The best city to start a company - <AUTHOR> http://kirillzubovsky.com/the-best-city-to-start-a-company/ <comment><USER2> _Forget "the best city", and find the right city for you._

TheRightCityForYou === WhereeverYoureAtRightNow

BuildingSomethingNow > (Thinking | Planning | Networking | ...)

</comment><comment><USER3> Location still matters simply because of the different networks. Location also matters based on the type of business you are targeting. If you want to target financial services you are much more likely to be successful in New York than in Cleveland.

Also let me chime in with my recommendation. If you dont care about what industry, or type of product you are delivering Washington DC is the best place to build a business. Especially if you are a woman, minority, or veteran (they all get preference in government contracting).

<comment><USER4> So you're saying the best option for someone looking to start a business would be to move to Washington DC and start something the government will want to contract in?

If that's the case, I'm packing as you read this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Detroit - there has been a lot of local / regional incentives and because of the mismanagement and disdane for the unions, it's offered up a strong sector replacement - list of start-ups in the Motor City: [http://www.growdetroit.com/detroit-startup- list/](http://www.growdetroit.com/detroit-startup-list/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree, all the metrics comparing best cities doesn't mean much if you don't know a single person in those communities. What do you think of the advice to live in-proximity (an hour or so of driving away) of the city with your biggest network, but not necessarily right in the expensive part? I don't know the San Fran satellite areas, but for NYC it would be living Jersey or out near Long Island, where the rent is half or a quarter that of Manhattan but still within striking distance to take meetings or go to networking events in the city.

</comment><comment><USER4> While I agree wholeheartedly, I can't help but feel that investors still cherish face-to-face availability over the occasional Skype or message conversation. If funding is your business route, anyway.

The network impact on startup success is undoubtedly important, but so is keeping investors happy. And where are all the big investors these days?

Besides, who would you trust more with your money: someone who you know is available to physically run over and meet you at any instant, or someone half- way across the world who can only talk when wifi is working?

</comment><comment><USER7> Sacramento, California, natch. Where all the cool kids are.</comment>


Show HN: Urban Air Taxi - <AUTHOR> https://skypodone.com <comment><AUTHOR> Founder here!

We are an early-stage startup that want to make your commute a bit faster. We have just opened early access for San Francisco, Palo Alto and Stockton residents.

We start with developing a network of "Skypods" that people use to board eVTOLs. We solve zoning problems, build required aircraft infrastructure and ensure passenger security.

Your feedback would mean a lot to us!</comment>


[video] Joe Rogan Exp. #1211 SingularityNET, a blockchain-based AI marketplace - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qfB8clUIaY <comment><USER2> This Görtzel-dude is very good in explaining things. Sometimes Joe has guests who just repeat their own expert shit-talk. One gets an impression they are just afraid to reveal the shallowness of their knowledge.

<comment><AUTHOR> I enjoyed the episode very much, and his opencogs project its interesting.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Did you experience any positive side-effects of the pandemics? - <AUTHOR> The current pandemics gives a pause to many social activities. By necessity, many gatherings and classes were canceled; furthermore, remote work was introduced in many workplaces.
I would like to ask which things you found useful thanks to remote works, remote learning, or canceling other plans?
Did you discover new approaches, tools, or other things that you would like to share with others?
I mean both practical (e.g. "it turned out that meetings were not useful", "doing classes online makes it much easier to create re-usable materials") and other impressions & reflections (e.g. "it turned out that reading a book in my own place was more relaxing than skying in Italy", or "it became socially acceptable to say to no parties"). <comment><USER2> I was recording a remote class (I often teach face-to-face), and decided to put 5-second musical intro to it. So I composed some music for the first time in close to a decade.

Also, I've discovered how lucrative it is to have clients in the USA when you are in another country (Australia) that is going through a pandemic-driven currency collapse. Every client has just given me a 10% pay rise.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's been a boon to my cooking by making me get creative with foods I make infrequently, ingredients I don't often use, and stores I visit rarely. Bread will go stale but you can stock up on flour and yeast! Store running out of rice? How about cornmeal? That too? Buy masa at the bodega. Whole Foods running out of beans? The Indian grocery store is still chock full of daal and gigantic containers of shelf-stable ghee to boot.

</comment><comment><USER4> Discovering strategies to make money during down market. There are lots of opportunities

<comment><USER4> Essentially I playing index options. Either QQQ or OEX. They are high volume and easy to buy at bid and sell at ask.

I like friday (option expiration day) where time premium is minimal and correct guess will bring you 100%+. Incorrect guess will make you lose 100% :)

But the key is if you think that market is going down - you can monetize this move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I discovered that my office isn't that far away. It is just that traffic made you feel so. Also everyone is so concerned about hygiene and sanitizing everything, feels good.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's created a lot of awareness and peer pressure around hygiene, which I'm very grateful for. I'm sure we've all caught that coworker or friend leaving the bathroom without washing their hands or not covering their face when they sneeze.

</comment><comment><USER7> I discovered that bodyweight workouts at home are surprisingly good. It's not a replacement for a gym workout but it's much better than doing nothing.

<comment><USER8> What workouts are you currently doing?</comment></comment>


LambdaNative – Cross-platform mobile apps in Scheme - <AUTHOR> http://www.lambdanative.org <comment><USER2> It's a bit inaccurate of them to present the results of a 17-year old paper (published in 2000), as empirical evidence that development time in Scheme is shorter. These days there are plethora of language choices on the JVM, and if I were devloping a multi-platform app today, I would personally choose Kotlin along with the Intel Multi-OS Engine:[https://software.intel.com/en-us/multi- os-engine](https://software.intel.com/en-us/multi-os-engine)

Part of my motivation to prefer Kotlin over Clojure (the most popular LISP on the JVM langauge?) is that I am a huge proponent of static typing. Large programs written in statically typed languages are orders of magnitute _more readable_ , more maintainable, easier to understand, and far less error-prone, than programs written in dynamically typed languages.

The recent surge in popularity of dynamically typed languages like JavaScript, Python, Ruby, etc, had been a source of horror and frustration to me. It feels like a huge segment industry is throwing away decades of advancement made in programming language research, and instead of moving to languages with more advanced type systems, they're abandoning sound typing altogether (shudder).

<comment><USER3> > more readable ...to you.

It's possible I suck at what I do, but somehow I've enjoyed building, shipping, and maintaining services and applications in dynamic languages.

I used a lot of Clojure, and it was basically smooth sailing, even on teams.

Along the way I used various statically typed languages, such as C# and a tiny bit of SML (to be able to read Okasaki), and enjoyed them too. Just not as much.

Anyway, I can't refute your experience programming, or the way that you feel. With more experience, perhaps some day I will agree with you. But right now, for whatever it's worth, I don't.

Dynamic (functional) languages all the way.

<comment><USER2> You haven't grounded your assertions on any logical arguments. I've worked on large code bases, both in statically typed languags, and dynamically typed ones, and the latter was _a far worse experience_ than the former.

Even just in terms of reading and understanding what was going, there was no way to know the structure of objects passed to various function. A function would take an object foo, which had some arbitary strucutre and set of fields that were not defined or specified anywhere. Pure hell for readablity (i.e. understanding someone else's code). The absence of type system enforced structure on objects, means these objects could contain anything. Grr.

Everytime I get in production, a run-time JavaScript TypeError that would never happened had it been written in a statically typed language, I want to grab people like you by the collar (proponents of dynamically typed _crap_ ), and punch you in the face and give you a bloody nose.

I think you have to be slightly fucked up mentally to not appreciate the beauty, the power, the clarity, and the safety that high-quality type systems bring, in languages like Agda, Haskell, Elm, Swift, Kotlin, etc.

Dynamically typed languages are a bane.

This is not to deny that some statically typed languages have a poor type systems. Early Java had a disappointingly weak and primitive type system (e.g. no generics). Scala's type system is so complex that it's worse off for it. Etc.

But solid type systems are a huge advantage. I wish more people invested time researching and building more advanced and better type systems. We'd all be better off for it.

<comment><USER4> > You haven't grounded your assertions on any logical arguments.

neither did you. in fact, you italicized probably the least objective portion, that of staically typed languages being more readable. and that's likely to be the opposite case for most people. the draw for most dymaically typed languages is that they are often quite readable.

sometimes people prefer different stuff, and that's all the commenter was saying. i myself like both.

<comment><USER2> That's ridiculous. I most intentionally italicizes it -- precisely because readability and comprehensabitltiy is the biggest benefit of static typing.

When I was younger (a teenager), I valued static typing for the safety it brought. After working at a few companies, I now value it more for readability & comprehensability, than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Gambit is a fantastic scheme system. The performance you get from it exceeds even SBCL in my limited use cases. Additionally, Gerbil Scheme ([http://cons.io](http://cons.io)), built on Gambit, has expanded syntax like racket's #lang features for dsls. Several packages have also been create for it for most of the things I need.

<comment><USER6> I used to play around with Gambit, but never saw Gerbil before. Thanks for the link. When do you use it over Gambit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A recent example of cross-platform app/game made with LambdaNative: [https://www.reddit.com/r/scheme/comments/6hng3q/i_developed_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/scheme/comments/6hng3q/i_developed_a_medium_sized_cross_platform/)

</comment><comment><USER8> This project blew me away. I always thought Scheme was just interpreters and toy programs. Hope this succeeds in making scheme popular. Scheme and Lisps in general way too underrated.

<comment><USER9> Stock Scheme does not have much in the way of interfaces to the outside world (long story) but there are several Scheme variants where people are doing larger projects. Racket is sort of a Scheme variant, and it seems to be the most popular, but Chicken and Guile are also pretty popular (as far as Scheme variants go) for real-world use cases.

