should be able to convincingly claim that the firm was incidental to any crimes committed. Mr Ramos certainly didn't do himself any favors, but this isn't an open and shut case by any means.

</comment><comment><USER39> Weirdly, I'm curious if there are others selling phones like this legally? I guess Blackphone is one.

</comment><comment><USER40> the purpose of the phones is so that nobody can intercept details and eavesdrop on you, and the CEO is getting taken down for ... "drugs".

</comment><comment><USER41> This is what happens when you refuse to backdoor your devices for the US government.

<comment> FLUX-YOU Really? That's the problem you see here?</comment></comment>


How to Create Wealth - <AUTHOR> https://www.hscott.net/how-to-create-wealth/ <comment><USER2> Most "wealth" is just government regulations. Property is the prime example.

Imagine you own an empty block of land. If it is zoned that no building is allowed, it is almost worthless. But if you are allowed to build a house it worth much more. The only difference is government regulations.

If you are allowed to multiple homes or an apartment block then you land is worth much more.

Tk : DR - Over 80% of real estate value creation is changes in land use.

<comment><USER3> Does this viewpoint help explain anything in a useful way? I do not understand why you would think of wealth this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Money is just the medium through which wealth can move and be traded. To create more money, the government just fires up the 'ol proverbial HP LaserJet All-In-One OfficeJet 8620 and suddenly there's more money."

This is great

</comment><comment><USER5> Superb article. That is all.</comment>


The morning after a rejection. Now what's next? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> _Whats Next?_

Take a step back for a day and look at your idea/application. Did you explain clearly what the idea was? Will it create value for users? How will you get people to adopt it?

Once you've figured out what went wrong, fix it then get on with creating your app. Creating a startup is filled with setbacks, the trick is to keep going.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on why you applied.

If you applied on a "Let's see if we can convince Paul to let us come to YC Summer Camp, and maybe we'll be rich this time next year" whim with not a lot of code written...maybe you go back to school and work on other ideas. Try again for Winter with a different idea or more code and a better presentation. Or apply for a job at an existing startup. Some of the WFP guys are hiring (Parakey, Zenter, and a few others) as are the Xobni guys from last years progem--all are wicked smart, have lined up some funding, and would be very helpful to you in your goal of becoming an entrepreneur.

If, on the other hand, you've already written mumble-thousand LoC, and you are within a couple of months of launching, and you really believe in your idea and product, contact some other angels and seed investors. They exist. They aren't as cool as YC, but they have money and they have connections, too. As a last resort, if you're in the wrong city for raising money (anything other than Silicon Valley or Boston), warm up your credit card and give it a go. You can live for three months on a credit card (I've done it several times...I'm on my second company, the first being self-funded and sometimes credit card funded). Obviously, if you've got a family to support the "warm up your credit card" method of funding is right out. Otherwise, just keep your health insurance current, pay your taxes, and live on nothing but ramen and buy nothing between now and launch day.

If your project is too big to launch in that short time, then that's why you were rejected by YC. Winnow it down to the smallest piece that has value and launch. Our project (Virtualmin) was huge (several hundred thousand lines of code, by the time you factor in Webmin and Usermin). But we were already selling product, and figured we were within a couple of months of "finishing" the beta period (we were off by a little bit, as we're still a couple of weeks away from wrapping it up six months later--partly because of the major strategy shifts we made during WFP2007).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi. What are going to do now? What was your idea? Ours was a DIY mobile content aggregation & distribution platform. Grab your favorite content on the web. Mix it, mash it, make it mobile, distribute it.

<comment><USER4> I've got an idea similar to this, concentrating on aggregating your own content.

One of the implications of choosing this model is that you are limiting your audience and potential market. Is it what users want, NOW? For me this is a need as I have lots of distributed stuff over 10 years but for newer users most of their stuff is in a database, CMS etc.

The market is short sited in this respect. From what I can tell there is a distinct lack of demand. All the top level blogs are platform focused (blogger, wordpress, typepad, mt). These services are so good they don't seem to go down, thus where's the need?

It's a good idea btw, because if you own your own data you become the definitive source. BTW how are you solving the following problems?

\- extracting data from services with no API?

\- extracting data from services with API's (have to do coding for each service)

\- problem of input? Service side input & extraction via API v's Client side input and exporting via API's (if the content is yours)

\- How do you visualise the mixing of data?

\- Which (key) services do you concentrate on extracting data? Or is it any service?

They key things I got out of thinking making a biz out of this particular idea is that you can get into problems ...

\- focus on individual users and miss out any network effects (user foo connects to user bar).

\- not creating a new market

\- restricting sales by creating a secondary market because users use other services to create and yours (if needed or others) to backup.

So while I'm still building this tool, I'll be looking at areas in this space that I can extract the best/better value (something that people want, faster, savings in time & effort etc) and looking for new ideas associated (and new) while solving this particular problem space for me. Remember _Joshua Scharacter_ took about 4-5 ideas before he refined delicious & created a useful site.

My gut instinct is that manipulating, saving and creating data (in its various forms) is a growing space and finding the edge niche is a potential starting point.

__Reference __

[0] Ycombinator-StartupSchool, 'Joshua_Schacter, MP3, 28Mb'

<http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Ycombinator- StartupSchool/~3/106570501/Joshua_Schacter.mp3>

<comment><AUTHOR> hi BL, like your input. send me an email so we can discuss off site.

<comment><USER4> em's are not shown. check my bio for em ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bootload>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently posted on dealing with rejection in your startup venture. You may find some encouragement in my short story towards the end. The post is at: <http://www.ideatagging.com/good-entrepreneurs-always-accept-no-for-an- answer/>

</comment><comment><USER6> You may consider posting your application on the web, and asking people here to read it. I have never applied for investor funding, but I believe that I could give constructive feedback.

You will expose yourself to the risk of theft. On the other hand, ideas are only half the battle.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> Embrace failure.

Think about it as a test. They didn't reject you, its a test. A mission, a quest that will give you 5g, 6000xp, and faction with YCombinator, but remember its an elite quest, bring others.

Do not fail, well fail, but do not fail at failing!</comment>


What Night Sky Photographs Will Look Like Over the Next 7 Billion Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.petapixel.com/2012/06/01/what-photos-of-the-night-sky-will-look-like-over-the-next-7-billion-years/

<comment><USER2> can earth survive during the next 7 billion years?</comment>


Ask HN: best ways to learn about cryptography - <AUTHOR>

As an engineer, with all the recent stories about NSA breaking cryptography, I can't help but feeling guilty.
My main field is web development. But I don't stop there : I play with mobile app development, with system toolkits like gtk or qt, I've built server accepting connections in C, even read about the basics of creating OS and programming languages. I'm currently learning 3d modeling, in the hope to buy a 3d printer, and look with interest toward project like arduino and raspberry PI.
I've never read anything about cryptography.
My first thought about cryptography is : "well, that's something especially difficult and that carries a lot of responsibilities". So what ? So is playing with memory in C (both difficult and may easily create vulnerabilities). That's a good reason not to release anything while unprepared, but not a good reason to know nothing in this field.
I suspect I'm far from being the only one is that case : we do not care that much about cryptography, and that's a problem. That's a problem because if we swarmed the world with cryptography discussions and toy projects - just like we do with other fields - we could expect new ideas to appear a lot more quickly, and have a lot of alternative where we're all just use ssl nowadays in most of our applications.
There are reference resources about almost anything on the web. I just can find any clear reference about cryptography. Does anyone have good advice on how to start ? <comment><USER2> Try the Matasano crypto challenge: [http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto- challenges/](http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks S4M, will try after coursera course.

