YouTube pulls a Hulu -- yanking API access from TV-connected devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/20/youtube-pulls-a-hulu-yanking-api-access-from-popcorn-hour-ot/ <comment><USER2> I love these contracts that talk about viewing content on a TV. What's the difference between a 30" iMac and an LCD TV?

I claim the essential difference is whether or not you're sitting on a couch when you watch it. Good luck writing a contract that bans that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said. Once the TV (or whats hooked up to it) becomes "another computer", the same way our phones became "another computer", this will be a very very big issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yeah. Just great. Granted, I use my Popcorn Hour mostly for watching MKVs and playing music, but I have watched the occasional YouTube clip fairly often.

Obviously, the real problem is that the API-based access is ad-free. It is not really that surprising that Google would prevent the circumvention of its ads.

I wonder if alternate schemes such as PlayOn will continue to work? Using PlayOn, I can still watch Hulu on my PCH. They have a YouTube plugin, but I am guessing that they are relying upon the same API that the MSP folks used.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a little puzzled here: what does Google gain out of this?

I thought their goal was to eventually insert video ads into videos; that goal will not be impacted by people watching videos on TV.

And it can't be copyright concerns either.

<comment><USER5> Why couldn't it be copyright concerns? YouTube has negotiated deals with different copyright holders. We don't know all the provisions of those deals. One provision might be "no playing videos on set top boxes." Instead of trying to explicitly mark which videos have this restriction and which don't, they could opt to just disallow TV viewing entirely -- and try to drive views to the XL product as a replacement for people who still really want to see YouTube on the TV.

That being said, the points made elsewhere in the thread about the line being blurry are valid. My phone (HTC Touch Pro 2) has TV out and explicitly lists YouTube as a video source for that TV out. Does that count?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My pirated videos continue to be ad-free and work fine on my TV. When will the media companies learn that you can't punish your customers when they can get better versions of your product for free!?

</comment><comment><USER7> Solution, connect a cheap laptop to the VGA port on your TV. Done.

<comment><USER8> -1 goodwill to Google. The whole thing is ridiculous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Drat! I'll no longer be able to watch 320px-wide video on my 40" TV! Do people really watch YouTube on their televisions? It seems like a terrible waste to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I spend most of my time watching things like hulu/cnn from the net over UGC internet content on my TV, but having youtube is nice. I'd certainly rather have it than not have it. The 1080p and 720p content changes the usefulness of it quite a bit though. I hope Boxee doesn't get banned. If it does, there will be a work around within 24 hours.

This also reinforces my hypothesis that going with "toy" boxes like roku, popcorn hour,etc. are a bad idea. We don't need to dumb down the hardware that's connected to our tv, but adapt it's purpose/interface. We have "OS'" for our 3 inch screens. We need one for our 50 inch screens.

<comment><USER10> The so called "toy" boxes may be a bad idea in theory, but until something significantly better comes along they're hard to fault. I replaced an old PC with a popcorn hour box and I couldn't be happier. It does what I need, it's silent, it start up faster, it's more aesthetically pleasing, it's much easier for everybody to use and it's super cheap.

<comment><USER6> I use a PC to drive my TV. It's small, it's quiet, it wakes up from sleep instantly, and it doesn't break when some third party changes their API.

The only downside is cost; I think it cost like $500 a few years ago. (It's a Core 2 Duo mac mini.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I do something similar and it's amazing. I cannot live without it. Costs will go down. Mac minis START at 599. This is a good price point for a full fledged HD capable computer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ActiveState Komodo IDE Now Free - <AUTHOR> https://www.i-programmer.info/news/90-tools/13411-activestate-komodo-ide-now-free.html <comment><USER2> Non blogspam-link - [https://www.activestate.com/products/komodo- ide/](https://www.activestate.com/products/komodo-ide/)

It says it's "Komodo IDE is now free as part of the ActiveState Platform". Looks like you have to create an account.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you had just made the effort to skim through that post before you called it spam,you would had found out that it says "The only thing required is opening an account at ActiveState to register your copy".So you didn't even make the effort,but at the same time you figured that you had enough information to name it spam...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great news ! I'm sure they still have that great debugger I remember getting satisfaction from circa 2008.</comment>


BBC demands DRM for HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2013/02/16/bbc-betrays-the-public-demand.html <comment><USER2> Wow, Cory's article is totally over the top... as are some of the comments in this thread.

Let's start with the facts. Here's the spec. It's called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME).

[https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- med...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- media/encrypted-media.html)

The EME spec isn't that long, and the introduction has a nice diagram. Go check it out.

The W3C spec does not put "DRM in browsers." It allows browsers to use "decryption modules" that already exist elsewhere, like in the OS platform. There are APIs to determine what sorts of "decryption modules" are available and to use them to decrypt media.

If we're going to transition to a plug-in free web then we need HTML5 video to support these extensions. Sure, it'd be nice if the big media companies stopped insisting on using encryption to distribute their videos. But that's not likely to happen anytime soon. Premium video on the web requires either plug-ins or EME. I think most of us would pick premium web video + EME, rather than premium web video + plug-ins, or (perish the thought) no premium video on the web at all.

BTW, open source browsers can easily implement this spec since it doesn't require the browser to implement a "decryption module" themselves. Also, there is a mode called "clear key" that can be used if the underlying platform doesn't have any "decryption module" available.

Disclosure: I work at Netflix on streaming video in browsers.

<comment><USER3> > Wow, Cory's article is totally over the top...

What makes you think it's over the top? We have a public-interest organization pushing DRM, a technology that is decidedly against the public interest.

I'm surprised that this is upvoted to the top of the thread, when you haven't done anything except say "this is over the top" and given us a link that explains what DRM is---as if the DRM's detractors don't already know what it is or how it works.

> Sure, it'd be nice if the big media companies stopped insisting on using > encryption to distribute their videos. But that's not likely to happen > anytime soon.

That's only true because technologists continue to lie to media companies, telling them that DRM is feasible and not harmful to their interests (even though, in addition to being against the public interest, it tends to cause monopolization of their distribution chains---just ask the music industry happened with iTunes).

Look, these media companies are looking to us for advice; We're doing both them an ourselves a disservice by continuing to sell them DRM snake oil.

<comment><USER4> >Look, these media companies are looking to us for advice; We're doing both them an ourselves a disservice by continuing to sell them DRM snake oil.

Seems to be working out pretty well for Hulu/Netflix. Or is releasing your $100 million budget film DRM-Free onto the internet now profitable??

<comment><USER5> Netflix requires a subscription to stream. DRM is irrelevant.

<comment><USER4> Care to elucidate that point?

So if netflix streamed their content with no-DRM (which none of the content companies they license from would allow, but we'll skip that fact) you assume no one would just get a subscription, copy their entire catalouge, and freely distribute it? Doesn't sound like a very sustainable business model to me...

<comment><USER6> DRM didn't stop House of Cards from appearing on PB:

<http://thepiratebay.se/search/house%20of%20cards/0/99/0>

I don't see Netflix going out of business because of this.

<comment><USER4> Yea, but my point is different than a cracked version leaking into bittorrent. That doesn't have a drastically large footprint.

If they streamed videos with no-DRM, everyone with a subscription would easily grab a copy of whatever they want. And all it would take is copying a file and sharing it with friends/family to have it spread. This might not seem like a huge difference, but honestly I think it would be. It would lower the barriers of sharing to the point that everyone could do it. Only those who hold onto a moral belief in not committing copyright infringement wouldn't participate. I think the past has shown that these people are in the vast minority.

<comment><USER6> How would they? Even ripping DRM-free YouTube videos is beyond most people. I don't see YouTube piracy as a big world problem.

<comment><USER4> What DRM-free Youtube videos? Youtube uses DRM-enabled flash player and locks down the ability of people to copy videos.

Besides Youtube is a free service, that everyone basically assumes will continuously be there. You're bringing up non-related factors.

<comment><USER6> YouTube DL works from the command-line. YouTube videos are _not_ DRM- encumbered. They are just harder to get because they can no longer be requested by a simple HTTP call.

<http://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/>

I don't believe that someone would cancel Netflix because they happened to have ripped all of the things they are interested in. The value of Netflix is accessing an enormous library, vastly bigger than you could store (changing all the time!) and watching an item that you feel like watching at this time. A Netflix subscriber can't exactly predict every single item they'll be interested in until the end of time, rip them, then cancel.

Even if there were a few people that did this, they would make up an incredibly tiny proportion of paying users, and they'd likely be akin to the digital hoarders that have TB of movies downloaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First you have to understand that not all of the content broadcast on the BBC is created by the BBC. They carry programs made by independent, limited, for- profit studios. They also regularly carry movies. All of which they put up on their iPlayer service.

As an example, you can currently watch Madagascar, in full, for free on BBC iPlayer (<http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00gd77z/Madagascar/>).

While there is an argument that programs produced by the BBC should be DRM free, there is no way larger, and independent studios would allow their content uploaded DRM free.

Personally, I want the BBC (and other sites) to be able to use technology like HTML5 video, because I don't like flash, and it's unlikely the studios are going to suddenly decide their OK with DRM free video, I'm not necessarily /for/ DRM in HTML5, but I don't see any other way around it for now.

