Color: The Next Limited Resource? - <AUTHOR> http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited-resource/ <comment><USER2> If T-Mobile can trademark Magenta in the mobile space, I would like to trademark vowels. In fact, my new startup, AEIOU(Y), works in the audio- engineering space, so would all actors, TV producers, musicians, and everyone else who records sound, please refrain from using vowels. We don't want our customers to confuse us with your recordings.

Being serious, I understand the need to protect your brand from people who would capitalize on the trust and recognition the brand has built. From what I understand, with trademark law definitions are often based on a 'reasonable person's' potential deception (eg. would a reasonable person mistake your generic kleenex for brand name Kleenex?). All other things held constant, it would appear that the mental capacity of a reasonable person has declined.

<comment><USER3> The definition of what a reasonable person is, seems somewhat variable. The law holds that a reasonable person is too stupid to see the difference between a T-Mobile logo done up in magenta and an Engadget one but at the same time is smart enough, apparently, to reason that Tesco's "Lincolnshire sausages" are merely made in "typical Lincolnshire fashion" (whatever that means) using pork sourced from the Netherlands, Germany and Poland.

<comment><USER4> _> The law holds that a reasonable person is too stupid to see the difference between a T-Mobile logo done up in magenta and an Engadget one_

I think you must take into account that logo colours are often used in other aspects of corporate appearance. The colour may be used as a band across an envelope, a letter, or an ad. Done well, you really only need to see that coloured band to know who's sending it.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly why this shouldn't be allowed. There is a very small number colours that the eye can readily tell apart, if we allow big corporations to claim these the rest of us will be communicating in black and white.

If it is a complete colorscheme then I have less of a problem with it.

It's funny how this seems to be a phone company thing, in NL KPN (the old telco monopolist) has a claim on light green.

<comment><USER4> I don't entirely disagree. But it's an oversimplification to state that the law thinks users are too stupid to see the difference in logos if the colour is the same, as GGP did.

<comment><USER5> There is actually some good proof supporting the GGGP's point. Shady marketeers will use a completely different logo in the exact same shade of colour to fool people in to thinking they're dealing with the phone company when they send out bills for inclusion in bogus directories.

It works, it's a simple as that.

But that should mean to me that if you don't want any confusion that you should pick a black-and-white scheme and force the customer to read instead of using legal tricks to monopolize part of the spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article seems to defeat its own point. The visual with companies' logos on the visible spectrum (<http://www.flickr.com/photos/philgyford/56867986/sizes/o/>) shows that multiple companies can claim the same colors with no problems.

I don't confuse IBM and Intel, Barclay's and Prudential, or Ford and GM simply because they occupy similar locations in the color space.

This is an interesting article but I don't think we're going to deplete the color space the way we're going to deplete the IPv4 address space. People and companies have been using distinctive colors for a very long time, and we've managed to avoid this problem quite well.

</comment><comment><USER7> This seems like a good example of what's wrong with intellectual property laws.

<comment><USER8> Oh gosh. Soon I bet people are going to start claiming individual words.

<comment><USER9> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark>

"Where a trademark is used generically, a trademark owner may need to take special proactive measures to retain exclusive rights to the trademark. Xerox corporation was able to generally prevent the genericide of its core trademark through an extensive public relations campaign advising consumers to "photocopy" instead of "xerox" documents."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Actually, This article is impossible. A L _A_ B* colorspace would suggest that color is not uniform at all, and we have large perceptual issues with it. Metamerism and all. There is both infinite Chromaticity and Infinite Luminance from a variety of directions to a point. You get an infinite amount of colors...

So what???? Just because We've decided to use the Pantone system to simply things doesn't mean a Pantone Swatch looks the same in all lights (Luminance). Within each swatch, there are infinite subcolors.

So yeah, it's impossible to copyright a magenta- although you can probably specify which Pantone magenta for the sake of certain pigment specifications you mean, you can't trademark magenta. There are infinite magentas...

An sRGB or Adobe RGB colorspace is just a specific cut of L _A_ B*, since there is a specified singular white-point rather than a fluctuating relative luminance. You'll still get infinite color problems with both, as well as Metamerism (different colors via spectrum that look the same to the human eye)

So Trademark all you want. I'll stick your magenta on a yellow background. It's now a different magenta because of perceptual issues.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interestingly during a recent trip to SF I was reminded of Three Australia everytime I saw T-Mobile's advertising. The Coca-Cola red/Cadbury purple/Starbucks green/Virgin red are probably more well-known associations though. Incidentally, the visualisations in this article are pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER12> I was particularly struck by the passing reference to the (unknown to me) International Klein Blue, a color made by and then patented by Yves Klein, a pure blue pigment suspended in clear resin, a color that cannot be experienced on a screen or page, but only by seeing the real thing. An experience that you have to HAVE in person, that cannot be approximated online.

A bit of google and wiki later, I read the surreal ending to his life: "[Klein] suffered a first heart attack whilst watching the film Mondo Cane at the Cannes Film Festival[...] Two more heart attacks followed, the second of which killed him on 6 June 1962. His son, Yves, was born a few months later in Nice...[His son] grew up to study architecture, design, cybernetics theory of systems, and Fine Arts sculpture. He went on to create robotized sculptures."

One thing leads to another and before I know it I have read a series of things that together induced the sensation of having experienced a moving art installation.

</comment><comment><USER13> A company can sue you for anything. Don't be intimidated in your color choices. The only way they win is if you don't fight!

<comment><USER14> "The only way they win is if you don't fight!"

The _only_ way? How about if they overpower you in an expensive, drawn-out court battle.

Not only is the law stupid, but in the US the process to resist it is seriously flawed.

<comment><USER13> The trick is that you don't hire a lawyer. You defend yourself and they are the ones getting all of the invoices from expensive lawyers. There are also things you can to do cause them to have higher legal fees.

Books from Nolo are very valuable when you are defending yourself.

<comment><USER15> I agree. I always wondered why lawsuits are inherently expensive. If they are bringing the case, they pay the court costs. You don't _have_ to pay attorneys. Life is about learning and experience and what better way than to be taken on a ride through a new system?

Take it as an opportunity to build a legal defense information system, then sell it and make a bundle off the experience you gain.

<comment><USER14> It depends on the stakes. If this is merely a case of C&D, and if you lose you just stop doing whatever it was you were doing, the risk is nil.

If there is a claim for damages or restitution or whatever, and you may be out of pocket if you lose, you need to weigh the cost of legal help versus the risk of losing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone can claim anything they want. I can say the topcolor of HN is "jrockway green" (because mine is green). It doesn't matter though, because nobody else has to call it that, and I can't stop anyone else from using it. (I can send you a C&D, of course, but you can just ignore it because you can't own a color.)

<comment><USER3> Read the article again. Companies can in fact trademark a specific color and they do - T-Mobile magenta is specifically mentioned.

If T-Mobile magenta shows up in a photograph or a painting, that is, of course, not a problem, but if it shows up in another corporate logo (the article specifically mentions Engadget Mobile), T-Mobile gets to sue and wins.

<comment><USER16> Engadget Mobile's logo is still the same color, so I don't think T-Mobile sued and won. They simply mailed a nastygram, which anyone can do for any (or no) reason.

<comment><USER17> Orange did sue EasyMobile over color. I am not sure if they won or not, but obviously they must have felt they had enough of a case to go to court.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Internet Archive Wikipedia Bot - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:InternetArchiveBot <comment><USER2> A bot like this is necessary to ensure that Wikipedia continues to be relevant and that it remains approximately correct. Supporting work like this is one of the reasons The Internet Archive deserves your financial support. [http://www.archive.org/donate](http://www.archive.org/donate).

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely true. While I posted this because the bot is impressive, it can't be understated how important Internet Archive is, and how it provides a truly amazing service that many either don't know about at all, or take for granted.

If ever an internet-based organization deserved donations, TIA is very high on the list, right alongside Wikipedia itself, if not higher.</comment></comment>


How to Steal an AI (reverse engineer machine-learning) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/09/how-to-steal-an-ai/ <comment><AUTHOR> Mentioned paper "Stealing Machine Learning Models via Prediction APIs"

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.02943](https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.02943)</comment>


Street View, North Korea - <AUTHOR> http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/PU5f5QDJXBLbaLySNgpqMg <comment><USER2> On the same note, here is a surreal 22 min drive through Pyongyang.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4hLctBvojE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4hLctBvojE)

It pairs well with a few Aphex Twin songs:

Heliosphan: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z4cLmbw6q0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z4cLmbw6q0)

Flim : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhHkUg- QCwk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhHkUg-QCwk)

Ageispolis: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOf6ICP3WAg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOf6ICP3WAg)

It is surreal because it almost makes it possible to forget how may people that regime has starving, worked to death and tortured.

<comment><USER3> What struck me was the lack of life on the streets. Anywhere else I'd expect to see street vendors, buskers, flashy billboards and storefronts, people laughing, but there's none of that. The streets seem purely functional. But they're not bleak either - the landscaping is quite nice, actually.

Might just be confirmation bias on my part.

<comment><USER4> According to "A Year in Pyongyang" (written by a Brit, see [http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang_1.html](http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang_1.html)), in the 80s under Kim Il Sung there were plenty of people laughing in the streets. He describes many workers as having an attitude similar to playful children, and in particular he describes actual kids as "the pampered citizens of North Korea": always laughing, always playing, pampered by everyone. Keep in mind this was an account that didn't downplay the harsh realities of life in NK. It was also the 80s; things may have changed a lot since then.

