Getting Started with Security Keys - <AUTHOR> https://paulstamatiou.com/getting-started-with-security-keys/ <comment><USER2> I would put greater emphasis on not locking yourself out, since that's the most likely threat for many people. Losing your phone (or having it die on you) is common and you should assume you'll do it sooner or later. Print out backup codes and store them somewhere safe that you won't forget before enabling two-factor authentication that depends on you having your phone or other device that can break.

<comment><USER3> Or you upgrade your phone, or wipe your phone for some reason, and forget that your OTP codes don't transfer over.

This is one reason I love OTP codes stored in 1Password. That was until I read a post here which convinced me that this approach is a total waste of time as I no longer truly have '2FA'. I have 1FA, and that is 1Password.

<comment><USER4> Having 2FA in 1Password is still strictly stronger than 1FA. The a leaked OTP token stays valid for about 60 seconds. Your leaked password may never change.

<comment><USER5> What is the threat model where an attacker gains access to your 1password vault in a way that gives them only a single OTP code and your password, and not the underlying symmetric TOTP key?

<comment><USER4> \- using your password on a compromised desktop

\- attacker looking over your shoulder as you enter your password

\- Company mitm breaks open ssl encryption and reveals your password.

Obviously, if someone breaks into your 1Password it's game over.

<comment><USER5> All of these aren't related to your 1password vault. They all occur even if you're using your phone as a totp device.

<comment><USER6> I think the point wasn't that 1password TOTP is more secure than separate TOTP device, probably even less secure than typical alternatives, but it is present, convenient, automatically backed up and safer than just a password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Switch your carrier to Google Fi

Now no one can socially engineer access to your account -- including you yourself, in case you're locked out :-)

<comment><USER8> So is Google Big Brother?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think calling this 'paranoid' is a bit misleading. Paranoia suggests you are deluded or irrational, and that nobody's out to get you. In reality, people _might_ be out to get you, just like walking a city street, someone _might_ be looking to mug you. The difference is, they aren't looking for _you_ specifically, the chances are pretty low of you running into them, and you shouldn't be overly worried or take too many precautions just because of that possibility. But you should be informed, and let your awareness of the possibility inform your actions.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have a Yubikey but I can't use it fully yet:

\- There is no Yubikey OTP app for the iPhone

\- Safari iOS does not respond to WebAuthn APIs (the apis are available but don't have any effect). I rather use plain Safari or Firefox, so Brave browser is not an option for me.

<comment><USER11> > does not respond to WebAuthn APIs Hmm, is it still the case? I don't have an > iPhone, but after reading this post [https://www.yubico.com/2019/09/yubico- > ios-authentication-exp...](https://www.yubico.com/2019/09/yubico-ios- > authentication-expands-to-include-nfc/) my understanding was that WebAuthn > will now work with all browsers, not only Brave.

<comment><USER10> No, I tried it. The APIs work normally from the web application perspective, but no prompt comes up to connect the security key. You also need to enable it from the experimental features page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't help but think the author has recommended (1) storing backup keys (presumably in 1Password?) (2) storing OTP key generation QR codes in 1Password, so it can generate OTP codes for you.

Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of "two"-factor authentication? If your 1Password gets hacked the attacker has both your passcode and one-time password?

You should consider keeping these two separate: If your 1Password unlocks with FaceID, do not make your Authy (or etc.) also unlock with FaceID. Otherwise, you're defeating the purpose of 2FA (something you "know" and something you "have"), I think.

<comment><USER13> It's slightly less secure but much more convenient, which I think is worth the trade-off. Just having 2fa on means you don't have to worry if a website has its passwords compromised, which is probably the biggest threat for most people.

<comment><USER3> See my comments elsewhere in this thread. I'd argue that 'having unique passwords for every site' is much more important than 2FA when it comes to the consequences of a site's database being compromised.

For instance, I'll happily give you my password to 'My Vodafone'. It's nXewr7Vq4f)s9>ky. It really is. I don't give a shit if their database is compromised, it doesn't affect the rest of my life.

(I haven't been a customer in about a decade. The login no longer works. You get the point.)

2FA adds nothing to this scenario. I should assume that an attacker who has compromised the site's database has also compromised their OTP systems.

<comment><USER14> This is true for some 2FA methods but you can literally publish all the data for WebAuthn and it won't make any difference to the security for your users or your site. Same reason seeing the certificate for Hacker News doesn't get you any closer to successfully impersonating the site, public key cryptography.

Bad guys who steal my WebAuthn credentials for foo.example don't learn how to sign in as me on any site at all, even on foo.example. If they break into another site. bar.example and steal all their WebAuthn credentials too, they can't even correlate them to figure out who has sign-ins on both sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For some reason I'm basically locked out of any paid Google product because my Google Pay account is disabled for whatever reason. I think it might have been flagged for fraud years ago and now cannot use it at all, including for Fi. It's crazy.

<comment><USER16> Set up a new account, and remember not to link the new or old accounts by way of a recovery email address or using the same phone number.

It's a bit of a hassle, but most things you can transfer over between the accounts, and then just dump the old one. Lots of effort, but the only way unless you know an employee to get the block removed.

<comment><USER17> Or just get off the Google bandwagon.

Googles customer service: None

Google's care of their users: None

Google's desire to sell every single thing about you they can figure out: Unlimited.

<comment><USER18> To be fair they may have customer service, but you are not the customer but the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> SSH key storage needs more info I think. I am using SSH enough that this '...can also do SSH...' would want to be the main topic.

advanced modes disabling API keys means a lot of the older third party integrations which depend on a simple API token are SOL. this worries me, lockin risks.

<comment><USER20> >SSH key storage needs more info I think. I am using SSH enough that this '...can also do SSH...' would want to be the main topic.

Different audiences, I think - this article doesn't go into technical details that often besides mentioning various protocols and what they do. Using a Yubikey for SSH (either via GPG or X.509 certs) is significantly more involved than using one for U2F/FIDO2.

There's a pretty in-depth guide here on using one as a GPG smartcard with SSH (that's what I do): [https://zeos.ca/post/2018/gpg- yubikey5/](https://zeos.ca/post/2018/gpg-yubikey5/)

<comment><USER21> For bonus points, you can also sign your Git commits.

<comment><USER20> Yup! And it's simple enough to do this automatically by just putting this in your gitconfig:

        [user]
            signingkey = <your GPG fingerprint here>
        [commit]
            gpgsign = true

<comment><USER22> You don't need signingkey if you have a GPG key with the same email as your git user.email (I guess that's the majority of cases).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >I use and love 1Password and pay for the cloud account

Is it just me, or does a hosted password manager smell like an absolutely terrible idea to anyone else?

<comment><USER24> The convenience outweighs the risks for the vast majority of users. My parents need something that is available on all devices, syncs automatically, and requires no maintenance.

You get a master encryption key that never leaves your device when setting up the account. Anything that touches their servers is encrypted with that key. You need that key to setup a new device (in addition to your username and master password).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> OP comment from Reddit post:

>Hey folks, OP here. I've been using security keys for a few years now and decided to spend some spare time over the last few months writing this up. Despite the name it's pretty detailed (15k words!) and hope it can help folks understand the benefits of security keys and what fido2 brings to the table.

</comment><comment><USER26> > TOTP risks - You could still fall victim to a fake website (or real one > being proxied via man-in-the-middle like with Evilginx 2 and Modlishka)

> Security key benefits - Even if the user willingly tried to log into a fake > phishing site, the security key authentication would not work as the domain > would differ.

Why are security keys secure against man-in-the-middle attacks?

<comment><USER27> [https://developers.yubico.com/U2F/Protocol_details/Overview....](https://developers.yubico.com/U2F/Protocol_details/Overview.html)

Via the U2F protocol, the browser embeds the URL and optionally the TLS Channel ID in the challenge, so a phishing website asking for a challenge will produce the wrong challenge (and response).

Note this does not prevent an attack via webUSB ([https://www.wired.com/story/chrome-yubikey-phishing- webusb/](https://www.wired.com/story/chrome-yubikey-phishing-webusb/) ).

<comment><USER28> There's no we ay to stop a full MITM though where maybe the State took over the certificate of a site.

<comment><USER29> If the Channel ID is included it stops MITM completely.

In fact doing the authentication inside the secure channel in a way that depends on the key that is used by such channel is the best way to perform mutual authentication. In MitM case the authentication will just fail and passive attackers cannot learn anything about the identities used for authentication.

Both SSH2 and many Windows-related protocols work in exactly this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Now we have APIs for 2FA tokens in place.

When will we get an API for password managers? That'd enable effective domain name checks and such.

</comment><comment><USER31> These hardware tokens usually support PGP as well! It's possible to generate a full set of keys on the device. Combining this with an offline primary key makes for a very secure system that's also relatively easy to use.

<comment><USER14> Most FIDO devices don't do anything else. Yubico sells a lot of products that do, but Yubico's cheapest line of FIDO compliant USB keys, and most competitors cheaper products do not do anything except FIDO.

