Trent Reznor: "You're seeing the fall of America in real time" - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/21/trent-reznor-nine-inch-nails-youre-seeing-the-fall-of-america <comment><USER2> It's like being sick and someone comes to your sick bed and says "you're so sick,did you know that? Here's my opinion on it..."

Why do people keep writing about the fall of america without addressing what can practically be done about it? Are they telling us to panick as if that'll help?

This seems like a controversial thing,hope I didn't offend anyone(let me know if I did so I can refrain in the future)

<comment><USER3> Sure. There are a few things that could be done, most of which have been done in some form in other countries:

\- Make it illegal to bribe politicians.

\- Make it illegal for cities to restrict construction of new housing.

\- Make it illegal to profit on speculation on housing.

\- Make it illegal for employers to discriminate against people without a college degree.

\- Extend Medicare to the whole population. Failing that, or as an interim, extend Medicare to under-18s, and repeal the tax distortion for employers providing health insurance.

\- Repeal drug prohibition.

<comment><USER4> Let's go over your points one by one:

\- Make it illegal to bribe politicians.

It already is. If you want to bring about change you should be more exact with your complaint, otherwise people won't take you seriously.

\- Make it illegal for cities to restrict construction of new housing.

If that was the case then someone could buy a forest and cut it all down. Some people like that there is a forest nearby. I don't see anything wrong with restrictions against destroying a forest even if it is for a house.

\- Make it illegal to profit on speculation on housing.

Let's take Flint Michigan as an example. Right now many people are trying to sell their house and move away. Some people are buying a house because they think that eventually Flint will fix everything up and become a normal city. In that case the house would be worth more money. If speculation was illegal then no one would buy the houses from the people who want to leave Flint.

\- Make it illegal for employers to discriminate against people without a college degree.

Imagine if Google had a policy that they would interview anyone with an A in a relevant degree. If that became illegal there would be no way that they could interview everyone that was interested in working there. They would have to find another way to discriminate that may be worse.

\- Extend Medicare to the whole population. Failing that, or as an interim, extend Medicare to under-18s, and repeal the tax distortion for employers providing health insurance.

Currently Medicare will become insolvent in 2026. How can we include more people if it cannot take care of the current about of people?

\- Repeal drug prohibition.

Seeing as China was defeated by England due to the opioid war, I can understand way people would be against that.

<comment><USER3> _shrug_ Or come up with reasons for not implementing any fix, and wait for your country to destroy itself, if that's what you prefer. Not my country, and I don't get to make the policy decisions. I can make suggestions, but it's up to other people whether they choose to follow them.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand your response. Just because I don't agree with the fixes that you suggested doesn't mean that I don't think that any fix should be implemented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I didn't know who Trent Reznor was before reading. Turns out this is just a clickbait title for an article about the band Nine Inch Nails - not worth reading.

<comment><USER6> Why do you say it's clickbait? That quote seems pretty typical TR.

I'm glad it was posted. I didn't know they were starting a new tour.

FWIW, NIN really pushes the technology envelope in their live shows, sound recordings and marketing ideas. That seems pretty compatible with HN audience.

<comment><USER7> It's really nothing to do with the crux of the interview. The editor used that quote as the headline because declineporn is so hot right now. That's the definition of clickbait.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It bears mentioning that he's said similar things during the Bush administration.

<comment><USER6> It's no surprise. This has been a theme for him through out his career. The typical angst of the goth/industrial scene he's been part of since the beginning of the band.

I believe that during bush years he released Year Zero with its alternate reality game [0]. That albums entire message was about the fall of america and western society in general. The game was really eerie but a fantastic way to promote the upcoming album.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(game)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_\(game\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Big fan of Trent. Hes one of the few artists with actual messages to his art beyond the Taylor Swift's and Kanye's who are more worried about keeping their brand strong than making meaningful art.

<comment><USER6> Though totally different styles, I often group him with the likes of Henry Rollins. Both come from anti establishment, both explore multiple mediums with music at the core, both have personal interest trying to work with and influence mainstream media. Both have become "less shocking" as they have gotten older.</comment></comment>


WebTorrent Desktop 0.23 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent-desktop/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#v0230---2020-07-15 <comment><USER2> I love WebTorrent and have been using the desktop app as well as using Instant.io to transfer files.

I don't get why the desktop app still doesn't allow you to select specific files. Am I the only one who wants to do that? It's a pretty standard feature in every other torrent client. Now that libtorrent supports WebTorrent protocol, I don't know what the value proposition of the WebTorrent desktop app will be.

<comment><USER3> How does instant.io work? I just "download" from magnet, and the app hangs in there for ages[0].

[0]: [https://i.imgur.com/8hdoVEX.png](https://i.imgur.com/8hdoVEX.png)

<comment><USER2> Is the magnet link one you created with Instant.io/WebTorrent, or is it off a torrent site? I'm wondering because of those tracker URLs I can see in the magnet URI.

If it's the latter, it's not going to work because the torrent needs to be seeded via WebTorrent(i.e. WebRTC). The desktop version of WebTorrent can download both regular torrents and web torrents because it's not limited to WebRTC for peer connections(whereas a browser is).

<comment><USER3> OOOH! That makes sense. Yes, it was off of a public tracker. So, this is a P2P file sharing website, then?

<comment><USER2> Yep, exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using Webtorrent Desktop for quite a while now, and really enjoy using it generally, but there are some glaring issues around random freezes on fast connections, plenty of open issues on it with other users reporting the same experience: [https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent- desktop/issues?q=is...](https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent- desktop/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+freeze)

I've personally been working around this using a custom fork that messes around with the simultaneous connections settings of the webtorrent library, and it seems to help a bit, but I still get freezing from time to time when I download a large number of torrents simultaneously.

I wonder if an alternative Webtorrent implementation (not Webtorrent Desktop) in Rust on top of WASM might make those kinds of issues easier to avoid with its safeguards around concurrency and just generally making more efficient use of resources.

(Slightly edited repost from an earlier thread about Webtorrent, feels a lot more relevant on this one)

<comment> Sean-Der There are two other WebTorrent implementations (possibly more that I don't know about!)

* [https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent](https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent) (Golang)

* [https://github.com/arvidn/libtorrent](https://github.com/arvidn/libtorrent) (C++)

An implementation in Rust would be amazing, but there is a quite a bit of work to make that happen in pure Rust though! If you want to use FFI/unsafe code it is totally do-able :)

<comment><USER5> I don't think the first one (anacrolix/torrent) supports WebTorrent, where did you read it?

<comment><USER6> There is a 'webrtc.go' file in that repo, so I guess it does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Webtorrent is very nice in web browser. But,i am not convinced why should i use webtorrent outside browser where i can use transmission/aria2/libtorrent based torrent clients.

<comment><USER8> Ease of use perhaps? WebTorrent is the application i recommend to anyone not- tech-savvy who wants to download and watch their favourite movies. Having a distinct play button for them to press and being able to watch immediately is a huge feature for them.

<comment><USER7> Yes,maybe. But,transmission BT client is also very easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This broke VLC launching for me, though i think the regression is actually from the previous release:

[https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent- desktop/issues/1807](https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent- desktop/issues/1807)

In-case anyone has the same issue... downgrading alone is not sufficient to fix, as the issue seems to be with the configuration stored in .config/WebTorrent Once you remove this and install 0.21 or less VLC will launch again.

</comment><comment><USER10> Another way to sandbox it if I don't trust the chrome-sandbox to set it setuid as root?

<comment><USER11> firejail?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm using WebTorrent Desktop to seed PeerTube videos. I'm really glad I can do this to help support my favorite content creators.

<comment><USER13> Is there a particular peertube platform thats currently popular?

<comment><USER14> videos.lukesmith.xyz

<comment><USER12> That's exactly who I'm seeding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> done the amazing dude that add by `mistakes` adds in his standarjs library(that is just an amazing config file) to make some money, got with pants off and tell us it was just a test...

[https://github.com/standard/standard/issues/1381](https://github.com/standard/standard/issues/1381)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786981](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786981)

i love javascript.

<comment><USER16> Did I miss something..?

<comment><USER15> enjoy: [https://github.com/standard/standard/issues/1381](https://github.com/standard/standard/issues/1381)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786981](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786981)

<comment><USER16> Seems like you're exaggerating and overly bitter, for some reason.

I'll just move on, this is nothing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New design, traffic stats etc at alexa - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/news.ycombinator.com

<comment><USER2> It's nice, they added some new stats. I will keep using compete.com, but it's interesting to see it isn't dead.</comment>


The next home-networking revolution will be wired - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2036527/the-next-home-networking-revolution-will-be-wired.html <comment><USER2> I find it weird that HDBaseT can only support 100BaseT Ethernet when it uses Cat5e - Cat7 cables. The article assures us that this is enough, but >100 Mbps Internet connections are slowly becoming a reality here in the United States and are even more common elsewhere.</comment>


Youtube : cluttered/anonimity/abusive.So built this.Let us know your thoughts - <AUTHOR> http://www.kiwifruut.com Youtube:cluttered/anonimity/abusive comments. So built this. Let us know your thoughts <comment><USER2> Agreed. It cannot afford to be the way it is, being top site on internet in its category used by everyone in the internet.good thought.</comment>


Create Floating Form Labels with FloatLabel.js or JVFloat.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.longren.org/create-floating-form-labels-with-floatlabel-js-or-jvfloat-js/

<comment><USER2> just leave the damn labels there in the first place!

placeholder text is not to be used as field label. that is bad practice and only ever useful for a small "search" bar, when there is a clear "search" button next to it!