So yes, I think it is confirmation bias on your part. Life in NK is probably not like we think it is. It is bizarre to us, yes, but the average person probably doesn't live in fear of soldiers raiding their homes, or in dread the Beloved Leader orders them killed. In all likelihood, regardless of how actual life in NK is, those are all fantasies on our part; preconceptions of how life in a weird dictatorship actually is.

I think I, a Westerner, wouldn't like living in NK. At the same time, I really do not think it's a living hell for its citizens -- certainly not in the movie-style dictatorship we sometimes imagine it to be.

<comment><USER5> > At the same time, I really do not think it's a living hell for its citizens > -- certainly not in the movie-style dictatorship we sometimes imagine it to > be.

No, NK is a living hell.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10413950/UN- inquiry-chief-reduced-to-tears-by-North-Korea-brutality.html)

> At a public hearing in London last week, Kim Song-Ju told of his four > attempts to flee North Korea because of a famine that killed hundreds of > thousands of North Koreans during the 1990s.

> After crossing the icy Tumen river that marks the border with China in March > 2006, Kim was caught by Chinese guards and forced back to North Korea.

> He described beatings in a North Korean detention camp and how he was > ordered to search prisoners' excrement for money they were believed to have > swallowed.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/17/north-korea- hum...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/17/north-korea-human-rights- abuses-united-nations)

> North Korea's leadership is committing systematic and appalling human rights > abuses against its own citizens on a scale unparalleled in the modern world, > crimes against humanity with strong resemblances to those committed by the > Nazis, a United Nations inquiry has concluded.

[http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/Commissio...](http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/CommissionInquiryonHRinDPRK.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> South Korean and United States foreign policy is now reunification with North Korea, a switch from decades of "Sunshine Policy" under which relationships with NK did improve.

This is contextualized by a number of current events including the rise of China and revisionism of Russia, the fight over the Arctic, America's huge losses in cyberwarfare, the US's push for an Asian NATO, and Japan's reinterpretation of their Constitution to allow for anticipatory military strikes (even on behalf of allies) - basically the US's Pivot to Asia.

Policy and strategy thinktanks are discussing with NGOs and CSOs how to develop insurgencies in NK and how to inform and convince the youth and unengaged in SK to care about reunification. The US and international allies plan to target specific people (guards, officials) on human rights violations, rather than engaging the country diplomatically, in the hopes that an international criminal court approach can get officials and government employees to resist or be reluctant to take orders from higher up the chain. The US will be discussing the evolution of NK with Russia, who they believe will now be assisting NK at a faster clip with missile development.

An interesting note here is that every year has seen increasing activities from the US inside of NK. This past year CIA and State Department involvement in the development of The Interview (as leaked by the SONY emails, both by the SONY hackers #GOP and by Wikileaks) reveal how tensions are building between the countries, and how cyberwarfare is a highly asymmetric type of warfare.

We can expect to see a great deal more about North Korea, and need to hope that, as larger powers attempt to conquer NK and strip its government, that this can be done as peacefully as possible and without triggering all of the Cold War tripwires breeding in the world today.

<comment><USER7> > We can expect to see a great deal more about North Korea, and need to hope > that, as larger powers attempt to conquer NK and strip its government, that > this can be done as peacefully as possible and without triggering all of the > Cold War tripwires breeding in the world today.

I immediately thought on reading this line of how NK is the last stranglehold where U.S. Commerce has not infiltrated. In fact, much of the talk of opening NK up is entirely orchestrated towards bringing in 'capitalism', not democracy. Democracy is the excuse we seem to be persuaded by. It is the "magazine" cover that corporate America likes to parade.

And this sickens me. Why? Because people are much less willing to give up their lives for corporate freedom than they are for a democratic leadership. And yet so many of our soldiers have died for this very pretense.

<comment><USER8> > And yet so many of our soldiers have died for this very pretense.

"America is not at war. The Marine Corps is at war; America is at the mall."

[https://i.imgur.com/HsDHUWU.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/HsDHUWU.jpg)

<comment><USER9> What struck me was the handwriting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recognize a Soviet car: [http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/-74CU7C3XYKmnkAtpVwiQA](http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/-74CU7C3XYKmnkAtpVwiQA) and [http://mapillary.com/map/im/StWpR2MuX2z3Xhd1LWd9QQ](http://mapillary.com/map/im/StWpR2MuX2z3Xhd1LWd9QQ), that's a 1979+ ВАЗ-2105 [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%90%D0%97-2105](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%90%D0%97-2105) It looks (and is) dated, but actually was produced until recently and a common sight in Russia.

I wonder how they get there.

<comment><USER11> Aaaah ВАЗ aka VAZ aka Lada.

What is the difference between a Lada and a golf ball? You can drive a golf ball 200 meters.

How do Lada drivers recognize each other? They already met at the mechanic that morning.

<comment><USER12> > Aaaah ВАЗ aka VAZ aka Lada.

a.k.a Fiat 124

BTW, Ladas were (still are) exported to the West and did reasonably well as low-cost vehicles.

<comment><USER13> Fiat 124 is VAZ-2101, later models were designed domestically until VAZ-2108, which was designed (partially) by Porsche

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This site's usage of browser is ridiculous. Every time you move forward or backwards it adds another history entry, making your back button pretty much useless.

If they want to provide deep linking to a particular map location they should change the URL without writing to the history.

<comment><USER15> First world issues much?

You've been presented with these rare images, that someone probably had to smuggle out of the country, took care to lay them on the map for your convenience, and you sit there dissatisfied with how the back button works.

<comment><USER16> Complaining about the presentation of the linked content is sort of a meme here.

Just for fun: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22my%20eyes%20hurt%22&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22my%20eyes%20hurt%22&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

<comment><USER17> And for good reason. If you give something to a bunch of programmers, any programming deficiencies will be immediately and more-than-adequately addressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm waiting for camp 14 street map : [http://www.amazon.com/Escape- Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Escape- Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0143122916)

This is real north korea :-)

<comment><USER19> That book was a huge eye-opener to me. It's practically a Nazi-level concentration camp situation, but because they're only doing it to their own people and one of their allies is China, the world does nothing.

<comment><USER20> "The world does nothing"

The world would have watched Hitler in peace too, had he not decided to blast through Belgium into Paris. After that the world watched China end the lives of tens of millions (as many as, or more than the entire NK population) during the Cultural Revolution. The world watches as Boko Haram and countless other organizations murder and rape their way across Africa. The world watches as Qatar puts on the most impressively visible modern example of slavery, and what does the world do? Remain excited with the sport and the event. The world watches as organized crime and cartels wage paramilitary war against the Mexican people, dropping busloads of kids into mass graves. The world watches as political islamic extremists take advantage of crumbling governments in Syria and Iraq to murder, steal, kidnap, and destroy across the region.

Point is: the world watches _a lot_ of things, and when someone like the US steps in, they are lambasted as no greater than the evil we expect them be willing to fight.

North Korea remains unmolested purely because it does not molest other countries. If they do, China will aggressively end that behavior or implicitly allow the US to so through inaction.

<comment><USER21> Generally speaking I agree with you. However when you get to the "someone like the US steps in", I would like to make a few notes. 1\. there is no other nation "like the US" but USA. Not even China or Russia have the kind of global presence and military power. Not saying that the US would be able to win a war against these nations, just pointing out that how you phrased it like the US taking steps is like any other nations taking steps, and this is simply not true. 2\. Another issue with the US stepping in, is that from experience when the US steps in, that doesn't end well: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu)

and of course, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=315&v=0ypIwK6OlFc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=315&v=0ypIwK6OlFc)

I do not in any circumstances blame any leader personally for these things, and I definitely do not associate the actions of the US with the citizens of the US, and I also know that even if the US would've been the most peaceful, least aggressive superpower, some other nation might've done worse things. But I think that the world would be a much better place if the US would've "stepped in" in different ways, or even if they would've not done anything of what in the links are mentioned. (and of course I only scratched the surface here)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The empty roads and this red Lada car remind me of the times of my childhood in Soviet Union :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Notice that there is no ad in the streets !

<comment><USER24> Yes, a breath of fresh utopia!

<comment><USER25> And everyone drive a Mercedes! Magical place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can't help but notice great the condition of the roads are (probably due to the very few cars there). This road in particular looks well looked after. For a country that has a lot of starving citizens, it is quite surprising. Take a drive through most streets in Los Angeles and you will experience what a poorly maintained road feels like in a supposedly first-world country. Same goes for some roads in my city here in Australia, poorly constructed to the point where heavy rain is enough to put massive potholes into a main road.

<comment><USER27> You can see the same in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan - perfect tarmac in the capital, but outside of it, the road is lousy, even on transit routes (Iran- Uzbekistan) - we cycled there in 2013: [http://poab.org/log/c/0/60#2](http://poab.org/log/c/0/60#2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> OK, so North Korea is showing off a part of Kaeson Street, which I guess is the main avenue in Pyongyang. It looks OK, but I am pretty sure it's just the facade of the country NK wants to show to the outside; I am not sure the rest looks so nice. Also, there are almost no cars.

<comment><USER29> It's better than the rest, but even the rest of North Korea sure as hell looks a _lot_ better than many 3rd world countries.

The western media gives an exaggerated view of the level of poverty there, partly by subtly pretending that it's still 1994.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> RIP browser history.

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow, streets are so clean, not a single piece of trash. I wish we had this here in Brooklyn.

