Apple TV vs. Roku 4 vs. Fire TV vs. Chromecast - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/536410/review-of-streaming-media-players/ <comment><USER2> BS. It's about content availability. Roku and Apple TV are on par with one major difference: Roku supports Amazon video, Apple TV supports iTunes. Depending on where you purchase your content from will determine which one you will want.

If you are starting with a brand new setup, Apple TV has one major advantage: the remote is better, especially since you only need one remote to control both Apple TV and the television power/volume.

Chromecast and Fire TV lack some of the major providers. Chromecast has some neat features, but it's not as complete an experience. My rule of thumb is this: if I have to think about how to get something done (how do I watch this video? How to I play that slide show?) then the technology is not doing its job. With Roku and Apple TV I don't have to think about how to do it, I just do it about 99% of the time.

<comment><USER3> Other key thing about Roku: they don't stop you from buying content from anyone. In fact, they encourage it. Search across all the platforms and see the price listed right next to the video you want to watch.

<comment><USER2> I believe Apple TV does search across all platforms it supports as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _But if I had to recommend just one, it would be the new Apple TV. It's the first of the streaming media players that not only makes television easier but seems to expand the possibilities of what television can be._

Reading this comment makes me realize that it's somewhat silly that we don't consider consoles in this competition. For instance, consider the capabilities of my PS3:

\- plays PS3 games (far more graphically intensive than most app store games)

\- Runs Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Plex (among others)

\- Limited support to allow apps controlled via smartphone (Youtube is the only one I can think of at the moment)

\- Physical controller

\- Can read and play some video files from a USB stick.

\- Can play files from DLNA devices and possible other servers via either Plex or PS3 Media Server

PS3 is what I've got, so I'd be curious is someone could compare it to PS4 or XB1.

And keep in mind as well that I'm not saying everyone should rush out and buy a PS3/PS4/XB1 to watch Netflix. I've still got an HTPC and a Chromecast. I'm merely pointing out that if it's _good enough_ for what most people use their Roku for, it would be worth mentioning, given that a good number of people already have one solely for gaming.

<comment><USER5> > Reading this comment makes me realize that it's somewhat silly that we don't > consider consoles in this competition. For instance, consider the > capabilities of my PS3:

As good as it is, I wouldn't compare it to a PS3 for its media capabilities. The PS3 runs very loud when the room temperature gets above a certain threshold, has a very clunky interface and the smartphone support is mediocre at best.

My biggest complaint is the interface when it comes to using my PS3 as a media-centre. Having a dedicated remote doesn't even help with navigation as the amount of content increases.

<comment><USER6> I used PS3 for this until I got a Roku. The lack of a fan in the Roku is a huge advantage. Also the PS3 game controllers are annoying due to limited battery life. There are other controllers, but they don't work as well (for example, missing the PS button to force exit an application).

BTW, it helps to take the PS3 completely apart and clean out all the dust. The fan then doesn't run as fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it strange that he'd recommend the Apple TV. Doesn't it have by far the most limited choices of content and formats, and the most limited connectivity to other devices?

<comment><USER8> Depends, if you're using Mac OS and iOS then it's the perfect choice. I've only had experience with a Roku (three years ago) and an Apple TV 4 and so far I am really happy with the Apple TV.

Itunes music from laptop or phone works awesome, or even using the remote to use the Music app directly. Popcorn time works better than Chromecast with no lag what so ever and I get a *single remote to control the important bits: pause, scroll, volume and turn off.

I am considering buying Beamer.app or develop myself for own content with subtitle support.

Though I haven't figured out how to change DNS on the Apple TV Device (I can't edit it), so I've had to change it the router, which kinda sucks.

Also hoping the Apple TV will get support for an iPhone keyboard and a touch- lock.

I just want to point out that we had a really shitty time with Chromecast outside of using it for Youtube.

<comment><USER9> Beamer.app is excellent and well worth the money. Simple but effective, just put it in the dock and drop media files onto it and watch them play. Makes my Apple TV3 useful basically!

Edit: regarding DNS, try these instructions: [https://www.unblock-us.com/how- to-set-up/](https://www.unblock-us.com/how-to-set-up/) \- not sure how much the new iOS has changed things though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He misses the NVidia Shield. It has stellar gaming support, has the ChromeCast functionality included and has a similar set of media apps to the AppleTV.

Even with the prospect of AppleTV's app selection growing faster than Android TV's the Shield should be a worthy opponent.

<comment><USER11> He didn't compare any Android TV box.

Nexus Player is a very compelling option. Android TV have most of the popular video apps, and Chromecast support. It can be bought for less than $50, which is a great value.

I am able to control Nexus Player with my Sony TV remote out of the box, it works through HDMI-CEC. If I Chromecast a video to it while watching cable, the TV automatically switches the input and plays the video.

You can also install Kodi from Google Play Store, which gives you access to many more video streaming services which may not have an app for any streaming box yet.

I wanted to watch CNN and some Indian News content, but there are no apps for it. I quickly wrote a plugin to stream videos from their official websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> They omitted the Nvidia Shield, which is what I purchased because it supports Kodi (formerly known as Xbmc) very well. The advantages of the shield over some of the other players:

\- Wired Ethernet (my TV cabinet might as well be a Faraday cage)

\- 4K support

\- Excellent Kodi support (including hardware accelerated MPEG2 broadcast HD playback without transcoding to h.264)

\- Blindly fast and always very responsive

\- IR receiver for easy integration with universal remotes

\- Support for Google Play video & music

\- I hear it also plays games, though I've never tried it.

The disadvantage is that there is no Amazon Instant Video app, due to the Google / Amazon cold war and Amazon blacklisting a perfectly functional app from all Android TV devices except for Sony TVs. To work around this, I just use the craptastic built-in app in my 4K smart TV for Amazon, which means I watch less Amazon than Netflix. (In Reagan's voice: "Mr Bezos, Tear down that Wall!")

<comment><USER13> The gaming support is really phenomenal. They've got Google Play and their own streaming offering, but for me the killer app is being able to stream PC games over to a tiny device in my living room (with a mouse and keyboard) connected to my short throw projector. Looking forward to playing Fallout 4 on a 150 inch "screen" this evening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a Roku 3, and have been thrilled with it. The headphone jack in the remote is a killer feature.

The worst thing for me was the requirement to add a credit card to enable the device, but I found a thread on reddit [1] where someone had posted a link to a no-credit-card registration entry point. That entry point appears to be no longer valid, but some url hacking reveals that it is now [2].

My other complaints are mostly minor nits -- I hate that the UI has ads in it; I hate those extra buttons on the remote for specific apps (both for aesthetic reasons and for the fact that if you accidentally tap one of those buttons, then you're ripped out whatever you're doing). The scrubbing could be better, though it is pretty good, and it has a "closed caption on instant replay" feature, that could work more consistently, but is a brilliant idea to catch that bit of dialog you just missed. The quality of the UI varies greatly between the different apps, with Netflix clearly putting in the most work, and HBO Go phoning it in (no in-app search feature, just browse -- you can search from the Roku "universal search", but that requires exiting the app I'm already in, etc.)

I got a Chromecast as a gift, and it's a neat toy, but when you need to pause a program in the middle, not having a remote is a huge pain. Your phone is locked now, and you need to open it, and then it can't connect to the Chromecast for some reason, and pause resets the program sometimes for some reason, etc., or because it lost the connection it can't figure out what's currently playing so pausing it loses the stream completely. It's possible that software bugs have been sorted out since then, but I'd be reluctant to try it again, especially since the Roku is so good.

The lack of Amazon video on Apple TV feels like a non-starter to me; but I'm sure that will change in the future. Fire TV is tempting, but based on using a Fire tablet, I find Amazon's "content-focused" approach to be very confusing, with everything kind of jumbled together.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Roku/comments/1yqz30/can_you_activa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Roku/comments/1yqz30/can_you_activate_a_roku_without_a_credit_card/) [2] [https://my.roku.com/signup/nocc](https://my.roku.com/signup/nocc)

<comment><USER15> > Your phone is locked now, and you need to open it, and then it can't connect > to the Chromecast for some reason, and pause resets the program sometimes > for some reason, etc., or because it lost the connection it can't figure out > what's currently playing so pausing it loses the stream completely.

This was also my biggest complaint. Chromecast recently had a huge update that fixed many bugs including device connectivity issues. I can start the Chromecast from one device, leave the house, and someone else can connect with their device without interrupting the stream. Also, Android devices have lock screen widgets that allow you to at least pause the stream without unlocking the device. I can't speak for iOS though.

edit: Also, and this isn't pointed specifically at you, Chromecast is not completely analogous to Roku or other streaming devices. Chromecast is a media extender. There is no ecosystem for it. It's not a stand alone service. App features are strictly dependent on their existence in the streaming app itself, because Chromecast, in its current iteration, only displays what you would see natively on your current device.

<comment><USER16> I'm guessing this may be related to use of iOS? I'm running Android - and can operate (i.e. play/pause forward/backward) all streaming software via the lock-screen - without having to unlock the phone.

I've tried this on: Plex, Netflix, Spotify, Google Play Music, Youtube, assorted local tv broadcasters, etc. Still have not found a single chromecast enaled app which does not let me operate it via the lockscreen.

