Emokit: Hacking the Emotiv EPOC Brain-Computer Interface - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/daeken/Emokit/blob/master/Announcement.md

<comment><USER2> I am the CTO of Zeo - we make a single channel dry EEG product for sleep phasing (www.myzeo.com). This is a fascinating project and the discussion around it has been really fascinating for me - we are thinking about many of the same issues. We had Zeo 'hacked' last fall - and decided to embrace the trend. We hired the hacker - a Cornell student - on as an intern and had him help us write libraries to open up the platform. The Zeo Raw Data Library is in beta now - check out more details here:

<http://developers.myzeo.com/>

So we took the open approach and can't wait to see what cool (and strange!) things people use the platform for. This was an easier decision for us since we sell to consumers (for sleep - not EEG per se) and don't have a big research business to cannibalize (like Emotiv) - I certainly understand and respect their point of view on the matter. If anyone wants early access to the API sign up and let us know you want early access when you do. We have a forthcoming grant program as well - we will be giving out a bunch of free product to whomever suggests the coolest uses - email me email@example.com for more info.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's incredible. I know Emotiv invested considerable time and money into "securing" the feed coming off the headset -- and it's broken in less than 24h by an individual (our own daeken!). That send a pretty powerful message about proprietary hardware...

<comment><USER4> "But... but we used 128-bit AES! It's rated for U.S.A. Classified Secret information!" Yeah, but you put the S-box (AES key initialization) in the code you sent to the end-user. Also, ECB [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_modes_of_operation...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_modes_of_operation#Electronic_codebook_.28ECB.29) So... yeah.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hate to say this, but ECB is actually the right way to go here. There's no way to send information to the headset, so CBC with a rolling IV wouldn't work well -- if one HID report dropped, you'd have no way of regaining the stream again. Of course, they could've XORed the second half of the output report with the first (CBC across the output report itself), but that really gets you nothing. This is, amazingly, one of the few places where ECB actually makes sense.

That said, when will people learn to encrypt/pack/invert/anything their S-boxes?

Edit: Scratch what I said defending ECB mode. I totally forgot about CTR mode until a friend just mentioned it. Would've been the perfect solution here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great! I've been interested in EEG, neurohacking for a while, at least in concept. Now that it's available for entry level hackers, what's the best way to get started? Does anyone know of good resources for EEG related signal processing, or algorithms applicable to brain waves, etc.? Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks perfect for research or OS programs. But you can forget commercial applications without the consent of emotiv.

Also, perhaps someone can clarify this for me. This doesn't guarantee you will end up with something better or similar to emotiv.

After determining which bytes correspond to which signals, do you have to write the algorithm for pattern recognition? do you have to reverse engineer the whole SDK or is it just a matter of calling the existing/proprietary algorithms using the signals?

Anyway, I think this will force them to accelerate their development for the Linux platform and perhaps be more open about it.

I'm not sure if they're not open about their development because they're stuck (I haven't seen any major improvements in their videos from 2008 to now... same stuff) or if they're scared from competition because they don't have the resources.

If they can recognize what a bunch of _very_ ambitious developers can do for free, why keep this thing locked?

<comment><AUTHOR> Once the sensor data is completely decoded (currently digging through that with the advice of several people in the EEG field), the reversing is really over. From there, you can write your own processing libraries or simply utilize something existing, such as OpenViBE. Part of Emokit will be an acquisition module to feed data into OpenViBE, so that'd be the path of least resistance for most cases.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for replying.

I didn't know about OpenViBE. In your opinion, how is it compared to emotiv SDK? (I'm referring to the API, quality and things you can do with it -- with minimal coding)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On the hack-a-day article ( [http://hackaday.com/2010/09/13/python-library- for-emotiv-eeg...](http://hackaday.com/2010/09/13/python-library-for-emotiv- eeg/) ) they are discussing the legal part of this. Any comments daeken?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't generally talk legality online -- for good reason -- but I will say this: I believe that this library is kosher and I'll stand behind it if Emotiv disagrees.

<comment><USER8> In the forums before release Emotiv changed their pricing (reduced) for raw sensor access, but they still wanted to get paid for it, which most of the users strongly disagreed with them on, as the idea of limiting the hardware's usability like that leaves a sour taste to poor programmers who want to experiment and help develop, and therefore drive, the technology.

I would suspect that, while Emotiv would prefer people to purchase the license to access these features legitimately, ultimately it serves their ends to help popularize their product and get interesting things developed for it so I would expect that it isn't entirely frowned upon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's the emotiv thread on it: <http://emotiv.com/forum/forum15/topic879/> . Sounds like it may be a pyrrhic victory...

</comment><comment><USER10> A couple years ago I connected the NIA Neural Impulse Actuator to Max/MSP as a software synth control mechanism, but I was heavily limited by the proprietary software converting sensor data into keystrokes. This project is really great because it would let hackers get around limitations like that!

</comment><comment><USER11> I have an extra one of these if anyone would like it. email me (info in profile).

</comment><comment><USER12> I was hoping Emokit would be like Webkit for sad boys who wear too much eyeliner. Dammit.</comment>


Un-spoken complexity of NoSQL - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pjuu.com/pjuu/nosql/mongo/choices/2016/04/08/unspoken-complexity-nosql.html <comment><USER2> FYI - Google Chrome flags this website as dangerous.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up. We just remove includeSubDomains from the HSTS to get blog. so I think that's the issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Resubmitted = [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458621](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458621)</comment></comment></comment>


Designer Michael Parenteau's journey to Heroku, Github, Dropbox, etc. - the-come-ons http://parenteau-sf-journey.herokuapp.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> It was a great trip. I definitely would like to do it again next year. Hmm... I wonder where I will go?

<comment><USER2> If I had to pick something, I would likely pick NYC as my next stop. There's enough cool people doing cool things and plenty to do in the city. Good luck, I hope it's a blast wherever you go!

</comment></comment><comment> the-come-ons tldr;

<http://parenteau-sf-journey.herokuapp.com/data></comment>


11 Ways to Successful Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://timeinfeldt.com/11-ways-to-successful-innovation/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone else get a mostly red background with white vertical stripes? Does anyone else want to tear out their eyeballs rather than read this?

Here's the text - it's not bad. Same about the web page.

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>====

11 ways to successful innovation

As an interim summary of the last term in the E-Business and Innovation programme, I compiled what I consider some of the important factors for taking innovation beyond the buzzword. The keywords after each section are meant as starting point for further research.

1\. Know the difference between invention and innovation.

Before thinking about successful innovation, it is important to understand what innovation is, and what it's not. Innovation is an evolutionary process, not a product of Gyro Gearloose's workshop. Innovation combines a new idea with the question of what is feasible. An innovation should always be linked to a tangible market opportunity. Some innovations fail because they are ahead of their time; others fail because they never got beyond the stage of invention. Don't be fooled by the hordes of companies who put innovation in their mission statement without having a clue of the underlying principles and theoretical concepts. Like every other business process, innovation has its own set of rules and factors that decide over success or failure.

 _Keywords: invention, innovation, invention vs. innovation_

2\. Listen to your Pain

Many companies are obsessed with market research to find the next big thing. But oftentimes opportunities for innovation are closer than you think. Look at the current processes or ask employees and there will be some degree of pain, something that could be incrementally or radically improved. The obvious step here is solving that pain to improve the current processes and improve efficiency. But do not stop there. If you feel this pain, there will be others that feel it too. Try to view the solution isolated from its current usage and think about the value it provides. The stronger the pain it solves, the more likely it is that other people are willing to pay a premium to get rid of the same pain.

 _Keywords: user innovation_

3\. Know your Assets

For companies that produce tangible products from materials and machinery it is relatively easy to see available assets. For knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs), individual assets are harder to grasp as the supply-chains in consultancies or agencies are less visible and transparent. Nevertheless, getting an overview of the individual parts that are used every day can be a great source of innovation. A piece of code whose functionality could form a new application by itself, a methodology that can be applied to a different sector, a business model that can be utilised for a different type of product. Viewing assets out of context and thinking about (unconventional) re-usage opens new, innovative perspectives.

 _Keywords: small pieces loosely joined, code repository, asset management_

4\. Orchestrate the Pieces

This is partly related to the previous point, but with a more global perspective. Today's opportunities, especially in the software sector, are not restricted to what happens inside of a company. A major part of innovation is about combination, not creation. When thinking about innovative links, always consider both internal assets and externally available pieces. Open-source software, open APIs, existing data and secondary research play a crucial role in innovation. Don't reinvent the wheel. If something already exists, use it and focus on creating new value with it. If another organisation has its core competencies in something that you require, ally with them instead of wasting resources on duplicating.

 _Keywords: API, orchestration, open-source, core competencies_

5\. Use Lasers, not Shotguns

When pursuing innovation, especially in products, it is easy to get carried away by possibilities and features that could extend the core idea. In reality, thinking too broad oftentimes dilutes the innovation and eventually renders it impractical for both the innovator and the target audience. Restrict yourself to a small, focused idea instead of feature overload. You probably won't create the next iTunes, YouTube or Twitter. You don't need to, either. Instead of fighting these platforms, make use of them. The scale, tools and ecosystems around these established platforms should be considered opportunities, not threats. Want to create a service for classifieds? Build it on top of Twitter instead of competing with Craigslist on your own, proprietary platform. Focus on your niche within the market and make smart use of dominant designs.

