Startup Australia - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130314130000-921366-startup-australia <comment><USER2> A lot of the VC funds that have launched in the past few years are actually seeded by government funds. Not a model that lends itself to genuine risk taking.

Just imagine the headlines:

        TEN MILLION WASTED ON PHONE APPS

I live in Perth. Fellow ex-UWA folks of my acquaintance have the same complaint as me, which is as follows:

Perth has buckets and buckets of capital. This town is stupidly flush with cash. And Perth's taste for risk is much higher than the rest of country. You can raise tens of millions of dollars for high-risk, high-reward ventures in a relatively short time.

But there's a catch: this only applies if your proposal is to take some geologists and a drilling crew for mineral exploration.

The lifecycle for startups is ostensibly quite similar, but ... no dosh. The local investors don't really want to know about it.

edit:

That said, I wonder if Australia's intelligentsia will ever get over fetishising whatever industry and country which happens to be in the news a lot. I remember endless song and dance about Japanese cars. Now it's Silicon Valley.

Eventually it will be, I dunno, rockets and jetpacks. From Montenegro.

Meanwhile Australia is one of only 3 countries left with AAA rating and is the only country in the world that has had a growing economy for umpteen years. You can go a long way with sensible, basic policy settings.

<comment><USER3> > You can go a long way with sensible, basic policy settings.

A pity then that Australia's federal and state government policies (negative gearing, first home buyers grants, interest only mortgages for investors etc. etc.) have done so much to pump up the real estate market into such a huge speculative bubble than will do untold damage when it finally pops.

It's insane what Australians are expected to pay for basic housing in one of the world's most lightly populated countries/continents. Here's an example picked at random: [http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic- north+melbou...](http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic- north+melbourne-112981899). 3 bedroom terrace house (i.e., no windows in side walls) in North Melbourne, 1 bathroom, no parking, all yours for a mere $775k at 6.5% mortgage rates.

<comment><USER4> Many other countries have laws that allow negative gearing. The US has substantially cheaper housing (even at the height of the bubble in much of the country) and there you can deduct the interest on your own house against your income and get a 30 year fixed loan, something you haven't been able to do in Australia since the 1980s.

Australia has pretty tight land release laws.

If we had more cities with decent jobs you might see housing prices go down or at least go flat.

It's also worth noting that Australian housing was fairly cheap until the early 2000s (excluding Sydney)

<comment><USER3> US mortgage rates are anomalous since the market has essentially been nationalized as the vast majority of mortgages are underwritten by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. It's insane that right now the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate in the US is 3.63%. (Source: <http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/index.html?intcmp=CWS-HP>) That's almost half what Australians pay for a 5-year mortgage!

Australia does have tight land release laws, but it means that property prices are kept artificially high and too much capital is tied up unproductively in mortgages instead of investing in innovative, high-growth industries.

<comment><USER2> I'm not so sure. There's still institutional bias against venture investment in Australia.

Superannuation savings are north of AU$1.5 _trillion_ dollars at this point. Supposing that "only" a trillion of that is held by fund managers, then a mere 0.5% shift in portfolio allocations would pump $5 billion dollars into VC.

Given that the total Australian VC is a few hundred million on an outside guesstimate, that'd be pretty noticeable.

Edit: maybe I should be knocking on doors at super funds? Though I guess the local VCs are doing that already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not so sure if I agree with the comment about not being able to hire developers. I think it could be better said "We are unable to hire developers for the price we want to pay".

I am going to take up the offer to email and see how it goes... but I would be surprised if I get an offer which pays enough to actually live in Sydney.

I recently went hunting for jobs and my experience was less then stellar. Many companies didn't even bother sending feedback to coding tests, and one expected me to pay for the Yahoo Boss API and violate Google's terms of service for a test. I will say I had an excellent experience with Hotels Combined though despite declining their offer for personal reasons.

EDIT - Emailed then, and got a response within 1 minute. I will say this for Matt he's very responsive.

<comment><USER6> Interesting, I know a basic php dev in Perth working for 75k a year, and many IT contractors are pulling in 200K. The thing is most of our grads end up in tech support on 40k. And that's why we are getting in many overseas IT people to actually code (The majority of my computer science class dislikes code)

<comment><USER5> 75k isn't a great salary in Sydney (not sure about Perth) and I have seen more basic PHP dev jobs offering 55k then 75k. Contractors always pull in large amounts of cash, but that's usually not what these places are looking for.

Agree that most grads seem to want to avoid coding. Out of my class I think only 1 or 2 actually ended up coding for a living. Not sure why that is in Australia but it seems fairly common.

<comment><USER7> I also have a problem understanding why people bother with a CS degree but don't want to go into programming or don't even understand it. Why don't they major in something else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To expand on one of the points in the article, let's expand venture capital raised per capita[1]... Israel: $170 per capita, USA: $75 per capita, Australia: $4.09 per capita.

Austrlaia literally spend more on a single day of gambling (Melbourne Cup: $7.27 per capita) than we do in our entire venture capital industry.

The government have also decided we're betraying the country by "abusing" a visa program to get more skilled programmers here. Of our 12,000 IT graduates, 8,000 of them are from overseas. 4,000 graduates doesn't go very far... Many of the 457 visas would also likely be programmers from international companies staying in Sydney: Atlassian and Google have numerous offices abroad and commonly allow programmers to travel around. The Australian government have no clue what's going on.

Mike Cannon-Brookes, founder of Atlassian, just tweeted "How can you say IT is the future of the country, then complain when we import skilled labour to help us?!"[2]

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital>

[2]: <https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/312033343988449280>

<comment><USER9> I heard Mike on radio yesterday, here's his interview with Radio National Drive - [http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/it- indust...](http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/it-industry- outrage-over-pm27s-visa-rort-claims/4573766)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Surely this guy doesn't think the answer is to vote in the liberals who will shut down the fibre to the home goal of the NBN? Is that really a good way to advance Australia's startups?

<comment><USER11> That's besides the point. FTTH is overkill and is absolutely not a requirement to build a technology industry.

How is fibre going to a small town like Burnie in the middle of Tasmania going to encourage the creation of technology startups when its users are going to be technologically uneducated in the first place? What will most likely happen is all that bandwidth (paid by taxpayers) will most likely be used for Torrenting music, warez, movies and porn.

As a pragmatist, the NBN rollout should have been targeted firstly for areas of high concentration of startup activity. That way, users most likely to benefit and create wealth from the increase of bandwidth will have first dibs that will eventually trickle down to the rest of the system. Unfortunately, for most short-sighted politicians, the main agenda of the NBN is to buy votes from rural and marginal electorates.

<comment><USER12> Tasmania is used for a testcase because it is a great 'micro-version' of Australia. So potential issues that arise can be dealt with at a scale of 500,000 rather than 20,000,000.

> Burnie in the middle of Tasmania going to encourage the creation of > technology startups when its users are going to be technologically > uneducated in the first place? What will most likely happen is all that > bandwidth (paid by taxpayers) will most likely be used for Torrenting music, > warez, movies and porn.

I'll paraphrase your words: Poor/socio-economically disadvantaged people don't deserve nice things, because they are too poor to understand them. Politicians are short sighted for ignoring the rich middle class.

You're view point is exactly WHY the NBN should be rolled out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So very true... Australia desperately needs a startup scene for stuff other than the resources industry.

Having said that - the LinkedIn article does not actually say much about what Startup Australia actually is. A google search brought me to this: <http://www.startup-australia.org/> . The first thing that hit my eyes was a large advert asking if I want to date mature women.... seriously, get some class! Do you really need to fund this with cringeworthy advertising?

The rest of the site is underwhelming, maybe great startup some web design company could take a shot at making it look good.

<comment><USER14> Alex,

I think startup-australia.org is completely different entity from what Matt is talking about

<comment><USER13> Oh. Thank goodness. But what is all this about then, is there anything available now beyond the Linkedin post?

<comment><USER15> <https://sites.google.com/site/siliconbeachproject/>

More is on the way

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The author is indirectly describing what is known as "Dutch disease".