</comment><comment><USER32> The infrastructure is much better than India, Vietnam which happen to be massive suck ups to USA.

<comment> guard-of-terra Ten lane roads are not infrastructure unless you have something to ride on that roads. India and Vietnam provide citizens with all kinds of bikes, tuktuks and motorollers. NK not so much.

Having said that, no electricity during most of the day also not very infrastructure-ish.

(If you wanted real totalitarian infrastructure, try Myanmar)

Also, Vietnam fighted for their vision of freedom, won, and now is free to do whatever pleases.

<comment><USER32> You dont see many cars I guese because the population is low, even on the streets there are less number of people. By the way the cleanliness and stable roads are much better than India and Vietname and even some US cities. I dont agree with your electricity outage comment since you provided no proof of that.

<comment><USER33> You're taking one tiny stretch of (empty) road as evidence of the quality of infrastructure across the entire country.

India has 2.53 million kilometers of paved road. Vietnam has 148,000 km. The CIA's 2006 estimate for North Korea was 724 kilometers.

<comment><USER34> Doesn't google/bing maps have NK satellite photos? We could always verify the CIA number to a great extent if said imagery exists.

EDIT: Gotta love the fog/haze over Pyongyang on Google Maps

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pyongyang,+Coreia+do+Norte...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pyongyang,+firstname.lastname@example.com,125.7421118,21886m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x357e02dae64f4337:0xd40677e21771aa95!6m1!1e1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I was expecting Google doing good but I guess I keep being disappointed.</comment>


Nigerian firm takes blame for routing Google traffic through China - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-disruption/nigerian-firm-takes-blame-for-routing-google-traffic-through-china-idUSKCN1NI2D9 <comment><USER2> For this type of thing - Is there any way to differentiate between a mistake and a deliberate attack in hindsight?</comment>


Generating the Mandelbrot Set - <AUTHOR> https://scionofbytes.me/misc/generating-mandelbrot-fractals/ <comment><USER2> It's a right of passage to generate the Mandelbrot set. I have fond memories of being handed the scientific American article introducing it- apparently you can download a pdf version here: [https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/media/inl...](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/media/inline/blog/File/Dewdney_Mandelbrot.pdf)

As a high school student I was fascinated and implemented it on any machine I had access to. I remember being bored in math class and coding it on my TI-81 calculator. That took a while to render in black and white but it did work!

Great memories. Thanks for posting.

<comment><USER3> Me too! I think I used a TI85 or 89 but yup! It was awesome learning how to make them after years of playing with them on Fractint, just zooming around.

<comment><USER4> I miss Fractint. I spent hours playing with that thing as a kid, with no idea about the math behind it (and no Numberphile to help explain it). So I just zoomed and plotted and got really familiar with which particular SVGA modes I could use and which I couldn't.

I still remember discovering Render To Disk and realizing I could save stuff out and open it up in Rainbow Paint... which has been lost in the sands of internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I once wrote a PostScript program that generates Mandelbrot, tuned it so that it finishes up in reasonable time, and sent to some old laser printer. On next day morning the machine finished up churning numbers and spat out a known picture.

BTW: .ps (PostScript) is a fun little stack based language, similar to JVM. Document is simply the result of the program execution. You can program it by hand, though I do not recommend anything large.

<comment><USER6> It's a very fun exercise when you are starting with PostScript... and indeed, unless you are familiar with Forth or any other stack based language, it's a big pain to write. A long time ago I wrote a very short "tutorial" [1] on my blog (which right now looks very bad due to change in stylesheets that don't have translated well... The code for the Mandelbrot set there is broken (due to googlecode dying), but I just moved from my local copy to a gist [2]. And the code for the Christmas postcard (with Koch snowflakes and Gosper curves) is here [3]. It is commented, but not sure how useful it can be.

[1] [https://www.mostlymaths.net/2008/12/quick-postscript- program...](https://www.mostlymaths.net/2008/12/quick-postscript-programming- tutorial.html)

[2] [https://gist.github.com/rberenguel/9a5239034cafdeaabdf665444...](https://gist.github.com/rberenguel/9a5239034cafdeaabdf6654446521254)

[3] [https://gist.github.com/rberenguel/38f5106fee2a795be45d6a335...](https://gist.github.com/rberenguel/38f5106fee2a795be45d6a33532fd0e4)

Edit: having a blog with posts from 10 years ago you want to reference is painful... Broken links, grammar errors, unclear writing, typos...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you want to use a browser to generate the Mandelbrot set I think the best option is a WebGL shader. I found this, but there should be plenty of variants out there as it's a classic example of a parallel problem that benefits immensely from using the GPU.

[https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4df3Rn](https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4df3Rn)

<comment><USER8> As the comments on that page indicate, you have problems with float precision pretty quickly. It's hard to intuit just how fast you're shedding bits when you zoom in.

Some quick DDG-ing around suggests that there isn't a great solution for arbitrary-precision GPU numbers, and that trying to force it on to GPUs either loses all the speed advantages it has over CPUs or even just loses to CPUs. Corrections solicited.

(Remember... GPUs aren't "faster" than CPUs. They're _different_. There are things GPUs are much faster than CPUs, but there's also plenty of tasks... indeed, it's _most_ of them that we actually perform... where CPUs are faster. You can get differentials of 100x-1000x in _either direction_. That's why we use CPUs.)

<comment><USER7> I know GPUs aren't necessarily faster than CPUs, but they are more parallel. The article's graphics didn't work in my browser so I haven't looked at the results other than the rendered images, but there's no arbitrary precision in the linked code. It's an attempt to speed up the rendering using threads, when the GPU would be faster.

I found this version [0] that uses perturbation theory to get deep zoom on the GPU. I haven't seen it before and haven't looked into it, but it seems neat.

[0] [https://github.com/munrocket/deep- fractal](https://github.com/munrocket/deep-fractal)

<comment><USER8> "they are more parallel"

They are more parallel for _very specific things_ , most of which go flying out the window when you try to use arbitrary precision floats. GPUs are not parallel arrays of CPUs; they're parallel arrays of what are very stupid and unoptimized execution units from a CPU's point of view. (The "stupid and unoptimized" is to some extent a feature; you can control them deeply, unlike the high performance CPUs, which are to the point where they're not just second-guessing you, they're second-guessing their second guesses. But they don't have a lot of caches, they don't reorder things themselves, etc.)

From the linked project: "Using the perturbation method, we can calculate only one point with an arbitrary precision in CPU and restore the rest of the picture with float precision in GPU."

Now that's where the big wins really are. I Have A Dream (which will never happen) of writing a programming language that makes it easier to mix CPU and GPU execution in some sensible manner.

<comment><USER7> > They are more parallel for very specific things

And the Mandelbrot set is one of those things, at least when you're not doing arbitrary precision which the article isn't doing anyway.

> I Have A Dream (which will never happen) of writing a programming language > that makes it easier to mix CPU and GPU execution in some sensible manner.

You need to take care so the synchronization isn't eating your performance wins though. I know you wrote "in a sensible manner", so you probably already thought of that. I don't know if another programming language is what the world needs, but there are libraries available to at least ease the pain.

I recently found Vulkan compute for people. I haven't tried it yet, maybe you'll find it interesting.

[https://github.com/Glavnokoman/vuh](https://github.com/Glavnokoman/vuh)

<comment><USER8> "You need to take care so the synchronization isn't eating your performance wins though. I know you wrote "in a sensible manner", so you probably already thought of that."

Like I said, I haven't gotten too far into it, but one of the other ideas that keeps coming to mind is to have some sort of cost model in the language, because one of my other I Have A Dream elements of a new language is the ability to make assertions about blocks of code like "this code is inlined" or (in a GC'ed language) "this variable is stack allocated", or in the case of crypto code, "this code is optimized only to constant-time operations". These assertions wouldn't make the thing they are asserting happen, because experience over the decades shows that that doesn't work (witness the way that inline pragmas have gotten consistently weaker over the years to the point that I believe they're no-ops in many environments), but they'd be signs to the compiler to say back to the user that if the constraint is violated, here's a clear message explaining why.

The idea could be adapted to something like "this block of code only copies the data to the GPU once" or some variant of that claim (a given byte only copied once).

I think a similar thing could be used for some interesting network/cloud transparency, too, where the language permits wiring up function calls/messages/whatever transparently, but you can use labeling to make compile-time (or possibly start-up time) assertions about how expensive the result is going to be. I've tossed around the idea of making a function call not necessarily be the fundamental primitive, but maybe have something weaker than that be the cross-module default, like an Erlang message pass. One of the reasons networks are such a pain to work with in conventional programming languages is the mismatch between function calls and network operations; it would be interesting to expand on Erlang and see if we might be able to address that via weakening the function call across modules.

Anyhow, like I said, I'll never get to any of this, but I do sort of feel like there's a surprising amount of room for a new language out there that doesn't get explored very well because people keep remaking Python or something like D over and over again, just with slightly different spelling.

<comment><USER9> You probably already know of it, but you might find Halide interesting. It aims to separate computation strategy and dataflow, in a performant fashion.

Also, potentially pyCUDA and other things that google autocompletes when you type "pyCUDA vs".

None of them are exactly what you're talking about, of course.

<comment><USER7> This is one of those things I have in my list of things to try out one of these days. If I'm not mistaken, this is what Google use to implement their image algorithms in their Google Camera Android app. Marc Levoy is one of the co-authors of the Halide paper [0] and is now working at Google, so it's natural. Do you happen to know how widely used it is in industry?