 _Keywords: dominant design, KISS principle_

6\. Think Intrapreneurship, not Entrepreneurship

When describing entrepreneurs, media coverage regularly restricts itself to drawing an image of the young, lone, visionary thinker who changes the world over night. Not only is this image plain wrong, it also creates unnecessary confusion in corporate innovation. For many employers innovation simply means "I will lose employees and intellectual property". Yet the concept of innovation is not restricted to tiny garage startups. An established organisation has its unique set of advantages to facilitate innovation. Resources, core competencies and established networks are only three examples. Instead of keeping employees away from innovation in order to retain them in- house, embrace innovation as continuous process to stay competitive.

 _Keywords: corporate entrepreneurship, change management, virgin's corporate culture (Richard Branson)_

7\. Prepare to Have Your Ideas Changed

Note that the headline does not say "prepare to change your ideas". When coming up with innovative ideas, it is most normal to react nervous when the innovation is not being used as intended. Resist the urge to educate people about "the right way" to use your innovation. Instead, pay close attention to the ways your innovation is used and let it influence your strategy. In most cases, a market comes up with ideas so diverse that you can't possibly think of them all. Allow some flexibility for market influence and user innovation and make your users a remote part of the development team. There is no right way in innovation. Whatever works, works. Besides, letting users steer (a bit) is a great way to establish long-term customer relationships.

 _Keywords: flickr history, feedback mechanisms, user innovation_

8\. Foresee Diffusion

In Innovation, diffusion is a combination of how, why, and at what rate a new idea or technology spreads. In other words, successful diffusion means that an innovation "took off" in the market. Even though an innovation has made the first step into public awareness, immediate absorption is not guaranteed. Internally, missing a unique selling proposition, wrong positioning of the innovation towards its target market (or entirely missing it), insufficient quality or wrong communications can hinder diffusion. In the outside world, cultural aspects, existing competitors, strong existing standards (e.g. QWERTY vs. DVORAK), governmental regulations or lack of demand from target groups can cause a fail of diffusion. Diffusion is hard to predict up front, but key factors can be identified in order to avoid some of the mentioned pitfalls. Take a critical look at the current stage of the innovation and ask yourself what would have to change to push diffusion forward. While diffusion is a complex dialogue between innovators and the target market, identifying specific barriers is crucial.

 _Keywords: diffusion of innovations, the tipping point_

9\. Know the Key People

Innovations that diffuse follow an adoption curve. This curve can serve as tool to not only create milestones, but also to determine the key influencers of the diffusion process. Look at the individual consumer groups and analyse who fulfils these roles for your particular innovation. Who are the lead-users that we have to convince? What is the critical mass that takes the innovation into major adoption? The more precise you can define these key groups, the easier it is to target them. Look at similar innovations and evaluate who their key customer groups are. The S-curve is a useful and simple tool to quickly segment a target market. Don't expect to find the same customer groups at all stages of the diffusion curve. It is likely that entirely different groups have to be targeted at different points in time.

 _Keywords: diffusion curve, s-curve, adoption cycle_

10\. Keep it Lean

Although it might seem handy to have massive resources to throw at innovation, keeping the process lean has significant advantages. Innovation requires regular re-combination of knowledge and re-configuration of structures, which is why the underlying process should be as streamlined as possible. In fact, following some of the previous points will already result in a rather lean development process. By taking advantage of available assets and restricting yourself to simple, straightforward ideas it is possible to innovate with much less waste. Allowing for a pull-mechanism from the market, rather than aimlessly pushing things into the market, is another characteristic of lean production. Whenever there is a chance to reduce waste or simplify a part of your innovation process, do it.

 _Keywords: lean production, Toyota production system, kaizen, lean startup, agile development, extreme programming_

11\. Facilitate Collaboration

If there is one direct action to take, this is it. Whoever the people in your organisation are - employees, partners, your mentor - make sure they have the tools to collaborate. This can be as simple as installing a Wiki on your web server or creating a collaborative document on Google Docs. Not only reduces collaboration the amount of waste and inefficiency in your communications, it also makes sure that no innovative idea is lost because of bad infrastructure. Many companies still hesitate to employ collaborative tools, although the advantages are obvious. The more diverse the user input, the higher the frequency of innovative ideas. Since innovation is about new combinations, it is important to bring all parts of an organisation together in one centralised place.

<comment><AUTHOR> I told him, the issue should be fixed.</comment></comment>


Will Silicon Valley Disrupt Politics With a Candidate for Congress? - <AUTHOR> http://techpresident.com/news/23895/silicon-valley-tech-stars-raise-cash-ro-khanna <comment><USER2> Going to Washington won't disrupt politics.

IGNORING Washington will disrupt politics. Create an alternative center of power - one that values freedom and meritocracy. That means being independent of Big Money as well as Big Politics.</comment>


Why is twitter popular? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there something I'm missing here?

It seems like there is nothing there that is not already a feature in another site/service.

</comment><comment><USER2> Is it? I've never used it. Nobody I know has either.

</comment><comment><USER3> Everybody is using myspace and facebook

</comment><comment><USER4> ... is twitter popular?

</comment><comment><USER5> er. is twitter popular? No one except the techcrunchers are using it. None of my friends are using it</comment>


Is Argentina's chaotic economy fertile ground for radical financial experiments? - <AUTHOR> http://thelongandshort.org/growth/argentina-bitcoin-financial-future <comment><USER2> [Argentinean here]

In 2008, the problem with coins was real. There were not enough coins. I had to pay 4 or 5 bus tickets each day and it was difficult. Some of the solutions were to find a relative that can go to a bank to exchange bills for coins, or ask friends with cars to exchange bills for coins.

Now the problem is that the values of the coins is too low. 1 USA$ = 14 ARG$. So the value of the 0.10 ARG$ is less than 0.01 USA$ = 1 penny. So in most cases you just ignore it. The smaller coin that is currently in use is the 0.50 ARG$ = 0.07 USA$, and if you are lucky you can get a 0.25 ARG$ = 0.20 USA$ coin.

Also, the bitcoin use is not so popular as described in the article.

The "fertile ground for radical financial experiments" is true. If you enjoy economic experiments, grab some popcorn and wish us luck.</comment>


History Of Valve (Part 1) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gxFaGKHbEY <comment><USER2> Part 1: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gxFaGKHbEY>

Part 2: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JXDELFoSLU>

Part 3: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgBkIg9gKYY>

Part 4: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZ9lKptKb0>

Part 5: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aA2svGfvc>

Part 6: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uhpj5XQEOA>

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always admired Valve redefining the entire concept of space-time with Valve Time :) (oh, and for the other stuff too).

(As an aside: I love the narrators pronunciation of "id software" - is that common in the states? [we would pronounce it very differently here and I didnt expect it!])

<comment><USER4> I don't know, how do you pronounce it?

<comment><USER3> As in: "here is my id"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> thanks for posting. Valve is a company I admire a ton. Steam has changed how I buy and discover video games.

<comment><USER4> The recent holiday sales most likely drove phenomenal sales. More importantly is that for the developers of the games, they get very hard statistics on game sales, price points and platform.

Steam is one of the few DRM based systems that actually provides value for consumers rather than restricting.

<comment><USER6> I don't think the data to developers is very useful. I mean let's say you are selling 30 copies per day at $20. Steam sells it for $2.50 during the holiday sale and you sell 3,000 copies that day. What useful data could you get other than "holy crap, Steam promotions get a ton of sales"?

<comment><USER4> I think that _that_ is the relevant data. It helps game makers understand what the best price points are for their product and how changing that price point over time can reinvigorate sales.

I personally think that the game industry's pricing is out of whack with the rest of consumer entertainment. A cd costs between $10-16 (on iTunes the pricing difference is similar for tracks), movies cost $9-13, a hardbound book sells for $12-20 and a new game can cost $50-60. The usual justification is that AAA games cost a lot of money to make. But AAA movies cost far more and AAA pop music and promotion also costs similarly large numbers. Yet I pay 4-6 times that price for a game, even if the production cost is a fraction of the other mediums..

Steam does a few things that are interesting IMHO:

1) It makes it clear to game authors that $50-60 is not a good price point anymore, volume increases significantly at the lower price point, so much so that total revenue (and profit) also increase.

2) Digital distribution of games is popular and works really really well.

3) Those two effects combines can grow the consumer base for these products. People that didn't get into gaming before because it simply cost too much, can get into it now if a well known, well reviewed game costs $5 and the Steam platform is free.

<comment><USER6> I disagree.

I think you're right that digital distribution is the future, games are expensive, Steam's DRM is sort of acceptable, Valve is a cool company, etc. I'm totally with you on all of that.

However, this data is not useful.

All this objectively tells us is that Steam has 20 million users and can drive a ridiculous number of sales for a deeply discounted product on an extremely well publicized holiday sale.

Anything else is conjecture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting to watch that (specifically the release date delays) while knowing how Duke Nukem turned out.

<comment><USER8> This reminds me of Steve Jobs quote : "Real artists ship"..</comment></comment>


Big Law, Big Bill. For Now - <AUTHOR> http://blog.simplelegal.com/big-law-big-bill-for-now

<comment><USER2> A few lawyers have reached out to me with questions about our service. First, let me say that I fully understand your concerns and distaste for current bill review and eBilling platforms. I understand and appreciate your point of view. We're hopefully part of the solution, not the problem.

