Ask HN: How do you build and monetize Chrome extensions? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone have any experience with successfully creating and monetizing chrome extensions? I'm looking into doing this and want to see what I'm up against and if this is feasible.
Also, being that chrome extensions are comprised of just HTML/CSS/Javascript, anyone can easily view and replicate the source code and compete against you. The only way that I know to circumvent this is to have your chrome extension interface with your server, where the actual functionality is hosted.
What are your thoughts and experiences on this? <comment><USER2> Chrome extensions are just another interface to a web app. They're easy to reproduce by another hacker, but most people won't bother reverse-engineering an extension just to get it for free. You'll probably sell product to people who don't know how to do that, anyway.

If you're concerned about it, then just make sure the IP doesn't live entirely in the extension itself with a simple third-party authentication & payment system.

There are more than a few companies set up like this already. SalesLoft started as a paid Chrome extension!

<comment><AUTHOR> Very valid points, especially about the type of people using the product, they're usually not tech savvy enough to do so, or care about it enough to do so.

Yeah having the IP live on the server instead of the extension itself should be enough to keep things safe.

Interesting about SalesLoft, didn't know they started out as a chrome extension :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Also, being that chrome extensions are comprised of just > HTML/CSS/Javascript, anyone can easily view and replicate the source code > and compete against you. The only way that I know to circumvent this is to > have your chrome extension interface with your server, where the actual > functionality is hosted.

I wouldn't worry about this. If a competitor literally uses your code that's copyright infringement. For the vast major of apps you don't need to look at their code to figure out how to replicate them anyway. Minifying your code will make it unpleasant enough to look at the source files.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, yeah fair point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> minify your css, uglify your js and you're good to go. the visual part of your code will be available anyway, that's how the browser knows how to render your app.

when i comes to monetize, that depends on what kind of application you're making, just like a website you can use freemium model, a premium one, you can run ads on it.. as i said, it greatly depends on the type of extension you're creating

<comment><USER5> How would minifying and uglifying help? It's not hard to read minified CSS and uglified JS, and you can still use the minified/uglified versions in a knockoff app just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two pure chrome extensions off top of my head that I know people pay for: [https://www.vysor.io/](https://www.vysor.io/) [http://ghostforchat.com/](http://ghostforchat.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://www.streak.com/](https://www.streak.com/)

[http://www.gmass.co/](http://www.gmass.co/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't know the site to create a merchant account is blocked in my house.</comment>


BoomStartup to Announce the 10 Companies Selected for Its Investment Program - <AUTHOR> http://boomstartuptop10.eventbrite.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> BoomStartup is based in Utah and I invite anyone who is nearby to join us for the announcement! We applied to the program with our IActionable Achievement Engine startup. More Info - <http://www.BoomStartup.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> utah..hmmm

<comment><USER3> Just, you know, in case you happen to be driving by ;)

I imagine there are a handful of people from Utah on here. I know of at least a few.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Will it be a good time to launch a webapp in next 2 weeks here at HN? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, I'm planning to launch a webapp here at Hacker News for review in 2nd or 3rd week of Dec'08. But I was wondering if I should postpone that plan because I suspect there will be less members here due to holiday period. So there will be less Hackers to give valuable feedback.
What do you think? Shall I postpone the launch for Jan 1st/2nd week? Or shall I go ahead and launch in Dec 2nd/3rd week?
Thanks for your inputs. -Aditya <comment><USER2> You should always just launch whenever you're ready. It's a mistake to try to launch at specific times when you think people are paying attention, because everyone else does too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks PG. This is a great advice. I'll stick to my plan then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Its actually better to release during slow news days, because you'll get more exposure since you don't have to compete for attention

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that hackers often work through the "normal" holiday time. I know that I use time to get some stuff done for sure. Some people might have a bit more time and therefore spend some more time reviewing your app.

<comment><USER5> agreed :) I'll be working over the Xmas break.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Go for it!

I tend to spend huge amounts of time online during the holiday season. (This time, I'll be building the project I should've built the same time last year)...

</comment><comment><USER7> No, there will never be a good time to launch an application. Ever. We're all doomed. The future is in startups that target the cockroach market. Suggest you form a company based on random cheese, or find a way to turn stupidity into lollipops.

<comment><USER8> Bad day at the office?

<comment><USER7> No, just testing to see if that latest batch of Sarcasmometers was bad... and wouldn't you know it, they're all broken. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Coding bootcamp grads boost their salaries by 40% on average - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/533427/coding-bootcamp-grads-boost-their-salaries-by-40-on-average-2/ <comment><USER2> Is this bootcamp craze and the overall increased media coverage of 'coding' as an easily learned unskilled trade making anyone else consider a career change? I am pushing 40 and the diminishing earning potential, lack of respect, and relentless ageism are really making me wish I'd done something else.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't worry about the effect of bootcamps and the surge of unqualified programmers. All they do is create even more demand for senior developers to manage them and clean up after their messes.

I know it's ridiculous for someone half your age to give advice, but if you're worried about diminishing earning potential, ageism, and lack of respect, consider consulting. Your experience is directly valued and the earning ceiling is much much higher (if it exists at all). I know several 40+ year-old developers who have had tremendous success working as consultants and getting lots of respect from companies which otherwise exclusively employ 20-somethings.

<comment><USER4> You sort of nailed it, but most 40+ somethings need to get out of 'full time employment' status in to consulting or some other more independent status to keep the money and status going up. Not everyone, of course, but that tends to be the trend. The 40+ folks I know who just want to go get a 9-5 coding job seem to have a harder time landing one than the 20 somethings I know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to see such reports disclose whether or not the job numbers include bootcamps that hire graduates to teach, which to me inaccurately skews the numbers. Moreover, I'd like to see numbers on bootcamp graduates who are still in the industry after 5 years.

<comment><USER6> While we didn't report directly on this, 10 (out of >700) respondents did say that they worked as a teaching assistant after graduation (Table 14).

We'll continue to conduct this outcomes survey (as well as report on market sizing and growth) yearly; since the industry itself is 2-3 years old, we don't have 5 year out data yet, but will soon-ish! -Liz (Co-founder, Course Report)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm wondering how programmers who've made coding their life view newbies whose only experience is from a bootcamp.

<comment><USER8> As a CTO, I strictly will not hire them. They have an incredibly basic outlook unless they really do their homework and apply themselves. I'll take the college grad with good fundamentals and decent coding skills over the bootcamp grad with hardly any fundamentals and an overinflated confidence in knowing how to code (thanks to the bootcamps' marketing BS).

I'm sure many of you think I'm coming across as harsh, but actually my first company took on three apprentices with similar backgrounds and we paid the cost. Never again is all I can say. Let other start ups and businesses throw the dice, but I'll take a foreign (cheap) freelancer in the interim of looking for a real onsite dev. There's a very good chance the foreign coder is more skilled than any of these boot campers.

<comment><USER9> I absolutely think you're being harsh. I am not saying you're wrong, but it seems judgmental to deny bootcampers the opportunity to prove themselves.

<comment><USER8> That's ok if you think that, but look at it from the perspective of time management. I don't have all the time in the world to give everyone a chance. I would love to, but I can't and so a simple rule like "No bootcampers" is an effective filtering mechanism. With a little patience, I find better talent rather than forcing myself to hunt for potential in anyone who applies.

To be honest, I find it presumptuous that I should be giving them a chance. I went to school to get to where I needed to be. I had to pay off student loans. I had to learn data structures, compilers, and all sorts of advanced things that I don't use on an everyday basis (but no doubt help me). Who are you to say I'm being harsh in denying the get-rich-schemers of the bootcamping world for the diligent one-step-at-a-time college folk? And of course that's a generalization.. so please, let's not say "but there's always exceptions."

<comment><USER10> That just sounds like entitlement to me.

"I had to go through a longer, more expensive program, and learned harder things, therefore, why do they deserve to be given the chances I was?"

It _doesn 't matter_ what you had to go through - what matters is whether you are capable to do the job.

I went through a 4-year program. I'm a programmer at a startup. I use very little of any knowledge I acquired at school on a daily basis. Graphics? Compilers? Advanced algorithms? Nope. I just need to solve relatively simple problems and write code that's maintainable. The second part you don't learn in school - in fact, you probably learn the opposite. The first part requires a bit of a shift in thinking if you've never programmed before.. Hence bootcamps. I'm not deluded into thinking I'm really that much more capable _at doing my job_ than someone who spent less time learning not-so-practical things. Obviously this depends on what you're doing - bootcampers can't just go be machine learning experts. But web devs? Of course.

