Yahoo finance expert : Why I canned my cable. - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/moneyhappy/183910

<comment><USER2> This is very true; when I got rid of my TV my productivity nearly doubled.

Note: I am measuring productivity in terms of my velocity on pivitoltracker.com</comment>


I made a small social media swiss feed reader. Tell me what you think - <AUTHOR> http://socialdj.ch <comment><USER2> The forms are unencrypted including the password field.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you mean by unencrypted?

<comment><AUTHOR> i changed it toredirect to https</comment></comment></comment>


"i" was made up to solve sqrt(-1). Don't we need something new for sqrt(i)? - <AUTHOR> http://www.askamathematician.com/2013/10/q-i-had-to-be-made-up-to-solve-the-square-root-of-negative-one-but-doesnt-something-new-need-to-be-made-up-for-the-square-root-of-i/ <comment><USER2> Do it in polar coordinates...</comment>


A Man. A Van. A Surprising Business Plan. - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/04/144636898/a-man-a-van-a-surprising-business-plan <comment><USER3> There are going to be a lot of vans parked on that corner before long.

If I'm these guys, I realize that my moat is weak and do these things:

1\. Do not interview with NPR. It isn't like you are driving business. You are only attracting competitors.

2\. Park 6 vans outside, each with a different dba so that the market looks saturated.

3\. Make a retail space, see if it does better than the vans.

4\. Look nation wide for similar geographic anomalies that would create this same pain point. Park a van at one of them and send one of the owners to sit in it. See if money can be made. Repeat.

There are many unemployed people in America right now, it sounds like several dozen can go rent a van and fix the glitch. :-)

<comment><USER4> There may be competitors but the initial "branding" will still hold. Guys/gals in blue shirts and red hats and great customer service will differentiate from any would be competitors. Emphasizing the customer service will make sure competition stays away.

<comment><USER3> How it has come to the point where I'm rebutting the reasonable opinion of a stranger on the internet regarding a business I didn't start, haven't run and don't really know about I'm not sure, but here we go...

One time I went tubing with a friend. We borrowed his brother's vehicle. His brother is a SWAT team member. My friend left the FOB in his pocket and it fell out, given up to the river gods. His brother had the vehicle rigged against hot wired jump starts. Clever fellow.

It was at that moment, and not an instant before, that we started paying attention to "Lock Smith For Hire" and "Jump Start Service" signs. The first guy to pick his phone up was hired.

The guy who came to jump us took an hour to show up, was an ass and didn't really quote us a price or listen to our description of the problem - but heck if he didn't have that car running 5 minutes later.

Point is, when you are down to the felt unexpectedly, you'll take the first option you can get and will judge the service in binary - it did or didn't solve your problem. If I was going to have to go the half mile to BK, but now I don't, that's good customer service.

Ever used a bail bond company to get someone out of jail? Someone had peed on the only unoccupied seat. There were still 4 customers in line ahead of me. I doubt the guys across the street offered much better. They didn't really need to.

You can't advertise in the paper "need help filling out your visa?" and expect a good return. You can't give out free drinks with your return and expect to drive repeats. Your whole business is being a printer at the right place at the right time.

Yes, if one guy wants 3 visas over his life time (they expire, he travels often, etc) then perhaps you can make 'em loyal and garner repeat business. That seems a small-ish portion due to the type of business.

Yes, if there are 10 vans out there and yours offers a free drink with the service, you will get more business until all your competitors copy your offer - then you'll all be giving away that margin, and probably paying a guy to make sure your new offers are more attractive than the other van's offers besides.

You won't drive repeat business by being super nice or wearing matching getups due to the type of business, in my humble opinion. If you are in many other types of businesses this make a lot of sense and should be focused on, but saying "customer service wins every time" seems like an over reach.

To me, a better investment would be great signage/advertising dominance/figuring out who owns that land and buying it/paying who ever owns that land to disallow other vans from parking there/etc.

<comment><USER5> > You can't advertise in the paper "need help filling out your visa?" and > expect a good return.

You probably can at least get a decent return that way - it's how I got my Chinese visa when I went a few years back.

In a lot of major cities near Chinese consulates there are companies that specialize in filling out the forms and waiting in line with you, and many which will offer to have your passport picked up and couriered back to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only one who read that in a hip hop voice?:

"We've all been there. Trapped in line at the D-M-V

Or stuck on hold while trying to call a city a-genCY.

It's easy to complain about government bureau-craCY.

But it's the rare person who sees such ineffi-cienCY

as a business opportuniTY.

Meet Adam Humphreys. He lives in New York CiTY

It started simpLY

enough. Adam found out he needed a viSA

to travel to ChiNA.

for a vacation. His bureaucratic haSSleS with the ChineSe conSulate launched a whole new buSineSS.

"Can you help me?" he said.

No!

"Do you have a printer I can use?" he tried.

No!

<comment><USER7> Yes.

But damn you, it's now stuck in my head, with half a day left at work. I blame you if my function signatures all start to rhyme.

<comment><USER8> The idea of rhythmic code is blowing my mind a little bit. Perhaps when executed it outputs the MIDI for a back-beat?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was born in Russia. Where they still have vans like this next to the US embassy, the UK embassy, the Canadian embassy, the French/German/Spanish/Swedish embassies, heck, all the "western" countries' embassies. We're used to it.

This "business plan" is 60 years old. When the WW2 was over and the world was (stupidly) divided into two parts. Visas are PITA. You, Americans, just not very used to it... Fortunately.

<comment><USER10> I've never seen this at either the British or the Canadian embassies in Moscow...

<comment><USER9> I should've written "VISA Application Centers" not embassies (they're not the same place)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how many HN folk's first inclination would have been to create a website to do this instead of rent a van and deal directly with people? How much do we hold ourselves back by trying to go directly to a scaleable solution?

<comment><USER12> Given that the initial pain point was _needing a printer_ , I hope most people here would have enough sense to realize that an online-only solution wouldn't work.

