Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth <comment><USER2> This game will always hold a special place in my heart. Back when I was 17 I got hospitalized (nothing serious or life-threatening) for a couple of months and back then I didn't have internet everywhere or a smartphone to keep me company. My parents had brought my laptop to me but having no internet was really really boring. I had Linux installed but, alas, in 2006-2007 there weren't many Linux games to keep me company. Luckily after some time I remembered I had downloaded this "Wesnoth" game a few months before, so I started playing it.

Boy, it was a blast, for weeks and weeks I played all the scenarios and campaigns and I got really good at it. Every now and then I go back to it even today, just to play a few scenarios.

I met the main developers at Fosdem this year and they are great people, they are doing an amazing job with this game. Kudos to them.

<comment><USER3> Isn't life strange. I had to wait over 15 years for my computer to be connected to the internet and somehow I managed.

<comment><USER2> Were you stuck in a hospital bed all that time without any chance to go out, see your friends, breathe fresh air or even eat food properly?

I managed to read around 10 books in the first week I was hospitalized, my parents didn't know what to provide me anymore because I just tore through every piece of literature I could find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you haven't seen Wesnoth before, [http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Description](http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Description) may be a gentler introduction than the source code.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is an amazing game. If you are interested in it's structure, there is a good chapter on it here: [http://aosabook.org/en/wesnoth.html](http://aosabook.org/en/wesnoth.html)

<comment><USER6> This is really strange because I read that chapter before checking HN and to my surprise its here. The chapter is a great read and gives some ideas on how to architect a game, especially one that you want the players themselves to contribute too.

A similar game hooked me on programming at an early age. It's called Graal and you had to pay to contribute. I wish I had found this game instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A link to github when the project has a well-made functional website?

Did you want to show us the source code specifically?

<comment><USER8> I'm wondering the same thing. Also, this is not even close to new. My understanding is that it has been open source and freely available for quite some time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've just discovered that one of the biggest contributors [1] is Eric S. Raymond [2], who is the author of The art of UNIX programming [3] and one of the open source contributors of all time I admire most.

[1] [https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/graphs/contributors)

[2] [http://www.catb.org/~esr/](http://www.catb.org/~esr/)

[3] [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/](http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/)

<comment><USER10> FWIW, this is mostly scenario design and writing contributions. Which are of course also important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I don't play anymore, I used to play this game quite often. It is an absolute blast to get a few friends together, hop on a Skype call, and spend the night playing. Glad to see the game is still under development!

<comment><USER12> I started playing Wesnoth in 2005. Practised 'programming' in WML to make custom maps. There was one I designed called 'DOTW' which was a rip off from DOTA. For a good few weeks it was the most played map in Wesnoth multiplayer. Good times.

<comment><USER13> I definitely played that map back sometime between '05 and '08\. It's been a while.

Being reminded that this game exists and seeing that the project is still going makes me super happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a great game and runs fantastic on older systems. I've turned more than one old and "useless" laptop into a Wesnoth/ScummVM/mp3 player box in the past and they work fantastic.

This is also about as close as you're going to get to a native Advance Wars game on PCs. If you've played any of the AW games (GBA and DS) you'll know how addictive they can be.

</comment><comment><USER15> I love this game. I have not played it in a few years (have not played any games in a few years) but this was my absolute favorite somewhere around 2007-2009. A great amount of careful thought went into this game, and you can tell when you play. Also the width of the community ensures a diversity of scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER16> The number of contributors is quite impressive: [http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits](http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits)

</comment><comment><USER17> There's a great port of this on Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androthsof...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androthsoft.battle)

<comment><USER18> Is that legal? That version seems closed-source!

And I couldn't even access the developer's website (www.androthsoft.com). If the money went to the authors/official website I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but in the current situation I'd rather circumvent the official download channels...

<comment><USER19> "That version seems closed-source!"

[https://github.com/cjhopman/Wesnoth-1.8-for- Android](https://github.com/cjhopman/Wesnoth-1.8-for-Android)

The "Is that legal?" question is extremely complicated because you're looking for a positive answer in a marketplace full of a bazillion theoretical negative answers. They're not "selling GPL without releasing the source" as long as github doesn't go out of business. Is it legal, in the sense that there used to be a raging debate if your agreement to sell on the apple store was invalid thus illegal if you "sold" GPL'd software, which I stopped caring about once I got rid of my last iDevice and went all Android, so it may or may not be legal to "sell" GPL software on at least some app stores. Another app store example, for no reason I'm aware of, wesnoth used to be stuck in the incoming queue on fdroid, I donno why or if that was ever resolved or if it had anything to do at all with the license.

"If the money went to the authors/official website I'd buy it in a heartbeat"

Well, CJ is listed by name on

[http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits](http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits)

Along with about 500 other people. I suppose paying one of the 500 is superior to paying none of them. Personally I think the work he did to port is worth a "tip" so I paid for it a long time ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wanted to get into this game, but I seem to remember being turned off by the amount of luck in it. Maybe I should give it another go?

<comment><USER21> While you shouldn't need to at lower difficulties or on easier campaigns, you can always quick save before a move or at the end of your turn and reload if you didn't like the result of your move or the enemy moves. Do it a lot in the early scenarios to build up hero unit reserves and see if you can make it through later scenarios without reloading. Mark the turn start save and try a strategy, if it fails go back to that turn instead of starting over. And note that if your strategy is poor, continually reloading alone won't let you win. (Unless maybe you spend a crap ton of time waiting for positive outcomes of minuscule-probability events...)

Edit: I remembered a quote I liked from early on in Iain Banks' _The Player of Games_. While I still like chess (and take issue with the notion that reality is built on chance, rather than our predictive measurements of reality restricted to chance due to us being part of reality not outside it) I thought this was a pretty great put-down of games without chance at all:

 _" All reality is a game. Physics at its most fundamental, the very fabric of our universe, results directly from the interaction of certain fairly simple rules, and chance; the same description may be applied to the best, most elegant and both intellectually and aesthetically satisfying games. By being unknowable, by resulting from events which, at the sub-atomic level, cannot be fully predicted, the future remains make-able, and retains the possibility of change, the hope of coming to prevail; victory, to use an unfashionable word. In this, the future is a game; time is one of the rules. Generally, all the best mechanistic games - those which can be played in any sense "perfectly", such as a grid, Prallian scope, 'nkraytle, chess, Farnic dimensions - can be traced to civilisations lacking a realistic view of the universe (let alone the reality). They are also, I might add, invariably pre-machine-sentience societies.

"The very first-rank games acknowledge the element of chance, even if they rightly restrict raw luck. To attempt to construct a game on any other lines, no matter how complicated and subtle the rules are, and regardless of the scale and differentiation of the playing volume and the variety of the powers and attibutes of the pieces, is inevitably to schackle oneself to a conspectus which is not merely socially but techno-philosophically lagging several ages behind our own. As a historical exercise it might have some value. As a work of the intellect, it's just a waste of time. If you want to make something old-fashioned, why not build a wooden sailing boat, or a steam engine? They're just as complicated and demanding as a mechanistic game, and you'll keep fit at the same time."_

<comment><USER22> This technique has a (derogatory) name in the world of strategy games, "save scumming". I think in a single player game, the only thing that matters is that the player has fun.

It is more common practice in games like RPGs, but less looked down upon, since certain quest lines and story elements are mutually exclusive. Think of the typical choice of being a "good" or "evil" character, and how they sometimes lead to different subquests.

<comment><USER23> Save scumming is so pernicious and ubiquitous that it's driving the growth of an entire genre in response: Roguelikes!

<comment><USER22> Don't Roguelikes usually enforce restarting the game after death? I thought they didn't allow you to (easily) have multiple saves.

<comment> a-saleh > I thought they didn't allow you to (easily) have multiple saves.

That _is_ the response :-)

<comment><USER22> Oh, I completely misinterpreted the earlier comment! Sorry!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wish they finished Wtactics, the card game. [http://wtactics.org/](http://wtactics.org/)

<comment><USER25> I didn't know about Wtactics. Is it from the same devs?

While I see the value of Wesnoth, it's not my kind of game. Now a constructed card game, that I enjoy!

Browsing that website, I think the game rules should be easier to find.

<comment><USER26> I think it uses the art, or at least was heavily inspired... seems to be something there, but the original programmer moved on to do this ccg instead. [https://github.com/davewx7/Citadel](https://github.com/davewx7/Citadel) (It's still a work in progress, though.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't play the standard Wesnoth scenarios very often anymore, but because Wesnoth has a full scripting language in it to construct custom scenarios, people have invented whole new games for it.

I personally enjoy the "SurvivalX" family of single-unit multiplayer RPG campaigns: you have a party of adventurers, one unit per player, that gain experience and gold through combat, and can develop skills, spells, abilities, new weapons, and otherwise become more powerful, leading up to large boss fights against the leaders of the opposing armies. And when you lose your one unit, you lose.

RPG scenarios provide a very different feel from the standard game of Wesnoth, but personally I enjoy them far more.

