Why RIM Is Screwed: Limited Market Opportunity, Losing AT&T Share, Margins Getting Worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/why-rim-is-screwed <comment><USER2> With all of the snafus that iPhone users have encountered of late (problems with iTunes, activation woes, iPhone instability, bad AT&T customer service, MobileMe problems) there is plenty of opportunity for RIM to have a sustainable business. They may even cannibalize disappointed iPhone users.

I have an iPhone, and I like it lots, but my friend who has a blackberry can't stand using it. There's one immutable factor: There are lots of people out there who prefer to type on their smartphone with two thumbs. Enough to make a good business, especially if you are willing to learn from the iPhone's successes and failures.

<comment><USER3> The feedback I have been hearing is that the Thunder is a crippled iPhone, but the Bold... wow.

A proper keyboard is still a killer feature for a _lot_ of people, and adding in the 'missing' 3G and a usable web browser should help them hold on to corporate users and gather a decent number of teenagers and geeks.

<comment><USER4> I have a bold on my hands right now, and while it is relatively nice device, it's web browser leaves a lot to be desired. The rendering performance is not up to par, zooming in and out, and overrall navigation are not in the same league as the iPhone.

Of course, email/messaging, typing, are excellent. The screen is really nice too.

So, it all depends on what do you use your main device for, email, or web surfing.

Coorporate people, probably care more for email, while normal users, about surfying, apps, and shiny things.

Since the growth in future of smartphones is more in normal users, and not coorporate, the iPhone will soon eclipse BB, and it will start eating it's turf.

I honestly think that RIM just don't get customer stuff. I remember a little over two years a go, argueing with one of their engineers, and they were making clear that mp3/video playing is not a big deal (and they didn't care for), and that cameras and external memory are security risks.

Well, these are the same things that normal customers want. Eventually, reluctanty they are coming to their senses, that even the Coorporate devices are used by PEOPLE, that actually kinda care for fun things too. If iPhone gets their email up to par with BB, then they will soon starting eating Rims lunch.

<comment><USER2> So maybe the iPhone is an opportunity for Mobile Opera to make some inroads? I guess every smartphone needs a really good web browser now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Blackberry for life.

I know I say this a lot, but I mean it. You can poo poo this and that about the iphone, but the utility of the blackberry can't be rivaled.

So looking forward to the bold..

<comment><USER4> i have a BB, and it just lying on my floor, unused. Even the Samsung Instinct (iPhone wanna be), is more pleasurable to use.

I just can't stand the outadet UI, and washed out screen anymore.

(P.s. I work in mobile, so I use all kinds of devices all the time, so not an average user).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Business users have blackberries. I don't see a lot of IT managers springing for iphones so their employees can do less work and more play.

<comment><USER6> blackberry = business iphone = consumer</comment></comment>


A hello world post - <AUTHOR> https://fabiofranchino.com/blog/hello-world/ <comment><USER2> > I've always felt a bit guilty. That particular feeling in the gut when you > owe something to someone.

So, firstly, everything this guy got was freely given. There was no expectation of reciprocation, so he doesn't owe anyone anything. That's part of the beauty of the internet gift economy.

But, i bet that he has given something back. Maybe not contributing content of his own. But has he ever voted up a post? Voted down a comment? Flagged something? Reported a bug? Enabled usage statistics reporting in some software? All of those are tiny, but non-zero, contributions to making the web better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, in fact my 2017 website re-write stalled because I wanted to keep a blog, but I'm fundamentally shy about sharing things. These words could have been written by a more confident me. Maybe it's time to have another go.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have the opposite problem - I worry that I comment too much. It takes a lot of effort for me to recognise which of my opinions are baseless and unworthy (probably most of them), and to leave them unsaid.

<comment><USER5> I think if you are in a state that you worry about it, then you're good!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _Do you ever feel guilty being a lurker?_

Well, I expect zero lurkers to actually respond to this, hehe.

<comment><USER7> Your comment actually made me want to respond :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In a way, yes. I tell myself somewhat often that I should write more, yet each time I don't. The blog I have sits empty, in large part because I'm not sure how interesting others might find the content.

<comment><USER9> > I'm not sure how interesting others might find the content.

Even if you're not, you may very well be sooner than you might think just because you'll be training yourself to be so. Also, if you found something interesting, odds are in your favour than someone else will too.

So, take a chance and jump. But don't do it for others, do it because _you_ want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The internet doesn't create the content, people do. I feel your guilt is misplaced.

You shouldn't be wanting to give back to the internet, you should be wanting to give back to other people.

So long as you're a genuine-at-heart and mindful person, this should be a regular occurrence for you regardless.

Every human interaction you have is an opportunity to give back :)

</comment><comment><USER11> So when i listen to music you also want me to sing. You have writers and readers, im a reader and a huge fan of writers, who i support when i can.

<comment><USER12> Yeah division of labour is a corner stone of modern society. The title do you think it be fun to do ... would appeal to me more than to try to guilttrip people into doing something / humblebrag. However I do find the post inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I only feel guilty when, through hard work, I find a solution to a problem that I couldn't find online... but then I don't publish the problem and solution.

Generally though, I feel I don't have anything profound enough to say to add to the noise that already is the internet. I don't mind people who do add noise (as long as I'm not forced to consume it).

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't feel guilty, but the topic of writing a blog comes up in my journal quite often.

I have a dev blog I post to every 2-3 months. Nothing regular, but if a thing costs me a lot of time to figure out, I'll write a post and hope it'll save others time when they search for that particular topic.

I think this is really the only way for most people. Nobody knows me, nobody gives a shit about me, why would they follow me as a person?

Giving back to the internet is a good thing, but only if the stuff is read by someone. So either post in a community or have your blog be found through Google.

Everything else is just noise.

</comment><comment><USER15> The problem I have is that I like consuming information so much more than producing it that I never have the willpower to stop reading, watching videos, etc, and start producing something.

I do feel that I would have a fair amount to share back of what I learn. However, when I think about the limited time we all have to live, and how nasty people can be online for even the most trivial matters, I always reach the conclusion that my time is better spent learning. As an Italian friend of mine used to say, "my objective in life is to die wise".

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been a serial lurker on a few internet communities for a long time. On one or two of them, I've gotten over the initial shyness and in one or two cases even become an extremely prolific contributor.

It's quite organic, never a deliberate decision, but I guess if you find a particular community very rewarding over time you may slowly grow comfortable enough to contribute very actively.

</comment><comment><USER17> I always think about writing a blog. Maybe just rattling about the everyday things I am learning or doing and share it. Just there's a huge mental barrier of "I am still so very novice" and I postpone it to when I will be at some better level. I guess I will say fuck it and start someday.

</comment><comment><USER18> I lurk on Twitter all the time, but I don't tweet mostly because I don't know what to tweet about, or just forget to do it. When I have some thoughts about something, putting them on the internet is the last thing I remember about. Maybe it's a matter of habit

</comment><comment><USER19> > Do you ever feel guilty being a lurker?

No, not when it comes to the decision not to have a blog, or a facebook page, or a twitter account, or a non-throwaway HN login.

Others may disagree, but I see profound narcissism in the popularity of these (plat)forms of expression, which are mostly about signalling.

If you feel guilty about "not contributing" then contribute in some meaningful way. Contribute features, support, and/or bug fixes to open-source projects (or start one from scratch if you've an unreachable itch.) Teach people how to do stuff. And have enough self-confidence not to need to "share" literal or metaphorical selfies.

<comment><USER20> I think you're right about narcissism being the motivation for a lot of the posts on those social media platforms, but I disagree with your stance. Particularly because I think blog posts are a significant source of technical information[1].

Those that are not, I don't find that they get in my way too much. If someone wants to keep what amounts to an online technical journal... search engines are pretty good at filtering chaff.

I do not participate in those social activities, but I don't consider it a great virtue that I do not. It would probably be good practice for writing documentation for my fellow developers.

[1] Cloudflare and randomascii's blog posts being some of my favorites; and I don't think the motivation is much different if at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Best to get the first grammatical error out the way early, relieves a lot of pressure :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Heh, I myself was a very quiet internet persona for most of my life, though I've been on the internet for longer than I remember myself as an adult (my parents first got a dsl in 1998). The last two years though... I've been personally affected by Canada quietly denying renewing work permits to a hundred or so Russian nationals and I began to turn way more emotional in internet conversations since then.

When I was a child, I was of no high opinion of 30+ plus adult men with families wasting time on vain talks in place where their opinion mean nothing. Now, I myself will soon become one of them.

How ironic.</comment>


Google Throat Tattoo Patent - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/12/tech/innovation/google-throat-tattoo/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

<comment><USER2> Google will be handing off this technology to its subsidiary, Gurgle.</comment>


Amazingly Good Security - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/tmobileat/status/982187919061303296?s=19 <comment><USER2> > Am I late for the T-Mobile party? @c_pellegrino, @tmobileat

[https://twitter.com/fabricio_giglio/status/98236273592413798...](https://twitter.com/fabricio_giglio/status/982362735924137984)

</comment><comment><USER3> T-Mobile Austria customer service can access the first four characters of your password. They ask for your password over the phone for security purposes.

