It may be possible to extract electricity directly from damp air - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/08/01/how-to-wring-power-from-the-night-air <comment><USER2> One can dream of extracting sufficient electricity to someday run a dependency-free dehumidifier, which can put a damper on the need to run HVAC in much of the world (damp air feels significantly warmer). One can dream.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't the electricity 'generated' coming from energy in the motion of the air.

Ie. You could maver make more electricity than used by the fan to blow damp air through your system.

<comment><USER4> The description in the article is vague and I can't find any information elsewhere, but the reference to the functionality depending on which metal is used for the inner cylinder makes me think that it's actually a voltaic cell using the moist air as a (poor) electrolyte.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Check out the vaneless ion wind generator: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator)

Other weird stuff: [http://www.rexresearch.com/1index.htm](http://www.rexresearch.com/1index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER6> Back in 1974, the 'Amateur Scientist' column in Scientific American covered electrostatic motors: [http://www.meridian-int- res.com/Energy/ESMotors.pdf](http://www.meridian-int- res.com/Energy/ESMotors.pdf)

There's a lot of electrical energy swirling around in the ionosphere!

<comment><USER7> I remember two Popular Science articles on electrostatic motors from old magazines of my youth. Always wanted to build one:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=ngAAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA95&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=ngAAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95)

[https://books.google.com/books?id=kwAAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA80&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=kwAAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Imagine it were possible to scale this up and somehow harness the full lightning energy of a thunderstorm. Say 1 strike per second with each bolt representing 10^9 joules. Then that is a measly 1 GW peak, only available in certain places at specific times of day and parts of the year, not including losses and inefficiencies .

<comment><USER9> > harness the full lightning energy of a thunderstorm

As in, walk into every chapel and install a device that works with the apparatus for 'catching' strikes? Not sure what they're called, but I know it's tradition of having a chapel higher than all other buildings which is used to capture potential strikes and earth the current through the ground.

<comment><USER10> That's called a lightning rod.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://archive.is/JrlQ2](http://archive.is/JrlQ2)

</comment><comment><USER12> The title sounds like magic. That's what I like about this world. We do not have the great wall or dragons, but we are doing things that sound just as magical to them as great walls and dragons sound to us.

</comment><comment><USER13> I hate stories about science written by non-scientists.

See [http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html)

<comment><USER14> "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER13> Just to be clear, I was referring to the article, and not to the research it reported on.

But yes, point taken. I should have explained my criticisms of that particular article, rather than being generally dismissive of science reporting by non- scientists.

I could have said that I found the article to be confusing and misleading. About our understanding of the atmosphere's electrical potential, and about the particular research reported. But I just made a snide comment, and pointed to the Feynman lecture.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Meetupcall - Simple conference calls - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetupcall.com/meetupcall-simplest-and-quickest-way-host-and-join-conference-calls

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to HN's feedback on our attempt at making hosting and joining conference calls that little bit better.</comment>


Open Budgets India:  Making India's Budgets Open, Usable and Easy to Comprehend - <AUTHOR> https://openbudgetsindia.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is an on-going project; in the coming months, we will work towards expanding the coverage of budget data available on the portal and present a greater proportion of the data in machine readable formats (i.e. CSVs and MS- Excel, instead of only PDFs). Moreover, we will also be adding a database for facilitating inter-State comparability of budget data across years. However, we believe it is necessary to carry out this expansion as an incremental, public process. Hence, we have made the beta version of OBI live and we are seeking feedback and suggestions (from all potential users) on how could this portal be made more useful in future.

<comment><USER2> Hi, what are you using to convert the pdfs to csv? I was looking at [http://indiabudget.nic.in/](http://indiabudget.nic.in/) just today, and most of the data sets are in PDF. (Especially for the older years). What tooling are you using to get them to machine readable format?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can access most of the Union Budget Documents in CSV here: [https://openbudgetsindia.org/organization/about/union- budget](https://openbudgetsindia.org/organization/about/union-budget). We have developed our own tech-stack based on computer vision and Tabula to convert PDFs to CSVs, take a peek here: [https://github.com/cbgaindia/parsers](https://github.com/cbgaindia/parsers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Open Budgets India(OBI) is a comprehensive and user-friendly open data portal that can facilitate free, easy and timely access to relevant data on government budgets in India. The portal provides budget information of different tiers of government in India (Union Budget, State Budgets, and Budgets of several Municipal Corporations across the country) in accessible and open (non-proprietary) formats.</comment>


Moniker Deactivated My Domain 26 Days Before The Expiration Date - <AUTHOR> http://peterc.org/blog/2010/345-moniker-deactivation.html <comment><USER2> Sorry you had to go through that nuisance. Can I make one suggestion with regards to business processes? You currently appear to have domain renewals done shortly in advance of need, with manual scheduling. _This is a source of risk._ There are a _lot_ of failure modes there, including "my registrar fubars the renewal", and many of them have unpleasant consequences.

Domain names are cheap and abandonment is infrequent and unlikely to save much money, for most people on HN. So renew them early, for long terms. For your business or blog or other domain which will be a going concern for the foreseeable future, go renew it for ten years. If your business gets sold to Amazon tomorrow, oh well, that cost you only $60 ~ $80 or so.

I own a small stable of domains (a few dozen) and keep most of them on rolling two year registrations, with my main ones (product sites, my blog, etc) on rolling five year registrations. I renew all of them yearly. This way, screwups by myself, my bank, Paypal, or GoDaddy probably won't deprive me of use of my property.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is good advice. But.

I agree with the gist of your point. I follow this process with some important domains because most TLDs are cheap. At ~$75-$99 per year (depending on registrar), _.io_ is not cheap and it made no sense to cashflow at the time to throw years on it, especially as I hadn't made my mind up whether to jump to the .com I own before launch (seriously considering this now). That's my lame excuse ;-)

That aside, I'm fastidious with my calendar and delegated my responsibility by marking to renew the domain in late December prior to the expiry date. This is close to the line but still reasonably before it and this issue is something Moniker needs to clear up in its TOS or similar (Moniker even sent frequent e-mails telling me when it expired with no warning of this deactivation date.) Since I've not actually "launched" yet, I'm not baying for blood - just an improvement in their service.

<comment><USER3> this and other failure modes are now in your control. monkier may be irresponsible, but their service looks sufficient for your needs.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you mean, "I've learned my lesson" then yes. However, they still need to clear things up because not everyone else is going to know they do this and others probably have more important, revenue generating domains than mine ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> hey Peter,

Mail this guy: email@example.com

His full name is Monte Cahn, he's only going to be there for another 3 weeks or so so move while you can. (he started Moniker.com).

That should get your stuff sorted out in no time flat, Monte is _very_ serious about preserving the reputation of the company he built, and has been even after selling to oversee.net.

If that does not get you sorted out fast enough to your liking let me know (email@example.com).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Jacques. Moniker's Twitter agent has told me they have escalated this case but it can't hurt to just give him a heads up!

(Luckily, I'm not baying for blood, I just want them to clear this up so both I and others won't get caught out by this undocumented policy again.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why are people so quick to blog about problems before trying to get them solved? The article clearly states that it was only after posting the original that the Moniker agent was contacted, isn't that the first port-of-call?

I had a similar situation recently where I cancelled my auto-renewal 6 months before the renewal date and my site was pulled (even though I'd paid for the year). I could've blogged about it and tried to encourage everyone not to use the provider, but I just contacted them direct and got a quick resolution. Maybe if I'd had no response I'd have tried to make it public but there was no need as it was a simple mistake.

It seems to me that these days people want to shout out their problems far too quickly rather than try and get them fixed. This is a strange way of getting things resolved.

<comment><USER6> When you've got a problem that is destroying your business, -any- time that you're forced to wait for them to contact you back is costing you money.

I don't blame him for reaching out to every available outlet while he waits.

In this case, he's already got at least 1 post that gives him someone else to contact in the company and get noticed.

And there's probably someone that works there that reads HN, so that's another thing in his favor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yikes. I use Moniker too, and this hasn't ever happened to me. I thought they were better than that.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've had some __very __bad experiences with Moniker in the past.

I would even go so far as to say they are untrustworthy.

<comment><USER4> Can you be more specific ? I've been a moniker customer for many years now and have a fairly large number of domains under my control, between myself and related companies about 50,000 of them or so, not a single complaint to date except for two minor technical issues which were dealt with quite fast.

<comment><USER9> Your definition of untrustworthy and shady may be a bit lower than that of ra if you are in the type of business that holds 50k domains. I mean seriously, what's your business model with 50k domains? Or are you like one of the hosting companies that offers a free domain with an online service?

<comment><USER4> > Your definition of untrustworthy and shady may be a bit lower than that of > ra if you are in the type of business that holds 50k domains.

Thanks for playing mr. Anonymous, I don't think what I do for a living is a secret around here and _did_ mention that that was a combined number between myself and a number of other companies.

If you're clueless about something the polite thing to do is to ask rather than to make insinuations.

<comment><USER9> Well I did ask in my last sentence, and you haven't answered. I didn't then but I have now gone to your projects; I see reocities, the ww/webcam thing and your blog. I don't see anything like bluehost or linode provisioning domains to users. The reason for the slight snark at the start of my message I suppose is that it's hard to find a domain and yet in every thread like this you get a few people confessing to hoarding hundreds or even thousands. Sorry for being sceptical, and curious, about what you could possible need 50k domains for: you'll have to spell it out for me or ignore me I suppose.