Did you try it ? I know a good way to learn about things is to try to break them, but I wonder if that approach of "learn to break crypto to learn crypto" is as efficient in the very beginning as to try first to build crypto (most of the time, when learning a new tech, I cover the basics before trying to understand other people code).

<comment><USER2> Actually, I saw this link on HN, and I am doing it to learn the programming language rust, but I have to say I haven't gotten very far yet (more because of my lack of free time and unfamiliarity with rust than the challenge itself). Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Dan Boneh's Cryptography I class on Coursera is about to start again in just a few days. I highly recommend it: [https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto](https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto)

<comment><USER4> I passed the last course and cannot recommend it enough.

I'd love to know the answer to the last week's programming problems, though. I only got part of it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's a polite way to say "I'm not interested" after interviewing? - <AUTHOR> I'm interviewing right now as part of the job search and just passed a very in-depth and rigorous technical interview. The problem is, during my conversation with the lead dev and in the course of receiving direction, I just found... I really didn't like him. I also had problems with the stack and just am generally uninterested in the work as I've learned more about it through the interview process.
Now they're pushing me for a follow-up and quick hire. I'm not interested in ever working with the recruiter who placed me again - he's consistently ignored my concerns and desires about finding work - but is there any way to let the company down? They're a major player and I don't want to burn bridges (I'm a junior candidate).
Doesn't culture fit go both ways? I feel like no matter what I say, they'll be angry I "wasted their time" but I didn't know my decision until I learned what I learned during the interview... <comment><USER2> Don't be too concerned. This sort of thing happens all the time. Just be polite and say that you'll be pursuing other opportunities. You don't need to go into a detailed explanation of your decision if you don't want to. The interviewer may be a little bit put out but TBH that would only be the case if you were the stand out best candidate in which case you'll probably be fine if you wanted to re-apply in a year or so. As to the recruiter,just ask them to pass on your decision. They may badger you about it (they'll consider that they're losing money if you had a good chance of getting the role) but, again, you don't owe them an explanation.

As a general point, as a hiring manager, I don't tend to feel that someone's playing me unless we've actually agreed with them that they're taking a role (going as far as agreeing a start date, comp etc) and they then don't join. Fundamentally it comes down to whether or not we've stopped looking for other candidates. If we haven't stopped looking, you're not really putting us out at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for that perspective! It's nice to know it's OK to calm down a bit!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You likely have a skill set that they need immediately.

Trust me when I tell you this - hiring is an impersonal process, and part of 'making the sale' includes emotional tactics if the opportunity presents itself, and the other side is so inclined.

Hiring is also self serving and strictly business; contrary to any sentiment expressed during an interview. An employer sees a way to profit from what you provide, plain and simple, and thats why they are hiring you.

If you are going to succeed it is best to learn early on you alone maintain your long term priorities in the hiring process and as an employee; no one else will do that for you with the exception of maybe a highly trusted friend.

If it helps try to think about it this way; if a new applicant showed up today with the same skills as you have and was willing to work for less, they would have no hesitation in telling you that you were not a good 'fit' (industry lingo for we don't want you and we aren't telling you why). You have to keep the same mindset; if an employer comes along with a better offer, you would be shooting yourself in the foot if you didn't take it.

It's not all rainbows and unicorns, but on the other hand it's also not all cutthroat and competition. It's about finding a position that benefits both parties in meeting their goals.

TL;DR don't feel bad about telling them no.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is what I wrote to the last place I rejected:

 _" I thought about it last night and I've decided not to go forward with the position.

Thank you for the considerable time and effort you went to on my behalf and I feel bad that it wasn't more fruitful. I really appreciate that you even considered me."_

<comment><USER5> Remove "on my behalf and I feel bad that it wasn't more fruitful"

Replace "that you even considered me" with "your time".

Watch for any signs of self-diminishing thoughts such as stating that your time is being less important than other's time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "I appreciate the opportunity to be considered for the position, but I've decided to decline to continue the process."

</comment><comment><USER7> > Doesn't culture fit go both ways?

Yes of course, and it's never a waste of time to explore a potential business partnership. I've found it more productive to have an initial Skype/phone call with the hiring exec before any in-person meetings and tech interviews. Demand this upfront and lead with your own questions.

</comment><comment><USER8> "After consideration I have decided to rescind my candidacy for the position of <insert position here>. At this point in my career I feel like this opportunity isn't best for my situation. Thank you for your consideration thus far, best of luck as you continue your search for a suitable candidate."

</comment><comment><USER9> "I don't think the position is the right fit. Thank you for your time" has worked out well for me.

<comment><USER10> Most of these answers are good, but this is the best one.

Keep it short and sweet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You are interviewing them as much as they were interviewing you.

Your response doesn't have to be any more detailed than the one they would give you had you not got through the technical interview.

Just a simple & straight forward couple of lines thanking them for their time and that it was good to get an insight into the role however it's not currently right for what you're looking for.

At the end of the day they gave you a decent look at what working there would be like, be glad that their interview process revealed what you needed to know.

It's MUCH more costly to hire you then have you leave after 4 weeks. They should be grateful you are upfront and not waste further time & money pursuing a role you are not interested in sticking with.

</comment><comment><USER12> _" Dear xxx: Thank you for interviewing me for the YYYY position. After careful consideration, I have concluded that I would not be a good fit for your organization.

I trust that you will soon be successful in finding the right candidate.

Sincerely, Netsec"_

That's really all you need to say

</comment><comment><USER13> As someone who hires, I can be disappointed, but I understand if someone says no. It is like dating - it has to work out for both parties.

Just say thanks for your time, but you have decided to pursue other opportunities. If they wonder why, you can maybe explain that on your side, the position isn't a good fit. If the company gets angry, you likely wouldn't have been happy there anyway.</comment>


Show HN: Embark – A learning and career development tool for teams - <AUTHOR> http://getembark.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

I created a tool for team leaders to help structure learning and career development in their teams.

After using various simple (either email or simple forms) insights tools that aim to understand the company, measure employee happiness and so on, I thought to take an approach that mixes in some of these techniques into career development and learning after having some less than ideal experiences myself.

If you are working at a company that has really solid processes or tools in place then great! However, what I have noticed is that smaller companies tend to have less of these.

I trialed some of the ideas using google docs with my team to see how it could work in practice and based on those learnings created this tool. There's plenty more to be added but first, more validation.

