When the Soviet Union Paid Pepsi in Warships - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soviet-union-pepsi-ships <comment><USER2> The Soviets also traded Lada cars for New Zealand dairy products (mainly butter) [1], and after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia apparently even offered MiG fighter jets, a nuclear submarine, and tanks in an attempt to pay its $200mm debt it owed the New Zealand Dairy Board [2], which is particularly ironic as New Zealand was at the time (and still is) a nuclear free nation.

[1] [http://www.hoonable.com/butter-for-cars-how-the-lada-came- to...](http://www.hoonable.com/butter-for-cars-how-the-lada-came-to-new- zealand/)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/15/russia- offered...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/15/russia-offered- newzealand-military-hardware)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was going to mention that. My dad worked for the NZ Dairy Corporation (which later merged with Kiwi Dairy to become the conglomerate known as Fonterra) at the time, and they had warehouses full of cars that they had no idea what to do with.

<comment><USER4> They should have taken the fighter jets and the nuclear submarine instead of cars...

<comment><USER3> In New Zealand territories all nuclear weapons are banned, which is why the US navy is banned from operating in NZ waters as they don't disclose what ships are nuclear powered or carrying weapons.

Also, what's a dairy company going to do with fighters? At least they could sell cars and sell / give tractors to their farmers.

<comment><USER5> > all nuclear weapons are banned

> US navy is banned from operating in NZ waters as they don't disclose what > ships are nuclear powered or carrying weapons

One does not lead to the other. All of the US submarines and air craft carriers are nuclear powered (and no other ships). None of the aircraft carriers have nuclear weapons, and only the SSBN submarines can carry nuclear weapons on board. If your second statement is true (I don't know), then it is likely that NZ also is banning any nuclear powered ships; not just those with nuclear weapons.

<comment><USER2> It is a ban on nuclear propulsion as well as weapons, so nuclear powered submarines and carriers are banned. There was a bit of controversy a few years ago as well, when the NZ government was considering utilising a Russian nuclear powered icebreaker in Antarctica. No US Navy ship entered New Zealand waters for 33 years from 1984, the US Coast Guard did, however.

The ban on US Navy vessels stemmed from the fact that technically, any US Navy ship could carry nuclear weapons, and the USA would neither confirm nor deny if a particular ship had nuclear weapons. It was a bit of a hangover from the Cold War. The USA wasn't very happy at all in 1984 when NZ declared itself nuclear free.

Not all US Navy ships are banned in NZ waters now, a US Navy destroyer (USS Sampson) visited in 2016 for the Royal New Zealand Navy's 75th birthday, and ended up helping in disaster recovery when the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake happened at the same time, alongside the Canadian Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Japanese Navy. To reciprocate the favour, the frigate HMNZS Te Kaha joined the Nimitz carrier group to replace the USS Fitzgerald after it collided with a container ship.

Military relations with the USA have improved markedly in the past decade. Due to the whole nuclear free thing, the NZ Navy wasn't allowed to dock in the military area in Pearl Harbour for years, they had to dock with all the civilian ships, but now they're allowed to dock in the military area. They've also participated in RIMPAC since 2012.

<comment><USER6> It's interesting how long lasting the reaction to french terrorism is in NZ.

<comment><USER7> > french terrorism

Could you expand on that? Is it about Rainbow Warrior (just a guess)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Nixon also led Khrushchev towards a display booth that dispensed nothing > other than Pepsi-Cola. Symbolically, the booth offered two batches: one > mixed with American water, the other with Russian.

Sheer genius!

<comment><USER9> That reminds me that the Russians and Americans drink different water on the International Space Station:

[http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/spaceflight/space- food/am...](http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/spaceflight/space- food/americans-russians-drink-waters-iss/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In RAF ready-rooms there used to be photos of Soviet aircraft crews holding-up bottles of Pepsi to their intercepting NATO counterparts.

Now I know why.

</comment><comment><USER11> After my uncle sold his chain of Byte Shop computer stores, he started a business selling Apple ][+ clones to the Soviet Union. He told me he traded them for lumber -- this was after the olympics and I guess the vodka boycott was stillin effect.

<comment><USER12> Lumber played an important role in computer development in the Eastern Block: Polish computer manufacturer Kowary(I believe somehow connected with ELWRO) had their own sawmill and would buy western components for profits made selling pallets. Insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is amazing how long the USSR lasted as long as it did. I think in the end all communist regimes fell because of the failures of central planning(even though it bore gems like Linear Programming and Ukraine's then booming agriculture and the Space program). I think its failures were tied to economic failures, if you can make the economy work for the masses, people really don't care for much else it seems....

<comment><USER12> China seems to have hit the sweet spot(?).

<comment><USER14> China does not have a communist regime, despite the name.

<comment><USER15> Neither did the Soviet Union to be honest. Like so many things, what it's called and what it is are different entities. The USSR was a communist- inspired totalitarian command economy. It was not as unprecedented an invention as many would imagine. It was similar to many systems of monarchic and aristocratic rule, the only difference was that the requirements for membership in the aristocracy were ideologically tinged rather than predominantly based on notions of hereditary nobility. It also would have seemed fairly familiar to anyone who had lived under a Bronze age palatial city-state command economy. Modern China has also only ever had an ideologically tinged totalitarian command economy, though they loosened up in the '90s or so and became more of some variant of crony capitalism (just like us!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So... the "cola wars" of the 1980's that Billy Joel sings about could have actually taken a much darker turn?

</comment><comment><USER17> So it _wasn 't_ totally implausible to think they could deliver a jump jet in exchange for enough points. :)

<comment><USER18> For anyone who doesn't remember Pepsi ads from the mid-90's: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1996-man-sues-pepsi-for-not- giv...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1996-man-sues-pepsi-for-not-giving-him-a- harrier-jet/)

>The campaign was simple, reported CBS News correspondent John Blackstone. Buy Pepsi products, collect points from Pepsi labels and claim prizes like t-shirts, sunglasses, or - for 7 million points - a Harrier Jet.

>In the end, Leonard's lawsuit fizzled out. A court granted a summary judgment in favor of Pepsi and ruled that, "no objective person could reasonably have concluded that the commercial actually offered consumers a Harrier Jet."

<comment><USER19> It seems somewhat ridiculous that he managed to convince five people to "invest" in his idea. I'm surprised the article didn't touch on what seems to be the larger point: Don't advertise things you don't sell. The ad was dishonest not because people actually expected a harrier jet, but because it tried to make a non-existent association between something "cool" and its product.

This is of course something very hard to legislate, but it still feels dishonest to me, more so than almost any ad seen today.

<comment><USER20> > It seems somewhat ridiculous that he managed to convince five people to > "invest" in his idea

I don't know about that. Have you seen some of the startups that get funded?

<comment><USER21> Do you want to invest in my new Crypto Cola?

<comment><USER22> When's the Colacoin ICO and can I send you 10 million dollars?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For people lucky to not to be born in the Eastern bloc:

All that Pepsi was destined to closely guarded, party member only, soviet department stores stocked full of Western luxuries in the time when Soviet citizens were subsisting on bread and water.

<comment><USER24> Yawn. When I was growing up in USSR of 1980s, Pepsi was _everywhere_, for the cost 0.35 of a rouble for 0.33L. Soviet soda was .25 for .5 liter. Nor our family (teachers) was "subsistent" in any way. I remember having meat everyday, every once in a while my parents would buy a chocolate cake. It was much poorer than US, true, but waaay more affluent than China, India, Africa and rather capitalist Latin America.

<comment><USER25> When I was living in Poland in the mid 1980's you were _very_ lucky to be able to buy toilet paper, lightbulbs, bread, meat, fruit and a ton of other everyday stuff. Though lots of people knew someone who knew someone that had just slaughtered a pig which could get you some meat.

Hard currency bought you stuff from those stores the GP mentions, called Pewex, something like Pepsi was not seen in regular stores not operated by the government.

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

<comment><USER26> There was no problem whatsoever with buying such things like bread or local fruit. Why? Because a great share of those was produced by private entrepreneurs and had the price set by an almost free market.

Actually you can have a look at the statistical data and you will see that there were more pigs, cows, milk etc. then than now.

The problem was with many products manufactured by the collectively/state owned enterprises, because the prices were set artificially low centrally. That caused lack of balance in the market. Of course you could buy those products paying market prices to the private entrepreneurs (called speculators by the government) in the free market (called gray or black market by the government).

