Ask HN: Any possibility of decent multi-language support on Android? - <AUTHOR> How come multi language support is as poor as it is?
Living in a non English speaking country (whose language I also speak), my device is set to English (as main language), which leaves me with the following problems:
Google maps will pronounce every street name in English. Can't have messages from locals read aloud while driving (using android car) for the same reason. Can't dictate even short replies using the local language. I can't even initiate phone calls by voice since looking up contacts with non English sounding names is a pain.
The only remedy seems to be to set the complete device to the local language ; so now I have all the problems reversed (it won't be able to read English, I won't be able to dictate English), but this also switches over the complete system including every app.
Setting multiple languages in Android seems to be for auto-correct only. Great! Love it /s
Why no auto-detect? Google Translate (or MS Translator) do a reasonably good job differentiating between dozens of languages, but Android can't do that with only the few languages I use and have set? Why is there no manual way to set a language for a certain app? This would be awesome for language learners. Play Game 'XYZ' in let's say French without having to switch over your complete system, why not?
Am I so alone with this, is my use case so unique? How come it sucks so hard in 2020? <comment><USER2> In general, POSIX systems (like GNU/Linux) have done this part in a reasonable way for a long time — you can start any program in a different locale (language, number, date-time, character, collation settings...) by using a variable name: LC_ALL or LANG or LANGUAGE (one of these is a GNU extension, I always forget which of the two, and there are some nuanced differences). You could even go so far to only "localise" some of those settings (LC_TIME or LC_CTYPE or LC_MONETARY) to get whatever combination you wish.

The biggest problem with this approach was that you can't change languages on the fly, so applications need to be stopped and restarted (wasn't much of a problem for most CLI applications, I guess).

However, since _everyone_ thinks localisation is an easy problem, and they just roll their own simplistic solution for translation, they have to rebuild all of the same infrastructure to support this (yes, looking at you, web devs :)).

Android, unfortunately, has done mostly the same, and is probably still not there yet (it does make use of some of the GNU or ICU locales data, but I am not sure how much and what combination it allows to be used). Big part of that is that it's a hard problem regardless, so even if Android did it right, apps would likely not use all the APIs properly.</comment>


The women behind Amazon Alexa - <AUTHOR> http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a27908/alexa-creator-toni-reid/ <comment><USER2> This article overstates Toni's role. Though she does own a good portion of the Alexa ecosystem, there were/are several other directors/VPs that ran/run different portions of the system.

I am not saying that Toni's contributions are negligible, rather that her and her team are part of a bigger organization that built and improves Alexa.

Source: work there

<comment><USER3> Yeah the intent of the article is obvious based on the title.

<comment><USER2> I clicked through hoping to see a piece on the female engineers who work on Alexa, but it was an executive profile. You are right that executive profiles generally overstate the contributions of their subject.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would love to use such a device, and explore the possibilities.

However, it concerns me that every major player out there tries to create a locked playing field with their devices ("amazon home" vs "google home").

I really don't like the idea of buying home automation devices that are meant for one specific solution. Moreover, I also fear that I could become dependent on a corporate-owned device/service, with no direct alternatives (or with convoluted migration paths).

And that's not even mentioning the privacy issues, or (ok, I touched that a bit) the freedom to hack a bit the API (what if I would like to add a completely custom command, change the detection keyword, etc...)

There are some open solutions such as Mycroft, but I must confess I haven't looked much at it. I won't consider this technology mature or ready for use until those concerns are addressed, which could take some time: it also seems to me that those "personal assistants" are more suited to a central architecture (which raises the question: did this architecture influence their design, or is it the only possible solution for a reliable "personal assistant"?).

<comment><USER5> With regards to locking in to home automation, Alexa has many integrations with the major home automation brands and hardware. For instance, my house is nearly all Z-Wave and I use a Wink Hub to tie them together. It took possibly 30 seconds to integrate Wink to Alexa and now I can control my entire house through voice commands such as "turn downstairs off" or "turn master bedroom on".

Even though I have iPhone and many HomeKit enabled devices, the fact that Wink and Alexa support so many integrations keeps me from even attempting to buy into a very locked in ecosystem like Apple or Google are attempting.

Finally, in the absence of a pre-existing integration, you can always write your own, which can't really be said for any of the other major players that aren't completely roll your own.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the flexibility the Alexa platform has shown, and it's becoming increasingly part of our home workflow because of how well it plays with other things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an aside, I don't know what to think of the fact that all AI assistant are made to appear female.

<comment><USER7> Likely a design choice that stems from how humans react to the voices of each gender. Female voices are generally better for voice communications which convey details, information, and other non-commands. Male voices are generally used to communicate from a sense of authority.

Take for instance the NYC subway system. The female voice announces the stop the train has just arrived at, while the male voice instructs customers to 'stand clear of the closing doors' and to 'be aware of pickpockets, take care to ensure the safety of your personal property.'

This is quite intentional. We simply react better when certain types of voices are used to convey certain things.

Source: former audiobook, VO, and podcast casting director.

<comment><USER8> "Bitching Betty" / 'Nagging Nora" show that command voices in safety critical situations can often be female voices.

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

<comment><USER7> Yes, but using that type of female voice for your consumer product would be a very bad design decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> According to independent reviews, Alexa came in dead-last when compared to Siri and Google Home.

See comparison here: [http://bgr.com/2017/05/18/google-home-vs-amazon-alexa- vs-sir...](http://bgr.com/2017/05/18/google-home-vs-amazon-alexa-vs-siri- comparison/)</comment>


Show HN: NonStopOPS – Quickly design and execute data processing flows - <AUTHOR> https://www.nonstopops.io <comment><AUTHOR> We need beta testers, anyone interested?

NonStopOPS is a hosted service where you can quickly create data processing pipelines to do intelligent stuff with operational data ... like creating dashboards and reports from logging/monitoring data, calculating availability and other NFRs, or correlating events across multiple data streams. It is for times where sysadmins have use cases that cross the boundaries of traditional OPS tools, and where they'd otherwise have to do a bunch of manual stuff.</comment>


Features To Make GitHub An Awesome Platform - <AUTHOR> http://tav.espians.com/4-features-to-make-github-an-awesome-platform.html <comment><USER2> I want to do all of this stuff. Great post.

<comment><USER3> I've been wanting OAuth for stuff like <http://calendaraboutnothing.com/>. There's no way we should advocate entering GitHub passwords or API tokens into a 3rd party web apps.

<comment><USER4> Agreed! I want to build our entire community site around Github, but I don't want people to provide their usernames/passwords, and I'd prefer a way to specify whether or not they're providing access to SSH keys, which I don't need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hm. I have something like this already setup privately. It's just a Node.js app that routes post requests to the private-access git address. I suppose I should clean it up and release it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would love to do this. Maybe not these features exactly, but eventually, with Hackety Hack, I'd like to make the website be a "github lite." Github without git. All the social stuff, none of the complicated git stuff. Eventually, offer a path to migrate programs to a real github account proper. This is still a bit far off... but an API would make it much easier.

<comment><USER7> Why does github have to do this? You can do it yourself.

<comment><USER6> And I probably will. It's just always easier to make a few API calls than to re-implement something in its entirety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I registerd gitapps.com a year ago — it's now expiring, but I'd be happy to donate it (renew it and transfer it) if anyone comes up with a really cool use for it...

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if there's any more "social" that could be put into GitHub's already "social" platform. For example: I always thought it would be nice to have a forum system (separate from the issue tracker) so that each repository could have a discussion forum.

I guess in general what I'm saying is it'd be nice to have some facebook- or forum-like ways for developers to chat amongst each other (either in the context of a repository or not).