I'm curious to hear what your experiences are with regard to career development and learning. What has been great? What have you felt you lacked? Is there something you wish you had, looking back?</comment>


The Security Threat of Forged Law-Enforcement Credentials - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/01/the_security_th.html

<comment><USER2> An impossible threat to fix, for all the reasons discussed in the article and comments. The only disincentive you can rely on for somebody showing you a fake badge is the small comfort that it is a huge felony for the guy to do so, so he's either really a cop or willing to face some hard time. Either way, resisting is not a good idea.

Having a lawyer on retainer and speed dial might help you catch some of the BS and/or protect yourself, but most Americans can't afford that. A (supposed) cop can easily claim PC to prevent you from calling anybody else.

<comment><USER3> It is a further argument against all of the automatic law-enforcement back doors.

Investigators were able to walk-in and request a background check on a fictitious name by waving a badge.

Suppose someone waving a badge could take down a website or get all communications involving a given person?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not a scenario that I'd considered as a possibility before, but it does seem quite plausible that a hijacker masquerading as police or an airport security guard could get onto an aircraft without going through even so much as a metal detector. All they would need would be something which looks convincingly like a uniform, some fake badge and a gun.

<comment><USER5> Actually to go through the security checkpoints armed federal agents need to have 2 sets of tickets printed from the check in desk. Which requires a call to their supervisor. They then have to fill out a form at the security check point and are asked for a secret password/code that is changed periodically. I don't think that just having credentials is going to get you past security.

I know this because I have a friend who flys armed since he is a Border Patrol Agent.

<comment><USER4> In that case maybe this isn't the loophole that I thought it could be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From a comment: >>> Collecting police badges is a popular hobby for many policemen and they didn't want to have to stop.

They rate their hobbies above the safety of the public. I guess this is nothing compared to all the other security screwups going on.

<comment><USER7> They probably didn't see that policy helping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Business model alert:

> I'd like to be able to photograph a law-enforcement badge with my camera, > send it to some police website, and get back a real-time verification -- > with picture -- that the officer is legit.

<comment><USER9> I wonder how big a problem this is. Might be something people can look at. Ties in with what I am passionate about, security

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Loved the E. E. Doc Smith reference :-) in one of the comments. A whole series of books where a major plot point was unforgeable credentials. Don't meet many people familiar with the series though, so I'm always surprised when I see a reference online.

<comment><USER11> I'm a huge of the series, I've read them all.

The series is called Lensman

[http://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Lensmen-Triplanetary- Lensma...](http://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Lensmen-Triplanetary-Lensman- Galactic/dp/1568658044/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294957193&sr=8-1)</comment></comment>


MIT Media Lab giving out $250K cash prize for disobedience - <AUTHOR> https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/disobedience-award/ <comment><USER2> Perhaps they could've given it to Aaron Swartz to support the legal issues they threw him in as a result of his responsible, ethical disobedience aimed at challenging our norms, rules, or laws to benefit society.

I'm half-tempted to nominate him as an act of disobedience.

<comment><USER3> Can't agree more.

<comment><USER4> The irony is painful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Really, MIT? [https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/29/the-inside- stor...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/29/the-inside-story-mit- and-aaron-swartz/YvJZ5P6VHaPJusReuaN7SI/story.html)

Why doesn't the university just send that money to Schwartz's family instead?

</comment><comment><USER6> Heck, rather than a _prize_ , IMO a better idea would be to create a "Disobedience Legal Defense Fund", the sort of thing that might have helped Aaron Swartz.

</comment><comment><USER7> Assuming a posthumous grant to Aaron Swartz is not possible, I would think Alexandra Elbakyan from scihub would be a good choice for this award.

<comment><USER2> The rules state that the person must be living, but in the theme of disobedience I felt it pertinent to ignore that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How fucking _convenient_ that their timeline of examples ends in 2012, a year before Aaron Swartz committed suicide.

In a different way, it is rather interesting that Occupy Wall Street (2011) didn't make the cut.

</comment><comment><USER3> ***Aaron Swartz***

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

(From archive.org)

</comment><comment><USER8> Some inspiration:

[https://www.wired.com/2015/11/racing-extinction-louis- psihoy...](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/racing-extinction-louis-psihoyos/)

The Cove - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/)

The Yes Men - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593)

Hologram/projection protesting - [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038317/The- world-s-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038317/The-world-s- HOLOGRAM-protest-Thousands-join-virtual-march-Spain-against-law-banning- demonstrations-outside-government-buildings.html)</comment>


Google faces €600k privacy fine in Belgium - <AUTHOR> https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/business/technology/121533/google-faces-e600000-privacy-fine-in-belgium/ <comment><USER3> Sounds like what happened was

1\. the complainant told google to delete something

2\. google says no

3\. the complainant complains to the DPA, who agrees with them and fines google 600k

The implementation of "right to be forgotten" is problematic. It forces service providers to take down content on the request of a complainant, without going through judicial approval. It's up to the service provider to render a decision, and if they wrongly refuse the request, they could be subject to a fine. This is problematic because there's almost zero incentive for the service provider to keep the content up, and plenty of potential downside if they keep the content up. Thus, the "safe" decision is to always comply with any request, regardless of merit. This is the same problem with DMCA, where every request gets rubberstamped, because if you don't comply with the request and it later turns out to be valid, you lose your safe harbor status and can be held liable for the infringement. Needless to say, this effect is terrible for free speech on the internet. Also, unlike court, there isn't any "defense" so to speak. Who is supposed to be representing the public interest or the author?

<comment><AUTHOR> The application of the law as intended is not 'problematic', it is Google that is problematic in the sense that they seem to be of the opinion that the law does not apply to them. If you don't act in good faith and in fact try to interpret the law when it comes to the actions of private individuals then you really can not complain if the judiciary disagrees with you. That's a risk you took. Keep in mind that Google would have lost nothing if they had just complied with the request, instead, they decided to make a stand and show that they were in the right. Tough luck.

<comment><USER4> > it is Google that is problematic in the sense that they seem to be of the > opinion that the law does not apply to them.

Except the article explicitly states:

> Google refused to delete the search results. According to the Litigation > Chamber, this was justified with regard to possible links with a political > party

It seems to me that the law only applies to them. One should be punished for trying to use the law to request things be deleted that are not illegal.

> Keep in mind that Google would have lost nothing if they had just complied > with the request

This is scary, one-sided thinking. Google loses their ability to determine if the request is even a legal one if they comply blindly. Similarly the public accepts unnecessary content censorship.

<comment><AUTHOR> Google does not get to make law in Belgium, they are _subject_ to the law in Belgium.

<comment><USER4> Of course, nobody would argue otherwise. The point was at least some of request was invalid _by the law in Belgium_. So a reasonable person might read the article and conclude "one side didn't abide by a partially invalid request" and "another side submitted a partially invalid request". I am lacking on details of the issue at hand, but it's clearly stated some of the request is invalid.

We have seen the consequences of invalid takedown requests in other situations (e.g. DMCA), and we should appreciate companies not just taking every takedown request at face value.

<comment><USER5> > The point was at least some of request was invalid by the law in Belgium.

From what little information was provided in the article, it sounded like Google maintained that these search results were exempt from the law, because they were political in nature, so they stood their ground.