And I can assure you that Pepsi was sold in regular (not Pewex or Baltona) stores and those stores were state owned or controlled by the state (cooperatives) because private stores were almost nonexistent.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk Called a Tesla Critic's Boss to Complain About Him - <AUTHOR> https://jalopnik.com/get-a-load-of-this-ridiculous-story-about-how-elon-musk-1827842961 <comment><USER2> Jalopnik is as notoriously anti-Tesla as electrek is notoriously pro-Tesla. I trust neither source, they are highly biased. The chasm between fanboys and haters of this company are what make it the most controversial stock on the market.</comment>


FBI Affidavit in Harvard Bomb Hoax [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cbsboston.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/kimeldoharvard.pdf <comment><USER2> Oh man. Never confess to a federal crime without at least getting some sort of deal worked out.

Also: everyone should be required to fail a couple classes sometime in their life. It's not nearly as bad as you'd imagine. (Hint: after high school, nobody cares about your grades anymore.)

<comment><USER3> There is no way to get this deal worked out. They have the evidence they need and this is a serious issue. he will definitely face academic discipline charge against him from Harvard, most likely expel from Harvard University. Furthermore, there is no use of him for the FBI; when you when a deal you want to get some information out of him, or to make the processing faster. In this case, they have the evidence and they don't have to wait.

If he really wanted the exam to be rescheduled, the dumbest thing he could do is either break his own arm or pull the fire alarm somehow, or throw some stink bombs everywhere in the classroom. Those along probably will only cause suspension and minor criminal charge at worst. Though he'd be very careful with fire alarm...Now he probably can't get back to Harvard, after several years of stressful preparation to get into Harvard...

And for most jobs out there grades do matter, especially if you plan to go to graduate school.

<comment><USER4> "And for most jobs out there grades do matter"

Not even a little bit. What, you think a hiring manager is going to try to track down your college transcript?

Edit: here's now little grades matter as a developer: I have a GED and five college credits (two of which were archery) and I've been happily employed as a developer for the last six years.

<comment><USER5> > Not even a little bit. What, you think a hiring manager is going to try to > track down your college transcript?

He said "most jobs out there" not "developer jobs." Pretty much every job outside software, as well as every grad school application, will ask you to submit your college transcript.

<comment><USER4> By most you must be excluding the print media, pharma, and financial industries, all sectors I've worked in (as something other than a developer), no transcript.

<comment><USER5> The financial industry, and consulting and accounting, all care very much about your college grades, for recent grads. Not many people with even mediocre GPAs in the analyst classes of Goldman Sachs or in among the entry level hires at BCG.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The affidavit is a bit light, I suppose because the guy confessed so there's no need for more details.

It suggests that they merely correlated Tor (not TOR) activity and then showed up and confronted the kid.

If there were not many Tor users during that time window, they simply might have interviewed everyone. Since the kid wasn't really planning a violent act just wanted out of an exam he probably folded immediately.

Unfortunately, given this information, it's unlikely we'll find out any more about the FBI's capabilities. I can't imagine the kid doing anything but pleading out.

<comment><USER7> Use tor, use Guerrilla Mail then use his own wifi account. Why are people so dense? I am happy whit him being caught because of what he did but why don't people who do that kind of things use some internet cafe free wifi?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here is the statute under which he is being charged.

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1038](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1038)

Looks like he has a really heavy fine and up to 5 years in jail coming his way. It's a shame, really. Just take your lumps on the exam, it's certainly better than this.

<comment><USER6> Sure it's better than _this_. But most likely, he didn't think they'd correlate his Tor activity so it may have been "better" for him personally if he had gotten away with it.

<comment><USER8> It seems as though he was not thinking rationally. He used both Tor and Guerrilla Mail, but did not consider sending the messages from a public WiFi hotspot? Seems like a really rookie mistake to make if you are going to commit a federal offense.

<comment><USER9> 20/20 hindsight.

<comment><USER8> Of course. However, he had the foresight to use Tor and Guerrilla Mail. That is what doesn't make sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how exactly they tracked that he was using Tor at the time---does Harvard specifically log connections to the Tor network? Or do they log every outbound TCP connection?

<comment><USER11> By and large, if he tethered his cellphone and used Tor that way (or sit outside a coffee shop, etc), he wouldn't have been caught?

<comment><USER12> Tethered cellphone probably will be identified, though that would be slower as it needs to go through the ISP.

Coffeeshop will make it even harder, but may still have issues like identifying the computer, etc. etc.

<comment><USER6> Identifying from a cellphone connection would require the FBI to get a log of all Tor connections from all cellphone users in the area. And it still doesn't prove anything. Compared to just asking the campus for their records, it's a totally different league. It's not even clear if cell ISPs track every TCP connection.

<comment><USER13> They would have only needed a log of all connections within a very short time window (a timing attack, which ofc is not tor specific, after all someone might chain a proxy and tor). If the terrorism card is on the table I wouldn't be surprised if they had done that first and only after that constructed a legal case. Remember that there was a good period of time during which they had the bomb threat but they didn't necessarily know it was fake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Was this a genuinely dumb oversight on the student's part? Harvard WiFi requires students to log in with unique IDs to gain access ([http://www.fas- it.fas.harvard.edu/node/189](http://www.fas-it.fas.harvard.edu/node/189)), so Harvard can monitor and log all of your traffic.

Does this mean Harvard could in theory have this transmission recorded as it goes in to the TOR network? Would something as simple as going across the street to Panera Bread have thwarted this kind of investigation?

I'm really curious if the flaw in this kid's plan was that obvious.

<comment><USER14> I'm sure the manual part of logging in with his identification only happens once and is stored by his computer which automates the identification in the future so he may have forgotten this.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's unfortunate that I seem to remember this fact every time I watch porn on said network. :-s

<comment><USER14> Better than TOR for stuff like that is to rent a server and create an ssh tunnel through it. This is not anonymous and will not hide you from law enforcement, for example DPR did this and his information was subpoenaed by the FBI. But whoever you are renting a server from cares a lot less about you and what you do on a network than your college network. Your requests over the ssh tunnel will be encrypted and also much faster than tor. You can set up squid as a proxy and change your Firefox or OS proxy settings to connect via your proxy.

This is also a good way to get around GEO IP restrictions. Like if you rent a server in the UK and do this you can watch the BBC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since Harvard's WiFi requires you to login with your HUID and password, it would be trivial to look at all the internet traffic from campus at the period before the threat and see who was using Tor, and investigate those specific connections, since Harvard logs every outbound TCP connection..

</comment><comment><USER16> I feel bad for this kid. It was obviously a bad decision.

We all make bad decisions. Some haunt us longer than others. I know this was very wrong, but I wish the kid got a do over.

</comment><comment><USER17> Harvard huh? You'd think he'd be smarter than this.

<comment><USER18> To be fair, he's Harvard Business. Sort of the meathead division of Harvard, compared to their law school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Somewhere a tiger parent breathed a sigh a huge relief when their child didn't have to ruin their Harvard gpa.

</comment><comment><USER20> So we're armchairing how this should have gone, right?

1.) Buy a burner laptop on the street, in cash, then wait a while.

2.) From an open wireless connection, where you're far enough away to not be on any security cameras, use Tor, then VPN tunnel through a high traffic public server in China or Russia. You want to make sure you're not driving out of your way to be at a place at a time, in case the IP gets traced back for whatever reason.

3.) Prepare an elaborate email. Make it good.

3.) Setup an online meeting with someone. Play a video game online, start a skype chat, or otherwise create an alibi for how you couldn't be writing emails.

4.) Send the email through an anonymous email service.

5.) Destroy the laptop as far from campus as possible.

Did I miss anything?

In the end "Chinese hackers" get blamed for the email, and the media attention fizzles.

<comment><USER21> Could have spent all of this time studying, would have gotten a decent grade on the exam.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Rendora – Dynamic server-side rendering for modern JavaScript websites - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rendora/rendora <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, I've been developing and testing rendora for some time now and decided to put it publicly today on github, I would love to take feedbacks or answer any question!

<comment><USER2> How do you test that it works when there is no display in headless chrome?

<comment><AUTHOR> you can add your user agent to whitlested user agents or (less recommended) you can even connect to the headless chrome instance (usually using [http://localhost:9222](http://localhost:9222) but in that case I remind you that some assets are blocked from being fetched by default such as images, fonts and CSS to speed up the DOM load. This doesn't affect the resulting HTML.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, thanks for your awesome job. I'm looking for the best SSR option for my next SPA. I have some questions. Rendora is production ready ? I have some risks to use it with lot of visitors ? And how about SEO impact ? What are your results ? Thanks in advance :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool idea and implementation.