<comment><USER32> Yeah and you really want FIDO. It's such a better experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There is a depressing lack of open standards with these off-the-shelf physical tokens. It's unfortunate that a company's security can rely on the APIs of another company which could go bankrupt and disappear at any time.

<comment><USER34> This comment held water about five years ago, but times have changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Unpopular opinion: These keys are about selling the idea that physical-based security is somehow magically better.

If you have good password hygene (read: a decent password manager) then I'll need to breach your host to obtain it - if you use a security key, I'll have to breach your host and hijack your session which is slightly more convenient but chances are you're royally screwed once you're breached anyway.

Sure there's some edge cases where this _might_ work (one-way keyloggers, etc) but these aren't realistic threats for a large majority of people.

Somehow a sales team have taken a bullet hole, and attempted to use a square peg to band-aid it.

Stop buying stupid products and just use a damn password manager.

<comment><USER36> How about phishing?

<comment><USER37> 100% this. Phishing is incredibly common, really difficult for even sophisticated users to detect when done well, and the best password manager isn't going to help you. A security key will all but guarantee that this isn't an issue and is a pretty good UX too.

<comment><USER38> Correct me if I'm wrong, but password managers can prevent quite a lot of phishing, because autofill can automatically check the domain.

It would be abundantly obvious to me if I were going to put my paypal password into anything but paypal, for instance, because I wouldn't even have the option. I'd have to copy/paste if I wanted to, which would up my suspicion level to the extreme.

(this is not to downplay security keys though, I think they're very important)

<comment><USER35> > since the autofill is not 100% reliable, it's not that unusual to go into > the password store and manually get the password out of there.

I imagine you can extract passwords out of security keys in some form without being on the correct domain, too.

Do domain check fails _that_ regularly? I'm sure enterprise configuration policies would provide functionality to prevent password extraction should you be inclined to enable it.

<comment><USER14> WebAuthn doesn't have "passwords" it does public key crypto. So phishingsite.example gets a public key signed response saying "Yup, burner wants to sign into phishingsite.example" and the whole point of cryptographic signatures is that nobody can make it say mybank.example instead of phishingsite.example without invalidating the signature. So it's useless for breaking into your bank account.

There's no UI. Even if you are 100% convinced this is really your bank, you desperately want to sign in, you keep tapping that button, trying again, it can't help the bad guys. There is no "Yes I'm really sure this is my bank" option that destroys your security.

<comment><USER39> What's to stop a password manager behaving in the same way?

<comment><USER14> Compatibility.

Password managers have to be compatible with the reality of how passwords are used/ abused by site owners. When my preferred electricity supplier was bought by Shell (as part of an exercise in greenwashing the huge fossil fuel company) they rebranded and all their URLs changed overnight. My passwords still worked - but on these new URLs. This looks _exactly_ like a phishing attack, except for the huge advertising spend on a cynical rebranding exercise.

If you sell a password manager that fails in this scenario you're getting customer feedback saying this product doesn't work, fix it. How can you fix it? Add an override, destroy the security value of the product.

But WebAuthn comes out of the box enforcing this rule that the FQDN can't change. When Shell buys the electricity company and says "All your sites need to change" if they used WebAuthn the developer says "I tried that and it breaks login for all customers". "Tell them to override it, put up a banner saying so". "There is no override"... "OK, put the old site back". Done. Users saved from security lapses caused by corporate rebranding.

The WebAuthn people put a bunch of effort into thinking about evil things that can go wrong and defending against them. Having a clean slate to start from helped enormously.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Do Apple's app reviewers review applications really serious? - <AUTHOR> They rejected my app with the following reason:
--- Guideline 2.3.7 - Performance - Accurate Metadata Specifically, the following words in your app name or subtitle are considered keywords or descriptors: A simple editor and can convert content to a image. ---
I changed the subtitle to `A simple editor`, and I submitted again, and they rejected again with the same reason.
--- Guideline 2.3.7 - Performance - Accurate Metadata Specifically, the following words in your app name or subtitle are considered keywords or descriptors: A simple editor and can convert content to a image. ---
But I changed the subtitle, they still give me the old reason, do they review the app really? I feel they are so perfunctory, I asked them why they still reject with the same reason, because I had changed the subtitle, and then they give me another rejected reason
--- Guideline 2.3.7 - Performance - Accurate Metadata Specifically, the following words in your app name or subtitle are considered keywords or descriptors: A simple editor. ---
Are they kidding? <comment><USER2> > 2.3.7 Choose a unique app name, assign keywords that accurately describe > your app, and don't try to pack any of your metadata with trademarked terms, > popular app names, or other irrelevant phrases just to game the system. App > names must be limited to 30 characters and should not include prices, terms, > or descriptions that are not the name of the app. App subtitles are a great > way to provide additional context for your app; they must follow our > standard metadata rules and should not include inappropriate content, > reference other apps, or make unverifiable product claims. Apple may modify > inappropriate keywords at any time.

\- "A simple editor and can convert content to a image."

\- "A simple editor and can convert content to a image."

\- "A simple editor."

All fail the guideline. I could barely even figure out your app name from the post, how would a reviewer? How would a customer?

Your app appears rejected correctly.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know what's your point, and I think they are so perfunctory. I can accept the reason they rejected my app, but I don't like their work attitude. I sure of that they didn't review my app, and rejected habitually, because I have update that infos, but they still rejected me with old reason, that's so perfunctory, that makes me think they are sucks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, name it something else, then, like "Fred" or "Editronulator", and save the rest for the description...

<comment><AUTHOR> I removed the subtitle, and it's online now. I really think apple app review sucks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-it-really-sucks- to-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-it-really-sucks-to-be-an-app- reviewer-for-apple-2012-7)

Someone with a chip on their shoulder?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I will write an article like this.</comment></comment>


Zed Shaw's Advanced Network Architectures With ZeroMQ at Pycon 2011 [video] - <AUTHOR> http://vodpod.com/watch/5757197-pycon-2011-advanced-network-architectures-with-zeromq <comment><USER2> Can't watch the video right away, but I'll just say that every time I read the ZeroMQ guide (<http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all>) I am frustrated by the lack of any clear technical explanation of ZeroMQ's basic architecture.

Today I gave it another shot, and after half an hour of trying to glean technical detail and skipping any parts that read like a like a comic book ("zap-pow-kaboom satori paradigm-shift moment"), I think I've learned the following:

        * ZMQ works by spawning a background thread that runs a
          poll() (or equivalent)-based async I/O loop.  This thread
          is created when you create a ZMQ "context."

        * On top of a context you can create a ZMQ "socket", which
          may map to N underlying UNIX sockets (or a comparable
          transport), and which will transparently queue data to slow
          or unavailable receivers.

        * Over a socket you can send or receive "messages", which
          are length-delimited strings which are always delivered
          in full with the original length. Send/receive can be
          either blocking or non-blocking.

        * Contexts can be shared across threads, but sockets are
          not thread-safe.  Communication between application threads
          and the ZMQ I/O thread is via a lock-free queue.

The main features seem to be topology-agnostic programming (since you don't have to know what a socket is connected to to send/receive over it) and transparent queuing. In my opinion transparent queues can be problematic because they transparently use up memory that can be hard to account for. Topology-agnostic programming certainly seems interesting, but in my experience of distributed systems programming I never seem to need or want complex messaging topologies. I guess I don't really get what all the hype is about. Maybe I should watch the video.

<comment><USER3> I started using ZeroMQ at work a few weeks ago after reading the guide.

The part that I like about ZeroMQ is that it's a simplifying abstraction, e.g. it's a fairly simple wrapper about sockets that makes life easier for me. I guess it's mostly like a library of patterns for socket usage, so it makes a request-response loop and pub-sub scenarios really easy to implement. The other thing that's great is that it's pretty much programming language agnostic, meaning that C++ code and Python code look fairly similar and can trivially be used together.

As for the transparent queueing, there are simple options to control the size of the queue; it's even possible to spool the queue to disk as soon as the memory limit is reached (see setsockopt docs and look for HWM, for high water mark).

<comment><USER2> All of your reasons make sense to me, it's just that all the advocacy docs set ZMQ up to be this game-changing system. I can totally buy "a fairly simple wrapper about sockets that makes life easier for me." "world-saving superheros of the networking world" not so much.

<comment><USER3> I don't know, the simple building blocks it provides can be combined in a bunch of ways that are really pretty cool. I think apenwarr would might call it a "simplifying assumption". It's hardly ever the complex things that are game-changing, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess it would've been better if the title were "Advanced Network Communication Architectures (or Patterns)" with ZeroMQ. Network Architectures sounds more hardware-ish and (at least to me) sounds like it's talking about the actual network topology... :-)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there some text available somewhere (slides, perhaps)?

</comment><comment><USER6> Previously (with comments): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319875>

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it Zed Shaw week on HN or something?