<comment><USER3> Have you ever developed mobile UI? Sometimes there just isn't enough pixels.

<comment><USER2> There is alwaysenough pixels.

I heard that argument before for dozen of platforms.

Your shiny app does not have new problems. And it won't flop if you use scrolling. It will flop if don't know what to type where.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The concept is nice, and works well on mobile interfaces where placeholders are often used in replacement of standard labels. You end up providing the user with additional information, considering each field still provides a label even when filled.

For desktop interfaces, I like using a combination of standard (btw clickable) form labels, and HTML 5 placeholders. The label's text is very standard: "Name", "Email", "Password"... The placeholder's text is then used as a helper which holds useful but not vital information. For "Name" you can display "Ex: John Smith", for "Email" something like "email@example.com", and for "Password" just a bunch of dots.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's also [https://github.com/ENFOS/FlowupLabels.js](https://github.com/ENFOS/FlowupLabels.js).

The one unsurmountable problem with this design pattern is form filling after page load (lastPass for example). As discussed in this issue: [https://github.com/ENFOS/FlowupLabels.js/issues/2](https://github.com/ENFOS/FlowupLabels.js/issues/2) Despite that fact, I still think this is an elegant solution to mobile form design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, I hadn't seen that one yet! It's seems to be very small in terms of file size. I'll have to check it out more later. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really like the idea of floating labels. I did the same but almost without JS using AngularJS directives: [http://maurizionapoleoni.de/blog/Float-label- pattern-with-an...](http://maurizionapoleoni.de/blog/Float-label-pattern-with- angularjs.html)</comment>


Hospitals Tell Doctors They'll Be Fired If They Speak Out About Lack of Gear - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/hospitals-tell-doctors-they-ll-be-fired-if-they-talk-to-press <comment><AUTHOR> There's also this: "Many hospitals bar doctors and other staff members from wearing protective masks in public areas. Some have been disciplined for pushing back."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/health/hospitals- coronavi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/health/hospitals-coronavirus- face-masks.html)

How do we put a swift end to this nonsense? Surely the public will be overwhelmingly on the side of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers.

<comment><USER2> I don't see a solution that puts a swift end to this. The power asymmetry between employers and workers is so vast that situations like these are inevitable.

We can't continue to live in this fantasy where companies have so much power over workers and their futures. But changing this involves organizing labor, which is deeply stigmatized in the US.

<comment><USER3> Doctors are the strongest guild in USA. They have the legal power to enforce a chronic shortage of doctors. That's why why PAs were invented.

<comment><USER2> You're proving my point. If one of the most powerful labor groups in the economy is being subjected to ruthless firing for speaking out on critical health issues during a national crisis, then what does that say about the state of labor in the US in general?

<comment><USER4> Are they (Doctors) misunderstanding the environment? Surely in this particular case, firing the Doctor looks bad on the hospital. Leverage/PR is with the Doctor. Perhaps I am reading it wrong.

<comment><USER2> Negative PR is a poor tool to bring about meaningful change as it works very inconsistently. Zoom, Facebook, Equifax, etc. have all experienced sustained negative PR with little effect to their bottom line or operational structure. PR is also purchased, and companies spend heavily to rehab their image online.

Hospitals also are fairly well insulated from negative PR as well since they don't operate in a free market, which prevents patients from being able to choose to go elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't this a violation of OSHA safe workplace conditions?

It's a known, lethal, virus, and they're not letting people protect themselves, especially if they aren't providing that protection themselves.

They must "Provide a workplace free of health and safety hazards that can cause death or serious injury;"

[https://employment.findlaw.com/workplace- safety/protecting-y...](https://employment.findlaw.com/workplace- safety/protecting-yourself-from-unsafe-working-conditions.html)

Perhaps they'd rather get a call from OSHA? Would they perhaps prefer their nurses call OSHA first?

In Florida, there's a law for whistle blower healthcare workers. [https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/whistleblower- protectio...](https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/whistleblower-protection- laws-for-healthcare-workers)

If the choice is be fired or die (or have a better chance of dying), they should file an OSHA violation and call out.

<comment><USER6> > Isn't this a violation of OSHA safe workplace conditions?

The practices nurses/doctors are doing _today_ are in violation of OSHA (mask/shield re-use and the like) and they would have been fired or strongly reprimanded just a few months ago for doing what they are being told to do now. To add insult to injury they aren't letting them protect themselves because it would further prove how unprepared these hospitals were.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A friend is an MD at a large Bay Area hospital. He actually quit his job over this situation, just didn't feel safe going to work. I can't imagine being put in that position by an employer.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's not hospitals that do this. It's management, and management has names and faces, they're people. Expose the fuckers.

</comment><comment><USER9> The publicity alone from something like this will backfire so so so hard. Those doctors or nurses fired will have no problem getting jobs. The people who do the firing will be roasted over a metaphorical fire for this.

No, keep yelling about it loudly to everyone! We get that a hospital can't magically fix PPE issues - but that doesn't mean that you can just suppress stories about it.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. If there's ever a time for propaganda, it's _not_ now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is probably illegal retaliation. Organizing with coworkers about workplace conditions is a protected activity.

<comment><USER12> You're probably right that this is technically illegal, but talking to the media is a different action than organizing with coworkers...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a self-solving problem for the doctors speaking out. If the hospital would rather fire them than ensure their safety, then getting fired can save these doctors' lives.

<comment><USER2> It might be hard for them to get jobs after, though. I'm not in healthcare, and I know that doctors are always in high demand, but we can't ignore the cost to those protesting by risking their careers. So many whistleblowers face intense retaliation and career problems after coming forward, and I'm sure being perceived as a snitch wouldn't do one any favors down the road, even if you're a doctor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's weird that if anyone's being fired it's the doctors - who needs them afterall !

</comment><comment><USER14> In practical terms: is there any way to short / defund / LBO / reorganize the NYU Langone Health system. Who runs this?

<comment><USER15> Can you kindly wait a few months first? Pragmatism before virtue.

<comment><USER16> We already shut down our entire civilization so that the healthcare status quo could be maintained and bills can keep getting sent to the correct address. How on earth is that pragmatic?

We could open up massive free clinics in every city tomorrow morning. Nothing is stopping us.

<comment><USER17> >We already shut down our entire civilization so that the healthcare status quo could be maintained and bills can keep getting sent to the correct address.

What a garbage interpretation of what is going on. Jesus Christ, I'm jaded and cynical, but that's just too much.

Saying that we don't want to overwhelm our medical capacity because of the billing, versus the actual reason of human deaths. Too much. That's just too much.

<comment><USER18> The amount of medical capacity around is very much a function of "status quo" institutions and frameworks. Maybe not billing per se, but plenty of other stuff that's nonetheless quite relevant.

<comment><USER19> No, the medical capacity is limited by equipment and training. The medical status quo is based around normal, everyday life, where a wide variety of conditions and diseases need to be treated. It's not an institutional problem that we don't have the capacity to treat millions of people with pneumonia, as all of that capacity would be wasted during normal times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Former PM for a hospital. Listen, I have a lot of trust and respect for physicians, moreso now than ever.

Unfortunately, there are some bad apple physicians who are very aware of the power they wield and if they feel something needs improvement, they will be extremely vocal... Sometimes at the detriment of the truth.

I've been subject to the spread of misinformation by a couple of physicians related to some past projects, and it's not pretty. All you can do is try to re-educate these same physicians who are misunderstanding some facts, and as you can imagine, it's an uphill battle.

I would make the effort to understand both sides of the coin before assuming these "big, bad" hospitals are in the wrong. As they say, the truth is often somewhere in the middle.

<comment><USER21> The ask in this context seems to be simple - adequate PPE while treating a highly infectious virus.

Evidence from Spain suggests medical professionals on the frontline are at very high risk.

maybe you can share why you think it is unfair on the hospitals in this case ?

<comment><USER22> I'm not the OP but I have read a bit about how "adequate PPE" can be controversial.

It really boils down to how long certain ppe can be used, what is the risk of infection from reused ppe and how to sanitize ppe effectively.

I'll leave the dispute over the facts to the experts but from my understanding that is the source of the conflict over ppe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Friend of mine, a nurse, told me she shouldn't get herself tested so she could keep working and don't get isolated at home.

<comment><USER24> Can we agree that that is severely misguided?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Remember when authoritarian countries were punishing doctors for whistle- blowing?

Anyone who has ever worked for a living should not be surprised that this sort of behaviour is alive and well here, too.

<comment><USER3> In the USA we have free market oppression, not State-controlled.

<comment><USER26> Presumably that makes it much more efficient and cost effective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anonymous new profile, my apologies. My partner wasn't comfortable with me saying this stuff in a public way. They work in the emergency department of a hospital in North America.

