Intel Licenses ARM Technology to Boost Foundry Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-16/intel-licenses-arm-technology-in-move-to-boost-foundry-business <comment><USER2> Andy Grove famously said: "We have a simple strategy. We build fabs, and then we fill them."

That is not just a glib remark. Intel builds leading edge fabs, and runs them very well. Then it simply looks at every design it could run, and ranks them by gross margin per wafer. When the fab is full, low margin projects either run on non-Intel fabs or alternatively the teams get redeployed.

And the kind of fab capacity Intel has is a strategic weapon. If Intel decides your corner of the market is going to be paved with silicon, prepare to get paved over.

My take on Intel licensing ARM is two-fold: 1) They have decided the gross margin per wafer of running some ARMs is looking pretty good, and 2) they perceive a benefit of using Intel's fab technology as a strategic weapon to own as much of the ARM market as they want.

<comment><USER3> Excellent remark. I'm wondering how they'd do that though. A quick search tells us a standard Intel CPU is in the 200-300mm² range. A server one might go to the 400-600mm² range.

A high-end (higher margin) ARM SoC like the A9x is in the 150-200mm² range. I'm guessing it's the same for qcomm/samsung/lg's offering. How would it be more profitable to go from a $30-$50 SoC to an $300-$900 one ? Even when accounting for processor node differences (negligible between Samsung and Intel at 14nm or TSMC at 16nm), I can't see an ARM chip bringing high-enough margin.

Unless they envision some magical tiny IoT chip that would be expensive ? Or that smartphone SoCs price will continue to go higher? What am I missing ? Are they preparing for the end of the x86 PC/Server market (hence the need to fill the fabs) ?

<comment><USER4> I think you're touching on something important - the refresh cycle for PCs/Laptops is going to very soon be transitioning from the traditional 2-year cycle to 3-years, and, in the case of desktops, we're going to be seeing people run their systems for 4, even 5 years before considering upgrading. Combine this trend (which I think we can all agree on), with the fact that for a lot of people, their dominant computer _is_ their smart phone/phablet, which is being refreshed every two-years, and you can see that fairly soon (if not already) Intel Fabs that focus on making chips for the desktop/laptop market will be underutilized - and there is a _lot_ of capital tied up in those.

<comment><USER5> >the refresh cycle for PCs/Laptops is going to very soon be transitioning from the traditional 2-year cycle to 3-years, and, in the case of desktops, we're going to be seeing people run their systems for 4, even 5 years before considering upgrading.

We have been on a 3/5 cycle for the last 10 or so years. (3 year laptop/5year desktop)

We are likely moving to a 5/8 cycle with our current hardware.

> their dominant computer is their smart phone/phablet, which is being > refreshed every two-years,

I am seeing less and less people willing to replace their phones on the 18-24 month cycle. The primary reason this occurred originally was cell phone carriers used the "upgrade" to lock people in to an additional 24mo contract. As we see less and less contracts and more people paying for their phones out of pocket or in installments, the replacement window is increasing, I expect by the end of 2017 to see the replacement be 36-48 mos for Cell Phones. This is especially true for any phone priced over ~$350.

Most of this comes down to how long the OEM will continue to issue OS Updates for the hardware, if your phone is getting updates to the OS 36mos after you bought it there is likely very little reason to spend another $400 on a phone. We will likely see some Manufacturers/Carries taking the opportunity to screw over their customers by refusing updates after 24 months in order to extort them into a replacement. Hopefully the market responds to these companies by pushing them to bankruptcy but...

<comment><USER4> A lot also has to do with the Hardware Support as well. I know our company just buys Applecare for the Laptop, and if something goes wrong with it, employee just brings it in to the Apple Store and gets it fixed, so 3 years is pretty much the outside limit. If your company has internal support mechanisms, they might be able to stretch it out further.

Personally, I consider myself showing self restraint if I don't upgrade my phone on an annual basis, and don't think I've ever gone more than 2 years - but I realize I probably fall into a niche.

<comment><USER5> >>If your company has internal support mechanisms, they might be able to stretch it out further.

We do, I have probably ~2,000 systems under management, not a single one of the Apple.

We always buy the 3 year extended warranty from the manufactures, and most of the Major Vendors will also sell a 3 year extended hardware support after the extended warrany, giving us 6 years of full hardware support on the systems, after 6 years most of them have been full deprecated by accounting anyway so for year 7 and 8 (desktops only, laptops would have been replaced at that point) we likely just keep a few spares and replace as they fail.

<comment><USER4> Did you mean to say that none of the 2000 systems you have under management is an Apple System? That would be very unusual for a technology company, where being able to use Apple gear to get work done is a pre-requisite for a lot of engineers considering applying for a job.

The nice thing about Applecare, is pretty much any major city in the world there is an Apple authorized reseller that I can bring the gear in to be replaced. Downside, is there isn't the same type of "Onsite, 4 hour repair service" that companies like Dell offer.

I've got a laptop (2013 Macbook Air) that's up for renewal, but, honestly, it's fast enough that I don't really feel the desire to get a new one until Apple comes out with their new MacBook Pros. For the first time in a long time, I don't feel any urgency to upgrade...

<comment><USER5> >>Did you mean to say that none of the 2000 systems you have under management is an Apple System?

Yes

>>That would be very unusual for a technology company, where being able to use Apple gear to get work done is a pre-requisite for a lot of engineers considering applying for a job.

Where did I say I work for a technology company? We do have alot of Engineers however, Mechanical and Electrical. None of them use Apple.

Further I assume by "engineer" you mean software developers, I know a TON of devs that will not touch apple with a 10 foot pole. They us Linux or nothing.

Of course I also avoid silicon valley like the black death so....

>Downside, is there isn't the same type of "Onsite, 4 hour repair service" that companies like Dell offer.

This is what we have. We use Dell and Lenovo Mainly

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you worked for a technology company, let alone one in the valley. And, agreed, most of our mechanical or electrical engineers use Windows systems - but pretty much all of our software, firmware, design teams use Macs of one form or another.

I don't think there is anyone using Linux as a desktop, (outside of a virtual machine) though we are pretty much 100% linux on the server side (outside of IT) - where we have several hundred servers, and about 800 employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Intel's always maintained some of the leading fabs with technology usually a fair bit ahead of their competitors, but it is losing an entire segment of the processor design space. It is pretty big news that instead of continuing to make their own plays at these markets, (which haven't worked out) they're allowing others to ship their own ARM designs using their fabs. Intel's competitive advantage has always had a lot to do with the integration and bundling of world class fabrication technology and their processor designs pushing each other forward.

They've increasingly broken this cycle in the past few years, with the final demise of tick-tock and the continued number of devices which opt for ARM.

It's another in a series of developments that are reshaping the processor market and slowly moving Intel from a dominant position to a supportive one.

There's still a large number of brilliant engineers and amazingly competent people there. I wonder when they're gonna start really fighting for their future.

<comment><USER7> I'm amazed at the features they've crammed into x86 without breaking compatibility; Definitely impressive. That being said haven't they perverted the whole industry with this tactic? It seems like we ought to have switched from CISC to RISC. From a purely technical perspective at least. Microcode just seems like a run-time mini compiler. If it were just part of the actual compiler wouldn't that save power and heat? Could it hurt performance in some circumstances? Does CISC have any technical merit at all? I would love for this to have been motivated by something other than their x86 patents.

<comment><USER2> > It seems like we ought to have switched from CISC to RISC.

If you ever have a question about computer architecture, ask two questions: 1) where does the memory bandwidth go, and 2) where does the die area go. All else follows from this.

RISC only made sense when CPU clock speeds were at rough parity with central memory speed, on-chip I-caches were limited, pipelines were short, and compilers were only good at modest optimizations.

If you look at functionality per instruction byte, RISC is fairly low. In today's world, CPU clocks are hugely faster than memory speeds, on-chip I-Caches are huge, pipelines are very very deep, branch prediction hardware is very good, and compiler back-ends are much much smarter than the peak days of RISC. CISC wins because the amount of functionality that you can move into the I-Cache per clock is higher and the amount of functionality you can keep in a given amount of I-Cache die area is higher, and compilers are good enough to target specialized instructions efficiently.

Is what Intel has crammed into X86 impressive? Yes, very. And it was damn hard work. I can tell you that walking all the way out to byte 15 of an instruction to look at the MOD R/M byte to decide if you have to raise an illegal instruction exception is a painful long path to squeeze under the clock constraint. But breaking backwards compatibility is just not something customers will put up with. So logic and circuit designers get to ply their trade in it's most convoluted form with the X86.

Perhaps these days I should amend my question list and add a third: 3) where does the power go? This is where ARM has an advantage over X86. The equations that you have to resolve to issue an X86 instruction are simply more complex than for ARM, and all that bit-flipping consumes power.

<comment><USER8> If this were entirely true, VLIW would have been a clear win, but in practice it wasn't.

ARM conditional execution is very clever.