We don't create yet another system that creates more overhead for your firm. We can accept invoices in any of the LEDES formats via email. We accept secure, encrypted direct uploads as well for those that prefer that process.

We believe that law firms provide a valuable service. You're an insurance policy against bad decisions, an advisor through unchartered waters.

If you're an attorney, Please do reach out to me. I'm happy to talk to you about any questions you have.

</comment><comment><USER2> Cat's out if the bag... We haven't launched publicly, but we have customers on our beta application now. We've analyzed over $1.1B in legal bills.

If anyone here is from NJ, you've probably read the news stories about your school boards and local governments getting outrageous legal bills. Your state Comptroller, Matthew Boxer, is actually doing an outstanding job of putting a stop to the worst of it.

We're still in private beta, but drop me a note if you want to see how your bills stack up.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm looking forward to making sure that I'm not overpaying on the review of my commercial contract with banks!</comment></comment>


Why can't Intel kill x86? - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/it-management/346559/why-intel-cant-seem-retire-x86

<comment><USER2> For all the "embarrassment" that Itanium is, here's a fun fact that astonished me:

The world market for Itanium is _bigger_ than the whole market for AMD.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on our Impact Programming project - <AUTHOR> We're putting together a project and network to promote impact programming, which is programming software that has a beneficial impact on our society, culture and environment. You can find it at www.impactp.com.
We're just starting it and with HN being the best place to ask techies, we were wondering if you would be able to check it out and give us some feedback about the project. Maybe some ideas on how we could encourage others to have a positive impact with their developing, and if you had any experience or stories of impact programming?
Cheers and thanks! Brennan and Shahram <comment><USER2> I would definitely join such a network (I am a professional developer), as I think that programming can, and will, have a big impact in society.

The only thing I would make clearer in the webpage is what kind of a network will be.

Are events going to happen in which some projects with such impact will be presented and participation encouraged?

Are companies interested somehow in this concept?

If it is not focused on volunteering, how do professionals profit, or how would they be encouraged to participate?

Overall it seems to be a good idea but I think it needs more definition.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for your great Feedback and questions. It makes me think more what will be the best way:. First encourage programmers or companies!

<comment><USER2> At the end, it has to be both sides.

<comment><USER3> True!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't quite understand, from your website, how impact programming is different from regular programming. Do you mean volunteer? For non-profits? For social benefit companies like Etsy? Code for America?

<comment><USER3> Thanks. It doesn't need to be volunteer or non-profits. The main point for programmer should be the type of project that has an impact. This will be the main motivation for working along with other benefits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> clickable URL: [http://www.impactp.com/](http://www.impactp.com/)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for adding this

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looks like a great idea, so how can I contribute?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We're looking for people and projects that we can work with and highlight to promote impact programming!</comment></comment>


Inkling: interactive textbooks on the iPad. - <AUTHOR> http://www.inkling.com/ Four textbooks available so far: http://www.inkling.com/about<p>Having used Raven's biology text, which is a good textbook but would've tremendously benefited from something like this because of how much data you need to retain for biology, this makes me pretty excited for THE FUTURE. <comment><USER2> I am in the target market for this and something disturbs me. It looks so great and neat that I wonder what will happen to the noise to signal ratio. I am not exactly the Buddha in terms of concentration and the last thing I want is to be plugged into an interactive environment (the app itself and the iPad). I'll play around, have urges to read a million things at a time; do quizzes; watch videos; write notes to share instead of writing them to learn and in general do everything on it, but learn. What makes it even more dangerous is the fact that it _looks_ like I am learning something.

That's the problem with a lot of products I see. It's not that I don't have a use for them. It's the fact that I _don't_ want to get used to them. Sometimes, the bare bones is just how things should be. Of course, it's awfully convenient to have things in this package, but it won't serve the purpose that well.

This is why I plan to buy the color kindle someday, if they come out with a decent system to take annotations. It scratches my itch for books with an occasional physics/ math/ computer text, while offering me an environment I can curtail. Hopefully, someday I will have more fine tuned control over myself, but until then I plan to stay away from such things.

<comment><USER3> This is a legitimate problem, but not unique to this product. Anyone who uses a computer to get work done already deals with this.

<comment><USER4> I haven't tried it; can people comment about iPad screen resolution and how readable it is? I've seen those magnified pictures, but how easy is it on the eye?

<comment><USER5> I can literally stare into the thing for hours: reading books/articles, surfing, watching video. It's makes no further strain on my eyes than does an LCD monitor (though, full disclosure: I use a P-MVA screen, which is supposedly "better quality" as LCDs go), and I _have_ to look at that for hours a day for my work.

I think the people who don't like looking at the iPad screen for more than a few minutes base their patterns on personal or ideological beliefs, or are personally invested in another platform like OLED or e-ink (i.e., fanboys).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was at a Peter Norvig lecture recently and he talked about ideas for his next book, to have it interactive with videos and such. He said that this would be a great way for authors to get implicit feedback from readers and see which sections they're reading and what they're not. (Analytics for book authors!)

Imagine having a lisp shell right next to the exercise so that you edit the program, execute it and see the output! The possibilities are endless---it just has to be done right.

EDIT: One of the main reasons authors stick with publishers is that they cannot handle mass printing. It becomes just too difficult. With this model, it would be easier to distribute the content directly to the user, rather than dealing with a (possibly grumpy) publisher.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Four textbooks available so far: <http://www.inkling.com/about>

Having used Raven's biology text, which is a good textbook but would've tremendously benefited from something like this because of how much data you need to retain for biology, this makes me pretty excited for THE FUTURE.

<comment><USER6> It amazes me that this information is so hard to find on their site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now all you need is Windows 3.11 and one of those newfangled CD-ROMs and you too can run Encarta!

        or

The 1990s called and they want their ideas back!

        /end_sarcasm

This looks like a nicely polished product, the major barrier to uptake is going to be getting someone to use it as part of the syllabus. Difficult given that it will require the school to require everyone who takes the class to have an iPad.

<comment><USER8> _This looks like a nicely polished product, the major barrier to uptake is going to be getting someone to use it as part of the syllabus. Difficult given that it will require the school to require everyone who takes the class to have an iPad._

Not exactly. One of the books listed there, for example, is a popular text I had for an intro biology course at my university. To me, it seems more that if your professor has adopted one of the books, you can buy the iPad version instead of the dead tree copy.

As an aside, I wish I had an iPad version of that biology text when I took that class, if only because it was a monster book that weighed down my backpack.

<comment><USER7> Ahh I didn't realise that they were existing text books!

The very pretty video didn't highlight that point, perhaps they should be pitching the front page video to customers rather than investors?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great product, but the choice of name/branding is spectacular for a book-and- reading based startup:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings>

</comment><comment><USER10> Sounds great, but would be better on something with a better (ie more readable) screen. The application needs to be device agnostic.

If these guys can come through with the goods, it would be ideal: <http://www.notionink.in/>

Make it a HTML or something app so people with other devices (windows, android tablets/ereaders) can make use of it. (perhaps an idea for a startup would be a website/program that lets content producers create these without HTML knowledge. That is, a builder for interactive HTML5 based text books.)

<comment><USER11> The platform was actually designed to be device agnostic - the content is expressed in X(HT)ML.

The iPad is our first target device because Apple did tablets right. You'll have to wait to see what comes next :)

<comment><USER10> Oh I see, I just saw the link to the app store and assumed.. So you are saying that it is easily ported to other devices, but still requires a native application? What requirements stop you from making it an online thing, that people could use with their home computers as well? Or is it just a personal preference?

Nevertheless I like the site and the idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Based on the website, this looks awesome. But it would seem to compete fairly directly with iBooks. It's bound to be a time-consuming/costly process to prepare content for this platform. I wonder how inkling has convinced themselves and their partners that Apple won't pull the plug on their venture.

<comment><USER13> I don't see why Apple would pull the plug. Sure, the app store has its problems (and I dislike those too) but it seems to me their only danger is that they are competing with Apple directly.

There is already Kindle and iBooks... and there may very well soon be more. I don't think Apple really cares that much, who sells the books. Especially if, as in this case, they still get their 30% share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow! This is really impressive!

It seems all that we were promised for the age of the ebook and then some! It looks like a product of love and plenty of polish.

My only worries is that they may risk becoming the artisan version of the ebook (on iPad) world: wonderfully handcrafted, but slow to scale. By the look of it porting a book to Inkling is not trivial!

I'll keep my fingers crossed for a great future for Inkling. :)

</comment><comment><USER14> i wonder how this is implemented. as a browser for local html archives?

</comment><comment><USER15> Is nobody bothered by the prices of the actual books?

<comment><USER16> I can only see the price of the biology book, $149.99, which is cheaper than the paper one, $178.75 on Amazon[1].

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Peter-Raven/dp/0072921641>

<comment><USER17> That brings up the 7th edition for me, while the app is based on the 9th edition. The 9th edition hardcover price is actually cheaper than the 7th edition, at $154.00:

<http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Peter-Raven/dp/0077350022>

But the "in-app purchases" section of the App Store page lists the online price as $119.99, so online still works out substantially cheaper than the new hardcover. I'm not sure where the higher price came from.

Regardless, you can do even better at other sellers or used if you're willing to get the 7th edition of the hardcover. At other sellers linked from Amazon the price goes down to about $100, and the used price is around $5. (Amazon does make this more difficult by displaying a lot of noise in the form of other books named "Biology" by different authors, even though the URL specifies "Biology-Peter-Raven".)