<comment><USER8> A submission like this is _exactly_ what HN is about.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I learned RoR... what next? - <AUTHOR>

I created showwwdown.com and learned ruby on rails on the way.
I've really gotten hooked on RoR now, but I'm thinking, "what's next"? Should I just jump into a larger project and develop my RoR skills or is there more?
Should I start messing around with MongoDB and Coffeescript, or what would be the next logical step? <comment><USER2> IMHO, you're taking the wrong approach. Make something you'd like to make, then find the tools you need for that.

I mean, if you want to hack on your house so that it says "hey there!" whenever your friend (and not the mailman) walks in front of your house, I doubt CoffeeScript and MongoDB are going to get you far.

If you want to make a social local web app startup coolness like the other kids though, then yeah, those are fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Get what you are saying and very much agree with you :-).

I just have some intermediate time now (I'm studying at the moment) before I'll start on another thing and would like to look into some RoR-stuff, since I'm a hooked on it (I need my junk!).

So what should you be able to do in combination with RoR if you want a startup in the Bay Area to jump up and down over your skills?

<comment><USER3> They won't. Learn how to work with other engineers, designers, product managers, project managers, executives, operations, etc. Learn test-driven development. Learn how to say no to new projects. Learn when to say yes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm studying at Hyper Island (HyperIsland.se), where we spend most of our time trying to learn that.

If you haven't gotten any skills to offer in such a team, you'll probably never get the chance to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You may have learned how to build a site with RoR, but have you learned how to be a great developer? I wish I had when I was starting out and didn't get into bad habits.

Do you know how best to test your application? Do you know how to best deploy your apps? Do you know how to write good documentation?

It isn't the sexy stuff, and I still don't do enough of it, but I think if you get into these good habits now, the benefits will pay off in the long run (or so I hear anyway).

Though I agree with skrebbel, that if you find something you really want to build, that will often lead you to decisions of what to learn next, I think you can have some more guidance here.

I wouldn't jump into MongoDB and Coffeescript right away. Mongo is a specific tool for specific projects.

I wouldn't jump right into Coffeescript either, I think it is good to know proper Javascript (or some might disagree, but for the most part jQuery suffices at this point).

It looks like you used html5 boilerplate. How well do you understand it? I couldn't tell from the css, are you using SASS or similar CSS tool? I'd recommend that.

Javascript will be very important going forward, and I personally believe that most of my time is spent building front-end rather. Probably 3/4 of my time is spent on css and javascript. I'm building in Backbone now, but putting in and taking out of a database is pretty basic for the most part. I've started doing some NLP stuff, and still, the majority of my time is spent on front-end coding.

Summary, make sure you've got a good foundation for general best practices, spend your time becoming a great front-end coder.

By the ways, I don't understand what showwwwdown is, but you've built a nice looking site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the time you took answering my noob'ish questions :-).

There is still A LOT i need to learn about RoR and general programming... definitely!

I'm using HTML5 boilerplate for the site and using regular CSS and jQuery. I also spent a lot time front-end coding (you always end up doing that) on showwwdown and I think I learned some very nice things in the process.

What's the difference between sass and .less? I've messed a bit around with twitter bootstrap 2.0 and they are using .less. It's a very sexy way to write css, but I hate the fact you have to convert the .less files to css before you deploy.

Would you really work directly with javascript? Not with one of the frameworks? I hate javascript!

Thanks for the complement. Showwwdown is a site where you can start a competition if you have a dribbble invite to hand out and then people can post their best work to win that invite. Follow @showwwdown and I'll let you know when the next competition starts :-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi i think that you need to work now in something that you're very passionate about, that's when the really hard work comes..

I started too with ROR to develop applications in less amount of time, and believe javascript i think is a good tool to implement with ROR, it will help you a lot to develop the front-end...

But please don't try to make another social network, or photo sharing app, i think there are too much right now, i have no doubt that this could help you improve your coding skills...i got crazy when i hear that this xx company is developing a new cool sharing app...that's all!

good luck in your next project!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. Actually I was thinking about developing this new social network. You can only communicate by writing messages that's 70 character... think I'm gonna call it flutter. Nah, just kidding.

I'm also really tired of photo/sharing apps. I would really like to solve a real problem for people. Make something that's rally valuable to people and will make them come back to the service again and again. I love what Stripe is doing... Solving a real problem and doing it in an awesome way :-).

Would U use Javascript BTW? Not a Javascript framework?

<comment><USER5> haha flutter, like twitter but without the twi...yes i would use javascript if i make a project..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm trying to learn RoR as well.

If you are considering any onsite training...let me know what you think is best. Thanks</comment>


The vanished grandeur of accounting - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/06/07/the-vanished-grandeur-accounting/3zcbRBoPDNIryWyNYNMvbO/story.html

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933746](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933746)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, excellent comments on that thread. Not sure why the URL wasn't detected as a dupe.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which KISSmetrics A/B Test Should Win? - <AUTHOR>

Version 1
http://cromonitor.com/screenshots/f09cffee-5b4d-11e3-88ec-002590d06c79/20131212024501.png
Version 2
http://cromonitor.com/screenshots/f09cffee-5b4d-11e3-88ec-002590d06c79/20131212014456.png
Which of these tests do you think should win? <comment><USER2> As much as I like what's happening in version 2 (more description and a nice callout with dark sidebar), I definitely like version 1 better overall.

Arriving at the page cold, the second version is just far too dense. Having a link or two out to more info is a great idea, but keeping the main sign-up page simple is critical to users not just hitting back or getting overwhelmed.

Perhaps create a version 0, with even less text and more whitespace than version 1.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do see what you mean.

The dark sidebar doesn't do it for me, it doesn't look like its part of the page and as a result may be ignored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I personally would sign up for 2, but could miss the message in 1

<comment><AUTHOR> Which message are you referring to?</comment></comment>


10 questions for MPEG LA on H.264 - <AUTHOR> http://www.betanews.com/article/10-questions-for-MPEG-LA-on-H264/1274306999

<comment><AUTHOR> After parsing this lawyer's output, I'm never using H.264 again if I can avoid it, despite the criticisms of WebM (no real spec, dog-slow encoding.) More importantly I would like to see how much of my existing video work can be done without any use of 264---in particular I will be checking my hardware devices to see if I'm entrapped at the outset.

<comment><USER2> I can tell you one thing for sure, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Theora or WebM capturing equipment, if there is any at all. Most consumer grade cameras record to h264 or h262 and pro cameras generally work with proprietary uncompressed or losslessly compressed formats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good Lord, is this a Q&Q session with a bot? The amount of lawyer speak is atrocious. It's like they copied and pasted those answers from a legal document somewhere. I've read about the H.264 legal issues from all sides from layspeak to lawspeak, and this has to be the worst one yet. In fact, it makes me want to avoid H.264 all together.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone answer this: what is the legal theory behind this "downstream liability" where someone who creates a video, transcodes it to something other than H.264, and then releases the video under a creative commons BY-SA license, and then someone else comes along and becomes liable for patent royalties because of a previous person in the remix chain having used H.264?

<comment><USER4> I don't think there is such a thing[1].

This idea might have come from the liability that can come downstream if an unlicensed (or inappropriately licensed) encoder was used to create the asset. I could see an argument for making the end distributor liable for the encoding royalty.

[1] If the file really is in another format and not just an obfuscated H.264. Judges aren't generally idiots and don't like it when you suggest they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This interview was done pre-WebM for what it's worth.

</comment><comment><USER6> Article date: May 10, 2010.

Not that I'm writing off the content. Just be aware that things have changed somewhat since then.

For example, the royalty-free end user bit through 2015 I believe has been extended in perpetuity [1].

[1]: [http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Featured- News/To...](http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Featured-News/To- Infinity-and-Beyond-MPEG-LA-Extends-H.264-Internet-Video-Moratorium- Indefinitely--69640.aspx)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another question: Can it be empirically determined (i.e. with a real decision procedure) that a video file was at some point encoded in something H.264? Would it be possible to remove such a "watermark" from a video mechanically?

</comment><comment><USER7> I love the repeated use of "...will benefit from coverage under the AVC License." I haven't seen careful dancing like that since the last time Riverdance was in town.</comment>


Countdown to Python 2 EOL - <AUTHOR> https://countdownto.xyz/c/jnfyblnw <comment><USER2> They could have found a way to keep "print" as both a function and a statement. [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6239887/what-is-the- adva...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6239887/what-is-the-advantage-of- the-new-print-function-in-python-3-x-over-the-python-2)

<comment><USER3> Where in your link does it indicate they could have kept it as both?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A better version can be found here (looks better on mobile and Safari) [https://countdownto.xyz/c/jnfztcj0](https://countdownto.xyz/c/jnfztcj0)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've always loved this concept. I made this back in the day, kind of relevant. [https://www.launchclock.co](https://www.launchclock.co)

</comment><comment><USER5> Umm - no.