<comment><USER9> > ARM conditional execution is very clever.

also mostly dead in 64bit armv8

<comment><USER10> They have a special instruction now to predicate the next N instructions or not. In out of order implementations you want each instruction to have as few inputs as possible and my understanding was that the implicit input in the form of the branch information was causing problems. I've heard conflicting things about whether ARM processors split predicated instructions into two ops during decode.

<comment><USER9> I'm way out of my depth as I know next to nothing about the ARM ISA, but as far as I know, there is no special instruction to predicate the next N instructions; conditional jumps don't count of course [1]. ARM v8 does have a predicated select instruction, but some form of it are available on many modern instruction sets.

[1] interestingly, POWER8 is capable of converting unpredictable conditional jumps over a small number of instructions to conditional execution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Relevant quote from Otellini, the former CEO

 _" The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do... At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn't see it. It wasn't one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought."

It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. "The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut," he said. "My gut told me to say yes."_

Source: [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/paul-o...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/paul- otellinis-intel-can-the-company-that-built-the-future-survive-it/275825/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Well that feels a bit like when Intel caved and put the AMD64 extensions into x86, and a bit not.

I saw an interesting draft of a white paper that was pointing out the challenge of maintaining a technical advantage when you have to fab your chips with someone else. Especially if that someone else is under the nominal influence of a nation state that is hostile to your best interests. It was arguing that either Global Foundries needed to be "aligned" with US interests and oversight, or Intel needed to be drafted as "America's chip baker." The consequence of not doing so would be to create a threat to national security where the government had no way to procure the volume and complexity of chips they would need from a source they could be 100% sure was not out to get them.

And then there was this IDF announcement.

It is amazing how hard it is to imagine building a chip company "from scratch" which includes fabrication facilities. And it is hard not to see how important such chips have become in our day to day lives.

<comment><USER13> On the subject of alignment: ARM now belongs to Japan (Softbank), which would be a TPP participant.

Could other countries pursue open-source chip designs?

<comment><USER12> The opportunity for countries to pursue open source chip designs already exists, what is not easy is for a country to develop a semiconductor manufacturing capability that is equivalent to a modern chip factory.

Everything from sourcing silicon to the wafers to the packaging is such an amazingly intricate supply chain that it is a huge undertaking to try to develop it.

That said, I'm interested how you see TPP influencing the evolution (or distribution) of ARM manufacturers. Or the cost for ARM chips for that matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Intel had no choice but to make this move. That is because it has failed in the mobile and embedded/IoT space, and it isn't selling enough x86 chips to keep its new fabs up to capacity, so it needs to also make ARM chips.

That said, the economics of this are pretty uncertain. Intel's business model is to spend an enormous amount of money on process R and D and cutting-edge fabs so it can produce the most advanced chips, and charge premium prices that pay off these costs. It can charge such high prices because x86 dominated computing, and it has had little real competition in the x86 space.

The ARM model, in contrast is to produce large numbers of chips at low cost for markets with many competitors and intense price competition. If Intel charges typical ARM prices, it won't be making enough money to pay for its fabs and R and D costs. If it charges premium prices, it will be more expensive than everyone else and won't sell many chips, and again won't make much money. My guess is Intel will go the latter route and make a relatively small number of premium ARM chips for the highest-end, most expensive smartphones. Better than nothing, but hardly a great success.

<comment><USER15> I don't expect a market for highest-end, expensive ARM SoCs. Who's gonna buy those? The few people that want an expensive smartphone just for the heck of it are buying iPhones, anyway. The interesting markets right now are China, India and the developing countries. Good luck selling highest-end expensive smartphones there.

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't count iPhones out of this. The 10nm process means chips half the size of those from Samsung and TSMC. I imagine Apple will be very interested in that. They've also been trying to move completely away from Samsung for years, but TSMC doesn't have the capacity to carry all their production needs. Intel does.

In terms of what in 'interesting' it depends what you are interested in. Yes all the sales growth is in low end phones, but high end phones are still selling in the hundreds of millions and still commanding decent margins, if only for Apple at least. That market isn't going away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Intel already makes chips with ARM cores: Altera's Stratix-10 FPGAs have quad- core Cortex-A53s and are manufactured on Intel's 14nm process.

<comment><USER18> They paper launched like 4 years ago, but FWIH they're still not in vol production yet. Many tapeout delays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Funny how both Apple and Intel (xscale) had a bet on ARM, chose to abandon it, only to come back to it later.

Apple's history with ARM is particularly interesting and not very well known IMO. It looks like this Intel's new move will be at least as fun to watch.

<comment><USER20> Did Apple really have any choice but to sell its ARM interest?

<comment><USER19> I've heard it was what prevented them from going bankrupt immediately.

The hundreds of millions they got from selling it (at a loss, IIRC) kept the lights on long enough for them get on their feet again.

<comment><USER20> I'm pretty sure it wasn't at a loss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I find the chain of events a bit ominous frankly. How does Intel's high cost structure and margins sync with $10-30 SOCs? It's already tried and failed with its own mobile offerings.

On the other side ARM is beginning to deliver increasingly powerful SOCs that are at least getting close to Intel's woeful laptop cpu offerings.

It was looking like Intel could be in trouble. I mean why spend $150-300 just for CPU when you can get a powerful SOC for $10-30 with CPU, GPU and Memory all in one? There was no way Intel could compete with that.

If ARM desktops started appearing with proper Linux and Windows support, or Apple decided to put the iPad Pro SOC in a Macbook it could be trouble. Fortunately for Intel ARM chooses not to focus on this market even though the potential for low cost desktops and laptops powered by ARM is huge, with great cost savings for consumers. Driver issues hold back independent efforts. Vulcan and the new generation of mobile GPUs offer a ray of hope.

Then out of the blue Softbank buys ARM. Now Intel is licensing ARM nevermind Intel business model does not allow the kind of low cost SOCs ARM is popular for.

I hope this is not the beginning of ARM SOCs becoming pricey so Intel is less threatend in its X86 business, that in the absence of competition has frankly become extremely expensive and uncompetitive.

</comment><comment><USER22> Perhaps in the future Intel will be making "N core" ARM chips for data center blades, where N is a largish number with a killer bus / cache stack attached???

Something to be said for low power systems to pass all that relatively simple web traffic (JSON -> prepared statement ... row -> JSON) between the outside world and the databases, which might still well benefit from higher power / performance x86 chips. (who knows, maybe 128 low power cores serves a database better than x86, also, I can't say -- although being charged per-core by Oracle for little cores would really suck)

I'm a software guy, so feel free to expand on why this is BS, or not, hardware guys/gals.

</comment><comment><USER23> This seems about 3 years to late and 6 years after they should have. Processors are a symbiosis of design and manufacturing. Intel pursued the objective function of manufacturing way way to far down a local optimum.

</comment><comment><USER24> this is not unheard of: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale)

still looks like big news

<comment><USER25> Actually, this announcement is about licensing ARM's physical IP to enable the Intel foundries to fab ARM SoCs for other companies, not about Intel building its own ARM SoCs. I'm pretty sure their long bet on x86 SoCs remains unchanged.

<comment><USER26> For someone not versed in the specifics of chip engineering, what is the "physical IP"? Is it the process and how the wafers are made?

<comment><USER27> If Soft IP were VHDL or Verilog files, then Physical IP is result of the physical design of those hardware descriptions into a database for base layer and masks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if they would be open to fabbing AMD Zen chips.

<comment><USER29> Intel is very open to fabbing their competitors' processors. Open like a bear trap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Another fab should mean options and with that price decrease. I wonder how much a given chip price can be decreased with this move.

Another way of reading this is that making more use of a given tech should pay the initial cost faster thus making possible more research and improved processes.

Sadly another way of reading this is that Intel doesn't have any tech that would capitalize in better chips anymore.

</comment><comment><USER27> All this to try to win Apple's SoC?

<comment><USER31> I assume that since Apple already has a license, so their foundries (whether it be Intel, TSMC, or Samsung) does not need an additional license.

<comment><USER27> IANAL, but I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the fab needs a license to create a chip containing an ARM processor in it given that it needs the raw GDS2 database that describes the IP in the detail required to manufacture it.

<comment><USER32> The raw GDS2 that the customer (in this case Apple) contains the information necessary for fabrication, but to make the GDS2 you need to synthesize and place and route based on a standard cell library. Through their acquisition of Artisan IP, ARM sells standard cell, memory, and a bunch of other chip IP other than just their cores, and each needs to be customized to a specific fabrication process. Intel is paying ARM to customize their IP for their foundry so that it provides a lower barrier of entry to anyone using ARM IP to switch from GloFo/TSMC/Samsung/etc to Intel.

Oh, and all fabs require any IP as intricate as a memory or standard cell library to go through their verification process, as cell characterization is crucial to getting good yield (and not interfering with any other designs in the case of multi project wafers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Question is why Intel did not just buy ARM, instead of Softbank?

<comment><USER34> Intel really wants to be completely vertically integrated and that would be hard to reconcile with ARM's decidedly horizontal structure. If they had purchased them then they'd have probably sabotaged ARM to promote their x86 business so we're better off.

