It's hard to laugh at what used to be funny - abe-epton http://abetriesagain.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-hard-to-laugh-at-what-used-to-be.html <comment><AUTHOR> There's a bit of the whole Dreamworks vs Pixar thing.

Monsters vs Aliens was cute, timely, and throughly enjoyable. UP was downright brilliant and clearly timeless. Pixar consistently produces a form of the art that is simply higher than Dreamworks can even approach.

We see this in stand up as well. There are comedians who are topical, or who test social norms. And then there are comedians like Brian Regan who tell jokes which appeal to everyone and always will. And then there are comedians like George Carlin who tells jokes which are topical, test social norms, AND manage to age well.

There's nothing wrong with telling jokes which don't age well. It's easier. If you're going to do a show which runs every night, or every week, for many many seasons: for goodness sake, tell some jokes with short shelf life! You'll never make it otherwise.

If you make a great animated film, and people pay to come see it, and they walk out with a smile on their faces, and that's what you set out to do: you have succeeded. If you wanted to make sure they were still smiling, after the 100th viewing, 20 years from now... well... then you're going to produce fewer movies, and you're going to work harder to do it. And maybe you go home more fulfilled at the end of the day. Or maybe you don't. _shrug_

<comment><USER2> _There's a bit of the whole Dreamworks vs Pixar thing._

Ok here we go...

 _Pixar consistently produces a form of the art that is simply higher than Dreamworks can even approach._

The thing about that is, that the two studios produce films for completely different markets. Dreamworks focusses directly on producing films for children (with a few outliers) and Pixar focusses on producing films for everyone (with a few outliers)

Pixar's process is more story focussed than other studios, A typical Pixar film usually has a 4 year production cycle in which the first two of those are spent primarily on writing and rewriting the story to get the "feel" right. Even then, they have no problem with changing the story at the 11th hour.

Case in point - WALL-E's ending was originally very different with WALL-E originally saving EVE from the trash compactors (essentially larger versions of WALL-E for irony). After the film was complete and was screened in Portland, Andrew Stanton changed the ending to what it is today. The story flows better.

Compare that to something Dreamworks. Dreamworks focusses on making films which are more technically proficient and aimed at children (Kung Fu Panda was astounding from a technical standpoint and dominated the "Annies" last year, which is the animation industries version of the Emmys).

Dreamworks are more focussed on the business side, rather than the entertainment side of the process.

That's also why Dreamworks films are typically heavily backed by merchandising and advertising blitzes, because of this focus.

So it's difficult to compare the two, it would be like saying a Michael Bay film is comparable to a Tarantino film. The fact is, they have different markets and so approach the filmmaking process in different ways.

Nobody in their right mind would try and compare the two film styles.

Lastly, before you try and judge Dreamworks' animation pedigree, Jeffrey Katzenberg co-founded the studio and he was responsible for the classic Disney franchsies between 88 and 94 like The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast (which I might add is the ONLY animation film EVER to be nominated for best film at the Oscars).

<comment><USER3> Didn't you just say the same thing as the guy you replied to?

From your first line I was expecting a rebuttal.

<comment><USER2> Actually I thought I explained it well enough.

He's saying that Pixar films outpace Dreamworks films from an artistic point of view, because they both use the animation artform to tell their story.

I'm saying that both studios have different primary goals, one is squarely focussed on maximising profits while the other is more focussed on 3D animation as an artform (which is apparent given its catmull/lasseter pedigree).

That would be like trying to compare the artistic values of a Tarantino film to a Michael Bay film, which nobody in their right mind would - yet because the two studios use animation as an artform (instead of filming actors in the tarantino vs bay scenario which would be a classic apples vs oranges argument), people automatically lump them together... which is fundamentally wrong.

Now if you want to discuss two animation studios which have similar goals - Pixar vs Blue Sky Studios is definitely good for comparison, Pixar vs Dreamworks, however, is not.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should have read my entire message:

"If you make a great animated film, and people pay to come see it, and they walk out with a smile on their faces, and that's what you set out to do: you have succeeded."

You simply rehashed what I said, added some angst, accused me of comparing apples to oranges. You then proceeded to compare the same apples to the same oranges. Evidently, you can compare them; we both drew the same comparison. So... I'm confused... what's the problem here?

<comment><USER2> Actually, I thought I had added additional information about technical proficiency in that same post but I got it mixed up with something else I argued some weeks ago on here.

