How Uber secretly investigated its legal foes and got caught - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12127638/uber-ergo-investigation-lawsuit-fraud-travis-kalanick <comment><USER3> I'm frankly astonished at how bad Uber is at setting an image - or if they're not bad at it then they're _terrible_ at deciding what image to set.

I've never used them* but based on their reputation and depending on circumstances I think my preference order would be Lyft, taxi, public transportation, livery service, call friends to ask a favor, Uber, walk - <USER2> "walk" might move up the list depending on the weather and distance.

* The one time I tried to actually _use_ Uber they locked my account because the card on file was declined - it'd been replaced after the Home Depot breach. Their unlock policy appeared to be something like "send us a picture of the card," which wasn't going to happen since it had been shredded months before. The early press about their business practices had already started, so I wasn't that interested in pursuing unlocking either.

<comment><USER4> > I've never used them

I have, I continue to use them (anyone has better service and is less corrupt than the taxi cartels), and I _still_ generally agree.

<comment><USER5> I don't really get the "taxi cartel" thing. Taxis aren't exactly brilliant everywhere so I buy the better service argument, but if you're concerned about corruption and cartels I don't see how a global company largely operating outside the law is better.

<comment><USER6> It is more about a better deal and/or not getting ripped off (which the cartel is against) than about it being a cartel. It is amazing what Uber can do in a city like Manila.

Taxis also never bothered upping their convenience game, because they thought they didn't have to.

<comment><USER7> Its about not getting ripped off. With Lyft/Uber you can escalate if you feel ripped off. With Taxi Cartel's, there's nobody to take your complaints. We feel ripped off whenever we've had to ask this of ourselves, "Gosh, we seem to have gone a longer route" or "Did he start the meter before I got into the car?"

Side story: In Baltimore this happened to me. I got into a taxi and the driver starts asking me tons of questions. I'm politely answering and having conversation but I'm clearly not paying attention to the meter. We drove for 7-10 mins, 2-3 miles or so, and upon arriving to my destination is when I realized the cost was $30.

<comment><USER6> > Its about not getting ripped off.

I did mention Manila. And much of Thailand, and...well, Bali is pretty honest. Uber is a huge stress reliever in those places, where taxis can be outright dangerous! Forget about the US, I've been stuck at MNL at 2 AM in the morning and would kill for an Uber app (if it existed at the time).

But I totally agree with your point. A convenient feedback mechanism is quite nice, along with a GPS based meter that shows the route taken.

<comment><USER7> At the end of the day, Uber did go too far, "Schmidt and his client were being investigated by a secretive research firm, staffed by veterans from the CIA and the National Security Council, conducting an investigation on behalf of Uber's top executives. As soon as the lawsuit was filed, those executives took an interest in Schmidt and his client, sending out operatives to dig up what they could find on Uber's new antagonists."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> TLDR: "In a filing last night, Uber pushed back against the allegations of fraud, arguing its contract with Ergo had specified that the investigation be both lawful and professional, and neither Kalanick nor Uber had any idea an investigator might stray beyond that. "Uber took reasonable steps to ensure that Ergo complied with the law," the filing reads. "It is undisputed that Uber and Mr. Kalanick were unaware that Ergo would use misrepresentations during its investigation.""

According to the article, it's common to do due diligence on plaintiffs, especially when they do something weird like name the CEO personally in the lawsuit. But it's obvious the research firm Uber contracted did more than they asked.

<comment><USER9> Alternatively...

TLDR: 'Uber communicated with Ergo largely over encrypted channels. Henley [the Uber executive that hired Ergo] explained in one email that this was necessary to "avoid potential discovery issues."'

Any reasonable person with knowledge of litigation knows that the only reason you attempt to hide things from discovery is that they are incriminating, aggravating (in the legal sense) and/or damning. "Common" due diligence on plaintiffs would never need to be hidden from discovery. In fact, quite the opposite: negative information turned up in due diligence would be paraded in front of the opposing side as a negotiating tactic, and you (almost always) can't selectively disclose which information you turn over in discovery.

Furthermore, if you intend information to remain confidential in litigation, you have your attorney do it so it can be classified as privileged attorney- client work product. But the inconvenient limitation is that lawyers are bound by legal ethics, so the fact that this investigation wasn't conducted by the firm's attorneys (and was, apparently, hidden from them) suggests it was known to cross ethical lines.

And naming CEO's in lawsuits isn't "weird" \- it's an extremely vanilla legal tactic. You name anyone and everyone and let the opposing counsel argue for more limited scope. Leaning on that as an excuse is transparently absurd.

It's obvious to any reasonable third party that Uber _intended_ to go beyond normal legal due diligence, and got caught.

<comment><USER10> You write:

> Any reasonable person with knowledge of litigation knows that the only > reason you attempt to hide things from discovery is that they are > incriminating, aggravating (in the legal sense) and/or damning.

I disagree with that. As a general rule of thumb, "only people who have done something wrong would care about privacy" is a frequently used truism which is actually quite false. In this particular case, reasonable people with knowledge of litigation know that there are many, many reasons to hide things from discovery. The most common is because "the lawyers haven't reviewed this and so we don't know whether it would be problematic or not -- 99% chance it isn't a problem, but we shouldn't take any chances". This is the main reason (at least in the US) why companies have data destruction policies that require all emails and documents past a certain age be automatically deleted (unless an explicit step is taken to retain them).

<comment><USER9> '"only people who have done something wrong would care about privacy" is a frequently used truism which is actually quite false.'

I agree with this. Strongly.

However, there are two important counterpoints here that don't apply in normal circumstances:

1\. They were _actively_ involved in litigation, which means normal information retention procedures were already out the window (or should have been). E.g. you can certainly do things like routinely delete business emails older than some specified age, but if you know those emails contain subject matter that is pertinent to active litigation you likely should not.

2\. The encryption/destruction that occurred here weren't a "normal course of business" thing, but a _response_ to the litigation. That gives a strong impression that it was willful and intended to evade laws and rules related to discovery.

<comment><USER8> > I agree with this. Strongly.

This is an ignorant statement. Things you say can easily be taken out of context and manipulated. This is a common occurrence, which is why privacy matters.

<comment><USER9> I was trying to say that I agree that privacy matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is Uber really "one of the most powerful and litigious companies in the world"?? Journalists sure like their hyperbole.

<comment><USER12> Is it hyperbole when a taxi company has someone with the title "Global Threat Intelligence"? I can picture Danny DeVito yelling at Judd Hirsch and Tony Danza now. "Find out about this lawyer!"

<comment><USER13> A company isn't paranoid if other companies really are out to get them.

<comment><USER14> "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you".

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have mixed feelings about Uber. On one side it takes a thick skin to go against the various taxi cartels (some of which are close to an organised mafia, like in Paris, where taxi drivers will not hesitate to physically assault competitors). And they do provide a better service.

On the other side I am not keen to see a mafia replaced by another mafia. There has been multiple stories about Uber bullying competitors. And this. And Uber also seems to be very much minded to milk the customer to the last penny. Introduction of peak pricing, Uber charging a cancellation fee when the driver cancels the ride, etc.

</comment><comment><USER16> No shady tactics will surprise me when it comes to Uber.

I still receive spammy emails they continue to send. And Sendgrid is fully in bed with them.

Forwarded spam to Sendgrid and they said they will follow up with Uber (so apparently they are Uber's customer support at this point - great!) The spamming practice never changed or stopped despite Sendgrid telling me they will send my email to them (!!) to unsubscribe me from their list, when I didn't even subscribe in the first place.

As I received more Uber spam I kept updating Sendgrid ticked (zendesk). Eventually some 2 weeks later they closed it as "resolved" and never replied to my emails again. I still get Uber Spam from Sendgrid. Stay away from that piece of shit as long as you can!! (both Uber and Sendgrid)

PS. As of Uber, I copied all my emails and forwarded them to FCC. In short telephone conversation I was told I'm not the only one and as they have reached over 1,000 complaints in short period of time, they will be investigating both into Uber practices and also Sendgrid as an accomplice to their alleged crime.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN- SPAM_Act_of_2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003)

<comment><USER17> I've experienced the same thing. As far as I can tell, Uber's policy is when you sign up you don't have to opt in and don't get to opt out of their marketing mailing list, and when you close your account you don't get removed either, because fuck you.

<comment><USER16> I just got personal email from someone at Uber.

They explained to me that they comply with Can Spam by... providing unsubscribe link. Nothing mentioned how I got on their list in the first place, on what their practice are. Clearly my email must have been scrapped from public sites, since I never did sign with them in the first place.

So yeah if they don't even know the rules of Can Spam, how the heck you expect them to follow the law?

I will have a short call with Attorney General in my State end of this week to see if I am a separate incident.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is the result of what happens when you have a massive intelligence community and workers decide to go into private industry.

"Threat intelligence" has always been a bit shady and of questionable security value. CEOs just like to get handed an "intelligence portfolio" to feel big and powerful, regardless if it practically improves their security.

</comment><comment><USER19> My eyes lit up when I saw "Judge Rakoff"[1] mentioned in the article. He's not someone who suffers fools gladly. Uber better hope that they succeed in their motion to compel arbitration, otherwise things could get very "interesting" for them.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_S._Rakoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_S._Rakoff)

<comment><USER20> Do not taunt super happy fun federal judge.

It doesn't end well (see also: Prenda Law)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is backfiring for Uber the way having Ralph Nader followed did for General Motors back in 1966.[1]

[1] [http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph- nader1965-1971...](http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph- nader1965-1971/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Strikes me as being very in line with Uber's overall outlook. They think that laws and regulations don't apply to them.