It's not just that they'll be fired if they speak out...

The hospitals are also threatening to withhold worker's compensation payouts if a staff member is caught using anything brought from home, even if it's real, name brand equipment. Got some N95s leftover from that home improvement project? Leave them at home and use this surgical mask instead (still better than nothing, to be fair). They are asking staff members to inform on other staff. To be clear: these policies were in effect for an area with coughing COVID patients. They do put surgical masks on the patients, which is very helpful, but I'm livid that they then ask the nurses to NOT use N95s in this scenario.

They are also undertaking dubious re-use and cleaning procedures that are not scientifically proven. For example, masks (both surgical and N95s, which are only for workers doing things like intubation) are being used for an entire day (also not correct usage) and then placed in paper folders for a week. At the end of the week, the masks are deemed 'clean' and reused by the same staff member. Kind of like a mask for each day of the week. There is not strong scientific evidence this is an effective or safe procedure. These procedures might work, but there isn't testing proving that fact.

I understand hospitals are in a bind here. There are simply not enough masks available (both surgical and N95) in the world. If the hospitals admit their ad-hoc procedures are ineffective they risk short term mutiny in their staff ranks. They also risk long term litigation by admitting they can't protect staff. Unfortunately their approach of 'clamp down hard on dissent' is preventing the real message from being broadcast loudly enough: It should be blindingly clear we need a crash program to ramp domestic PPE manufacturing by an order of magnitude (or two).

As an aside, please call your senators and representatives and ask them to force the Trump administration to use the DPA to bring more PPE capacity online. It's really too late now, but better late than never. We'll need to establish permanent manufacturing capacity for this anyways so we never get caught out like again.

<comment><USER28> What is the rationale for not being allowed to bring stuff from home?

<comment><USER27> I think officially it is that they don't know what the employees are bringing from home. They could be bringing some knockoff mask that offers very little protection. But come on, you can't use a mask with 3M stamped on it that you bought at Home Depot?

I'll also speculate that it could create friction between staff - How come you get protect and I don't? It could be a problem.

<comment><USER29> If you allow it, then it could also be seen as a tacit acknowledgement that n95 masks are really the proper equipment. Logical, in a terrible way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This will not prevent professionals with strong morals from speaking out. Instead of giving their names, they should carefully proceed as confidential sources or anonymous sources.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege)

</comment><comment><USER31> What an empty threat. A hospital is not going to fire staff at the moment of greatest demand, and a doctor with an intact credential can get hired anywhere they want in a split second. Maybe the hospitals can bully the nurses assistants and support staff, so the doctors need to step up and speak on their behalf too.

<comment><USER32> but they are, search the news.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, and a doctor can get a job anywhere else in a heartbeat. Doctors effectively do all their "whiteboard interviews" up front and don't have to deal with it later in their career.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well, what do you expect from China? They are not exactly known to value human rights and safety of their workers...

</comment><comment><USER34> I am no doctor.

But if I have to choose between speaking out and dying, I would probably speak out.

</comment><comment><USER35> I hope they get fired, it'll save their own lives

</comment><comment><USER36> someone just spin up a whistleblower site/twitter account ;-)

</comment><comment> java-man we need to start firing administrators who issue these orders.

<comment><USER37> Would be interesting to hear how would you propose to do so during on-going emergency?

<comment> java-man @tandr: let's start with the government and other administrators listening to the experts in the field, instead of covering their a __es.

when the medical professionals who are fighting in the front line trenches say we don't have enough PPE, react by providing the said PPE to said medical professionals.

when medical professionals say things are going to get worse exponentially, provide them tools to fight the contagion instead of proclaiming "it's a hoax" on the national TV.</comment></comment></comment>


Launch HN: Withfriends (YC W19) – Memberships for Small Businesses - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!
We're Joe, Martha, and Kunal; co-founders of Withfriends (https://withfriends.co).
Withfriends runs membership programs for small businesses. Bars, theaters, barbershops, can use Withfriends to convert their customers to become monthly-paying members. Members receive simple & automated benefits, and small businesses earn additional revenue.
We've started by focusing on music venues and event organizers. All three of us come from a lifetime of organizing events, primarily in NYC. Joe and Kunal started a music venue and collective art space in Brooklyn, called The Silent Barn. Kunal started one of the first video game galleries, called Babycastles. Martha and Joe used to run a newsprint listing called Showpaper, which aggregated shows from hundreds of venues every week. We know that culture in cities is defined by the beloved small businesses around us, we know how cultural funding works and where it falls short. With our own businesses, we saw that by changing how we asked for support, we could radically change the volume of people funding our venues, and by automating member benefits, it was easy to facilitate them. After testing an early iteration of the product with a handful of organizers, we decided to bring these insights to a larger audience as Withfriends.
How does it work? We found that people are most willing to purchase a membership when asked in the checkout flow, with their credit card already out. Instead of asking business owners to promote memberships as an entirely new product, we integrate with the point of sale to sell memberships as an add on to any purchase.  This makes selling memberships as easy as selling tickets for any small business, so they can start today. Withfriends uses point-of-sale APIs to make this possible, and automates member benefits directly in the POS, like presale and discounts. Any business can write in custom member benefits in addition to Withfriends benefits, but we have data from over 100,000 purchases to date on the platform, so we start each business with a proven set of membership tiers and benefits specific to their business as soon as they sign up. We're taking infrastructure that has been proven by large institutions like museums, and making it accessible to any small business organizer anywhere, whether they have a staff of 50 or only 1.
We already are working with over 85 small businesses around the country, and have 5500 members supporting them. We've generated an average of 40% additional revenue for our businesses.  We're making $6k in MRR, and our membership revenue is growing 30% month over month.
Much of our initial traction last year was from our own networks, relying on an invite-only approach to new sign-ups, and we activated each and every membership program by hand. This taught us a lot, but since joining Y Combinator we've been focused on preparing for the public by automating the setup flow. Now anyone can become an organizer on Withfriends in minutes, and start growing their members with every upcoming event. This has allowed us to jump from 7 small business sign-ups per month before Y Combinator to over 70.
When we began, we took a 5% fee of the membership revenue, and charged ~$1 per ticket when an organizer uses our native ticketing. That pricing is the same as other ticketing or fundraising platforms, but none of them offer businesses the 40% revenue boost that Withfriends creates for our customers. Since then, we've built an integration with Eventbrite that allows organizers on Eventbrite to easily sell memberships too - in that case, we only earn membership fees. We believe memberships are our strength, so we're testing new pricing that focuses on membership revenue entirely. By making memberships for small businesses easy and successful, we're thrilled to help them grow and become more  sustainable.
It's an honor to be able to share this idea with the Hacker News community and we'd love to hear what you all think. If you have any music venues or event organizers that you would like to be a member of right now, we have a referral program open which you can access at this link (https://withfriends.typeform.com/to/P80RQX) and we'll buy you a membership and some tickets once they sign up!
Look forward to hearing from you all,
Joe, Martha, Kunal <comment><USER2> I always wait too long to get a haircut until my hair is overgrown and I'm forced to.

I've been thinking about asking my barber if I can pay him $60 every two months for 3 haircuts. It's a small discount but I'd do it mainly as a forcing function to keep my hair in check.

This seems like a potential use case for your product that I'd happily subscribe to.

<comment><USER3> I would love to subscribe to a monthly haircut at a fixed time (something like first Monday of the month at 4pm), use it or lose it.

<comment><USER4> I'd signup for that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a friend who is trying to turn his small business for families into a membership-first business. This looks like it could do the trick, I'm forwarding the link to him: thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER6> Glad you see the fit, looking forward to helping them set up :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would describe this as "Patreon for brick-and-mortar venues", and it is badass! Good job guys.

I just recommended a SF venue to you guys via typeform. Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you craze3. We are super excited too. I like that comparison because the major thing we are all discovering together is that we really care about creators (Patreon) or organizers (Withfriends) that we love, and all we needed was to make it easier to get behind them. The member benefits make it feel good, but I believe the desire to become a member comes out of something more essential to who we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What POSs do you integrate with? Mostly mobile POS or also Windows-based POS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mobile. I've heard tall tales of integrating with Windows-based POS's!

In contrast, thankful for the excellent Square API.

We have Eventbrite + Ticketfly live right now, Square upcoming, and have Toast and Shopify high on our lists.

<comment><USER8> Yeah working with Windows POSs is no fun, way more fragmented than mPOS plus they're all old and crusty. Unfortunately, figuring out a way to integrate with them may be unavoidable since so many merchants have them.

You might want to get in touch with the folks at Fivestars ([https://www.fivestars.com/](https://www.fivestars.com/)), they have a lot of experience integrating with Windows POS systems in particular.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is great advice. Thank you.

<comment><USER8> You're welcome, and congrats to y'all on the launch!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A Coffee Shop i regular here in India were looking out for something like this. Forwarding this to them !

<comment><AUTHOR> hell yeah

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats Joe! Wouldn't have thought I'd see you or the mention of Silent Barn on HN!