When a country is rich in natural resources, smart and enterprising people specialize in learning to extract natural resources. This damages the technology sector because talent gravitates todward money in market economies.

Also, the first paragraph of wikipedia's article on dutch disease is flawed. Dutch disease is used by economists to describe when a domestic comparative advantage crowds out another industry. It has nothing to do with manufacturing. The first paragraph incorrectly implies that it has something to do with the manufacturing sector.

<comment><USER2> > _The first paragraph incorrectly implies that it has something to do with > the manufacturing sector._

Because historically it's been the manufacturing and trades sectors that get crowded out; they are the industries most directly competing with mining for skills and equipment inputs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> At least _part_ of the problem is AUS is that we really don't have VCs. We have companies masquerading as VCs, but they're more like mezzanine financiers than VCs. They want an established market, established customers, protected IP, massive sweat and real-equity from founders, and they want a controlling interest for their investment.

They generally have no capacity for risk whatsoever, and unless you're digging stuff out of the ground and razing the environment, there's very little on offer from the Government, either.

So I can see why a lot of tech startups kick-off here and then go offshore because the economic environment is just not conducive to startups (at least in general).

Given how many people small business employs in this country (from memory, its the single largest employer, unlike mining, which only directly employes a low, single digit % of workers despite the mindshare it has) we should be doing everything we can to give people a leg up to start a business.

For example, something like Jon Stewart's proposal for a 'softer cushion for failure' would be a great start. We could do a lot worse here in Australia that institute something like this: [http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/jon-stewart- propose...](http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/jon-stewart-proposes-an- entrepreneurial-policy-dont-laugh/)

<comment><USER18> There are only a few that have managed to get funds off the ground. The core problem is that VCs have trouble getting a second fund off the ground because they can't show a good return on the first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Coming back to Oz from London put into perspective how far behind we are. With HN London now attracting so many people they've had to start charging a fee to get in, and the community built around Silicon Roundabout, it is very sad to come back home and see the fragmented efforts to build a startup group in Australia.

With Silicon Beach on and off, Startup Grind, lots of small meetups, and Fishburners in Sydney, there are certainly groups to build this community around but I still think we are years behind the critical mass of something like HN London. And that's just to talk about forums for people to gather in - it says nothing about our skills shortage.

I agree with Matt's points regarding our reliance on the resources industry. So many people head off to the mines on a fly-in-fly-out basis, and make incredible coin - but it won't last long-term and then our skill base will be incompatible with value-adding services industries.

However, I think we need successes before a great weight of people will shift towards STEM disciplines, in the same way that the dot-com frenzy saw Web Development course demand explode.

<comment><USER2> Nitpick: labour isn't a homogenous, fungible good.

People who are good at trades are not 1-to-1 exchangeable with people who are good at STEM subjects.

<comment><USER19> No, probably not 1-to-1.

However, before the industrial revolution we were all toiling in fields, so I think perhaps labour is more fungible that you give it credit.

<comment><USER2> Well now we sail off into matters of comparative advantage, division of labour / gains from trade and so on.

But the general point that labour and capital are highly heterogenous still stands. You can't pluck a boiler fitter out of the Pilbara, drop him at a desk in Perth, and expect to see anything useful for your web business any time soon. And vice versa.

<comment><USER19> I think we agree with each other.

I wasn't trying to claim that we can immediately shift these resources, but that this shift won't happen en masse until services has a bigger profile and more to offer than mining.

<comment><USER2> Hostile agreement is a common thing hereabouts.

<comment><USER19> When Startup Aus have a meetup we should both go, so I can agree with you personally ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The biggest "barrier," if you can call it that, to solving the IT skills gap is the E-3 visa program:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-3_visa>

It's a reciprocal visa program between Australia and the United States. Australia offers Americans the friendly 457 visa and the US offers Australians the friendly E-3 visa. It's an independent and _generous_ quota compared to the H-1B visa.

It's surreal to me reading people weighing in so heavily about the difficulty in hiring Australians and ignoring the elephant in the room.

If you are a decently skilled Australian in IT, you get up and move to Silicon Valley. Why?

* More money.

* More respect.

* In the center of your industry.

* Paid travel!

This is the same complaint New Zealand has had about Australia for years too. Kiwis move to Australia for the similar reasons.

Background: I've been on a 457 for two and a half years.

Everyone I know from the US or Europe on a 457 is in Australia for the "lifestyle." The rest are people who came to Australia to study or work from place like India/China/Philippines[1], converted to a 457, and are working their way to permanent residence and finally citizenship.

And you'd be unsurprised how many move to work in the US or Europe after earning their Australian citizenship.

[1] [http://www.immi.gov.au/media/statistics/pdf/457-state- territ...](http://www.immi.gov.au/media/statistics/pdf/457-state-territory- summay-report-jan13.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER21> This article is absolutely spot on.

I often get asked why I chose to incorporate in the U.S and take investor money from U.S based investors and not from Australians. This is article explains why.

There is a lot of talk in Australia but very little action - a lot of people calling themselves Angels, VC's, incubators etc. without actually funding any companies, or any decent companies.

<comment><USER22> You need money in the system to fund quality startups. But you need quality startups to get money in the first place.

The problem is that we lack a lot in both areas. Chicken/Egg.

<comment><USER21> Agreed - but I know of many quality startups that have moved to the U.S from Australia (including mine). I think the bigger problem is lack of quality Angel investors, VC's and incubators. The largest angel network in Australia still has a ridiculous and immoral pay-to-pitch flow. They simply just don't get it. And the VC situation is even worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Lack of enrollment in IT and entrepreneurship is a symptom of the culture, really. You've got tall poppy syndrome combined with protectionism that makes shooting for the easy low-risk stuff desirable... trades pay insanely well due to strong unions and tight immigration policy, for example.

<comment><USER6> IT is not a admirable career here at all, Medicine, Law and Engineering are the good careers that pay well and are generally respected, but IT is looked down upon big time over here. Its a shame really, but to most IT is tech support (I know many computer science grads who are on minimium wage tech support)

<comment><USER24> There's a huge difference between IT and software engineering, and using IT as the umbrella term is really doing us a disservice.

<comment><USER25> I hate the use of the term IT, and won't work again for the company that doesn't have an Engineering department, but only an IT department.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am originally from Eastern Europe. I have got an Australian permanent residence visa but decided not to move there at least for now. I feel much better in Silicon Valley on a work visa, where my salary is higher, my work is more meaningful, prices are MUCH lower and my wife found a job in a reasonable time, also in software engineering. I was shocked that you cannot find half- sized shoes in Sydney's stores, and this is considering that their price was 2.5 times higher than the price on Zappos. Australia has to wake up and deal with their protectionist policies regarding local businesses. By giving them protection from external markets they might survive for a while, but this definitely won't last long. No competition means no innovation and high prices for consumers.

<comment><USER23> Protectionist is exactly right. But things are quickly changing, at least when it comes to local retail. The incumbent bloated chains like Meyer are being disrupted rapidly by overseas online retailers as well as shrewd foreign retailers like Zara setting up in Australia. It's a good thing, too, because the duopolies in Australian retail deserve to be disrupted. They have coasted for far too long providing mediocre value to the customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> AUS image = mining. USA image = tech innovation.

Many Australians talented developer and computer engineers have been flocking to USA for mainly two reasons:

1\. They are rewarded more in USA, both socially and financially. Who doesn't want to be in the middle of global innovation among other great people?

2\. It is much more prestigious and hard to resist. Many US-based companies have been actively recruiting Australians, for example Amazon.com.

This leave Australia with limited local talents and therefore comes up with need to employ overseas eng-IT professionals. Note that 457 are neither cheap nor simple to lodge and employ. We are currently at a phase where it is necessary to keep feeding our demand of technical professionals to keep the growth of Australia tech industry.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you're in Perth: <http://www.morningstartup.com/>

I've only been able to get to one, but it's already given me useful feedback and I met some great people.

</comment><comment><USER28> There are two distinct points here that are being a bit muddled. The first is the 457 visa issue. For those that don't know, it is a skilled immigration visa, similar to the H1B in the United States. Australia is coming up to an election in September where the sitting center-left Prime Minister is very likely to lose her Prime Ministership to the center-right party.