I've interviewed people from 4 year programs, and I've interviewed bootcampers. My guesses on their respective resumes pretty much matched up with how I graded them on their interviews. In both groups, you have the people who get it, and the people who don't. Obviously, the percentage was higher in the CS education group than the bootcamp group. But there are some really good bootcampers. There's also lazy fucks (get-rich-schemers) in both crowds. And I can tell the difference pretty easily in resumes.

It's fine that you have that heuristic - if you're running a tight ship and can't afford the time, then that makes sense. But to justify it like that is a bit silly.

<comment><USER8> Both of you guys are implying that my cause is entitlement when really it's just part of the overall equation. I don't understand how judging character by simple generalizations such as "Ok, you went to college, which means you got into college, which means you must have studied, which means you must have XYZ..." makes me a callous person out of nowhere and acting out of mere entitlement. Your argument is fallacious because it sits on a false premise.

I do not think I got scammed by university (as the guy below me said), but rather was gifted by it. Nor do I think that everyone has to go through the same path as me. Did I ever say I would deny a programmer who has been working in the industry for a few years with noticeable results despite a college education? I'm pretty sure my top foreign dev right now has no college education, but is self-taught.

I read my sentence again and you know I'm just being honest with you guys. It's not about a "me vs them", it's about an overall character evaluation. I look at myself as someone who I think generally went about things in the right way. I'm sorry if this offends you, but it's how I make up my judgment calls for who's worth looking into and who's not. What works for me might not work for others. I think college did a lot for me. I like talking with people who did go to college because I can typically talk at a lower level. I don't like having to constantly mentor or teach topics I am skilled in, which is what I would have to do with the guys who learned to code, but don't know much else. Is it important? That's up to the person doing the hiring who is going to have to deal with them on a day-to-day basis.

So, I need to worry a lot more about culture and productivity than I do some perfect ideal of hiring. In fact, I think by placing culture first and hiring who I think I would like the most, I do a big win for the company. In the future, when we're huge, maybe not so. Then it will be up to the hiring managers who actually have to work with them who they like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The salaries look really, really low. I'm wondering if these people with bachelors degrees in CS are screwing themselves by paying additional for these bootcamps. It looks like prospective companies are taking advantage of fact that they know their candidate attended a bootcamp and is offering artificially low salaries.

I wonder if they would have better results by applying for jobs directly, instead of through the bootcamp recruiters.

<comment><USER12> 65k is not crazy low for junior devs not in SF/NYC.

Also, I was under the impression that most of these bootcamps were for people w/o a CS degree(or degree at all).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Java, the language used to build Android apps, commanded the lowest compensation, at an average of $37,500._

Is this typical for Android development? I'm surprised there are very many software jobs out there with such low pay.

<comment><USER14> It wouldn't surprise me. Android apps sell less, are pirated more, and attract more 'free' users. Piracy is a problem with iOS apps as well, but there's far less money coming in overall for Android developers.

It also doesn't help that Java is one of the most widely 'known' languages since pretty much every CS major has been exposed to it for the last 15 years.

<comment><USER15> I'm immediately skeptical of any reports that put "piracy" anywhere in the top n list of problems for a platform. The great majority of people use the play store and buy their apps just like everyone else.

..Now whether it's a bogus perception, and the perception is causing people to eye the platform with suspicion, is a legitimate question. Correcting misinformation is hard.

<comment><USER16> Are you sure about that?

[http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/05/monument-valley- developer-...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/05/monument-valley-developer- only-5-of-android-installs-were-paid-for/)

<comment><USER17> There's been a lot of criticism for that comment and it really shouldn't be taken without a large pinch of salt. For example, it didn't account for people buying it once and installing on more than one device. That's a pretty big oversight.

Much as I love ustwo, it was a stupid comment for that developer to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am surprised by the disparity of the salaries for different languages. $80k for Python vs $37k for Java. How do you explain that?

<comment><USER19> Supply and Demand.... of code snippets on stackoverflow (zing!) xP</comment></comment>


Pentagon's UFO unit will make some findings public - <AUTHOR> https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/ct-nw-nyt-pentagon-ufo-unit-20200723-b3akzzy44zdgxc3bmhgko6nkgm-story.html <comment><USER2> Currently being discussed here fwiw: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942463)

</comment><comment><USER3> So, I had a thought about the wording they've been using to describe some of the more incredulous parts of this story.

Specifically this one: "off-world vehicles not made on this earth."

That feels like a crafted, or intentionally obtuse statement. Now there is something to be said for the clinical and dry phrasing of scientists or the military. But this doesn't read to me as "extraterrestrial" and certainly not aliens.

Combined with the assertion this week that Russia was testing a space-based weapon[1], this reads as "A foreign adversary has built a vehicle in space. And we might have captured one."

[1]: [https://www.wired.com/story/russia-space-weapon-twitter- hack...](https://www.wired.com/story/russia-space-weapon-twitter-hack-emotet- botnet-security-news/)

<comment><USER4> >Specifically this one: "off-world vehicles not made on this earth."

> That feels like a crafted, or intentionally obtuse statement. Now there is > something to be said for the clinical and dry phrasing of scientists or the > military. But this doesn't read to me as "extraterrestrial"

"extraterrrestrial" is just a single polysyllabic latinate word for "not made on this earth". The statements are literally equivalent.

The more significant part of that is that the quote is in reference to someone given a briefing on retrieval techniques, for which precautionary procedures would be developed if your mission included dealing with the potentiality, even if there were no concrete past or current examples.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I know "extraterrestrial" literally means "not of this earth" but colloquially in the US it's used to mean the equivalent of "not of human origins" or "alien".

The point I was trying to make is that it's unlikely that any revelations will be about encountering, either intentionally or unintentionally, another culture or technology from outside our own gravity well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has a timeline for the announcement been mentioned in any of these articles? So far it's only been that there will be some kind of announcement, but I can't find any suggestions of when.

Sometimes I wonder if these leaks are strategic as a way to say "hey, if this is you, last chance to come forward before we talk about this publicly"; maybe a little more "are you suuuuuuure these aren't your toys?" before someone finally comes out and says "We found this weirdly shaped hunk of metal and it seems cool but we don't know how to make it".

The conspiracy theorist in me hopes that we found something on Mars, and that's what's been causing all the expeditions out there recently.

</comment><comment><USER6> I recognize this sounds completely insane -

What if aliens are more of a psychiatric phenomena? Aliens have the ability to cross galaxies and stay undetectable to most of our instruments. They manipulate our senses to stay hidden to us, and have the ability to wipe our memory, which only gets better over time as they interact and experiment on us more. The amount of technology that an alien civilization amongst us has would be incomprehensible to us, using aspects of physics that we have no idea exist. Probably they are observing us now in detail, waiting to reveal at the correct moment - or more likely, they are revealed when we discover far more advanced technology and we learn how to see them.

OK, thanks for reading.

<comment> david-gpu Have you heard of the concept of falsifiability? Replace "aliens" with "leprechauns" and attempt to dispute this alternative hypothesis.

<comment><USER6> I would think aliens are far more likely to occur in the universe than leprechauns. I would say its a certainty there is other life, whereas leprechauns are certainly non-existent.

<comment><USER7> The claim to be falsified isn't that aliens exist anywhere in the universe, which is likely, but specifically that they are on Earth, and by extension, that stories of UFO phenomena (sightings, abductions, etc.) are accurate and correct.

Conflating the two is a common misdirection tactic of UFO believers, meant to imply that it's as reasonable to believe in the former as the latter, or that the general scientific consensus that alien life probably exists somewhere in the universe lends credence to UFO mythology.

The truth is, without some evidence that everything we know about physics is wrong, the universe could be teeming with life and it would still be about as reasonable to believe in the presence of extraterrestrial life on Earth as to believe in leprechauns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've always found it hard to believe a super advanced alien species keeps crashing their space planes.

<comment><USER9> Maybe they've just recently managed to make the technology work and they're still operating at the edge of their capabilities. Earth is just the first zoo they've decided to visit before moving on to more important worlds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Davis, who now works for Aerospace Corp., a defense contractor, said he gave > a classified briefing to a Defense Department agency as recently as March > about retrievals from "off-world vehicles not made on this earth."

> Davis said he also gave classified briefings on retrievals of unexplained > objects to staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Oct. 21, > 2019, and to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee two days later.

</comment><comment><USER11> Previous discussion on this made it seem pretty obvious that the UFO unit existing was largely (if not only) due to nepotism and they're not releasing anything if substance - just more speculation for more funding.