[0] [http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/halide-cacm18/halide- cac...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/halide-cacm18/halide-cacm18.pdf)

[https://halide-lang.org/](https://halide-lang.org/)

<comment><USER9> If you mean me (and I guess others aren't likely to come across this conversation):

I was very impressed by Halide but I'm not involved and have no idea how widely it is used, sorry. I could imagine that a lot of potential users enjoy tweaking GPU and SIMD code enough, or have enough confidence in their results, that they don't give it a good look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Picky point:

> Let's just say that for our purposes we can think of complex numbers > existing on a line perpindicular to our regular number line. If you take a > piece of graph paper and mark a line from left to right, and then another > line that crosses that line at 90 degrees, from top to bottom, you can > imagine that the horizontal line represents the real number line, and the > vertical line represents the complex number line.

The vertical line is the _imaginary_ number line. 2 is as much a complex number as 3 _i_ is (2 + 0 _i_ vs 0 + 3 _i_ ).

</comment><comment><USER11> The Mandelbrot set is _bizarre_ , astoundingly so. E.g., since it is a fractal, it is astoundingly irregular.

Mandelbrot argued that commonly shapes in nature are fractals. So, we could go to a mountain range, find a lake, and then suspect that the surface is a 2D fractal.

Well, as bizarre as the Mandelbrot set is, actually it is a _closed_ set in the usual topology for the plane. Then there is a theorem that there is a function from the plane to the line that is 0 on the Mandelbrot set, strictly positive otherwise, and infinitely differentiable. Similarly there is a function that is 0 on the boundary of that set, negative in the interior, and positive otherwise.

So, in general, with the Mandelbrot set just an example, these results hold for any closed set in the plane. And the result generalizes to dimension 1 and all finite dimensions greater than 2. So, a set is closed if and only it it is the level set of an infinitely differentiable function 0 on the boundary of the set, negative in the interior, and positive otherwise.

This result can be used to show that in the constraint qualifications for the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions, the (i) Zangwill and (ii) Kuhn-Tucker constraint qualifications are independent. For a while that fact was an outstanding unanswered question about constraint qualifications.

Somewhere in one of the papers of Arrow, Hurwicz, and Uzawa on mathematical economics there is a similar question about constraint qualifications asked but not answered that is easily answered with an example based on these results about infinitely differentiable functions and closed sets.

Back to the mountains, we can argue that the surface of the land, above, at the boundary, and on the bottom of the lake can be infinitely differentiable while the lake is the Mandelbrot set or any closed set.

Bizarre stuff!

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's a fun fact about the Mandelbrot set, which I will communicate in Python in the hope that you can have a little fun witnessing the results:

      def N(eps):
        c = -0.75 + eps*1j
        n = 0
        z = 0
        while abs(z) < 2:
          z = z*z + c
          n += 1
        return n

      [N(eps) for eps in [0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001, 0.00001, 0.000001]]

<comment><USER13> That was interesting. It continues for a little bit, but it soon falls apart:

        $ pypy3 man.py
        [33, 315, 3143, 31417, 314160, 3141593, 31415927, 7853981629]

<comment><USER12> It continues forever! See here for example: [https://mathoverflow.net/questions/215187/is-there-a- referen...](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/215187/is-there-a-reference- for-computing-pi-using-external-rays-of-the-mandelbrot)

I believe you are just running into the limits of double precision arithmetic; indeed log_2((10^8)^2) > 53.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What I like about generating this picture is that the color of every pixel is completely independent. If you have 2 cores, you can generate it twice as fast. If you have a million cores, you can generate it a million times faster.

Apparently I attempted this in Haskell 10 years ago: [https://gist.github.com/jrockway/291074](https://gist.github.com/jrockway/291074). I seem to recall adding things to that GTK image builder the slowest part by far. I bet things are better 10 years later though.

</comment><comment><USER15> Take a look at Fractint (fractint.org) and all kind of fractals it can generate.

I became obsessed with IFS (iterated function systems) a looooong time ago. Take a look at the colage theorem and try to make your own ;-)

Cheers

<comment><USER16> Oh, me too. I was obsessed with Fractint when I was a teenager - It's what got me into coding. Wrote some Pascal that morphed one IFS pattern into another & was soooo pleased with myself :-)

Some modern fractal things that I appreciate:

Example IFS generator: [http://sirxemic.github.io/ifs- animator/](http://sirxemic.github.io/ifs-animator/) Mandelbulb 3D ( _amazing_ ): [http://www.mandelbulb.com](http://www.mandelbulb.com)

If anyone wants to start with something simple, try and write a Sierpinski Gasket generator. Very very simple, yet infinitely complicated.

<comment><USER17> Fractint was one of a number of programs that were very popular for a period because they really showed off graphics cards that, for the first time on consumer hardware, could display reasonably high resolution graphics (EGA then VGA).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a python fractal drawer here - [https://github.com/starnose/fract](https://github.com/starnose/fract)

That can do a load of different types (Pickover Biomorphs, Newton-Raphson approximations, burning ships, Mandel-drops etc). Always loved drawing fractals. One day I'll get around to implementing Ray-marching and draw the mandelbulb!

</comment><comment><USER19> Hah - s/he's complaining about "slow" being 2-7 seconds...

...I remember back when I was in high school making a generator for this in BASIC on an Apple IIe, running 16 colors in the "double high res mode" (needed the 80-column card for it - only machine that had it) - and having it run for hours just to generate one image.

Slow...sigh.

<comment><USER20> I have those memories as well, only it was a Commodore 64. I believe I found the program used to generate the set in Compute! magazine and had to type it manually. Good times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Pardon the off-topic comment, but is anyone else finding the discussed web page to be sluggish to the point of unusability? (This is on Firefox 67, on Windows 7.) I'm not talking about page load time; once the page has finished loading:

\- trying to scroll the page using arrow keys or Page Up/Down keys takes several seconds between key press and response

\- when dragging the scroll bar manually, the new scrolled-in area is blank white for several seconds before finally filling in with content

\- even right-click, or click-drag to select text, takes a few seconds to respond

I tried disabling javascript on the page, but it makes no difference, so it's not some runaway script. I'm guessing that maybe there are some very high resolution Mandelbrot images that are being scaled in the browser?

<comment><USER22> FF 67.0 on Win10 w/uBlock Origin, i3 7100/8 GB, snappy. Scrolling back up reloads/regens images, so there's a sub-second flash of empty in the image locations, but otherwise it's not misbehaving for me at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> [https://www.sqlite.org/lang_with.html](https://www.sqlite.org/lang_with.html) scroll down to the bottom to see a sqlite mandelbrot

</comment><comment><USER3> It gives me warm fuzzies being surrounded by fellow Mandelbrot lovers on this thread. I've been enchanted by fractals ever since seeing IFS ferns that someone made in BASIC on a green monochrome screen.

I've wanted for a long time to get around to generating the Mandelbrot as a 3D height map (Fractint could do that from a static viewpoint), and make it explorable. Ideally where you can change size to explore it all...

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like a cool idea. Do you mean the height would be based on color with the blackness being either a deep point or a high plateau?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, pretty much, though really the colors are based on how long it takes a point to "escape" the set, if it does, with the blackness being ones that never do (to whatever level of diligence you have time to compute "never"). I was thinking the center black bug would be a deep crevasse or the "floor", with mountains rising on either side, so you could wander around in the canyons around a giant flat lowland, surrounded by mountain ridges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I always found implementing fractals very satisfying, so this was a good read. Shameless plug for my own subpar Julia set viewer (Julia set results "make up" the Mandlebrot set): [http://thejamespaterson.com/scripts/julia/](http://thejamespaterson.com/scripts/julia/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Your website hurt my brain but I enjoyed the Julia Fractal generator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I made a pull request with large performance improvements, and compatibility with all modern browsers: [https://github.com/ScionOfBytes/smooth- mandelbrot/pull/1](https://github.com/ScionOfBytes/smooth-mandelbrot/pull/1)

</comment><comment><USER26> I've got some Mandelbrot resources at the bottom of this Github page:

[https://github.com/melling/ComputerGraphics](https://github.com/melling/ComputerGraphics)

</comment><comment><USER27> It took 4 Amiga 500s about 3 days to render the mandelbrot set at 320x200 when I was in High School. In case anyone is plotting out the increase in computer power over the years.

<comment><USER28> you had to code it in assembly! I believe it took about a few minutes on my Amiga.

<comment><USER29> I wrote a version in False[1] (sadly lost to the sands of time) which was pretty nippy on my A5000.

[1] [http://strlen.com/false-language/](http://strlen.com/false-language/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Also popular around that time in the 80s:

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

And the book Chaos, by James Gleick

Oh, and The Cuckoo's Egg, by Clifford Stoll

</comment><comment><USER31> Invariably when learning a new language, making a Mandelbrot generator is my first project (after tutorials). Added benefit: I can compare benchmarks since Mandelbrot algorithm is CPU heavy.

</comment><comment><USER32> As I was reading this I just kept hearing in my head...

Take a point called Z in the complex plane,

let z[1] be z^2+C...

let z[2] be z[1]^2+c...

let z[3] be z[2]^2+c

And so on.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrztrxV9OtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrztrxV9OtQ)

</comment><comment><USER33> Mandelbrot is of the devil Bobby Boucer! It is entirely too easy to lose a Saturday on YouTube just watching these videos.

