The only way to get hold of a human at Google - <AUTHOR> ...is apparently posting to Hacker News.
My GMail account has been disabled.
"Unusual Usage - Account Temporarily Locked Down"
"To keep our systems healthy, Google has temporarily disabled your account. This primarily occurs when we detect unusually high levels of activity on your account. In most cases, it should take one hour to regain access. In rare cases, it can take up to 24 hours for access to be reinstated."
It's been at least 10 hours (Gmail app on my iPhone shows "last updated: 5/22"), and going "welp, you're fucked, wait a day to get your email" is not an acceptable answer. All of the "help" forms have no contact information and no other way to get in touch with someone, so I'm putting out the "hey, Google employees who read HN, tell me who I can talk to about this" bat signal.
I haven't changed my email use patterns at all in months; the message occurs on a browser in incognito mode, I don't use any extensions, etc.
On a more general note, on what planet is "you don't get any email for a day and have no recourse, and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything to fix that" an acceptable action?
UPDATE
At 10:20, my account magically unlocked itself (I did nothing between posting this thread - my iPhone started dinging like crazy and then I could log back in) and is now working again, without anyone waving the magic wand. So, if you run into this, just know you only have to go 10 hours without email, instead of a whole day. I have been using my personal domain for most mail for a while, and this has just prompted me to accelerate that process to at least be able to maintain backup ways to send/receive mail.
I do still hope this thread stays up for a while, primarily so that the workflow around these account lockout messages gets better. It's fine to lock accounts out for security reasons, and I understand that algorithms have problems. That said, there should be more details of what they think triggered the algorithm, and a way to remediate it. If they think it is unauthorized access, try to auth with n+1 factors instead of the n normally required, etc. <comment><USER2> And this time I'd like the outcome of this thread not to be just "A Google insider wandered past and fixed this guys problem" but "Here's how we're going to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Because next time it might be me and by then Hacker News might have grown weary of these kind of posts and I won't be able to get the necessary attention.

Nothing. I repeat - nothing - is pushing me to move away from dependence on Google products more than the fear of this happening.

<comment><USER3> So, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that the poster's account was compromised and being used to send spam. Would that change your analysis? Why or why not?

My suspicion is that your immediate response will be to change the subject, most likely along the lines of "The problem isn't the temporary freeze on the account, it's the lack of communication." So I'd like to preemptively point out that you didn't make that case in your original argument.

These flames get really tiresome.

<comment><USER4> I can only speak for myself here, but let me state unequivocally that the lack of communication and path for recourse _is_ the problem.

PR-wise it might be a tough sell, but I think a perfectly acceptable answer is a pay-per-incident support line that connects to someone who can actually fix my problem.

<comment><USER5> I would like to see Google create a marketplace for support. They allow people to buy some access to their internal systems, who then sell support service. There would need to be careful vetting and monitoring of the people who buy the access, but if that could be made to work, end users get access to support, and Google wouldn't have to staff it.

Of course, they would have to provide support to the support providers, but that would be a much smaller, more knowledgeable population.

<comment><USER6> I badly want this particular solution. But the only way to create this startup would be to have good contacts with people in Google who have the authority to experiment with such a setup (because clearly Google WOULD need to experiment to find out whether it worked). I really DO think that someone ELSE, with a corporate structure that better supported the skillset of providing excellent customer support, could make an excellent living providing "customer service" for Google. 90% of issues could be handled just by hand-holding the customers without bothering Google at all. And the other 10% could be bundled up nicely (here's a repeatable bug report; I have 20 lockouts that appear to pass the first screening; etc.). But there would HAVE to be some way for people INSIDE Google to receive these nicely bundled reports and to respond to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sorry for the trouble you're having. I have on idea of what's happened and why but thought it timely to point out for the benefit of those reading this thread:

I _highly_ suggest you use two-factor authentication with GMail:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in- secu...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-security-for- your.html)

Or Jeff Atwood's post on this:

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email- hac...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email-hacker- proof.html)

Your email is too valuable to be left open to attack, hijacking or theft.

<comment><USER8> I think that the root of this issue is the stupid Google policy of not distinguishing any variation of your address if a '.' character is in there -- until someone registers it. People get confused and try to login.

So if your address is email@example.com, you can send email to (or login with) firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com.... at least until someone registers email@example.com!

I was an early beta GMail user have a reasonably common first initial last name GMail address. I probably get 3-5 password reset attempts per month. I also routinely received a variety of interesting misdirected emails. Everything from someone's VPN credentials, a US military EEOC complaint, invitations to a stag party in Ireland, a video of a paratransit bus flipping over (intended to be sent to an investigator), to girls modelling underwear for boyfriends.

<comment><USER9> False. It is not possible to register multiple variants of the same address. The reason you get misdirected email is because people are entering the wrong address in forms. You should see all the email that goes to firstname.lastname@example.com :)

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, is it enough to make the account unusable? Do you have to set up strong filters?

<comment><USER11> On an (un)related note, my google voice phone number is (xxx)-234-5678, and it is completely unusable. You should hear the kind of voice mails that I get. I have started archiving the most amusing ones in my account. I have been blocking the numbers from area code (xxx) since I registered that number (June/2009), but it is still not usable.

<comment><USER12> Do share. That sounds like a blog post waiting to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a general problem with Google and their customer-no-service attitude. It's just deplorable. It really is. You have to wonder: What is it going to take for them to give a shit and actually do something about it?

Very soon the word gets out that HN is where you can get your Google bullshit problems fixed and we'll be treated to pages-upon-pages of people with Google problems.

The general issue is that of account suspension or closings without any recourse. It seems that the most damage is being done in the AdSense/AdWords ecosystem.

I've said this before, with the introduction of services like Google Drive, one has to really think hard before jumping in with both feet. If you have your email, documents, advertising, revenue generation, file storage and other important services with Google you might be risking a lot. At the present time you have to assume that all of those services could evaporate and go "poof" overnight and you'll never know why. That's why I don't use any of them. I have better things to do with my life than to have a heart-attack because a Google algo decided to shut-down my business and cut me off from all of my data.

Seriously, Google, Larry, Sergey, this is embarrassing (and evil).

<comment><USER14> Giving away an awesome mail service for free to the world is not evil. Being too busy to support every Tom, Dick and Harry that has problems with it is also not evil.

An analogy: "Hey Tom, I'm not using this rake any more. Would you like to have it? I'll give it to you."

"Sure Dick. Thanks, this is a very nice rake indeed."

The rake breaks.

"Hey Dick. The rake doesn't work any more. Come over here and fix it."

"Sorry Tom, I can't do that. I'm busy raking my lawn."

"I hate you Dick, because you are evil."

It's been said numerous times in this thread -- if you want support, you pay for it. If your email account isn't important enough to you to pay for it, then you don't really have much grounds to gripe if it breaks.

I don't see how that makes anyone evil.

<comment><USER15> Gmail is not a used rake.

[Dick comes to the door of Tom.]

Dick: Hey Tom, I see that you don't have a mailbox. I have a few hundred extras down the street, would you like to use one on the condition that I might analyze who is sending you mail and the like? It's really secure and it's all the rage in the city you can store 2000 pounds of mail forever blah blah blah. You should really use it!

Tom: Sure Dick, it's a real help to have an address for bills, personal correspondence, etc. And I can use it to establish residency and so on.

[Tom puts the address in his letterhead, tells everyone to use it, makes several job applications with it, etc. He uses it for everything. Every service he uses authenticates him by his access to this box.]

[One morning Tom goes out to his box and sees it has been padlocked. After a great deal of searching, Tom finds an unofficial contact for Dick.]

Tom: Hey Dick, can you unlock the box for me? I am expecting a check, a letter from my daughter, etc.

Dick: Sorry, I can't do that. And I can't tell you why. What did you expect for free? Anyway, how did you get this number?

<comment><USER14> Well, you have to win points (and got one from me) for coming up with the best analogy.

Though as I recently discovered, they do have phone support, and message boards, and google groups, and all that jazz.

I understand that I'm perhaps the outlier in thinking this, but Google is acting exactly as they said they would, and exactly as they always have. I don't see malice in that, and I certainly don't see 'evil'.

<comment><USER16> Phone support? Where? I have looked for phone support when all the email disappeared from my gmail inbox. There is no phone support for Gmail.

<comment><USER14> [http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...](http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1752770)

Found in my 'Help' link from GMail.

<comment><USER17> I don't see any way to contact them on that page. I do see this, though:

 _"Prioritized account recovery support is currently offered on an invitation- only basis for selected users."_

So, no, this certainly doesn't fix the problem for a lot of us.