Question: If the "initial render" of client side code involves JavaScript mounting nodes on the DOM, how is this transformed into static HTML that can be rendered without JavaScript? Does headless chrome offer a way to "snapshot" the DOM in its current state (basically like copy pasting the "elements" pane in dev tools)? Just wondering if there is a term for this, and/or where it's documented.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rendora uses internally cdp [https://github.com/mafredri/cdp](https://github.com/mafredri/cdp), a golang client implementation for "Chrome Devtools Protocols" which works on top of websockets, when Rendora detects a witelisted request, it instructs the headless Chrome instance using cdp to render the corresponding page and waits for the DOM load event, after that the content of the page is copied to rendora and then returned back to the client while preserving HTTP headers and status code.

It's all about using the chrome-devtools-protocol, if you are interested, you may want to read about it in [https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools- protocol/1-2](https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools-protocol/1-2)

>If the "initial render" of client side code involves JavaScript mounting nodes on the DOM

That's the raison d'être of rendora, if your website doesn't add DOM nodes using some javascript framework (e.g. React, Vue, etc..)in client, basically the HTML will be exactly the same and thus you don't need rendora in that case

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good luck with the launch. Looks like a great idea, was wondering if there is any other existing product in the market.

Ability to provide ssr without changing a single line of code is awesome and can help teams who are trying for a solution which requires code changes.

Wish the crawlers incorporate something like this into their crawling logic so that we really don't need to worry about server rendering anymore. Until then this product can be a bridge!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind response

>was wondering if there is any other existing product in the market

yes, there is rendertron; here is the comparison between rendora and rendertron and why I think rendora is better [https://github.com/rendora/rendora#what-is-the-difference- be...](https://github.com/rendora/rendora#what-is-the-difference-between- rendora-and-rendertron)

also there is prerender.io but this is a commercial paid product and also needs change in your backend; and I guess they didn't use headless Chrome until recently

>Wish the crawlers incorporate something like this into their crawling logic so that we really don't need to worry about server rendering anymore

Except for Google, probably all other search engines don't even execute javascript to render pages (Bing claimed to be rendering js very recently but I haven't seen it in my production website :D), they claim that the web is too big and the computational complexity of executing javascript in every page is unreasonable. Even Google can't render pages correctly if you have asynchronous content from my own experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> What's the disadvantage or advantage of headless chrome over chrome with head intact?

Is headless chrome faster? Can we control popup windows in headless one? Does it support proxies? Is it possible to control tabs? Close and open in new tab etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> >What's the disadvantage or advantage of headless chrome over chrome with head intact?

I am not aware of any. You just don't use headless Chrome for typical browsing :D

>Is headless chrome faster?

I guess it slightly is, because it doesn't need to paint the rendered page but tbh Chrome/Chromium is an enormous project so I can't comment in details.

>Can we control popup windows in headless one? >Does it support proxies?

I believe they are not possible because chrome-devtools-protocol doesn't support that yet, but you can add http/socks proxies inside Chrome and then run it as headless to use a proxy if you insist

> Is it possible to control tabs? yes

if you're that interested about headless Chrome, I recommend you read about chrome devtools protocol [https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools- protocol/1-2](https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools-protocol/1-2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd be curious between using Chrome headless vs a Node server. Was this tested?

<comment><USER7> node is a JavaScript runtime, it has no rendering component, and—more notably—no DOM or any other equivalents to many browser APIs in its core API. This would mean you would have to emulate the browser environment with many 3rd-party implementations which are unlikely to match a modern, complex browser in aggregate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So a regular browser will receive a js bundle, but a crawler will recieve a html page?

How does Rendora determine which version to give the requester? Is it the "User Agent String"?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, both receive HTML, the real problem is that websites built with modern javascript frameworks (e.g. react, vue, angular, etc...) render most of the content using the javascript engine in browsers, search engines don't execute javascript and thus they see almost nothing but a header and almost an empty body (of course it depends on your use case to be more accurate). Rendora solves the SEO problem for such websites, by being a lightweight reverse HTTP proxy in front of your backend server, it detects crawlers by checking whitelisted user agents and paths, if it finds one, it instructs a headless Chrome instance to request and render the corresponding page and then returns the final server-side rendered HTML back to the crawler (or according to whatever whitelisted in your config file). This is called dynamic rendering and has been recommended by Google and Bing very recently (see the links in [https://github.com/rendora/rendora#what-is-dynamic- rendering](https://github.com/rendora/rendora#what-is-dynamic-rendering))

<comment><USER8> So if I'm hearing correctly, if a User Agent is white-listed it Rendora will render the page on the server and return less assets (no CSS, fonts etc)

If it's _not_ white-listed it will just let the request pass through normally to the server (eg static file server) is this correct?

<comment><AUTHOR> >and return less assets (no CSS, fonts etc)

no, it returns the whole page, it's just equivalent to rendering pages on your browser, everything in the initial HTML is the same in addition to HTML generated by javascript frameworks added to the DOM after the webapp scripts are loaded.

<comment><USER8> Okay, so it renders the javascript webapp (Angular/React/Vue) on the fly into HTML, (just as it would appear in a _client 's browser_), but only for the whitelisted UserAgents, which can be crawlers right?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes exactly :), as if crawlers see exactly the same HTML of what browsers see after DOM load not the initial incomplete HTML sent by servers

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, Rendora is comparable with [https://prerender.io](https://prerender.io)?

<comment><AUTHOR> * prerender.io is a paid service; Rendora is FOSS and self hosted

* prerender.io needs additional code in your backend to filter requests and asks for SSR from a remote server then returns back the resulting HTML; Rendora doesn't because it does all that automatically by being a lightweight reverse HTTP proxy server in front of your backend

* with Rendora you can control caching (using an internal local store or Redis), prerender.io claims caching on their servers I guess but then you can't control it espcially if you have fast chaing pages

* Rendora provides Prometheus metrics to measure your SSR latencies, count of cached and uncached requests and an API rendering endpoint

* Rendora supports asynchronous pages where content is loaded after the initial DOM load

* you can simply choose which Chrome version you want to use with Rendora

* Rendora instructs headless Chrome to skip fetching unncessary assets (e.g. fonts, CSS, images, etc...) which makes the DOM load much faster then when loaded and rendered by default</comment></comment>


Is there a way to develop commercial apps for the iPhone without buying a Mac? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to use Windows if possible.<p>Also, is it possible to use an ipod touch for development instead of an iphone? <comment><USER2> You most definitely need a physical device to test with--using the simulator is absolutely not good enough.

Just get a used (Intel) Mac Mini for a few hundred bucks. Not a huge investment.

</comment><comment><USER3> No. (You could run OS X in VMware on Windows, but it's still OS X.)

You can test your app on iPod Touch as long as you don't care about the minor differences from the iPhone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you need to actually test on an ipod touch/iphone? The simulator isn't good enough?

<comment><USER4> If you want to test location and accelerometer events you will need to use an actual device. Also, the simulator does not place constraints on memory and processor usage so you will need to test on a physical device to make sure that you are not going to go over memory and crash or make an app that is so slow it's not usable.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which dedicated server provider do you currently use? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking at setting up a dedicated server, but am having a hard time figuring out which one.
Hetzner seems the best when it comes to bang for the buck, but should I be concerned about the DDOS issues?
Any recommendations for other providers from HN members? Any Gotchas that I should be careful about?
I'd be great if you could list down the provider you currently use or have used in the past (with price and specs if possible) along with your experience. <comment><USER2> So you're in Europe/Germany? I've used AWS, Softlayer, Firehost, etc - and my thoughts are: \- If you have a small team, and will use the services, AWS can be great. It can become expensive. But many people don't realize the cost actually defers the need for some DevOps team members. Performance of EC2 hosts can be middle of the road at times compared to Softlayer, or pure metal. I love their HighAvailability, and many of their offerings, and security that comes "for free". \- SoftLayer is fantastic. They don't have as many SaaS (eg: SQS, SNS, RDS) offerings - so you will build more of your own services and be responsible for uptime, etc. I love their performance. \- FireHost is what you want if you're taking care of a very financially at-risk product. It is expensive, but you won't be hacked unless it's on your own stupidity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply. I'm fine with any location for the server. Right now, just looking at keeping the costs down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey Sam, I work for [http://bytemark.co.uk](http://bytemark.co.uk)

What are you trying to _do_? What's it for?