While you can argue all you want about how DRM is useless and easily broken, as yet no-one has managed to convince big TV and movie (and even game) studios of that. The BBC is just doing what it feels it needs to in order to be able to deliver video using the latest technology, while keeping it's partners happy.

<comment><USER8> I think everyone understands why these companies (including BBC) are pushing for DRM. That doesn't mean it's not evil.

The larger issue here, expressed quite well by Doctorow, is that this push requires converting the web into a closed platform. It's clear why entertainment companies want to turn the internet into something that can only be consumed by, say, the Apple app store.

That's also the reason why this will never fly. Even if/when the W3C gave in to these demands, browser makers other than Apple and Microsoft would never stand for it. And even if they did somehow, it would be trivial for the open source community to release one without those features.

I'm not saying the outrage is entirely misplaced, because it's important to keep an eye out for what those companies have planned for our future. But as far as the fear of actual threat is concerned this should not alarm anybody.

<comment><USER9> _this push requires converting the web into a closed platform_

How so? It requires the ability to have "locked" content and a mechanism to "unlock" it, but how does this affect anything else? Honest question.

<comment><USER8> Because the browser is an open stack. There are many layers interacting from the network protocols up to the rendering and scripting engines, and they are _all_ open. The implementations are generally open, but more importantly it's possible to look into the data itself. You can see why this is a problem for DRM. To "properly" lock it down, you'd have to close the entire stack, and then you'd have to outlaw open source implementations. The whole thing is just not designed to disobey the user. Keep in mind that this would have to cover the _entire chain_ , from the network connection all the way up to the screen you are allowed to play the content on.

For that kind of DRM to work, your browser would have to be turned into a black box that is difficult to inspect, designed to be controlled entirely from remote, and illegal to alter.

If this series of events were to unfold, closing the browser would _not_ be done to benefit the content industry directly. They don't need that to deliver content, because they can always just put out an app and pump out their stuff that way. They can also just make a plugin if they want to deliver video content through the browser - which would possible with current technology today. That's not why they are proposing this. Instead this move would serve solely to restrict user freedom to use anything but approved apps for approved content.

So to make it clear why this outrage exists: there is absolutely no technical need to include this natively in HTML5. The proposal does not aim to give something to the content industry, it is instead designed to take something away from everybody else. That's not a subtle difference. But, as I said earlier, it's doubtful it will/could play out this way. The only way to achieve this "dream" is by making the web as it exists today illegal to use, and then enforce that ban through extensive ISP surveillance. In which case a DRM solution for HTML5 wouldn't matter anyway.

<comment><USER9> _To "properly" lock it down, you'd have to close the entire stack, and then you'd have to outlaw open source implementations._

ORLY? How does encryption work then? One could say "in order to properly encrypt your stuff, you actually need to make sure nobody is outside your window with binoculars", but that's not the job of encryption is it. I guess it would ultimately boil down to possession of private and public keys, and making it illegal to transmit those. So? As you said, they can deliver their stuff in proprietary apps already, what is lost when they use proprietary keys instead?

<comment><USER8> Yes, really. Encryption in the browser today works exactly the other way around. It's sole purpose is to ensure data integrity on my behalf as things are transmitted between me and my chosen endpoint. The endpoint is _not_ protected from me, and I can do whatever I want with this data once it arrives in my browser. DRM would be the antithesis of that. The problem is not they keys, it's what they keys can control or not.

<comment><USER10> They aren't trying to "properly" lock it down. They are trying to bring html5 up to the same level as current flash based solutions.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure you can do that already. HTTP has authentication, HTTPS gives you content encryption, rate limiting can prevent content scraping, I mean if you really wanted to you could do something with canvas (the hardware acceleration stuff that's being worked on could even make it perform fairly well, I suppose). Its not the same way but it could give the same result.

<comment><USER10> You can't do it already. What you described is not the same level as current flash solutions.

<comment><USER11> Well, I'm not particularly familiar with DRM apart from not liking it. What exactly does flash do that makes the DRM-loving lawyers consider it acceptable? From my point of view the kind of control offered by HTTPS and normal browser authentication is enough but the MPAA and RIAA (or the BBC, for that matter) clearly don't agree.

<comment><USER10> In flash, the bits that are coming down over HTTPS are DRMed. If you save them to your local disk you can't play it directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hate DRM too, and yet I love watching Netflix streaming. The fact is, if it's trivial to clone data to the point that regular users can do it (Napster, etc), the business model for online rental vanishes. The fact that DRM is always defeatable through hacks and analog loopholes doesn't matter: it just has to be good enough to deter the vast majority of users.

I believe we need comprehensive IP reform across the board, including strong consumer protections and freedoms for "owned" content. But if the vendors are using DRM anyway (and they are), I'd rather they do so in a standards-based, interoperable way.

<comment><USER13> "The fact is, if it's trivial to clone data to the point that regular users can do it (Napster, etc), the business model for online rental vanishes."

Yes, and if it is trivial to send photos without first developing them, the business model for Kodak will vanish! Why, if it were trivial for people to move a carriage from point A to point B, the business model for buggy whip makers might vanish!

Why should we be concerned about _obsolete_ business models failing? Why should we be concerned about _inherently bad_ business models, like "renting" bits, vanishing?

We need to eliminate anti-circumvention laws _as a first step_ , and then start talking about the possibility of completely upending the copyright system and replacing it with something that makes sense now that we have the Internet.

<comment><USER14> I don't think it's a given that this model is inherently bad, obsolete, or evil. Unlike say, horses and buggies, it's not clear that there's a superior alternative here.

In the case of video in particular, high quality content is still very expensive to produce. By removing the ability for movie / tv studios to make money from content, the likely outcome is we simply don't have big budget movies or high quality TV anymore.

Aside from all of the reasons why the businesses might want their revenue streams to stay intact, most consumers probably want it as well.

<comment><USER13> "Unlike say, horses and buggies, it's not clear that there's a superior alternative here."

"Better" is subjective. I think a system is "better" when it ensures that people can access entertainment regardless of their income, all things being equal.

Could we monetize entertainment without sacrificing such things? Surely we can. We can have serials, for example, such that the next installment will not be released to anyone until enough money is raised. We can make movie theaters an experience worth paying for, rather than focusing on the movie itself.

This same sort of argument -- "we have no alternatives!" -- was made when automobiles rendered animal-based transportation obsolete. Pedestrians might be struck by cars! The speeds are too dangerous! They are so much noisier than horses! Yet in the end, the car was "better" than the horse, and now we face riots when gasoline becomes scarce.

I think the same is true of the Internet, when it comes to copyrights, photography, post offices, and so forth. When I was a child, photography meant film, and you had to drop film off somewhere to have your pictures developed. Then digital cameras came out, and for all the complaints about quality (remember when 1 megapixel was a big deal?), the film camera business fell apart. It was not just that we had digital cameras, it was that digital photographs could be transmitted to anyone with an Internet connection at no real cost -- whether you sent one photo, or a hundred photos.

Is it clear that digital is "better" than film? It all depends on your definition of "better." Film has more pixels at lower cost. Digital still won, and it wins even when the pictures are taken using cell phone cameras. Digital present society with a new set of problems to deal with, like the ease with which pornography can be made (middle school girls can be tricked into taking pornographic photos of themselves and sending those photos to men on the Internet, etc.), but nobody claimed it was a panacea; it just solves the problems people actually care about better than its predecessors.

The same argument applies to entertainment. People do not really care about quality; the continued popularity of camrips, and the continued popularity of low-end, unoriginal movie franchises should be proof enough. People want entertainment quickly, they want no restrictions on when and where they can watch it, and they want to be able to go into work the day after a show aired and laugh about it with their coworkers. My mother does not care about copyrights or DRM laws when she rips DVDs and copies the rip to her tablet -- she just wants her favorite shows on her most portable computer when Internet service is not available.

Copyright is obsolete because it encourages a system that makes all of the above expensive or difficult, and because there is another system that makes all of the above less expensive and less difficult. Cars get people from point A to point B faster and with less expense than horses; nobody cared about the noise, pollution, or danger. The same is true of copyrights: nobody really worries about the risks copyright lobbyists whine about when they download a torrent, because copyrights _don't_ deliver what people really want nearly as well as the Internet does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> IMHO the problem is that the technology DRM is being conflated withe the politics and legalities of DRM circumvention.

I have no problem with companies selling DRM protected content. They can sell their property on whatever terms they like. It's theirs to sell, after all, and my right and responsibility to choose whether to buy it or not.

I do have a problem with the criminalisation of DRM circumvention, which reaches perhaps it's ultimate banality in the criminalisation of unlocking your own phone (which requires the cracking of DRM protected firmware). That's ridiculous and wrong.

So I understand the BBC needs DRM to meet it's contractual and legal obligations, while being against the DRM lobby that is behind the most egregious DRM maximalist policies. some might call it a fine line, but I think it's there.