<comment><USER12> Nepotism? Can you elaborate or link the previous discussion?

<comment><USER11> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23943441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23943441)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Let's discuss this rationally and stick to the facts.

You have the US government being forced to be more open about its research on unidentified objects. The most credible reason those events exist is that Russia or China have stealth capabilities beyond what the US knows.

Having these reports out in the public also helps us understand the great mystery of this article: what is making Harry Reid, a senior Senator of great import, so convinced that his own government has access to alien artifacts?

<comment><USER14> Eric Davis, contractor quoted in the article, stated in another interview that the superpowers of the world have had their fair share of crashes and retrievals. The US isn't unique in this scenario.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2gjPRv4E7s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2gjPRv4E7s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would be interesting to hear some new findings on the 2004 video from the US Navy.

The pilot was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast and talked about it.

I don't believe in anything "aliens", but I'm not really sure what to make of that story.

</comment><comment><USER16> Smallish discussion a couple days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23931960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23931960)

</comment><comment><USER17> My favorite (sort of sad) theory is that this is Martian/Venetian/etc. space junk. The people are long gone but there's some stuff to out there to be found.

</comment><comment><USER18> unable to read from EU. Had to resort to a US proxy

<comment><USER19> care to ctrl+c the text to here so we can read it without subjecting ourselves to the tracking it apparently wants to do?

<comment><USER18> Long text, here it is:

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

Despite Pentagon statements that it disbanded a once-covert program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the effort remains underway — renamed and tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, where officials continue to study mystifying encounters between military pilots and unidentified aerial vehicles.

Pentagon officials will not discuss the program, which is not classified but deals with classified matters. Yet it appeared last month in a Senate committee report outlining spending on the nation's intelligence agencies for the coming year. The report said the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was "to standardize collection and reporting" on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, and was to report at least some of its findings to the public every six months.

While retired officials involved with the effort — including Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader — hope the program will seek evidence of vehicles from other worlds, its main focus is on discovering whether another nation, especially any potential adversary, is using breakout aviation technology that could threaten the United States.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is the acting chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told a CBS affiliate in Miami this month that he was primarily concerned about reports of unidentified aircraft over U.S. military bases — and that it was in the government's interest to find out who was responsible.

He expressed concerns that China or Russia or some other adversary had made "some technological leap" that "allows them to conduct this sort of activity."

Rubio said some of the unidentified aerial vehicles over U.S. bases possibly exhibited technologies not in the U.S. arsenal. But he also noted: "Maybe there is a completely, sort of, boring explanation for it. But we need to find out."

In 2017, The New York Times disclosed the existence of a predecessor unit, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Defense Department officials said at the time that the unit and its $22 million in funding had lapsed after 2012.

People working with the program, however, said it was still in operation in 2017 and beyond, statements later confirmed by the Defense Department.

The program was begun in 2007 under the Defense Intelligence Agency and was then placed within the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, which remains responsible for its oversight. But its coordination with the intelligence community will be carried out by the Office of Naval Intelligence, as described in the Senate budget bill. The program never lapsed in those years, but little was disclosed about the post-2017 operations.

The Pentagon program's previous director, Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official who resigned in October 2017 after 10 years with the program, confirmed that the new task force evolved from the advanced aerospace program.

"It no longer has to hide in the shadows," Elizondo said. "It will have a new transparency."

Elizondo is among a small group of former government officials and scientists with security clearances who, without presenting physical proof, say they are convinced that objects of undetermined origin have crashed on Earth with materials retrieved for study.

For more than a decade, the Pentagon program has been conducting classified briefings for congressional committees, aerospace company executives and other government officials, according to interviews with program participants and unclassified briefing documents.

In some cases, earthly explanations have been found for previously unexplained incidents. Even lacking a plausible terrestrial explanation does not make an extraterrestrial one the most likely, astrophysicists say.

Reid, the former Democratic senator from Nevada who pushed for funding the earlier UFO program when he was the majority leader, said he believed that crashes of vehicles from other worlds had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades, often by aerospace companies under government contracts.

"After looking into this, I came to the conclusion that there were reports — some were substantive, some not so substantive — that there were actual materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession," Reid said in an interview.

No crash artifacts have been publicly produced for independent verification. Some retrieved objects, such as unusual metallic fragments, were later identified from laboratory studies as man-made.

Eric W. Davis, an astrophysicist who worked as a subcontractor and then a consultant for the Pentagon UFO program since 2007, said that, in some cases, examination of the materials had so far failed to determine their source and led him to conclude, "We couldn't make it ourselves."

The constraints on discussing classified programs — and the ambiguity of information cited in unclassified slides from the briefings — have put officials who have studied UFOs in the position of stating their views without presenting any hard evidence.

Davis, who now works for Aerospace Corp., a defense contractor, said he gave a classified briefing to a Defense Department agency as recently as March about retrievals from "off-world vehicles not made on this earth."

Davis said he also gave classified briefings on retrievals of unexplained objects to staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Oct. 21, 2019, and to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee two days later.

Committee staff members did not respond to requests for comment on the issue.

Public fascination with the topic of UFOs has drawn in President Donald Trump, who told his son Donald Trump Jr. in a June interview that he knew "very interesting" things about Roswell — a city in New Mexico that is central to speculation about the existence of UFOs. The president demurred when asked if he would declassify any information on Roswell. "I'll have to think about that one," he said.

Either way, Reid said, more should be made public to clarify what is known and what is not. "It is extremely important that information about the discovery of physical materials or retrieved craft come out," he said.

c.2020 The New York Times Company

</comment><comment><USER20> I miss the time when mainstream conspiracy theories were about aliens and governments spying on us. These ideas never harmed anyone. Now we have antivaxxers and the cult of Q.

<comment><USER21> I'm afraid to even ask what the cult of Q is. Something tells me it's not Star trek related.

<comment><USER7> QAnon is what happens when Pizzagate and Christian apocalyptic dominionism have a baby.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Personal theory: UFOs are not aliens "like people" but are somehow related to information/energy/consciousness.</comment>


Ask HN: What Are Some New Programming Languages That You Are Excited About? - <AUTHOR> I am looking to see what new programming languages are launched last year(s) that are interested to pick up and learn. <comment><USER2> [https://www.red-lang.org](https://www.red-lang.org) wasn't created in the last year, but it hasn't hit 1.0 release yet and is continuing to mature. I would consider checking it out. I can't think of a 2018 language release with such amazing implications unless you count the brief trendiness of Nim (which first appeared over 10 years ago).

<comment><USER3> Huh. When was this brief trendiness of Nim? I'm a Nim developer so I'm curious what your perception is.</comment></comment>


Cyclist Spontaneously Combusts (?!): "a flaming human torch cycling along the road" - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/cyclist-spontaneous-combustion-poland.php

<comment><USER2> If I could pick any way to die, this would be it...positively legendary.</comment>


USB Business Card - <AUTHOR> http://www.t4f.org/projects/business-card

<comment><USER2> Significant discussion from an earlier submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1377651>

Then submitted again with no discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1383888>

But it is cool.

</comment><comment><USER3> Brilliant idea and implementation but I have to ask: Why would anyone want to plug someone business card into ones laptop; this look more like a clever way to pass viruses around.

<comment><USER2> Discussed at some length in the earlier submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1377651></comment></comment>


Privacy Over Innovation: A Brief History of Real Estate Data - <AUTHOR> http://blog.suitey.com/a-brief-history-of-real-estate-data

<comment><USER2> I don't understand why the Broker/MLS system even needs to exist in the first place. I've noticed more people selling their homes directly through Zillow lately -- shouldn't the internet be the ultimate platform for selling homes without forking over 10's of thousands of dollars to a broker?

<comment><USER3> Real Estate is strangely one of the last bastions of obviously disruptable inefficiency. Why do brokers deserve 6% for a purchase, or 2 months rent for a rental? It's absolutely crazy.

The best I can tell, they serve two functions: 1) They pre-screen "undesirables" for the landlords, allowing the landlords to avoid legal issues. (I'm not making a moral judgment, just observing behavior)

2) They negotiate higher prices for the seller. (This is just theory, per "Freakonomics" they seem more likely to hold out for a better deal on their own homes.)

So why in practice is it so hard to get rid of MLS? Because of their head start in the information monopoly, it is hard to replicate, and they have no incentive to let others into the game.

What's a good analogy? Look at how hard it is to unseat market data providers in Wall Street. Someone could beat Bloomberg, but only if they convinced all of Wall Street to stop using their feeds. Data providers usually only change when Wall Street says, "Let's create our own rather than give money to someone else."