This indicates they are potentially storing passwords in plaintext or at the very least the first four characters.

I'm shocked by how Käthe of T-Mobile Austria responded. I would be surprised if she keeps her job.

> Excuse me? Do you have any idea how telecommunication companies work? Do you > know anything about our systems? But I'm glad you have the time to share > your view with us. ^Käthe

<comment><USER3> Here's a link to the meme summary of the convo:

[https://twitter.com/jacobc/status/982348607658508289](https://twitter.com/jacobc/status/982348607658508289)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Scroll up in the thread if you want more context. I only ready down and it was very confusing.

This conversation started because someone found out that customer service had access to their plaintext passwords. Starting the conversation at the point the link goes to makes it sound (to me at least) that this is just some hypothetical and there is no way they really store their password this way.

> Had the same issue with T-Mobile Austria. Apparently they are saving the > password in clear because employees have access to them (you have tell them > your password when you're taking to them on the phone or in a shop) and they > are not case sensitive

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazing is a good word to describe this. If this is not an invitation to a challenge, I don't know what is. Some poor pr dude at the t-mobile, and some devs are about to get a big life lesson.

</comment><comment><USER6> T-mobile US came in later in the thread to clarify that they're not storing passwords in plaintext. This is kinda fun, I guess, but arbitrating this with one arm of a multinational company over Twitter kinda yielded predictable results.

<comment><USER7> This must be a new policy, because back in 2008/2009 T-mobile US was able to email my password to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would suggest changing the title to "T-Mobile Austria stores passwords in plaintext?"

</comment><comment><USER8> > @Korni22 What if this doesn't happen because our security is amazingly good? > ^Käthe

Famous last words?

No, your security is not "amazingly good" if you store passwords in plain text!

This is pure comedy[1]:

> Three of their subdomains (blog/kids/newsroom) were running wordpress blogs, > the code managed via a git repository. You could download that git repo, you > can test that by appending .git/config to the URL. [...] thus I was able to > download their repo. The wordpress config (wp-config.php) was in the > repository. That config file contains the database/mysql username/password > __. [...] But the database was running on localhost - so it 's not a big > deal. Well, except if they have a phpmyadmin interface open to the public. > Which they had.

And it keeps on giving, there are a bunch of XSS vulns in their web site[2]:

> Great, so there are a whole load of XSS vulnerabilites on their site. > Interesting thing is, that the Telekom in Germany did exclude XSS > vulnerabilites from their bug bounty program scope in 2013. Guess it were > too much to pay.

Oh boy[3]:

> Customer service agents see only parts of customers' passwords which are > safely stored in encrypted databases via industry standard encryption > algorithm [...] ^Helmut @ojour

So they can't hash passwords, but they want to do biometrics:

> We are also using one-time-PINs for customer authentication and are > evaluating voice biometrics.

This idea that a company who can't even implement a basic user/password authentication system should be trusted with user biometric data is scary.

Here is the software stack[4]:

Kernel 2.6.18, _compiled_ in 2011, so RHEL 5.6

PHP 5.1.6, from 2006.

Apache 2.4.18, affected by multiple CVE.

I don't believe these PHPs and Apaches have any backported patches, as RHEL 5.6 support has ended in 2013. Can anyone confirm this?

The really sad thing about this is that T-Mobile's competitors (in Austria) are not any better. A1 also stores passwords in plain text, and I got reports that Drei does that too (although couldn't confirm as of yet).

[1] [https://twitter.com/hanno/status/982530301024002048?s=19](https://twitter.com/hanno/status/982530301024002048?s=19)

[2] [https://twitter.com/fabricio_giglio/status/98236273592413798...](https://twitter.com/fabricio_giglio/status/982362735924137984)

[3] [https://twitter.com/tmobileat/status/982394129249460226](https://twitter.com/tmobileat/status/982394129249460226)

[4] [https://twitter.com/Pips801/status/982378530792136706](https://twitter.com/Pips801/status/982378530792136706)</comment>


The Lack of Affordance Problem - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2011/11/lack-of-affordance-problem.html

<comment><USER2> I've often said that the hallmark of good _engineering_ is designing your error cases: of the cases where something goes wrong being pleasant and non- disastrous. The issue is that optimizing some known quality, even one as subjective as aesthetics, is a lot easier than optimizing _un_ knowns, which is what designing failure cases requires. That's why it's hard, why it requires deep and broad domain knowledge, and why it requires knowing your users. It's hard, really, to point to software or hardware that does this _well_ , but it's easy to point to bad examples, such as the OP. But consider things like undo, version control and versioned file systems; think about TCP's recovery abilities, about the fact that Google 2-factor auth gives you lock-out codes and application-specific passwords, the X~ and #X# files Emacs dumps all over your harddrive (they've saved me more than once), and the recovery page you get when Firefox crashes. Or consider the HTML5 parsing algorithm, character set detection, and Google's spelling suggestions. Each of these required identifying a class of problems and specifically designing in features that protected against them.

Please, when designing a project, think not just about your features, usability, and similar features. They're important, crucial even. But also spend time thinking about what problems users will have. What bugs are you likely to have, what misbehavior of your program will be most damaging? Implement a common format because that'll make debugging and workarounds easier, add a little diagnostic console or log in case your users have a problem you didn't expect, make backups of data you destructively modify, and so on. We all idolize Mac Airs now, for beautifully-designed and slick software. But there's something to be said for hardware and software that works through thick and thin, where there's some workaround or safety measure for every failure.

</comment><comment><USER3> The criticism of Apple's USB drive was insightful, and showed a definite flaw in the design of the unit. However, these two examples are just petty. First, any time you need your serial number you will be told how to get it, and clicking Apple -> About This Mac -> More Info is not an exceptional amount of work. Compare this with what you have to do on Windows:

<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/558124>

Also, though this is not obvious when the unit is purchased, the serial number is etched into the bottom of the casing, not painted as the rest of the text is. I only discovered this when the rest of the text rubbed off of my MacBook Pro. This means that it can't be printed in a different color, but I'd rather have the permanence of etching over paint that can be scratched off.

Finally, the USB extension cable cannot be bought alone - it only ships with an Apple keyboard. It's been designed for the electrical requirements of the keyboard and not all USB devices, so it's understandable that Apple limits its use to the device it's manufactured for.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with the non-standard connector is this isn't an Apple defined standard. This is USB. And the problem with this design is I can use a non- Apple cable to extend the keyboard (because the keyboard has a USB plug on it), but I can't use the extender for something else (e.g. even an Apple mouse!).

<comment><USER4> The point with the cable is that extension cables aren't allowed by the USB standard, so Apple created a cable that would only work with their specific device for which they guarantee that it works. I've tried the extension cable with other devices (it works just fine if you insert the plug at an angle), and have had mixed results.

I think Apple did exactly the right thing here and did it to avoid other problems ("I plugged in my iPad through the extension cable to my macbook and now it won't charge").

<comment><AUTHOR> Brilliant. An actual technical reason for this. I'll add a PS to the post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good points. And the connector chaos is a thick thorn in the eye of Apple simplicity.

The thing is, design is always a question of compromise. In order to make something truly simple and minimal, you have to sacrifice some affordances. And in order to make something truly easy to use, you have to sacrifice minimalism (think of children's toys). It's a balancing act. If you get it right, people will love your products. If you tip just a little too much to the wrong side you fall, and you end up with Vista security prompts or Apple Keyboard USB extension nonsense.

JGC uses the example of the DVD-drive and the serial number as problem cases. But I'd argue that only the DVD-drive suffers. The serial number will not be relevant in 99,9% of daily computing for normal people. Non-hackers don't care about serial numbers. If something goes wrong they call Apple support (or do the Google routine). Of course it's a matter of focus. Do you want people to easily find the serial number, then by all means, make it easier to spot. Clearly Apple don't. The drawback is not just aesthetics but continuos reminding people that a serial number is important (which it isn't in normal use).

The DVD-drive, however, could be better. But think of your hard drives or SD- cards. None of my 5 USB hard drives have physical buttons to eject them. I still need to 'eject' it, which means I'll have to drag it to the bin! How's that for an affordance. It's a legacy UI behavior which is hopelessly misconstrued. Putting things in the bin DELETES them - that's the behavior we've taught generations of users. It's even worse than clicking "Start" to turn off your computer on Windows. If you have a HD full of pictures of your loved ones would you risk putting them in the bin if you didn't know any better...? Probably not.

Physical affordances have their place. Especially in a world of touch interfaces a button becomes a powerful switch (think the silent ringer on the iPhone). But they are like Tabasco sauces - add a little and it can make the dish, add a lot and it ruins it. It's a never-ending struggle.

</comment><comment><USER6> As for the USB extension cable, I use it just fine with my ubuntu mouse. I just forced it right on in there. the indentation clip bent slightly, but other than that it's fine. Still works with the keyboard too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Surprised you didn't mention that the Macbook Air superdrive is hardware locked to only Airs, Mac Minis without optical drives, etc. You can't use them with PCs or even Macs that came with internal drives. It's ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER8> This makes me think of how Facebook removed the "Sumbit/Post Comment" button from comment forms. I'd argue it's not obvious that hitting enter will do the trick because enter is for starting a new thought on a new line. They've replaced the natural enter-for-newline with the shift-enter (even more un- intuitive). This has caused me no end of frustration as I accidentally submit unfinished comments and can't submit them at all on the numerous occasions when I repeatedly hit enter with no effect whatsoever. What was wrong with having a button there? Please can we have it back?