<comment><USER4> Would a 45K servers co-location facility meet your requirements?

Or a couple of domain re-sellers that sell domains as part of their hosting package? (that use Moniker as their 'upstream').

> that it's hard to find a domain

I've never had that problem. You mean that you find it hard to find 'single word' or 'perfect descriptions' of common ideas, and that's true, but I'm fairly sure that you can find plenty of good domain names for exactly $8.

The value of a domain is directly proportional to the amount of time that you put in to it. Usually the people that complain about there not being any 'free' domains are really complaining that they can't get the domains they want. Not realizing perhaps that if the person currently holding their desired domain would not be holding it surely someone else would.

There are all kinds of arguments for/against holding a large number of domains, my own criterion has always been that if my idea isn't worth the $8/year fee for a domain then I should not even bother to write it out. If you come by 6 weeks later and have the same idea, and through sheer coincidence decide on the same name then you will have to be just a little bit more creative, but we all agree the value is in the execution, not in the domain name.

Google.com was worth $8 when they got it first, and at that time the same complaint was often heard.

It's like the DNS variation on the HN/Reddit theme, and I figure as long as the DNS is the prevalent method of locating hosts this will continue to be the case.

In a few years time all the 6 letter domains will be gone, etc. But there are an awful lot of possibilities there, 300M+, someone did some work to prove just how likely it is that some pronounceable domain is gone:

[http://semmyfun.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-is-probability- tha...](http://semmyfun.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-is-probability-that- pronounceable.html)

For 7 letters (which is really quite short) that does not look all that bad to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems to me to be a problem with TLD based names. They all have different policies for this stuff. I once had to recover a .SE name due to a situation just like this. I had planned to re-register a name, but fell within a strange situation where my domain was still mine, but outside of a 60 day window when I could actually renew the domain. This was all in advance of the actual expiration date. Because of this, the domain lapsed and I had to have the registrar recover the domain manually.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if they want to check how much traffic a domain gets before it expires so they can snatch up the good ones.

<comment><USER4> Oversee (monikers parent company) is not godaddy or enom. At least, not yet...

<comment><USER12> I have over 3000 domains on GoDaddy and I've never had an issue with them taking a domain and putting ads on it before it expired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this should be the normal way of doing things. I cringe when I hear about people renewing domain names _after_ they expired. I think the records should be changed prior to the domains expiring so they could hard-expire X years after being registered and people would know exactly when they _really_ need to renew them.

But, of course, since it's not in their TOS, and isn't either the normal way of doing things or stated _very loud and clear_ during the registering process, it's unacceptable.

<comment><USER14> You think _deleting_ the registration _before_ it expires should be normal?

<comment><USER13> No, I think changing the DNS _before_ it expires should be normal. Changing the DNS to a tacky parked page is often the only thing that gets peoples' attention, including highly competent people. I think if DNS changed 30 days before N years after the registration date, it would get people to extend the registration before the official expiry date. The date that DNS changes would be a date that the domain owner would get warned about.

Having a window after the official expiration date that few people know isn't elegant to me. Also in the vast majority of cases, if it's valuable to keep a domain 11 months after registering it, it's valuable to keep it longer.

<comment><USER15> unbelievable--if i renew my domain with one day to spare every year without any mistake or delay in payment, you believe my websites should be interrupted! for what, besides being on time?

<comment><USER13> For your own good. If dhh can delay renewing rubyrails.com until the domain gets cut off, many of us can forget to renew our much less important names!

<comment><USER16> For your own good, domain registrars should contact you, by email, well in advance of an expiration. Worst case scenario, the name is held by the registrar for the grace period and the former owner has exclusive rights to it during that term.

<comment><USER4> Moniker actually sense out these emails regular like clockwork.

A sample:

# 0 Domains Pending Deletion - [ RENEW NOW ]

# 0 Domains Pending Deactivation

# 0 Domains Expiring Within 7 Days

# 51 Domains Expiring Within 35 Days

# 146 Domains Expiring Within 75 Days

So they actually start warning more than two months in advance.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


When using open source makes you an enemy of the state - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/23/opensource-intellectual-property <comment><USER2> That's a great read, and it inspired me to write this blog. you should also check out Free Software Foundation's comments!

[http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?ent...](http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2811&blogid=10)

<http://www.fsf.org/licensing/2010-02-ustr-comment.html></comment>


Open Source License FAQ – Facebook Code - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556 <comment><USER2> You can create a competing product and you can sue Facebook for anything other than patent infringement and the patents grant will not be terminated.

<comment><USER3> But why is it adding their patent grant which only protects facebook to non facebook projects like atom? Should every company add their own company patent grant? Why not simply add a general patent grant that protects all users and companies?

Facebook only cares about facebook in the license. We can't say that facebook is doing it for the benefit of the project itself. The more projects that have the license the more protected facebook is while everyone else is left out.

If we were to believe that it is an altruistic endeavor that will result into a "world without patents" then in fact it would be a world without patents... but only for facebook.

I have nothing against patent grants with the condition of not suing for patent infringement but they shouldn't only apply to one specific company. The apache software license and many others have already solved this problem. There is no need for a facebook only solution.

My issue is with people pretending that facebook is doing everything right when they are doing everything wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why isn't this more at the top ? People prefer to complain about it -- but clearly its a pretty permissible license.</comment>


Developers Call BS On $2.4B iPhone App Store Number - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/developers-call-bs-on-2-4b-iphone-app-store-number/15250

<comment><USER2> Apple needs to publish some official sales numbers. The speculation on this topic is rivaling the speculation on how much "everybody" loves to use social media.

<comment><USER3> Apple doesn't _need_ to (although it would be nice) and the high speculations are probably helping them. ie. more people developing apps hoping to make money.</comment></comment>


Swipe Right to Let Me Take Your Profile Photo - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/swipe-right-to-let-me-take-your-profile-photo-5291b7268da2 <comment><USER2> pretty cool idea.</comment>


Wikipedia founder to challenge Google & Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070308/wr_nm/wikipedia_search_dc <comment><USER2> I don't think the idea of winning by having super-duper rocket scientists is antiquated. In fact, I think the world is just learning how fearsome a company can be if they get all the smart people.

<comment><USER3> I entirely agree. The best way to build something is to get alot of smart people working on it--or rather, just enough smart people. The thing that Wikipedia leverages so powerfully is the ability of a wiki to let people work in parallel. Unfortunately, that advantage does not translate to building a search engine--you can't have people working separately, each contributing intelligence in their own domain, and expect to build a working algorithm.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but as far as I've seen, Jimbo is pretty much just flying around in his roflcopter talking up vapor on this one.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It is hard to believe that any small startup can compete with Google anymore. Search is Google's domain and it will defend that turf to death. With more than 15 billion webpages indexed, it is no longer about superior technology alone but also the sheer mass of content available.

<comment><USER4> While I agree that it's very difficult to compete on generic search, it's certainly not hard to compete in niche domains. And you don't need anything like 15 billion pages for those.

<comment><USER3> However, you need the correct subset of the 15 billion pages, which is only fractionally easier, and in some ways harder: google can just grab everything, and then pull semantics out. If you want to leverage your limited domain, you need to be able to be able to have semantics in your indexer/crawler, otherwise you're going to end up having to index everything anyway.

One exception, of course, is in genuinely finite-domain search engines, like Octopart. There, you know exactly where to send your indexer, so you can be very efficient.</comment></comment></comment>


Class of 2016: Whose works will enter the public domain - <AUTHOR> http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/class-of-2016/ <comment><USER2> "Wondering what will enter the public domain through copyright expiration in the U.S.? Like last year, and the year before…Nothing."

So wonderful to see new works enter the public domain, and then there's the gutpunch. So depressing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Frigging Mickey Mouse. This two-bit mediocre cartoon character is why we can't have nice things.

<comment><USER4> We need to create a sort of hybrid copyright and trademark that will solve the mickey mouse problem. So that a company can keep their actually used characters, but that unused stuff goes into the public domain after 25 years plus not being used in the past 5 years.

That way Disney can keep their mickey mouse, but someone can find a book written 40 years ago that isn't in circulation anymore and reprint it. Or create unauthorized sequels, riffs, whatever.

<comment><USER5> _We need to create a sort of hybrid copyright and trademark that will solve the mickey mouse problem. So that a company can keep their actually used characters, but that unused stuff goes into the public domain after 25 years plus not being used in the past 5 years._

Why bother? Is there a good reason in the public interest to keep Mickey out of the public domain, or is this a workaround to do as much in the public interest while submitting to the fact Disney has enough money to block the otherwise status quo ending of copyright.

If the former, I'd suggest that you have a warped vision of how Disney's profitability is the public good, and secretly think you're lying. Or if it's the later, our democracy has some really fundamental problems and caving on this just makes them worse.

<comment><USER6> Forget the specificity of Micky Mouse, as that character just represents Disney's brand. Do you really think a company should lose their brand after X years? Disney doesn't care about Steamboat Willy, they care about people selling knock-off mouse ears, which comes with Willy entering the public domain.

I was just listening to an NPR segment on how Elvis Presley's image has become tainted by cheap crap, and that inspired Frank Sinatra to ensure the same doesn't happen to him. His biggest fear was that his face would be sold on a coffee mug. Should anyone be able to do anything with Frank Sinatra's likeness now that he's passed?

