iGoogle switched off - <AUTHOR> http://google.com/ig The day has come and iGoogle is no more. <comment><USER2> iGoogle IMHO was just following the "Portlet" fad that seem to infect many portal sites. I think Google Now is a much better interface for this kind of stuff, if only it were "extensible" the way iGoogle gadgets were.

I wouldn't call it a product, more like a feature. Google has literally changes thousands of features of their search page over the years. Maintaining them all without ever sunsetting would be an unimaginable technical debt.

This brings up the usual Reader meme, but even Apple unceremoniously kills features in products they charge money for and profit from. Remember the Final Cut Pro vs Pro X debacle? Or iMovie? Sometimes companies just decide its time to revamp a product and remove features that are no longer popular, or just poorly designed. Paying for a product does not protect you from that if you are a minority of users. Well, maybe it does, Microsoft seems to just keep on piling on features in its products without ever removing them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good, now I have almost no reason to go to Google's site at all. Between this, Reader and the useless G+, google's web properties have gone almost completely off the rails.

I utterly fail to see why shutting this down was a good idea.

I hit my iGoogle page dozens of times a day and would have put up with ads and all manner of garbage on it because it was so useful.

Outside of My Yahoo (which was recently updated thank goodness), any other alternatives?

<comment><USER4> Full disclosure I'm the founder of this product (hey its hacker news) but a lot of people have been using [http://backstit.ch](http://backstit.ch) as an alternative rather than a direct replacement for iGoogle (and google reader).

Rather than just show snippets from different sites we analyze the content so you can easily filter or even create automatically curated pages around your favorite topics.

You can check out a topic page without signing up here: [http://backstit.ch/topics/117/TrackingFukushimaDisaster](http://backstit.ch/topics/117/TrackingFukushimaDisaster)

<comment><USER5> I don't like the "river of news, most current at the top" UI, but I did use iGoogle's "bunch of boxes with headlines, spread around in a bunch of columns" approach, do you guys have that as an option? Looks more like Google Reader replacement than iGoogle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> iGoogle used to be my home page.

Now this is: [http://www.ighome.com/](http://www.ighome.com/)

Which (cant remember) either I set up for DDG or, it was the default. So, while I do find myself !g ing a lot, google is no longer my default for anything.

So..... Yahoo for mail, as I have had the email address for something like 15 years DDG has been my default search for several months Then switched from iGoogle more months ago because of the obvious Did have a G+ account thing, simply because it was where a few vaguely interesting groups are, or were. But I only ever looked at it if I was notified via iGoogle. So, guess what? Not looked at that in months either.

Um....so... yeah, well done google. I assume Im not worth enough to them. Hell, turns out, google isnt worth much to me either.

What happened to the cool kids on the internet block, aye?

</comment><comment><USER7> start-ups are supposed to pivot like shit. gorillas are supposed to keep the lights on forever.

i know it's not that simple. at least start-ups have a reasonable option of open sourcing failed products. i don't know how often that works out, but it offers some consolation. gorillas have a much harder time. who knows what a service was hooked in to, what it was built off and what was was built off it.

it makes me think along a line i've thought many times. a friend once said "you either become a big company or a part of a big company". which means you either become a core service at a big company or part of a core service at a big company. or you're dead. a lot of services are going to get a bullet.

accept for a moment that is the right decision, scrappy start-up or goliath. there is obviously still value in a lot of these services to a lot of people. maybe they can't become big businesses. maybe they can't be important to big businesses. but they can still be important to many people, some of them with the capability to develop and run them.

when will open source extend to services? beyond libraries, and into applications themselves? services with open, distributed development and hosting. built and run by the community, for the community. the things happening with distributed data storage have to help, and a lot of the work going into making mobile applications efficient and responsive (every phone is a node in a network that is constantly being partitioned). it seems like this could open the door for a lot of things that don't really fit the "hit or quit" model.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you haven't learned to not use a Google product that isn't core to their revenue stream in the year 2013, I don't know what to tell you.

<comment><USER9> I don't know if it's that straigh-forward as "not core to their revenue stream". At the time it launched I guess it was supposed to be part of their core revenue stream -- it was supposed to give them more insight into what their users are into, and thereby allowing them to target their ads better. Not too different to Google+, I guess, just a different wrapper. I think the problem here was that it didn't catch on as well as they wanted it, and even people I know who were using it, moved on after a while.

So, I guess it would be more correct to say that you shouldn't use Google products that aren't going to be popular enough. Unfortunately I don't have such an insight into the future.

<comment><USER8> The answer is simple, you wait until they are monetizing it and are clearly going to support the product into the future. No one is forcing you to be an early adopter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Too bad... it was a great service.

</comment><comment><USER11> I never understood the name "iGoogle". You know what the "i" in Apple's products and many other company's products mean? Internet. So Google called the product "Internet Google".

<comment><USER12> the i in apple's products make no sense either

<comment><USER13> I think in their minds it was about the expression of ones identity, and showing that you're such and unique snowflake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was a huge fan of igoogle. No idea why this project shut down. The concept was brilliant, but maybe the name conflicted with apple's ieverything.

<comment><USER15> No, they created Google Now which overlapped with this product. Google is constantly starting new projects and ending ones that either conflict with new ones or become obsolete.

<comment><USER16> Except that Google Now is not for desktops or a 'start page' (at least not yet), and perhaps more importantly, is not accessible or extensible by developers, or customizable by users.

<comment><USER15> I do think you have something there about desktop use. What's important here is that Google adapted to the migration of users to mobile devices. Just like desktop PCs are in decline, so are apps that are desktop-only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sad I used iGoogle everyday.

What's a good alternative to iGoogle? i.e. that has weather, news feeds and stock quotes on 1 page?

<comment><USER18> A local HTML page with frames that load some RSS feeds or mobile websites?

<comment><USER19> Someone could make a little website that builds, from various templates and widgets, a suitable page and allows the user to save it to local disk and set it as their home page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Been using it until yesterday. Loved it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same here. New tab > open home page > scan my iGoogle feeds has been a very frequent and almost automatic habit of mine for years. When it redirected me to a search page it took a good second or two for me to realise what was going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why they didn't at least migrate it to a similar format as Google Now (branding wise) is beyond me.

</comment><comment><USER22> Shame

<comment><USER23> What alternatives are you guys using ?

I currently use netvibes, but I am not too happy. The font is way too small and non-configurable....

<comment><USER24> I switched over to [http://www.protopage.com/](http://www.protopage.com/) last week, but I don't think you can configure the fonts easily there either so may not be of interest to you. It works for me so far at least.

<comment><USER6> I tried them at the same time I was trying ighome.com. I liked it enough, until the nagging for money started. It then became annoying, so I settled on igHome. Less functional but less annoying.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Analysis of Suicide Rates Around the World - <AUTHOR> https://kyso.io/KyleOS/global-suicide <comment><AUTHOR> Source: Data is from Kaggle ([https://www.kaggle.com/russellyates88/suicide- rates-overview...](https://www.kaggle.com/russellyates88/suicide-rates- overview-1985-to-2016)), which compares socio-economic info with suicide rates by year and country between 1985 and 2016.

Will hopefully add to this analysis by looking at other causation factors like alcohol consumption, hours of sunlight, etc.</comment>


Australian police sting brings down paedophile forum on dark web - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/07/australian-police-sting-brings-down-paedophile-forum-on-dark-web <comment><AUTHOR> People should really read VGs special, which covers things like:

* How VG found the IP of the Tor Hidden Server, and discovered that it was being run by Australian police.

* Why Australian police got to run the site, despite having no direct connection to it, due to how their laws allow the police to act in ways that are criminal elsewhere (basically digital black sites).

* How the forum had a policy that all posts from the admin had to include rape images, as an attempt at preventing police from honeypoting the site.

* The ethics of the police running a CP forum, including police posting CP themselves.

[https://www.vg.no/spesial/2017/undercover- darkweb/](https://www.vg.no/spesial/2017/undercover-darkweb/)

<comment><USER2> >He found one weakness: By asking the server the right question, it would reveal his own IP address .

>The question was asked and the server replied. It was located in Sydney, owned by the server Digital Pacific.

What the hell does that even mean? It almost sounds like they were doing packet sniffing and looking at the IP addresses of where the packets came from. Any non-tor exit node IPs could be the server's IP. Similar strategy was used against Silk Road.

<comment><AUTHOR> They have a more technical description of the process further down in the article, in the grey box:

"IP addresses and physical server locations are inherently difficult to find on the Tor network. So how did VG's computer expert get the forum to disclose this information?

1\. Profile picture upload

The forum allowed users to upload a profile picture. This picture could also be fetched from a user-supplied URL.

2\. The leak

This is where the information leak occurs. Configured for optimal security, the forum's software and/or server would fetch the remote profile picture via Tor. Childs Play did not – all traffic to external sites originated from the server's real IP.

3\. The IP address is exposed

By telling the forum to fetch a picture from a server Stangvik controlled, he could see in his server logs that the originating IP was with a hosting provider in Sydney – Digital Pacific. Stangvik went on to confirm that outgoing DNS requests originated from the same provider, and that the forum's software also loaded images included in forum post previews from the same IP.

4\. A proxy, VPN or Tor Exit?