To sure up her base on the left yesterday she came out and attacked the 457 visa and said that they needed to be more tightly regulated, since they are being exploited by some and are taking jobs away from Australians.

Prominent Australian entrepreneurs came out in support of the visa, and argued that you can't grow a new information economy without the importation of skilled labour to make up for the shortfall in local skills. This was the biggest national news item yesterday.

As an analogy, imagine if Obama came out in support of lowering H1B visa's or restricting their use, and the shit that would cause.

The _second_ issue here, which Matt also takes on by attaching it to the first, is what a lot of people in the startup world feel is a disadvantage that the Australian startup ecosystem has over its US, Israeli etc. counterparts. This argument has been playing out for years now, to not a lot of effect.

I think there is a contradiction in this argument, when you combine the two together. On the one hand you are asking the government to leave you alone and let you import labour, but on the other hand you are asking them to do something about the lack of venture investment, the lack of skills, university places, etc.

I think the later argument of asking the government to do something to assist startups stems from a misunderstanding of how silicon valley works and why it became successful. This misidentification leads to a feeling that with one or two changes you could 'clone' what has made silicon valley a success, which is not true.

The attitude in Silicon Valley has always been to be left alone by the government. The tech industry in the USA is grossly underrepresented in Washington lobby groups (only recently have Google, Apple and Microsoft invested more in lobbying as their businesses broaden and intersect areas where government has more control, such as spectrum).

Further to that, Australia ranks well in most global indicies for business startup, running a business and open markets. We actually outrank the USA in ability to start a company, and we rank about even in other business friendliness metrics[0].

I think Australia's major problem is cultural. We have a fear of failure, a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, and a severe tall poppy syndrome (all of which I have experienced first hand - ironically from some of the very people who are most vocal about wanting to make Australia more like Silicon Valley).

These should be a clear indication that the "problem" with the Australian startup scene (if there is one, I don't think there is) is not the cause or fault of the government.

I think Matt would have been better served here to focus his argument on the 457 issue, using the same arguments he has (such as Australia won't always have things to dig out of the ground), but leaving the other issues alone for now.

[0] [http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic- data/118...](http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic- data/11862-best-countries-for-doing-business.html#axzz2NZyqAC00)

<comment><USER29> Having good ease of doing business in general doesn't mean that Australia doesn't have a _specific_ problem with startup equity and tax.

<comment><USER28> My only requests would be to ask the government to strip away barriers and to step further away. The only real issue I can think of is tax on stock options, and there are two ways to get around that, both of which I have used and both of which are in active use today with startups in Australia.

Australia is too closely ranked to other countries with successful startup ecosystems in the major market and freedom indicies. The USA is now going through the long-term capital gains issue, and nobody has suggested that less startups would be founded, or that there would be less innovation because of it. As Warren Buffet says, he has never known an investor to turn down an investment opportunity because taxes are too high.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is some hope: <http://blackbird.vc/>

</comment><comment><USER31> You tell 'em Barrie.</comment>


Angular.js announces port for Dart - <AUTHOR> http://news.dartlang.org/2013/06/angularjs-announces-port-for-dart.html <comment><USER2> The video below the post is a must watch for AngularJS developers. Great set of enhancements in 1.2. Also excited about that changes to docs & tutorials.</comment>


Courage - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2016/09/courage <comment><USER2> I don't think these two situations are comparable.

For one, I own multiple devices that are obsolete now. This wasn't a case with Flash, since I doubt anyone cared for technology the video was using — it's fine either way if you see same pixels on the screen. Apple also wasn't making money from every website that didn't include Flash, but I bet that's the case for each Lightning device produced, and the major reason jack is removed.

It's not even headphones-only either, there are multiple devices using 3.5mm for extedning iPhone's functionality that Apple don't get a cut from. I'm interested whethere those will be supported via adapter.

I'm also not sure that 3.5mm is objectively worse than wireless. If anything, both have advantages and disatvantages.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a terrible argument, because it completely misunderstands what courage is. Courage is _willingly putting yourself at risk in the service of some greater good._

When a grenade lands in a foxhole, and a soldier jumps on it to save everyone else in the hole, that is courage, because _he didn 't have to do that._ He could have chosen to jump out of the hole and save himself, and nobody would blame him for that. But he puts his own self-interest behind the protection of his comrades, which makes his decision courageous.

Apple's decision to drop Flash was, in that light, a courageous decision. It was widely assumed that Flash support was something devices had to have, that leaving it off a device would hurt that device's prospects in the marketplace. Apple _chose to voluntarily risk the sales of its products_ in order to serve a greater good, namely killing Flash and thus putting an end to a particular variety of terrible user experience. They didn't have to do that, but they did, and we all benefited.

Apple's decision to drop the headphone jack is completely different, because unlike dropping Flash, dropping the headphone jack aligns almost completely with their own self-interest. It cuts down on their bill of materials; makes assembling their devices less complicated; lets them make their devices smaller, which the market has consistently rewarded; and lets them sell new accessories at a premium markup to replace the old ones.

The only risk involved is that customers may not buy the iPhone if it lacks a headphone jack, but given that iPhones have always used proprietary connectors for other purposes (charging, data transfer) and that hasn't scared their customers away, that risk seems pretty small. And it's almost certainly outweighed by the bonanza of benefits described above.

This is why everyone was laughing at the "courage" line when they first dropped it. It's not courage to do what a cost-benefit analysis tells you to do. Courage is doing the _opposite_ of what your cost-benefit analysis tells you to do, because to do otherwise would offend your principles.</comment>


Show HN: Slurv – Reinventing the messaging app for fantasy sports - <AUTHOR>

Slurv is reinventing the messaging app for fantasy sports.  Chat with fellow fantasy players worldwide at the "Tailgate", a public environment where you can find or start discussion threads on any topic of your choice.  Set up your private fantasy league in Slurv and start talking trash or discussing potential trades with other owners.  Within both the Tailgate and your private league, instantly integrate your favorite news sources and twitter feeds to stay on top of the latest sports news and a step ahead of your competition.  With Slurv, win your fantasy league and let your talking do the talking. <comment><AUTHOR> Check out Slurv at [http://slurv.com](http://slurv.com)!</comment>


Chernobyl's Hot Mess, "The Elephant's Foot," Is Still Lethal (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/chernobyls-hot-mess-the-elephants-foot-is-still-lethal <comment><USER2> This is 2013. Wiki says _as of 2019, the mass has not moved significantly since its discovery and is estimated to be only slightly warmer than its environment due to heat from the ongoing nuclear decay_

I believe I've also read there is a more significant risk from dry dust, than anything else, which the giant sarcophagus has mostly resolved: its a contained problem.</comment>


Blloc – A Minimalist Smartphone - <AUTHOR> https://www.blloc.com/ <comment><USER2> Minimalist smartphone, so I find it ironic that they decided to go 180 degrees opposite with the website-- another way too animated frustration fest.

Scrolling three times only made the words smaller, and the links don't go to the phone itself...took a minute to figure out that i need to scroll furiously to make any headway and actually see the phone

<comment><USER3> And after scrolling for 5 minutes discover it isn't supported on my carrier anyway :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this is a Android phone with a monochrome minimalist skin and its setup to work by defaukt without Google services setup. I think it is a cool concept but I wish it was smaller, the 5.8" screen seems overly large for a phone focusing on minimalism. I wonder if the code for the theme is being shared anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER5> The phone is too big. A 5.8 inch screen is way too big for this minimalist. iPhone SE size would have been perfect.

<comment><USER6> The battery size doesn't make up for the size either. My Pixel 1 XL is 5" with a 3450mah battery while the Blloc is 5.8" with a 3000mah battery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you like the greyscale and use an iPhone, you can set it up with color filters and toggle it with the power button in accessibility shortcuts.

</comment><comment><USER8> A thread from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16914772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16914772)

</comment><comment><USER9> Maintaining an operating system is hard, like real hard. Monumentally hard. Them trying to roll their own android distribution does not inspire much confidence in the project. I'm really hoping a company can just come out with like... just a basic phone with hardware kill switches on the radios and ships with LineageOS as a default. Seems like there would be a decently sized niche for that market.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't LineageOS suffer from the same problem ?