<comment><USER13> Or you could create a site where people would always get the latest forms and proper guidance? It wouldn't help the applicants who get rejected at the consulate though.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Your problem at that point is getting the customers to you. I'd be willing to bet that not many people would be willing to pay for it _before_ they have tried and failed at the consulate. And at that point, they are going to stumble on that van before they see your website.

<comment><USER14> That's an interesting take - there's always the danger that filling in the gaps in someone else's product will cause that someone else to wake up and fill it in for you.

Seeing as this is a government failing, however, makes me think that it'll be a long time before they decide to improve enough to make these guys unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I talked to a guy in Chicago who just opened-up an upscale bar/restaurant. His description of the corruption and bureaucratic hassles reminded me of stories told to me by Indian friends about getting basic stuff done in India. Apparently the Chicago liquor permit process required standing for hours in lines only to be told that you were in the wrong line, had the wrong documents, etc. This guy gladly would have paid a couple hundred bucks for a "guide" of sorts.

I'm sure there are high-end, lawyer-run advisory services which handle these issues for large clients. Perhaps the opportunity lies in the middle-ground? People who don't have complex needs but don't want to waste hours of their day? I'm thinking about the walk-in, "Minute Clinics" at CVS and other pharmacies which are run by nurse practitioners. Nurses there know how to treat basic stuff and how to decide if someone's needs might be beyond their expertise. It works out pretty well for the patient who just wants to confirm that he has strep throat and get some antibiotics.

</comment><comment><USER16> I could see the same thing doing well outside the US embassy in London.

Offer a US-visa sized passport-photo service, a locker to put your phone when you can't take it into the embassy and some tissues to wipe away your tears of joy/despair and you'd be in business.

Add to that a £10 glossy file to give the assorted papers of your $2,000 application that final touch of gloss and you could make a wonderful income.

<comment><USER17> OT but funny story I heard. The US Embassy in London wants to buy the land underneath it in Grosvenor Square. That bit of land is owned by the Duke of Westminster. He said he would gladly agree to sell them the land as soon as they returned his familys land in Virginia and New Hampshire that were taken in the 18th century.

I doubt it is even remotely true but funny nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great business. Serves an identified need for people with a real pain point. I'm glad to see that they're erecting some barriers to competition with native Mandarin speakers and a service oriented atmosphere.

It'll probably last a few months at least, but make hay while the sun shines. Doing NPR probably wasn't a great idea since their customers don't find them via traditional advertising means, but are literally thrown on their doorstep by the Chinese consulate.

<comment><USER19> The first thing I thought of was, why aren't they getting some kind of parking ticket for their vehicle? Extra publicity is certainly not going to help them if they are violating any city ordinances with their business model.

<comment><USER20> In the audiocast they said they have the occasional parking ticket.

I use visa consultants. If they set up a website front I'd be happy to seek them out next time I go to China. Sounds like they know the system inside out and $20 is a small price to pay for sanity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If they are making $500 a day, they only need this to work for a few months, then they have enough cash to keep them going for a few more to come up with another great idea.

I'm not sure it's sustainable, but it's certainly viable!

<comment><USER22> Or branch out... my experience with the French consulate was ... uncomfortable the first time, and I would have paid handsomely to not have to go back again for the same Visa.

I soon realized that the Consulate's job for many countries is to _keep people out_... only when I went to the UK consulate did I see an attempt at customer service.

In fact, any country without a US visa waiver [1] sounds like a decent target market, as all visits would require a trip to the Consulate.

[1] [http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html#...](http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html#countries)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Most of the trouble with the Chinese Visa system is the requirement that you apply in person. Note that this is for reciprocity against the USA requiring the same in-person application for Chinese nationals visiting the USA. There are several "by-mail" services that just stick a runner in line with your documents, I've used one for the last several trips to China.

These services are expensive, like roughly 50-100 bucks, depending on which consulate you're using. Those who stand in line risk running into trouble like the folks in this story, and I'm sure they're more than happy at this point to fork over some cash for the help they need.

<comment><USER24> > _Note that this is for reciprocity against the USA requiring the same in- > person application for Chinese nationals visiting the USA._

So what you're really saying is that most of the trouble with the U.S. visa system is the requirement that you apply in person.

You as a U.S. citizen experience the policy through reciprocity, everyone else experiences it directly :).

<comment><USER23> Yes precisely :) It's a major pain in everyone's ass. I don't have enough experience to know if this is only the case in Asian or 3rd World countries, but I wouldn't be surprised if the "in-person" requirement is dropped in Western European or developed nations.

This is why there are a significant number of customers who try to go-it-alone and ignore the website (more expensive) option only to be frustrated and realize that 20 bucks is a pittance compared to not being able to travel.

<comment><USER24> I considered answering that question in my post above, but I thought I'd wait for someone to ask :).

The "in-person" requirement is dropped for the Visa Waiver Program, which applies if you're from a "nice" nation _and_ you want to stay no more than three months _and_ you don't want to work or study _and_ you don't have a criminal record (in any country) _and_ you're not on any secret U.S. lists of "interesting" people.

<comment><USER5> And of course you need to not tick "yes" to the questions about wanting to enter the US to traffic drugs, having committed genocide or been involved in espionage and other fun things on the visa waiver form prior to landing. That form is always the most hilarious thing about any trip to the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting. Having done all the paperwork myself for my wife's visa (thanks to help from visajourney.com) I always wondered how much 'consulting' one could do without being an immigration lawyer.

By the same token, if I am not a tax accountant how much tax advice can I give someone for a fee?

Granted, on the surface the Lucky Dragon Mobile Visa Consultants are just providing an internet and printing service — so there shouldn't be much of an issue. However, would they have to be careful of going from "What form do you need?" to "Hey, before you go in there, you probably need this form instead."