The next question was whether the IP belonged to a Tor Exit Node, a VPN or a proxy server. An IP can hide just about anything. How could he confirm that this was the forum's location, rather than just a node in a chain of redirects? Stangvik applied three improvised techniques:

5\. Timing between the servers

He rented a virtual server with Digital Pacific – the same place as where the suspected IP was located. He then updated the profile picture URL to point to this server. Upon receiving an incoming profile picture request, Stangvik's server would respond with a redirect to another URL on the same virtual server. Repeating this redirection process several time, Stangvik was able to isolate and measure the roundtrip-time between the two servers. The measurements yielded very low times, consistent with a forum server in close vicinity of his rented server.

6\. Measuring intermediate nodes

Stangvik also paid attention to so-called «Time To Live» values on the incoming data packets. These provide some insight into how many intermediate parties are involved from the sender to the recipient. In this case, the values indicated that there were at most one intermediate – a typical result if the servers were located in the same room.

7\. Measuring packet size

The final test started to get advanced: Measuring MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) and packet fragmentation. Each packet in a computer network has a maximum transmission size, based on which intermediates it passes through. Each encapsulating technology, such as VPNs, can result in the total packet size increasing beyond the maximum size, and local networks usually have larger maximum sizes than the "tubes" found on the internet. If the maximum size is surpassed, the packet will be broken into multiple fragments.

By crafting long profile picture URLs, and setting specific packet flags, in the redirects returned by his custom web server software, he could see that the MTU was consistent with that of high-speed local area network traffic, and also ruled out VPN configurations."

<comment><USER3> This is why any server you want hidden should be behind something like whonix where no process running on the server should know the IP.

<comment><USER4> Damn. If only those child pornographers knew this tip.

<comment><USER5> If I were going to do something so very illegal, I'd research the hell out of it. If I were going to run something like this, I'd pretty much want to be an expert on the architecture and software stack.

I'd be asking hundreds of questions, taking courses, and using as many layers as would be reasonable to hide even my efforts at learning. I'd probably be obsessed with security, more so than I am now. Much more so, in fact.

<comment><USER6> And then you'd likely be in a select group of people who could be investigated individually. OPSEC is hard in most circumstances, but it's very hard if you're trying to be an expert on one topic in a short period of time.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I'd even have to make a point to hide my learning. Only a specific subset of people would be asking how best to allow uploads while ensuring the IP address was masked via Tor. Added with other questions, it'd put me into a pretty narrow group, so even gathering information would need to be masked.

Fortunately, I don't actually want to do anything illegal. That will make it easier. I do kind of want to learn how to set up a hidden service, but just to satisfy my curiosity.

<comment><USER7> The original silk road fell because of an opsec failure in a post on stackoverflow...

<comment><USER5> A few weeks ago, and prompted by an HN post, I considered writing about the possibilities if ML as applied to large aggregate datum and with criminal investigation as the motivation.

With all the public posts, writing style analytics, and use of a common moniker across services, it seems that it may be possible to do just that on a large scale. It seems that it could be made trivial to narrow down lists of suspects by crunching large data sets that contain stuff like SO questions, AC posts on Slashdot, or responses on HN.

After all, how many people are actively seeking to secure a message board as a hidden service _and_ doing so at that time? I sort of envision it as having some commonality with the timing attacks already in use to deanonymize Tor users.

Subject A asked about securing IP addresses for uploads and Sevice A got this feature two weeks later. Subject C asked about this security aspect and Service A has that concern. Subject Q asked about using this forum software and requested this modification. Service A uses that software, etc...

So, maybe Subjects A, C, and Q are all the same people.

While it doesn't prove much, it does potentially aid in narrowing down the list of suspects. Coupled with other bits of information, it may narrow the list down significantly.

That and there are huge sets of data out there. Processing that intelligently, and rapidly, could really change the way investigations are done.

<comment><USER6> That's what XKEYSCORE does, pretty much. The NSA has spent a lot of time working on these sorts of techniques.

<comment><USER8> No it doesn't - or at least there is no claim I've seen that this is part of XKEYSCORE. It's not mentioned on the Wikipedia page either[1].

 _However_ this is an active areas of research in both classified and (presumably) non-classified areas. See for example this search: [https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=related:KbJLbpaKfCkJ...](https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=related:KbJLbpaKfCkJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5)

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

<comment><USER6> Right, the NSA has a bunch of anti-Tor tools that usually are called QUANTUM- whatever. However, correlation of people across different networks is something that XKEYSCORE does. There's also the writing deanonymisation tools that you mention (but there's Anonymouth[1] which could help).

My original point was that OPSEC is hard if you're trying to be a topic expert in a short period of time. You don't need NSA tools to attack someone in that situation.

[1]: [https://github.com/psal/anonymouth](https://github.com/psal/anonymouth)

<comment><USER6> In particular, this part:

> It seems that it could be made trivial to narrow down lists of suspects by > crunching large data sets that contain stuff like SO questions, AC posts on > Slashdot, or responses on HN.

 _Is_ what XKEYSCORE does (or at least, it's the interface you use to query the above data sets which are collected as part of PRISM and the other programs).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worth mentioning, these support groups. Because not all men are rapists and neither are all pedophiles.

Virtuous Pedophiles (for those who never raped) virped.org

Community support for offenders after prison (Australia): [http://www.smh.com.au/national/pedophile-support-programs- ch...](http://www.smh.com.au/national/pedophile-support-programs-challenge- community-hatred-20140328-35ofk.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Opsec breaches here: (from [https://www.vg.no/spesial/2017/undercover- darkweb/](https://www.vg.no/spesial/2017/undercover-darkweb/), linked in this thread)

1\. not firewalling the server so all traffic goes through Tor

2\. registering a bitcoin wallet with a private email address

3\. asking a coding question using their own identity (Ross Ulbricht, anyone?)

</comment><comment><USER10> Maybe it would be a good idea if some western states have access to a kind of backdoor into Tor/I2P/Freenet/etc. How many pedo/drug/etc. illegal sites are still there and will be there in the future where the owners know proper opsec. I get the point that journalists/political dissidents want some anonymous communication channel, but do we have to tolerate shit like this? Maybe tor without the hidden services would be morally less contemptible?

I suppose its likely that the NSA controls/monitors a sufficient amount of tor nodes to make this already be the case anyhow.

<comment><USER11> There's this thing called the slippery slope. The reason backdoors are bad is because: once one government shows they can get a backdoor, every other government will want one. The FBI wanted a backdoor for iPhones while completely disregarding the fact that if Apple added one, what's to stop China from demanding one, too?

<comment><USER12> Apple being an US company?

<comment> loup-vaillant Doesn't count if they sell stuff in China. Chinese iPhones will have a Chinese backdoor, US iPhones will have a US back door.

And since it's easier to program one backdoor to rule them all, we may even have _all_ iPhones be accessible from both US and China…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _To maintain their cover, undercover detectives were posting and sharing abuse material on Childs Play._ For over a year.

Who would authorize this...once again, it's a whole freakign year? I understand seizing a site and "seeing" who log in for a while but police actively posting child pron? Why not have undercover ATF agents kill people to prove their no undercover?

</comment><comment><USER14> In the future, I hope we can use existing AI to create fake child porn images so these brave officers wouldn't have to feed these motherfucking-sickshitbag- fuckers real child porns (although the police stated the pictures they used already exist else where).

Bravo to all the people crackingndown in human trafficking and protecting children from harms

<comment><USER15> This idea raises an interesting question - what if all child porn in the future was artificially generated. Would it be illegal to consume or share that material?

<comment><USER16> Probably. Child porn is illegal today because consumption incentivizes production of even more material. If you could somehow guarantee that production would only come from artificial sources then there would be no reason for it to be illegal, but making that guarantee in the real world is unrealistic. Once you create demand for artificial content then someone is going to try and slip the real thing in, bringing us back to square one. Artificial depictions of child porn are already illegal in many jurisdictions for that reason.

<comment><USER17> "Once you create demand for artificial content then someone is going to try and slip the real thing in, bringing us back to square one."

That is a slippery slope fallacy. Would you apply the same logic to legal pornography and say, "Well the actors are just too young, someone is going to try and slip in underage actors?" Or to non-visual descriptions e.g. Nobakov? At what point do you think the line should not be expanded?

"Artificial depictions of child porn are already illegal in many jurisdictions for that reason."

I think the reason is a lot less rational. In the 80s and 90s we had a widespread moral panic about child molesters that results in thousands of innocent people being thrown in jail. We still see remnants of that panic. I think we have shifted from a rational motivation for protecting children to a moral motivation to jail pedophiles. People do not want to have pedophiles in their communities and if a pedophile is able to avoid breaking the law people demand a broadening of the law. The idea that a pedophile could avoid prosecution by satisfying himself with cartoons instead of recordings of child abuse led to the law being broadened to ensure that the pedophile is punished.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sounds illegal.

<comment><USER19> If you read the article, you would know that it is in fact not illegal for police in Australia.

<comment><USER20> By the same token, other countries could try to extradite them under their laws, broken through the international, online distribution of CP.

<comment><USER21> They could, but the AFP is used by those other countries for exactly this reason. They have frighteningly broad latitude when it comes to breaking laws to achieve their goals. In this case, perhaps it was justified, but the VG article posted above raised some concerns with their methods that I agree with.

Should see what our intelligence agencies are allowed to do. Australia has rather weak protections for its populace, and rather strong laws allowing police and intelligence forces to do this. Despite some large controversies, the public doesn't seem to really mind, which scares me. My state, QLD, literally became a police state in some ways, under Bjelke-Peterson. I don't forget that, but often it feels like everyone around me does...