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing I've noticed on my Windows-based laptops is that I accidentally eject the DVD tray more frequently than intentionally ejecting it. In this case I prefer the lack of a discrete eject button.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it just me or does it seem that people are a bit more upfront criticizing Apple design now that Steve is gone?

<comment><USER11> It's just you. ;) I'm pretty sure some of these complaints are older than the Mac itself. The disk-eject semantics of the Mac are almost as classic a topic as the one-button mouse.

Disk ejects were designed under very different constraints in the old days, though. I just had a fun trip down memory lane to the days when the Mac had 128k of RAM, 400k floppies, and one floppy drive. Copying a floppy involved at least 5 or 6 disk swaps. Moreover, and relevant to this conversation, you could eject a Mac disk without unmounting it. That was because the system software lived on the boot disk, which you had to remove to load up your documents from your personal disk, but if the Mac needed to refer to a file on a currently-not-present disk it would prompt you for the disk by name, and so it was important to leave a ghostly icon of the ejected-but-not-unmounted disk on the desktop to remind users that the Mac hadn't forgotten about that disk and was liable to request it at any time, so for god's sake don't let someone take it out of the building...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like he wants a Dell laptop with some stickers on, not something that's lovely to look at.

<comment><USER13> You're wrong. I'm way out here in the apple camp myself (see me wave among my iMacs and Airs? Hi.), but he's most definitely correct with his general comment that the lack of affordances is something Apple doesn't solve. They do this out of love for simplicity, and while they often find the right balance between that simplicity and raw hidden power, sometimes (as is the case with the external Superdrive) you do need _control_.

It is possible to have both control and looks (most Apple products are good in this regard), but in the case of the superdrive, they went just a notch too far and assumed that the 1% of cases when you need to force a disc out, doesn't exist.

<comment><USER14> A touch interface, like iPad's, which he also criticizes, is like one giant bloody affordance.

99% of the touch targets are obvious.

There have been videos of babies, 5 year olds and autistic kids using an iPad just fine.

As for the 1% of the rest you can just discover them in time. Not everything needs to be in your face, especially if it's a secondary function. And iPad has tons of discoverability, especially how you can't really mess it up whatever you do, just delete an app and reinstall it in the worst case and you're where you left.</comment></comment></comment>


Write like a programmer - <AUTHOR> http://blog.3solarmasses.com/post/43498016915/write-like-a-programmer

<comment><USER2> For the programmers who wish to write, they and the ones who come after them should write more like Hemingway, because then all the writing that comes will come in a such a way that it is always written especially well, and all the ways in which people could ever have written will seem even more like the things they would have written if they had written them well and simply, in true and clear and simple sentences that never had any particularly unncessary words, and no special use of irony the sense that Hemingway himself or others that wished to sound like him might have used had they cared about such things.

<comment><USER3> My parser seems to be broken.</comment></comment>


Night Vision: a very real UX problem - <AUTHOR> http://wherein.posterous.com/a-very-real-ux-problem

<comment><USER2> I am really happy with "render effects" on Android in combination with screen filter. Setting it to a monochrome red and dim brightness like the author wants is a piece of cake.

<comment><USER3> It sounds like this is exactly what the author wants. Given this is the kind of thing that is much harder to implement on Android than iDevices (due to the large number of different screen technologies) it wouldn't be a difficult thing to add the the OS. That having been said, I don't expect to see it (on a non-jailbroken device) any time soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess that with modern composited desktops you could filter everything that gets outputted to the screen and change the colors (turn everything into monochrome and then apply a red filter on the whites). <http://stereopsis.com/flux/> and <http://jonls.dk/redshift/> do something like that.

<comment><USER5> OS X can "enhance contrast" (posterize) or invert the entire display in the Universal Access system pref.

Most likely this could be achieved in a hacky manner via the monitor calibration settings in most operating systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How feasible is it to just implement this in hardware? That is, a sheet you can place on your iPad screen which attenuates bright whites and tints everything red. Might be the 80/20 solution in this case.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the author of the post. We use this hack on the bridge of Navy ships. The red density required is pretty significant (the plastic we used was a little thinner than a #2 pencil). We would velcro it over the screen. The velcro leaves a gap which creates a fairly significant light leak around the edges. First iteration, so better, but a long ways to go. Comparing that to Blacktree's nocturne, software is at least a significant part of the solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe people for whom night vision is life and death matter shouldn't browse random pages on the internet while at work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, author of the post here. There are plenty of occasions where someone out on point in whatever field of endeavor needs some random nugget of information and a browser is a good way to get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is very true. What we need is a readability-type program that will alter a stylesheet to red/green/grayscale at night.

The problem is that it wont always work - if someone uses a gaudy background image, it's still going to look like crap if you use a plugin to change the CSS.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't know but I don't think the iPad was ever designed for such "critical" use cases

<comment><USER10> Maybe not designed, but people really want it to: [https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&ta...](https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=97df37902025d14fcad6ea1d2f5d4973&_cview=0)

<comment><USER11> I had to look it up,. This is what the contract was for: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_flight_bag>

It's basically meant to be a tablet-style display that contains all the manuals, maps, charts, checklists, and other information that a pilot would normally use while flying the plane. Interestingly enough, the night vision issue that TFA is talking about is one of the requirements for military versions of the device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a huge reason why I love <http://stereopsis.com/flux/> they have a iPad app but only available for jail broken iPads.

When going from my laptop to ipad at night its a huge and painful difference, its largely the reason I am considering jail breaking.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't tried flux on the ipad, but I didn't see anything in flux that even approaches what Nocturne will do.

<comment><USER13> My "Color Profiles" package does this: <http://rpetri.ch/cydia/colorprofiles/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree with most of this, I often times grab my phone at night to look something up and it would be nice if I didn't have a glaring white Google page in my browser destroying my vision. If it would just automatically revert to a night-vision mode after 10pm for me that would be great!

</comment><comment><USER15>
      Activating a single set of color pigments (red OR green OR
      blue) is not enogh for yor brail to to really constrict
      your iris or wash out your pigments (the gohst images you
      see after seeing something bright).

Spellcheck.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, that's what I get for typing on an iPad in bed at midnight! Done, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> We looked into this feature recently for our apps. Android has a Night Mode feature, however it is only accessible in Dock Mode & Car Mode.

From the article's comments, it appears that Cyanogen Mod can work-around this limitation.

</comment><comment><USER17> The Compiz 'color filter' can do this.</comment>


Toward race-free process signaling - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/773459/ <comment><USER2> > it is done using a new system call named procfd_signal(). This system call > operates on a file descriptor of a process; the previous discussions > convinced Brauner that this is a solution preferred over an ioctl().

This is quite a pity! I do a lot of Python and Bash programming, and regular file write will be simple and easily supported.

ioctl would require some magic constants and arch dependence, but would still be relatively safe - there are no dangerous ioctl operators you can do on a open /proc directory entry, and ioctl has sane error reporting.

the "new syscall" path is the worst of them all -- I am literally two characters away from invoking all sorts of dangerous commands like "kill all processes", "shutdown machine" and so on.

<comment><USER3> The problem with an ioctl is that ioctls are not namespaced and so a buggy userspace program might end up being tricked into killing a process (if the ioctl overlaps).

ioctl also doesn't have exceptionally sane error reporting, especially when we're comparing it to syscalls.

In addition, this is the first step toward more generic procfds and for some other use cases ioctls are simply insufficient and it would be strange to have a mismash of both APIs.

> I am literally two characters away from invoking all sorts of dangerous > commands like "kill all processes", "shutdown machine" and so on.

Can you explain what you mean? Syscalls are the least bad solution because we are guaranteed no reasonably buggy program will have used the syscall already.

Writing to a procfile would be significantly worse than either, but ioctls still have problems.

<comment><USER2> > The problem with an ioctl is that ioctls are not namespaced and so a buggy > userspace program might end up being tricked into killing a process (if the > ioctl overlaps).

I am not sure what is the threat model here -- it If we have a buggy userspace program which can be tricked into opening arbitrary files by an un-authorized user, it is already game over. What you do after is irrelevant -- the writes would damage the system, reads would leak info. The fact that they won't be able to kill processes does not help much if they could overwrite /sbin/init instead. As Tycho Andersen said in [0], "It seems completely theoretical to me."

> ioctl also doesn't have exceptionally sane error reporting, especially when > we're comparing it to syscalls.

I could be wrong here, but I thought that most ioctl's do not generally cause the program to crash, they just fail with meaningful error code. On the other hand, syscalls will cause the process to segfault.

>> I am literally two characters away from invoking all sorts of dangerous commands like "kill all processes", "shutdown machine" and so on.

> Can you explain what you mean?

Sure, let's say this goes in, and I want to use it ASAP. Libc takes ages to update, so I have no wrappers. I am using Python. What are my options?