The only way to accurately compare the two would be on a technical proficiency and currently, Dreamworks edges out Pixar in that department, but by such a small margin that it's almost negligible.

If we were to do a year by year comparison, UP and Monsters Vs Aliens were very similar (although some of the lighting in UP was fantastic, Jeremy Birn does some great stuff, I've read his book, fascinating stuff)

Last year though, Kung Fu Panda was simply astounding from a complexity issue. Fur + Cloth and having cloth interact with that fur, especially when you're considering the fact that the character rigs have to do very complex manouvers to perform the kung fu moves... that's simply astounding.

Even moreso when you consider that when the cloth was interacting with fur, it would flatten it when it would move over, with the fur springing back up afterwards (eg, master shifu) - Cloth + Fur are typically the hardest things to do in 3D, so having both work, plus on the scale that some of the scenes did (the revealing of the dragon warrior + the crowd) shows just how amazing the film was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It has nothing to do with the humour becoming dated. It has to do with the humour being fresh. Humour by definition involves people suprising you. People you know very well have a much lesser ability to surprise you, and their attempts at humour fade from make you roll on the floor with laughter to simply smiling.

Comedy has to stay fresh and constantly reinvent itself. It has to run to stay at the same spot.

<comment><USER5> True, but "Who's on First" is still one of the funniest things you can find. Not all humor needs to be fresh.

<comment><USER6> It's funny the first few times you hear it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've found my humor threshold has increased dramatically over the last few years. I'm not really sure why; it just takes a lot more to make me laugh than it used to.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a sad story. Personally, I tend to laugh at everything as much as I possibly can. I've heard that you live longer. And even if that's a lie, I'm living better.

<comment><USER7> I guess I'll try and work on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Python lives on because it is uber-genius. Same with the Marx Brothers. Not every artist has what it takes to outlive an age. The Beatles come to mind. As opposed to, say, Donovan (google him)

[edit]: another example: Richard Pryor, vs most other standups from his era

</comment><comment><USER9> The Simpsons was never a brilliant show. It was good, and you can still watch old Simpsons and enjoy it, but it was never mindboggling genius.

Ditto Monty Python. For all the clever ideas, the execution often left something to be desired. Once you know the skits, you start to realize how poorly many of them are done. Monty Python has some exceptions, however: the Life of Brian has some excellent moments, and post-Python many of the team members did some great stuff.

In a way we can relate that to startups and design. If you have a brilliant new idea, then you're a gem up to the moment that somebody else does your idea better or goes further with it. If you take an old idea but polish it till it shines, you don't have the same novelty but you've got something that will last for a long time.

I can't think of much TV to compare to, however, because most television is so incredibly poor. Arrested Development, perhaps? I can see that one withstanding the test of time.

<comment><USER10> I will have to disagree. While I'm not a huge fan of The Simpsons, I can recognize that the comedic landscape is forever changed as a result of The Simpsons and Monty Python. In dismissing those that implemented the idea first, you're minimizing the genius involved. Things like humor just become dated, that doesn't mean that it isn't genius for its time. It just becomes so integrated into society that we become immune to it.

It'd be like suggesting Newton wasn't a genius because a 12-year-old can understand Newtonian mechanics.

There are those gems that survive the test of time and remain funny (for me: "Who's on First", "Caddyshack", "Office Space", "Dumb and Dumber"), but that doesn't minimize the landscape altering humor of such stuff as Austin Powers, South Park, Napoleon Dynamite, even if you're sick of hearing "Yeah Baby, Yeah!"

And yes, Arrested Development is bloody amazing.

<comment><USER9> But that's exactly what I said. The Simpsons implemented an idea, then, as other people implemented as well, their original triumph became dated.

That doesn't always happen, because if the end result is really labored away on, then it lasts the test of time, at least to some degree. South Park is actually a good example, where even as it's no longer the most offensive thing out there, you can still get a big kick out of Season 3 because they were putting in some genuinely brilliant jokes.

<comment><USER10> _Meta-comment:_ I think people are being excessively harsh in downvoting you. Your comments are contributing to the topic at hand. People shouldn't be downvoting you simply for disagreeing.

 _Back on Topic:_ But as you said, I don't think we disagree all that much, though I do feel that brilliance or genius can be attributed to something that is extremely funny at first, but may diminish in strength over time. Indeed, I have a feeling that perhaps the _funniest_ stuff (laughing out loud and peeing your pants funny) is the stuff that eventually gets old, because it becomes overused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just consider time a very good test of whether a comedy, a show, or a movie has any originality in it.