<comment><USER6> I think it's just apathy, politics is mostly a joke here in Australia.

<comment><USER22> We also don't have the same type of deep distrust of government that some other Western countries have - which is not to say that Australians love their governments, far from it, but we don't exactly have a strong anti-government streak. In many ways this is a good thing, but it does tend to mean we don't spend much time thinking about checks and balances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >legal protections allow police to post abuse material

It should be noted that Australia has a lot of history with this sort of legal protection. The reason for this is that Australia does not include its armed/police forces in its democratic institutions - i.e. the armed and police forces do not answer to the public, but rather to the sovereign (the Governor General, who answers to the Queen).

For example, its legal for Australia to commit war crimes as part of the Coalition - in fact, Australian armed forces are in the Coalition to "do the dirty work that other countries cannot do". Australian Forces can bomb innocents with relative impunity - relative to the scrutiny that the American forces must operate under, that is. Whenever America needs something dirty done, it comes knocking on the ADF door...

<comment><USER22> Give me sources, or I'll say you're just plain wrong.

Conduct that amounts to war crimes will amount to an offence either under the Defence Force Discipline Act or under civilian law - ADFIS and AFP do investigate this stuff, though admittedly they haven't had much luck recently with actually charging or convicting anyone, but the same can be said of any other country currently in Iraq. I'd find it hard to believe that Australia is any worse than the US, honestly.

(FWIW I'll allow that parliamentary scrutiny of the ADF is probably not as stringent as in the US Congress.)

In this case, the police are using their Controlled Operations authority that was originally granted to allow police to conduct drug importations as part of sting operations. Other jurisdictions do have some analogous laws, though potentially not with such broad scope.

<comment><USER23> Pop quiz: why doesn't the ADF _ever_ have to report its civilian casualties to the nation? Oh wait, you answered it:

>parliamentary scrutiny of the ADF is probably not as stringent as in the US Congress.

Australian Constitution, Section 68:

"The command in chief of the naval and military forces of the Commonwealth is vested in the Governor‑General as the Queen's representative."

(NB; the Australian Constitution is an embarrassment to the Australian people - it is categorically the _worst_ constitution of all modern western democracies...)

Here, Scott Ludlum explains the situation pretty well:

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/17/the- au...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/17/the-australian- parliament-must-have-the-power-to-decide-if-we-go-to-war)

".. Australia has remained anchored to a pre-democratic tradition founded in hereditary monarchies and feudal states."

Curious readers might like to know more about Australias' war crimes in the middle east, and the extent to which its politicians will go to keep the truth from the Australian people:

[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national- affairs/defence/adf...](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national- affairs/defence/adf-investigative-reports-on-afghan-civilian-deaths-kept- secret/news-story/7008f627585bd2f010c27ddf616ac9d4)

[https://independentaustralia.net/article- display/australias-...](https://independentaustralia.net/article- display/australias-unreasonable-silence-about-civilian-casualties-in-syria- and-iraq,10165)

Australia committed war crimes in Mosul, and in Raqqa - this is known by anyone who cares to investigate the matter. It is not reporting these crimes, because its forces are not required to by the Australian people, and its politicians are cowardly hiding the truth, because they know that the Australian people will be held liable for these crimes...

<comment><USER24> > the Australian Constitution is an embarrassment to the Australian people - > it is categorically the worst constitution of all modern western > democracies...

You really think so? I agree with you that there are many deficiencies in the Australian constitution, plus a national tradition of constitutional conservatism which means most attempts to address these deficiencies are doomed to fail. But in calling it "categorically the worst", I think you go too far.

I think the (unwritten) UK constitution is worse. Similar to the US Supreme Court, the High Court of Australia has the power to overrule the Australian Parliament and nullify unconstitutional legislation, even though it uses that power somewhat sparingly. By contrast, the UK Parliament is "sovereign", which means the courts cannot overrule Parliament. The UK courts effectively have the power to strike down primary legislation contrary to EU law, but with Brexit that power is going away. They also have the power to issue a "declaration of incompatibility" saying that legislation violates human rights, but that does not by itself void the legislation – either Parliament must act to amend or repeal the legislation, or there is also a fast track procedure whereby ministers can amend it without going to Parliament, but until either Parliament or the ministers act the legislation stays in force. (Also, Parliament granted the courts this power, and can take it away at any time by a simple majority vote in each House.)

I think another way the Australian constitution is superior to the UK constitution is that the Australian constitution bans the national government from establishing a religion (the ban doesn't strictly speaking apply to the state governments, but in practice they abide by it), whereas the UK constitution establishes a state church in one of its four constituent countries (England).

Also, the UK Parliament has in theory unlimited power to overrule or even abolish the devolved administrations (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) at any time, by a simple majority vote (even though real world political constraints mean that trying to use that power could easily lead to the violent breakup of the UK). By contrast, the Australian Parliament can't legally abolish the states without a national referendum which would be very unlikely to pass.

<comment><USER23> The reason I think its heinous: one rule for whites, another set for Torres- Straight Islanders/Original Occupants. Racism is intrinsically encoded in Australian law and Australians unwillingness to do anything about it is a sheer and utter embarrassment to the enlightened world.

The UK, in my opinion, is a totalitarian state and has no pretense to being a free society - so yeah, I don't include it in this set, as you rightfully indicate. Australia is a step above the UK in this respect - as the UK is a highly classist, authoritarian/totalitarian state where a majority of its population live in servitude to feudal lords, it doesn't even pretend to have a Constitution, nor individual rights. Australia does pretend, though, so its just a bit above the UK in that regard ..

<comment><USER24> > The reason I think its heinous: one rule for whites, another set for Torres- > Straight Islanders/Original Occupants. Racism is intrinsically encoded in > Australian law and Australians unwillingness to do anything about it is a > sheer and utter embarrassment to the enlightened world.

I think your phrase "racism is intrinsically encoded in Australian law" accurately describes the legal situation up until the reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. But I'm not convinced it is an accurate description of Australian law in the present-day. Can you give some examples of present-day Australian laws which in your view "intrinsically encode" racism?

<comment><USER23> Sure - the current Constitution itself. Just read it and tell me you're okay with Sections 25 and 51.

[https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wp- content/uploads/2013/12...](https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wp- content/uploads/2013/12/Recognising-Aboriginal-and-Torres-Strait-Islander- people-in-the-Australian-Constitution.pdf)

Section 25 reads: "25\. Provisions as to races disqualified from voting: For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted."

Section 51 (xxvi) reads: "51\. Legislative powers of the Parliament: The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: ... (xxvi) the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws;"

Then, there was the abolishment of ATSIC in 2005, which many in the indigenous community view as a betrayal. Even the UN got involved ..

[http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Damning-UN-verdict-on- ra...](http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Damning-UN-verdict-on-race- relations/2005/03/21/1111253958535.html)

And .. then there is the Nauru situation. Its essentially a detainment camp for undesirable immigrants, and has recently been removed from public scrutiny by way of being made a military base. Still people suffering in that camp daily, but you won't hear many Australians being too deeply bothered by the fact that their government is running a concentration camp... well, its one of 7 that are in operation, and I can guarantee you they won't get public oversight any time soon.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AMD to cut 1,100 jobs, initiate temporary pay cuts - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10144356-92.html

<comment><USER2> _AMD will also halt its company 401(k) match._

The cynic in me says that won't be coming back.

It's interesting to see this as a ripple effect, lots of individual companies say lengthening their upgrade cycle, each one makes no difference in the grand scheme of things but there are a few companies like AMD and Intel that are very vulnerable to lots of tiny actions adding up across the entire economy, not just a single industry in trouble.</comment>


Secretive Billionaire Makes The Cheese For Pizza Hut, Domino's And Papa John's - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2017/05/23/james-leprino-exclusive-mozzarella-billionaire-cheese-pizza-hut-dominos-papa-johns/#7ca143b54958 <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the last boss I worked for that works diligently since high school to build a hundred million dollar business in an unsexy industry with factories across America. Aside from growing up in silicon valley, he's the only other inspiration that rich is attainable and accessible.

Unflashy and unassuming, he doesn't try to draw press, hired older folks to be the faces. It's just like watching someone that's really good at playing this video game called spreadsheet. Patiently stacking and stacking day in and day out the same thing, but bigger and bigger.

      consistency and scalability... Leprino made himself indispensable

That's all it is.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of commander Chris Hadfields philosophy of always aiming to be a Zero. He said in any environment you could be a -1 a 0 or a +1. You don't get to decide which of those your efforts end up being. He further observes coming into a new environment and doing too much or trying to overachieve can often just make a mess, making you a -1. Aim to be a zero. Stack those shelves, do the boring work you know you can do well until you are sure you can handle the more complex chores. Also sort of reminds me of Net Promoter Score; would you recommend X to friends and family?

Just do the thing that is the point of the place and do the shit out of it, why wouldn't you? -- Louis CK

There is wisdom in hard, but simple work that others value, even in tech. Don't be too clever in that MVP. Substance over style. Etc etc.

<comment><USER4> Just a note that NPS uses a scale with low predictive validity and you should probably tell people to stop using it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter#Criticism_of_NPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter#Criticism_of_NPS)

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I do like the question from a general 'do you like thing X' perspective, but as critics seem to rightly argue, you should not use it alone.

Another question I like in the same vein, "Would you recommend other people to work here?". I think it is just one of many measures of "engagement" though.