Net - you would have to convince a meaningful (20%? 50%?) amount of brokers that they're going to get a larger market share of a smaller pie, that will inevitably send their old pie out of business. Or a TON of marketing money to convince a lot of home owners and buyers they're better off on their own.

I hope that someone pulls it off, because a lot of these brokers make investment bankers look like altar boys.

<comment><USER4> yeah whoever figures out how to have brokers not be sleaze balls is gonna make money. My view on the have/have not of a broker is that if you are buying you wanna make sure your property will increase in value so you need someone that really knows the area OR do a truckload of research yourself. Also the seller will probably pay the broker so it is a win-win for the buyer...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see withholding MLS listings from online listing sites helping brokers in the future.

These listings won't get sold because people won't be able to find them online. As a result people will stop listing their homes with brokers.

I recently bought my first home, and the negotiating started with "since you aren't using a broker we can take $10k of the listed price". That was the selling broker's opening negotiation, before I even made my initial offer.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if Zillow and Trulia would ever consider hiring brokers to grow their revenue...

<comment><USER7> Doubt it, why would they when they have made a killing on data alone?

<comment><USER6> It could be difficult for them to sustain revenue growth once they've sold to a critical mass of brokers...

[https://ycharts.com/companies/Z/revenue_growth](https://ycharts.com/companies/Z/revenue_growth)</comment></comment></comment>


Integer overflow and SMT-solvers - <AUTHOR> https://yurichev.com/blog/int_over/ <comment><USER2> These sorts of bugs seem like an inherent side effect of implicitness, in this case of implicit type casting in C/C++. Rust mostly solves this specific class of bugs by requiring explicit type casts. As a consequence, in Rust, unlike in C/C++, it is idiomatic to use an unsigned integer when negative values are semantically invalid.

Rust also makes it fairly easy to define a `newtype` wrapper, for when you need semantics different from the primitive types. You can, for example, define an integer wrapper that always panics on overlow (as opposed to only in debug builds, which is the default for Rust). Recently, I've used this pattern to define a networking "sequence number" type that does not implement ordering operators (less than, greater than, etc.), but instead provides `older_than`, `newer_than`, etc. I made the switch after correcting multiple bugs caused by implicit and incorrect assumptions of total ordering; making the switch uncovered several more of such bugs . Of course, such a pattern is possible in C/C++ as well, but it is not as ergonomic and thus not as common.

<comment><USER3> You can (and in my opinion, should) take this further with range types, such as those implemented in Ada.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, Rust doesn't have built-in range types, but it's fairly straightforward to write a macro to generate them. I've done this for array indices being passed over the network, in order to automate validation and minimize their bit-size on the wire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Unsigned int should be used instead of int for "num", but many programmers > use int as a generic type for everything.

Yes, this is very common. For example, Google requires that C++ code always uses int instead of unsigned.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, this is stupid.

If the language creators put a feature there, _use it_.

I really don't buy the love that some have for using signed variables when they don't make sense.

As a start, you only need one comparison to check if it's within range, as it's always > 0

<comment><USER6> Not using a feature because it's broken by default is perfectly valid. All those style guides that mandate signed ints do so because someone got burned by an overflow that wasn't caught.

<comment><USER5> Unsigned are not broken by default, and I've been bitten much more by ints that overflow and go negative. Funny how that's not "broken by default" (it isn't) to the same people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting; I'll have to takea closet look at [https://yurichev.com/writings/SAT_SMT_by_example.pdf](https://yurichev.com/writings/SAT_SMT_by_example.pdf).

If you've heard of Frama-C, these issues are highlighted by automatically inserted checks.

<comment><USER8> Strongly recommend. The learning curve on SMT is steep (at least it seemed so to me; perhaps I'm not so bright?) but Dennis's work really helps with a lot of nice examples of non-trivial problems being solved with SMT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _malloc() will crash on too big input value, because malloc() takes unsigned size_t on input._

Will it, or will it just fail and return null (which may crash later code if it doesn't check)? I believe the spec mandates the latter.

<comment><USER10> Are you suggesting C mandates operating systems not overcommit memory (I don't think it does), or that objects cannot be larger than PTRDIFF_MAX (and ptrdiff_t is signed)? (Edit: On further reading, I don't think the standard says that, either.)

Many implementations do not conform to that definition. But it's also possible that the expression results in a value smaller than PTRDIFF_MAX (or similarly, small enough the operating system does not need to overcommit), and then even a malloc conforming to that definition is free to return a pointer to some virtual memory (committed or not).

<comment><USER11> I think the suggestion was only that the call to malloc shouldn't crash. If it overcommitted memory, some other part of the program will likely be where the crash is. If it couldn't commit the memory, it will return null. Which is not crashing.

<comment><USER10> That makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While C integer rules are bit too arcane for me to remember, isn't the conversion from unsigned to signed integer in __addvsi3 undefined if the sum is greater than INT_MAX? If it is, the whole function is pretty much useless as compiler can optimize it to just plain addition.</comment>


How an underwater fantasy blockbuster turned into a legendary movie fiasco - <AUTHOR> https://read.atavist.com/sunk <comment><USER2> This is about typical for "amateur director meets clueless rich guy" projects. There are lists of movie flops, but they usually only include movies that shipped. Wikipedia has a list of unreleased films.[1] If you read the trades (Variety and The Hollywood Reporter), you can read about many other projects that started production but didn't ship.

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

<comment><USER3> The book "Tales From Development Hell" has backstories on some interesting movies that never got made. It was fascinating to read about some of the complications that you'd never think about.

<comment><USER4> I read somewhere (Wikipedia, I suppose) that Wreck-It Ralph was in development hell for decades. Long enough for its target audience to grow up into nostalgic 30-somethings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This film sounds like what would happen if you purchased the components of a blockbuster from Aliexpress and then had them pieced together by China's Tommy Wiseau.

<comment><USER6> On that description alone, I want to see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fascinating, but not surprising for anyone who's spent any time or done business in China. For more reading, an expat cast as an extra in this film kept a diary: [http://beijingcream.com/2014/07/deep-trouble-on-the-set- of-e...](http://beijingcream.com/2014/07/deep-trouble-on-the-set-of-empires- of-the-deep-part-1/)

<comment><USER8> The trailer didn't look bad in spots. Reminded me of a mix of Hollywood's epic movies set in Egypt and similar of the 50s/60s... the effects were off and on good looking. Still its so odd seeing a "Chinese" movie and everyone is white

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Jiang told him that he planned to cast foreign actors in the lead roles and > wanted to tailor the movie for international distribution.

I wonder if it irks him that the Chinese film which has made the most money ever in the history of Chinese cinema (US$553.8 million so far, even beating Hollywood films in China) is a film called "The Mermaid."

And it features a completely Chinese main cast and the story is geared towards the Chinese audience.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mermaid_%282016_film%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mermaid_%282016_film%29)

<comment><USER10> > I wonder if it irks him that the Chinese film which has made the most money > ever in the history of Chinese cinema

Why should it? That's awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since this story and thread seem to be about failure..

Here's a film made in China I _did_ like, called Ocean Heaven, starring Jet Li

It's a drama and touching story about a single father and his disabled son.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> Oddly that preview felt like I was in Vashj'ir in World of Warcraft watching a whale shark swim by.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you made a few changes to the article, I'd bet it was talking about Waterworld!

</comment><comment><USER13> It's like the Jiro Nishi sub-plot from The Big Hit come to life.

<comment><USER14> Taste the Golden Spray!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I feel like this would have translated better as a videogame

</comment><comment><USER16> i always think this sort of thing is for the tax break

</comment><comment><USER17> headline had me thinking -- Waterworld?

</comment><comment><USER18> Are all Atavist articles designed to be so distracting, or is it just this one?

<comment><USER19> I had to fight the urge to close the tab each time one of those damn sea creatures lazily swam in front of the text I'm trying to read, but the fascinating writing and subject matter just wouldn't let me. It's like the author wanted to impart just a bit of the torture experienced by the featured crew members, as they fought to complete the project in spite of a fatal lack of vision.

<comment><USER20> NoScript fixes this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I read the headline as "underwear fantasy".

<comment><USER22> I think there is a word for that.