<comment><USER14> Ah, I didn't see the invitation-only bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _On a more general note, on what planet is "you don't get any email for a day and have no recourse, and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything to fix that" an acceptable action?_

ON a planet where you get high-performance email services for free, apparently. I feel for you, but the lack of personal response (IME) doesn't mean that your communications are being ignored, just your need for a response. This is still far from ideal, but typing out responses take time away from simply fixing problems.

If you pay for gmail storage or an apps account, then obviously the above doesn't apply.

<comment><USER19> I do pay for GMail storage, so the predictable parade of "WHAT DID YOU EXPECT FOR FREE?????" (answer: exactly what was advertised, a working email service) is tiresome -- and besides that, there isn't even a contact form for this issue.

There is no way to communicate with anyone or to even raise an alert of "hey, I have a problem". The only way that it is going to get fixed is for someone to manually intervene, and the only way to make that happen is apparently to complain loudly here until a Google employee waves their magic employee wand at my account.

<comment><USER20> > exactly what was advertised, a working email service

Claiming Gmail (even the free one) doesn't work when, in fact, it experiences seemingly random and very infrequent outages, is disingenuous. It's incredibly hard to make a complex application like Gmail work perfectly all the time for all its users and I'm completely sure they are well within their ToS. Much like we are willing to live with software that has some bugs, we must be willing to live with services that aren't always there.

Buses stop, rails need maintenance and your plumbing sometimes fails. Life continues.

<comment><USER21> To be fair, the OP shouldn't be able to expect a 100% working email service. But to expect that the provider not be _actively causing it to fail_ seems reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > on what planet is "you don't get any email for a day and have no recourse, > and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything to fix that" an acceptable > action?

On the planet where you're the product rather than the customer?

The financial truth of 99% of their business is that users to the extent that they look at ads. And since ads aren't worth much individually, people must look in large numbers.

All the people I know at Google are great folks, and they sincerely want to serve users. But customer service is expensive. So is writing special-purpose code for weird edge cases.

</comment><comment><USER23> [redacted], it looks like this issue resolved itself; I'm curious, did you mention your email address anywhere on this page? I didn't see it mentioned.

I'm happy to ask people for more details. Normally when you have two-factor authentication on, I wouldn't expect you to see this message. So there might be some improvements we need to make on our side to try to prevent this from happening for other people.

<comment><USER24> Matt, I think your message is consistent with the disconnect people feel when experiencing problems with Google services.

The root of the issue for the consumer of Google services is not a loss of email access (that's just the sort of technical problem everyone has when dealing with the internet). The issue is that there is no person representing Google who says, "I'm sorry you are experiencing difficulty, let me see what I can do to help you."

Google doesn't even go there on their own support forums: [http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/gmail/%22Ac...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/gmail/%22Account$20Temporarily$20Locked$20Down%22/gmail/U3ql67r2VFo/Ip- Sm-cSxuIJ)

There is a meaningful number of posts for the exact issue the OP experienced and what little assistance that Googlers provide is generally of the "you did something wrong" variety rather than "we're working on making it better."

<comment><USER23> brudgers, I think the larger mission for Google has to be to drive down the number of people having problems like this. So Google's philosophy (for better or worse) is often to find and fix the root causes of problems. So for an account that was hijacked, we'd prefer to put our resources into finding new ways to prevent and protect against hijacked accounts, rather than putting a ton of people into one-on-one sessions to work with people whose accounts are hijacked. For one thing, the scale of Gmail makes those sort of one-on-one consultations extremely difficult.

Imagine if tens of thousands of accounts are hijacked every day. There's not an easy way to interact with all those people, which is why we look for ways to drive down the number of hijacks or provide additional solutions like two- factor authentication or other self-service solutions.

In this case, there was a subtle point that I was trying to make, which is that the problem resolved itself even though the original poster never appeared to give his email address. Sometimes these issues are a matter of transient issues like connectivity or data centers where it's just a matter of time for the issue to fix itself.

<comment><USER24> It's a problem of pitch. You're entirely correct that the original poster's technical issue may have been resolved automatically, but it's not the technical issue which prompted the post. Accounts don't need reassurance, but people do - particularly when they have placed trust in Google regarding something which may be critical to their business or social life.

When my credit card is compromised, just by acknowledging my inconvenience, it makes the time between the cancellation of one card and the arrival of its replacement seem reasonable.

I get the issue of scale. What I don't get is why Liza isn't wired up to the forum and the email doesn't say "We apologize for the inconvenience." It's only a handful of bytes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Someone broke into my gmail account in 2009, changed the password, and I've never gotten it back. I tried to recover it using their standard form, but they ask all sorts of ridiculous questions like the day I started using gmail, the day I started using Google docs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER26> Here's a serious question - how much would you pay per annum to be able to talk to someone when you have an email problem?

<comment><USER19> $50, the same they charge Apps users. You _can't_ buy support for @gmail.com accounts.

<comment><USER27> Forward your email to an Apps account, then set up your @gmail.com address as an alias. Works great and you get support. Gmail is smart enough to set the outbound email address properly for any replies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There's actually a big support team for Gmail. For enterprise customers.

Here are instructions: <http://gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com/>

<comment><USER29> gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com appears to be unrelated/unaffilated with Google. The bottom of the page says "(c) 2012 Brett K. Carver". Also, blogspot?

<comment><USER30> Google owns Blogger and hosts all their official blogs there. Example:

<http://analytics.blogspot.com/>

That does not prove gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com is an official blog though.

Edit: for clarity

<comment><USER31> The site you've linked doesn't have any Google branding. Moreover, none of the real Google blogs have adverts on them. In addition, the visual design of the page looks rather unprofessional.

It's very unlikely that this site is affiliated with Google.

<comment><USER32> Plus there is some other hint: " This page is not sponsored by or affiliated with Google."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A 2 second google search for "gmail support forum" brought me to:

<http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail>

Have you tried that? I honestly never have and would love to know if those are actually efficient. If you haven't tried it, please do then report back to us.

<comment><USER34> The Google support forum is a black hole. At best you'll get a canned copy pasted response from a Google employee that won't help you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It isn't exactly news that Gmail accounts are closed for no obvious reason. I'm sorry that you're unable to access your e-mail, but at least now you've (hopefully) learned that Google isn't trustworthy.

</comment><comment><USER36> Do you using Chrome with these two extensions?

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mihcahmgecmbnbcchb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mihcahmgecmbnbcchbopgniflfhgnkff) [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmpbfngldlkglhimk)

For me these combination made a request loop (response from gmail was 404 and 501) for some circumstances. As a result my account was temporary disabled ...

<comment><USER19> I do use Chrome, but no GMail related extensions (and specifically not either of those.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Someone must have gotten hold of your email+password combo. Mine got stolen once, Ive no idea how but suddenly all my friends started texting me saying they've been receiving spam mails from my account all of a sudden.

Google might be reacting to similar?

</comment><comment><USER38> I agree its maddening to be locked out of gmail for no specific reason. I imagine the customer to employee ratio is a billion to one, so even if they had a ticket system, it'd be overwhelmed in a short amount of time.

What are the chances your account was hacked and is now being used to pump out spam? Turn on two-factor authentication if you haven't already, once you are able to get back in.

<comment><USER19> So close to zero as to be zero; my password is strong and I use 2FA. My account works on every other Google service but GMail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Out of curiosity: if I set up a forwarding rule on my Gmail, and Google suspends my account temporarily, will it still forward my email?

<comment><USER19> Yes, it appears to still do that. I can also still access my account via ActiveSync on my iPhone (but not IMAP or the web interface.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is why you should never use free email for anything you care about, and especially not GMail. I hate to break it to people but the PAID service is not better either, you're just paying for what you used to get for free...

</comment><comment><USER41> The vitriol regarding Google's services is unjustified.

Gmail is a free service. Google allows you to use it for free, in exchange for being shown ads. You have access to the same infrastructure that paying clients use, and the same uptime, but without paying. You can download all of your data easily, and at any time. Nothing about that is predatory on the free users.

What would you say is the appropriate market "price" of 10-hour turnaround on emergency technical help? Having worked at a company that provided optional sub-24-hour response, I can tell you it's usually expensive.

<comment><USER42> Nope. Completely untrue. They _benefit_ from us using their services. We are doing them a _favour_ by choosing them over others - their business is _built upon_ people using their services.

If everyone just their our money back (£0) and stopped using Google's services, they wouldn't have a business any more.