<comment><USER26> If what I've read about lawyers applies, basically you can give as much tax advice as you like for a fee, until someone sues you for bad advice and you get fleeced.

There might be regulatory boards that go around making sure everyone practicing has credentials, but I bet the first case would catch up to you sooner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This used to be common in Brazil: a guy in a VW van with a typewriter to help you with bureaucracy. I see the fact that these characters are gone as a sign of progress, so it's funny that this has shown up in the US.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, there's a whole cottage industry across the street from the DMV in Puerto Rico.

<comment><USER29> Got married in Puerto Rico a bit ago, and extremely happy we worked with a group that helped handle the marriage license details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Oh it's not just the competition that will ruin this for them giving this interview.

It's the law enforcement that won't allow them to park and run a commercial business like that.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is what happens in front of every single Indian government office - <USER2> or central :(

<comment><USER32> For people who are wondering why this is a bad thing, some context:

In India there are two groups among such "entrepreneurs"

\- People who make out a genuine living buy providing typewriting, proof- reading and other services. There's a genuine need for this, because of the relative lack of literacy and byzantine rules.

\- Touts. Vermin who have an unholy nexus with the bureaucracy, and generally thrive on rampant corruption.

The second group is the reason for despair. Widespread computerization only helps to an extent; such services still tend to involve manual processes, and corruption does not stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Let's do the math:

Gas + Truck Rental = 100$/day. Parking/tickets in front of embassy: Free? Costly?

3 people (or 4? The article says they have 2 mandarin speakers on tap) in said truck for 8 hours + back and forth time splitting the remainder and you have a bit under 12.5/hour.

That said, they're not being up front about how much they make, and given its probably largely a cash business ...

<comment><USER34> The article did say that "he" makes $500/day, which I interpreted as Adam's own net. 3 people a day, $500 each founder, maybe less for the translator (flat wage rather than a stake?), that's a decent business.

If it's $500 in total income for the team, though, that's another story.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, that would be a bit better, then they'd pass 25 or 30 per hour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I live across the street from this, and I've always wondered what these guys did. Great to read their story, and I've got to say it definitely takes guts to put yourself out there day in and day out (especially right now when it's 14 degrees outside!).

</comment><comment><USER36> Last time I went to China was just before the Olympic Games and security was a little higher - not sure if it's since relaxed. You needed to list an itinerary for the trip and, specifically, accommodation for each night you were there. I, however, was looking to arrive with basically the contents of my pockets and then make things up as I went along. (Turns out my phone died and I was still wandering Shanghai at 2am until I settled on a hotel, but that's a separate matter.)

Solution was to book a couple of the cheapest hostels in a believable travel pattern, get stamped confirmation letters and then cancel them once I had the visa. I think one of the hostels was so cheap and I felt bad about cancelling (even a month out) that for the $4/night cost, I just let them know I wouldn't be showing up but that they could keep the money.

I wonder if arranging cheap accommodation for this purpose is a service they offer in the van?

</comment><comment><USER37> When arranging my trip to China, I was told not to even try to get my visa by going to the consulate. I was told to pay a service company to do it. It worked. This certainly helps those who are willing to do it themselves. However, if you plan to go to China, find a service to do it for you.

</comment><comment><USER38> Quite an interesting story, I would like to point out that being from Pakistan, I have seen such services since the first day that I went outside a passport office. Here in Karachi, you can find people providing Copy services, to scanning and printing and also what they call here is document composition where the guy writes a complete letter application for the client to be submitted in the Govt office. You can also find different Oath Commissioners (for document attestation). And all these are commonly found outside courts and other Govt offices, usually having a desk under a tree !

</comment><comment><USER39> Find a problem: Check

Think of a solution: Check

Take some calculated risks: Check

Bring your solution to customers in need: Check

Make money: Check

This is brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER40> > _And it's clear that Adam Humphreys and Steven Nelson have stumbled on a > viable business. In a van. On the street._

Well, that all depends on your definition of viable. Being dependent on a single bureaucratic bug for your livelihood is not that great. They need to diversify a bit before this can really be called viable.

<comment><USER41> If there is one thing you can depend on bureaucracy for it's an endless stream of new bugs to work around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Thought it was going to be about BangBus.

<comment><USER43> second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I think there's a huge market out there for beauracracy negotiation/consulting services. Every time I open up an insurance information packet, I am deluged with many options, all slightly different, all carrying different implications.

I want something _simple_.

<comment><USER45> Or an opportunity for the bureaucracy to simplify stuff and improve their UX and kill these businesses.

<comment><USER46> Why would a bureau see this as an opportunity? What could they gain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I went to the American consulte in Tel - Aviv about a week after they've changed the Visa procedure and had a missing form. The consulte did had a couple of PC's but non of them could access an email account.

I wondered to the street and found a coffee shop next to the consulte that provided all the services you'll need, lockers (this part is strange since you can't pretty much bring anything to the consulte e.g. a mobile phone lockers are essentials, I know that other consultes like the one in Sydney provides lockers), printer, and for a fee will feel up your forms.

So this isn't a new idea, but its an interesting phenomenon.

BTW I got my visa, and I must admit that the consulate service was outstanding

</comment><comment><USER48> See an opportunity and take it...

<comment><USER49> Right. I applaud this. Even if this opportunity will only last a few more months, they'll be sitting on thousands of dollars in cash (less what they actually spent on living costs), that can be used for their next startup - most likely based around a much bigger idea.

<comment><USER50> In India, there are lots of people who makes their living out of the money earned by helping people to fill out forms outside every Government office. And they are in this business not just for few months but for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Government creates inefficiency and markets spring up (here, drive up) to take advantage. Classic lesson of economics.

<comment><USER52> "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." -- Oscar Wilde

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The thing that bothers me is that everyone just accepts that the initial problem -- lack of printers or whatever at the government office -- won't get solved in that office.