</comment><comment><USER9> One issue unexplored in the article: was Uber under a document preservation order related to the litigation when it (allegedly) used Wickr to communicate with Ergo about the investigation? If so... I don't think the court will take kindly to either "the chat app ate my homework" or "no really, we agreed to us Wickr and exchanged screen names, and then stopped emailing, but I swear we never actually used it" as defenses.

</comment><comment><USER23> Uber sure gets a lot of bad press, but if the movie Wolf on Wall Street is any indicator, there's no such thing as bad press (unless you're Theranos). The press seems to be helping Uber a lot in name recognition. It's becoming the Kleenex of on-demand car services.

<comment><USER24> One wouldn't have thought to describe the problem at Theranos as _" bad press"_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What is the real value proposition of Uber? The software?

Why didn't they just license the software to taxi companies?

What do HN readers think?

</comment><comment><USER26> So someone doesn't like surge pricing and decides to wield the heaviest stick they can (the State) against Uber, via antitrust (legislation which shouldn't exist in a free country).

Then he has the gall to complain that the company he's trying to sue investigates him in an aggressive and possibly illegal manner.

I don't see there's a good guy here. AFAICT, both he and Uber are behaving in a fairly contemptible fashion.

For those here who support antitrust legislation (even in cases other than this one), this is worthwhile reading:

[https://mises.org/library/antitrust-case- repeal](https://mises.org/library/antitrust-case-repeal)

"Professor Armentano begins with the most rigorous and revealing account of the Microsoft antitrust battle to appear in print. He further discusses other recent cases, including Toys `R' Us, Staples, and Intel, as well as many historical cases. He covers nearly every conceivable rationale for antitrust, including price fixing, tie ins, vertical and horizontal mergers, and many more."

It's a bit old, but still highly relevant.</comment>


Twitter bans Zero Hedge after it posts coronavirus conspiracy theory - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-bans-zero-hedge-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=81689369&fbclid=IwAR1yCsq0oc3RyHdMrLQ7lLjJ25_M1h1JfNmkkLTF4FpUvahbKlKrCq05tvs <comment><USER2> What in the hell happened to that site? It went from interesting, in depth finance research peppered with looney shit, to this incoherent trash akin to the youtube comments section

<comment><USER3> Well The Austrian School is very close to pysdo economics and there is a kind of way that conspiracy theories tend to accelerate.</comment></comment>


Apple says cheap battery replacements hurt iPhone sales - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/2/18165866/apple-iphone-sales-cheap-battery-replacement <comment><USER2> _Apple says cheap battery replacements hurt iPhone sales_

Am I the only one thinking "Good!" in response to this? We don't need Apple selling more iPhones to people who don't really need them. This is better for the consumer, better for the environment, and probably even better for Apple in the long-run. Yes, it costs them some short-term profits. So what?

</comment><comment><USER3> We don't know this. We only know that they cited the battery program as an issue in their profit forecast.

It's possible they did that not because it stopped people from buying new phones, but because they LOSE a bunch of money on every battery they replace at $30. So many people took advantage of the program it may have simply made a big dent in their profits.</comment>


Xmonad from Coq: Programming a Window Manager with a Proof Assistant (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~swier004/Publications/XmonadInCoq.pdf <comment><USER2> See also the XMonad module X.A.Navigation2D which includes formal proofs of the navigational strategies:

PDF: [https://web.cs.dal.ca/~nzeh/xmonad/Navigation2D.pdf](https://web.cs.dal.ca/~nzeh/xmonad/Navigation2D.pdf)

Module: [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/xmonad- contrib-0.13/docs...](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/xmonad- contrib-0.13/docs/XMonad-Actions-Navigation2D.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Formally verifying your window manager sounds like the ultimate yak shaving experience.

<comment><USER4> The point of this exercise wasn't really to have a formally verified window manager, it was to document what it's like to make formally verified software. As a modestly complex program and one of the most well-known Haskell programs, xmonad was a good choice.

And while I agree that a formally verified X window manager seems a bit silly, a formally verified Wayland compositor would be a great idea given their broad scope of responsibilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel like Idris would have a better experience for problems like this, quite excited about it right now.

<comment><USER6> [https://github.com/puffnfresh/iridium](https://github.com/puffnfresh/iridium)

[https://youtu.be/KAleMf_O82g?t=8m15s](https://youtu.be/KAleMf_O82g?t=8m15s)</comment></comment>


Photos Preview - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/osx/photos-preview/ <comment><USER2> I'm wondering how alone (or not) I am in being uncomfortable with cloud storage for my (mostly family) photos. It would be the most convenient solution in terms of storage and redundancy, but the idea of them possibly being compromised and also somewhat out of my control doesn't sit well with me. It feels slightly hypocritical, since I do share the odd photo on Facebook, but the idea of having _every_ photo and video "out there" is a bit daunting.

Currently I have a RAID 1 NAS at home (also backed up to external drive occasionally), which I use to offload photos from our various devices. I can access these pictures when at home from any device, but of course not outside of the WIFI. So if I want to take older pictures on my device to share with others, I need to download them at home in advance - that's the weakness of this setup.

Am I living in the stone age?

<comment><USER3> No, you are not alone. I too would live to find a solution so that I can share photos and updates with my family and friends and still own the data.

My ideal setup would be the photos encrypted at rest in Amazon S3 and a simple Google+ style photos masonry and albums app (Wordpress style install) that are locked down. Files can be shared on Facebook and other social networks but only as iframed embeds a bit like Wickr [https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/01/30/facebook-to- fill...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/01/30/facebook-to-fill-with- more-kittens-in-wickrs-message-hiding-scheme/)

All my data. I control it. I can share it. Code open source. Openphoto that became TroveBox that then failed and open sourced it's code is probably the closest to what I want, except it is missing the Wickr style sharing and the encrypted at rest parts.

<comment><USER4> > My ideal setup would be the photos encrypted at rest in Amazon S3

Aren't your photos still in the 'cloud'? What's the difference between Amazon S3 and Apple's servers?

<comment><USER3> They would be encrypted. The point is privacy. Icloud gives you none.

In 10 years time the NSA are going to be sucking up every single photo and email and Facebook post they can, storing it for posterity in Utah, analysing every single one, facial recognition and categorisation automatically.

They can have mine encrypted.

<comment><USER5> In 10 years time, the NSA will be able to decrypt anything that is encrypted with 2015 encryption. And that's assuming they can't decrypt it now.

Privacy is important, but let's be honest, you basically can't hide from the NSA.

<comment><USER6> That is probably not true -- there are a lot of things that we encrypted in 2005 that they still probably cannot decrypt today.

More to the point, the NSA definitely can't decrypt _everything_ that was encrypted a decade ago. They may be able to decrypt certain things that have somehow caught their interest.

Generally, it still makes sense for all of us to encrypt by default. But OTOH a central feature of these photo services is 'easily share pics with anybody you want', so obviously they need the plaintext data to do that.

I agree with junto that I would like encryption options, but I use these services anyhow because my photos just really aren't as interesting as when I was young -- mainly 100s of nearly-identical shots of babies drooling.

In one sense, the NSA can have the photos of my toddler; who gives a shit.

OTOH, though, it will suck when the shitty face recognition algorithms they are datamining with in 5 years generate a partial match between my son eating a rag and Jihadi John, and the feds come kick in the door to my house in the middle of the night and shoot my dog before anybody realizes what's happening... so yeah, I would just rather have it all encrypted by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm really pleased to see Apple getting away from the "events" concept that iPhoto introduced. It was a good idea in theory - all your photos would be automatically grouped into albums based on the date they were taken - but in practice requiring that every photo in your library belong to exactly one event meant that you had a bunch of awkward single-photo events. Photostream ended up making this worse with special photostream-only events that completely broke the model of how photos should be organised.

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't this also have been super annoying for events that went past midnight and spilled over into the next day?

<comment><USER9> IIRC events were created based on some heuristic of the photos' geolocaiton data and time taken. So if you do a 3 day trip outside of your city that becomes one event on import. It was also super easy to merge two events into one. I thought it worked pretty well in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the big win for Photos.app / iCloud Photo Library is the fact that 3rd party app 'extensions' are able to provide exponential editing capabilities directly to the users main library.

I anticipate Photos.app on Mac gaining 'Extensions' a la iOS Extensions in the next WWDC revision/OS X release.

<comment><USER11> OS X already has support for Extensions. Check System Preferences. The relevant category here is "Actions". The system already provides a "Markup" action that provides Preview.app's markup capabilities to other apps that embed images. On my system right now, Pixelmator also exposes one action called "Repair Tool".

You can try this out by creating a new TextEdit document and dragging an image in there. In the upper-right corner of the image there's a dropdown button that shows you the available actions you can take.

I certainly hope Photos.app supports Extensions. It would be a pretty obvious oversight not to do this.

<comment><USER10> Ah right, I forgot about the 'actions'.

As of right now (10.0.3 beta), Photos.app does not have any available access points to "Actions", etc. Hopefully soon!

<comment><USER11> Please file a radar! I hope it's on their roadmap, but if not, better to ask for it now than wait until after the app is released.

[http://bugreport.apple.com](http://bugreport.apple.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a photographer, 5GB isn't enough for storing high-res photos. It's nice to keep them off your iDevice, but relying on iCloud to keep them is silly.

Amazon, on the other hand, allows for unlimited cloud photo storage solely by being a Prime customer. All my 24MP RAW photos get stored there safely, along with having my own local storage for backup.