Also, I have to agree with the general sentiment against NPS. I have seen teams forced into UI enhancement death marches because their app got a low NPS. It was plastered on billboards and there was a huge push to get the NPS up. It became a bit of a running joke. That anecdotal experience made me really wary of it in general, even though I like the concept as a general engagement measure.... maybe you shouldn't base management decisions on just that :)

<comment><USER4> I have worked for multiple large and small companies who thought NPS was a valid metric for customer feedback, and in my experience it has told us little to no information even though management has generally said we have to be at X to be successful.

When I worked for Apple Support the best in breed was a five point scale with a neutral midpoint and multiple questions on different axis, just as the wikipedia article stated, and I felt it was a clear and straightforward method of measuring customer satisfaction and in some cases quality, so that is what I recommend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love this story. Yes, building unsexy things can be lucrative. It's also amazing that him and his partner has spent their lives producing a product that within a margin of error has fed everyone in America at some point. But, it gave me time to stop and reflect, I've personally (and unknowingly until now) worked with about 25k lbs of his cheese during my tenure at Pizza Hut.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's sad that the engineer that made everything happen, Lester Kielsmeier, only got a tiny fraction of the overall wealth. Maybe this can change someday? I'm not hopeful though...

<comment><USER7> Having ideas does not constitute "making everything happen". Actually implementing the idea is what makes it happen, and in many cases it's the hardest part.

<comment><USER8> Being on a board of an angel-investment group we see this regularly. Its many times humorous - to the point of absurdity. You would be surprised at how many "inventors" want to ask for money, yet are scared of revealing how their invention works to their own investors. They honestly believe building a better mousetrap is all thats needed - and fame and fortune follow as a given. Thus, they are so guarded of their precious ideas that they never get past the garage-level design phase. They really expect someone to turn over 500k in angel-funding on no due-dillegence. Its a sort of hubris run wild.

The truth is, the engineer in this case no doubt provided value. But that value was effectively of a commodity nature. If he refused to deliver, any number of other competent engineers would've stepped up and done work-for-hire for an hourly rate.

No doubt the success in this case was like nearly all success: Unsexy, year- after-year persistence, building industry connections, meeting deadlines and delivering products. Overall being a good company to do business with.

However, its understandable that this concept of the "ripped off engineer" would be popular on a place like HN, since engineer types tend to overestimate the importance of clever ideas on success.

<comment><USER9> I think you've laid the facts out clearly. As an engineer, I have seen well- engineered solutions fail (due to business incompetence) and poorly-engineered solutions succeed (due to business acumen). Humans, almost unilaterally, overestimate the value of their efforts. There's a name for the fallacy, but I can't remember it.

Anyway, having said that, I suspect that the "ripped off engineers" that you mention are disillusioned with Capitalism. They may not realize it explicitly, and may even object to what I'm saying, but I think that's the underlying truth.

And I'm with them on it. I question any economic system that yields salary imbalances of 262:1 at a single company.[1]

[1] [http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_2006062...](http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/) (a 2006 article, and I vaguely remember seeing that the situation has only worsened for the workers)

<comment><USER7> So, in essence, we're dealing with anti-capitalistic engineers who want to make more money?

<comment><USER10> Or engineers who want more fairness.

<comment><USER11> More fairness... by earning more or having others earn less?

The criticism boggles my mind. If someone thinks they deserve more, they should make steps towards that (ex: leave for another company) instead of expecting for the money to drop in their lap.

<comment><USER12> Who is "expecting" anything? Who mentioned mere "deserving more"? Questioning something and seeking to change it is a long shot from what you're conveniently and predictably framing it as, and in context "leaving for another company" isn't even a joke, it's a tired old chestnut beginning to become offensive.

Don't expect sympathy saying your mind is boggled while spending more effort to misconstrue than to understand.

> More fairness... by earning more or having others earn less?

You know there is a fixed amount of money in circulation at any given moment, making these alternatives the same thing, right? If you don't, your mind is boggled for sure, but not because of anything anyone else is saying. If you do, why pretend you don't?

<comment><USER11> >Who is "expecting" anything?

Apparently the people who are complaining about fairness are expecting something (unless they are just complaining for its own sake).

>You know there is a fixed amount of money in circulation at any given moment, making these alternatives the same thing, right?

It seems you're being purposefully obtuse. There are plenty of people who would love to use force (or the State) to ensure that some group of the "underserving" earns less than they do now and some group of the "deserving" earns more. Maybe this isn't what the GP intended, but their post smacked of communist/socialist collectivism thinking to me.

I don't expect you to reply constructively since you're likely hiding behind a new account, but am always curious if you do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just an FYI: cheese is the most expensive ingredient in/on a pizza, so this makes perfect sense.

Reason: think of all the gallons of milk and processing it takes to make an unit of cheese.

Source: Someone whom worked at a Pizza Hut in South San Jose in high-school.

PS: Another interesting business model (in Texas) is Braum's, which is a large co-op ice cream/restaurant/convenience store chain run on behalf of a consortium of dairy farmers. This cuts out middlemen and is basically direct- to-consumer. The prices are much lower than similar SKUs in local grocery stores and the quality is quite high.

<comment><USER14> Don't mean to nitpick but Braum's isn't a co-op/consortium. It's a single family's massively-integrated retail operation. They own and operate basically all of their farms and ranches along with the manufacturing plants for their containers and even their delivery fleet. Braum is the last name of the guy who founded it.

(Oh, and it's not Texan. Braum's is an Okie brand; they don't open up stores more than about 300 miles from their central farms in Oklahoma.)

<comment><USER13> Everything before the word "but" is BS.

I never said it was based in Texas, you read the wikipedia and acted like an expert. It's a vertically-integrated supply-chain.

<comment><USER14> I worked for Braum's for four years in Fort Worth, Texas. It was my first "real" job after high school. They have a little book that they give employees that describes the company and the history. The company describes itself like I did. Would you like a picture as proof of my bona fides?

Please don't assume malice.

<comment><USER15> On the internet nobody knows you're an expert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Aside: screw Forbes. Between the pre-load ad screen and the autolay ad video (which for some reason I couldn't even close), their site is downright unusable.

<comment><USER17> I just gave up visiting Forbes long since. I use ads myself (eg AdSense and AdWords) and have no objection to well-behaved ad copy, but I run NoScript for safety and F's site is thus pretty well unusable to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> See also from 2014 "New Mexico dairy shuts down after undercover activist videotape". A dairy that supplied Leprino was caught on video treating cows horribly. Leprino seems to have responded reasonably.

> On Thursday, Denver-based Leprino Foods, for whom Winchester Dairy was a > supplier, announced a program that requires its dairy suppliers and farmers > to comply with new company guidelines regarding animal care. Leprino, the > world's largest producer of mozzarella cheese and a supplier to fast-food > chains nationwide, has said that it was "extremely repulsed" by the video.

[http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dairy-farm- video-2014121...](http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dairy-farm- video-20141219-story.html)

<comment><USER19> > Leprino seems to have responded reasonably.

In line with his "ethics" principle that comes after quality and price.

Anyway, if you value the wellbeing of animals going vegan is pretty much the only to me. There's no such thing as animal-friendly meat or bio-industrial dairy.

<comment><USER20> But then there would be no cows.

<comment><USER21> Define "no cows". There are plenty of animals we don't eat that continue to exist.

<comment><USER20> Cows don't really exist in the wild. I guess we could have some in zoos but we mostly keep animals around that have a purpose for us.

One could make the argument that evolutionarily speaking, being domesticated (usually then eaten) by humans is the most reliable survival strategy for any species.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I admire the business idea... but, rapacious capitalist though I may be, it fails my personal "would this business embarrass your children" test because what unifies all of these products is that the quality of the cheese is terrible IMHO.

<comment><USER23> What unifies all these products is the fact that they are mass produced. If you want to sell a pizza to everyone in America and you want them all to taste the same, you start to value consistency in your inputs.

I love to get pizza from some of the smaller pizzerias near me occasionally. I don't love that the cheese breaks sometimes, leaving me with a watery, ricotta-like mess on top of my pizza. I don't love that the crust is sometimes too thin and gets soggy or tears, or that the crust is occasionally burned in spots. This doesn't happen with Pizza Hut. Whatever else, they're consistent.

Personally, I also think that the cheese on a Pizza Hut pizza is just fine. If you're buying Pizza Hut or Papa John's, you're not looking for an old-world artisan experience. I don't want buffalo mozzarella on a delivery pizza.

<comment><USER24> Why not? I mean, buffalo mozzarella is pretty nice right? Are you saying you don't want food you can appreciate?

<comment><USER25> yeah sorry, not everyone's a liquid millionaire and can eat buffalo mozzarella whenever they please.

we'll try to work harder and make more money, to be more like you, so we can have excellent gourmand-level taste 24/7.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone parse this sentence for me?

*Instead, he hired Lester Kielsmeier, who had run a cheese factory in Wisconsin only to find out that it was sold during his stint in the Air Force during World War II, because his dad believed he'd been killed in action. "When Lester came, I went downtown to the junkyard and I bought a couple bigger cheese vats to make it look like we were really in the business," Leprino says.

Leprino's dad thought Lester Kielsmeier died in WWII, or?

<comment><USER27> Lester's dad thought Lester had been killed. He was presumably the executor for Lester's estate, which was liquidated (e.g. the cheese factory was sold).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> These are precisely the 3 pizza joints I cannot convince my room mate to order from. I guess he doesn't like the secret billionaire cheese.