I think everyone's premise is that the bureaucracy is unchangeable and unfixable, which in the short term and for an individual or small group is a realistic and practical perspective, but a longer-term responsible view for society is that the initial problem should be resolved.

First of all, its not _impossible_ to improve a bureaucracy. However, it is quite difficult, and therefore I think that in most cases bureaucracy needs to be replaced by a much more functional and responsive model.

Speaking of government versus private in general, we have two modes: 1) a private mode which has a profit motivation but no legal or ethical motivation but which is (supposedly) restricted in its capacity for monopoly and has (supposedly) highly restricted authority for force, and 2) a government mode has ultimate legal and ethical motivation and responsibility and total monopoly on force authorization and the domains of government.

I think we should be able to formulate another mode of operation that works better.

</comment><comment><USER54> There's an opportunity for some A/B testing, not just of price but of service. Another van, parked at another consulate, could vary one thing and the team could measure the gains/losses. I imagine this kind of thing is done in retail all the time.

<comment><USER55> They could also setup another competing van in the same area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I'm thinking more of a Life Aquatic look.

</comment><comment><USER57> Upvotes for any headline with alliteration.

<comment><USER58> No alliteration here! Just rhyming.</comment></comment>


The Top Ten Signs the Valley is on Tilt Again - <AUTHOR> http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2011/03/the_top_ten_sig.html

<comment><USER2> Although not directly related, here's some interesting reading from 1999:

<http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jan1999/int-j12.shtml>

<http://www.economist.com/node/183857>

</comment><comment><USER3> Sign #1: people write 'The Top Ten Signs the Valley is on Tilt Again' articles.

</comment><comment><USER4> What bothers me is the lack of perspective. Obviously the Valley goes through cycles, and -- let's hope! -- we're on the uptick right now.

That doesn't mean we're in a bubble, and you shouldn't dread it. There's a big difference between an uptick and a bubble. A bubble -- a stock market bubble, mind you -- means irrationality all-around. If you think investments and hiring are irrational, please do some research on what was happening in 1999. Today's behavior is entirely sane.

<comment><USER5> Maybe we're in 1998.

<comment><USER6> I'd say we're in pre-2008 post 2003 again. Web2.0 (the conference) in 2007 had a ton of non-startuppy attendees. In fact, IIRC, there were a ton of similar "OMG BUBBLE!" articles at the time.

<comment><USER4> My thoughts exactly. People in 2003 were so spooked by the dom-com bust that people started reflexively yelling OMG BUBBLE! to any uptick in startup activity. Seems about the same now. Most of the startups I'm aware of have decent business plans and customer activity, in contrast to 1999. But it's easy to forget how frivolous 1999 startups were compared to now.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I mean Groupon seems like a sham (3 years to $25 bil. valuation?!) but rumor has it they're going to pull in $1bn+ in rev which would only be 12-25x, a seemingly logical multiple.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Serological coronavirus testing could be key to economic reopening - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/serological-testing-coronavirus-economic-reopening-e80d824d-af4a-457f-b9ce-3a7f8436c2cf.html <comment><USER2> The reagents are contract manufactured in China by four companies who are not allowed to ship them outside of China. Going to be an interesting next couple of months.</comment>


Daring Fireball: On Submarine Patents vis-à-vis H.264 and Ogg Theora - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/on_submarine_patents <comment><USER2> Gruber writes: _There are two sets of patents that Ogg Theora likely violates._ Likely? It would be interesting to know whether he has any actual grounds for making that claim, other than the fact that the MPEG LA are spreading FUD to that effect.

 _And if you're not willing to concede that Ogg Theora is vulnerable to patent claims, well, then I doubt you're reading this._ It appears that Gruber thinks it's so obvious to any reasonable person that Ogg Theora is "vulnerable to patent claims" that the only people who would disagree are those closed-minded enough that they would avoid reading a different opinion.

Of course "vulnerable to patent claims" is weasel language. Almost everything is "vulnerable to patent claims" in the sense that you can't know for sure that at any moment someone won't emerge from the woodwork and claim they've got a patent on it. But: for H.264 it's _known_ that there are people claiming to have patents on the technology, namely the MPEG LA; and it's _known_ that they demand payment for (certain kinds of) using it. For Theora no such thing is known, its creators have disclaimed patent rights, and it's been around for a long time without anyone making such claims. For both H.264 and Theora it's _also possible_ that at some point in the future someone might come forward and say "oh, by the way, I own this and this and this; please pay me $1M/year or get sued".

But if someone is trying to choose betwen Theora and H.264 on the basis of their patent situation, it's daft to say (as Gruber does) that the only consideration is that possibility of getting torpedoed by submarine patents. The big difference in the situation with _known_ patents is obviously relevant too.

</comment><comment><USER3> HTML5 video is effectively a tech demo at the moment. Nothing relies on it. The HTML5 video situation doesn't really feel worth discussing until Google plays their hand in regard to On2 VP8. If they freely license the codec and promise to use their patent arsenal to defend licensees against lawsuits, VP8 will become the most practical license, except for low-powered devices like mobile phones until chips are developed to encode and decode the format via hardware.

Firefox's current H.264 stance isn't practical, but it doesn't have to be. HTML5 video won't matter for years (I'd estimate two years after the release of IE9), and by then, the landscape will have changed.

<comment><USER4> A main design consideration of VP8 was fast decode on low powered mobile ARM chips.

This is similar to Windows users being confused that Mac OS X or Linux doesn't need anti-virus, and actually thinking this is a fault with these strange new operating systems. H.264 is just a bit of a pig and yet its resulting requirement for special considerations to be made to compensate is interpreted as a failing in others that don't need it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found the linked-to article at Streaming Media more interesting than Gruber's Theora fear mongering. <http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11746>

Specifically this:

 _For 15 years, Xiph.Org has carefully "played by the rules," fully within the bounds, intent, and letter of intellectual property and patent law. For the past ten years we've informed the entire world, including MPEG LA, of our specifications and algorithms in detail. We've requested in open letters that any group believing we are infringing to inform us so that we make take immediate corrective action.