However the DPA determined that these results were NOT exempt, due to the particular facts of the case (the results were "irrelevant and outdated"). So, keeping them up did not serve the public good (which, I resume, is the justification for these exemptions).

To me, it sounds like Google chose the wrong test case to stand their ground on. I appreciate them taking a stand on keeping information available if it is important.

But, crucially, Google claiming the request was invalid does not make it invalid; that's for the DPA to decide.

<comment><USER6> > But, crucially, Google claiming the request was invalid does not make it > invalid; that's for the DPA to decide.

Except apparently the DPA requires google to decide. And hits them with a hefty fine if they pick the wrong answer. I believe this is the point being made in the thread. Google suffers all the risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The key concept here seems to be that Google decided that a public figure shouldn't be able to have something forgotten (which is reasonable, and in line with Right To Be Forgotten), but failed to account for the fact that something proven to be inaccurate or unfounded should still be able to be forgotten because it isn't true.

The latter issue is particularly important, as someone should not be permanently be harmed by a mere accusation of wrongdoing. Accusations should not follow someone after they've proven inaccurate.

<comment><USER8> According to lumendatabase the defamation complaints were filed 8 times by her lawyer about a private video (that seemingly was uploaded without her consent to porn websites) where she appeared as a "hooker from Brussels".

I think this is a serious human rights issue, in times where not everybody knows what's actually going on on their mobile devices, where Android malware is not a joke anymore and commonly spread around.

I mean, just imagine the same case that your private pictures or videos get uploaded to a porn website and Google simply ignores your legal complaints to take those down ... social- and work-life must be a living hell from that point on.

<comment><USER9> So now that you've posted that, does Hacker News face a €600k fine if they don't delete your comment?

<comment><USER8> Technically speaking, as I cannot delete my comments after a given amount of time, HN isn't GDPR compliant anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a lesson that Google really needs to learn. If you've ever been on the wrong side of Google you know that they will dodge you like you are collecting debts and often the only way to get their attention is to shame them in the media, back channel someone you know, or engage them in court. They probably could have avoided this fee entirely just by answering the phone and realizing that the automation missed something.

I try really hard to like Google because overall they have done a lot of good, but sometimes it's just jaw dropping how a company with so many smart people fails so badly at the most basic things.

<comment><USER11> maybe the cost of answering the phone and putting the effort to fix something that automation missed, case by case, outweights the risk of getting this kind of fine.

This is why punishment should be exemplar, read disproportionate, and the basic customer support should be enforced by law. Otherwise companies will just take the cheap way out and risk lawsuits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Title is vague/misleading. I think it would be clearer to say "Google faces €600k fine for Right to Be Forgotten compliance".

<comment><USER13> Do you think it would've gotten so many upvotes/clicks if that was the case?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> 600K euros is like a slap on the wrist for Google. A few people within the org get demoted or fired and life goes on.

They could probably write it off and somehow earn money on getting fined.

<comment><USER15> It's hardly a random employee's fault that Google lost the court case.

I doubt anyone would be fired for a $600k mistake. When you work processing legal requests, there is always a chance you get sued. If Google blamed their court losses on the employee that originally caused the problem... they'd have a hard time convincing anyone to do that work at all.

This person probably handles dozens of requests a day. There would have to be serious evidence of neglect for the employee to suffer any punishment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know if Google is going to be solvent after this? If they have to liquidate or start shedding staff it could really impact them.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there a website which collects and tracks the fines tech companies incur?

I wonder how much Google, FB, etc have paid in fines in Europe and elsewhere over the years and the frequency of these fines.

<comment><USER18> [https://www.enforcementtracker.com](https://www.enforcementtracker.com)

As you can see, not many fines compared to the large-scale privacy violations these companies are committing.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the link! My only complaint would be this is restricted to only gdpr fines but there are more which occurred before gdpr was a thing and fines outside of the EU.

I'll do some more searching though since it seems likely it exists in full exhaustive format

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ill admit - ive never actually understood fines against companies - <USER2> the economic benefactors of said fines.

I never hear where those fines go and what is ultimate the outcome of them.

So, ok - company A gets fined N millions of dollars.

You never hear anything like:

"Googles $600k fine was used to finance school supplies for 3 million students! Yay!"

Im not being flippant - in just pointing out that there is never(?) any followup as to what happens to said "fines for transgression"

<comment><USER20> Do you wonder about the same when you hear about someone getting a speeding ticket?

<comment><USER19> My mind cant compare the two - why can yours?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> €600,000 total? That's like 1 L6/L7 salary in a year.

It doesn't even count as a slap on the wrist. More like soft caressing touch.

</comment><comment><USER22> I find it very hard not to interpret at least "some" of the intention behind this fine to be about recapturing some of the evaded tax by national governments. €600K sounds like __a lot __of money.

</comment><comment><USER23> 600k is rounding error right?

<comment><USER24> I bet it's cheaper than their legal fees.

<comment><USER25> It's about the revenue they pull in every two minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It seems wrong to go in the direction of telling intermediaries to blacklist and curate traffic. The right thing is to develop a scalable way to notify sources to take down the content.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm going to do the same to Tinder (Match). Just watch me.

</comment><comment><USER28> Better title would be Google fined an equivalent of 2.5 minutes of its revenue for thing X. That puts things in the right perspective. Absolute fines were always senseless for corporations.

<comment><USER29> Is that 2.5 minutes in Belgium or worldwide?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can someone do the math, how many seconds of profit is that for Google?

<comment><USER31> I think the better question is how many person months of profit it is.

It doesn't make sense to punish people more for each offense just because they got together in a bigger group that does more things.

<comment><USER32> Actually it does. Finland calculates fines, e.g. speeding tickets, as a function of your income, otherwise the rich will treat them as a simple nuisance.

<comment><USER31> This is why I measure in person months and not dollars.

You fine the speeder a fraction of their income (person months), not a fraction of their entire support networks income (months). Doing the latter would tend to discourage people from forming large support networks (large companies).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Starting with Semantics [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbS8a-Ba0Ck <comment><USER2> I highly recommend this talk to anyone who wants to have a productive discussion about language design. Too many languages and features are proposed and discussed with excessive emphasis on the syntax. The semantics are then derived from the syntax rather than the other way around, leaving corner cases to be discovered late in the design that could have been easily avoided had the discussion started with the semantics first.

I worry, however, that the lack of comments suggests a lack of interest.

<comment><USER3> As a non CS hobbyist who tries to learn compiler theory but feels swarmed, this looks Interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slides: [https://pliss2019.github.io/sylvan_clebsch_slides.pdf](https://pliss2019.github.io/sylvan_clebsch_slides.pdf)</comment>


What is a Good First Programming Language? - <AUTHOR> http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds10-4/firstlang.html

<comment><USER2> I still think Python is a good choice. The syntax is relatively clean and forgiving, it has a self-documenting interpreter, you can _dive in_ * without having to understand a whole build system (e.g. make, linking, etc.) upfront, and it has an excellent standard library, so you can actually try to do real stuff with it even as a beginner.