</comment><comment><USER16> I used to work for one of these companies in exactly such a role. Initially my mission in standardization bodies was to look after consumer rights, but it changed to accommodation of IPR patents in the DRM field. There is a group of about 200 professionals in the DRM field, mostly former engineers (that have little grasp outside their expertise) and lawyers that work for companies with significant patent portfolios in the space. They are mostly the same crew, having worked on technologies such as SDMI, OMA-DRM, MPEG-DRM, DVB-CPT frameworks and others - technologies that never saw the light of day over the course of 15 years. I always saw it as a travelling circus - people moving from city to city and continent to continent. They work in a symbiosis with technology people from the entertainment industries, who are also part of the circus. What's important to note is that these people have big named companies on their business cards, but mostly have little involvement into day-to-day business and any products. They frankly just try to keep themselves important and thus employed. Until you give the people in the wandering circus a new assignment, they will always need to find new targets for their technology. I think that is the true reason underneath many of these DRM accomodation efforts into standardization bodies.

<comment><USER17> Could we get the names of these people? So that they can be rightfully shunned into quitting their quest against civilization and progress?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is less to do with the "public" internet as accessed from mobile/desktop browsers; it's about enabling the next-generation of HTML5 based interactive TVs and STBs to interoperate with already deployed DRM and encryption platforms, such as TDT premium in Spain, Top-up TV in the UK, and various CI+ based cable operators across Europe.

The DRM is already out there, HTML boxes are already out there, some sort of API is going to happen (even if not through the W3C then through some organisation like HbbTV or OIPF) and if the BBC sticks its fingers in its ears and ignores this then it risks being stuck with an objectively worse API that its luckless developers will end up bashing their heads against at some point in the future.

(Incidentally, this is the thread from the last time this came up; <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620432> )

</comment><comment><USER19> How exactly would DRM for HTML5 work? Couldn't I just fork Chronimum or Firefox and make the browser save the video content in a file rather than showing it?

<comment><USER20> It wouldn't. DRM relies on obfuscation, and open source software obviously can't have that. They'll probably write a horribly insecure Silverlight plugin that will be cracked in a matter of minutes.

ED: It looks like they'll have a "plugin" that does authentication with a remote server, and then decodes the frames sent to it. The browser displays them, or the DRM removal software sniffs the keys and decrypts the content anyway.

This is how they think it will work [1], and the full proposal [2]

[1]: [https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- med...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- media/stack_overview.png)

[2]: [https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- med...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- media/encrypted-media-fpwd.html)

<comment><USER21> > a horribly insecure Silverlight plugin

This is about the HTML5 spec, so I don't even know where you get that idea from. They want to be able to lock down content which is embedded with the video tag.

Personally, I don't like the idea of it tying into the operating system. I'm willing to accept any solution that can be built into browser binaries, cross- platform. I don't like the idea of a solution that doesn't work as well on Linux or Macs, but if media companies think this sort of solution is necessary, we should meet them half-way.

<comment><USER13> "if media companies think this sort of solution is necessary, we should meet them half-way."

Or we could not meet them half-way and remind them that they do not own the web and that their business model is as out of date as Kodak. Why should we accept any more attacks on the freedom and openness of the web or the greater Internet? This companies are the ones who need to change: they need to adapt their businesses to the realities of this century's technology.

<comment><USER4> > they need to adapt their businesses to the realities of this century's > technology.

You say this like it's immensely easy.

So say you're head of HBO's original programming dept. It can cost over 100 million dollars to produce one season of a quality show. You can only release it on a medium that allows it to be continuously and freely distributed. How do you make money?

Ads and Product placement is about it. You really think you'll make that 100 million back?? Especially considering that people could just edit out the ads and redistribute your work, it's really only product placement that could make money.

Operating at a loss is not adapting. There's a reason that all of the content currently on netflix/hulu/etc. is already using DRM-enabled plugins. Because you're a f*ing lunatic if you think you can make money through any other method. Throwing out the same old "they must adapt" mantra isn't getting either side anywhere close to a healthy solution.

<comment><USER13> "you're a f*ing lunatic if you think you can make money through any other method"

[citation needed]

<comment><USER4> So there is another method of making money for Large Production Movie/T.V.? Please enlighten me.

My citation is reality. Take a look around.

<comment><USER13> We live in a world of government-granted monopolies given to companies like HBO. It is not terribly shocking that those monopolies lead to profits, and that companies that fail to take advantage of the copyright system would have trouble.

You are claiming, with no justification, that in the absence of copyright there would be no profit available for people who make entertainment. I am not really sure where you get that idea from. It is not too hard to imagine ways to monetize a TV show in the absence of copyright -- as a simple example, a studio could refuse to broadcast the next installment until enough people have paid.

There, you have a way to make money on TV without copyright. Now can we stop attacking the Internet and start embracing the reality of the 21st century?

<comment><USER4> >We live in a world of government-granted monopolies given to companies like HBO.

I don't even know how to respond to this... last I checked cable and Satellite companies don't force HBO on you. And while cable companies held a semi- monopoly before Satellites, that market got disrupted like 30 years ago. Let it go.

>You are claiming, with no justification, that in the absence of copyright there would be no profit available for people who make entertainment.

Not completely. I'm claiming there wouldn't be enough profit to support the current proliferation or high budget entertainment options. I highly doubt shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Downtown Abbey, etc. would have gotten the funding they needed through crowdsourcing. You typically need a large studio with deep pockets to take on a project of that size. And most of them rely on ad revenue during broadcast, something that would likely diminish if there was no copyright and any TV studio was allowed to rebroadcast with different ads/no ads. Or if people were allowed to video tape it, copy it w/ no ads, and resell it.

Let's take a look at that simple example of yours. So who pays for the pilot episode to be produced? The T.V. studio? And after they air it then what? Hope enough people liked it to both pay for the production costs and a decent profit as well as fund the next episode? And you think that's a sustainable model??

If systems like you mention would be profitable why aren't there non- copyrighted entertainment options raking in the money right now? The internet has been around for awhile. There's nothing stopping people from releasing high quality non-copyrighted content and making money from it. What's the hold up? Government Monopolies??

<comment><USER13> "If systems like you mention would be profitable why aren't there non- copyrighted entertainment options raking in the money right now?"

...because they have to compete with studios that enjoy that monopoly that I mentioned above. You seem to have been confused about what that monopoly is; I think you typically call it _copyright_. Yes, copyright is a special, government-granted monopoly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Let me preface this by saying that I am not in favor of DRM. However, from the perspective of working inside a media company, I can say with certainty that without some way of "protecting" the media stream, media companies will continue to use flash exclusively for distributing content.

Yes, of course you clever folk can find a way around any kind of blockage. That is not the point. It is security theater. It is the media equivalent of asking you to take off your shoes and put them through the x-ray. It does nothing to protect us from any kind of danger, but it is necessary to assuage the fears of powerful people with irrational beliefs.

Because, a media company is licensing content from all kinds of different sources. All those sources have to agree that they do not want or need any special protection. It won't do us technologists any good to petulantly insist that they distribute their IP with no DRM. It must be voluntary, and we should direct our efforts to figuring out how get their willing consent. That is, the CONTENT owners. Not the distributors, like the BBC, who have to make the content owners happy or they simply don't get the content.

So yes, Trunnel is correct. We need this, or some other equally compelling theater. The alternatives are that we continue to use flash, and iOS apps, or we get no content at all, from the content owners that need the theater to be happy.

</comment><comment><USER23> Personally, I'm ok with the simple DRM scheme, where javascript can pass a decryption key into the video tag. Throw in a few extra features, like a header at the start of the file telling the browser to only play the video file on supported domains (to prevent websites that steal by embedding) and disable saving the move to disk.

To the content companies, it will be a lot better than nothing. It gives the same level of protection against casual copying as the more complex scheme, and absolutely every browser can support it.

The more complex scheme is an absolute nightmare, essentially bringing us back to the proprietary plugins (like flash) we have worked so hard to get away from. And it won't even work, there is no way they can stop proficient users from ripping the streams. This scheme will be cracked in a few weeks after it is released.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm confused. Doesn't this book by Cory have DRM?

<http://www.amazon.com/Homeland-ebook/dp/B00AEC8O2K>

If he's so hot on this issue, why is he selling his creativity with DRM, thereby hurting open standards which don't support it?

<comment><USER25> That's a condition of selling on the Amazon platform. Doctorow also makes his most of his books available on his site, for free even, under a Creative Commons license in basically every format imaginable, eg: <http://craphound.com/down/download.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> We need a standard for DRM for Netflix, Hulu, etc. Otherwise they will forever use Flash or Silverlight. How can anyone argue against it? Content providers must protect their content from being stolen. Do you want to make an app and everyone steals it and doesn't pay for it? Probably not.

<comment><USER17> I've got a standard for DRM: don't use it. It's easy, cheap and doesn't require any laws or draconian software requirements on end users. I've been using this DRM standard for decades, and yet the people who make the software I use and the music and movies I enjoy are still rolling in dough!

<comment><USER4> So you've never bought a DVD or streamed anything through Flash or Silverlight by a major publishing studio? Never watched a music video on Youtube that it didn't allow you to directly download?

If so, congrats on sticking to principles. But that's not really a realistic solution for the majority of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would like to know how they plan to get Firefox and Chrome to support that. As free software, adding such functionality would be moot, as it can be trivially by-passed.