A friend of a friend used to run a record store called Futurizm, and my brain always wanted to read it as "Furzsturm" ("fart storm"). Always made me smile. Still does - it would be an awesome name for whatever one would attach it to. ;-)

<comment><USER23> The word you may be looking for / thinking of is melcryptovestimentaphilia.</comment></comment></comment>


Destined To Fail - <AUTHOR> http://stevenkovar.com/post/27822590990/destined-to-fail <comment><USER2> I am wondering how Time Warner is getting away with categorizing this guy as an independent contractor. He wears a company specified uniform, uses company supplied tools, and does jobs in the order specified by the company. This sounds like a clear-cut case of mis-catagorizing an employee as in independent contractor in order to avoid paying overtime.

</comment><comment><USER3> _"He explains how Time Warner issues a specific screw driver which acts as a key to open cable boxes and how the previous owner stripped it trying to open the wrong kind of box; it's rendered useless. "You're telling me they knowingly sent you out with broken equipment?" All Bill can do is laugh to himself and give back a defeated, "Yep.""_

Separation of labor from ownership of (broken) means of production leads to hilarity. I bet Marx would have a chuckle over this.

</comment><comment><USER4> _PS: If you are in the Austin area and need a master carpenter, I know a guy who needs you just as much._

This line made me happy.

<comment><USER5> Came here to make the same comment :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wait. He first "hacks" the order form to make the "supply my own modem" checkbox available, and then complains that "Time Warner should have known, based on the options selected during my purchase, that I would supply my own modem and asked me personally to supply the MAC address and relevant information".

Can't have it both ways, man. Time Warner can be blamed for many things, but expecting them to seamlessly support an option they had disabled intentionally is a bit much. You're lucky they let you do it at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> The URL string suggested it was an A/B test, similar to what we use at AppSumo. The option was available when you went back to the options page, but disappeared after a script/some data loaded. For what it's worth, that particular insight was from "Bill."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's not destined to fail when they have a monopoly.

I can say, though, that Cox does a good job with the benefits of their actual workers. However, most of their workers are outsourced, and are treated the same way as in the article. This also means the actual employees have to fix up the subcontractors' mistakes, because of how badly their incentives are aligned.

Source: a family member who is a Cox employee. I've also known a Comcast employee who had decent benefits for a call center job, but whose authority was sorely limited which made doing his job difficult.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great story. Large businesses like TWC create systems in which they can uniformly control the process of their employees providing a bridge between their product and their customers. Unfortunately, rarely are these systems as fine-tuned as Apple has their "genius bar" set up, for example. They're usually more similar to the DMV, where the paperwork and step-by-step process provides an experience that attempts to create an equal experience for all customers (that also allows for business-specific necessities, such as keeping a huge group of constantly changing data organized to go along with the DMV example), but the experience ends up being more of an obstacle or burden than it providing things like efficiency and flexibility.

I guess what I'm saying is that TWC sees no advantage of providing a better system. It costs money to uproot the current system, and it also costs money to create and run a system as detail-oriented as companies like Apple. They still get people to buy their product (even intelligent, insightful ones like the author of the article), and the profit margin is probably so significant that they consider it unnecessary to make Bill's day easier. Something that probably sounds a lot like, "If Bill doesn't like his job, he can quit." Or, "If Steven (the author) doesn't like our product, he can find another place to give his business."

The real problem is that TWC understands full and well what they're doing. You think they don't get hundreds of phone calls every week from angry customers or disgruntled employees? The fact of the matter is that they have the upper hand in terms of what the author was pointing out.

I just feel bad for Bill, and the thousands of people like him. This sort of thing makes you feel lucky not to be forced to lead a life that includes a job that is just one huge up-hill battle (in all the wrong senses of the phrase).

Good luck to Bill. My favorite part was his notice at the end to anyone who needs a master carpenter. I hope somebody contacts him who read that.

Edit: after reading more posts, it's clear that a large part of "the problem" has to do with the industry itself and the players involved. I think we'd all love to see somebody uproot the whole industry and start from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm concerned that this article contains enough information for TimeWarner to identify Bill. I hope that he doesn't face any retribution.

<comment><USER10> Really? Reading your comment I realized that I just naturally I assumed Bill wasn't his real name.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't have to be his real name; how many employees were scheduled sometime during the last 2 months to have appointments at 9 at a building called 'Milago'?

<comment><USER9> It also mentions some of Bill's career history: former woodworker with army comms training.

<comment><USER12> I'm betting they don't have that on file and very few people at the company know those details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is completely off-topic, but what is the deal with grey font colours on light backgrounds these days? It pointlessly makes it harder to read. I shouldn't have to open Firebug to change it to black before I start reading.

<comment><USER14> <http://contrastrebellion.com/>

I've got the same problem and gripe.

Apparently one cause is design mock-ups in which text is ipsum-loremed and muted to reduce distraction from the overall design.

Other useful tools include console-mode browsers, or plugins such as Readability Redux. Though I find my self increasingly editing out elements (in addition to fonts, especially static headers/footers) which get in my way.

<comment><USER15> I strongly agree with contrast rebellion. Having said that, a bright white background and black text is harder for me to read than a light grey background and blacktext.

But the back ground shouldn't be darker than #cccccc

I think, but I do not know, that some people with Aspergers prefer a lower contrast. (See, for example, early websites using silver background with black text.)

<comment><USER14> Yes on the contrast. RR does a dark-on-beige scheme on its rendered pages by default. I use MoonReader+ as a eBook reader on Android, it does similarly.

There was some research in the 1970s or 1980s about maximum readability for paper texts which arrived at similar conclusions. A dark brown text on matte cream paper tested best. I've read several books printed in this format, and found it quite readable. Though paper still beats screen for readability (but not grepping).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Isn't anyone else simply flabbergasted that the OP has never seen Blade Runner??

I'm not sure how being "too young" can be a valid excuse unless you are under 15 years old.

<comment><USER15> It's a 30 year old movie.

Alien is nearly 35 years old.

There have been a bunch of movies made since then that OP may have thought he needed to watch - thus not having time to watch the actually good movies.

I'm about to watch both of these in the next month, so it'll be interesting to see the clunky bits. Visions of the future from the past are fascinating. (See also the Gibson story "The Gernsback Continuum".)

<comment><USER17> There are very few clunky bits in Alien or Blade Runner. It is amazing how well they hold up.

<comment><USER18> I dunno. I love Alien as much as the next guy, but there are a few times when you see the alien and think "that's just a thin person in an elaborate suit".

<comment><USER15> Interesting that's what you notice, and not the CRTs or the incandescent bulbs in switches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I had an appointment scheduled with Time Warner in Austin, for Friday between the hours of 8AM and 9PM to fix my internet which has been randomly losing signal. I figured I could take a day off of work and try to get things done while the internet was up, which turned out to only be about 3 hours.

I got a call from the tech. at 7PM saying he was on his way. An hour later, after hearing nothing, I try to call him and get voice mail. I call Time Warner to see what happened and they said that I didn't answer the phone when he called... even though I spoke with him and told him I was home (and answered his questions about whether the internet was still out, three times.) I had to schedule for this Wednesday, where I'll have to take more time off of work to attempt to get this fixed.

I understand that the majority of the blame lies with Time Warner for allowing their field technicians to get overbooked and blamed for being late or missing jobs, but it's hard to not be upset at this particular field tech for saying he was on his way, and then not showing up and reporting it as a missed call.

</comment><comment><USER20> But he and time Warner didn't fail. He sucessfully installed your whatever and TW is getting your money.

<comment><USER21> ... for the first sale. But if TW doesn't have a monopoly, I doubt they'd get the second sale after that experience.

<comment><USER22> ...but TW does. So they don't really give a rat's ass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I simply hate it when companies do that ! They don't take care of their employees and it all goes straight to hell ! * written while sitting in a uncomfortable chair , old keyboard and 5 year old pc ( i make websites ) // end of rant _

<comment><USER24> Word of advice - if you know anything about the code that nobody else does, use it as leverage. Come in one day, call your boss into an office and tell him you're quitting. When he asks why - voice your problems with the tools you work with. Offhandedly suggest that you actually wouldn't mind staying if work wasn't such a pain in the ass thanks to these issues. Outline how much it will cost them to train a new employee up and how much cheaper the hardware is in comparison.

Alternatively, just complain incessantly without threatening to quit if you can't get another job easily.

Reason I say this is that me and my team have been working on shoddy hardware for the last six months, then we put our collective feet down and demanded something better. Now we each have a pretty damn sweet system to work on.

<comment><USER25> I don't think you want to be living a life where you have to issue ultimatums to get what you need. The world is a bigger place. Find better work and go and do it. You can remind them of the things you've been unhappy about by leaving. If everyone did that (instead of sticking in dead-end jobs) it would be much harder to create crappy jobs.