EDIT: Not sure why this is being downvoted. Analysis of the mass market pizza industry as a race to the bottom, in terms of ingredient quality, is an old idea. Couldn't the secrecy, fake differentiation of leading megacorps, and low quality cheese be connected? Are we supposed to be impressed at this way of making money?

</comment><comment><USER29> He was private because his buyers wanted it that way. Do they really want everyone knowing they use the same cheese? I wonder what changed for him to come out like this.

<comment><USER30> They use the same cheese company but the story makes it clear that they do not use the same cheese. Each company has its own product tailored to their needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Punchline: combine science with sales! ;)

<comment><USER32> Sales and engineering are the two pillars of the Conjoined Triangles of Success.

<comment><USER33> I presume there must be at least 6 pillars?

<comment><USER34> Just the four. [http://conjoinedtriangles.com/](http://conjoinedtriangles.com/)

[EDITED to add: For the avoidance of doubt, yes it's a spoof.]

<comment><USER35> There are only two pillars. He didn't give a name for the lateral connectors.

<comment><USER34> I quote, from that very web page: "The four pillars of CToS (pronounced see- to-ess) are Growth, Sales, Engineering and Manufacturing."

<comment><USER35> The whole thing is from the Silicon Valley TV show. I'm fairly sure that the two pillars are Sales and Engineering, but you're making me actually go watch Season Three all over again to find out if Barker referred to Growth and Manufacturing as pillars too. YouTube clips on that particular part of the series are sparse.

Edit: Yep, Barker refers to Engineering and Sales as the _two_ pillars of success in S03E02, and Growth as the "foundation" of the CToS. Compromise is the "shared hypotenuse". Jack was fired before they could discuss Manufacturing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Thank god for the Willy Wonka of cheese.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wait, what's the "technology" that's being talked about in this cheese? Isn't it just normal cheese? Am I missing something here or is this artificial faux cheese?

<comment><USER23> Cheese production doesn't lack technology just because it's a familiar product. There are hundreds if not thousands of types of cheese. What distinguishes them is partly the dairy origin, but also largely the techniques used to produce them. Just looking at mozzarella, there are hundreds of different mozzarella cheeses on the market. They are not identical. Being able to consistently produce a mozzarella that has certain attributes requires tight control of a process that starts with an inconsistent output. What temperature do you process at? When does it change? When do you add rennet? How do you separate whey from the curds? How long do you age? etc. All of this is tech.

<comment><USER37> To be picky, it's (good or bad tasting, _de giustibus non dispoutandum est_ ) not "mozzarella" but just "cheese for pizza".

<comment><USER38> The distinction is irrelevant to the point made by the parent. That it's simply _just_ "cheese for pizza" does not negate the fact that significant process tech is leveraged when manufacturing a product of strict quality and consistency at scale.

<comment><USER37> Sure, no doubt that tech and a strict control on production and ingredients is needed, just like any industrial product, and evidently they are very good at both, I was just referring to the "just looking at mozzarella" part. A large number of cheeses called mozzarella on the market are very different from mozzarella and most shouldn't be even called so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Buffalo milk cheese is amazing for pizzas (after you have the pizza cooked, put a bit of buffalo milk cheese on top).

</comment><comment><USER40> I swear it was government cheese caves

</comment><comment><USER41> mom_i_posted_it_again.jpg

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Billionaire%20Cheese%20Pizza](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Billionaire%20Cheese%20Pizza)

</comment><comment><USER42> I find it disgusting to think that such a horrible industry that pillars on exploiting sentient animals up to the point of their death from exhaustion handles so Billions.

It's even sadder how people seem not to care at all, and are okay with all the torture and mutilation that goes behind the milk/cheese industry if they've something tasty in front of them.

<comment><USER43> You're gonna have a hard enough time getting people to not bitterly attack you for even merely suggesting it might be better for everyone if they ate a little less meat.

Going after dairy is an absolute non-starter (unless maybe you're talking only to vegetarians). I highly recommend sticking with targets that might actually be achievable in your lifetime without requiring the complete collapse of global civilization.

<comment><USER42> The dairy industry is one of the most brutal and soulless ones there is. I don't know what you'd call a "starter" if that isn't.

I also fail to see why this would "collapse global civilization". The fact that there's a huge industry behind this in some countries doesn't make it critical. The world economy wouldn't change that much IF these vanished (people would just consume something else).

<comment><USER43> > people would just consume something else

Yeah... this is the problem right here. The biggest issues facing our species and our planet boil down to one simple thing: the majority of the human race is too selfish, shortsighted, stupid and stubborn to change even the smallest aspects of their destructive behavior.

I mostly agree with you, the reason I said eliminating dairy is a 'non- starter' is entirely about how difficult it is to get fellow humans to upgrade their life choices. That was my whole point. This is also why I half-jokingly mentioned a civilization collapse as the sole way to 'fix' this, because it is only after the nukes have gone off and things have gone all to hell worldwide (and dairy is no longer available) that you will get people to stop eating cheese and ice cream. Outside of complete dictatorial control over a population closed off from the rest of the planet, they will keep consuming dairy until they cannot. It's sad and pathetic, but that's nature of the human beast.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good command line psychotherapy programs? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on a story in which a computer programmer creates a therapeutic command-line-type program for people to use while on retreats. (I say command-line-type because it is largely textual and therefore cognitively aimed.)
Do you know of any command line programs that ask users questions towards a therapeutic end? (Something like, though hopefully better than, emacs' "M-x doctor.") Do you have any ideas you would suggest were you asked to contribute to a project like that? (E.g., a particular coding language; a particular interface; etc.)
Thanks. <comment><USER2> A post on HN two years ago, "A therapy chatbot for depression" [0]

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14504306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14504306)

Kenneth Colby, a Stanford professor, had something like this in the 1970's and 80's. According to the Wikipedia article [1] it was sold as a product. I remember reading a skeptical account of it in a popular book back then [2].

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

[2] [http://rdrosen.com/psychobabble-fast-talk-and-quick-cure- in-...](http://rdrosen.com/psychobabble-fast-talk-and-quick-cure-in-..). bah, link now broken

</comment><comment><USER3> In case you don't know, this all started with ELIZA, so:

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

You might follow that into background of other "chatterbots" \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_natural_language_pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_natural_language_processing#Chatterbots)

These would traditionally be in some variant of Lisp, for its metaprogramming capabilities. But see also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIML](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIML)

User interface? Well, see Alexa, Siri, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, yes. Thank you. As for interface, I had the sense it would be non-verbal (i.e., textual) so that the "patient" would have so subvocalize the responses. But I will consider audio like Alexa et al.</comment></comment>


Indian Government Memo: Apple, Nokia, RIM Supply Backdoors - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/25486/Indian_Government_Memo_Apple_Nokia_RIM_Supply_Backdoors

<comment><USER2> Related (possibly identical) story posted recently with 200+ points: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3441451>

</comment><comment><USER3> The sad part is that even with overbearing powers, the Indian security establishment is _still_ unable to prevent the occasional terrorist attack in important cities such as mumbai

<comment><USER4> Who's behind the terrorist attacks? People that are tired of the corruption in the Government, or some organized crime groups?

<comment><USER5> Ofcourse, Organized crime groups.</comment></comment></comment>


I made a tinder like guessing game for the new season of Game of Thrones - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/gallery/bGbYotd <comment><USER2> Hey that is awesome. Is source public?</comment>


Stanford Online Classes Disappeared  - <AUTHOR>

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, a few courses like Lean Startup, Tech Entrepreneurship are no longer there.<p>http://www.nlp-class.org/ <comment><USER2> You're right. They seem to have disappeared. I recently received 2 very similar emails from two of the Stanford classes. Both emails stated that a tremendous amount of people have signed up for the class (over 50,000) but that the classes would be delayed in launching.

I'm curious if some of the delays in launch are to allow some of the instructors to hastily cobble together the textbooks that they are using for these classes. For example, the Stanford SAAS class starting this February is taking a "customer development" approach to the class textbook. The SAAS class is testing the textbook on a Berkeley class and then testing it on the 50,000 people signed up. But they aren't just "testing" it, they are selling it at a reduced rate ($9.99 on Kindle) for the early adopters who use the alpha electronic version in the class. They are also launching an iPad and print version. Such a brilliant way to craft an excellent book with user driven errata reporting and feedback while making a great profit on a first class of over 50,000 people. This free class business model is going to make a pretty penny. Here's a link to the SAAS book: <http://beta.saasbook.info/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats quite a good business model. Offer free course, earn money on textbook. I think the economic of scale here can give world class educators good incentives to teach good courses, and affordable enough for the masses to get the education.

Too bad the Lean Launchpad and Tech Entrepreneurship class seem to be gone. I was really looking forward to those.

<comment><USER2> Update, the Lean Launchpad course is not gone. Steve Blank just sent out an email notifying students that the class is delayed but will launch in the next 60 days.

I thought my hypotheses may have been incorrect because Steve Blank already has a book that he could use in the class (4 steps to the epiphany). However, looks like he is double timing it to release a new book for the Lean Launchpad class.

Snippets of the email from Steve Blank:

"First the bad news: I wanted to update you that the start of my upcoming online Lean LaunchPad will be delayed. But the good news is that, I will indeed be launching an online LaunchPad course. It will be offered within the next 60 days. Why the delay? I am revamping the Lean LaunchPad class to base the new course on my new book, The Startup Owner's Manual (The book that is just what its subtitle says: the step-by-step guide to building a great company). This book replaces its 10-year-old predecessor, The Four Steps to the Epiphany. So the course and The Startup Owner's Manual will both provide you with ten years of real-world learning amassed since The Four Steps to the Epiphany was first published.