Personally - I found my ideal device in Chromecast. It is very easy to set up and use (heck, even my girls (7, 10, 12) and my wife finds it easy to use). And the experience in using it is un-surpassed. I much prefer locating my content on my phone than on the TV via a clumsy remote and interface. It is also extremely easy to switch from, lets say, a Youtube video, to showing a Netflix movie. While the youtube movie is still playing I will be lining up the next item to play. And when friends are over we can all contribute music videos to the playlist, etc.

I'm guessing I am biased the other way around - being a linux and android user primarily - but I still can not see how anything can surpass the Chromecast experience. Nothing is even close - and I have tried them all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's worth noting that this review is written by an Apple user and doesn't test anything with Android.

<comment><USER18> He tested ChromeCast and the Amazon Fire TV (which is based on Android).

But with Google's spotty record when it comes to TV devices (Google TV, Android TV, Nexus Player, Nexus Q), can you blame him?

<comment><USER17> I mean that he tested the devices with his iPhone (criticizing the iOS Chromecast abilities) but didn't bother to test them with Android due to the fact that he is an Apple user. This despite the fact that a larger percentage of folks own Android devices and the fact that Chromecast works better with and has more features on Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He forgot Kodi, the non-plus ultra in terms of streaming software. It wins every streaming device comparison just by not depending on closed hardware and beeing open source while supporting everything. Lacking an app? ( Not really, if you are missing an app in Kodi you'll miss it probably everywhere ) Sit back 2 hours and hack 100 lines in python to build it.

Also why is he recommending the fire tv stick and apple tv? The last time I took a look they weren't able to play AC3 and apple was still apple.

Edit: I just read that huge wall of... text and can't recommend anyone to read it aswell. Most of it is superficial and extremely biased in favor of apple tv. Some facts are just plain wrong. Why is h264/aac vimeo excluded from chromecast compatibility? Considering the _streaming quality_ doesn't even make sense from a technical point of view. 10,000 words and little to no value or facts. I am literally amazed how little facts, specs and test methods are this essay which should be called "Let me tell you about my favorite streaming device and drop some names of others".

Disclosure: Developing my own Media Center on Top of Plex is my part time hobby, which consists mainly of writing plugins that run on a broad variety of clients ( CC, Roku, Fire TV, Xbox 360, PS4, Kodi, Android and so on) for my personal niche media sources.

I'd place Roku as #1 and take the Chromecast out of the comparison. Apples and oranges. I wouldn't consider Fire TV and Apple TV as an option unless you are already up to the neck in their system.

<comment><USER20> > Lacking an app? ( Not really, if you are missing an app in Kodi you'll miss > it probably everywhere )

DRM is a problem, though. I don't think there's currently any way to get Amazon Instant Video working, which is the only thing keeping me from using my nVidia Shield TV as my sole media device.

<comment><USER19> Fortunaly that is not an issue for since Amazon Instant Video isn't a viable option for content in my country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I use my Chromecast every day and love it. We rarely have a PC in the house to use anymore and use our phones or tablet for most day-to-day activities on the Internet. As such, it's really easy to share a video with the rest of the family by "cast"-ing to the TV.

However, we've been a little spoiled by the Xbox One voice controls, which I find work perfectly (unless all of the kids are screaming at it as well). Since getting it, it's now a toss-up on which device to use for Netflix!

<comment><USER8> I have the old Chromecast that only supports 2.5ghz. It doesn't run 1080p smoothly as it's get choppy at times and takes a while before my phone finds the Chromecast on the wifi so I can control the volume or to pause.

There is no way to scroll forward on content that isn't on YoutTube.

Sure Chromecast is cheap, but we weren't looking for cheap and the frustration isn't just worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have the Roku 3. I'm pleased that they recently added a limited web-browser to it. This is key, because you should be able to take your Roku to a hotel, but then you need a browser to log into their wifi network.

Roku 3 has the MIT courseware channel, so you can watch talks on computer architecture.

</comment><comment><USER22> All those features, yet media player companies still have yet to include the ONE feature that would make any of them actually usable: the ability to play arbitrary mkv and avi files from the network with a wide variety of codecs.

Western Digital made a good effort some years back, but the UI was terrible. Nobody else seems to care about this one obvious killer feature.

As consumers, we are still stuck building custom low noise boxes running xbmc.

<comment><USER2> I run a Plex server and the Plex app. It's wonderful. Sadly not OSS, but neither is the Roku I run it on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm torn. I have 3 older Rokus that are in need of an upgrade. I'm trying to decide between a new Roku and an Apple TV.

Roku Pros: -Has an app for the iPhone that I can use when I misplace the remote and can use the iOS keyboard for text input -Has a native Amazon Prime client. -Find remote feature -Remote with headphone jack -Dedicated app for Pandora and Spotify

Cons -anemic app store outside of streaming video -No AirPlay -processor not as powerful

AppleTV: Pros:

AirPlay Support More powerful processor Better apps

Cons: Doesn't support Apple's remote app (yet?) Fragile remote On screen keyboard seems like a pain No Amazon Prime support without using AirPlay No headphone jack on remote No Pandora or Spotify app (yet?)

<comment><USER23> You call the app store selection for the Roku anemic, yet the AppleTV doesn't even support Amazon Prime. Roku has always had the most support for different streaming providers, and never tries to lock you into any particular store.

<comment><USER11> Roku took money from Dish to kick and block all other international content competitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great article, but I think it minimizes the 4K video option in both the Fire and the Roku. "The Fire TV now also supports 4K video, if you have a television that can get up to that resolution. So does the Roku 4. The Apple TV and Chromecast don't support 4K. You can decide how much that matters to you. Offerings of streaming 4K video are pretty limited right now, but are likely to increase dramatically in 2016."

<comment><USER17> I don't think they minimized it. To the vast majority of consumers, 4K is currently irrelevant. There's barely any content (only 2 to 3 dozen movies on each streaming service) and a small fraction of 1% of homes have a capable TV. So, they're framed it accurately. It may make more of a difference in 2016... more content, rumored 4K upgrades to the Xbox/Playstation, more TVs compatible, etc... Right now, I don't know a single person in real life that watches 4K video.

<comment><USER24> Go to bustbuy.com > TV section. Tell me 4K is irrelevant after you view the content of the front page. Yes, minimal content, but youtube has lots of free content. 2016 is less than two months out.

<comment><USER17> Read this again: "To the vast majority of consumers, 4K is currently irrelevant."

It's very relevant to electronics stores like BestBuy as they want people to buy new things. But 1080p to 4K is going to take a LOT longer than SD to HD did. Even in that transition, some folks were happy with fake HD (720p) as opposed to full HD (1080p). The majority of laptops still ship with fake HD screens.

Far less than 1% of homes have a single 4K panel in their home. Far less than 1% of content is available in 4K. So, yes, "To the vast majority of consumers, 4K is currently irrelevant." The key word here is currently. A year from now -- not "2016", I mean 12 months from now -- there may well be enough 4K content to make it worthwhile for upper-middle and upper-class families. But there isn't right now. And a year from now there will be a new set of TV top devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I used to watch Netflix and Amazon Instant Video using my Wii U. It was ok, albeit the interface was often slow. Then I moved to a Amazon Fire TV Stick (bought for $19.99 during the launch) and it's amazing. The library of Netflix+Amazon is quite good and the interface is very fast and the remote is super responsive.

</comment><comment><USER26> 4K is not ready for consumers yet. Here's my friend's 4K Samsung TV that can't do 4K over any HDMI port without buying a $400 upgrade

[http://i.imgur.com/nOSULENh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/nOSULENh.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER27> He also missed the Nexus Player... I have to say I have used the FireTV, Chromecast and the Nexus Player, and it is by far my favorite.

</comment><comment><USER28> chromecast is nice, you can outfit your entire house with them in the low $100's and they are practically disposable. And can be controlled from the thing you most likely have in your pocket(well those of us that have phones that still fit in our pockets)

</comment><comment><USER29> if they're talking content, Roku is definitely the best bet. the article seems a little bit condescending towards the "smaller company" which has so many different providers and doesn't lock you down

</comment><comment><USER30> I just closed the browser tab when I saw him recommending apple tv.</comment>


TokuMX 1.4: Major improvements to MongoDB sharding and replication - <AUTHOR> http://www.tokutek.com/2014/02/introducing-tokumx-1-4-major-improvements-to-mongodb-sharding-and-replication/

<comment><USER2> Why doesn't 10gen buy them?

<comment><USER3> Based on my conversations with their CTO, 10gen (nee MongoDB Inc.) is philosophically against what Toku is up to in terms of indexing and optimization.

They're trying to generalize while Toku aims at very specific query optimization.

<comment><USER4> Interesting perspective, but it turns out that the opposite is true. Using better indexing is a general improvement to database performance and manageability.

<comment><USER3> His argument was that the indexing they do only improves a specific type of query. Personally I think he's wrong but that was his view a year or so ago.

<comment><USER4> I see. To clarify, TokuMX's indexing technology doesn't try to improve specific queries or patterns - it simply makes general index maintenance significantly cheaper and less space intensive, so your application can define the indexes it needs, not just the ones it can afford.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any way to have wget-able download links for the .deb? Using a browser to go the dl page isn't that easy when on a server...