</comment><comment><USER9> <http://hook.io> actually will be solving a lot of these issues.....on a larger scale</comment>


A Trial of Lopinavir–Ritonavir in Adults Hospitalized with Severe Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001282 <comment><USER2> Its important to see trials not working too, because every drug sounds like it works in some cases. We pin a lot of hope on chloroquine, remdesivir etc

Yes, they may work, I hope they work. But because we heard of a case here or there is no reason to think it works.</comment>


Catching up with Watsi: Y Combinator's first non-profit graduate - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/06/catching-up-with-watsi-y-combinators-first-non-profit-graduate/?fromcat=all

<comment><USER2> I'm a huge fan of Watsi, but looking over their transparency document has me worried. The funds for 47% of funded treatments haven't made it to their medical partners. On average, the unsent funds have been waiting for 43 days, with the longest wait being 160 days (!!). I'd love if someone from Watsi could explain why it takes so long to send funds to medical partners after successful funding.

        Funded treatments: 261
        Treatments waiting for funds to transfer: 124
        Average wait for funds: 43 days

Data and script for calculations can be found here: <https://gist.github.com/kyleconroy/5332776>

<comment><USER3> We go into detail about that in our FAQ here: [https://watsi.org/faq#why- doesn-t-watsi-transfer-funds-befor...](https://watsi.org/faq#why-doesn-t- watsi-transfer-funds-before-medical-care-is-provided)

But in short, it's for two reasons. 1) We transfer funds after care is provided (details in the FAQ) and 2) It takes an average of six weeks for care to be provided, which IMO is actually extremely fast considering the context in which our medical partners operate.

If you still have questions after reading the FAQ and associated blog post, happy to answer them here. That said, I really appreciate the analysis of our transparency doc. Crowdsourcing operational feedback is exactly why we make our data public.

<comment><USER2> Chase, thanks for the reply. It makes perfect sense that your providers would perform the treatment before getting your funds, as you operate as an (almost) insurance provider. I was worried they were waiting for funds to proceed, but it's obvious that is not the case.

The only other thing that stuck out looking over the document were patient updates. There are a few patients, specifically Madeline[1], whose treatment is still in progress but haven't seen an update in over five months. It would be great if you could ensure that no patient would go without an update for more than two months.

[1]: <http://eepurl.com/p25Jb>

<comment><USER4> We do our best to make sure no patient goes without an update for too long, but are a bit constrained by our operational capacity right now (part of the reason we're fundraising).

In Madeline's case, the surgery is taking longer than anticipated because she had some unanticipated dental issues that her doctors wanted to take care of before they operated.

Because of limited resources, we usually prioritize sending "final" updates over "preliminary" ones, but you're right that in Madeline's case we definitely need to prioritize keeping her donors posted on the reason for the delay.

As Chase mentioned, this kind of crowdsourced spot checking is exactly why we make all of our records public. Thanks for bringing this up!

<comment><USER2> No problem Grace, thanks for the update. I don't want to come off as negative, I love what Watsi is doing and wish you best.

<comment><USER4> No worries! Not at all. Thanks again :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the most interesting part of the article, IMO:

 _"[Watsi's] goal is to become the largest crowdfunding medical treatment platform. This is way down the line, but we could move into providing social medical insurance. As soon as we have large enough dollars coming through the platform, we could even treat patients in the USA."_

The first time I visited the Watsi site, seeing all those photos and reading the stories of people in need of medical care, I thought of the many people I know in the US who have little or no health insurance. Well educated, hard working people who can't afford medication and common medical procedures, people who haven't been to a dentist in years, and so on.

I understand that in developing countries more can be done for more people with the same funds, but I'd be very happy if this project took off in such a way that it would let the world help the US population in need. It might be more realistic than waiting for the implementation of a healthcare system deserving of a first world nation.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've really like Watsi since the first time I saw it on HN (before you were in YC). I was thinking about it yesterday and I think the satisfying part is the ability to see a case actually get funded. A lot of charities you give money but it is for a somewhat amorphous problem, to "fight hunger" or "help fund education" or "research a cure for cancer". These are all noble causes but it is somehow less personally fulfilling because you can't see any near term changes and just have to tell yourself perhaps your donation helped in some small way. With Watsi you can actually see that you and some other anonymous strangers paid for an actual procedure, and it got done, and it is pretty easy to see the direct connection between your donation and a real, positive difference in someone's life, even if you don't know / will never meet that someone.

It is the same with that IndieGoGo fund the other day to help the Kenyan hacker trying to get to NYC for Hacker School. There is something fulfilling about refreshing that page and seeing the goal met and then exceeded and knowing it will impact their life in a way that is greater than I could have impacted my own by spending the same money on something for myself (or, perhaps, something more directly for myself, since clearly this kind of thing gives me some personal satisfaction or I wouldn't do it, selfish altruism and all :))

</comment><comment><USER7> I think they have a huge opportunity to create a habit for these first donors. Big donations from big VC people certainly is an opportunity for fundraise, but not for learning. As a early stage social network site is all about engagement, not traffic, they should focus on engagement for small, regular donors. Impulse donations are used and abused all over the social sector, but they won't be the base for a game changer nonprofit, as I imagine Watsi is trying to be.

Even more important is engagement because nonprofit usually have multiple missions. Watsi shouldn't just "get the money to the people" as a business oriented mind would think about their model. Engage donors to give money _and_ understand the situation of the people receiving the money, and the situation of their city, the public health system in their country, how their families and neighborhoods deal with health issues. These are the things that will make the world smaller and the humans closer. A big VC writing a check of 100,000 dollars won't acomplish anything on that, 10,000 people giving 10 bucks each month, a reading their newsletter, understanding more about the world. That is an accomplishment.

</comment><comment><USER8> With YCombinators investment in Watsi, is it a charity investment, or do they actually intend to make money off Watsi, and if so, how?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a charity donation

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been following Watsi for a while now and was excited to hear they made it into YC. I've always had a bit of a crisis trying to find a balance between humanitarian work and our craft as programmers. As a programmer, the odds are likely that your impact is localized to corporate or consumer products that have little to no effect on the quality of life of others. I'm tempted to go the Peace Corps route when I graduate, but I feel the opportunity cost is too high and that my skill set would not be useful.

Watsi seems like an amazing opportunity to resolve these issues- are you guys looking for interns or volunteers?

<comment><USER4> Absolutely! We don't have a formal internship or volunteer program yet. But we'd love to connect and see if there's a way we can get you involved. Feel free to email email@example.com and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just an idea: how about adding gamification to the mix, linking Watsi accounts to social network profiles? You can take some pages from Zynga's evil playbook and use it for good.

<https://www.coursera.org/course/gamification>

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it'd be awesome if they used vine-style short video clips of the people rather than the present photographs. i know there may be insurmountable barriers of access, but still.

<comment><USER4> We're really excited about using video down the line. Right now, you're right. There are some tough barriers. But we hope to overcome them in the not-too- distant future!</comment></comment>


Defender of the Favicon (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/ <comment><USER2> Somewhat off-topic: Can you still serve up 30GB favicons? Some friends and I used to prank each other with large favicon files. It just so happened that mobile browsers would keep downloading massive favicon files in the background even if you left the page. The unintended effect was a rather large mobile roaming bill for data-overage for one of our friends, which we paid.