I still laugh at many of them dating back 10-30 years but for some it's just plain obvious that they were never genuinely funny.</comment>


Reinventing Version Control with Glitch Rewind - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/glitch/reinventing-version-control-with-glitch-rewind-914c350da442 <comment><USER2> Heh, this reminds me of how I've always thought that, for many people in many situations, Plan 9's "yesterday" was probably an ideal version control system. This is obviously much richer than that interface, but I think there's some merit to going to a simple rewind/restore over all of the complex DVCS branching semantics we've gotten used to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, exactly - I think most people only use a few commands typically, so we're optimizing for that. And it's still Git under the hood should you need to dig in to do something more complicated.</comment></comment>


How to Lose Friends, Citizens and Influence - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323848804578607472987119796.html?dsk=y

<comment><USER2> Just like the WSJ.

Bullying countries into diverting planes because they might be carrying a whistleblower (Snowden), not a problem. Trying to get rich people pay their taxes, big problem.</comment>


How to Disinfect a Police Car in a Pandemic: Make It an Oven - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/business/coronavirus-police-cars-heat.html <comment><USER2> That's a very clever solution. I've been making it a point to leave my car out side in the sun rather than in the garage for the same reason, though it probably doesn't make much difference given I'm only driving once a week at most.

Does anyone know how accurate the 133 for 15 minute assertion is?</comment>


Ask HN: Best practises for solo developer? - <AUTHOR> Being a solo developer is hard for numerous reasons:
1. You miss bouncing ideas off others (which most of the time results in quick useful feedback) 2. You are at a very high risk of missing deadlines since there're no mandatory hours to put in ! 3. Without a boss/peer team the risk of distraction is very high, often jumping between projects or dropping some of the projects altogether. 4. Technical risks like - no code reviews, no good QA etc.
I'm sure there are many more.  But what I'm interested to know is , if there're any suggestions/recommendations for making the best of solo development and overcome some of the limitations mentioned above. <comment><USER2> For all the reasons listed, and because working alone means there is no one with which to share the misery when things don't go well, the objective best practice is probably to find another developer to work with.

The second best practice might be remaining aware of all those risks.

The third best practice? Perhaps realizing that all of those things are sort of normal among ordinary humans and just to accept that fact.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not clear if you're asking about solo developer or "solo company" as it were. Anyway, typically if you're doing a startup the advice is to get a partner. Then maybe you're not so solo anymore. If that's not possible, then expect to spend lotsa time on marketing instead of coding :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Measure the hours you spend on each task, then view them in aggregate.

If you were your only employee, would you be happy with the output?

Pair up with another solo shop for pairing/code reviews.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can still stand on the shoulders of others when you are a solo developer. That might sound obvious, but you can offload an enormous amount of brain- power to the work of others due to the neural nature of the net. I consider the net my 'exobrain' and it's worth learning how to get answers rapidly using multiple different search engines. Google is handy, but it's worth investigating the native search capabilities of other sites.

One obvious search mechanism is, of course, Stack Overflow. HN's Algolia search is another. Personally I run Searx[1] locally and permanently have it open when coding.

[1] [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx)

</comment><comment><USER6> I am working Solo, but I get to bounce ideas off my spouse who also works in IT though it is sporadic at best. I am proactively trying to do this more, as it helps to air my ideas and it is much easier to recognize rabbit holes.

I am by no means an expert in this but the following things helped. At present my time is limited and if I don't take efforts to monitor my activities, I easily fall prey to distraction and procastination.

* Maintaining a list of things to do. If the first thing you do when you sit down to work is wonder what is it that you have to tackle next, thats a recipe for loss of productivity. If you have a list of tasks ( as granular as possible), ordered by priority if possible, you can hit the ground running.

* Try to have more realistic expectations of what you can accomplish. Try to estimate how long each task will take for you to do and then double that estimate. Knowing how long each task is gonna take will cut down on anxiety.

* If you are a solo founder starting out, product validation is much more important than QA. Once you have customers though, it is important to avoid any disruption in services.

* Release often even if only you will see. Make incremental updates. Always start with something very small but working and keep adding features. Immediate visual feedback of seeing your changes at work will do wonders for your morale.