Option 1: File

         f = open('/proc/%d/kill' % pid, 'w')
         ...
         f.write("9")
         f.close()

What kind of mistakes I can make? I can mistype '/proc/%d/kill' format string, I can write() the wrong thing.

What is the worst that could happen? I will get nice exception (like "File not found" during open or "Invalid operation") during close. In the the worst case, I write to "/proc/%d/mem" and damage the process instead, but this not very likely -- this typo is easy to spot. And it will only affect the process I want killed anyway.

Summary: Please give me that option!

Option 2: ioctl

         PSKILLCTL = (0x80046A01 if sys.bits == 32 else 0x80046E01)
         f = open('/proc/%d' % pid, 'w')
         ...
         fcntl.ioctl(f, PSKILLCTL, 9)
         f.close()

What kind of mistakes I can make? I can get the constant value wrong, I can get ioctl args wrong (maybe it needs pointer to integer)

What is the worst that could happen? ioctl will succeed but will do the wrong thing, i.e. not kill the process. Luckily, there are very few ioctls which /proc/%d supports, and none of them will have permanent effect. Yeah, maybe this will switch to non-blocking mode or we will get aio enabled on the handle -- who cares, we will close it right away.

Summary: meh, finding ioctl codes are annoying with all the macros but I can live with this.

Option 3: syscall

         __NR_KILL_VIA_PID = (382 if sys.bits == 32 else 731)
         libc = ctypes.CDLL(None)
         f = open('/proc/%d' % pid, 'w')
         ...
         libc.syscall(__NR_KILL_VIA_PID, f.fileno(), 9)
         f.close()

What kind of mistakes I can make? I can get the constant value wrong, I can get syscall args wrong (maybe it needs a struct)

What is the worst that could happen? I reboot machine (sys_shutdown). I kill all processes on this tty (sys_vhangup). I mess up my entire process in a subtle way (sys_vfork, sys_modify_ldt). I break many other processes on the machine (sys_sethostname).

Summary: I really want to make sure I get this right. I feel this is like shaving with straight edge -- don't make mistakes.

Hopefully, I have explained my point. Note that this is from POV of python programmer -- I know that from the C land, it all looks different. But if we have Python-only packages, or a shell scripts, adding a new C program is a significant burden.

Could you elaborate why do you think writing to procfile will be worse? Especially if we already have writable /proc/%d/mem.

[0] [https://lwn.net/ml/linux- kernel/20181119223954.GA4992@cisco/](https://lwn.net/ml/linux- kernel/20181119223954.GA4992@cisco/)</comment></comment></comment>


GPL scores historic court compliance victory - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/04/gpl_violation_westinghouse/

<comment><USER2> Bad reporting from The Register. There's nothing historical, or even all that interesting, about it as it was a default judgement because the defendant did not even show up.

After plaintiff sued, defendant filed an answer and made initial disclosures. Defendant that stopped responding to the court, and told plaintiff that they would not be defending the action. Defendant then failed to appear for a pre- motion conference. Defendant's law firm them submitted a motion asking to withdraw from the case.

Plaintiffs asked for and received a default judgement. In a default judgement that court assumes that the plaintiffs allegations are all true, and rules accordingly. GPL isn't even really relevant at that point--all that matters is that plaintiffs allege they own the copyrighted works and that defendant does not have a valid license to use them.

<comment><USER3> Also, the defendant is going through a form of bankruptcy. Kind of hard to dedicate a bunch of resources to defense (or compliance) when there are no resources left at all.

<comment><USER4> Which makes this a particularly bad piece from the register, since their opening lines are

"The Software Freedom Conservancy has secured $90,000 in damages for willful infringement of GPLv2, plus nearly $50,000 in costs from Westinghouse Digital Electronics over its illegal distribution of the Unix utility BusyBox. The company has also been ordered to stop shipping product loaded with BusyBox."

When it's just about 100% sure that those awards will never be realised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The company's costs could have been lower, but the New-York district court hearing the case took a dim view of the fact that Westinghouse's legal team failed to appear for the discovery phase. .... Westinghouse is currently in General Assignment, an alternative to bankruptcy under California state law, and declined to defend itself."

</comment><comment><USER6> The reason they didn't show up is that they are bankrupt - so it doesn't matter how much the court ups the fine, they aren't paying it anyway.

The lawyers aren't about to work for a client that isn't going to pay them</comment>


Toshi – An Open Source Bitcoin Node for Developers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coinbase.com/post/97671295752/introducing-toshi-an-open-source-bitcoin-node-for <comment><USER3> I told the Coinbase people to use Postgres for this two years ago, and they treated me like a crazy person for it. Assuming they arrived at this through my advice and not the inevitable catastrophe, glad they finally took my advice to heart.

The next problem is that they are still using EventMachine. Still think I'm a crazy person? Oh look, it's like I'm a well-received field expert on this topic or something [http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/KyleDrake/hybrid- concurrenc...](http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/KyleDrake/hybrid-concurrency- patterns)

Incase anyone's interested in being a developer at Coinbase, I'll save you some time: they're more interested in pedigree and whiteboard puzzles than science and code. Most disrespectful interview I have ever had in my 13 years of coding, and probably ever will have.

<comment><USER4> For those that don't know, Kyle was responsible for helping to resurrect bitcoinjs-lib ([https://github.com/orgs/bitcoinjs/people](https://github.com/orgs/bitcoinjs/people)) and developing one of the first self-hosted Bitcoin (HTML) wallets - <USER2> ([https://github.com/kyledrake/coinpunk](https://github.com/kyledrake/coinpunk)), so he's clearly a talented developer.

<comment><USER5> Web-wallets should not be trusted, no matter what. See: mybitcoin.com, instawallet.com etc. -> [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/EWallet](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/EWallet)

<comment><USER6> BitGo is a good web wallet.

<comment><USER6> Not sure why I'm being downvoted, but it's one of the few multisig web wallets available. It's not the same as other sites.

<comment><USER7> I think you've been downvoted because that comment has little to do with the topic at hand and seems like a shameless promotion of BitGo. Alternatively, you could create a separate "Show HN : BitGO -- one of the few multisig web wallets available" thread and that would be totally acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I guess Coinbase didn't learn their lesson last time they tried using reimplemented consensus code.

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260595.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260595.0)

<comment><USER9> That's completely fair. Consensus systems are very difficult to (re-)implement correctly but I would argue there is value in doing so. There is also great risk and we appreciate that.

This time we took a slightly different approach. Whenever possible, we directly ported the validation code from bitcoind. Granted, the script runner is the most fragile part and for that we are relying on bitcoin-ruby which does not directly port it from bitcoind.

While we are passing Matt Corallo's brilliant test suite, it is not currently recommended that anyone use Toshi in production for the purpose of managing bitcoin. And if you are going to run it in your environment we highly suggest running it behind trusted bitcoind nodes. There are many pieces still missing -- like all of the DoS penalty code. We currently have the demo running in the wild for the very purpose of giving helpful people the opportunity to break it.

<comment><USER10> > it is not currently recommended that anyone use Toshi in production for the > purpose of managing bitcoin

Does Coinbase use Toshi in production?

<comment><USER9> The only instances of it we having running are the ones listed in the blog post (and just perhaps a Litecoin version that we're trying to get to sync.) They are in no way currently integrated with the web site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Been working on this with Adrian for the last 3.5 months. Happy to answer any questions if I can.

<comment><USER11> It is great to have more examples of building a indexed fast query representations of the the current ledger state.

What did you guys go with as a policy for handling or avoiding orphan blocks...

<comment><USER9> Currently we're saving every block we see. And if we find an orphan's parent which is on the main chain we try to connect them both. We aren't doing anything to explicitly avoid them.

If you're referring to side chain blocks (which some people refer to as orphan blocks) we'll extend them to be the main chain should they win or leave them forever marked as side chain blocks. We aren't doing anything to explicitly avoid these either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> \- Can this full node be used for mining, if one is so inclined? \- What is the user agent string for this node? ([https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/](https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/))

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't support any RPC calls so standard mining software won't play well with it yet due to the lack of getwork/getblocktemplate.

User agent: Toshi:0.1.0

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What advantages does running a Toshi node hold over using one of the many cloud services that allow free public API access to basically the same endpoints?

<comment><USER13> This is another cloud service that allows free public API access, but it's the first one I'm aware of that is also open source. Much better to build a service or business on something you are in control of.

<comment><USER14> \- [https://helloblock.io/](https://helloblock.io/)

\- [https://github.com/helloblock/helloblock- app](https://github.com/helloblock/helloblock-app)

:)

<comment><USER10> Don't forget [https://github.com/bitpay/insight](https://github.com/bitpay/insight)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Project's homepage: [https://toshi.io/](https://toshi.io/)

</comment><comment><USER16> You're sooo good! Come on, Toshi!</comment>


Lessons from the Netflix prize challenge - <AUTHOR> http://www.sigkdd.org/explorations/issues/9-2-2007-12/6-Netflix-1.pdf

<comment><USER2> A startup in my offices trying to build a "challenges" platform: <http://kaggle.com></comment>


The Website Obesity Crisis (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm <comment><USER3> We had some storms and network outages yesterday. I was down to 3G, it seemed like dialup speeds. Hacker news faithfully loaded after 30 seconds (I think most of that time there was zero connection, so when a few bytes could fly through it loaded up).