<comment><USER3> Why stop at 30GB? IIRC with gif encoding you can just keep sending frames forever, something like [https://github.com/jbochi/gifstreaming](https://github.com/jbochi/gifstreaming)

<comment><USER2> Certainly! :-) I was using a simple nginx+haproxy server and static files for simplicity. I am maybe a bit lazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I couldn't figure out how to play this, so I tried making Snake in the favicon: [https://defseg.io/snavicon](https://defseg.io/snavicon)

The framerate isn't great - is drawing to the favicon inherently slow, or can it be improved? - but it's at least somewhat playable.

</comment><comment><USER5> Over ten years old, works fine in Firefox

</comment><comment><USER6> Doesn't work on iOS! Literally unplayable.

Jokes aside this is pretty neat. I feel like the concept of the favicon should be re-evaluated to consider the common use cases of today.

<comment><USER7> You are right on your second point. I think that there needs to be a 'favimage' that works for everything including the original use case plus those personal web app icons, start menu tiles, Google search results, twitter cards, Facebook open graph images and other social media applications. If this new format was responsive SVG with image embeds then it should work fine on the many different canvas sizes.

<comment><USER8> SVG is not very well suited for favicons. At that size, you often want to hand-tune the single pixels.

<comment><USER9> The format Haiku uses for its icons might be apt

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

<comment><USER10> Yep, it has LOD calculation features, so you can hide and show certain elements at smaller sizes so it always scales well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it's cool. Useless, but cool :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Works on Firefox

<comment><USER13> Not for me on 65.0.1 sadly. Plus my disk starts spinning like crazy when I open it for some reason.

<comment><USER14> Works great for me on 65.0.1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very nice. It works quite well, despite the small size of favicon or maybe I just need new glasses.

</comment><comment><USER16> Unplayable. Left and Right do not move as expected.

<comment><USER17> for me, left and right seem oddly reversed. I don't know what would make that happen! Or maybe I just don't understand the game.

<comment><USER8> You need to look at the ground. Right moves your ship to the right, but also shifts the camera to the right, so you can see where you're going. That results in the ship actually moving to the left side of the frame.

<comment><USER18> There are people who haven't played _Defender?_

Damn, I'm old.

<comment><USER17> I might be older than you, just wasn't much of a gamer!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Unplayable, but a neat proof of concept.</comment>


A $500 Million Week for Grand Theft Auto - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/technology/07game.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> Dupe:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=183166>

</comment><comment><USER3> So it sold more then Halo 3 in its first week? (Halo3 sold $300 million)

There is hope... Halo 3 is the most overrated game... but of course sales don't equal quality. Mainly hype. So far GTA has delivered.

</comment><comment><USER4> Anyone know what the production costs were? Ad costs?

<comment><USER5> I am trying to figure this out as well.</comment></comment>


Cornell University Finds Professor Brian Wansink Guilty of Scientific Misconduct - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/brian-wansink-retired-cornell <comment><AUTHOR> Related discussion from a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15351006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15351006)</comment>


Show HN: A free online ordering system for restaurants - <AUTHOR> https://order.storekit.com/product <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN. I put this together over the last 2-3 weeks to help the many restaurants and retailers currently unable to trade. Whilst many operators in large cities have systems in place to handle a rapid change in operations, there's the very long tail of stores across the country who are very new to online ordering as a concept. So the focus is on simplicity and getting set up as quickly as possible.

Tech stack: Vue.js & tailwind on the frontend, Hapi server.

<comment><USER2> Nice work, will you make it also open source or as package to self-host?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not on the roadmap right now, the percentage of restaurants with the capability and desire to self-host software is very low.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome guys. There are a lot of things that could be improved upon but the fact that it's free makes this a no brainer for any small businesses that are tight on money. Keep up the great work :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We've had ~200 odd signups so far, hopefully some will find it useful. If you have specific improvements, would love to hear them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excellent idea. Can I use it for another country? Can the currency be changed? Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER5> Free, "but if you want to take card payments there will be per-transaction charges" — not unexpected, but worth pointing out considering the emphasis on "free" in the headline.

<comment><USER6> You'll have per transaction charges no matter what service you use - it's charged by the bank.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for letting them know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How many restaurants did you get to join? The only missing thing I can see is a global front page with an index of the nearest available restaurant (for me as a customer).

<comment><AUTHOR> We have around 200 restaurants using the system right now. This would be great, but the problem is you need huge scale for this to be generally useful. I think once/if we hit around 2000, this will be something to think about building.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I gotta say, I'm really loving all the websites built with Tailwind (assuming this is built with Tailwind UI). It's like going back to 2011 bootstrap everywhere days but so so much better.

</comment><comment><USER10> If I created this, I'd be very worried this would be used to create a lot of "trivial" fronts for selling drugs or other illicit items... In an obfuscated manner ofcourse.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not _very_ worried although it's somewhat of a concern. Restaurant-style online ordering matches drug delivery nicely. However, the KYC required for accepting card payments is a pretty good safety net to catch this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Nice, but I would also expect a package that I can run on my own server or update with my desires

</comment><comment><USER11> Not so good when "Create store" fails to do anything. (Firefox, Linux)

<comment><AUTHOR> No, definitely not! I couldn't see anything in the logs. So I assume not all required fields were filled out when creating the store. Highlighting those needs some work. Thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good one during the corona crisis

</comment><comment><USER13> > Free Software

I think you mean gratis.

</comment><comment><USER14> white text on white background on the signup page might not be such a good choice brother</comment>


Need recommendation for a better mail server host - <AUTHOR> Hello, I have been using a low cost mail server host. I noticed some of my emails go straight into recipient's junk mail box. I suspect it is due to the bad reputation of my current mail server. Do you have a better alternative? Thank you <comment><USER2> My recommendation is Fastmail for personal/business email/mailboxes, and Mailgun for a transactional email API.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you mean for mailboxes…? If so, G Suite.

For other use cases maybe Sendgrid?

</comment><comment><USER4> I like migadu. No extra charges for additional domains or mailboxes.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mailgun.</comment>


Show HN: Nurse turns Dev to create emoji EMR - <AUTHOR> hi! I'm Natalie, an RN of 8 years/aspiring developer trying to learn HTML, CSS & Javascript basics and fundamentals by creating my first web page. (https://www.nataliepeterson.dev) I have become increasingly interested in development and UX design after frustration with current EMRs. This is the beginning of my journey. Feedback is appreciated! Below is my github repository: https://github.com/nataliepeterson/coconut <comment><USER2> I'm upvoting you because I find it interesting that you are a nurse trying to become a developer because you don't like current EMR systems - correct?

I'm not sure about your title here - what is an "emoji EMR"? Is it an emoji to represent EMRs? I'm missing something here, because the title doesn't seem to square with the description.

What are your ultimate goals?

Are you trying to learn web development tools to show how you (as a nurse) would create an EMR UI/UX?

Do you plan on creating some kind of EMR system (not a small task)?

Note: I have some small experience in this area; many years back I worked (as a software engineer) for a local web app development company and I was assigned to a client working in the space to create a "patient centric" EMR system. All went well until the client wanted us to backdate certain things relating to HIPAA readiness, which we were unwilling to do (at the time, it seemed unethical if not against HIPAA regs). The client ended up dropping us over that (plus balking at the cost, at the time, for what we rec'd for production colo, which was Rackspace, who had HIPAA compliance).</comment>


Apple Just Released a New iPad - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like this not as big story as it used to be a few years ago. The new iPad Air seems to be fast, but uses old lightning connector instead of usb-c and has a home button.

<comment><USER2> The new iPad Air is essentially the new A12 SoC inside the now discontinued 2017 10.5" iPad Pro.