The Lean LaunchPad course will be in modules you can take asynchronously and digest at your leisure, ideally with your fellow startup team members. If you want to get a head start, you can buy the recommended text, The Startup Owner's Manual. (The book is recommended, but not required, for course participants.)"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just to confirm: even the Lean Launchpad site is now down <http://www.launchpad-class.org/> I had been wondering when it would start since it was supposed to start this month.

<comment><USER4> According to this [http://steveblank.com/2012/02/09/two-giant-steps-forward- for...](http://steveblank.com/2012/02/09/two-giant-steps-forward-for- entrepreneurs/) class is being updated for new material and will be offered in 60 days.

(Read to the end of the link)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anatomy course had to start in January. They emailed me that it will start in February. And now I got an email that they start in March. What's going on?! I thought Stanford is one of quality Universities in the world.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty disappointing. I hope the lack of an update means it will just be delayed, or maybe this is just wishful thinking.</comment>


Show HN: Git for DiffPlug - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1073181831/git-for-diffplug

<comment><USER2> so the kickstarter is just advertising/sale in this case, since the software is already done?

<comment><AUTHOR> The software is in pretty early beta. It's a typical pre-order: pay $40 now while it still has bugs, or full-price later (likely $80) when it's cleaned up. There's also a stretch goal to release a big chunk of infrastructure as open source.</comment></comment>


Interactive visualization of freebase movie dataset - <AUTHOR> http://play.dgraph.io/ <comment><USER2> Rendering is awesome. It will be much more awesome if number of nodes are in hundreds and database of something different, say Indian rulers, their wives, etc. If it's available.

</comment><comment><USER3> Clutching demo</comment>


Roombas have been busy mapping our homes, and now that data could be up for sale - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16021610/irobot-roomba-homa-map-data-sale <comment><USER2> Other submissions: 1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14842679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14842679)

[http://gizmodo.com/roombas-next-big-step-is-selling-maps- of-...](http://gizmodo.com/roombas-next-big-step-is-selling-maps-of-your-home- to-t-1797187829/amp)

 _Roomba 's Next Big Step Is Selling Maps of Your Home to the Highest Bidder_

2\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14842705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14842705)

[http://gizmodo.com/roombas-next-big-step-is-selling-maps- of-...](http://gizmodo.com/roombas-next-big-step-is-selling-maps-of-your-home- to-t-1797187829)

 _Roomba 's Next Big Step Is Selling Maps of Your Home to the Highest Bidder_

3\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14842822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14842822) (this thread)

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16021610/irobot-roomba- ho...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16021610/irobot-roomba-homa-map- data-sale)

 _Roombas have been busy mapping our homes, and now that data could be up for sale_

Other sources: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-irobot-strategy- idUSKBN1A...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-irobot-strategy- idUSKBN1A91A5)

 _Roomba vacuum maker iRobot betting big on the 'smart' home_

(Techmeme headline for the above: _Roomba vacuum maker iRobot hopes to sell its users ' floor plan data, seeking deals with Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet_ (I couldn't submit this Reuters source to HN).

Edit: formatting</comment>


HTML5 Game Engines - <AUTHOR> http://dzone.com/links/html5_game_engines.html <comment><USER2> I'm working on new engine myself. Feel free to check it out over at <http://withpulse.com>.

</comment><comment><USER3> please link directly to articles. this feels very spammy otherwise.</comment>


Stewart Brand Wants to Revive Extinct Species (Interview w/ Kevin Kelly) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/ff_stewartbrand/all/

<comment><USER2> _The best counterculture now is in biology. As far as I can tell, biohackers are all adventurous young people, incredibly athletic, and they're all traveling the world._

If you reflect on a creator's willingness to work outside of polite society, the web seems so very static and conservative now. I am not necessarily comparing it to some bygone days where hackers were cowboys, because I only recently discovered the web - I'm comparing it to the potential of any community.

Impressionist painters in the 1870's struck out in defiance of the academic community. Sculpture followed twenty or so years on. Architecture made equally bold moves counter to the norm and expectations. All of these are conservative arts now for the most part. One of the most popular trends now in architecture is the International Style of 80 years ago.

Every so often a new field erupts that is democratic and allows the novitiate to explore and express (and to be honest about the human condition and not play politics to preserve one's rank). The web had that potential, but I don't see it being fulfilled.

[EDIT] It is interesting to find this piece on Brand, who I know best through his How Buildings Learn, which is one of the best works I've read on man's place in the built environment: he studies the historical records of structures that have survived man's use, and identified the general attributes that contribute to those successes. It is an empirical view of architecture and by extension, planning. It is a conservative view, in that it values the preservation of things past, but it is a liberal view in that it seeks the freedom of the building and tenant.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll definitely have to check out How Buildings Learn, your description sounds great. Both Brand and Kelly have really interesting views on the implications and effects on cities.

There's a great full section on cities in Whole Earth Discipline, and here are some of Kevin Kelly's writings you might like:

[http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/01/fossil_cities...](http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/01/fossil_cities.php)

[http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/07/cities_are_im...](http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/07/cities_are_immo.php)

[http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/05/whos_your_cit...](http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/05/whos_your_city.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Lisa: Well, that's what happens when you introduce foreign species into an ecosystem that can't handle them. [everyone laughs more] [a lone koala holds onto the helicopter with determination]</comment>


Study: Blue light from screens can steadily blind us - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90216977/blue-light-from-screens-can-steadily-blind-us <comment><USER2> _Some people._ People with normal levels of alpha-tocopherol (an antioxidant) have the damage repaired and don't go blind. People over 60 should watch out for this, and it's not a small thing, but the article doesn't qualify the risk at all.

Somewhat better discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17724995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17724995)</comment>


Costs of multi-process architectures - <AUTHOR> http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2014/07/multi-process-architectures-suck.html <comment><USER2> My TL;DR: Multi-process architectures may suck on machines where you don't have enough CPU/Cores for your workload; or the design of your software requires a lot more processes than common sense would dictate.

<comment><USER3> My constant reluctance of things like goroutines/coroutines is that if they truely get executed in parallel there is little to know way to manage their machine load as one would in a distributed pipeline.

<comment><USER4> The golang runtime allows you to specify how many processes it will use. It schedules goroutines one after the other inside that number of processes. If you specify max 1 process, you have no parallelism, just concurrency.

<comment><USER5> Does it have a priority system? Or a way to setup pools? I often find I want to run some part of a program (some of its tasks) on a set number of threads at a certain priority, not throw tasks into some global pool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh come on! How can you say that? Of course there's a cost on multiprocess arquitecture, but it doesn't suck at all! Ok, you shouldn't just spawn new processes whenever you need more tasks running concurrently, but how could a modern OS exist without multiprocessing? What would you have us do, go back to MS-DOS? :-)

<comment><USER7> If you read his article - mainly message passing and consequent context switching.

Most programs with protected memory - thats anything after windows ME in the windows world, incl. win 98, 95 for example (ie not just ms dos) - don't need too much message passing.

Stuff like webservers do (hence the perf advantage of nginx over apache, until they brought mod_event). Heck even web browsers do quite a bit despite his point - they do what they can to send as few messages as possible to compensate.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, actually I agree with everything on the article but the title. The article does too :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the core conflict is synchronization overhead vs latency, no? If communication is too granular there's too much synchronization overhead, which can be fixed by buffering, which in turn increases latency. Game engines have been swinging back and forth over the past 10 years on this a lot. First the trend was to have a few "fat threads" (maybe input+gamelogic->physics->visibility->rendering) which ran in parallel but which were coupled like a pipeline working on the previous frame's data. Each pipeline stage meant one frame more latency. Add the rendering API/driver latency, plus whatever the display device adds, and suddenly games had something like 100ms latency or even more which is very noticeable. Then people started to make the game loop a simple sequence of subsystem stages again, but subsystems split their work on the current frame internally into small parallel tasks. It will be interesting what the perfect game engine architecture will look like for VR with its ultra-low latency requirements from sensory input to display update.

</comment><comment><USER9> I could have sworn that Aaron had mentioned that this story was a counterpart to his recent "Multi-process architectures rock! :)" post that all of you defending multi-process architectures apparently didn't find. It's worth a read as well since many of the arguments you've made, Aaron already made.

</comment><comment><USER10> Erlang does quite nicely as a multi-process architecture. Low context switch overhead, low per-process overhead, built for redundancy and fault-tolerance (implying multiple execution units), tool support. There's more than one way to do it - all the world's not Unix.

</comment><comment><USER11> These are all problems that have easy solutions - chuck more CPUs at it.

Back in the ideal world though, I would say the harder problem is still not these, it would be the increased operational complexity. Support and maintenance costs go up.

I think the problems are somewhat over played here too. We've had zero copy network stacks for a while. Stack sizes are not a concern because scheduling becomes a bigger problem faster than using small chunks of memory does as you scale.

Edit: forgot to mention isolcpus or pinning as one method to solve the context switching - of course frequently we can make greater impact by careful consideration of the syscalls we make from our code.

<comment><USER12> > These are all problems that have easy solutions - chuck more CPUs at it.