<comment><USER10> Gambit is another one that has some real-world usage (it's what LambdaNative uses).

<comment><USER9> Yep, that's why I left it off the list.

I've actually written some LambdaNative. Unfortunately, we ended up going with Cordova, but you can guess which one was more fun to write.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Previous discussion, from about a year and a half ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11192542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11192542)

And a paper (2013) giving some details and explaining their motivations: [http://ecem.ece.ubc.ca/%7Ecpetersen/lambdanative_icfp13.pdf](http://ecem.ece.ubc.ca/%7Ecpetersen/lambdanative_icfp13.pdf)

<comment><USER11> The phone apps look like they are from 2013. That explains a lot.

Thanks for the links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This looks awesome! I believe being able to express an entire app logic as data can be super powerful.

BTW shameless plug: If you're interested in this type of ideas, please also check out Jasonette (an open source project I'm working on) Just like this project uses "list" to describe an app, Jasonette uses JSON to describe an app. [https://www.jasonette.com](https://www.jasonette.com)

</comment><comment><USER13> I love it! This is awesome idea, now that I see it, I wonder why wouldn't Google just use it, if Apple will not, this makes total sense for mobile apps. Pair it with high performance native api, it can be winning ticket.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd like to see someone code golf that calculator in javascript.

</comment><comment><USER15> LOVE this project. My serious question is why wasn't this done in Racket as opposed to Scheme? Seems this would fit in Dr Racket wonderfully.

<comment><USER16> Because racket isn't as easy to get running on smartphones as something that just compiles to C.

With gambitc you are already there.

<comment><USER17> I know that, with Racket's move to the Chez Scheme interpreter, bits of core Racket C code are getting rewritten in Racket ([https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/racket- dev/2BV3ElyfF8Y...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/racket- dev/2BV3ElyfF8Y/4RSd3XbECAAJ)). I wonder if that might enable Racket to ultimately be able to run on other Schemes' infrastructure.

<comment><USER18> > with Racket's move to the Chez Scheme interpreter,

Is there a wiki or an issue to track progress of this?

<comment><USER16> [https://github.com/racket/racket7](https://github.com/racket/racket7)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Snap CEO sends memo on inequality; calls for reparations to address injustice - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/snap-ceo-spiegel-calls-for-reparations-commission-taxes-to-address-racial-injustice?shared=9b8a4f533d84a7df <comment><AUTHOR> Great move, hope to see such memos by other tech leaders.</comment>


RIAA and BPI Use "Pirated" Code on Their Websites - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-and-bpi-use-pirated-code-on-their-websites-131102/ <comment><USER2> I'm curious to know what the original author (ZURB) would be able to sue for if they so decided, it's clearly copyright infringement.</comment>


Fully Automatic Differentiation for Tensor Expressions - <AUTHOR> http://vertex.ai/blog/fully-automatic-differentiation <comment><USER2> How would you differentiate something like merge/concatenate, where all the action is in data movement and there are no arithmetic operations (but the gradient is still required)?

<comment><USER3> Here the way autodiff for a simple 1-D concatenation is computed. First we write the concat itself:

      function (A[SA], B[SB]) -> (O) {
        O[i : SA + SB] = +(A[i] + B[i - SA]);
      }

Note, that SA and SB are the sizes of the two tensors, and due to the way that edge case handling works, either A or B is out of bounds and thus equivalent to zero for each index i of O. Now in the case of +/\+ accumulation/combination, the autodiff writes the derivative of each input as the sum over only the output (rather than multiplied by the other inputs as in the +/* case). This gives us:

      dA[i : SA] = +(dO[i]);
      dB[i - SA : SB] = +(dO[i]);

A further reduce/defract slightly changes this to:

      dA[i : SA] = +(dO[i]);
      dB[i : SB] = +(dO[i + SA]);

which basically extracts the proper portion of the derivative of dO into dA and dB respectively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Like automatic differentiation is it possible to use it to integrate too? Kind of like f = ma; a = f/m; velocity = integral (a) dt; position = integral (v) dt ?

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately no, for the same reasons as there's no chain rule for integration (the very same reasons, in fact, as autodiff is built on the chain rule).</comment></comment>


Amazon acquired robotics company Dispatch to build Scout - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/07/meet-the-tiny-startup-that-helped-build-amazons-scout-robot/ <comment><USER2> What will happen to Starship Technologies? Both robots are very similar in pictures. Wasn't Estonia good enough market for robotics startup?

<comment><USER3> It's hard to believe there's no IP issues as that Amazon one looks JUST like the Starship model.

<comment><USER4> Even if they were, like at almost every major company, engineers in Amazon are told _not_ to look at patents at all, ever.

The way the patent system in the US is set up, there's a huge financial difference (orders of magnitude, IIRC) between "accidental infringement" and "wilful infringement".

If your engineers have never gone looking for patents, it can't be argued that you wilfully infringed on existing patents, should it ever go to court.

<comment><USER5> > The way the patent system in the US is set up, there's a huge financial > difference (orders of magnitude, IIRC) between "accidental infringement" and > "wilful infringement".

It's up to 3x ("treble damages") and the US Supreme Court lowered the standard for granting increased damages not too long ago.

[https://www.jonesday.com/Supreme-Court-Upends-Law-of- Treble-...](https://www.jonesday.com/Supreme-Court-Upends-Law-of-Treble- Damages-in-Patent-Cases-06-15-2016/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why are these ads fixed on ukulele music?

</comment><comment><USER7> It feels like this article is purposefully avoiding back-linking to Starship Technologies website [https://www.starship.xyz](https://www.starship.xyz)

Could have Amazon acqui-hired Starship Technologies instead of Dispatch? The reason is probably that Dispatch is backed by Andreessen Horowitz.

This doesn't feel meritocracy to me. It feels Silicon Valley is building an inner circle where they only invest in each other. Techcrunch seems part of it avoiding back-linking and SEO gains for Estonian based Starship Technologies.

Is this article just content marketing to publicize Amazon and Dispatch?

</comment><comment><USER8> So Amazon kinda lied when they said it was built with in house technology.

<comment><USER9> If they bought the smaller company together with its IP, employees, and patent, that all becomes 'in house', doesn't it?</comment></comment>


Netflix Is Bluffing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/24/netflix-is-bluffing-and-it-will-be-their-downfall/

<comment><USER2> This article is predicated on the argument that he who owns the content gets the revenue.

Let's keep in mind that in the first part of 2013, Netflix is going to be premiering both House of Cards and new episodes of Arrested Development. If they both do well, and Netflix can get more high-quality exclusives in the pipeline (admittedly both rather large 'ifs'), there's a real possibility that Netflix might find themselves in the very compelling and potentially lucrative position of being the first network of Showtime/HBO-caliber content that really understands digital distribution.

<comment><USER3> Or, perhaps equivalently, the article is predicated on the supposition that there will be a single Big Content monopoly/oligopoly that will eventually just translate over to the digital realm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firstly, the title is linkbait and is a total non sequitur. What's the bluff? Is Reed Hastings lying when he says Amazon is spending $1B? Probably not, as the author admits. Basically the title is meaningless.

Secondly, Kirwin (the author) is making the classic mistake of seeing all these big massive companies entering the market and thus declaring that Netflix is doomed. The problem is that for these companies, video is an afterthought compared to the main product. Netflix is completely focused on video. There have been countless cases of nimbler, smaller companies out- executing larger, broader companies. I can understand why the author makes this mistake - his background is primarily in film production and working at Paramount and Microsoft (the article says he has worked at some startups, but none that I could find on his site).

I find it ironic that Kirwin is calling out tech bloggers for being "wannabe Hollywood analysts," when it seems to me that he is a Hollywood blogger writing as a wannabe tech analyst.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article makes a couple good points, but the assumption that competitiveness can only be measured in capitalization is stupid. Anyone who believes that need simply review the proportion of acquisitions by fortune 500's that are still competitive in their markets 5 years later.

In annoying MBA language: cost of goods for cinematic content is falling rapidly due to technological and social progress, and this is reducing the negotiation power of large integrated production and marketing companies like the big studios.

The cost of script-writing and conceptual development is largely constant and independent of production cost. Nearly every feature of production cost is falling rapidly, from cameras to post production technologies. Even location shooting, which you might assume independent of technological factors, is being rapidly undercut by digital backdrops (which became the norm in cinema quality television shows with shocking speed).

The net effect of all this change is that negotiation power is moving from large integrated studio ventures to original content producers. Small production companies are less dependent on the capital advances, production infrastructure and marketing channels the big studios can offer.

Netflix definitely understands this, and also understands that the current Hollywood players fail to meet significant areas of demand. You see this in their choices of what productions they've funded directly like arrested development. It's a high risk venture, but it's not just a bluff or impossible. They are hiding in the blind spot of nearly all large market players: the unwillingness to abandon or cannibalize currently profitable activities because of changing market conditions.

<comment><USER6> Is this really true? If you look at the top grossing movies, they're all studio blockbuster vehicles. The cost of star salaries, huge marketing splashes, etc are still as bad as ever.

I don't see any evidence that the COGs for producing the head revenue generators are any lower than what it was, say, 5 years ago.

<comment><USER7> To add to what jasonwatkinspdx has said already, it seems to me that this follows the typical pattern of disruption. First you'll see the bottom markets being let go by the big studios and you'll start seeing other independent bodies picking up those lower markets. Until finally the big studios only make up the top segments, if anything the polarization seems to indicate just this type of shift.

I think you're also seeing some breakthrough into the middle areas where players such as HBO are able to compete with big block buster movies in terms of mind share. Series like Game of Thrones for example opted to be produced in the "lower echelons" instead of being fit into block buster movies. In a way it seems obvious, the material fits better in a series format, etc... but the fact that it is possible should make it clear that 50-60 million budget can compete and in some cases excel that which is produced by a multiple hundred million dollar blockbuster.