They also cut some features like the bright high refresh rate screen, the high resolution camera and the four speakers. As such there's no support for the new Pencil, USB-C and FaceID (for better or for worse).</comment></comment>


Saudi Arabia builds 600-mile border wall equipped with Airbus radar and helipads - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11344116/Revealed-Saudi-Arabias-Great-Wall-to-keep-out-Isil.html <comment> m-i-l If the map is correct, it looks like it could be bypassed by entering through Jordan or Kuwait. I wonder if the designers know about the Maginot Line [0] (extensive and costly fortifications on the Germany / France border, which the Germans simply bypassed by invading through Belgium)?

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

<comment><USER2> There is no love for ISIS in Jordan after they burned a Jordanian pilot alive on television. Going through Jordan is not likely.

<comment><USER3> The question really is, will Jordan border defence be stronger than this wall? Somehow I don't see ISIS shying away from taking the way around if they really want to atack Saudis.

<comment><USER4> It might well be.

Jordan's military leadership is surprisingly competent, with lots of forward thinking, preparations and plans for eventualities.

<comment><USER5> Why is that surprising? I'm not particularly well informed on the matters and for some reason thought for years that Jordan was militarily competent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > When a raiding party from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant attacked a > Saudi border post last week...

This statement seems backward to me. Isn't ISIS supported by the Saudis to overthrow the Shiite government of Iraq?

<comment><USER7> Yes, I did have a little chuckle to myself about this irony until I realised there were probably (in total) millions dead at this point because stupid people are allowed to run the world.

The sooner we divest from oil reliance the better; hopefully this awful Trump presidency will give the left a mandate to do this in 4 years.

<comment><USER8> Obama had all the mandate he could have dreamt of with the 28 pages in the 9/11 report[1]. He also had the opportunity, with fracking and Keystone XL offering the potential for the US/Canada to becomes entirely energy-self- reliant. He didn't take it, preferring instead to accommodate domestic environmental concerns. Such is politics, it is about prioritising between sub-ideal options -- but there's no reason to expect the next president will have significantly different priorities, regardless of what havoc Trump will end up wreaking.

De-carbonising the US economy to achieve energy-self-reliance through locally produced renewables through policy (as opposed to eg solar being market- competitive and taking over at scale through market processes) will take decades and be way out of reach for any one president to see through -- it will require a much deeper (in practise, bipartisan congressional) commitment. Also, anyway, these are not exclusive options. It's not materially different to decarbonise from domestically produced oil than from Saudi produced oil -- indeed, it might be easier, as domestic oil is fairly expensive and Saudi is pretty cheap.

1: [http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/congress- releases...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/congress- releases-28-pages-saudis-9-11/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The market for border walls seems to be thriving

<comment><USER10> It's almost like heavier than air vehicles were never invented.

<comment><USER3> There might be a market for fast, lightweight, extremely cheap aircrafts. No border wall defenses will help if you swarm them with more planes than they have anti-aircraft missiles.

<comment><USER11> It it is fast and lightweight and cheap shooting it down also won't be hard. you don't need a missile, you need a bullet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This definitely should have the date posted in the title (2015).

</comment><comment><USER12> > Despite the difficulty of access to westerners, the country is relatively > open to fellow Muslim nations, particularly during the Haj season when > pilgrims from across the world come to Mecca and Medina.

This is helpful as I assume this means that they'll be able to take in large numbers of refugees. It seems like Saudi Arabia is very intent on keeping themselves safe from attack, so it seems a geographically close safe-haven is an ideal situation for those that would otherwise have to brave trips to Europe or the Americas.

<comment><USER13> They can certainly accommodate a lot of people. They have over 100,000 air conditioned tents at Mecca which can hold over 3 million people:

[http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/beautiful-urban- moments/mina-...](http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/beautiful-urban-moments/mina- tent-city-mecca/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina,_Saudi_Arabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina,_Saudi_Arabia)

Despite the facility to do so, they take in no refugees. [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/12/facts- figures...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/12/facts-figures- syria-refugee-crisis-international-resettlement/)

<comment><USER12> > The six Gulf countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait > and Bahrain - have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.

That's really shocking to me as these countries are rich in resources. Further, AFAIK, the majority of the populations share a religion/culture and these countries are very close (comparative to Europe/US) to the current middle east struggles, so why would they turn away refugees? I'm surprised there's not more political discussion happening to pressure stable, neighboring countries to help in this global challenge.

<comment><USER14> The reason is simple: incoming refugees will cause internal strife and fracture the Saudi Royal family's tenuous hold on power. I don't agree or disagree with that premise, but that's the reasoning.

<comment><USER15> The same is occurring in Europe and even America. The establishment is threatened as a result of this mass immigration. Perhaps the difference is that the Saudis do not suffer from white guilt and, hence, attempts at rational discourse are not drown out with calls of racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is the U.S. wall on the Mexican border going to be anywhere near this sophisticated? I had the impression it's going to be basically a single fence, enforced by a bulked up Border Patrol.

<comment><USER17> The focus of border security has been on stemming the flow of people through various "hot spots" – border crossings that can be secured. The idea of building a long barrier like Great Wall of China has never materialized due to both cost and the impracticality of securing rugged terrain that might include mountains and rivers. In addition, the American border includes vast areas of open space far from people and infrastructure such as power, which makes monitoring difficult, according to Dewar.

Faced with long borders and limited manpower, agencies have increasingly turned to technology to detect unauthorized intrusions. They include long- range fiber-optic sensor systems such as Senstar's FiberPatrol system. These sensors can be deployed on a fence with just a single optical cable stretched up to 10 miles.

Buried RF cable sensors operate very much like radar and offer the advantage of being both out of sight and protected from the elements.

"People don't know that it's there," says Dewar. "So they may know a system is there, but they don't know exactly where it is and that makes it hard to defeat. It's very tolerant to vegetation, so it works very well for borders."

Both of these systems are able to pinpoint intrusions to within meters. If the system also is integrated with CCTV, central station monitors can point cameras in the right direction for further investigation. Border Patrol agents can then be dispatched quickly.

src: [https://us.sourcesecurity.com/news/articles/border- security-...](https://us.sourcesecurity.com/news/articles/border-security- technologies-shoot-donald-trump-co-1090-ga.19574.html)

<comment><USER18> Re: long barriers in inhospitable territory

One of the lesser-known but technically-impressive border fences was the Cordon Sanitaire ( Corsan ) built by Rhodesia in the 1970s along the border with Mozambique.

The idea of relying solely on sensors was rejected because even heliborne troops were inadequately slow when intruders could disappear into the African bush. Instead the Corsan consisted of two fences bracketing a minefield and much Israeli monitoring equipment, ran for 180 km along incredibly hostile African territory.

Eventually the cost proved prohibitve and the next 800km of border had to be secured with only a minefield and a homeward-side fence.

<comment><USER19> When you put it like that, fences on both sides seem a proper friendly gesture...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 2015 tag?</comment>


Tweets when major movies switch from DVD only to streaming on netflix - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/streamingc <comment><AUTHOR> for example, 'The Hunger Games' just switched from DVD only to streaming today. Never would have known that without the tweet. And it just switched today.</comment>


Support Direct Flights from Ireland to Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://newtechpost.com/2011/05/10/petition-presented-to-reinstate-direct-flights-from-dublin-to-silicon-valley

<comment><USER2> As long as they call it "Shenanigan Class"</comment>


A candidate received over 4K extra votes due to an ionizing particle from Sun - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/space-weather-cosmic-rays-voting-aaas <comment><USER2> Not a very convincing article to me. Why do they think it was a cosmic ray vs a simple bug? Seems to me the simpler answer is the case here.