<comment><USER9> That's the point though, the device manufacturer wouldn't have to maintain their own Android fork. They could rely on and work with the the LineageOS team to get a consistent version of AOSP on their devices and then the hardware manufacturer could just focus on making the hardware as good as they can(which is also a monumentally difficult problem, even for Google and Samsung). LineageOS is already made and kept up to date by community maintainers, adding new device support for LineageOS would be orders of magnitude cheaper and easier then developing their own Android fork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://shop.blloc.com/pages/networks](https://shop.blloc.com/pages/networks)

In the US it has 1 Sprint LTE band and a few 3G bands with AT&T / T-Mobile.

In Germany where the company is based all networks are supported, and in consequence most/all of Europe since the bands are standardized.

Perhaps it's interesting to someone in the US with Project Fi but the target is primarily Germany/Europe. Also it doesn't ship to the US: [https://shop.blloc.com/pages/faq](https://shop.blloc.com/pages/faq)

</comment><comment><USER12> The comments in this thread highlight the risks of using the word "minimalist" for marketing.

Minimalism means so many things. Just looking at clocks as an example, it could be:

1\. A lack of lines: [https://imgur.com/JLHhp8Y](https://imgur.com/JLHhp8Y)

2\. A lack of material: [https://imgur.com/kfF2lb9](https://imgur.com/kfF2lb9)

3\. A lack of branding: [https://imgur.com/ZkuuICZ](https://imgur.com/ZkuuICZ)

4\. A lack of size: [https://imgur.com/TLgrf5v](https://imgur.com/TLgrf5v)

5\. A lack of structure: [https://imgur.com/LoGBK5x](https://imgur.com/LoGBK5x)

6\. A lack of possessions: [https://imgur.com/WSuR1Hg](https://imgur.com/WSuR1Hg)

7: A lack of technology: [https://imgur.com/KDOmoTl](https://imgur.com/KDOmoTl)

...and many more. Each of these types of minimalism has a community built around it which disagree if you say something is minimalist that doesn't fit their ideology. Examples:

1\. A lack of size: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289101)

2\. A lack of possessions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21290867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21290867)

I'd argue this phone obviously fits some definition of minimalist, though it's a bit hard to describe what's been removed (a lack of noise or visual complexity, perhaps?). But because it doesn't fit some people's definition, they get alienated and defensive.

Minimalism is obviously a highly-effective design strategy, but marketing yourself as minimalist explicitly opens you up to a lot of criticism. The criticism actually doesn't make much sense, but it's pretty hard to explain why.

Imagine if this guy: [https://imgur.com/BRCJlIB](https://imgur.com/BRCJlIB) had marketed the iPhone as being minimalist. The hypocrisy of a minimalist selling a consumerist object! But, the iPhone actually was minimalist in a lot of ways, just not that one.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's a bigger UI here that that I've been thinking about for a while that seems very interesting to me - and that's putting all the apps UI into a single timeline view. That teamed up with some helpful AI / ML to surface what you need at the right times would be super interesting.

<comment><USER14> Sounds a bit like what Apple are doing with the Siri face on watchOS. It surfaces what it believes are relevant tiles/cards in a timeline based on your interests, appointments, interactions, current location, and daily activities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> When is this slated to be available in the US?

</comment><comment><USER15> That reminds me of Windows Phone.

</comment><comment><USER16> Smartphones help people do more. Why would anyone buy one to do less is not that clear to me.

<comment> m-p-3 Not necessarily do less, but focus on what is important to them.

<comment><USER17> Chatting about news and weather in monochrome, apparently.

That's all the impression I got from this presentation, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you're going to go minimal, you don't need much screen. Maybe it's just because the monochrome UI reminds me of my Pebble, but, I kind of wish this was a standalone smartwatch.

There's no reason a watch (with some guts in the strap) can't make phone calls and take pictures. Heck, even for light reading... I wrote an RSS Reader for my Pebble thinking it would be useful under rare circumstances, but I've found myself using it much more than I'd expected. For most things, I still move to different devices, but isn't that the point?</comment>


Show HN: Cell Automata Ventricle Puzzle in Elm and WebGL - <AUTHOR> https://cgmnt-achilles-tortoise-piglet.netlify.com <comment><USER2> WARNING: SPOILER BELOW...

I don't know why the "cheat code" works, but it does?

I only discovered it with simple trial and error.

      [spoiler codec=rot13]ZCZZCZZCZZZC[/spoiler]

I haven't found the HAVOC codon yet.

Also, it's confusing that after you "beat the game" the alleles cease to have an effect on the hypothetical organelle, so to speak.

EDIT: Never mind, just found the HAVOC codon. Actually, there seem to be multiple HAVOC codons, or different combinations for the same result, after you complete the initial challenge.

It's strange that previously disorderly combinations don't produce the same results, after you initially encode the ORDER codon. Why doesn't the pump revert to a chaotic state, when the gene inputs are returned to the default state?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're on the right track! I think it's great how you're thinking about this.

Without spoiling too much, it's a cellular automata that you're manipulating parameters for as it runs - so the genome itself doesn't specify how the pump will beat, only how the state will change in the next generation (which will depend on the current state). That's why a genome doesn't give the same output every time - they only define how it will _change_ , not what it will be.

There are multiple genomes that will give you the "ordered" pump, but we can guarantee there's only one Havoc codon that fulfils the criteria we specified. The solution is revealed after you submit a correct answer, and it definitely sounds like you're close (if you haven't found it already).

<comment><USER3> Okay, I think I get it now. Each four-sided polygon is a cell in the pump. There are twelve nucleotides, corresponding to four codons, one for each side of any hypothetical polygon cell.

The cells can only coordinate and synchronize, when at least one side of every cell feeds into a resonating feedback loop. This way, through self assembly, they can orient their facets to interface correctly and combine to create the properly functioning organ.

This is the manner of any automatic cellular system. Each member cell calculates its state according to the state of its neighbors for each round, generation or temporal frame of reference.

Solving the problem flips a flag in the simulation, which is simply an abstraction of the game system. Rolling the dice, to revert to the chaotic state, returns the game to its initialized settings.

Normally, in other automatic cellular systems, the operational state of all member cells is fully deterministic, but in this system, the evaluation to compute status for each round or generation is not whether the cells are healthy or not, but whether they're capable of communicating an afinity for participation in coordinated tasks. Once synchronized behavior is achieved, the genome only modifies the already synchronized participation. Reversion to chaos, as an abstraction, does not make sense in living tissue, and since evolution solves for these realities, across iterative versions of tissue- organized multicellular creatures, this game introduces debug affordances to operate those concepts manually.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're pretty much spot on, and this is exactly the type of thinking we're looking for during our puzzle hunt. There's a slight difference between our system and what you've specified, but the overall picture is the same and I think it's awesome how you've reasoned through it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't get what this is, but it looks amazing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're a student group running an open puzzle hunt for medical/biomedical students who want to learn or practise coding. This is one of our puzzles based on a simplified cell automata model of a single heart ventricle.

We use Elm on our frontend and plan on using it to make other interactive puzzles like this one - we originally got into Elm from HN and it's been a joy to work with, so we wanted to share it back!</comment></comment>


Mathematicians have solved traffic jams, and they're begging cities to listen - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90455739/mathematicians-have-solved-traffic-jams-and-theyre-begging-cities-to-listen <comment><USER2> Article is about solving traffic jams, but point #3 focuses on increasing the use of electric vehicles... how does this assist in solving traffic jams?