* If you are doing multiple projects, some preliminary documentation should be in place so you can context switch easily from one project to another

* Though all these help me a lot, I have just started following most of them and it needs lots of discipline. I need to be mindful of what I am doing. Whenever I slip, I just try to get back up and start again.

* I also need to find a way to handle situations where I run something and it needs a minute or two to finish. I end up wandering to HN or News or Youtube and lose track of time. Maybe another list of micro tasks :)

Another idea is to use spacemacs. I have been a vim user for a long time. The idea of using emacs for browsing , task tracking and coding sounds appealing as probably there is lesser chance of distraction. Can someone comment on whether it is a good idea or another wild goose chase?

All that said, if I am exploring a new feature or tech, it often lacks structure due to it's lack of clarity and the time estimate for it is widely off the mark. Yet to find a way on how to tackle this. For now, the only option is to set some hard deadline. If there is no light by the deadline, that line of exploration has to be dropped. Maybe the unpredictability just has to be embraced and accepted.

Also, there was a website with stackoverflow kind of setup for solo founders and freelancers to interact and 'feel like an office' setup. Unfortunately I have not used it in some while and forgot theurl.

</comment><comment><USER7> One suggestion I can make is to make objective facts your friend.

Judge yourself against genuine accurately measured metrics. Hold yourself to some minimum/acceptable/excellent standards.

Example:

Problem: You are at increased risk of turning into a hermit.

Expectation: I must attend no less than 6 meet ups per year (roughly 1 every 2 months). I should strive for 12 per year.

(Some of you might say that's too low, you can adjust for yourself, don't get too excited by setting yourself stressful goals.)

Have some excel spreadsheet or something and measure it.

The gist of my suggestion is one word, quantify.

This can be easier said than done and it's certainly not the only option. However it's a good option because metrics don't lie and in the absence of other methods to keep yourself in line you have to rely on an honest source of truth.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you talking about doing freelance or doing your own thing?

Anyway some things I've found useful:

Freelance: Do work in a company first because it (hopefully) gives some exposure regarding QA/CR and generally putting code out there. The whole process. For deadlines, if you have a deadline you're about to miss you better work harder and require a longer deadline for the next project. Each new project I take on I require longer and longer deadlines, if it is impossible just say no.

Solo: Use the app/service yourself constantly for the bugs, create beta tests for the rest. I've found that you only need 1-2 people as beta testers if they are genuinely interested in the product. I've had essay written to me about features.

<comment><AUTHOR> More like doing your own thing - could be a side project or you could be an individual contributor but part of an established organization, where you are expected to deliver on your own (ex: Software Architect, Specification guy etc)</comment></comment>


CIA contractors likely source of latest WikiLeaks release: U.S. officials - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks-idUSKBN16F2AP <comment><USER2> Has Wikileaks ever published a bad leak?

I'm not talking about their write-ups and descriptions -- which I sometimes find sensationalized -- but the raw data. I don't remember any instances where they have published falsified information.

<comment><USER3> Me neither, which is surprising. I would have expected the CIA to feed them some false flags to then discredit them from a long time ago.

<comment><USER4> I'd always assumed they spent a large amount of their time sifting through Fake Leaks from well-meaning cranks, internet trolls and various agencies trying to poison the well, looking for stuff they could corroborate to some degree.

I didn't actually check the timelines, so I could be well wide of the mark here, but had assumed these leaks were published after the NYT article about the frequency of North Korean missile failures went out too, which would lend a degree of public legitimacy to the leak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I heard about them in 2015 from somebody at Homeland.

It wasn't just the CIA guys

<comment><USER6> If by homeland you mean the US then the FBI is likely involved since the CIA doesn't cover internal affairs.

(IIRC, not a US citizen or resident)

<comment><USER7> DHS: [https://www.dhs.gov/](https://www.dhs.gov/)</comment></comment></comment>


Can anyone tell me what these services do? - <AUTHOR> https://communities.intel.com/thread/33910 <comment><USER2> The moral of the story here for developers is, if you present the user with some scary string they don't understand, they'll overreact and do rash things like disabling chunks of your working, tested software, and probably accuse you of being in bed with Holywood and the NSA in the same sentence. Better to just bury the DRM bits so nobody would ever notice, saves a few hundred threads over the lifetime of your product relating to random crashes caused by machines with chunks of your code in a disabled/inconsistent state.