There's a whole bunch of pros and cons to dedicated servers, bang for buck, uptime, customer service, networking...

If you explain what you're planning on using it for, I might be able to tailor some suggestions as to what might suit you best - always happy to offer helpful suggestions - even if it's not about our products.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hetzner 4 years, no major issues yet, good support, reliable servers

Online.net 1 year, no major issues yet, reliable hardware, support a bit slow

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. I am definitely leaning towards Hetzner. Are you concerned about the DDoS issue? (related to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6577465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6577465))

<comment><USER4> My suggestion would be to first launch your service and then worry about any other issues. Automate provisioning of your servers, so you can migrate to other providers if you have any issues. I would recommend Ansible or Chef for automation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm with Hetzner, although I'm also considering online.net[0]

No complaints with Hetzner thus far. Support is okay.

0\. [https://www.online.net/en/dedicated- server](https://www.online.net/en/dedicated-server)

</comment><comment><USER6> Check out serverbear.com. They have a really nice overview over most (all?) server providers, their price, IOPS, UnixBench and more. Helped me a lot when choosing servers :) (There is a tab so you only see dedicated servers)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm with TransIP but I'd jump to Digital Ocean if I didn't had a fairly complex FreeBSD setup.

NOTE: Sorry I kinda misread, wasn't talking about dedicated, was talking (personal) VPS.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hetzner for a long time. Experienced nothing out of the ordinary. I'm content.

</comment><comment><USER9> been with Liquid Web for 5+ years. I've got several dedi's with them, never an issue and up time to the 9's.

</comment><comment><USER10> Where? :=)

</comment><comment><USER11> soyoustart.com

<comment><USER12> Is it supposed to be somewhere in between OVH and Kimsufi in terms of service?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> digital ocean

<comment><USER9> for a dedicated?</comment></comment>


How to Install Arch Linux on a Late 2015 Retina (12,1) MacBook Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.lewis8s.codes/apple/linux/archlinux/macbookpro/2020/01/18/how-to-install-arch-linux-on-macbook-pro-retina.html <comment><USER2> but why?</comment>


Why I'm switching from being a bootstrapper to a funded startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.tawheedkader.com/2011/02/why-im-switching-from-being-a-bootstrapper-to-being-funded/ <comment><USER2> Sounds like you're certainly more keen on the startup than the consulting. I'm in a similar situation, where I do a little contract web development as well as building up my bootstrapped revenue-generating startup on the side. My plan is to stay bootstrapped, but build up the revenues to a point where I can focus fully on the startup. It will take a little longer than if I had angel investment, but I believe it is totally worth it, and I have already managed to drop my contract work a little.

What I'm intrigued about is whether you believe you can't build up the startup to ramen-profitability and drop the consulting work without getting angel investment? If you can, then why would you not hold off the investment until that point?

Another related thing I'm wondering is whether you agree with the wisdom of "get investment when you don't need it" and "leave it as late as possible"? It seems like you could drive up the valuation if you waited.

</comment><comment><USER3> I get what you mean when you say you are reluctant to get funding for unsure ideas until they are tested. I'm afraid, even with someone else's money, to bark up the wrong tree.

My startup is going through an incubator now, and one of the biggest things I've seen is that fear of failure motivating rather than limiting. I'm more willing to pivot and change because even though we are still calling the shots, we've got to look our angels in the eye and tell them it's a good idea.

Bootstrapping is great if you can do it. So is building a startup while working a full time job. But like quitting the daytime job, receiving funding helps to kick you into action.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think you'll find it a bit difficult if you don't explain where the _growth_ is going to come from. It's easy to make a trickle of money, but will it grow enough to make an investor his money back and more?

<comment><USER5> I think he will explain that in private PDF document he is going to send to angels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this makes sense for you and the product. Someone needs to compete with UserCycle ;)

Good luck with the round.

</comment><comment><USER7> are you using any other means besides the blog to drum up investment? i'd be interested to hear what and if/when you succeed..

<comment><AUTHOR> I started about two weeks ago getting intros to angels from within my network. I connected with a couple of angels over the past week and perfected my pitch. Over this weekend, I submitted to AngelList and wrote the blog entry. So, to answer your question, it is a variety of things, and I've found it is a lot about relationships and connecting through people you know to the people you want to know but do not know.</comment></comment>


Victorian Gas Meter - <AUTHOR> http://www.parlington.co.uk/artifacts.lasso?process=8&subProcess=art14 <comment><AUTHOR> Diaphragm gas meters of this type were invented in 1844. The design is basically unchanged to this day.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=RxcjAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA75&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=RxcjAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=richards+groll+gas+meter&source=bl&ots=uTMnu4Qr6T&sig=I04YthTgywVsJVBgUqPrrmjnWSM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwil- N_YlarKAhWBcD4KHWetBfkQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=richards%20groll%20gas%20meter&f=false)

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

Too bad they don't look like this: [http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im20100528Ed- Alder2.jpg](http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im20100528Ed-Alder2.jpg)</comment>


A new battery could keep your phone charged for five days - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2228681-a-new-battery-could-keep-your-phone-charged-for-five-days/ <comment><USER2> Bah. My Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra lasts for 10 days on a charge.</comment>


Show HN: MemoLock – Distributed Caching with Promises - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kristoff-it/redis-memolock <comment><USER2> It's Redis MemoLock.

That "Redis" part is very important.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you save Yahoo and bring it back to top place ? - <AUTHOR> I loved Yahoo, it was like web equivalent of first crush back in High school. But Yahoo is dying albeit slowly. Compare this to Apple of mid 90's when it was almost dead. Now imagine you are The Steve Jobs and your task is to not only save Yahoo but bring it back to top place. How would you do it ? (Selling out is not an option, please!) <comment><USER2> "Back in top place" of what?

Seriously, answering that question should probably be their number 1 priority. Right now they can't say that "What Yahoo! does is X," much less "Yahoo! is #1 at X," for any X. They need a direction. Answering that question won't solve all of their problems, not by a hell of a long shot, but anything that is effective at solving their problems will necessitate answering that question.

They've decided they're not a search engine. They still sort of seem to think they're a portal; I don't see a lot of people really caring about portals anymore, but maybe if they push hard they could bring that concept back. If they really wanted to be bold, they could try to crack the perennially difficult nut of monetizing quality content on the internet. If they could manage that, they could become the go-to content publisher on the web.

From what I understand of their corporate culture, they probably need a leader that can make changes there as well. They don't need to become Google or a "start-up culture," but they need more focus on product quality instead of the treadmill.

<comment><USER3> > Seriously, answering that question should probably be their number 1 > priority.

Spot on. Focus on nothing else but this initially. Remember Carol Bartz's answer to "What is Yahoo?"?

        "What is Yahoo? Listen Yahoo is a great company that is very, very strong
         in content for its users, uses amazing technology to serve up what increasingly
         we think is going to be the web of one. For instance, on our today module in the
         front page, every 5 minutes we have 32,000 different variations of that module.
         So you don't even know what I'm seeing in fact we serve a million different front
         page modules a day and that's just through content optimization. And that's just
         the beginning. Customized because we know the things you're interested in. Maybe
         you don't like light entertainment maybe you like a certain sports team, etc. And
         our click through rate went up twice. So the point is, people come to us to find
         out what is going on with the world in a very nice quick fashion to do their
         communications, email, messanger, check-in on their teens. We all know about
         Yahoo finance. It's a places where you can just get it together. It's collated
         for you, it's all the things as you're moving, you can even get your social
         information there. Everybody moves through many websites in a day, Yahoo is one
         they always stop at."

Ouch.

Link: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/ok-seriously-what-is-yahoo/>

<comment><USER4> I cringe when I read that.

At the same time I can't help but feel sorry for a company that once really was synonymous with 'the web' and nowadays has completely lost it's direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yahoo's biggest "problem" is the huge revenue and profit it continues to make. Jobs had a big advantage when he came back to Apple -- it was losing $1B/year and was about to go broke. Everything needed to change. When you have a huge business to screw up, it isn't so easy to make a sweeping change that could disrupt the business model for years. At Yahoo you could probably cut back to 100 ops people and 200 sales people and rake in billions in revenue and profit for a decade or more. In fact, most Yahoo! die hard users would like the message "We are never going to change Yahoo! again. It will remain exactly like this from now on. No more redesigns. No new features. No changes of any kind. Your My Yahoo page is safe."