Should the estate of George Lucas be able to create new Star Wars movies in X years to compete with Disney's Star Wars movies in effort to undo everything they added to the universe "Because it wasn't George's vision", even though he sold off the rights?

I know I'm throwing hypotheticals and edge cases out there, but I just want us to focus on the issue deeper than "What reason is there to keep Steamboat Willy out of the public domain?" There's no good reason. But there are tons of good reasons to ensure people can't profit off an active brand's image.

<comment><USER7> The system for doing that is called _trademark_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hope in a millennia copyright is looked back upon with the same disgust and insanity that human sacrifice, child wives, and genital mutilation are (mostly) today. In a society unbounded by information scarcity, to intentionally and systemically stymie it is to intentionally cripple yourself. The immediate magnitude may be less significant, but the long slow death of culture to perpetual copyright is having absolute consequences on our modern society today, with escalating damage as time goes on. The longer we as a people are culturally stunted walking a tightrope of legal bureaucracy established and maintained to protect monopoly and corporate profit the more of our history we lose, and the more of our bonds are lost or never formed amongst one another in common knowledge. But because the suffering is scattered across our collective conscious, and because it requires an understanding of how information and culture are made beyond the average wit, the movement is limited and rife with a never-ending uphill battle against one another rather than against the aggressors, because we were all raised in this system and to see outside it requires great effort and a sacrifice of established ethos many are not willing to engage in.

It is the same outside thought that kept slavery the norm, or subjugated women, or made great thinkers like Giordano Bruno heretics to be burned rather than celebrated. People are born into systems of oppression and will fight for them because it is what they know, even if it is to us now what is not right. And I firmly believe intellectual property protectionism falls into that history of oppression - much more muted, much less immediately harmful, but backwards and self-defeatist all the same.

<comment><USER9> I'm very much for copyright change, but equating copyright monopolies with human sacrifice and genital mutilation is specious bullshit that makes people less sympathetic to the cause of reform. The injustices of copyright are a minor annoyance by comparison to other kinds of abuse and trauma.

 _because it requires an understanding of how information and culture are made beyond the average wit_

Bah, humblebrag. Almost everyone I've ever discussed copyright with is perfectly capable of appreciating the systemic perpetuation of privilege that inheres in copyright monopolies. You're waving a bloody shirt for the moral equivalent of a paper cut; it's not OK to borrow the vastly more intense sufferings of others to make more of an emotional impact.

<comment><USER8> I'm not equating it. I'm comparing it. They are simply explicit and blunt examples to make a point, more relatable examples would be traditional models of miasma causing disease or of the Earth being flat. But you also reinforce my point - it _feels_ more explicit when the consequences of a misguided social order have physical ramifications in the immediate, rather than the sociological spanning the entirety over a long time. Probably the greatest relatable yet poignant example would be the cultural view of women as helpless or lesser than men for most of history since cultivation of crops began. It started as a tool of control, and was passed down in an ingrained psyche we have still not fully escaped. But we can fully understand both that people borne into it assumed it to be an absolute of the world, the same as how many think copyright and intellectual property _must_ be, while also recognizing how wrong they can be.

> Almost everyone I've ever discussed copyright with is perfectly capable of > appreciating the systemic perpetuation of privilege that inheres in > copyright monopolies. You're waving a bloody shirt for the moral equivalent > of a paper cut; it's not OK to borrow the vastly more intense sufferings of > others to make more of an emotional impact.

This is _also_ the point. It is not about the privilege of the owners, it is about the damage inflicted by it. It is not about money earned but history, knowledge, and potential lost. You can see the immediate consequences of slavery, but also recognize that such a sin of culture has consequences in the potential of everyone involved beyond the subjugated. If a debate on copyright devolves into pursuits of wealth or privilege, the macro impact is already lost. In addition, anyone you are having a debate with is probably already putting in the effort. I speak of the other 99% of peoples who give it no consideration and assume it as natural as gravity or light.

And I'm not claiming to be some enlightened saint. As others have said, these flaws in social organization of peoples require mental effort to grasp and overcome. You always want to presume what you know is what is right, and I am certain I have my own assumptions that are as moralistically wrong as copyright that I have not yet, or may never, challenge. And hopefully whatever we are in that thousand years looks back and sees them all as backwards and unreasonable as we see so many historical practices as wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of interest to Europeans is also that the group "died in 1945" also includes Aldof Hitler. Up until now the Bavarian government (as the copyright owner) blocked any and all reprints in Germany and wherever else they could. I'm looking forward to reading it, admittedly primarily because I'm curios whe they were so hellbend on keeping it away from the general public.

<comment><USER11> Nazi propaganda is illegal in Germany. That's pretty much all there is to it.

<comment><USER12> Yet "Mein Kampf" will be available again starting January 1st.

see: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-34980701](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34980701)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Blind Willie Johnson's song "Dark Was the Night" was among those put on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 and launched out towards interstellar space.

</comment><comment><USER14> Next year in the "life plus 50 years" countries (including Canada): Walt Disney. I hope people in those countries make a mockery of mickey.

<comment><USER2> Making a mockery of Mickey is fine. It's parody!

<comment><USER14> Good point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone track the quantity of work under Creative Commons? How does that compare to the volume and quality of public domain works lost to draconian Copyright extensions?

<comment><USER16> Passed 1 billion now, [http://creativecommons.org/weblog/2015/12/08/46651](http://creativecommons.org/weblog/2015/12/08/46651)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It was said below ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719751)) but it's worth a top-level comment: the TPP may ruin the public domain for countries currently enjoying annual PD growth.

</comment><comment><USER18> Copyright terms should be 20 years at most.</comment>


Show HN: MackerNews – Beautiful Readable HN Articles - <AUTHOR> http://mackernews.com <comment><USER2> Is it just me, or do a number of these comments seem... manufactured? Almost all of the positive comments come from accounts with < 10 karma.

Just from reading the comments, I was expecting a nice looking app. However, when I actually saw the screenshots I was greatly disappointed. Nonexistent margins, line height issues, and more make for a client that is worse than the original HN.

Then, to learn that it isn't even feature complete (no comment voting) and the author is charging $5?

<comment><AUTHOR> Comment voting is on the way. Screenshots on app store are better than the site. But agreed there are some issues, App Store submissions are a pain but just wanted to get this out. Will be updating it rest assured :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd suggest sticking "Mac only" somewhere in the submission title, to save a lot of people a little bit of time.

<comment><USER4> Agree the title should indicate this is for a Mac.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great design. Especially the use of icons that's lacking in most other HN clients.

Normally is simply use Google Chrome with this extension that makes HN looks pretty [http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/hn- special/](http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/hn-special/)

I can also recommend this alternative site [http://hn.premii.com/](http://hn.premii.com/)

<comment><USER6> Ooh that's nice

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The app looks great. I think the name is not that great. Macker means in German "old man" or "boy friend" ([http://www.dict.cc/?s=macker](http://www.dict.cc/?s=macker)). So I (as German) had to smile a little with the combination.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol. That's hilarious. My puns get me in trouble :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> At width 1000px to 1200px, "Secure Login via Keychain Access!" overlaps the graphic.

</comment><comment><USER9> there's somewhat of an issue going on with your site: all slide overlays are showing when using firefox, safari only shows half slides and chrome isn't able to load the website at all…

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow definitely didn't test the site in firefox or safari and its definitely messed up there. It's working on chrome for me though…hmm

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still find Hacky [0] better, although it's been abandoned for a while.

[0] [http://www.hackyapp.com/](http://www.hackyapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER11> IMHO, you cannot charge 5$ for, what I would call, "a dedicated HN browser".

Do people charge 5$ for reddit clients?

BTW, in your webpage, slides are broken.

<comment><USER12> For an app that a lot of people here would use every day, $5 really isn't that much if it offers them usability or aesthetic benefits versus the website.

<comment><USER13> There's s lot of aesthetic issues going on with this app though. Awkward line height, lack of margins, etc. it does not look more readable than the normal HN to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks awesome! Premii's HN client[1] is probably my favorite so far.

[1] [http://hn.premii.com/](http://hn.premii.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Great job!

When will comment voting be implemented?

Also, in comments - would be great if links were clickable, and if the user could highlight and copy text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely in the works. Will submit an update soon to address those issues. Thanks for your feedback :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love the design! Great job!

<comment><USER17> It's so nice to have a functional hacker news mac app

<comment><USER18> agreed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> it's so (Github for windows/metre apps) style :S

</comment><comment><USER20> Way too much whitespace bro...

</comment><comment><USER21> Pretty awesome app! I always wanted a hacker news dedicated mac client! I love that you can read, share, comment and vote. Also the real time extension is great!

</comment><comment><USER19> It's so Github for windows[0] style

[0]:[https://windows.github.com/](https://windows.github.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: Technology choices - <AUTHOR>

I finished university last year, during that time I was always focused on open source technologies. Since leaving uni I tried to find full time work to get some experience before trying my hand at a startup, but I found it difficult to get work with open source technologies. So I started applying for graduate .NET positions, to my surprise I found it quite easy to get a full time role, the pay was even greater than what I expected it to be.<p>Anyway a few months on, I'm now really enjoying my work with the .NET framework, so much so that I don't really understand why most open source developers dismiss Microsoft's products? Is it the cost? I can understand why a startup might want to keep costs down, but there must be some historical aspect around Microsoft that I'm missing, my experience suggests to me that there tools are very good. Could someone please fill me in on what I'm missing? <comment><USER2> Microsoft has a history of rapidly deprecating their technology platforms, leaving your old code unable to access new APIs. In the past this was good for their business because competitors couldn't keep up with changes in the MS ecosystem(and each new iteration of Windows could make sweeping changes, since the market was growing so fast), so forcing developers to move in lock-step with the MS toolchain was another way to preserve the monopoly.