The moral of the story for users is, you should be used to this. 99% of the code running (or regularly updated) on your machine has no scary labels attached to it. You're running Chrome? Well, they're pushing fancy new ways to fuck with your privacy every day. They just don't install services named things like "address bar keylogger service", "automatic upload your bookmarks service", "youtube DRM service" or whatever else.

<comment><USER3> The moral of the story is that if you have in mind something like "The Intel(R) Content Protection HECI Service", which according to their explanation really is intended to connect to intel's servers in order to enforce some restrictions on hardware that I own, then perhaps the best way to go forward is to :

1) not develop it in the first place;

2) if you really need to develop it, not install it on my computer;

3) if you really need to install it, not bundle it and ask explicit permission.

Software connecting to the vendor for updates is one thing; software connecting to vendor with scans of my machine in order to 'ask permission on how to operate' is different. There can be valid uses for this (say, PunkBuster), but that's why they need to come with (a) separate explicit warnings, and (b) option to not install it (even if it will mean 'not being able to play certain premium videos' as Intel explains).

Simply bundling it in without such a question at installation is definitely wrong and should be made illegal - it might already be illegal under EU privacy laws, but I'm not sure.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps there should be better advertising regulation for tech like Blu-ray that require features like online revocation checks, but Intel certainly isn't the aggressor here, and kicking at its shins for implementing a feature that you paid for seems a bit silly.

I don't like that the dominance of Blu-ray and DVD forced DRM systems upon the mass market, and there's little we can do about it. But more than that, I hate threads (that have been around since the DVD days) full of impotent, righteous indignation. If insufficient people are willing to vote with their wallets (or letters to their governments), then DRM is simply a fact of life we must learn to cope with.

As far as health warnings go, as my original comment mentions, there is little more dangerous in some online DRM check than the 99.99% of other code running behind the scenes on the average user's system. If we're to talk about freedom to use our appliances as we choose, at least frame the argument more cohesively (and include things like Chrome in the process).

<comment><USER4> > there's little we can do about it

Absolute nonsense. We can lobby to have DRM-encumbered media state it explicitly on software packaging, not unlike the poison warnings on cigarette packaging. It's a horrible concept that deserves little else than derision and ridicule.

I'm in favor of a sliding scale of awfulness in DRM -- from simple watermarks, passive interference with gameplay, to always-on spyware. Innocent users get caught up in the DRM shitfest and their experience with the software is severely degraded where it can get so bad that people cannot even use the software/media _that they paid for_.

I'm not even going to get into the silliness of _not owning_ the software/media that you pay for (eg: buying an ebook where _you don 't actually own_ your copy, but instead you're licensing its usage).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On page two they have the answers[1]:

Thank you all for your patience. We were able to get complete clarification on the services that were installed and running. The first service in question was the Intel(R) Content Protection HECI Service.

That service does the following:

 _The Intel(R) Content Protection HECI Service is used to enable premium video playback (such as Blu-ray) for Intel® HD Graphics. It does not collect any user information. Disabling the service will prevent certain types of premium video from playing on the system; however, unprotected video such as user- generated content and YouTube videos will continue to play._

The second service in question was the Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service.

That service does the following:

 _"Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service - Intel(R) ICCS" is a service used for accessing the integrated clock controller in the PCH to adjust the clocks to the CPU (BCLK, DPCLK, and DPNSCLK). The graphics driver uses this service to adjust the graphics clocks (DPCLK & DPNSCLK) to perform clock bending. Clock bending adjusts the display clock frequencies to reduce screen flicker. Originally access to the ICC registers was only available internally to the PCH's embedded controller (ME) so the registers were exposed to host through the HECI interface. On Intel® 8 Series PCHs and beyond, the HW has changed allowing the graphics driver to directly access the display clock registers, and the "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service" should not be necessary with those chipsets. In addition the "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service" is used by the Intel eXtreme Tuning Utility (XTU) to perform overclocking. Overclocking is more complicated with its larger frequency range and dynamic configuration, so the PCH's embedded controller and SW service are used to abstract the ICC implementation. Disabling "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service - Intel(R) ICCS" on Intel 8 Series PCHs will only impact the ability to do runtime overclocking with the XTU. With older chipsets, it will also disable the ability to do clock bending (meaning you may get additional screen flicker). "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service - Intel(R) ICCS" does not collect any information._

We apologize for any confusion or misleading that may have been created by not having this information posted at an earlier time.