</comment><comment><USER28> I am amazed how long this game has existed and been iterated on. I remember first playing this on linux almost a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER29> freeslugs did you make this? If not, why are you tagging it "Show HN"?

</comment><comment><USER30> I remember playing this back in high school many years ago. Kudos to continuing to improve it!</comment>


How to fix JavaScript… maybe - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@wob/how-to-fix-javascript-maybe-8857819bfa16#.36zkd86s6 <comment><USER2> > "Developers create new libraries because they hate other developers style > choices."

Haha, that is _so_ me :)

I think you're onto something here: I see the same proliferation of libraries that do almost the same thing in both Perl languages and Perl does chant the mantra of 'there's more then one way to do it', which does result in vastly different coding styles.</comment>


Facebook's really big plans for virtual reality - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-virtual-reality/ <comment><USER2> The Facebook Rift is DOA. It's lost the respect and admiration of early VR adopters and that market segment is key for tech.

It lost not only on the technical front (by a lot, the HTC Vive destroys it), but on the ethical front as well by introducing console paradigms in a PC ecosystem.

Good riddance! PC must remain an open platform.

<comment><USER3> As Mark Twain said "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

This battle has JUST begun.

Vive barely won first round because of the controllers.

But the battle will be on again when the controllers come out for the Rift. Oculus has deep pockets which are not to be underestimated in this business.

<comment><USER4> Oculus is still a seated experience, NOT room scale!

Even with Touch controllers, there's only a limited space to use it.

Plus you can't magically manufacture something you didn't plan to release - Especially not in a short time period.

<comment><USER5> > Oculus is still a seated experience, NOT room scale!

I don't see what the problem with this is. I want to sit down and play games. I don't want (or have room for) a room scale experience.

<comment><USER4> I've demoed both my Oculus and Rift to at least 20 people, everyone found the Rift to be boring and less engaging. The feeling of presence is completely different.

<comment><USER6> So did they prefer the Vive to the HTC?

<comment><USER4> Ops, i of course meant Rift and Vive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A giant fluff piece really. The HTC Vive / Valve is beating them, and they want some decent PR before the launch of their consumer motion controls. Also justifying the purchase alongside their earnings report.

<comment><USER8> In a nutshell, yes. The fact that it came in Bloomberg(all major investors/traders heavily read) also kind of supports your observation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The 360° video embedded on the top is amazing and Bloomberg is one of the few media companies who uses some serious visualizations.

I guess it's very difficult for FB to own VR since Vive is giving big time competition. Even as a platform, its tough to survive once Sony releases the PS VR platform. On the other hand, Google/Apple can extend their playstore/appstore to support VR content and release headsets which support the phones and get a great market share easily.

<comment><USER9> Just a nit. That's not a video, it's a real-time rendered WebGL scene (using three.js).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow "really big plans" that most be the reason to why they bought one of the the biggest VR companies on the market.

</comment><comment><USER11> On a sidenote... Bloomberg is using Google's new display typeface Space Mono, not only for headings!

</comment><comment><USER12> That's pretty cool how they coded up a interactive demo just for a article.

</comment><comment><USER13> Who wrote this absolute waffle and was proud of it. fewer paragraphs on zucks eyes, "signature look" and admiration of rome would not have gone amiss

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, that monospace is so difficult to read.</comment>


Psychologists say more and more young people are entitled - <AUTHOR> https://www.indy100.com/article/young-people-entitlement-disappointed-narcissism-psychology-research-7867961 <comment><USER2> >Pschology Today reports that some examples of entitlement range from the disregard of rules, freeloading, causing inconveniences and like to assume the role of leader when working in groups.

Disregard of rules, depending on the rule, is fine, particularly when said rules are dumb. You need to be able to know which rules are breakable and which are not. For me, this goes along with the phrase, "Better to ask forgiveness than permission." Example: production issue that is bleeding $5 million a day, but the rule says you can only release on the 3rd Thursday of every month and it's the first Monday. That's obviously a short sighted and very dumb rule. You have justification though so you can probably break it safely. Might want to talk to your superior though.

>freeloading

Depends on what this means. If you are reciprocal, then it's called sharing. If you actually are a freeloader, stop; you won't have any friends for long.

>causing inconveniences

Ya don't be that guy driving 10 miles under in the fast lane.

>like to assume the role of leader when working in groups.

You should totally do this, especially if no one else is willing. If you pin your fate on a nitwit, you will regret it.

Having said all that, news loves talking shit about the newest generation. They did it with mine, until my generation started being the news people. Take it with a grain of salt. Soon your generation will be making fun of the next generation, so tell them the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I understand correctly, this research shows that young people are more entitled than older people. It does _not_ show that young people _now_ are more entitled than young people in previous decades: that a 50-year-old was as entitled when he or she was 25.

This gives me a great excuse to trot out my favorite collection of headlines and quotes:

Young people: the "latter-day cult of individualism; the worship of the brazen calf of the Self." (1907)

Young people: those for whom "the phrase to make a living could have absolutely no meaning". (1968)

The "Me Decade". (Baby boomers in the '70s)

The Now Generation? Slackers? (Generation X)

The Not-Me Generation? (1980)

The Video Generation of "preening narcissists who have to document every banal moment with their cutting-edge communications technology". (1985)

The "entitlement" of Millennials is the same entitlement that plagued their fathers and grandfathers. It's young people in the workforce. Some are idiots, some are limited by idiot managers. Everyone wants more responsibility, and no one wants to wait and get there.

<comment><USER4> The Romans already complained about their youth.

<comment><USER5> A much earlier recorded example: [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128757003002...](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001112875700300210?journalCode=cadb)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I cannot imagine a meaningful discussion starting with the word "entitled". To me it's "I really dislike the fact that you want something, so I have this bad label that I'll apply to you".

</comment><comment><USER6> Can anyone link the actual study? Tried following the links but got blocked by a log-in wall to see the actual study.

Was there a control for the study? What were the questions asked? And how can they draw any conclusions from a group of 170 students (which I am assuming is their study group, unless the paper says otherwise).

It could also be that young people are being asked to do more with less compensations and hardly any positive re-assurance about future stability (jobs, income, housing).

<comment><USER7> Found some coverage that wasn't just copy-pasted between blogs.

[https://www.livescience.com/53591-millennials-dislike- narcis...](https://www.livescience.com/53591-millennials-dislike-narcissism- label.html)

Still couldn't find the studies themselves though.

I wonder if there's any way to the effect of age, as opposed to generation, on the studies. Even in the livescience coverage I wonder if the trend is more recent generations are more entitled than older generations in general (as the submission posits) or if populations become less entitled as they age and if so how entitled were the older generations when they were the younger generations' age?

<comment><USER8> I think they're talking about "Trait entitlement: A cognitive-personality source of vulnerability to psychological distress," based on one of the linked blog posts mentioning Grubbs and Exline 2016. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a free copy. Nor does this seem to talk about generational demographics, so I guess that stuff was glommed on from somewhere else.

<comment><USER7> It was available on sci-hub, but a quick soon didn't find the claims the article made, although I could have missed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awkward phrasing in the OP - they may "feel entitled", but clearly the implication is they aren't _actually_ entitled, hence their narcissistic disappointment. Or to put it another way, 'more and more young people aren't entitled, but feel they are'.

<comment><USER10> If we are getting semantic, the "feel" part seems to be intrinsic to the definition of entitled:

"adjective: entitled

believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment."

<comment><USER11> "verb: entitle

give (someone) a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something. 'employees are normally entitled to severance pay'"

The definition cuts both ways (unfortunately).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Back in my day I got nonsense stories about kids these days from local TV news fluff pieces not this internet clickbait nonsense!

</comment><comment><USER13> > like to assume the role of leader when working in groups

People who assume the role of leader when working in groups may be annoying (and definitely are to me), but they also have better careers and earn more money. If you don't assume such role nor defend turf and other colleges do, you will end up micromanaged and blamed for everything.

The above are reasons in nutshell why parents and educators shape kids to assume the leadership qualities. Because those of us who were raised not to assume them, earn less money and less promotions.

The other thing is that people who demanded better things often got better things and those of us who did not demanded better things, well, did not. Like for example, during salary negotiation. Every single time there is discussion about whether or why women get lower salaries, someone - oftentimes someone older - argue by women demanding less or being less aggressive in negotiation. Why would a parent who has this experience with this trained the kid to loose later on? Then they complain about entitlement when young people (of both genders) listen to the logic behind the argument and are demanding.

By the above I want to say that while it may be overdone in many cases, a lot of it is attempt to adjust to how world works. Overly humble people with low confidence don't build successful companies, don't win and get blamed for their own misfortunes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Related video with some insights into this behavior => Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrT8lJNa9Z8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrT8lJNa9Z8)

Causes mentioned are 1) Parenting, 2) technology, 3) impatience and 4) environment.

#1 most definitely checks out in the US. I have a 17 year old niece (born in 2000) who exhibits the toxic narcissistic and entitlement mentioned about young people in the OP and in the youtube video.