I predict that MPEG LA may counter that they know groups have been pressured into licensing patents in order to use Theora. This has been a recent back- room assertion. You might want to ask point blank if MPEG LA itself or any of its constituent members has engaged in this practice, thus manufacturing the evidence that "vindicates" their patent allegations. _

<comment><USER4> More interesting is the MPEG-LA quote itself. Gruber summarises it as " MPEG- LA has stated that they believe otherwise" i.e. MPEG-LA have claimed that Theora uses their patents. What the CEO actually says is intended to give that impression, but never actually says it:

 _"In addition, no one in the market should be under the misimpression that other codecs such as Theora are patent-free."_

This is a beautifully crafted sentence because Theora isn't patent free, it just so happens that all the patents we know about are licenced freely for anyone to use. (Similarly VP6, 7, 8 are all presumably patented but Google now owns those patents and can do what they like with them.)

" _Virtually all codecs are based on patented technology"_

Again, whose patents are we talking about here? On2/Google's, MPEG-LAs?, some random trolls? It is left unspecified. And which codecs? Not all of them, only "virtually" all.

" _and many of the essential patents may be the same as those that are essential to AVC/H.264._ "

Keyword "may", as in "might not", or as in I'm very carefully not saying what you think I'm saying by adding qualifiers.

" _Therefore, users should be aware that a license and payment of applicable royalties is likely required to use these technologies developed by others, too._ "

There's a "likely" which you'd think is stronger than a "may" but only applies _if_ you are using technologies developed by others. So this "likely" depends on you accepting the "may" in the previous sentence.

" _MPEG LA would consider offering on additional licenses that would make these rights conveniently available to the market under a single license as an alternative to negotiating separate licenses with individual patent holders._ "

This is just stating the MPEG-LA business model, batching up patent rights for easier licencing. It does not say that the hypothetical patent owners are currently part of any MPEG patent pool.

<comment><USER4> I'd actually missed the so-called "clarification" which, ihmo, makes it clear he's trying very hard to create a false impression:

 _"Ozer: It sounds like you are saying that some of your patent holders own patents that are used in Ogg. Is that correct?

Horn: We believe that there are patent holders who do.

Ozer: It sounds like you'll be coming out and basically saying that to use Ogg, you need to license it from MPEG LA. Is that correct?

Horn: That is not what we said. We said no one in the market should be under the misimpression that other codecs such as Theora are patent-free_"

So specifically asked about the patents in the H.264 pool, he responds with the non-specific "there are patent holders who do" (yes, On2 now Google) and this is couched with a "we believe".

And when asked directly, he repeats his non-statement about Theora having patents on it. Yes, we know that. What about patents held by people who are looking for money for them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While "submarine patents" is a catchy term, they aren't actually relevant to this discussion.

Interestingly enough, the article cites a wikipedia discussion that explains why. (Short version - submarine patents, secret applications that turn into issued patents years later, don't exist these days because the relevant agencies publish applications within 2 years after application. Yes, there's an exception in US law, but it makes the invention unpatentable in other jurisdictions.)

</comment><comment><USER7> If Theora gets sued over a patent that H.264 also violates wouldn't MPEG LA want to back up Theora as to not give credibility to the patent? If they didn't the suit against Theora would just strengthen the patent against H.264. I guess, H.264 can counter-sue to protect themselves, maybe.

</comment><comment><USER4> He's posted an update saying Google only uses Theora because they already have an H.264 licence, so they're safe.

2 counterpoints: 1) so does Apple yet they're not using Theora because of alledged patent risk, 2) Google only provided Theora with the open source Chromium. Under this theory, why can they ship Theora but not H.264?

I think we can conclude that he's just making this up as he goes along.</comment>


The Racket of Single Serve Coffee Pods | mcgvr - <AUTHOR> http://mcgvr.com/2012/02/coffee-pods/ <comment><USER2> I suspect the reason single-serve "pod" machines are successful is convenience. It's a single serving, piping hot, exactly when you need it. This is not impossible to achieve with a regular grind-and-brew machine, it just has high up-front costs.

Inexpensive grind-and-brew single-serve machines typically make really, really wretched coffee. The good single-serve machines (e.g. Jura Capresso) start out around $500.

<comment><AUTHOR> Convenience is key when it comes to single-serve. No matter what, you can't make great coffee that fast.

You may actually be surprised about the front-end costs. Dear Coffe I Love You put together nice graphic comparing the front-end and per-cup costs of entry- level single-serve brewers and entry-level manual brewers (specifically the Aeropress.) Check it out: [http://www.dearcoffeeiloveyou.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/03...](http://www.dearcoffeeiloveyou.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/03/singlecup_cost1.jpg)</comment></comment>


Posterous Down The Startup Graveyard Continues to Fill Up - <AUTHOR> http://unicornfree.com/2012/the-startup-graveyard-continues-to-fill-up/ <comment><USER2> Another one of Twitter's shut-down-acquisition Amy doesn't mention is the wonderful DabbleDB: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabble_DB></comment>


Microsoft Announces a Repairable Surface Laptop - <AUTHOR> https://www.ifixit.com/News/microsoft-announces-a-repairable-surface-laptop-and-boy-are-we-excited <comment><USER2> That's fantastic. Computers should be repairable, they can still be compact and thin and cool looking.

The original iMac G5 was so easy to repair, the whole back could come off with 3 screws. Subsequent models were much harder to repair, without looking much different.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is great. Might actually buy one now, crappy build quality and/or impossibility of repair has held me off buying a laptop the last 4 years.</comment>


How important is YSlow Score?  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.yottaa.com/2010/09/how-important-is-my-yslow-score/

<comment><USER2> My personal pet peeve: blog.yoursite.com with no link to yoursite.com.