[1] [https://communities.intel.com/message/205908#205908](https://communities.intel.com/message/205908#205908)

<comment><USER6> A bit more PR detail on the Content Protection HECI Service aka 'Intel Insider' -

[http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2011/01/intel_insider_- _wh...](http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2011/01/intel_insider_- _what_is_it_no/)

<comment><USER4> Makes me wonder why it's being bundled with drivers instead of being a stand- alone software package. I could see the argument that it's _somewhat_ related to the usage of video cards, but it's a shitty argument with little basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They do explain on page 2: [https://communities.intel.com/thread/33910?start=15&tstart=0](https://communities.intel.com/thread/33910?start=15&tstart=0)

<comment><USER8> January to September? That is a LONG time to answer 2 simple questions. I fear the lawyers had to get involved.

<comment><USER9> Having once worked for Intel, that seems about normal for vital information to pass from one fiefdom to another. The poor sap manning the forum wasn't saying "we're not telling you", he was saying "they're not telling me".

(Now, if the other guy thinks you're encroaching on his turf, the response time approaches infinity. In that case pretending to be a member of the public on a forum might be an effective strategy; if I'd listened to Andy and thought of it myself I might still be there.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "You have asked Firefox to connect securely to communities.intel.com, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure"

Problems?

<comment><USER11> Their certificate is messed up, it doesn't seem to have an issuer.

<comment><USER12> I think they've just fixed it, it has one now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why do people think it matters what they say?

I don't think it changes anything whether they say what their software does or not. You run their software in binary form, having no idea what it does. You have no way to verify whether what they say is true.

Mind you, I use Apple machines, so most software that I run comes in binary blobs and I have no idea what it really does. But it wouldn't matter to me what Apple "said" about it. What matters is what Apple does, and most importantly, where I they make money and where their strategic interests lie. This is what I base my (very limited) trust on.

<comment><USER14> > You run their software in binary form, having no idea what it does. You have > no way to verify whether what they say is true.

Sorry, but it's a bit tiring seeing this blanket statement. You can absolutely verify what closed source software does. starting from low tech approaches:

* dissasembly, decompilation and debugging. This is standard old-school reverse engineering. Native code / bytecode is source code, it's just not optimised to be read by humans. :)

* monitoring systemcalls - on Unixes you have strace and other similar tools which allow you to monitor all the systemcalls of an application. This should show all interactions with local and remote data.

* dynamic binary analysis - tools like DynamoRIO and Pin run native code in a system similar to a JIT engine. You can transparently add code which will report what the application does.

* data tracing - using dynamic analysis or managed languages. Data can be tagged based on source (e.g. treating input from files as sensitive) as it is being processed by an application. When that data is pushed outside the application using systemcalls, you can determine where it was coming from, even if it's encrypted or obfuscated. There is a project which implements this on Android (and the results are quite scary): [http://appanalysis.org/](http://appanalysis.org/)

<comment><USER15> That's a valid point, but there's a difference between what software _does_ , which you're recommending you divine based on historical activity, and what it _can do_ , which remains unknown.

Even disassembling provides only a limited view into the code itself. If this method worked every time, we wouldn't have viruses. There are ways of concealing the true functionality of a piece of code to make disassembly and interpretation extremely difficult.

Granted this is true with pure source code as well, but usually subversive code is much more obvious. This is not always the case, though.

<comment><USER14> You're right about this. Dynamic analysis instance is only useful if the application goes on to the relevant execution path, and static analysis is made quite difficult by dynamic generation and a few other tricks.

However, if hidden behaviour (e.g. backdoors) is a concern, you can implement fine grained access control based on historical activity.

Anyway, my point is that for almost every problem in this area there's a solution. But I think the main issue is that there isn't more pro/consumer software for this kind of auditing / sandboxing. I guess that has to do both with user education (no interest) and industry being afraid of transparency.

<comment><USER15> Access control is going to be pretty hard to implement for something like EFI firmware, CPU microcode, or other forms of embedded software.

As much as people whinge about sandboxing, I think it's a great idea and hope there's more of it. Apple's model for OS X where certain kinds of apps come with certain limitations, but there is a switch for people to opt out of those restrictions, is a great compromise. Safe for users with limited technical ability and wide open for those that need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since it's binary-only closed-source, even if they told you what it does, you'd have to take their word for it. Whatever the two new services are, for all you know, they could be things the drivers already did, just now they are neatly organized as Windows services and not just built into the driver itself.