<comment><USER24> Yet companies act in exactly that way towards their employees. Late too many times? Ultimatum is issued where you get fired if it happens again. Too many sick days? Same result. Underperforming? Yup, you guessed it. Your employers are not your friends - do what you have to to make your life easier. IMO, ofcourse.

<comment><USER26> A good employer will talk to you and try and work things out before giving you an ultimatum. You lose little, and can make things a lot easier, by doing the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Funny enough, I sit in the same boat.. tethering on my 6 gig data plan, waiting for my internet technician, only 2 more sleeps to go

Bit off topic, but why aren't people crowdsourcing their internet connection in high rise buildings? I'm sure time warner and every other isp's would just love that

Hope Bill can find work through your post. Kudos.

</comment><comment><USER28> > The only way I could remove the monthly modem rental fee in my order online > was to view the code on Time Warner's site and edit a hidden part of the > HTML for the appropriate checkbox to be visible. I've never had to 'hack' an > order form before.

I guess the "appropriate checkbox" was greyed out (no way I believe people are looking at the html in case there would be an hidden checkbox), then the author used firebug or something to make it visible and then submitted the form hoping the server on the other side is going to do something with the $post variable. Not that tricky but there is no way to confirm it's going to work as intended. IANAL but I raise doubts about the legal validity of such tamperings with web forms.

<comment><USER28> What are the reasons for my comment being downvoted ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Welcome to the wonderful world of corporations - where nothing makes sense, everything is late and the dumber you are, the higher you climb!

</comment><comment><USER29> Time Warner seems like a company that suffers from being run by cooperate execs who dressage for fun. Besides totally ignoring the inconvenience that they place on each of their customers, they also clearly undervalue their employees. The biggest thing outside of this article that shows they are out of touch is their lack of ability to get a deal done with NFL for the NFL network and RedZone.

The NFL's RedZone network has changed the way Americans watch football (the biggest sport in America), yet 3 years into the network and Time Warner still has no deal. It's tiresome and another inconvenience for the customer.

</comment><comment><USER30> I hope this doesn't backfire on Bill.

It puts me in mind of a story I heard this past weekend (for the second or third time -- hint, hint as to the experience's effect on the customer, to any cable co. "image" people happening to read this).

The person I spoke with ("the customer") told me how, transitioning from an outside antenna to cable TV, he had been very careful to tell the Comcast order taker that his installation should be classified as a "new" installation and not as a simple hook-up (the latter implying a pre-existing cable line to the property). The order taker seemed to have enough technical understanding to understand this and indicate they were recording the order for service installation as such.

When the technician arrived, he seemed quite competent, quickly assessed and understood the situation, and began executing a new installation including a new line from the pole.

However, he quickly started receiving calls from his supervisor, who was nasty and who started shouting at him so loudly -- including foul language -- that the customer could hear the supervisor's side of the conversation bleeding out of the technician's cell phone.

Apparently, despite this customer's care in placing the order and the order taker's reassurance that they understood what was needed, the order ended up in the order tracking system as a simple "hook-up".

There was nothing the technician could do about this, and he remained courteous with the customer and efficient in his work. But he was totally, abusively berated and dumped on by his supervisor.

The customer felt bad enough about this that he actually apologized, saying he was sorry the technician had to go through that.

In retrospect, he told me he wished he'd followed up with Comcast support until he hopefully might get through to a manager with sufficient authority to reprimand -- fire, preferably -- that supervisor. Someone who should not be managing anyone.

And yes, the technician _was a contractor_. Personally, I see so much of this, I think Congress should be made to pass a law forbidding these (Federally regulated, quasi-monopolies, after all) companies from using any contract workers. These companies have obviously abused their positions, including in their labor relations. Make all their employees full time, with benefits, and put the companies directly on the hook for such abuses.

When they need to make up the differences in expense, take it out of those companies' managements' hide. If you want an argument for that, what premium do -- or rather, don't -- they have to offer and pay to get management capable of managing a _fucking monopoly_ (or the next thing to same)?

</comment><comment><USER31> Did I interpret this correctly? The technician saw the name Nebuchadnezzar and assumed it was a reference to a ship (perhaps from The Matrix) and not the infamous Chaldean emperor from the Tanakh?

<comment><USER32> Pop culture has more traction than ancient history does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This hits close to home. I tried getting internet service from TWC twice but they failed each time. The first time they couldn't find the cable output. Turned out it didn't exist. So I scheduled an appointment for a "wall drop" (creation of needed cable output), but the guy just showed up confused that I didn't have one asked me to schedule a wall drop.

<comment><USER34> a few years ago i moved into an apartment in NYC that somehow didn't have a phone line. at all. like there wasn't a wall jack in the entire apartment. (it was a hundred-year-old building, i have no idea how this was possible.)

i discovered this when i finally gave up on cable internet (insanely unreliable there) and needed about five calls and three visits to get verizon to understand that someone would have to drill a hole in my floor and run wire into the basement before my DSL could be hooked up, because yes, i _really didn't have a phone line_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Destined to be fired... now that the post about how horrible he thinks his employer is has gone viral.

Hope that carpentry thing works out.

<comment><USER36> Don't be silly. Nobody in the real world reads Hacker News.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've never met a technician (outside the government) who didn't have his own tools. This is probably why.

<comment><USER38> Security tools aren't readily obtainable by independent contractors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Yeah.

I think of that stupid question, "Debit or Credit?"

The more I think about it, the more I see it as a hypnotic induction that prepares everybody for bad service. It's the perfect thing to get people used to the idea that they shouldn't experience customer delight, never.

<comment><USER40> How is "debit or credit?" a hypnotic induction that prepares everybody for bad service? Isn't it just a request for a basic bit of information that a cashier needs to process a transaction?

<comment><USER41> I'm pretty sure it's a useless question. You can use debit cards as credit cards and vice versa.

<comment><USER42> Nice American-centric view there. Up here in Canada we can use 'debit' to pay using our bank account with a separate card from our credit cards.

<comment><USER43> No, it's exactly the same down here in the US. Parent poster is just clueless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So they are overrun with customers, staff working their asses off already - and the author suggests putting work into supporting rare edge cases like customers bringing their own modem? Shouldn't they just remove that option entirely to streamline their flow, and ditch the ultra-rare customer who demands that? Sure, every customer wants a perfect experience super customized to their exact situation, but that's not how you run a business. Some of the biggest successes like Apple and McDonalds just pick some reasonable defaults, options, and cost per user levels and then that is that, no super advanced configuration, and the savings are huge. Just the lack of many different hardware configurations does wonders for Apple's software not running into problems and wonders for the hardware ordering cost savings (for the business).

<comment><USER45> Comcast charges $7/mo for a shitty modem. A brand new top end Motorola modem costs <$90 from Amazon. Why shouldn't we buy our own modems?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> What does AppSumo do? It appears you first have to sign up to find out..

</comment><comment><USER47> Average return to work after inguinal hernia surgery:

worker's comp case: 6 weeks self-employed: 2 days

</comment><comment><USER48> it didn't really fail. You were up after it was all over with. Fast, cheap or good - pick two.

<comment><USER49> Except cable setup is neither fast, nor very good. At best they picked one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Of all the government created monopolies, the cable monopolies are some of the worst.

If cable companies had to compete to keep business, they'd offer better service and treat their employees better. Southwest airlines is a good example of a company that has to keep costs low, but does this in part by treating their employees very well.

Notice that they charge ever higher and higher fees, in part because the municipalities are on the take here and get a cut of the fees, but also because the demand is inelastic. If you live in Austin and you want cable, they have your business.

So, there's no reason to spend the money to have enough technicians to ensure they are able to do a good job and a timely one.

A big part of the reason this never improves is that everyone blames Time Warner. TWC is just maximally allocating resources, which is what they should do. Namely, out of areas where they have a monopoly protected by the violence the city of austin will do to any other cable company that tries to compete.... and into areas where they have to compete for customers.

But you don't hear this issue at election time. Why do people not hold their city council peeps accountable for imposing this overpriced monopoly on them?

My guess is that most don't realize it is a government created monopoly, and the ones who do, many think that there would be no cable if the city hadn't given those rights away as an incentive to install all the cable. (not the case... places where this doesn't happen, still get cable because it isn't that expensive to put in the cable.)

<comment><USER51> You can always count on nirvana to come up with the maximal libertarian argument. What proof is there that this is a government created monopoly? What exactly is the "violence" that Austin would do to competitors? Do libertarians not believe in the concept of natural monopolies?