<comment><USER13> So youll pay amazon for the storage but not Apple? Being a prime customer doesn't mean its 'free'

<comment><USER14> Huh? That's pretty much exactly what it means.

<comment><USER15> If you receive a service in exchange for payment , then no it's not free.

<comment><USER16> I think his point is that when he made the payment, that service did not exist. His payment was for other services (such as unlimited 2 day delivery).

Now, without exchanging any further currency or otherwise paying, he receives another service.

I'd agree that that constitutes free.

<comment><USER17> But if anybody else wants "free" photo storage they have to pay. So saying that Apple is out of their mind charging money for something that everybody except me have to pay for is completely pointless argument, since it doesn't relate to anybody but the lucky once who got it for free.

<comment><USER14> If there wasn't a commensurate increase in price, then yes it is _free_. If you are receiving service X for a certain amount of cash each month, and then suddenly begin to receive service Y without paying more, service Y is free.

You guys sure love to argue over semantics...

<comment><USER15> No, the test is - If you cease paying money, do you still receive the service ?

Because there was no price increase doesn't mean it's free, it just means that the rest of what you're receiving is now cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lock-in.

A huge photo collection is the best lock-in for an OS. So to have a top-notch app here is a smart move from Apple.

I have like 70GB of photos in iPhoto and somehow this stops me from fully migrating to another OS. Just the thought of moving this 70GB to another file system, OS and photo program let me stick to OSX forever. And photos especially the family ones are maybe the most important 'personal' data of a user.

Besides, iPhoto is not bad but the many format changes in the past were a bit tiring.

In general I prefer Dropbox as a cloud file storage--they have the best clients of all OSes and security features like no other (remote wipe), now I just need a cross platform photo database which is separated from my cloud storage provider.

<comment><USER19> Lock-in, as in a lock I can't unlock? As in I can't get my photos out if I want? It's only lock-in if you want to leave and you can't.

I'll be as locked into this as I'm locked into my favorite scotch. I can switch, but why?

I really don't get the lock-in argument. I like Apple's stuff, all of it. It works really well for me. I'm the happiest I've ever been with my computer environment. If Apple starts to suck I'll find something else, as will many other people and some enterprising fellow will see that and create something great. Better yet maybe Dropbox will up their game to compete with Apple on photo storage. Rising tide etc etc.

<comment><USER20> With iPhoto, you can easily move your photos elsewhere, but moving the metadata with it (what photo is in what album, recognized faces, etc) is another thing.

I call that a form of lock-in.

<comment><USER21> It creates/enables inertia rather than locks you in, I think that's what they're saying.

<comment><USER19> Inertia a.k.a. reasons for people to like and therefore stick with your product. How dare they.

<comment><USER21> No, it's clearly different to that, and to pure lock in. (And I wasn't offering judgement either way, just trying to help explain the other comment.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder what percentage of users will have to buy more iCloud storage for this. Charging users for more than 5gigs of storage in 2015 seems pretty miserly, especially if someone has multiple Apple devices.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "Charging users for more than 5gigs of storage in 2015 seems pretty miserly"

That's one way to look at it. But they need to make money somehow and I'd prefer this to advertising or selling my data or trying to convince me to make my life publicly accessible online.

<comment><USER23> Or including it as part of the iPhone's obscene 50%+ profit margins. That's what Google does with unlimited free auto-backup to Google Plus, and they don't even make money on most of the Android phones sold!

Apple doesn't need this money, just like they don't need the ugly user experience when an iPhone's account gets disconnected from its credit card.

But Apple's culture of nickel and diming for everything has to do with training users to pull out their credit cards. The more often a user hits Pay the easier it is to do it the next time it comes up. As long as the user keeps pulling out the credit card the experience is smooth and makes the user feel like they are part of an elite higher class.

In other words, it's deliberate consumer brainwashing.

<comment><USER24> > unlimited free auto-backup

For pictures below 2048x2048.

Also I'd rather pay for storage then expose my data to web app automated algorithms and lack of local editing software with two way sync.

<comment><USER23> Android does include local editing with 2 way sync.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> They mention it for videos also - I hope their recommendations on how to handle videos become clearer. I used to pull my videos into iPhoto, but it felt disorganized to have them littered among my photos, and it felt clunky to pull them into iMovie. Later I changed to importing them directly into iMovie, but then iMovie had one of the worst bugs I've ever experienced on Desktop software, where over a period of months the source video of some important footage (me performing at a club) just completely disappeared, leaving only the thumbnails and audio. By the time I discovered it (reviewing year's highlights), it was gone from my time machine history as well (due to Time Machine deciding to corrupt itself and start over every eight months or so). So now I import video into Final Cut hooked up to a desktop Drobo which backs up to CrashPlan.

</comment><comment><USER26> Photos does look great, but Apple decided to completely ignore iPhoto while making this. iPhoto has so many bugs and problems and there is nothing I can do but sit and wait for them to release Photos.

<comment><USER27> I like the looks, too! Looks to me as if iPhoto will eventually be replaced by Photos (though I believe I remember the announcement was that it would not?) as it wraps most of its functionality and has a nicer look. Maybe makes sense to have Photos (lifestyle) and Aperture (professional) as two apps with a clear focus for each one.

I'm just missing some statement on how the performance is, especially since we all have like several hundred GBs or even TBs worth of pictures nowadays. It's only a preview with screenshots though...

<comment><USER28> Unfortunately Aperture is also being discontinued...

<comment><USER29> To be fair, after years of being neglected it's probably better that they admit nobody is working on Aperture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> After Apple suddenly (and still no longer "officially") killed Aperture, I no longer trust them with long-term data storage. So no "Photos" for me.

I am still thinking about how to deal with the collection that I have in Aperture.

And before you respond with "just keep the files" or "export the files and import into Lightroom", it's no longer 1999 and it's not just about the files. There is metadata, tags, collections, stacks, and other kinds of organizational structure that are not easily reflected in a directory hierarchy.

I've been bitten once, I won't be fooled again — this time I intend to develop my own solution for keeping this data in the long term.

<comment><USER31> Lightroom has a new importer to pull in Aperture data, including tags and all of that...so it's not really a "export the files and import into Lightroom" situation - it appears it should preserve your metadata.

[http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2014/10/aperture- imp...](http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2014/10/aperture-import- plugin-now-available.html)

<comment><USER32> Unfortunately, the Aperture and Lightroom data models and workflow are different enough that Lightroom really can't import everything that you've done in Aperture. Quote from Lightroom page: "migrate their images and _key_ metadata"... It also doesn't support the non-destructive workflow edits that you've applied to your (potentially) tens of thousands of images. If you import them, all the edits become baked in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This sounds good, but if it's still going to lock all of my files behind a proprietary and obscure file structure -- and metadata library -- that totally get borked whenever I try to have some other app access them, then it's no better off than iPhoto.

If they managed to keep whatever file structure I have them in intact, and still keep the metadata/library abstracted from the file structure, then I might have more hope for it.

<comment><USER34> Check out [http://www.mylio.com/](http://www.mylio.com/) \- it's all about preserving your file structure.

<comment><USER35> Well, their website doesn't load, so they're not off to a good start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have been struggling to manage my family's photos and videos, and it has really been a nightmare. I'm currently using flickr, but it leaves much to be desired. This looks like exactly what I've been looking for.

<comment><USER37> Another fan of smugmug here.

You can't beat unlimited storage for $40/year. Granted upload is limited by upload speed but by letting it upload overnight, that hasn't been a problem for me. Smugmug has app on iOS/Android that work well also.

Here's how I manage family photos/videos as a Mac user:

1\. Use "Image Capture" to import photos/videos from camera/iphone/android into Mac. Do NOT use iPhoto to import although OS X recommends it. It's the root of all kinds of problems afaik. "Image Capture" is free tool included with OS X. Just open "Image Capture" and insert your memory card or plug in usb cable.

2\. Once imported, use ExifRenamer (or other alternatives) to rename files to date/time taken. This ensures each photo/video has unique serial. With the new names, you can easily tell when/what/where/why just by looking at filename.

3\. You can group files into year-mm-dd or any other method you like. You can do it manually easily or use "Big Mean Folder Machine 2".

4\. Once you have grouped files into year-mm-dd, now you can import them into iPhoto. I do this purely for easier browsing/etc.

5\. Within iPhoto, you have photos grouped into year-mm-dd.

#Now you should NOT keep ALL your photos/videos in ONE iPhoto database/folder. You should create 1 iPhoto database/folder for just 1 year using tools like "iPhoto Buddy' (free) or "iPhoto Library Manager" ($20). That way iPhoto data doesn't get too big.

#I back up both the renamed files (divided into yyyy-mm-dd) AND the iPhoto libraries to external HDs. Backing up the renamed files as simple files is critical imo.

#Whenever iPhoto is updated by Apple and I open an iPhoto library from older version, that iPhoto Library needs to be updated by the newer iPhoto. Not a big deal though.

#Backup to Smugmug Now after above are done, I start uploading photos to smugmug. I may do maybe a month at a time or something like it. With smugmug, I can recover photos even if I lose both my Mac and external HDs. It will be painful but possible. Obviously Amazon S3 is another option. I would just zip up the files and encrypt them if using Amazon S3.

<comment><USER38> >Another fan of smugmug here. >You can't beat unlimited storage for $40/year. Granted upload is limited by upload speed but by letting it upload overnight, that hasn't been a problem for me. Smugmug has app on iOS/Android that work well also.