Edit: App Store web page for Inkling with textbook and chapter prices:

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inkling/id379351586?mt=8>

<comment><USER16> Sorry, I saw that price on the cart screenshot[1], on the homepage!

[1] <http://www.inkling.com/_img/generic/feathome-cart.jpg>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It looks great, but what makes this different than a (curated) walled garden section of the internet?

<comment><USER19> Is somebody arguing that it _is_ different?

<comment><USER18> The implication of this being news is that they're demonstrating something new. It may have escaped the notice of some, but I thought it was pretty well- established that you could use an iPad to surf the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Now I want an Ipad</comment>


ISIS as startup: Explosive growth, highly disruptive - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/matter/isis-as-start-up-explosive-growth-highly-disruptive-super-evil-4c7f7d3d99e5?

<comment><USER2> "This Middle Eastern Startup Was Panned By Two Western Reporters...You'll Never Guess What Happened Next!"

"23 Lessons Uber Is Learning From This Group's Customer Acquisition Strategy"

"One Easy Trick To Overthrow Western Imperialism...Politicians Hate This Guy!"

le sigh.

<comment><USER3> Wish there was an adblock/killfile/spamfilter/pagerank for authors & publishers who do clickbait content marketing based on trending topics. Or maybe the virus is spreading ("if we don't do it, everyone else will") and it will be easier to whitelist.</comment></comment>


MGA Entertainment: A privately-owned toy company doing billions in revenue - <AUTHOR> https://julieyoung.substack.com/p/insane-companies-no-one-talks-about <comment><USER2> Upon viewing the product video[0], I immediately wondered whether anyone's studied the effects of aggressive jump cuts on child psychology. Turns out, they have! Kind of.[1]

Personally I find jump cuts jarring if not repulsive, emblematic of the "Like and subscribe!" cultural, intellectual wasteland that is most YouTube and Twitch content. It's arguably not healthy for adults, let alone children.

Then again, I grew up watching _The Ren & Stimpy Show_, so far be it from me to talk.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9IqcnQ9GQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9IqcnQ9GQU)

[1] [https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-35066-001](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-35066-001)

<comment><USER3> I think you mean quick cutting. Jump cuts refer to when the filmmaker uses roughly the same frame size and jumps forward in time. Godard's 'Breathless' being the first prominent use.

<comment><USER2> > _Jump cuts refer to when the filmmaker uses roughly the same frame size and > jumps forward in time._

I believe I was referring to that. YouTube content is notorious for them, and jump cuts are part of the lexicon in that space as a result. There's even a YC company with the namesake.

Fast cutting or quick cutting doesn't have the same-frame restriction as far as I'm aware.

<comment><USER3> I re-clicked and still don't see any jump cuts. The video actually has pretty standard film grammar, but cuts at a very quick pace. The Youtuber aesthetic you mention is full of abrupt jumpcuts.

<comment><USER2> After watching it again I agree with you now. Either way, the pace of the cuts are still jarring.

Interestingly some of the cuts do jump forward in time, but they zoom in on the same subject usually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Larian initially did not love the Bratz sketches, saying they looked like > aliens. However, his 12 year-old daughter Jasmin was also in the meeting. > She was immediately enthralled with the dolls, exclaiming "These are so cool > - I need these!"

This is unironically the inclusivity we need. The corporation concept doesn't exist to satisfy employees' ego, it exists to access a market.

There should be people with different, unfamiliar backgrounds closer to the market you want to access, in the decision making process.

<comment><USER5> I suggest you watch the movie Big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a lot of great lessons here.

(1) Billion-dollar companies are often built on products that consumers don't know what they want, until they see and experience it.

Plenty of MP3 players pre-dated the iPod. But the iPod changed the market and put Apple back on the game board.

The iPod had an experience, the form-factor, the capacity, and the horizontal integration -- being able to buy music directly on iTunes -- and once you experienced it, you realized that this was just better.

(2) Find your blind spots and fix them.

A wide variety of dolls, covering the full palette of skin colors, opened up a _huge_ market for all the girls that didn't just want an Industry Standard Barbie Available In One Skin Tone.

Rhianna had the same problem -- she could never find makeup that worked with her skin color. So she introduced her own makeup brand -- marketed as being for all women -- which is now valued in excess of three billion dollars.

We see this a lot in Japan, by the way -- Silicon Valley companies come here, and engage in what I would say are _aggressive_ levels of cultural ignorance.

(3) Recognize the context around your customers.

MGA recognized that Kids These Days spend a lot of time on YouTube, so they built a product designed to be YouTubed.

Glock is a great example of this. The founder, Gaston Glock, didn't come from a gunsmithing or firearms manufacturing background.

To create the first Glock pistol, Gaston put together a cross-functional working group, including metallurgists, plastic-manufacturing specialists, and members of the Austrian police and military that would actually use the design.

Focusing on how the pistol would be used -- from both a tactical and logistical standpoint -- they created something which was a total departure from everything else on the market. A completely integrated safety system. Tool-less takedown and reassembly. Easy maintenance. Most companies require a unique magazine for each different type of pistol -- Glock magazines are totally interchangeable within the same feed mechanism.

Today, Glock is the biggest pistol brand, and every other pistol manufacturer carries Glock-inspired design.

Being able to look at problems from the outside is powerful.

<comment><USER7> > We see this a lot in Japan, by the way -- Silicon Valley companies come > here, and engage in what I would say are aggressive levels of cultural > ignorance.

Any concrete example of this? I'm working in Tokyo right now and I see Japanese companies pretty much engage in anything SV throws this way (stuff like apple, slack, uber eats, github etc etc).

<comment><USER6> Sure!

Apple is a bit of an exception because they created a completely new market -- the smartphone. Japanese companies move _slowly_ , and are hobbled by design- by-committee, so their response to new market entrants is... leisurely.

I'm not sure how that will play out long-term. We'll see where Apple is in twenty years. And Macs are _very_ uncommon, compared to Windows PCs.

SV tech tends to show up at startups, often started by Westerners that have moved here.

That's a common pattern, and if you're in the foreigner bubble, it can be hard to notice.

But in the rest of Japan?

Slack? I'm not sure I actually know any Japanese companies that use it, and the market statistics don't show a lot of grip outside of the US/EU.

Uber Eats is doing well! Especially with COVID-19.

But that's after Uber fell totally flat launching here in Japan. And it remains to be seen if they can hold on to their lead.

It took Uber years of flailing around when they first arrived here, during which they ignored advice like "Japanese taxis are _super_ safe" and "Thumbing your nose at regulators here isn't going to work like it does in the US."

Line totally dominates Japanese instant messaging. It's the WeChat of Japan. Facebook didn't really understand Japanese privacy needs until recently, and I don't see them un-seating Line.

Apple Pay is a second-rate payment system in Japan, and doesn't work if you have a foreign credit card. Japanese banking is... complicated. I once had a gym that outright refused to take my monthly payment on a credit card -- until they realized that my bank and their bank didn't have a "relationship".

Never in the US was I told that, in order to pay for a service, Wells Fargo first needed to take USAA out for dinner and a movie.

Anyhow, Meetup never caught on here, because they didn't understand the market. Gap is around, but they never felt like a major player in the fashion space. None of the education offerings in the US have any traction here.

OpenTable? Nope. You use TableCheck if you want a reservation somewhere.

Overall, I don't see any of the companies on this list[1] having any traction at all here, outside of major players which (a) have invested billions; and (b) took years to understand the local market well enough to adapt their offerings.

And even then... Google still has to to advertise in Japan, and I strongly suspect that Google Maps plays second fiddle to Norikae.

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

<comment><USER8> _Apple is a bit of an exception because they created a completely new market -- the smartphone._

I have a drawer full of WindowsCE and PalmOS phones that disagrees with you.

Apple improved on the smartphone significantly but they didn't even come close to creating the market. Smartphones had been around for half a decade before the iPhone launched.

<comment><USER9> > Apple improved on the smartphone significantly but they didn't even come > close to creating the market. Smartphones had been around for half a decade > before the iPhone launched.

Pre-iPhone smartphones weren't mass market devices. I remember them well. They were handheld PCs with a phone, marketed as productivity devices.

iPhone was a leisure device. A music player, a phone and an internet browser in one device. They entered a niche market and turned it into a mass market.

<comment><USER8> _Pre-iPhone smartphones weren 't mass market devices._

I'm not arguing with that. I'm saying that there was already a market and what Apple did was help to grow it. They didn't create "create a completely new market". The iPhone didn't even have _that_ big an impact on smartphone sales to start with - [https://www.statista.com/statistics/191985/sales-of- smartpho...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/191985/sales-of-smartphones- in-the-us-since-2005/) \- the growth in 2006 (year before the iPhone launched) is bigger in percentage terms than the following three years combined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I banned unboxing videos for my kids. The only thing I ever had to explicitly ban. I didn't have a big issue with them per se but when I saw the effect on the kids I couldn't allow it.

They were...strung out.

</comment><comment><USER11> The lol dolls are just the worst. The amount of waste plastic is insane. Then you have the outright terrible dolls that reveal lingerie when you wet them.