It's this legacy, plus the non-free nature that makes it hard for developers to do their own maintenance, that causes aversion to MS tech.

Today you have a lot of freedom to make technology decisions that go beyond performance requirements and platform APIs. It's just a matter of how long- term you want to make your codebase. If it's disposable code, it really doesn't matter. Unfortunately, "disposable" projects often become mission- critical later.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the day job, i use .Net(C#) within an all-MS environment. For my own business, I write in open source toolsets and frameworks(usually python stuff). So I can relate.

The thing is, the .Net framework is not bad. I mean, aside from it being proprietary, the design is not that bad. Read up on what miguel has to say about that, I tend to agree with him on this topic. If only they would embrace their community...

What's wrong with the .Net framework is the same thing that's wrong with using Windows as your platform of choice for development. If you don't hit any problems, then you will be very happy. But when you do hit problems(and you will) then you'll realize what the problem is with closed systems.

So in short, closed system even if you can read the source code, its very difficult to do anything with it. Inadequate documentation that are often wrong with edge cases. Lock in to specific technology and often specific versions. Not enough interaction with the community of developers in terms of bug reporting, change description and the like.

</comment><comment><USER4> Entrance might be cheap, but eventually you are stuck on Microsoft technology and paying more and more for it. But to be honest, I have not even looked at their pricing structure. I am pretty sure it is not all free, though.

I have been happy with open source software, so why should I consider switching?

Overall, I just don't like the feeling of being dependent on one vendor. Why take on that risk? I haven't closely followed the news, but there were recent HN articles that seemed to suggest to me that Mono isn't going so strong anymore either.

For consulting I probably wouldn't mind using .NET, the client chooses the technology. As long as it is not downright unpleasant (PHP), I would take it as a chance to learn from the competition. They probably got some things right.

</comment><comment><USER5> Several people have already side-swiped this issue, but let me say it straight out: the main advantage of OSS is that, if you really need to, you can dive in and fix bugs or add your favorite features ("scratch your itch").

I don't think this happens as often as pure OSS advocates claim, but it's there.

Think of OSS as having the ultimate guarantee: You can fix anything, if you really need to.

Otherwise, you're just working with a black box whose ultimate behavior (bugs or features--really the same) is beyond your control and even understanding.

(Believe me, I've spent decades working with various black boxes (OS and application APIs), and it ain't all that fun spending a good chunk of your life second-guessing the API vendor and working around their bugs.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Open-source developers often want to develop on Linux, or at least to be able to release cross-platform stuff that will work on Linux, and Microsoft's toolchain is generally not oriented in that direction. If you use their dev tools, you're usually just building a Windows .exe, and if you want to port, it's going to be extra effort. There are of course Windows-only open-source projects, and they do actually often use an MS dev toolchain.

I think if Microsoft had (especially earlier on) been somewhat friendlier with the cross-platformness of .NET, either with their own releases or by helping Mono be a more compatible option, it would have more uptake, because technically it's actually pretty nice.

</comment><comment><USER7> You experience is correct. Microsoft tools and platforms are, generally speaking, good.

Some things, like making the entire .NET source available for debugging, even cuts into the open source's advantage of deep debugging.

The key problems for me are: cost, lock-in and to some extent, slower pace of evolution.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think Microsoft has always done a great job on providing excellent development tools and I've always used Microsoft tools and languages with great pleasure in the past.

However, to me, developing with Microsoft tools is really limiting my choices. This is one of the reasons I really like the Java platform, because of the choices. I can choose to run Java on Windows, Linux, OSX or what ever operating system. I can choose if I want to use Tomcat, Jetty, JBoss, Geronimo or what ever server best suites my needs. I can choose my language; Java, Jython, JRuby, Groovy, Scala, Clojure etc. All these languages run on the JVM.

If I was still building desktop apps, like I did in the 90's, I'd probably still be using Microsoft tools. But since I'm primarily a web developer these days, somehow to me, Microsoft tools just don't cut it for me.</comment>


Al Jazeera English, Live Now: Gunfire in Tahrir Square - <AUTHOR>

AJE (http://english.aljazeera.net/) and Reuters have APCs moving on the bridges nearby.  A lot of gunfire in the background of their correspondents' phones during interviews.  Very confusing due to sound reverberating off of the high-rises that ring the square. <comment><USER2> MSNBC reporters have a hotel with a direct view, and are also giving live commentary. Gunfire and what sounds like artillery are clearly audible.

EDIT: State Department has arranged evacuation flights and is advising Americans to report to the airport immediately.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Armor moving away from positions near the square and toward the Nile bridges according to reporters and activists on the phone (AJE).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One person may have been killed (Reuters / Al-Arabeyya reporting) ... gunfire may be coming from several directions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Gunfire increasing, 4 or more people killed, others wounded.</comment>


Show HN: ScaleFT, Login to Servers Using Google Apps Auth - <AUTHOR> https://www.scaleft.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> co-founder here, happy to answer any questions!

We've been working on making ephemeral client certificates easy to use, and bridging SSH & RDP to things like Google Apps authentication is an example of what you can do once you get to make new identity attestations every few minutes.</comment>


My list of almost indispensable Chrome Extensions - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/ama/my-list-of-almost-indispensable-chrome-extensions-443 <comment><USER2> some of those Chrome extensions are already implemented inside chrome.

CSSViewer is essentially the inspect layout of the inspector. The extension just saves you from opening the inspector.

Clear Cache does exactly what the clear storage button in the inspector does. you can find it in Developer Tools -> Application -> Clear Storage. The extensions seem to be just a shortcut.</comment>


A Startup's Crucial First Hire: The "Do-It-All Office Admin" - <AUTHOR> http://www.currentlyobsessed.com/2009/12/16/crucial-first-hire-the-do-it-all-office-admin/ <comment><USER2> I often see this role filled by what everyone calls a "secretary" or "assistant". They tend to be very highly valued by everyone in the company [below exec level] and tend to go all the extra-miles to babysit same execs. Even moronic extra-miles such as re-booking hotel-rooms on a saturday because the CEO didn't like the furniture, or organizing company-events in their off- time because the CEO "asked" (read: demanded).

Sadly, more often than not, at least in my experience, aforementioned execs take all that for granted and the secretary remains a secretary in terms of pay and appreciation.

It's one of those stereotypes that I keep seeing over and over again that pisses me off every time.

<comment><USER3> > Sadly, more often than not, at least in my experience, aforementioned execs > take all that for granted and the secretary remains a secretary in terms of > pay and appreciation.

True story:

A friend of mine is a broker to a guy who is/was a major real estatement developer. Billions of dollars of developments. The guy is a maniac too, he'd develop multiple sites in different ways at the same time and he had a pretty small staff. Just infinite amounts of work and energy. Immigrant parents, came up from nothing, developer was just a pretty amazing guy.

My friend was one of the brokers he used. One year, secretary's day was coming around. Normally, the developer would give his secretary like a $200 gift certificate for Tiffany's or to a fancy restaurant or something like that.

This year, he thought - you know, my secretary has been with me for 20 years, she's been amazing, I should do something really special for her. My friend was just about to trade his car in and get a new car, and so he sold it to the developer for a pretty good bargain - something like $12,000. It was a nice sports car, only a few years old.

So he gave her the car, and she was thrilled, really really happy. Very grateful. After a couple weeks, the thrill wore off, and it was just business as normal, and she was still the very good secretary she had been for years and things were going well.

Next year, secretary's day rolls around again, and he gives her... a $250 gift certificate for Tiffany's. Like every other year.

And she was TICKED. Very upset. Her work quality suffered. She'd been very excited about what she was going to get, and then a slightly bigger than normal gift certificate was very upsetting.

Long story short - many people have thought the same way as you and tried to rectify it, often with undesired results. Everyone in the world isn't necessarily stupid - if something is done almost everywhere a certain way, it might because that way works the best. When deviating from the normal way, things should be thought through carefully. I do agree that a top notch assistant is invaluable though, and often times underappreciated.

<comment><USER4> Giving a one-time gift is not "rectifying" a fundamentally inequitable situation. Employees should feel like their work is appreciated and correctly valued _all the time_ , not just in a burst of mania every few years.

<comment><USER3> > Giving a one-time gift is not "rectifying" a fundamentally inequitable > situation.

I was a little lost for a second when you put "rectifying" in quotes and assumed an inequitable situation - I looked if the original poster used it; nope, he didn't. Did I? Nope, I didn't. I was responding to "aforementioned execs take all that for granted and the secretary remains a secretary in terms of pay and appreciation" - which I noted many people have thought before, and sometimes acted a little too hastily after thinking. So, I shared a story as a word of caution to people who think, "Yeah, my secretary does a lot! I should show more appreciation!" Well, yes you probably should, but you should probably think through the best way to do so before doing so.