<comment><USER6> This isn't a great answer, but I think I owe you an honest one. Our marketing department wants to be able to throw the "please put your email here if you want" form up before a download. We are trying to find a way to reconcile our sales/marketing goals with what we know are our fellow engineers' needs and we hope to make downloads easier in the future. Providing packages at all, over just a single binary tarball, is a step in the right direction, I think.

For now the best I can do for you is tell you that if you email me I can hook you up. Short of that, if you search twitter for "severalnines wget" you can find a wget hack that achieves the result you want.

<comment><USER7> thank you for your honest answer. Some food for thought for your marketing department: I'm interested in your product, but because I can't easily incorporate it into a puppet script to install into my virtualbox dev environment like I can with MongoDB, I'm probably gonna pass on it for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great Stuff! Compression and document level locking are awesome! New features = GRAVY!

</comment><comment><USER9> Now they only need to set the sharding rethinkdb-style and they win.

<comment><USER6> It's unclear exactly what you mean by "rethinkdb-style" because that could mean a number of things, but stay tuned for our posts on this next week, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

<comment><USER9> also what would be really cool for very-big-data + ~bigger latency is ~index compression.

Bascially Hypertable (based on Bigtable) compresses data in blocks, but in the index saves only the ids of the first and last documents in the block. This could be hard for secondary indexes (maybe?)?

<comment><USER6> All TokuMX data and index storage is block compressed. It's not hard, it's on by default.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Developer/designer partner for a side project. - <AUTHOR>

Hello Guys!
I am Gianluca Rispo, a hundred % Italian designer. Except that, I am a really great thinker with a lot of ideas.
I was wondering if there were out there, someone who has design (hybrid front-end, UI) or development skills who wanted to partner up in these neat ideas for possible future startups.
Feel free to contact me on twitter @GianlucaRispo or email gianlucarispo (at) outlook.com
Cheers! <comment><USER2> Please see your email, I just sent.</comment>


For the First Time in My 20 Year Career, Microsoft is Irrelevant - <AUTHOR> http://blog.herlein.com/2011/01/for-the-first-time-in-my-20-year-career-microsoft-is-irrelevant/

<comment><USER2> I've used, mainly for development purposes, all major operating system of today (Windows, Linux and Mac). I have to say that any of them can be used for doing your work.

You can have a Unix like environment on Windows or on Apple, and you can have nice GUIs on Linux.

The debate is basically based on ones tastes. But you can not say that Microsoft is irrelevant, it could be of no use to you personally, but in the end if you work on software development it will matter.

I can agree with you that Windows Phone 7 is a disaster, but Office 2010, Windows 7 are success stories.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fluff piece based on anecdotal evidence and confirmation bias. Oh, and last time I heard something about Microsoft that mattered? Well, how about Windows Phone 7? Kinect? Office 365? Windows Live Essentials 2011?

<comment><USER4> I've heard some good things about Windows Phone 7, but as far as I can tell it actually _is_ irrelevant at this point. Android might be irrelevant as well.

What are Office 365 and Windows Live Essentials 2011? I have honestly not heard of them, and I can't be bothered to look them up because office apps are commodities, and I have trouble thinking anything with a name like Windows Live Essentials is actually essential.

For me, the thing is that when I'm on a Mac, I miss having a _real_ unix system, and when I'm on Linux or BSD I sometimes miss the easy things on Mac. But I never find myself missing anything about Windows. The only time Windows would make my life easier is when I find myself looking at some proprietary file. And that doesn't make me long for Windows, but resent it.

Kinect is wicked cool, and _is_ relevant. MS needs to do more things like this! Specifically, real innovation that's actually a game changer.</comment></comment>


A Complete Understanding Is No Longer Possible - <AUTHOR> https://prog21.dadgum.com/129.html <comment><USER2> The article seems to equate understanding something with reading documentation.

<comment><USER3> No, it doesn't.

What it does is give a glimpse of how beyond complete understanding of a system end to end is not achievable (the very title of the article is "complete understating is no longer possible").

Keyword is "complete".

It's not about understanding enough of the system to be a good programmer, but knowing it end to end.

For that it uses the mere documentation of the parts as a proxy of how difficult this has become.

If just a small part of the documentation of basic libs, the OS kernel, etc is already 11,000 pages, the system is well out of reach for everybody.

This in contrast (and this is a common theme for the author) to the era of home computers, where from the assembly and the CPU design, to the BASIC you could fit everything in 1000 pages or less (including the whole code).

Even a professional system like the early UNIX would fit that definition (add all the documentation for C, PDP-11 assembly, UNIX source, and the available userland at the time, and you were still well bellow 11,000 pages -- even with the whole source code included).

The Unix kernel in 1983 (not even 1975) was "less than 20,000 lines of C".

Today the Linux kernel is 2 millions of lines -- and that's without the drivers.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the interesting security startups? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Check out [https://www.cspi.com/aria-software-defined- security/](https://www.cspi.com/aria-software-defined-security/)

</comment><comment> le-mark These guys [1] offer a layer 3 bridge that does ip shunning, with white listing and black listing built in. It supposedly operates at line speed (!) which is kind of remarkable. I'd like a device like this for my in laws, they don't sell to consumers though, so far as I know.

[1] [https://www.riskanalytics.com/cyber-security- services/intell...](https://www.riskanalytics.com/cyber-security- services/intellishun/)

</comment><comment><USER2> [https://www.cspi.com/aria-software-defined- security/](https://www.cspi.com/aria-software-defined-security/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://cyr3con.com/](https://cyr3con.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://smyte.com/](http://smyte.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> tptacek's Latacora security consultancy

[https://latacora.com/](https://latacora.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> check out [https://www.threatcare.com](https://www.threatcare.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> www.logichub.com

<comment><USER8> Excuse the immaturity here, but man all I see in that URL is chub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> define interesting

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting founders/concepts</comment></comment>


People used to love Google: what happened? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/investor-money-vs-public-interest-did-google-fail-to-build-a-non-evil-platform-3a054f996ea9 <comment><USER2> Well, did you know what Big G used to say?

Company X has just gone Google!

To answer your question on why this happened?, Google has just gone Google!

</comment><comment><USER3> Mr greed knocked their door one day, they sit down for a cup of coffee and they started to realize that everything is business and there are no ethics between companies, it's all about profit. That's what you would do and that's what I would do. Simple enough...</comment>


Simple proofs of great theorems - <AUTHOR> http://mathscholar.org/2018/09/simple-proofs-of-great-theorems/ <comment><USER2> It seems to me that most commenters are missing the point, which is that results like these usually remain unproven until the end of 2-3 course sequences that are mainly taken by math majors. What the authors are doing is to reduce each result to something that can be verified by a high school calculus student (even if it does not provide very much insight). These are not elegantly concise proofs; they are maximally elementary proofs that you can give to a curious kid. I think there's value in that, even if that's not what mathematicians do with their proofs.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the simplicity of the proofs were somewhat overstated.

<comment><USER4> I agree. The integral function required to prove pi as irrational is quite ugly. I suspect there are much simpler proofs that convey a better intuition rather than appearing contrived.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be interesting if you could find one. This is certainly the simplest I've ever seen.

<comment><USER4> I dont know the specifics of it but one could use the zeta function and the periodicity requirement of infinite series that equal rationals. It is clear that the zeta(2) is not periodic but one would have to prove that and then use the existing theorems about infinite series, periodicity, and rationals.

<comment><AUTHOR> Doesn't feel like it's simpler - there's a lot more going on in this. A _lot_ more. The proof in the original article is completely self-contained.

Still, I suppose simplicity is in the eye of the beholder.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't consider an obfuscated 1 line C program simple. Thats how I look at unintuitive proofs that simply evaluate to true but appear to lack premeditation. Might as well just replace the proof with a brute force computer assisted proof.. I get that people want simple... simple and small is nice..its a challenge for any mathematician. But the beauty is really in something other than the proof - its origin and creation story. Every "challenge proof" should come with an addendum. Kinda like Obfuscated C or JS2k contest entries usually come with a write-up.

<comment><AUTHOR> These aren't intended to be "beautiful" proofs, they are _simple_ proofs. They can be followed without having to grok vast amounts of external material. They are self-contained, without external dependencies. They are short, and while you may feel that they fail to impart insight, I'm not so sure. Having lived with these proofs for some years ( I knew them before I saw this series of blogs posts) I find that they are becoming simpler over time as I understand more about what's going on around them.

Fermat's Last Theorem is trivial to prove because we just quote the Taniyama- Shimura-Weil Theorem, observe a particular elliptic curve, and there you are. It's "simple," once you have T-S-W. But that's means it's not self-contained, and while it is probably more enlightening as to the underlying _why_ all this works, it's _not_ simple.

So your comment about using the zeta function and the periodicity requirement of infinite series exactly shows why your suggestion might be enlightening, but is not _simple._

At least, not in any sense I would use.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Creating honeypots using Docker - <AUTHOR> http://itinsight.hu/blog/posts/2015-05-04-creating-honeypots-using-docker.html

<comment><USER2> This is a bad idea. Concerns about Docker's security (or lack thereof) aside, containers provide "good enough" separation of concerns to apps. They are not security hardened and designed to be exposed to vulnerabilities, particularly when by design a honeypot is to tempt attacks (automated or otherwise).