There is a lot of python 2 code still out there - including with some big players.

Critical security issues if any will still likely see patches.

Anyone from a big python 2 org able to comment? Is everyone migrating all code?

<comment><USER6> Umm - yes.

EOL is a clearly defined term and its date has also been set for ages now.

Just because something has gone EOL doesn't mean it's no longer in use though. To make the most obvious example: Every company i've ever worked for used servers for years and even decade(s) after the EOL date had passed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow... White text on almost all-white background... :D

</comment><comment><USER8> There's been [https://pythonclock.org/](https://pythonclock.org/) for a long time.

See also [http://python3statement.org/](http://python3statement.org/).

</comment><comment><USER9> I see a modify button in the upper right hand corner. Is this date supposed to be modifiable?

<comment><USER10> That's a website that lets you create countdowns. It's not affiliated to Python.

But yes, I guess you could convince some company to keep supporting Python 2 for you. In fact it would surprise me if such service doesn't pop up just before Python 2 support ends. May be much cheaper than porting to 3 for some companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Haha ten years from now Python2 will be alive and well. The only way most Python2 orgs will stop using it is when they shut down.

What this really means is 437 days until a dedicated Python2 org takes over maintenance.

</comment><comment><USER12> This site is really broken on mobile.

<comment><USER13> It seems to be that the background colour value is set to `rgb(1,1,1,0.65)` and is missing the alpha channel in the attribute.

I made an identical page using `rgba(1,1,1,0.65)` and it looks better on iOS.

[https://countdownto.xyz/c/jnfztcj0](https://countdownto.xyz/c/jnfztcj0)

This seems to be only a WebKit issue, you can produce the same results on desktop Safari. Other browser engines must detect when an alpha channel value is used with an `rgb` CSS attribute and update that attribute to `rgba` accordingly as an assumed fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sure glad all my python 2 code is forward compatible with python 3 interpreters!

</comment><comment><USER15> "504175" <firstname.lastname@example.com>

</comment><comment><USER16> I just gave us 4 more days, whew.</comment>


Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/magazine/why-are-politicians-so-obsessed-with-manufacturing.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> Manufacturing is a target because it's easy for people to see concrete results. They can point at something and say, "we made that", and it tends to generate some sense of pride. The same doesn't really apply for service industries or innovation in the service industries: "we produced consumer surplus by lowering transportation costs via automation" doesn't roll off the tongue as well. :)

The same problem exists for creating software. Massive software projects tend to be unimpressive to people not familiar with the IT industry because they don't comprehend the scale or fundamental difficulties in computer science that were overcome to accomplish something.

Compare airplanes and wifi on airplanes. Most people are impressed by an A380, but they couldn't give two shits about the incredible technology behind offering wifi 5 miles above the Atlantic ocean at 700MPH ground speed. They just trivialize it by saying, "yeah, it comes from that little radio".

<comment><USER3> Manufacturing also provides jobs for both high and low skill workers. As such can be seen as more valuable to a community than say, a software company that only hires engineers and a CS center in a different state. Manufacturing was one of the best roads for a low skill worker to earn good money and move up the rung economically - something that only seems to be getting harder as time goes on.

<comment><USER4> It may seem to be getting harder, but in reality it's not. Rank based measures of mobility are stable. Since income inequality is up, _absolute_ mobility has also increased.

[https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/chettyetalAERPP2014.pdf](https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/chettyetalAERPP2014.pdf)

<comment><USER3> "When compared to 24 middle-income and high income countries, the U.S. ranks 16th in the amount of inter-generational earnings mobility. The relatively low level of mobility in the U.S. may arise in part because low-income children in the U.S. tend to have less stable and lower-income families, less secure families, and parents who have less time to devote to their children."

[http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways-...](http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways- SOTU-2016-Economic-Mobility-3.pdf)

<comment><USER4> The numbers you quote do not address the point under discussion at all.

<comment><USER3> "However, the increase in inequality has also magnified the difference in expected incomes between children born to low-(e.g., bottom-quintile) versus high-(top-quintile) income families. In this sense, mobility has fallen because a child's income depends more heavily on her parents' position in the income distribution today than in the past.

Since the appropriate definition of inter-generational mobility depends upon one's normative objective, we characterize the copula and marginal distributions separately in this paper."

It would appear we have different normative objectives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Last week's NYT article on free trade was pretty good: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/business/economy/more- weal...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/business/economy/more-wealth-more- jobs-but-not-for-everyone-what-fuels-the-backlash-on-trade.html)

This is the bottom line on American manufacturing:

> From 2000 to 2010, the United States lost some 5.6 million manufacturing > jobs, by the government's calculation. Only 13 percent of those job losses > can be explained by trade, according to an analysis by the Center for > Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana. The rest > were casualties of automation or the result of tweaks to factory operations > that enabled more production with less labor.

> American factories produced more goods last year than ever, by many > indications. Yet they did so while employing about 12.3 million workers — > roughly the same number as in 2009, when production was roughly three- > fourths what it is today.

Most of the jobs that left are never coming back. They didn't go to Mexico or China; they simply disappeared because automation and productivity increases rendered them unnecessary.

If the US sheltered its manufacturing sector from foreign competition, a small number of jobs might come back, but the increased cost of manufacturing things in the US would strongly incentivize companies to automate those jobs away as quickly as possible.

Manufacturing has a powerful political resonance, both in terms of the imagery of hardworking middle-class factory workers and national pride, e.g. "Why don't we _make_ things in this country anymore?" However, I suspect that most politicians who talk about a manufacturing revival understand that it won't really happen.

<comment><USER6> But there aren't a finite number of factories. If more factory work gets automated, then it will reduce the cost of building more factories and producing even more goods.

Whereas service jobs seem more finite. There is only a finite demand for burgers or shelf stockers, unless you increase the population. I really don't understand how a mostly service based economy is sustainable.

In any case, the service based jobs are just as vulnerable to automation. There are already a number of prototype burger making robots, for instance.

<comment><USER7> There's a finite demand for manufactured goods too. If anything, the price elasticity for manufactured goods seems likely to be lesser than that for restaurant meals; I'd eat out more often if it cost less, but I'm not going to buy additional dishwashers or dining tables for my house no matter how cheap they get. I'm not going to buy light bulbs or printers faster than they need replacement due to failure. With laser printers and LED bulbs, that can be several years between purchases.

<comment><USER8> You're correct that manufacturing too has a finite demand but it still has an order of magnitude more potential than the service industry. The vast majority of service jobs are extremely local or tied to a language/region/jurisdiction so those jobs have very little to export. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world is not yet affluent enough to afford most luxury manufactured goods so as the population gets wealthier, the market for manufactured goods expands. As long as the developing world follows western consumerism, and by all vounts it looks like it is, there is a lot of room to grow. Developed countries who have centuries of industrialization behind them and a knowledge economy stand a much greater chance of capturing that newly generated wealth because of scale and experience. As long as higher labor and regulatory costs can be offset by automation, the manufacturing can be grown with the world while services can only really grow with the national population.

<comment><USER7> I see a lot of growth potential for manufactured goods if you measure them in mass. I'm not sure there's great growth potential if you measure them in money. Every wave of industrial relocation so far has overtopped the previous one by _lowering costs_. China's steelmakers are exporting more tonnes of steel than US steelmakers did 50 years ago, but they're also commanding significantly less money per tonne. For that matter, if poor countries are going to get wealthier but buy manufactured goods from abroad, where is _their_ new wealth coming from if not manufacturing or services?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great article.

The rage of the blue-collar masses is misplaced. It belongs with engineers, STEM people, operations research, Taylorist management. Globalism isn't the architect of their fate. We are.

Want enough work to go around? Ban the last 100 years of agricultural development. That'll create all the jobs you could possibly want, real fast.

Except then you'all find out that more work to go around is a wrong thing to want.

<comment><USER10> This is my favourite counter to millenials complaining about how booomers had jobs handed to them on a platter. "What, you want an unfulfilling factory job doing the same mundane thing day in, day out, probably on your feet, and probably without climate control? And if you're a woman, explicitly get paid less for it?"

The boomers may have had a higher employment rate, but they weren't design consultants and business analysts and so forth.

<comment><USER11> I've done both blue-collar, shitty industrial jobs and white-collar cushy programming jobs. If they both paid the same, I'd be very tempted to take the blue-collar job. There's something very fulfilling about working with your hands and producing something tangible. As bad as turning wrenches or pumping a grease gun can be, days of endless meetings with obtuse stakeholders or perpetual yak-shaving aren't any better.

<comment><USER12> Bodies break down faster than minds. Ceterus paribus an office worker will have a longer career than a factory worker because their mind will still be sharp when the factory worker has arthritis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Manufacturing has a history of high growth and employment. Services do not. Economically, service domination means an overall slow-growth economy. Even highly intellectual services do not come close to the historic growth / employment curve the nation enjoyed when it was dominated by manufacturing. Wealth distribution is also heavily-weighted toward to the top with services. Generally democracies fare better when wealth is more broadly-held.