I couldn't get any other site to load. Not even google.com.

It made me want to create a website called "lowbandwidthsites.com" or similar that is itself minimal and just lists the sites that you can load when there is low bandwidth for news etc.

A low bandwitdth read-only repeater for sites like reddit.com would be handy. Or maybe a general purpose low bandwidth repeater that can take any site - <USER2> bit like outline.com/mysite.com but even lower fidelity - just returns the markdown!

Edit looks like it has been done: [https://www.textise.net/](https://www.textise.net/)

<comment><USER4> Not criticizing, just mentioning ...

> I was down to 3G, it seemed like dialup speeds.

Sounds like first-world problems! :)

HN works great on my EDGE (2G) Blackberry 8700g (2006) with Opera in SF. Handy on the Muni. Basically no other site is usable at this point unless it's HTML- only.

However, I understand that telcos are attempting to not support 2G any longer, so don't plan on that working much longer. T-mobile still has fairly good urban EDGE coverage, except for SF FiDi.

> I couldn't get any other site to load. Not even google.com.

The google UI appears minimal, but they're loading a ton of javascript.

<comment><USER3> Yeah it said "3G" but it seemed more like 33.6kbps dial up speeds of yore based on the experience. I've gone through extended periods of using both 3G and 33.6kbps to know the feel!

But still 1st world problems. A CB or ham radio would have been nice though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As long as general websites load in under a certain time period the sites seem to maximize bloat up to that point. Reminds of the commuting time period—-if more highways are built to reduce traffic and speed up commutes, more people will drive, eventually more will relocate so that the average commute ends up being ~40 minutes again. Whatever tolerance is true for the vast majority of users can often become the standard, and if so then non-vocal small opposing groups are forced to adapt...or just complain.

<comment><USER6> I understand the point you're making but the difference is increased use of these websites is not what's increasing the size of the sites themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> High dpi screens have made this so much worse.

Try browsing the web on a 128kbps ISDN-like connection, many sites are too slow to be usable or outright broken due to their own timeouts.

What I've noticed is many new sites are using huge high-res images as some kind of maximum-common-denominator to ensure things look great on high dpi screens, while everyone else has to transfer all this junk only to downscale it anyways at render time.

I'm often on a slow link and it's made me stop using the web almost entirely, outside of HN and reddit. Slack for instance is completely broken, it can't even manage to finish logging in without giving up.

It used to be that slow internet users just had to wait longer, but things largely worked correctly. Nowadays, with lots more javascript and async stuff having web developers programming timeouts and probably never once testing on a slow link, a lot of things are flat out broken.

<comment><USER8> > What I've noticed is many new sites are using huge high-res images as some > kind of maximum-common-denominator to ensure things look great on high dpi > screens

Obviously this is far from good but what's the practical solution for this?

As far as I know, doing this with HTML + CSS alone by yourself is tedious and error-prone e.g. figure out manually the maximum size of each image, generate all variations of the image sizes yourself, then use HTML/CSS to load the right ones.

There's CDN, web server and CMS specific solutions that dynamically resize + cache images on demand but they're far from common place so I'm not surprised most website owners don't do this well.

<comment><USER9> The solution was arrived at a long time ago.

It looks like this:

[https://text.npr.org](https://text.npr.org)

Or:

[https://lite.cnn.io](https://lite.cnn.io)

With better formatting. You make a text only or otherwise very reduced version of your site available to visitors. Ideally in that version you drop the images entirely. You can optionally attempt to measure the capabilities of a visitor, how they're experiencing your site, and actively present them with the reduced option (the far easier thing to do, is to just make a reduced version available and let visitors know it exists somewhere prominent enough). Visitors want the content, not the ridiculous SEO image.

If you build for this from the beginning of a site, it's extremely easy to deliver and maintain.

<comment><USER10> Try this link for info about reducing bandwidth and energy usage.. [https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a- low...](https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-lowtech- website.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10820445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10820445)

and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11659026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11659026)

2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14088092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14088092)

</comment><comment><USER12> Should try out [http://wiby.me](http://wiby.me), only light weight websites are allowed on that search engine although the index is comparatively small

</comment><comment><USER13> You can trim the fat off articles with [https://beta.trimread.com](https://beta.trimread.com). Going to open source too.</comment>


Functional Programming in Python [pdf] - happy-go-lucky http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/files/functional-programming-python.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Shameless plug, if you are interested in functional programming in Python:

[https://github.com/sfermigier/awesome-functional- python](https://github.com/sfermigier/awesome-functional-python)

(PR welcome).

</comment><comment> benji-york Readers may be interested in the functional superset of Python called Coconut ([http://coconut-lang.org](http://coconut-lang.org)). Playing with it casually has been great fun.

<comment><USER2> Very interesting, thanks. Wondering if Cython would have been a better compilation target. It would still stay usable from CPython.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is Python fully capable and suitable for functional programming?

<comment><USER4> Yes. A function is an object just like any other. What more do you need?

If you say macros, I'd argue that's not quite the same as "functional".

<comment><USER5> Lots of easy handling of structures immutably. Which Python has a good bit of for sure, with comprehension especially. But I could use more. :)

I wish everything immutablejs gave me was built in to Python. :)

<comment><USER4> Comparing with immutablejs, there are 4 broad categories that match: lists, dicts, sets, and iterators.

Tuple slicing and concatenation gives you the "immutable" behavior for ordered data. For sets and dicts, one could create a subclass that override add/insert/set methods to return a modified copy. Iterators already have excellent support.

I'm not an immutablejs user, but my first skim of the docs doesn't make it clear what's missing from Python. If the immutable subclasses would be valuable, I'll gladly make a module for it. There's already frozenset. A frozendict didn't seem as useful (according to core devs).

<comment><USER4> Plus, I forgot that sets have nice operators for union, intersection, etc. So you don't need to override anything there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is also a good addition for functional programming in Python:

[https://github.com/kachayev/fn.py](https://github.com/kachayev/fn.py)</comment>


Detailing the iOS Menu - <AUTHOR> https://codea.io/blog/detailing-the-ios-menu/ <comment><USER2> This is incredibly cool work. Love watching the progress of this. Keep it up, and thanks for sharing!</comment>


Hollywood's Next Great Business Model: Praying That Stars Die - <AUTHOR> http://parislemon.com/post/17955798786/hollywoods-next-great-business-model-praying-that

<comment><USER2> Similar news - Sony doubled the price of her album's within hours of her death announcement. They later apologized though - <http://www.nme.com/news/whitney- houston/62045>

<comment><USER3> "Sorry, we didn't know you would be so pissed off about it"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hope that today's stars are bright enough to trademark/copyright (I've no idea which) their images and 'style' such that Hollywood will not be able to create digital versions and continue on their merry way without the bothersome nonsense of dealing with 'creative' types. I'm fairly sure that photo realistic imagery is not all that far away and I'm equally sure that the slime balls in Hollywood would make a grab for just such a business model unless held back by a league of lawyers, public opinion and heaven help up government mandate.

</comment><comment><USER5> Certainly leaves a bitter taste, but not exactly surprising. Just because the tech industry had a bit of prejudice against the film industry doesn't mean this is any more distasteful than Simon & Schuster bumping up the Jobs biography or any number of similar profit-based moves surrounding notable deaths.

</comment><comment><USER6> Next step: assignation markets [<http://www.outpost-of- freedom.com/jimbellap.htm>]

<comment><USER7> You meant assassination. We already have assignation markets if you know where to look...</comment></comment>


In response to: " Is it okay to kill cyclists" - <AUTHOR> http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2013/11/shafted-again.html

<comment><USER2> This is a somewhat extreme overreaction to a level-headed opinion piece in the New York Times that has a linkbait headline, as is typical of journalism these days. I encourage you to read the full article and judge for yourself.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok- to...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill- cyclists.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment> __--__ To be fair, it's the Bike Snob. Hysterical Overreaction is his writing style and has been for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > When I'm in Midtown or some other place where I'm "sharing the road" (that's > cute) and thousands of two-ton 350 horsepower motor vehicles are bearing > down on me because they're driven by people whose only priority is getting > to the Midtown Tunnel or the 59th Street bridge as quickly as possible, you > can be damn well sure I'll do whatever the hell I need to do in order to get > a head start on these homicidal mutherfuckers, and that includes running the > light if I deem it safer to do so

I'm not a regular cyclist, so maybe I'm just confused, but under what circumstances would it be safer to run a red light? "Get a head start" implies to me that they're starting to cross the intersection while cross traffic still has the right of way, which seems far more dangerous.

<comment><USER4> Traffic lights are designed to group cars together, but if you're willing to run (all of) them you get to ride in between the packs of cars where you only have to worry about cross-traffic at intersection and the occasional pedestrian. It's so much nicer for everybody involved, I can't get up to speed like a car can at a red light so if I wait there suddenly I'll have a line of cars behind me who may make questionable passes at the first opportunity. I think anything that reduces my proximity to 2-ton hunks of metal on the street is a good thing.