Or do they want to ignore about 80% of Internet users?

<comment><USER28> I can see the future: a BBC iPlayer which only supports a few specific web browsers. And the masses will happily "upgrade". All PC manufacturers will ship browsers that support DRM out of the box. (The users want their software to Just Work, after all).

<comment><USER29> iPlayer already only supports a few specific web browsers that have particular proprietary plugins installed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> DRM is not necessary for the web.

Some content owners say that it is. That's a lie.

High-definition digital video gets broadcast over the air _in the clear_ all the time.

Content owners tried to get DRM (the broadcast flag) into over-the-air broadcasts, saying that that was the only way they would allow digital broadcasts. The broadcast flag failed, content owners caved, and now they're broadcasting everything in the clear.

The HTML5 encrypted media extensions are another iteration of the same thing. If we stand up to the content owners, they'll cave again, just like they did last time.

</comment><comment><USER31> I would like to put aside the fact about DRM and how I do not agree with what it represents. What upsets me here, is the article it self. It is very sloppy, no thought in it, no details. Basically worth of a tweet. I would really enjoy if people would put more time and work into what they are publishing.

</comment><comment><USER32> UK readers:

You might want to register your opposition with the BBC here: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complain-online/>

Takes less than 3 min.

</comment><comment><USER33> I made a petition: [https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/save-the-bbc-from- drm...](https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/save-the-bbc-from-drm-daleks)

</comment><comment><USER34> I would never you a browser that had a "Sorry, cannot perform that operation now" dialog box (as many DVD players do to keep you from skipping pre-roll advertising.

</comment><comment><USER35> the thing being missed here is that any DRM method _will_ be broken. why tie a standard to something that will inevitably be broken?

</comment><comment><USER36> Shitty sensationalist title is sensationalist.

NB: Yes, I'm aware s/he copied it from the original article.</comment>


Raspberry Pi Model A+ Now on Sale - <AUTHOR> http://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/#raspberry-pi-model-a-plus-on-sale

<comment><USER2> Somehow I have the feeling all these different form factors will do the raspberry more harm than good. Is there a lot of demand from the community for smaller versions?

<comment><USER3> How would it do harm? By fragmentation of their market maybe? Not sure how/why more models would be a bad thing</comment></comment>


"Listen to your APIs, see your Apps" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Netsil_HQ/listen-to-your-apis-see-your-apps-a91ece5aa5bd#.defw3v4rp <comment><USER2> Interesting approach...</comment>


How to Get a Great Linux Laptop at a Perfect Price – ThinkPad Without OS - <AUTHOR> https://quanticdev.com/articles/linux-laptop-at-perfect-price <comment><AUTHOR> In my experience, Lenovo ThinkPad laptops are one of the least problematic laptop series with Linux. I wanted to create a buying guide for fellow Linux users looking for good value, so here it is.</comment>


Ask HN: What is it that you forget about most when it comes to your health? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Keeping track of carbs is pretty hard for me, depending on your weight you should eat X amount of carbs a day. These days everything you can eat has a lot of carbs. Keeping track of how many carbs you've eaten so far during the day can be tricky if you don't know how many carbs the food you eat have.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a deficiency in my iron levels; I'm suppose to have a medical exam once a year but I always forget that, also I need to have a especial diet in order to help my body increasing iron levels but for me is very difficult to follow up

</comment><comment><USER4> Mindlessly walking to the fridge and stuffing something in my mouth, then doing it again, then realizing I was actually just thirsty.

Also, sleeping enough and not at such weird times.

</comment><comment><USER5> My vitamins. I know my diet is awful due to low budget and time, but I try to counter that by taking daily multi-vitamins. Unfortunately, I get into streaks where I just forget them.

</comment><comment><USER6> I always forget about buying the vitamins that I need. my defenses are low and when I'm sick is that I remember to buy vitamin C.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not precisely forgetting but being to lazy for exercising... other than regular sex, I haven't hit the gym in months.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a problem with drinking too much soda. I often find myself drinking more than I'd want to.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sleeping. I average two all-nighters a week, which is doing terrible things to my health :/

</comment><comment><USER10> The amount of salt and fat that I eat.

</comment><comment><USER11> Dont eat fried food!

</comment><comment><USER12> for me, definitely my diet. eating a combination of food that amounts to 3k calories plus the right amount of protein, carbs, veggies, what have you, is definitely hard for me, especially when I'm out an' about a lot.

</comment><comment><USER13> For me, it's avoiding eating too many small children. They can be very addictive and fattening if one isn't careful.Personally if you have the same problem as me, I suggest doing what I did and having a few more dogs and cats in the day.They help fill you up and divert some of the craving to keep you down to a healthy 2 or 3 kids a day.

<comment><AUTHOR> that is really creepy man, fail joke</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Facebook having scalability issues? - <AUTHOR>

has anyone else noticed that facebook pages are not rendering as quickly as of late and every once in a while when it does the formatting is off?
I have seen it several times over the past few weeks in a variety of browsers and different computers I work on both Mac's and PC's and use google chrome or firefox depending on what I am working on)
seems like they are starting to have some of the "growing pains" I would have expected long ago, with two outages in the last month and now these problems I just wonder if that is the case
obviously they are well funded and should be able to overcome this without a doubt, but what sort of affect with this have on their stellar reputation of little downtime and rockstar developers?
thoughts? <comment><USER2> I have noticed the same issues here. Thought it was my systems at first, but then noticed it from other systems and various browsers as well. Seems like it happens for me more in Chrome than other browsers, but it does happen with Firefox and IE as well.

Since it does not happen all the time I can't explain it. My initial thought would be they made a CSS change somewhere and the old CSS is cached on one of their servers. When you happen to hit that cached version you get the incorrect formatting. IMO.

While it is a growing pain, it is a minor one at that. They will overcome it and move on.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my app - Photobooth Webcam Contests - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
Just launched our app http://letsphotobooth.com.  It's a contest site for themed webcam photos. A new theme is presented every week. At the end of each week, a winner is announced.
You rack up points, take pics and have fun.
Feedback appreciated.
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> clickable link: <http://letsphotobooth.com></comment>


Similarity Measures for Text Document Clustering (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.milanmirkovic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/pg049_Similarity_Measures_for_Text_Document_Clustering.pdf

<comment><USER2> A summary: They use the bag-of-words model with stopwords and stemming, and compute document vectors, where each word is a dimension, and the weight is the TF-IDF value for that word. The metrics covered: Euclidean distance, cosine similarity, Jaccard coefficient, Pearson correlation coefficient, averaged Kullback-Leibler divergence. They use these metrics with K-means clustering, and evaluate each on purity and entropy of the generated clusters. The purity measure evaluates the coherence of a cluster, that is, the degree to which a cluster contains documents from a single category. The entropy measure evaluates the distribution of categories in a given cluster. In general, the smaller the entropy value, the better the quality of the cluster is.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm new to the CS paper-reading game, so maybe someone can enlighten me: is it normal for a paper (like this one) to come without any source code or instructions to reproduce the results? I've played around with some tf-idf code before and this paper was fun to read, but I was disappointed that I couldn't find any source code.

<comment><USER4> It's from a University of Waikato researcher so they are likely using Weka to do all the "textbook" transformations before the final analysis.[1]

You could also go a long way towards reproducing the results with Python by installing NLTK and sci-kit learn. NLTK for tokenizing, stemming and similarity metrics.[2] Scikit-learn for tf-idf vectorization, k-means and even some of the datasets like 20news.[3] I use NLTK and scikit-learn for [http://jkl.io](http://jkl.io)

Weka has a partially free book and NLTK has a free book for you to look into as well. Scikit-learn has some of the best documentation and examples I've seen. But I agree that more papers should come with working implementations. The problem is that academics are judged on their publications and publications frequently build on previous ones, so the work for this paper might be the starting point for two more papers the author is planning and they don't want someone to just come along and publish those logical extensions off their hard work as they want the credit for themselves.

It will be hard to change this kind of academic culture until getting your dataset or code used and cited becomes more prestigious in metrics used for academic promotions.

[1][http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/](http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/) [2][http://www.nltk.org/](http://www.nltk.org/) [3][http://scikit- learn.org/stable/](http://scikit-learn.org/stable/)

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying I cannot reproduce these results on my own – that's something I might do because it would be fun. It confuses me that a paper describing results that are largely dependent on software behavior don't include said software. That's a good point about getting research-sniped, though, and not one I've heard before.

<comment><USER5> Yes in general in computer science, I've found people don't tend to include/reference the source code they write - which is quite a pity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Let's Encrypt in the spotlight - <AUTHOR> https://dancvrcek.com/letsencrypt-spotlight/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a basic explanation of some of the stuff on the Let's Encrypt rate limit page (with some funny stuff mixed in to make it sounds like the rate limits for IPv6 are somehow higher), followed by a link to a product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Followed by a link to a page with all the limits we could find.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The submission URL should probably be changed to [https://keychest.net/content/letsencrypt_numbers_to_know](https://keychest.net/content/letsencrypt_numbers_to_know)

The current link is just a poor summary of the data on that page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny enough, the page with a full analysis didn't get any upvotes. It seems that a short summary is more interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ironic that the "https in browsers" figure uses a screenshot with a certificate MITM'd by the antivirus software. If you see "Secure" in the green bar instead of the domain name and EV attributes - your antivirus software is MITM'ing you.