His room is filled with trophies and medals (over 30) and at first glance I thought he was really a future tennis prodigy. Turns out not a single 1 of those trophies and medals were 1st prize, or even 2nd prize. Almost all were "Participation" Trophies. The way he showed them off, one would think they were all 1st prizes.

Growing up in India, we never had anything like this. I was 1st in class for several years at 1 of the top catholic convent schools. The 1st and 2nd in class got books and a certificate as prizes, the rest got nothing. This made it special, so everyone would compete and try to come 1st or 2nd in class.

So I really don't get these "Participation" trophies. By trying to tell the kids - every kid pretty much - they are special, when 99% of them aren't, aren't the parents and school teachers partly to blame for cultivating this "toxic narcissistic" and "entitlement" that they then carry with them for the rest of their lives, into adulthood and into the workplace?

<comment><USER13> Giving every kid the same trophy does not tell them they are all special. Every kid gets the same, so they get told they got the same thing as other kids. So, chill. Your conclusion that trophies in niece room means tennis prodigy is just you having incorrect assumptions about different culture. They are happy memories of event, not proof of skill.

I guarantee you that American high school Football players train damm hard, participation trophies or not. So do chearleaders, although and I admit that I had to see them do stuff to realize that the thing is truly hard.

Occasionally, trophies or t-shirts or whatever engage kids that would not even tried knowing they cant win anyway. Which is about the effect. The idea that these symbols are bane of civilization is as wrong as opposite obsession that lacking them would make kids crumble.

<comment><USER14> > They are happy memories of event, not proof of skill.

Aren't photos and videos sufficient to capture happy memories of events? I thought trophies were given out for proof of skill / accomplishments. Maybe that's not how it works in the US. I wouldn't know, wasn't raised here, but everywhere else in the world, Trophies are not given out to all participants. Cos then doesn't it diminish the accomplishments of the winner(s)??

<comment><USER13> Participation trophy is not for special accomplishment, by definition. Everyone gets it and everyone knows everyone gets it. Winner won and is fully aware, got winners trophy with '1\. place' written on it and prize. In case of more important competition, it would be something real non-symbolic that winner can actually use (like a game). Unless we are talking about competition of pre-schoolers and such in which case fretting over -anything- is royally dumb.

Thinking about it, the actual top prize is sport scholarship for college.

> Cos then doesn't it diminish the accomplishments of the winner(s)??

No, your accomplishment does not count for less because other people got stuff too. However, your accomplishment depends not just on winning, but also on how important/large the competition was. Being first at local school competition is less then being fourth at more important tournament - just like anywhere else in the world.

> Aren't photos and videos sufficient to capture happy memories of events?

Who cares? I guess that they have also some selfies in that room somewhere, however less visible. I just cant muster any anger or resentment in me over somebody else looking at shiny cheap trophy over .jpeg or over wearing t-shirt they gave out or whatever.

We are talking about community activities people organize because they want to do something for community, for club or because they want make kids to like sport they personally enjoy. It is not like they would be becoming rich on that (there are exceptions). I am not going to fret over their choice of giveaways. Nor start doom and gloom accusing them of destroying whole generation because of cheap shiny thing.

I kind of acknowledge that people who organize these things do more for community then those who don't do anything like that and only complain. For that matter, to lesser effect, I acknowledge that kids who participated did better choice then those who never participated in any event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wait, we're sharing an article that quotes "Psychology Today"? Can we get Breitbart's take, too? What does InfoWars think?

So, let's take a look at the abstract of the actual study: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27504935](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27504935)

And, as it turns out, not a word on young people there. The entire study is on a conceptual model of entitlement, and how it leads to disappointment. Maybe the actual study (paywalled) actually does break things down by age, but it certainly doesn't seem to be a major focus.

<comment><USER15> So, digging further, it seems the original press blurb from Case Western laid that trap about "millenials":[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913134442.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913134442.htm)

 _Previous studies show entitlement is on the rise -- so-called "millennials" see themselves as generally more entitled than previous generations;_

It's really hard to say if the study says that, or the study author, or Case Western. If anyone wants to spend $11.95 to find out, let us know.

(But even though I'm not a millennial, I feel entitled enough that I refuse to pay for this :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They respond to the environment the previous generation created for them and now people are surprised?

</comment><comment><USER16> It's "cool" to hate on millennials now for being lazy and such. A hilarious song about it:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpE1Pa8vvI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpE1Pa8vvI)

<comment><USER17> Note that it was just as cool to do that for Gen X when they were at a similar age, and even moreso for the Boomers in their time (who, to be fair, had much more of a highly visible subgroup making a flamboyant show of rejecting their elder's values than either of the following generations did.)

That's just the eternal ways of the world.

<comment><USER18> _The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise._

\-- Socrates

Edit: So it is a common misattribution [0] but it's still pretty amusing. There are plenty of similar quotes throughout the ages so the sentiment is not wrong.

[0] [http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving- children...](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in- ancient-times/)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does this black line occasionally show up on HN? - <AUTHOR> As seen here: http://i.imgur.com/Vrj6PMv.png
Looking at Google Cache, it seems like we all have it today. It is a table row with a column containing an image to a 0x5px gif https://news.ycombinator.com/s.gif
Looking at the an archive from two weeks ago does not show the black bar https://web.archive.org/web/20170331001927/https://news.ycombinator.com/
Does anyone know what it is and why it is not always there? <comment><USER2> It's a mourning band. They're worn to acknowledge the loss of someone important to the wearer. Hacker News puts the bar up when figures important to the community die.

In this case, it acknowledges the loss of Bob Taylor: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/technology/robert- taylor-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/technology/robert-taylor- innovator-who-shaped-modern-computing-dies-at-85.html?_r=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh I didn't know that, thank you for clarifying!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did you try searching for "black bar" in the search box at the bottom of almost every page?

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=black%20bar&sort=byDate&prefix...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=black%20bar&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)</comment>


Current position of the ISS - <AUTHOR> http://iss.astroviewer.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> If you want to spot the _International Space Station_ with naked eye, check out: [http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/](http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/)

You can also check out the crew timetable and listen/watch a live stream of station modules: [http://goo.gl/L2fDJ](http://goo.gl/L2fDJ)

Lastly, if you a view of the earth, keep watching the _High Definition Earth Viewing_ (HDEV) experiment: [http://goo.gl/VcqBQr](http://goo.gl/VcqBQr)</comment>


Michigan launches civic hackathon - Code Michigan - <AUTHOR> http://www.michigan.gov/minewswire/0,4629,7-136-3452-308213--,00.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The state of Michigan is releasing API's this fall on five themes: jobs, tourism, safety, veterans and foster kids. The event will be held October 4-6 at the M@dison building in Detroit in cooperation with Detroit Labs. Register at www.codemichigan.com

If you want to use your skills to give back here's your chance. If you want to start a company and were looking for an idea here's your opportunity. For more: [http://www.michigan.gov/minewswire/0,4629,7-136-3452-308213-...](http://www.michigan.gov/minewswire/0,4629,7-136-3452-308213--,00.html)

This is a project I've been involved with since the beginning. Here's my blog post:

[http://www.codemichigan.com/post/get-your-secret- power](http://www.codemichigan.com/post/get-your-secret-power)

<comment><USER2> this is a great initiative by the State of Michigan. We need more gov agencies to expose their data via public api's for developers to create innovative civic apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> I keep telling people that we can be a leader in Michigan. There are already volunteer efforts underway in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo to create city API's.

Hopefully Code Michigan can put open data on the road map for a lot of other state municipalities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For some reason, I'm always fascinated by governments releasing APIs for public data. It seems like a data set you could do some powerful things with. When governments take the time to build out a nice API to consume this data, it makes me like them more, too.

AT&T just did a civic hackathon in Chicago with Chicago's open data portal: [https://data.cityofchicago.org/browse?limitTo=apis](https://data.cityofchicago.org/browse?limitTo=apis)</comment>


The decline and fall of Lexmark - <AUTHOR> http://lowells.typepad.com/lowells/2009/06/implosion.html

<comment><USER2> For me the end of Lexmark was their abuse of the DMCA.

[http://www.eff.org/cases/lexmark-v-static-control-case- archi...](http://www.eff.org/cases/lexmark-v-static-control-case-archive)

After hearing about that, when people ask me to recommend printers, I'd tell them about Lexmark and their business practices. Do you really want to buy a printer from a company that tries to abuse copyright law to shut out third party ink suppliers?</comment>


Bloomberg stands by Chinese chip story as Apple, Amazon ratchet up denials - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/bloomberg-stands-by-chinese-chip-story-as-apple-amazon-ratchet-up-denials/ <comment><USER2> All this assertion / denial stuff is getting tiresome. If this compromise was implemented at a significant scale, and people in-the-know have figured out how it functions, it shouldn't be too hard to get hold of one and provide a demo.

<comment><USER3> absence of an example device is a strong strike against the Bloomberg article.

<comment><USER4> The burden of proof is on the accuser.