<comment><USER14> Good points. However, the macroeconomic benefits of manufacturing don't necessarily require people to be _employed_ in manufacturing, do they? If America builds enough productive, highly-automated factories, the country is still generating wealth. As long as some of this wealth is captured for the people, then standard of living can increase.

<comment><USER15> > However, the macroeconomic benefits of manufacturing don't necessarily > require people to be employed in manufacturing, do they?

"Macroeconomic benefits" as usually measured by aggregate output measures, clearly not.

 _Distributional_ benefits, OTOH... well, not a strong requirement. But...

> As long as some of this wealth is captured for the people, then standard of > living can increase.

The challenge is establishing the mechanism for that capture outside of employment. A fairly fundamental premise of the existing economic system is that the prime manner of that capture to provide distributed benefits _will be_ employment, and there is fairly strong resistance (including from the people who would retain the benefits in the absence of employment without some knew capture mechanism) to changes to the structure.

<comment><USER14> That resistance is strong, but not universally or globally. It's not the kind of social innovation likely to come from America. But that doesn't mean it's a doomed prospect at the outset.

<comment><USER13> If I am an American, then, the prospect is likely doomed. And likely doomed for my daughter, too, who has had a terrifically difficult time with her post- college life even though both her parents are college educated and gainfully employed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The holy grail for politicians is growth in jobs that pay well but don't require college degrees or a ton of specialized training. Manufacturing provided those jobs for decades.

That's why they are obsessed with manufacturing. If someone could come up with another industry that does the same thing for unskilled workers, then politicians would back that just as hard.

The sad part is that manufacturing itself no longer pays unskilled workers well. People blame China but it's arguable that automation and machines have taken more jobs.

This is why free college for everyone in the U.S. is a good idea. Our economy is leveling up, and it's time to level up our education too.

<comment><USER17> >jobs that pay well but don't require college degrees or a ton of specialized training.

This is my thinking as well because this demographic is most likely a swing voter. College educated white collar types most likely have a lifelong party affiliation and don't swing their vote, but this demographic often doesn't as they aren't typically political.

Its easier to blame cheap manufacturing overseas than to admit that our own homegrown automation is to blame here. Everyone pretending automation isn't eating the world is something every politician and every party world-wide seems to have in common, at least or now.

Lastly, there's a puritan ethic at work here. Manufacturing, as well as farming, is hard work that brings tangible and easy to understand results. Politicians can talk about those jobs and farmers with no controversy compared to praising a hedge fund manager or an investment group that created vast amounts of wealth and jobs. Its politically incorrect to praise the wealthier people in society, even though they're the ones responsible for much of the economy. Election season tends to bring out the myth that the economy is run by hard working men in overalls sweating to produce value, when its really run in swanky offices by people engaging in fairly technical disciples.

One of the big problems with democracy or at least the demagogy needed to win an election is that you often can't talk about how things really work as its seen as too elitist, technical, or just confusing. So certain classes of people are seen a virtuous like teachers, farmers, or line workers and anything having to do with big business or finance is instantly vilified. So we have these elaborate lies and strange incentives (fight for manufacturing? why?) to make sure no one gets offended or feels inferior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The memory is that these old factory/manufacturing jobs were high paying (middle class), secure, and accessible to people of low intellect, minimal education, and limited social grace.

The proposed replacements "caregivers, retail workers and customer-service representatives" are significantly lower wage and also require more "EQ" that the working man of the prior generation didn't need. The voters these politicians are addressing are working from a memory of a time when "men were men", that worked hard in a physical way to produce a physical product; in the memory, these working men didn't think and didn't emote, they produced.

Now, the voter says, men have been "feminized" by being forced out of a productive, provider role where a single income could support the family. Instead, they are placed into a role where they need to express concern, care, and use soft skills instead of physical strength.

And when they want the same pay and security they had before, they are instead told to "learn to code" (or learn whatever, get an education). Which is easy for a coastal educated person to say, but to a line of family men who have not just eschewed education but actively resisted it, this is a tough pill to swallow.

<comment><USER19> > actively resisted it

Honest question. Is this a reality or a degrading stereotype?

<comment><USER20> The entire comment is an absurd stereotype, and about what you'd expect to find in this forum. Manufacturing jobs weren't (and aren't) filled with a bunch of meatheads coloring by numbers any more than are construction jobs.

<comment><USER21> >Manufacturing jobs weren't (and aren't) filled with a bunch of meatheads coloring by numbers any more than are construction jobs.

This is true, but the fact that there are definitely stigmas around higher education in underprivileged and working class communities in the USA is very much a reality.

<comment><USER22> You're absolutely right that this stigma exists and needs to be challenged but I would add that in my experience one, although certainly not the only, reason for this stigma is that many working class people don't feel that the more educated classes have much respect for the kind of labor they do. I think US society in general views a lot of working class jobs as rather undignified and the stigma against education in these communities is in part an unfortunate reaction to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Andy Grove spent the last decade or so of his life crusading about this. He framed the problem as, Silicon Valley invests a great deal in creating innovation, but outsources the scaling of it. Even though that may be in the short term best interests of the companies doing the outsourcing, both they and the country lose out on the economic growth, jobs, and crucial institutional knowledge that scaling innovations brings. And the knowledge transfer to other countries better enables them to continue building on the original innovation, developing their own capacity for original innovation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Preference_for_a_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Preference_for_a_.22job- centric.22_American_economy)

<comment><USER7> Good point. I don't think that every country in the world should be aiming to run an export-manufacturing trade surplus; that's mathematically guaranteed to end in tears. I do worry about institutional capability loss on the scale of companies, industries, and whole countries. Look how hard, over-budget, and over-schedule it has been to resume building nuclear reactors in the USA after the entire country took a decades-long break from new unit construction. There was too much knowledge lost from aging humans' heads before it could be passed on to the next generation on the job, and now it's very expensive to regenerate.

<comment><USER12> Export mercantilism seems to result in the middle income trap. Even Japan never caught up. I would prefer not to have that kind of economy. Research and innovation yields the highest margins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > _Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?_

Because when the shit comes to shove and the global economy takes a nosedive or your previous friendly third world manufactures give you the finger, having a "service industry" is worth nothing, but being able to produce the actual shit your businesses design and sell/export, matters.

Of course for the US this might be less so, because they can always force, by diplomacy or might, those developing world manufacturers to comply.

Another question would be why are people like the author of the article not particularly hot for manufacturing?

Because they are upper middle class pundits, have worked all their lives in the culture/media/academic etc industries, and could not care less for lost manufacturing jobs and other such stuff.

That's how we get books about the world being flat, industry doesn't matter, it's all "information" and "creativity" now, from people that could not suffer a day without electricity (and the hard work that goes into producing it), or without their car, etc.

<comment><USER25> "Service industry" includes financial services, which have been hugely lucrative to the West.

It's a globally integrated supply chain, and cannot be otherwise. There is no way countries are going back to a blast-furnace-to-car vertically integrated manufacturing world. It costs far too much and you couldn't even do it back when Ford tried it. He needed to import rubber, modern cars need to import chips.

The only non-globalised manufacturing chain is defence, which is instead prohibitively expensive.

Manufacturing is popular because it's _percieved_ as a source of blue-collar jobs. Not only has that declined due to automation, but I think that one of the reasons for the decline in Western manufacturing in the first place was union-busting and labour relations issues. Part of the reason Germany has retained its manufacturing reputation is avoiding that failure mode.

<comment><USER26> > "Service industry" includes financial services, which have been hugely > lucrative to the West.

If you buy into the philosophy that it is something other than an elaborate global Ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER27> Ol' Marx saw capitalism as a 3 way standoff between workers, industrial capitalists, and financial capitalists. And he lamented that while the industrial capitalists would in the long run be better off siding with the workers, they would invariably side with financial capitalists until it was too late.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The votes that can turn the tide in this election are those in the rust belt. Manufacturing is the key word that gets their attention. I believe that's why. All other reasons are secondary. It was about the financial crisis in 2008 and Bain Capital in 2012 which ended up affecting manufacturing jobs.

<comment><USER29> yep, politicians say what their voters like to hear (and do what their donors want to be done :). For example California politicians don't talk about manufacturing, instead they talk education, environment/climate change, security, minorities rights, some talk agriculture, etc... some even talk UFO/aliens (if you didn't read the official CA booklet listing candidates and their statements for this year race for the US Senate Barbara Boxer's seat you missed a lot of fun :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wasn't aware of these facts:

\-- _[T]here can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse. Because of automation, there are far fewer jobs in factories. But the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation._

\-- _[T]here were 64,000 steelworkers in America last year, and 820,000 home health aides.... Soon, we will be living in the United States of Home Health Aides, yet the candidates keep talking about steelworkers._

Given the opportunity, I think I'd vote for McKinsey, Bain, or BCG to manage the executive branch instead of our current Presidential candidates.