Yahoo's business is driven by the adoption of Yahoo! Mail. Most people that use it (it is the largest email provider in the US), don't realize they could put in mail.yahoo.com rather than yahoo.com so stop there on their way to their inbox. That is enough to power nearly every other media site they control to the #1 position with the right mix of articles on the home page.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would turn Yahoo into the curators of the web once again.

(1) Create a group that better identifies and manages relevant and trustworthy information quickly for popular categories/topics.

(2) Create a group that finds and reports new/interesting websites.

(3) Make Yahoo Answers much better, or buy Quora.

(4) Create a massive user reviewed products database.

(5) Cut the clutter & trash off the webpages. Simplify!

<comment><USER7> Damn it! 8 minutes too late!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice try, new Yahoo CEO. ;)

All kidding aside, they need to focus on some core products to start stabilizing their presence again. Give Flickr good leadership. Make Delicious a priority product. Figure out if the search product is worth maintaining.

Above all, they need someone scrappy and clever to lead, not just contain the flailing of their tentacles.

<comment><USER9> Their search is outsourced now to Bing, as far as I know anyway, so they can't really build around outsourced search.

<comment><USER10> I am still reeling from this "strategy" - namely, WTF happened to all the infrastructure they previously had for search?

Where are the machines, the staff, the datacenters that were in place for this?

<comment><USER11> Yahoo Search has almost always been outsourced. Even in the early days their search index was run by a third party (OpenText, then AltaVista, then Inktomi, then Google, now Bing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the first things Jobs did when he returned was _streamline_ Apple's products. If you go to Yahoo.com now, you see about 12 things on the left-hand side that are essentially "WTF?"; things Yahoo shouldn't be doing (and that's before going to Everything.Yahoo.com for the complete list of random garbage). Yahoo should be focusing on its strengths and mercilessly removing everything else.

Yahoo has always been pretty good at apps: cross-platform Messenger, an impressive web mail interface for the iPad that looks almost native, etc. They are a web and design powerhouse, if only somebody told them. This is expertise that can be sold; they need to continue building a small number of apps to demonstrate their prowess, and contract this out to develop anything for anyone (e.g. make Yahoo the go-to place for high quality mobile apps for the iPhone?). Even throw the free software community a bone by pulling a Nokia (the old Nokia) and making a Qt-like dual-license so their services have even greater reach.

Yahoo is also a decent source of news, but they aren't pushing this enough. With a bit of care and attention they could clean up the mess that is modern media and give people a really desirable digital newspaper...something that everyone would want as their home page.

Find and fire the people in their company who build toolbars and installers that push toolbars. The last thing any company needs is to be connected with something that users may loathe.

That's just off the top of my head. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd focus on revenue:

      - Reduce the number and variety of ad formats.
      - Kill products which are revenue sinks.
      - Focus on products which can generate revenue "out the gate"[0].

This gets operating expenditures down, which buys time. That's pretty much all it does, though.

Then I'd sit back and ask the company[1] "what do we do?" Depending upon the answer, those are the products, strategies, and revenue opportunities we pursue next.

My personal feelings here probably wouldn't matter much, because no matter how intelligent I, or anybody else is, the top 100 creative producers at a company like Yahoo would probably be more creative, intelligent, in-touch, etc than I just by stint of sheer numbers[2]. So, take the best of their ideas[3], and execute on them.

Then, after building up a business which can sustain itself again, I'd start pursuing longer term goals. These goals would be aligned with what the company is capable of: large-scale, software-driven, media operations on the web.

During all of this, of course, there'd need to be a lot of firing and hiring. It'd suck. I'd hate it. But, knowing the tech industry, the people who were fired would find better jobs, and the new people would want to prove themselves. The trick is making sure you didn't waste effort on Sisyphean tasks. Yahoo is not a research company. Yahoo takes existing innovations and brings them to a mass market. Focusing on that would be a strength.

[0] A rodeo term, believe it or not.

[1] Or, say, the top 100 creative people there.

[2] Finally noticed me stealing plays from the Apple playbook?

[3] By which I mean, "ideas which can make lots of cash in the short term".

</comment><comment><USER14> It's a very interesting question. I use yahoo a fair bit for email accounts and for reading the news. I am not sure how they monetize this activity if at all.

Recently they forced me out of the old interface with email. Now I can no longer open emails I want to read by option-clicking on links to open them in new browser tabs. All mouse clicks are intercepted by the javascript on the page. Without the ability to do this the email is significantly slower and less easy to use than before. Now I am faced with finding a new email provider, and not gmail. If they had just left it alone or allowed me to use the old. No doubt others feel the same way.

But what do to? Well for news I read yahoo but comment on topix, which is community oriented. Yahoo should clone that. Unlike topix, yahoo seems to license their news content which should provide an advantage. Have news discussion local like with topix. Then sell local classifieds if you get enough local activity boards going and frequented. Might be hard at this point though to get people away from topix.

For me yahoo signified privacy and flexibility with the emails. I used to get news alerts on some topics but they never worked reliably or consistently. Haven't gotten one in a long time so I guess that feature was cancelled.

Oh I also use yahoo groups. These groups should have cloned the functionality of ning.com, to supplement and expand the mailing list paradigm. Yahoo groups have never worked well, screwing up the formatting of most posts and not having a smooth experience for integrating media. That all should have been fixed decades ago. Then try monetizing it like ning does with pay for extras and pay to be the premium ad free host.

A lot of the problems have a vibe that the programmers aren't great, or aren't around long enough to make things great. A lot has the feel of middle management dictating features to programmers rather than software designers being the developers and having the autonomy to own projects long term and make them great.

<comment><USER15> I made a comment earlier about the Yahoo mail interface as well and I agree with you that the new interface is too much. I think they still let you use the old interface but eventually they will force everyone to switch permanently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd start with Yahoo Stores. PG, RTM, and Trevor Blackwell's creation was cutting-edge in 1996 but the web has changed a lot since then and Yahoo Stores hasn't. The store editor would proabably still work with Netscape 3, it's so non-web-2.0-ish. Even so, a lot of businesses still use it, but that number is probably shrinking.

With Yahoo Stores up-to-date I would try to position Yahoo as a small-to- medium business portal. It's a lucrative market and the competition isn't what it could be (despite the success of Sales Force, Magento, et al).

This would be, or seem to be, a big risk to current revenue, but unless they are bold enough to do that it's going to fade away in time anyway.

Actually motivating the middle management at Yahoo to do this would be tough. Perhaps it's time to simplify the management layer and give technical people more responsibility.

<comment><USER17> This got me to thinking. Can anybody think of any Yahoo property that appears to have received more than, say, the equivalent of 6 months work from a single dev over the course of the last 5 years? Flickr has seen some teeny tiny changes but everything else seems to be stuck in perpetual stasis.

<comment><USER16> Good point. I do remember someone from Yahoo who spoke at the first Startup School about the webmail redesign - but that was five or six years ago. Why is everything stuck in perpetual stasis over there? Is it that the leadership doesn't have the vision to suggest or sign off on major redesigns, or that middle management can't make them happen?

<comment><USER18> They'be been rewriting Yahoo Mail in nodejs: [http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/07/multicore...](http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/07/multicore_http_server_with_nodejs/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They need a core competency and being a portal is just not worth anything (to me).

They abandoned anything like search - a pointless skin on top of Bing is not a product of any value. How many of their users just go to Google?

They seem to have no compelling value add over Gmail / HotMail in the webmail space.

They seem to have mismanaged Flickr into second place behind Facebook as a webstore & sharing entity for photos (in my opinion).

Yahoo messenger doesn't seem to be gaining on or offer anything over FB chat, Gtalk, MSN et al.

So yes like Apple in the 90s, they have lots of stuff some of it cool but too weak focus and no market leadership in anything.

Unlike Apple they don't have a Steve Jobs and a big pile of cool technology and talent like NeXT to buy and absorb. Indeed when they do buy in cool product & talent they seem to mismanage it to death eg Flickr and Delicio.us

A very good question - what should they do?

</comment><comment><USER15> I would buy Geocities and then shut it down a few years later. I would start charging for my free dating/personals site. Then I would eventually shut that down too as people find other alternatives. I would make sure that my instant messaging network is closed to outside clients and that alternative clients have to reverse engineer the the network protocol. I would make sure my search engine is just slightly better than Lycos and ignore the success of Google. After all, Google is just a fad.

Ok, seriously, pretty much they need to stop pushing people away. Open up APIs. Don't get rid of the old mail interface. It works fine. Continue to offer choices. Don't touch the finance site. Don't touch Flickr. Don't censor Flickr. Fight spam in yahoo groups. Offer IMAP/POP3 free.