It probably would have been better strategically to buy them and in hindsight they never should have sold XScale to Marvell but Intel isn't know to strategize. They just sort of blindly charged forward until they hit a brick wall then pivot and charge in the next direction. You saw this with Itanium, Netburst, Atom, and CMOS sensors. It's what they do.

<comment><USER35> It's also incompatible with Intel's desire for high margins.

My guess is this is an experiment or a way to burn excess capacity?

<comment><USER34> That's entirely possible and they could also spin their own silicon for ARM instead of just doing a cookie cutter job. This might however end up like their attempts to take over 4G where they either can't get power utilization under control or they price themselves out of the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> They have to do this to get a return on their fabs. You basically have to run them near capacity and x86 is being used in fewer and fewer devices.

</comment><comment><USER37> Again?

Perhaps not everyone here remembers, but StrongARM (Xscale) was a thing back in the day.

</comment><comment><USER38> its pretty interesting that ARM was able to gain so much foothold from the UK while historically there were so many competing cpu architectures in the market.</comment>


Show HN: A simple (but the first) semi circle chart for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hugo53/HUChart

<comment><AUTHOR> HUChart is a simple chart library for iOS to draw semi-circle/half pie chart for some cases which has a LITTLE SPACE to make a full circle chart. This is my first iOS open source. If it is useful, please give a share and don't forget to leave a star. Thanks for reading!</comment>


"No, I'm the ex-CEO of Reddit because eventually there was too much bullshit." - <AUTHOR> https://reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/58zaho/the_accuracy_of_voat_regarding_reddit_srs_admins/d95a7q2 <comment><USER2> You get the users you tolerate.

> "The reddit admins (of the time; it's mostly a different group now) really > did not like SRS. In attempting to force the admins to take their side, they > would dox them, send bad shit to their family members, etc. It was really > bad. Despite this, the admins never cracked but they really hated them."

And somehow weren't banned for this? Futher down they say that they just want to make the site better, but 90% of that is just about building tools to stop (in order of importance) harrasment of users by other subreddits, fighting within a subreddit and (c) poor topic discipline.

Eventually they learn from this:

"11/ ... bans ALL the problematic subreddits. F __* your free speech, this is why we can 't have nice things.

12/ They've had peace so far, so I guess that was probably the right policy"

I'm old enough to remember when people ran unmoderated newsgroups and open mail relays for free speech reasons. They either drowned in spam or were gradually blocked by so much of the rest of the internet that their position became untenable.

If you build a system that doesn't deal with spam, it gets drowned in spam. If you build a system that doesn't deal with abuse, abuse becomes commonplace. If you don't secure your IoT devices you get journalists DDoSed by lightbulbs. It's the same kind of social responsibility.

What makes this problem worse in the mid-20-teens is that there are hate groups organising off-board to cause these problems.

See the discussion of VR harrasment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12777340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12777340)

<comment><USER3> Well, yeah. Some people handle freedom responsibly. Most... don't.

If you really want freedom, 4chan, glorious 4chan! Enjoy your cesspit.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash It's worth noting that 4chan is knee-deep in marketing shills and state- sponsored trolls these days. Any open community that attracts enough of a following becomes an object of interest to for those who want to accumulate money and power.

Ever been on /pol/ these days? It's so much an echo chamber of sponsored trolls and shills I'm surprised any genuine conversation can happen there at all.

<comment><USER4> > marketing shills and state-sponsored trolls

Gonna need some hard evidence of that. 4chan can barely sell ads on the site, not sure why anyone would bother marketing to them.

Frankly, 4chan is kind of irrelavant. A couple million weebs, racists and neo- Nazis spread across the world is pretty irrelevant to state actors. No offense to 4chan users, but no one cares what you think.

<comment><USER5> I think you underestimate the demographics of 4chan

<comment><USER3> Very much so: a surprising number of respectable people use 4chan: many HNers show up there from time to time, IIRC, and it really was an intersection of American and Japanese net cultures, with people taking code and ideas from 2chan, but the culture coming from the site's roots amongst the goons of SA, and also from migrants coming from the usenet.

It's a pretty interesting site, in general, and fairly neat in some ways.

Unfortunately, the best part of 4chan was axed. What was the best part of 4chan? the text boards (aka world4ch): They were less crowded with awfulness, and threads were immortal. It also played host to /prog/, the programmer's chan, which is probably most famous for inventing the now-famous sleepsort (the ancient HN thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2657277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2657277)). Sadly, because threads were immortal, archives were rare, and sleepsort, along with many other threads, has been lost to the mists of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sad how things went for Ellen Pao. The abuse she was subjected to was one of the worst I've seen and I bet there was plenty bleeding off into other aspects of her life other than her inbox.

I genuinely felt bad for her, I wouldn't of been able to handle it at all. It was truly revolting and hateful.

<comment><USER7> The amount of witch-hunting that went on against her _with NO evidence whatsoever_ really repulsed me.

This was probably one of the few times in my life where I defended the rights on principle of someone who had no evidence against him/her, and actually turned out to be right (sad reality, usually the accusations tend to be true).

While I can feel smug about it, that whole episode in Reddit's history pretty much killed my respect for the Reddit community. Reddit used to be a place for diverse opinions, and non-hivemindedness. Ellen Pao's skewering showed me that those days are long in the past.

<comment><USER8> > actually turned out to be right

Ellen Pao not only lost her discrimination suit against KPCB but was deemed liable by the court for KPCB's legal costs.

Reddit is laced with gender issues, someone filing a wrongful discrimination suit isn't the correct leader for that site. The Reddit users weren't willing to sweep that under the rug.

<comment><USER7> Ellen Pao had all those issues _prior_ to joining Reddit.

However, things only blew up when the moderator was fired, and it had _nothing to do with gender issues_.

The fact is: Ellen did not fire the moderator, and all of Reddit went into uproar insisting _with no evidence whatsoever_ that she was responsible.

I'm not saying Ellen was an angel, or even a good fit for the job. She had her issues. However, all of that had _nothing_ to do with the criticism leveled against her for firing the moderator.

The attack on her was a mob attack - no less.

<comment><USER8> > Ellen Pao had all those issues prior to joining Reddit.

Which made her a terrible choice for CEO of Reddit.

Things were blowing up before the firing of the mod. That was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

There are a lot of communities on Reddit that focus on media coordination. There was a _huge_ push from most tech media to be pro-Pao despite a total lack of evidence to support her story. I see that as the main intersection between her and the Reddit community. She was a Reddit story that became the Reddit CEO then went on to make questionable decisions (mod firing, banning salary negotiation...).

<comment><USER7> >She was a Reddit story that became the Reddit CEO then went on to make questionable decisions (mod firing, banning salary negotiation...).

And here you repeat the false accusation against her.

As for salary negotiation, this was already in the works by her predecessor. It wasn't her baby.

<comment><USER8> > It wasn't her baby.

The buck stops at the CEO for all decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _People who are caught doing bad things tend to lie about it (they are already people who are willing to break the rules, so lying isn 't such a stretch)._

Man, tell me about it. I was a moderator for the Vault Network message boards back in the days when it was still around. It's hard to overstate how hard some people will work to make people they disagree with look bad.

People would post super racists, hateful, gross comments and images to the board, get a ban, and then try to go on an alt account and complain about the moderator who banned them. The moderator would remove that post (discussing mod actions was against the rules) and then that person (and others) would use that as a reason that the mods were evil, biased people just trying to silence disagreement. They would go so far as sending personal messages to individual mods (both on and off the boards) who they assumed were responsible. The worst attacks somehow usually made it to a mod that wasn't involved, usually a woman.

It really gave me an appreciation for how hateful and deplorable some people can get when they can remain anonymous.

<comment><USER10> At the end of the day, broken, obsessive people with no jobs and no lives will always be more committed to their activities than the functional people who monitor them. The only true solution is that a vast majority of people learn to recognize them online, and ignore/avoid them. Anything else will eventually be subverted or overrun.

<comment><USER11> This is the best argument I've ever seen for hellbans. Yes, they're capricious and unfair and opaque, but troll-hours so outweigh mod-hours that it's worth considering any tool that helps create leverage for moderators.

<comment><USER10> I couldn't agree more, and I'd just emphasize that _no one_ likes hellbans, including the people who have to impose them. On and offline, we always seem engaged in some form of distasteful, yet necessary asymmetric conflict.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hardly know anything about Reddit and had no idea what "SRS" meant. I googled and found this page [https://www.reddit.com/r/SRSsucks/comments/yxvu9/an_explanat...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SRSsucks/comments/yxvu9/an_explanation_of_what_srs_is_and_why_they_are/) which left me feeling _very_ content to leave the Reddit people to it. For all the complaints I see about the relative toxicity of HN and its comments, it seems vastly less insane than Reddit.

<comment><USER13> My #1 advice for non-internet-addicts is to create a reddit account (no email address required!) and remove every subreddit from your defaults. Then, add back subs based on your interests. Maybe a default or two is acceptable, as some are better moderated than others. But non-defaults tend to have much friendlier, less insulting users.