By using a service such as Gmail, we've trusted them and invested our on-line lives in them in order that they can monetise that usage and grow their business.

It is completely unacceptable when that trust is betrayed and they cut you off without recourse.

<comment><USER41> Google definitely benefits from free Gmail users, but that wouldn't be true if every free user got human attention when things went wrong, regardless of who was at fault.

I guess I see OP's problem stemming from the existence of bugs/quirks/spam attacks. As a developer, I know these things are simply impossible to prevent with 100% certainty. I don't feel that Google is morally culpable for bugs or spammers, unless they are somehow adding bugs to the point of negligence.

In fact, as a developer, the idea of being morally culpable for bugs scares me, since that kind of implies I am doomed to be immoral.

<comment><USER42> Well the least they could do is try to resolve the situation with the human that has entrusted their stuff to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I travel fairly often and most of the time when I travel I remote into my machine back home so I'm many times logged into google services from those two locations, then throw my android phone into the mix as well and my webserver which uses google api's linked to my account as well. All in all I have tons of connections to google at any given time.

A few months ago I was flying home from a trip and was using the in flight wifi. As soon as I landed though at my connection city and turned on my phone I quickly noticed things weren't working. I tried logging into services and my account was disabled for some reason. I of course started freaking out since I have so many things linked to this such as my suplemental adsense income. I filled out a form assuming it'd go no where.

I wasn't able to accomplish anything before boarding my next flight. Before take off I had the inkling to try the recover password option. To my surprise after doing that and having it txt my phone I was able to change my password and magically my account was unlocked.....

Anyway I know the OP already fixed his issue but just wanted to share this story. If you ever get locked out saying your account is disabled try the recover password option as a way to unlock it....

</comment><comment><USER44> Sigh when will people finally wake up and understand that Google, Yahoo or Facebook are Advertising companies. Anything that isn't affecting their really big clients in advertising isn't getting any sophisticated support and even that area of business might be maltreated in respect to professional support. And don't be shortsighted here. IT absolutely -needs- support. So if you really wanted professional support for emailing you have to go to a tech company that doesn't earn a living with selling your Browsing history to other parties or worse.

In case of an email product I did not find anything yet that would serve my professional needs. The only really 99% reliable thing yet has been renting a root server (or using my own machine with DynDNS) with a nice swell Postfix/Dovecot install. The Internet was invented as decentralised, if not even distributed technology. Buying in (you buy with your cookies) a centralised technology like FB, Google or Yahoo, even if they are in the cloud or in the edge - it's still one vendor, for me was always against the economical philosophy of the Web.

If you don't have the knowledge how to set up a distributed email node (if you allow me calling it that way), I would recommend lavabit.com, they are reliable and non-commercial (However also subject to the patriot act b/c located in the US).

And not only the Internet with its industry-raped non-standard HTML language, its ridiculous insufficient Border Gateway Protocol or its patchwork 7bit/8bit e-mail MIME protocols is one heck of an enormously cool hack, also the Web can be nowadays.

If you don't get any support from cookie traders like Google or even Ghostery, why don't go self-made and install a distributed Social network like GNUSocial? The Internet used to be a business opportunity for everyone, don't let it get destroyed by monopolies, that block inventions with 15 year-old patents.

</comment><comment><USER45> I have heard this happening a few times. However I thought you can register a mobile number to help resetting your account password?

<comment><USER19> It isn't the account password; I can log in fine, it's just that I immediately get redirected to the "bad boy" page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> > _On a more general note, on what planet is "you don't get any email for a > day and have no recourse, and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything > to fix that" an acceptable action?_

Serious answer: email is not reliable. There are lots of factors outside your control. Please don't rely on email being available. Unfortunately most providers today are pretty solid most of the time, meaning people put too much trust into their email providers.

</comment><comment><USER47> Google's response to user complaints is probably the worst aspect of the company, since it's effectively non-existent. Unfortunately, that's what happens when you have millions of users, and only a few thousand employees. Even if everyone at Google responded to user complaints, they probably couldn't get to them all.

You're wise to have a backup plan.

</comment><comment><USER48> Depends what service you are talking about. I have a phone# to a helpdesk for Google Adwords. Real live human beings work there. But we pay a buttload of money for that service.

Also google apps for business promises 'Around-the-clock phone and priority email support.' I guess you're just getting what you paid for.

</comment><comment><USER49> Once while waiting in the lobby of a Google office I could hear the receptionist answering a frustrating call from someone asking for a search result removal request. She had to read from a script because people call so often -- they call reception at any Google-related business asking for help.

</comment><comment><USER50> FWIW and taking the subject a bit too literally, another way is to be active on Google Plus.

<comment><USER15> How do you do that when you are locked out of your Google account?

<comment><USER50> I guess having to switch between my GMail and my Apps account has that one advantage. But fair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> So much of my life is on Gmail, I HAD to setup two factor authentication, and it was easy.

<comment><USER52> OP claims to have 2FA set up. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4014014>

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> _there should be more details of what they think triggered the algorithm_

One problem with this approach is that it _also_ provides information to the bad guy, e.g. "here's what you did to get caught, so don't do that next time"

</comment><comment><USER54> That's terrible. What are some better options for web-based email?

<comment><USER55> I like fastmail.fm

<comment><USER56> I used to use their free service, but their spam filtering was pretty bad (in 2010-2011).

<comment><USER55> The free accounts only have basic spam protection, the paid accounts have more advanced spam protection.

<https://www.fastmail.fm/pages/fastmail/docs/pricingtbl.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> For all of the people railing against Google/Gmail, what do you use that is comparable to Gmail? Do you use Android? How do you use it without a Google account?

</comment><comment><USER58> It amazes me that people rely upon a free Email service for critical personal infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think if I got my account disabled I'd go to their offices and demand an explanation.

<comment><USER59> It's a closed campus. Best of luck with that. In fact, why don't you do a trial run and let us know how it goes?

<comment><USER42> I think they just have normal offices in the UK.

Otherwise, dress like a courier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Ask for your money back

</comment><comment><USER61> You have my sympathies and all but this is getting annoying, every once in awhile the HN front page gets cluttered with these sorts of posts, wait the day out it's not that unreasonable. Complaining when not even half way through the designated time period comes across as whining.

And for the record you could have gotten human support if you were a paying Apps costumer, for the free stuff you have to deal with automation.

It's just the same thread with the same comments each and every time; "They don't respect users", "Their customer support sucks", this doesn't elevate the discussion on HN and shows the false sense of entitlement we all have even in regards to the free stuff.

<comment><USER57> Gmail isn't free. We are paying for it with our eyeballs. Gmail would only be 'free' in the way that you imply if Google was getting nothing in return. Just because money isn't changing hands doesn't mean it's free.

<comment><USER62> So you've redefined the word free to make it meaningless.

Giving a way food to homeless people? You're getting the satisfaction of having done something good in return! That wasn't a free meal!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I've noticed this trend with many big companies lately (Amazon, Paypal, and Google). Everything is automated and they give you almost 0 chance of defending yourself.

They also don't care because they are de-facto monopolies.

Amazon suspended my account 4 months ago. I'm just getting the $5K they owe me in money now. To this day, I still don't know why they suspended me (100% feedback and virtually no problems).

They shuffled me around their automated system with the result being that my account stayed suspended.

I was also suspended a couple of years ago from Google Adsense due to one of my scripts going awry. I wasn't clicking my ads, but It refreshed a page a bunch of times with Adsense ads on it.

If I try to signup with my name, I just never get any response back. This one was definitely my fault. I could just use my LLC, but I got out of that game ages ago.

<comment><USER64> PayPal is actually very reasonable when it comes to getting in contact with human operators. I've never had a problem with that. Receiving decent support from them however is a whole other issue.

<comment><USER65> I tried to change my legal name. Faxed them copies of official documentation twice. Never received a response.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Are you _sure_ you have 2FA on? Do you have a desktop client that could have been compromised? I'd love a follow-up on how your account got flagged if it wasn't compromised.

(Note, I ask because the last time this happened on HN, several people errantly thought they had 2FA turned on when they didn't).

(Some days I wonder if I angered a stalker who downvotes everything I post... or if it's some darker HN sign. Sigh)

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I have no clue how it got flagged. See my update above.

And yeah, I had 2FA on -- I was challenged appropriately logging in to GMail even, it was post-login where I got the "you're bad" page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Which planet? Planet Google, of course. You're a tool in their shed, not the other way around.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get value evaluation of a domain name - <AUTHOR>

I do not want to sell, just want to have some idea how it may worth, if possible.<p>Thanks in advance! <comment><USER3> Domain names are very illiquid and there are lots of different ways to define worth. On the low end, there is this price: how much could I sell it for tomorrow in a no-reserve auction? On the high end, there is this price: how much could I sell it for if I spend a year cold calling and negotiating with potential end users?