SmugMug doesn't support RAW in its "unlimited" plan though, does it? You'll have to purchase the SmugVault extra.

<comment><USER37> Unfortunately no. But I don't shoot raw so not a problem for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> All photos automatically stored in the cloud at full resolution.

At last! Here's hoping I never again spend a week recovering a friend or family member's lifetime of photos from their failed hard drive.

By the way, check your backups.

</comment><comment><USER40> It all looks nice but I think many people are asking: How does this compare to Aperture? Does it deal with Raw? The word Raw is not mentioned on the page but they do talk about multiple formats... Come on Apple! The entire Aperture crowd is in the dark and looking for these details!

<comment><USER32> I don't have details yet, but, based on this quick review, I would say that it's much, much closer to iPhoto than to Aperture, unfortunately. I'm sure that it handles Raw, but not all the rest of what makes Aperture useful and unique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I would just be happy with a file-based interface that would let me know physically where my photos are, where they're backed up to on iCloud, and could easily be moved to another storage device.

</comment><comment><USER42> Now available in the public and developer OSX Beta.

<comment><USER43> Thanks, I was a bit confused over what had changed since it still said "coming this spring."

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's interesting that they appear to have removed the Places functionality. I find it the fastest way to locate many photos - vacations, nights out, etc.

I guess most folks did not use that as much, and so it was removed.

</comment><comment><USER45> Hmmm... another thing from Apple that goes without the 'i', I sense a shift in branding. Probably gonna be a while before they drop it on the phones, though.

<comment><USER46> Seems to be the way they have been moving for a while on the productivity apps. Now only iMovie and iTunes are left.

It would be pretty ballsy (even for Apple) to drop the i and call the iPhone simply "Phone"!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I recently made the decision to use Dropbox Carousel for this kind of thing. Anyone have thoughts on whether I should stick with that or switch to photos?

<comment><USER48> As much as I love Dropbox and think Carousel looks nice, I'm finding it difficult to justify in comparison to Google Drive+Docs combo and/or the whole Apple ecosystem.

Dropbox has tough sledding against the level of integration that Google & Apple offer.

Carousel isn't going to cut it. I know they bought Mailbox and I think some startups offering nice documentation creation tools, but I'm wondering if they CAN do enough?

People say don't worry about the bumbling incumbents, but when it comes to files I'm not so sure. Anyone know how Dropbox is going to win?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I like that you can optimize for storage on mobile devices keeping a smaller file size on the phone with the ability to access the higher res if needed.

</comment><comment><USER37> After some reading about Photos, I'm beginning to see one big reason they are pushing this is for the ability to charge monthly fee for storing photos online...

Why can't they incorporate 'Iphoto Library Manager' and give user the ability to divide iphoto libraries into smaller chunks and let users easily store them on external Hds?

</comment><comment><USER50> Is this replacing iPhoto? I can't imagine iPhoto and Photos would make sense existing alongside each other.

<comment><USER51> It's essentially a hybrid of Aperture and iPhoto. Similar to what they did with Final Cut Pro and iMovie. Basically they remove all the really powerful features and replace them with an interface a 4 year old could use. It'll probably be a win for iPhoto users who are looking to step up their photo game a bit, but it's a bit of a kick in the teeth for Aperture users who probably now need to look at Lightroom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I just hope it will be faster compared to iPhoto which is lagging on latest rMBP 15 i7 with 2gb discrete video card.

</comment><comment><USER6> NOTE: There is nothing actually _new_ available here at all, other than some new marketing copy.

The app is still "Coming this spring" and the extremely basic and clunky beta cloud service is the same as what has been available since last year.

<comment><USER53> The beta is out for developers and it's pretty nice.

<comment><USER6> You mean the Mac app? Where? I just logged into the developer site but I don't see it anywhere.

EDIT: Ah I see, you need the beta of the next version of the whole OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I would prefer if they had layflat photobooks.

</comment><comment><USER55> Sigh. Does Apple offer auto-awesome like G+ (and soon, OneDrive)? Do they highlight the best photos or stitch burst shots together into a GIF? Do they email you memories like Everpix used to? Critically for me, do they offer deduplication?

I currently have nearly 1TB of photos thanks to reliance on iPhoto and a decade of attempted back-ups to local storage. In reality, there's maybe 200GB of actual photos. Thankfully, cloud storage has stemmed the proliferation of redundant photos.

For a company supposedly focused on user experience, Apple's complete failure with photos has been baffling. First the catastrophe of iPhoto, then arbitrary photo streams, and now $20/month/1TB (!) for iCloud storage. What the hell. Apple usually justifies their premium and exclusivity by offering better products. Hands up, everyone who thinks Apple offers even remotely comparable web services versus literally anyone else.

This just another greedy lock-in of tech-illiterate customers by offering worse services at higher prices. Which seems pretty emblematic of the Tim Cook era -- when Apple fully pivoted to extracting premium money from their customers rather than offering premium products.

</comment><comment><USER48> Serious question: Is there a better way than the Abercrombie/J.Crew model approach?

<comment><USER56> As someone who used to work for Apple—they source all the photos they use in their promotional materials from photos actual employees have taken.

<comment><USER48> I guess my question was whether it might be better to use more authentic imagery (whatever that means) and not just images of pristine young white people doing white people things. I'm genuinely curious about the branding here and not trying to be sensational.

<comment><USER21> Quality photos are aspirational. No one will want to see someone's poorly composed and boring photos in promotional material.

And 'white people'? The hero couple in Utah look black and latino to me. If anything, Apple's marketing is generally as interracial as typical office stock photography.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Another Apple ad on Hacker News? I wish we have a filter for "things that only apply to Apple users."

<comment><USER58> Come on, this is Hacker News. If you want to filter it... hack it....

And it isn't even like you've got to invent a wheel or anything, many people have felt the same way as you and put together some way of filtering the site and then released the source:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=hackernews+filter](https://www.google.com/search?q=hackernews+filter)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I've been saying this for the past few OSX releases, and this seems to just reinforce the idea:

I believe that Apple is going to unify iOS and OSX. Their UI designs are slowly converging, and in some cases, they're combining apps across both platforms.

I think we'll very soon see a single 'Apple OS' that will work on all devices; a dream that a lot of other OS's have been seeking for a long time.

<comment><USER60> There's a nugget of truth here;

'some developers are reporting signs that Apple has built this new app using something called UXKit, which sits above the Mac's familiar AppKit frameworks and strongly resembles UIKit on iOS.' from [http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/02/new-apple-photos-app- conta...](http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/02/new-apple-photos-app-contains- uxkit-framework/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Trailer Swift - <AUTHOR> http://www.trailer-swift.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Built on the road from Seattle to SXSW. Rails, heroku, backbone, bootstrap. Location data from Google Latitude.

TODO: incorporate some lightweight analytics so we can work on new Trailer Swift records.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just listened to Looking Back (<http://heymarseilles.com/media/>) - <USER2> curious - does anyone know if there's actually a name for that kind of vocal styling and where/when it came from?

I don't think I ever hear people talking like that - it seems to be a specific affectation only for singing. I think the first time I heard it was Michael Stipe in REM? But it's spread since then - the Decemberists, Alanis Morissette, and a bunch of indies since then. It's like a specific sort of dipthong.

Has anyone written about it?

</comment><comment><USER4> Upvoted for the name alone. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> Neat - I built something similar that uses the Songkick API and LeafletJS. Not quite as polished as yours though!

<http://bandroute.cc/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Very cool. Several months ago, there was an AMAZING tour tracking site posted here that showed the tour journey of a specific band I'm forgetting. Does anyone remember what that was?

</comment><comment><USER7> Your pin for Northampton is mislocated. Northampton is on the Connecticut River in western MA, not north of Boston. Here: <https://maps.google.com/maps?42.31912,-72.63175>

<comment><USER8> looks like someone got the town name wrong. The pin is located at North Hampton (which is the town name they list), though the venue is indeed in Northampton.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone already pointed out, the links "Get the record", "Facebook",... are broken:

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'get' of undefined application-8130dec2a6ff8caaab43fef0b7232c61.js

<comment><AUTHOR> Thx. last minute changes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice, but there are js errors (tested Chrome Canary) when clicking on the links in the bottom left corner

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool. I do find myself wishing the map didn't scroll with the info on the left though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Thx.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why did you go through Houston instead of DFW? The latter is way cooler.

</comment><comment><USER13> Need to include some information about what this is for. I just see the map with check marks and a truck pulling a wagon.</comment>


Information Graphics In Javascript With Sparklines.js - <AUTHOR> http://css.dzone.com/news/information-graphics-in-javasc <comment><USER2> This post just copies examples from the actual Sparklines documentation.

<http://www.willarson.com/code/sparklines/sparklines.html>

<comment><USER3> Its full lineage is that it's an authorized republishing of my article at [http://lethain.com/entry/2008/jun/26/sparklines-in- javascrip...](http://lethain.com/entry/2008/jun/26/sparklines-in-javascript- with-sparklines-js/) although the reposter reworded the title.

That said, it does mostly just take examples from the documentation, but the documentation is mine as well. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like sparklines. I used the php sparklines library to put a lot of them on my site: [http://www.babynameclusters.com/?search=paul&threshold=3...](http://www.babynameclusters.com/?search=paul&threshold=30)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm missing something here -- the Tufte notion of sparklines refers to "data- intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics". To me these are much larger and are much more like traditional graphs.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just a quick warning about this, it uses canvas tags to display the sparklines so won't work in IE or any browsers unable to display the canvas tag.