<comment><USER5> The burden's on Bloomberg for accusing China of implanting the devices, or it's on the tech companies accusing Bloomberg of being full of --it, though? Looks like a standoff until we hear more

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> DHS, GCHQ, UK all backing the assessment there was no chip conspiracy.

[https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/10/06/statement-dhs-press- secr...](https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/10/06/statement-dhs-press-secretary- recent-media-reports-potential-supply-chain-compromise)

<comment><USER7> No. A Reuters headline, not borne out by what the article body then says nor by that statement, misleadingly states that they do.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148811](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148811)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If the story is not true Apple and Amazon should sue Bloomberg for misleading the public and hurting their reputations.

<comment><USER9> I am sure Bloomberg had some lawyers in the room when they made that decision.

<comment><USER10> From what I read in "Bad Blood" (the book about the Theranos fiasco) of what WSJ does before publishing investigative reports, you can be 100% that they did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bloomberg says they did a year of reporting, and over 100 interviews, and have around 17 sources. It's hard to believe all those sources conspired to fabricate this story, along with the evidence, and conned the reporters. Bloomberg clearly found something, but if Apple and Amazon are right (I wouldn't assume that; aggressive denials are par for the course), what did they find?

<comment><USER12> Considering the article points fingers at China, I wonder if their evidence was manufactured by someone. Without proof (like a board) or the names of actual witnesses or hard documents or something, its basically unverifiable, like claiming Area 51 has aliens. Without proof it's indistinguishable from fiction.

<comment><USER13> It would be like claiming Area 51 has aliens after over 100 interviews with 17 people familiar with the aliens, including two at Lockheed Martin and three at Boeing.

<comment><USER14> None of whom are identified on the record.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does bloomberg have a compromised motherboard so we can independently verify the claim?

<comment><USER16> > Does bloomberg have a compromised motherboard so we can independently verify > the claim?

It's unreasonable to expect that they would. Bloomberg News is full of _journalists_ , not security researchers. They gather testimony and documents, _not physical evidence_.

Furthermore, the servers in question would have been owned by others: Apple, Amazon, the US Government. It's very unlikely that whatever sources Bloomberg talked to would have had the authorization to legally hand over the servers in question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm expecting third party experts to come out of the woodworks with "look at what we found / didn't find!"

Is there something I'm missing that makes this difficult?

<comment><USER18> It probably comes down to how common the alleged problem boards are. If these devices only ended up in a small percentages of boards produced it might be very difficult to find a board that even had it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Curious. They had mentioned 30 companies. Where are the other 28? Has anything been said about them?

</comment><comment><USER20> This whole business reminds me of the Newsweek reporter who was _sure_ that Satoshi Nakamoto was some random Japanese guy in the Bay Area that she apparently found by looking up "Satoshi Nakamoto" in a phone book. The guy she found was a retired EE who had held a security clearance at Lockheed or someplace like that. He was an elderly recluse whose English skills weren't the best, so when he thought she was asking about classified material, he muttered something like, "I don't work on that anymore," and shut the door in her face. Jackpot, right?

In the old days an editor would step in at some point to save these ink- stained wretches from themselves, but that's pre-Internet thinking.

<comment><USER21> You don't think Bloomberg had an editor review the story before publication?

<comment><USER20> You think Newsweek did?

<comment><USER21> I would like to know more about how things worked in "the old days".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bloomberg pays reporters more if their story moves markets:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18162440](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18162440)

<comment><USER23> > "It isn't news unless it's true. At Bloomberg News, the most important news > is actionable. That means we strive to be first to report surprises in > markets that change behaviour and we put a premium on reporting that reveals > the biggest changes in relative value across all assets."

<comment><USER24> This is a very reasonable policy that doesn't sugar coat much.

Bonus for moving markets -> Incentive to report on highest possible value stories.

High value stories -> Bloomberg gains reputation/highest possible value to stock holders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you knew some of your assets had been compromised..

BUT you KNEW that they were compromised BEFORE you put them into service,

and you made changes that allowed you to spy back on the spyers..

you would deny that the assets had been compromised in the first place.

<comment><USER26> Surely if something was compromised, you'd end the relationship with that supplier? You wouldn't have much incentive, especially cross-border, to bust them in action.

<comment><USER27> Busting them in action wouldn't be of any worth, feeding them false or misleading information would be. Never underestimate governments and their desire to know as much as possible about their friends and enemies and feed them with information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It could be the whole thing is FUD being sowed by someone with an interest in trolling US companies. Russia, for example, for whatever reasons which are beyond me.

</comment><comment><USER29> Most brilliant. These people can conjuring up a fancy spy story while having no idea how a chip is made at all. And is very amusing to see mass acceptance.

</comment><comment><USER30> They have a photograph of the chip and scores of (unfortunately anonymous) sources.

It sounds like some researcher found weird traffic, eventually found there is a chip on some of these servers that wasn't in the original gerber files, and this chip is doing something, and beyond that a lot of people are speculating about who and what.

Apple and Amazon deny that the story is correct. That doesn't mean that there isn't a chip there and they now know what it is doing but are prohibited from saying much beyond the story as a published whole is not true.

<comment><USER31> Was there a picture of the chip released? I have been trying to follow and last I seen was it seemed the pictures in the article was likely an artists representation of the chip. Did an actual picture get released or was there confirmation the picture they released was the real chip? Thank you

<comment><USER32> Just an artists impression.

<comment><USER24> Which is infinitely sketchy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shareholders push to replace Mark Zuckerberg with 'independent' board chair - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/06/facebook-shareholders-urge-company-to-replace-mark-zuckerberg-with-independent-board-chair/ <comment><USER2> if you bought the stock without understanding the corporate charter i have no sympathy for you. This is ridiculous.</comment>


An updated version of the Ninth Edition Unix editor, sam - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/deadpixi/sam <comment><AUTHOR> Ninth Edition Unix came with an innovative editor called sam, that combined an ed-like command language with a powerful mouse-and-menu user interface. Perhaps its most interesting innovation was its use of structural regular expressions.

In the 1980s, it was reworked to use the X Window System. This version is a modern update of that version, supporting colors, 64-bit architectures, keyboard shortcuts, tab expansion, and other niceties.</comment>


Why humans treat their dogs like people - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/anthropomorphism-and-the-world-of-canine-luxuries <comment><USER2> There is a sad new breed of people who think their pets, are more worthy of love than their neighbor.

Love a human. The lonely one may be you.</comment>


Restyled – Consistent coding style with every PR - <AUTHOR> https://restyled.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Repository: [https://github.com/restyled- io/restyled.io](https://github.com/restyled-io/restyled.io)</comment>


Does Apple check for copyright infringement in the app store? - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pikachu-kawai-hd/id367953845?mt=8

<comment><USER2> Apple does not actively check for copyright infringement afaik.

We're not even talking copyrights... you could take someone's app, copy it verbatim (reverse engineer and reuse assets event) and re-release it with the same name and Apple would accept it.

Apple will only step in if a copyright holder lodges a compliant.

[http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/03/counterfeit-version-of- open-s...](http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/03/counterfeit-version-of-open-source- game-being-sold-on-mac-app-st/)

This case was a tiny bit grey, in terms of the licensing agreement. WolfFire lodged a complaint and the App was taken down eventually.

tl;dr; Apple does not check apps for copyright infringement on the App being submitted for review; it only reviews the app upon a copyright holder's request. So don't depend on Apple to protect you from any 3rd party copyright holders.

PS: this obviously does not extend to Apple copyright...

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, they most certainly do during review, at least for recognizable branding, etc. The only app I've had rejected was rejected for potential copyright issues.

The rights to the content in the app belonged to the organization I worked for, and the app was being submitted under that organization's iOS Developer account, but the organization still had to prove it had the right to use its own content with a letter from its licensing people to Apple.

<comment><USER2> This is interesting... how long ago was this?

If you look at the app posted by OP, you'll find that it is a blatant copyright infringement (its god damned PIKACHU for crying out loud). This was posted in April 2010.

Perhaps you were unlucky, or they have updated their review process.</comment></comment>


How Richard Burr Made $185,000 During the Covid-19 Pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://www.govtrades.com/research/burr-covid <comment><USER2> \+ Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Jim Inhofe

[https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/richard-burr-kelly-loeffler- ur...](https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/richard-burr-kelly-loeffler-urged-to- resign-for-selling-stocks-after-coronavirus-briefing/)</comment>


Welcome to Quartz - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/welcome-to-quartz It's great to see someone taking a new approach to news. They really seem to get how people consume content. <comment><USER2> This is UI madness, things hides, moves and pop around with no obvious relation with my input.

The main news timeline is promising though, but greatly needs visual codes for differentiating and qualifying content.

It's great to focus on the content while not putting technology asides, but your publishing tool is also of strategical importance. It's great to have rethought the general way of showing information, but this is, to me, clearly half baked.

Comparing that with your submission title (for whatever it means, it evokes technology), makes me think you have a problem here.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, I just stumbled on this and am not affiliated with it.

Second, I agree that some parts of the UI are overkill. Keep in mind that it has been designed for tablets and phones though: "(...) built primarily for the devices closest at hand: tablets and mobile phones."