Extra bonus points for this one having a name so bad that typing it into a new window while reading the original landed me here instead: <http://yotta.com/>

As to the service itself, it will be wildly inaccurate for anybody running on Cloudfront or another CDN that allows using CNAMES so that img.yoursite.com is served from the CDN. I'm curious to hear their plans for dealing with that.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah we have issued a smack down to the guy who set up our wordpress for not putting links in there. sorry about that. and we do need to buy some of the variations of our domain name. but hey, we're a startup!

regarding the CDN. Totally agree, you can't just assume it's a CDN based on CNAME. we're working on some smarter ways of identifying the CDN you're using based on a few things. we walk the dns resolution tree. so we'll see, for example, that img.yoursite.com is cname'd to xxxxxx.cloudfront.net. we're building a database of known cdn's so we can easily identify what CDN you're on. we also want to let site owners tag their own domains to self-declare which things are cdn's and which are self-hosted. all of these will help to give us better data.

oh and we love feedback, so please tell us if you've got better ways!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When your service collects YSlow data, does it take into account CDNs with custom CNAMEs? YSlow gives me an artificially low score for my sites until I go to Firefox's about:config and add my own CDN CNAMEs to the list of known CDNs.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do not take into account CDN's with custom CNAMEs at the moment. I responded to a comment above that addresses this. See above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice methodology. What I'd be really interested in seeing is how these numbers impact traffic or conversion rate.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you use Google Analytics, you can create an account at www.yottaa.com and we'll chart visitor count, bounce rate, and a few other metrics against your websites performance. If your site is new to us, it will take a few days before there's enough data to be interesting.

We have a lot of very cool features planned to extend this as well.

We're also working on putting together some aggregated statistics about these metrics for a future blog post.

<comment><USER4> Ok, wow, I was speaking more of the aggregate statistics, but both of those sound like great features. We're actually about to take our wholesaler/b2b only electronics site retail/open-to-the-public in the next month or so. I'm going to keep you guys bookmarked. We've never spent any time optimizing our site unless there have been huge bottlenecks. This could be a very useful service for us.

Great looking site, btw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I gottaa a yottaa score of 63 for a site - YSlow plug-in for FF3 gives me 98 using the blog config and 89 using the regular V2 config (brought down by not having Facebook listed as a CDN).

Edit: hang on it's going up and down a bit, it's at 65 now (giving YSlow score of 83) didn't realise it was going to be dynamically updated. Actually looks like a good site speed summary.

<comment><USER5> Oo, it's up to 92 now, top 3% of sites. Colour me proud.

<comment><USER6> They way the system work is that it will collect all the data in the order it arrives. Today we had a bunch of people enter new URLs so some of the requests for data were queued up. We were also experience some latency in getting the data back into the database for a couple reasons (badly timed database backups...)

Sorry for the inconvenience in getting your score promptly. On a good note 92 is a really great score. Our score incorporates the following items:

\- Time it takes to download the HTML \- Time it takes to display the title \- Time it takes to paint the page \- Time to Interactivity \- YSlow! score

We take all these measurements from different locations so if you get a 92; it means that no matter where in the world you user is - they will have a great initial experience with our site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like it, but it took 13 minutes to get a score. I also inadvertently visited yotta.com (misread the domain name).

</comment><comment><USER8> I got a score of 0 from your site, but YSlow on my browser gave me a 74. Hmmm is the analyzer slow right now?

<comment><USER9> The score shows as "0" initially until we've collected data from different geographic locations, which may take a little while Sometimes users mistake this "0" as the final score and didn't know they should wait until the score gets updated. We are aware of this issue and will fix this in future releases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just ran a website I administer and I've been waiting for a few minutes for results. How long should it take? When I hover over the rolling progress bar icons, a tooltip reads "Coming soon..." and I don't know if that means my results are coming soon or the _feature_ is coming soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> A few minutes is definitely too long. Should be more like 30 seconds.

Try refreshing the page or searching for the URL again.

What URL were you querying?

Email me if you still have problems (jrosoff AT yottaa.com)

<comment><USER2> 7 minutes and counting for me.

It looks like the site is having issues with load. My first click of the link gave me a giant wall of text, which looked like the result of badly crafted HTML + a dropped CSS request.

Other pages have serious Flash of Unstyled Content issues, as well the "render everything, then collapse everything with jQuery" issue that you never notice in dev, but everybody on the internet sees every page load.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Like several other people here, this website doesn't work for me. Just sits there "forever" with a score of zero. Refreshing the page doesn't help. I suspect it might be in my case because I entered a HTTPS url?

<comment> mike-cardwell I spoke too soon. It finished finally, and with a score of 97 :D

It took about 10 minutes I reckon to run though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The average YSlow score for all sites is 69. Wah. Higher than I expected!</comment>


Sheryl Sandberg Board's 'First Choice' UBER CEO Candidate - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.com/whats-next-uber-sheryl-sandberg-boards-first-choice-ceo-candidate-sources-say-2555576 <comment><USER2> Easily the best choice out of the currently talked about options.</comment>


What It's Like to Be Part of Bird's Scooter-Charging Workforce in Atlanta - <AUTHOR> https://moguldom.com/148419/birds-contract-scooter-charging-workforce-in-atlanta/ <comment><USER2> This website has a lot of attention grabbing popups =( It's pretty irritating to be reading an article and get interrupted.

> in other Bird-seeded cities, muggers have followed chargers heading into > less-populated areas. Some chargers reported being victims of theft

Reminds me of Craigslist scams. The solution for CL scams was to only meet in public/safe areas, what is the solution for these muggers? Send a officer sometimes to sting sketchy bait scooters?