<comment><USER3> Yes I was disappointed too, the article doesn't offer much in the way of stopping traffic jams other than

1\. use one navigation system (most people already use google maps or waze which is owned by the same company)

2\. get rid of street parking on narrow streets (should be obvious)

3\. use computer modeling more - okay - but how, and how would that solve exiting problems of road use space

4\. special lanes for green vehicles (seems like it would increase traffic since such a small % of cars are electric and those high occupancy lanes didn't do much to increase car pooling in the past, so why would this work)

more importantly I didn't understand from the article how math was involved in any of these steps

<comment><USER4> When he asks for a central hub to direct drivers, he might be asking for a central hub that optimises according to a system-wide objective. I'm pretty sure that Google Maps just tells each driver what it reckons best for them individually.</comment></comment></comment>


SSH Communications Security Announces Patent Enforcement Action - <AUTHOR> http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/05/15/736243/0/en/SSH-Communications-Security-Announces-Patent-Enforcement-Action.html

<comment><USER2> So, from the patent it looks like they patented TCP Keepalives which were documented in section 184.108.40.206 of RFC1122 from 1989...

[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1122#page-101](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1122#page-101)

Edit:

Reading further, the patent is construed to cover anything IP based.

I also noted that RFC1122 is not referenced anywhere in the patent, despite extensive references to other RFCs.

Also, is it normal to have patents granted 11 years after filing in Europe? I know in the US we have changed the laws several times to discourage and eliminate submarine patents.

</comment><comment><USER3> "SSH Communications Security announces failure to remain relevant"

Every time an announcement like this comes out, it's almost always for a company that has utterly failed to thrive by providing a useful product, and thus decides to descend into litigation against other people's useful products instead.

<comment><USER4> from personal experience I can tell you there are no limits to how unfair and disgusting some people will be if they can make money out of it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.google.tl/patents/EP2254311B1?cl=en](https://www.google.tl/patents/EP2254311B1?cl=en)

Seems this is just the bog standard keepalive packet to keep NAT port mapping from expiring.

<comment><USER5> So all SIP phones, BitTorrent uTP, Skype, and pretty much anything P2P infringes?

<comment><USER6> Hopefully SSH itself does not depend on this exact implementation, and can be updated to use something non-infringing?

<comment><USER7> The details in the press release are thin but my impression is this has nothing to do with SSH other than the fact that the creators of the protocol are the ones doing the suing.

I was worried by the headline but reading the article this looks like it's more about going after someone with deep pockets over a trivial patent. My guess is they are fishing for a quick settlement.

Something to keep an eye on though. Sigh, I miss groklaw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The lawsuit involves a European Patent registered in Germany

Aren't people always saying software patents don't exist in Europe?

<comment><USER9> no? I've seen people say patents don't exist in china.

<comment><USER10> They don't. Look at MediaTek. They have the MT6250 which is an amazing chipset for the price of $2. Unfortunately, they haven't licensed the patents, which means you can't commercialize a product based on that chipset in the US, where patent protections _do_ exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Kind of puts Sony in an interesting position... their defense against this could end up being part of precedent that weakens EU software patents... I haven't researched but based on other "intellectual property" actions in the past I assume they are pro-patent and have a massive portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is there anything that is not abstract about their patent? The Alice ruling sure makes defending pure software patents harder.

<comment><USER13> Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank has no impact in German courts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.vandyke.com/products/vshell/faq/015.html](http://www.vandyke.com/products/vshell/faq/015.html)</comment>


Mozilla's newest app perfectly captures the ethical dilemma of ad-blocking - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/12/08/mozillas-newest-app-perfectly-captures-the-ethical-dilemma-of-ad-blocking/ <comment><USER2> I really love to be called anti-ethical by advertisers. Last time I watched TV I saw ads that told me: to drink unhealthy sugar beverages, that my son would be ashamed if I have an old and cheap car, that I should use a financial service that would give a terrible return on investment, that happiness is the same than buying things, alcohol is to only way to have fun.

Sure, I have no ethics because I want to control what my computer executes and display.

<comment><USER3> I can't imagine feeling so entitled that I would argue that people _owe me_ web and TV content. I think that your option if you don't like the advertising that is supporting a service is to not use that service. If you feel strongly about it you could even tell the station/site the reason you are no longer using their service.

I really don't understand the argument that "I don't like how they want me to pay for this service; therefore it is ok to steal it"

<comment><USER4> So you like watch ads when they come on? You never change the channel?

<comment><USER2> It would be anti-ethical! You shouldn't even go to the bathroom:-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is no ethical dilemma on the user side. No web user guarantees making any particular request, and no one is owed the viability of a business model.

The ethics of defending the descent of the ad system into such destructive behavior is an interesting discussion, perhaps.

<comment><USER6> The very incentive of web advertising has incentivized creation of massive knowledge content and created platforms to do so, for example Stackoverflow. To totally disregard it will be a bad decision and it would eventually drive everyone to pay per view/create way.

<comment><USER7> > it would eventually drive everyone to ...

... a new business model. I have no problem with that.

<comment><USER6> But I have a problem with that. I don't want to live in a walled garden.

<comment><USER5> Then you are free to subject yourself to ads. If I don't feel I owe these companies a successful business model, then I certainly don't feel I owe you successful companies using that model.

<comment><USER6> And I am. I am rooting for the existing, the new and unknown who are adding value to the internet and who are helping give voices to many in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Whomever you think is to blame for the sorry state of Web browsing, content blockers have a kind of ratcheting effect: Once you turn one on, chances are you won't see the kind of high-quality ads that might convince you to turn it off again. It also involves the risk that you'll miss whatever advertisers or publishers come up with to make the Web better again.", said no one ever.

<comment><USER9> That "ratcheting effect" is by design.

Similarly, anti-virus software has a "ratcheting effect" in that once you install them, you don't get to see the kind of high-quality viruses and trojans that might convince your computer to encrypt all your files or give up your bank passwords.

Installing an ad blocker has become another one of those "hygiene" steps that you do whenever you set up a new PC: Install Anti-virus, install OS-provided updates, install ad-blocker.

<comment><USER10> >install OS-provided updates

Windows is working pretty hard to reverse this. At the very least you now have to scan through the updates to uncheck the telemetric ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The freedom to run what software one wills has priority over the wishes of the website that their ads be viewed.

Viewing ads is then, not a payment, but a donation. And it is generally one that I am willing to make. But I reserve the right to block whatever ads I choose, provided that I have not agreed to do otherwise.

Note:the freedom to run what software one wills does not have priority over everything. I am only talking about this thing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Advertisers brought this on themselves. With their ceaseless push to put ads everywhere, even within articles, this is what you get.

Advertising isn't inherently evil; it can be useful. It can be artistic. It can be educational. those are qualities that make ads appealing.

But if you interrupt me from what I was trying to do, it doesn't matter what the ad is. that's just rude.

Humor is a goto for advertisers, and maybe that works for some people, but for a lot of people it just rolls off.

Tide laundry detergent could show me an ad for getting a stain out using vinegar and baking soda. But instead everything needs to push people towards their products. Their products are the be-all end all. buy buy buy.

And advertisers need to be more selective of who they advertise to and how. The more verzion ads I see, the more I despise them. And if i'm watching a bunch of videos and you show me the same exact ad every time, over the course of weeks, you're a fucking idiot.

In short, this is a good thing. It's a process of evolution. Maybe they'll get their shit together, or invent something worse.

</comment><comment><USER13> The title and first paragraph are somewhat at odds with each other. Copy- pasting a bit leads to this:

        > Mozilla's newest app perfectly captures the ethical dilemma of blocking
        > the parts of the web that slow down your Internet, spy on your online
        > activities and generally make Web-surfing a tedious experience.

There is an ethical dilemma, but it is not on the user side.

</comment><comment><USER14> Imagine these arguments about ad-blockers, but instead being leveraged against spam filters on your email inbox.

If you don't think you have an ethical obligation to read your spam emails, then you also don't have one to view advertisements.

Also, nobody should be able to force you to run their code. The publisher's rights end where your computer begins.

</comment><comment><USER15> Unless I'm mistaken, Focus is specifically a _tracking_ blocker, right? As in, it's only a content blocker insofar as the advertisers are collecting data about visitors in addition to selling their page views? I really don't see the problem, and it's hard to take sites like WaPo seriously when editorializing about users trying to circumvent their ethically dubious revenue streams. I get that the whole media is in a crunch right now to figure out what to do about online advertising, but whitewashing the privacy invasions isn't helping.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's so frustrating seeing people talk about ad blocking as some ethical issue. If your revenue model depends on the honor system (that a user will load what you send them) then it's inherently flawed and will eventually founder.