<comment><USER52> The monopoly is not entirely created by the government. It would be more accurate to say, "the major cable companies have divided the country amongst themselves and agreed not to step on each other's turf." The FCC and the local governments have various levels of complicity in this arrangement.

A municipality would not likely visit any violence upon a competitor, but that's largely because the only way to become a competitor (you can't just start digging holes and dropping cable in them) is through the approval of the municipality. This is where the "government-sponsored monopoly" idea comes into play, because there is often a revolving door between the government agency nominally charged with regulating cable service and the cable company that administers it.

Also, no, libertarians in general do not "believe in the concept of natural monopolies". Many libertarians hold that monopolies are short-lived and are prolonged only through the complicity of governments--or other actors which may play the same role in context, like the mafia, or even the corporation itself, should it become a _de facto_ government. Of course, with that last point, you start begging the question...

<comment><USER30> And where municipalities have not received sufficient -- or any (i.e. high speed) -- service from existing providers and have therefore, finally, attempted to deploy their own local service (an action with much established precendent, e.g. rural electrification cooperatives, water service, etc. -- even telephone exchanges), in many of those cases the incumbent telecommunications providers have lobbied and coerced state governments to outlaw such actions.

They don't want to offer service. But they're damned sure not going to let anyone else do so -- not even let the community do so for themselves.

I'd hardly call that healthy competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Two hours to hook up your cable connection? Oh the torture -- better blog about it.

<comment><USER54> You have missed the point. Read the article again.</comment></comment>


Scripting News: Where I'm at with Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2011/06/26/whereImAtWithFirefox.html <comment><USER2> What was called from x.y to x.y+1 is now x to x+1. Did Mozilla continue support for 3.5 for long after the 3.6 release? I don't see what the fuss is unless you're equating version numbers to progress, which is the wrong thing to do.

That said, they could throw a bone to enterprise and so on by copying the idea of Long Term Support versions for those IT departments that are more used to meaningful version numbers.

</comment><comment><USER3> At first I thought this article was a parody of the enterprise browser upgrade rationale.

But then I realised it was serious. How can someone who works with web technology not realise the downsides not upgrading browsers causes? I mean, IE6...

</comment><comment><USER4> I try every new firefox release for at least a week, and to be honest I haven't seen an advantage of using it since chrome came out.

It is just way too slow[1], it may have better extensions better adblocking and a regular ui but it just can't compete.

[1] Slow in both snappiness and perceived rendering compared to chrome, firefox also still likes to crash or freeze on me which rarely happens with chrome even though I run the dev channel.

<comment><USER5> I haven't had a crash yet in FF5 or 4 (flash crashed several times but did not bring down the browser). Also, I notice about 0 rendering delay.

<comment><USER6> What about "terminal unresponsiveness" in which the browser stay very unresponsive until you shut it down?

<comment><USER5> Not that either. Sorry for the short response, but I think that answers your question. It works great! You should try it :)

<comment><USER6> I've _been_ using it -- on Linux and on OS X. I'm guessing that if I got more RAM, the "terminal unresponsiveness" would mostly go away. I've got only a gig in my old Macbook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting discussion, but why is there a picture of Joe Montana on Winer's post?

</comment><comment><USER8> >I think Google is a troubled company and very large and very rich, and likely to use their browser in power plays against their competitors, with little regard for users.

I like to look for the best in Google, but I found this baseless assertion... to be rather baseless, especially given (my perception) of the quality of Chrome and what it has done for the web in the last two short years.

As a Chrome-convert, I enjoy watching people stray away from Firefox 3.6.x only to go sprinting back when they're an inch out of their comfort zone. If all you know is FF4, 5 and Aurora... I can see why auto-updating, cutting-edge would be terrifying. Author, I invite you, download Chrome, get on the Dev channel. You'll never have an extension that breaks, no modal dialog boxes on every boot checking compatibility. Fast-updating doesn't have to mean unstable... but I certainly understand why you feel that way.

Mozilla is in the process of converting to a nimbler and lighter development and release cycle. They're not very good at it so far, in my opinion (I'm also a jaded Linux user, though).

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately you do sound like a Chrome dev or promoter.

Chrome's way ain't bad. Firefox way ain't bad, and it's their first iteration of their new development and release strategy.

Firefox's extension incompatibility comes from something that is important to understand:

Firefox can be 100.00% modified using extensions, including the start-up mechanism, everything. Chrome cannot do that. Most Firefox extensions are written that way, mostly because of Firefox's history (extensions were only doable that way for a long time). The drawback is such control require browser restart and compatibility check and there is NO possible way around that.

Firefox also supports on-the-fly extensions which do not require restart or anything like that - like Chrome. However, like Chrome they also allow lesser control and thus these are not very widely used, at least, yet.

Firefox nighties, Aurora, and beta are also far from unstable. It's rare for nighties to ever break, and I've been using them for a decade. It never happened to any other channel.

In fact, that's one strong point of Firefox vs Chrome. Chrome is not actually very stable. It usually doesn't matter too much as tabs are per process and can be easily reloaded or reopened when Chrome crashes so I find it mostly ok. But the bottom line is that Chrome annoys me by crashing every now and then. Firefox nearly NEVER crashes (once a year?).

I would however agree that Firefox is a lot faster and slicker on Windows than any other platform, that said, it's not so bad on OSX and Linux. In comparison Chrome is mostly identically good on these 3 platforms.</comment></comment>


Storj Labs Decentralized Cloud Object Storage Development Update 13 - <AUTHOR> https://storj.io/blog/2018/12/product-manager-development-update-13/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey Everyone, I'm the Product Manager over at Storj Labs, I wanted to share a quick update on what we have been building. We are launching a public alpha in about a month so check it our if your interested in what we are doing.</comment>


Paid Content: the New Paid Link - <AUTHOR> http://www.seobook.com/search-spam <comment><USER2> Definitely check out the image about 3/5ths down.

(Direct link: <http://www.seobook.com/images/evolution-and-back.jpg> ).</comment>


Not a 'math person'? You may be better at learning to code than you think - <AUTHOR> https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/uow-na022720.php <comment><USER2> Hmm Math itself is a language. What I find to be a barrier is people's ability to abstract ideas into math or rather functions. People with a high aptitude for learning language may have more early success but I would hypothesis that as tasks in programming become more complex the engineering / math would play a greater role in success. I have doubt in this study's findings.</comment>


For every 100 women and girls - <AUTHOR> https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-for-every-100-girls-women/ <comment><USER2> That was rather shocking.

But, rather than just being shocked, what can we do?

<comment><USER3> To a first approximation, nothing.

The "good" news is that societies that fail to thrive eventually die off.

In the meantime, be kind to everyone you encounter. Everyone has their burden to carry under the hot sun.</comment></comment>


Personal Assistants in the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.fancyhands.com/

<comment><USER2> What privacy concerns are there over outsourcing things that will likely require sensitive date; i.e., Searching for a dentist with insurance information, renting a car with credit card information, potentially making credit card payments with bank info, etc.?</comment>


Literature Is Stuck in the Past - <AUTHOR> https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2020/08/dead-plots.html <comment><AUTHOR> _The internet (and Facebook in particular — the search interface for people as opposed to things (Amazon) or facts (Google: NB, sprinkle with irony to taste)) is another phenomenon you can 't leave out of a story without going seriously retro. In fact, the arrival of internet dating made a big impact on the contemporary romance sub-genre: a bunch of older how-do-you-meet-someone plots went out the window, but a whole bunch of new ones showed up.

But meanwhile the eminent mainstream literary faculty are still turning out deeply sensitive realist-mode explorations of the human condition that totally neglect the tech dimension. We live in a world with killer drones, state level actors gaslighting each others' electorates with bots and sock puppets and AI generated user icons, where the average TV viewer is ageing by more than 12 months per year as demographic shift kills the video star and moves everything online, where private space launch companies are listed on the stock market and cars park themselves. A realist-mode 21st century novel that ignores phenomena that were tropes in 20th century SF is a de-facto historical novel..._

<comment><USER2> Could it be that literary authors, like most people, are just not really good with or interested in the computer? People write about what they know.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also: -

 _Our current media environment has scrambled our society 's ability to assemble a consensus view of reality so badly that conspiracy theories should be considered toxic. And that's not a good thing from my perspective because it puts the entire viability of creative-lies-that-amuse-and-inform — fiction — in jeopardy._</comment>


Anonymous Divided: Inside the Two Warring Hacktivist Cells Fighting ISIS Online - <AUTHOR> http://mic.com/articles/129679/anonymous-vs-isis-how-ghostsec-and-ghost-security-group-are-targeting-terrorists <comment><USER2> Isn't the likelihood of an Anon member infiltrating ISIS just was likely as a ISIS member infiltrating Anon?