That to me is a significant change, hopefully one of many to come.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish Netflix would transition fast to an HBO model where they produce their own content. I could see them establishing a kickstarter like content crowd- funding option (opt-in) for say 15 $ / month extra where users would vote on shows, finance them & bring them to life. just imagine what/if scenarios would have played out when "Arrested development" was canceled if we had such an option back then.

My point is, if kickstarter can start raising sums as high a 4 Mil $ for project eternity & 6 Mil $ for Star Citizen, the days when AAA movies could be crowd-funded is not far from us. I'm looking forward to the day when big studios & their greedy shortsightedness get disrupted. The penultimate frontier of disintermediation. _fingers crossed_

<comment><USER9> You want crowdfunding to address shortsightedness? I don't see these as being compatible.

<comment><USER8> I want crowd-funding to address consumer choice,editorial & artistic freedom, consumer friendly consumption mechanisms, platform lock-in and profit concentration. Crowdfunding is very much compatible with all of these requirements. Theo only thing standing between us & that world is a few quarters of Kickstarter/ IndieGogo/ Rally/ GoFundme growing their user bases.

Latest Netflix estimates say that 1 episode of Arrested development will cost 1.5 million $. Going with an average rate of 3$ per episode would mean 500,000 average pledges would be enough to fund such an enterprise. (36$ per user per season)

Two games on Kickstarter, Double Fine Adventure/ Star Citizen had a pledger base of about ~90,000 users. We're half an order of magnitude from that. 2~3 years in internet time is an eternity, I'm confident that producing quality content will soon migrate online. I think the studios obsession with piracy & control will soon backfire on them. Google is going after them with premium channels, Amazon & Netflix are both toying with content in-house & Apple has the market power to eventually twist their arms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I often find myself using Netflix to watch a movie, decide I want to see more titles by that director or starring that same lead actor, find out I can't stream that movie and would need to wait for a mailing, and then task switch to iTunes for a rental.

I would be perfectly happy giving Netflix that money; if nothing else, they deserve the iTunes affiliate cut for making me want to buy something at that moment. I realize many people use Netflix because of the flat pricing and wouldn't go for this, but people like me are the "whales" when it comes to media spending, and it might be worth trying to pick up our business.

(Sadly, I bet many people would then see this as a serious conflict f interest against their flat-priced streaming service, and get angry. :()

<comment><USER11> I was recently thinking of how much money I've spent on iTunes in the past two years (since we've "cut the cable") and a lot of our purchases were from TV series seasons that we bought after we watched the first seasons on Netflix and wanted to catch up with the latest. (Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Dexter, etc.)

Yes, they would deserve a cut on most of our iTunes purchases, but for one thing, I don't know what that would amount to. Maybe not enough. (I believe the iTunes affiliate rate is 5%, so that would be $1-$1.50 per TV show season, 25 cents per movie rental)

And indeed it doesn't seem to make sense: let's say they added a "latest season is on iTunes" link. It would tell the user "we are not able to secure the latest content for you". And if they added exclusive rentals on top of the flat fee, it would be tempting to delay the switch from exclusive to regular catalog for how long as necessary. It would be going against everything Netflix has been about from the start: flat-fee for unlimited consumption.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, as I said, I can appreciate the problem you describe in your last few sentences: it is a conflict of interest, and it undermines their existing market. However, right now, they already can't get licensing deals for a lot of the newest content, so it really is kind of a crummy position for them. :(

As for the 5%: that's actually a lot of money to buffet their streaming service: a Netflix subscription is $8.00/mo, but they only make $3.50/user/Q[1], or $1.16/mo (so a 15% margin). If I buy a TV show season a month, or rent a few movies, that doubles the amount of money they make off me. (In fact, I probably do both.)

[1] [http://seekingalpha.com/article/912051-netflix-don-t-buy- int...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/912051-netflix-don-t-buy- into-a-40-rally)

However, while researching that, I discovered the reason why my plan is actually stupid: they make comparatively good money off of their DVD business, at $2.90/mo.

It is then probably the case, for all users (even "whales" like me) that if they can get me to use their DVD service (which they do heavily integrate into their website) that is better for them than if they can get me to use their DVD service it will do better than getting an iTunes affiliate revenue.

Oh, wait, ok, but now I'm confusing myself with my own "if nothing else": what I was actually originally thinking is that Netflix could _replace_ iTunes rentals, offering some content for free and some for pay. That is the business model that the-second-coming-of-Napster had: flat fee for most things, but per incident out of pocket for some items.

From what I understand (it probably isn't important enough for me to pull a reference on it, but I give talks on "the business models of Apple" and have done it before), Apple charges the same 30% processing fee for music downloads that they went with on their App Store, which probably leaves them with 10% after fees and costs, which then is in the competition range for the DVD service.

(I actually find the DVD model weird, as it seems like a short-term solution...either DRM is going to win or it is going to fail, but either way everything is going digital: in another 5-10 years, I find it difficult to believe--but am probably wrong anyway--that the notion of "borrowing a DVD" won't have been entirely replaced by "renting a download".)

Again, though: it is a nasty precedent to set that would lead to a very tempting conflict of interest, so they probably just need to "not go there". It isn't like the-second-coming-of-Napster did very well ;P.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have both Amazon Video (through Prime) and Netflix.

I use Netflix infinitely more because of my Apple TV; the streaming-to-TV ease of use is the simplest I've found, and cheap (since my and my housemates all split the already-small Netflix bill.)

If Amazon had a stronger solution to this use case, I'd be much more inclined to use it. But even if the content is great (and it is -- Amazon Video has a lot of stuff Netflix doesn't), the actual player and delivery leaves something to be desired.

<comment><USER13> There's the Roku, but that's not a solution from Amazon. It's half the price of Apple TV though.

<comment><USER14> I switched from an Apple TV to a Roku for Plex, but the Roku's usability is far worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Netflix's problem is that there are no switching barriers to keep viewers loyal to Netflix.

Even they admit that their vaunted queue is worth much less in the streaming world than it was in the DVD by mail world.

Their strength would be the content deals they have, and their ability to obtain future content. But that right now is notoriously bad. Most of the current or best movies of any star or franchise are not available - the older movies are, or the less well known movies. And I can't get this season of Breaking Bad or any TV show.

As far as I am concerned, they only have two things going for them, the better player, with closed captions and reasonable browsing and availability on most platforms.

And their lack of buffering, that is, their infrastructure.

Unless they can obtain content, I think these two last strengths mark them for being bought out by someone that needs infrastructure knowledge and a good player and otherwise has ways of keeping customers loyal and preventing them from switching away.

The flaw in my analysis is that it predicts Amazon purchased Netflix in the past 12 months. Since Amazon has not purchased Netflix, I know I must be missing something.

<comment><USER16> >Netflix's problem is that there are no switching barriers to keep viewers loyal to Netflix.

That's also their biggest strength. Apple's got all their vendor lock in, amazon is trying to build vendor lock in with the kindle fire line, google is trying to build a vendor lock in with google play. If you buy into that ecosystem, it's a good way to keep you. But if you don't want to buy into any specific manufacturer, netflix is great. I can't watch iTunes movies on my android phone, and i can't watch google play movies on my iPad and i can't watch either on my roku, but i can watch netflix on all of them.

<comment><USER17> But how much do you think the average consumer cares about that (or is even smart enough to think about it)? Sure, we all understand the ecosystems because we're developers and we follow that sort of thing, but I'm not sure that the average consumer would see it the same way. If anything, they might be swayed by the whole "Oh, that will work with my iTunes account!" factor.

<comment><USER18> Netflix's independence is potentially a big deal. In a rational world, the content producers would see Netflix's platform agnosticism as a big selling point. No producers want (or at least _should_ want) their hit TV series or movie to be viewable only on iOS devices or Android devices or Windows devices.

<comment><USER19> If the price is right, producers couldn't care less about platform lock. If Google, Apple, Amazon or anybody else is willing to pay the right number of dollars, they can throw the bits into /dev/null for all Hollywood cares.

<comment><USER18> I don't know about that. Nothing like a major motion picture or TV series has ever been platform-locked, has it? Video games, yes, but not traditional "mainstream" entertainment.

<comment><USER20> NFL is locked in. Should be interesting to see when they make the move to online. There is currently no way to watch NFL online in the US because networks pay a LOT of money for exclusive rights. With the amount of cash Apple has on hand, for example, we could see some huge shifts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The problem with VOD is that Hollywood holds all the cards (as the article points out). With DVD, Netflix had leverage because the movie studios sold DVDs. Fair use and first sale offered Netflix the leverage and cover to get content at reasonable prices. With VOD, Hollywood can negotiate rates to their liking. I'm sure a part of Hollywood wouldn't mind Netflix dying with the logic being that customers would buy more DVDs if that happened (I'm not saying that would be the outcome, but that seems to be the logic that parts of Hollywood might employ).

This is one of the reasons I was saddened by Netflix de-emphasizing DVDs by mail. That part of the business offered them leverage over streaming rates. "Look at it this way: you can offer us movie X for 30 cents per viewing or we can buy a DVD of it and rent it to 200 people for that $20 purchase." It provides a compelling scenario: $20 for 200 people seeing the film vs. $60 for 200 people seeing the film. However, as Netflix's customer base moves to all- VOD and Netflix itself indicates that DVD by mail is going to become a thing of the past, studios see a Netflix without an alternative to whatever rate they set. Netflix used to have an alternative rate: the price of the DVD.