<comment><USER6> Thanks! Trying to take everything we've learned to the next level :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Congrats Kunal and co! Really love the business model and value you're offering and I am really excited for the word to spread and this model becoming much more standard for physical venues around the country. I think the market here is huge!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much nyrulez!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Love the idea and the way you guys are going about it. All the best and congratulations on the launch :)

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you sachin18590!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Love what you guys are building and the partnership-friendly messaging in this post. Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you nessup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not important, but there's horizontal scrolling on your website on Firefox and MacOS :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> ::quickly commits hotfix::

Gosh, you must be confused, shafyy. We have absolutely no horizontal scrolling problems on Firefox and MacOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So cool to see a CVC success story on here. Congrats Kunal and team!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you dopeboy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What kind of marketing are you doing?

<comment><AUTHOR> My dream marketing campaign would be to work with teenagers around the country and encourage them to tag "Withfriends" everywhere, giving them free tickets to a concert every time they send over a proof of tag.

But we would never do that!

Instead, we don't have a marketing program running right now, but we do have a "Jeweling Program" here: [https://withfriends.co/meet_the_team](https://withfriends.co/meet_the_team)

If you're well connected with businesses that people really love in your community, we have a way to partner with you on bringing them on board Withfriends.

We share a lot with you and earn your trust on just how cool the memberships future is, and then in turn, you share this with iconic businesses that trust you in your community, and effectively they end up sharing it with their neighbors by using Withfriends, and we all help build resilence for small businesses in a widespread way. You get commission for basically connecting this idea with your community.

We haven't run this program much - but we plan to revive it. It's really important because it helps us touch more kinds of people outside of our organic signups. For example, it's how we first started working more in the Bronx, instead of just Brooklyn.

You can reach out to be a jeweler at email@example.com for now. Just let us know your 3 top businesses and more about the commmunity that relies on them.

<comment><USER16> Ah. In any case, you can probably acquire new SMB customers using Facebook ads for a reasonable ROI. Something to think about as your business grows.

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What are some example of benefits?

<comment><AUTHOR> We run as many benefits as we can take on for members of small businesses, so that businesses can rely on us as a partner to run their membership program. They can focus on their core business.

To date, this includes: discounts, first access to event tickets for members, members-only merch (hoodies, shirts, pins), members only events - as the benefits we built-in/are prototyping.

First-access to events, members-only gatherings, and discounts, are the most common member benefits running on Withfriends. Those are built in.

On top of built-in benefits - businesses can take more control and write in benefits. To help them, we have a member-lookup/scanning app in beta for staff (a member side is coming soon). That makes it easy for staff to handle benefits off platform, or simply treat members well.

Members of North Brooklyn Farms (more about them here: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59xwjx/diy-spaces-go- main...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59xwjx/diy-spaces-go-mainstream- to-survive)), members get a bag of veggies every time they visit ([https://withfriends.co/north_brooklyn_farms](https://withfriends.co/north_brooklyn_farms))

Members of Bluestockings (by the way, what an honor to work my lifelong legends) get discount benefits at the store, even before automate them. ([https://withfriends.co/bluestockings/join](https://withfriends.co/bluestockings/join))

Members of AdHoc (also legends) get a zine delivered to their door, and a curated playlist. ([https://withfriends.co/adhocfm/join](https://withfriends.co/adhocfm/join))

Members of Chicago Meat Collective ... get extra meat ([https://withfriends.co/chicago_meat_collective](https://withfriends.co/chicago_meat_collective))

When you sign up Withfriends, you get a simple, effective membership program - we encourage businesses to be as minimal as possible and just turn it on. We've found that members want to support the small businesses they love. You don't need to overthink it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> babycastles is awesome, pumped for you guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ ⧓

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Really excited to see Withfriends launch! One of the most exciting companies I saw at YC Demo Day this year :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much psawaya!</comment></comment>


Claim of proof of the Riemann Hypothesis by Sir Michael Atiyah - <AUTHOR> https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/a-mathematician-claims-hes-found-a-simple-proof-of-this-milliondollar-problem/ <comment><USER2> There is significant scepticism[0][1] surrounding this, and many, many submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18046533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18046533)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18039613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18039613)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459)

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

[0] [https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_at...](https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_atiyah_announced_a_proof_of_the/e6cxbin/)

[1] [https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael- atiyah...](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael-atiyahs- conference-on-the-riemann-hypothesis)</comment>


The woman who saw beneath oceans - <AUTHOR> http://www.skepticblog.org/2014/05/14/the-woman-who-saw-beneath-oceans/

<comment><USER2> I'm amazed that topics I've long taken for granted, like plate techtonics and seafloor spreading, have only been widely accepted for a few decades ... and indeed, 50 years ago such ideas were "new" and "controversial" and even ridiculed / fought against.

<comment><USER3> It is really amazing, that the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were pretty much accepted science in the 1920's, but it took to the end of 1950's before Continental Drift was accepted.

<comment><USER4> On the flip side, the fact of Continental Drift will remain when a new theory supersedes Quantum Mechanics.

<comment><USER5> Nothing will happen to either QM or continental drift. New scientific theories don't suddenly invalidate the otherwise working old ones, they only add more details and refine the modelling of reality.

<comment><USER6> > New scientific theories don't suddenly invalidate the otherwise working old > ones [...]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory)

<comment><USER7> Phlogiston theory never "worked," as demonstrated by the Wikipedia article you linked.

> Eventually, quantitative experiments revealed problems, including the fact > that some metals, such as magnesium, gained mass when they burned, even > though they were supposed to have lost phlogiston.

<comment><USER6> It worked well enough. Metals that gained weight through oxidation were simply losing "negative phlogiston".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> She is also mentioned on Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. That's a fantastic discovery on proving the theory saying America was once connected to Europe and Africa.

<comment><USER9> Wikipedia article on that episode : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Worlds_of_Planet_Eart...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Worlds_of_Planet_Earth)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The url and title made me think I'd be reading about someone who could make accurate drawings of the ocean floor just by looking at the water surface.

<comment><USER11> The title is a double entendre.</comment></comment>


How Billionaires Stole My Mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.raptitude.com/2017/04/how-billionaires-stole-my-mind/ <comment><USER2> I couldn't agree more. Had me in agreement all the way to...

"If you liked this post, get Raptitude sent to you. (It's free)."</comment>


Ask HN: Are we headed into another recession? - <AUTHOR> A lot of the news coming out recently seems to be pointing in the direction that we are headed into another recession.
1) (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-18/dead-unicorn-walking-square-ipos-9-well-below-expected-range)
2) (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-francisco-real-estate-looking-like-it-did-before-dotcom-crash-in-2000-2015-11-20?dist=countdown)
3) (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/technology/livingsocial-once-a-unicorn-is-losing-its-magic.html)
4) (https://gcaptain.com/baltic-dry-falls-below-500-for-first-time-ever/) <comment><USER2> No.

The US been in recovery since 2010. First to recover was corporate profits thanks to downsizing and low interest rates. Consequently, the S&P went on a tear [2010-2014]. With corporate profits recovering, companies could start re- hiring and unemployment dropped [2010-2015][0]. Now that employment is back in healthy territory and the stock market is back where it should be, Americans are feeling a positive wealth effect, so next to recover is real estate. Still juiced by low interest rates, real estate prices will continue to rise significantly in the [2014-2016] period.[1]

I'd be on the lookout for a recession once this real estate cycle plays out, maybe in the [2017-2019] time frame. By then, interest rates should return to the low end of their historic range [2].

[0] [http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000](http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000) [1] [http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/11/real_estate/median-home- pric...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/11/real_estate/median-home-price/) [2] [http://mortgage-x.com/trends.htm](http://mortgage-x.com/trends.htm)

</comment><comment><USER3> Data points 1 and 3 suggest that some tech investors have over-valued some startups, relative to later or public investors. That doesn't directly suggest there's a recession coming, though a lot of people losing a lot of money in a bubble bursting is never good. 2 is related, in that loose money in tech drives up the cost of some supply-limited items, especially in SF/SV. I'm not sure how these conditions are supposed to predict a coming recession.

</comment><comment> T-A Of course we are. The tricky question is when. Here is an indicator with a decent historical track record which says not yet: [https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RECPROUSM156N](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RECPROUSM156N)

</comment><comment><USER4> The problem is not with the state or valuation of technology companies but rather with US government debts reaching record levels.

This bubble is of historic proportions and of a way bigger concern that the shape of overvalued startups.

<comment><USER5> And why is that? Technically, we could repay all of our debt, at any time, as we print our own currency. There are long-term implications for what you are talking about, but we are far away from anything approaching a crisis (not including self-imposed crisis by The Congress). There is no connection between a household 'maintaining a budget' and the way the US government finances itself. It is a false equivalency, but serves as a useful political cudgel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> if you read zerohedge you would think we are always in recession.</comment>


Nunchi - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunchi <comment><USER2> I really doubt EI, if we can't even measure intelligence think about emotional and other factors.</comment>


7 Reasons Why You Will Never Do Anything Amazing With Your Life - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/raymmars-reads/7-reasons-why-you-will-never-do-anything-amazing-with-your-life-2a1841f1335d

<comment><USER2> I work in a small office that does web development and I see this all day, every day. Kids (god i'm old) 8-10 years younger then me, fresh out of college, up to their ears in student debt and their "there for the paycheck"

(gonna make some generalizations here) Your college education doesn't mean shit to an employer. Great - you've got a piece of paper saying you can sit in class, learn from someone, consistently for 4 years. My 2 decades of real world programming experience trumps you all day (no, i didn't goto college)

So while your sitting there looking at stupid pictures on facebook, or going out late at night - i'm working my ass off and building my portfolio when I get home. And when I go looking for the next job, I'll take a new title and more pay while you make a lateral move.