It's time to move to a new model and stop trying to cling onto the past by calling users of such tools unethical.

<comment><USER17> >It's so frustrating seeing people talk about ad blocking as some ethical issue.

How often do you hear your family talk about the ethical implications about ad blocking? What I mean is, how often do people with no dog in the fight talk about ad blocking ethics? For me, never. Of course websites that depend on advertising dollars are going to complain about the public blocking their advertising dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What ethical dilemma? If you want to make money from me as a visitor to a website, create a paywall so I can decide to find the content elsewhere for free, or subscribe to you if I really, absolutely can't do without it. I will tell you now: I have been on the internet for my entire life and clicked less than a dozen ads in that time, most of which were pre-2010. I am not the only one who browses in this way-- hopefully there are millions more.

I block 100% of ads because I detest being hectored by attention-depleting visual waste. My position is ethical, because it improves my experience immensely by altering the set of data to reach my eyes that websites decide to offer to me for free. Once again, if websites or services want to get money from me, they can ask directly and change the terms of access.

</comment><comment><USER19> Just because the Washington Post (who makes their money from...) _says_ there is an ethical dilemma doesn't make it so. I once tried to make it an ethical argument, then the sites and advertisers decided they weren't going to take part in that argument ("'do not track'? Nah, we decided that's not going to work for us."). Works for me, I'll not have the argument, either.

So, thanks web sites and advertisers, I lose not a minute of sleep as a result of surfing the web ad-free.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why is there no opt-in ad blocker? "eff these guys i'm blocking their ads." Or like if your resources go over some threshold they get blocked?

I want to punish bad actors, not all.

<comment><USER21> Opera used to have opt-in content blocking and I used it for years without any trouble. I only blocked annoying ads on sites that I visit more than once. Of course it meant that I disabled whole ad networks sometimes, but that's entirely their fault. In the end, I was shown many ads while browsing.

That being said, Opera had a proper pop-up blocker and didn't implement every junk feature from javascript (prevent closing windows, change clipboard, ...). Disabling js (on per site basis) was two clicks away as well.

With Chrome, you can't really use it without ad blocker. One bad site and you end up with dozens of new windows, unclosable tabs, ... So the browser itself is yet another reason why people turn to ad blocking.

<comment><USER4> Opera 7/8 was way ahead of it's time. The tabbed interface was faster than Firefox, and better implemented, because Shift+Click opened new tabs, pretty much how I learned about tabs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> While the interaction between advertisers and consumers is somewhat poisoned now because of bad actors, I still think there is potential in online advertising.

In the end, I want to know about things that would interest me (and which I'd like to pay for), and those selling those things want me to know about them too. If we do it right, it's in both our interests.

The problem is that it's also in the interest of the guy selling to show me things I'm not interested in. But if an ad service targets me sufficiently well, filtering out the nonsense, my life is actually better than otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER23> The whole current conversation about this is weird. Why are people acting like ad blockers are new when iOS, a mobile platform with a small market share, stops banning them and gets back in line with everyone else?

<comment><USER24> It's how you get attention to John Doe, who doesn't cares about ad-blocking until Apple does.

Similarly how this "dilemma" is again rehashed because Mozilla made a content blocker. Not that about 10 others sprung out since September where the content blocking support was introduced.

<comment><USER25> That suggests Mozilla is least influenced by the ad serving networks. I like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I feel no ethical dilemma in dumping ads.

These are ads paid for by corporations that regularly screw people with the "sorry, I have shareholders to answer to" line.

I have my life to answer to, and it is limited. I owe zero to your cdn.

</comment><comment><USER27> With the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's not 'ad blocking' \- it is 'content blocking'. I wish these articles would just drop the term 'ad blocking'. There may be a small minority of folk that want to block ads. Most people want to block 3rd party content and trackers. If a publication needs ad revenue, they should put the ads in their content - just like a newspaper or magazine.

<comment><USER28> Source on that, cause I block ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> WashingtonPost.com serves many ads and consumes too much memory resources - thanks for crashing my Safari (iPad) while reading the article, a very unnerving moment.

I still have no Safari adblocker installed, as I believe in ads. But such bad ads citizens needs a disruption ala Google text-based Ads 10 years ago that changed the ads landscape.

<comment><USER29> Ghostery found:

      Amazon Associates (Advertising, Affiliate Marketing)
      ChartBeat (Analytics)
      Criteo (Advertising, Search)
      DoubleClick (Advertising)
      Effective Measure (Analytics, Analytics)
      Krux Digital (Beacons)
      MediaMath (Advertising)
      Moat (Advertising)
      Omniture - Adobe Analytics (Beacons)
      OpenX (Advertising)
      Outbrain (Widgets)
      Polar Mobile (Advertising)
      Sailthru Horizon (Beacons)
      ScoreCard Research Beacon (Beacons, Analytics)
      Twitter Button (Widgets, Social)

Way too much "Analytics" in the list.

116 requests; onload: 7.77s

Chrome DevTools timing said:

2.71s Scripting; 636ms Rendering; 210ms Painting

Dozens of reflows are visible in the flame graph! Poor mobile devices, such websites eat battery like there's no tomorrow. Summary: One hell of a page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So did the WP guy literally just pound out this article in the last hour, or did Mozilla inform the press about Focus before the announcement went live?

</comment><comment><USER31> Stats on this article...

With uBlock turned on and JS blocked: 65 requests, 2,015 KB, 1.73 seconds

Without blocking: 391 requests, 7,354 KB, 54.57 seconds

In each case I can read the article. The latter case uses 3.5x bandwidth.

I hope news sites find that the reason their print ads fetch more money is because it's prestigious to have a newspaper ad. Web ads are junky. Sites should vet ads themselves or use a reputable firm and work with advertisers to place tasteful, inline, plain html ads.

</comment><comment><USER32> Ad blocking isn't just about improving "user experience." Current ad providers are so widely negligent and irresponsible with the content they allow on their networks that they are a tremendous security risk these days. It takes a truly incredible amount of hypocrisy or ignorance to rely on a known malware vector for your income and then accuse people of being "unethical" for protecting themselves.

</comment><comment><USER33> There's no social contract between me and people who put up things on the internet. I never entered any. They put up there some stuff for consumption and I will consume it or not whatever they serve in whole or in part solely on my terms. I have my own set of terms and conditions and any site I visit automatically agrees to it because it's no more stupid wishful thinking as the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER34> The "conflict" described here is a result of unchecked greed in advertising as they worked to grab user focus at all costs. Had they behaved in a more disciplined manner, ad blockers would not be so popular or would work more like Disconnect.me and Mozilla's new product. Instead, they will have to earn the chance to be seen again the hard way.

</comment><comment><USER35> As long as websites act like they are the victims when ad networks are compromised and serve malware to visitors, I see no reason anyone should feel bad about blocking content. It's simple prudence to not download malicious software to your computer.

</comment><comment><USER36> There is no ethical dilemma. It's my machine and my choice.

Publishers get to make choices about their machines, not mine. If they don't want to give me stuff for free, then they should stop giving me stuff for free!

</comment><comment><USER37> I fully realize that advertising, whether is direct, indirect or second-order is what keeps companies in business and keep paying us. I'm fine with ads as long as they're static images and/or text. When you lose me is when websites keep loading up script after script of some CPU hogging bullcrap that tanks my browser perf; then we have a problem. Google is bad when it comes to this, but not as bad as the Taboolas and Perions who are so in your face that all you want to do is block these idiots from ever sending a byte over your network.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Once you turn one on, chances are you won't see the kind of high-quality ads > that might convince you to turn it off again

I don't understand this idea that we will see "high quality" ads and actually enjoy them.

The problem is it seems like advertisers are still trying to cram in more and more and more. Ads that block content, interstitials, ads all over the page to the point where clicking anywhere is a risk.

I agree that adapt or die isn't fair. Neither is cramming ads down your users throats.

</comment><comment><USER38> Looks like ad conmen just got disrupted even more.