</comment><comment><USER34> Whilst we're on the subject, let's not forget ffmpeg:

         ffplay -f lavfi -i mandelbrot</comment>


The Essence of Information - <AUTHOR> https://matthias-endler.de/2017/the-essence-of-information/ <comment><USER2> It's nice to have a little think-piece that I can share with others when they are interested in Computer Science and want to learn more. This is supposed to be a practical guide to start a conversation.

Once the people begin to think about processes that they completely take for granted (like sorting socks, quickly looking up phone numbers), it's fascinating to see when they start inventing very well-known algorithms on the spot to solve a problem. For example, they come up with binary search for looking up a phone number.</comment>


Refreshed MacBook Pro Rocking Coffee Lake CPU Turns Up on Geekbench - <AUTHOR> https://hothardware.com/news/coffee-lake-macbook-geekbench#1pQi0uixub4ojj30.02 <comment><USER2> Hopefully they manage to keep the fans from spinning too much on new models. A lot of the new pc laptops gets pretty hot, and Apple has been slipping up lately.

<comment><AUTHOR> If there is one thing they don't compromise is power consumption. The whole reason why there isn't a 32 GB Apple laptop today is because they went with thinner batteries that wouldn't be able to power what Intel had that could fit inside a laptop and address that much memory.</comment></comment>


Coderaid - "Raid" for helping OSS projects - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/coderaid/comments/e2udq/welcome_to_rcoderaid_what_is_this_heres_a_small/

<comment><USER2> It's a great idea but honestly, I can't see this working in practice: the suggested time frame is simply too small. For all but the most trivial projects, you'd need _at least_ the first night/day to get familiar with the code base before you can start doing anything useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> This simultaneously sounds like a fun idea, but I can't imagine any project owners/maintainers being too happy about this being applied to /their/ project.</comment>


Adobe Photoshop AI Detector - <AUTHOR> https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/adobe-photoshop-ai-detector/ <comment><USER2> Now the team in charge of "Face-Aware Liquify" has to improve their algorithm so that the edits won't be recognizable.

That would mean better warping ("more real looking"), which is overall a great thing, even if it just ups the ante for the for the "Edit detector" team.

Basically, the red team has to hack into the image instead of a program - definitely a good way for Photoshop to evolve.

(Though I realize that this detection would be useful for much more than just the liquify tools.)

<comment><USER3> It's a GAN with an unorthodox (and rather slow) training scheme!

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Generative Adversarial Teamwork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Trust in what we see is increasingly important in a world where image editing has become ubiquitous – fake content is a serious and increasingly pressing issue.

I keep on reading such statements, but still don't feel like this is a real (increasing) problem. Pictures could be faked is a believable way 100 years ago already, and I cannot recall a single instance where new, fancy AI-driven fakes were any more of an issue than classic photoshopping. In my opinion, it's all just FUD.

<comment><USER5> 100 years ago you would have needed an expert, specialized equipment and several hours. 10 years ago, you still needed an expert and probably an hour at least. Soon, there may be tools anyone can use, feed in some photos of you and a description of what you want to see. It will be easy to generate fake profile pictures that look like you, for instance. Your voice will be easily cloned on the phone as well, and eventually, even video chats could be fake.

Scammers could find out when you're on a trip from social media, reach out to your family, ask for emergency money because of a stolen wallet, etc. Still some effort for the scammers, but eventually, you might be able to automate the whole scam with a bot. The bot doesn't need to be that smart, it just needs to follow a script with a handful of variants, like a preplanned dialogue tree.

<comment><USER4> This is something that could be done before as well by just impersonating someone. The voice just needs to sound believably similar, which is not too hard with a sufficiently bad connection. And yet such attacks don't seem common at all.

<comment><USER6> Sure, you can impersonate _someone_ (or even _anyone_ ). A botnet can impersonate _everyone_ , and make robocalls to _everyone_.

If you're doing a targeted attack, you might need a significant chance of success - if you can target 10 000 users, you might get away with a 1% success rate, and still make a significant amount (say 60 times 1 000 USD in "emergency" funds).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apply an ai like this with more detections to a typical instagram "models" stream and you'll see that almost all pictures are altered. This could maybe be a good wakeup call for the young generation which is seeing the bodies as problematic because they are not as perfect as other people on instagram

<comment><USER8> It would be a great idea to legally force social networks to automatically apply this kind of AI and show the results in the feed for the reasons you mentioned.

<comment><USER9> Why stop here? Let's legally forbid makeup. Think about tone-evening creams, for example, what they do to truth!

<comment><USER8> Clear strawman fallacy here. I did not say 'forbid'. I said that it should be made clear that the images are doctored.

Besides, there is a big difference between make-up, that anyone could theoretically apply to look like someone in real-life and what people use photoshop for in the images we are talking about.

<comment><USER9> I would call it reductio ad absurdum. But that's not the point as I wasn't refuting any arguments you made (you didn't any), but making fun of what I see as a knee-jerk reaction of calling for a new law on every minor occasion.

Btw, your final para: do you mean that only privileged people can apply "beatification" effects on their phitos? FWIW make-up is much more expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ha, I was reading "AI Dictator". Possibly a bit too early but eventually just a question of time until that complimentary update ships.

</comment><comment><USER11> AI vs AI ... so the race has begun.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here is their website including code to play with: [https://peterwang512.github.io/FALdetector/](https://peterwang512.github.io/FALdetector/)

(and yes, somebody already turned this into an app)

<comment><USER13> > and yes, somebody already turned this into an app

This here?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/e08sps/woke...](https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/e08sps/woke_up_to_my_app_54/)

Costs 3,49 Euro in my local App store.

<comment><USER12> That's the one I saw too. They do the processing on some server, too, which might explain the price tag, and is a bit problematic privacy-wise.</comment></comment></comment>


A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When It Fails - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874 <comment><USER2> Duplicate from six months ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839540)</comment>


Schmidt: Microsoft will never be as cool as the Gang of Four - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/05/schmidt_microsoft_windows_8/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, sure, and a computer will never need more than 640K of memory. Back then Bill also though he knew it all!</comment>


Pokémon Go: is this the future, or is it killing America? - <AUTHOR> http://notes.brianmayer.com/pokmon-go-is-this-the-future-or-is-it-killing-america <comment><USER2> The lack of communication from niantic, server issues for weeks and way too shallow "content" is already killing the game. People came for the IP of pokemon on mobile, had fun catching a few of them, realized that the "combat" is a joke, and besides catching the same stuff over and over there is nothing you can do in the game really. Except the usual die-hard fans, user retention rates are going to the ground fast now.

Basically, the whole topic will be dead in a few weeks if niantic continues this path. A great example for a missed opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it possible to come up with a more dramatic title? The Pokémon fad is almost over at this point.</comment>


Zipcar Profiled: Bloomberg Enterprise - Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73659178/ <comment><USER2> I realize that pieces like this are made to be fluffy, but this whole video seems like an advertisement to me. There wasn't any meat to it... just the CEO talking to a nodding reporter with a bumpit in her hair.

I wanted to see how Zipcar built up their network, remotely-enabled their cars, and so on.</comment>


IBM smashes Moore's Law, cuts bit size to 12 atoms - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223396/IBM_smashes_Moore_s_Law_cuts_bit_size_to_12_atoms?taxonomyId=19

<comment> da-bacon Cool result, major bad title. 1) Moore's law is about transistor size, this is about storing bits. 2) As the article does mention, this doesn't work at room temperature, as the bits are too unreliable. The article says this will work at 150 atoms, which sounds about right, but isn't really substantiated by the actual experiment.

I'd also note that while this is a very cool experiment, the fact that it was performed using a scanning tunneling microscope means it's not exactly a practical device :) But as a proof of principle of storing a bit in a few number of atoms, this is a very neat result.

</comment><comment><USER2> No hyperbole in the title at all. Moore's law would be smashed if this was ready to release. By the time it is, this will be just another dip to be averaged over.

Sometime, I really wish I had a job where I got to play with individual atoms.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous submission: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3457841>

</comment><comment><USER4> And here I was thinking Moore's Law was related to transistors and not storage...</comment>


Bell System Technical Journal, 1922-1983 - <AUTHOR> http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/

<comment><USER2> I think these are the papers that lead to the blue box: [http://www.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol33-1954/articles/bstj3...](http://www.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol33-1954/articles/bstj33-6-1309.pdf)

[http://www.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol39-1960/articles/bstj3...](http://www.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol39-1960/articles/bstj39-6-1381.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is weird that it hints at good vs. bad in inband vs. out of band signaling, but it doesn't talk about security, it is mostly concerned with maintaining good speech quality, and what kinds of tones are appropriate given the other line conditions...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The classic issue devoted to Unix (scroll down to the bottom): [http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol57-1978/bstj- vol57-iss...](http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol57-1978/bstj- vol57-issue06.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool. There are some classics in there.