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lol-surprise-dolls- water/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lol-surprise-dolls-water/)

<comment><USER12> Yup, they're so expensive and have multiple layers of waste plastic. And I thought twisty ties were bad enough for packaging things

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The original article had a long insightful comment- the author has since deleted it (some may have noticed the censoring). I will not be surprised if MGA's attack on Mucciolo's might be deleted as well- as MGA deleted its tweets. Here is a record just in case: [https://www.fa-mag.com/news/toy- billionaire-deletes-post-sla...](https://www.fa-mag.com/news/toy-billionaire- deletes-post-slamming-black-lives-matter-group-56507.html)

I detect some biased portrayal on part of the author towards MGA (investment newsletter)- we get that they made a killing on a 'great' product, but its negative implications cannot be understated.

Takeaways:

1\. MGA is just profiting from trendy cultural uprisings, without actually believing in any values it embodies- as seen in its attack on Mucciolo

2\. MGA is brainwashing girls into following counter-culture examples to fuel #1

So yes, MGA might be an underdog here (that is why the appeal), but not all underdogs are good: portraying as one is just another marketing stunt to accomplish 1 & 2

Note: "Fully developed brain" for girls as described in the article denies the fact that they are more susceptible than the general public to marketing tricks

<comment><USER14> To be fair: MGA claims the design was done before Mucciolo styled herself that way:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/MGAEnt/status/1270904973727952897...](https://mobile.twitter.com/MGAEnt/status/1270904973727952897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1270904973727952897%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lamag.com%2Fculturefiles%2Flol- surprise-studio-mucci%2F)

And the designer of the doll swearing herself that:

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbgLX6wXYAEonlk?format=jpg&name=...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbgLX6wXYAEonlk?format=jpg&name=large)

I see the similarity, but I can also belief that it is coincidence. Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn made the twin rope hairstyle 2016 popular and also that colorful neon turquoise.

<comment><USER13> Nice resource, thanks. If I were MGA, I would not risk the company's reputation on copying from a freelancer. If I were the freelancer, I will create buzz on social media to gain popularity as a victim. So not sure were the truth lies, but incentives can reveal insights sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As noted in the article, this was the company also responsible for Bratz, the 2000s (decade) fashion-doll phenomenon that served as the Sonic to Barbie's Mario: hipper, edgier, and ultimately flash-in-the-pan-ier. They're like experts at no-holds-barred marketing to kids.

<comment><USER16> Yeah the focus on making the "perfect unboxing you" is a brilliant business move but it's kind of dystopian. Just imagining all these kids watching endless algorithm-recommended unboxing videos.

<comment><USER15> One need not imagine this. Round about the same time as the ElsaGate phenomenon (and often lumped in with it) was a series of unusual YouTube videos that featured adults unwrapping Kinder Surprise and other such small toys, over and over. Kids were supposedly transfixed and would stare slack- jawed at the screen, waiting for the next toy to be revealed seconds after the last one was. Presumably, LOL Surprise capitalizes on this phenomenon as well. To be honest, I don't see the appeal and find the naked attempt to capture children's eyeballs worrisome.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go watch LGR unpack a new-old-stock 286 and attempt to boot Commander Keen on it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I come here for these kinds of posts. Informing, interesting, and quite sad in a way.

</comment><comment><USER14> > People do not really take kids seriously, and they especially do not take > young girls seriously. (How many times have you read articles about how > great Fortnite is, with no mention of Roblox?

I have never heard of Roblox!

It was discussed though a few days ago here on hacker news I learned through a search. Interestingly through a specific nerdy lense:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24221010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24221010)

</comment><comment><USER18> I work for a privately owned company that has been doing billions for more than a decade. I live 10 miles away and never even heard about them until I started working for them, most people don't that live here don't know about it or what they do. It made me realize and look into businesses that are privately held that are doing well. Killed that idea for me that you need SV or VC funding to scale.

</comment><comment><USER19> Just want to highlight the fact that manufacturing huge volumes of cheap plastic toys is not necessarily something to be celebrated.

<comment><USER20> Moral police alert!! Care to expand on your condemnation of the company? Or is this just a random "big companies are evil" kind of negative comment?

<comment><USER21> For many kids, this kind of toy has a short window of novelty and then waits in a closet until its time comes to go to the landfill. We should be extra skeptical of consumerism that targets children. I think that's what GP was getting at.

<comment><USER20> Well GP is wrong. I have a 10 year old girl, I've bought a dozen of these, and she loved them each time. Yes, she may play with them only for a few hours each, but if it brings a smile to her face & makes her happy for many hours, then I think most parents agree it's worth it.

<comment><USER22> What ever works for you man. That stuff is meth, trash, superficial garbage.

<comment><USER23> That kids can grow out of, it's harmless than actual 'meth' and other 'addictions' adults almost never 'grow out of'.

<comment><USER19> Do you know where our plastic ends up? Every documentary I've seen on the subject shows that our plastic ends up with no oversight in some poor country while children literally sift through it for pennies a day.

<comment><USER24> Maybe your plastic.

Mine is transported several miles away, where it is buried and can then leech into the river, which is used as our water supply downstream.

But, yeah, who decided to put the water treatment plant next to the landfill?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Isn't this gambling?

<comment><USER26> Buying dolls is gambling? I'm gonna go with.. no? And even if we contort the definition and say it is, does it matter?

<comment><USER27> GP refers to the collecting aspect mentioned in the article. Whether it's gambling or not depends on how it's implemented precisely. When a consumer cannot know the probability of obtaining a rare item with a purchase, and must spend an unknown quantity of money to achieve the goal, then – so the argument goes – it is an exploitative manipulation of the mind and breaks anti-gambling laws and anti-consumer regulations.

The digital equivalent ("loot-boxes") has been brought to court in Belgium and restricted/regulated in the EU since. Regulated collecting by purchase shows the probabilities, and allows obtaining a rare item or set for a fixed, predetermined price.

<comment><USER26> So is the silicon lottery gambling?

<comment><USER27> IANAL but I find this comparison strenuous because a chip manufacturer lacks the intention and culpability of exploiting the consumer. [http://enwp.org/silicon_lottery](http://enwp.org/silicon_lottery) says:

> the potential for overclocking of a product is not typically tested during > the binning process

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Those kids dolls are skimpy and slutty as hell. Literally marketing these barely-dressed dolls to little girls, while seeing this old man smile makes me sick to my stomach.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there technical reasoning behind Animoji being exclusive to iPhone X? - <AUTHOR> To what extent, if any, is Animoji dependent on the camera and sensor system specific to iPhone X? Would there be a noticeable quality difference if it was available on other iPhones? <comment><USER2> Not really. You can still extract facial features from normal video (Snapchat does it too). Maybe not as exact, but still usable to animate some emojii.. I guess.</comment>


Should employers discriminate against World of Warcraft players? - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/15/should-employers-dis.html <comment><USER2> WoW is a very social game. You may have to deal with people, be a leader, and handle unexpected problems. I've "met" people in WoW who are exceedingly good at these things, the kind of people I'd want to hire.

Not everyone is the same. Like with any discrimination, a company would be crazy to assume too much about what it means to be a WoW player.

</comment><comment><USER3> This should be a poll.</comment>


A Signal Double-Ratchet Implementation in Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rongarret/tweetnacl/blob/master/ratchet.lisp <comment><USER2> The code really is an enjoyable read from start to finish. I'll have to play around with it for a bit, crypto code that is this straight forward to understand is simply rare.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words!</comment></comment>


Show HN: API Spreadsheets – Use Your Spreadsheets & Google Sheets as an API - <AUTHOR> http://apispreadsheets.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News!

I am Adhaar, the developer behind API Spreadsheets. 1 year ago, I showcased a super lite MVP of API Spreadsheets. This led to my first ever customers from something I created (a huge moment in my life). Now I am back with a v2.0.

And before you begin pointing out all the various other similar tools, I know! I know! Heck there's a tool for converting Google Sheets to a website on the front page of Show HN right now.

So let me tell you what makes API Spreadsheets different (synthesized from our user feedback)

1\. Built for Developers, By Developers: This is a purely CRUD tool. You can instantly Read, Create, Update and Delete data from your Spreadsheets. I have built a subset of SQL style querying to make all this easier. There are also pre-written guides and code snippets in Javascript, Python, Ruby and PHP so you can get started right away. It is up to you what you want to do with your data.

2\. Private Google Sheets & Dropbox Supported: oAuth verification for both Google Sheets and Dropbox is built in so you don't have to make your files public to use with API Spreadsheets like many other tools. API Spreadsheets is verified by both Google and Dropbox.

3\. Local Files, Google Sheets and Dropbox Spreadsheets Supported: This was super important to me. It is a pain in the ass to integrate spreadsheets so I have made it very easy to connect to spreadsheets in any of your various sources. Literally drag and drop your local files or choose from Google Drive or Dropbox using the File Picker GUI.

A few things going forward

1\. I will be raising prices next week so this is your last chance to subscribe at these prices. I do not raise legacy prices so your rate will be locked in. 2\. There are still many things to build and improve upon and I appreciate anyone coming on this journey. I constantly integrate feedback so do let me know if you have any!

<comment><USER2> Really great product. Looking forward to the updates!</comment></comment>


Will Blizzard Be Bringing Their Games To Linux? - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE0ODE

<comment><USER2> Nothing to see, typical phoronix linkbait, just speculation, move along.