In some states it's legal for cyclists to treat stop lights as stop signs and stop signs as yield signs because A) it's so much easier for us to stop B) we can hear our surroundings so we generally have a good idea if an intersection is safe to cross _before_ getting visual confirmation and C) the amount of danger we expose others to is small compared to vehicles (person + 30 lbs. bike vs. person + 3,500 lbs. car)

<comment><USER5> As a pedestrian in Manhattan it's really hard for me to model in my head what a person on a bicycle going to do. What is the protocol for cyclists and red lights - are they supposed to stop like other vehicles? Do people crossing the street with a walk sign have right of way? Can they take free left turns if no cars are at the intersection?

<comment><USER4> I don't live in as big a city as Manhattan so I can't really say, I've seen videos of some insane bike riding in NYC. Can't believe how some of them ride.

I do think cyclists sometimes fail to give pedestrians the respect they deserve, we have to remember that pedestrian's relationship with us mirrors our relationship with cars _. I personally try not to come within 5 feet of pedestrians, unless they 're standing in a bike lane or something like that.

_ in the sense that we're bigger and faster, but the extent of the danger isn't even close

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This goes beyond cyclist / motorist behaviour. If you really prove deeply you can extract a classical attitude and behaviour seen between a semi-homogeneous majority class and its minority coutnerpart.

By that I mean, in this case we have motorists upset at cylists because they feel that cyclists in some way conflict with their beliefs / way of life (that I can drive on the road with other automobiles and not worry about cyclists or that my behaviour may harm others). I suspect though that at the heart of the matter motorists are upset because it exposes just how poor some people are when it comes to driving and how driving isnt a right nor a privlidge but a skill which requires practice and training.

I mean the same thing can be seen in other conflicts between major groups and minorities. Cars and motorcycles. Post colonial naturalised citizens vs. indigenous people. Middle class vs. Poor. Police vs. 'inner city youth'.

I mean is the issue really that cyclists might do something wrong or that cyclists expose just how bad drivers are at driving and how arrogant individuals try to blame others for their mistakes under the guise of 'being impartial'?

Im rambling now but theres a point in there somewhere.

<comment><USER7> On the flip side, it also exposes how shitty assholes a lot of cyclists are. I've been involved in enough group bike rides to know that most of the time, the cyclist started it. Asshole cyclists are probably also asshole drivers and asshole pedestrians.</comment></comment>


Do You Really Know Bill Gates? The Myth of Entrepreneur as Risk-Taker - <AUTHOR> http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/09/13/bill-gates-risk-taker/

<comment><USER2> This is something a lot of people don't always see. For example, I spent 20 hours building a website and doing all the SEO, link generation,etc and then just let it sit. It had a bunch of fake products and now 2 or 3 months later people are now trying to place orders.

Now I can start devoting time to it and build out the infrastructure to support the website and business. I didn't jump and quit my job to see if it will work.

At the end of the day, when the money runs out you have to get a real job. The goal should be to take small-risk big-reward plays and lots of them until something catches.

<comment><USER3> Just curious: how did you decide what products to (pretend to) offer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"The thought of Gates and Allen as the godfathers of a hacking subculture that has cost Microsoft and the world overall hundreds of billions of dollars does indeed boggle the mind."_

Lulwat? Talk about somebody not knowing their history.

<comment><USER5> In what sense? What he mean was 'G&A did the same computer vandalism that has cost the world $bb since then'. Which, even if a bit dramatic and un-nuanced, is not really wrong.

<comment><USER4> _"the godfathers of a hacking subculture"_

The "hacking subculture" had it's roots way before Gates and Allen, and in completely different social circles. The effect of the comment is to mis- attributed something that was much bigger than them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Gates story reads like it was mostly cribbed from the Wikipedia entry and dates from[2009]. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates#Early_life>

</comment><comment><USER7> Malcolm Gladwell wrote a similar article in the New Yorker:

<http://www.gladwell.com/2010/2010_01_18_a_surething.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> Ambition is the overriding characteristic that Gates has in such abundance and most people lack. Gates was lucky to have had so much support but probably would have taken more risk if he had been forced to.

<comment><USER7> The amount of risks that Bill Gates would have (supposedly) been wiling to take (due to his superhuman ambition) doesn't make a difference. The support he had allowed his risks to actually come to some end and would have helped him survive failure should it have come to that. There is nothing in the history of Bill Gates that suggests that Microsoft was successful due to it's competitors' lack of ambition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe the PC-DOS deal (without which Microsoft would be a footnote) stems from Microsoft's role in the BASIC interpreter built into the PC's ROM rather than an indirect intervention from Mary Gates. The BASIC deal, however, is somewhat attributed to her.</comment>


Updating Our Open Source Patent Grant - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/1639473982937255/updating-our-open-source-patent-grant/ <comment><USER2> To those relieved that Facebook open source discussions will no longer be dominated by PATENTS file discussion, I just would point out, is was exactly the persistent complaints which motivated Facebook to make this change. So I would say _thank you_ to everyone who complained about the language in the original grant. It shows exactly what is possible when a determined group persists in vocalizing their grievances.

Today it's Facebook PATENTS, tomorrow maybe it's nation-wide automatic license plate tracking. One thing is for sure, staying silent never changed anything.

It's a ridiculous comparison, I know, but never underestimate the ability of a small group of determined rabble-rousers to make a difference. A small incident with some tea in a large body of water comes to mind.

<comment><USER3> _> Today it's Facebook PATENTS, tomorrow maybe it's nation-wide automatic license plate tracking. One thing is for sure, staying silent never changed anything._

On political issues, the three-letter-agency-mandated bots/shills in the comments of mainstream news outlets and on mainstream social media sites (twitter/reddit) will always be louder and more numerous than us.

It's only on issues that the powerful don't really care about that democratic change is possible.

EDIT: To the downvoters: may I know why you are downvoting me? Maybe you believe I'm a tinfoil hatter? Maybe you think governments, who have been controlling media "narratives" for as long as media has been a thing, don't care about social media even though it is dead easy to manipulate? Maybe you don't know that this has been heavily documented for a while, and is really happening on a large scale, all the time?

<comment><USER4> Maybe are the governments those who are downvoting you.

<comment><USER5> Really, I don't know why the GP is getting all bothered, it's just a bunch of bots, obviously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [Lawyer, but not a patent lawyer]

I was perplexed by the uproar on HN about the original patent language (in the thread announcing the release of React Native [1]). This kind of open-source patent license--which, in effect, allows Facebook to use its patents against users of React defensively but not offensively--is exactly what we need more of in the open source world. Why did people think that their defensive patent license was somehow worse than the industry standard (the MIT or BSD copyright license with no patent license, which made patent rights murky at best)?

But this new language eliminates the major limitation on the original language, which was that the license would be terminated if you attempted to invalidate one of Facebook's patents or defensively argued that it was invalid or unenforceable (or even, according to a strict though implausible reading of the language, if you publicly stated that the patent was invalid).

Glad to see Facebook paying attention, even if the original complaint was overblown.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246)

<comment><USER7> Also try to understand that a lot of software engineers, like myself, would rather that the source code license not implicate or involve patents at all.

Let the lawyers argue about the patents; I don't want to accidentally hobble the ones on my side or arm the ones on the other side, I don't want to accidentally harm other open-source contributors, I'd rather not be involved at all.

(In the BSD vs GPL debate I'm pro-GPL, but not GPLv3, because it involves the patents...)

<comment><USER6> I'm a developer as well. And I am politically opposed to software patents and would prefer that software not be patentable.

But I'm confused by your statement that you want the license not to mention patents because you want to leave patent issues to the lawyers. The license isn't software code, it's legal code--it's what the lawyers are arguing about!

If the license doesn't mention patents (and doesn't imply a particular grant of patent rights, which like I said is an open issue), then you haven't chosen "nothing." You've chosen the default: the patent holder retains all rights.

<comment><USER7> That's right, the default. (but also, see teraflop's comment about ambiguous implied patent license)

It seems that any variation either hurts my defense or comes off as aggressive (which is what happened to facebook).

In a hypothetical situation where the patent language matters, it's total war. Multiple concurrent lawsuits in opposite directions, ITC injunction requests, etc. Maximum pain to make the opponent capitulate. None of these patents are really valid anyway, it's either math or implementation detail. There's no reason or logic here.

Better to make no statement, leave the default unsaid, and stick your head in the sand, it may keep you under the radar of involvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm very glad Facebook was willing to take a step back here, evaluate people's concerns, and update the grant to address them. Most companies, when placed in the same position, would simply double down and tell people to go pound sand.

The fact that they didn't, and in fact, actually talked with folks and addressed this head on, speaks volumes about them as a company.

<comment><USER9> edit:

They actually kept a large part of the previous license. The new license will terminate if you initiate: "any Patent Assertion [...] (iii) against any party relating to the Software".

So if you sue any React user for infringing any patent, even unrelated to React usage, your license for React will terminate. On the other hand, if Facebook uses your Apache 2.0 software, their license to your patents terminates only if they sue people for using your software. Isn't that asymmetric?