It is also troubling they found the error accidentally. Seems they didn't do even minimal validation of the results, such as applying Benford's Law. [https://iaonline.theiia.org/putting-benfords-law-to- work](https://iaonline.theiia.org/putting-benfords-law-to-work)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yet another reason to add to the pile of aguments against electronic voting.</comment>


If you use a Mac or Android, e-commerce sites may be charging you more - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/03/if-you-use-a-mac-or-an-android-e-commerce-sites-may-be-charging-you-more/?tid=rssfeed <comment><USER2> I use [http://camelcamelcamel.com](http://camelcamelcamel.com) for amazon price tracking. Does anyone know of any other websites like this with price tracking?

For instance, Artificial intelligence a modern approach is $135 right now, but using this site I can see that it was <$90 in January of this year and it hit $100 in September: [http://camelcamelcamel.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern- Ap...](http://camelcamelcamel.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approach- Edition/product/0136042597?context=browse)

Same story with Introduction to Algorithms, except it is now $80 and the lowest it hit was $44 in October: [http://camelcamelcamel.com/Introduction- Algorithms-Edition-T...](http://camelcamelcamel.com/Introduction-Algorithms- Edition-Thomas-Cormen/product/0262033844?context=browse)

<comment><USER3> But then, how would you be sure that web sites like camelcamelcamel.com are not price-steering you with false data?

<comment><USER4> While it's true that they might have the incentive to do this because of affiliate fees, they'd need access to the particular site's price-steering specifics, which I doubt they'd give out due to competitive reasons. (For Amazon itself, the OP article doesn't mention price-steering, and the incident from 2000 it linked [1] quotes CEO who promised to never do it again)

If they don't have access to that, they can't price-steer or else users would notice discrepancies between the listed price and the site's price and the main users of those sites are the price-minded.

[1] [http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2000/09/25/daily2...](http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2000/09/25/daily21.html)

<comment><USER3> That's a great point, but I think multiple approaches could be possible. For example, manipulating historical data to make the current price point attractive. That would be difficult for the user to verify.

<comment><USER4> Wow that sure would be insidious and hard to notice. I guess at the end of the day it comes down to whether you trust the site enough and what they could stand to gain from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> these practices are converging on something like a 21st century version of redlining, and i hope consumer advocates will work to expose and address these modern forms of _opaque_ price discrimination.

some may claim that these practices can benefit consumers, but unless it's done transparently in ways that consumers know and understand, it primarily serves to increase information asymmetry.

<comment><USER6> Time to remove OS information leakage from user agent string? Sites could still profile users by browser (e.g. Safari), though.

<comment><USER5> I would encourage people to

1) collect data and submit written complaints to regulators like the FTC if they believe they've identified unfair or deceptive business practices

2) boycott companies that engage in these practices, and ask your friends to do the same

3) consider technical mitigations like the de-identifying properties that using the Tor Browser Bundle offers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Unfortunately, the business logic underlying much of this personalization > remains a mystery.

Price discrimination appears, at first glance, to be about maximising profit, but really it's about _clearing the market_.

Say you're a cinema, and you set your list price for a ticket at £10. 20 adults show up and buy the tickets and are happy. Then 10 students show up, scoff, and go home - they weren't willing to go above £7. The market has not cleared: you'd be happier with £70 from them than the nothing you've got, and the students would be happier being £70 worse off but having seen the film. Neither party got what they wanted, no trade occurred, and no economic value was created.

The situation could be improved so that everybody gets what they want without harming anybody else: set a student rate at £7. Students get to see the films and your cinema makes more money - everyone is as happy as they _could_ be.

In this example, the criteria for price discrimination is discovered by intuition, existing knowledge of students, maybe surveys. But even this isn't ideal - what about that one _really_ tight student who buys pasta in 20kg bags and who values a trip to the cinema at £4? Ideally you want their £4 and they want to see the film - but how to cater for them without shooting yourself in the foot by making the student price £4 across the board?

Until the advent of the internet and fancy algorithms that could at least try to understand you, you couldn't. But today maybe we can.

Everyone has their own "true" valuation for a given product ( _not_ how much they think it should be worth, but how much they're willing to pay), and if you're a supplier with a magic ball which can divine this with 100% accuracy then you're as well selling your product at 1p over cost if that's your customer's true valuation. Again: they get the product they wanted and you get profit you couldn't have had any other way, and everyone's as happy as they can be.

But we don't have magic balls, and you can't ask someone for their true valuation because suddenly you'll find yourself knee-deep in a bartering game of bullshit and lies. Your only option is to try to divine it somehow.

This is what these guys are doing. And it's a good thing. To say "this is wrong and it should stop" is incredibly selfish - with reference to the example above, an equivalent statement might be "Yes I'll pay £10 to see this movie, but only if those students don't get a discount, which I implicitly understand to mean robbing you, dear cinema owner, of £70, and those students of the chance to see this hot new flick, even though both of those things are fuck all to do with me."

If you're a habitual bargain hunter (not out of necessity, more as a personality trait) and you're feeling affronted by this then all you need do is take a cue from these companies and adjust your tactics to suit the 21st century. Googling around may have done you proud up til now, but the world has moved on. I daresay that once you've mastered the art of using a VPN, user agent spoofing, and possibly the cultivation of a set of dishonest consumer profiles, you may find you'll save _even_ more money in the face of this new enemy.

<comment><USER8> You know those psychology games where there are two people and the first person is given $10 to split between the two of them. They can split $5/$5 or $1/$9 or even $.01/$9.99. Then the second person can either accept the split and take their share or nix the whole deal and no one gets anything.

Aggressive price discrimination reminds me of this game. If I'm willing to pay exactly £20 to see that movie and the movie theatre is charging £19.99 I should take that deal. Even if they're only charging you £9.99 (because your willingness to pay is only £10).

Taking that deal is the right thing to do. Right?

But it turns out in those experiments that if the split proposed is two uneven then the second person will say screw it. No one gets nothing! People have an innate sense of fairness.

The same thing applies to what's going on here. Something about charging people differently based on their User-Agent really rubs people the wrong way. It's a step too far so they just table flip and say screw it.

Is it rational in an homo economicus kind of way? Nope. Is the the way people actually behave. Yup.

<comment><USER9> I don't remember where I saw this, but I believe this has to do with culture. In North America what you described is true, where as in developing countries it is not. The second person would rather just take whatever money is given and run.

If someone can remind me of the name of this game I can find it..

<comment><USER10> _In North America what you described is true, where as in developing countries it is not._

Not true. The game was conducted in "developing countries" as well, and the results seem to be same. I can't locate the references right now, but a little googling might help (Especially I remember the results being mentioned one of the TED talks.)

<comment><USER11> I remember at least one case where the game was played, and the person who got to choose took 9 bucks out of 10, and they all thought it was fair, simply because he was lucky to be the guy who got to choose.

edit: it's in the article HaloZero links in this thread.

 _When he began to run the game it became immediately clear that Machiguengan behavior was dramatically different from that of the average North American. To begin with, the offers from the first player were much lower. In addition, when on the receiving end of the game, the Machiguenga rarely refused even the lowest possible amount. "It just seemed ridiculous to the Machiguenga that you would reject an offer of free money," says Henrich. "They just didn't understand why anyone would sacrifice money to punish someone who had the good luck of getting to play the other role in the game."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can provide some insight into why the hotel prices are different (I run Room77, a hotel metasearch site). Generally, many hotels enforce a parity price display rule with their sellers (think Minimum Advertised Price) so the travel sites aren't supposed to market a rate below the market price. There are exceptions built in for "members only" clubs since these users are gated and allowed to get a non-public rate. There are also exceptions in some cases for mobile rate discounting since they are generally last minute and if you have the app installed you could technically be considered part of a "club".