(adding entropy for my identity here) but the minecraft, sailing, and networking subs are good examples of midsize communities that are fun to be in.

politics and the_donald and worldnews are examples of garbage. /r/politics really is in the pocket of Hillary Clinton. I say that as a non-Trump voter... the overt bias and suppression of anti-Clinton discussion is staggering.

<comment><USER14> /r/politics used to be extremely anti-Clinton not too long ago... instead strongly favoring Sanders.

But yeah, you'll never see a single pro-conservative story on /r/politics

<comment><USER15> How on earth did the polarity flip on that one? Amazing.

<comment><USER16> It didn't really. Sanders lost the nomination and a large chunk of his supporters are supporting Clinton now as the "less bad" option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > You know how the mods are always saying "you promised us this feature a year > ago, and it's still not here!" You know why? Because the team was constantly > drawn into having to police drama and blow-ups

> when actually, the admins would just like y'all to shut up so they can write > some features to make the site better

Why did they have admins coding or coders admin'ing? Those should be different people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Admins in this case is slang for Reddit employees.

<comment><USER18> The point still stands. Coders shouldn't have to deal with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just because most of what yishan says is probably true, that doesn't mean he's not tactically omitting details.

For instance, you can go to any of the right-leaning or conspiracy related subreddits and find posts where they show collusion between SRS and CTR. Evidence that is completely undeniable, like mods of SRS and r/politics also modding pro-Hillary or anti-Trump subreddits.

When one side says CTR has totally taken over the site, and the other says they're not involved at all, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

<comment><USER20> /r/undelete has traditionally been very much about free speech. Unfortunately due to the nature of the censorship on reddit, anyone who is for free speech also appears to be conservative, fringe, etc. There seems to be no concept of being anti-censorship in and of itself, from the vocal proponents of what reddit has become.

<comment><USER21> > due to the nature of the censorship on reddit ... there seems to be no > concept of being anti-censorship in and of itself

I have spent very little time on reddit, so I'm unfamiliar with what form censorship takes there. That said, viewing Twitter and HN, I wonder if this doesn't have more to do with people pulling tangential topics into discussions. It takes effort to pare down an idea, separating it from others that may be logically related or associated with some bundled collection of ideas.

Also, while two people may share a belief, they may not rank the belief equally among all of the others they hold. Alice and Bob may both think free speech is important, but it's _really_ important to Alice. It's more likely that Alice will want to talk about it than Bob. So perhaps people who end up discussing free speech/anti-censorship issues also tend to share similar rankings of other shared values. That could explain why people discussing free speech tend tend to share other beliefs as well. They hold similar beliefs _and_ similar belief rankings.

I have _nothing_ to back that up :) But it sounds reasonable. Anyone need a research topic?

What do you think? Is there something more going on in reddit's case?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I thought the link with added context[0] was better. (As originally seen on /r/bestof/)

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/58zaho/the_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/58zaho/the_accuracy_of_voat_regarding_reddit_srs_admins/d95a7q2/?context=3)

<comment><USER23> Which is amusing, considering bestof is often accused of being an upvote brigade

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The spin on this is just great.

As others have said, new features have nothing to do with moderating. Note how the company did nothing wrong. It is not their fault they can't shield developers from user shitstorms.

"Alexis was supposed to announce it [..] but somehow that did not happen". This is just casually glossed over. Somehow that did not happen? again, it is the communities' fault for assuming the CEO fired someone, when they could've easily been informed about who actually did it.

"FUCK your free speech, this is why we can't have nice things." yeah, or this is why we can't have advertisers. If you want to have advertisers, you have to ban the subreddits that make the site look bad. [https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/4ll9tc/it_looks_li...](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/4ll9tc/it_looks_like_reddit_wants_to_become_a_profitable/)

Isn't it convenient how they could (in a series of moves)

1\. Fire Victoria (for whatever reason)

2\. Make the impopular CEO take the blame to get rid of her and

3\. Hire a former founder as the new CEO (embraced by the community)

4\. Who drops a "Reddit, we need to talk" and gets rid of the shittier subreddits

</comment><comment><USER25> This is actually also a decent commentary on US political society right now. e.g. both sides accusing the same outlets of being biased, immediately going to radical / extremist points of view and advocating immediate, border-line violent action against them. Nothing that the overwhelming majority of reasonable human beings can look at and say, "yes, I really think this represents me right now, one or both of you make some valid points."

edit: LMAO at the immediate downvoting that proved my point about not being able to have reasonable discussions in media anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reddit is the new Usenet: It's good, it's bad, it's ugly. It all depends on where you look, and there is no single community, there's a fractal-like set of them.

<comment><USER26> Big diff is that usenet was to a large extent decentralized and non-profit. Reddit on the other hand is very much centralized and for profit.

<comment><USER27> > Reddit on the other hand is very much centralized and for profit.

Although in a mind-bogglingly incompetent way. Their self-serve ad product is so far behind even Twitter's offering (which is inferior to Facebook and Google) that it's not even funny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why are the SW devs who are supposed to write new features also in charge of managing complaints from mods?

Wouldn't the solution here be to dedicate engineers to ship the features that are intended to decrease your support load?

That's basic management 101: be an umbrella.

<comment><USER29> I think the role we're talking about is "Community manager" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_community_manager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_community_manager) This shouldn't fall to Software Engineers to do, it's an entirely different and far more people-centric skillset.

Maybe you would have engineers providing support to community managers for tools and ad-hoc fixes "intended to decrease the support load" as you say, but as second-line assistance, not doing the main body of work. You would think that if anyone has the specialisation that comes at scale and could do this, reddit does.

<comment><USER28> Right, it seems very odd that he cited that as the #1 reason they couldn't ship new features to decrease their support load: because their support load was too high. Why are the same people doing both?

<comment><USER30> Because Reddit makes very little money so devs get to joy of moderation as well as development would be my guess. I'm sure that worked back when reddit was a much smaller tech orientated site, not the beast it is today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > 11/ Sam Altman managed to convince Steve Huffman to come back, which was an > amazing Hail Mary pass. The new administration is like, okay, FUCK ALL THIS > and bans ALL the problematic subreddits. FUCK your free speech, this is why > we can't have nice things.

This is probably the right thing to do if you have investors to report to and you want a site that caters to the middle 50% of the population. I guess users will complain about their free speech rights being trampled. I have noticed that reddit seems to have less drama since Steve came back. I don't know if it's just being masked by the new algos though.

<comment><USER6> Socially irresponsible to allow Subreddits such as "Fat People Hate" in my opinion.

People have these views and they are free to express them, but creating a community dedicated to it normalises that behaviour and helps breed further hatred.

Under 18 age group seems to be large on Reddit as well [1]. Allowing subreddits such as FPH is really unhealthy amongst the more impressionable.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1agz1o/ever_wonder_ab...](https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1agz1o/ever_wonder_about_the_ages_of_redditors_some_data/)

<comment><USER31> To play the devils advocate, where does this stop?

Do you deny them any sort of public space where they can communicate with each other?

<comment><USER32> I have great respect for moot's statement that he created 4chan partly because he thought "people need a place to be wrong". As in, people need a place to experiment with ideas that are controversial or even downright stupid with being afraid.

4chan and Something Awful provided that. I think it's healthy for the world to have a few places cordoned off to be primordial slimepools/cesspits. But, I wouldn't given anyone a hard time for trying very hard to _not_ be one of those places.

For example, I think a big part of the continuing high signal/noise ratio at HN is it's tradition of downvoting sarcasm, memes, jokes, fluff, "nice post!" and other low-signal comments. As HN has grown, this has been slipping. But, it us already lasted much longer than I expected.

<comment><USER33> If you subscribe to the notion of "containment boards" (I personally do) then places like /b/, /pol/, and parts of SA, etc..., are absolutely essential places for the Internet at-large to operate unhindered by their presence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Having been involved in running various communities with an online component at various points, there's nothing in the post that surprises me. The biggest difference is just reddit's scale, which just makes things go worse faster.

</comment><comment><USER35> Every once in a while I like to think about the evolution of sites like forums, slashdot, digg, Reddit, HN, etc... And what could be done to improve them, mainly from a technical rather than social aspect (such as the way voting works, how 'good' vs 'bad' comments are rewarded). Aside from r/theoryofreddit (which seems mostly focused on Reddit drama), are there other communities that discuss the creation and improvement of social networks?

<comment><USER21> > mainly from a technical rather than social aspect (such as the way voting > works, how 'good' vs 'bad' comments are rewarded)

I'm interested in that as well, though I tend to think the tech needs to serve the social aspect. What kind of community you want determines what kind of features (technical aspect) you want. The features in turn influence the behavior of the users.

Is that what you're getting at? Glancing at /r/theoryofreddit I think it is. Or is there something else?

<comment><USER35> To clarify, I think I want to find a place where people discuss the pros/cons of implementing features, hopefully in an objective way. Here are some ideas I'm sure others have had before, but which I think would be interesting:

Could one take the model of Reddit and make it real time? Basically a large chat room. There are of course huge problems that would have to be overcome, such as how to prevent spamming (so maybe a cool down period after each comment?), how to 'rank' up voted comments, and others I haven't thought about.