<comment><USER3> The original hypepotamus article is a lot more user friendly. Not to mention they're a pretty good resource for startup news in Atlanta. [https://hypepotamus.com/news/perspective-bird-chargers- atlan...](https://hypepotamus.com/news/perspective-bird-chargers-atlanta/)

<comment><USER2> Ah, I didn't see this was a cross-post. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish Mexico City's Mobike[1] had someone running around at night finding bikes - I swear, every day there are less and less on the streets. I've given up even bothering to look for any near me and have gone back to walking to the nearest ecobici stand or calling an uber.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-crime- mobike/bike-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-crime-mobike/bike- theft-puts-the-brakes-on-chinas-mobike-in-mexico-city-idUSKCN1IX381?il=0)

"Mobike, which recently changed hands for $2.7 billion, equips its bicycles with an electronic alarm that alerts the company when one of them leaves its operating zone."

Yeah that doesn't work - I always rode one to neighbouring areas without even thinking about it, and there is no disincentive. Reporting a bike that says it's on the street, but is actually in someone's yard behind a fence, takes 3 days to get a response in the hope that the bad actor gets their account revoked.

<comment><USER5> I gave up on car2go for similar reasons. On the rare occasion that I could actually find the car I'd reserved, it was parked in private parking. There were allegedly punishments for doing this, but they never seemed to make the practice any less common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What i do not understand is how these collectors are expected to enter non- public areas to retrieve company property. Railway tracks? Id punish the person who left it there. The rule should be that you leave it in a safe public place. Then again, leave anything in public place for too long and you should be charged with littering. Seeing these things lying around waiting to be picked up is depressing. I wish i could just leave my stuff in the city park and pick it up a few days later.

<comment><USER7> > I wish i could just leave my stuff in the city park and pick it up a few > days later.

Isn't that what on-street parking for cars is, except each car takes up 20× as much space?

There are some bike racks near me which are positioned in what was a car parking space, making a nice comparison.

[1] is the basic version, [2] to make a point.

[1] [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I4uxRsnmym8/TM5_oAi1I8I/AAAAAAAAAZ...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I4uxRsnmym8/TM5_oAi1I8I/AAAAAAAAAZ8/HYuAZkxTMys/s640/bicycles+is+car+parking+space.jpg)

[2] [http://mat2.materialicious.com/images/car-shaped-bike- rack-b...](http://mat2.materialicious.com/images/car-shaped-bike-rack-by- cyclehoop-o.jpg)

<comment><USER6> >> Isn't that what on-street parking for cars is, except each car takes up 20× as much space?

No. Because cars, like bikes, are placed in designated spots. When they are not, they are towed and their ownsers fined. Some of these scooters are just left anywhere. Drop a bicycle in the middle of a baseball field and you'll be ticketed for littering. Park a car on a park bench and it will be towed. But these scooters appear in such placed regularly without consequence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've seen an uptick in the city of different pedestrian-ish modes of transit: bikes, e-bikes, skateboards, electric skateboards, unicycles (at least near GT), roller blades, all kinds of other stuff, and now Bird scooters are part of the mix. Anything that helps Atlantans get from here to there without a car is a net positive in my book. The Bird scooters being electric also help combat the downside of navigating a hilly city in the summer heat. I really hope that Bird users can continue to be and/or learn to be good citizens: staying off the Beltline, not ditching the scooters on train tracks or private property, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> In Atlanta the scooters are only scattered throughout a small section of Midtown, so while they are a kind of novelty in that area, I've never encountered one outside of that 1-2 mile radius which is mostly comprised of park and Beltline.

Does anyone in ATL know if people are using these on the Beltline? I'm almost certain it's 'not allowed' but the beltline does make for an interesting pairing with the scooters if it wasn't so crowded in the midtown part.

<comment><USER10> Midtown is the hotspot and unfortunetly where I commute to work. Really hope the fad goes away. Biking is much better for you and I'm happy Atlanta is embracing bikes. Dekalb has planned a connection between Path and the beltline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hope these go away fast. Read about them first on HN and how they were cluttering streets in SF. Now I can see what they mean. I ride public transport to work in Atlanta and find them all over the sidewalks in Midtown. The past month has been much worse. They are literally laying sideways on sidewalks blocking people.

<comment><USER11> There's some sort of social media astroturfing going on, it's pretty obvious b/w the more "modern" news sites (and some not) and Reddit/HN. Lots of contentless posts or biased headlines/reviews.

<comment><USER12> Is there?

All I read every where is how terrible these things are.

I like them.

Does that make me a shill?

<comment><USER11> It doesn't but the news seems disproportional to the usage, maybe this is the first sign I'm not longer with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Atlantic did a good article about this a few weeks ago: [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charg...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging- electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/)

</comment><comment><USER14> >"It's pretty funny — there's a place where someone keeps putting them on train tracks, so there's like 20 on these random train tracks," [Shahid] says.

Should put 20 on the tracks and one neatly parked off to the side, so the chargers take the one with least risk. It doesn't look like they're paid more to retrieve scooters in dangerous locations.

<comment><USER15> I'm a little puzzled about why Shahid thinks this is 'funny', as it seems pretty obnoxious. The danger posed is not limited to Shahid but also the trains, their operators and passengers/freight.

But I'm also puzzled by your comment. Why should anyone put any of them on the tracks?

<comment><USER14> Hooliganism, vice and moral deficiency. I'm approaching this from the bad user's point of view.

<comment><USER15> Ok, I see. I think your "bad user" model is inconsistent -- they probably care no more for Shahid and his peers than they do for the lives and property related to the railroad.

<comment><USER14> It's not about Shahid's well-being, but giving him the choice of taking an easier scooter for the same payout and leaving the hooligan's track- obstructing scooters alone.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best way to detect mobile devices? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN Community,
I'm an experienced web-developer who is just trying to create websites that display well on any screen/device (Responsive design). I know of CSS Media Queries, U/A sniffing and Device Description repositories like WURFL.
Is there any other better way/technique to detect mobile devices efficiently ? I could use a Javascript solution, but that will not really let me find out info about legacy phones or phones with poor JS support. What do you use personally to detect mobile devices? Could you please share, so everyone will benefit from it?? :)
Thanks, Neya <comment><USER2> Since you're going for a responsive design, you should definitely look at the available screen real estate. The reason for this is because, it allows you to display your responsive design without worrying about not detecting new devices - which is why I personally believe trying to detect User Agent strings will become out of date.