The title of this post is taken from the text the link points to. From the text itself: "Developers and journalists, sometimes one-and-the-same, sit next to each other in the Quartz newsroom as we continually iterate and experiment."

I'm simply happy to see someone trying something new.

<comment> wes-exp _Keep in mind it has been designed for tablets and phones though_

This actually highlights one of my pet peeves: that web pages need special "mobile enhanced" versions. 90% of the time, a "mobile web page" is just _worse_ than the original. I have to ask: do the guys designing these "mobile" web pages actually use tablets or smartphones? Because what part of "mobile" means "ruin the usability and make sure a lot of awkward javascript-emulated touch gestures are involved"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The future of news has nothing to do with code. That's just "when all you have is a hammer" talk. We're already trending towards Facebook-ized/Twitter-ized news, and I don't think anyone is impressed. The problem with the news is content, and the people, and I don't think technology is going to help with either.

As an aside, I just bought a subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek on my iPad (first newspaper subscription ever) and I have to say I'm impressed. Quality long-form writing, covering business and Wall Street without the conservative slant of fellatious tone of the WSJ. Very recommended.

<comment><USER4> The first time I have seen the word "fellatious" in the wild - thank you for bringing this gem to my attention :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope it's not written in the same code these guys are using!

OK, that was a bit snarky, but this site's design definitely feels too "clever" and, weirdly, looks like something that might have escaped from a time tunnel to 2006. Since then, everyone has got into the whole minimalism thing, and web design has generally been better for it.

</comment><comment><USER6> _We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview_

 _The financial crisis that recently engulfed much of the world wasn't just a cyclical decline or a correction or even a bubble bursting. It was a breaking point. And its shockwaves exposed a fundamentally changed economic order with new leaders and ways of doing business._

 _Our coverage of this new global economy is rooted in a set of defining obsessions: core topics and knotty questions of seismic importance to business professionals._

I hope the writing in their articles is more straightforward.

</comment><comment><USER7> Reading a manifesto is probably not a good introduction to the site — it's a bit "tell" instead of "show".

Submitted to news.ycombinator about ten hours ago, the qz.com "Check your US tax rate for 2012-and every year since 1913" might show a little bit more of the kind of interactive blah responsive blah storytelling multifluidic blah they aim to do: [http://qz.com/37639/check-your-us-tax-rate-for-2012-and- ever...](http://qz.com/37639/check-your-us-tax-rate-for-2012-and-every-year- since-1913/)

<comment><USER8> That article is a way better intro to the site and frankly sold me on qz.

The content is good - and not content I'd seen anywhere else. More of this will keep me coming back.

\---

Link to the hn thread on that article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4946820>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm failing to see what all the fuss is about regarding the UI on this site. It's relatively minimalistic, easy to navigate, and the header condensing to a smaller version was slightly unexpected but I wouldn't call it "jarring" or a deal-breaker by any means. Someone mentioned that Mashable has a great UI and I'm going to have to strongly disagree. Mashable's UI is horribly cluttered and much harder to decipher, while I had no problem whatsoever navigating and understanding the Quartz site.

I did notice, however, that the header will drop back down when choosing another link or scrolling back up to the top of an article regardless of whether it's the top of the scroll area. This seems more like a bug than anything, not something intentional to the UI.

</comment><comment><USER10> The future of news certainly is not UI code. Code is definitely important for reporting, but much more so for analysis and much less so for delivery. If the NY Times (or anyone else) uses code to crunch through millions of records and finds an important story out of it, I will read that story in whatever format they publish in. If it's not some whiz bang "tablet optimized" CMS, I don't care at all. If I am readying your tablet optimized news site and you don't have the important stories, I will stop reading.

tl;dr it's the content, stupid.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the UI needs a lot of work. When I think of the future of news, I think of something like Mashable's latest UI (which I personally think is quite beautiful).

One comment - when I look at the top bar (side note: the automatic slide is jarring and unnatural IMO), I see titles like "Low Interest Rates". That makes me think of spam/advertisements.

Another one: "The Next Crisis"? Again, makes me think of spam.

I honestly just don't know what I'm looking at on this site. However, I think with some work, this could be interesting.

<comment><USER12> I don't really see how Mashable's UI is in any way new or different. The same sidebar overdose and jumble of unrelated content thrown together on a page. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but eventually I think publishers will figure out that simpler is better. (Also see [http://dashes.com/anil/2012/08/stop-publishing-web- pages.htm...](http://dashes.com/anil/2012/08/stop-publishing-web-pages.html.)) And Quartz, although there's a couple of kinks in their app, is a step in that direction.

Also, you're probably not their target audience. For someone who reads business news, those "spammy" topic titles you talk about are all things e.g. a Wall Street Journal reader is familiar with and cares about.

<comment><USER11> I'm not far off from their target audience. I am a frequent reader of WSJ and other similar publications, and when I see a "low interests rate" title (especially without additional context), I still think of the crappy spam ads you see on msnbc.com or cnn.com.

RE: mashable, to each their own, I personally like the layout; I thought it was pretty simple. 3 columns, more detail as you go left to right.

Though I do agree on the sidebar overdose. I dislike that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think better examples might be:

<http://usatoday.com>

and

<http://app.ft.com>

</comment><comment><USER14> An overreaching, irrelevant slogan title that says nothing. I'd assumed I'd be taken to an interesting article, not a page of links to About Us type info.

</comment><comment><USER15> I hope that the future UI of articles online is not scroll based; not on computers and especially not on mobile devices. I much prefer the "several pages of columns of text" layout, where I can swipe left/right or up/down to read the previous/next pages. That way, I don't get completely lost when scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think a lot of the criticism in these comments is overblown. If anything, I would expect more constructive criticism and feedback from fellow HNers.

Quartz is a fairly new site with a small dev team. The site has had some kinks, but it is slowly coming together, and I think it has a lot of potential.

</comment><comment><USER17> The bar of different categories is really confusing but I appreciate the idea behind this.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does not work with Javascript disabled. Temporarily allow qz.com, still broken. Lots of overly generic and/or suspicious tracking domains blocked. Tab closed.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've seen and read about Quartz and qz.com so many times... I still don't _really_ know what they are or what they're for.

</comment><comment><USER20> am I the only person who gets a loading icon and no content? (Chrome 23.0.1271.97 m)

<comment><USER21> Same.

I've seen a bunch of Quartz articles coming up in the variety of aggregators I use. Unfortunately, they don't load.

Pro-tip: You're trying to get me to spend time reading your content. If I have to mess with my browsing setup to do so, I'm going to skip your articles. And I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nope: the future of news will be written in plain text.

Code might help it get some data, evaluate them, present them in addition to the gist of the story.

But without the plain text, and without emphasis on the plain text, it's not news: it's a lightshow.</comment>


How Photographers Can Make Money without Copyright - <AUTHOR> http://mises.org/daily/5371/How-Photographers-Can-Make-Money-without-Copyright <comment><USER2> Though I have sympathy for the writer's position, he makes a terrible argument.

 _So what does all of this mean for the client? Let's say for instance that you hired Eyesometry to shoot your wedding. Part of what we offer clients are digital files that can be downloaded from a website._

This is a ridiculous example. Wedding photographers are usually paid in advance or make delivery conditional on payment. Some of them assert copyright ownership, but usually those contracts are full of holes, and a court is likely to find that the photographs constitute a work-for-hire made at the request of the wedding couple. In any case, few people outside of the couple getting married and their friends and relatives are interested in copying and reproducing the wedding photographs, so the writer of this piece is not forgoing any significant amount of income by making the pictures available under a CC license.

Now consider the situation where a picture has significant artistic, news, or entertainment value, and multiple commercial publishers would like to use the image for product packaging/advertising/art prints/newspaper features/magazine covers. That's where the real money is in commercial photography, and that's where copyright law is meant to protect the interests of the creator. I don't see any reason why the photographer/artist _shouldn't_ enjoy a temporary monopoly because they have actually created something brand new but have considerable difficulty in controlling post-sale distribution. What good is his creative commons license going to provide if every commercial publisher can just reuse the photograph without paying anything to Eyesometry? One reason that wedding photography costs an eye-watering average of $1000 for half a day is that it's actually very hard to make a living doing stock or news or fashion photography.</comment>


IPhone developer gets a call from Apple regarding his app - <AUTHOR> http://blog.whiskyvangoghgo.com/post/124464610/i-got-a-call-from-apple-last-weekend-a-call-from <comment><USER2> While I never got a call regarding my app, after hearing about app rejections for no reason and waiting 1 month to get a response I was nervous after my first submission. It only took 5 days to get approved, maybe I just got lucky, or maybe the approval process isn't as bad as it is made out to be.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey that's my app! Funny to see this making the rounds.</comment>


Ask HN: Remote travel jobs/occupations? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, I've got a question: Does anyone know of any particular company that hires or a type of occupation that would enable me to travel extensively and work somewhat or entirely remotely? I know the obvious answer might be a trucker or a flight attendant, but I've been dying to find a new career related to IT or Marketing that would enable me to visit new places on a regular basis. Any ideas? <comment><USER2> Freelance software developer.</comment>


Ask YC: Is there a market for 2D virtual worlds? - <AUTHOR>

So the hot trend this month is 3D virtual worlds that are embeddable on web pages, namely Vivaty and Lively. As someone currently working on a 2D virtual world, naturally I was a bit concerned. Luckily, these offerings are half-baked, spotty in platform availability and customization. However, it may only be weeks before these issues are cleared up. Their mere existence is a real motivator for me to release.<p>So, is there a market for 2D virtual worlds that span the web? And what types of people would choose 2D over 3D? How do I cater to them? <comment><USER2> My advice to you is to either market it to kids and their parents, or go 3D. If you market to kids, throw in some ridiculous security, the parents are going to want to see that. If you go 3D, try to get it done in JUST Java or Flash, because that is the only advantage you will have over Google at the moment.