<comment><USER3> > Information has been limited, but it doesn't appear they have any formalized > Linux plans at this point but are actively monitoring the space.

tl;dr - No, Blizzard won't be bringing their games to Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I posted this before, but as soon as I did, the thead was removed for being a dupe:

I have to wonder: What if Valve,and now Blizzard, push Linux as the focus of their internal development? But give it three years. What if Linux actually becomes the chief gaming environment? I can certainly see indie developers pushing Linux, or at the least offering Linux versions, as Steam currently offers both Win+Mac versions of games.

Given Linus' own recent comments about gnome, maybe some new attention is exactly what's needed for a new desktop environment to spring forward? And considering the freeform nature of Valve, I wouldn't be amazed to find out that some of the internal focus on the rumored "SteamBox" console/PC turns into a new Linux desktop.

And what happens with MS? Do they chiefly become a device pusher like Apple? Are they even prepared for this fight?

<comment><USER5> Gamers are a really small segment of Microsoft's userbase. They probably wouldn't be happy, but I don't think it would be a huge dent. Certainly not enough to persuade them to become chiefly a "device pusher."

<comment><USER6> I have no special insight here, but it seems odd that MSFT would spend so much effort on DirectX if gamers are strategically unimportant to them.

<comment><USER5> I didn't say gamers are unimportant to them. Microsoft is a huge company that's capable of simultaenously viewing a huge number of things as important. I think they'd be upset if they lost the gaming market (at least if it wasn't to their own Xbox division), but I don't think it would be a mortal blow for Windows. The enterprise market is much bigger than the PC games market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, in wine a lot of their games already run fine on Linux. Then again I still play a lot of Brood War...</comment>


Technology behind Rackspace Cloud Monitoring - <AUTHOR> http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2011/12/17/technology-cloud-monitoring/

<comment><USER2> The 1st comment is rather impressive:

"Wow. I'm the author of Big Brother – the first web-based system and network monitor… still just C and some scripts… that level of complexity scares the crap out of me!"

<comment><AUTHOR> (author here)

Big Brother is pretty cool. I remember using it long ago too :)

I certainly respect the simplicity of BigBrother, but the scopes of the products are completely different. Rackspace Cloud Monitoring is a SaaS built with the ability to be used by hundreds of thousands of unique customers, monitoring millions of 'things'. It also has a goal of never losing the trust of our users -- user's generally don't care if your data center is having a bad day, but they certainly do care if you didn't alert them when their site is down, and so multi-region durability gets added to a requirement list.

Complexity does come from these kind of requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the link. I'm always looking for articles involving monitoring infrastructure.</comment>


Building A Global Health Sensing Network From Star Trek-Inspired Devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3024503/building-a-global-health-sensing-network-from-star-trek-inspired-devices

<comment><USER2> one of the engineers here, AMA</comment>


Researchers find neurons that encode time and predict timing behavior in rats - <AUTHOR> http://www.psypost.org/2016/01/researchers-find-neurons-that-both-encode-time-and-predict-timing-behavior-in-rats-40151 <comment><USER2> Related: place cells. If a rat is in a room, there are cells that will fire when it's in a specific place. The specifics are pretty cool!

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

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

<comment><USER3> Also related, but not yet confirmed: "Time cells", which are also located in the hippocampus: [http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v15/n11/abs/nrn3827.html](http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v15/n11/abs/nrn3827.html)

One can possibly think of the hippocampus as a 'space-time integrator' that continuously indices high-level activation patterns from the cortex and stores them much like a log book. Memories in the hippocampus last minutes to months, after which they are either transferred to long-term memory in the cortex or lost.

<comment><USER4> One can also think of the hippocampus simply as a working memory - short term content addressable memory. If the rat happens to be working on a spatial task, like in a maze, you get place/grid cells. If it happens to be working on a timing task, time cells. The content is simply task dependent.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the HC likely plays a role in working memory for associative, declarative and spatial information. Most of the working memory is believed to reside in the (prefrontal) cortex, though; in patterns of synaptic depletion (less than 15-30 seconds) and based on the 'hot potato' principle in which processes in different modules mutually re-activate previous states to manipulate them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There must be something keeping track of time in our bodies and brains. I had a neat little lcd alarm clock that I bought as a 13 yr old with my own money, and I had it for almost 30 years. I became so finely tuned to that clock I used to wake up a few seconds before it went off and I would hold the button down. A microsecond blip of the alarm still snuck through but I did this at least once a week for years. Most of the time I would wake a few minutes before. It proved to me long ago that the brain can track time with uncanny precision, given enough conditioning.

<comment><USER6> In the case of sleep your brain can correlate the time of the alarm to whatever physiological state you are in at that point of sleep, which can create a strong associative effect. You could call it keeping track of time though it sounds more like keeping track of a point in time than keeping track of a duration.

I have the same relationship to my alarm clock.

<comment><USER5> Interesting. So that would explain why...no matter what time I went to sleep I still woke up at nearly the exact same time every morning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Paper:

[http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e11386](http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e11386)

Abstract:

The striatum is an input structure of the basal ganglia implicated in several time-dependent functions including reinforcement learning, decision making, and interval timing. To determine whether striatal ensembles drive subjects' judgments of duration, we manipulated and recorded from striatal neurons in rats performing a duration categorization psychophysical task. We found that the dynamics of striatal neurons predicted duration judgments, and that simultaneously recorded ensembles could judge duration as well as the animal. Furthermore, striatal neurons were necessary for duration judgments, as muscimol infusions produced a specific impairment in animals' duration sensitivity. Lastly, we show that time as encoded by striatal populations ran faster or slower when rats judged a duration as longer or shorter, respectively. These results demonstrate that the speed with which striatal population state changes supports the fundamental ability of animals to judge the passage of time.

<comment><USER4> This paper says nothing about where the source of the timing signals come from, unfortunately.</comment></comment>


How to Pursue a Side Hustle or Startup While Working Full Time - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-31/how-to-pursue-a-side-hustle-or-startup-while-working-full-time <comment><USER2> Most commonly is working a side hustle _without ensuring your employer does not have some IP or other contract mechanism_ to cause problems later.

One suspects that an awful lot of open source contributions are in such grey areas

<comment><USER3> Just don't tell them.

I told my employer and all my work colleages I had a really boring hobby, Chemistry (something I am actually interested in)

Then bang on about it every chance you can get. Go into elaborate detail about the most boring parts. After a few weeks people will learn to leave you alone.

Make sure you always have an answer for "what are you doing tonight", "what are you doing this weekend" be super excited about it, but make sure it's really boring.

Then when it's time to leave tell them you're going travelling around Europe and you have no idea what job you will do next.

Launch your product, and never work the 9-5 again (it's a new type of work now)

That's what I did.

I know people are gonna say "Thats risky", "You could get sued" etc etc etc ... but you know what? Life is risky, and if you dont have the guts, my answer to you is that this is the least of your problems running a startup : maybe you should stay in that 9-5

<comment><USER4> If you don't use company euqipment could you still get into trouble ? Like let's assume I don't even the gitlab/github page of the project. Will that also cause problems ?

<comment><USER5> Answers to that depend on state employment law -- California has an explicit proviso that employment contracts _can 't_ claim certain work the employee did on their own time, with their own stuff. But most states don't, and even California's provision has limits -- IIRC, the project has to be unrelated to the business, and what's unrelated to Google's business these days? Or Amazon's?

I've gotten explicit waivers from my employer for unrelated projects, which hasn't been a problem. But people who just don't tell the boss run the risk of legal action if they find out about it by other means -- so, at the very least, I'd suggest a chat with a lawyer well-versed in your state's employment laws before working on any side project of potential commercial value, with your employment paperwork in hand (especially the Intellectual Property assignment contracts, or their equivalent), so you have some concrete idea what risks you're running.

<comment><USER4> Is there a tool or something to check this ? Like for example what language to look out for in employment contracts ?

<comment><USER5> If anything, what you'd be looking for is the _absence_ of language restricting claims to work done using the employer's facilities -- but whatever's there really needs to be read in context of the whole agreement, and the applicable state law. There's no phrase search yet that can substitute for a lawyer with relevant knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a side hustle, www.cinegrain.com which has been very beneficial for my regular job, lots of lessons learned from each that apply to the other. I would strongly recommend anyone start a side hustle instead of a video game habit, or taking up golf.

<comment><USER7> In 2030, the normal entry level office job will require 4 year degree, MBA from prestigious school, and minimum of 3 side hustles relevant to the job opening. Contributors to open source software preferred.

Pay? $15 per hour. Unadjusted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > <redacted>, 31, a social media specialist at Etsy, works from 10 a.m. to 6 > p.m.

For my education, what does such a figure do eight hours a day?

<comment><USER9> It's definitely not the job for me, but there is at least a full day's work in social media management:

\- Responding to customers/inquiries

\- Promoting new features, successful user stories, etc.

\- Writing and scheduling social media content across multiple platforms: Instagram, FB, Twitter, and anywhere else the company has a social media presence.

\- Analyzing social media metrics (engagement, etc.) across post themes/times/etc.

\- Managing aforementioned social media automation and analysis tools.

\- Most social media these days has a pay-to-boost component, and needs optimal purchasing and boosting of posts based on metrics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's impossible. You'll make little progress, very slowly. You'll be very tired and frustrated. If you have an idea, quit your job and do it full-time. How many hours a day do you really have after work? 3? And these are the worst hours of the day, say between 7pm-10pm.