Wake up guys - theres too much damn competition out there. At 34, I don't feel like I've come close to peaking.

When your employer tells you "we hired you because we recognized your drive and work ethic" \- thats a compliment you earn; not pay for.

<comment><USER3> Those kids who are "there for the paycheck" got hired just the same as you did, plus they have a life outside of work. Meanwhile, you've sacrificed any semblance of a work/life balance, all for the sake of an impressive title and a marginally higher salary.

I think you could learn a thing or two from those stupid kids you work with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Candy Crush it.</comment>


Facebook settles with FTC, under privacy watch for 20 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/privacysettlement.shtm <comment> brown9-2 Wow, this list is brutal:

 _-In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. They didn't warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance.

\- Facebook represented that third-party apps that users' installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users' personal data – data the apps didn't need.

\- Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with "Friends Only." In fact, selecting "Friends Only" did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.

\- Facebook had a "Verified Apps" program & claimed it certified the security of participating apps. It didn't.

\- Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did.

\- Facebook claimed that when users deactivated or deleted their accounts, their photos and videos would be inaccessible. But Facebook allowed access to the content, even after users had deactivated or deleted their accounts.

\- Facebook claimed that it complied with the U.S.- EU Safe Harbor Framework that governs data transfer between the U.S. and the European Union. It didn't._

<comment><USER2> _"- Facebook represented that third-party apps that users' installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users' personal data – data the apps didn't need."_

Privacy/ethics issues aside, from a pure developer standpoint, isn't this just a feature? Where do we draw the line between functionality and privacy?

User A allows user B to see her data via "Friends only." User B runs app X, whose functionality includes interacting with friends. Let's say it shows on a map where each of your friends lives. App X can see the said data for the purposes of providing functionality.

Yes, I know that by strict definition this conflicts with "friends only." You now have "friends and the application executable code only." But how is this different from, say, Gmail auto-scanning my e-mail to show ads? Is it because I trust Google and don't trust $random_fb_app_developer?

Likely one concern is that this third-party developer can disrespect (or actually, not even know about) that "friends only" setting and inadvertently make the data visible to other parties.

(Disclaimer: Don't get me wrong, I loathe/distrust most FB apps as much as the next person. Just trying to think from an honest developer's shoes here.)

<comment><USER3> That's one of the two bullet points where I can see a reasonable case for Facebook's side. It's slightly muddied because the app is running _on Facebook_ where they control it, but I can sort of see an argument for apps' actions conceptually being actions of the user running them.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to Facebook on the other app-related claim as well, _"Facebook represented that third-party apps that users' installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate."_ Yes, Facebook could've done better on that, but fine-grained security is something nearly nobody has solved.

<comment><USER4> "nearly nobody"? I might even say "nobody".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So the penalty for ongoing repeated lies and fraud is....

nothing. Zero. The FTC has investigated, and the settlement is zero money and zero penalties. Not one dollar. Whew! I'm glad they were punished! They won't do THAT again!

The U.S. is really in late-stage empire breakdown. I don't think there is any significant enforcement of any laws whatsoever against companies and people that are reasonably well connected. The only thing keeping the society from total breakdown is inertia.

<comment><USER6> On what legal basis would you expect a financial penalty for a free, voluntary-participation online service that did the things that the FTC found that Facebook did? What does the law on the subject give the FTC authority to do?

<comment><USER7> The law has long been castrated on your points. The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).

<comment><USER8> _The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?)._

Trying to apply rules made for physical items (if I take it you don't have it any more) to things that act completely differently is a _really_ bad idea.

<comment><USER7> Humans are smart, they don't have to use the exact same laws. Like I implied, the laws don't actually exist in the US.

Would it make a difference if I had said "something akin" to personal information as property? I mean, we're reading this story, so personal information has currency _in some way_ , right? Seems to me that with some political will that the laws can be nudged further in favor of the user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The best part is when you get to the footer and see: "Like the FTC on Facebook".

<comment><USER10> Utterly inexcusable. Someone (several someones really) at the FTC should lose their jobs over that.

When O when will we get regulators with some distance from those they are regulating? (I'm looking at you SEC.)

<comment><USER11> Should government agencies who regulate telephone services not use telephones?

<comment><USER12> I don't think that's a fair analogy to use. While government regulatory agencies covering the telecommunication sector may indeed use telephones, they don't stick a recommendation to use Company A on their website... especially if they have just given Company A a simple slap on the wrist for an arguably large grievance. You may (or may not) counter by saying that Facebook is an entire market in itself that can't be ignored (which it isn't), but after viewing their Facebook page I see no additional information that I couldn't simply find on the front page of the FTC's website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a lot of nonsense legal interpretation in this thread. Did anyone actually read the settlement?

You commit fraud if you make any intentional deception in order to benefit yourself, or to harm others. If you intentionally make public commitments that turn out to be false, and you thereby cause some harm to another person, you have committed a fraud.

The FTC is empowered to enforce criminal and civil penalties for fraud on behalf of consumers. From the FTC website: "When the FTC was created in 1914, its purpose was to prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce as part of the battle to bust the trusts. Over the years, Congress passed additional laws giving the agency greater authority to police anticompetitive practices. In 1938, Congress passed a broad prohibition against unfair and deceptive acts or practices."

From the FTC's Facebook settlement statement, it's perfectly clear that the FTC believes that Facebook is guilty of committing widespread and repeated deceptions in violation of the law.

The settlement itself is tantamount to saying that Facebook has had its last warning, and is on very thin ice with the FTC.

Feel free to complain about whether such a "penalty" is effective. We won't really know until the next time Facebook breaks the law.

</comment><comment><USER14> Many have posted to this thread with complaints that boil down to "this is a slap on the wrist because they are well connected". If you were the FTC, what would you do to Facebook in this case, how would it be supported in law and what long term change for the better would your action create?

Privacy is a civil good but it is a fine line to walk indeed to punish an innovator during a recession. Where's the happy medium?

<comment><USER15> The problem here is the personal information is being voluntarily given to Facebook. And the FTC can do nothing about that.

As far as I can tell, most people using FB are trying to communicate with their friends (as they previously did via letter, telephone and email), not broadcast every personal detail and thought to potentially any person or organization connected to the web.

Alas they are not well informed that by sending all their communications through Zuckerberg's website, this is in effect what they are doing.

That lack of understanding is something the FTC can address.

So to comply with the FTC's requests, FB will make more disclosures.

But the problem remains. FB, whether intentionally or not, is receiving far too much private information and private conversation, and it's all being channeled over the web.

<comment><USER13> Wrong. The FTC said very clearly that it thinks Facebook lured consumers in under false pretenses. That's punishable by criminal and civil penalties, in theory. The FTC usually settles these kind of cases, AFAIK. Sometimes there's money involved, sometimes not. Anyone who isn't in compliance with their own published privacy policy should be worried about the FTC; they can (again, in theory) do serious harm to a business – even one as big as Facebook.

<comment><USER15> So are you suggesting that despite FB's rather sizeable legal budget and level of investment they will _still_ not be able to bring themsleves into compliance and stay that way? At least until the IPO. If Facebook even exists 20 years let alone 5 years from now I would be shocked. The data they've collected will of course probably have an infinite lifetime.

<comment><USER13> In the US, given that they're not in a regulated industry (except to the extent they qualify as a site aimed at children), they really only need to comply with their own stated privacy policies. The question is: will they?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I never understood why bodies like the FTC rely on 'independent, third-party audits' for enforcement, since they end up making the entire action pointless.

The independent third-party auditor will give Facebook a stamp of approval, both in the next 180 days and every two years thereafter, because the independent third-party auditor wants the repeat business.

Same thing goes for any regulation that depends on a third party, really. I mean, over the last six years how often is a 409a valuation not to the board's liking? Somehow, magically, the auditors collect their fees from the company and then independently deliver an acceptable answer.

Might as well not have the regulations - or just fine the company something meaningful - instead of engaging in this goofy kabuki theatre.

<comment><USER17> Don't the credit rating agencies work the same way? The companies being rated pay the agencies, not the companies that want to know the rating.

<comment><USER18> They do. Their value is unclear.

Accountants supposedly are employed by shareholders, but in practice are employed by executives. This makes auditing problematic, but it does have some value. The bigger problem there is the big four's oligopoly: they are too big to fail.

<comment><USER19> How are the big four all "too big to fail" when not too long ago they were the big five?