<comment><USER31> Here's the US table of employment by category.[1] (I keep mentioning this table in discussions of employment.) 14% of the workforce makes all the stuff. That's manufacturing, mining, construction, and agriculture. 14%. US manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Manufacturing output is at peak now.

That 14% number was about 50% in 1950, and maybe 90% in 1900. That's how much things have changed.

As for imports, China's government has decided that it is going to reduce its imports from the rest of the world. This is part of the "China 2025" program announced by Li Keqiang in 2015.[2] The US may have to reduce its imports from China to keep up. At most, though, this will add a few percent to manufacturing employment.

[1] [http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm](http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm) [2] [http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/922394.shtml](http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/922394.shtml)

<comment><USER32> Manufacturing employment can't be 90% in 1900--agricultural employment certainly would have dominated. The 50% of 1950 also seems high.

According to <[https://www.minnpost.com/macro-micro- minnesota/2012/02/histo...](https://www.minnpost.com/macro-micro- minnesota/2012/02/history-lessons-understanding-decline-manufacturing>), manufacturing employment peaked at about 35% in 1950s. In 1900, it was around 25%, with services about 33% and the rest in agriculture. That graph has services employment always outpacing manufacturing (which meshes with my knowledge of US history) and manufacturing only outpacing agriculture around the 1910s, 1920s (which also meshes with my knowledge of US history-- agriculture was _very_ labor intensive prior to mechanization).

<comment><USER31> I meant agriculture, mining, construction, and manufacturing - the making of physical stuff. All that is only about 14% today. Not sure what the Minn Post's definition of "industry" is.

(Correct MinnPost link: [https://www.minnpost.com/macro-micro- minnesota/2012/02/histo...](https://www.minnpost.com/macro-micro- minnesota/2012/02/history-lessons-understanding-decline-manufacturing))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> >According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 64,000 steelworkers in America last year, and 820,000 home health aides — more than double the population of Pittsburgh. Next year, there will be fewer steelworkers and still more home health aides, as baby boomers fade into old age. Soon, we will be living in the United States of Home Health Aides, yet the candidates keep talking about steelworkers.

I'm picking up a sort of 'gamers are dead' vibe from all this. I wonder if the media considers Gamergate a sort of success story and template for future political discourse? The argument would be that the issues faced by outgroup demographic X are not real, because outgroup demographic X is dying anyway, and is being replaced by ingroup demographic Y, and is also full of misogynists and/or racists and/or basement dwellers and/or rednecks and/or Trump voters.

As supporting evidence, I will note the author just casually slipped in there that steel workers are all white men while service workers are mostly women.

</comment><comment><USER34> Politicians are amateurs. I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Politicians are experts at politics, they can achieve consensus in seemingly impossible circumstances. If you pick a random politician, and ask them to design a transmission, or perform open heart surgery, they'd do as poorly as you or me. Yes, there are politicians from all walks of life, and you can probably find a surgeon politician. In general, the thing they're really good at is politics.

It sucks because they're called on to provide solutions to deep problems, with only the skills of enthusiastic amateurs. Manufacturing solved a lot of problems. It's completely reasonable for an amateur to look at history for past solutions to current problems.

For reference, the us congress has a panel of 700 or so experts in all sorts of fields to help write policy. This is in addition to each congresspersons's staff. There's something on the order of 2000 people available to write legislation. And about 10000 pieces of legislation written. So each potential law gets a few months of effort.

It boils down to a congressperson (probably a lawyer), a few enthusiastic political scientists, and a few economists to shape national policy.

It's not that they don't produce good work. They're smart hardworking people. A trillion dollar budget is probably as difficult to produce as a decent compiler. That's the kind of thing we'll see congress try to slap together right after the election. It's not much different than a team of undergrads trying to get their compiler to pass test cases.

It's not inherently bad, it's that sometimes problems are really hard, and they should probably be handled by experts. We don't have a good way of collectively picking experts, so we pick amateurs and hope for the best.

<comment><USER35> How do we fix this?

Here's an idea - direct democracy where one can only vote on a topic that he/she has proven a minimal set of competence in. This could be in the form of an exam on a topic (eg. economics) and/or logic test. The goal is that one should not be allowed to vote on something like climate change without knowing the science and data behind climate change.

We need to acknowledge that the world is too complex for one person to know what's best for everyone on every single topic. Our system of representatives is totally outdated now that we have the internet.

The beauty of direct democracy is that it removes the politicians. As long as there are politicians, there will always be corruption (eg. bribery).

Ideally of course we'd have AI deciding our best course of action because humans are inherently biased, but that's further down the road.

<comment><USER36> Corruption is one of those things that probably isn't going away any time soon: It isn't just a plague on politicians, but other areas of life as well. Businesses, etc.

And unfortunately, you have to have _someone_ produce those voting tests. How do you think they will get their positions? Do you think that the tests in states such as Utah will have the same sort of things as tests in California or Vermont? In your version of the system, the politicians have simply changed professions.

Besides, there is actual need for politicians at this point (the AI still seems pretty far out). It is good to have someone to organize large infrastructure projects, good to have folks handle money and dividing it up, overseeing military operations - and it is good to have folks outside some of the industries asking questions and learning and trying different solutions.

Corruption itself won't go away any time soon: The best we've been able to do is minimize it.

<comment><USER35> I'm not saying that every decision must be handled by the entire voting populace, just that we need to embrace a more issue-focused mindset and acknowledge that the world is too complex for one person to know what's best on every policy stance.

The test should be on the federal level (knowledge is universal), and wouldn't be designed by politicians. The tests should be very very basic and test a minimal level of understanding. For example you should be able to explain what the Fed does if you were voting on an issue pertaining to monetary policy. The questions would be as objective as possible.

Yes we may still need politicians, but again the main idea is that we seek to have people only working on matters they're qualified for rather than some jack of all trades who's supposed to have the country's answers on everything. Military operations would be handled by military personnel, housing policy would be designed by experts in housing policy, energy and climate change issues would be designed by experts in those fields, foreign policy would be dictated by foreign policy experts, etc.

Could this new system be a slippery slope? Are there other problems? Of course. But our current system is failing - just look at the presidential "debates", they're a complete laughingstock. We need to try to figure out how to improve this broken system rather than keep perpetuating the status quo.

I'd love to hear your ideas on how we could improve things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I work at a steelworks in Australia. The economic conditions are not identical to America but a lot of the same pain exists.

Australia also has worse Anti-dumping protections then the US. China is dumping steel (i.e selling below cost) into our market - see: [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/china-trade- arrangemen...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/china-trade-arrangements- questioned-over-steel-dumping/7884026)

The government deciding to build a submarine fleet 'in Australia' was a huge election issue. The local unions around here are campaigning on forcing state government to use 'local' steel as a condition of their tender process for infrastructure projects. I think they have a point somewhat, it is pretty absurd that they built a sports stadium about 2km up the road from our huge steel plant and imported all the Steel for it.

I don't think there is an easy answer. Throwing the industry the odd submarine or two to supply material for isn't long term sustainable. However If it is enough to kick-start a ship building industry though who knows...

<comment><USER38> Are any specialty steels (tool steels, etc.) made in Australia, or do we just make low carbon structural steel and a little alloy steel?

When I call up steel suppliers and ask if they have any maraging steel, they just laugh at me.

<comment><USER37> The technical capability is there but my understanding is the sales volume is not present for speciality grades to be profitable.

It is basically an economy of scale problem unless you make specialised grades in large amounts (thousands of Tonnes) it is not economical. The market for that volume is not there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is why: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three- sector_theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_theory)

The Great Depression saw the "creative destruction" of farm labor. People migrated to cities and it took a long time for the economy to shift to manyfacturing.

Manufacturing jobs disappeared more gradually, but are now gone due to automation and outsourcing.

The only way they will come back is to robots.

The next sector is IP, it's one of the USA's biggest exports -- movies, music, ideas, brands, etc. Designed in California, assembled in China. That's why the USA has such a strong IP lobby and negotiates international treaties and bullies guys like Kin Dotcom.

What's left after that? Well, why do we all NEED jobs? Because currently wages is the primary mechanism of getting money to the masses. But demand for human labor is falling.

</comment><comment><USER40> From an earlier comment, but this is why:

"For every $1.00 spent in manufacturing, another $1.81 is added to the economy. That is the highest multiplier effect of any economic sector. In addition, for every one worker in manufacturing, there are another four employees hired elsewhere. (Source: NAM calculations using IMPLAN.) - See more at: [http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing...](http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing/#sthash.CCQopC41.dpuf")

[http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing...](http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing/)

<comment><USER41> That's interesting. Would it be correct to say that $1 spent on importing goods to the US would still generate the additional 81 cents of additional value in that country?

And if that's the case, would we still get the 81 cents in additional value if, due to global competition, we were able to import those same goods at 50 cents?