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if this works in the other direction too: pretend you're accessing their site from e.g. IE6 on Win98... or maybe a somewhat more recent but still extremely-outdated configuration that at least will work with their site.

Several years ago, for a brief period I used _no_ user-agent header, which caused quite a few sites to show nothing more than an obscure "500 internal server error" message, which disappeared as soon as a UA header was added, even if it contained nothing more than random rubbish.

<comment><USER14> Using a shitty browser can cost you more [1].

[1] [http://www.kogan.com/au/blog/new-internet- explorer-7-tax/](http://www.kogan.com/au/blog/new-internet-explorer-7-tax/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's an auction style that could be used to determine an optimal price, particularly for digital goods:

1\. Each shopper specifies the max they're willing to pay for the item. Perhaps pre-auth this price on their credit card.

2\. Merchant calculates - for every hypothetical price point - total revenue from all the shoppers who would we willing to pay at least that hypothetical price.

3\. Whichever price causes the most revenue wins. All shoppers who are willing to pay at least this much are charged and receive the item.

</comment><comment><USER16> Cue in Digital Millenium Retail Act prohibiting circumvention of technical measures of personalization (like turning cookies off with intent to circumvent personalization)...

</comment><comment><USER17> > Doepfner said the resulting dramatic drop in traffic to his company's > publications was proof of Google's overwhelming power in the search market. > He said he hoped lawmakers, courts and competition regulators would take > action to curb its powers.

No the dramatic drop was caused by you relying on a search engine's news section too much to build your online business and then simply ditching it with no alternative. If Google has overwhelming power in the search market, then Bild has overwhelming power in the newspaper market. Not being able to utilize that is your fault and it's pathetic (sorry for the strong word) to call lawmakers into action in this case.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's worth reading the actual paper closely.

[http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/cbw/pdf/imc151-hannak.pdf](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/cbw/pdf/imc151-hannak.pdf)

The authors didn't find any smoking gun. None. Zero.

They found some travel sites offering member discounts--no surprise there. They also found sellers were personalizing search rankings--no surprise again. And they found a persistent pricing differential for Home Depot, but were careful to note that it could be a server-side quirk.

</comment><comment><USER19> It shouldn't be difficult for someone to come up with a meta-search service that would search for prices from multiple geographical locations, different user agents and (with lesser likelihood) different user profiles. Such a service would also have to provide the user the ability to use the lowest priced profile to complete the purchase (although this may not work for all websites).

Is there already something that fulfills at least the first two criteria across a range of products, services and sellers?

</comment><comment><USER20> Nuance's commerce site gave me a half-price offer when browsed from Chrome on Android that was not visible on the same browser on Linux and Windows machines. I suspect that it was some kind of error since it wasn't declared as a special offer, just shown with a lower price. I was actually quite surprised when the lower price held all the way through online checkout as I imagined the stock and checkout functions would be managed separately from the main site.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not that the WaPo article links _directly_ to a September _2000_ article about Amazon doing a _random_ (not demographic) price test, while claiming it happened in 2010. Does WaPo believe in time travel, or just cheap smears against Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't really mind, but I see why people do. What bothered me is when I opened an incognito browser to look at Home Depot, then moved to Amazon, the latter was showing me a bunch of tools and MAN STUFF (weights, leather jackets, etc).

</comment><comment><USER23> There are browser extensions to automatically compare prices for you already, is there something insufficient about those extensions or is it just that they aren't widely known and used?

<comment><USER24> Do you have a recommendation for which extension or extensions to use?

<comment><USER19> Apart from camelcamelcamel, there's also Invisible Hand [1] for Firefox, Chrome and Safari that provides price comparison and updates. I doubt if it can avoid browser sniffing or fingerprinting though. Also, it works only in the U.S., the UK and Germany and it makes money from commissions paid by some retailers.

Any kind of comparison is better than no comparison at all. :)

[1]: [http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/](http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So basically e-commerce sites are charging me more?</comment>


Hackerne.ws is registered with godaddy - <AUTHOR> http://whois.domaintools.com/hackerne.ws

<comment><USER2> Although that this is true for now, it wont be for long as I've initiated the transfer to name.com 3-4 days ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> GoDaddy's whois [http://who.godaddy.com/whois.aspx?domain=hackerne.ws&pro...](http://who.godaddy.com/whois.aspx?domain=hackerne.ws&prog_id=GoDaddy) says that it is owned by one Yiannis Volos of Cyprus. Anyone know who this is?

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://byedaddy.org/hackerne.ws>

</comment><comment><USER5> Someone had to infiltrate the enemy lines to provide intelligence.</comment>


Amazon.com Introduces Same-Day Delivery - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/amazoncom-introduces-same-day-delivery/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if they'll ever expand their international shipping options.

Currently, their shipping to Russia costs $35.98 minimum (International Priority Courier only) and they only ship new books (no used books, CD, DVD, etc.) That has been the fact for a long time, and provides means for existing for various middlemen (who also work with eBay and others). Seems like all the progress in quality of service of US companies is US-focused?

<comment><USER3> Used books are sold by independent vendors, so they're not really shipped by amazon but by a 3rd party... I don't know about CD's & DVDs

<comment><USER4> Those too. Basically, if you price the book at 1p, Amazon doesn't get their 15% (?) cut, which is why so many sellers charge 1p (or 1 cent). But if the postage is more than £2.75 (in the UK at least), they have to charge more, and then Amazon get their cut.

Basically, it's hard to make a decent profit by selling used books on Amazon, however, you can just put up the price. I've seen most used prices shoot up in the last few months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Much of the stuff we order on Amazon Prime comes within 24 hours regardless of the shipping option. It's pretty impressive to order something two-day at 3 PM and have it arrive the next morning. Amazon's operational prowess and relationships with their shippers continue to amaze.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm still waiting for same month delivery. Standard shipping takes 18-32 business days. How hard is it to ship all packages to the bigger European countries, and then use the national one-day postal service? Not enough volume?

<comment><USER7> > and then use the national one-day postal service?

I just sent a letter from Britain to Germany, and it was there the next day. So you might not even need to ship to all countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Um. Amazon already do same-day deliveries in London and Birmingham in the UK. Have done for some time now.

</comment><comment><USER9> Pretty pricey. I'm not sure how B&N compares, but for one book the minimum shipping cost on Amazon would be $18.48.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200105970)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well -- its only $6 if your a prime member. And $18.48 is pretty darn reasonable compared to UPS same-day shipping prices (admittedly designed for a very different purpose).

<comment><USER10> Prime is REALLY worth it when it comes around to the holidays, and this just makes it better.

Less hastle. Better gifts. Easier to hide the gifts. And Prime's perks continue throughout the year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't help but think that providing and advertising a specific service targeting only a handful of cities is going to give a good handle to all those state revenue boards trying to say they have a nexus within their jurisdiction for purposes of tax collection.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ever since Barnes and Noble introduced this (in Manhattan) a few years back, I wondered when Amazon would follow suit. It's an awesome idea, and not a bad price for Prime members, but I wonder what percentage of available items are in each warehouse.

<comment><USER12> I'll bet Amazon already has a pretty good idea of which items are currently most frequently ordered with overnight delivery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Didn't Webvan do this? :)</comment>


Linux Kernel Log: Main development phase of Linux 2.6.31 completed - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/Kernel-Log-Main-development-phase-of-Linux-2-6-31-completed--/news/113614

<comment><USER2> Is this newsworthy? Shall I post an update to mention that I fixed a few bugs on my start-up yesterday?

<comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=636543>

That was pg's reply to your earlier meta-comment. You don't seem to have given up.

<comment><USER2> Don't try to censor me.</comment></comment></comment>


Unlimited music from youtube videos (very alpha'ish) - <AUTHOR> http://youtube-related-music.appspot.com <comment><USER2> Now Playing: Bach - Air ("on the G string"). Coming up next: Justin Bieber - As long as you love me. I think you algorithm needs some adjustment, otherwise nice concept.

<comment><USER3> It's probably the featured video in the set of related videos. Or is this a custom recommendation engine?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's awesome! Very similar to <http://www.youfm.org/> but with a greater focus on the videos themselves. I also like that you play similar songs, almost like a pandora for youtube. It seems like a lot of cool apps are being built on top of the youtube api these days such as <http://cloudplay.fm/> and <http://www.thisismyjam.com/> and I love it!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have moved it to <http://nitinh.com/ytplayer> for the time being.

<comment><AUTHOR> Enabled billing, now is the time to compress static files, and do some optimization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool, but is there any way you could implement a "back" button? I'd love to be able to go to basically say "oops, wrong turn!" and go back.

My client went from "The Tallest Man on Earth" to Nirvana. These types of music are VERY different.

Then it went from Mumford and Sons to Black Eyed Peas. Again, very different.

Obviously this isn't a problem with your client, it's youtube's recommendation system; it would just be nice to have a way to correct it.

<comment><AUTHOR> i'm planning to implement a play queue where you can see/save/share all the videos you've played. From there you'll also be able to go back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I could never really use this for long listening because the sound quality of youtube music is so variable. It would be pretty annoying.

Otherwise, very cool concept and good implementation!

<comment><AUTHOR> In absence of quality music services like rdio, pendora, spotify, songza, in India. Youtube is still a great alternative for music. In fact for many of us youtube is the default destination for finding and listening music.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very crisp UI. I look forward to the ability to queue up songs and build playlists on the fly. If we sign in to our YouTube account, maybe you could access our own playlists and let us save new ones back. Another great idea would be allowing us to set a crossfade amount and start the next video as the previous one is finishing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the creative thinking behind the idea. Just to let yo know.. there are some bugs with Safari 5.1.7.

<comment><USER9> Is there supposed to be a player control or something in the middle of the screen? (It's blank.)

Safar 5.1.7 / OS X 10.7.4

Edit: Weird results redrawing the graphics when resizing the window with Chrome 21.0.1180.89 on Mac OS X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very nice! Slick UI

Is that an official Facebook Like button? I have never before been prompted to "confirm" a like. weird

<comment><AUTHOR> Ye its the official facebook like "iframe" code

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This looks a lot like <http://www.tubalr.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Its more of a endless music player, with some recommendation system built out of related videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does it use Youtube API ? Does it use an algorithm to identify videos that are "Music" videos ?

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been using it all morning. Sometimes it takes me on a really weird path of music I would never have gone on myself. Thanks.

There's way too much Javascript, so I think I'm missing a lot of the UI. I only have youtube.com and appspot.com allowed.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really cool! I've been using it all morning too. I love the UI and the responsiveness. I'm sure you're working on it but would love the ability to create, save, and share playlists. Thank you for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice idea but you may have to buy more credits to keep your App Engine account burning out. I receive the following error

 _This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later._

</comment><comment><USER16> very nice. awesome design.

i too created a youtube playlist app some time ago at <http://bollymuse.com/songs> but it is aimed for bollywood videos only.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like it.

Feature request: once I've picked a search result, (allow me to) hide the results — that is, have no left sidebar, so the whole UI fits in a smaller window.

</comment><comment><USER18> How do ads work with these embedded videos? Also, aren't some videos from some companies unembeddable (such as VEVO)? Props on the execution. :)

</comment><comment><USER19> That is awesome. It would be great if you would use #! urls so I can share a video/playlist easily with others.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its first item on my todo list, to save session so that it can be shared.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Kind of reminds me of <http://www.youtube.com/disco>

<comment><USER21> Cool, for the first 25 of the Top 100 I get this:

        Unfortunately, this video is not available
        in Germany because it may contain
        music for which GEMA has not granted
        the respective music rights.

I stopped trying after 25.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Google shutting this down in 3..2..1..

<comment><USER23> don't see why, they're using the youtube player and the same youtube search results.

However, why even do this if you can do exactly the same on the youtube website or inside google+

Doesn't really add any value that youtube already gives you.

Search for non music and the illusion dies.

Cool UI though.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is basically a type of youtube radio, in which you just have to provide one video of your liking, and the player does the rest. It automatically picks best match related video and plays it automatically.

I dont think its currently possible on youtube, and more over youtube is'nt meant to do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> sweet! bookmarked this. i always waste time on youtube or wireshark adding songs etc this is nice because i can get a radio type of youtube with a baseline as my favorite song, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER25> I like it, what's the algorithm for choosing the next song?

<comment><AUTHOR> It does some ranking for all the related songs of the songs played, and pick best match from the related videos.

<comment><USER26> You've got some problems with padding/margin there: <http://i.navarro.at/skitched-20120913-140957.jpg>

Other than that, the project looks good!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing it out. I haven't tested it out on multiple browsers yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is really well done, nice work!

</comment><comment><USER28> Could you add a repeat function.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd plan to add this functionality, in the meanwhile you can use this chrome plugin for youtube. [http://www.nikesh.me/blog/2011/05/repeat-youtube-video- autom...](http://www.nikesh.me/blog/2011/05/repeat-youtube-video- automatically-in-loop/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does it Scrobble?

<comment><AUTHOR> No it doesn't

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Over Quota :P

</comment><comment><USER31> Great idea ..</comment>


Show HN: Make list of zip codes by drawing on a map - <AUTHOR> https://www.truckersreportjobs.com/map-tools <comment><AUTHOR> This is a very basic tool that I've wished for when working on previous projects. We built it because we needed it to specify hiring areas for employers on our job site, and now it's published in case someone else needs it.</comment>


Great orators to learn from - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
as I do quite a bit of public speaking I have been trying to hone my rhetorical skills. One thing that really helps me is listening to great speeches: "I have a dream", "Yes we can", etc. So I just wanted to ask around which speeches/speakers you would recommend watching or listening to?
I'm also open to reading suggestions, if you know any good books on the subject.
Thanks :-) <comment><USER2> This is the best book that I have read. I have gifted many copies. There are 22 chapters, each authored by a professional speaker.

I will paraphrase what one of the professional speakers says in his chapter - the goal is to not get standing ovations and speak _to_ your audience but to speak _with_ your audience.

[https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Secrets-Masters- Techniques-P...](https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Secrets-Masters-Techniques- Professional/dp/0937539228)

The Toastmasters WCPS (World Championships of Public Speaking)

One example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v26CcifgEq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v26CcifgEq4)

In case you don't already know the secret of public speaking or storytelling or connecting with people, the secret is vulnerability.

> It takes relationships to make relationships. And, in general, to make > relationships, you have to allow vulnerability. Vulnerability is the > difference between a conversation that starts, "How about this weather we're > having?" and a conversation that starts, "Oh my God, let me tell you about > how I just fell in a puddle in front of a group of nuns." The former is so > boring that it makes listeners want to crawl under a table; the latter > creates a spark and a list of follow-up questions. These are two extreme > examples, but generally, the more of yourself you put out there, the more > others will have to connect with.