Almost any domainer will tell you to completely ignore automated appraisal services like Estibot. Most will also tell you to ignore professional appraisals; they are better at estimating auctions prices than anything else.

</comment><comment><USER4> Look for similar names on AfterNic, GreatDomains, Pool, or other domain reseller sites. But you will not really know until you try to sell it - <USER2> set a high reserve to make sure it does not go for a song. Note: This assumes a legitimate domain - if you have a trademark - you will lose it and it will cost you a LOT more in legal fees.

</comment><comment><USER5> Try using Sedo's (sedo.com) appraisal service. They're fairly in-expensive and they're also reasonably accurate.</comment>


Google Adds 40 National Parks to Street View - <AUTHOR> http://www.techtimes.com/articles/132888/20160211/google-adds-40-national-parks-street-view.htm <comment><USER2> This is interesting. We are planning trips for the summer of 2016 and 2017 the views will help out to mark places to see.</comment>


Why I launched UnbrandedEssential.com - <AUTHOR> Recently launched my online ecommerce website due to living in Sydney and traveling the world for the past two years
https://unbrandedessentials.com/our-story
Would appreciate any comments <comment><USER2> Page not found error</comment>


A bike with a reverse-spinning wheel - <AUTHOR> http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/gyrobike.htm

<comment><USER2> Why would spinning the wheel backwards cancel out the gyroscopic effect? The gyroscopic effect makes it hard to tilt the wheel left or right (from the perspective of the rider). Spinning the wheel backwards makes it hard to turn the wheel right or left, which has the same stabilizing effect.

I get that there is some effect other than the gyroscopic action of the wheel (how else could you track-stand, after all), but I don't feel like this device proves or disproves anything.

Also, the "begs the question" and the footnote explaining why it's OK to misue that expression was annoying. (If you have to write a paragraph about why you want to use incorrect English, wouldn't it be easier to just edit the misused construction. "This leads us to ask, ..." Write that, and you save yourself a footnote, and people will think you're not bad at writing. </rant>.)

<comment><USER3> You are exactly right. This article suffers the common misconception that two wheels spinning in opposite directions and same speed cancel out the gyroscopic stability. And this is simply not true. In fact two wheels spinning in opposite directions and same speeds will actually double the gyroscopic stability (as opposed to one wheel of the same speed).

However, two wheels spinning in opposite directions may cancel out other spinning wheel effects.

<comment><USER4> Which other spinning wheel effects?

<comment><USER3> Another effect is the tendency to tilt to the side if you accelerate or decelerate the rate of spin. This effect will be canceled by counter spinning wheels.

<comment><USER4> Can you elaborate on this? I have never seen a wheel tilt when you accelerate or decelerate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> a simple experiment can demonstrate what really keeps a bike up. Hold your favorite bike by the seat and give it a hard push forward (even better run a few steps with it to get it going and then let go). Then repeat, pushing it backwards.

A bike moving forward will self correct to stay up until it loses speed. A bike moving backward will quickly go into a hard turn right or left and fall over. Gyroscopic moments for wheels in both scenarios are the same. The difference is that as a forward-moving bike falls to one side, the front wheel straightens out underneath it. As a backward moving bike (or any bike with a turning rear wheel), starts to fall, the front (now rear) wheel turns further to the side as it falls rather than straightening out, and the bike goes into a very sharp turn and falls.

As an addendum, that's why recumbent bikes stick with a rear drive and front steer, which requires very long chains, rather than driving the front and steering with the rear (which at first blush seems like a much simpler configuration - the pedals are up near the front wheel, and the hands are near the rear).

<comment><USER6> this leads me to wonder - has there been a bike design where the rear wheel is allowed to freely "steer" as well as the front wheel? sorta like a crabwalking bike able to side pedal when needed.

Modern automobiles have incorporated rear wheels that turn together with the front wheel (I believe in opposite directions during a turn) in order to decrease the turning circle and improve maneuverability - I'd kill for a bike that has an electro-servo controlled rear wheel that turns to help the biker corner, etc.

<comment><USER7> See "swingbike" -- they're fun: [http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/01/sweet_swing_bike.ht...](http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/01/sweet_swing_bike.html)

In this next picture, note the seat post (not the sissy bar) is actually inserted into something like a typical headset (where a fork and stem would go on the front of a bicycle) that pivots when the pin on the underside of the frame is removed. <http://www.swingbikerider.com/4-24-05%20003.jpg>

<comment><USER6> That looks pretty cool! and insane too!

<comment><USER7> Yup -- they're pretty fun... The bicycle has had nearly 200 years of evolution, though, and the reason most bicycles aren't built like this is it's simply impractical. If the fun/coolness is worth it to you though, it's worthwhile :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article seems to be something of a joke. Yes, caster angle is important for stability, but the Gyrobike training wheel seems to illustrate how gyroscopic forces can also be helpful.

See: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbfe2_2DDc0>

Additionally, stationary trainers like rollers that don't allow for the steerage correction described by the author illustrate how at speed something other than castor angle is assisting in stabilizing the bike.

See: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaYDZ-RSOTA>

<comment><USER9> I've been meaning to set up some gyroscopically neutral rollers and see if it's possible to ride them...but I've been lazy (and my neighbors hate my rollers).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A related note is the reverse steering bike which is impossible to stay up on unless you 'relearn' how to ride a bike.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gCnBBeV2ws&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gCnBBeV2ws&feature=related)

I think that proves things a bit better - we stay up on a bike because we learn to notice any slight chance we're falling, and counteract that with steering to bring us back to upright.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've spent quite some time racing Downhill Mountainbikes - and believe me - the gyroscopic effect IS there - and it is very noticeable (DH bikes tend to have MUCH heavier wheels).

Riding lighter wheels has a lot of effect on acceleration and braking. Handling also improves ALOT with lighter wheels.

It also contributes to stability. But you do need to ride faster than this "wuss" (pun intended) moving at snail speed.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't that effect be simply because of the inertia of the wheels that they also have when they're not spinning?

<comment><USER12> That might be the case... I mounted a heavy U-lock on the front forks of a mountain bike, made steering very heavy. Felt pretty similar to a heavy wheel to me.

Of course this is all subjective (my observation, and the parent's downhilling observation).

Definitely easier to steer lighter wheels regardless of speed.

<comment><USER13> Although, when the total weight of the bike is high, it is better to have weight up front too (front+rear panniers). Otherwise, steering feels flimsy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If this kind of stuff interests you there is an excellent book on the physics of bicycles [http://www.amazon.com/Bicycling-Science-David-Gordon- Wilson/...](http://www.amazon.com/Bicycling-Science-David-Gordon- Wilson/dp/0262731541)

</comment><comment><USER15> If you want to ride an "unrideable" bicycle, try a flevo bike (like <http://home.ultramagic.net/bicycles/knakker/>). It has a giant joint in the middle, instead of steering bars.

</comment><comment><USER16> The castor effect is what makes a bicycle self-steer. Bicycles with small fork rake are very twitchy-bikes with big fork rake are unresponsive.

<comment><USER17> Yep. Sports motorcycles have small rake (should be responsive on the race track) while choppers have big rake (long, straight journeys on Route 66). I prefer a KTM 990 Adventure, just in the middle, though :)</comment></comment>


Yammer's new digs -- this is what you want your next office to look like - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/01/14/this-is-what-you-want-your-next-startups-office-to-look-like/

<comment><USER2> "Cubicle Island"

Um, no. NOT anything like what I want my next office to look like. Some good stuff there, but I would never knowingly subject people to that. Knowledge workers should have private offices, with doors, that close.</comment>


Landing of Chandrayaan-2 on Lunar Surface - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iqNTeZAq-c <comment><USER2> Here is a pretty comprehensive place for updates and discussion:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ISRO/comments/d01ux1/chandrayaan2_v...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ISRO/comments/d01ux1/chandrayaan2_vikram_landing_attempt_updates_and/)

Edit: LOS :(

</comment><comment><USER3> I say it was a successful but unplanned landing :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Alas they've lost communication :(</comment>


Ask HN: A tool to analyse the orders of growth - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know of any code profiling tool that can do asymptotic analysis of source code? <comment><USER2> You may be starting from wrong assumptions. Asymptotic analysis of algorithms is useful when you want to extrapolate to larger datasets, since it helps you figure out what, if the data grew enough, would become the bottleneck in your source code. A profiling tool is useful for getting at the _actual_ time consumption. So what you'd want is to run your code under profiling, using a realistic amount of data. (Use a sampling profiler if the instrumented source code is too slow). Anything that looks bad at the scale that you're aiming at is something that you'd (eventually want to address). Another method would be to run the profiler twice, once on a small-ish dataset and once on a large-ish dataset (where large-ish doesn't have to be the full size) and then subtract the small-ish times (cumulative or self) from the large-ish times so you get rid of the startup time and see more clearly where the non-startup portion is spending its time.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a non-trivial problem, generally complexity analysis is done on paper, based on some idealised version of an algorithm. In practice implementation issues will make it difficult to extrapolate asymptotic behaviour for small n.