I'm not exactly sure how we should deal with this situation. I don't think VOD services can realistically thrive unless they get similar footing to what DVD- rental businesses got. Specifically, that they can get a show on equal terms to their competitors (ie. Amazon, Netflix, and my hypothetical video startup can all license movie X for 30 cents per viewing or whatnot). In the meantime, exclusives, content that disappears due to renegotiated licenses, content that won't be licensed, etc. will be the status quo. These are bad ideas (it's 1 am and I'm tired), but maybe something like "you can rent by streaming X times a DVD that you've purchased" so that they could pay the DVD's price and that price would cover a number of streaming rentals or a law saying that companies must give substantially equal access and terms on their content.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is he really using market cap to determine success?

EDIT: I'm not really commenting on the rest of the article, but public perception (which is really what market cap is) has traditionally been a poor indicator of success. Even just recently, look at ZNGA, GRPN, AAPL ('97 or so). Amazon has 25x the market cap and operated on a 274M loss this quarter. Netflix only lost 8 million.

Of course, Amazon is interesting because- much like netflix- they are operating under the assumption that profitability will come in the long term. I find it quite interesting that investors trust Amazon (who is much older and proven) over Netflix.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Netflix focusses on movie/tv-series subscription model (streaming+dvds), and they are laser focussed on improving consumer experience in this area. On the other hand, Apple, Google, Amazon focus on other businesses (hardware, advertising, and e-commerce). That's why I think Netflix will survive, and that's why startups survive and thrive: Focus!

<comment><USER22> The problem is for avid tv-series watcher (I admit I am one) netflix is a very bad solution. The obvious problem is that they do not have the fresh stuff. I wouldn't mind some delay, but when it's a season worth of delay, it stops being useful. This, however, is not the worst part - I also watch some old ones. But even there - netflix has way less than full collection, some seasons are missing, some episodes are missing from otherwise complete season, etc. And there's no way for me to track which episodes I already watched, make a list of my favorites to re-watch, or do any other useful things with them. The should at least do something like next-episode.net, but they could probably do even better. But they don't seem to be focusing there, unfortunately...

<comment><USER23> This is where torrents come in handy. It's amazing how easy it is to grab a whole season of a show in 720p (if it's just aired) or 1080p (if the Blu-ray set is out). Yesterday I torrented season 3 of Downton Abbey - it won't even air (in the US) until January! I use Anigrate[0] to keep track of which shows I've watched.

0: <http://anigrate.glacicle.org/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The reason I got rid of my Netflix subscription is because I have lost the time for the imaginary quota of movies/tv-shows I wanted to see each month to make the monthly payment worthwhile. I have my Prime membership and sometimes I watch stuff on there, but it's always been about the free 2-day shipping, and that's why Amazon will have my business indefinitely (i.e. until I don't need to buy physical things) whereas Netflix lasts only as long as my availability/desire to watch passive entertainment does.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think the guys who will truly disrupt Hollywood will figure out how to produce & distribute content without the Hollywood machine. Youtube was one of the first ones to do this, and I believe there will be many more startups who will continue on this path; the key to beating Hollywood is by not playing their game.

Or in pg's words: <http://ycombinator.com/rfs9.html>

</comment><comment><USER26> So how long until one of the major tech players buys (or we hear rumors or talks of purchasing) a TV network or even a studio?

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe I'm weird, but it seems like netflix has got worse over time. It used to be magical, now it feels a bit clunkier and the selection might be getting bigger, but it's not getting any better.

Most of the time now I redbox anything new, hulu what's on current tv, and only worry about netflix for when I want to burn through an older show.

Maybe it was the price hike or the whole period of bad PR that ensued after that, or maybe it's that Amazon Prime keeps looking more appealing every day. Either way, Netflix feels like it lost whatever it was that made it magic in the first place.

<comment><USER28> They lost a good deal of their "premium" content when their cross licensing agreement with Stars expired. This included many of what most people would consider their mainstream movies.

That being said, at the current price it is still an incredible bargain compared to direct purchase of even a few of the shows on the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think there should be a rule against people knee deep in big, lumbering entrenched monolithic industries making light of the threats they face from smaller, more nimble competition that they don't understand. It's a pattern so frequently repeated that it's probably worth just getting a nice general rule in there against doing so.

But then again, people love to say I told you so, so there's that. .</comment>


President Trump might consider XRP to counter China's BTC dominance - <AUTHOR> https://www.chepicap.com/en/news/4447/president-trump-might-consider-xrp-to-counter-china-s-btc-dominance.html <comment><USER2> lol</comment>


Minimalism Will Not Make You Happier - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-understanding-project/minimalism-will-not-make-you-happier-627c83c788e8 <comment><USER2> More accurately, "Minimalism: happiness from reduced cognitive load, not just reduced possessions."

The author points out that it isn't the physical ramifications of less clutter (more room to move, etc.) that improved his quality of life, but that he felt he had more room to _think_ without so much stuff around.

I agree. Clutter isn't just about whether you have to side-step more ottomans, coffee tables, and exercise bikes. It's also about whether you're being bombarded with sensory information from your surroundings.

Whether it's a crowded home, a crowded coffee shop, a crowded social circle, or a crowded desktop, the deluge of in-your-face options and potential obligations makes focus much more difficult. Frontal cortical processing is responsible, after all, not just for organizing but also for executive decision-making, and its resources are limited. See, e.g., K. Vohs et al., _Making Choices Impairs Subsequent Self-Control: A Limited-Resource Account of Decision Making, Self-Regulation, and Active Initiative_ , 94 J. PERSONALITY AND SOC. PSYCHOL. 883 (2008); N. Meand et al., _Too Tired to Tell the Truth: Self-Control Resource Depletion and Dishonesty_ , 45 J. EXPERIMENTAL SOC. PSYCHOL. 594 (2009); W. Hofmann et al., _And Deplete Us Not into Temptation: Automatic Attitudes, Dietary Restraint, and Self-Regulatory Resources as Determinants of Eating Behavior_ , 43 J. EXPERIMENTAL SOC. PSYCHOL. 497 (2007)</comment>


Write for 7,500 Hours, Then Hit Post: Why I'm Betting on Medium - <AUTHOR> https://shift.newco.co/write-for-7-500-hours-then-hit-post-561c0c19be2c <comment><USER2> Many years ago I tried to publish a book via a blog and micro posts, basically novel via 200 words a day, 5 days a week.

I couldn't get an audience, so I kind of gave up on it.

Maybe the times are more right for something like that these days.

That said, my novel might not have been that good.</comment>


Tell HN: Google: "Keyword Tool will no longer be available" - <AUTHOR>

"[...] in the next few months. To get keyword ideas, try the new Keyword Planner, which makes keyword research even easier." https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer <comment><USER2> Not a big deal. You just get access to a better tool through your Adwords account.</comment>


Show HN: Communick. Privacy-respecting social media and messaging hosting - <AUTHOR> Communick has been one of my on-again/off-again side projects for almost 5 years now. The idea started when I was working at T-Labs (Innovation arm from T-Mobile) who wanted to go after the big software companies in the messaging space. As ambitious as their ideas were, it didn't take off because it was trying to do too many things to too many people.
The idea for Communick is simple: instead of trying to recreate everything from scratch, just take every best-in-class service in the messaging and social media space and make it as worry-free as possible for everyone to use.
At first, we are hosting:

   - <USER2>
   - <USER3>
   - <USER4>
 One of the things that we are doing differently as a way to break the chicken-and-egg problem is to offer group
 packages. You (the privacy freak) can buy a group package of 10 accounts and then invite friends. For those that value their privacy and understand TINSTAAFL, it's a small price (really, our introductory price is less than $0.15/user/month!)
Focus on privacy is so big, a lot of the late work was to make it easy to accept crypto. Ethereum and ERC20 tokens like Brave's BAT or DAI. Email addresses are not required for signing-up. I am hosting the servers in Germany, no user data stored in the US. I am also only supporting messaging services where end-to-end encryption is easy to be adopted by anyone. I also put together a discourse instance at https://support.communick.com to provide help and hopefully
 create more documentation and guides to help non-technical people to adopt these services.
It would be great if you could take a look, join and let me know your thoughts and feedback to make this better and more useful.
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable - [https://communick.com](https://communick.com)

Another note: I am putting this in a "soft-launch" mode. There are still a bunch of things, big and small, that need working on, but I'd rather put this in front of you to get some feedback than put it again in the backburner. I am making a "Soft Launch Special" price of $5/10 users/3 months to have access for all 3 services, including 14 days of free trial.

</comment><comment><USER5> Don't XMPP and Matrix somewhat overlap it functionality. What was the thought process behind implementing both?

<comment><AUTHOR> In short: I don't want/need to pick up winners. The operational costs of running one service or the other (or both) are pretty much the same, so I'd rather let the users figure out what suits them best.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Sub-$1000/mo passive income in 30 days? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a university student trying to pay off debt and save for a few specific goals.
My rent, groceries, and utilities are paid monthly out of my college fund, leaving me with roughly $500 to earn on my own each month to cover debt servicing, cell phone, car payment, and entertainment.
I do freelance work, but I'd like to reduce the amount of time I spend on it as I'll be taking 18 units next semester and I don't want to jeopardize my GPA (currently a 3.9!)
I'm a proficient programmer. Based on what I've read, that should be enough to generate a small amount of passive income given a setup time of right now to January 26th, when the semester starts.
What would you suggest? What can be set up with that kind of lead time to generate just $500-$1000/month?
Once I get some ideas, I will keep HN apprised of my progress. <comment><USER2> Check out <http://www.kreci.net/> for some ideas. He's posted on HN about his experiences quitting his job (in Poland, I think), and various ways to earn over $1000/mo online. He had success with iStockPhoto (still earning a few hundred per month), website flipping, and more recently Android app development (which has eclipsed all other money making efforts).