</comment><comment><USER20> A lot of Yahoo!'s traffic is from older people. I'd capitalize on that by creating a social networking site that appealed to that demographic -- sort of like Classmates.com in that it would have an emphasis on nostalgia, but with the features of a Facebook-esque social networking site. (Also, no sleazy banner ads like Classmates.com has. Those ruin the brand for people outside the target demographic.) The plan would be to grab seniors like Facebook grabbed college students, then spread to the general population, like Facebook did.

It's probably unorthodox to expect a site to spread from older to younger people, rather than the other way around, but parents and grandparents have badgering power. If grandma really wants you to get a Yahoo! account so she can keep in touch, there's a good chance you'll at least humor her and get an account. Then you'll notice a lot of your friends have accounts too and add them (because hey, why not?). If the site does a good job of appealing to younger people as well as older people (it's important to strike a good balance), maybe you'll stick around.

I don't know anything firsthand about Yahoo!'s internals, but from another HN thread, it looks like they're probably bloated with counter-productive people. Fixing that in the long term would be important, but probably isn't possible in the short term; Yahoo!'s corporate structure may suck, but it keeps things running, and that's important. In the short term, though, it would be crucial to ensure that the team working on the social network was as unburdened as possible by the existing corporate structure.

</comment><comment><USER21> Michael Dell should make a public statement about how they should shut it down and return the money to share holders as a good luck charm. I fear in this case it'd be the right thing.

</comment><comment><USER22> Grow existing traffic, monetize through innovative ADVERTISING. Most of all, keep your userbase trusting and preferring Yahoo! products.

Have several independent advertising R&D units, each of which operate independently and can take big risks on small portions of Yahoo! traffic.

As other commentators have noticed, Yahoo! has a strong brand as a middle-brow internet presence. A lot of tech-unsavvy users think of Yahoo! as a friendly, trustworthy internet presence. They have a lot of traffic through mail, and Messenger is a strong product too.

They should keep spinning out products for tech-unsavvy users, to keep and grow their traffic, and to strengthen their brand as the friendly, safe choice. They should acquire and/or brand friendly products as Yahoo! Risk is minimized on this front because safe, friendly choices are made to grow traffic and engagement.

On the R&D side, they should focus on innovating in the advertising space, without turning off their users. They should advertising while driving traffic from Yahoo! to Yahoo! properties as much as possible. The innovation and the risks come in the approach to advertising. Big picture thinkers, mavericks, etc. can each have separate skunk-works labs that they can incubate new approaches to advertising. Luckily, each advertising R&D unit can test new advertising models on small portions of Yahoo! traffic.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't know if they do this or not, but they could make an api like google offering developers a platform to make apps and features connected to the site. If I were yahoo I would call out to developers and use my name to attract them.

Google has laid claim to so must virtual real-estate by being the number one place where developers put all their work for free at that! Google has laid the way for yahoo why don't they just start copying some of those things. Us developers have helped google get huge and most of it was free. Look at chrome with all of it's extensions and apps. They offer a platform to develop give us "free space" with appengine then we code away giving them more power with every key stroke.

Now we have the "cloud", the one holding the most data has the most power. If I were yahoo I would get into the cloud game. People won't leave your site if you possess all of there music and other information.

I digress with, have people thought about what cloud computing will do long term. I'm not saying that these companies are out to get us, well they're out to get our money. But, don't I think they're plan anything malicious. However, anyone can be hack even google (China).

Some people are just not informed enough to not put personal information in these clouds. With data mining these companies will be able to infiltrate our personal lives so much more then we imagine.

Anyway I will stop, and don't get me wrong I love google that was not bash but more of a passionate thought.

So, if I were yahoo, I would build a cloud, develop an api, attract developers, and maybe create a news site ran by users.

</comment><comment><USER24> This will require strong leadership. First thing is you're gonna have to convince the Board and investors not to simply sell Yahoo off. The changes have to be dramatic in order for Yahoo to thrive:

\- Simplify it, starting with the homepage. There are way too many things going on here, and I'm sure a ton of features many people don't use. Yahoo dating is handled via Match, but most people who date online already know what Match is, why go through Yahoo? And get rid of Yahoo shopping for now as well, it's not clear what purpose it serves. \- Focus on the things that count the most to people. That would include Flickr, Finance, email. Even Yahoo News is pretty useful. \- Build a social network around your existing email users. Allow your users to easily incorporate their photos from Flickr. It may be easier to focus on building a network that is mobile based, rather than desktop. If you're going to make an acquisition, try something along the lines of Instagram and then incorporate flickr into it. Then grow it from there, don't even bother with a desktop version, you won't be able to take on facebook at this point. \- Getting back to Finance - invest more into it. There's no reason it can't be a CNBC or Bloomberg. I like reading the articles, but I'm not entirely thrilled with the video segments and the quality of the guests, which would typically include some random unknown private equity/hedge fund type person predicting a financial apocalypse. Big potential here. You could create an independent channel that is featured on Yahoo! and maybe partner with companies that will ultimately require more content as they take on the cable industry, such as Netflix, Apple, etc. I have a lot more ideas, but it's late and I'm tired. Despite it's criticisms I'm still a big Yahoo user, for email which I pop (oh, and make it free - that's just a nice thing to do at this point). I'm hoping they make some bold moves to enhance their stature.

</comment><comment><USER25> man. i'd take the CEO job in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER26> So would I (although I'd prefer to do HP; I wouldn't do USPS, though). It's at least as big a challenge as building a startup.

Of course, with Yahoo, I'd probably be selling a lot of stuff and streamlining, and possibly sell the entire thing. Still, realizing shareholder value.

Being a turnaround PE guy would be awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is more of a personal wish than a biz plan, but I would like to see yahoo focusing in becoming a WebService provider, push YAP (<http://developer.yahoo.com/yap/>) more, merge services and release a competitor to Google Prediction API.

I have the feeling that Yahoo services are way overlooked, at least in my circle of devels.

If I had to narrow the target down, I would start by focusing strongly on Geo(location|tagging|aware) services.

I used Placemaker (<http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placemaker/>) at a previous company I worked for and it was not just the best tool for the job but basically the only viable option to bootstrap our use case (MetaCarta was great too, but with an higher cost).

</comment><comment><USER28> Yahoo's existence is unimportant - maximizing the value to its shareholders is. Yahoo's well played effort to get purchased by Microsoft (at a much higher share price - nearly 3x the current?) was exactly the move it needed to make at the time - and it was pure idiocy to not finalize it. The next Yahoo CEO needs to get the _current_ managers and staff of each department to justify their profit/loss status - if a manager is not up to that role then find one who is. Then sell the losses, and put those people to work elsewhere if a refocus is going to occur. Take what's left and optimize it. Look for any new ideas that complement the profit makers. And if an offer at 50% more than market value comes along, take it, damn it.

</comment><comment><USER29> There's a scene I really like in The Wire in which one of the major drug kingpins realizes that his product (heroin in this case) was inferior and expensive compared to the other stuff on the market, so he asks his community college professor what to do.

Rebrand it.

If they want to survive they need to hire a bunch of really, really great designers and consolidate their properties so that it looks nice, because their homepage looks like a screencap from 10 years ago. Allow people to assemble their home pages like iGoogle. Better integrate Delicious and Flickr into their other properties. Partner with Facebook to add a social component. Decide what they stand for it and make it contrast with Google. Maybe privacy. Then make that the drumbeat of everything they do.

<comment><USER30> People google things, nobody yahoos things. Yahoo is not cool. yahoo.com is a joke, it's a page full of garbage.

Rebranding might help, but it's very very expensive, and it will only postpone the inevitable.

Yahoo needs to invent something new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> They've pretty much lost the desktop search engine market. The mobile search is still petty nascent and lots of opportunities for innovation and a market leader.

So I'd get on the forefront of mobile making it the thing to focus on possibly partnering up with a hardware device developer. Fork Android OS and make customizations to it tailored for Yahoo services.

Invest in R&D for mobile search and bring something new and useful to the table that nobody else like Apple or Microsoft has to wow everyone and put them back on the map as an innovative company. ie. still lots of mobile browser inefficiencies that can be improved upon.

Lastly make everything lean and mean, and focus.

</comment><comment><USER32> Yahoo's has struck great vibe with their developer events, the Hackdays especially. And a handful of their APIs and developer related tools are too good even today. Yahoo Pipes was way ahead of it's time when it was released. YQL is one of the coolest APIs I've used. And a few others. Start offering freemium APIs. Go all out with rapid prototypes that doesn't try to do what's already there (like what they did with Yahoo Mash).