Or am I overthinking this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is there some dystopian novel where the majority of workers spend their time taking CAPTCHAs? I almost expect it to happen, as a way to keep the masses occupied in a way that's difficult to automate.

<comment><USER43> That will either be automated, or those workers job would actually be doing that to train the AI that will solve the captcha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I figured they were just suckers for factory tours, or at least photos ops with the "working man".

Also, a lot of the Left longs for the days of big factories and big union collective bargaining that could raise the wages a lot of people quickly. It's a great thing to point to with good economies of scale. Globalization has made this a mostly untenable strategy, but the longing remains.

<comment><USER45> [http://georgeosborneinahighvisjacket.tumblr.com/](http://georgeosborneinahighvisjacket.tumblr.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> They're not, but the demographic they need to appeal to is, and it's not clear how to sell people on capitalism in an age of diminishing labor requirements. Capitalism as we know it is almost over; there is no rational reason for people to starve while a tiny minority accumulates all the capital. History tells us that once enough people figure out that they've got no prospects they'll gang up on the elite, kill them, and attempt to redistribute the spoils.

I'm not being hyperbolic, I expect western-style democracy to collapse within the next 10-20 years.

</comment><comment><USER47> Maybe because they're catering to a vote bank that was most affected by manufacturing / factory jobs that went overseas? And there's little else those voters could relate to other than someone bringing back the jobs that they know well. There's also the righting the wrong thing that's appealing to many.

As TFA points out there is little chance of revival of American manufacturing. TFA makes a very good point that most of those who lost their factory jobs have moved to service industry and that's what the candidates should focus on making better.

</comment><comment><USER48> Because this is the work people who didn't go to college or uni can do and make a "middle class income" with a little vocational training (no real maths needed).

Same as why the mittelstand is so important.

</comment><comment><USER49> Here, for instance, is a graph of manufacturing jobs per capita in the US:

[https://www.numer.al/us_bls_data/figures/manufacturing- emplo...](https://www.numer.al/us_bls_data/figures/manufacturing-employees- per-capita)

It's quite clear that manufacturing jobs have just been slowly and steadily disappearing over the past 70+ years.

Viewed at this scale, the debate over the bump in the last 6 years seems totally silly. Moreover it's hard to imagine a policy that would turn that kind of trend around.

<comment><USER50> It is very easy to zoom out an fit a line but the step like changes at certain points are interesting. Averaging over the variations might throw away a lot of interesting information.

But you are right about one thing, the curve has not dipped up appreciably in the last 30 years. All I see are steps, plateau's where the level is kept before the next drop.

EDIT: can't do math or I keep thinking it's 2000's still.

<comment><USER49> Agreed that it'd be interesting to try to figure out what explains those cycles and steps. Recessions in general? Would be interesting to see what correlated with those points in time.

<comment><USER51> At least in the last 40 years of that graph, recessions seems to be it.

A recession hits, some people get fired (sticky wages, etc, etc), the recovery comes and it's cheaper to automate stuff than hire people. Then things coast for a while. The cost of automation keeps falling, people keep getting relatively more expensive, but in good times generally you don't get people getting fired en masse because times are good and the employer is making a profit anyway. Then a recession comes, and the cycle repeats...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> In the 19th Century a lot of people were "physiocrats" \- people for whom all progress had to relate somehow to the agricultural production of food. This was most stridently expressed in the denial of ( some ) patents to Cyrus McCormick for the combine harvester.

Manufacturing ended that, especially "factory farming".

So now, the logistics and communications revolutions are doing to manufacturing what manufacturing did to agriculture.

It's the circle of life...

</comment><comment><USER53> Why can't I buy a toaster made in the USA, even if it is off a highly automated line? Because it's still cheaper to make in manually in China.

Even if it's automated, it will still be cheaper to automate it in China.

<comment><USER7> Does this help? [http://www.b4usa.com/tag/toaster/](http://www.b4usa.com/tag/toaster/)

I've bought quite a few things made in the USA (or other countries with decent worker and environmental protections, like Italy, Germany, Japan...) that other people seem to usually get from China. Anecdotally, I've noticed that people who will talk about how Grandma's toaster or washing machine lasted forever and it's a shame you can't buy something like that today _are not willing to budget for it like Grandma did_. Grandma spent a lot of money on her appliances in 1950, whether you want to adjust by consumer price index or just look at (e.g.) the ratio of minimum wage to sticker price. Are you willing to spend thousands of dollars on a washing machine, to match relative buying power and prices from the middle of the 20th century? If so, you can still find appliances that are built like a tank, built by workers paid decent wages, built in factories that don't just dump all their trash into the nearest river. But if you want to buy a toaster that lasts a long time, is made in the USA, and costs only a little bit more than the Chinese toaster, yeah, I agree _that_ is hard to find. There is good stuff still available at the high end. The low end has gone a lot lower.

<comment><USER54> Yeah, on the other hand prices really have dropped much more than quality. I'm ten years strong on a toaster I picked up from Target for (and I can remember this, for some reason) $12.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Manufacturing fetishism:

[http://www.johnkay.com/2016/08/29/the-economics-and- politics...](http://www.johnkay.com/2016/08/29/the-economics-and-politics-of- manufacturing-fetishism/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Because millions of people have been affected. This means votes. If you can promise some bullshit and they buy it, you got votes. Lots of them.

Contrary to popular belief, politicians only care about their own enrichment and careers. They couldn't give one iota about the needs of the people. They want votes. They'll say anything they have to say to get them. They'll do anything they have to do to get them. And one in office they'll do nothing for the people who voted for them. This is true world wide and it isn't any different in the US.

</comment><comment><USER40> Because the numbers show that every dollar of manufacturing investment in an area produces $7.

<comment><USER45> How much do other types of investment produce?

<comment><USER40> Apparently I had my numbers wrong. Here's better info:

[http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing...](http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing/)

"For every $1.00 spent in manufacturing, another $1.81 is added to the economy. That is the highest multiplier effect of any economic sector. In addition, for every one worker in manufacturing, there are another four employees hired elsewhere. (Source: NAM calculations using IMPLAN.) - See more at: [http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing...](http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About- Manufacturing/#sthash.CCQopC41.dpuf")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Manufacturing represents middle class jobs that have largely gone away thanks to globalization, outsourcing, and automation among other things. One of the reasons the Boomers were so rich compared to following generations was that it was easy to get one of those jobs with minimal education, a college degree was not a necessity to make a decent wage and buy a house, a car, etc.

</comment><comment><USER58> Big factories can be retrofitted in times of world war to build tanks/guns/etc. It's seen as a national security thing.

<comment><USER59> Two more national security reasons:

1\. There is the problem of depending on potential enemies (all others have potential to be enemies) for goods that are critical to the military and/or general economy. Suppliers can threaten to cut supplies. Note that this can happen even if actual shooting war is unlikely; the threat to cut supplies is a brutal negotiating tactic that can block us diplomatically. For example, if we depended on Russia, they could demand that we support the Syrian government.

2\. Lots of physical things contain computer chips. He who builds them is in control. Remember when France gave the UK some secret codes to make Argentina's missiles (purchased from France) fail. It's not just military equipment. Consider your Ethernet card and/or motherboard chipset. It could include a hardware debugger with full memory access, controlled by magic packets. What happens when we can only get those from government-owned Chinese companies? What about modern computerized farm equipment that phones home for licensing? If that were foreign, could a foreign power disable our farm equipment at a key time, causing us to face food shortages?

<comment><USER60> I don't think the example in your second point is true. France did help the UK a lot but the Exocet missiles worked fine, one was even launched from the back of a truck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Why are politicians so obsessed with farming and agriculture?

The reasons for both are not dissimilar.

</comment><comment><USER62> Manufacturing jobs and service sector jobs are not mutually exclusive. Historical trends do not represent an evolving sophisticated economical stragety, but document economical needs met. The author suggests manufacturing jobs are irrelevant, but all jobs are relevant and necessary.

<comment><USER11> Having a good source of manufacturing jobs can float an order of magnitude more service jobs in an area. Look at every decaying mill town across the northeast where the mills went under and vibrant local downtown economies folded up afterwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Politicians like wearing hard-hats. Doing so at a software company looks weird - usually.

</comment><comment><USER64> Manufacturing is a strategic asset. When/If war ever comes upon us again we will need such assets to preserve ourselves. We must not let hubris cause us to think we are above the ruin as other great peoples have suffered.

<comment><USER65> As other have pointed out, US manufacturing is at an all time high. It just doesn't require as many people these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> There is a lot more dignity of work in manufacturing. You're not servicing some old person who can afford to have a home health aid--you're making a product for people to buy (including other people like you).

<comment><USER67> I can't understand. Helping a fellow human being who is too weak to care for herself is almost the definition of dignity to me. It may be dirty work, but there's nothing more important.