For instance an algorithm with O(log n) multiplications and O(n^2) additions will be dominated by the multiplications for small n, and may mislead an analysis tool into believing the asymptotic time complexity of the algorithm to be O(log n), rather than O(n^2), since the additions will dominate for very large n, simply because at some point a n^2 > m log n, where m is the run time of addition and a is the run-time of addition.

This becomes even more difficult if addition and multiplication have non- constant run-time as well (e.g. multi-precision ints).</comment>


Why you see online ads for stuff you buy in the real world - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/19/21011527/retail-tracking-apps-wifi-bluetooth-facebook-ads <comment><USER2> Indeed. This is why I make sure to put my phone in airplane mode before I get anywhere near a retail establishment. They're getting fully as nasty about this as online marketers.</comment>


I campaign for the extinction of the human race - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/10/i-campaign-for-the-extinction-of-the-human-race-les-knight <comment><USER2> Note that he campaigns for the _voluntary_ extinction of the human race.

I still can't get behind it. I believe that individual human lives have value. Therefore the human race has value.</comment>


Rsonlite – Easy Way to Create Custom Indented Data File Formats in Python - <AUTHOR> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/rsonlite <comment><USER2> Am I the only one pronouncing this as "arson light"?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Basically, this is a data format like YAML and JSON, but it's cleaner and more readable than even YAML! And doesn't have the bloat either.</comment>


SoundCloud UX: Always Have a CTA Visible - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jasonshah.org/post/22768738179/soundcloud-ux-hack-always-have-a-call-to-action

<comment><AUTHOR> Do people find this annoying or effective?</comment>


Facebook, I'm Begging You, Please Make Yourself Better - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/11/10/facebook-im-begging-you-please-make-yourself-better/ <comment><USER2> This article is pretty much an excellent synopsis of an old man who doesn't understand anything about technology who thinks "Hey, they have all this money and smart people, how hard could this thing I want be?"

As it turns out, accurately fact checking articles for truthfulness is very very hard. Of course, he glosses over the technical details and talk about how Facebook "has" to do this.

<comment><USER3> It's not their duty to fact-check articles for truthfulness... but they _could_ apply some basic vetting to _sources_ they put in people's feeds.

A _majority_ of Facebook-inserted content (ads and Suggested Posts) in my feed is either phony clickbait (complete with blatant copyright violations, e.g. claiming to come from ESPN, People, etc.) or sports merchandise ads from fake fan entities pushing counterfeit goods. Facebook clearly makes a great deal of money from these phonies and feels no incentive to inhibit them in the slightest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dear IT overlords please alleviate the burden of critical thinking of my fellow people as thinking is too hard for them and they might stray from the golden path.</comment>


Coal power becoming uninsurable as firms refuse cover - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/02/coal-power-becoming-uninsurable-as-firms-refuse-cover <comment><USER2> A side note first: Another post quite recently claimed that insurers aren't refusing coverage totally, but merely reducing their exposure, since reinsurers are making demands like "no more than 30% of portfolio exposed to coal". (Double side note: I suppose some insurers set that at zero, for whatever reason.)

To the main point: What's peculiar about coal? I can see reasons why insurers might want to avoid or limit exposure to a particular class of risk. But what makes "coal" into a class of risk, in insurance terms? Why is coal a different class of risk than, say, mining or construction, which seem similar to me as naïve layman?

Whether insurers are reducing or avoiding this risk doesn't matter for this question.

<comment><USER3> I think the key idea is systemic risk.

Insurance only works when a percentage of people put in claims, so house fires across a nation are mostly uncorrelated.

But if there's something that could affect every house and burn them all down at once, then insurance wouldn't really be an appropriate way to hedge that risk.

In this case, a coal plant needs to run fairly continuously for decades to be profitable. The risk is a combination of policy and ever cheaper renewables making coal economically unviable.

The term usually used is the risk of becoming a stranded asset.

[http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/faqs/what-are- strande...](http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/faqs/what-are-stranded- assets/)

<comment><USER2> Are you saying that insurers insure coal plants against being unprofitable?

<comment><USER4> Yes. I think that the alternative to an insurance policy would be for the coal plant operator to make a side bet on solar power, or almost anything other than a different coal plant. This alternative doesn't have the big payout an insurance policy would have, but it would provide profits that are not correlated with the risks of coal plant operation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


FDA wants opioid painkiller pulled off market - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/health/fda-opioid-opana-er-bn/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> So what do we do with patients in massive pain? Let them suffer? What about terminal patients? Is their risk of getting addicted more of a problem than letting them die in agony?</comment>


Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow - <AUTHOR> http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2011/03/05/why-us-broadband-is-so-slow/

<comment><USER2> Having just moved (and thus done my shopping for a new internet connection), I found it pretty galling that I was pretty much expected to either get a $30 land line or a $50 cable-TV package if I wanted to get internet. Technically I didn't need to get the bundle, but they didn't even list prices for an internet-only connection.

I have line-of-sight to our local water tower, though, so I was able to get a wireless internet connection and bypass everyone else. It's not super-high- speed, but I have 2.5 down and 1.5 up, and that's not too bad... and I have the moral satisfaction of not paying anything at all to either the cable companies _or_ the telcos.

<comment><USER3> Hey, as a WISP employee myself, thanks. It is really frustrating sometimes that potential customers have been trained that the duopoly the article mentioned is reality.

In truth, there is a vibrant, resourceful, and outspoken group of entrepreneurs out to take all of the incumbents marbles. But, like the article says, we have to fight at every turn for access that telco's and cable co's take for granted.

<comment><USER4> I'd love to support an independent ISP, but there is none serving my area with 50+mbit/s speeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The last line stood out to me.

> ... passing by along the way the idle fiber infrastructure that the FCC set > aside nearly a decade ago.

Can anyone elaborate on what exactly they mean? Is this dark fiber sitting around somewhere? Did the FCC sanction the deployment and private companies built it out (and then ignored it) or was government money spent to lay the wires?

<comment><USER6> There is tons of dark fiber, due to the economics of laying cables.

Digging a ditch is expensive. The fiber you put in the ditch is cheap. So if you are already digging a ditch, you load it up with 100x as much fiber as you imagine yourself ever needing in the future.

This is vastly cheaper than digging a second ditch 5-10 years down the line.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, but aren't we talking about the "last mile" problem, not about dark fiber? I thought that most of the dark fiber was in long inter-city/state runs, not running down my neighborhood street.

I thought he was referring to dormant fiber that the telco owns that used to be available to third-parties at wholesale rates.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly what I was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The conclusions are interesting, although I think they give government intervention way too much credit. If other product lines are any indication, people can become pretty content pretty quickly; they may not _demand_ more even if they might achieve it. I suppose life is just too short and people move on to more pressing concerns. If tomorrow all TVs in the world stopped working and shows could only be watched online, I think customers' attentions would shift and demand for high speed would see a new life. That's just the way these things work.

Incidentally, I hate the use of the term "Republican led FCC" in this article when "FCC" would have sufficed. I'm no Republican, but these kinds of loaded phrases invite ad hominem arguments. Readers should be able to learn about the actions of an organization such as the FCC and judge them as good or bad based on _relevant_ facts.

<comment><USER9> But it's entirely true that the FCC was under the watch of Republicans when the telecom act was defanged and shared access to customer copper was rolled back. Maybe you don't remember, but ten years ago you could get various providers on the copper you had -- I had DSL from a local company over my Verizon-provisioned phone line. My dad had earthlink service over his time- Warner cable line. There was a price difference and most definitely a difference in service. Nowadays the best you can do is speakeasy, and they have to pay covad to roll a truck and use a second pair of copper. This change was courtesy of the FCC, who agreed with an industry assessment that competition was really driving them nuts. And like it or not, the FCC was run by Republicans (Kevin Martin, remember him?) when this anti-consumer change was made. Your comment that "people become content" more accurately describes today's marketplace, where people are faced with a dearth of options for home and mobile broadband and just suck it up, pay the outrageous amount, and get on with life.