</comment><comment><USER33> What's up with the recent onslaught of ads for scams like "One easy trick to ...'?

Why would any ads publishing network destroy its own value by publishing such criminal crap?

It's like you have a forest and you burn it because somebody paid you to make a lot of smoke. You are destroying your business and helping poison the environment at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER39> Advertising is a cancer.

<comment><USER40> There is nothing wrong with text-based ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'll be contrarian here, since there are many people claiming the solution is paywalls (which people also whine about). (and BTW, the opinion that follows has nothing to do with my employer, Google, and their business model)

I grew up poor, my family didn't have disposable income for buying media. Everything I got, came from ad supported radio, TV, or public libraries. I used to call into radio stations to ask them to play a song, and then wait for hours so I could tape the songs and create tapes. Our family did not have cable, and though we had VHS, we often didn't rent movies, but rather used the VHS like a Tivo.

There are billions of people in the world who now have access to billions of Web documents that were paid for by advertisers, many of whom probably didn't even get their moneys worth. If the Web originated as a paywall, it would have never grown to the size and usage rates that exists today.

The first crawlers would have never arisen if anyone wanting to built a search index had to strike deals to access content for indexing.

Paywalls raise transaction barriers that ads do not. Ads make you pay in bandwidth and time, but for much of the internet's life, those were tradeoffs that were much easier to make than having to break out a credit card everytime you saw an article that MIGHT interest you. Paywalls also make centralizing vs federated/decentralized content more economically efficient.

How many of you have searched for scientific papers only to be pissed that they're behind some Springer-Verlag paywall?

Do we want to live in a world of walls, or a world of open highways with billboards? That's the choice being made here. And the scorn being heaped on ads is the luxury and privilege of living in a time when most of the content on the Web and most of the infrastructure costs have already been sunk and payed for by advertisers in years past. We live in a Web of excess now, forgetting the hundreds of billions sunk into datacenters and network infrastructure and content creation that came before. Who paid for that, and would it have even existed if the entire thing was like Cable TV premium channels?

I don't really want the Web to turn into a giant Apple Store, where every link, I must face the cognitive burden of paying for it before I know that I even want it. We need to solve the issues that ads create with respect to bandwidth hogging and privacy, but I think paywalls, even micro-payment paywalls, impose too much of a transaction cost and cognitive burden for the free exchange of knowledge.

<comment><USER42> Its not a choice between a world of paywalls and a world of ads -- closed, for-paying-users services are going to exist whether or not ad-based services also exist. And, open services without distinct ads (which may themselves _be_ ads, on some level) that are paid for by someone other than the direct user are going to exist. The real question is in what circumstances, and to what extent, are services with intrusive ads disrupting the main content acceptable alternatives to those other two models, not an exclusive choice of a world with one model or a world with one of the other models.

> I don't really want the Web to turn into a giant Apple Store, where every > link, I must face the cognitive burden of paying for it before I know that I > even want it.

 _Life_ is that way: even with "free with ads" content, you are accepting a cost for the content before you can be certain that the benefit justifies it. (Heck, there's an opportunity cost even with "free without ads" content.)

If you just mean the friction of active choice with each click, well, even in a payment model you could create a system with configurable passive thresholds and lumped periodic payments where the cognitive burden of an active purchase decision was avoided for people who preferred to do so.

<comment><USER41> Yes, there's an opportunity cost for content, but different people have different marginal utility for their dollars vs their time.

For children, or the unemployed, the marginal utility of a dollar is quite high, but free time is cheap.

Likewise, the unauthenticated, un-paid-for Web has permitted frictionless composition and repurpose of content without the need to 'do deals'. Beyond just the consumer issue, a non-Ad supported web would have severely limited its evolution, by forcing content to require authentication.

<comment><USER42> > Likewise, the unauthenticated, un-paid-for Web has permitted frictionless > composition and repurpose of content without the need to 'do deals'.

Yes, but...

> Beyond just the consumer issue, a non-Ad supported web would have severely > limited its evolution, by forcing content to require authentication.

Having no ads would have eliminated one of the several means of funding content that doesn't require authentication -- but ads aren't the only mechanism that doesn't require authentication -- and, yes, any limitation in available models would have limited the ways in which the web _could_ evolve, by changing the opportunity space.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why JavaScript Will Become The Dominant Programming Language Of The Enterprise - pierre-renaux http://readwrite.com/2013/08/09/why-javascript-will-become-the-dominant-programming-language-of-the-enterprise#awesm=~oetHDn60Xu8Rqe

<comment><AUTHOR> Steve Yegge called this 6 years ago.

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/02/next-big- language.ht...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/02/next-big- language.html)</comment>


Organic solar cells set 'remarkable' energy record - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45132427 <comment><USER2> I hope this makes it into production at some point. I had a lot of hope for the CIGS stuff[1] but they haven't been able to get to the point where they have enough efficiency at at low enough cost to flip them into the mainstream to get mass market economics of scale to work for them.

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

<comment><USER3> CIGS, like CdTe, has always been limited by material economics. As demand goes up, the world economy's limited production of these exotic byproducts can't keep up.

Believe it or don't, the last time I crunched the numbers, it was the Selenium in CIGS that they're having the most trouble unlocking more of.

<comment><USER2> That is surprising, the early 2000's there was a huge uproar over all of the selenium runoff going into the San Francisco bay. At the time I wondered if there was an economic use for selenium and if extracting it from water was economically feasible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 17% efficiency is a very nice result for OPV. I studied OPV tech for my PhD in 2010-2015. The field really started to shrink once perovskite solar cells were discovered and quickly beat out OPV in performance. Many people were predicting that OPV research was dead at that point. Glad to see that some researchers are still pushing hard and making progress!

<comment><USER5> I'm still holding out hope that these multiphoton singlet fission systems are made to work.

<comment><USER6> Picked my curiousity, care to elaborate for me and others?

<comment><USER5> [https://www.oe.phy.cam.ac.uk/research/photovoltaics/ultrasin...](https://www.oe.phy.cam.ac.uk/research/photovoltaics/ultrasing)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do plastic solar panels stand up to UV radiation over a long time? UV radiation degrades most plastics.

<comment><USER8> The two problems historically have been efficiency and endurance. Endurance has been in the range of 2-5 years, so not good. Although I think that's more to do with reactivity in the presence of oxygen than UV. If UV was the problem you could always just filter it out, albeit at an efficiency cost, whereas total encapsulation is more difficult and expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't OPVs still have the problem of breaking down too quickly?

> "I am very positive for OPV, and it may not need five years," he added.

Ah, the magic five years. Whenever you see someone say it's five years away it means they have no idea when, or if it'll come to market.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's also important to take the fabrication process into account. I'd love OPV to be less polluting (or less costly to recycle waste) than polysilicon or thin-film. Even at 17% efficiency.

</comment><comment><USER11> 17%

<comment><USER12> And on one of my favorite charts, that red triangle at the very bottom is about to jump substantially up the Y-axis:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/PVeff%28...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/PVeff%28rev180716%29.jpg)

<comment><USER13> FTA: "Commercial solar photovoltaics usually covert 15-22% of sunlight, with a world record of 26.6% reached in Japan in 2016."

And yet your linked chart shows datapoints >40%. What gives?

<comment><USER14> Commercial solar photovoltaics typically refer to "standard" silicon solar cells which have efficiency around the 15-22% range. The 40% cells in the graphic are for materials systems that are much too expensive to be commercially viable.

<comment><USER12> Yep, the very high efficiency cells are typically reserved for highly specialized areas where cost doesn't matter.. You'll see Boeing's name a lot near the top of the efficiency list for the exotic cell types, their lab's website should clue everyone in to what their main purpose is: [https://www.spectrolab.com](https://www.spectrolab.com)

They list 31% efficiencies for their cells that can fly today which must be near the limit of commercialization / certification. Still pretty good though, that's 50% more efficient than a standard panel, and at several $10s of thousands per kg into space, clearly worth it!

<comment><USER15> 28/30% cells are common in spacecraft and have been for more than five years, but they are expensive. A little less than 10k for something like 1 square meter only for the cells wouldn't be crazy.