A virtual machine (or better) is better suited to this task.

<comment><USER3> So why not one virtual machine hosting multiple containers?

<comment><USER4> Why not several virtual machines? There are more choices and more mature software for managing thousands of virtual machines, configurations and images, than there is for docker.

Also, the memory footprint of several virtual machines isnt that bigger compared to docker - because of KMS and such.

<comment><USER3> Pardon my ignorance, but I thought the whole point of containers could be summarized as sacrificing security for performance. Wrapping containers in a single VM to restore security seems like a reasonable compromise.

I would be interested in learning more about the differences in management software availability as well as how KMS (KSM?) reduces the performance penalty of using virtual machines.

<comment><USER4> > point of containers could be summarized as sacrificing security for > performance

No.

Containers are and can be secure, perhaps even more so than QEMU/KVM Id argue, see latest lxc - you can run it without root and with seccomp syscall whitelist (if not in lxc that feature is in firejail, or a simple .c to setup yourself).

Its only docker that is fundamentally insecure. First it runs a server as root, second it has a server-client architecture with quite complicated communication between them. Then it also has an API and talks to various indexes/registries, also vector of attack.

With say firejail, its only one process, no server-client, no registries, the whole thing is in a few hundred lines of C.

The performance penalty - is somewhat bigger memory usage - and startup time, thats it, with hardware accelerated virtualization which most computers have these days, the performance impact once the VM is up and running, is negligble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a glaring omission from the possible attacks: the kernel itself provides a huge surface area and local root exploits are not uncommon.

Speaking as an infrastructure/devops/hosting consultant - I've done a couple of Docker deployments lately and clients often ask whether it's suitable for hosting multiple semi-trusted codebases on the same metal for better resource utilization. I tell them "no": once a competent attacker has shell they will not find it hard to escape the sandbox and take over the parent machine, and with it all other hosts. Docker is a great tool for rapid deployment, dependency management and dense hosting of microservices but security was never the primary goal.

Hypervisor based virtualization solutions (e.g. Xen, VMWare) expose a much smaller attack surface to the child environment. I would therefore say that while more resource intensive they are a far safer way to spin up honeypots.

<comment><USER6> I'd say spin up the VMs on a machine that doesn't matter if you're attracting automated attacks.

If you wake up one morning to an exploit being discovered and have an unpatched host machine, is it still a honeypot?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Given the recent news about breaking out of Docker containers, this would be best wrapped in a VM. You'll get the performance boost of not spinning up separate VMs coupled with greater security from breaking out of a VM.</comment>


Australian youth faces 10 years jail for accused Anonymous hacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/338830,sydney-youth-accused-of-anonymous-hacks.aspx

<comment><USER2> Welcome to the New World Order where they can throw you into prison at will with supposed evidence which truth content can be hard to verify even by experts.

We geeks are especially at risk. ("Look at that github profile, he even has the codes, hacker, hacker! Burn!")

Doesn't it make for a warm feeling in the tummy to know that you can spend the rest of your life being the best friend of Jammal, sharing a cell and a bed with him, without doing something illegal?

Fortunately we developers are hard asses who are used to murder, rape, and robbery. Oh wait...

<comment><USER3> > Welcome to the New World Order where they can throw you into prison at will > with supposed evidence which truth content can be hard to verify even by > experts.

The article was really brief and vague. Are you sure this is the case?

From what I understand, the title is not completely descriptive: the kid has a _maximum possible sentence_ of 10 years _if_ he is convicted.

"The suspected hacker faces a maximum of 10 years jail time if convicted and will face court again on May 17."

I obviously have no way of really knowing what exactly happened without more information, but just assuming that random programmers are at risk for getting arrested is a bit of a stretch -- even if there is a "New World Order" as you say, it needs good programmers too...

It will be interesting to see what actually happens at the end of this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a sentence to community service and parole for some time.

<comment><USER4> You are saying the same thing the person you are criticising is.

He said "can throw you in prison for 10 years" You say "maximum possible sentence of 10 years"

Exact same thing.

Be in the accused's position, and then argue the difference.

<comment><USER3> Maybe this is a bit of a misunderstanding? I wasn't refuting the "10 years" -- that's a fact. I was simply pointing out that you can't really know what's going to happen based on 10 sentences of extremely vague details in an article.

I was refuting this:

> Welcome to the New World Order where they can throw you into prison at will > with supposed evidence which truth content can be hard to verify even by > experts.

That statement assumes that he will be convicted and the judge will deliver a severe sentence, which is not necessarily a valid assumption since there's barely any information provided. It's possible he may simple get a community service sentence with parole, since he is 17.

And yes, the government "can" throw you in jail _if you are found guilty_ and _if the judge decides to_ , but neither of those "if's" have been decided yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The AFP did not give a timeframe for the attacks but said it did not believe any sensitive personal or financial information was stolen."

Each and every day Australia starts to look more and more like the United States (no offence to those who live in the US). I live in Australia and find it highly alarming that a youth who didn't steal any personal or financial information could be sent away for 10 years, comparatively you could rape someone in Australia and if you plead guilty you would get sentenced to basically the same amount of years.

How does a victimless computer crime which potentially only resulted in a little bit of downtime and wasn't malicious in that information was stolen equate to the same as raping someone? It doesn't add up.

<comment><USER6> If the crime resulted in downtime or in any other way inconvenienced someone else, it wasn't a victimless crime.

Disregarding semantics, I completely agree that the potential punishment is not at all proportional to the crime in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow...to think that he would be 27 before he ever got out. I wonder how it's possible for the government to penalize a 17 year old with 10 years of prison. That's the equivalent of a class c felony in the US, which can be applied to sexual assault, arson, and kidnapping.

To think that a computer crime where not even any "sensitive personal or financial information was stolen" can be considered at par with kidnapping is harsh.

</comment><comment><USER8> Aaaand... watch the nerd indignation rise in this thread - 'omg they're putting him away for 10 years!'.

Reporters use the maximum statutory sentences to report on yet-to-be-convicted people for maximum headline sensationalism. Very seldom will somebody, especially a first-time offender, actually be sentenced that. For example, in my jurisdiction the maximum statutory sentence for rape is 12 years; yet prison terms of a few years are common. The reasons the maximums are set so high is to allow leeway for the judge for especially egregious cases.

<comment><USER9> Doesn't. Fucking. Matter.

Do you know why? Because the _actual_ sentences these folks tend to end up with are often similar to folks convicted of homicide, rape, violent robbery, etc. One of the Steubenville rapists was sentenced to around 2-4 years, for example. And he is the same age as the accused here.

The idea that the punishment for rape should be similar to the punishment for white collar crimes where no one was materially injured is preposterous. The system is broken in a very fundamental way and jabbering on about the subtleties of the difference between maximum and expected sentences is not contributing to the discussion in a meaningful way, in my opinion.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious, how can you discourage kids from hacking into core infrastructure and accidentally breaking things?

It is very natural for kids and teens to test their boundaries and try to get as much access and control over any system that they could get into. And from a kid perspective it doesn't feel like a particularly dangerous or wrong thing to do. Hacking into stuff feels just like an elaborate and very rewarding game. Game that requires specialized knowledge and skills, but a game nevertheless. I think we all remember the feeling.

But in reality this is not a game. Damage that can be done by an accident involving a such a game/hack that goes awry can be catastrophic. That includes loss of life and likelihoods of a large number of people.

Examples? Say, can a hack interfere in a subtle way with remote surgery? Or with hospital power supply? Or chemical plant? The answer is unfortunately, yes. Our systems a networks are not secure enough and not kid-proof. And probably will never be. So there must be some policy that discourage kids from hacking into stuff that matters. And yet it should be friendly, because it is preposterous to put people in jail for 'games' that are very unlikely to cause any harm most of the time.

<comment><USER11> how about we work on making that infrastructure kid-proof, instead of demolishing the kids?

<comment><USER10> Difficult. What system can really stand against a determined 17 year old with some ten years of experience, including a few years of hacking and network security?

Hacking and network security is a relatively shallow and yet specialized skill. Relatively shallow, because it doesn't require years and years of studying, like, say theoretical physics or modern math. And specialized, because your regular developer is not necessarily stays current with all the latest security practices and exploits.

Because of that properties a determined teen can outmatch skills of people maintaining and designing the system by orders of magnitude. And with that kind of mismatch in skills, what can really stand against that kid?

<comment><USER12> If our systems aren't able to stand casual, playful attack, they have absolutely no chance at surviving a real, concerted attack. And there's plenty of evidence that the latter happen all the time nowadays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's really disgusting that there is a huge amount of teenagers who are capable of racking up sentences of 10+ years like these, while adults who commit rape, arson, etc end up with the same sentence.