So basically you tell us that if your application that uses bubblesort everywhere is too slow we just have to "chuck more CPUs at it"? No Thanks.

That line of reasoning makes me angry twice: as an embedded systems engineer (for which that kind of "solution" is simply not an option) and as a user (when I see applications take more and more megabytes and CPU cycles without proportionally increasing functionality).

<comment><USER11> This, is the way of the world.

Don't get angry about it though. Instead make it easier for stakeholders / customers to choose to do "the right thing". Be transparent and accurate with time-to-fix estimates. That's a hard problem, i don't even think it's perfectly solvable but i try hard anyway.

The uncomfortable truth - sometimes "the right thing" is to throw more CPU at it. Being late to the consumer electronics market for example, even if your product is bug free and perfectly designed, means you lost a whole chunk of available cash to the guy who got there first... With that money, he may be enabled to make a v2 that completely trumps yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cant agree to the points. It all depends on use case. In some cases it is even beneficial to remove the OS itself. I am not talking about high lveel OS like Linux, QNX or VXWorks, even MicroC OS II is a big overhead for some systems.

Consider how your car decides to deploy the airbags. Do you want a message queue? No, as soon as hardware inputs meets the condition the airbags needs to be deployed. On the other hand on the same car will have a infotainment system that has VxWorks/QNX/WinCE with multi process architecture. Most of them even have separate processor to interface vehicle CAN bus and power management. Inside the application processor, graphics and HIM will be distributed in some processes. The low level drivers codecs in another set of processes. The whole thing will just give the user a mediaplayer, a map and a phone interface. Some OEMs (e.g. Daimler, Ford) even distribute this whole functionality across different H/W modules.

Dividing gives you maintainability, re-usability, drop-in replacement alternatives. Most of the cases it shortens the engineering time, improves quality and reduces product recall.

The above automotive embedded example is just one use case. There are many areas where you want to distribute your application in many ways.

Finally, I want to ask one small question, when you turn off the reading light in a passenger aircraft, how many processes do you want it (Switch OFF signal) to go through before the light turns off? and why so?

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm guessing the study from 2007 is a bit stale now. Intel/AMD/... have almost certainly been trying to decrease the penalty for context switches. I'm curious how much they've changed over time.

<comment><USER15> I'm not an OS guy, but most aspects of context switching is implemented in software. It seems to me the only places in hardware that could help, would be faster memory access (which is more of a general optimization!) and the TLB. Awkwardly though, x86 doesn't seem to have a TLB insert command, so you just have to miss...?

Oh, and you could shorten the pipeline to make flushes faster and the penalty smaller. But pipeline length has stayed fairly static.

<comment><USER16> It's interesting that x86 only seems to have TLB tagging for VM guest/host switching usage. Regular context switches require TLB flushing, which (reading the Linux kernel) either flush the entire TLB or a specific set of entries.

I'm surprised no (more) tagging is used here for regular switches. Just not worth it?

Edit: A colleague pointed me to this: [http://www.google.com/patents/US6510508](http://www.google.com/patents/US6510508) which is used by recent AMD cpus. Anyone know any resource that has more info like this centralized?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So they just discovered how multicore programming was back in the day OS could only juggle processes.

Worse, I see no mention of modern micro-kernel OS, many of them used commercially, where the performance is actually quite good.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if anyone has recently measured the time it takes to do a context switch under Linux on a modern x86-64 processor. Something like the numbers in the table here:

[http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-space-between- word...](http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-space-between-words/)

</comment><comment><USER19> why not just pin processes to cores e.g. set-scheduler-affinity and friends on linux ? that works right ?

<comment><USER20> Apparently doesn't work on Android. At GDC this year I was in a hallway huddle of high-end mobile game devs complaining about how wide parallelism does work on Android because the scheduler stops listening to your affinity requests and just schedules everything in serial on one core so that it can save power on the other three.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't know why the author called this "Multi-process architectures suck :(" when he really meant "I suck at multi-process architectures :(". Look at what he lists:

\- "Context Switching"

You can find 4 cores in a trivial computer these days (8 cores with hyperthreading). This means you can have 8 processes without context switching at all, and also suggests that if you don't use multiple processes, you can only reach about 10-20% capacity on a multi-core machine.

\- "Per-process overhead"

It's true it has overhead, but you don't have to create _thousands of processes_ , we have light concurrency patterns to use within the actual thread/process.

But even then, you don't even have to run more than one primary process per core. You _have multiple cores_. They can't together run _one_ process.

\- "We built for a single-core world" and "We lack the tools"

Those are outright PEBKAC errors, and not architectural problems. We're way past the stage when multi-process architectures were a hardly understood, confusing problem. We have the right tools, for those who look for them.

Cache misses and overly eager context switching _are_ bad, and you can read a lot about this by Martin Thompson on his Mechanical Sympathy blog: [http://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/](http://mechanical- sympathy.blogspot.com/) There are ways to design multi-process systems to take best advantage of all cores, and your machine caches.

But even Thompson's Disruptor architecture is based around message passing and multiple processes. Because, again, in a multi-core world, suggesting anything else is laughable.

Plus, forget computers, multitasking is a fact of life. Animals do it, humans do it, so do computers. We have to check email and talk on the phone at the same time sometimes. We need to walk and chew gum. We constantly argue and write about how much we should multitask and how much we should focus on a single task, because people have the same context switching overhead and so on. Well for both people and computers, there's a balance, and either extreme is counter-productive. It's as simple as that.

<comment><USER22> "You can find 4 cores in a trivial computer these days (8 cores with hyperthreading)."

There are still plenty of tablets and phones out there which don't. (And the author _is_ targetting those devices with the software he's writing)

"It's true it has overhead, but you don't have to create thousands of processes,"

Ah, but that might be a natural consequence of your design. I think part of the problem is that we're currently in the middle of a really awkward transition period in computer architectures.

As you point out, almost no computers are single core nowadays. So having a single-process application is obviously not taking advantage of all the computer power you have at your disposal. It's blatantly sub-optimal.

However, if you're going to design a multi-process application framework, you probably want to design it to kick off new processes whenever you're about to do something non-trivial that could introduce significant latency into the mix. But depending on what the user/application user is actually doing, that _might_ potentially end up starting dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of processes.

And our computer architecture is not yet at the point where we have "enough" cores in our CPUs that we can just do that and have it work. We're getting there, but it's likely a decade or maybe two away.[0]

So, we want to create a multi-process architecture to stop wasting the computing power that exists; but we have to be careful and write extra code to managing creating these processes, because we can't yet afford to create them "on a whim".

It seems similar in some ways to segmented 16-bit memory models. In an early flat 16-bit memory model, you were very constrained (64k) but at least the environment you were working in was simple. The move to a segmented 16-bit model was in some ways a lot less constrained, but taking advantage of it meant dealing with a bunch of extra complexity. (boo!) It was the next step to flat 32-bit systems which made working with memory painless and simple again, while further lessening the constraints.

When low-end phones and tablets have >=256 cores, then we'll be able to take advantage of multi-process frameworks properly.

It occurs to me, having seen Alan Kay's talk a few weeks ago and being fascinated by the idea of "spending money to get ahead of Moore's law" to put together a computer that would allow you to write the sort of software to take advantage of computers a decade from now, but couldn't figure out what that meant if you wanted to do it now, I imagine that putting together a >=256 core system might be a good start.

<comment><USER12> I doubt tablets will ever need 256 cores. Desktop computers don't need that much either if you notice that many of them just run a browser and Excel. It's really when you do specific stuff like for instance gaming that you really need more horsepower. 2-4 cores are enough probably till the end of the decade at least: it allows many people to run 2 or 3 programs smoothly. A corollary is that for a program to try to use every core may not be a so good idea in the big picture.

Furthermore, if one observes the hardware evolution of the PC, one notices that it took the direction of heterogeneous multicore architecture (CPU, GPU, etc.) rather than the direction of an homogeneous multicore architecture: there are more "cores" of different types in your PC outside your i7 than inside. The same goes for tablets and phones that typically feature an ARM design with CPU, GPU, DSP integrated into one chip for footprint and power consumption reasons. Architectures seem to evolve into modular hardware, featuring a base CPU backbone to which specialized chips are added. There are a gazillion ARM-based designs, depending which set of functions you need.

This makes sense for the software and consumer electronics industry. Switching to completely different solutions like many-core chips (Mill CPU, GreenArray), would have a huge cost. Picking a common, general purpose "few-cores" CPU and adding in specialized chips as needed is much more affordable.

<comment><USER22> "I doubt tablets will ever need 256 cores. Desktop computers don't need that much either"

And 640k will be enough for everyone.

Hey, you might even be right about not needing them, but that doesn't mean those devices won't get them. You don't really need a 32-bit CPU to run your microwave or washing machine, but very few of the ones you buy today are running 8-bit microcontrollers with hand-coded assembler.

Though clock speeds stopped increasing some time ago, Moore's law marches on, and we're still getting more and more transistors per buck. Sure, some of them will go to more L1/L2 cache, but at some point the bandwidth to flush them to main memory becomes a bottleneck, so I think we're going to see more and more cores/chip. As that marches on, I think it's going to trickle down to even the low end of CPUs. For instance, you might even be able to buy a bunch of 64-core chips which have a bunch of cores disabled really cheap, because the disabled cores failed factory testing and were switched off. It can't be sold for full price any more, but that doesn't mean it's useless.

And once your $5 CPUs have 32 cores, well, providing the tooling is there, you might as well use a framework that makes use of them.