<comment><USER18> See, e.g., the discussion in <http://www.economist.com/node/3984019>

Break-up of the big four has been proposed, I see in this mornings Financial Times: [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a4f58dba-1a89-11e1-ae4e-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a4f58dba-1a89-11e1-ae4e-00144feabdc0.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Specifically, under the proposed settlement, Facebook is:

"barred from making misrepresentations about the privacy or security of consumers' personal information;"

Is this implying companies are allowed to lie? Seems redundant.

<comment><USER21> I think what it means is that, in this case, the FTC gets to watch and make sure Facebook complies. If they don't, they get penalized for it. FTA:

 _The proposed order also contains standard record-keeping provisions to allow the FTC to monitor compliance with its order._

and then further down:

 _Each violation of such an order may result in a civil penalty of up to $16,000._

I really hope that's up to $16,000 per person for each violation.

<comment><USER22> The next site-wide privacy snafu will cost $11 trillion dollars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This just means that Facebook privacy changes will have the imprimatur of the FTC from now on, which FB paid for with the airing of a little bit of dirty laundry.

The fix is in.

</comment><comment><USER23> Okay so question on this one.

\- required to prevent anyone from accessing a user's material more than 30 days after the user has deleted his or her account;

Does this include people that have already deleted their account? Does this also include Government agencies and such from seeing the >30 day deleted data? I'd like to know that after permanently deleting my account all my stuff is gone, but I don't really see anywhere that says that's true. Meaning the site is still destroying my privacy even after I've decided to have nothing to do with the account.

</comment><comment><USER24> It is our mistake we made them now they sell us as product <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293936>

When I created an account with HN using Google account via ClickPass, one of the screen steps before I grant access to ClickPass, Google advised me to not grant it and if I do it I can cancel it any time which it will prevent ClickPass to access to my account information and my password.

This warning statement is not new; it's there everywhere when you grant any application to use your Facebook, Twitter, Google ... etc accounts.

In the mean time Google Search is nothing without us, because "we are the product", they sell (us to third parties or Governments) or use our "private information" or what they told us it's private without approval from us.

Facebook is doing same thing and that's why their entire business model under fire in the EU. <http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/28/facebook-advertising-eu/> Do you remember what happened in 2008 with Google's Evil EULA ([http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/03/google_chrome_eula_s...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/03/google_chrome_eula_sucks/))?

Now, are we "the product" still having any privacy? Are we safe? How far we can trust those businesses?

Should we keep using their services; and later complain about how evil their Terms and conditions or EULA are???

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how this settlement compares to EU Data Protection Law. Is it possible FB could abide by FTC rules and still be outside EU rules? Will FB use this "We're OK by the FTC now!" as a claim to be not so bad in the EU?

<comment><USER26> I think it would be too much of a mess to manage, really. Even Canadian consumer protection laws have shaped Facebook's privacy policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Obtain periodic assessments of its privacy practices by independent, third- > party auditors for the next 20 years.

This is assuming Facebook will be around in 20 years.

<comment><USER6> _This is assuming Facebook will be around in 20 years._

This binds successor corporations operating Facebook's business and thus changes the potential value of Facebook as an acquisition target (and thus as a retail investment choice when it becomes publicly traded).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am strangely reminded of that episode in 30 rock where tracy realizes he can just pay a fine to make obscene comments and do obscene things on TV ...

</comment><comment><USER29> so is Google for google buzz, the capability of the ftc to monitor and/or do more than a slap on the wrist is no existent

the monitoring is facebook telling the ftc - we are all cool over here bro and the ftc taking them at their word

</comment><comment><USER30> Privacy policies aren't binding contracts or agreements. They're just stated policies.

Why do people treat them like contracts?

<comment><USER3> Contracts are a pretty gray area. In a lot of contexts, a handshake agreement or email exchange, if documented well enough, can constitute a binding, legally enforceable contract. It doesn't have to be on a paper saying OFFICIAL CONTRACT with signatures at the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> You know... people could just take responsibility for sharing their private information. If they don't think a website "privacy policy" is enough of an assurance, it is their fault for accepting that risk.

FB should not be blamed for sharing information that others freely share with FB. It's ridiculous. It's even more ridiculous to think that government regulation is somehow needed to protect privacy. How absurd.

"I keep using this service and they don't do what I want! But I keep sharing my information with them."

Come on. At a certain point, individuals need to accept that THEY maintain a relationship with FB as well.

<comment><USER31> I gave my info to FB and they promised to only share it with certain people. Then they made that info publicly available. That's a breach of trust, and possibly criminal.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does this website know I'm in incognito mode? - <AUTHOR> When I try to view this page [1] in incognito mode it says, "You must exit incognito mode to read the content". How does it know I'm in incognito mode?<p>[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/429438/dear-everyone-teaching-programming-youre-doing-it-wrong/ <comment><USER2> From looking at the source code they are using some mixture of these:

[https://github.com/Maykonn/js-detect-incognito-private- brows...](https://github.com/Maykonn/js-detect-incognito-private-browsing- paywall)

[https://gist.github.com/matyasfodor/15e8863ab15baf4791a5fa4c...](https://gist.github.com/matyasfodor/15e8863ab15baf4791a5fa4c748b64af)

And FYI in Chrome it's very easy to just F12, Application tab, Clear storage in the left menu and "Clear site data" at the bottom on the right to get past all these "you've read too much" blockers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just tried using Firefox Quantum 62.2.2 on Debian with different configurations - NoScript enabled and disabled, and tracking protection enabled and disabled. Can't seem to replicate what you're getting.

What browser and OS are you using? Do you have any plugins/extensions active? (Ad blockers, etc. I don't run any, NoScript does a better job.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems to happen in Chrome for Mac and Android. No extensions or plugins.

<comment><USER3> Gotcha. Turns out to be Chrome (or Chromium) specific.

In article.js loaded with this page there is a section that looks like:

dataLayer.push({event:"mittr:detectIncognitoMode",action:"detect",category:"incognito- mode",label:n})

Commenting out the function block surrounding it where it starts with "function y() {..." stops the class ".incognito-wall-shown" from being applied to "section.incognito-wall" found in the main HTML page - although this is just a quick dig and haven't debugged any further (I'm halfway through something else but this caught my interest ;) )</comment></comment></comment>


Supporting Hypothesis - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/blog/hypothesis <comment><USER2> This is awesome, I'm excited to see more attention being paid to property- based testing, and MacIver deserves to be rewarded and supported for his past and ongoing work on Hypothesis.

When I first encountered property-based testing, I had some trouble coming up with interesting properties to test, since I was so used to thinking in terms of individual test cases. This blogpost surveys some great starting points for identifying useful properties to test: [https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/property-based- testi...](https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/property-based-testing-2/)

<comment> m-j-fox Sure but it's a lot of hype for porting QuickCheck to Python. So glad the rest of you caught on 10 years later.

<comment><USER3> If only you had taken the initiative to do it earlier!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hypothesis is one of the libraries I _aim_ to be using in every project. If my application doesn't allow for that (because it's all views/HTTP/etc), I refactor various things into their own (side-effect-free functions) so I can then use Hypothesis.

Plus, it's the only thing that doesn't suffer from the "you can't find the bug you just introduced" disease, where you're (by definition) blind to the problems you don't know are there. We usually tend to test the things we wrote the code to guard against, but Hypothesis finds the actual bugs.

Great work.

</comment><comment><USER4> The python code in the post looks a bit funny with the `end` statement at the end. I had to ready it twice to be sure that Hypothesis hadn't been rewritten for Ruby!

Also, by "supporting Hypothesis", you mean "giving money to DR MacIver", right? This is not completely clear from the post.

<comment><USER5> Lol. Not that surprised since Stripe's backend is basically still Ruby on Rails. Probably a Ruby engineer that wrote the article, writing Python for the first time in a while.

<comment><USER6> I'm the guilty party, though not of the "Ruby engineer" title... these days I'm a Python developer that identifies as a Scala developer :)

I botched the copy pasta of the embedded code snippet container. All fixed up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> this is great news.

Hypothesis is a quickcheck port to python, and it is immensely useful in finding edge case bugs that naive testing usually misses.

It's lovely to see it get more support and backing.

<comment><USER8> > Hypothesis is a quickcheck port to python

If you'll pardon the pedantry (I think the distinction matters, honest), Hypothesis isn't really a QuickCheck port. It started out life that way, and it can be used in a way that that is pretty compatible with QuickCheck, but implementation-wise it's very different and it has a bunch of interesting non- QuickCheck features.

I totally agree that this is great news though, and I'm very grateful to Stripe. :-)

<comment><USER9> > very different and it has a bunch of interesting non-QuickCheck features.

I'm only familar with QuickCheck, but what are those differences / features? Couldn't tell from a quick look at the website of Hypothesis.

<comment><USER8> Internally, Hypothesis is built on a core engine called Conjecture, which looks more like a byte stream fuzzer than anything else. Hypothesis data generators are then effectively parser combinators on top of that fuzzer.

This gives Hypothesis a lot more freedom to generically manipulate the data than QuickCheck has, because it has total control of a concrete representation of it.

As a result:

* Specifying a data generator is a much more declarative process - Hypothesis largely handles size/distribution issues itself.