[http://www.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol27-1948/articles/bstj2...](http://www.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol27-1948/articles/bstj27-4-623.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure why this is on HN, these have been available for years. I'll admit, I like the reminder, because last I checked AL had mothballed the server, and no one noticed for months. Someone (perhaps me?) needs to scrape these and store them some place when the inevitable happens, and AL stops hosting them for good.</comment>


Antetype – Design more beautiful UIs faster - <AUTHOR> http://www.antetype.com

<comment><USER2> This looks really powerful, and I'm glad you offer student pricing.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of NetObjects Fusion.</comment></comment>


Every person is a personal business - <AUTHOR> http://www.maximsformavericks.com/blog/every-person-is-a-personal-business/ <comment><USER2> I appreciated the CEO of your life analogy - with the knowledge that you are ultimately responsible for your own success and the allocation of your own assets.</comment>


Methods for forecasting price? - <AUTHOR> http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/16187/methods-for-forecasting-price

<comment><USER2> Just pick up any advanced finance, or economics textbook; the business literature is rich with people investigating this.</comment>


Jean Michel Jarre: 'Artists are the collateral damage of the tech giants' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/05/jean-michel-jarre-smartphone-google-creators

<comment><USER2> Artists have always been the collateral damage of the music editors, not of the tech giants. Editors got the biggest share, artists were given the rest. The tech industry might change the music industry if it can replace editors some day... as it's already happening in the book industry!</comment>


How does the unconnected get buzz for their startup? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> "The Unconnected", starring Clint Eastwood as an aging entrepreneur who decides to go for that last startup, just for the money. At first he runs into trouble, with both sherrif paul graham and deputy techcrunch casting a cold glance as he rides into town...

<comment><USER3> I don't buy this. I've gotten on TechCrunch twice (with related splash on Digg and Del.icio.us), most recently a month ago with <http://www.rescuetime.com> \- which was (at the time) just a series of screenshots and a beta sign up form (i.e. pure vaporware, just about). Neither time did I solicit coverage.

The first time I got on TechCrunch, I was living in Anchorage, Alaska.

The trick is:

1) Build something that is unique (or at least has a twist). No one wants to talk about yet another restaurant review site.

2) Build something controversial (or at least something that is interesting to talk about). I met a guy in Seattle who is trying to build (I kid you not) a social network for car insurance customers...zzzzzzzzzz

3) Talk about what you've built in a clear, compelling, and sticky manner. Try to understand the audience that you're speaking to and communicate it in a way that speaks to THEM. Most hackers suck at this. It requires a combination of information design and copy-writing.

<comment><USER2> Buy what? I was just feeling humorous... I didn't have a point. I just liked the sound of "The Unconnected" and how it reminded me of the Clint Eastwood movie title "The Unforgiven", which I've never seen.

Good advice in any case!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do you care about buzz? If you build it, they will come.

Once it's built, it's not 'buzz', it's marketing. Hire suits for that.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can try to get on TechCrunch:

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1331688095520243666&hl;=en](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1331688095520243666&hl=en)

Good luck though, if you're not being referred from someone "in the know" you probably wont get covered. But never hurts to try.

<comment><USER6> You could try calling up Michael Arrington and crying on the phone. <http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/22/silicon-valley-could-use-a-downturn- right-about-now/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Have a co-founder who is as passionate about communicating ideas to people as you are about hacking code.

</comment><comment><USER8> I know a fair amount of people in the valley if you need to meet anyone, okdork.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It seems that the ones getting the most buzz are those who are the best connected, even if your product is better than theirs. In this case, what is the best way to strike back?

(assuming trying to network yourself into his level is futile)

<comment><USER9> I've set up this blog for this purpose:

<http://web2loop.blogspot.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> i don't see how that would help you get buzz. maybe a sneeze but definitely no buzz

<comment><USER9> The blog isn't about launches, but rather updates. Moreover, any reasonable submission would be accepted.

So it gives you a way to promote your startup every week provided that you have some update to announce every week.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Liberty, an npm alternative. Written in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/liberty-org/cli/ <comment><USER2> It's a weird choice to write a package manager for a language X in a different language OTHER, because by definition, you've got 100% of the people seriously using the manager able to use the language X , and less than 100% who know this language OTHER, probably significantly less. Even completely ignoring the delightfully-tempting flamebait issues available for this pairing of languages, it seems a mistake to be writing this in anything other than X (Javascript here), because you're needlessly cutting off a large percentage of possible contributors.

Anyways, I suppose my real point and action item is that you might want to drop an answer to my criticism here right in the README.md because it's going to be an issue and you might as well get ahead of it.</comment>


UNIX Tips and Tricks To Save You Time In Terminal - <AUTHOR> http://www.onextrapixel.com/2013/10/09/unix-tips-tricks-to-save-you-time-in-terminal/

<comment><USER2> Don't use too many aliases, a dozen generic ones should do it, learn to use reverse history search (usually mapped to Ctrl-r) instead.

Once you get used to it, your brain just triggers this combination whenever the command is more complex than let's say `ls -al`. This means you have to change some habits like to `tail` your logs with absolute paths, so you don't need to `cd` into the folder first, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> If anyone is interested, there were several great posts on Hacker News a while, these are packed with useful UNIX commands [0, 1, 2, 3].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360320)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046682)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022457)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985393)

</comment><comment><USER4> Half these "unix tricks" are bash tricks. :/

</comment><comment><USER5> This is what Gary Bernhardt would call 'atom' level unix programming. I encourage people to watch this talk : [http://www.confreaks.com/videos/615-cascadiaruby2011-the- uni...](http://www.confreaks.com/videos/615-cascadiaruby2011-the-unix- chainsaw)

First it's quite funny, second it shows very pragmatic yet abstract usage of unix way of life, like quickly gathering data about your code base by combining other these atoms into new abstractions (as in SICP).

As he says, it's often half-assed, but it's the right half of the ass.

</comment><comment><USER6> Obligatory:

[http://www.commandlinefu.com/](http://www.commandlinefu.com/)

I found some nice tricks there that I ended up using.

On the other hand, I found that customizing my shell, emacs, and other such things too much a bit frustrating when dealing with multiple machines. So often I have learned to live with the defaults. In other words I don't want to get used to typing "gst" for "git status" I just type "git status" because next machine I log into might not have the gst alias.

<comment><USER7> [http://explainshell.com/](http://explainshell.com/) is pretty funky too.

<comment><USER2> This is really cool. Thanks for posting that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it interesting that there's a whole section on creating bash aliases for git commands, completely ignoring the [alias] section available in .gitconfig (see [https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Aliases](https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Aliases) for details and a variety of contributed examples).

</comment><comment><USER9> >"If your terminal window is getting cluttered and you'd like to start from fresh, you can type clear. This will clear your window as if you've just reopened Terminal."

No, it won't. It only looks like it's like reopening the terminal, it won't reload your configs and stuff. Instead of writing "clear", you can do ctrl + r to achieve the same thing.

If you instead really want your terminal to be like reopened, do "reset" instead.

Regarding the history command, combining it with grep is when it becomes really useful. Example, all my latest git commands:

history | grep -i "git"

<comment><USER10> > you can do ctrl + r to achieve the same thing.

C-r will (usually?) invoke reverse-search-history ([http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Commands-F...](http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Commands- For-History.html)) in bash (and I'm sure some other shells also).

<comment><USER11> I think he meant C-l .

<comment><USER9> No, I didn't but that's pretty handy since it doesn't hide the new prompt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Genuinely useful tips, but a slightly misleadingly named article.

</comment><comment><USER13> These are really, really newb level "tips" here. I'd consider this more of a "welcome to bash" intro. Are there really people on HN who don't know this stuff?</comment>


Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place? - <AUTHOR> https://blockchain.info/address/1EiVHZnDVjFH6Tic1YmWUSfYmVUnUZdnMU <comment><USER3> Seems a little premature to point at the blockchain and say "STOLEN!". Most people won't be able to make much sense of that. The whole situation is complicated.

More info: [http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rpy1t/i_w...](http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rpy1t/i_was_wrong_it_is_a_scam_proof_inside/) [http://www.sheepmarketscam.com/](http://www.sheepmarketscam.com/)

tl;dr: For a week or so, many users have been unable to withdraw BTC from Sheep. Admins have been claiming technical problems as they try and implement an automatic tumbler (money laundry to obfuscate transactions) - <USER2> (conveniently) could be claimed as a legit reason for all the huge transfer activity seen in the blockchain. They implemented a countdown timer for withdrawals, which for many users and vendors has now counted down to 0, yet withdrawals still aren't happening. They've set a minimum withdrawal amount of 1BTC, which given the insane price of BTC right now seems really outrageous.

Most damning, several vendors who are admins, moderators, or closely affiliated with admins, are reported to have suddenly started doing something which is very frequently seen in drug market cons: Offering far larger quantities than they ever have before, at unusually low prices (50% or less than their previous pricing), and requiring FE (immediate and _upfront_ release of funds to them rather than going through escrow). Frequently done to rope in the maximum amount of hopeful suckers before bailing with the money.

The market is still up and running right now, although their forums are down with this message: "We are enabling a spam filter for the forums, as the number of posts had got out of control. We will be enabling the forum once this is in place. Please try to stay calm. This is a temporary measure, and we will keep everybody updated when we have further information".

<comment><USER4> Obvious question: why not let people check the "I understand the risks" box and withdraw without mixing?

<comment><USER3> They're not claiming that mixing is required to let people withdraw securely or anything; it was never implemented before, the original SR never had it implemented the way that people assumed they did, etc. They seem to be claiming that attempts to implement the mixing led to technical problems which has buggered up withdrawals rather fundamentally.

With weeks having passed, it should have been easy to implement some sort of emergency measure that would let them transfer money back to people who wanted it. Instead they continued doing business as usual - money in, but not out - while implementing things like this withdrawal countdown system, which arguably seems calculated to try and maintain some confidence and keep the BTC rolling in.