Also, I should note she was paid quite well. I forget the figures, but it was over market - this guy paid everyone well, my friend did like half his business just being one of his brokers. He paid _way_ over market - which, stereotypes be damned, seems to actually be common among high performing people. They tend to compensate well from my firsthand experience. But I digress, she was paid quite well, so I was referring more to the "appreciation" than the compensation. The gift really was meant to be a gift and to show his appreciation, not as a rectification or a makeup or anything like that.

> Employees should feel like their work is appreciated and correctly valued > all the time, not just in a burst of mania every few years.

Fully agreed, that's a good point.

<comment><USER4> From the grandparent:

> _Long story short - many people have thought the same way as you and tried > to rectify it, often with undesired results._

I am obviously not familiar with the particular situation, so I was speaking in generalities: secretaries and assistants are I daresay as a rule vastly undercompensated in comparison with their bosses (and many other professions). In those circumstances, giving some lavish one-time gift or bonus is probably the _worst_ kind of an incentive.

Overall, I think we are in agreement...as you say:

> _Well, yes you probably should, but you should probably think through the > best way to do so before doing [showing your appreciation]._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When our computer science department was founded, Fred Brooks (the founder) insisted that the university provide funding for a department secretary from the outset. He went through a lengthy process of selecting the best person he could find, and to this day she is revered in the department (one of our classrooms is named in her honor). It's not a matter of considering some tasks to be "below" you, it's about maximizing your productivity by dividing labor.

From the department history [1]: "Professors and administrators may be loath to admit it, but no one knows better than they who runs a university: the department secretaries. [...] He was fortunate to secure the services of Sara Elizabeth ("Lib") Moore, a graduate of the University who had worked in the chancellor's office before moving to Duke University. Lib ran the Department for 16 years."

[1] <http://www.cs.unc.edu/History/Infancy.html>

<comment><USER6> Indeed. One of the things I've learned as a graduate student is that the department secretary is the single most important person in the department, at least for a student. They will likely be the one to schedule your exams, order your supplies (including chemicals!), get you time with faculty, coordinate meetings with your committee, and generally keep things running smoothly. Woe to the student who gets on their bad side.

Having an office admin isn't about offloading tasks which are "below" you: these tasks often require experience and excellent people skills, and it's about an effective division of labor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is kind of the general equivalent of letting someone sign your checks. I don't want anyone else signing my checks, and I don't want anyone doing anything else on my behalf.

No _startup_ CEO's time is so valuable or so scarce that they don't have time to order a fridge or a laser printer. This is for the lazy guys that enjoy having an assistant because delegating makes the feel like A Real Businessman.

I bet I could follow around any startup CEO for a day and point out 50 times he's got 20 minutes to order a fridge, or whatever.

Steve Jobs or something, sure. He really could be entirely booked up every single day all day.

<comment><USER8> I worry about the startup whose CEO cares a single second on what kind of fridge they have. Wrong priorities. Spent that extra 20 minutes on hiring, product planning, sales or coding.

<comment><USER7> I worry about the startup CEO that thinks it's beneath him to order a fridge. He may be aloof and think his job doesn't involve grunt work.

<comment><USER8> touché. So we agree, shouldn't care about the kind of fridge and it's not beneath them to order it. Btw, hopefully the people in the company care more about the quality of the people, the work and the direction that what is IN the fridge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Aren't they called "Office Managers"

<comment><USER8> "Office Manager" is a good percentage of the role, but in a chaotic startup environment, settling on the narrower job expectations that come with that title is limiting. Our d-i-a-o-a's were doing usability studies, guerilla marketing, recruiting and other things way beyond the tranditional scope. In a startup, it is good to have generalists and people willing to stretch and do whatever it takes (even for engineers...imagine if one of your devs said "um, sorry, i only do OO, if you need a shell script for XYZ, that work is below me" or whatever...disaster)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I leave MSFT, this is the one person I'll sorely miss. An admin at a large company is a life saver for so many reasons.

</comment><comment><USER11> He's young. One of the benefits of that condition is the right to reinvent the wheel now and then, and coin new words for old things. Note I am not being sarcastic, merely pointing out the truth.

<comment><USER8> With all due respect, this is totally different from exec admin or exec babysitter. When we were 12 people in a small room coding and focused on our product, our do-it-all-office admins were absolutely strategic, important and appreciated by everyone in the company....and they allowed everyone to focus without distractions. And when we were acquired, our d-i-a-o-a were doing due diligence and holding their own with multiple execs and about 5 laywers. They were incredible. I'd lay down on the tracks for them now. Their job was anything but "baby-sitting". And it got each of them into top schools pursuing law and business degrees. By the way, not bad for a first job out of college.

<comment><USER11> Never said anything negative about the role(s). I think it's important, and takes a load off the folks doing the more core business-specific tasks which are vital to startup takeoff.

<comment><USER8> totally!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This website reminds me why I should never browse without Tor. And why I should make my proxy block Feedjit.</comment>


7 years after trading his kidney for an iPhone 4, Xiao Wang is dying - <AUTHOR> https://www.phonearena.com/news/Trading-his-kidney-for-an-iPhone-4-permanently-disables-a-Chinese-man_id112314 <comment><USER2> The "related phones" advert at the bottom of the article made for an even stronger dystopian feel than I was expecting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Phonearena is reblogging and adding negative value.

[https://www.idropnews.com/news/chinese-kid- now-24-disabled-f...](https://www.idropnews.com/news/chinese-kid- now-24-disabled-for-life-after-selling-kidney-for-an-iphone-4/90317/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Received a settlement from an underground hospital? That doesn't sound too underground. Are China OK with "underground" hospitals then, and just sue them when things go wrong?

<comment><USER3> Paying a dumb kid to not go to the authorities sounds underground.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lasted longer than an iPhone 4 would have.

<comment><USER6> My boss still uses an iPhone 4. iPhones are nothing if not durable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So this kid is dying, Phone Arena is using his story to generate views (and income), and they leave this gem of a blurb at the bottom: "The moral of this story? It is better to purchase the things you want by paying with the fruits of your own hard earned labor instead of using a shortcut."

These guys are assholes. I suggest a boycott, and a DDOS.</comment>


Solving the GDPR Crisis: A bootstrapping entrepreneur's take - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@dgwight/solving-the-gdpr-crisis-7905014877ef <comment><AUTHOR> Author here, feel free to ping me with any questions</comment>


Facets: An Open Source Visualization Tool for Machine Learning Training Data - <AUTHOR> https://research.googleblog.com/2017/07/facets-open-source-visualization-tool.html <comment><USER3> Very impressed to see the confusion matrix consist of the actual images in that deep zoom style rendering. We've implemented something similar in spirit in some image processing machine learning application but instead I have a traditional confusion matrix with counts that are "<a>" anchor links to a webpage that displays all the constituent images. Nice work Facets team.

I particularly like this language here... "Dive is a tool for interactively exploring up to tens of thousands of multidimensional data points, allowing users to seamlessly switch between a high-level overview and low-level details. ...Dive makes it easy to spot patterns and outliers in complex data sets." [https://github.com/pair-code/facets#facets- dive](https://github.com/pair-code/facets#facets-dive)

That's key functionality to drill into our data with powerful navigable dashboards and visualization tools. We're creating this seamless transition with some Python and Flask and Bokeh tooling but nothing as impressive is Facets. But we've cued in all the domain specific things of interest, but it's nice to see a general purpose feature set on display with Facets.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm impressed. I would certainly have loved this when I was a practicing "data miner" (I'm old-ish). Anything that allowed me to better understand my data and models was welcome. I used DataDesk ([https://datadesk.com](https://datadesk.com)) back then.

This tool should be useful to classic statistical modeling as well as DL.

Given how easy it is to point-click-slide complex data transforms into existence, there's also a danger of mucking things up and creating overfits and so on. But that's a minor consideration given the rather obvious benefits.

</comment><comment><USER5> This looks amazing.

And... I keep waiting for MS to provide an add-in to Excel that will allow ML analysis and similar visualization.

Even better, someone beat MS to it and do one for Libre Calc.

<comment><USER6> They've got all the building blocks really. For instance check out sand dance [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/project/sanddance/](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/project/sanddance/)

It's just that Microsoft is so focused on getting you into azure services that they're pushing these capabilities up there instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Disclosure: I work at Google.

This is one of many things coming up that help make the adoption of ML easier - we'd love to hear more about what else we can do and/or what problems you're running into as you adopt machine learning (either TensorFlow based or something else). Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER8> I am curious about Jupyter support. It seems like it can run as a plugin to Jupyter, which would be ideal. I had a quick go at installing the jupyter plugin, documentation is a bit lacking once you've installed it.

<comment><USER9> Here's how to use Facets Dive inside Jupyter Notebook.