Right now their homepage seems like they just want to try and make a penny of anything from Auto to social apps to finance. Shutdown or spin off a lot of unrelated features & services that clutter their vision.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would focus on two things: #1 innovation and #2 revenue.

With innovation, as CEO I would lead a entire division focused on innovation and discovering the next billion dollar revenue source. Lots of prototyping, refining, and searching for the next big thing.

With #2 revenue, I would focus on what currently is giving Yahoo the most revenue and seek ways to grow that. This would provide moderate growth but most importantly fund the innovation that will be the future of the company. Anybody ready to vote me in?

<comment><USER34> Separate innovation divisions never work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yahoo is just an agglomeration of crap, some of which is successful, some of which isn't. It only looks like a big thing because there's so much of it. If I were to take over yahoo I'd break it up into component parts and let them fare as they will. Yahoo stores would probably do just fine, maybe Flickr would find some new vigor, as for all the rest, who knows? But it's probably better than the slow, suffocating decline they're facing now.

</comment><comment><USER35> Buy duckduckgo and replace yahoo's antiquated search and results layout would be a great start.

Otherwise, a seriously minimalistic ui overhaul is in order.

<comment><USER36> That's laughable because DuckDuckGo is built on the Yahoo BOSS API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Here is a crazy option. Buy Square. Make Jack Dorsey CEO. Square could be the "PayPal for Yahoo" and Jack Dorsey is probably the closest person to Steve Jobs that you could get to run a company today.

Allow Square to operate separately, making Keith Rabois CEO of Square and put Jack Dorsey in charge of revitalizing the rest of Yahoo.

I think Yahoo's suite of verticals with the traffic that Yahoo has, if done right, could be the biggest asset for Yahoo and the closest thing to a unique asset that they have. So as a portal, Yahoo links to a lot of vertical services currently (Monster for jobs, Match for dating) or has there own owned-and-operated subsidiary (finance, autos, flickr).

Find ways that the verticals can be improved and invest heavily to do so. Preferably re-create verticals that are currently outsourced, but be patient with doing so. Be willing to shrink margins in the short term to gain market share. What is needed for each vertical will be different, but I imagine there is room for innovation and improvement in each. A lot of personnel changes will probably have to be made. The CEO (for this example Jack Dorsey) will need his cadets that he trusts to run the different products. I think a similar org-chart to Google's reorganization makes sense...a few people at the very top and then put someone in charge of each product and give them a lot of responsibility.

I think it may be possible to provide a rich and effective user experience so that overtime users would go directly to a Yahoo vertical instead of searching on Google or Bing/Yahoo. Also, Yahoo could then place some results from their vertical properties on top of the Yahoo search results to better serve Yahoo users (if they can actually do the verticals right). This could be a very interesting twist on search and a differentiator. It would be a risk, but I think something like that is needed to have a fighting chance to grow search market share which is currently at 17.9% and makes up 53% of Yahoo's revenue.

I wonder WWSJD? In Steve Job's 1997 keynote when he returned to Apple, he talked about vertical integration being the biggest strength of Apple, even though many others considered it a burden and a weakness. He admitted that many current Apple products sucked and that they needed to improved dramatically improve core products and kill off others in order to be competitive. He admitted the importance of integrating more tightly with Microsoft and didn't want to think of the situation as being Apple vs. Microsoft.

For Yahoo, their nearly complete suite of vertical products is potentially their biggest strength even though many consider it a burden and weakness. Yahoo has to admit that a lot of their products currently suck and will need to kill some off while dramatically improving others. Yahoo already admitted that they couldn't cut it in the resource intensive search game and got out.

I know it sounds crazy, but maybe the portal can make a come back. SEO spammers have dramatically lowered search quality in certain areas and has made it harder for people to find the content that they really want to find. A portal can make it easy for the average web user to find what they looking for with a higher signal to noise ratio by a combination of high-quality curated content, vertical sites and a Bing-powered search engine with a Yahoo twist.

In reality, I don't know whether Yahoo really has the assets, the cachet or the people needed to pull off this turn around. If I was on the board, I would seriously consider a buy out offer if a sweet enough one came to the table. That being said, this plan would be a whole lot more fun to see being played out.

</comment><comment><USER38> What does Yahoo do?

<comment><USER39> It's a web portal, a collection of lifestyle apps and services that don't really relate to each other or have a core service holding them together. Imagine Google without the search, just mail and docs and messenger and that other stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> 1) A unified, coherent design language and user experience for the site. This would really make Yahoo stand out, as even Google is clunky with this ("more" and "even more"). As it stands currently, it's too visually cluttered and hard to navigate. Example: I used to use Babelfish a lot, but trying to browse to it from the front page is well-nigh impossible. Another thought: sort the list of Yahoo sub-sites by popularity instead of alphabetically. It's fine to have umpty million different sub-sites, but they need to be coherently organized and findable. Yahoo really needs a first-class UI, even more than Google or Bing do, because Yahoo actually _is_ a portal, and a portal is different things to different people. It needs to be cleanly navigable and this includes cleaning up the 1990s looking My Yahoo.

2) Back to basics: search. As soon as possible, get rid of the Bing mess and get back to being a premier search provider. Type nearly any topic into any search engine and you get a Wikipedia page first thing. If I type "hacker" into Yahoo, out of the top ten results, there are five junky results: 2 Wikipedia pages, one Answers.com page, one Dictionary.com page, and one WordIQ page. If I want to get a definition or an encyclopedia page, I can go to those sites. Web search is supposed to pull up awesome cool links from the web, not the standard junk pages that have shallow content and are not hard to find. Even Google is getting infested with these kind of crap results. Nowadays, if I find an awesome link it is typically via a site like HN or somebody's blog, but I remember the days when I used to love going to Google and digging up fresh new links that were interesting.

3) Social is still "ripe for disruption" as they say. The flurry of interest around Google+ is evidence of this. People want more control, and more privacy, and a greater ability to differentiate their online identities without any one identity compromising the other. Eric Schmidt's response to this is "well if you have something to hide blah blah blah" but it's not about having something to hide. It's about the fundamental human need to interact differently in different social and economic settings. Maybe the guy who works as a cube jockey in some corporate wasteland needs to have his LinkedIn profile for trying to make it to the next level, but what about his sideline trying to network his way into a graphic design job? Maybe he needs a couple of profiles and wouldn't like to have to use his real name on either. Innovative approaches to allowing flexibility and growth on social sites (isn't that what the web is supposed to be about?) instead of locking people into one idea that they damn well better stick their RealName(tm) on... that is an area where Yahoo could step in and fill a void. Particularly if it was done right, and done in a way to leverage their existing myriad of user bases across the niche sites.

4) Quality. (Echoes of Steve Jobs and his quest for the perfect shade of yellow in an icon.) An enterprise-wide push for quality would help. Instead of being meh at 100 things, Yahoo could easily be awesome at those same 100 things. They already have the infrastructure in place, they just need to clean house and remodel. (This kind of ties back to point 1.) Flickr is a prime example. It's big, it's a brand name, it has a loyal user base, but it isn't awesome. It needs to be awesome.

5) Develop an identity. If the preceding four steps are done right, this will follow. Google's identity is "search plus a bunch of other crazy shit, and they have really cool offices to work at" right now. It works for them because search (advertising) makes them so much freaking money. But it's not really a coherent identity. Yahoo's identity could easily be "the coolest web portal with the best links". If Yahoo became synonymous with premium quality, they would be unstoppable.

<comment><USER41> To your point 5, yes.

Google is cool because it lets you search for cool stuff, but they aren't anything identifiable except as they find cool stuff for you. gmail and plus, sort of, I guess.

Yahoo can BE cool stuff.

<comment><USER41> Ah, I see they're for sale.

Well, maybe they can be a bargain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> yahoo power is eyeballs. because it has 'premium content'? HELL NO!

front page PVs skyrocket when it redirected the email logout to it... so that proves NOBODY goes to the frontpage for 'premium content'

people go to yahoo for the assorted free stuff(tm).

does it's email need to be the best one? no, but it's ok and free. and you already see lots of @yahoo around, so why not?

Will people still use flickr even if it lacks 'social networking' features and ugly themes? quite probably. Should they ditch flickr and 'focus' on display advertising and 'premium content'? hell no.

Does babel fish needs to be better than a paid translator? hardly. but it still kicks google translator butt. sadly nobody that arrives to yahoo now will even know it exists.