In contrast, the manufacturing job turns you into a pre-programmed cog in a big machine that consumes substantial amounts of natural resources to produce something that will most likely end up in the junk heap in a couple of years. Where's the dignity in that?

<comment><USER66> Dignity of work doesn't have anything to do with importance. It's about power relationships: vendors are in a different relationship with their customers than service workers are with the people they serve.

In Manhattan, a nanny probably makes more than a journalist--but is there any comparison in which job is more dignified?

<comment><USER68> What's undignified about a nanny's job?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Because employees of manufacturers have more power in the value chain than in most other jobs that employee high school graduates. This pushes up middle class wages without government intervention.

</comment><comment><USER70> > From an economic perspective, however, there can be no revival of American > manufacturing, because there has been no collapse. Because of automation, > there are far fewer jobs in factories. But the value of stuff made in > America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after > adjusting for inflation. The present moment, in other words, is the most > productive in the nation's history.

Pay no attention to the top % - that reaps all that benefit of that automation, and widening the wealth disparity chasm - behind the curtain.

</comment><comment><USER71> It's because Germany and Japan is so successful with manufacturing. Donald is asking why the US cant compete with Germany and Japan.

<comment><USER72> We outproduce both Japan and Germany combined in manufacturing. Manufacturing is roughly 18% of GDP for each Japan and Germany, but only 12% of the USA.

Germany GDP: ~$4 trillion.

Japan GDP: ~$5 trillion.

USA GDP: ~$17 trillion.

9 * 0.18 = 1.6

17 * 0.12 = 2.0

So, as usual, Mr. Trump's ignorance is causing him to ask the wrong questions.

<comment><USER59> Now lets divide by people. For people, it's 208 million and 321 million.

The USA is getting $6355/person from manufacturing.

Germany+Japan is getting $7792/person from manufacturing.

They beat us, earning an extra 22.6% per person from manufacturing.

<comment><USER72> I just saw this. Manufacturing is a much smaller segment of USA economy though, so per-capita is a bad metric.

Maybe it would be okay if you weighted it based on % of the economy, in which case the USA would be $6355 / 0.12 = $54,441 vs 7792 / 0.18 = $43,289.

So, weighted GPD per capita, the USA comes out way ahead. And actually, the weighted GDP/cap in manufacturing for the USA is higher than the average GPD/cap of the economy overall, which is just $53,041.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> ironically, manufacturing is an industrial-age metaphor: people still seem to imagine that it can or could drive the economy, that election-quantity people might be supported by manufacturing, and that location of manufacturing is negotiable. all arguably untrue.

you can't brag about unicorns.

</comment><comment><USER74> Because manufacturing creates true value opposed to digital fiat goods.

</comment><comment><USER75> Manufacturing jobs are the only jobs who build base value, from which all the jobs derive. Service and retail will sooner or later collapse when there is nowhere to extract money from.

</comment><comment><USER76> Want more service jobs? Make sure people have money to pay for services. This feels like a strong basis for UBI

</comment><comment><USER77> After looking at Mr Appelbaums Linkedin entry I wondered why anyone would listen to his opinions about this as opposed to any one elses.

</comment><comment><USER78> Income for bottom 90% has declined [http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2015/income- growth4-15.png](http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2015/income-growth4-15.png)

</comment><comment><USER79> > Manufacturing was, logistically speaking, easier to organize. There were > lots of workers at each factory, and most knew one another. Service work is > more dispersed and done in smaller crews. Workers living in the same city > and employed by the same retail chain, for example, would likely know only a > handful of their compatriots. Fostering a sense of trust and shared purpose > under these conditions is difficult.

Plus you can't just fire everyone and shut down the factory when they start talking union.

</comment><comment><USER80> Automation? Oh is that how you see Foxconn employees? That would explain quite a bit...

Most of light and heavy manufacturing is done somewhere else. Electronics. Housewares. Clothing. Tools. Equipment. Cars. Materials, both raw and those undergoing technological processing. High tech. A service economy? That's nice - but there are only so many prostitutes, bank clerks and Mickey D employees required, so what is everyone else going to do? Navel gaze? Fill jails? Starve? More importantly, what are you going to offer the rest of the world in exchange for all that stuff you can't make anymore? Democracy? Or just bomb them? At some point even bombs will be hard to make, due to lack of necessary facilities, equipment, materials, knowledge and experience. Just see how well "resurrecting" last century's space knowledge has worked out for NASA.

<comment><USER81> > Automation? Oh is that how you see Foxconn employees? That would explain > quite a bit...

Even if you "resurrect" manufacturing, automation means less people.

Quoting: [http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/innovation/2015/0...](http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/innovation/2015/05/why- ati-spent-1-2b-on-its-brackenridge-facility.html)

"Perhaps most surprising about the HRPF was the relative lack of employees on the floor of the massive facility. While ATI employs about 2,500 throughout western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, the technology and automation of the HRPF only requires seven operators and nine maintenance employees per shift, making the operation safer and more efficient, according to Deluca."

That's not a recipe for a manufacturing job resurgence independently of whether you think that is good or bad.

<comment><USER53> Wow, cool facility. That is some automation.</comment></comment></comment>


Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/08/oracle-sues-google-over-use-of-java-in-android-sdk.ars

<comment><USER2> They've shot themselves in the head.

The thing is that it's a bad business move not only will they get bad PR. They will start losing traction on Java over time. By doing this they are trying to make sure that they get a slice of the Android pie, but this will only cause people to jump ship.

The thing is that Android is going to be a large ecosystem, and if I were Mr. Ellison I would _pay_ Google to allow my technology to piggy back it. As then I could make products tailored for the language for developers and release them at a premium instead. Since, Java would be the de-fact standard for that ecosystem their sales would be through the roof.

If Georges Clemenceau were alive today he would have surely said, business is too important to be left to the suits.

</comment><comment><USER3> Already being discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1599584>

</comment><comment><USER4> Come on, Oracle, Google has used Java in more creative ways than you have - like running map/reduce on a Nexus One farm [http://www.cloudera.com/blog/2010/04/pushing-the-limits- of-d...](http://www.cloudera.com/blog/2010/04/pushing-the-limits-of- distributed-processing/)</comment>


High-frequency malware communication (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://fileperms.org/high-frequency-malware-communication.html

<comment><USER2> There are various working implementations of this idea, such as quitenet (python) [1] and sonicnet (javascript) [2].

1\. [https://github.com/Katee/quietnet](https://github.com/Katee/quietnet)

2\. [https://github.com/borismus/sonicnet.js](https://github.com/borismus/sonicnet.js)

<comment><USER3> I got TCP/IP working over ultrasound, through Gnuradio - [https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/ultrasound- networking...](https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/ultrasound-networking/)

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord What did ultimately happen with the badBIOS saga?

<comment><USER4> I have the same question, the last adjournment I read was about an hoax, as reported by wikipedia:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BadBIOS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BadBIOS)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Website for adding text to videos/gifs - <AUTHOR> https://www.supgif.com <comment><AUTHOR> I'm a frontend dev that recently took a stab at making a long-time dream project a reality. My goal was to make a website where people could take videos or gifs and add multiple captions to them. I have experience with React (I use it at work), but this project was my first exposure to much of the other stuff.

I know there are a bunch of meme / video editing tools out there already. Imgur, Giphy, and Streamable all have great interfaces that solve different problems really well. This was my attempt at making one that had a feature I felt was missing from what is out there (multiple, movable captions per video)

Features:

\- able to edit any direct .mp4, .gif, or youtube/streamable/twitch link

\- add multiple captions at different time points in a video \- move or resize text

\- change color, fonts, and styling of text

\- trim videos to smaller times

\- export up to 1080p quality

\- easily edit other people's past creations

After a few frustrating months and a bunch of iterations, I've come up with something I'm ready to show people. More importantly, I learned a ton and had a lot of fun doing it.

Feedback and constructive criticism are more than welcome (there are definitely a bunch of bugs still!). Also, UI/UX is a glaring weakness of mine so it would be really helpful for me to hear about any confusion or problems you have in using the editor or any suggestions to increase usability. Naturally, I'd love to answer questions about the site, the tech stack, or anything else.

Finally, if you have any feature requests feel free to leave a comment or let me know and I'll add it to a running list of things I want to do!

Here's the website: [https://www.supgif.com](https://www.supgif.com)

Here's an example finished product [https://www.supgif.com/c/NIWlajWf/share](https://www.supgif.com/c/NIWlajWf/share)

Here's a picture of what the editor looks like [http://i.imgur.com/de9hb3u.png](http://i.imgur.com/de9hb3u.png)</comment>


Show HN: Color Correct Underwater Photos - <AUTHOR> https://seabetter.com/ <comment><USER2> Brilliant name! _seabetter_. It would be great to have some before/after examples on the site, I see there's some in the linked blog post

[https://blog.cuvilib.com/2015/09/28/cuvis-underwater- filter-...](https://blog.cuvilib.com/2015/09/28/cuvis-underwater-filter-in- action/)</comment>