Sure we see a few cases like this every month or so, but if all the teenagers committing similar acts were actually caught; whether it be of malicious intent or just pure curiosity, the numbers would be staggering. Things really need to change, and the law needs to put more effort into understanding these breaches, along with how easily obtainable this kind of knowledge is on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER14> Of the charges he faces, one sticks out to me: "possession of data with intent to commit a computer offence". That sounds absurdly broad and is another of these catch-all laws that enables prosecutors to press charges against almost anyone with a computer. Have uTorrent on a hard drive? You are in possession of data with the intent to commit a computer crime. Intent is arguable, of course, but in Australia that may well be enough to get you arrested and have search warrants issued that could lead to other problems if you happened to be on the radar of law enforcement.

I was under the impression that the US had the market cornered on this type of nonsense. Apparently we have competition.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice to see the the article has basically no useful information content besides a list of charges. Is there any further context to this?</comment>


Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple (1997) - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html <comment><USER2> "Apple has not been the bogeyman to Microsoft in a long time. They are more than happy to have a legitimate threat to their business, and it's called Java."

Out of all the things to end that sentence with, Java was probably the last one I expected.

<comment><USER3> Really? It was the driving force behind the creation of .NET, and the motivator for the infamous sweaty (Developers)* rant.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Java -- more precisely the JVM's promise to code once, run anywhere -- had Microsoft worried in the late '90s. Rightly so, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If Microsoft hadn't sold its 1997 $150mm investment in Apple, it would be worth $7.4 billion at close today. That's a 4250% return.

Instead they sold in 2003, at one of AAPL's lowest points. They made less than 20%. (It's hard to pinpoint exactly how much because Apple's SEC filing only indicates that Microsoft sold in Q2 2003, and it doesn't indicate the price agreed.)

<comment><USER6> How well did an equivalent investment in Microsoft stock either 1997 or 2003, until today fare?

<comment><USER7> MSFT is basically flat since 2003, and up about 60% since 1997. It did start paying a dividend in 2003, which adds about 15% overall. No multi-thousand percentage returns, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was young, but I remember the cover of Time magazine very well.

<http://marcchung.com/mc/world_is_a_better_place.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER9> This headline needs [1997]

</comment><comment><USER10> FTR, it wasn't so much an "investment" as it was part of a settlement: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company>

IIRC there was supposedly a private payment upwards of $1 billion as part of the settlement in addition to the $150 million but I can't find a reference right now.

</comment><comment><USER11> What? A link to this story and no one linked to the legendary video of Bill Gates appearing on the big screen at the Macworld Boston Keynote 1997, looming large over Steve Jobs and the crowd booing?

Here, I will do that: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY> (skip to 3:30 if you want to see how the investment is received, skip to 4:40 if you want to see Bill Gates)

</comment><comment><USER12> "Apple, which ended its third quarter with $1.2 billion in cash, will use the additional $150 million to invest in its core markets of education and creative content, Anderson said. He added that the company expects to gain a higher percentage of its revenues from software and services in these core markets in the future."

Interesting how this gives us a bit of insight on the shift in business plans even before the iMac was officially announced. Obviously they picked the correct market to focus on going into the 2000s, but I wonder what made them specifically choose the "education and creative markets" 15 years ago.

<comment><USER13> It wasn't until Photoshop 2.5 that Adobe even had a Windows version. Look at PageMaker / Quark and it's the same story.

Education and creative markets were the bread and butter of Apple for the 80s and 90s, it's a no brainer business-wise.

At the time this article was written Jobs had been CEO for a month, it's a basic play to reassure the market and boost a falling stock price. If you look at what Apple actually did it was to move into consumer electronics. A transition that is arguably complete with iPad. The machine people consume software with is finally different from the machine they produce software with.

<comment><USER14> To continue your thought, this was the most brilliant move Jobs made by moving the consumption off the machine that produced. Now jobs can control the distribution from the machine that produces content to the machine that consumes content. He plays middle man, owns the vertical, and collects 30% every time a purchase is made. I wonder how much this strategy evolved from the early days or if the idea of separating content and owning the distribution channels was the strategy from day one. Either way it is clear in hind sight that the play payed off.

On a side note I saw a statistic earlier (reference has been lost) which said Apple sells 10% of consumer computers but captures over 50% of the industry profit. I would search for the reference in a different tab, but I'm on my iPad and can't. Thanks Steve.

<comment><USER13> I believe the 50% profit figure is for "smart phones". I think DHH mentioned it in a video. Not sure what the primary source is. [http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/while-rivals-jockey-for- mar...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/while-rivals-jockey-for-market-share- apple-bathes-in-profits/)

This is the best reference I can find for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Could Microsoft's investment be seen as a HUGE strategic blunder?

I don't think Microsoft would have invested had they known Apple would flourish so well. They would rather see a competitor crumble and die.

So why did they invest? And if they hadn't, were there others waiting to bail out Apple? I could google all this but figured there must be many who weren't 10 years old when this happened :)

<comment><USER4> > _Could Microsoft's investment be seen as a HUGE strategic blunder?_

Oh I don't know. Maybe Microsoft's shares in Apple will be its most valuable asset in another 10 years... (1/2 joking)

<comment><USER16> they sold those shared long ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "He noted there have been no discussions with Microsoft to license Windows CE, the operating system designed for handheld devices, settop boxes, and other non-PC products."

is my favorite line.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder what would have been if Microsoft hadn't invested in Apple...

<comment><USER19> Largely nothing. The investment at the time was seen as a public sign that Microsoft wanted Apple to stick around, not a make-or-break deal that could leave Apple crippled if it fell through. That, plus the announcement that Microsoft would continue developing Office for Macintosh, helped assure the public that Apple wasn't going anywhere, at a time when a lot of people feared that Apple had become completely irrelevant, independent of whether Jobs would manage to succeed where Amelio had failed at fixing the immediate problems. I think Microsoft could have not invested and things would be the same. I'm less confident what would've happened if they hadn't pledged to support Office and IE.

<comment><USER6> So the investment was important, but more for its signalling value than for the money?

<comment><USER19> That's my feeling on the matter, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well that was a great investment, right? What is it worth now?

</comment><comment><USER21> What if Adobe had invested back then?

<comment><USER22> Adobe does exist in part just because Apple invested in them early in its days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> yeah lets remember that next time apple fanboys want to post an article saying AAPL is worht more than MS

<comment><USER24> Though you claim that saying AAPL is worth more then MSFT is a sign of fanboy- ism, it can also be used as proof that AAPL is no longer the 'under-dog' that some fanboys still like to portray them as. (i.e. AAPL is now the '800lb Gorilla')

[Nit: Microsoft's NASDAQ symbol is MSFT, not MS. It looks wildly inconsistent to refer to Apple by AAPL, but then drop to MS for Microsoft. ]

<comment><USER25> "Fanboys" call them the underdog due to their 7-8% market share of the computer market compared to Windows ~90% market share.

I'd still call that an underdog.

Also who is the "you", that you are referring to? Also we are not claiming, we are merely using todays EOD market-cap to show they are worth more, in which case they are. Also Apple has growth in other areas, which are new areas, and MSFT is just suckling the tit of office and the PC's use of Windows software.

/fanboyism

<comment><USER24>
      > "Fanboys" call them the underdog due to their 7-8% market
      > share of the computer market compared to Windows ~90%
      > market share.
      >
      > I'd still call that an underdog.

I wouldn't. You're ignoring several factors:

* Even though Microsoft may own 90% of the market, the fact that their company as a whole (which includes other markets) is worth less than Apple is telling. The investors certainly don't think that they are an underdog.

* A few years ago Microsoft own _95%_ of the market. (i.e. The trend is towards a shrinking strangle-hold on the market)

* The 'market' usually refers to the _general_ PC market which (IIRC) includes corporate purchases. Most corporate purchases for the foreseeable future will probably remain in Microsoft's court, but that doesn't prevent Apple from taking over the _personal_ computer market. [Yea, I know PC stands for 'Personal Computer,' but here we are referring to personal in terms of ownership, instead of personal in terms of desktops vs mainframes.] I would definitely _not_ call Apple the underdog in terms of personal/family computers.

* Apple has great mind-share right now, as well as a number of devices that tie-in well with their Macs. Those devices (iPhone,iPad) are at the top of a lot of people's minds and at the cutting edge of their respective niches. Those devices will probably do well at driving people towards Macs when they next upgrade their desktop/laptop even though that probably isn't their ultimate goal.

* You're ignoring the other markets that Apple is in where they are _not_ the underdog (mp3 players, tablet devices).

      > Also who is the "you", that you are referring to?

To the poster of the comment I was replying to? Maybe I should have phrased it as such:

       Though you claim that saying, "AAPL is worth more then MSFT,"
       is a sign of fanboy-ism,

I was refuting the claim that talking about Apple's worth vs Microsoft's worth is a sign of fanboy-ism.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Good Enough is the New Great - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/#g-2.html

<comment><USER2> Actually, this link is a list of cool ideas.

I thoght the section about computational biologists using PageRank to identify important species wihtin an ecosystem was cooler, myself.</comment>


Show HN: Scaling ML to 8M users with 3 data scientists - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@analyticsaurabh/how-i-scaled-machine-learning-to-a-billion-dollars-strategy-2379faf86c02 <comment><USER2> A few good practical tips in this blog post.