</comment><comment><USER3> When I hear passive income on HN, patio11's blog comes to mind - <http://www.kalzumeus.com/>

Just reading his blog should hopefully give you some ideas.

</comment><comment><USER4> Mobile apps -- huge audience and very limited scope of the apps. Take the next best idea, get a designer for a few hours for design and images, spend a week or two on development and put it into the Appstore. It's a lot of fun too! I further recommend releasing for both iPhone and Android -- once you have the idea, the algorithms and the design, it takes very little extra effort to reach the other platform.

For one of the first steps: register a domain, setup email and a wordpress with a nice theme, start blogging and have all your future apps be part of your 'business'. You can flexibly expand from there.

<comment><USER5> I'd skip iPhone and just focus on Android, mostly to save time. Browse around the iPhone app store though and find some corny apps like a fake fingerprint reader. "Steal" that idea and build an Android equivalent with mobile ads. After your first couple of apps, you could probably crank out a new one in part of a weekend.

I don't know if time spent blogging about and promoting your apps would pay off when instead you could be building more apps or possibly improving the existing ones that are getting good download numbers.

<comment><USER6> Over the longer term, time invested in writing about what you're doing can pay off with future contracting gigs or even full-time employment.

Even if the goal now is 'passive' income, at some point he's going to graduate and will have the time to spend on contracting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> look into building a web-app, cloud-based way of doing something you don't see already. Something as simple as a word count site app, or something as complex as a VLSM-CIDR calculator are good options. Think about what you would need to live completely on the internet with no local apps, in fact, try it! What's missing that you need. Build it.

<comment><USER7> Try making a very useful app for the chrome web store, It is building in market share and people will likely accept ads or a flattr donation supplement. Good luck! Passive income is the best! I, personally like renting, but, find what works for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Look into some of the Envato websites, CodeCanyon springs to mind as you say you're a proficient programmer. I actually reduce my overhead by using CodeCanyon snippets and GraphicRiver designs where possible and I know a lot of other developers that do that too. It allows me to sell affordable websites without sacrificing my time and money and you can benefit from that. Don't re- do the stuff already there, but think up some simple, but often-needed snippets to sell and you could be onto a small income. Probably not enough to allow for $500 a month, but it's a start. Mobile Apps probably make more if they become popular, but there's a lot more time involved and with Apple, a $99 up-front charge to become a member of their developer's community.

<comment><USER9> Also consider <http://www.freemarket.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd also like to learn this.</comment>


Wyden Introduces S. 420 to Legalize Cannabis - <AUTHOR> https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-introduces-s-420-to-legalize-cannabis <comment><USER2> The (now obviously intentional) repeated use of 420 as a bill number is perhaps a new and interesting phenomenon.

As an homage to counterculture in the current political climate, it is quite unusual, right?

<comment><USER3> Do bills need clickbaity names to get attention?

<comment><USER4> They may not need them but, more and more, "witty" acronyms are being used for bills. Apparently the wordsmiths of Capital Hill have oodles of time for Scrabble-like playtime: [https://noahveltman.com/acronyms/](https://noahveltman.com/acronyms/)

And my favorite, the COVFEFE ACT... just because... it's funny: [https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-acronyms-titles- trump-c...](https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-acronyms-titles-trump- congress-covfefe-act-2017-6)

<comment><USER5> I don't think I've hear it anywhere else but a guy at work calluses these kind of things "retronyms" for retroactive acronyms. Maybe more common in enterprise tech marketing than law.

<comment><USER6> It's a backronym. retronym is a different word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Marijuana taxes are obscene and immoral. I pay 30-40% on a plant that has medicinal properties in Colorado. The whole "sin" tax on marijuana makes no sense. God forbid this gets set at a Federal level.

<comment> ur-whale They are indeed immoral.

They are also deeply irrational.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps an unpopular opinion, while being pro legalization, they really need to ratchet down on how it happens and where it's allowed. In Denver and other CO areas, it seems there are weed shops on every corner, and it reeks like tobacco, though less offensively.

My hope is in 10 years or so the hype has died down...

</comment><comment><USER9> Can we just do this already? Nobody these days has a genuine argument as to why cannabis should still be illegal to grow and posses.

Honestly if there's one thing that Trump could do to win a teeny bit of respect from liberals it would be to actually legalize cannabis, either by de- scheduling or signing legislation given to him by congress.

<comment><USER10> There are some studies suggesting that legalisation may have increased the number of auto accidents by 3-6%[0], which doesn't sound like a lot but is equal to quite a few deaths. I don't know if this argument is correct, but it at least seems genuine to me.

[0] e.g. [https://www.iihs.org/frontend/iihs/documents/masterfiledocs....](https://www.iihs.org/frontend/iihs/documents/masterfiledocs.ashx?id=2173)

<comment><USER11> That study also cited a previous study that found no statistically significant increase.

And since this increase was so small, I'd be very sceptical until more research is done, particularly because of the amount of variables that need to be controlled for when comparing crash rates between states. We're only talking about 3 states and a few years here.

Not to mention changes caused by selective legalization that wouldn't be the case if it was legal everywhere (higher risk drivers moving to legal states, because of legalization for instance).

Also the study was police reported crashes not fatal crashes. If legal pot causes a 6% increase in fatal crashes that's worth serious consideration, if it's a 6% increase in fender benders, not so much.

<comment><USER10> I'm all for skepticism, and agree that it needs to be applied just as much to continuing to criminalize cannabis. I worry sometimes that legalization is seen as a completely solved argument with no grey areas, when that's not the case.

<comment><USER11> Everything is a trade off. If we made swimming pools illegal we'd prevent a fair number of drowning deaths.

But the burden of proof should be on the side that wants to make something illegal. We can talk about regulating use, limiting use through taxation and education etc..., but I think you need definitive evidence of extreme harm that can't be mitigated in any other way before you start putting people in jail for growing a plant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So the companion bill to HR 420 introduced last month, but in the Republican controlled Senate? Not really much newsworthy here.

<comment><USER13> This isn't a partisan issue. Diane Feinstein, for example opposed California's legalization in 2016 and has opposed it at the federal level. Rand Paul supports legalization (or at least leaving the decision to the states. Democrats owned the legislative and executive branches a few years back and yet didn't legalize. The point is that politicians in both parties have opposed and supported legalization. This, however, is an issue that could be bipartisan similar to Trump's prison reform bill. As a conservative myself, legalization is at the very heart of a philosophy of limited government; for liberals, this issue is a chance to actually be liberal. Unfortunately true conservatism and actual liberalism have lost all meaning. Now it's just tribes trying to "win."

<comment><USER11> You're correct that there are Republicans who support legalization, and there are Democrats who are against it.

But if you look at the demographics of who supports legalization, it's clear which party will eventually pass legislation to legalize. Republicans are increasingly dependant on their aging, white base, and that's the exact demographic that still supports prohibition.

The Republican party as a whole has no reason to support legalization until they decide to try to broaden their appeal, which exactly what they planned on doing after their defeat in 2012. But the rise of Trump changed that. Look at who Trump appointed as his first Attorney General--a man who pined for the Reagan era war on drugs--a man who urged prosecutors to use the death penalty to fight drug trafficking.

If they lose in 2020 and decide to rebrand, who knows, but as of right now there is no chance of a Republican Senate passing legalisation, and I think a small but non-zero chance that a Democratic Senate would.

<comment><USER14> I think you may be underestimating how much value conservatives place on improving the economy. Legalizing the marijuana market on the federal level will create a gold rush in the financial markets. New tax sources, new jobs, stacks of hidden money being deposited in banking institutions, marijuana securities, licensing fees -- all brought in by a relatively safe drug. I wouldn't be surprised if the bill gets passed.

<comment><USER15> How many conservative states have legalized cannabis?

I find pragmatism rare in politics.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Harvard's CS50 Switches from C and PHP to C and Python [video] - <AUTHOR> https://video.cs50.net/2016/fall/lectures/8 <comment><USER2> That's why CS50 is the best introduction to computer science subject ever. The course outlines change every semester according to needs. Which is way better than my university which never update their course structure.</comment>


.note.GNU-stack (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://en.chys.info/2010/12/note-gnu-stack/ <comment><USER2> Couldn't they have just used a bit in the header to indicate this, instead of requiring an entire section description (despite it being empty)? I believe there are some unused bits in ELF headers.

I do RE so I've inspected many binaries, and my impression is that the amount of "GNU promotion", for lack of a better word, in ELFs seems much higher than what Windows' toolchains will do for PEs. "GNU-stack" is entirely non- descriptive; something like "NXstack" would make more sense to me. There are also lots of sections (even in a linked, executable binary), lots of text auxillary information that isn't used (but can offer thumbprinting/forensic opportunities --- or risks, depending on your perspective), and overall _why!?_ design decisions like this one. Maybe it's just my bias because I started with PE, but I'm of the opinion that it's more straightforward than ELF --- especially some features like dynamic linking.

<comment><USER3> "GNU" is a vendor prefix, not advertising. If you look at Solaris binaries, you'll see a lot of "SUNW". (And you'll occasionally see "SUNW" on GNU binaries for things that they adopted from Sun.)

The ELF standard (which GNU does not control, as 'sveiss said) says this is what a note section is for:

 _" Sometimes a vendor or system builder needs to mark an object file with special information that other programs will check for conformance, compatibility, etc. Sections of type SHT_NOTE and program header elements of type PT_NOTE can be used for this purpose. [...] There is no formal mechanism for avoiding name conflicts. By convention, vendors use their own name, such as 'XYZ Computer Company,' as the identifier."_

(If you want to argue that they should have named it ".note.GNU-noexecstack", I wouldn't disagree.)