<comment><USER8> I didn't say the Republicans' involvement was untrue, I said it was irrelevant. When an article points out a political party in this way, the publication is implying that the outcome is _because_ of that party (something that simply can't be known from the facts). I suggested that they leave this out because it is more important to report on exactly what the FCC did and exactly what the outcome was. It allows people to have reasonable debates without becoming heated over their politics.

<comment><USER4> _I didn't say the Republicans' involvement was untrue, I said it was irrelevant._

IMO the constant flip-flopping between the extreme policies of either party is a significant contributor to our country's lagging Internet speeds (and a number of other problems in the US), so I consider the party association highly relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Potentially silly question: Why did we dig ditches and bury cable? Why didn't we dig ditches and bury pipes that you can snake cable out of and into as needed? This makes our Internet seem less like a problem of feasibility, and more like a complete engineering fuck-up.

<comment><USER11> Cost. I would also say that most of the 'cable' is laid inside conduit, but conduit with limited space and owned by a particular carrier who has no incentive or regulation dictating that he share that conduit.

<comment><USER10> Now i can't help but wonder, would it be wise for the government (likely local) to lay pipe and license room in it to ISPs? Much of it could even be done when working on sewers and roads, I'd imagine.

(Cue complaints of government interfering with business.)

<comment><USER12> You might find your answer in the history of municipal network projects. But I'm strongly biased against the incumbents, so I'll avoid leaving any details here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Switched to Sonic.net about 2 months ago and love it! Twice the speed (getting over 6 megabit now) of AT&T and for 1/2 the cost ($40/month vs. almost $80).

<comment><USER14> Hmmm, is that considered fast? On Comcast in SF I get about 20Mbps down and I never really thought of it being particularly speedy.

edit: Someone should create a website that both tests your speed, but then also shares that result with the world (anonymously). I'd love to pop up a list of ISPs in a specific city and see exactly how accurate their listed speeds are before buying.

<comment><USER4> Does Speedtest.net not do this for you? There is the small problem that the local Speedtest.net server was moved from a high-quality independent ISP to Comcast, so all Comcast speed tests are now completely unrealistic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Or, you could do what Verizon did: Build a large fiber optic-based network in several metropolitan areas and, for the first time, give Comcast, Charter, and Time Warner a run for their money. Then, turn around and dump several "second- tier" markets (Portland, Redmond/Kirkland/Bellevue, most of North Carolina, etc) onto a company that is actively trying to persuade customers _not_ to use that network.

Sometimes large telcos just baffle me.

</comment><comment><USER16> The interesting bit is that I'm not sure in many cases it matters.

I'm lucky to have FiOS (25down/5up), and I have many times the bandwidth I can manage. I can be downloading a couple torrents, my wife and I can both be streaming a movie, our phones can both be updating, I can forget I left Pandora running, and a friend can be in another room doing goodness knows what, and web sites still load more or less the same as normal.

I'd don't think I've ever come close to saturating my connection mainly because the sites I'm connecting to...even major sites...can't serve me data fast enough. For example, I routinely wait for youtube to buffer (though oddly 720p appears to load faster and more smoothly than any other resolution)...often I'll watch something on hulu while a videoclip buffers on youtube.

I've been on 100mbps connections in East Asia and didn't notice any perceptible difference...I did about the same amount of stuff in about the same amount of time...the sites I was connected to simply weren't servicing me any faster.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, due to the duopolies described in the article, most of the rest of us are stuck dreaming of such a fibery heaven. Verizon has said explicitly that they won't be coming to my area. Ever.

<comment><USER16> I should have probably been more clear. There are consumer level DSL and cable connections that are >5mbps. Except for very _very_ heavy usage, I doubt that somebody on a ~5mbps connection would see an appreciably different Internet than I do.

Or look at it another way, I wouldn't consider it a major penalty to move someplace without FiOS and "only" a 5mbps connection. My day job has 2 paired T-1s and I only notice a slight slowness compared to my fiber home connection.

Either way, I wait about as long for a youtube video to queue up, and I can watch hulu without problems in the meantime. I supposed it'd really matter if I wanted to stream 1080p HD. But there's really not a ton of that sort of content on the web anyway that's streamable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I do find it strange that you can go and get wholesale bw in the US for $1/mbit or less, yet residential ADSL tails, sold with contention ratios in the order of thousands:1 can be sold for like $60/month....

</comment><comment><USER19> In the UK the main speed factor is the line between you and either your cabinet, or your exchange. You're sold packages that are probably either 8 or 24 MB/s, and you get what you can. I'm 1.1 miles from the exchange directly with no fibre in the road, so I get 6.5 while paying for 24. When fibre comes any nearer, it will be free. How is it in US? Is fibre to the street/cabinet common?

</comment><comment><USER10> My favorite article on this topic, by Robert X. Cringely in 2007, on the Telecommunications Act of 1996: [http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html)

"The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen."

</comment><comment><USER20> Why doesn't another big company step up and lay down its own copper/fiber into homes? Sure, it will be a BIG investment but the return should be awesome. I am sure it will be worthwhile in at least some areas like NYC, Bay Area, Boston etc.

<comment><USER21> Can you fathom how much it will cost to dig up the streets, lay fiber and fill them back in? Will cities even allow that, due to the impediment to the traffic?

<comment><USER4> It's been managed before for fiber deployments in northern Europe. I remember seeing a perspective on Ars Technica from Amsterdam, with a photo of a sidewalk tiles neatly removed and replaced without damage: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/how- amsterda...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/how-amsterdam- was-wired-for-open-access-fiber.ars)

So, it can be done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hong Kong is small country which makes it faster / cheaper to adopt new technologies compared to adopting it in 50 states where some states are magnitude bigger than Hong Kong.

</comment><comment><USER23> The Western capitalist dogma is that state-run economies like those of China are inherently inefficient. But it seems to me that more and more recent evidence suggests that it may be that the partisan gridlock of Western democracies, dominated by monied interests and their lobbies, is more detrimental.

<comment><USER24> The "Western capitalist dogma" to which you refer applies to competitive situations. But cable and phone companies are not competitive in the U.S.A., they are monopolistic.

Read that section of a western economics text that explains monopolies for further enlightenment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not sure what people are going to do with 20mbps+ broadband when they will certainly set caps that will be used up within the first few days of your billing cycle?

Sonic apparently has no cap but that's virtually unheard of today. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/05/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/05/BUFD1K6GF7.DTL)

Which would you rather have, unlimited speed with a 150gb cap or 6mpbs with no cap?

<comment><USER26> First off, caps are not "virtually unheard of". Secondly Comcasts cap is 250GB/month. Who would use that in a few days? The biggest bandwidth eater I can think of is Netflix and a user would have to watch 108 movies in the best quality to reach that number.

<comment><USER27> I think your Netflix number must be wrong, because I work at an ISP and there are a lot of subscribers going over 250 GB/mo on Netflix. Anyway, one movie a day (or 3 TV episodes) on 4 computers is 120 movies/month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> When choosing internet service 4 months ago for my new place, i made a decision that my next job hunt will be around areas were walking distance from the office are covered by sonic.

Startups think about mentioning this as a benefit. seriously.

</comment><comment><USER29> Soooooo ... hate to point it out, but basically the Republicans gooned this up to?

</comment><comment><USER30> Seriously? Move to China, then we'll talk about slow broadband...</comment>


Show HN: ResponsiveDevices.css – responsive device frames for your demo page - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/osrec/ResponsiveDevices.css <comment><USER2> While neat technically speaking, I unfortunately can't say the result is acceptable for any kind of professional work, in my opinion.

For example, take a close look at the iPhone X in the "Device Library" list, the device and "notch" borders are butchered beyond recognition. A key component of the iPhone X's brand are the particular rounded corners used for the notch, and if the point of this project is to closely emulate particular devices instead of generic ones, it woefully missed the mark.

To be fair, I can't speak for the accuracy for the other devices included, but if their implementations are at all similar to the iPhone X's, I'd expect they are also poor representations.

Comparison between the CSS "iPhone X" and an accurate representation: [https://notebook.barrowclift.me/dropbox/comparison.png](https://notebook.barrowclift.me/dropbox/comparison.png), and a Light read for more information on the iPhone X corners: [https://medium.com/tall-west/no-cutting-corners-on-the- iphon...](https://medium.com/tall-west/no-cutting-corners-on-the- iphone-x-97a9413b94e)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the feedback :)

I understand your point of view, but I feel you're missing the purpose of these devices. The aim is not to provide a photo-realistic depiction of each device, but a representation that could be used on a landing page or a demo page.