<comment><USER3> Actually, it does work on IE, because it uses the excanvas library from Google. Most canvas operations can be emulated this way, only failing when a high level of performance is necessary (i.e. I made a tower defense game in the canvas and it played very poorly in IE, although it did play).</comment></comment>


Tao Tajima – WebGL and GreenSock Animation - <AUTHOR> http://taotajima.jp/ <comment><USER2> Extracting one part of a conversation I had on Reddit with someone who's worked with GreenSock --

"GSAP is fairly standard on commercial sites. It's the most mature and cross tested animation option, but it's best features aren't free. I'd argue there's a good reason for that though, because the codebase is pretty impressive and can't be cheap to maintain.

Most people say the biggest advantage of GSAP is the timeline. When paired with SVGs (and using GSAP's morph plugin) there's some pretty crazy and unexplored UI orientated options that become very possible. I rarely have a client with a budget to go there, but why use another tool that can't do such amazing SVG manipulations in real time and synced to other movement on the screen?

I cannot overstate how powerful that is.

But the bottom line is that not enough "ux" folk are good enough with JavaScript to really be creative with GSAP. So it's mostly front Enders that use it or propose it in meetings.

Also I'm not 100% sure... but I think I recall reading somewhere that a lot of the software solutions trying to make web animation "easy" for designers, use GSAP under the hood. So I look as GSAP a lot like D3. Since they're advanced/enterprise solutions, and not easy to use (but not hard at all for proper programmers), there's a lot of attempts to make it easier with libraries built on top of their bases through licensing."

<comment><USER3> Yeah. I was a Flash programmer back in the mid 2000s, and GSAP is what let us move away from Flash and onto JavaScript with a similar set of abstractions. The best animation system I've used for the web; and amazingly performant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Eventhough the transition effect is interesting on first sight, using it more than the initial few seconds made me feel uncomfortable. Can't really pin point it, but I think it's mainly to do with the title always shifting and me having to refocus and trying to read it.

Too much stuff is moving at once - you have the videos in the background and in the forground other stuff is moving too - I think that's what's causing the discomfort for me and having to work too hard to explore the content. Making it all a bit more subtle might have helped.

And 'polluting' the history with each slide state doesn't help either.

Animations like this need to be tested with users too.

Edit: typos

<comment><USER5> I'd have to disagree with all of those points. The background transitions first, then the foreground content transitions afterwards; they're not all moving at once. The foreground content then remains stable once the transition finishes. Perhaps some opacity could be applied to the foreground content to discourage users from trying to read while it transitions.

And it makes sense to have the history change with each slide state. Describing it as a 'state' upholds that point. The back button even works with it, which is my main gripe when single-page apps don't 'pollute' the browser's history.

<comment><USER4> Check again - for me some of the videos play at the same time while the page is still transitioning... that's what I meant.

To me that component on the homepage is more like a 'carousel', so when I hit back I expected to be back on HN, but instead I stepped through each slide again with all the transitioning.

But it doesn't matter what my or your opinion is... we both have different expectations and all I'm saying is ideally this stuff should have been tested with more users.

<comment><USER5> Yes, all of the videos should be auto-playing. I'm saying that the discomfort would likely be alleviated if the text's opacity transitioned in. Then you should be able to handle the awesome rippling effects.

And my guess is that your expectation for the back button to send you back to HN is because of how the majority of SPA's break the back button. It's a disheartening reality.

I understand the importance of testing with actual users, but it's honestly pretty amazing that these are the only broken expectations for a portfolio site like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is breathtaking. This is the first good usage of scroll manipulation I've ever seen, and it has blown my socks off.

</comment><comment><USER7> Really disorienting experience on an iPad. The pollution of my back button history was a surprise.

<comment><USER8> wow.. you're not browsing wikipedia pages. who cares about the browser history?

<comment><USER9> most people. having to press back several times to go back to the previous site is a frustrating user experience. ideally this would use replaceState instead of pushState

Which doesn't take away from how impressive and smooth the effect is, kudos to the author

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I posted the other day about my desire to see more programmers strive towards demo scene type work in their creative endeavours. Seeing this makes me think about my own completely inadequate portfolio. Writing blog posts, pointing to half finished proof of concept repositories, etc, seems great, but... What if I concentrated on writing things that normal people could see and be interested in without falling asleep?

</comment><comment><USER11> I used to make these things with AS3 some 10 years ago...

Is there a market for these types of websites?

Maybe I should create some kind of "interactive web experience" and see if I can get some clients.

<comment><AUTHOR> Flash has never been this smooth.

<comment><USER12> > Flash has never been this smooth.

Yes it has. You could even create your own shaders/filters with a specialized language. Frankly it's great that things like that can be done with js/html but people did way more impressive things 15 years ago.

I'm really not impressed at all, personally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, show me a link then. We can still run it (not for long).

I'm talking about hardware acceleration, antialias, no dropped frame and in sync with the monitor's refresh rate.

Even a simple CSS3 animation beats the shit out of Flash in this regard.

<comment><USER13> Sorry dude - you have no clue what was posible with stage3d, pixelbender etc.

Take a look here if u care: [https://thefwa.com/](https://thefwa.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I do care. Searched this site but found no Flash content.

I've been asking for a proof that Flash can be as smooth as native browser technologies. So far, I've seen only words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is a totally new web experience and I think it's amazing (it is innovative for me). Probably it can be a little confusing on mobile devices but on desktop the effect is fantastic and really creative. You can work on it.. for the rest, compliments for the great good job.

</comment><comment><USER15> This makes me miss Flash in a weird way. This is like what early Flash looked like. Flash performed better, usually looked more polished than this, and was WAY easier to author in than WebGL probably will ever be.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Flash performed better, usually looked more polished than this…

Memory is a curious thing. Please provide some link to support this opinion. It is still possible to run it and prove it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How long does this take for others to load? On my fairly high-spec computer it was nearly 30 seconds on the first load, with not much indication that something was loading besides the slim loading bar. Visually it looks pretty slick but I wonder if it's worth the tradeoff? Subsequent loads seem much faster, though.

<comment><USER17> Mobile here, first load about 5-7s on 4G. Not bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice but a lot of form over function style design does not make the web a better place necessarily.

Nevertheless, WebGL is still a bit underused and this is a nice showcase. I imagine that together with WASM it will enable a lot of slick experiences when people start doing the things that currently require native applications.

E.g. most games have very slick and responsive UIs. There's no good reason why the web has to be the stuttering laggy mess that that causes your fans to spin up as soon as you scroll.

</comment><comment><USER19> I get the type of customers that need this sort of site, it's artsy, unique and all, but to be honest this could be the poster child for "UX don'ts"

<comment><USER20> True,but I work in a UX role and for a moderate-to-large website, "good UX" means a basic responsive design with a logical information architecture and navigation that optimizes conversion (e.g. product purchases). Good UX is business-driven and businesses are often boring.

I'm not a huge fan of this particular design but I do appreciate the effort they put into showcasing GSAP's capabilities. The web could use more interactivity and motion. The death of Flash and rise of mobile-first design seems to have led to websites where the only thing moving is the text/image content that's displaced once the ads on the page finish loading.

<comment><USER19> I somewhat agree and disagree with your view of UX, but that would mainly be a personal thing.

The way I see it for something to be have a nice user experience, it cannot be "boring" or all that bland as you put it, because if your target has lost interest after spending 10 seconds on your page because it feels like Wikipedia then I would call it bad UX honestly.

To illustrate if I had an article to present I could simply make a layout like so :

Title

Article, bold words for emphasis

so literally an h1 and some paragraphs and for the sake of this example let's say that this pattern is indeed a good UX. Now it works, our potential customer gets the content we want him to read, all good, but it is boring.

Now if you were to let's say do this kind of a layout :

Title with cover image background and a readable contrast

Paragraph 1 gets displayed centered vertically and horizontally with a lot of space between lines and a large font to make for an painless read, instead of using bold for emphasis maybe use bold and an accent color

Paragraph 2 has its first couple sentences barely noticeable at the bottom of your screen so that the user knows to scroll

Paragraph 3 comes in with a fade-in+transition from -10% left to 0% left

etc...

It might feel like we are entering more of a UI world but the way I see it if I can't easily understand something no matter how well it is presented then it's bad UX. I have dyslexia so I cannot read more than 2-3 paragraphs before losing track or interest, probably read 2 books in my life from cover to cover, so this has always made me think about content in a way that would make it accessible to any individual no matter their prior knowledge on the subject, their capacities or any other assumption you might not even realize you are making.

If a 5 year old can understand it in seconds then it has a good UX for me, think of Reddit's ELI5.

Again, this is only my view and I'm not saying there is a right and wrong way to do things, because there is none either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The point about animation tools like these is not that the specific effects matter but rather that the ability to animate even very complex things will allow you to greatly increase the usability things that used to be more or less impossible to do because it would require too much of a user.

Don't forget that the number one driver of something being intuitive is the removal of abstraction between the user and the result of their interaction. This is why the touch screen was the real paradigmshift when it came to improved usability because it removed the layer of abstraction between the user and what they wanted to manipulate.

Animation fills in this role too in that it allows for transitions to happen that makes you understand what it want you to do simply by ex. keeping on element on the screen but animating everything else out or by changing shape from one state to another. The fact that you experience this transition is what's really powerful and will be part of whatever next generation of UI paradigms we will see (ex. turning data into interactive elements as an example)

</comment><comment><USER22> I think that for me, one of the most interesting distinctions with such a visual, design-forward experience is the line between what's possible with WebGL animation and what's really just high-production quality video playing in the background. Where most of us developers get stuck approaching this is that we don't have the video assets and design language established, so we see it as just a bunch of tools that you could theoretically put together to do... something arbitrary, and in the future.