<comment><USER5> Not true, it means that the certificate is not EV.

I see 'Secure' on my Chromium running under Debian, without any antivirus software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ManageEngine Key Manager Plus ([https://www.manageengine.com/key- manager/](https://www.manageengine.com/key-manager/)) automates the entire process of procuring certificates, track expiry, renew and deployment of Let's Encrypt certificates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks really nice! But starting at $395/yr sounds steep.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for your kind words. ManageEngine Key Manager Plus has got lot more features than just SSL Certificate Management. Please get in touch with us via email@example.com to know more about the product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Like with a lot of tech trends, I seem to be one of those people who doesn't "get" the excitement about letsencrypt.

I don't find the process of generating a CSR and submitting it to a CA for signing to be more complicated than setting up letsencrypt. In fact I think it's quite a bit easier.

<comment><USER8> It's free, and automated so you don't run into TLS outage post-mortems where the question "why does the cert expire at christmas anyways?" is "Because it expired same time last year and during the emergency repair we used the default lifetime period of one year."

<comment><USER9> Why is your LE broken? 'because 1 of the 12 automated renewals last 3 years (to compare vs 3 year paid certificate at 4 euro) failed for reason X, Y or Z'. Be it them being down, be it your uplink being down, be it your dns malfunctioning, be it another massive spamhaus-sized-internet-disrupting-ddos. There are plenty of ways a LE renewal can go wrong, and having this 'chance' occur 4 times a year, i find bad practice.

Just because something is free, doesn't make it better. And having 12x more points in same timeframe where the automated renewal can fail, certainly doesn't make it better statistically.

Also i grew up with the notion, 'nothing in the world is free, except the sun'. So i wouldn't be surprised if they will start to monetise this LE user base at some point in time.

<comment><USER10> > Be it them being down, be it your uplink being down, be it your dns > malfunctioning, be it another massive spamhaus-sized-internet-disrupting- > ddos.

I have my certbot set to run once a week with --keep-until-expiring, so it will try to issue a new certificate when the old one's remaining validity is less than a month. I could also set it to run daily, because it doesn't actually do anything if the cert is still valid for long enough. But a week works on my (admittedly small) scale.

So unless you're experiencing a multi-week DNS malfunction or multi-week DDoS (in which case you're in some deep shit anyway), you should be fine.

<comment><USER9> So you prefer to have something (which most people have ) with root privileges to pull data unattended, 52 times a year, from some 3rd party host via python then to manually do (if you wanted ONLY once in 3 years) something once a year manually?

Is this really what i am reading?

<comment><USER8> Certbot isn't the only acme client in town. I use Chef personally: [https://github.com/schubergphilis/chef- acme/](https://github.com/schubergphilis/chef-acme/)

Professionally, it's not once every three years, it's that x the number of clients we host. Which is a lot. Many are clamoring for LE, because it's within their budget: $0. So yea, I want to automate that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Every time LetsEncrypt is brought up I am reminded of "if it's for free, You are the product". In this case it is one's servers. A single company has a hand on the pulse and runs software on your server in exchange for continuous "convenience". I am still NOT buying in, diversifying SSL certs from reputable companies with 12 (or sometimes 13) months validity are still ok for me in 2017.

<comment><USER12> This seems a little tin-foil-hatty. The only information which Let's Encrypt receives is the domain name that the certificate is for (which is public anyways for any CA implementing certificate transparency). The Certbot software is open-source and easily verifiable, and there's multiple independently developed alternatives available if you don't like it.

<comment><USER13> Certbot developer here.

If you don't like Certbot, we definitely encourage you to use one of the many other implementations:

[https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/list-of-client- implement...](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/list-of-client- implementations/2103)

Some of these are much lighter weight than Certbot and have many fewer dependencies. You can also take your pick of what language they are written in and how they are installed on your system.

You're also welcome to write your own client that speaks the ACME protocol. Let's Encrypt is near to rolling out an API endpoint that will speak the IETF- standardized version of ACME, developed through an open standards process and in consultation with other implementers.

I know that some people have said they don't like running a large new application as root, even when it's open source. So, please have a look at some of the other clients and see if one of them strikes your fancy!

Let's Encrypt's operational funding is thanks to these entities

[https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/](https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/)

which view the service as worthwhile and important and have chosen to donate funds to support its operation. The organization is overseen by these people

[https://letsencrypt.org/isrg/](https://letsencrypt.org/isrg/)

In this model there is no need to charge users for certificates or try to indirectly monetize the use of the service, although users are very welcome to donate if they find the service useful, and Let's Encrypt may be more sustainable if some users choose to do so.

<comment><USER14> > I know that some people have said they don't like running a large new > application as root, even when it's open source.

Certbot could be configured to run without root with little effort, at least the part exposed to the web that was my concern.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Taplytics BigQuery – Query and visualize mobile data - <AUTHOR> https://taplytics.com/bigquery <comment><USER2> All I see is a lot of big talk.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like a major project but it can't be a Show HN unless there's something for people try out. Is there? I took a quick look but only saw a landing page and an invitation to chat.

<comment><USER4> Hey dang, sorry about that. Thanks so much for the clarification for the future!</comment></comment>


WhiteyBoard: An Instant Whiteboard For your Instant Office - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/25/whiteyboard-an-instant-whiteboard-for-your-instant-office/ Created by YC 2010 Alumni as a side project. <comment><USER2> Jason-

You've got a few issues here. I'm only buying it because you're on HN, otherwise i'd have run away, but:

\- Your paypal integration is busted. I can't complete checkout. \- Your billing page seems to still display http - i know you're using an iframed wuform-- but it's not going to cut it. People want to give money. You're not helping them do it.

makes a billion times more sense to give up on the iframe and direct straight to wuforms. If you would rather a more integrated e-comm experience, i suggest shopify or similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> We seem to be processing checkout fine. I understand your concerns with the http, I thought it would be fine since we are using Wufoo iframe, but I guess that's not cool for the general public. I really appreciate you pointing that out.

If you still can't process or feel uncomfortable, email me your paypal address and I will send you a PayPal request.

My email: jason at tinycomb.com

<comment><USER3> If you want to use Shopify I can give you half off the sticker price for a fellow HNer.

<comment><USER4> Hi xal, can I use Shopify for charging monthly subscriptions for my webapp?

<comment><USER3> Sorry you can't. It's something people ask us all the time but it's just not the battle we picked ( so to speak ).

I haven't got personal experience with them but I'm hearing good things about chargify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems very similar/identical to Magic Whiteboard - <http://www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk/> \- a UK product that was featured on the UK version of dragon's den - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QvguJJNilA> \- is Whiteyboard a completely separate company or have Magic Whiteboard not yet got a US patent?

<comment><AUTHOR> This has nothing to do with them. Have a separate patent in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not to go off topic or anything but is this kind of an unfortunate name? "Whitey" has pretty negative connotations here in the US anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> The co-founder is Australian. I couldn't sway him on the name. I agree, it is questionable and apologies if anyone is offended. Our team is multi-national and they all voted to move forward with the name.

<comment><USER7> I think it's too funny to be offensive.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's what I thought too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how well the whiteboard would work on a "standard" (North American) textured wall.

In the video, the person (obviously a model) sticks the whiteboard on the door (not the wall). The door is clearly a very smooth surface.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, we are going to have version 2 ready soon, which will alleviate any problems with majorly textured walls or brick walls. Currently, this version works on textured walls. It gets the job done. You can follow us on twitter.com/whiteyboards to stay updated. I'll be sure to have the team get on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really like this idea Jason! & you can't really beat that price point (especially compared to the INCREDULOUSLY expensive ideapaint)

But, this reminds me of the $28 DIY 4' x 8' whiteboard?

[http://chrismetcalf.net/blog/archives/2007/06/16/how-to- dirt...](http://chrismetcalf.net/blog/archives/2007/06/16/how-to-dirt-cheap- wall-sized-whiteboards/)

Anyone ever tried making their own?

<comment><USER10> "Showerboard" ghosts excessively and is very hard to clean. I ended up with a big sheet of clear acrylic from "home depot" instead. It was 36" x 72" (3 feet by 6 feet) and cost about $48. It worked perfectly, was easy to hang because its quite rigid and makes a very cool effect when you shine a light on the edges. (The marker marks light up a little).

You can find the stuff in sheets of many sizes by the window and glass repair stuff.

<comment><USER11> Waxing the showerboard helps. I'd suggest experimenting with different brands of automotive wax to see which one is easiest to clean without resisting the markers. My middle school geometry teacher used waxed showerboard (over 10 years ago) and it worked quite well. Thanks for the idea of using the acrylic. I may have to try that; maybe I can combine it with a FTIR multitouch system or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I click on the play button, a new window opens, but it's blank... Put up some photos maybe?

I'm on FF 3.5.8

</comment><comment><USER13> How hard/expensive would it be to get a simple pattern printed on this, say, small faint dots forming a 1" grid? I currently use a pair of metal whiteboards with pre-printed grids (glued to a folding table) for my D&D setup. I'd be really interested in using this as a replacement, but I'd rather not have to draw in the grid by hand.