* _Dive into Python_ (<http://diveintopython.org>) is a good introduction, and is available free online.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article sounds as if it was written sometime last century. In 2008, there is no excuse for a programming language in which "hello world" is longer than:

print "hello world"

The compiler/interpreter should handle the rest. Edit: This is especially true if the language is used as a teaching tool for first time programmers.

<comment><USER4> or "hello world"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A beginner should start with a language in which they can see instant results and quickly build applications. This way, if they get a cool idea they want to try, they are eager to dive in and pump out that program rather than struggle with syntax, compilers, and GUIs. I'm hinting at Visual Basic 6.

</comment><comment><USER6> If the first time you have sex is bad, you're not doomed to bad sex for the rest of your life.

The topic of what makes a good teaching language is valid and deserves consideration, but we should be careful to give it too much weight. In the end, teaching someone how to program requires teaching them new concepts. They will be required to learn a new way of thinking. Any time you do that, you will screw up, confuse issues, and get frustrated. No programming language can prevent this completely.

As with sex, the more you're exposed to programming, the less important your first experience becomes.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've just started programing myself and I'd love a more concise answer then this article. (it rambled and didn't answer the question!)

For the most part I want to design webpages and mashup social networking API's. Of course I've been picking up my HTML and CSS, should I jump straight into PHP at this point or should I go another route? (Python/LISP/etc)

</comment><comment><USER8> I think I would let a beginner start with HTML (semi-programming) and then toy around with JavaScript.

At least with JavaScript I can see some use for the average person (spice up homepage, Greasemonkey, Mashups), whereas otherwise I am not sure what an average user would want to program.

</comment><comment><USER9> Install Logo.

And read this. <http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v1-toc2.html>

Then get DrScheme. And read the little schemer.

Thank me later.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen I tried starting with lisp, and...well, that was a year and a half ago.</comment>


Ask YC: How does Kayak or Mobissimo work? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to develop a simple fare, hotel and car rental tool similar to kayak.com or mobissimo.com.
Both sites search hundreds of other travel sites, hotel chains and airlines, show the end-user the aggregated results in a nice way and then direct them to the original sources passing an affiliate id code so they can profit.
I assume that the majority of the sites they pull information from don't provide any kind of APIs.
Does anyone know how they might be able to pull this off?
I was wondering if there is a web service out there that gives you access to query the majority of these sites from an central API or if they are just having to scrape hundreds of sites individually. <comment><USER2> Many of the flight-related sites use <http://www.itasoftware.com/> for fare and schedule querying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing me in this direction. I wonder how much licensing their software cost.

I will contact them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure they've worked out deals with each of the target sites and have access to some private APIs. Probably this only works if you can convince them you're going to send serious business their way.

</comment><comment><USER4> An alternative is something like beautiful soup.

<http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/>

<comment><USER5> Upvoted for Beautiful Soup. If you are into Python, its great for screen scraping websites and striping off markup, leaving only the necessary information which you can display on your own site. great for accessing sites that don't have a public API.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Video Slide Deck Pitch - <AUTHOR> https://zessage.com/message/130059 <comment><AUTHOR> Sending a link to a slide deck or PDF doesn't allow you to communicate your message very well. So, I recently added the ability to embed a Google Slide Show into a video message in order to record a presentation and communicate what you're building.

All it takes is to copy & paste your published Google slide link into the video creator and you'll be ready to start your recording.

You can save it to send later or create a more personalized recording and send it as a message as well.

I'd love everyone's feedback and thoughts. Hopefully, this will help you communicate your mission & raise money for your startup.</comment>


China censors are on Quora.com - <AUTHOR> http://chinacensorshipwatch.org/ccw-exclusive-china-censors-on-quoracom

<comment><USER2> Does Quora allow PRC censorship for existing Chinese investment or expected future Chinese investment?</comment>


Great Captcha IDEA - <AUTHOR> http://www.josscrowcroft.com/demos/motioncaptcha/

<comment><USER2> I like the idea in theory, but there's a few of practical issues

1) I got the circle, and I tried 8 times before giving up. I was pretty damn close but it just denied me. There seems to be more lenience in the straight line options, perhaps just stick to them.

2) What's the fallback for blind users?

3) There are 16 images that are used, and you can have as many guesses as you want. I'm guessing that it's easily brute forced. How about dynamically generate a shape from n lines?

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems to be easily bypassed even if you dynamically generate the shapes.

</comment><comment><USER4> What stops me from submitting the form with curl?

</comment><comment><USER5> doesn't seem to work too well in this: <http://i.imgur.com/bCLVN.png></comment>


Show HN: Nexrender – Data-Driven Render Automation for After Effects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/inlife/nexrender <comment><USER2> Seems Like you have a solution for something I posted a few mins back as Ask HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21240528](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21240528)

If you think your solution can work with modification and you are available for hire let me know will discuss more.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems to me that this indeed can be done with nexrender. However, most likely you would need a small team of an After Effects template designer, and a junior/middle javascript developer and about 20-40 hours to pull it off.

After that, in theory, you can just take existing template and infrastructure, feed it with needed data, including voice synthesized with a different library (it would be the developer's responsibility to find a fitting one), and generate as many total videos as you would need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Non-dev here. Could i use something like this to customise an existing kinetic typography AE template and churn out new videos? Also do you know any freelancers that would take on such work?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can customize pretty much any After Effect layer properties, including font, text, colors, etc. So if I understood your question correctly, yeah you can. Regarding freelancers, any Javascript developer should do just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you can use Nuke you can make a composit script that can take command line arguments, which makes it very easy to automate [https://www.rottenhayato.com/](https://www.rottenhayato.com/).

</comment><comment><USER5> Are the worker nodes written in a way that would let them be kicked off by something like OpenCue (or other more comprehensive farm management system), maybe with a small wrapper around them? Or would this need to be run in parallel with its own server and machine allocations?

<comment><AUTHOR> Server machine allocations are not handled. Nexrender can be used in 2 ways:

1\. Direct binary form. (creating a start script for a newly launched machine taht will start predefined executable for example)

2\. As a custom runtime. Creating a custom executable using nodejs that uses the nexrender as a kind of library, while you handle more high level stuff regarding

\---

Never heard about OpenCue up to this point, so can't tell you for sure if there is any direct way to implement integration, but I guess theoretically should not be that complicated :)</comment></comment>


Amino analyzed health insurance claims from 188M Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/20/9573937/amino-find-doctor-zocdoc-health-insurance-startup <comment><USER2> I have a hard enough time getting my own health records from various hospitals/doctors' offices. When I first heard of the company, I was hoping Amino was solving that problem for me.

Is that a solved problem? Or is that a market opportunity? A sort of EMR ombudsman for the Average Joe?

</comment><comment><USER3> Clearly medical privacy does not exist.

<comment><USER4> There are good arguments to be made about your point, but I don't think this is necessarily one of them. As the article quotes, "The data is anonymous, but it allows us to see where those folks have gotten care."

What Amino has done can easily be done with anonymized data. They only need to know patient age, patient gender, physician, location of physician, what the physician billed for (I assume the ICD-9 codes). I doubt there's enough information there to identify individuals.

<comment><USER5> It's surprising how much can be inferred about specific people from anonymized data provided for research purposes.