The next step would be live voice, but I don't see a benefit with video.

Now this next part is completely niaive and idealistic and I'm ignoring all the problems that will need to be solved but what if there were such an online anonymous community able to discuss and debate things in real time? In such a system perhaps the best 'ranked' idea (based on democratic vote, which may not be the best way...) is displayed in brighter it larger text, or lasts longer before disappearing.

So, you see I would love to hear from people who may have tried this or could tell me "no, X doesn't work because then you get people taking advantage of Y".

<comment><USER21> Gotcha.

Offhand I don't know of any forums or mailing lists that focus on these types topics. One place to look for references might be at the development of chat room or forum software, looking at features that have been released/tweaked/removed over the course of their development; discussions on HN about features (how meta is that?); papers/research on social behavior and community building, peace studies, other social interaction. There's bound to be some graduate-level work on online communities, moderation, echo chambers, that might be useful as well.

I had a possibly related conversation yesterday where nickpsecurity provided some ideas as well

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12776446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12776446)

Might not be exactly what you're looking for, but hopefully you'll find something useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > 6a/ Incidentally, as a result of my experiences running reddit, I have a lot > more respect for police, governors, and presidents - anyone who has to > uphold a fair system in the face of multiple opposing sides, all of whom > want the system to favor them because they are convinced they are "right."

This was particularly interesting. Massive communities like Reddit are a great testing ground for policies around free speech.

</comment><comment><USER37> I liked his other answer. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/58zaho/the_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/58zaho/the_accuracy_of_voat_regarding_reddit_srs_admins/d95aoft/)

It makes me wonder how big reddit could be internationally without major changes. Reddit has over 40% of their traffic from the USA, probably 99% of what is written is in English. The concept and the laws of free speech in America is different from other countries. I do not know if there is a long- term plan, with clearer and universal rules that could be easiest to moderated.

</comment><comment><USER38> I can certainly understand wanting to pull the plug on some of the most egregious forums/users/behaviors and restore sanity as quickly as possible. On the other hand, it's a good bet that most bans wouldn't come with a lengthy letter explaining exactly what caused the ban so it might just reinforce the feeling of being suppressed unfairly.

If the affected users actually _are_ children (seems many of them are) then you're not teaching anything by taking everything away with no explanation. As sad as this may be, in the modern age Reddit might be as much of an influence on a child as a teacher, day care or other major non-parent authority figure, and therefore what Reddit does "matters". If Reddit's primary response is to kill things, kids will feel unheard and disrespected and react strongly. If Reddit has a wide array of punishments and a very clear way to explain what a user did wrong, I think it would be a greater investment in the future of the forums.

</comment><comment><USER39> I ran a small community many years ago. As soon as the personal attacks, threats, and other juvenile behavior started I took it down. Done.

Reddit is a for profit media property, but banning subs where this stuff goes on is indeed the correct action. Nobody is ever under any obligation to support or sanction this kind of behavior with their money or time.

</comment><comment><USER3> By the way, has anybody seen the rationalwiki page for Reddit? Some of it's accurate, and some of it is hilariously wrong: For example, they claimed the now infamous "Reddit Revolt" was due to /r/FPH being banned, which just goes to show how utterly out of touch they are.

<comment><USER40> RationalWiki are part of the same social justice crowd as SRS, so that's not entirely surprising.

<comment><USER3> Really? They seem to hate SRS just as much as we do...

<comment><USER41> I'm a bit confused that I just responded to another post of yours in this same discussion that seemed to indicate you didn't know what SRS was?

<comment><USER3> I read up on it.

And I also read RationalWiki claiming that they hate SRS, which is enough information for this post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I love reddit because I connect with other co-workers in my 4000+ store chain. Get scoops on new stuff and share thoughts too. Very civil.

What other sites exist that could do the same????

</comment><comment><USER43> > 4a/ As part of those culture wars, some people do things that step over the > line. Like actual brigading. It's like when you have impassioned protests, > and 1% of the protesters on both sides decide they are going to burn a store > or car.

This is applicable to nearly every online argument. You can find the media bias when sites chose to focus entirely on one side and ignore documented evidence of their own side engaging in the same behavior.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm sort of shocked he was that aware of what was going on. As a regular reddit user at that time, I wasn't even sure he knew what reddit's domain name was.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is entirely bullshit. This guy is still on the payroll and will say anything to calm the community down / discredit people who think something is up.

<comment><USER20> Yishan has been surprisingly and refreshingly candid, all things considered. Cut him some slack - he has given us way more than he had to. It should be appreciated.</comment></comment>


Legalizing Marijuana Will Help the Environment - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=would-legalizing-pot-be-good-for-environment

<comment><USER2> Hemp is actually the most important and potentially disruptive element of cannabis legalization. Hemp can provide equivalent or superior alternatives to a wide variety of materials including cotton, lumber, fiberglass insulation, nylon, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals. That is, of course, a very wide range of industries who have significant investments in their current processes and are just as pleased maintaining the status quo. Not coincidentally, hemp is the least discussed angle of cannabis legalization in the US.

</comment><comment><USER3> When all the hackers and ninjas in Silicon Valley start smoking weed en-masse, you're going to see this place explode into a new cultural revolution.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, then there will only be meth labs, illegal airstrips for cocaine/heroin flights, etc. in backwoods locations, not outdoor pot farms.</comment>


What's your opinion about re-starting an old community? - <AUTHOR> https://omgboards.com <comment><AUTHOR> I am curious to hear the opinion of HN members about the idea of picking up an old community from back in the day and boosting some life into it.

Personally for nostalgia reasons I think it is already worth it. But I can imagine some negativity may come from it as well.

Does anybody have any experience doing this? How did it go? Or maybe you considered it but decided against it?

Anyway, I just wanted to have a little discussion about this with hopefully likeminded people that understand what it means to run a site. To shut it down, and perhaps think about re-starting it.

We've recently done it, and I've had nothing but mixed feelings about it. But the nostalgia was almost worth it.</comment>


Sony's new DRM (on Salt) crashes DVD players - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thestateofme.com/2010/12/22/salt-i-want-my-dvd-player-back/

<comment><USER2> Having lost not one but 2 dvd players to this nonsense, I've concluded that dvd is a _transport_ medium, not a _playback_ medium. I never play a disc directly. I always pull the VIDEO_TS directory with software that can handle this junk and then play it over the network.

It makes the viewing experience so much better anyway. No forced ads, unpause- able areas or stupid little "ghost buster" symbol in an upper corner when I push the root menu button. It makes my remote give orders that are followed, not suggestions in some sort of debate.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think part of this DRM scheme is to make the process that you describe fail.

<comment><USER2> That was no doubt their goal. But software on computers is much more easily adapted to defeat these silly(1) methods than the DVD player under your TV.

The irony is not at all lost on me that in trying prevent piracy, they've made it attractive to me (someone who would not ordinarily pirate) to do something very much like piracy to protect my equipment and have a better consumer experience. Thus I support the ecosystem of tools that they try hardest to eradicate. A classic tale of unintended consequences.

(1) What they do is not DRM per-se (the battle for CSS was lost to them long ago), but simply breaking the content structure of the DVD so that software has a hard time following the program chains. If done wrong this can crash the dvd players software, or worse, cause a kind of loop that can quickly damage the physical hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Isn't a DVD no longer meeting the standards of being a DVD if it doesn't play on DVD players? I remember with CD's there was the Redbook standard which was pretty exacting about how the CD was pressed. Is there no such thing for DVDs?

<comment><USER4> There is, it's available from the DVD FLLC. A Japanese firm where Sony is one of about 10 shareholders.

But beyond perhaps some logo usage rules or guidelines, the existence of the format spec isn't necessarily the word of god, so to speak.

Sony has been implementing intentional errors in their DVDs for many years. On the one hand it likely has increased the annoyance factor in ripping those DVDs and therefore somewhat decreased the prevalence of ripping, but on the other hand you have cases like the OP where the standard use case is also hindered to the level of annoyance.

<comment><USER5> _"On the one hand it likely has increased the annoyance factor in ripping those DVDs and therefore somewhat decreased the prevalence of ripping"_

Hahahaha... oh wait, you were serious. let me laugh harder. hahahahahahahahaha

Seriously though, every single movie released in recent years you can possibly imagine has been ripped and uploaded. What exactly has decreased in prevalence?

<comment><USER4> You're not really putting much thought into this are you?

Firstly, there's a difference between ripping a DVD and downloading a pirated movie.

More importantly, DVD ripping is far, far from a mainstream activity as evidenced by the tens of millions of DVDs that are still sold every quarter. The reason it is not mainstream, like CD ripping is mainstream, is because of DRM. Anti-DRM measures are not built into operating systems or the most prevalent player applications. The studios regularly mount legal challenges, many of which are successful, against application developers that do build in anti-DRM measures. The result of all of this is that the vast majority of users do not have the tools necessary to rip DVDs. For some portion of those users who become inclined to try it, they can find a tool that does - and then they can encounter Sonys ever evolving intentional error DRM strategy whereby the tool the user has no longer functions and either needs to be updated (assuming the often fly-by-night developer is still around) or replaced. Effectively, the annoyance factor is increased enough to dissuade the casual DVD ripping user from continuing with the activity.