I definitely agree with a simple linear model doing 80% of the work and letting skilled people handle the complex cases manually.</comment>


Anyone else felt it? - <AUTHOR> http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc71560691.php

<comment><USER2> Yeah, was in the middle of a design review here at the Apixio offices in San Mateo. It's an interesting feeling for sure.</comment>


One Cheeseburger Equals 15,000 Google Searches in CO2 Emissions - <AUTHOR> http://siteboat.com/one-cheeseburger-equals-15000-google-searches-in-co2-emissions/ <comment><USER2> I'm going to come out and say that I consider most of those "X results in Y grams of CO2 emissions" posts/calculations/activities to be utter bullshit and a complete waste of time.

These calculations are necessarily based on very hand-waving maths. They try to focus on only one specific facet of what is absolutely and completely a systems problem. The only level at which it makes sense to talk about emissions is on a large scale like a country or even the whole world. Otherwise, you risk turning the "effort" into one of externalising carbon costs to other people's counters.

But, that's too complicated, so people will go and calculate the emissions produced in the fabrication of a cheeseburger, as if that was a useful thing to know. And then they'll write countless blog posts about it.

I submit to you that there is absolutely no value whatsoever in that calculation, or in the result of it.

Even if the calculation could be relied on, what does it mean? Is there any actionable element to this calculation? Should we do something about it? Should we care?

Counting the grams in a cheeseburger, or in a Google search, is a gimmick used to get people excited about CO2 for no particularly good reason, and with no specific result in mind. It achieves nothing other than to waste our time and provide yet another vague, shapeless concept with which people with an agenda can manipulate others into doing whatever they want.

<comment><USER3> IMO, the only reasoanble way to deal with the carbon issue is a small "sin" tax at the point where fuel is mined / imported. There are still a few corner cases, but they represent such a minute fraction of output that they are ignorable. The advantage is automacticaly account for output on everyproduct and stage of production without atempting to calculate what it's carbon history is. [You mined/imported 10 million tuns of carbon x, which you can collect from the person you sold it to and on down the chain. They can ignore the tax as it's just an increase in fuel costs to be passed to the customer.]

I also suspect the impact would on coal would be much larger than that on gas. Which is a great thing because coal is far more replaceable than gas at this point in time. You can then subsidize non carbon energy production / carbon storage equaly and let the market deside what's most effecent. You can also ignore hybrids as the government focusing on a specific solution is less effecent over time.

<comment> patrickg-zill I commend you for your honesty.

It will be a TAX on every energy consumer in the world (since energy is used to produce all items including those that are exported).

It won't actually DO anything to fix the environment, just fill government coffers; the money will be use to fly VIPs around to environmental confabs on private jets.

<comment><USER4> > "It will be a TAX on every energy consumer in the world ... It won't > actually DO anything to fix the environment"

Actually, it will. The use of taxes to influence consumption is well- documented. It's basic economics: price increases, demand decreases (because demand is not completely inelastic). As less products are made, less resources will be used, which helps the environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Utterly silly. Note that the initial estimate of 7g/search is based largely on the power used by the client and includes the time to read the search results and possibly perform additional searches if the first one doesn't have what you want, while Google's retort of 0.2g/search is based entirely on the power used by their server to return one set of search results.

If the goal is to compare the environmental cost of non-essential browsing versus non-essential eating, you clearly want to use the first number. And, in which case, there's no need to single out Google, since they are probably one of the most efficient sites you could be browsing; your total server-side energy consumption will be dominated by the site to which your search results link.

(No attempt is made in either number to amortize the cost of running the internet infrastructure for an additional client, nor the cost of Google's constant spidering, which consumes resources on less efficient remote sites.)

</comment><comment><USER6> "An average daily newspaper equals the amount of 850 Google searches."

To put it another way, one cheeseburger equals 18 newspapers.

<comment><USER7> Thanks! That one completely stumped Wolfram Alpha. ([http://www49.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+cheeseburger...](http://www49.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+cheeseburgers+are+equal+to+a+newspaper))

" _Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input._ "

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why don't we standardize this? Make a goog the base unit. We could measure newspapers in kilogoogs. (The Enquirer is 0.867 kilogoogs.) A cheeseburger would be 15 kilogoogs.

In other words, this stuff is nonsense, only good for amusement.

</comment><comment><USER9> I bet that Google's existence actually reduces the total CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. If someone searches for a business's address and uses Google maps to find an efficient route that saves 1/2 mile of driving, the supposed allocated environmental cost is easily made up for. What if I search for a way to fix my DVD player and avoid buying a new one? How much carbon did that save?

I agree with everybody that these stats are absurd. But, even if they were somehow meaningful, the point that information access allows people to consume less must be taken into account.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yeah, but "I can has 15,000 Google Searches" just doesn't sound the same.

</comment><comment><USER11> Besides the fact that that this could all be completely untrue, it's a useless stat unless you know the number of burgers consumed/second vs google searches/second.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does that statistic take into account all the greenhouse gasses the cows emit through flatulence? If not, the number might be a little higher...

<comment><USER13> Cow farts are carbon neutral. Grass sucks the carbon out of the atmosphere, cows turn carbon into dinner and flatulence, carbon re-enters the atmosphere. Get rid of cows, and you'll have grass fires returning that carbon to the atmosphere.

<comment><USER14> Methane is a much more dangerous greenhouse gas than co2 alone.

Eating less meat will make a bigger impact than driving less.

<comment><USER15> Yes, and properly pastured cattle sequester carbon dioxide as well.This doesn't mean the methane issue goes away, but if we could eat less meat, make CAFOs go away, and raise cattle in a more sustainable manner, I think we'd come out ahead.

<comment><USER14> I am a little puzzled here--how do properly pastured cattle sequester co2? If you do grass farming, the cattle's manure will fertilize the grass, but I wonder if there is a net sequestration in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm getting sick of these eco-green fanatics. I wonder what are they doing. Are they living in a cave isolated from the rest of the world?</comment>


Obscurity Is a Valid Security Layer - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/study/security-by-obscurity/#gs.P5WL7sw <comment><USER2> This is an interesting read, but it's worth digging down into the particulars. In particular:

> Is adding obscurity the best use of my resources given the controls I have > in place, or would I be better off adding a different (non-obscurity-based) > control?

Is a really important question to ask. In this case, I'd argue that port- knocking, SPA, and changing the port are not cost-effective.

Obscurity is not free. There are additional costs and risks to consider:

      * Has the port-knocking or SPA software been well tested or audited?
      * What if my pentester mistakenly believes that there is no OpenSSH service, and so doesn't check it?
      * Is it worth re-configuring all of my SSH clients? What if I have to go through change control?
      * Is it worth re-configuring any vuln. scanners I deploy?
      * Do my clients support port-knocking or SPA?

I could spend an hour setting up port-knocking, SPA, or rolling out a port change. Could I do something more useful with my time? Perhaps better testing my application? Finishing that pressing code review? Buying and using a vulnerability scanner? Reaching out to a pentest company? Setting up an IDS?

All of the above will probably have a better cost-benefit ratio than port- knocking, SPA, or changing the default port.

It is almost always more cost-effective to just use Mozilla's OpenSSH guide[1], keep up with security patches, and direct your attention to the weaker components of your stack.

References:

[1] : [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Guidelines/OpenSSH](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Guidelines/OpenSSH) Security/Guidelines/OpenSSH, Mozilla

<comment><USER3> >I'd argue that port-knocking, SPA, and changing the port are not cost- effective.

Changing ports is very effective, at least at reducing noise. This is especially true when setting up a new service with no preexisting clients. Default port 22 is an ocean of noise and constant password attempts, no reason to fill up my log servers with millions and millions of attempts per year.

<comment><USER2> fail2ban and similar tools are standard, widely used, quick to configure, and very effective at removing noise. You won't need to hassle to configuration of any new or existing clients, vulnerability scanners, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's OK to hide from the bear. Maybe he won't see you. But if he finds you, you'll need at least bear spray and maybe a shot gun to defend yourself. That's the basic idea. Obscurity is only bad when it's the _only_ thing you depend on for your safety and security.

</comment><comment><USER5> Obscurity is mostly useless. But minimizing the attack surface[1] is certainly useful. Changing the SSH port, port knocking, IP restricting which hosts can connect, etc., are all methods of reducing the attack surface. If you have a service (like SSH) that doesn't need to be available to every possible internet host then don't expose it to every possible internet host.

Can you SSH into an AWS load balancer? No, but someone is, or is otherwise managing these servers.

[1] [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Minimize_attack_surface_area](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Minimize_attack_surface_area)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, so this is going to sound crazy, but it's deeper than that.

When you put yourself on another port or make yourself invisible on a battlefield you didn't actually reduce your attack surface. You are equally vulnerable to a bullet or an 0day. If it comes towards you, it will hit you.

What was reduced was their ability to TARGET you. That's not reducing attack surface.

I'm thinking about doing a write-up on risk reduction methods that break all these down, where:

\- Obscurity is hiding a secret that reduces your resilience if you are discovered \- Avoidance is limiting the likelihood that you'll be targeted \- Hardening makes you more survivable if you are hit

How does that grab you? You think that's the distinction we need?

Ultimately it's all security because it's reducing risk, i.e. probability and/or impact. But the ways in which that is done are important to understand.