I really can't understand the reason to make such a fuss.

<comment><USER17> >Since it's binary-only closed-source, even if they told you what it does, you'd have to take their word for it.

That's what's really funny about this. Had they just given some broad, general answer, it wouldn't have been an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It makes me uneasy how pervasive DRM is becoming and how it's infiltrating lower and lower levels of hardware. We're already 90% of the way to not actually owning our own machines anymore.

<comment><USER19> There's a great talk about the coming "War on General Purpose Computing": [http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html](http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html)

<comment><USER11> Coming? It's already here. And your iPads are part of the problem.

<comment><USER16> Proprietary software is the technology that enables it.

<comment><USER11> Media-consumption devices are the problem. If the primary aim of your device is to _consume_ media (and that's what tablets are for), then DRM playback is socially unavoidable at this point. DRM begets DRM, and lo...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Intel refuses to say what the software they installed does

Is this not the very _definition_ of software in binary-only form?

<comment><USER21> There is a difference between knowing what the software does and _how_ it actually achieves it.

<comment><USER22> Is there? Are you sure about that?

<comment><USER23> Being a smartass, aren't we?

Is there a difference between knowing what pressing a gas pedal in a car does and how it does that? Surely there's none.

<comment><USER24> But you can test what the gas pedal does pretty easily. I think parent's point was that without peer review source code audit, we just have to take it on trust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Linux adoption might get a serious kick the in pants if mainstream news started reporting that Intel was installing unknown drivers in their cpus.

I am just about ready to switch to linux for desktop after windows xp updates cease. I've been using it for over a decade in the server environment so it is overdue.

<comment><USER11> _" Linux adoption might get a serious kick the in pants if mainstream news started reporting that Intel was installing unknown drivers in their cpus."_

Because the general population cares so much about understanding what their computers do, right? I don't give a damn about what my car engine does, as long as it gets me from A to B without exploding.

Linux adoption will dramatically increase only if this sort of software starts making serious trouble for final users, like refusing to play unlicensed MP3s or deleting your family videos because they were encoded with unlicensed tools. They are not that stupid... yet.

<comment><USER26> Well as TPP showed Hollywood demands are insatiable. So if we have in Windows 10 - Microsoft Genuine Media Advantage Validation that makes the built in antivirus to mark unsigned mp3-s and mp4-s as viruses I won't be surprised. That is assuming you could load your own files on windows machine by that time.

<comment><USER11> s/Windows/Windows, OSX, iOS, Android and ChromeOS/g

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> On my new notebook I have some more services and _drivers_ from Intel (even firefox add in!) that allow "remote management" and "remote authorization" they are potentially even more worying. The hardware and drivers are supposed to allow Intel to manage my notebook?

The notebook is made by Acer. If any company which has own drivers can have remote access or have their hardware and/or drivers phone home with the data from us, we're really in trouble.

Yesterday we've found that LG TV sets push to some servers all the filenames on the local USB seen by the set. The comming years are going to be hard.

<comment><USER27> So I also have these Intel services for which I don't know the whole purpose:

-Intel Capability Licensing Service Interface

-Intel Dynamic Application Loader Host Interface Service

-Intel Management and Security Application Local Management Service

-Intel Managementand Security Application User Notification Service

I also observe that in the folder with HeciServer.exe that is in c:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\ there are also iclsClient.dll and iclsProxy.dll but also openssl libraries and certificates, so obviously at least Intel's HeciServer phones home.

Even stranger, all these services add immense amount of additional entries in PATH, because there are 32 and64 bit versions and they need all every folder thaey use (and they use a lot) in the PATH. Which also means that they somehow don't know what they are doing as with manifests they wouldn't need PATH entries for DLLs at all. And I can't imagine that one service invoke command line for another one.

Intel made a lot of mess now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For what it's worth I've been trying to get NVIDIA to tell me what "NVIDIA Capture Server Proxy" service does for a few days. It recently got installed and if you search NVIDIA's website get get nothing.

I did a chat with a NVIDIA tech and they said "It is related to shadow play. please do not worry about it"

I asked for some documentation and they replied "These are development application so we do not have any documentation on this"

Uh, wtf?

I've recently figured out what 'shadowplay' is but the lack of documentation and reluctance to talk about the service is disturbing.

<comment><USER29> And shadowplay is ...?

<comment><USER28> It's a video capture technology.