/end edit

Isn't there a loop-hole though? With the new license, if a FB affiliate sues you, you can only countersue the affiliate. So if FB asks an affiliate to sue you (maybe they sell the affiliate a couple of patents for instance), you can't counterclaim against FB, you can only counterclaim against the affiliate, which may not have a product.

Is that correct?

Thanks for raising awareness about the previous license. The new one definitely seems better.

<comment><USER8> It is asymmetric vs Apache 2.0, but that's like saying GPLv3 is asymmetric vs BSD.

Past that, to be honest, there are always "loopholes" in all of these licenses related to transferring patents to entities/etc. Given any open source license, i can come up with a valid legal way for an entity to sue you over patents in it. But at some point, you have to trust that isn't the spirit/goal of the license, because if it is, you are kind f*cked anyway. That point, has, IMHO, been reached here now.

Otherwise, it's generally not a sane problem to solve in licenses. It's an insanely complex area due to the ways it can happen. You generally don't want to try to shove all that in one document, it'll be a mess, and you'll never be able to update it for ambiguities discovered or change it with the times as law changes (OSS already has a large enough problem rev'ing licenses)

Things like transfer problems are better solved by things like [http://www.lotnet.com/](http://www.lotnet.com/), et al, which have specific, well thought out and targeted agreements.

Yes, it makes it harder to tell your likelihood to get screwed, in the sense that you have to know not only the actual license, but whether they are a member of LOT or whatever, but i honestly can't see a good way around this.

<comment><USER9> Thanks a lot for your answer. The part about loopholes explains a lot. But I don't quite agree about the asymmetry.

If you use React, doesn't it basically mean that you de facto license all your patents to Facebook whereas Facebook licenses those required strictly for React? With Apache 2.0 or GPLv3, you would only de facto license patent covering the software and the author would de jure license theirs. With BSD, there is no de facto licensing from you, as termination doesn't relate to patent suits. If so, the new grant is okay for people who don't have patents but it seems unsuitable for those who do. Less patent suits overall would certainly be a good thing but this condition seems very one-sided.

<comment><USER8> "If you use React, doesn't it basically mean that you de facto license all your patents to Facebook whereas Facebook licenses those required strictly for React?"

No. The only patent grants _you_ give are through CLA's. Otherwise, i'm not sure i follow the concern?

<comment><USER9> Say you use React and own patents. If you ever sue someone over patents, it may terminate your React license in the case where the defendant uses React. You may not even know it and keep using React happily after termination. Later, you can't sue Facebook without them countering that your use of React has been unlicensed since termination. Is this a valid concern?

While rereading the grant, I even wonder: (1) does the termination in the grant mean termination of the copyright license as well? (2) asserting any patent against "any party relating to the Software" could include end users since they receive the same license and grant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is what true commitment to open source looks like. Many companies may have remained silent about this and never address it. Their projects where already popular enough that they didn't really need to address the concerns that many had about them.

But they did. And I'm sure it wasn't a trivial effort from whoever worked on getting this amended. So I applaud Facebook and the people that worked to address the communities concerns.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the key bit is _Notwithstanding the foregoing, if Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates files a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against you in the first instance, and you respond by filing a patent infringement counterclaim in that lawsuit against that party that is unrelated to the Software, the license granted hereunder will not terminate under section (i) of this paragraph due to such counterclaim._

In other words, it's an explicitly defensive capability they are reserving - to revoke your patent grant iff you are the one to initiate a patent suit against them. If every open source project included such a statement, it could potentially do a lot to end software patent wars.

<comment><USER12> I don't think I follow the logic. Most of the "bad" patent lawsuits are from companies that don't make any software. Not being able to use React (or even Linux, let's say) would hardly be a problem for them.

<comment><USER13> I am sure that we could find some open source software that they use. Surely they have a website? That almost certainly use Jquery, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm glad that facebook fixed this solely for the fact that facebook open source software discussions will not be dominated by the contents of the PATENTS file.

<comment><USER15> Or possibly to increase the uptake of their projects at other large corporates: thereby increasing mindshare/developer goodwill. Don't tell me that Fb doesn't want to put up IBMs logo on the "who uses React" page

<comment><USER16> GP seems to mean this:

> I'm glad (Facebook fixed this). I'm glad (solely for the fact that […]).

You seem to have read this:

> I'm glad (Facebook fixed this solely for the fact that […]).

<comment><USER15> Thanks - you're right about how I parsed GP's text! Apologies GP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's a diff from the osquery project mentioned in the post:

[https://github.com/facebook/osquery/commit/159899a303d0859eb...](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/commit/159899a303d0859eb7c3768561544c48ccea42b3)

</comment><comment><USER18> Thank god! This means every Facebook (React) thread on HN and Reddit won't be half filled with patent arguments.

<comment><USER19> I'd much rather spend my energy supporting an idea or effort than having to state objections for why it might be bad - as would I hope most who are inventors and wanting to improve the world around them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone comment on whether corporate M&A departments are concerned with this license? An aquirer would either have to rewrite much of the code of their newly acquired startup, or they would lose the ability to initiate a patent suit. According to [1], Google is not able to use React. How much of a concern is this when considering a new aquisition? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246)

<comment><USER21> NB that post pre-dates this change.

<comment><USER20> The scenario I'm worried about may still be a valid concern under the new license.

Here is the scenario:

1\. Google decides to buy my company in 2016.

2\. They ask me to purge my codebase of React, so I switch to Angular.

3\. Some years later, Google decides to sue Facebook over a blimp route optimization algorithm.

4\. Facebook responds: "Well Google, one of your subsidiaries used React back in 2015 before you bought them, and now that you're suing us, that grant is no longer valid, so you're now liable for infringements on our React patents."

So with that scenario in mind, Google chooses to pass on buying my company, leaving some smaller acquirers, and maybe Facebook as possible buyers.

Please tell me this is not how it works. I would love to use React, but I can't bet the farm on this without more assurance.

<comment><USER13> INALIDEPLT: That is not how it works - a termination of the licences means your license is no longer valid, much like you can have any other agreement terminate but that doesn't mean it wasn't valid in the past. It would essentially be the same as if you had a license that was purchased for X years - you can't use it more than X years, but that doesn't mean you can't use it during that period.

<comment><USER22> Sorry it's a bit off topic but what does that acronym mean? Your post is the only result for it on Google!

<comment><USER13> I am not a lawyer I don't even play one on tv.

Also apparently I now rank on Google for something; that is pretty cool.

Edit: of course, I also fat fingered that one - the l should have been an o.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Waiting for some Lawyer to explain why they think this is or isn't great. But mostly out of interest. The old patent grant never prevented me from using their projects.

</comment><comment><USER24> What does this whole patent thing mean? I'm not well-versed at all about licenses and patents and the technical jargon of the file is mostly non-sense to me. Would someone care to simply explain what this implies?

<comment><USER25> From what I can understand from [1][2][3], is the previous patent clause meant that if you and Facebook got into patent litigation, any open source software you used that was written by Facebook would be revoked (opening you up to a license breach). This was scary because Facebook owns a ton of patents and if Zuckerberg woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and decided to sue everyone with their portfolio of patents, it would be impossible to countersue if you used any Facebook code. The other posts go into how companies like Google and Facebook use patents as a way of ensuring mutually assured destruction, and if Google had used Facebook code under the license it would be like Google disarming all their nuclear bombs against facebook.

IANAL, but it seems the new license is a bit more GPL-esque in its restrictions by saying if you use this software than you cannot sue Facebook, its subsidiaries, and your parent weapon of choice can't be based off Facebook software (or else you lose the software license). However if Facebook sues you, then you don't lose the license and you are free to counter sue facebook with your nuclear arsenal of patents.

The reason I call it GPL-esque is it seems to introduce restrictions on how you can legally use the software once you've incorporated it (like how the GPL prevents you from not redistributed the source code), the Facebook license seems to prevent you from launching patent claims that are built off Facebook software. My guess is that if enough people used this license it would be difficult to litigate anyone else without revoking some of your software licenses.

Finally, I never took a law class a day in my life and the closest domain knowledge is an intro to econ class I took in freshman year of college so I could 100% wrong.

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246) [2][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9111849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9111849) [3][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9113515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9113515)

<comment><USER11> Yep, it's effectively a viral (or at least infectious) patent grant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think this is an upgrade. The patent as worded before made it seem like if Facebook sued you, you couldn't both defend yourself and keep your license. In this version, it seems, that you only lose your license if you are the first actor in a lawsuit.

Any legal people to verify what I said?

</comment><comment><USER27> Why not just use the ASF 2.0?

[https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)

It comes with a patent grant.

<comment><USER13> Also, as far as I know, not compatible with the GPL.

<comment><USER28> Not compatible with GPLv2, but compatible with GPLv3: [https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL- compatibility.html](https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't see how this makes everything okay to use now? To me it basically means, if I sue Facebook for any reason involving patents, I would have to give up using its code. I invent a time machine, Facebook can infringe on my patent and I can't sue unless I stop using their code. Please tell me I am wrong.