<comment><USER11> This isn't a yes or no situation, there's a grey area in between. Just because you had a bad experience doesn't mean that this is "impossible" for everyone. You comment is loaded with so many opinions and assumptions, you do realize that people live like, separate, different, and unique lives right? and that they might have different experiences than you?

<comment><USER10> On a small scale, everything is unique. On a large scale, everything is repetitive. Yes, if you have a full time job with a commute, you'll make little progress. 10 hrs a week is very little. And again, these are terrible hours. It's 3 hrs after work + weekends. It means literally not doing anything besides this. How long can you sustain this? Your main job will be occupying most of your attention anyway.

On HN, and such, people call everything a side project due to fear of criticism. If you say "it's a side project", and people criticize it, you can say "it's just a side project".

Statements like "everything is unique" are very obfuscatory. How am I supposed to make any decisions? Yes, certain parameters might be different but a universal truth accounts for this.

Instead of posting platitudes, post a rebuttal. Post a counter-example.

<comment><USER12> If 7-10 PM are terrible hours for you, consider using 5-8 AM as the hours for your side project.

<comment><USER10> I tried. I can't get up at 5am and be productive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This entire culture described in this article is so fucking wrong on so many levels it's disgusting. The cultural gap between American and European work ethics has never been as wide as today. Instead of fighting for better welfare policies and a fairer system, the answer is inevitably "hustle more". Shame on all this bullshit.

<comment><USER9> I do it because it's a more rewarding and more difficult "game" than video games, not because e.g. I need it to cover health insurance costs. It's like a game with unlimited possibilities that encompasses technology, research, the real world, society, creativity, etc. to me. I do acknowledge that it's definitely a different situation for the person Ubering in the evenings to help cover their bills, though.

<comment><USER14> 100%. I believe we should have universal healthcare and stronger safety net because it will let more people play the game.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Legality of RSS Feed Usage in Web Apps? - <AUTHOR>

I cannot seem to find a solid answer to this question, so where better to turn? I am in the middle of developing a web application that utilizes a number of RSS feeds from the leading sites in a given industry. Just to point out, these feeds are all partial feeds and usually nothing more than the title/link is displayed. About 90% of the websites providing the RSS feeds display some sort of disclaimer regarding the feeds: "for personal, non-commercial use by individuals only. The feeds are free of charge for use by individuals, as long as the feeds are used for such individual's personal, non-commercial use."
Now I can't help but notice the endless amount of commercial (some form of advertising) websites that use RSS feeds from other sites, as well as web-based RSS readers which are basically profiting from the same thing.
So, what exactly is the legality here? Wouldn't these sites encourage commercial sites to utilize their feeds to direct traffic back to them?
Thanks.. <comment><USER2> I'm not a lawyer, but I had the same questions with my project and discovered that you can aggregate feeds under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the DMCA (<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html>) as long as:

(1) You stick to publicly-available feeds

(2) You don't edit the feed content

(3) You provide the feed owner a way to opt-out if he doesn't want you to access his feed anymore

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the link, it's extremely helpful. I'm still sifting through everything, but does this still allow for commercial usage of the feeds?

<comment><USER2> That's the extent of my knowledge; you should really find an attorney who understands IP and explain your idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm just confused because I see so many sites that aggregate RSS feeds. It seems like almost every site is doing it now - especially those sites like popurls.com and alltop.com. I emailed a handful of the companies whose feeds I am planning on using to see if they could elaborate a bit more. Thanks again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've got a similar question.

Whenever a client tells me that they want an RSS feed I make sure that they understand the ramifications. An RSS feed typically drives up bandwith and drives down traffic. An RSS that includes full content is even worse since it gives a nice easily scraped content source for content theft.</comment>


Show HN: GitHub's Fixed Header for better accessibility - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/amitmerchant1990/faff0fdf541a66093603bdee3d793daf <comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but fixed headers are almost always a bad idea, because it make assumptions about the clients that may not be valid. The assumption is that the client has the vertical space for a fixed header.

Even the example is shown for a client that has plenty of vertical space. If the user is on something like a 13" laptop, the fixed header reduces the amount of "usable" space on the page.

Unless you're absolutely sure that the client is on a big monitor, and has a browser window that's higher than it is wide, don't use fixed headers.

Interestingly enough you rarely see website/webapps that utilises the fact that most users are on wide-screen monitors (mobile excluded).

<comment><USER3> And if the user is on a laptop, they likely have a Home key, making accessing the header one button press away.

It makes more sense on mobile devices where scrolling up can be a pain.

<comment><USER4> And scrolling down too! In fact scrolling seems to be an anti-pattern for mobile web where touch and swipe are primary interactions. Just sayin'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And here's a chrome extension that disables static headers, for us who dislike them / low res devices / zoomed pages.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fix- fixed/fmekfmdh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fix- fixed/fmekfmdhojjdlffigjlnbfkmjjncfkde)

I mean, nice for your plugin for those who like it. I just found this a bit relevant.

<comment><USER6> Mmm, I'm one that dislikes fixed position headers as they and take up space most times without providing much added value, but perhaps for some that Github more frequently it could be useful to always have the search and top links available. From the title I was expecting something for blind readers of similar.

Also as side note 'static' in CSS actually refers to to elements that stay in their original position within the flow of a document, while 'fixed' means always display it at the same position in the browser window even while scrolling. The spec terminology could be a bit clearer to be honest.

<comment><USER7> I'd normally just use a shortcut to search. I'm used to the `/` key for search (I notice Gmail uses it), but for Github the shortcut is `s`. One that I use a lot for Github is `t` to search for files in a repository.

[https://help.github.com/articles/using-keyboard- shortcuts/](https://help.github.com/articles/using-keyboard-shortcuts/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does this help the disabled? If not, it's 'user experience', not accessibility.

> Accessibility refers to the design of products, devices, services, or > environments for people who experience disabilities.

</comment><comment><USER9> (nitpick) This isn't accessibility. It's not related to helping the blind/crippled/etc.

<comment><USER10> I didn't downvote your comment but in case you're not aware, referring to a disabled person as a cripple can be seen as offensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh! for a second I thought this was an "official" feature release. Not an improvement IMHO.

But for me this illustrates the "killer app" of browser extensions, that you can customize the sites you use every day and are not dependent on them implementing a certain feature.

</comment><comment><USER12> It depends on your definition of accessibility I suppose...

<comment><USER13> Well like Humpty Dumpty when I use a word it means what the first search in google says it means, no more no less [https://www.google.com/search?q=accessibility](https://www.google.com/search?q=accessibility)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Better accessibility? Just to note that position fixed with an input element receiving focus will break on iOS. Its a long-standing bug with very few work- arounds.

(that said, I realise you can't apply these styles to iOS anyway, it is a mute point).

<comment><USER15> Moot point.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moot_point](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moot_point)</comment></comment>


Google Chrome Courgette differential compression algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/software-updates-courgette Courgette uses a primitive object disassembler adjuster to compute "assembly language" differences that are about 10% size of bsdiff. <comment><USER2> The last I heard, Google were being sued due to the use of Courgette allegedly infringing a patent and, as a result, they had stopped using Courgette to distribute Chrome updates. Does anyone know the result of that case? Are they now using Courgette again?

[http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Sued-over-the- Courgett...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Sued-over-the-Courgette- Algorithm-Used-in-Chrome-125529.shtml)

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like it is still ongoing: [http://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/1:2009c...](http://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/1:2009cv11813/125212/) reports news from Nov 2010. Can't decode the legal language.

<comment><USER3> Red Bend's attempt at a preliminary injunction was quashed recently, with the court stating that "with insufficient evidence that Courgette infringes on at least one patent claim, Red Bend cannot prove a likelyhood of success",

I'm no lawyer, but this sounds pretty bad for Red Bend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _We want smaller updates because it narrows the window of vulnerability. If the update is a tenth of the size, we can push ten times as many per unit of bandwidth. We have enough users that this means more users will be protected earlier._

They're trying to get the vulnerability window down to minutes! If they succeed, this is going to have an impact on the economic viability of running malware.

<comment><USER5> We're also giving google implicit permission to push code to our machines anytime they want.

We should have conflicting feelings about this.

<comment><USER4> _We're also giving google implicit permission to push code to our machines anytime they want.

We should have conflicting feelings about this_

You have a point. But I think the answer to that is in the market.

Through Chrome, the browser is evolving into a new kind of platform. It will be a platform that encompasses locally execution and memory and all of the flexibility and availability of the cloud, and it will _all just work_.

There are sure to be competitors. If one competitor fails, we can always take our business elsewhere. We only have to worry if the government legislates us out of a means for oversight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Call me stupid, but why do you have to disassemble the program to get the symbol pointers when you just finished compiling the thing in the first place?

Couldn't this intermediate step of pointer collection be part of the prelink process and skip all this guesswork?

<comment><USER7> If the source is in a single language, compiled by a single tool, with one single version, and entirely linked by a single linker strictly at the end of the process, then that might be feasible. But that's probably not the case. If there is much heterogeneity at all, getting proper symbol information may be a lot more work than analysing the binary for control and data flow. For example, intermediate linking steps may resolve symbol fixups internally and just leave a list of relocations behind, or perhaps use strictly relative addresses within what looks to the final linker like a monolithic blob.

<comment><USER6> If we're talking about a way to generate an upgrade image for a single architecture, taking a known version # of an executable to another known version #, built on a production build machine, I would think that could cover the case easily.