1\. Download and install as explained in "Enabling Usage in Jupyter Notebooks" at [https://github.com/pair-code/facets](https://github.com/pair-code/facets)

2\. Open a new notebook and copy&paste code from here: [https://github.com/PAIR- code/facets/blob/master/facets_dive/...](https://github.com/PAIR- code/facets/blob/master/facets_dive/Dive_demo.ipynb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting that I can't see any text on Google Blogs on mobile - <USER2> (iOS) with ad blocker "Focus". I can see the article on Chrome iOS though.</comment>


The New York subway-map wars, continued - <AUTHOR> http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2010/12/915879/new-york-subway-map-wars-continued <comment><USER2> I can't believe that an article about the contentiousness between different design styles doesn't actually have clear pictures of the designs being discussed! Here's a few I've been able to track down:

\- A 1966 map, in the style Vignelli replaced: [http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/system_19...](http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/system_1966_a.gif)

\- Views of the 1972 map: [http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/system_19...](http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/system_1972.jpg) <http://subway.com.ru/maps/1972.htm> [http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?index...](http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?index=266&id=266&domain)

\- The 1979 map: [http://www.imageexchange.com/mvx10/engine.cgi?cid=Z4uJrwOtIs...](http://www.imageexchange.com/mvx10/engine.cgi?cid=Z4uJrwOtIsa9zDeFgq10KpTKpL&store=nytm&page=default&basecat=maprepro&return=sku50&body=sku10&sku=18181) [http://gothamist.com/attachments/nyc_daveh/Fig.-3--- 79-orig....](http://gothamist.com/attachments/nyc_daveh/Fig.-3---79-orig.jpg)

\- A 2008 map, an update of the 1972 Vignelli: [http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/30/nyregion/Vign...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/30/nyregion/Vignelli- Subway_FINAL.jpg)

\- A current 2010 map in the 1979 Tauranac/Hertz style: <http://mta.info/maps/subway_web_full_map_Jun10.pdf>

And finally, an interview with Michael Hertz about the development of the 1979 map: <http://gothamist.com/2007/08/03/michael_hertz_d.php>

EDIT: and a page that contains both the current map (in Tauranac/Hertz style) and the KickMap referred to in the article: <http://www.kickmap.com/pages/7_wholemap_comparison.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Great breakdown of an argument that has going back and forth for years here in NYC. In a similar vein, anybody who has some extra time and interest should take a look at <http://nycbigapps.com/>. The deadline has been extended two weeks further into late January. There is a Meetup this morning if you happen to be in the neighborhood, [http://www.meetup.com/NYCBIGAPPS/calendar/15493668/?a=cr1p_g...](http://www.meetup.com/NYCBIGAPPS/calendar/15493668/?a=cr1p_grp&rv=cr1p).

</comment><comment><USER4> I hate websites that don't let you click on the image for a larger version. Especially when the article is about something visual.

</comment><comment><USER5> From a tourist's perspective, the problem with the NY subway system (compared with other subway systems) is that multiple stations have the same name, but may be in very different locations. Usually it's on the same street, but not always; e.g. Fulton St, in both Brooklyn and Manhattan.

As to the map itself, the current one is far too crowded in spots because it hews too closely to physical geography, leading to difficulty making out the association between labels, lines and stations until one is familiar with it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Most subway maps in Europe are diagrams because the urban fabric of the city evolved in a chaotic patchwork fashion; you can't easily explain London on a diagram. The urban fabric of New York is a grid. New York developed on top of a diagram. This is such a crucial part of how you understand the city that it doesn't make sense to me that you wouldn't acknowledge this in a diagram which is explaining a system which is laid out to serve another diagram: the city grid. One of the fundamental principals of modernism is that form follows function; the second guys map is more functional.

<comment><USER7> That's only partly true. The early city was the standard sprawl-out-from-farms kind of thing. Later on, Manhattan was planned pretty well. But the outer boroughs are still a mix of grids and patchwork.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for this very interesting report of the conference. The positions and arguments are well and shortly exposed. The boundary between diagram and geographical map is in question with subway "maps", and the graphic design is still a challenge.

I'm glad to see that the subject of map design is alive and expanding with new media. However, i'd like to see more references to semiology and perception psychology :-)

</comment><comment><USER9> This line cracks me up:

 _Chances are, though, that if you're giving it that much thought, you're the kind of person who generally assumes that the good guys lost._

</comment><comment><USER10> The maps are always fine on subways and very useful. The maps on buses, however, are non-existent or for the wrong routes. In addition, there's very rarely an announcement for stops. I would use them much more if this were fixed, as it's so much mental energy to always worry about my stop.

<comment><USER11> While the maps might be bad, they need to update the routes too. Some routes are horrible and there are stops on every other block. In some areas it can take 6-8 minutes to get through 1 lane streets to go 2 blocks.</comment></comment>


Teaching Is Not a Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/opinion/sunday/teaching-is-not-a-business.html <comment><USER2> I don't think it's necessarily true that "Merit pay invites rivalries among teachers, when what's needed is collaboration."

If my pay is only affected by my performance then I'm quite happy to collaborate with other staff members to help them improve.

Personally I like Warren Buffett's approach to merit pay: 80% of your salary is due to your performance, while 20% is due to the performance of your other team members [1]. This gives an incentive improve your performance and to be a team player.

[1] Page 19 of Buffett's 2010 letter to shareholders: [http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2010ltr.pdf](http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2010ltr.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Well, there's the theory of merit pay, and then there's the practice. I have no idea how merit pay works in the schools trying it out, but my hypothesis is that the overall bonus pool is finite and small. After a few cycles of the game, so to speak, teachers realize that only N merit bonuses can ever be given out in any year. Under such conditions, striving for a merit bonus _is_ directly competitive with your peers, and the pursuit (and awarding) of that bonus can get very political very quickly. Anyone who's ever worked at a large company with stack ranking, department-wide quotas on performance tiers, etc., will know all too well how this sort of system can produce adverse outcomes if not implemented _very_ carefully.

Buffet's system seems like an improvement on that scheme, but it, too, can be perverted under the wrong evaluation and management systems. If the group bonuses are team or unit-based (which seems likely, given the way such systems are usually implemented in order to manage at the local/proximate level), then team leaders compete for political favor. What results is that the savviest team leaders secure the rewards for their teams, whether by currying favor with the higher-ups, or by inflating their performance evaluations. (There are ways around this, however, and they rely on the artful management of access and information symmetry.)

I'm not opposed whatsoever to the idea of giving teachers bonus pay, or hell, higher pay in general. We should be trying to make the profession more prestigious and attractive, and accordingly, raising the bar on whom we accept into the field. There seems to be something working in the Scandinavian model, which regards (and rewards) teachers sort of like how the US regards and rewards lawyers, consultants, and other professionals. Perhaps the US is just too big and too heterogeneous to make something like that work. And there is something to be said about being unable to fire underperformers (though I do think that's putting the cart before the horse). Today's reformers are focusing on culling the dead weight, or on opening up more charter schools. The problem is that _most_ of the weight is dead weight right now. We've had decades of adverse selection into public school teaching, which has become a profession of last resort. Culling dead weight is fine, but we need to rethink the way we treat and compensate the profession if we want to attract professionals to the field.

<comment><USER4> You just need to have a much wider pool than just one school. If the state has 100 high schools then you helping out at your local school has a net positive effect.

Possible downside is losing schools will have an even harder time competing. As a counter for that you might want some sort of built in correction factor based on the schools population.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The public policy discussion around public education would be a comedy if it wasn't so damned tragic.

Let's review a few commonly-understood facts.

1) Public education continues to take more taxpayer money while providing little to no improvement in "outcomes" for kids, whatever that means [insert your own definition]

2) For those kids lucky enough to learn enough to be employable, businesses are now picking up the slack, with on-the-job mentoring and training. Business does a _lot_ of training in the U.S.

3) Blaming one group or another isn't useful. It's not the parents, or the taxpayers, or the teacher's unions, or the administrators. What we have here is a _systemic_ problem. The system is structured such that it sucks the life out of the teachers and continues to consume more and more resources. It's a bad system.

4) Making the system worse is the fact that it's full of consultants and external experts -- all of whom have some different idea of just what the hell the education system is supposed to accomplish. This article was a good example of that. Great ideas -- I love the idea of emphasizing relationships -- but markedly different from "Teach Johnny to read and write" or "Educate Sue enough so that she can get a job" or "Amit needs to be prepared for college". We all have different goals here.

So the problem is clear: there is no defined problem the education system is trying to solve. Therefore there is no strategy that can be "best", there is no expense that is either productive or non-productive, and there is no advice that is more or less useful than any other.

Until this issue of definitions is solved, no further progress can be made. In fact, no further progress is possible. Yes, you can come to the table with some great ideas, and you can make little snide political attacks against those who have different worldviews. Maybe even the other professors will pat you on the back. But you're not helping things.

So we're left with the problem Socrates gave us: the definition of terms. Without that, I am not optimistic that progress can be made. And guess what? Once we have a common definition of what the schools are supposed to be doing, we have a test. And so we are back to where we started. No matter what you do, you're going to have to measure it if you want to have some meaningful discussion about how it's done. That's an epistemological conclusion, not a political one.

<comment><USER6> But it's a political problem!

I agree that the _debate_ over education is crippled by a lack of clear teleological goals that everyone can agree on before discussing. But that's expected in a big discussion.

Most Big Social Issues have this same problem because they are political by nature, not technological or epistemological. Our society hasn't reached consensus on what an 'education' is, just like how it hasn't decided what a good life is (work/life balance debate), what 'freedom' is (drug criminality debate), or what a just war is.

But ESPECIALLY with education, I wouldn't expect a 'defined problem' or a set of agreed upon terms to come about by consensus. Why? Like tax policy, education policy has a very intimate relationship to politics and social classes because it affects everyone closely. The issue of definitions is 'solved' when one group's ideas win by force of influence.