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

<comment><USER4> It is surprising and comments like this always pop-up in response to comments like mine. The question is how much information do you really need to identify individuals? I can't answer that since I haven't seen the data set they are actually working with. In terms of the information they report, I doubt you could identify anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Results like this make me wonder about the quality of the data.

[http://imgur.com/gcXkBj1](http://imgur.com/gcXkBj1)

This isn't just a rare exception. Search for any improbable condition and Amino will find physicians that are supposedly treating it.

<comment><USER6> Do you think a simple edge case is a good reason to challenge the quality of the entire data set? I'm not sure how many just-launched apps have perfect data and are perfectly bug-free, but I'm guessing that number is pretty low. (See: Apple Maps launch)

Personally, I think this is a step in the right direction. I can easily see this data set getting larger and adding in other useful scenarios that would make it more useful for patients like me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is good but insufficient. It reports # of patients seen which my be a proxy for quality but you also have to consider the geographic area (e.g. might be the only specialist in the area). More important is tracking complications (could be in ICD codes as well).</comment>


MentalFaces.com - my for-fun project - <AUTHOR>

As a side project of my side project I've released http://mentalfaces.com. Not to offend  DropBox and others BIG boys. I was just a bit tired with my main work and used this technique of relaxing by doing a completely different thing. Enjoy. Or reject. <comment><USER2> Neat. Why would this offend DropBox?</comment>


Russia Covid-19 statistics most likely fabricated - <AUTHOR> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344164702_Is_the_COVID-19_data_reliable_A_statistical_analysis_with_Benford%27s_Law <comment><USER2> Was there ever any doubt about this?

<comment><AUTHOR> the point is, it seems to be confirmed, what is more surprising China data seem reliable and there is only small discrepancy in Iran data

<comment><USER2> No, it seems that China and Iran's data are at least not susceptible to having modifications or fabrications easily detectable using Benfords' law.

Keep in mind that if you are hip to that trick that it is pretty easy to get around it. Absence of evidence etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Holiday lights can interfere with WiFi - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/12/01/are-your-holiday-lights-killing-your-wifi/?wpisrc=nl_draw <comment><USER2> Good thing Apple is having a war on ports... because you know, there's enough wireless bandwidth for all of us to have gigabit wifi connections.</comment>


"finally, now more than ever, women can buy our product" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/baraGodzilla/status/1258682943716782080 <comment><USER2> Very misleading, the video on that tweet cuts off before the whole "we've given you 20 grand of real cash to see your invention come to life" part...

So yes, this is weird cos it's a "we've made a female version of the game", but it's also "here's a load of cash to make your invention exist cos we believe in you".</comment>


Ask HN: Help me raise a small seed round - <AUTHOR> We are now a team of 3 co-founders working full-time on Tufa (http://tufa.ai/). The long term goal is to do AGI research (french version of DeepMind). The short term goal is to provide funding for long term goal by developing an algorithmic trader of cryptocurencies, using deep learning techniques. This has the benefit of developing ML/Deep Learning expertise that will be useful later for research.
So far, we have a basic prototype that makes a monthly 15% of return on capital by trading BTC/EUR on coinbase, as evaluated on backtesting scenarios. We are in the process of deploying it live to validate that our hypotheses hold true.
My brother and I have applied to the Entrepreneur First accelerator and got accepted (https://www.joinef.com/). But we have not signed yet. Their basic deal is a 90k investment for a 10% equity in the form of a convertible note. The issue with their program is that they have a lot of conditions/clauses (first refusal, future investments, dilution, non-compete, intellectual property, board seats) that we are not too happy about. In addition, the contract is phrased in very vague terms.
So I'm evaluating other ways I could raise funds to see if we can raise on better terms. Running on our own savings, we have 2 years of runway that we can extend to 4 years if needed by relocating. The way we plan to use external investment (VC or angel) is as capital for the trader, because there is no need for salaries or offices. This way, we only need a small amount to get started.
We are looking for a deal like this:
 - $70k worth of BTC for 5% of equity in Tufa, or
 - $140k worth of BTC for 10% of equity in Tufa, with whatever means is easier (convertible debt, safe, equity...)
Do you know an angel investor that would be interested in this? Thanks <comment><USER2> "$140k worth of BTC for 10% of equity" \-- what makes you think the company is worth $1.4M?

Trading strategies are a dime a dozen, that kind of backtesting does not mean much because there is very limited data, there were historic runs, and there are lots of whales trying to squeeze alpha out of BTC charts.

Then mentioning AGI in the same breath does not give confidence.

<comment><USER2> That was the minus side.

On the plus side, you guys are inspired and working towards your vision which is awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "... as evaluated on backtesting scenarios. We are in the process of deploying it live to validate that our hypotheses hold true".

It's easy to create an algo (AI or not) that performs well on historical data.

Until "hypotheses hold true" is done and proven - it's better to ask investment based on "we have a such great team and can prove it" vs. "we have such a great idea and hope to eventually prove it".

Nothing is impossible - i just don't think this idea at that stage is an easy sell.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I think the next step for me is to actually try it out live and see how it performs. If the results are positive, I will have an easier time selling my idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 4 letter .ai domain name. Nice!</comment>


Show HN: Instant Social Media Videos - <AUTHOR> http://instantvideos.org/?ref=hackernews <comment><USER2> Some random notes and thoughts from the first try:

Front page:

\- I really like the simple layout & design

\- It loads 45 MB of GIFs. Maybe using actual <video>s or just JPG/WEBP photos in a slideshow would be better for webpage use – smaller size and better image quality.

\- What do the Dell/Uber/… logos mean in this context?

\- Which nonprofits do you donate to?

Video creator itself:

\- Another huge GIF

\- You're trying to load something from `HTTP://zeus.instantvideos.org/` on a HTTPS page, which produces a warning in some browsers, and is blocked altogether in some others (like my FF 66)

\- When selecting photos to use, clicking the selection marker circle does nothing. Clicking the image outside the circle selects it, but i kinda expected the circles to behave like checkboxes

\- The "check" button in the coupon form is hidden behind "back" and "purchase" buttons in wider viewports (and scroll does not work in that container): [https://i.vgy.me/utX2Fx.png](https://i.vgy.me/utX2Fx.png)

\- When i tried importing from my instagram account, nothing apparent happened. After poking around in browser devtools, it got HTTP 500 from us- central1-awesome-video-maker.cloudfunctions.net/instagram with a "user page has only 15 posts" message. Maybe it could print that to the form somewhere…

\- Some free demo (max. five photos with your watermark?) would be nice

\- /favicon.ico returns the HTML page itself for some reason (ah, it seems that all 404s are redirected to index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Neat but I'd like to see a demo before purchasing. Possibly allow a trial account or an example video?

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting concept. What's tech stack did you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Mostly built on Firebase with a linux backend that handles the video processing. Built on top of FFmpeg.