Whereas, if a design lead came to you with a strong design/brand and video content, it's really nice to know that the tools exist to make such a thing possible.

You don't have to go crazy on the transitions and scroll jacking, either. Subtle use of these tools can produce humbling results.

</comment><comment><USER23> I love GSAP but find the documentation and explanations for anything more than the basics very difficult.

Another similar example I liked: [http://www.themustafacelik.com/](http://www.themustafacelik.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> So many of these scroll animation fuckery sites are made so that they only work with a trackpad, and even then probably only a mac trackpad (where flicking etc. work well).

Using a site like this with a mousewheel is near impossible.

<comment><USER25> Scrolljacking is a bad idea in general [https://codepen.io/gunderson/pen/GJJPpV](https://codepen.io/gunderson/pen/GJJPpV)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm getting nauseous from this website.

</comment><comment><USER26> I am not aware of having any form of vestibular disorder, and it has generally taken fairly deliberate effort to cause any discomfort when looking at a screen— _A Slower Speed of Light_ was able to make me feel mild discomfort after ten minutes, which I understand to be not uncommon, but it's almost alone in that.

But this site is _awful_. I was feeling fine before, but within half a minute I was feeling mild pain in the back of my eyes and the beginnings of stomach churning. The animation was choppy and severely disorienting. Scrolling switching pages is not normal and is _always_ , _uniformly_ a bad idea. So after only half a minute I closed it. (That is, half a minute after the it finished loading—before that, there was a loading screen for perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, which is never a good sign. In the normal way of things, I'd probably have closed it before it ever finished loading, but I had been expecting some sort of article on combining WebGL and GSAP, rather than a demonstration that would make me feel sick.)

My stomach is not feeling any better a few minutes later. I shall now go and have a drink and a walk around.

Just because you _can_ do something, does not mean you _should_. As implemented, this is _terrible_.

<comment><USER27> So just because you personally have trouble with something, no one should ever use it?

<comment><USER26> I will not be unique in this. Many people will be negatively affected by it, some far, far worse than me. (For some history on far more subtle things than this causing problems for some people, look into what happened in iOS 7 (I think it was that version) in what led to the "prefers reduced motion" setting.)

Quite apart from the how it will made some people feel sick, there is simply too much that is _different_ about the site, so that a great many people, when they encounter it, will get lost very quickly. It's not as bad as mystery meat navigation, but its navigation scheme is very dubious, because it lacks the "tells" of normal web browsing.

It's an interesting technical demonstration, but _not_ a good website for normal people to use. For a film-maker it may or may not backfire, but I've seen a couple of sites of developers, designers and such agencies, that looked and behaved vaguely like this from a navigation perspective, and the main thing that I take out of such sites is that the the creator of the site didn't care about accessibility. And I don't mean making the site usable for disabled people, I mean making the site usable for _anyone_. I would never hire any such person or organisation for any web development work.

(I failed to notice this the first time, but this site is also _enormous_. I killed it off as it hit 75MB, and I think it was still loading _more_ video. I will freely and precisely describe such a page size as absurd and insane. I would not have loaded the site even once had I realised what and how large it would be.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Gave me seasickness. And I'm not even sick on boats.

</comment><comment><USER29> In addition to the animation, I liked the "immersive" feel of the main pages. This effect seems to be created by allowing the navigation elements to "frame" the entire screen and then placing a single piece of content as the focal point in the center of the screen.

Certainly some interesting UI / UX takeaways here.

</comment><comment><USER30> Shows great mastery of webgl animation and poor understanding of browser history (navigation history).

</comment><comment><USER31> On Firefox for Android, I get

 _This site has some features that are not supported by your current browser.

I recommend Using the latest version of Chrome._

... but it works with desktop Firefox...

Edit: in fact, it works in Firefox for Android if I enable desktop mode...

</comment><comment> w-ll Does this sample audio from _The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild_?

</comment><comment><USER32> wow, looks really cool

</comment><comment><USER33> I'd love to see a case study of these effects, both the rolling video obscuration and the weird text entry and exit animations.

</comment><comment><USER34> Surprised by the fluidity on mobile. Compare to magicleap.com, impressive on desktop but broken on (my android) phone.</comment>


Global temperature continues to cool - <AUTHOR> https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/01/global-temperature-continues-to-cool/ <comment><USER2> There is a 19 year nutation cycle of the earth due to the moon, and there is the 11 year solar cycle, and how these interact with each other give most of the short term variability.

But unless you have been actively aware of and remember the weather for 100 years or more you are not going to recognise the full range of possible changes just in the short term, let alone the slightly less short term like the 20,000 year nutation etc etc</comment>


Freemium Revisited - <AUTHOR> http://continuations.com/post/58961726/freemium-revisited <comment><USER2> I for one think freemium isnt dead just - a part in a pendulum swing in the other direction, now-a-days its not ok to produce crap or stolen content.</comment>


ISO updates C Standard (Now we have C11) - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/ISO-updates-C-standard-1400814.html <comment><USER2> Here are major C11 Standard changes:

      - standard multithreading support (<threads.h> header)
      - atomic operations (<stdatomic.h> header)
      - type-generic macros (sqrt translates to sqrt, sqrtf, sqrtl depending on argument type)
      - Unicode support (char16_t and char32_t types)
      - gets function is removed from the standard (use gets_s)
      - static assertions
      - aligned memory allocation (aligned_alloc)
      - anonymous structures and unions
      - no-return functions (specify functions that never return)
      - exclusive access for opened files ("x" in fopen)
      - macros to create complex numbers
      - additional way to terminate the program (quick_exit and at_quick_exit)

<comment><USER3> > exclusive access for opened files ("x" in fopen)

Wouldn't this need to be a service provided by the operating system? How can it be part of the standard? Or is it just that the standard prescribes that "x" must work if the operating system allows it.

I know Windows usually defaults to exclusive access, but in practice do any unix-like systems provide exclusive access for file read? Just wondering since I've never requested exclusive read access in my Linux programming.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it requires OS support, but it's no different than most of the standard library. Opening files, writing to files, printing to the console, allocating memory, etc. all require OS support, too.

As to how it can be implemented, "man 2 open" on OSX shows O_EXLOCK and O_SHLOCK flags, and they're from BSD. Not sure if they're POSIX, but I'd bet Linux has something equivalent. And there's also the flock() function. My guess is the new "x" option to fopen can be implemented using O_EXLOCK and flock(), though I'm too tired to look up details on how it could be done.

<comment><AUTHOR> It should be just O_EXCL, which is POSIX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And they _still_ haven't adopted the C++ const-correctness rules (for pointers to pointers to ...), which really do help in writing correct code, and correct code that has flavor of C89.

<comment><USER6> What? C has those const rules. The type "int const* const*" is valid C.

The differences are primarily that in C you can't use a const symbol in a place where a constant expression is expected (e.g. initializing another const, or a statically sized array).

But you can absolutely do const-correct code in C.

<comment><USER5> It has _a_ set of const-correctness rules. They're much simpler than the C++ rules. While they handle the simple cases perfectly well, they forbid some assignments that really can't get you in trouble, and would be quite useful in practice. In particular, while "int const * const * " exists, it can't be assigned from an "int * * ", even though this is sound. This makes it hard to write const-correct functions handling 2-d arrays.[1] kzrdude's link shows how they have to rule out certain constructs that are not obviously wrong. It doesn't explain how the C++ assignment compatibility rules allow more, while still being sound, but that's a bit much to expect from a C FAQ, particularly as the C++ rules are somewhat involved. (I can't find a decent reference that explains the rules well. I found one about six months ago, but didn't save it, as I don't professionally use C++.)

[1]: Preemptive pedanticism: Yes, there are difference between C arrays and pointers, the expression types merely decay in the right contexts. But if I'm using [] to dereference, they're being used as arrays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For personal projects, I'm going to try and use ANSI C89 forever. I know this isnt especially rational but it's somehow appealing to stick with a small(er) and more historic version.

<comment><USER8> I think that <stdint.h> is a C99 feature worth using -- otherwise each project has to redefine eg. myuint32_t over and over again. Colossal waste of effort and namespace pollution.

<comment><USER9> Most of the time you don't actually care about the exact size of your integer types (especially for signed integers).

At work, we use C90 with a few C99 extensions which can be disabled through the preprocessor (e.g. inline, restrict) and although we stared out with a stdint.h like thing, it is proving to be less useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm still disappointed that K&R never released a third edition.

</comment><comment><USER11> nice. would like to find out all the new stuff in some blog/books before I had to read the standard itself, plus the status of toolchain supports of them(gcc seems only support part of the new standard)

<comment><USER12> You have to pay money to even look at it. That makes supporting things difficult.

<comment><USER13> at least you can read the draft

<http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf>

<comment><USER12> Wow, I missed that that one was free. Thank you!