<comment><USER5> Obscurity, Avoidance, Hardening seem to be useful ways to explore the idea of attack surface and related security concepts.

Reducing surface area refers to ways to increase the overall security of a system by restricting the set of features accessible to user groups. Every feature is an attack vector. So limiting access reduces the total number of possible attackers. Surface area is related strongly to the concepts of Obscurity and Avoidance.

The other thing to consider is the total risk and any associated costs/tradeoffs.

In terms of SSH, changing the port number changes the set of attackers from A) attackers scanning standard ports across many hosts, to B) attackers deep port scanning fewer hosts. The relative risk will decrease if group A is significantly larger than group B. If there are 1,000,000 shallow scanners (group A) and only 100,000 deep scanners (group B) the reduction in relative risk is significant.

But what is total risk? Using SSH public-key authentication creates another set of users, group C, that can actually login to the server. Group C is also very small, usually consisting of only 1 member. Whether or not attackers belong to group A or group B isn't particularly significant in total, as the likelihood that a member of A or B is also a member of C is very, very low.

This, I think, is the crux of the "security by obscurity" criticism. Such security measures seem to do little to decrease the total risk to a system. So why implement obscure/avoidance measures?

The value of changing port numbers or port knocking (and reducing attack surface in general) isn't statistical. The value is completeness, or as a type of insurance. Using alternate port numbers could buy an admin some time if a OpenSSH 0-day occurs. This event isn't very likely, so we might dismiss it. But managing the risk of unlikely events is exactly the point of insurance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > You didn't replace the service's security with this layer, you simply added > it to what already existed. Remember, the NSA most likely has great > algorithms, but they still don't publish them.

I feel like this is a great example of why this "obscurity as a security layer" is misleading, to say the least. Having a "great algorithm" that you _don 't publish_ is bad for the same reason security _by_ obscurity is bad - there are fewer people criticizing and tempering the algorithms you use. This feeds into the idea that "anyone can make cryptography _they_ can't crack" (NSA or not).

The problem with these "obscurity as a valid security layer" arguments is that there's _already_ obscurity built into these protocols. The algorithm is open, the _key_ (or password) is kept obscure. Adding some non-standard flourishes on top of a secure protocol is basically just using an insecure protocol (security by obscurity) to "extra" secure an already secure protocol. The point being that the overall security of the system is not meaningfully increased by these actions.

That said, I understand why you'd want to use a non-standard SSH port or port knocking or something to reduce noise on your logs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Think of security as reducing risk.

If you're invisible your risk is lower because you have a lower chance of being targeted.

This is wholly separate from what happens if you're hit. That's resilience, or armor, or whatever we want to call that.

But both reducing the probability of being a target and being more resilient once you are a target qualify as security.

<comment><USER6> This is not invisiblity. It's putting your safe door behind a curtain. Yes, fewer people are seeing the safe, but the curtain is not actually increasing your security, it's just preventing casual attackers from seeing you as a target of opportunity (who, for the most part, are also not going to get past real security, anyway).

I don't know that it's dangerous, but it's not really additional meaningful security, in my opinion, so long as it has _zero_ downsides. The example of the NSA keeping their algorithm hidden _does_ have downsides. One of the biggest downsides of doing some non-standard thing is that you might not realize that you are actually _weakening_ your security. If you have some protocol that involves not revealing the existence of a server to casual attackers, that's completely fine with me, but it's worth noting how easily these things can get conflated together.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the same as cloaking a tank in a tank battle.

If you didn't take the armor off it's great. But if you did then you've put your eggs in the don't get hit basket.

The trick is figuring out if you could have bought more armor with the money you spent on the cloaking device.

Or, if enemy weapons are so good that armor doesn't matter, then it's time to think about cloaking very seriously.

It's a balance between probability and impact. With cloaking you're reducing likelihood. With armor you're reducing impact.

But in both cases you're reducing risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sure, if you want to argue this point, you're right--if you're already secure, then security through obscurity won't technically make you less secure.

However, taking _literally any_ actual security measure is a better usage of your time. So sure, when you've audited your entire server carefully and are absolutely sure, then it will be useful to add a security through obscurity layer. That is to say, it will never be.

<comment><AUTHOR> So running your SSH daemon on a port other than 22 will _never_ be better than doing something above patching, a solid config, and key or cert-based auth?

I disagree.

If you're listening you are potentially vulnerable to an 0day that is simply far less likely to hit you on 2222 than 22---especially before you hear about others getting pwned and have time to patch.

If you harden to a certain point (like the list above), the next best thing MAY be to get out of the line of fire, either by moving your listener or putting up a portknocker system or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fact that Heartbleed remained undetected for two years certainly revealed one uncomfortable truth about the "security by openness" paradigm: the one agent who actually bothers to audit the source code may be the bad guy.

</comment><comment><USER9> SSH on something like port 666 or 25519 also has the advantage that there's much less log chatter about failed attempts.

Plus, nmap thinks that SSH on 666 is "DOOM"</comment>


Is Uber really cheaper than a taxi? - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-versus-taxi-california-2015-6?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Business%20Insider%20Select&utm_campaign=BI%20Select%20%28Wednesday%20Friday%29%202015-06-17&utm_content=BISelect

<comment><USER2> Irrelevant. Uber is more convenient than a taxi and people are willing to pay extra for convenience.

</comment><comment><USER3> Who ever said that Uber is cheaper than a cab? Their strength is to provide great service and convinience not to be cheap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't know there, but here in Miami is definitely cheaper than taxis</comment></comment>


Physics Problems to Challenge Understanding - <AUTHOR> https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/insight.htm <comment><USER2> > Today many students want everything "spelled out". They seem to be > continually looking for "defects" in problems, but not with the purpose of > furthering their understanding by coping with ambiguity, but to provide an > excuse for not even thinking further about the problem.

But shouldn't the burden be put on the educator to provide problem scenarios for understanding that aren't unrealistic? It just seems common sense to develop an uninterested attitude toward things that start out trying to prove by understanding a thing that could never happen.

<comment><USER3> I don't think so. Reality is always harder to model perfectly so the "unrealistic" problems are actually more approachable. When you compute the terminal velocity of a falling object, I assume that the first attempt assumes a vacuum, no fluid resistance, no relativistic effects, etc. (edit: and then there's the coriolis force, the azimuthal force, radiation pressure, electromagnetic forces, etc.)

Posing problems that sidestep how nature might actually behave allows the educator to isolate concepts for the student and improve proficiency (before adding higher order perturbations).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I briefly scrolled through some parts and have a mixed feeling. Like it's interesting, but I'm not sure I believe it. Consider the tug-of-war riddle. On the first thought the suggested answers seem correct and somewhat insightful. But now forget it and try to visualize the contest how it _really_ is. Imagine one of the participants being clearly stronger than another, imagine different weight classes, imagine one wearing slippery shoes and the other nice rigid boots. What I discover thinking of it is that however good friction with the ground is clearly huge advantage, it isn't what actually let's participant to win: the whole contest isn't that much about moving the _atomic object_ , the _whole person_ , it's actually about moving its center of mass past the point of his feet touching the ground. Then, indeed, the winning person will exert greater force than the other against the ground, and the losing one will be basically flying.

Reflecting over it I feel that however what author suggests formally is the right answer and the right strategy to think about the problem, the whole problem as it's described in the second, "more open-minded" fashion is simplification beyond being justifiable. When I'm supposed to give an answer like that I'd strongly prefer problem being defined in strict scientific terminology, without all these silly "Arnies" and "Wimpies" and "thug of war", which, admittedly, makes the "supposed answer" pretty much obvious. Because the _real_ thug of war just isn't happening between two atomic objects and I would feel very uncomfortable accepting this all-too-abstract model. Abstract models are good and useful only inside the boundaries where the predicted results actually match the reality, when it's untrue — the more complex, more realistic and less abstract model has to be applied.

And that's basically the problem with all that approach, when author ignores the fact he's stretching the model he wants to be applied a bit too damn far and hopes that students would neglect it and follow his lead basically guessing what _he_ was thinking when designing the problem. I don't think this is how science should be done. Because science, originally, isn't about solving riddles: it is about describing and interpreting perceived reality. And, well, having intuition about the physical reality is pretty damn important.

So I rather empathize with those `continually looking for "defects" in problems`, because they still believe the reality is what happens on the street, not in the professor's imagination.

<comment><USER3> When I read that problem, I immediately discarded answers A and B because they are just wrong. Strength and such would have absolutely no affect on violating Newton's third law. It seems like you are waffling in your intuition of the problem which suggests that this problem has revealed an actual problem in your understanding of the fundamentals (which means it is a well designed problem).

There is no stretching of the model or anything happening. Even if you account for higher order effects, A and B would still not be true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      Server Error

      403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.
      You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

This is not a Physics problem, it's a server configuration problem.

</comment><comment><USER6> These are excellent! Thanks!</comment>


Need a tech team? We are your CTO-to-go - <AUTHOR> http://www.gettechies.com/

<comment><USER2> ...so you're a consulting firm?