By the way, despite the existence of these other worlds, only Google's Lively matters. None of the others have any ACTIONABLE advantage over Google's, so Google will win. Consider Google Video vs. YouTube. YouTube had several actionable advantages, the biggest of which was the ability to capitalize on copyright infringement. So YouTube won the 'eyeballs' war, and Google had to buy them. I know, it also doesn't hurt when dad-in-law is a big shot in the Valley, but give credit where it is due. The decision to ignore IP law was decisive in YouTube's case. VWs don't have the ability to take advantage of copyright infringement in a similarly simple fashion, so in this case Google wins. If you can think of an actionable advantage then use it. That said, many have thought long on the subject and come up with very little.

The other VWs are, at this point, deciding whether to try to find a niche, or whether they want to enter the pool of VWs that will try to get bought by Yahoo. If you want to enter the 'get bought buy Yahoo or Microsoft' sweepstakes, then write your 3D engine using DirectX. Bonus points for utilizing DirectX 10 ONLY features. Of course, this means you won't be able to compete against Google. It's get bought . . . or bust. If you want to find a niche, then you had better become a game designer, and quickly. What Google's entry does is ensure that, in the future, consumers will be paying only for the gaming components. The 'stand around and talk to people' part they will offer for free. Also, I am 99% certain, that the typical microtransactions will be free as well. You know, the dress your avatar in snazzy clothes, get that cool car, and get that outdoor pool for your penthouse apartment stuff. They can do this because they have advertisers to pay for it. So your niche will need to be a game that people are willing to pay for. Think teenage boys, currently under-served on the web. Look at Jagex and RuneScape.

'To be certain you take what you attack . . . Attack only that which is undefended.'

-Sun Tzu (Military Adviser to the Emperor of Wu)

<comment><USER3> Lively is and never will be a significant competitor to the VW business as we know it now. It's an early prototype of a tiny part of the vision they have; the dipping of the proverbial toe in the water. What Lively and the other Google technologies will grow into will again be a different target market.

More importantly, a VW like that might be a hit for a year or two before people lose interest or something better comes along. But that sort of faddy thinking doesn't interest Google. They're entering the VW sector as groundwork for a service that people will find _necessary_ in 5-10 years time.

My guess is that it'll be Maps, Earth, Street View, Android, Lively, AdWords and many more services all rolled into one big Augmented Reality (in this view it also makes sense for them to take over Wikipedia and Flickr - which they've recently incorporated into Maps).

<comment><USER2> I might agree with everything you have said. The thing is, that this young man asked what he should do. He, presumably, has very little capital, and so should look only at those places that Google is CERTAIN to avoid in the development of its 'Lively' offering. A clear area that Google will avoid is the 'RuneScape' area, or any game serving teenage boys.

Also, if we consider the possibility that you are correct, and 'Lively' will be a hit for a year or two before people move on, this young man will still have trouble. You see during that time he will need to run his own service for free. Additionally, all of Google's users will be learning that everything should be free. When they are bored with Google, they will come to him looking for free entertainment. See the problem?

<comment><USER3> No problem. If Lively becomes popular it's still not going to be in the same market space as what the OP is doing. Not all Virtual Worlds share the same market. Google don't want to take over any and all VW, they want to be the platform that VWs are built on.

Lively's just a tech demo. Google are competing with Metaplace and Metaverse, not the VWs that are built on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You have a distinct advantage over a 3D world if you don't need a special plugin (other than a bog standard Flash player) and it works in the most common browsers (Firefox, IE6, IE 7, Safari). Cater to what people would have installed at work, in net cafes and assume that they only have what Windows Update provides at home. That maximises your user base.

There's no shortage of 2D games at the moment - think of the success of the Nintendo DS. Your VW competitors aren't WoW or LotR Online, they're Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is where I'm pretty screwed. The current engine uses SVG. I don't see a solution for animated SVG in IE. Right now it only works in Firefox, but I'm sure a little tweaking would make it work in Safari and Opera. And that means iPhone!

<comment><USER3> SVG on the iPhone would be a big plus. All the web-based clients use flash so can't be accessed on the iphone.

I'm sure there's a SVG->VML javascript toolkit out there somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would say both both yes and no.

No! if you are going to have the same features as in 3D VWs. Because features borrowed from 3D VWs don't look the same everytime.

Yes! if you are developing something very nice and that its going to be uber- cooler than a 3D world that already exists. The first thing is the creativity of the features in the VW. So it all depends upon your creativity.

And for the audience to cater to... It's all upto you. But since kids nowadays seem to have the statement "3D is cool" engraved in their minds, you need to develop something too coooool for them to forget the fact that they are paying something 2D. If you feel tough to do this, then I suggest you first develop a prototype with the coolest feature you think your VW is going to have and open it up to your close friends and colleagues. Ask them to play with you when they return from office or college. They might be tired and might be interested to play/hang on the VW for some fun. There starts your road to fame/shutter. It all depends how you carry it. Surely go niche first to an audience you think you can get easily(people you know) then open up.

</comment><comment><USER5> YES.

the 3D worlds are just a fancy gimmick -- come on, you all recall criticisms of 3D games these days not having the gameplay ingenuity and values of the older 2D games which, while having less eye candy, were at their core just plain better. It's possible that a 2D world can be more popular...

Look at Habbo. It seems extremely successful an was built on shockwave in 2D.

Ask yourself: is there really a critical function in virtual worlds that an extra dimension buys you?

</comment><comment><USER6> I've always thought about developing a mmo/virtual world set in a original nes zelda style world

It would be pretty easy from a programmatic and art level.

</comment><comment><USER7> As long as there are kids aged 4-10 I would expect there to be a market for engaging 2D games. My kids used to spend hours playing Pokemon and stuff like Puzzle Pirates <http://www.puzzlepirates.com> and Horse Isle <http://www.horseisle.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Pokemon was awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would if the 2D art was nice enough, e.g. <http://www.dofus.com/en/mmorpg/online/images.html?cat=4>

<comment><AUTHOR> That is pretty. Maybe I should stop working and just play Dofus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There might be a market for selling vitual worlds to VCs. And the best bit about that business plan is that you don't need to stress over dilution :)

</comment><comment><USER10> If you have something the others don't, there could be.</comment>


The Google Lunar X Prize's Race to the Moon Is Over. Nobody Won - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/science/google-lunar-x-prize-moon.html <comment><USER2> I work with a former GLXP team (PTScientists from Germany). We left the prize in early 2017 and will launch in 2019. We're actually grateful for the GLXP. It opened doors, it did spread the word and created a community, it forced us to push through to meet deadlines. We had to develop business models (the prize itself wouldn't cover the costs) and adopt a professional mindset while not losing the hacker approach. And while nobody won the prize, the primary goal (kickstarting an ambitious private space industry) was accomplished.

That said, we still offer payload capacity to the lunar surface and lunar orbit. Since there's not much time left, it should be rather small and nice (think CubeSat format). We provide transportation, energy, communication. Don't be shy, fellow hackers, ask me. Here or under jk at ptscientists.com

<comment><USER3> Seconded. I worked with Astrobotic ([https://www.astrobotic.com](https://www.astrobotic.com)) while at CMU, and many of us have the GLXP to thank for becoming better engineers and leaders.

<comment><USER4> What years? I visited Dr. Whittaker and David Gump in ~2010 to present an analysis of their business plan. At the time I was thoroughly impressed with the tech/team and equally unimpressed with the business case Gump had made. I hope things have progressed since then because I'd love to see (some iteration of) the lander I touched actually reaching the lunar surface.

My favorite part of this encounter was how convinced I was that my team was teasing me when they insisted Red would tell 'the gorilla story' within 20 minutes of meeting us. Lo and behold, no more than 10 minutes in he tells us about the time he wrestled with a gorilla ('way back before animal rights was a thing'). What a fascinating guy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Prizes are useful in bringing credibility to an industry, inspiring entrepreneurs and investors, and attracting new customers to an industry. Both the aviation and space benefited from the Orteig and Ansari X prizes.

But, by challenging people to perform what are essentially stunts, they do not always address the fundamental technologies required to truly move a sector forward. And that can have deadly consequences.