The point you may be missing is that this has already happened. For the wealthy, the system isn't broken at all. The current system of standardization (test scores, bean-counting admissions processes) for everyone with a side of elite tutoring and private schools for themselves isn't failing. It's doing quite well: Pay extra disposable income for Mary to have better 'aptitude' \--> secure acceptance into the next stage of life. The wealthy don't want to make the masses dumb, that would be too dangerous and gut their workforce . They'd rather make them predictably average so their children can beat their peers, reliably, with extra financial firepower.

They may not think these details out consciously, but it's the game being played.

<comment><USER5> Sure it's a political problem. So -- people who want to change the system are required to define what the system is to them. We all don't have to have agreement. Petitioners for change simply have to clearly define their terms. That way we can judge them on whether our definitions are similar, whether those goals are worth meeting, whether the strategies employed might meet them, and whether or not their argument is self-consistent. None of that guarantees a "best" outcome, after all it is political, but it guarantees a reasonable framework for public discourse.

<comment><USER6> OK, so the _reformers_ need to define their terms. Yes, I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember reading a study for early education that found that simply touching each student (high-five, hug, etc) every day significantly improved their performance. I imagine the need for a personal connection to the teacher diminishes gradually as we mature.

The problem I see is how do you scale personal connections and foster more social bonds?

<comment><USER8> You need more teachers. I think you should only have 10 or 12 kids per teacher max.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why haven't schools adopted the business model of "hiring great people and letting them do what they do best"? Pay them well, give them support, infrastructure, and enough oversight to help them resolve their issues quickly and effectively...and then just trust them to be productive and successful.

Is it a lack of funding that stops this from being a reality? A lack of qualified applicants? Is there a good reason this model wouldn't work?

<comment><USER10> It works quite well in other countries (for instance, Finland). We have a few problems in the US:

\-- no profit in it (as observed above) \-- we don't really respect teachers or education in the US \-- school boards and local politicians want control over curricula and political agendas. Can you imagine some bright amazing young teacher teaching unadulterated evolution in some counties in Texas?

Kids are seen as a cost, not an asset or an investment, and we like to cut costs. And I do think there are broad swathes of the political establishment that are really invested in keeping America dumb.

<comment><USER11> > we don't really respect teachers or education in the US

That's probably the most important answer right there. If teachers had the same, or even higher, status in society as doctors and lawyers (had just as many tv-series where they were superstars etc.) we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

The same issues with measuring performance exists in those other jobs as well, but the perspective on teaching is always from the top. Everone's an expert in a way that's not true for law and medicine (to carry on the metaphor above).

<comment><USER12> There are tons of bad doctors and lawyers out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting claim: The creation of strong social bonds, possibly in conjunction with Deming's "plan, do, check, act" cycle, is essential to successful change in schools. (And more successful than extrinsic methods like vouchers or charter, or technological approaches.)

[Disclaimer: I work for an ed-tech company. This reflects my views, not theirs.]

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure exactly how the article of the title is reflected in the content of the article. It just sounds like the author complaining about perceived depersonalization of schooling.

</comment><comment><USER14> Every classroom in America would improve if we simply removed the few pathologically disruptive students that rob the others of their education.

<comment><USER15> If I could have done this when I was a teacher, I would probably still be one.

<comment><USER16> Wow. I'm sorry, that's really awful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Charter and voucher schools are not free market schools, since the government is paying the bill.

</comment><comment><USER18> Teaching should be a business. Then the best models of teaching will get the best customers. When you have schooling as a government service, there is little incentive to provide good education.

Going to school is probably the most miserable experience of my life. It's up there with having a job that started at 7:30 AM.

<comment><USER19> There are plenty of for-profit colleges, and by and large they are complete scams. Color me highly skeptical.

In the real world most education is government subsidized, and the counterexamples that do well seem to run on a non-profit model.

<comment><USER20> That's because of the twisted market government has created. In the real world, most roads are built on taxpayers money and police is paid for using tax money of the very same people they beat up. But is this real world a place you want to live in? If I don't like how I myself or my children are being educated (protected, treated), I should be able to stop paying and go buy someone else's services immediately. Without that, the feedback loop is broken and the system stops working properly.

<comment><USER19> That's a fine bit of moralizing, but the reality is you have to illuminate a sane path from here to there. Most the paths I've seen proposed do not seem in the least bit viable.

<comment><USER20> What paths were proposed and which ones didn't seem viable to you and why?

<comment><USER19> The ones I've seen are things like vouchers and charter schools. They are solutions that don't compose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "But charter students do about the same, over all, as their public school counterparts" \-- what a pathetic liar. There are redundant empirical evidence supports that charter students perform better.

This author is totally progressive ideology-minded.

<comment><USER22> Links please

<comment><USER22> I looked this up myself.

"But for each of the CREDO studies, two questions need to be asked: What are the findings? and How strong are the data and analyses? The 2009 findings were somewhat favorable to conventional public schools—although not as favorable as some skeptics argued. The 2013 findings appear to show some improvement for charters, with great variation between schools and between states—and with an overall national estimate of students in charter schools scoring approximately 0.01 standard deviations higher on reading tests and 0.005 standard deviations lower on math tests than their peers in conventional public schools (the former being statistically significant; the latter not). That is, the 'findings' question can be answered as follows: small differences shown in 2009 are even smaller in 2013. The CREDO findings are highly consistent with an overall body of research concluding that the test-score outcomes of the sectors are almost identical."

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer- sheet/wp/2013/09/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer- sheet/wp/2013/09/24/the-bottom-line-on-charter-school-studies/)

<comment><USER23> And charter schools in Michigan have been pretty disastrous:

[http://www.freep.com/article/20140811/NEWS06/308110130/chart...](http://www.freep.com/article/20140811/NEWS06/308110130/charter- schools-Michigan-suspension)

"The move follows state schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan's assertions — after an 8-day series about charters published by the Free Press — that he would crack down on poor-performing authorizers. The "State of Charter Schools" series showed that Michigan charters receive nearly $1 billion per year in taxpayer money from the state, often with little accountability, transparency or academic achievement."

And the in-depth (all articles may not be online done of charter school misspending: [http://www.freep.com/article/20140623/NEWS06/306230027/chart...](http://www.freep.com/article/20140623/NEWS06/306230027/charter- school-law)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I hope I don't get down voted, but unless you're being schooled in a hovel and/or lack decent living conditions, it's up to you. No one is a self-made man, every successful man has been supported in some way by society, but there is a certain threshold at which you can't blame circumstances. I support public education from kindergarten to PhD level, but I don't think everyone needs to have the best education possible. Everyone should have access to proper conditions for learning, then it's up to the students to learn or not to learn.

<comment><USER25> Every one might not "need" the best education possible, but every one damn well has a right to have access to the best education possible.

<comment><USER26> This statement cannot possibly be true. If everyone had access to the best education, it would not be the best education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > All youngsters need to believe that they have a stake in > the future, a > goal worth striving for, if they're going to > make it in school. They need > a champion, someone who > believes in them, and that's where teachers enter > the > picture.

The author then goes on to throw out all attempts to measure and improve education and say it needs a personal touch everywhere. When I was a student I hated all my teachers because I just read the books, aced all the tests, and ignored the the homework. I skipped class as much as I could without violating official graduation policy and read books under a tree or at a rest stop. Teachers just got in the way. Any personal touch by the teachers would have just slowed me down more than they already were and made me hate them more.

Let's stop with this touchy feely nonsense and measure and improve. If you go out and run every day you may feel good about yourself, but you'll never turn in good times unless you measure your time and work on improving it each time. You'll do even better if you compete with teammates and rivals during practices and meets. I think this article is what happens when you let an English major or similar comment on process, something they really didn't need to get their near worthless degree.</comment>


Draw.io Doomsday sale - 100% off for 24 hours - <AUTHOR> https://www.draw.io/about.html <comment><USER2> This is great marketing. Tie in your promo to the highly-popular, highly- dubious event as an advertising tie-in to multiply its effectiveness -- as a fringe story involving the event, you're going to have your message repeated automatically by others interested in the event.

You guys just reminded me that a Visio competitor exists, and you got me to try it. You did this by using a marketing message which entertained me -- don't buy now because "tomorrow's doomsday". You gave me some entertainment value in exchange for taking my valuable time. Thanks.

<comment><USER3> Google Docs also has a drawing program that I regularly substitute for Visio, but I do hope to see these Doomsday sales become a trend today.

<comment><USER4> Libreoffice Draw or Inkscape can also be used.

<comment><USER5> Do you use there straight out drawing capabilities? Or is there someway/plugin which allows the drawings to have the semantics of a graph (e.g. Line routing or layout managers.

FYI I use yEd because it deals with all the semantic stuff very well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know I'm missing something, but looking at the landing page, I can't perceive any way to capitalize on this. Is Draw.io always free, so this is a joke, or am I missing something obvious? All I see is the "Don't Sign Up" button at the bottom.

Granted, it's an early day for me today, so I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders

<comment><USER7> Don't worry it's late in the day here and took me a while to work it out. It's a joke, draw.io is always free.

<comment><USER8> So how do they generate revenue for hosting and stuff? Donations?

<comment><AUTHOR> Selling indecent pictures of the developers. We're looking for a domain to post them on, humblebundle.com was already taken, sadly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This way there's no shopping cart to go down. And anyway, it's the end of the world, what we gonna do with the 25%?