* The fuzzing nature of Hypothesis means that it can do much smarter generation than a normal QuickCheck (though this is more potential than actual right now. The current fuzzer is "pretty good". I'll be starting a PhD soon where I hope to work on making it amazing)

* Shrinking is just a built in part of the process and users never have to define their own shrinker.

* All examples (both pre and post shrinking) can be serialized because the IR is just bytes, so Hypothesis can replay failing tests automatically without rerunning the shrinking process. This matters both because shrinking tends to be slower than generation in most QuickChecks, but also because in general shrinking is subject to "slippage" where the bugs you find after shrinking are different from the bugs you started with.

* Because you can just keep drawing data from the stream, Hypothesis tests can be much more interactive than normal QuickCheck (which does support mixing test execution and generation, but it doesn't work especially well).

* Because Hypothesis never needs to touch the values it generates, Hypothesis is much better for mutable data than the approach most QuickCheck takes.

* I haven't actually done this yet, but Conjecture is deliberately designed to be quite C like, so "at some point" it will become possible to rewrite the core in C (more likely Rust) and then new Hypotheses will spring up everywhere because 90% of the work can be done by writing bindings to a C library. QuickCheck's approach on the other hand is inherently very tied to the semantics of the host language.

The property-based testing libraries for some dynamic languages (test.check for Clojure, the various Erlang ones including QuickCheck) have some of these features, but I think they're more naturally supported in the Hypothesis model, and the Hypothesis model has a lot more room to grow.

<comment><USER10> I understand what you mean on most of these, but I'd appreciate some clarification on the following.

> The fuzzing nature of Hypothesis means that it can do much smarter > generation than a normal QuickCheck (though this is more potential than > actual right now. The current fuzzer is "pretty good". I'll be starting a > PhD soon where I hope to work on making it amazing)

Smarter in what way?

> Because you can just keep drawing data from the stream, Hypothesis tests can > be much more interactive than normal QuickCheck (which does support mixing > test execution and generation, but it doesn't work especially well).

What makes QuickCheck's support for this makes it work less than ideal?

> Because Hypothesis never needs to touch the values it generates, Hypothesis > is much better for mutable data than the approach most QuickCheck takes.

What do you mean by not having to "touch" the values it generates?

<comment><USER8> > Smarter in what way?

Better at generating values that exhibit interesting behaviour in tests. QuickCheck style testing mostly only works well because it turns out that there are a lot of bugs that are relatively "dense" in the search space of tests, and doesn't do very well at finding hard to reach bugs. This means that some bugs are found with very low probability, which is bad both because you want to find them reliably and because it means that even running your tests for longer is often not enough to find interesting behaviour.

(ETA: This mostly applies to Haskell QuickCheck and derivatives. I believe the Quviq Erlang QuickCheck has had a great deal of hand tuning of its generators to get better behaviour, so its data generation is probably strictly better than Hypothesis's in many cases right now. I'm trying to get a generic mechanism for improving things without requiring this hand tuning, so hopefully at some point I'll be able to reverse that situation)

Security-oriented fuzzers do a lot of clever things to actually determine the shape of the search space and adapt to it so that they can take advantage of the structure of the program under test so that running for longer gives them more power than just repeatedly trying the same thing over and over again. I'm hoping to incorporate some of those ideas into Hypothesis but don't currently.

> What makes QuickCheck's support for this makes it work less than ideal?

Mostly that it plays very badly with shrinking (this is better but still not good in test.check and friends) and the API for it is on the clunky side.

> What do you mean by not having to "touch" the values it generates?

In classic quickcheck, the shrink API is based on taking a value and replacing it with a simpler version of itself. This means that if the value has been mutated (which is mostly not a problem in Haskell, but can be if you're using ioProperty, and is definitely a problem in QuickCheck ports to impure languages) then you run into problems. e.g. a test that appends an element to a variable sized array argument can get the shrinker into an infinite loop.

It also means that QuickCheck is limited by the type constraints on the generated values. You can't e.g. do duplicate detection because you aren't constrained to generate values on which that is meaningful.

In Hypothesis in comparison everything is based off its IR, so it can do manipulations and comparisons on that, and it doesn't matter what type the generated value is.

(Hypothesis also can't do perfect duplicate detection because it has the problem that many IR values may map to the same value, but its duplicate detection still seems to be mostly good enough in practice)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hypothesis has been highly useful in the team I work in. It is also one of the most robust property-based testing library in any language. Thanks to the project contributors and Stripe for investing resources in making it even better!

</comment><comment><USER12> Is this similar to fuzz testing? (like american fuzzy lop?)

<comment><USER2> Fuzzing can refer to randomly generated test inputs without bothering to minimize them when bugs are found. Property-based testing tools like Hypothesis and QuickCheck (which pioneered this approach), in addition to randomly generating test cases, when they find a test case that violates an assertion, they then start reducing the test case to try to find the minimal test case that violates the assertion.

Also, while they're very similar in a mechanical sense since they're both about randomly generated test inputs, in a broader sense my impression is that fuzzers have a very different focus from property-based testing. I think fuzz testing typically refers to testing very complex software, like compilers, interpreters, and virtual machines, and searching for crazy edge cases, especially ones that may expose security vulnerabilities. So a lot of effort goes into generating test inputs that are unlikely to happen with a naive testing strategy (automated or manual), yet still interesting and relatively likely to trigger a bug (rather than spending too much time in the very large space of uninteresting test inputs that a naive testing strategy wouldn't come up with but also is unlikely to trigger a bug).

By contrast, I think property-based testing is typically used for testing programs that are of ordinary complexity, and quickly finding bugs due to simple but common programmer errors, which can then be quickly fixed. So a lot of effort goes into reducing any bugs that are found to the very minimal test case, which if the test input type is a nontrivial data structure can be surprisingly involved. MacIver has actually written a series of blogposts on Hypothesis' approach: [http://hypothesis.works/articles/compositional- shrinking/](http://hypothesis.works/articles/compositional-shrinking/)

<comment><USER13> It depends. One of the places where property-based testing buys you the most benefit is when testing systems that are conceptually simple, but use a complex implementation.

In doing so, you tend to have clearly defined properties that are fairly simple to validate, but a code implementation that may have very intricate internal interactions that cause all sorts of bugs.

See [http://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://raw.github.com/strange...](http://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://raw.github.com/strangeloop/lambdajam2013/master/slides/Norton- QuickCheck.html) for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been looking for something like this, and I almost didn't click the link because the title didn't sound interesting. Really great stuff.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great news! I love Hypothesis. I'm glad to see more support.

</comment><comment><USER16> So, Prolog but in reverse?

</comment><comment><USER17> So, Python gets Quickcheck... 20 years after Haskell</comment>


AmEx Said to Request $3.5 Billion in U.S. Aid - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122646207021420153.html <comment><USER2> By now, we should really be concerned about the immorality of it all. AmEx is one of the richest corporations in the world, serving mostly well-to-do clientele. On what moral basis do they get this aid? What is wrong with letting them do the write-off, fail if necessary?

On what moral basis can the same government deny <name-your-company> aid? So why not Circuit City? Why not Mervyns - I was there at a closing-store sale yesterday, the employee's faces told me everything. I am _not_ advocating bailing out any of them, but if AmEx is OK to bail out, why not Mervyns? Is it because the Mervyns employees are a lower breed of human?

It is making my blood boil.

<comment><USER3> Well, first, what is aid? The big problem is that everyone is using the word "bailout". That makes one think of free money that doesn't have to be paid back. That isn't the case. Yes, if the firms still fail after receiving the government assistance, they won't pay back what amounts more to a loan than a bailout. So, yes, taxpayers can loose, but it isn't a bailout so much as an emergency loan program.

Both Circuit City and Mervyns have been dying for years. Mervyns has been shuttering stores for several years and went through a failed turn-around attempt. Circuit City simply couldn't compete with Best Buy. They didn't have sound businesses.

The big difference between a place like Circuit City and American Express is the amount that would be needed to overcome a blip. Circuit City, if it had a sound business model, might need a loan of a hundred million or so to keep paying salaries and such through a downturn. American Express needs to keep lending money - and all financial firms lend more money than their company is worth. They're intermediaries. So, Circuit City can go to a bank (or several) and get the cash they need if it would save their business. American Express can't. They need cash on a scale that Circuit City doesn't.

I understand why so many are outraged. It looks like a firesale of your tax dollars to a few firms. That isn't the case. If these firms make it (and based on their business models they will), the government will actually make money. Circuit City and Mervyns were just failing firms. Many in the financial sector have sound business models that need some cash for a year or two (in amounts that they can't raise from sources other than the government) because there was a perfect storm of credit conditions.

<comment><USER4> > If these firms make it (and based on their business models they will),

The fact that Amex can't get private investment says that the smart money thinks that they're a dumb bet. (There tons of money around. Buffet isn't the only one snapping up actual bargains.)

It may be that the Amex biz model works but Amex the company can't do it. In that case, the loan is a dumb idea. Let someone else pay to take a shot at it.

Feel free to invest your money, to get together with others if need be. If you're right, you make out. If you're wrong, I don't lose.