<comment><USER4> > (If you want to argue that they should have named it ".note.GNU- > noexecstack", I wouldn't disagree.)

The presence of that alone won't make the stack noexec, the status of the stack is determined by whether or not the `executable` flag is set on that section. So calling it the `stack` makes sense, since it in-effect just represents the stack itself, which isn't normally mentioned in the ELF binary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another note about .note.GNU-stack, from Ian Lance Tayler: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/518](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/518)

He has a 20-part series on linkers that may also be of interest, though I suppose since they were written some of the details may have changed:

Part 1: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/38](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/38) ; Part 2: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/39](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/39) ; Part 3: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/40](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/40) ; Part 4: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/41](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/41) ; Part 5: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/42](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/42) ; Part 6: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/43](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/43) ; Part 7: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/44](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/44) ; Part 8: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/45](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/45) ; Part 9: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/46](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/46) ; Part 10: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/47](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/47) ; Part 11: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/48](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/48) ; Part 12: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/49](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/49) ; Part 13: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/50](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/50) ; Part 14: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/51](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/51) ; Part 15: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/52](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/52) ; Part 16: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/53](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/53) ; Part 17: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/54](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/54) ; Part 18: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/55](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/55) ; Part 19: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/56](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/56) ; Part 20: [http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/57](http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/57)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's 503 for me, so here's an archived copy: [https://archive.is/VchZA](https://archive.is/VchZA)</comment>


Are there any games where you get crypto coins? - <AUTHOR> That would be great, playing and getting some coins which I can use ingame or exchange to bitcoin. <comment><USER2> I wonder if that would simply attract the wrong kind of attention / users?

Games already have dedicated folks looking simply for game related exploits, imagine somethhing like crypto being involved.

Gamers / gaming culture can be hard enough to manage...

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a gas station nearby me that's selling lottery tickets, that's another way to get free money just by playing a game!</comment>


New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/07/22/new_yorker_online_free_for_three_months_what_should_you_read.html <comment><USER2> This is good news for those who appreciate the New Yorker.

Not everyone thinks that a world full of advertising and clickbait "information" is a desirable thing. Think of The Atlantic -- at one time, it was on par with The New Yorker for quality content. Now, it contains one rare pearl of compelling and thought-provoking writing (e.g., Ta Nahesi Coates's "A Case For Reparations") for every thousand transitory blips clamoring to acquire page-views.

There is such a thing as information which cannot easily be supported by the info-economy of frictionless social media sharing. I find it disheartening that this is an unobvious idea to some who preach freedom of information.

<comment><USER3> _Think of The Atlantic -- at one time, it was on par with The New Yorker for quality content. Now, it contains one rare pearl of compelling and thought- provoking writing (e.g., Ta Nahesi Coates 's "A Case For Reparations") for every thousand transitory blips clamoring to acquire page-views._

The paper magazine contains more of the though-provoking articles, hence why I subscribe and skip reading the online version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's pretty sad that so many people balk at paying very modest amounts of money for high-quality material. It's as though everything that's available on the web should be free, just because it's on the web.

It's the same with people moaning about paying a couple of dollars for an app or even installing pirated versions rather than paying. There's something seriously wrong here.

The New Yorker costs $50/year - about the same as a single evening in a bar with a friend. Or a dozen coffees.

<comment><USER5> We've had this thing to deliver content for 20 years (the web) but in the same 20 years no one has invented a simple way to pay for the content.

I'll balk at 50 dollars a year the same way I'll balk at 3500 dollars worth of gourmet coffees paid on January 1st. Just let me spend small amounts so I don't become aware of my own habits.

<comment><USER6> > no one has invented a simple way to pay for the content.

Single click amazon payments, google wallet? Or gumroad? Or stripe?

How about monthly things like patreon? Flattr? Or things like bitcointip on reddit?

How much simpler do you want things?

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

[https://flattr.com/](https://flattr.com/)

[https://gumroad.com/](https://gumroad.com/)

[https://stripe.com/gb](https://stripe.com/gb)

<comment><USER7> That's just it. You listed 7 different services that provide various ways of streamlining payment. Should I sign up for all seven? Or can I rely on all content providers supporting the one I choose?

Just like Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Amex* are accepted everywhere, this problem won't be solved until an underlying universal payment network is established and ubiquitous.

So... BitCoin?

* I know I know, but it's 80%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> New Yorker and NYT are two of the only old school media companies whose content I would still pay for. They have some of the best journalism around (NYT for straight news, New Yorker for editorial, long-form, & culture pieces). I think New Yorker's pay wall will probably be a success. I was already prepared to pay for a subscription when the time came.

<comment><USER9> On the other side, I rarely read the New Yorker. I enjoy the occasional article that pops up here, but I wouldn't pay to read any of them. They'll lose me as a reader by going behind a paywall.

<comment><USER8> The pay wall isn't meant to attract people who "rarely read" the New Yorker. Those are the consumers they are OK with losing because they didn't make up an appreciable demographic for their business model anyway.

<comment><USER9> Readers are readers. They now have zero chance of converting me into a paying subscriber, since I can't read their articles. With a more flexible paywall, I can be encouraged to subscribe every time I'm linked to an article.

<comment><USER10> It's a metered paywall [1]. You'll still be able to read a few articles a month. IMHO, that's fairly flexible.

[1]: [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/28/note- readers](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/28/note-readers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recommend reading the following 2 stories:

Cheap Words: Amazon is good for customers. But is it good for books? By George Packer | February 17, 2014 Issue

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/cheap- words?cur...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/cheap- words?currentPage=all)

Change the World: Silicon Valley transfers its slogans — and its money — to the realm of politics. By George Packer | May 27, 2013 Issue

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/change-the- worl...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/change-the-world)

This second story was discussed last year in context of Rebecca Solnit's article on a similar issue. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5189580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5189580)

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems the pendulum is swinging back in the direction of paying for quality. The explosion of the internet and the effect it had on media destroyed so many of the traditional outlets that spent money on quality content.

For instance, my local paper has turned from being reliable in reporting on local issues and having seasoned reporters, to being not much more than an entertainment company with young, inexperienced reporters who don't spend more than 10 minutes writing articles.

Now we see outlets like NYT, New Yorker, and others, even bloggers (such as Andrew Sullivan), going to a paywall model and producing quality content that's worth paying for. Hopefully this is a trend more people realize that you get what you pay for.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'll add my personal favorite from the last few years: "A Murder Foretold" \- [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/04/a-murder- foreto...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/04/a-murder- foretold?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER14> Also: [http://www.theawl.com/2014/07/all-the-new-yorker-story- round...](http://www.theawl.com/2014/07/all-the-new-yorker-story-roundups-you- should-read-while-the-stories-are-still-unlocked-as-well-as-all-the-new- yorker-stories-they-link-to)

</comment><comment><USER15> I just spent a few hours trawling through these and recommend [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/30/swingers-2?curr...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/30/swingers-2?currentPage=all) (bonobo research), [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/how-to-be- good](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/how-to-be-good) (a philosopher's defense of moralism) and [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/master-of- play?...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/master-of- play?currentPage=all) (interview with miyamoto of nintendo).

</comment><comment><USER16> Also, anything form Seymour Hersh. Most of his stuff is timely in that there's nothing you don't know about already, but this is the guy who broke the My Lai Massacre and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. He has access to national defense people that no other report on earth can get.

I would all throw in The Agent about how the CIA torpedoed the FBI investigation in Al Qaeda prior to 9/11 as required reading [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the- agent?curre...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the- agent?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER17> Well, I hope that authors that currently publish in The New Yorker such as Dr. Atul Gawande, Dr. Jerome Groopman, and Malcolm Gladwell switch to a different publication such as Slate so that everyone can read their well written, very important articles about healthcare and other fields.

<comment><USER18> FWIW, it's just going to be a metered paywall, similar to the NY Times (ie "You have read 1 of your 10 free articles this week."). I for one hope that people decide their well written, very important articles are worth paying a little bit of money to support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I disagree with the very premise; why go out of your way to encourage bad behaviour? I stand for freedom of information and will avoid New Yorker from this point forward.

<comment><USER20> How would you suggest the New Yorker obtain money to finance the creation of new high quality content?</comment></comment>


Can "Free Speech" Be "Moderated"? Yes. (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/can-free-speech-be-moderated-yes-15700db2b7ab#.52r9v0b6n <comment><USER2> There should be no such thing as moderated free speech. Because then it is just controlled speech.</comment>


Uber sinking under the weight of its overvaluation - <AUTHOR> https://www.cartrawler.com/ct/uber-boat-secretly-sinking-weight-overvaluation/?utm_source=eamonnol&utm_medium=eamonnol&utm_campaign=uber-article <comment><USER2> I don't really see how its winner take all?

1\. alot of people mostly travel locally.

2\. AI will only provide so much value before the cost levels off(for driving).

3\. as for ETA I'm pretty sure it only goes down with a cost^2</comment>


Can we improve the job prospects of humanities PhDs? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/21/what-s-the-use-of-a-phd.html <comment><USER2> > Can we improve the job prospects of humanities PhDs?

But people who acquire humanities degrees are obviously not interested in employment. If they were, they would choose a more marketable degree.

So here's how to improve the job prospects for humanities PhDs: get them to go back to school, this time with the intention to acquire marketable skills.

It's disingenuous to spend years arguing about whether Shakespeare actually wrote the plays attributed to him, then hit the pavement and complain that no one will hire you.</comment>


Instant Django Application Development Starter - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Application-Development-Starter-ebook/dp/B00BKXQT7O/?tag=cn-001-20

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't reviewed it yet, but I believe more Django books is a good thing. In fact, I think the more programming books there are the better.</comment>


Datanet a New CRDT Database That Let's You Do Bad Bad Things to Distributed Data - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/10/17/datanet-a-new-crdt-database-that-lets-you-do-bad-bad-things.html <comment><USER2> The article doesn't address how to map business logic onto commutative operations, that is the hardest part of adapting CRDTs.