<comment><USER14> This is often the case with language and file format standards: The working group drafts are free, and the standard is just an approval-without-change of the final draft.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Russia to place GPS jammers on 250000 cell towers to reduce enemy drone accuracy - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/RFInfoSec/status/788824465815797760 <comment><USER2> C'mon, just post the link to the original content, not your twitter profile + tweet.</comment>


Stephen Wolfram Aims to Democratize His Software - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/stephen-wolfram-seeks-to-democratize-his-software/?smid=tw-nytimesbits&smtyp=cur&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Pretty sure most modern democracies don't have poll taxes. How about open sourcing the language, Wolfram?</comment>


Ask HN: Merchant account and payment gateway for subscription-based web apps? - <AUTHOR>

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on merchant accounts and payment gateways like Authorize.net, Paypal, Braintree, etc. <comment><USER2> Feel free to look at any of the plethora of past threads about this.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526517>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=200920>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=175186>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=344030>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=389692>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=198502>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470128>

Also, you might find the site <http://searchyc.com/> useful for finding answers to these and other common questions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Braintree has a very high monthly fee (200 a month min) and so does not seem good for startups (they seem to forget about the fact that startups _grow_ ).

I tried to negotiate with them... They came down to 100 min which was still more than double my other options. At this point when I said it was higher than I was comfortable with, the sales rep started asked me "what would you propose?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that, but when I finally answered "how about matching or nearly matching the minimum given by x" (which was around 40 a month minimum) and I'll sign up today. At that point, the salesperson sent me a miffed-sounding response saying they can't go below the 100 a month minimum (why ask what I propose, then?) and walked away from the negotiation. YMMV.

edit: checked my emails with them and edited for accuracy

<comment><USER4> Braintree may have a high minimum monthly fee - but I don't think you should skimp on quality when it comes to a merchant/gateway account.

Just try searching for competitors in Twitter - you'll quickly get a indication on the type of customer support they provide: <http://search.twitter.com/search?q=authorize.net>

So far I've found the people at Braintree to be friendly and extremely helpful.

Also, if you don't see your business rising above the minimum monthly fee then it's probably not really worth your while. After your first 20 customers or so, you'll be paying exactly the same as most of the other gateways.

<comment><USER3> It isn't a matter of not rising past the minimum monthly fee--it is a matter of the burn rate while ramping up when you're bootstrapping. Shortening the runway is a bad thing.

If their sales person hadn't blown me off, I might have settled on them after looking around. As it was, I decided to hold off opening the account until we were farther down the road with development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Merchant Account with local bank + Authorize.net has been our choice

<comment><USER5> Also: Previous Thread <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=175186>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a bunch for the info and the link to the older thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> None of the above. Don't deal with all that hassle (and a major hassle it can be!) and use <http://www.zuora.com> instead - they are cheap for what they save you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, thanks for the info. Is their pricing still as high as the other threads mention? (e.g. $1k/month)

</comment></comment><comment> Automatt-2 We decided to forego the merchant account and instead have been using Amazon Simple Payments with success. They've been excellent at closing transactions.

</comment><comment><USER7> looks like its new but very curious to see what kind of results this progresses with: <http://transfs.com/>

<comment><USER8> @brm: TransFS.com is my startup, and I seriously considered posting a response to this thread a couple of hours ago... but I didn't want to spam HN with self-promotion.

Indeed we are new, having launched in beta about 6 months ago. However, we have a number of aggressive processing bidders on our site... and I honestly believe that our marketplace offers some of the best pricing out there, especially for new merchants. We are always improving the product, and have plenty of work to do, but our customers have been very happy overall with the comparison shopping experience that we offer.

As my co-founder put it in an email to one of our potential customers today: "TransFS is the second startup for both the cofounders of our business (Sean and Josh) and we are radically passionate about helping business owners get a fair shake and reduce the way-too-high profits of the credit card processors."

Anyway, thanks for the mention!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> TrustCommerce got some good recommendations on the 37 signals blog.

</comment><comment><USER10> SecureTrading, in the UK, has second-to-none customer service.</comment>


iMeals Is a Open Source Restaurant Software for Food Delivery - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/evias-services/imeals-project <comment><USER2> This could be very nice for the right people. however,there are 0 instructions in the readme.</comment>


Python: Parsing XML with lxml « The Mouse Vs. The Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2010/11/20/python-parsing-xml-with-lxml/ <comment><USER2> lxml is great if you need any XPath, XSLT, or BeautifulSoup HTML parsing, which libxml does for you. If you're just interested in fast (really fast) XML parsing, cElementTree is just great. It's even faster than lxml and consumes considerably less memory; and, like lxml, it supports the .iterparse(...) interface.

Python 2.5 and later even ship with cElementTree, so it's always preferable to minidom, and (depending on taste) most of the time, preferable to lxml.

<comment><USER3> In my experiments ([http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/03/30/python-html-parser- per...](http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/03/30/python-html-parser- performance/)) lxml performed better than cElementTree for memory -- notably cElementTree creates Python objects for all nodes, while lxml does so only on demand (though I suppose if you ultimately touch every node in Python then lxml will use more memory).

Also lxml preserves the namespace prefixes, which while formally not necessary to understand a document are often in practice both aesthetic and sometimes necessary (e.g., RDF).

Also algorithmically, I find lxml's parent pointer on nodes to be very handy. I find some things really really hard in ElementTree because you can't directly get the parent of a node.</comment></comment>


The Unabomber's Pen Pal - <AUTHOR> http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Unabombers-Pen-Pal/131892/ <comment><USER4> _"The primary concern of Kaczynski's writings is freedom, and he argues that the complex systems required by modern technology necessarily force individuals to give up too much liberty in the bargain."_

Wow, where have I heard that before?

There is a common theme, in a number of these rants, whether its Kaczynski, Stallman, or Joy. The theme is that complexity begats obscurity and our inability to predict the behavior of mostly obscured, highly interconnected systems exposes us to an 'unnecessary' risk.

I am not persuaded by the 'enslaving', 'grey goo', or 'police state' scenarios, but I do recognize the potential harm here. Generally however we've been adapting as these challenges have come up and I expect to continue adapting. I have yet to hear a credible argument for going back to living in caves (other than its demonstrable that with population management and technological restrictions one could create a stable non-growing human population).

<comment><USER5> > highly interconnected systems exposes us to an 'unnecessary' risk

Kaczynski's arguments are not mostly about the risk of technology, they are mostly about how technology forces us into ever narrowing conformist behavior. He makes the point about how it now impractical to function in North America without a car. You are largely denied your freedom to walk. Try to walk through most counties and see how that works out. Similarly, see how it's becoming almost impossible to legally live without owning a computer. You increasingly need one to remain in compliance with the IRS and so forth. Your freedom to forgo computer ownership, or even usage, is being taken.

<comment><USER4> That's an interesting take on it. As a counter point my adult daughter lives in Portland and has no car, one of her roommates doesn't even have a license to drive, so its not even a 'temporary' thing in that case. They do however have computers, and while my wife's uncle does not, it is certainly becoming like 'not having a phone' was to my generation.

That being said, how much would you say your claim of "impractical to function" includes some pre-defined notion of "function" ? Not trying to be circular here, there are real people who "function" (which I consider the basics, live, eat, work) without either cars or computers. I do not know if they use public transit to cross long distances or not.

<comment><USER6> Portland is one of very few exceptions. Easily more than 95% of the US population needs a car to get around.

<comment><USER7> No, more than 95% of the US land area needs a car. Quite a many people are actually living in the packed metro areas nowadays.

<comment><USER6> The term "metro area" almost belies the argument though--most people who live in any given "metro area" are in the rings of suburban hell, not in the city center. And precious few city centers actually have functional public transportation by first-world standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No, his ideas are not worthy of much debate, since they are so deeply flawed. What constitutes "technology", and who gets to decide at which level of progress we say "This far and no further"? The answers to these will necessarily be completely arbitrary, since the scope of the actual problems being solved is so poorly understood.

If a convincing case can be made that particular technologies are causing specific harm, they should be addressed on a case-by-case basis as best we can. Instead, Ted is a modern day Don Quixote who couldn't cope with society and chose to tilt at windmills, at the unfortunate expense of innocent blood and suffering.

His intellectual value is largely cautionary.

<comment><USER9> This.

Anti-technologists by and large seem incapable of actually understanding technology by any reasonable definition (and being magnanimous, I would even permit something as asinine as, "silicon-based Turing machines", if only to make the point that I don't have to agree with the definition for it to be reasonable). One of the reasons I like Nick Carr is that he argues against particular usages of technology more than technology itself.

My definition is "applied science", which in a broad stroke includes constructed shelters like log cabins and loincloths.

<comment><USER10> 1) Enrolled in Harvard at 16, PhD in mathematics from U of M, assistant professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley at 25 - I think he was more than capable of understanding technology.

2) See my earlier comment - it's not about any specific technology! Your comment and parent comment indicate that you both haven't actually read the manifesto and are thus completely unqualified to discuss it or form opinions on it.

<comment><USER9> @defen,

1) Being capable of doing something doesn't mean you've done it. For instance, you're capable of reading comprehension, but you completely missed the fact that I wasn't attacking your damsel in distress. I am actually talking about _all_ anti-tech commentators.

2) Of course it's not about any specific technology. That's precisely my criticism. If they were specific, then a serious discussion could be had. But because they can't quite figure out what they themselves are critical of in a precise fashion, they're unable to get anyone to listen.

You're welcome to provide substance to this by pasting in Kaczinsky's definition of technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's really too bad that Kaczynski was trying to publish his work back in the 1970s and 1980s. These days, he could have just published it on the internet, and that way plenty of people would have been able to read it.

<comment><USER12> His last two bombs were in '94 and '95 and both were fatal. So he could have published on the net, but he chose violence. He chose wrong.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but perhaps he did not see the 'net/Web as natural? Perhaps a new unabomber now would? Technology gets naturalised over time, as the teacher in the original article was saying about Plato and writing. A modern maths textbook is a pretty sophisticated piece of technology.