Even better: if I supplied a black and white, vector-graphic image, could I get it faintly printed on one of these sheets?

<comment><AUTHOR> this will be on version 2. Coming soon. Follow us on Twitter.com/whiteyboards for those updates. DM us for any other requests, I like the feedback from HN.

<comment><USER14> Offer some preprinted with browser chrome for web developers. I'd buy that. Or underlines (for to-do lists).

<comment><USER15> How about 'static stickers' (static cling film) with various overlays, browser chrome, iphone template, grids, lines, etc. Can stick to the board wherever you want and write over them as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems they put the price up $10 because of the techcrunch feature, wonder if that will bite them on the arse.

Would be interesting to see the ghosting / soaking reviews, does it leak into the wall, how hard is it to clean.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was seriously a mistake. It was never supposed to cost $15. We launched the website last night and had a mix up. If you do a wayback query, you will see the homepage has always said $25.

<comment><USER16> Okay cool, any chance of UK delivery if I pay shipping (I also work with a UK sticker company if your after a UK distributer)

<comment><AUTHOR> Follow us on Twitter.com/whiteyboards to stay up on international shipments. We will start accepting them next week sometime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What I would like to know is where to buy 3M VHB double-sided stickers. They're much better than the crap 3M and others sell in supermarkets, which can't hold an asthenic gnat.

Judging from the peel-off paper I saved, that's the stuff our local highway- toll radio-pay company uses to hold the transceivers to the windscreen. One nearly needs a crowbar to pry them off the glass.

</comment><comment><USER18> Anybody using IdeaPaint? --> <http://www.ideapaint.com>

Rust-Oleum sells a product too. --> <http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=128>

<comment><USER19> ideapaint is expensive!

<comment><USER20> ... but worth it. The cheap stuff stinks. Trust me.

<comment><AUTHOR> IdeaPaint is very expensive. If you don't want to paint and just want something up that is functional, this is perfect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just a note. You are already using gmail so why not sign up for google apps so you can have an email that isn't gmail. It looks a lot more professional and it won't cost you anything as long as you don't have more than I think 3 users on it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Go to the nearby Lowe's and ask for Tile Board. You get a 4' x 8' for $13-and- change. Just glue it to your wall. I have it at my home (in fact, I got them cut in smaller sizes so my three year old can put one on the floor and draw on it).

</comment><comment><USER23> Any word on how easy it is to remove? I'm planning on moving in a few months and I wouldn't want to leave it stuck to the wall in my current apartment.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just bought one. Going to attach it to my draftsman table I picked up at a thrift shop - should make quite a useful work surface...

</comment><comment><USER25> Jason, are you running a micro retail business and a seed stage growth venture at the same time?

Any advice for someone aspiring to do the same?

</comment><comment><USER26> How easy is it take off the wall and put back on repeatedly or is this meant for a one time application?

</comment><comment><USER27> We need one of these!

<comment><AUTHOR> I know you do Kevin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not sure why, but the video doesn't load in Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER29> Hi Json, I'd hope I could buy one here, from China!

</comment><comment><USER26> can this work as a projector screen you think? can you make it in 10 foot wide?

</comment><comment><USER30> how are you doing distribution? by hand or is that outsourced?</comment>


Ask HN: How to structure sales compensation package at b2b startup? - <AUTHOR> I am the founder of a startup which provides a SaaS to small business owners. Given the specific branch of companies we are targeting, direct sales works best.
We expect our sales reps to make between 3-6 sales each month, yet we are struggling to find a compensation structure which works well for the team and we are comfortable scaling up to 40-50 people over the next few months.
Ideally it would be a mix of fixed salary and commission, incentivising those who can constantly achieve 4-6 sales/month and providing no incentive for those with 2 sales or fewer each month to stick around.
Thanks for any tips/links. <comment><USER3> [https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/sales-representative- sala...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/sales-representative-salary- SRCH_KO0,20.htm)

Eighteen percent of respondents used a mix of 80 percent salary and 20 percent commission. Sixteen percent used a 70 percent salary, 30 percent commission ration. And 14 percent reported a mix of 60 percent salary and 40 percent commission. [http://www.inc.com/guides/sales-compensation- plan.html](http://www.inc.com/guides/sales-compensation-plan.html)

<comment><USER3> As for 2 or less sales you need to set up a quota and if they don't hit it over 2 months they're gone(or something like that). But you need to also figure out your sales cycle. How long does it take someone to make a buying decision. The longer the decision cycle the more the salary.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply.

We have a good idea of the sales cycle etc, just weren't/aren't happy with the compensation structure. Evaluating a sales person's performance is not the difficult part, we were hoping for a change which puts off the kind of person who sits around for two months just going through the motions, yet gives a motivated team member the space they need to reach an amazing salary.

Thanks for the food for thought.

<comment><USER4> You don't structure your compensation in such a way that makes people leave. If they don't perform, you just fire them. That's the sales game.

Your comp plan doesn't concern itself with punishment. You lay out quota and a stretch goal and if your reps hit them, you compensate them dearly. Why not just hire a VPS who can do this for you if you want to scale to 40 reps anyway.

Are you in a jurisdiction where firing someone is not as easy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Luckily, SaaS sales compensation has been largely figured out and documented. I implore you to NOT benchmark numbers to inc.com guides or sales jobs in general.

If you do, you will likely frame your salary targets poorly against the wrong baselines and your reps will figure this out and quickly get jobs at other SaaS companies.

"Sales Rep" is a bit ambiguous to SaaS orgs which are usually made up of "Sales Development Reps" (entry level, openers, demo-bookers) and "Account Executives" (demo-performers, closers, opportunity managers).

I would search for the title "Account Executive" in your region on Glassdoor for hints on base salaries and total compensation.

Angellist is also a great place to get a sense for how similar start-ups are positioning themselves in job listings. (maybe look up your competitors)

Sales salaries are typically presented in OTE (On Target Earnings) or essentially, Base Salary + Commission for the year. OTE is usually around 20% of annual quotas. SMB annual quotas are usually in the range 300k - <USER2> quotas = so $60k-$100k OTE packages.

Best Practices: Cost of living should guide a guaranteed base salary. Don't be stingy on the commission, read the Jason Lemkin article at the bottom to get a sense for what those %'s should be.

Hyperbolizing a bit, but you generally get what you pay for, no SaaS company ever went under because it paid too much commission, assuming it did so with cash-flow in mind and had minimal churn. Also, uncapped commission is the norm in SaaS, don't brag about it, it's like bragging about having bathrooms.

Commission should also be a clear % of every incremental sale or super easy mental math, so that the rep can visualize for every X in sales they get Y without having to pull out an excel model. (although the best ones will anyway)

Try to avoid complicated accelerators, multi-tiered goal structures, decelerators and building a too Darwinian firing culture, those places can be toxic. 1 accelerator is okay.

DO - build a model where most hires can hit quota and that you can really kill it if you go above and beyond. A culture of winning.

DONT - make quota the pie in the sky, penultimate, out of reach thing. It sounds obvious but it's not, set people up for success and you will find it.

You should read _everything_ by Jason Lemkin and Tom Tunguz on this topic, especially these two posts:

[https://www.saastr.com/a-framework-and-some-ideas-for- your-f...](https://www.saastr.com/a-framework-and-some-ideas-for-your-first- sales-comp-plan/)

And really, really think about this: [http://tomtunguz.com/smallest-acv-to- justify-inside-sales-te...](http://tomtunguz.com/smallest-acv-to-justify- inside-sales-team/)</comment>


Ask HN: I found out a hacker's phone number. Now what? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys,
I run a SaaS business in Canada, and I had an individual attempting to gain access to one of our customer's account illegally via social engineering (pretending that she's an employee of the customer) I asked for her phone number as a part of verification process (completely made up), and I was able to speak with her briefly. During our phone call, she blatantly lied about being my customer's wife when I know for fact that he's single.
I checked out the government's website about reporting a cybercrime, but it seems to have very little resources available. Their office's closed right now, so I'll give them a call tomorrow.
Has anyone experienced a situation like this? <comment><USER2> I wouldn't follow the comments suggesting vigilante retaliation against the hacker via the phone number. For all you know it belongs to a second victim (e.g. hacked Skype number).

</comment><comment><USER3> While the crime is done using computers, it seems like it could be fraud, if they are trying to use the access to spend money or steal information to do something with?

Given the nature of the attack being aimed directly for one customer, if I were you, I would possibly alert that customer that something funny is up. That way they might be able to prevent the same thing happening at other companies they use that might not be as careful.

As far as dealing with the police, if they didn't manage to get anything, I wouldn't bother. Keep the info around just in case.

</comment><comment><USER4> Make a note for the support people to ignore fraud attempts matching the details.

Then move on.

<comment><USER5> DO NOT DO THIS. Having worked in customer care security, I can gaurantee that the note will be missed or ignored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Give her access to an empty account, then log everything she does. Block her and report as necessary.

</comment><comment><USER7> Let the actual victim(the customer) know and leave it at that. They can file a criminal complaint or take further action as they see it fit.