Any guidance on how that should be done?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a very good question but its also a leading question :)

Datanet provides a level of abstraction such that business logic does not need to be framed in commutative operations rather you just do normal data manipulation on JSON objects and under the covers there is a bunch of commutative operation magic.

CRDTs data guarantee is called strong eventual consistency (SEC), so they are not fit for certain use cases (e.g. take $10 out of accountA and atomically put it in accountB), but the vast majority (~70%) of use cases can be accomplished w/ SEC guarantees (google Peter Bailis' work).

If you can explain a specific business case I can show you how to determine if it is OK to do in SEC</comment></comment>


Could Chicken Embryos Produce Dinosaurs? - <AUTHOR> http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/25/chicken-dinosaur.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "Welcome to Jurassic Farm!"

</comment><comment> onreact-com This story has been already covered last week:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=788073>

It's still a waste of time.</comment>


Show HN: Astronaut experience map for Blue Origin's spaceflight program - <AUTHOR> http://andrealyip.com/experience-design/mapping-the-new-shepard-astronaut-experience.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hi -- Sharing an Astronaut experience map I created using available data about Blue Origin's spaceflight program.

I welcome your feedback. The astronaut experience is a area that doesn't get as much attention in the industry (tech is the priority right now). I'd also love to collaborate with space companies out there who are interested in building out human experiences in outer space, so if you know folks who are interested, please say hi. Thanks :)</comment>


Youtube on-line video editor - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/edit-video-online-with-youtube-video.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/MKuf+(Official+Google+Blog)

<comment><USER2> Youtube is awesome in it's UX simplicity, the ui just keeps getting simpler. And this editor looks like another great example of that. Looks great.</comment>


Detecting the cadence of your client's data - <AUTHOR> http://atlantageek.com/2014/10/09/detecting-cadence/

<comment><USER2> It seems like this would be a great case for doing a machine learning approach. Something good at anomaly detection like single class support vector machines, perhaps.

I wonder how well that would translate for a client services person, though. "Why do we think this client is off?" "Because black box."</comment>


Obama: Maybe it's time for mandatory voting - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voting/index.html

<comment><USER2> "And we'll use drone strikes to punish the evaders."

</comment><comment><USER3> That's horrible, but not suprising coming from Obama. He thinks if he can force the people to vote, they'll vote Democrat. And who cares if "other countries do it". We're not other countries.</comment>


GNU Guile 2.0.9 released - <AUTHOR> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2013-04/msg00037.html

<comment><USER2>
        Note: 2.0.8 was a brown paper bag release that was never announced, but
        some mirrors may have picked it up.  Please do not use it.

I'm a native speaker of English, but I don't understand the idiom of "brown paper bag release". A search shows that it's quite widely attested, however.

What does it mean (and what's its origin)?

<comment><USER3> "A bug in a public software release that is so embarrassing that the author notionally wears a brown paper bag over his head for a while so he won't be recognized on the net. Entered popular usage after the early-1999 release of the first Linux 2.2, which had one. The phrase was used in Linus Torvalds's apology posting."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know which parts of R6RS have been implemented so far? The release notes only says "a large subset".

<comment><USER5> [http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/R6RS- Inco...](http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/R6RS- Incompatibilities.html)

racket is the goto if you need r6rs compat though

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For me the best feature of the 2.0.9 release is that the documentation builds again! I tried compiling 2.0.7 and got some weird errors from texinfo. I couldn't figure out how to fix them quickly so I just installed without documentation. But 2.0.9 builds fine, including documentation, on my system.

</comment><comment><USER7> a nicer way to run SICP examples than mit-scheme?

<comment><USER8> Here's a handy article about Scheme implementations written by the Guile co- maintainer. Look for the heading "The Scheme for SICP".

[http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/01/07/an-opinionated- guide...](http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/01/07/an-opinionated-guide-to- scheme-implementations)

tl;dr - he recommends the SICP mode for Racket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anybody have comments on Guile vs. V8 for embedding purposes? Performance? API quality?

<comment><USER10> One of my favorite simulators, Meep (<http://ab- initio.mit.edu/wiki/index.php/Meep>) uses Guile as a control interface. From my experience using Guile presents an unnecessary obstacle to even the most brightest programmers. I frequently see bash scripts writing HERE scheme files because _for_ loops are too difficult in scheme.

<comment><USER11> > I frequently see bash scripts writing HERE scheme files because for loops > are too difficult in scheme.

Why? Loops in general are quite easy to do in Scheme, specially the "for-each" variety.

"The most brightest programmers", if bothered by the lack of a C-like for construct, would be able to fix that, for them and for others, in 5 minutes with a macro.

Scheme is easy and incredibly powerful. Its only issue is that knowledge in other languages does not necessarily translate directly to it. In other words, you have to take some time to learn, which is not a good thing nowadays with the instant gratification culture.

<comment><USER10> Scheme certainly isn't hard, but given a choice between working on their codes or using a dirty hack to get on with their lives. Everybody I know choose to get on with their lives. A python interface would have been better.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Tale of CenturyLink Backdoors, PCI Compliance, and Pain - <AUTHOR> http://thenubbyadmin.com/2014/04/28/a-tale-of-centurylink-backdoors-pci-compliance-and-pain-lots-of-pain/

<comment><USER2> From initial inspection of the GPL firmware download, it looks like port 4567 is controlled by the /bin/tr69c daemon. I also found references from tr69c to a "data_center" program. Neither the data_center or tr69c binaries were in my reference firmware source.

Research suggests tr69c is hosting the TR-069 protocol: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069)

Also: OpenSSL 0.9.7f 22 March 2005

</comment><comment><USER3> This is even better than my supermicro 1u systems which turned out to be running a non-disableable-in-bios unpasworded remote management interface which provided console access exposed to the network that I only found by scanning the subnet. "Intel inside" indeed.

<comment><USER4> In Fujitsu servers there is a remote console but that requires a licence to function. Of course a hacker can acquire (even pay?) for that license and get console access. This leads to leaving the management network unplugged and losing remote reboots and other management features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another way to achieve PCI compliance is to simply outsource all activities having to do with credit cards to a PCI compliant vendor and let them deal with that pain. I've seen sites that let you pay this way and it works pretty well - as well as a payment workflow that involves sending your customer to a 3rd party site and hoping they make it back can work anyway.

The whole thing with the modem is scary though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. Centurlink could have easily blocked acccess from outside their own internal network to that IP and port but instead chose to allow the whole internet to have the possibility to play 20 questions with the web admin interface.

Maybe someone even got lucky. What about all the other customers of that ISP with that particular modem, are those still open?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not convinced it would have to be secret updates. As the service that scanned your ports learned new exploits, it reported them. Scanners sometimes use heuristics to guess.

<comment><USER2> As far as I know, it's common practice for DSL and Cable providers to provide over-the-air firmware and configuration updates to your modem. Whether or not they own it.

<comment><USER8> One of the reasons I always use a third-party modem not supplied by them (I like Drayteks for the money they are powerful).

You have to trust that thing with the keys to the kingdom.</comment></comment></comment>


Using Unix as an IDE - <AUTHOR> https://sanctum.geek.nz/arabesque/series/unix-as-ide/ <comment><USER2> Naming "not using an IDE" like this is an interesting idea for folks coming from systems like MS Windows. I'm a "Unix as IDE" guy for +10yrs, but noticed for some large projects that an IDE actually can make a big difference. I used KDevelop and Eclipse solely for

1\. Code navigation. 2\. Showing code/type documentation on mouse over. 3\. Having 1+2 combined with a gdb frontend.

Unfortunately, these are "in-editor" features and OS utilities cannot replace them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unix targeted programmer productivity from the beginning. The programmer's workbench, PWB Unix, was introduced in 1977. The tools that made up PWB were incorporated into Unix and, later, Linux.</comment>


One more reason financial companies like Chase are ripe for attack - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/adamn/95e472dc14be709fd11f

<comment><USER2> wow,, what bad code...and so many calls to external sources even if https presents huge exposure...

</comment><comment><USER3> That hurt to read.</comment>


Carrd- "Simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything" - <AUTHOR> https://carrd.co/ <comment><USER2> Read the T&C (not that they're evil: far from it. They are very clear what you're doing using the site, which is a godsend).

If it's possible to export the map to your own housing it could be made clearer.

Nice clean design. The GUI builder is well done.</comment>


On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/style/17facebook.html?ex=1355547600&en=8ea0f0038da97112&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> "But some scholars point out that Facebook is not representative of the ethnicity, educational background or income of the population at large, and its membership is self-selecting, so there are limits to research using the site."

They're all overlooking the elephant in the living room: that on-line interaction is NOT the same as genuine human interaction. How much will that simple co-factor skew the results of their research?

<comment><USER3> No it isn't exactly the same, in fact, it's better. It overcomes problems of geography and time, allowing users to have multiple forms of communication. I don't think any researcher thinks that it is an analysis on physical methods of social relationship, but I think they do realize it is a way to understand how fundamental human interactions occur.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Time tracker that measures productivity KPI's and cut out distractions - <AUTHOR> http://duefocus.com/ <comment><USER2> This gives off vibes of toggl x trello but I like it! Btw you can use drift instead of telecom if you want to spend less on chat support!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Have you tried the app?</comment></comment>


Transparent gel-based audio speaker - <AUTHOR> https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2013/08/transparent-artificial-muscle-plays-grieg-to-prove-point/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=harvard-youtube

<comment><USER2> A few ideas:

\- Exhibition window with the upper part of the window being a speaker.