Hence, intentional errors has increased the annoyance factor in ripping DVDs and therefore somewhat decreased the prevalence of ripping.

<comment><USER5> No, ripping DVDs isn't mainstream because it:

1) takes forever, and a powerful computer (particularly a handful of years ago)

2) takes a lot of space

3) until recently has provided little of the value ripping CDs does (no "mp3 players" for movies)

4) is a nontrivial task for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with DRM (which codec do you use? which container? what size to you transcode it to?, etc)

Intentional errors don't cause even a hiccup in any of the ripping programs I've seen or used, the end user doesn't have to worry about it in the slightest.

Oh, and they press CDs with intentional errors these days too, so your theory really is bogus.

<comment><USER6> The main difference between ripping DVDs and CDs is that music gets repeated use, whereas the DVD typically doesn't - and hence require a much higher incentive to overcome the DRM annoyance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Recently bought my dad a Blu-ray player and some of the disks have a firmware upgrade warning at the start of the disk. WTF is my dad supposed to do when he eventually gets one of these disks?

</comment><comment><USER8> How do you know there isn't a manufacturing error with the disc, or that your dvd player hasn't gone bad? If you're really talking about a DVD and not a bluray I'm surprised there is actually a way to add "new drm" to a disc. Googling salt+drm only finds your blog discussing that movie - are you sure this passes occam's razor?

<comment><USER4> It's common for some of the major studios to implement intentional errors - DVD format spec errors that are designed to make copying disc data difficult while not hindering playback. The efficacy of their plan is pretty questionable, but they've been doing it for years, so at minimum it makes them feel better.

<comment><USER9> Source?

edit: I'm not disagreeing, just asking for more information, why the downvotes :/

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARccOS_Protection>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tend to just buy a copy (that I keep unopened usually) and download a copy from torrents if it´s DRM´d. That makes it much simpler for me, but I still know I didn´t just steal it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good luck with the AP2P thugs like ACS Law. When they send you a letter demanding that you pay or be sued I'm sure it's fine to write back and tell them that you bought the disc.

<comment><USER10> I guess the more important question is if my position can be justified legally, not if claims/threats are going to be made against me.

<comment><USER4> IANAL. Though you may have some legal standing in purchasing a legally distributed version of a movie and then downloading the same movie at the same quality/resolution or lower, you probably have a legal issue with sharing that movie at least as long as you are downloading it (as I believe most P2P apps implement).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What do they expect to do with this type of DRM? Prevent pirated copies? I downloaded it in 720p two or three weeks ago. This DRM horse shit is going to be bothering customers who paid for the disc for months or longer.</comment>


Tell PG/HN: HN bug re links to top level domains - <AUTHOR> http://twitpic.com/6moxio

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what you think the bug is... the link associated with the story is not valid, so HN links to the comments page instead.

Would you rather people ended up on an error page?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh.

The link is to <http://coffeemakerspot/>

I was redirected to <http://coffeemakerspot.com/>

But the redirection was done by my browser (Firefox). I had assumed that coffeemakerspot was resolving in its own right.

Either HN shouldn't accept the link, or it should show the domain name it putatively links to. As it is, it displays as if the link is to the comments page, but it is actually to the external url.

<comment><USER3> Think a bit. If unadorned custom TLDs were valid, the ownership and benefit of them would have been a huge topic on all our minds for years.

<comment><AUTHOR> I vaguely remembered ICANN talking about allowing them. No idea where they are in the process. Don't really pay much attention to things like this as "unusual" domains are irrelevant unless you're being obtuse/cutesy or running a url shortening service.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How a beginner C++ programmer made a game engine from scratch - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sdslabs.co/2018/12/making-a-game-engine-from-scratch <comment><AUTHOR> This is a blog about how a beginner C++ programmer made a game engine from scratch.

I have tried to make this blog address the most basic queries to making a game engine. It really speaks only to the beginner programmers.

However, if you seem to relate to what I have written and know what I am talking about then please consider having a look at the repository. I would love to get some feedback and/or code reviews.</comment>


Facebook CEO Congratulated Trump on 2016 Win After 'Innovative' Social Campaign - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2018/07/19/explosive-report-puts-facebook-and-trump-2016-in-cozier-working-relationship/#2a72e6c232c2 <comment><USER2> Alternative title: CEO of advertising company used by all major US candidates congratulates winner

<comment><USER3> With the difference that by the admission of the "CEO of advertising company" we now know that the company has enabled foreign actors to manipulate the opinion in favor of "winner".

That makes an important distinction compared to "all major US candidates".

So you see, when the boss of "Advertising 'R Us" calls me to congratulate me on my promotion it is not newsworthy. It is when the POTUS is congratulated by the very same person who later admits his company allowed foreign powers to influence the election of said POTUS, and for the same type of actions that were later attributed to those foreign powers.

It's how the news work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's also important to remember we have the benefit of hindsight and the information that has come out since then. Which said CEO didn't have at there time of that call.</comment>


Show HN - DropQuery - upload your CSV data and query away - <AUTHOR>

(Firstly, apologies for not having a demo. I realise for a tool like this, it's best to give some sort of demo, rather than putting up a landing page. Having said that, demo is coming - soon. But I want to gauge some interest, get some feedback on the concept, do some initial, early validation etc.)
DropQuery is a tool I'm working on at the moment, which you can use to upload your CSV file and use standard SQL to query it.
Would love to have you as an early user to get some feedback on the upcoming release! - so please sign up if you'd be interested!
http://dropquery.com <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable - [http://dropquery.com](http://dropquery.com)</comment>


First Criminal Prosecution for Domain Name Theft - <AUTHOR> http://www.domainnamenews.com/featured/criminal-prosecution-domain-theft-underway/5675

<comment><USER2> 3 things I found interesting in this article:

a) an NBA player investing into domains

b) a major domain investor who makes millions is using AOL

c) the arrogance of the thief who didn't even try to cover up his tracks. I mean how stupid must you be, to transfer a domain to your own godaddy account and to also add the extra papertrail by linking your paypal account to the theft.

<comment><USER3> Most thieves are pretty arrogant, most of them absolutely never expect to get caught. If thieves were good at probability then they'd make their living in a decent way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to wonder how Goncalves felt when the police came to arrest him. Did he accept it with stone-faced, expectant, but tortured resolve? Or was he shocked, jaw agape, as his panicked brain played "How could they have found me," on repeat? Or perhaps he was surprised not that they found him, but that anyone other than the Angels even cared. The officer who showed up after the original report didn't know what a "domain" even was. Did the arresting officer? "You're under arrest for... er... well, you're under arrest. For... the internet." I wish I had been a fly on the wall for that moment.</comment>


Dark Energy May Be Incompatible with String Theory - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-energy-may-be-incompatible-with-string-theory-20180809/ <comment><USER2> Has string theory made any testable predictions yet? They've had 20-30 years and it seems with every generation of particle accelerator they simply discard the current version of the theory and make the strings/membranes/whatever smaller and/or occupy yet more dimensions to justify them to still not be testable.

Is it really worth articles saying "string theory may not be compatible with X", when it could just be "unproven/unprovable hypothesis doesn't work with new data"

</comment><comment><USER3> string theory hasn't bore any fruit and is likely wrong. I will even go out on a limb and say dark energy is likely not actually energy but an unexplained gravitational phenomena.

<comment><USER4> Dark Energy is a misleading name I think. But the intent is literally what you described. Unexplained Phenomena which is acting like energy.</comment></comment>


Trump uses two iPhones and does not follow security protocols - <AUTHOR> https://tech-scholars.quora.com/Trump-uses-two-iPhones-and-does-not-follow-security-protocols?share=1 <comment><USER2> I'm gonna get downvoted for this but we can do better than this when discussing the negatives of Trump. We can raise the bar for journalism:

"It is u͟n͟k͟n͟o͟w͟n͟ exactly what is the security protocol maintained by the White House over the phones of President Trump" \- Entire Headline is acknowledged to be possibly true at best

"Politico s͟p͟e͟c͟u͟l͟a͟t͟e͟s͟ that Trump did not want to submit to the same regularity..." \- Not fact, Opinion

"when he assured that the email servers of the candidate to the White House were easy to hack and did not have the Necessary security protocols, action with which he reproached him had endangered the entire country, according to Politico." \- Not a Sentence

"When Barack Obama came to the White House, he asked his technicians to find a way to keep his BlackBerry" \-- "according to a 2016 interview with Jimmy Fallon." \- Jimmy Fallon dug deep into Obama's Phone use? Really? He's not exactly a hard-hitting journalist. I looked up the interview and he asks 1 vague question.</comment>


Hardware Hackers - Resources To Make Your Projects Beautiful - <AUTHOR> http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/04/hardware-hackers-resources-to-make-your-projects-aesthetically-pleasing/

<comment><USER2> In small quantities the best bet is sheet metal. You can take a design down to your local shop and they can cut and bend it. Ask them what colors they'll be powder coating that week and if you could slip your batch in with it (much cheaper than shutting down the line for your small volume)

It helps, of course, to know how to make the 3D drawings. But if you find the right shop, and make friends with them, you might get away with sketching it or paying a small fee for them to design it in CAD.