We've found them to be adequate in situations where we require a responsive device frame, and I'm hopeful others will too.

Having said that, we will take another crack at the iPhone X to improve the shaping further. I think we can certainly get the rounded corners more in line with the actual shape. The notch may still be tricky though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Solid, useful work, very well executed (from what I can tell). Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words, and you're very welcome :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just a design note on your product landing page: the big gradient "responsivedevices.css" in your hero looks like a big CTA button, although not clickable. Might want to change that, or make it direct to something.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sample usage shown here: [https://osrec.github.io/ResponsiveDevices.css/samples.html](https://osrec.github.io/ResponsiveDevices.css/samples.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Commercial $$$, I thought self promo for commercial license was against the rules?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's against the rules of HN or GitHub. To be fair, it is a small fee, and helps fund the adding of new devices. At the end of the day, dev time is not free, and this took many days of research and development to perfect :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool. How did you scale device borders relatively?

<comment><AUTHOR> The borders are not really borders, but a slightly larger element (scaled by a relative percentage) layered under the element we want to add a border to. That way, as the device scales up or down, the "border" also appears to scale!</comment></comment>


ASK HN: Tell us a survey topic.We'll make you an Infographic about it - <AUTHOR>

Pollfish.com is a fresh startup (1 month old) in beta stage.
We have more than 150k mobile users and anyone can perform surveys and get answers.
We want to make an interesting survey/infographic to our panel.
So we are taking votes HN community. If you could ask anything what would it be?
Tell us the topic and we will get you the results to the most interesting topic :D
Can't wait your comments ! <comment><USER3> Dependencies between topics in mathematics.

Programmers working in machine learning and games really need Linear Algebra. What are the prerequisites? You need to know about vectors, dot products, matrix multiplication, etc. It's useful to be able to add fractions, perform simple algebra, etc.

So what is the web of dependencies to get a programmer up to scratch with Linear Algebra? Or calculus? Or probability?

</comment><comment><USER4> Regarding "rape culture" and "gender politics" in general:

 _Which gender do you identify as?_

 _Have you ever been the victim of sexual assault?_ if not jump to question 5

 _Have you ever been forcible penetrated, or been forced to penetrate someone else?_

 _Was the assault carried out by a male or female?_

 _Are you afraid of walking alone at night?_ if not jump to question 7

 _Are you afraid because:

\- You are worried about being assaulted

\- You are worried about being raped

\- You are generally afraid of the dark

\- People's attitude to nighttime travelling has made you afraid

\- Other (please specify)_

 _Have you ever reported a sexual assault?_ if not jump to question 9

 _Was the reported person sentenced to jail time?_

 _Have you ever been the victim of a false rape accusation?_ if not jump to question 11

 _Were you found guilty or not guilty?_

 _Are you afraid of being the victim of a false rape accusation?_

 _Have you ever considered making a false rape accusation?_ if not jump to end

 _For which reason did you consider making the accusation?

\- I wished I had not had sex the day after

\- We never had sex but I wanted to harm that person

\- I didn't want to be considered a "cheat"

\- I thought it would help a court case

\- Other (please specify)_

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

Disclaimer:

I believe the opinions of current people would be far more helpful than statistics from the 70's or 80's, as well as generating some real statistics on the plight of Woman on Female and Male on Male rape. That aside, the gender neutral nature of the internet would make for a much more unbiased audience than a study funded to look in to either particular sides arguments - <USER2> more capable of being impartial, unless the MRAs or Feminists rig the poll.

</comment><comment><USER5> How people on the web use passwords?

How many passwords do you have?

How do you remember your passwords?

Do you share passwords across sites?

How many websites do you log in to with a password?

How often do you use social login buttons?

Are you worried about the security of passwords?

Have you ever had your password exposed and an account hacked?

So many questions!

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The relationship between macro-economics on the startup funding/acquisition market.

Most of that data should publicly be available for you to consume and play with.

</comment><comment><USER7> How about: _what's the most important thing people refuse to accept?_

</comment><comment><USER8> A survey about recycling would be awesome!

</comment><comment><USER9> Effect of education on income levels!

</comment><comment><USER10> Ask "How many languages do you know?"

</comment><comment><USER11> People's attitudes to Web privacy

</comment><comment><USER12> maybe something about economic crisis?</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Adobe Reader so bloated? What are the POs in Adobe even thinking? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The PDF specification is 971 pages long, and most readers support only a small fraction of it, while Adobe supports all of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> /threadclosed</comment>


I have no reason to click on a Medium link - <AUTHOR> I just saw an interesting headline on hacker news. When I hovered over the link (to decide whether to click) I saw this:

  https://medium.com/p/1e695c46077e.
 There is nothing in that link to attract me to the page, and I did not click. Medium itself, a mere blogging platform (I don't care what they call themselves), is not enough to get me to click. There's nothing about "1e695c46077e" to remind me that I may have liked something from them before.
I pass over Medium links a lot, probably more than once a day, in that very scenario.
Medium and its users should probably consider that.
"We don't know all the answers. But we know that words matter (still), so we built a better system for sharing them."
OK, maybe it is better. But I haven't seen any reason to visit lots and lots of Medium links (I do visit some). The web is large.
And to 1e695c46077e, good luck with your writing endeavors. <comment><USER2> What do you expect to see in the URL to let you know it's good to read?

[https://medium.com/p/JohnSmith?Rating=★★★★&Degree=PHD&TLDR=C...](https://medium.com/p/JohnSmith?Rating=★★★★&Degree=PHD&TLDR=Coffee+is+good+this+is+why)

Damn, I was building that sarcastically, but it's actually pretty awesome.

<comment><USER3> Where is "Favorite that comment" button when you need it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Remember when websites were 100% focused on "content without scrolling?" Now medium has gone batshit crazy with their "NO CONTENT WITHOUT SCROLLING!"

</comment><comment><USER5> > _There is nothing in that link to attract me to the page, and I did not > click._

There's this thing called the anchor text of the link. You can try reading this instead of the URL which is meant mainly for machines.

There's a very thick line behind nice-to-have friendly URLS and judging what to read from the url itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's the title link on the HN page, and when you (I) hover over that, all I see is the link, no human-relevant text. Firefox 26 and Chromium whatever on Wheezy 7.now.

The title of the article looks interesting, but there's nothing to tell me that the writer has any credibility, in the subject or in general. Also nothing to tell me whether the writer does _not_ have credibility.

What I'm looking for is reputational clues. (medium.com) after the link is not enough for me, because there's nothing about medium that tells me anyone associated with them will be worth reading; membership is random with almost no gatekeeping (which is fine). (wired.com) or (schneier.com) is enough, the one because I know from history that they have content that I like, and schneier because it's schneier.

There's no such clue in an association with medium, and a randomly generated user name. Note that I'm also looking for _future_ reputation: if I see a new source, will I remember it in the future?

There's just not enough to go on, for me. Whoever the writer is should at least think about making themselves more identifiable; the same for medium users in general.

<comment><USER5> > _There 's the title link on the HN page, and when you (I) hover over that, > all I see is the link, no human-relevant text_

The _title_ is the human readable text. You're not supposed to go reading the link itself for human-relevant text.

> _What I 'm looking for is reputational clues. (medium.com) after the link is > not enough for me, because there's nothing about medium that tells me anyone > associated with them will be worth reading; membership is random with almost > no gatekeeping_

You saw a link for an article on HN and you didn't click to see it because of a lack of "reputational clues" in the URL link?

I like reputational clues too. If only there was some kind of social bookmarking site, where a community of people with some common interests could vote for articles, and you can read their _titles_ and see their vote count and go click on them.

A man can dream right?

> _There 's just not enough to go on, for me. Whoever the writer is should at > least think about making themselves more identifiable; the same for medium > users in general._

A nice-to-have as a URL requirement that you have blown out of proportion. You're using the web wrongly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seriously? No one is asking you to memorize a link. You see the anchor text and you click on it if you like it. How hard is it? You just took nitpicking to a different level.</comment>


Interview With Awesome Female Coder, Corrinne Yu, 3D Engine Lead, XBOX HALO - <AUTHOR> http://techzinglive.com/?p=111 <comment><USER2> Hmm, so why point out gender, especially when combined with superlatives? Kind of undercuts the effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> In the world of coders (where males far out-number females) I think it is a very interesting fact that the lead developer of the halo 3D engine is female.