This seems like a brilliant tactic.

1) Join Anon and provide "stolen" intel on low level terrorist plot 2) Gain confidence of respected entity (This Michael Smith guy?) 3) Create conduit to pass phony intel to feds to distract from real plans

Best of all, nobody will question your motive to stay anonymous.

Normally I wouldn't worry much about this as I am sure Intelligence agencies are working to verify intel and sources... but... are they?

</comment><comment><USER3> It would seem they could cause a lot of unnecessary damage IE: "shooting in every direction at once and asking questions later".

It would seem logical that, given their demonstrated capabilities, intelligence would feed them helpful projects; "here, break this for us" allowing them to make the difference they want to make rather than potentially damaging the efforts of coalition forces; "Sir, we were about to find the location of target X through a private chat platform we had infiltrated, however, Anons got there and destroyed the platform...."

<comment><USER4> I think the "damage"-causing one is the ghostsec; "The Group" does work with law enforcement/intel.

It might actually be better to have a little chaos in there. That may make the situation harder to game and predict.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorta strange they're kicking people off Twitter (that Twitter allows it). Did they take down so many of those apparently otherwise normal French accounts that were pro-attack? It sets a bad free speech precedent too. It's not like it's exactly hard to host something on Tor.

I wonder if a Sybil-esque attack would be more fun on Twitter. Obviously you'd need to understand language and ideology, but then post well-made materials that are "subversive" and so on.

</comment><comment><USER6> "On top of that, a lack of collaboration with U.S. intelligence means that if Anonymous and GhostSec are running the same game as the Group — creating moles within online ISIS communities — the good guys in government could end up investigating the Anonymous moles instead of the actual terrorists."

Pardon my ignorance, but is it even an option for civilians to coordinate with a national intelligence agency?

<comment><USER7> It's highly likely the intelligence agencies already have people involved in the anonymous stuff.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands _Money is a big player in the accusations. GhostSec insists Ghost Security Group is under paid contract from the federal government now that they 've gone legit. Members of Ghost Security Group, as well as Smith, have said this is unequivocally false. They say the only money that sustains the Group comes from donations._

If money wasn't a key factor in going legit, then why do it? You don't go to the lengths they went to unless you have money to support a legit operation. Clearly, they haven't registered as a non-profit, so saying they survive on donations is a bit. . .well. . . suspicious.

<comment><USER8> >If money wasn't a key factor in going legit, then why do it?

Desire to see ISIS and its kind eliminated. Frustration with formal government impotence. That would be my guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> SAD & USSOCOM, Mossad, CESG probably have a hand in it so why not? Lots of Chefs too few bakers? Confusion is as good sometimes as concerted efforts.

</comment><comment><USER10> really, buncha skids in the trenches perpetuating victimless crimes. non-news.</comment>


Rebrand & New Features: Google IG To Relaunch as iGoogle - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/30/rebrand-new-features-google-ig-to-relaunch-as-igoogle/ <comment><USER2> Do check out this <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=18237>

Philipp Lenssen is blogging live about the Google personalization workshop held at Googleplex, where all these news announcements were made by Marissa Meyers.</comment>


Rent Control Is a Terrible Idea - <AUTHOR> http://nabeelqu.com/blog/rent-control-is-a-terrible-idea/ <comment><USER2> The article states the % of people that support rent control, but what is the percentage of people that rent vs. own? Of those renters... what % are living in rent controlled apartments?</comment>


Ask HN: CRM for Managing PR Leads - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for CRM software that's designed for PR leads. Budget is sub-$200/month ideally with multi-accounts. <comment><USER2> <http://www.buzzstream.com>

<comment><USER3> Is this site his question related?</comment></comment>


What is Experimental Mathematics? - <AUTHOR> http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_03_09.html <comment><USER3> Another interesting mathutation article on HN... Nice.

I've got to say, both in CS/hacking and math, I find myself spending a lot of time carrying out computations to get a feel for a problem. I poke around a problem until an answer begins to form in my mind - enough evidence pointing me in one direction heavily sways my opinion and even approach to solving a problem. But is computation _math_?

I suppose it's purely semantic, but I still see a difference between hackin' away at a problem and finding an irrefutable proof of a problem; though often the former leads to the latter.

As a NB, I'd like to add that Mathematica can be used to do "pure" mathematics, too.

<comment><USER4> Nope, computation can never be the same as math, per Godel's incompleteness theorem. Which, perchance, is also a good illustration of the difference between proof and merely cranking through a problem space.

<comment><USER5> As iskander put somewhat less eloquently: what you say does not make any sense. Godel's incompleteness theorem places a theoretical limit on the completeness of (non-trivial) formal mathematical systems. 'Computations' take place within such formal systems and are, by definition, math. Both are subject to the consequences of Godel's theorems and you can't distinguish between them based on those theorems.

<comment><USER4> Assuming math encompasses Godel's theorem, then computer science can only be a subset of math at best, since a computer can not prove Godel's theorem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _And even then, which do you find more convincing, the fact that there is an argument - which you have never read, and have no intention of reading - <USER2> which none of the hundred or so errors found so far have proved to be fatal, or the fact that the hypothesis has been verified computationally (and, we shall assume, with total certainty) for 10 trillion cases?_

What is more likely, a fatal error in the proof or a bug in the program? Proving (computationally or not) correctness of a program (or a proof) is not easy.

<comment><USER7> Proofs are hard. False positives in programs are very unlikely. It's usually a matter of verifying a few examples by hand because it's really hard to have isolated false positives.

<comment><USER8> I don't really agree with that. Two examples come to mind:

1) Four color map theorem. I wouldn't have been horribly surprised if the code used to prove this made a mistake in 1,936 maps it had to check. Give that a second program verified it, I'd be more surprised now, but at the time, I would have been most worried about how to input the 1,936 maps. (I have no idea how this was done, if even generating them was programmatic, errors would have been less likely).

2) Automated symbolic logic programs are probably easy to make mistakes with. You need to have perfect parsing logic on the strings of each theorem and generate the new strings perfectly. I'm not saying its impossible, but mistakes are probably easy to make.

<comment><USER7> It occurs to me that the author & I are sort of making the same point: checking a bunch of points gives you a degree of confidence in the general case. I think the only way to settle it is to quantify it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Parametric Snowboard Pattern Scripted - Vote for my board and enjoy - <AUTHOR> http://atrium.threadless.com/snowboards/subs/#/submission/the-abyss-2/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I entered a snowboard design competition and I thought you might find the pattern I developed for the top of my snowboard really interesting!

Also, there are other designs which are cool, but obviously mine is cooler.

If you like it vote me up, I hope you do.

FYI you have sign up to vote... if you want to signup but not with your real email address maybe use the temp email service <https://www.guerrillamail.com/></comment>


Is Gmail Down? Ask Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2009/02/11/is-gmail-down-ask-twitter/

<comment><USER2> Is anyone mining twitter for common streams of complaints/updates? That has to come as close as possible to the feed of the world, and what's important. It's just begging to be made into info-porn. Even more so than the great work NYT is doing.

<comment><USER3> See <http://twitter.com/comcastcares>

Also: "SM2 is a software solution designed specifically for PR and Marketing Agencies to monitor and measure social media. As businesses and consumers increasingly utilize and rely on social media, your agency needs the best tools and expertise to stay competitive." <http://techrigy.com/></comment></comment>


How about making it so only trolls are allowed to own patents? - <AUTHOR>

What if all patents, trademark usage copyright etc were only allowed to be licensed on a per use basis. The entities that owned the IP could only license it. And there is only one wholesale price(buy at least X units per time period) and one retail price for a period of time and if the price goes down for given period of time all parties are charged the same fee. It seems like inovation is stalled/slowed because its complex to license things. Also, no one can be denied a license. I would get the same licensing cost as Apple or Amazon for selling music etc. Also the troll companies should be 100% public companies with 100% stock available for sale on the open market. <comment><USER2> Compulsory licensing of trademarks is a stupid idea.

Patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc, are different things. (What do you mean by "etc"? Database rights? They should be abolished.)

What's wrong with a patent being owned by a person or company that uses it?

Why the insistence that patent trolls must be "100% public companies with 100% stock available for sale on the open market"?</comment>