This is much more cost effective for small quantities compared to dealing with plastic. It also gives you more flexibility in your design since you don't have an expensive mold to change or re-machine when you want to make a change. And, at the end of it's use, it can be melted down and reused more efficiently than plastic.

If money is tight I'll get an extruded aluminum chassis and just make custom end caps for it.

<comment><USER3> In small quantities, your best bet is either to get the tools to make your own sheetmetal parts or make your design fit into an off the shelf enclosure. Just getting a single panel of aluminum with a few holes punched in it can run you $100 in set up costs at a sheet metal shop.

The same $100 will buy a few square feet of aluminum and tools to make holes yourself.

I'd find one of the online hobby machinist forums and ask someone there to make you what you need. As long as you're intelligent about it (learn to make your own drawings or to _clearly_ explain what you need), you'll find plenty of hobbyists with the proper tools who don't mind helping you out at much less than professional shop rates.

<comment><USER4> So a couple of thick sheets of plexiglass and machine screws/spacers just don't do it anymore?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish there were more on hardware hacking around here.

Maybe one of you can share alternate sources for hardware.

<comment><USER3> What do you mean by "alternate sources" and what kind of hardware? Electrical? Electronic? Cases & Enclosures? Chassis for motorized machinery?

I'd be more than happy to point you in the right direction, but I'm not sure just what you mean!

<comment><USER5> Electronic, and by sources I mean forums or blogs. Somewhere with interesting people like HN, but with an electronics focus.

It was 4 or 5 years ago that I first heard of Stripe Snoop <http://stripesnoop.sourceforge.net/> I thought it sounded like an interesting project, I'm not sure if it's dead now, but certainly interested me at the time. I was also intrigued by Zed's rant about programmable peddles.

<comment><USER3> The best one I know is the Sparkfun forum. It's heavily weighted towards newbies, so it's not as interesting as HN, but it seems to be growing fast. There are quite a few fun projects being discussed there at any given time.

It's interesting how software people congregate. It is really hard to find a _good_ electronics blog or forum that isn't populated primarily by professionals talking about work-related topics. Electronic or Mechanical engineering versions of HN just don't seem to exist, unfortunately.

[edit] I know there are hobbyist electronics and machinist blogs out there; I'm saying that people with electronics & mechanical skills aren't discussing their startup ideas online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this is really cool but they all have one huge caveat: "You need to learn how to use a 3D design program like..."

What a huge opportunity for an enterprising businessperson: Send us a broken part, we'll make you another. No design skills needed!

<comment><USER4> Better yet, be the middleman! Implement a marketplace where people needing a part can hook up with people willing to fabricate it. Outsource the actual work and the fulfillment and the risk, and just take a small cut of each transaction.

<comment><USER6> Well, that's what I was thinking... If you have the 3D design knowledge, you could use these services, spec the part, then offer this it up for people that have broken plastic pieces around the house.

Hell, most of it is probably already spec'd in a manual somewhere, and just needs to be obtained.</comment></comment></comment>


No, Your Phone Didn't Ring. So Why Voice Mail from a Telemarketer? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/business/phone-ringless-voicemail-fcc-telemarketer.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14477017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14477017) used to have this title but now doesn't for some reason.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, we've moved the comments there.</comment></comment>


What's the one thing in the world you want to build? - <AUTHOR> Anything, with unlimited time and resources, you would like to build.
Has to be in the realm of possibility (ie. within the laws of physics) but that's the only restriction.
Preferably with code, but can be anything else too.
Surprise us. <comment><USER2> I sold my (small) sailing yacht and am in the process of building four boats to replace it (a couple small boats to practice production processes). My previous boat wasn't ideal for sailing alone but my final design can be single-handed easily, using a Chinese style junk-rigged sail with its associated simplified sail handling. If you're going to sail a junk rig, wouldn't it look better on a junk-style hull?

I know this isn't code but I have enough latitude at work to satisfy any technology itches I have during the day ... so at night I cut up wood and lay fiberglass. Fortunately I have a large garage!

</comment><comment><USER3> Build tech that replaces phone numbers with something that cannot be spoofed.</comment>


CA Senate Votes to Restore Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/30/17406182/california-senate-net-neutrality-vote <comment><AUTHOR> The CA State Assembly still has to vote on this. But California state laws and regulations can have a nationwide impact.</comment>


The same subway sign means two different things in New York and Madrid - <AUTHOR> http://cogsciresearch.blogspot.com/2010/04/strange-subway-signs-of-madrid-notes-on.html

<comment><USER2> In China "subway" doesn't mean train, tramps, or even a sandwitch. It just means an underground pathway to cross the street for pedestrians.

You can't imagine how painful it is in the middle of summer, when you're a fat ass foreigner clinching to the one phrase you understand in all the billboards and street signs. In one night, I must have spent 45 minutes running in underground tunnels, exploring pathways in 100 degree heat and poping up on opposite sites of the same damn intersection without finding a single train :-(

Very expensive lesson.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually that's what "subway" means in India too. Or at least, that's the word we use to describe the underground road-crossings in Mumbai.</comment></comment>


Republicans claim First Amendment right to send you robo-voicemails - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/republicans-claim-1st-amendment-right-to-send-you-robo-voicemails/ <comment><USER2> No doubt this will pass. Short of Pai resigning and Trump deciding to appoint a Democrat I don't know why this wouldn't. The FCC has made it clear that they don't value public comment.

</comment><comment><USER3> I honestly do not understand how Americans can stand this harassment.

<comment><USER4> As the other reply to you stated, I'm afraid we can't stand it, but also can't execute change.

Elect new blood to state and federal government? They are bought out and/or go Benedict Arnold.

Activism? Sometimes it works, but it is a very dangerous game of whack a mole that can send you to prison and get you surveilled.

Donate to pressure groups? Works decently well but lobbyists (see SOPA) resurrect zombie bills.

Btw our police forces literally shoot on sight and will beat the crap out of you while arresting you with NO legitimate basis.

Our courts are expensive to navigate.

People can hack you and confiscate your bank account for a variety of reasons.

Background checks with any blemishes can result in you not being hired at any average corporate job.

Friends will subtly ostracize you if you are too much of a renegade.

Our political system is not friendly to third parties.

And if you go abroad, we tax your income and btw there's a $2500 fee to renounce citizenship :)

So unfortunately the US government is more like a mafia at times that has many legitimate and dangerous powers granted to it.

The USA has both boots firmly planted on our throats, but most of our citizens like being choked out.

<comment><USER5> > Friends will subtly ostracize you if you are too much of a renegade

That hit close to home. I've lost dozens of friends in the last two years and eventually deleted all social media accounts partially because I got sick of arguing about my government.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad it resonated, my friend, because unfortunately I really find myself in the same boat.

Perhaps we should all put on an incessantly optimistic and politically agnostic mask at all times, but I increasingly find myself unable to have low- stakes brainstorming sessions about any issue with 99% of my friends.

I guess this is a symptom of what is one of the causes of our political problems in the first place.

Also, >kakarottttttttttt! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well we already have the constitutional right to kick there asses right out in the next election</comment>


Probe HN: A place to argue about truth of a statement - <AUTHOR>

I came up with this idea years ago and spent a good time writing about its philosophy, etc. But I'm a practical person and even though the idea intrigued me and still does, I still have doubts about its usefulness.
I'd like to know what HN readers think of it. Would you find it useful to have a place where you can pose a statement which may or may not be true, and argue for or against statements posed by others? If it helps, think of it as something along the lines of reddit, but without the generality.
The advantage over reddit is how other users can benefit from the discussion. By requiring the arguers to choose a side (ie for/against) before commenting, it is possible to quantify the truth of a statement based on the quality of evidence/arguments provided in the discussion (quality can be determined by number of upvotes on a comment for instance). This requirement further forces the participants to do some research on their own before engaging in the discussion (ie because they have to pick a side first), leading to a more relevant and higher quality discussion.
This model would naturally yield itself to controversial topics and not obvious facts (ie no fun in arguing for things you can find the answer to using a quick google search). Of course there are many websites that currently host such discussions, but it is time consuming to get an overall picture of such without reading every post. <comment><USER2> I had a similar idea a while back but it didn't have as noble a goal. Really just another time waster but I could (and still do) see some potential.

It was going to be an extension of something like HN or Reddit and it would have been called "Internet Fight!". The premise is that arguments happen all the time on these forum sites and I thought it would be funny to highlight them as the primary content of an application.