"many of them just run a browser and Excel."

Bad choice of examples there, I think. Browsers can be pretty multi-process heavy these days, with one main process, plus one per tab, plus extra processes for e.g. decoding streaming video in the tab, or running your ( _spit_ ) EME plugins ( _spit_ ) in a sandbox.

Similarly, with Excel, sure most of the time it doesn't do much. But, if you've got a spreadsheet with a bunch of dependent cells/formulas, then if someone updates the right cell, being massively parallel could really speed up value recalculations and propagation throughout the sheet. Some spreadsheets translate really well to map/reduce, and using all the cores could really help there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Enlisting more cores in order to get something done faster, you know, by splitting the work is indeed a serious pain.

I recently wanted to get lpsolve to split an integer branch-and-bound programming problem across multiple cores and then get a large on-demand AWS instance to deal with.

The branch-and-bound algorithm is eminently parallellizable. So, it should have been possible.

I came to the conclusion, however, that I would have to rewrite lpsolve for that. That program sticks to one process and there is no way to get it to fork other processes and read back the results.

<comment><USER24> The tendency is for things like lpsolve to be written single-process, because typically when you need to do it once, you need to do it one thousand times, and then your distribution is using each core available to you for a single lpsolve instance.

1000 iterations of an lpsolve invocation running on a single core, is going to run faster than the same number of lpsolve invocations each running on 10 cores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I get nothing when viewing the site, just a blank page with a list of URLs generated by NoScript. Not a shred of content to be seen without allowing Javascript. It has the trappings of a malicious page.

<comment><USER25> Sorry about the unconstructive comment, folks. Does anyone have an URL that just serves up HTML with the text of the article? Thanks.</comment></comment>


France's Minitel service in 1983: online banking, eshopping, and B2B - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/30/business/computer-linkups-spurred-by-france.html?scp=3&sq=minitel&st=nyt <comment><USER2> The Minitel was so entrenched long into the 90s it quite significantly hampered the original deployment of the 'net in France:

* No need to register anywhere to use it (your identity was connected to your landline)

* No maintenance or security issues

* No compatibility issues (everything was pretty low-tech, but following strict standards)

On the other hand, it had online payments, payments to sites (the national access provider charged based on access time depending on the service you connected to, and part of the money was funnelled to the service provider) and social media-based civil resistance (french university students coordinated strikes using Minitel as early as 1986). As a result the french population was not really taken aback by those capabilities in the interwebs, they were kinda used to them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm from Tetalab, a hackerspace in Toulouse, France, and we still use the minitel for some hacks with arduino:

<http://www.tetalab.org/images/tetalab/MSM.jpg>

It's a neat interface, everybody here in France remember it from the 80's, and it quite easy to hack it.

We should soon release an arduino lib for eveybody to hack it, but it'll be quite hard to find a minitel if you're not in France (nobody use it anymore, it's quite easy to find second-hand, but surely heavy to ship...)

<comment><USER4> How difficult would it be to make a proxy for it and make minitel accessible world wide? Do they bill you per minute?

<comment><USER5> Yes, they do. There are several billing schemes. Usually a connexion fee plus a per minute billing.

The fun part being that there was e-mail and www services accessible from the Minitel.

France Telecom internet provider, Wanadoo (now Orange) used to provide an ActiveX application to access the Minitel over IP; with the per minute usage being billed on the Internet account owner tab.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Funny thing is that today, despite the fact that everybody has a broadband connection, Minitel is still used by some people. Specifically for the 2 usages that made its success in the first place : yellow pages and _adult_ chat.

A few companies still make significant profit from this platform in 2011. And it's still profitable for France Telecom as well.

Low tech works :)

<comment><USER7> Sadly, the service will be discontinued soon (june 2012). I don't use it but I find it cool to have an alternative network like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of many fun facts: Xavier Niel (controversial CEO of Free, disruptive French ISP) made his first $ - sorry Francs - by selling adult chat on the Minitel.

<comment><USER9> When I lived in France I loved Free. Best ISP I have ever used

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We were one of the few households in Germany that had BTX, the German equivalent of Minitel. It wasn't free but pretty affordable and had some very useful services. Since banking in Germany never heavily relied on checks everyone was already using direct bank account transfers for payments as long as I can remember, certainly in the 80s. You filled out a standard machine readable slip and dropped it off at your bank and the transfer would happen immediately.

I frequently used BTX to make payments for things I ordered and I seem to remember having a list of one-time use numbers to enter as a security measure. Must have been some kind of electronic signature.

Germany was pretty anti-technology in those days. Instead of hailing early adopters we were frequently criticized as harbingers of a cold and inhumane new world order.

<comment><USER11> There was also an attempt to introduce a Minitel system here in Ireland. It was ridiculously badly-timed; by the time it was actually up and running, things like Compuserve were around and the first ISPs were only a couple of years away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It makes me a bit sad to realize that even I remember minitel, though I grew up with the internet, and not in France -- not because I'm into tech history, but because in 2002, that's how old my high-school French textbook and its helpful cultural asides were.

<comment><USER13> Same, and somehow, apparently, I still remember that the slang for it is 'le mini'. I really need to call realloc() on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I met my first wife on Minitel (Brazil had a several Minitel networks operated by its telcos that operated from the early 80s through mid 90s). I met my second wife at a party.

<comment><USER15> That is definitely new to me. Granted, I was a child in the 80s but I never new that we had minitels down here. Live and learn.

<comment><USER14> It was called "videotexto". Telesp had, AFAIK, the largest install (in terms of pages and functions) but Telerj also had its own network. At that time, it was common for BBSs to support Minitel terminals connecting through 1200/75 (v.23, AFAIK) modems.

<http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletexto#No_Brasil>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Eventually the French Post Office hopes to turn a profit by charging > companies for making their names available to Minitel subscribers.

30 years later and ISPs are trying to do this again.

</comment><comment><USER17> I remember that in Italy there were a lot of minitels and what was impressive was that there were minitel pages where you could buy services, it was pretty impressive and the "chat" page was full of people. I remember I was a bit shocked when a few years later no body was using it anymore... I wonder why it failed even before the internet started to be widely used.

</comment><comment><USER18> Everyone hailed Minitel in the 1980s. It was touted as an example of what gov't should do (these were also the days of Japan, Inc. kicking everyone's ass, also showing what gov't "should" do for industry). Yet along came the Black Swan of the Internet to slay it. Central planning never works.

<comment><USER19> Except the cases where central planning works, like (DUH!) Minitel (until the internet came, it didn't fail, it just got upgraded, duh), going to the Moon (distributed attempt at reaching the moon, also known as the living pyramid), justice system (as soon as you introduce the ability for appeal), the Internet, DNS system (it may be not centralized, but it is centrally planned), Google, Apple, and your own consciousness.

Central planning never works.

<comment><USER20> The problem is not that central planning fails to build a certain thing (like a bridge or a road), but that it diverts resources from more productive uses. Things that are built or created are visible, but they obscure the things that might have been created otherwise. We never actually get to know the ways resources might have been allocated otherwise; and indeed these other things may be mundane and boring, yet they are the consequence of the free choices of individuals.

Of course, it can be argued that governments don't just do investments, that they can provide services that may be impossible to obtain otherwise. But when we wonder into real investment territory (like a particular bridge), we have to be able to produce a R.O.I.

What we have to consider is that the alternative uses of the capital will contribute to economic growth and in a longer timeframe, the glamorous visible things like a space program may actually pay for themselves. Not only that, these expenditures will be self-sustaining and long lasting. Or otherwise said, money spent on space (and other visible things) without a R.O.I. is actually detracting from future growth and delaying actual practical space exploration.

<comment><USER21> Problem is the wrong word. It's different.

In central planning, the dynamics are different. Whomever influences the planners ultimately makes the decisions. The quality of those decisions depends on your perspective and the motivation of the influencers.

In a pure capitalist model, you follow the money. Whomever has money influences the decisions.

There's no right or wrong answer. Oftentimes valuable things appear as unintended consequences of government or commercial projects.

It's hard to declare the internet to not be an example of central planning -- it was built to connect Federally funded labs at universities with Federal dollars. The labs existed to provide (indirectly or directly) research to serve defense and space (which i consider to be a subset of defense) interests.

The difference between the French thing and the Internet is that key stakeholders in the government and academia saw the potential of computer networks as a driver of commerce at an opportune time. If that conclusion was made in 1978, we'd have the French thing on a terminal leased from AT&T or a baby bell.

Equating a telecom system to a railroad, bridge, road, etc from a government POV was a big leap -- but the timing was probably more important and less obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> We actually had a Minitel service in Houston which in its way was a successful gaming platform. The social aspect never really took off.

<comment><USER23> I had to look this up after you mentioned it. Looks like it was run by a company called US Videotel: [http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/minitel- usa/inde...](http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/minitel- usa/index.html)

I know the US also had some trials of teletext (text pages over broadcast TV) too, but I think that was even less successful than videotel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> With prestel, BTX and MUPID there were quite a few prior technologies but to my knowledge, this only really took off like that in France due to substantial public funding.

Prestel in UK died and BTX in Germany/Austria was but a novelty AFAIR. I have never seen BTX being widely used here but when I was on vacation in France, sure enough even the rest stops on the highway had a few minitel terminals you could pay for. And that was around 94 or 95 when the internet has already been heard of around here in Europe and the first ISPs started popping up.</comment>