<comment><USER12> It looks like Boeing's latest multijunction line ships at 30.7% efficient:

[https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics](https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics)

Which seems about right, but what I didn't realize is that they're shipping >40% concentrators too. That's pretty great!

[https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics](https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics)

(That last link was supposed to be for the concentrator section at the bottom of that page, but I don't think it's a normal # bookmark)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Light Reflection, which is one of the problem with Solar panel installation in cities areas. You could literally beam light into other buildings windows.

I wonder if Organic Solar Cells fix this?

Or some day where we could produce Windows Glasses that absorb some of the UV and turns it into electricity for cheap. I know we have the tech but it seems still to expensive for now.

<comment><USER17> It's expensive and coloured instead of totally transparent but it indeed exists outside of the lab. They did build a wall out of them in my former campus:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye- sensitized_solar_cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye- sensitized_solar_cell)

[https://actu.epfl.ch/news/epfl-s-campus-has-the-world-s- firs...](https://actu.epfl.ch/news/epfl-s-campus-has-the-world-s-first-solar- window)

Non-native English speaker here: Is there a word to describe something which is transparent but alters colour?

<comment><USER18> Tinted?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder about the endurance of these organic cells aside from their strides in efficiency. I recall hearing a few "exotic" solar cell materials having the issue of being too ephemeral especially for the toxic materials involved despite technically better efficiency in operation and they got beaten out by cheap silicon. The applications of these would be remarkable if they lack additional complications.

The title set up sounds like a lazy scientist joke : technically you can call planting a forest, call them organic solar cells and burn them later for a non-direct electricity solution without doing any research.

</comment><comment><USER20> Amazing.

I dont understand nearly enough about materials science to grok how you iterate to such a discovery. Does anyone else have intimate knowledge of the grind?

<comment><USER21> The best description I've read of the iterative process of chemistry development is good old "Ignition!" by John D Clark, on the subject of rocket fuels.

Generally what happens is a simple theoretical model predicts what the most efficient compounds to try are - but not all their properties can be predicted theoretically. So somebody has to try them and find out what all the handling and fabrication difficulties are, then develop solutions for the sub-problems.

(Does anyone have the scihub link to the actual study referenced in the article?)

<comment><USER22> [http://sci-hub.tw/http://science.sciencemag.org/content/earl...](http://sci- hub.tw/http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/08/08/science.aat2612)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Solar energy is very problematic and for now, isn't going to solve the world's energy problems.

For one thing, it generates energy for just when the sun is shining and no clouds overhead, which aren't usually peak hours. There are other problems as well. [https://sciencing.com/future-solar-power-obstacles- problems-...](https://sciencing.com/future-solar-power-obstacles- problems-21852.html)

I'm waiting for Fusion power...

<comment><USER24> You'll be waiting 10 years for the rest of your life.

<comment><USER25> Progress!

First, it was always 30 years away, then 15 years, now it's down to 10 years. Not sure how to determine the asymptote, but it'll doubtless happen with the Singularity.

Links:

Why Nuclear Fusion Is Always 30 Years Away [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/03/23/nuclear- fu...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/03/23/nuclear-fusion- reactor-research/)

Nuclear fusion is 15 years away from reality, say MIT engineers [https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/nuclear-fusion- is-1...](https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/nuclear-fusion-is-15-years- away-from-reality-say-mit-engineers/)

<comment><USER26> There's still the big question mark of "will it be economically viable?" By the time Fusion is ready we might be heavily transitioning to cheaper renewable energy sources and not want to subsidize expensive power.

<comment><USER25> Very good point. Doubtless though, if it ever achieves technical viability, fusion will have a niche, because not all applications require economic viability. Can't beat the energy density it provides, either. Would be great for outer solar system missions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Future of Data Analysis [video] - <AUTHOR> https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Machine-Learning-and-Data-Sciences-Conference/Data-Science-Summit-2016/MSDSS11 <comment><USER2> Is he ill or something? He doesn't seem old enough to be fading out so often like he does... Is he lost in a world of data even when he's giving talks?

<comment><USER3> Maybe he was just tired ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 10 hours, 89 points and 0 comments? That's a first.

<comment><USER5> I'm a sucker for Cunningham's Law, but aren't we all:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11122973](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11122973)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12134303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12134303)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548951](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548951)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11017603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11017603)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12283041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12283041)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473851)

That's in the last year. Looks like there are 31 stories total with no (live) comments and > 89 points. But then there are all the ones where people posted about there being lots of points and no comments...

<comment><USER4> I meant "That's a first" as in it was a first for me. I've seen threads almost empty where the only comments are discussion why they are so empty, but that's usually within 5-6 hours of the thread creation. I've never personally seen a completely empty thread. This seems like an extreme anomaly personally, at least until you revealed the statistics.

Curious, how many threads were created last year?

<comment><USER5> 360k threads and 1.89M comments.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript: The Bad Parts [slides] - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n5ZvVXyItjGNBFoQFh-T04_UdOWcuOdvLC3e_udTjPQ <comment><USER2> Counterpoint to Doug Crockford, JavaScript: The Good Parts. [https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas- Crockfo...](https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas- Crockford/dp/0596517742)

Buried inside JavaScript is a nice small language. And then there is the rest.</comment>


Dedupe – How it works - <AUTHOR> https://dedupe.io/documentation/how-it-works.html <comment><AUTHOR> Note that dedupe is an open source python tool [https://github.com/datamade/dedupe](https://github.com/datamade/dedupe) with dedupe.io being a powered by software as a service version.</comment>


Australian Police and spies gain powers to access encrypted messages - <AUTHOR> https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/police-spies-gain-powers-to-access-encrypted-messages-after-political-deal-struck-20181204-p50k74.html <comment><AUTHOR> _> The bill specifies that such a capability cannot introduce a "systemic weakness" that could imperil all encrypted communications on the same platform - a key concern of privacy groups and the technology sector.

>In one of the most significant compromises, the bill will define what constitutes a "systemic weakness"._

I'm eagerly awaiting the explanation of how they intend to break encryption without introducing systemic weakness.

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip)

Also note that Telegram and WhatsApp are insecure and horrible. I would use Signal, OTR and maybe iMessage if you trust the Apple bean-counter-turned-CEO.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was interesting. That page took me to the paper, "Keys Under Doormats: Mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications" (2015) - [http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/97690](http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/97690)

From the conclusion:

 _> This report's analysis of law enforcement demands for exceptional access to private communications and data shows that such access will open doors through which criminals and malicious nation-states can attack the very individuals law enforcement seeks to defend. The costs would be substantial, the damage to innovation severe, and the consequences to economic growth difficult to predict. The costs to developed countries' soft power and to our moral authority would also be considerable.

<snip>

> If law enforcement wishes to prioritize exceptional access, we suggest that > they need to provide evidence to document their requirements and then > develop genuine, detailed specifications for what they expect exceptional > access mechanisms to do. As computer scientists and security experts, we are > committed to remaining engaged in the dialogue with all parts of our > governments, to help discern the best path through these complex questions._

This is a paper by experts in the field. The Australian government would do well to listen to them and not fantasize that they can legislate away reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> _Get your Clipper chips! Steaming hot Clipper chips! Chocked full of vitamins, backdoors and laughably lazy intelligence agency bungling!_</comment>


Protecting Private Browsing in Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/protecting-private-browsing-chrome/ <comment> m-p-3 Hopefully we'll see Mozilla clamp this down too.</comment>


Is this (finally) our flying car? - <AUTHOR> http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/09/is-this-finally-our-flying-car/?hpt=hp_c4 <comment><USER2> I couldn't work out if the image was of the actual model they've built, but it looks awesome.

EDIT: some more images on the website. <http://www.terrafugia.com/> If I'm not mistaken the model on the picture is the next generation version. I couldn't find videos of this model in real life or actually flying.

<comment><USER3> It's only a model. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp2TWNpTA7s>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, this is: <http://FlyingCarMKE.Com>

</comment><comment><USER5> It's not really a flying car, more like a plane you can drive.</comment>