I was going to promote it primarily by using it on Reddit first. I would make it easy for anyone to initiate a formal fight between any two reddit users. For example, I may happen across an argument taking place between two users (reddit_user_1 and reddit_user_2) and I would reply to one of them with a link to their fight - say, "www.internetfights.com/reddit_user_1_vs_reddit_user_2/ or something.

It would create highlights, declare a winner at some point, allow others to comment on a parallel thread about the fight itself. I still think it would be great. Someone make it. As many fights as there are on reddit, your go to market plan is basically you just setting around initiating fights til it catches on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. When I first thought about it, the concept of controversy, trouble, fight stood out. I kept thinking how I could declare a side the winning side and stamp a "Fact/Fiction" label on the statement at the end of a set period (ie a week after the statement is posed provided the commenting activity slows down).

I also thought long and hard about people who just wanna stir things up by constantly posting new statements, based on recent news (I even thought of writing a bot initially to generate such statements off news sites).

So what you're describing sounds very familiar to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Regardless of the actual site/format the quantifying of truth part seems like a big, interesting problem. Any good resources on that? A nice proof of concept?

I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I don't know. If I was you I'd just research the whole quantifying part and try to design some conceptual algorithms for that.

[http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/) is somewhat tangential to that. Just putting the link out there. There's also a bunch of QA sites that force your to take a side, but I don't remember them right now ;C

And couldn't you do that with existing QA sites? Like Klout for truth, haha.

</comment><comment><USER4> So could you describe what the discussion for, say, "P = NP" would look like? What would it score? .01 truthiness?

Are entire comments upvoted, or can single statements be up/downvoted line- item-style? Can the result of one discussion automatically influence another (can I post a statement /foo that assumes /bar is true and /baz is false)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I assume it would be full of attempts from both sides to provide proofs, counter examples and lot of external links to existing materials on the web (a good argument could for instance increase the rank of an external page if we cared to keep track of such metrics). You're right, ideally it would score something close to the center of true/false scale (whatever number we assign it) but things like imbalance of count of participants on each side could create a biased result.

I really like the idea of upvoting a part of a argument and not the whole. I have also thought about inter linking of statements which is useful to keep each discussion within some bound.</comment></comment>


What effect would the reclass of ISP have on privacy (un)lawful data collection? - <AUTHOR>

Sorry for the butchered title, I had to get it under 80 characters: What effects would reclassification of ISPs to common carriers have on privacy, (un)lawful data collection?
I realize the importance of imposing net neutrality. I'm curious of what side effects reclassification of ISPs as Common Carriers would have regarding privacy and security.
I'm curious if there would be any changes in the ability for the government to (un)lawfully collect information, or make it difficult to secure our own privacy. Would it afford us any additional protections, or take some away? Would it make it easier for gov't agencies to route traffic through their facilities? Would/could it impose restrictions on the use or types of encryption? Would it make it easier for gov't to make changes to the classification with out over-site, or democratic process? <comment><USER2> Telcos are Title II regulated (right?) and they have NSA rooms inside their facilities.</comment>


It's "locking" if it's blocking - <AUTHOR> http://www.yosefk.com/blog/its-locking-if-its-blocking.html <comment><USER2> While Lock-free code gets you part of the way to efficient parallelism (by removing suspension-induced dead time) as he mentions, the performance impact caused by repeated cache line invalidation can be a significantly bigger problem.

In many modern processor architectures (x86, for example), a cache-coherence protocol is used to ensure that cache lines provide data according to the memory discipline. On x86, that discipline is Total Store Ordering. (See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_ordering>).

This means that if two processors are contending for the same value (eg. trying to increment it, set it to true, or even read it), they will force the CPU to invalidate the cache line containing the value on all the other cores, leading to massive scalability bottlenecks. If multiple cores are contending for the same location in memory, whether it's lock free or not, performance will suffer.

More deviously is the case of false sharing, where 2 different values just happen to fall on the same cache line. Even though they don't conflict, the processor must still invalidate the line on every core. Modern compilers do their best to prevent this, but sometimes they need a little help.

The takeaway is this: Don't try to implement your own locks using CAS -- even something as simple as a lock is very hard to get right (performance-wise) when scaling to dozens and hundreds of cores / threads. People have solved this problem (people.csail.mit.edu/mareko/spaa09-scalablerwlocks.pdf). Writing fast concurrent code (especially lock-free code) is a minefield of weird architecture gotchas. Watch your step.

<comment><USER3> Actually I didn't claim that lock-free is more efficient - I explicitly said that it isn't necessarily more efficient, though I didn't discuss the reasons that you do discuss; I only said that "lock-based" is _defined_ by the need to deal with blocking upon suspension - not that it's necessarily a bad property in any way, in particular in its efficiency impacts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a good academic post, but why are we still writing mutable-shared- state concurrent code?

Either of message-passing concurrency and data immutability would trivialize the problems discussed here.

<comment><USER5> The actor model and data immutability are good for programmer productivity and reducing errors, but not for writing highly performant or low-level code. Even then, _someone_ has to write the message queue, and how do you plan do to that without any mutable shared state?

<comment><USER4> Obviously there's no avoiding this, but the author writes in the context of high-level code where OS-provided locking mechanisms are available. Why are we discussing this in a low-level (or embedded, where every ounce of performance matters) context?

<comment><USER5> You don't need to be embedded to have performance matter - even if your OS gives you concurrency primitives, there are many situations where jumping into kernel code is still "too expensive."

<comment><USER6> That's why Linux has the futex which is userspace only if not contended only jumps to kernel code for the contended case.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux Released - <AUTHOR> http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html <comment><USER2> Somehow I'm less than enthused.</comment>


Business travellers have all but abandoned taxis - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/06/uber-driving <comment><USER2> Biggest reason I switched is filling receipts is so much easier with Uber/Lyft than versus a taxi. I only use them for business travel so I have a gmail rule to forward them to expensify versus having to manually scan in some taxi drivers handwriting (half the time who is pissed at you for asking for a receipt).</comment>


Special Counsel Mueller Indicts 13 Russians for Election Interference - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-troll-farm-13-suspects-indicted-for-interference-in-us-election/2018/02/16/2504de5e-1342-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394223](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394223) On the fp now</comment>


Ask HN: Pricing/revenue model for personal finance app - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys! I'm the founder of CashBase (http://www.cashbasehq.com/), a personal finance suite of apps (web, iOS, Android).
We're a small team and doing this sort of on the side.
Growing with 3500-4000 new users per month, now a little over 26k.
CashBase has been free from the start and we now have a product worth paying for - so we're looking for the best revenue model.
Our best option goes like this: 1. User signs up for free and can use the entire app with no feature limitations until they hit 100 transactions (expenses...) - which adds up to roughly 3 months of usage.
2. At that point, they are allowed to view the data, reports, export it etc. We ask them to subscribe for $X/mo or $Y/yr, to continue using the app (adding transactions).
The price point we're considering is $29/yr ($2.4/mo) - one yearly payment, 60-day money back guarantee.
===
How does this sound? Could you think of a better model? Do you think the price is right, or too high, or too low?
Thank you in advance. Any feedback is hugely appreciated. <comment><USER2> A few things to think about:

1) You are still growing quite rapidly, so you need to be wary of killing off that growth. I think your method of giving ~3 months usage free will go a long way in retaining that growth

2) I don't think it is too expensive on a yearly basis, but maybe give them a discount if they pay by the year? Even if it is a couple bucks. They will already be inclined to pay for the full year because it isn't that expensive and $2.40 is a hassle to pay every month. Give them an additional reason to stay with you the entire year.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember talking about this at the startup guild. one of the founders had a similar idea and then tested a shorter period and had similar results. Three months seems like a long time. Why not one month or two weeks? also different people make different numbers of transactions - if you're thinking in terms if days already, why not have a 30 day free trial instead of transaction based so users will know when the free trial will end.

What's the plan for existing users?

<comment><AUTHOR> 3 months _is_ indeed a long time for us to have to wait for revenue. However, it's good for users because if they get to the 100 transaction limit, it means that they use it, which means that they get value out of it and would be more willing to pay to continue to use it. Or at least that's our line of thought. Also, it takes at least a month of transactions to be able to look at stats and get some insights from your spendings.

For existing users, we'll set the transaction counter at 0 (zero) when we launch this. Also, we are thinking of offering them 50% lifetime discount.

I think the other project you're talking about is <http://thebirdy.com/>.

<comment><USER3> I'm glad you're thinking about your existing users. I don't have a problem with your plan but I would suggest cohort analysis to test different free trial versions. Eric Ries talks about this on his blog and in his book.

Also the sure I was referring to is in a completely different niche.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.cashbasehq.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> How is this different from Mint (that is free and syncs with all the accounts)?</comment>


Ask HN: What's your homepage? - <AUTHOR>

I currently have Google News. But I feel there must be something better out there. :p <comment><USER2> Panda. [http://usepanda.com/app/#/](http://usepanda.com/app/#/)

or if you like it as a chrome extension.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/panda-4-news- inspi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/panda-4-news- inspiration/haafibkemckmbknhfkiiniobjpgkebko)</comment>