SPA \- Firebase Database \- Firebase Auth \- Firebase Functions

Backend \- EC2

Stripe \- Payment Processing

Donations \- Donations API from Nationbuilder.com</comment></comment>


How platform coops can beat death stars like Uber to create a sharing economy - <AUTHOR> http://commonstransition.org/how-platform-coops-can-beat-death-stars-like-uber-to-create-a-real-sharing-economy/ <comment><AUTHOR> An article that are sceptic to VC's and startups could be interesting to discuss here on HN.</comment>


Encapsulating internal APIs in JDK 9 - <AUTHOR> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jigsaw-dev/2015-August/004433.html

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like along with the proposed JEP 260 [1] they will leave

* sun.misc.Cleaner

* sun.misc.Signal

* sun.misc.SignalHandler

* sun.misc.Unsafe

* sun.reflect.Reflection::getCallerClass

* sun.reflect.ReflectionFactory

[1] [http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/260](http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/260)</comment>


Ask HN: How did you do with your goals for 2010? - <AUTHOR>

Slightly over a year ago, aitoehigie asked what our plans were for 2010.  Plans mentioned included learning Erlang, teaching kids to play Go, quitting a day job, ending the year with 10x as many customers as it started with, writing a book, starting to eat a proper breakfast, and many more.

  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013531
 I know patio11 succeeded in his intention to quit his day job; and I know I didn't reach my target (I have lots of new customers, but I'm not up by a factor of 10).  How did the rest of you do with your goals for 2010? <comment><USER2> Looks like my goal was quitting, traveling, launching a new product, and finding a nice young lass. Darn this was a good year.

</comment><comment><USER3> In Fall 2009, with only 1 year of experience with high-level web programming and no computer science background (BS in Management), I created the goal of working at Google within 3 years.

I enrolled in graduate school pursuing M.S. Computer Science, watched online course lectures, read textbooks, worked on a number of pet projects, and learned new programming languages... all while working full-time.

I'm now 9/30 credits towards my Masters degree and currently interviewing with Google (made it through 2 steps thus far). While I may or may not get an offer, it is just another step on the path to reach my goal.

</comment><comment><USER4> I could do with some help with setting goals and working towards achieving them. I am never able to set goals which last more than a few days. I always end up changing them very quickly because either I get bored or find something more interesting or exciting. Any tips?

<comment><USER5> Take note when that happens and let that be your guide to telling you what you should be working on. We all have things we think we _should_ be working on, but they often get kicked to the curb when something else comes along. The more you pay attention the closer you'll get to working on what really matters to you.

But if you want a tip, remember this: The grass may be greener on the other side, but it still needs to be cut, weeded, and watered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool, I didn't post in that thread, so I can now make all sorts of claims about what my goals really were. :-)

all joking aside, I did not achieve everything I wanted in 2010, but I made some solid progress, and I'm looking forward to 2011. My "real" goal was to have a product shipping that I could try to sell, in 2010. I got distracted and lost some time around the middle of the year, and fell short of that goal. But I at least have some demoable stuff, and I now realize that that's fine, since I want to apply Blank's _Customer Development Methodology_ before I go any further.

So my goal for 2011, is to get started doing Customer Development, and both find "product / market fit" and finish a product.

</comment><comment><USER7> -Managed to : quit my day job, start a startup fulltime, release a product. scored few customers. Market has long established players but we have a unique differentiating approach.

-Not yet managed to : ramen profitability. Product is on the market for about a month, new version based on a lot of feedback is coming in early january.

-Goals for 2011: beyond ramen profitability, work, research (I tend to focus on algorithmic products), release a new web app and to get traction. Possibly will need to do a bit of contracting in between which will slow things down a little.

</comment><comment><USER8> Had $100,000 in liquid assets and a revenue-generating startup by my 22nd birthday a few days ago. Pretty much what I set out to achieve.

</comment><comment><USER6> Clickable

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013531></comment>


TV monitoring service is fair use, judge rules - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/tv-monitoring-service-is-fair-use-judge-rules/ <comment><USER2> I built and ran a broadcast monitoring business for 5 years from 2003 to 2007, competing with services such as TVEyes and Critical Mention. It was called RooseveltMedia.com. At peak, it recorded and catalogued about 400+ shows per day in 15 media markets and had about 75 customers.

As we grew, I knew we needed to expand nationwide (which would require raising VC). My saying was "We need Johnson and Johnson, not Congressman Johnson's office." but this question of legality loomed very large. Legal or illegal? If illegal, no investor in his right mind would give us money. Unfortunately, the evidence I had at the time pointed towards "illegal" rather than "legal":

1\. There were lots of lawsuits. This Fox vs. TVEyes is not the first. We definitely tiptoed around TV groups so as not to draw attention.

2\. The International Association of Broadcast Monitors (IABM, a group of regional services and some single-market self-employed folks) spent several hundred thousand dollars to try to get the law rewritten so that royalties would be set in stone, much like jukeboxes. Why would they do this if they didn't all also believe it was illegal? In any case, the effort failed.

With this evidence in hand, I tried to grow the company organically, but it became untenable. We weren't getting enough money from the single-market (or few-market) customers to fund the expansion. By contrast, Critical Mention was self-funded by a dot-commer, and completely ate our lunch. Even if we'd attempted to raise money, the fundraising sidetrack would have set us back by a few more miles and I had zero additional bandwidth. There really wasn't a good answer to the question.

Ultimately, despite finding product-market fit almost immediately with this freshman business effort, I decided to pivot into a more "legitimate" business. I altered the tech to provide archiving systems for TV stations... and it went over like a lead balloon, cratering the businesses and leaving me with a pile of personal debt which took a couple of years of "real world" work to pay off.

Since then I've tried to start 2 more companies (huzon.tv and words4chrome.com) and while my execution and engineering skills have become vastly better, neither found product-market fit like the first. Beginner's luck, I guess.

<comment><USER3> Sounds familiar, did you colo in Pennsauken, NJ by any chance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I once built a system that pulled multiple TV channels, encoded them on the fly and rebroadcast via multicast over the office LAN to reporter's desks. This was for a newsroom and would have otherwise required dozens of DVB cable drops (and subscriptions). The DirecTV guy was mighty suspicious that I had a pile of Linux boxes set up next to the receivers, and no TVs in sight.

<comment><USER5> I've heard a similar setup is similar in hotels. The hotel gets a box per channel, re-broadcasts them onto coax (same as VCRs used to put eveything on channel 3, but with more channels), and then the hotel TVs can use their built-in tuners.

<comment><USER6> It's even moving past that: the last hotel I was at used the TV as a thin client that transmitted incoming IR signals back to its box in the server room.

Needless to say, the latency was atrocious. I even saw a Windows desktop flicker during a channel change.

<comment><USER7> So that's why hotel TVs always take so long to change channels. I thought they were just really cheaply made tuners.

It's infuriating when you just want to channel surf before bed and ever button press takes 5 seconds to register.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >The company has more than 2,200 subscribers, including the White House, 100 members of Congress, the Department of Defense, as well as big news organizations like Bloomberg, Reuters, ABC, and the Associated Press.

Yeah I don't think they were ever in any real danger. This isn't something average joe consumers like us use, this is something big corps, media companies, and politicians use.

<comment><USER9> The trick with all disruptive businesses is to generate broad consensus of value early, making adverse judicial decisions unlikely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> On the one hand ... TVEyes sounds like a great, useful service.