</comment><comment><USER9> Would you be willing to offer a larger discount if I bought multiple seats? I want to roll this out across my company before our fiery doom arrives tomorrow.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, for the next 24 hours we're focusing pretty much solely on flagrant hedonism. And flame-retardant suits.

<comment><USER9> My flagrant hedonism is largely dependent on charts so you can see why I'm keen to arrive at some manner of deal. How about "buy one get one free"?

<comment><AUTHOR> How about I give you the full source code (normal retail price 999,999), you do what you like with it and in return you give me the keys to your car with the boot stocked full of beer?

<comment><USER10> I think your humor is lost on many users here. Is this normally a product you have to pay for?

Given that the source code is on GitHub I would assume not but, but I'm still confused.

I also don't have a Sign Up button so I can't tell what the deal is with that either.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it's always been free, but hopefully that will be buried far down in the comments. There's nothing to sign up to, everything's free. You can link it up to your Google Drive account if you want to use that as storage, but that's just a permissions thing.

<comment><USER10> ok knowing that, this is actually a lot funnier =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I decided not to sign-up since they asked me not to.

<comment><AUTHOR> The sign up/don't sign up button is dynamically generated based on the perceived desirability of the user. I wouldn't take rejection badly, the main thing is to learn from it.

<comment><USER12> How did they determine the "perceived desirability of the user"? Seems a little presumptious to me - I didn't even know what it was until I clicked the link, and the first thing they say is "we don't want you."

Well guess what - now I don't want you either.

<comment><USER13> He's joking. He's the co-creator of draw.io.

<comment><USER12> Yes I get that now. Unfortunately, it's difficult to hear the ironic twang in his voice on an internet forum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Crap I already paid $300 for this yesterday before the sale started - can I get a refund?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'll get straight onto that. Tomorrow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How have I never heard of draw.io to begin with? This is glorious.

Great marketing as well :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Fine, make fools out of those freeloaders (me), making them/us think they will get a product free for the rest of their lives (which is supposed to last to 24 hours, RE: Doomsday).

I get it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Funny and effective

</comment><comment><USER18> Little typo in the line: "The full source code to both draw.io and the underlying mxGraph library is available on gituhb"

<comment><AUTHOR> <https://github.com/jgraph/draw.io/pull/7> ?

<comment><USER19> >git _uh_ b

Minor, but unprofessional in light of the $000,000.00 price :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's fixed in production now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> GraphML export/import would be awesome

<comment><AUTHOR> We have got that sitting around somewhere, didn't realise anyone wanted it.

<comment><USER21> +1 I'd love that.

<comment><USER22> I could use it also. It would help me migrate over from yEd.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/jgraph/mxgraph/tree/master/java/src/com/m...](https://github.com/jgraph/mxgraph/tree/master/java/src/com/mxgraph/io/graphml) . It's all there in the back-end, I'll switch it on after the break.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I want to give them money just for how good their landing page copy is... hilarious! Great work :D

</comment><comment> mark-r Tell me, how did you arrive at the 100% off figure without getting a divide- by-zero error?

<comment><AUTHOR>
      try
      {
        // Do something
      }
      catch
      {
        // ignore
      }

_puff_

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting, I just had my company pay 200 bucks for omnigraffle because I was using it to make UML. This would had been perfectly fine.

Thanks for posting

</comment><comment><USER25> This thing gets guitar tablature notation and I am in for 10 licenses. Either way, great publicity stunt.

</comment><comment><USER26> Who started this marketing thing? ; )

I have to say this is pure genius: I "fell" for the JetBrains/IntelliJ IDEA IDE at 75% off (once the site shall be back up).

Whoever started it it's amazing to see other companies quickly react: I guess seeing servers melt under the load of people ordering products made some able to react fast.

The only thing that is too bad it's that it seems very hard to reproduce: rarely are there such doomsday scenario that gather _that_ many attention :-/

<comment><USER27>
        I "fell" for the JetBrains/IntelliJ IDEA IDE at 75% off

Could you clarify on that? I thought it was a genuine sale. Not sure what the trick is.

<comment><USER28> Ya, my immediate move to purchase several high quality JetBrains products was purely because of the 75%, not the silly "doomsday" bit. That's cheap.

<comment><USER27> Oh, I'm sure they're just having fun with it. It's just a silly theme for the sale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't get it:

<http://www.jgraph.com/mxlicense.html> is a non-free license, but <https://github.com/jgraph/mxgraph/blob/master/license.txt> is non-commercial Creative Commons

Can I get a perpetual commercial license for mxGraph today?

<https://www.draw.io/about.html> says

"As Pro Plus® ++

Unlimited Users Unlimited Drawings Full Source Code

$0 / diagram / cpu / user / hour"

And how did you get permission to display all those customer logos on your page? -- Fortune 500 usually negotiate compensation for using their logos like that, which a vendor of a free product wouldn't have time/incentive to deal with.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Can I get a perpetual commercial license for mxGraph today?

Sure, if you pay for it. mxGraph is dual licensed, being the copyright holders, we can do this.

> And how did you get permission to display all those customer logos on your > page?

By having the clause:

"JGraph Ltd is permitted to reference you as a user of the Software in customer lists on the JGraph web-site, in presentations to clients and at trade events."

In the mxGraph commercial license. A few customers remove it, most don't. Some have asked for their logo to be removed, we always comply. But these are all paying customers of ours that have that term in their license.</comment></comment>


Picking up that entrepreneurial date. - <AUTHOR> http://troggerpath.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/find-that-entrepreneurial-valentine/ A bit of advice from one female entrepreneur, from her experience at start-up parties and tech mixers.  Hopefully it helps you score at least A date with that cute young founder across the office/bar. <comment><USER2> so according to her, you are supposed to stalk someone on facebook before you even approach them in real life?

All that stuff might be correct for regular dating, but I don't think it applies that much for Valentine's day. Thats the one day, where the shoe is on the other side, with women being desperate for a date so that they don't end up alone on Valentine's day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahah, you are probably correct there. And yep (Im the writer), you should definitely do a little research before you actively start pursuing someone. Sure, getting to know them at the bar or party is fine, but before a private date do a bit of research. Its flattering - and hopefully they do the same for you. :)

<comment><USER3> There's a limit to that though, it's weird when they start asking me about stuff from page nine of my Google results.</comment></comment></comment>


A cutting-edge legal mind turns to an age-old problem: corruption  - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/11/a_talk_with_lawrence_lessig/?page=full <comment><USER2> I think corruption is less of an ethical problem than an organizational problem. If the structure of society is such that people have the power to become corrupt, they will become so (for example if the law is defect).

In theory it would work if people could be convinced to just be more ethical, but I don't think that is a feasible solution.

<comment><USER3> I wish it could be that simple. In societies with low corruption it is this way mostly because people don't think about it, or are ashamed of it, much more then having mechanisms that catch them. Short term, yes, it's an organizational problem. But long term it can only be an ethical one, and it's not easy to solve this way.

<comment><USER2> I think it is not only mechanisms that catch them, it is putting people in positions where they can abuse their power to begin with. I would expect that most of the time in "western" societies people in power don't have the absolute power, they are more bureaucrats. For example, suppose you want to start a business and you need approval from a state official. In a corrupt country, maybe if that official says no, you are screwed. In other countries there are regulations for what you have to do to start a business. If one official tries to reject you even though you did everything the right way, you could go to court and force the official to approve your business. So the official does not have the absolute power he has in other countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you like this, Terry Gross did a good interview with Lessig recently:

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9859100...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98591002)

</comment><comment><USER5> I think it is great that he is working on this. It will be interesting too see what kind of ideas come out of it.</comment>


Ethical OS Toolkit - <AUTHOR> https://ethicalos.org/ <comment><USER2> Highlights I picked out (slight edits to be understandable out of context):

"Are you ready for a world in which:

* Video-faking algorithms are so advanced that faked videos are impossible to distinguish from real footage

* Conversation bots have been trained to imitate specific people

* To avoid backlash, popular social media and game companies decide voluntarily to enforce time limits

* automation eliminates as many as 73 million American jobs

* Fortune 500 human resource departments have subscribed to a "smart employer" service that evaluates a person's suitability for workplace cultures and stress levels, using public social media posts and "likes."

* "Predictive justice" tools become the preferred method for determining prison sentences.

* A major social network company purchases a top U.S. bank and then bases mortgage rates, loan approvals, and credit access on deep data collected by its social platform

* Facial recognition technology is a mainstream tool available to any individual or organization"</comment>


I like duplicate code - <AUTHOR> http://www.yusufaytas.com/duplicate-code-isnt-bad/ <comment><USER2> I like succinct, semantically-clear code that's many, testable, tiny functions.

</comment><comment><USER3> I didn't have the courage to talk about this. Duplicate code isn't the end of the story. It's beginning of a journey to refactoring.</comment>


This Biodegradable Paper Donut Could Let Us Reforest the Planet - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3068775/this-biodegradable-paper-donut-could-let-us-reforest-the-planet <comment><USER2> I've volunteered with a group that replants native oak seedlings in the hills of San Mateo county. What's needed there is protection from being eaten by fauna while still seedlings. The solution? Use wire cages to surround the seedlings. By the time they outgrow the cages, they are too thick to make for easy snacks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "These drones can plant 100,000 trees a day" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16260892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16260892)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> > Called the Cocoon, this simple invention protects seedlings from harsh arid > climates and reduces the amount of water they need to thrive–and boosts > their survival rate by as much as 80%.</comment>