This article is pretty useful: <http://www.html5rocks.com/en/mobile/mobifying/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the link, at a quick glance, it looks like it uses CSS Media Queries though? I'll have a look...thanks :)

<comment><USER2> Yeah they use CSS Media queries, its the easiest method to detect them especially for a responsive design</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A site to keep track of critters you can catch in Animal Crossing - <AUTHOR> https://ac-catch.com/ <comment><USER2> Fun fact: Katsuya Eguchi incepted the game as a result of his move to Kyoto to work at Nintendo - because he missed his family and friends from his hometown.

"Animal Crossing features three themes: family, friendship and community. But the reason I wanted to investigate them was a result of being so lonely when I arrived in Kyoto! Chiba is east of Tokyo and quite a distance from Kyoto, and when I moved there I left my family and friends behind. In doing so, I realised that being close to them – being able to spend time with them, talk to them, play with them – was such a great, important thing. I wondered for a long time if there would be a way to recreate that feeling, and that was the impetus behind the original Animal Crossing."

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

<comment><USER3> And now Animal Crossing is helping millions of lonely quarantined people across the world cope with the current state of things. It really came out at the perfect time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks great! I too have been working on a critter tracker[0], but writing it in C using kcgi[1] (no JS at all).

I have never done a web project before, so this has been a great learning experience. I still have some functionality to complete, but so far it has been pretty useful, even just the "available now" feature.

[0] [https://xvetrd.tilde.institute/index.cgi](https://xvetrd.tilde.institute/index.cgi)

[1] [https://kristaps.bsd.lv/kcgi/](https://kristaps.bsd.lv/kcgi/)

</comment><comment><USER5> This triggered memories of fishing for Coelacanths in the original Gamecube Animal Crossing. Twas an amazing game, and sounds like it still is.

<comment><USER6> They made it a bit easier in ACNH. Best streak I got was six in a row during hard rain.

<comment><USER7> Everything is easier in ACNH. Even though I'm making much faster progress, it's not as satisfying.

<comment><USER6> Well there seems to be more story and less grind, which makes me quite a bit happier honestly.

I'm nowhere near it, but I can't wait for the KK plot to play out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Little off-topic but can anyone here compare to Stardew valley? I feel like I've kinda "finished" stardew after going through the core story and wondering about switching trains

<comment><USER9> The big crazy difference is that Stardew Valley goes faster while AC is real- time and this is... super frustrating.

<comment><USER10> Agreed.. was a bit disappointed by AC when I was hoping for something more like stardew valley. Would love a recommendation for something like that if it exists.

<comment><USER11> You could try the original franchise from which Stardew Valley was cloned from: Harvest Moon (also know as Story of Seasons) or it's Spin-off Rune Factory.

There is also Graveyard Keeper, which is similar in vibe and mechanics, but with a very different setting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm trying to avoid looking at any outside guides for a good while, so I can experience things for myself.

But when I eventually give in, this guide will be handy!

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks great on an iphone! How did you get the pics?

<comment><USER14> Someone ripped the images from the game [1] and uploaded them to a fan wiki [2], implicitly misrepresenting the content as CC BY-SA, and then this site hotlinked them.

[1]: [https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:150357#2](https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:150357#2)

[2]: [https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Fish_(New_Horizons)](https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Fish_\(New_Horizons\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great work! I'm curious, how did you get all the critter info?

</comment><comment><USER16> I get a blank white page. What tech is this coded in?

<comment><USER17> Looks like React to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very well done website, thanks for hosting this!

</comment><comment><USER19> My friend also made one that shows bugs/fish available at the current hour in your timezone to practice python: [http://critter- catcher.herokuapp.com/](http://critter-catcher.herokuapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Showed it to my wife who's been playing, and then I heard a bunch of clicking and now it's circulating in the Discord channel she hangs out in. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER21> Thanks so much! I had a mind to work on this the other week (even started up a boilerplate) and then got distracted. So glad you stayed on task more than I did.

</comment><comment><USER22> Great stuff, thanks a lot!

May I ask where you get the data from?

<comment><USER12> There's an official strategy guide available, so I would guess that was the original source.

<comment><USER23> The strategy guide hasn't been published yet, so my guess is this comes from someone who data mined the game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there a button to reset? I clicked on one to see what happened and now I can't undo.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can scroll to the bottom to see all of the caught critters and uncheck them there

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is awesome. Did you or someone else illustrate the icons? They're beautiful.

<comment><AUTHOR> The fish/bug pictures are straight from the game. All of the other icons (hemisphere, bells, length, etc...) are made by a combination of my girlfriend / myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nice work!

I like how it is first sorted by fish/bug that will be gone next month.

</comment><comment><USER27> Very cool, just what I needed.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is great! Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER29> This should have been built into the game. Nintendo fans are so forgiving of glaring flaws.

<comment><USER30> There's an in-game app called the Critter Guide that does bugs/fish and what months they're available. It requires you've encountered said bug/fish at least once though I think for it to appear in the guide</comment></comment>


We Found a Free Smartphone Embedded Inside Entertainment Weekly - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FQm7k4riCoE

<comment><USER2> Article for people who can't watch video at work: [http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/fully-functional- android...](http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/fully-functional-android- phone-embedded-in-entertainment-weekly-2012104/)</comment>


Show HN: The Instant Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.theinstantweb.com

<comment><USER2> What it can do? It can search something like disappear quickly in the web? I can't do anything with just a single input field. When I enter some keyword like news, wait a long time and nothing back for me. Are you seriously?</comment>