\- Surface on the iPhone that isn't touch sensitive could be a speaker glass.

\- Car windows becomes huge speaker.

I love inventions :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Beyond the question of the audio speaker, we're talking about the ability to conduct ions and that itself has a lot of applications for conductivity. In particular, it means that you could create interesting safety devices and finally have really interesting wearable technology. Honestly, nobody wants wires, but people are okay wearing gels and spandex for their devices.

</comment><comment><USER4> Noting the deformations at certain frequencies, could an adjustable lens be made out of this material?

</comment><comment><USER5> That was pretty impressive. I can't even begin to imagine the applications.

<comment><USER6> I feel like sandwiching some phosphorus into that and hitting it with some high voltage AC current, just for kicks. The electroluminiscence should make for an interesting light display.

<comment><USER7> Speakers that visualize your music as it plays. Play the 1812 overture and it actually goes up in smoke.</comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Atom - <AUTHOR> http://blog.atom.io/2014/02/26/introducing-atom.html

<comment><USER3> >Sublime and TextMate offer convenience but only limited extensibility.

Sublime Text has a pretty decent API. I wonder in what aspects Atom's extensibility is going to be different/better.

I also think in the long term good code /reading/ features are as important if not more important than code writing features. That's why I stuck with Sublime Text, its project navigation features are fast and convenient even on very large projects that use multiple programming languages (I use it on mozilla- central and llvm).

Anyway, what a tease, I was expecting a download button :)

<comment><USER4> > Sublime Text has a pretty decent API. I wonder in what aspects Atom's > extensibility is going to be different/better.

It clearly is. It has Node.js support.

(/s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few things bother me:

1\. The documentation clearly mentions only cmd-key based shortcuts, implying Mac-only support.

2\. They say they will be sending out invites, and that they've released a bunch of libraries as open source. This implies that the editor-as-a-whole will probably not be open source.

</comment><comment><USER6> The current docs don't make it clear why I might choose Atom over Sublime _for coding_ , but it looks like an interesting platform for building all sorts of rich text editors with UIs targeted toward different kinds of writing - <USER2> it's as extensible as they claim, I can imagine an extension that turns it into iAWriter, another extension that turns it into a GTD task manager, another to turn it into a native blogging client app... building from there, more complex word processing might be possible.

If this just stays inside the coding community, it will likely be competitive but not universal, but if it can be built to target non-coders, it could set a new standard.

<comment><USER7> There is an editor that already does what you state that works on every main stream platform, has a great extension language, has a huge library of already existing extensions and is completely open source.

GNU Emacs. And if you don't like that Vim is also pretty darn awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Excited to see where this goes. It seems like Sublime Text is already pretty extensible, so I assume they have some big ideas if they make that claim.

Aesthetic sidebar: I love the Invader-Zim-style illustrations on the page. If any GitHub designers read this, the Atom wordmark doesn't feel like part of the same family. I would love to see it be funky-alien-ified. Also, it would be sweet to make the sand grounds all have a slightly diagonal bottom edges to match.</comment>


Tell HN: CNN Lite no longer functional - <AUTHOR> I've been a long-time user of CNN Lite (lite.cnn.com) since first learning of it here. It seems to have been deprecated, showing just a single message to update your app. Sad times. <comment><USER2> Strange. I was reading it literally a couple hours ago.

It has gone down for extended periods in the past, most likely when the unpaid intern running it had exams or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> I read it yesterday, and I've seen it down in the past. But when it was down before, there were no articles listed at all, so this seems different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, at least there's [https://text.npr.org/](https://text.npr.org/) ... for now.

<comment><USER4> As a reader of npr.org in Europe, I'm prompted by [https://choice.npr.org](https://choice.npr.org) to either accept cookies or visit the text site. I wonder if [https://text.npr.org](https://text.npr.org) is also tracking-cookie free.

<comment><USER3> A cursory inspection of the html shows nothing in the header and nothing blocked on the usual uBlock Origin / Firefox tracking protection dashboards.

Edit - the header in its entirety:

        <head>
          <title>Text-Only NPR.org</title>
          <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
          <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
        </head>

<comment><USER4> Thanks for checking. I'm on mobile safari and I don't think there are any dev tools or show source.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, a long, long time ago I made a View Source app for iOS for specifically this purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if it got a bunch of traffic yesterday from being mentioned in a HN post, and they decided it wasn't worth it.

Mentioned in here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21798623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21798623)

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be quite unfortunate.

<comment><USER5> Searching HN for lite.cnn.com actually produces pretty frequent results

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone wanting text only news, here's a gopher service: [https://txtn.ws](https://txtn.ws). With a http proxy it's almost as usable as via gopher.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a fan of [http://legiblenews.com](http://legiblenews.com)

I think it uses Wikipedia as its source.

</comment><comment><USER8> Well that's unfortunate. I've used these lite interfaces when I was on bandwidth-restricted networks, including satellite internet connections. I hope they bring it back. The main CNN website is an awful pile of junk and I avoid it whenever possible.

</comment><comment><USER9> Comes and goes. Will have content. Then blank. No add revenue. A work of love. Some awfull spelling and copy grammer in some articles though. But fortunately no blaring intrusive video.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've unfortunately had to stop reading CNN due to their website.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was in the same boat until I found the lite site. But I guess less news is fine for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> FYI, another name for lite.cnn.com is m.cnn.com

<comment><USER12> > FYI, another name for lite.cnn.com is m.cnn.com

That makes the "Please update to the latest version of the CNN app" message make more sense: they've probably saw lite.cnn.com as a service for phones, and decided to discontinue it in favor of their app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like its back up!

<comment><USER14> Yeah, working for me too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I prefer to some clean news aggregators, such as

[https://alltop.com/](https://alltop.com/)

[https://www.zaqs.org/](https://www.zaqs.org/)

</comment><comment><USER16> There's also [https://mobile.reuters.com](https://mobile.reuters.com) not as barebones, but also clean

</comment><comment><USER17> It was not like this yesterday (Dec 15).

</comment><comment><USER18> Was literally reading it yesterday as well

</comment><comment><USER19> Sad times for CNN began 3 yrs ago when they added strong bias to otherwise objective and very professional coverage of natiowide and worldwide events.

I grew up with CNN being my goto window to the world. Now it feels to become more like angry, old neighbor

<comment><USER20> Criticism of CNN going to biased reporting began a decade or so ago when they started falling way behind in market share compared to Fox News and MSNBC.

Unfortunately being objective doesn't give a rapid fan base.

Not sure if there was a delay before it bled over to their website, I'm only aware of comments about the cable station.

It is unfortunate that unbiased boring news just doesn't sell.

The best college class I ever took (most useful?) was a logic class where we went through political speeches and disassembled them into logical statements. We learned how to strip away bias to see the underlying arguments.

My favorite test question in that class was a political speech that, when reduced down to logical statements literally equated to null. The speech went around in so many circles that, quite literally, everything said in it was unsaid at some later point in the speech and absolutely nothing was promised by the end.

I've been rather cynical of politicians ever since. Also I ended up being super sensitive to loaded phrases and propaganda. Once you've been trained in spotting it, it becomes obvious how prevalent purposeful bias is in our media.

<comment><USER21> I basically can't stomach watching/reading any "news" media any longer. Fox News needs no introduction, CNN follows closely behind. I'm so sickened by all the bias (one way or the other) that I feel like it's all tabloid nonsense and that it isn't worth my time.

<comment><USER22> [https://www.businessinsider.com/most-and-least-biased- news-o...](https://www.businessinsider.com/most-and-least-biased-news-outlets- in-america-2018-6)

A year and a half old, which is a lifetime in Trumpworld, but still relevant. The top (composite) infographic paints a pretty good picture of which outlets are most and least trustworthy, or at least viewed that way.

Interesting when you look at the partisan breakdown in the lower graphics. The Democrats adhere fairly closely to the consensus view, aside from assigning some additional weight to outlets like Washington Post and CNN. But the Republicans appear completely divorced from the middle, placing Fox News and WSJ on a pedestal and distrusting all else, including such relatively unbiased sources as PBS, AP, and NPR.

<comment><USER21> There's also [https://www.allsides.com](https://www.allsides.com) but I've become so disgusted with all the politicians/politics that I don't even bother with it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sophisticated Gmail Hack - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/g9pwa/sophisticated_gmail_hack/

<comment><USER2> Poor choice of title. Someone's Gmail account got hacked and he has no idea how - nothing to suggest Gmail is at fault.

Edit: From the OP on the Reddit thread:

\</comment><comment>

This account password was shared with a few other accounts (Netflix) I usually access via http or IMAP (mobile devices) I access the account via multiple sources usually: * 3 Work computers that I am the primary user for (they are all secured by a separate work log-in) * iPhone 3Gs * iPad1 * iPhone 3Gs * Laptop & desktop at home that only I use

Chrome is my primary browser on all computers I use and it maintains my password through an account sync.

I don't think I've typed my password into any other page - i'm usually automatically logged in via Chrome's autofill.

\</comment><comment>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I agree, but it is what the post at reddit.com is titled.</comment></comment>


12 Best Tools for Playing Around with Color (UI) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/muzli-design-inspiration/12-best-tools-for-playing-around-with-color-1cdbed08e362#.pc19nh5fo <comment><USER2> I would also add [http://paletton.com](http://paletton.com) which I found very easy and pleasing to work with as a non-designer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, that's what was missed in this list. Actually used Paletton earlier today. It's probably one of the best "palette" apps for us non-designers.

Any more suggestions? :)</comment></comment>