[http://www.nerve.com/advice/miss-information/miss- informatio...](http://www.nerve.com/advice/miss-information/miss- information-209)</comment>


Pollution on London's Zone 1 tube mapped for the first time - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sdbernard/status/1191619658962612224 <comment><USER2> I used to ride the central line from zone 4 through to tower hill and back every day

Really glad to be out of London now.</comment>


No-Code Analytics Tag Setup for Google Tag Manager - <AUTHOR> https://raptor.digital <comment><AUTHOR> Raptor is a platform that allows people to setup UA (Google Analytics) and Facebook Pixel tags on their site and deploy them to Google Tag Manager without the need to know/do any code. Checkout our demo on youtube: [https://youtu.be/SX30JP3i75A](https://youtu.be/SX30JP3i75A)

We think it's at least 15x quicker than the alternative, which would be to scan your website code, determine which CSS/id/class to latch onto and then create all of the tags/triggers and variables in Google Tag Manager manually.

We're currently in beta, if this sounds like something that can help out your flow let us know and get access here: [https://forms.gle/GkNyVbYM9az8WthS6](https://forms.gle/GkNyVbYM9az8WthS6)

<comment><USER2> What happens if you save the xpath of an element as the tag trigger, but then the website changes so the xpath now points to a different element?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point! We've actually relegated the xpath tracking in our latest version of the chrome extension.

At the moment we have two experiences on our chrome extension to grab the appropriate selector. Manual mode and analyse my site mode.

1\. Our manual mode allows you to select any element with your mouse and it will grab the CSS selector. 2\. Our analyse mode runs through the site dom and will classify your trackable elements by Class, ID or CSS-Selector.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Announcing New Bounty Programs - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/bluehat/archive/2013/06/19/heart-of-blue-gold-announcing-new-bounty-programs.aspx

<comment><USER2> I would like to offer up a cross-browser visibility bug. The text in this article is unreadable across all browsers and systems.

<comment><USER3> Which browser specifically? Proof (screen shot)?</comment></comment>


Microsoft opines: Vista was 'cheesy'; drops Aero - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57437562-92/microsoft-opines-vista-was-cheesy-drops-aero/?tag=postrtcol;posts <comment><USER3> > "[We are] flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back > distracting gradients."

That sounds nice. I think the Mac OS is a little bit too shiny as well. And I never liked the fat+rounded style Ubuntu has. I don't use Windows, but if the theming is any good, hopefully other systems will take cues from it.

>"There is no evidence that people want to use [mice]" (John C. Dvorak, San Francisco Examiner, February 19, 1984).

I didn't realise this guy had been making terrible predictions for so long!

<comment><USER4> >I think the Mac OS is a little bit too shiny as well

What's shiny about OS X anymore? The only thing I can think of is a glass panel in iTunes and the stoplight window controls. It's a very subdued, minimal, content-focused GUI.

<comment><USER5> "Shiny" could be metaphorical, here. Ever since Lion, OSX has been far too eager to show the world that it exists. Too many gimmicky interfaces, too many half-baked UI structures.... I don't care. Let me do what I want and get the fuck out of my way.

I have a limited number of pixels available to me. If you're a GUI designer who thinks I should give those pixels to you, then you are mistaken. Apple seems to have forgotten that recently (although Snow Leopard is pretty great).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Last week they made a post to Building Windows 8 and deleted it shortly after. It had a few caps of the new style in it. Here's one I dug out of my cache: <http://imgur.com/hvvQZ>

It looks sort of like a hybrid of Whistler and Aero styles. It's nice enough (though I've always liked the Whistler style) but not exactly a massive improvement over Aero.

 _> >> Harris has relatively little to say beyond describing the Aero as having the "appearance of highly rendered glass, light sources, reflections, and other graphically complex textures." But he does add this: "This style of simulating faux-realistic materials...looks dated and cheesy now, but at the time, it was very much en vogue."<<<_

To be honest I didn't think Aero had dated all that badly. Is this just a way of framing Apple software (which is known for that stuff) as dated and cheesy? Or is he making a valid point here?

<comment><USER7> Looks like Imgur is over capacity. Could you rehost the images somewhere like Minus ?

<comment><USER6> Sure.

<http://min.us/m4bajqk5V>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Jeez those toolbars are ridiculous. When the content part of your UI is 60% of the window, something has gone very, very wrong.

<comment><USER9> Maybe, maybe not. If the past is any indicator, they are targeted at casual users who need the help, and can be turned off.

<comment><USER8> The biggest icons in that UI are 'Move To...' and 'Copy To...'.

Casual users do not want to think about raw files, let alone how to move them around the filesystem. That is why all modern operating system don't expose these concepts.

You don't fix this kind of problem by making the buttons bigger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only person who liked Vista? Seriously, it blew XP out of the water, I never had a single problem with stability and it looked and worked much, much better. I even had a win 7 free license (MSDNAA) but I never bothered installing it because Vista was just fine for that particular machine - <USER2> i'm a mactard now.

I think most of the Vista hate is just bandwagoning. The XP love? I have no explanation for that

<comment><USER11> You're missing out. Win7 destroys Vista

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "So we evolved Snap for Windows 8. This feature lets you run any two WinRT- based apps side-by-side"

If this tongue in cheek? Since when is software evolved? I prefer to design my software, and not let it progress randomly. And am I supposed to be impressed with two windows? A whole two? How much extra for three?

<comment><USER13> >And am I supposed to be impressed with two windows? A whole two? How much extra for three?

Can you have two windows side by side on an iPad? Android?

Didn't think so. You can on a Windows RT tablet. So it's definitely a feature worth mentioning.

<comment><USER12> It says windows 8 - isn't that a desktop OS? I remember reading about how people were complaining about the new interface of window 8 how it has classic mode and some kind of tablet mode where you can only have one window at a time.

Maybe I'm mixing up their desktop/tablet/phone OS's. Clearly I'm going to have to find out more, but I'm waiting for it to be released.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What the Windows ecosystem needs isn't a focus on UI, what it needs is a new set of APIs that obliterate older software and removes this insistence on backwards compatibility. I think that such a move could potentially be leveraged by Microsoft towards a massive development gold rush for new applications.

<comment><USER15> WinRT on ARM seems to be what you want. The Windows 8 store will certainly cause a gold rush as well.

But are you honestly arguing for forced obsolescence here? The most agile app developers would have a chance at a quick buck. The Windows team could kick out ugly code. And then?

<comment><USER14> I am most definitely arguing for forced obsolescence. The prime motivating factor being the fact that it is perfectly acceptable and "normal" to go through all of the hoops and ladders of inoculating your computer against viruses. And then when those programs fail, users have to go to take their computer to get their digital machine to be cleaned out as though it was a poorly built car in need of maintenance.

I'm not advocating that the API is cleaned out merely on the technical level, I'm advocating (with a lack of clarity on my behalf) that Microsoft needs to encourage an ecosystem of development creativity. Instead, we get a UI that is abstractly "optimized" for usage but is far removed from providing a pleasant experience for their users.

<comment><USER15> Apple is adding optional sandboxing to their system without intentionally breaking backwards compatibility in their APIs. Why wouldn't this work for Microsoft?

And isn't Metro exactly what you want?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'll miss it. I thought the glass was a nice touch that wasn't too gaudy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems like Windows should just include both. The flat look as a default if the prefer, and an option to change to the aero look.

</comment><comment><USER17> That's going to be straining on the eyes if you prefer to work in dark environments.

</comment><comment><USER5> I see an inch and a half of useless buttons in that screenshot that they'll have to ditch before their WM becomes useful.

Seriously? Cut/copy/paste _buttons_? Why?</comment>