Don't go about acting like a vigilante. What if she does get arrested but she is the guy's gf/ex? What if she is a legit business partner? This things can will often go south in differeny ways. You were not target,a victim or a criminal detective.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think you should just report it to the RCMP and leave it be. Vigilante action can have unforeseen consequences and since you are a business owner, it's best avoided.

p.s. incorporate stronger authentication mechanisms (2FA) for your offering, if not already.

</comment><comment><USER9> Definitely report it to the RCMP, but you can also report it to the US FBI via [https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx](https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx). I'd suggest not mentioning that you're a Canadian citizen; just let them assume you're American so they don't use your citizenship as an excuse to just shut down the case and ignore it. I'm not suggesting you lie of course, but let them draw their own conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's most surely not the hacker's phone number.

<comment><USER11> Definitely: "hackers phone number" is an oxymoron, because no somewhat experienced hacker would ever give out their personal number.

Don't be shocked if it's some twilio or google voice number

<comment><USER12> It IS possible that they screwed up. But yeah, I doubt it

<comment><USER10> If you attack the number you might hit an innocent bystander whose number as been misused by the hacker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would randomly send her made up verification codes :D

</comment><comment><USER14> One thing that might ruffle their feathers a bit is if you figure out what time zone they're in, and then give them a call in the middle of the night.

</comment><comment><USER15> he might try doing it again, that's often called spear phishing in a more nerdy manner, just let people around you know this happened and move on.

</comment><comment><USER16> FCC has a page for this

<comment><USER17> Link please?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> List the phone number on Craigslist for a free tv in several large cities. (I've done this as pranks to friends, they'll get several hundred texts and phone calls)

<comment><USER19> Thats a bit scummy of you

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Give it to the 'Your auto warranty is about to expire' people. Can there be a worse punishment?</comment>


Ask HN atheists & agnostics: Are you strictly materialist?  - <AUTHOR>

Or do you believe there may be more going on within our day to day realities than meets the eye, or that science hasn't detected yet? <comment><USER2> I find scientific models of the world satisfying; I think our understanding of the world as being made of material and no more is capable of explaining everything we experience. The sketches of how this and that could be so that are written by this and that philosopher seem more plausible to me than any "supernatural" account. (Of course, if we discovered something "supernatural" to exist after all, then we would immediately start to consider it "natural".) So I say, with reasonable small amounts of doubt, that we've managed to hone onto the 'gist' of reality via the scientific method.

However, I'm more interested in trying to be right tomorrow than I am to defending any given position that I hold today, so I'm not _strictly_ anything. I.e.: <http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> The two aren't mutually exclusive. If something exists, it's part of material reality, whether or not we've detected or explained it.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. The gist of the question is whether you personally believe anything about the nature of reality that isn't flatly deductible by science.

<comment><USER4> Given how little we know about reality it's not practical to answer the question right now. Let's just say there's a lot we don't know and leave it at that. No use to speculate as to what science cannot solve.

What I am though is a rationalist - i.e. I believe we use our minds a lot less efficiently then we could. We're starting this century to learn a lot about how the brain really works, and how reality really works - not at the basic levels but as very complex systems. And with this we slowly get pieces of how to be better humans. Ironically enough some of what we found is that religion/spirituality is a pretty good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am an atheist on most days. and I am not a materialist. If I have to self- classify, I am an idealist.

for tdoggette, you are wrong. There are many things that exist that are not part of material reality. My personal favorites are numbers. Particularly, the number two.

I used to think that letters also were not material, but then I saw a capital "I" on Sesame Street...

</comment><comment><USER6> For each answer science provides it also discovers ten new questions. The world seems to have an infinite supply of mysteries. And history shows the answers of science always eventually turns out to be wrong or limited, as they are superseded by new discoveries and better theories.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm quite sure that there is a lot going on that we haven't figured out yet. Key word: "yet".

Isn't there some proof that it's impossible to fully explain a system (e.g. the universe) from within?

<comment><AUTHOR> What sorts of things do you think might be going on that we don't understand yet?

<comment><USER8> There is a clear inconsistency between general relativity and quantum mechanics; reconciling them is one of the things superstring theory has been attempting, so far with limited success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems as foolish to declare there is no mystery at all as it does to identify with a particular belief system.

</comment><comment><USER10> Or, are there things that make up reality that I don't know about or understand? Or that no one knows about or understands? Of course. It's a bit odd to suggest that if people don't believe one thing, it's because they think they know everything.

</comment><comment><USER11> Can agnostic be ever strictly materialist?</comment>


Why do the poor make such poor decisions? - <AUTHOR> https://thecorrespondent.com/4664/why-do-the-poor-make-such-poor-decisions/179307480-39a74caf <comment><USER2> Being an underdog leads to low serotonin levels (eg. depression) which in turn leads to impulsive behavior.

Also much of the behavior of poor and middle-class people that seems "poor" might well be correct given the circumstances.

For instance, it seems the field of "behavioral economics" was invented to "nudge" people into putting money into 401k(s). It's clear that this a policy that makes Wall Street rich, but it is self-defeating when it transfers power from Main Street to Wall Street and makes you lose your job and then have no money to put in a 401k. Also, it seems that Wall Street doesn't allow most companies (such as telecoms) to invest for the future... However, money in the future is only worth as much as there is productive capability in the future, thus disinvestment in broadband infrastructure and in companies based in 49 states (eg. NYC and the bay area count as 1/2 a state each) means that the $1 million somebody has in a 401k 30 years from now will pay for one ride in an automated taxi. Spend the money now and you know you get something for yourself and you give somebody else a job now...</comment>


PSA: Amazon Prime Memberships Are 27% Off, Today Only - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/24/psa-amazon-prime-memberships-are-27-off-today-only/

<comment><USER2> For students, it's 6 months free and a discount of 50%! [http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info](http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info)

</comment><comment><USER3> The link to Amazon Prime in that article is an affiliate link. Here's the part that gives it away ?tag=slicinc-20

If this was intentional it's basically an ad for Amazon without a disclosure.

If it was unintentional, they just linked to amazon with a random person's amazon affiliate link, and probably made them quite a bit of cash.

<comment><USER3> Update: It looks like the author of the article, found the deal via slickdeals and used it on Techcrunch without realizing it was an affiliate link.

It's been removed with an attribution link to slickdeals added at the bottom of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any way to force renew early?

<comment><USER5> Go here [1]. Click End membership. Select the option to end later. Note the day your membership ends.

Then go here [2] and buy for yourself as a gift for the day after your membership ends.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/primecentral/editMembership/ref=pc...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/primecentral/editMembership/ref=pc_em)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/prime/pipeline/prime_gifting_landi...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/prime/pipeline/prime_gifting_landing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not in the UK...</comment>


TSA Screener Admits Scanner Fleet Worthless - <AUTHOR> http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/tsa-admits-1b-nude-body-scanner-fleet-worthless

<comment><USER2> Title is link bait. This is not an admission by the TSA. This is an admission by some low-level TSA employee.

<comment><AUTHOR> And? :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Creator of the original "How To Get Anything Through TSA Nude Body Scanners" here! This is my latest video, released today: an on-camera interview with a TSA employee confirming that the body scanners are easily fooled... and more!

<comment><USER3> If I had an interesting/insightful story to tell I would probably avoid sounding like an infomercial. It's a turn-off for me.

sorry.

<comment><USER4> Who cares about the messenger? Meanwhile, granny is getting strip searched while you guys give him shit about his personality

<comment><USER3> Sometimes the medium is (part of) the message. It's a serious topic and I think it warrant serious discussion. I would like for him to cover the matter in a serious manner rather than what would appear to me as some kind of promotional stunt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TSA just got ripped a new a-hole

</comment><comment><USER4> TSA never ceases to amaze.

<comment><USER6> They never seem to amaze in the form of catching a terrorist...</comment></comment>


The Rosie Pattern Language - <AUTHOR> http://rosie-lang.org/about/ <comment><USER2> I say this so often: "I can't believe it's $year and we're still using regex!" So when I see "new pattern matching language" my eyes light up and I run over there -- but there's no example, no docs, even where it says "examples", and "docs", and it's hard to find anything I can use. I'm sorry, am I a vulgar entitled twit for not finding the spoon right away?

Regex is terrible to read. Give me an example, things we frequently match for, IP, credit card number, dates ... I read the example for date parsing, I'm ... not sure what the equiv is? I suggest the authors put up a Rosetta stone of sort, eg. in regex-speak: [0-1][0-9]-[0-3][0-9]-201[0-9], in Rosie-speak: xyz. What about capture group, that's what makes regex powerful, not just matching, that and the look-ahead look-behind.

Meta-comment: regex is buried in everything significant that I work with, it's buried in grep, the language libraries, Splunk. It's going to be hard to dislodge, there's a deep moat because the tools and common use cases are ugly but well-understood. Why _are_ regex still being used? Why has nothing better come along? How would I even regex-match extended Unicode?

</comment><comment><USER3> If it is so much better and easier to read than regex, why not show any examples? Even the examples page is void of any examples.

<comment><USER4> A canonical regex pattern vs Rosie pattern should be front and center on the landing page. I want to immediately judge whether it's worth my time to read more.