That kind of led to my second question: this makes really small images, but only from one known version to another, right? What happens if the target to be upgraded is 80 revisions behind?

<comment><USER8> Presumably it's still a known version. Just an older one.

You only need to keep one diff for each version you've previously published. Shouldn't be hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is exactly how updates should be done. Usually, I'm not that big of a fan of things that Google does, but this is a great achievement. Hats off to those who contributed to this. I hope all update systems eventually work this way.

<comment><USER10> Well, most binary updates do go through bsdiff, which was designed for exactly this. I'm surprised they were able to beat it by such a margin. Shit, the guy who made bsdiff did his doctoral thesis on the subject (actually, the algorithm used in bsdiff generates patches about 25% larger than the one in the thesis, but at huge performance increase (or, the thesis generates patches 20% smaller)).

<comment><USER9> Really, I wasn't aware that that many projects used bsdiff.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, me neither. What projects are we talking about here? I'm in Linux so I'm getting the full deb each time. I'm okay with that considering it's managed for me. I'll take that any day.

Adobe? Apple? Those are the two vendors that I can imagine people having installed on most, if not all Windows computers. And I know for a fact they both distribute updates as full copies of their software waying in at a couple hundred to several hundred megabytes, requiring manual updates, pop up windows and restarts.

I've yet to see anyone do updates as fast or seamlessly as Google.

<comment><USER12> Firefox has long used bsdiff to distribute both security updates and major release updates:

<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Software_Update:MAR>

While Firefox updates in the past were not as quiet or seamless as Chrome updates, Mozilla is moving in that direction as part of the new "rapid release" process:

<https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Inside the Unlikely Mattress Startup Boom - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/iknowkayleen/slumber-party#.fkOqRMV1n

<comment><USER2> I bought something similar from an indie mattress maker off Amazon a couple of years ago. The construction sounds nearly the same, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was from the same source factory.

The quality has been surprisingly good, for a mail-order latex mattress, and a King was actually maybe a little less than what was outlined in the article-- want to say it was around $800.

I will say that it hasn't fully held its consistent shape over the couple of years I've had it, though, and has some peaks and valleys--nothing terrible, but they're there. I generally expect 5 years or so from a mattress, so it's a little ahead of schedule.

I have no way to compare to a "brand" mattress of similar construction, but there may be at least a little "get what you pay for" going on.

Still, good to see disruption over the showroom model, if nothing else. And it was certainly neat to pop the shrinkwrap on it and see it expand!

</comment><comment><USER3> At first I wanted to complain about BuzzFeed, but this article is actually solid journalism. Thanks for the share.

</comment><comment><USER4> finally! disruption in this industry is long overdue. That said, [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-12/new- startu...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-12/new-startups- aren-t-keeping-big-mattress-up-at-night)</comment>


Java Fuzzing with and Without AFL and the Java Security Manager - <AUTHOR> https://www.floyd.ch/?p=1090 <comment><AUTHOR> The original title is " Java Bugs with and without Fuzzing – AFL-based Java fuzzers and the Java Security Manager"

The author discusses their use of JQF and Kelinci. They share their observations, various findings, their realisations on what it would mean to fuzz Java libraries and how to go about it.

The examples of how certain inputs caused code to enter infinite loops was thought provoking.

A scenario that I thought of: With today's cloud availability, one might get tempted to "let auto scaling take care of load ". The article got me thinking of scenarios where carefully crafted data or inputs ( images and PDFs that one uploads) could cause image processors and applications to hangs and thus trigger a runaway auto scale up.

I recommend reading this article.</comment>


Nintendo shares plummet after it points out it doesn't make Pokémon Go - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/25/pokemon-go-nintendo-shares-tokyo-stock-exchange-niantic <comment><USER2> Perhaps not the best example of "irrational exuberance", but it does indicate the power of brand, the evolution of the videogame industry and console market, Nintendo's business decisions, and investors looking for value.

\- Irrational Exuberance - the term: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance)

\- Irrational Exuberance - the book summarizes instances of irrational market events throughout history - [http://irrationalexuberance.com/main.html?src=%2F](http://irrationalexuberance.com/main.html?src=%2F)</comment>


REvil Ransomware found buyer for Trump data, now targeting Madonna - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/revil-ransomware-found-buyer-for-trump-data-now-targeting-madonna/ <comment><AUTHOR> There are a few lingering questions in my mind regarding their "Trump hack":

\- Would they actually delete their copy?

\- Is the hack, and subsequent buyer, manufactured to drum up media attention (and subsequently, buyers) for their actual hacks?

The implications of this hack being legitimate might mean that cyber criminals find targeting politicians and political candidates more lucrative. Not that these folks didn't already have a significant target on their backs, but I can envision an escalation of non-state hacking that leads to "election interference."</comment>


Show HN: Paste.lol, an infinite message board - <AUTHOR> http://paste.lol <comment><USER2> So far I'm loving it. The design is simple and clean (on the phone too). I wish you best of luck and I hope the community won't be like the one on 4chan.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks!

Yeah, that's something I've had in the back of my head...one of the reasons I've been super restrictive about image uploading.

I'm counting myself lucky that I'm getting such a positive response on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the design of this.

Havn't looked it on my phone but I like how simple it is.

Is there a way I can load a specific paste? Or can I only view them from the feed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers. Not currently, but permalinks are on my list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> do you have contact information?

i want to do something like this for a niche career

basically people in this career would come to a site like this and bitch about their work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you tweet me at @everythingdotio ? Might be able to open source this for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's with all the giphy embeds?</comment>


Meteor / Node.js Application Hosting Service running on Digital Ocean - <AUTHOR> http://stackful-dev.com/deploying-meteor-apps-on-stackful-io.html

<comment><AUTHOR> You can learn more about the service on the home page - <http://stackful.io>. There's a short video introduction that might be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER2> What is that demo app you deploy on the video?

<comment><AUTHOR> The placeholder app that comes with the stack is TodoMVC [1] and the one used to demonstrate git deploy setup after that is Telescope [2].

[1] <https://github.com/addyosmani/todomvc> [2] <https://github.com/SachaG/Telescope>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you support websockets?

<comment><USER4> (Stackful.io developer here)

Yes, thanks to the websocket support that landed in recent Nginx releases.</comment></comment>


John von Neumann, EDVAC, and the IAS Machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxvoice.com/john-von-neumann/?pk_campaign=hn&pk_kwd=vn4

<comment><USER2> If anyone wants a bit more detail and color on this story, I recommend "Turing's Cathedral" by George Dyson. I saw it in a bookstore last year and picked it up. Was quite pleased to get more background on these seminal characters in computing history and was astounded to see much came from this group, prompted by their utter conviction that it was paramount for the US to get hydrogen bombs before the USSR (most of them: the book touches tangentially on that debate).

Also impressed by how much they did with so little. For example, many of the first fusion particle simulations were one-dimensional on a radial axis from the center of the reaction. An infinitesimal sliver of the whole thing: just a serial line of particles.

Edit: George Dyson, not Freeman.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is interesting that the man who invented the computer was the man who needed it the least. He had eidetic memory. He was able to compute infinite sums in his head. His vast intelligence was not crippling; he made huge contributions across many fields of science and mathematics and still managed to get married twice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann)

Does anyone know of someone alive today that is even comparable to Von Neumann?

<comment><USER4> Not very Von Neumann was a genius in every single form of the word. The only historical figures I feel safe comparing him to is Sir Isaac Newton (which is a stretch Newton is really beyond compare).

Von Neumann also got the priviledge later in his life to work with Einstien and Kurt Gödel while in New Jersey.

The joke about infinite sums is one of Von Neumann's associates asked him

>"Two trains are 20 miles apart on the same track heading towards each other at 10 miles per hour, on a collision course. At the same time, a bee takes off from the nose of one train at 20 miles per hour, towards the other train. As soon as the bee reaches the other train, it bangs huwey and heads off at 20 miles per hour back towards the first train. It continues to do this until the trains collide, killing the bee.

>How far will the bee have traveled?"

This is called a mathematicians trap. And its similiar to XKCD 356 (Nerd Snipping) [2]. There is a simple eloquent algebraic way to solve the problem, but it requires some insite. And there is a complex way involving summing an infinite series. Normally mathematicians end up preforming a very vast complex infinite series sum. [1]

When Von Neumann was asked the question it took him about 10 seconds to respond.

The associate who asked him stated, "Oh you must have heard the joke before."

To which Von Neumann responded, "No I just solved for the sum of the infinite series."

[1] [http://thesciencepundit.blogspot.com/2006/07/john-von- neuman...](http://thesciencepundit.blogspot.com/2006/07/john-von-neumann-and- mathematicians.html)

[2] [https://xkcd.com/356/](https://xkcd.com/356/)

<comment><USER5> > _Not very Von Neumann was a genius in every single form of the word. The > only historical figures I feel safe comparing him to is Sir Isaac Newton > (which is a stretch Newton is really beyond compare)._

Newton is overrated, and has been for too long.

The mathematician Greg Chaitin thinks that Newton's contemporary Liebniz is superior in intellect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those who are interested in the history of computing/computers/informatics, there is a mailing list ([http://www.sigcis.org/node/19](http://www.sigcis.org/node/19)) for/by historians and enthusiasts on this topic. It is a quit list, but now and then something interesting pops up.

</comment><comment><USER7> Previous posting, albeit with only one comment by myself: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7924533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7924533)</comment>