Lindbergh's flight greatly boosted an accident-prone commercial aviation industry at a time when efforts to improve its safety had barely begun. The accident and death rates increased.

Winning the Ansari X Prize left Rutan and his team over confident in themselves and their technology based on an incomplete flight test program. The result has been four deaths and more than a decade of frustration and broken promises."

[http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/05/20/tale- prizes/](http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/05/20/tale-prizes/)

<comment><USER6> There are a lot of X Prizes. Many, like the lunar prize, are not dangerous.

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

The entire debate about a particular prize being nothing more than a stunt is a debate that doesn't fit well on HN.

A private group getting to the moon and sending video back, could inspire others, which could get NASA a larger budget, or lead to more VC funding.

<comment><USER5> > _The entire debate about a particular prize being nothing more than a stunt > is a debate that doesn 't fit well on HN_

The article compares the Ansari X Prize [1], which Scaled Composites won, to the Orteig Prize [2], which Charles Lindbergh won. It's a statement on the efficiency of prizes, generally, in fostering technological change. Not a complaint abut a specific prize.

The evidence the author collects, across multiple articles and many decades show prize money is better spent on other things. The "inspire others" and "get NASA a larger budget" or "more VC funding" bits don't happen, or don't happen as effectively as if those goals had been directly pursued, _e.g._ paying for PR, lobbying or actually making the VC investments.

The optimizations made to win the prize rarely translate into broader success. The resulting disappointment(s) and inevitable hype-cycle end can end up doing more damage in the long run.

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

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

<comment><USER6> There are dozens of "X Prizes". The idea goes back hundreds of years.

[https://longitudeprize.org/about- us/history](https://longitudeprize.org/about-us/history)

I think you'd have a really hard time raising the money to pay for lobbying to get more research.

<comment><USER5> > _There are dozens of "X Prizes"_

I don't condemn prizes as a category.

The Longitude Prize and DARPA's self-driving car competitions were successful. Here's what differentiates them: the people who wanted to buy the product set the rules of the prize to yield something useful to them. The products of the X Prizes either have terrible product-market fit ("market" to be read broadly to include non-commercial users) or pursue the wrong goal ( _e.g._ manned spaceflight crowding out launch-cost reduction, _et cetera_ ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It isn't like $20M is killing the balance sheets at Google. It seems silly that they wouldn't just leave it out there "indefinitely" until it was claimed.

<comment><USER8> These prizes should be left to automatically compound interest/investment until they're claimed.

<comment><USER9> True, that would strengthen the business case for participants in subsequent competitions.

<comment><USER10> Disagree. What's the management cliché? SMART goals — Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Assignable, Relevant/Realistic, Time-bound.

Without a time constraint, most people[citation needed] keep putting things off until later.

<comment><USER11> In general, you are absolutely correct. But with competitive pressure it might be different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "Many now believe [landing on the moon] is no longer the sole purview of a > few government agencies, but now may be achieved by small teams of > entrepreneurs, engineers, and innovators from around the world."

It's odd that Google would cite this as the outcome of the Lunar X Prize: if anything, the failure of the Lunar X Prize is strong evidence _against_ this very belief.

</comment><comment><USER13> Since there seem to be some people from the industry around, I'd like to ask: how are we doing with writing software for such safety-critical systems? Do we still use C and try to have it statically verified by various tools? Write the software multiple times and have instances of the functionally same systems running in parallel, Andy see if they agree on which action should be taken? Can dependent and/or linear types help?

<comment><USER14> I interviewed at SpaceX and asked them what they use to write code that runs in the rocket. It's all plain C and everything must be declared before hand - in other words, there are no dynamic allocations anywhere in the code.

<comment><USER15> This is typical for embedded software in cars, planes etc. Most of that C code will be generated though.

<comment><USER13> What would you be generating the C from? Are there any open-source tools that generate this kind of C?

<comment><USER15> Features will almost always be modelled in a tool like Matlab/Simulink, which has a C generator specifically aimed at automotive software. Similar tools that are used by EEngs, MechEngs etc. have the same functionality.

The support software underneath (equivalent to the OS kernel, OS libraries, frameworks etc. you would use to run desktop apps) is typically configured in one or more AUTOSAR[1] tools. The exchange format for AUTOSAR is .arxml, which is a horrible adaption of XML. These tools will also take .armxl files as input and generate the source files that contain the standard components, the drivers, the glue code for inter-component communication etc.

Only the software components that are not covered by the AUTOSAR standard or handed down by the car manufacturer as standard components will typically be written by hand, though even for those we will increasingly often write generators in e.g. Python. That's because different versions of the same car, different target plattforms (that is car models) etc. will often use different subsets of features, different internal networking, different messages etc. and since everything has to be set statically before compile time, we need to generate different versions.

TBH I doubt that much of that is open-source. There is a reference implementation of AUTOSAR and there are some code generators that are FOSS as part of the genIVI project. But practically all tools you would actually want to use are closed source and super expensive. That's one of the major reasons why the push for open-sourcing automotive software is not going to lead to anything.

[1] AUTOSAR is an international standard for automotive software architectures and components/APIs/etc. that is aimed at making software modules more or less plug'n'play between different SW vendors, car manufacturers etc. All of this is statically "linked" at generation time! The software will not even compile if things don't match exactly. The first version of a Linux-based Adaptive AUTOSAR that basically works like Android has been released recently, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think there's still a private race to the moon. Some companies, notably, Astrobotic and Moon Express still seem set on getting there and have business models even though they dropped out of the Google contest.

[http://robohub.org/glxp-update-penn-state-lunar-lions-now- in...](http://robohub.org/glxp-update-penn-state-lunar-lions-now-in-3-spot/)

<comment><USER17> There's the NASA CubeQuest challenge. Cubesats on the EM-1 mission.

[https://www.nasa.gov/cubequest/details](https://www.nasa.gov/cubequest/details)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The X Prizes have a fairly lousy track record so far. Disappointing, and rather damning for the "moonshot" approach to innovation (as opposed to good old fashioned incremental engineering)

<comment><USER6> "...as opposed to good old fashioned incremental engineering"

There was no opportunity cost. You can have both.

<comment><USER19> you can hire the people to work in engineering teams, instead of having them work in weird, not too constructive competition settings

<comment><USER6> There are billions of billion. You can have both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Turns out no-one has $200 million to spend on winning $20 million. Weird.

<comment><USER21> Seriously, that's a laughably low "prize". If you could make it to the moon for < $20 million, the US government would have military bases there for cheaper than it costs to build a single fighter jet.

<comment><USER22> I agree that this is a low amount, but I don't think the goal of a program like this is necessarily to fully pay for the cost of the project. After all, the winner hopefully has a useful asset at the end of it (a spacecraft, or self-driving car, or whatever else). I think it's more of a subsidy: "if you were thinking about designing a spaceship, here's a way to get it done for $20 million cheaper."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just in time for the falcon heavy. The first rocket i can remember where I can go to website and pay for a lunar transfer

<comment><USER24> Space Adventures have been advertising a lunar mission for a decade or so on Soyuz, they just needed two people willing to split the cost. [http://www.spaceadventures.com/experiences/circumlunar- missi...](http://www.spaceadventures.com/experiences/circumlunar-mission/)

<comment><USER25> The cost given is ~"it depends, contact us" (ie they don't give a cost).

<comment><USER24> Presumably anything like this is going to be POA, but originally they were quoting about 150m: [http://www.businessinsider.com/space-adventures-moon- launch-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/space-adventures-moon- launch-2016-1?r=US&IR=T&IR=T/#since-launching-businessman-dennis-tito-up-to- the-international-space-station-iss-in-2001-space-adventures-has-been-the- only-company-to-send-private-citizens-to-space-1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well at least no one seems to be sour over it, unlike the cancellation of the genomics x prize, which really ticked off several of the entrants. Whoever was running that one should be embarrassed.

</comment><comment><USER27> Instead of going to the Moon, why not just create a self-sustaining vehicle that can allow humans to survive sustainably in any terrain, desert, forests, mountains, land, sea, lake or water. On soil, above or underwater.

And make it a race prize competition similar to Google Lunar X Prize Race.

</comment><comment><USER28> >The foundation raised the possibility of a new sponsor or continuing the competition without any cash prizes.

Can that be read as a possible sign that Google has less cash to spend on such projects nowadays? Are they trying to save the money?

</comment><comment><USER29> From an idealistic standpoint, I'm disappointed. It sucks seeing one of the few "highly" visible efforts on this front "failing".

From an realistic, utilitarian standpoint, I can understand why this happened.

</comment><comment><USER30> One of the best approaches, IMO, was Cringely teams' with multiple attempts.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think the biggest problem is radio communication !?

<comment><USER30> The biggest problem - maybe 90% of the task - is to get there. Then from the remainder the biggest problem - in terms of required mass - is radio communication (if you choose radio). At least that's what my analysis was giving me.