<comment><USER5> I need to scroll about halfway through the reference documentation page to see what appears to be pattern-related syntax. Starting with a _module system_ is really strange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems like a middle ground between regex and a parser combinator library.

Also there was a strangeloop talk by it's creator [https://youtu.be/MkTiYDrb0zg](https://youtu.be/MkTiYDrb0zg)

</comment><comment><USER7> I've look for a while at this, and have come to this conclusion:

At the time I need a multi-line pattern language, I just whip up a FSM-like program in code. And I'll continue to do that.

<comment><USER8> It's also a command line tool, and a library of useful patterns.

        curl -sL news.ycombinator.com | rosie grep -o subs net.url

How many LOC is your ad-hoc "FSM-like program", and have you done correctness and performance testing on it? If I had a nickel for every incorrect email validity checker I ran across, I'd have an awful lot of nickels.

<comment><USER7> > If I had a nickel for every incorrect email validity checker I ran across, > I'd have an awful lot of nickels.

I won't argue with that. Email is a clusterf---. To make a validator to be truly "correct" is essentially impossible. Three RFCs have successively created standardized regexes and the latest RFC 5322 still has a bug. [1]

You'd have to convince me that you'd be significantly fewer nickles had they used Rosie.

> library of useful patterns

That's cool. I certainly use a library if I need to validate emails.

[1] [https://stackoverflow.com/a/201378](https://stackoverflow.com/a/201378)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why use a 'better regex' when PEGs exists?

<comment><USER10> FTA: "RPL is based on Parsing Expression Grammars, which are more powerful than regex, obviating the need for "recursive regex" or "regex grammars", both of which are ad hoc extensions and are not commonly supported in regex libraries."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's really disingenuous to sell your project as a replacement for regular expressions when it has greater expressive power than them in the Chomsky hierarchy.

<comment><USER5> It's a replacement for regular expressions _in purpose_ , not according to theoretical equivalence criteria.

The main selling points appear to be naming patterns in order to reuse them from libraries, functions, and more systematic grouping and lookahead operators: increased expressive power, which probably matters only in complex situations far beyond the limits of appropriate use of grep-like tools, is only a minor benefit.</comment></comment>


Regular use of popular antihistamines may cause dementia - <AUTHOR> http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/01January/Pages/media-dementia-scare-about-common-drugs.aspx

<comment><USER2> Deceptive title. Actual headline: "Media dementia scare over hay fever and sleep drugs".</comment>


Ask HN: Could JavaScript be moved to a higher x86 ring than userspace? - <AUTHOR> There are various mitigations against Meltdown (and AMD is immune), but the general consensus seems to be that there isn't much that can be done about Spectre. The x86 architecture has four rings of protection, but usually only ring 0 (kernel) and ring 3 (userspace) are used. What if userspace was moved to ring 2 so that ring 3 could be used for even less privileged JavaScript execution, reducing Spectre back to a special case of Meltdown which can be solved at the hardware level without performance issues (except perhaps for the new cost of making "system calls" out of JavaScript)? This would also significantly hamper any attempt at remote code execution in the browser.<p>Is this viable? <comment><USER2> No, not as written. conceptually, this already happens in a different way. but doing this wouldn't mitigate the issues caused by Meltdown and Spectre.

JavaScript executing in browser javascript engines already live in their own isolated environments in ring 3, so effectively ring 4 if you'd like, but these are just conceptual rings so all unprivileged operations are in ring 3, JS engines (and other things) are just designed to be isolated from other code running in ring 3.

Microsoft has gone a step further and has something called "Windows Defender Application Guard" that effectively runs MS Edge in a separate isolated VM, which might be along the lines of your thinking.[1]

The problem is that any application in ring 3 down can exploit Meltdown and Spectre, so even code running in Application Guard can still potentially read privileged memory anywhere on the system, so even this is not effective at combatting the problem.

It's not practical to make unprivileged code currently running in ring 3 more trusted and doing so would require much worse changes. You might conceptually have a completely separate system on system architecture for the purpose of running completely untrusted code, but this is overkill, as the current architecture is _supposed_ to be just this. But anything along these lines is still hypothetical and would require hardware changes that can't be patched in.

[1] Intent of MS of doing so is a bit convoluted, as they seem to be saying that they don't trust their own browser engine to be fully sandboxed, but they don't seem to provide why they feel this, nor why they feel a VM wouldn't potentially have it's own escapes, such as those demoed here [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/03/hack-...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/03/hack-that-escapes-vm-by-exploiting-edge-browser- fetches-105000-at-pwn2own/) so this is probably really just marketing exploiting the fears of business users in order to sell enterprise licenses.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately x86 paging only distinguishes between ring 0 and ring 3.

</comment><comment><USER4> A possible mitigation is to disable High Precision Timers in JavaScript since the attacks rely on having a timer with nanosecond precision. If you limit the timer to microsecond resolution it may not be possible to measure if a cache line has been loaded or not reliably.

I could be wrong but this was my first thought for a possible mitigation.

EDIT: I was wrong. I guess you would need to disable Web Workers too.

      JavaScript does not provide access to the rdtscp
      instruction,and Chrome intentionally degrades the
      accuracy of its high-resolution timer to dissuade
      timing attacks using performance.now().
      However, the Web Workers feature of HTML5 makes
      it simple to create a separate thread that repeatedly
      decrements a value in  a  shared  memory  location.</comment>


Volvo Chinese parent company buys Flying Car company Terrafugia - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4668768/Volvo-parent-company-buys-flying-car-firm-Terrafugia.html <comment><USER2> I really have big hopes for the flying car but I am afraid that we are going to have to wait a long time for that.</comment>


Uber Picks Obama's Former Campaign Manager to Wage Its Regulatory Battles - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/technology/uber-picks-a-political-insider-to-wage-its-regulatory-battles.html <comment><USER2> If the taxi industry hired the same guy, then HN would be up in arms about how the industry is dying and that lobbying is destroying the world.

The hypocrisy is astounding.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is where innovation will plateau and BAU wars will start

</comment><comment><USER4> He's got a high profile and is smart, sure, but the lobbying world is completely different than the campaign world. Seems like an odd choice to me.

Unless he'll be handling more of a grassroots approach than an inside-game strategy? Stuff like: [http://go.uber.org/california/](http://go.uber.org/california/) maybe?

<comment><USER5> How is the lobbying world any different then campaign? They seem exactly the same too me.

<comment><USER6> Plouffe ran an exceptional 'outsider' campaign, where a lot of the party apparatchiks were already pledged to Clinton, and the Obama campaign built their own outside infrastructure to compete.

Lobbying is about 'insiders'. You can nudge them with popular pressure, of course, but it's not like an election where the party insider only has 1 vote they completely control at the end of the day.

<comment><USER7> Yeah.. but he won, so now he's an insider. I'm sure he's adjusted to the status change by now, 6 years later.

<comment><USER4> He's not dealing with regulators, ever. It's not "insider" versus "outsider."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Brilliant idea.

Turn public opinion, city council pretty much has to follow. The free market might appeal to us but it's not going to appeal to your typical city voter. If uber can turn its message into something urban voters can identify with, they can generate favorable legislation, and urban voters generally love Obama's message.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe this will be the push needed for Uber to take Lyft out of the competition.</comment>


465k patients told to visit doctor to patch critical pacemaker vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/08/465k-patients-need-a-firmware-update-to-prevent-serious-pacemaker-hacks/ <comment><USER2> "The critical firmware flaws came to light last year in an advisory that was sponsored by an investment that was betting against the stock of St. Jude, which was formally acquired by Abbott Laboratories in January. In the two days following the disclosure by investment firm Muddy Waters, St. Jude's stock price fell 12 percent. At the time, St. Jude issued a statement saying the Muddy Waters report was "false and misleading.""

This reminds me of the plot of Casino Royal where the villains short the stock of an airline / airplane manufacturer, then attempt to blow up the plane they are showing off to force the stock to sink. That is some questionable ethics, then again the investment firm is called "Muddy Waters" haha.

<comment><USER3> If the report is really "false and misleading" it's probably illegal. But I'm not sure why Abbott would be doing a recall if that were the case.

<comment><USER4> Hello, this is Margin calling, might want to do that recall anywho sleep well!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am blown away by the fact that in a country of 300M people (~230M adults) there are 0.5M people with the same model of pacemaker!

I would have guessed the total number needing a pacemaker at all would be less than this rate (1/500).

<comment><USER6> It's a big and very active business.

In 2009 alone, doctors implanted ~225,000 pacemakers in the US: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21707667](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21707667)

Germany had the highest reported rate of new implants for any country in the study, at almost 1/1000 just in 2009. In the US that would be 300,000 per year just in new devices, and based on the study's aggregate reporting we could guess another 1/3 for replacement devices - 400,000 new devices per year as a high guess.

There's probably better info in the article but I don't have journal access and don't want to spend $6 to get it for this article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15132887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15132887)

</comment><comment><USER8> Hi, your pacemaker has been encrypted. It will continue to set your heartrate to this message in morse-code- unless you transfer 3 Bitcoins to the following wallet:

For more precise instructions on how to transfer Bitcoin, visit your local ER.</comment>