On the other hand, once all of the legal challenges are out of the way, I can't imagine there won't be a bunch of other companies swooping in to undercut them. $500/month for a service like this? I'm thinking that has the potential to go down significantly and quickly, with competition.

For instance, I can imagine a cut-rate service that doesn't do speech-to-text but instead relies solely on closed captioning. Or a plan that monitors only a limited subset of channels. It might not have all the features of TVEyes, but may have enough to hurt TVEyes' business if it doesn't lower prices and offer a limited tier itself.

It might not make sense for such a service to pop up now, while the legal issues are unsettled, but if TVEyes bears the litigation burden to get those issues settled, I can't imagine it wouldn't face stiffer competition down the line.

<comment><AUTHOR> > $500/month for a service like this?

$500/mo sounds like peanuts for what a service like this provides. For a business that would use this type of information ( _e.g. TV shows like Daily Show or Colbert or a political campaign_ ) it's both worth more and cheaper than doing it in house. The power bill alone for all those TV-tuners/DVRs would be more than that!

I'm surprised that it's not more expensive.

<comment><USER2> I'm fairly certain this is what the daily show uses:

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

... or at least something similar. In other words, they do it themselves. That's the only way I can explain their uncanny ability to find a dozen clips containing a certain word or phrase across _very long_ time frames.

<comment><USER6> A tangent, but I thought I remembered The Colbert Report staff developing something like this in-house. After a bit of searching, it turns out that staff members had actually developed and spun-off a segment writing and producing tool [1].

[1] [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-17/stephen- colb...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-17/stephen-colberts-in- house-tech-startup-wants-to-fix-tv-scripts)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _> >It's a significant digital-age fair use ruling, one that's especially important for people and organizations who want to comment on or criticize news coverage._

This is why FOX News sued.

 _> >The company has more than 2,200 subscribers, including the White House, 100 members of Congress, the Department of Defense, as well as big news organizations like Bloomberg, Reuters, ABC, and the Associated Press._

This is why FOX News lost.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can't they work around this with licensing?

Basically Fox add a clause to their sales contract that says 'use of this type of thing is not allowed with our service'. That gets pushed down the line to those buying the service. TVEyes are buying a domestic service, contractually they can't get that service without committing a tort (breach of contract). _Et voila_?

Fox surely aren't obliged to provide the service to anyone they do not wish to supply it to. The inclusion of the Fox media on the service is proof, on the balance of probabilities, that the contract was broken ...

The judge is ruling that this sort of copyright infringement is not disallowed by law; but that doesn't surely mean it can't be made impossible by contract. There is no right to rip down TV broadcasts, surely?

It does seem now that a public facing service offering clips of up to 10 minutes of TV is allowed under this ruling. Presumably that's a new thing in USA? Also how is this different to offering digests of news websites - so I can sell NYT stories now as long as I sell lots of other peoples stories too, and so long as it's recent news, and so long as I don't let them see the whole NYT website. Clipping services bought the rights to the content.

I think it's a great ruling but I don't think the breadth of it will stand as I don't consider it to match with the general impetus of copyright law. Creating a video index using CC and/or speech-to-text (or human transcribers) doesn't seem particularly transformative to me, especially as the service Fox are using already is doing similar indexing. The only transformation is in the utility of the colocation of many channels - since when (other than for Google!) was "but if we sell everyone's content then it's easier" been a defence against copyright infringement.

<comment><USER13> They can't add a licensing clause if they broadcast it over the air. No one has to sign a license to receive and record broadcast TV.

If they were solely a cable or internet network, then possibly.

<comment><USER12> Ah, right, so they only way this would work would be to not off FTA broadcasts. Who FTA broadcasts Fox, themselves?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does this ruling have any implications for Aerio?

<comment><USER15> No. They are very different services

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 2200 subscribers = $1.1M monthly revenue. Not bad considering the costs don't grow that much with additional subscribers. Some for serving the content on request, but I imagine the ingestion and storage is the big ticket item.

I wonder how long they archive for?

<comment><USER17> Per the article, 32 days.

<comment><USER18> So, for research farther back, LexisNexis will be needed to find transcripts only.

<comment><USER19> Or for television news content, Internet Archive [https://tv.archive.org](https://tv.archive.org) has news from 2009 searchable by the closed captioning text, only Bay Area media market, national and international. Just added Philadelphia news too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seems like an interesting technical problem. Does anyone know a good way to record many TV or radio stations at once, either for storage or realtime processing?

<comment><USER21> [http://www.snapstream.com/](http://www.snapstream.com/) (I assume it's not cheap.)

<comment><USER22> Wow. Click the prices link. That site is extremely annoying.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Anytime, a Simple Time Converter - <AUTHOR> https://anytime.saikiran.dev <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to get into Svelte, so I built this project on top of it. I know there are thousands of time converters out there, but this fits my use case at work, to compare multiple time zones with the same input. I barely spent an hour, to build this. Shoutout to svelte for making it so easy.</comment>


The critical role of systems thinking in software development - <AUTHOR> https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-critical-role-of-systems-thinking-in-software-development <comment><USER2> Can someone point me to an actual, real, significant, practical outcome that has been achieved via so-called "systems thinking" or "systems theory"?

It seems to make intuitive sense. Yet ultimately it feels like a sort of "generalized abstract nonsense", a way of "saying less and less about more and more until you are saying nothing at all about absolutely everything".

I can see how it can be used, at least at a metaphorical level, to explain things (like "how small flaws can compound to create big problems", as in this article). But it has never been clear to me how it can actually be used in practice in a positive way -- determining a small intervention that can be used to push a complex system in a _desirable_ direction, rather than a problematic one.

Otherwise, of what use is it other than to convince us that in the real world, even the smallest mistakes we make can balloon way out of proportion? So... what are we supposed to do?

1\. Keep our systems simple so that these things can't happen? (Then how do we build interesting things?) 2\. Formally specify everything so that we understand every possible error mode? (Seems like just an indirect way of forcing ourselves to do #1.) 3\. Add enough belts and suspenders and other layers of redundancy that the probability of a truly catastrophic error is reduced to the level that you feel comfortable with?

None of those seem very practical, except in the obvious domains where failure results in loss of human life or massive amounts of money.

<comment><USER3> I think 1 and 3 are pretty practical, and you can get part way to 2. Appreciation of simplicity, transparency, robustness etc can be good inputs to your design without crippling it. There are lots of situations where there is a better practical solution but you just stop looking for it because you don't have a reason to say "not good enough" to the inferior solution.

<comment><USER2> 1 and 3, however, are in conflict.

As Tony Hoare said, there are two ways to write software: one is to make it so simple that there are obviously no bugs; the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious bugs. Clearly the former is much more difficult and expensive; hence in practice (again, except in those critical domains) we end up doing the latter, because the economic incentive to do the former just isn't there, even if we know the customer (and we as developers) would be happier with it.

<comment><USER3> I think there are simplicity friendly suspenders, look at eg how the Erlang school of engineering does it.

<comment><USER2> Good point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>