<comment><USER31> I think getting there is a question of how many canisters you can fill with gas and water. I think it would be fairly cheap if you have small enough payload. A quick calculation: You would need to fill up around 25,000 pipes and have 160 stages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Sad.. I always thought that the most innovative method for winning the space X prize would involve blasting many tiny robots to the moon, perhaps using balloon assisted launch.

<comment><USER33> The spacecraft was also required to travel 500 meters and transmit high-def video back to earth.

<comment><USER34> I always thought someone would put a tiny rover, perhaps a couple of kg, there and make it work. Using non-space-rated electronics, and making it up on the shielding is pretty risky, not NASA style but I figured for sure someone would roll the dice.

<comment><USER35> If you were going to spend the enormous amount of money required to send something to the moon, you'd probably use space-rated electronics. I'm guessing the electronics make up a minuscule fraction of the cost, so why risk a super expensive mission to save a relatively small amount of money?

<comment><USER34> Not money; weight and time. Working with off-the-shelf components is much faster, and usually weighs less. Shielding is basically fancy foil; it weighs precious little. I used to wrap components in the Air Force and the rule was don't exceed three layers when touching it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> we're just going to have to go ourselves.</comment>


Whatleads.to – collaboration tool based on theory of change - <AUTHOR> http://causehub.io/words/introducing-whatleadsto

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty slick experience allowing you to build up a tree of cause and effect and brainstorm as a group around problems, ideas, solutions, vision.

I especially like how you can add a node at any point in the tree, and "focus in" on any particular node.

Disclaimer: this project was instigated and came out of Geeklist #hack4good which I coordinate globally. I am really impressed with what this team has built!

</comment><comment><USER2> You can access the website directly at [http://whatleads.to](http://whatleads.to)

</comment><comment><USER3> If the UI of tree is just like in that [http://causehub.io/words/introducing- whatleadsto](http://causehub.io/words/introducing-whatleadsto) , I feel it little bit cluttered..)

Otherwise its nice idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very cool idea, if it does what I think it does.</comment>


Bing vs Google. Does Microsoft know Europe, India & China exist? - <AUTHOR> http://thebln.com/2010/02/bing-vs-google-neck-neck-in-the-us-rest-of-the-world-only-one-winner/

<comment><USER2> Bing _must_ use this plan of attack. It's by far the smartest approach (of those I can think of, anyway). Hear me out:

Bing's presumed goal: overtake Google on a global scale, right? At first glance, it may look like they're ignoring the world outside the U.S., but that _isn't_ the case. They're just biding their time. (Pulling an Onyx, if you will.)

 _Why not just take on Google all over the globe to begin with?_ I can think of a couple reasons:

1\. They might not know how. Microsoft and Google are both American companies with mostly American employees, so they may seem like they're on equal footing to compete both within the U.S. and abroad, but Google has years and years more experience in trying to solve the international puzzle. Bing can't compete with that yet, and they know it.

2.a) If you know you can't compete, DON'T. If Bing were to launch a global attack on Google right off the bat, they'd essentially be diverting troops from a (perhaps) winnable battle in the U.S. in order to fight an extremely uphill battle everywhere else, a battle they know they'll lose initially.

Both of those would be very harsh realities for Bing to face. Too harsh.

2.b) Bing needs to give themselves the best possible chance to win in the U.S. because it's by far their best chance at both initial and longer-term success. You can't win a global war if you can't win a battle in your backyard.

2.c) But perhaps even more importantly, Bing knows how badly they'll lose in international markets at this stage in their development of their search technology, the vast majority of which has been developed by Americans, for Americans. If they make a truly concerted effort anywhere else and still get their asses kicked, it's far worse for their future international prospects than losing before they start trying. Were Bing to devote a ton of manpower and resources to say, Brazil, and still lose to Google there, it'd be an asskicking PLUS press coverage, the latter of which would risk turning potential Brazilian users off to a future, much-improved, "Brazilian" Bing.

Conclusion: Bing's optimal international strategy _right now_...

...is to lack one entirely. Bide time. Devote all your manpower and resources to fight over the American market for now. Improve your search technology until you can legitimately compete with Google at home. Then, once you can do that, optimize your search technology for a few key international markets. Thanks to your success in the U.S., you'll be better able to give Google a serious run for their money in whichever markets you choose to take a stab at. Rinse and repeat.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bing india maps are obsolete. In some cases showing 30 year old data. Entire cities are not on maps.

</comment><comment><USER4> It might not be a terrible strategy overall. Bing is the least unsuccessful Microsoft foray into the web so far, and it's heavily built around a combination of: advertising the site, having tie-ins to things like Bing Shopping, and cutting default-search-engine deals. It's probably easier to do all that by focusing on one country or region at a time.

<comment><USER5> An autocomplete list is automatically generated, so doing it on a by-country basis should not be that hard. The big time investment is doing it for one country, and I imagine rolling it to analyze other countries' data is straightforward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They're competing for the most lucrative advertising market (by far). Why is that surprising or even bad business?

</comment><comment><USER7> Extraordinary. You would think that Microsoft would be able to offer some insight and value beyond a pretty anodyne list of companies from the US. The lists in the links to Google autocomplete suggestions by country offer a great insight into the psyche of different nations. I am left with the impression that contrary to my expectations, American Googlers are far more boring and predictable than those in other countries.

<comment><USER8> Are you from America? If so, it would make sense that you would find people from the culture with which you are more familiar would also be the most boring. I imagine an Indian would be similarly bored to discover that many Indians search for information about cricket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is not the first time MS have focused on their home market, for example Zune HD and the music subscription service is still not available in Europe.

<comment><AUTHOR> Has this been a successful strategy?

<comment><USER10> Would it have been more successful if they had fragmented their efforts further?</comment></comment></comment>


Best Business Books 2008 - <AUTHOR> http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/08408?gko=1691e-1876-27265441 <comment><USER2> Do they really expect me to create a username and login to their site just so I can click a link? And its for a strategy-business site? Really?</comment>


Internet Marketing Best Practices by Mike Mann - <AUTHOR> http://internetapplications.com/

<comment><USER2> total fucking crap. mike mann is an idiot who got lucky as a speculator.</comment>


The Design of Dirty Bomb - <AUTHOR> https://www.dirtybomb.com/news/the-design-of-dirty-bomb/https://www.dirtybomb.com/news/the-design-of-dirty-bomb/https://www.dirtybomb.com/news/the-design-of-dirty-bomb/ <comment> tony-allan [https://www.dirtybomb.com/news/the-design-of-dirty- bomb/](https://www.dirtybomb.com/news/the-design-of-dirty-bomb/)

</comment><comment><USER2> That URL is screwed up.

<comment><USER3> Radiation-induced mutation.</comment></comment>


WWE Leak Exposes 3M Wrestling Fans' Addresses, Ethnicities and More - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/07/06/3-million-user-information-leaked-by-wwe-tracking-ethnicity <comment><USER2> It's interesting to blame Amazon here, someone has to intentionally change the defaults to make the data public.</comment>


Show HN: Linguaquote – Professional Translation Management - <AUTHOR> https://www.linguaquote.com <comment><AUTHOR> Background:

Site in development from idea to now for some 5 years. 3rd iteration, finally ready to release though. Lots of learning to get to this stage, with plenty more to go, I'm sure.

Doesn't need thousands of accounts to be profitable, so hoping in the next 3-6 months I can get some sales under my belt and continue to improve things.

This phase actually feels like the hardest part. I know people say that if you're marketing at launch you're too late, I'm not in a particular hurry to rush to profitability. Cautious growth, bootstrapped, is the approach. I've got all the runway I need.

Questions about stack, purpose, market fit etc. all welcome. Also of course comments on look and feel especially welcome.</comment>


Canada's secret plan to invade the U.S. – in 1921 - <AUTHOR> http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/09/09/bcst-books-thread-canada-invasion <comment><USER2> I'll bet Canada has a plan to do that even now, and vice versa.

Drawing up that type of plan is the military's _job_. There are undoubtedly plans to invade every country, including Monaco, the Vatican, and Iceland. It doesn't mean that an invasion is immanent, or even expected. You always plan for the worst-case scenario.</comment>


The $10k Golden Apple Watch Is No More - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/09/the-10000-golden-apple-watch-is-no-more/ <comment><USER2> The $10k version seemed a marketing ploy to avert the "it's too expensive!" complaints about the lower-end model prices, by creating an upper bracket so high complaints about lower prices became cognitively unviable. This indeed worked, as base-model price complaints largely vanished when the Edition was announced.

The new ceramic version, at $1249, seems a much more sane upper end for those wanting to spend more for finer materials (a common motivator in watch buyers) despite no added functionality.</comment>


Bringing Swift NIO to the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.alwaysrightinstitute.com//nio-on-the-client/ <comment><USER2> Great article, I love seeing server and client side worlds colliding. It reminds me of the early days of lib-uv/nodeJS. In addition to the swift NIO specific endeavors I'm excited about the integration work with Swift package manager (spm) and xCode. I think there is real impact on sharing server side and client side models/serializers similar to Android and JavaScript isometric models. It's not effective for every project, but for many iOS first endeavors itnhas real value in the design & define stages of app creation. Very cool</comment>