<comment><USER14> Which is a very good reason that his argument doesn't make sense. Naturalism is silly, as is separating things as "human-created" or "man-made" versus "natural". It all comes out of the same matter of the universe.

I really don't understand the allure this professor feels for his luddite ideals.

> "It's always around the same theme of, This system is irreconcilable, it has > to be ended," Skrbina says. "How can we make this clear? How can we convince > people that technology is the root cause of the problem? It's not bad > government. It's not the capitalists. It's not minorities. It's not illegal > immigrants. He really wants to get away from blaming anything else or > anybody else."

Maybe he has difficulty convincing anyone of that because it's not a particularly compelling argument?

<comment><USER13> "Which is a very good reason that his argument doesn't make sense. Naturalism is silly, as is separating things as "human-created" or "man-made" versus "natural". It all comes out of the same matter of the universe."

And it is part of the human story to use tools/manipulate their environment. However, when you abandon the idea of 'natural' you also loose the reassurance of some kind of limit to our particular random walk. The human journey could lead to our destruction, or to a life among the stars. We have to work on internal evidence and read the data we have effectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Is it even morally or ethically right," he asks, "to be studying the works of a societal criminal."

Clearly this student didn't learn anything from their earlier reading of Phaedrus.

<comment><USER16> So reading _Phaedrus_ is supposed to automatically turn you into a complete Platonist? I and many others give broad credence to Platonism in the realm of mathematics, but the students question is in the realm of ethics, and Dr. Skrbina (as summarized in the article) brushes this question off all too easily.

<comment><USER15> I was referring to the fact that the mean character in the book is Socrates, who was put to death for being a 'societal criminal.' This doesn't really have anything to do with Platonic ethics.

edit: Especially since Socrates was put to death for 'corrupting the youth' and 'teaching new gods', which is more or less the usual argument against teaching Kaczynski.

"And there's the chance that a serious consideration of the Unabomber's ideas could encourage others to send bombs to get attention." --> corrupting the youth

"The primary concern of Kaczynski's writings is freedom, and he argues that the complex systems required by modern technology necessarily force individuals to give up too much liberty in the bargain" --> teaching new gods

(In this case 'the bargain' is literally straight out of the Adam and Eve story in the bible, and a direct challenge to western religion/civilization.)

<comment><USER16> That was actually the first thing that came into my mind upon your reference to _Phaedrus_ , but I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were referring to something deeper. Socrates _crime_ in his time was defying the state's moral code. For which he was put to death. He was a soldier in Athens' army, and possibly killed other men in that role (for which most societies forgive to this day), but he never murdered. Kaczynski murdered in cold blood. Comparing him to Socrates in any way is vacuous. This is called ethics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A lot of people on here are arguing in favor of technology, which leads me to believe that they haven't actually read the manifesto and are just going by Kaczynski's reputation or bombing targets or the title. It's not about technology! It's about human psychology and the form of society - <USER2> is just an enabler for that. His arguments would be just as valid in ancient Egypt as they would be in the 21st century.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think this is telling: "In his personal life, Skrbina says he generally tries not to use technology if he can avoid it—he refuses to carry a cellphone, has never owned a microwave oven, and does not have a laptop (though he does use computers for his work)." So he advocates understanding Kaczynski's point of view, but he doesn't attempt to understand technology? That seems rather one-sided.

<comment><USER18> If he uses a computer for work, it sounds like he understands technology, but makes the choice not to use it.

<comment><USER17> I think that's a broad leap from "uses a computer for work" to "understands technology". My grandparents use computers for work, but they do not know much about technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "Humanity, the author writes, is at a crossroads, and we can either turn the > clock back to a happier, more primitive time or face destruction."

Has anyone else read a book called Ishmael? That's basically the premise except instead of being an opinionated rant, the points are made through dialog (a talking gorilla) and instead of forcing opinions on the reader, it's much more philosophical and nudges you logically toward the conclusion. Pretty enjoyable book.

<comment><USER20> I actually accidentally discovered Daniel Quinn's work through the Unabomber's Manifesto. I agree with a lot of what the Unabomber and Quinn says - <USER3> Unabomber just chose a more violent way to spread this message.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The overall tone of the Unabomber Manifesto is pretty crazy, but substantial parts are rather profound, or at least concise and effective restatements of important ideas.

In particular, Kaczynski's discussion of the Power Process, Autonomy, and Surrogate Activities rings true and explains a lot. I get the impression a lot of this stuff has only been further confirmed in recent years: people without autonomous, difficult, and meaningful tasks are unhappy.

<http://xahlee.org/p/um/um.html>

I also thought his discussion of the psychological character of the Left has some value.

<comment><USER21> It reads like Nietzsche (all that Will to Power & slave morality stuff) updated for century XXI. (I skimmed the text by highlighting the word "goal".) Frustratingly, the Unabomber doesn't give any examples of "real goals". Does helping startups succeed count?

<comment><USER6> That's not a very helpful comment; if you're going to discuss the text, you'd better read it, and carefully. If you did, you'd know the answer to your questions. It's extremely straightforward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Oh, that's lovely. I'm sure Professor Skrbina is also pen pals with Eric Rudolph, the abortion bomber:

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

Every other week, he teaches his adoring young undergrads to understand Rudolph's subtle, nuanced position on the sanctity of human life... not.

FWIW, both Kaczynski's and Rudolph's philosophical opinions are worthy of debate. Their persons, however, are icky. Icky rubs off - even if you're a professor.

<comment><AUTHOR> You seem to be saying something, but I can never figure out just what it is.

<comment><USER22> What I'm saying is that it's immoral to play kissy-face, even intellectual kissy-face, with murderers.

Somehow this is controversial. But you can see it easily if you flip the political polarities. Hence, Eric Rudolph.

Something obvious you can't see is called a "blind spot." Is there anything else in your blind spot?

<comment><USER23> Define "murderers". Depending on how widely you spread that blanket you could cover every government employee in the world. Include "or through inaction" as a modifier to your definition and you and I are just as guilty.

<comment><USER24> Murder almost always is defined to include premeditation (malice aforethought). So you're in the clear, along with most every government employee in the world.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good Examples of User Manuals? - <AUTHOR> I've been reviewing some options to create a user manual and/or FAQ for a system we are delivering to customers.
I read some content from hubspot[1] and intercom[2] which gave some insights, but I would like more greate and preferrably real-world examples.
Of course the audience might have different requirements and expectations, but do you have any good examples of user manuals or FAQs which users(and also the writers) love?
[1] https://www.hubspot.com/knowledge-base [2] https://www.intercom.com/blog/give-your-customers-best-practices-not-just-faqs/ <comment><USER2> Check Linux man pages</comment>


What's wrong with PHP API (in contrast to Perl) - <AUTHOR> http://tnx.nl/php.html

<comment><USER2> This article lists all the tired arguments that have been brought forward since the beginning of time (or at least since the 1990ies). As someone who is coding in PHP every single day, I don't care about some of the ugly things. But I do care about the things I can create and I care about about my customers who enjoy those things.

Yes, PHP has some quirks. Get over it.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my Idea, Prospero.us - <AUTHOR>

I have been sitting on this idea for a while and I wanted some validation whether or not to start it.
Below is my Pitch:
Prosperous is a web application that allows anyone to automatically donate a proportion of their credit/debit card purchases to go to the charities and non-profits they care about. The objective is to allow people to give to those in need while not worrying about how much or how often.
Customer/Problem(Donations): People are lazy and don't like the hassle of finding the right charity and remembering to donate often.
Customer/Problem (Charities): Charities need a way to reach new supporters and be able to reach a mass audience cheaply.
Product: Dead simple, easy to set up, automatic donations deducted from bank account based on credit/debit purchases.
Product: One stop shop for people to view charities and non-profits of all kinds. (Jumo like network)
Distribution/Pricing: People will set a percentage to be donated and we take a fee based on every transaction. (3.5%)
Demand Creation: Having a large amount of charities, the simplicity of donating, and the ability to view every donation made and create a tax deduction Form 1040, Schedule A for every user for that fiscal year.
I appreciate the feedback and advice! Please also let me know if this is worth pursuing. :) <comment><USER2> I hate to be that guy, but I'm not feeling the love.

 _Customer/Problem(Donations): People are lazy and don't like the hassle of finding the right charity and remembering to donate often._

I'm lazy as all fuck, and yet charities seek me out with passionate regularity. I've chosen a few I like, and set up recurring payments to them (via handy forms the send me in the mail as if they were AOL cds.)

 _Customer/Problem (Charities): Charities need a way to reach new supporters and be able to reach a mass audience cheaply._

Cheaper than direct mail?

 _Product: Dead simple, easy to set up, automatic donations deducted from bank account based on credit/debit purchases._

Now, why would I want the donations tied to my credit card purchases? That seems back-assward to me. If I spend a bit too much in a given month, my donations will _expand_? Sorry, I'd rather give a fixed amount (monthly) and be done with it.

 _Product: One stop shop for people to view charities and non-profits of all kinds. (Jumo like network)_

Oh man, so the charities are going to be going head-to-head against each other on the same site? That's depressing. I recommend you read up on the Paradox of Choice-- if there were more than 3 or 4 charities listed, I'd probably not end up donating to any.</comment>


High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_seacowboys?currentPage=all

<comment><AUTHOR> The other article on the Ghost Ship ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10106130](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10106130)) reminded me of this article - it's one of my favorites</comment>