Bottom line is:

everyone has found memories of yahoo. But for some it was geocities, for some it was their first email... for others it was the way to find pages. heck it may even be because of the cool TV ads!

yahoo should be monetizing this by inventing clever ways to put Ads on those in a manner that isn't offensive.

But no, disregard all that. let's steer yahoo into AOL foot steps. Everyone wants to read about hollywood stars and wacky red neck oddities while a 'hit the monkey' flashing ad fights for their attention.

</comment><comment><USER30> Yahoo lost. It's the new AOL. It has a few nice products, but only a miracle acquisition will save it.</comment>


Martin Shkreli is headed to jail - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/martin-shkreli-is-headed-to-jail/ <comment><USER2> I thought Shkreli was a goof off, but smarter than this. Apparently not</comment>


Paste.sh - client-side encrypted pastebin - <AUTHOR> https://paste.sh

<comment><USER2> The authorization cookie has neither the secure flag or http flag set.

i.e. If you could get the client to redirect to [http://paste.sh](http://paste.sh) it would send the full auth cookie in the (now unencrypted) headers. (Man-in-the-middle can then use the cookie.)

Edit: For anyone checking, the cookie is only set upon the first edit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'd meant to set Strict-Transport-Security to solve that, now done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> See also: [http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript- cryptography/](http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I linked to that from [https://paste.sh/about](https://paste.sh/about) \-- creating pastes only works on browsers with crypto.getRandomValues (or with the command line client).

Okay, there are still issues with the JS environment but this does eliminate one of the worst issues IMO

<comment><USER4> The worst issue with JS cryptography is that it's almost always pointless, as it is here. Your users can't trust that you'll protect their secrets, because any coercive adversary who would ordinarily operate by copying those secrets off the server directly will instead simply force you to host a backdoor that breaks the crypto.

That's the worst problem with JS crypto, but we haven't enumerated all of the problems on this thread, nor does my (old) post on our website do so either.

<comment><USER5> It's open source and can be self hosted. With proper SSL would you still consider it pointless in that case?

<comment><USER4> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://paste.sh/v03bdePB#O9LNWj3DJ2SKDKD2B8tdR0Oc](https://paste.sh/v03bdePB#O9LNWj3DJ2SKDKD2B8tdR0Oc)

</comment><comment><USER7> looks alot like [https://ezcrypt.it/](https://ezcrypt.it/) though I do like options..

</comment><comment><USER8> so that is pasting the key within the url? so when you contact a page anyone sniffing the net knows the key? are you serious?

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you read the about section?

The fragment is never sent to the server.

<comment><USER8> you are right, this falls back in "normal" crypto-as-js security considerations.</comment></comment></comment>


YC Conflict of Interest with reviewing Apps and 'No Idea Applicants'? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a conflict of interest with reviewing apps with ideas, and the fact that YC is now in the business of coming up with ideas?
I know we've all heard that 'ideas are worthless, execution matters'.  However, given that so many YC startups operate in stealth mode for a while, we have to assume YC places some value on the idea, even if significantly less than ability of the founders.
That being said, I'm a little uncomfortable with YC reviewing my application that has some novel aspects for a new product, knowing that at the same time they're looking for startup ideas to feed to their superstar 'no idea' applicants'... <comment><USER2> I also tend to fear that my ideas might be stolen, but the truth is that anyone who is good enough to make something work generally has too many ideas on their plate to steal someone else's.

Brewster Kahle once told me his theory on stealth. He said there are two approaches:

1\. Keep everything secret, and

2\. Tell everyone, loudly.

He prefers the latter approach because it's more likely to scare off potential competitors, and you get the added bonus of learning faster from more feedback. As an introvert, I have to admit that left to my own inclinations I would take approach #1.

But all of my experience as an entrepreneur tells me that Brewster is entirely right, approach #2 is better

This quote always helps me remember this:

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -Howard Aiken

<comment><USER3> I totally agree on that Howard Aiken quote, but the type of people who run YC and those that apply to and get into YC aren't the type of people Mr. Aiken is talking about.

I tell everyone loudly about what I'm working on and other ideas I've had, but I'm not working on, and I've noticed that those that have the foresight to get understand of them and their value more closely approximate the types of people that get into YC.

Assuming that my point is true and that my ideas and some of the ideas of YC applicants are good, then in applying to YC, we are subject to the issue you state in the first line.

"I also tend to fear that my ideas might be stolen, but the truth is that anyone who is good enough to make something work generally has too many ideas on their plate to steal someone else's."

The problem now is that there are people who are going into YC not with too many ideas, but one they are working on, but with no ideas.

I would say that there is certainly a conflict of interest, not a huge one, but one nonetheless. That being said I think it's still worth applying, because there's a lot more details in an idea than fit in a YC application. Oftentimes there are months to a year or more of thought in a YC app that an idea-less team won't have the luxury of having if one of the YC partners suggests the idea/market to that team, even if done so subconsciously and without malice (i.e. not citing the specific application, or even remembering having read it.)

<comment><USER2> YC accepts people without a specific idea for the very reason that the people they accept have lots of good ideas.

Have you done a startup before? I think you'll find that there are 100 little decision points where you need to make the right choice, and that process is far more important than the initial idea.

Even though I can be uneasy to share ideas, like you, I've always found that I've learned the most from sharing my ideas with super smart guys. The things I get back from them have saved me years of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is probably not in YC's best interest to steal ideas. If YC started stealing ideas, they would lose trust of the startup community. Then the best people would stop pitching to YC.

<comment><USER5> Yep, this.</comment></comment>


6 things that killed Waifmail (another Diary of another Failed Startup) - <AUTHOR> http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/01/6-things-that-killed-waifmail.html

<comment><USER2> Jason, It may sound harsh, but I'm pretty sure that you didn't learn any lesson from your failed startup - or learned the wrong ones.

1\. Your target audience was not small.

2\. Your lack of marketing had nothing to do with your failure.

3\. There is nothing wrong with your technology choice.

4\. Shared hosting wasn't the cause - you just chose a bad host.

5\. It's possible to gain people's trust if you position yourself correctly, if your product looks legitimate enough, if you have enough word of mouth or buzz, and if your product is just plain good.

6\. Gmail didn't kill Waifmail. There is plenty of room for competition in mail.

I may be completely wrong, but from reading your post, my guess is that:

1\. You gave up too quickly. 2\. You weren't able to estimate what users would want correctly or at all. Or, you weren't dedicated to figuring it out. 3\. You couldn't execute the idea correctly, either with design and/or code. 4\. As a result of not understanding your user, you weren't able to keep innovating. 4\. You weren't able to understand your user because your vision wasn't exactly right

<comment><USER3> I think you're right on some fronts, Allan-- tho:

"4. Shared hosting wasn't the cause - you just chose a bad host."

Seriously? Hosting an email app (that needs near-perfect reliability) on a shared hosting account? No.

But yeah-- the is probably missing a few items on the list of reason why he failed and is including a few that he shouldn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I prefer this kind of failure chronicle to the ones usually listed here. It talks about specific, obvious problems encountered and doesn't try to extrapolate any huge overarching themes about startups in general, which are usually somewhat misleading.

</comment><comment><USER5> "2. Impossible to gain users' trust"

HN, Is this a pervasive problem you guys are having with your app? If so, how do you build user trust?

"5. Really sad marketing"

Hmm...I would have leveraged my communities for feedback, and ask them to spread the word if they like it.

"6. Small target audience"

I remember DHH encouraging the community to focus on tiny markets. [http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier- hansson-...](http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at- startup-school-08)

</comment><comment><USER6> cool article, but... gmail has 3-5% of the market or something. Doubt that had anything to do with killing the app.

</comment><comment><USER7> it died for one single reason: was it the name?

j/k - good post, thanks for sharing this, and glad to about the recent success of your other ventures.

<comment><USER8> The answer is 'yes'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I actually might have used that. I have three accounts I check regularly, five I'd check every so often.

Any app out there like this now? Does Gmail handle that now?

<comment><AUTHOR> Gmail lets you read other POP and IMAP accounts now, so it's most of the way to where we were 4 years ago. They don't yet offer support for Hotmail's wacky WEBDAV interface, but that's not really a problem since most everybody has abondoned Hotmail in the last few years.

<comment><USER10> "most everybody has abondoned Hotmail in the last few years"

You should tell that to our users... about 80% of them (unfortunately) still use Hotmail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Development on shared hosting? Shudder.</comment>