It seems very likely that this _is_ in fact a big scam, particularly given the shady behaviour of prominent and admin-affiliated vendors also happening, but the blockchain info linked isn't in and of itself definitive proof of anything much right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You are surprised that when you trust your coins to the anonymous operator of a drug marketplace that you get ripped off?

There's three separate reasons why you're screwed:

1) You have no recourse because you can't report the theft to police.

2) You have no recourse because you can't identify the operator, he's anonymous, which means he's also hidden from you.

3) You have no recourse because you can't undo your transaction.

As a good rule of thumb, only perform transactions in bitcoin doing legal things, that leave you at least with some recourse in case things do go wrong. And if you sat there, holding your coins, thinking "oh, I'm just gonna buy drugs with them, what could possibly go wrong", you seriously shouldn't have bitcoin, they're not good for you. Oh, and drugs are also not good for you, so please don't do them.

<comment><USER6> Even using bitcoins for legal things leaves you little recourse - this is the whole point of bitcoin. When you avoid government regulation and oversight you also avoid the protections it gives - this should hopefully be obvious to anyone.

<comment><USER5> If by recourse you only mean chargeback, sure. But that's not the whole story.

If you have a legal entity behind something, like say, bitpay or coinbase, you can take legal steps if they screw you over. You can take them to small-claims etc.

And if you don't trust some entity, you can use escrow with bitcoins, it's possible to setup a transaction where the escrow provider has no way to get at the funds, but can just release to either of two addresses (back to you or forward to the merchant). But of course, the escrow provider would also be a legal entity, otherwise you'd have no recourse against them if you feel they unfairly resolved a dispute against you.

Bottom line is, if you engage in legal business, with legal entities, and take appropriate precautions, you are no less protected than using national currency and chargebacks. If you don't, well, you've got nobody else to blame but yourself.

<comment><USER5> @RyanZAG

Please look into what escrow means. Of course you can do business with an entity you're not sure is legit. The assumption is that you trust the escrow provider, and the Escrow provider is trusted by the merchant. So, the critera of trust for the escrow provider, is quite a bit higher than a random online store.

If carefully select the escrow provider, check their business registration, make sure there's a legitimate entity behind them, this makes dealing with possibly fraudulent entities as safe as with fiat.

<comment><USER6> You're going to use escrow for all of your transactions? There is no way the general public is going to do that. I think even those who are more paranoid would give up the attempt after using escrow to do transactions after a few months and just use regular money. Or more likely, just stop using escrow and use bitcoins anyway, and then complain when they get stolen.

<comment><USER5> You're using escrow already when you use a bank account, CC processor, paypal, google wallet etc.

You don't really get a choice, and you carry the mandatory cost because merchants roll the cost of chargeback fraud, CC fees and banking fees over into your purchase price, no matter if you think you'll need the added service or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Doubtful. The balance was never 39,917BTC, it's been dropping funds in and out for almost a month now. If it was stolen, they took their time doing it.

<comment><USER8> The scam has been going on for at least a week. There's no hurry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder why you don't see news articles stating 'bank robbers steal $ 123000 from users of [random-bank-branch]' ... could it be because if someone hacks or robs a bank or a legitimate payment service provider such as westernunion or paypal, they are required to eat the loss, not pass it on to users?

<comment><USER10> Bank robbers typically walk away with a few grand if they're lucky, and it'll almost certainly have a dye pack and a tracker in it. Bank robbery is a fool's business.

39k BTC is what, $39 million worth? You're right, news articles cover that differently than a $123,000 loss that's covered by insurance.

<comment><USER11> > Bank robbers typically walk away with a few grand if they're lucky, and > it'll almost certainly have a dye pack and a tracker in it. Bank robbery is > a fool's business.

Exactly. It's all fraud now - much higher rewards with much lower risk of getting caught. Why try to break into a bank vault waving a gun in the air when you can skim relatively small amounts from millions of credit cards or commit identity theft and take out loans in someone else's name, all from a different country to your victim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bitcoin is making hacking seriously profitable.

</comment><comment><USER13> This sums up all the references to this sheep scam matter [http://www.deepdotweb.com/2013/11/30/sheep-marketplace- scamm...](http://www.deepdotweb.com/2013/11/30/sheep-marketplace-scammed- over-40000000-in-the-biggets-darknet-scam-ever/)

Apparently that the owner also got doxxed.

</comment><comment><USER14> Expect organized crime to take an interest in bitcoins. Shady operators and little oversight makes it an easy target.

<comment><USER10> They already have. CryptoLocker is raking in tens of millions of Bitcoins as ransom payments.

<comment><USER15> I think you mean tens of millions in bitcoins. There are not now (nor will there ever be), more than 2.1 tens of millions of bitcoins.

<comment><USER10> You're right, sorry! Yes, tens of millions of dollars worth of BTC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> don't understand why multi signature isn't more commonly used.

</comment><comment><USER17> Rumors are that SMP was a scam and that it wasn't hacked, but that those operating the site stole money mainly from the vendors. There is also a page about this:

[http://www.sheepmarketscam.com/](http://www.sheepmarketscam.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Are there any recorded cases of someone recovering stolen BTC?

<comment><USER19> I read at least one case where an exchange seized funds coming from hacking into a site.

<comment><USER20> As far as I know, the exchange never released those funds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> honestly this sounds more like silk road 2.0 is launching a campaign to rune sheep marketplaces image to try to regain customers and vendors. i personally think that sheep marketplaces web design is waay better than SR and BMR. they are probably under attack by SR 2.0

</comment><comment><USER22> 175rsix7H365MJnRxzyZR8rbpiFAE32mN6

</comment><comment><USER23> Cash = unlimited demand and unlimited supply

Bitcoin = unlimited demand and limited supply (21 million)</comment>


Lessons from 6 Software Rewrite Stories - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@herbcaudill/lessons-from-6-software-rewrite-stories-635e4c8f7c22 <comment><USER2> Re: Netscape > the net consequences of this rewrite were disastrous.

That's not true. The net consequence was irrelevant, to the trajectory, regardless of the editorializing. For trying to maintain accuracy, pointing a finger at the rewrite (which didn't affect the existing product) with the provided narrative and context to explain, is some sort of revisionist voodoo.

The rewrite gave an opportunity to a spaghetti codebase that was doomed.

The original netscape devs that were left plus some part-time hackers, ended up on the losing end of a quality war against a better funded, talented, dedicated set of developers. The disaster was in the past, when they fumbled their way to an uncertain future. Today, you would say that they failed to competitively monetize and invest in their own platform.</comment>


Is Enterprise Software Failing The Innovation Test? - <AUTHOR> http://future.gigaom.com/2007/09/05/is-enterprise-software-failing-the-innovation-test/ <comment><USER2> This may just be my recent experience talking, but I think the problem in corporate IT is an excess of formalism.. or Religion. You have the "Enterprise Architects" running around thinking that if you abstract everything away, that someone will be able to grok the whole process and eliminate redundancies and magically you'll have a better organization. Then you have the Agile people, and the Six Sigma people, and the RUP people, and the IT Governance Nazis...

Add to that the typical corporate risk aversion, and the "nobody ever got fired for yet another kick-off for a new initiative with a Three Letter Acronym," and what you end up with is vast overspending to deliver very little value.

Naturally, this kind of bullshit is a huge disincentive to innovation. If you actually had a good idea, there are so many obstacles to trying it and getting things done that the smart people end up grinded down and flee for greener more flexible pastures. This not just for the average developer who has an idea-- it goes all the way up to the C-suite.

For corporate America to fix this, you need CTOs and CEOs who are willing to be ruthless about paring down ridiculous initiatives and barriers to getting things done. Radically simplified IT governance, along with a genuine attitude shift towards accepting non-zero risk, is what will enable corporate IT innovation.

<comment><USER3> "what you end up with is vast overspending to deliver very little value"

I agree completely, fortunately (or maybe unfortunately depending on your view), this waste employees lots of people who want just a "job and a paycheck please". I think in the coming year or two, there will be an awakening here. Agile Web 2.0 stuff will start to show business users the things they can do when "Enterprise Architects" get out of the way.

"Naturally, this kind of bullshit is a huge disincentive to innovation. If you actually had a good idea, there are so many obstacles to trying it and getting things done that the smart people end up grinded down and flee for greener more flexible pastures. "

No kidding. I learned my lesson on this over the last two years.

I actually think the change will come from the business users. There will be profoundly cheaper alternatives to traditional Enterprise applications in the coming years. I don't have faith in CEOs and CTOs to see this coming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I liked this part the best:

"Some of my banking customers have infrastructures that are bigger than the public Internet in terms of the storage they consume, given all the data and equipment they have to support."

Somehow, I doubt that anyone has a system larger than the public internet particularly as measured by storage. Can you imagine trying to sell that much hard drive space to someone? Yeah, you need more space than the Internet! I bet they aren't even using as much space as YouTube. I tuned out after reading this comment in the article.

Ever since I read PG's article about PR I've been leery of articles that stink of PR. This article reeks of it and then he goes and makes an incredible claim with no backup. There are hundreds of other articles I could be reading, I'm done with yours.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, he hardly seemed like an enlightened CEO... exactly the kind of person I want running my competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought the entire point of "enterprise" was accepting low development velocity and bad design in exchange for support and scalability (however akward). So, by definition, yes. By design, yes.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does it need to? I am going to take the unpopular stance on this and say no... enterprise software does not need to be innovative, it just needs to work.

redhat, vmware, oracle, microsoft etc... they all deliver what their customers need, not stuff that impresses magazine editors. The software keeps steadily getting better and although they don't have every whizbang feature in the book, they get the job done... that's what matters.