<comment><USER30> It reads to me like the patent grant license is revoked. So yes, but maybe not? Does facebook even have patents applicable to react?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The patent language in the previous FB license seemed pretty similar to the patent language in Apache 2.0. Can anybody comment or link to a discussion of why the FB language was undesirable? And why not change Apache 2.0 in the same way? (Confused)

</comment><comment><USER32> Can you sue Facebook for patent infringement and still use React.js?

What I mean by that is... do you actually need this patent grant to use React.js? Since React.js is BSD licensed, can you distribute a fork of React.js that does not include this file?

<comment><USER28> Without an explicit patents grant, you're not granted any patents and therefore could be sued for patent infringement if the software is covered by any patents owned by Facebook.

Also, I think the "license" (in the legal sense) for React consists of both the LICENSE and the PATENTS file, so in order to re-distribute the project you'd still personally need to obey its terms.

There's also the problem that the requirements for a "derived work" (which could be distributed with your own license) are more complex than "change a bunch of files", so if you simply slap a new license on someone else's project the new license is not necessarily enforcible and you may be infringing their copyright.

Basically, IP law can not easily be gamed (case in point: legally speaking there's nothing wrong or unexpected about patent trolls).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > A "Patent Assertion" is any lawsuit or other action alleging direct, > indirect, or contributory infringement or inducement to infringe any patent, > including a cross-claim or counterclaim.

Does "action" has any special legal meaning here? It almost seems that you can't write a _blog post_ about facebook infringing on any patents.

<comment><USER34> Yes it has special meaning that lawyers tend to forget confuses laypeople. A legal action is a term of art that means a legal proceeding such as a lawsuit or a petition at a gov't agency. From Black's Law Dictionary:

Lawful pursuit for justice or decision under the law, typically leading to proceeding within the jurisdiction's court system. An entity accuses another for a unlawful action, to protect an entity's rights from violation

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Off-topic, running this URL thru Get-Webcontent (aka curl for Powershell) produces an interesting pattern: [http://i.imgur.com/2vjxq8G.png](http://i.imgur.com/2vjxq8G.png)

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder what will be the next scapegoat non-technical reason not to use it :)

<comment><USER37> This may not have been an important issue for you, but many of us actually have to pay attention to licenses. There are components out there that I would very much like to use, but can't for licensing reasons. Having Facebook respond and make changes is quite welcome.

<comment><USER36> So, this was really all that was keeping you from using React, then? That's great to hear.

<comment><USER37> You presume that I haven't used React. I also use and release GPL code, however I can't use that at work either.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


OLEDs are the future of screens - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitivity.com/articles/2008/06/oleds-are-the-future-of-screen.html Have you ever imagined of having a display monitor built into your clothing that can be rolled up? Have you conceived of having a high-definition TV, 80 inches wide but less than a quarter-inch thick, and that consumes less power than most TVs. These devices are not just an artist's speculation, they might be possible in the near future with the help of OLEDs. <comment><USER2> They have many advantages, but afaik nobody's come out with an OLED screen that doesn't burn in after 10 min of the same color.

</comment><comment><USER3> OLEDs are the future of screens and always will be.</comment>


Nearby instagram and Twitter feed - <AUTHOR> http://in5.com <comment><USER2> that's pretty cool. gj</comment>


C# ternary operator is twice as slow as an if-else block? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/a/17331230

<comment><USER2> Basically, the optimizer failed to notice that

        (long)(c?a:b)

can be turned into

        (c?(long)a:(long)b)

And that since a and b are literals, the cast to long is free in the latter case, but costs two instructions and a register in the former case.

Note that this is very much compiler-specific (the person asking the question didn't say which compiler he was using), and I did not get the same slowdown in the Mono compiler (with or without LLVM).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the accepted answer should be Eren Ersönmez's.

Comparing

            if (i > 0)
            {
                value += 2;
            }
            else
            {
                value += 3;
            }

Is not the same as

        value += i > 0 ? 2 : 3;

Quoting the answer:

        In one case, you create two different += operations with constant values and which one you
        pick depends on a condition, and in the other case, you create a += where the value to add
        depends on a condition.</comment>


Quotes from Warren Buffett - <AUTHOR> http://investing-school.com/history/52-must-read-quotes-from-legendary-investor-warren-buffett/

<comment><AUTHOR> A couple of my favorites...

 _If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing._

 _Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked._

The second one seems to apply particularly well to the current financial crisis.

</comment><comment><USER2> These quote lists are the oldest SEO trick in the linkbait playbook. No work required and people LOVE them. To get what I mean by SEO, check out the sweet "payday loan" links in the footer.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here."

One of these quotes is not like the others! Apparently, that line is from Dickens: [http://books.google.com/books?id=DRx9gUxLU3cC&pg=PA376&#...</a>

</comment><comment><USER4> I become wary of top 10, 8, 5, 52 lists of anything when you see more and more of them. It becomes fluff reading...like the enquirer for hackers.

</comment><comment><USER5> My all time favorite"

"When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's an extra one in the comments that is particularly appropriate for this venue:

 _"Never trust geeks bearing formulas."_

(and the whole sub-prime debacle)

</comment><comment><USER6> There's only 51 of them. 46 and 47 are dupes.</comment>


Show HN: PipeTwist, a difficult tile matching game - <AUTHOR> http://www.pipetwist.com <comment><AUTHOR> I found this concept by accident while I was looking for ways to generate match-3 games. The actual implementation took a couple days, most of which was spent on making it not too difficult. "Easy" is easy, "normal" I can do if I concentrate, "hard" is too hard for me, and "harder" should be just about impossible. Questions, comments?</comment>


Experimentation and Testing: A Primer | Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik - <AUTHOR> http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/05/experimentation-and-testing-a-primer.html <comment><USER2> The title Occam's Razor made me read this article; I was disappointed to find out it was just the name of his blog. I was hoping the article covered more about the simplest and easiest perform solution being the best.

I am going to add it to my RSS feeds and see if any more good testing tidbits come my way.

Thank you.

<comment><USER3> Don't worry, you'll get very good tidbits from his blog. His books are highly recommended too.</comment></comment>


The flyby anomaly – any thoughts? - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyby_anomaly <comment><USER2> This seems far more technically subtle than HN can shed light on.</comment>


Ask HN: Vested shares, create covered calls, sell immediately, hold etc? - <AUTHOR> I was curious how you guys manage your positions with the vested shares in your publicly traded companies, and what circumstances promote your decisions (assuming they are objective at all).
Do create covered calls on all or some of the position (if not all, then why)?
Do you sell them immediately for the cash?
Do you sell them to buy other equities in a brokerage account?
Do you hold them and occasionally wait for a window where employees can sell to liquidate a little here and there?
Not a formal survey, just looking for opinions <comment><USER2> On shares that were worth significantly more than the strike price. I would "sell to cover" which meant exercising the vested shares, then in the same transaction selling enough of the shares to cover the tax impact and the cost of exercise. That results in no net money, but you end up holding owned shares at the basis price of the market price when you exercised. I then held the remaining shares for at least a year so that when I did sell them I could get long term capital gains treatment.

Shares that were not that highly valued relative to their strike price I did not exercise until I left, and assuming they weren't under water I did a same day exercise and sell to pay the tax and return what remained as cash which I put into by brokerage (long term) savings account.

<comment><AUTHOR> So since you were holding for long term capital gains tax treatment, did you consider writing calls on them? Many big companies have deep exchange traded options markets a year out, where you can easily get an extra 10% by simply writing a near the money call (if you have at least 100 shares).

<comment><USER2> Generally every publicly traded company except Sun had me specifically agree to not trade in any options (of any kind) on the company's stock. There are also complications in the way in which trading windows work, although I expect you could argue writing a call was equivalent to a 41-b disclosure in terms of market visibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting, wow, in that case I would immediately sell (depending on the tax scenario) and buy a competitor's stock or something in the same sector to write calls on

proxy trade

<comment><USER2> Yup. From a hedge standpoint that makes the most sense. But lets say you're a Facebook employee, what is your hedge? Google? Apple?

<comment><AUTHOR> or just buy the broad sector ETF and write options on that, but the volatility premiums are substantially larger on tech companies (because people going long are greedy)

especially decent since this entire scenario doesn't really account for possible appreciation in price of the shares, and just capital preservation with decent annual gains and lower tax</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cyanogen Inc. Closing Seattle Office, More Layoffs Expected - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/11/28/cyanogen-inc-will-shutter-seattle-office-by-end-of-year-more-layoffs-happening-kondik-could-be-out/ <comment><USER2> It's a really sad day to loose the only company which develops an alternative to Android which is actually usable without any google apps. I wish their tie- ups with asian manufacturers had turned up some money for them, but the cut- throat margins were too small to be shared.</comment>


What does grammar do? - <AUTHOR> https://fluent-forever.com/what-does-grammar-do/ <comment><USER2> Just wow! Great in-depth article. Thank you</comment>


Obesity and (the loss of) Pleasure - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/10/obesity_and_pleasure.php <comment><USER2> Is there any method of releasing dopamine that isn't subject to physiological tolerance?

<comment><USER3> Direct electrical stimulation of the brain might just work.</comment></comment>