<comment><USER5> One of Buffet's largest holdings is Amex.

<comment><USER4> If Buffet doesn't think that Amex is worth any more of his money, why is it worth any of mine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did anyone who supported the bailout actually expect nothing like this to happen? The government is pumping SEVEN-HUNDRED-BILLION DOLLARS into the economy and every major company is going to try and get a piece. Companies will (and should) always try and do what is in their best interest in order to stay competitive and make money. No one is to blame except the senators and congressman who passed this atrocious legislation. Meddle with the market and this will always happen.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, I can't wait to redeem the skymiles on this.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ha! Based on my APR from them I should be getting that money paid off.

On a serious note though, this is the downfall. Once one area gets bailed out, everyone comes with outstretched hands. Will be interesting to see if Bush handles it or holds them off until Obama is in office to let him handle it.

<comment><USER9> Regardless of whether Amex _needs_ the money, if their competitors are getting it, they've basically no choice but to follow suit or find themselves at a disadvantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are AmEx's clients disproportionately going bust?

Visa isn't seeking help, does that make sense?

And if AmEx does go bust what's the damage?

AIG and Lehman had all kinds of counter party risk, but who exactly would be hurt by AmEx going belly up?

<comment><USER11> Amex issues the cards themselves, exposing them to way more risk than mc/visa. Look at the branding on your credit cards. Amex will be front-and-center on an Amex, but on most other cards it's the issuing bank. Unless it's micky mouse or your kids or some shit.

If you don't pay your Amex bill, i think Amex takes a hit to pay the merchant. If Amex were to implode, those merchants could get fucked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Will simplify credit card processing for me if they go out of business. My merchant processor only supports mastercard and visa.

"We don't take Amex... neither does anyone else."

<comment><USER13> Actually, I've found that any merchant worth doing business with generally accepts American Express. I've been using mine for years and my "Visa backup" hasn't been charged in the past year or so. AMEX is easily the best credit card company with the most perks and amazing customers service. I would be quite unhappy if they went out of business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The sad thing is, I see $3.5Bn, and that's _good news_.</comment>


Apply HN: Kriegspiel - <AUTHOR> Kriegspiel is a game of imperfect information.  It is founded on the premise that as more games become solved by machines, humanity can still have some good old fun without worrying about being obsoleted by an AI.
It was previously posted to HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364927
Direct link: http://krgspl.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Clickables:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364927)

[http://krgspl.com/](http://krgspl.com/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds interesting, but an example game, game board, or ruleset should be available before I login. I'm not going to register to figure out how to play.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I admit removal of required registration is one of the problems I am looking to solve. The security needs to be there to prevent cheating. The email is optional so you can just makes something up for username & password, but I do think it is too much friction for first-timers.

As per ruleset, it is displayed on the home page but I could do a better job of organizing it and providing some samples/visuals. Seeing a sample game after it's been played would just look like the worst game of chess you've ever seen, so without the context it might be confusing. I could show a sample of live play from one player's perspective.

I also started writing a strategy guide. Positional and tactical gameplay is drastically different than regular chess.

The game has a small community of players. The next stage will be to add tournament level play, and also consider adding variants for games other than chess (kriegammon?)

Monetization would be through buy-in prize tournaments where a small percentage is kept for the host.</comment></comment>


Ebook Fraud - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/ebook_fraud.html

<comment><USER2> I've always felt it strange how Amazon has concentrated its resource on penalizing their own customers by locking down the portability/sharability of books - thus preventing customers from their full rights under copyright (such as full right to loan or sell on a book). They'll even enforce that by removing the API keys to sites like Lendle.

Yet they totally leave the door open for scammers to upload content they don't own the copyright to and have no interest in really enforcing that side of the business.

It's the main reason I won't buy a Kindle, as much as the thought of owning a beautiful ebook device reader attracts me so much.

<comment><USER3> _It's the main reason I won't buy a Kindle, as much as the thought of owning a beautiful ebook device reader attracts me so much._

So buy a Nook. Or a Sony.

I have a Nook which I use exclusively for out-of-copyright content. (I doubt I'd ever pay real money for an eBook, since I like paper books far too much.)

<comment><USER4> Sony pocket reader would be near perfect if they added amazon's side buttons, and a one/two tap method to get to a fully expanded out table of contents like iBooks. Being able to use it while charging from the computer would be nice too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of the Drudge Report "app" that was simply a mobile version of the site created by Jon Gales, without permission from Jon Gales (or, presumably, Matt Drudge).

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2329283>

<comment><USER6> For anyone who missed it, that case ended well enough. I muscled them into giving a $10,000 donation to the Red Cross and after making it they transitioned off my servers. Best of both worlds as I never felt right about making money off it as I was screen scraping Drudge's curated links in the first place.

[http://www.jongales.com/blog/2011/03/18/hacker-news- comment-...](http://www.jongales.com/blog/2011/03/18/hacker-news-comment-red- cross-donation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Far from making editors superfluous, systems that democratize publishing have an even greater need for editors. "

Pure gold.

</comment><comment><USER8> (all the following was a mistake I misread the comments somehow as part of his own post)

 _He's said some pretty brave things for someone who says he can't afford an attorney. Maybe he shouldn't be admitting that?_

 _Is it legal for Amazon to ignore DMCA requests of any kind? "Safe Harbor" laws do not allow them to set restrictions like "only on law firm letterhead" do they? Some lawfirm should set up a $50 DMCA online form that faxes to Amazon._

<comment><USER9> I don't follow. Nothing in there is even remotely grounds for legal action - it can all be verified by pointing to a single example, and even at worst it's opinion and using the most well-known site as an example. And there's no mention of "DMCA" anywhere by Bruce, just by commenters.

Did the content change between your post and my reading? Or are you connecting commenters (ie, Carl Bussjaeger) with Bruce?

<comment><USER8> Wow, somehow I kept reading into the comments and thought it was him still.

Sheesh, can I blame it on poor sleep last night?

That was embarrassing! (but he needs to format comments differently than his posts)

<comment><USER9> Eh, it happens. They are a bit abnormally similar to the post though, I do agree with you on that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is this a good idea for sorting your photos? - <AUTHOR>

Know How podcast Episode 35 has some good tips on organizing your photo collection. http://twit.tv/show/know-how/35
My problem was that I had EVERY photo I'd ever taken over the last 12 years! I've never deleted anything - or looked at them. I've backed them up on to 8 BluRay Discs so far.
So I needed a way to shrink my collection to a manageble, share-worthy collection. This isn't a one day job, more like something thats going to take months - so I wrote a program that would index my collection, identify duplicates, and let me step through the unique photos one at a time and tag the good ones - then I can export to a date based folder structure.
Now my collection is a more reasonable size, and structured well on the disk - I'm exporting it as I go, and loading it up in Picasa and sharing on Google+. BTW, if I exit the app, when I reopen it I can continue from where I left off.
I've got over 50000 photos, turns out nearly half are duplicates, but I'm over 20% of the way through my collection and my family are finally getting to see the photos!
See http://photo-sorter.appspot.com/
But so far, no-one has given me any feedback - not a single one - so I don't know if anyone other than me actually thinks this is a worthwhile idea or if no-one has found it yet! Any thoughts? <comment><USER3>
      Error: Not Found

      The requested URL /%EF%BB%BF was not found on this server.

Picasa (the desktop client) already does this (and quite well, at that)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure that that error means - is this from <http://photo- sorter.appspot.com> ? Try removing anything after the .com

And how does Picasa 'do this'? The issue with all of the photo managers out there is this: How to I go through my photos and tag the good ones as 'good', and tag the bad ones as 'bad' and if I quit and resume, how do I continue with the untagged (or continue from where I left off - considering that this may take weeks or months).

PhotoSorter isn't about eliminating duplicates or managing your photos - <USER2> about reducing an unsorted collection to a manageable and shareworthy collection.

Consider this - I've got over 25000 unique photos, never really been looked at or sorted. Nothing ever deleted.

I could use Picasa to go through them individually and tag/upload/share the good ones, but I'd have to remember where I was up to.

I could set up tags Good & Bad and tag them all like that and if Picasa could show me all the untagged photos that would help (help me continue from where I left off).

What PhotoSorter does is simply this - step through each photo one at a time and flag it as a keeper or not.

You can exit and resume from where you left off at any time, and export the flagged photos at any time.

So I'm using it as a convenient way to reduce my crazy photo collection to one that is worthy of loading in Picasa and manage/share there.

Right now I'm exporting what I've tagged every week (exported to yyyy-MM folders). Then, Picasa is configured to include that export directory, and those yyyy-MM directories are set in Picasa to sync to Google+.

For the first time ever, my family overseas gets to see my photo collection - without the crap. And, although I will still back up the entire collection (all 50k photos incl duplicates) my exported (good) photos will be much smaller and easier to back up (I have several backups, disk, bluray, online, offsite).

Also, because the collection in Picasa is only the good ones, I am quite happy to set it off in slideshow mode, and know I'll enjoy it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm struggling with my photos as well. iPhoto stinks. Never tried Picasa yet though. I should probably give it a shot.</comment>