Do you have a better, faster way to do backups? A solution to documentation everyone hates so much? We'll pay for it if you've got it... after someone else goes first.

<comment><USER7> There are hard problems in enterprise software that require innovative solutions. For example, data warehousing is crying out for better technology, and as a result, there are a multitude of startups building new technology to compete with the established players. Stream processing is another area with a ton of innovation, as is business intelligence/analytics, virtualization, security, etc. There's tons of innovation around financial services: building systems to facilitate automatic trading systems based on financial models.

One important difference between these markets and the typical consumer startup is that enterprises are inherently more conservative, and for good reason. You need to be able to offer an enterprise a lot of value, in exchange for the inherent risk of going with a startup with unproven technology. That means your value proposition needs to be compelling: you need to solve a _real_ problem, and effectively allow the customer to make more money than they're paying for your software.

Frankly, I think saying "there's not much innovation in enterprise software" just indicates how much of an echo chamber the online startup community is. There _is_ plenty of innovation, it is just rarely described by TC, Om, and the rest.

<comment><USER8> Good post. This forum is slanted heavily towards consumer-based web apps. Certainly nothing wrong with that, and I'm a big user myself. But I'm not sure that there's really a lot of experience here working in the enterprise space. The ages alone (from another recent thread) would seem to back that up.

That said, there's some dreadfully boring, stodgy software out there that companies spend quite a bit of money buying. My startup is aiming directly at this space (BI, as you've pointed out).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I liked his criticism of big archaic architectures built up by armies of consultants.. until he said this:

"This new predictive system is the service-oriented architecture (SOA) I spoke of earlier. We call it that because it serves you and your customers better."

<comment><USER3> Yeah, "it serves you ... better" ... reminds me of the Mauve DB dilbert (it has more RAM).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's funny how the person being interviewed is the CEO of a company that makes products that require the same expensive, over-hyped crap that he says is keeping "innovation" from happening in enterprise software. Otherwise, it's just more buzzword-compliant riggamaroll spewed by yet another clueless "enterprise" corporation.

Enterprise software lacks innovation because it's doing all the things that startups know don't work. Expensive, closed, proprietary software running on over-hyped big-iron servers, purchased by idiot execs and managers, maintained by clock-watching office drones who are working for old-school face-time- focused companies.

<comment><USER11> Hmm...but amazingly, these companies are profitable. It is easy for technologists like ourselves to only think about...well...the technology. What about the psychology behind the decision process?

A little thought experiment - say that you created enterprise software that worked perfectly, but was inexpensive, easy to use, and ran on a Commodore 64 (okay, or some low end PC). Would Cisco even let you through the door?

Also, no matter how good the system you create might be, it still costs your customer time and retraining to implement and support your new solution.

One last thing to think about (and to echo my first point) From Cialdini's 'Influence, Science and Practice':

[Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey] "had been a struggling brand until its managers decided to raise its price to a level far above its competitors. Sales skyrocketed, even though nothing was changed in the product itself (Aaker, 1991)"

<comment><USER10> Which companies are profitable, the enterprise software companies or the corporations that buy their software, or both? I'm not blaming enterprise software companies for making money selling mediocre technology that doesn't work as well as advertised. I'm more upset with the companies that continue to buy such software, even when they know going in that it doesn't work as well as advertised. It's exactly what PG describes in his "News from the Front" essay (<http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html>). A lot of these enterprise software companies rely on corporations trying to cover their asses by buying enterprise software from big companies. It makes everyone feel safer in terms of perceived job security, but does it actually work well? Most of the time, the answer is no.

I'm not saying it won't take time to retrain people on better technology. I'm saying that, in a world where IT departments aren't seen as cost centers, better technology (meaning that it works well, is easy to setup and maintain, and is robust enough to work with other technologies not created by the same company) will yield better results in all aspects.

I realize that IT departments and enterprise software vendors won't do such things. I guess that's why I come here so often.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen CEO's should start firing people who buy IBMs.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER13> If idiots implement garbage using a certain technology, is it the fault of the technology?

Whether it's relational database, client/server, green screen, closed source, etc., etc., etc..., for every horror story, there are a hundred successes. The fact that Web 2.0 presents wonderful opportunities doesn't diminish the capabilities of other technologies just because someone with a hidden agenda says so.

SAP was a scam shoved down the throats of very large companies by their own auditors, using Y2K as blackmail, in order to add on their own high margin services on the back end. Big ERP has desperately tried to "scale down" to medium and small organizations with limited success, just as new technologies are "scaling up" to service the demand of the unsatisfied millions. No secret here who the winners will be.</comment>


Pandora for Music Videos - <AUTHOR> http://musicvideogenome.com Combines Pandora/Last.fm music recommendations with the new VHX.tv embeddable player to make endless streams of recommended music. More info on Casey Pugh's blog: http://caseypugh.com <comment><USER2> Just my two cents... a great idea, and if it was pulled together in 24 hours then bravo!

The site needs to be tightened up though, I got no results for my favorite artist and for another artist the first two "videos" weren't videos.

</comment><comment><USER3> Read more here about the history and direction of the site: <http://www.caseypugh.com/post/10164711081>

<comment><USER4> Obfuscated link's destination is <http://www.caseypugh.com/post/10164711081>

Please do not post obfuscated links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sites like musicvideogenome.com and tubalr.com (and netflix) make me want some sort of app or widget that can scrape/redirect video from a portion of my browser or screen and turn it into a source that VLC can multicast across my network.

<comment><USER6> There are solutions (if you google) for live screencasting a part of your desktop to the web. If you want to skip the step of uploading to web, seems you could always remote in to the computer from another terminal and adjust the window so it show just the video?

<comment><USER5> Thanks.

What I am looking for is a simple, inexpensive (free), way to multicast a part of my screen to various unused monitors around my place. So I can pretend to be Best Buy, or a pub and have all my monitors from living room to bedroom to bathroom all be showing the same YouTube video or netflix movie.

For instance, for audio, I used squeezeserver. VLC can do something similar if it's given a VLC friendly source (which seems from my experience to basically be a hardware device.)

VLC doesn't solve the problem of synchronization that squeezeserver addresses, but it does make the multicasting and display portion of the problem easy.

I don't know of anything (for free or inexpensive) that can do that yet....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems very similar to tubalr.com, which was on Hacker News 2-3 months ago. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2428774>

I like them both.

</comment><comment><USER7> See also: <http://viddyjam.com>

</comment><comment><USER8> If its the Pandora for Music Videos wheres the Like button on the video? i want to start customizing the channel i just created!

Well done!

</comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty fun! But would there be a way to avoid having too many videos of the same artist to help discover new ones maybe? Seems that most of the artists I tried returns a lot of songs with the same artist (especially the one searched).

Also why limit the number of results? I tried a few and it does not seem to be "hardcoded" anyway.

<comment><USER3> It was made in 24 hours! I'm working on improving the results and making it endless.

<comment><USER9> I'd love that! Other improvements would be to have account and allow us to tag artist we really dislike or really like/know, etc. Another last minute thing, it would be nice to clear the background when performing a new search! I had the bad luck of launching a new search right when the previous clip displayed a lovely woman in underwear and I wouldn't love to see this at work :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looking good! And it was made in 24h? Excellent work guys! On a similar note, check out <http://www.tubufy.com>. Basically a Spotify/Last.FM/MOG playlist -> video channel tool that I released into the wild this summer.

</comment><comment><USER11> This site is awesome....Im not sure its actually giving recommendations it seems just like the similar links from youtube but great idea

</comment><comment><USER12> Made at Hackday.tv in NYC this past weekend? Great job guys! Some very interesting hacks came out of this event.

</comment><comment><USER13> Was at Hackday.TV this weekend - and must say these guys (creators of VHX) did an amazing job. Well done guys!

</comment><comment><USER14> I must say... I like this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Well, this is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER16> really gonna enjoy this on my google tv.</comment>


Crowdfunding a $25 washing machine from India - <AUTHOR> http://scroll.in/article/686233/How-an-Indian-marketing-consultant-created-the-Rs-1,500-washing-machine

<comment><USER2> Nice going! Anything to kill the drudgery of washing clothes. I hope the next such venture is making dishwashers! Together with this, it will help make life less dreary for many folks, mainly women (since this is India we are talking about).</comment>


The iPhone's Success Is Causing the Watch to Fail - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jamesallworth/the-blessing-of-failure-4bf7af9238e8#.wgl928lv6 <comment><USER2> Tech accessories that don't play nicely with established human rules of etiquette have a _much_ harder time being accepted, that's my theory. There's a long established history of reading or writing in public, and smartphones play nicely with all the etiquette that governs these activities in public.

Watches have etiquette too, primarily, it is seen as rude to check your while interacting with other people. So basically an apple watch is a device that you can't use in most of the situations where it would prove useful.

At the end of the day, where tech accessories are concerned, human social interactions are evolving much more slowly than the technology itself, and designers don't seem to really take this into account. Bluetooth headsets and Google Glass are two more great examples of what seems to be a failure to account for social rules and norms when they were designed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the Watch is failing because it's not seen as essential, but more of a luxury toy. Putting aside the usefulness of it, and innovation, the phone has become so ingrained in the human psyche as the replacement to the watch that the bar to overcome is a bit high.</comment>