It's not something you see every day. That's why I put it in the title. I thought the point of creating a title was to highlight the interesting aspects of a story?

<comment><USER3> There is absolutely nothing interesting about a developer being female. Nothing.

Quite frankly, it confuses and disappoints me that anyone would think that gender matters enough to call attention to it. We're not in the 1950s, let's stop with the notion that it is a big deal when a woman does something that mostly men have done before.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even from a mere statistical point of view it's interesting.

Take bayesian spam analysis for example. When we examine the corpus, the words that we find "interesting" are the ones that appear "less" in the data-set.

Just because I say something's interesting it doesn't mean I'm being sexist - perhaps it's just interesting.

Ok, let's reverse this. Is there any profession or hobby that you would find interesting if a male excelled and generally kicked ass at it?

<comment><USER4> Interestingly, my first parsing of "Awesome Female Coder" not that she's an awesome coder who is female, but rather than she's an awesome female who is a coder. Which may perhaps also be true, of course, but it sounds as if you're saying that there are aspects of her femaleness that are awesome.

"Awesome Male Coder" makes me think of Chuck Norris typing machine code by roundhouse kicking his keyboard…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Without the useless link page: [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2008/08/microsoft_confirms_corrinne...](http://www.kotaku.com.au/2008/08/microsoft_confirms_corrinne_yu_hire_internal_halo_team_expansion/)

</comment><comment><USER6> And remind me again why there's a Wikipedia page on her?

<comment><USER7> because she's an awesome female coder.</comment></comment>


Free Bug Tracking?  Joel on Software now giving out 2-user hosted FogBugz account ($63+/mo for more than 2 users) - <AUTHOR> http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.482288.29 <comment><USER2> You have to hand it to them for letting people switch back and forth from free 2 user accounts to paid multi users accounts and back FOREVER. Sounds to me like a great way to get people to try out your product absolutely risk free and with 2 user accounts being less than 5% of their user base they really have nothing to lose.

Will we see more of this in the multi user arena?</comment>


Clash Royale developer Supercell refusing to allow emotes to be muted - <AUTHOR> https://clashroyale.com/blog/news/emotes <comment><AUTHOR> I get the psychology behind it - it increases impulsive spending - but to tell the users that it's the number one requested feature and then say 'yeah, fuck you'... that's pretty poor.</comment>


Lawyer Submits Brief Partially in Klingon for Paramount Language Lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzmetJxi-p0VM19nbUpyNXE0a28/view <comment><USER2> I'm not sure whether, in all the brouhaha over this lawsuit, anyone has paid much attention to the fan film around which it revolves. "Star Trek: Axanar" is currently in production for a mid-2016 release, and the short film/long trailer, "Prelude to Axanar", is a remarkable piece of work in its own right. Don't let the "fan film" label put you off, either; these are professionally produced works, with a compelling storyline and real actors (some of whom will be familiar to fans of the BSG reboot and/or _Star Trek: Enterprise_ ), and their take on the Star Trek universe should be a breath of fresh air for anyone frustrated with either Roddenberry's unrealistically optimistic perspective on humanity's future, or JJ Abrams' "lens flare all the things!" brodown.

If you're a Star Trek fan at all, you owe it to yourself to at least give _Prelude to Axanar_ a watch: [https://youtu.be/1W1_8IV8uhA](https://youtu.be/1W1_8IV8uhA)

(And as an old Babylon 5 fan, I'm delighted they included a sly reference to that show in _Prelude_ , too. See if you can catch it!)

<comment><USER3> You forgot to link to it: [https://youtu.be/1W1_8IV8uhA](https://youtu.be/1W1_8IV8uhA)

<comment><USER4> Holy crap! These fan films are getting better and better all the time!

I can see why the studios are crapping themselves. No longer are they competing on mere _copying_ , now they are competing on creativity!

Seriously, if fans can do this with Star Trek, I wonder if they should take the central precepts of Star Trek, make their own entirely seperate universe and to hell with it - the studios who refuse to continue much loved series can be cut out entirely and fans can make their own series.

In fact, they could make their own series but have a central authority to allow for basic continuity but maximise creativity. Now _that_ would be remarkable.

The fans could find their own games and spinoffs pretty nicely too.

<comment><USER5> Well, in a small way, someone did that:

Star Wreck - In the Prikinning ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472566/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472566/))

available for free here: [https://archive.org/details/StarWreckInThePirkining](https://archive.org/details/StarWreckInThePirkining)

(These are the guys who then went on to do Iron Sky :D )

<comment><USER6> And they are also planning a new Star Wreck short film!

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What we have here is one of the true great footnotes in legal history:

 _" 2\. Mr. Okrand himself has asserted that the Klingon language, tlhIngan Hol, was received by him from a captured Klingon named Maltz. See Okrand, Marc, The Klingon Dictionary (1985). Thus, Plaintiffs may be estopped from asserting otherwise for the purposes of this litigation. See Arica Inst., Inc. v. Palmer, 970 F.2d 1067, 1075 (2d Cir. 1992) (author who disavowed inventing enneagrams publicly cannot claim invention inconsistently to improve a litigation position)."_

<comment><USER7> IANAL, so I'm hoping I'm understanding this right: because Okrand wrote the dictionary, and in it claimed that he learned it from an actual Klingon, he may not now say he invented it? The argument kinda being, if the language is real, and he wrote a non-fiction authoratative book on it... then he can't be inconsistent about the origins?

It's hard for me to wrap my head around it, but it's hilariously clever if I'm reading it right.

<comment><USER8> That's the gist. This is the lawyer having (even more) fun with the lawsuit, because why the hell wouldn't you have fun in a job like this?

I'm pretty sure that he and the judge both know that Okrand's claim was a fiction/joke and that this isn't a serious legal notion to be ruled upon.

<comment><USER4> I have a feeling there is double irony, because the attorney appears to have been one of the attorneys who fought Prenda Law.

Prenda got smacked down pretty hard by a judge who decided to litter his judgement with Star Trek quotes.[1]

1\. [http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/prenda-boldly-benchslapped- wh...](http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/prenda-boldly-benchslapped-where-no-one- has-gone-before/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> See also LCS press release: [http://conlang.org/axanar/](http://conlang.org/axanar/)

Disclosure: I founded the LCS, directed our participation as amicus in this case, and am press contact for this issue. Marc Randazza wrote the awesome amicus brief (linked in OP) pro bono.

<comment><USER9> Mark Randazza the same lawyer who installed malware on peoples' computers and tried to extort money from them for illegally downloading gay porn?

[https://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2015/07/09/marc-randazza- mu...](https://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2015/07/09/marc-randazza-must- pay-600k-for-clear-and-serious-breaches-of-fiduciary-duty-against-his-former- client/) [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/how-copyright- law...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/how-copyright-lawyer-marc- randazza-got-famous-lost-friends-and-went-broke/)

(ransomware, even - of the 'pay me $4k within 30 days or I'll disable your computer' variety...it doesn't get any more scummy)

<comment><USER10> I don't see anything in either of those articles about installing malware on people's computers. They do paint a pretty dire picture of his ethics though.

<comment><USER9> I used to work in the antimalware industry and personally encountered ransomware samples from Randazza Legal Group representing Corbin Fisher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK, so if Paramount loses (as I would expect), does this then mean that the lawsuit between Oracle and Google around speaking the language 'Java' gets an interesting precedent?

<comment><USER4> I can only imagine the difficulties and challenges faced by those folks who could only ever speak in nouns.

Really, really long nouns in sentences stated very indirectly.

<comment><USER12> Don't underestimate the human capacity for circumlocution. The Hungarian language has no word for "to have". Seriously. And they do just fine without it.

<comment><USER3> Russian doesn't normally use a verb for 'to have' either. It's mainly expressed as a preposition (_u_).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this a standard layout for a legal / court document? The lack of padding, especially on the right side really bothers me while reading for some reason.

<comment><USER3> Compare plaintiff and defendant briefs if you like. [https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzmetJxi-p0VZUJaQ2ZO...](https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzmetJxi-p0VZUJaQ2ZOYVZCQVk#list) has all the filings.

<comment><USER14> Thanks! I added an index here:

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11698292/pvax/index.html](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11698292/pvax/index.html)

<comment><USER3> That's very neat. Could you email me (eg firstname.lastname@example.com) so we can collaborate / keep updated?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> ITT: IANAL ad nauseum

</comment><comment><USER16> Does this have ramifications for Tolkien Elvish?

<comment><USER3> Applies to any conlang, including Quenya et al.</comment></comment>