<comment><AUTHOR> And development.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Url2cite: Transparently convert links to citations in markdown papers - <AUTHOR> https://phiresky.github.io/blog/2019/pandoc-url2cite/? <comment><USER2> Pandoc + Zotero + better-bibtex user here. This is indeed nice, thanks. One possible problem I see (but I am not sure what could be done to solve it) is that often metadata are incomplete or partially wrong, and I need to fix the resulting bibtex entry by hand. This would be difficult with your tool, I think. Have you thought about this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Each citation is added to a formatted JSON file when it is first seen. After this it stays the same. This means you can fix the citation data by hand by just editing the JSON file. You should include the JSON file in your version control. An example is here [1]

Of course this might not be as comfortable as a GUI editor like Zotero, but I think I still prefer doing some small tweaks to a JSON file vs. the problems I've had in the past with Zotero exporting. The auto-export didn't always work consistently, and Zotero has many features that I don't need at all that make the whole thing more complex and fragile. Even collections are somewhat confusing to work with - I've often added citations to the wrong collection because it always adds to the currently open one, and then had to spend time to find it again. You also can't know which references are actually used and which aren't.

And I pretty much always gave up as soon as someone else needs to work on the same paper, which then leads to managing the .bib file by hand anyways.

[1]: [https://github.com/phiresky/pandoc- url2cite/blob/master/exam...](https://github.com/phiresky/pandoc- url2cite/blob/master/example/citation-cache.json)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this. Just a quick follow-up: if I use the same reference in different papers, do I need to make those changes we were discussing on each per-paper json file, or is there a way to do them once and for all?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, you can use the same json file for multiple documents.

By default it will be stored in the directory from which pandoc is invoked, but you can also change that by setting `url2cite-cache: filename` in the markdown frontmatter or in the pandoc invocation: `pandoc -M url2cite- cache=../bla.json --filter ...`.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What happens if the link content dies? Zotero pulls down a full text copy of the document and saves it, IIRC, and I no longer trust URLs on the web to stay up for any period of time (or be immutable at that position).

<comment><USER4> You can always use Wayback Machine links

<comment><USER5> This is not reliable for paywalled links. I can sometimes download paywalled content from my console because I'm behind a university IP block.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You should exclude _"... Contribute to <user>/<repo> development by creating an account on GitHub..."_ from referenced Github repo description.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's one problem with relying on automatically extracted information - sometimes it's not really what you want. In this case that's just what GitHub puts in the og:description tag for large? repos, probably to make it appear that way on Google. Of course I could fix it for this instance but then it wouldn't really accurately represent what you can expect...

The relevant code to extract that is a Zotero Translator [1] so that's what would have to be changed for this.

[1]: [https://github.com/zotero/translators/blob/master/GitHub.js](https://github.com/zotero/translators/blob/master/GitHub.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is nice, thank you ;) I love the pop-up that appears when hovering on a reference.

An internet archive integration would be nice!

<comment><USER8> The floating footnotes need to be way more opaque, they're unreadable as is.

Reverse citation would also be interesting feature to have - on gwern.net, I use [https://ricon.dev/](https://ricon.dev/) to provide reverse citation links which search on DOI (if specified) or title (if no DOI) of links.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't really see the issue, but I've increased the opacity anyways :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> sort of related: is there such a thing as an extension for Firefox that saves a copy of the page when I bookmark it?</comment>


How to Implement Distributed Snapshots in Tera( Modeled After BigTable) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/baidu/tera/pull/1115 <comment><AUTHOR> distributed snapshot algorithm inspired by [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/c...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/chandy.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: Would you consider buying a Macbook Pro and replacing OSX with Linux? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in search of a new laptop, and am considering the Macbook Pro. Thing is, I need my primary OS to be Ubuntu, so dual booting or using virtualization isn't really an efficient option.
So why the MBP? Good hardware, excellent build quality and great battery life.
I've done some minor research into Linux compatibility on the MBP. It works but requires tweaks, and there are some reported issues related to the keyboard, EFI boot, power management, over heating and more...
I'm not sure it's worth the effort, or the premium price. None-the-less, I'd be interested in your opinions, and experience if you have any.
If you wouldn't recommend the MBP, what would you recommend? Things to consider: Linux support, 15", 8GB RAM, SSD. <comment><USER2> You might want to investigate what portion of the great battery life is because it has a honking great battery and what portion is because it's running OS X and has software/hardware written together.

I'd guess you can do better and/or cheaper, but the aesthetics may outweigh any other issues for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point on the battery life. Reports running Linux I've seen are 2.5 hours (which is really poor), as well as 6-7 hours (possibly due to power consumption tweaks). The aesthetics are nice to have, not the deciding factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been running debian sid daily on a macbook for 5 years now, and I'm happy with it. Even debian sid seems more stable than the original osx, I don't need the eye-candy. as for the hardware, it keeps being rock-solid, so not only a aesthetics issue. Under same intensive use, i've seen some dells seriously failing around in the same time.

The only serious annoyance is that, after completely wiping off your efi partition, grub has its troubles to detect keyboard on early stages.

</comment><comment><USER4> Personally if I was not going to run OSX I would get a Sager. As high quality as the MBP for the PC world. That being said, OSX is a really good desktop os (I feel dumber for stating something so obvious). Anyway, I would really consider a BootCamp dual boot with OSX and Ubuntu. Hard drive capacity is pretty cheap so there is really no draw back to this arraignment other than spending a few more bucks on a higher capacity hard drive.

</comment><comment><USER5> Get a Dell, and get the premium care options. It's probably still cheaper than the MB, and you will get a new one if you drop it or break it or whatever, and if you pick and choose, you can get fairly good hardware, and also purchase it without Windows, saving a bit of money.

I have a Latitude E6500, and it's working out well so far.

<comment><USER6> The problem with Dell's is that their keyboards suck. The keys actually fall off. You also don't get a backlit keyboard like you do on a MBP.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure I've seen Dell laptops with backlit keyboards.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. The Studio 16 XPS comes with a backlit keyboard (optional).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I run Debian in VirtualBox on my MBP and it seems efficient enough, and it works perfectly, with the VBoxAdditions installed. Why would you even want to worry about "tweaks", that's fine if you're just a hobbyist but for Real Work(tm) you need something solid.</comment>


ASK YC: What do you think of rewardpick.com? - <AUTHOR>

The idea is to create an Amazon-like community for credit cards. All the card details (names, details, urls, etc) are user submitted. There is an admin approval system to make sure no spam or duplicate card get listed. Feel free to add some. Thanks.<p>http://rewardpick.com <comment><USER2> I like the layout of the site, but you have an uphill battle. Most sites I've seen that go this way are all ad and scam-- it's very hard for people to push past that. Your site doesn't feel like that now, but you might want to tone it down a little on the graphics. I think being as subtle and simple as possible might help people take the site a little seriously-- you're fighting against some difficult stereotypes and every little bit helps.

Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would someone get involved with this site instead of doing a Google search for "credit card best ..."? No one needs a "community" for a credit card selection decision.

Failing that, Consumer Reports has the information at the library.

<comment><USER4> who goes to the library anymore?

[update] I forgot to mention: with constantly changing credit card terms, you would think that even articles about the best credit cards would get stale (then again I could be wrong)

<comment><USER5> There was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags.

<comment><USER4> people still read a lot - they just don't read books at the library anymore.

the only ppl I know that go to the library only go to rent video games and movies; or use the internet (in big cities)

when ppl want books they typically read at BarnesNobles or Borders (since they have more locations and they have coffee/food)

o yeah - no need to be a jerk

<comment><USER6> I read some library books recently. yeah amazon delivers, but there are a lot of books not worth paying to own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think people want this information but, like with many UGC sites, there really isn't any reason for me to either submit or rank it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Cool man, I like it. That's an area where Google searches fail consumers.

</comment><comment><USER9> mint.com is featuring better checking accounts and credit cards than the users currently have. Check them out.</comment>


Show HN: My first WP8 game – Made with Unity - <AUTHOR> http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=8b8a0c5b-8581-412b-adb7-b2ee047c9e5c <comment><USER2> First: Thanks for launching on WP8 - I see you've already launched it on other platforms so hopefully adding WP8 to the mix was relatively easy.

\- your app is currently using the default Unity logo in the app listing once a user downloads it so you may wish to add your own logo there instead. \- the game itself feels sluggish even when used on a high-end Lumia 920 - I'd check out any optimizations that could be made as other Unity games run far smoother \- the gameplay is entertaining but you may want to add some pickups such as missile-armour or 5sec invincibility, etc as the rockets are very difficult to avoid

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you a lot for the suggestions :-) At the moment I use the free version of Unity which doesn't allow having a custom logo on the splashscreen. The pickup you suggested are cool. Will probably work on this (in my free time).

<comment><USER3> FYI, It is unplayable on my low-end Lumia 520. I'm getting about 1 fps.

<comment><AUTHOR> See answer about the shader above ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unplayable on my Lumia 520. Very laggy. What could be causing this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just found the problem. It's a not optimized shader I left out in the scene. Expect a fix soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can you dodge behind the barrels/rocks/cacti to let the rockets blow them up instead of you?

Also - wasn't really sure what the condition is to get to the next level -- survive for so long?

</comment><comment><USER6> Youtube video, anyone?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not the best video I made, but here it is. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3oPl5FIt5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3oPl5FIt5U)</comment></comment>