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

<comment><USER29> So shadowplay is a way to record your screen without you noticing a slow-down in the computer.

That Nvidia installed that without asking may actually be a rather worrying thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What bothers me is how they say "source codes" instead of "source code".

<comment><USER31> His name is probably not really "Michael" ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> They've given a detailed explanation. They should have done so to begin with instead of deploying their most cryptic forum rep.

</comment><comment><USER33> Today I found out I inadvertently bought an Asus motherboard with a service called "Intel Management Engine Interface" (mei) which "enables remote accessing to the PC including the management, monitoring and maintenance irrespective of the operating system state and PC power state as well".

[http://intelmanagementengine.com/intel-technologies/all- abou...](http://intelmanagementengine.com/intel-technologies/all-about-intel- management-engine-interface.html)

It sounds to me like an official backdoor and I only found out about it because it conflicted with suspend to RAM. I removed the kernel modules for this service but couldn't find a way to disable it in BIOS.

Surprisingly - the product page doesn't contain any information about the presence of MEI whatsoever.

Needless to say, I'm not very happy about it.

<comment><USER34> Oh, this is quite cool when you're in a corporate environment. It originated from servers (iRMC and others) and is now a cheap alternative to additional hardware monitoring cards.

<comment><USER33> I understand that it's pretty nifty in corporate environments. At the same time, however, it sounds an awful lot like a backdoor that works even with the PC turned off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Are the 'intel employees' the ones with _intel in their usernames on this forum? These users aren't even marked as admins, just normal members... This doesn't inspire confidence in these answers.

</comment><comment><USER36> My HP laptop had a similar issue: the fingerprint software (made by Authentec, owned by Apple) wanted an online connection for no good reason (I blocked it with a firewall), and the control buttons software used to run a dozen instances of a "DownloadAD.exe", taking up to 500 MB of RAM for no reason whatsoever (I deleted the executable).

So duck these kinds of software/services that the owner of the hardware "doesn't need to know/worry about".

</comment><comment><USER37> " _There is not a certain way the Intel Content Protection HECI Service, and Protection FW Intel Integrated Clock Controller Service can be explain what they really do. That information is kept with the engineers._

" _Also for the proper functionality of the graphics driver, I would not recommend you remove them._ "

And I just got my new answer for technical questions that I don't want to deal with.

Thanks, Intel!

</comment><comment><USER38> I think this is an issue of incompetence rather than malice. Also, the title is misleading.

</comment><comment><USER39> That information is kept with the engineers in their ivory tower. Probably mining Bitcoins with it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Premium content my _peep_

If someone els is running software on your system, it's not your system anymore.

</comment><comment><USER41> I morbidly wanted this to be another NSA scandal.

</comment><comment><USER42> For those who needs TL;DR - the The Intel(R) Content Protection HECI Service is getting disabled :D

<comment><USER43> Those who want's a TL;DR probably wants a correct one.

Intel(R) Content Protection HECI Service

 _The Intel(R) Content Protection HECI Service is used to enable premium video playback (such as Blu-ray) for Intel® HD Graphics. It does not collect any user information. Disabling the service will prevent certain types of premium video from playing on the system; however, unprotected video such as user- generated content and YouTube_ videos will continue to play.*

Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service

 _"Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service - Intel(R) ICCS" is a service used for accessing the integrated clock controller in the PCH to adjust the clocks to the CPU (BCLK, DPCLK, and DPNSCLK). The graphics driver uses this service to adjust the graphics clocks (DPCLK & DPNSCLK) to perform clock bending. Clock bending adjusts the display clock frequencies to reduce screen flicker. Originally access to the ICC registers was only available internally to the PCH's embedded controller (ME) so the registers were exposed to host through the HECI interface. On Intel® 8 Series PCHs and beyond, the HW has changed allowing the graphics driver to directly access the display clock registers, and the "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service" should not be necessary with those chipsets. In addition the "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service" is used by the Intel eXtreme Tuning Utility (XTU) to perform overclocking. Overclocking is more complicated with its larger frequency range and dynamic configuration, so the PCH's embedded controller and SW service are used to abstract the ICC implementation. Disabling "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service - Intel(R) ICCS" on Intel 8 Series PCHs will only impact the ability to do runtime overclocking with the XTU. With older chipsets, it will also disable the ability to do clock bending (meaning you may get additional screen flicker). "Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service - Intel(R) ICCS" does not collect any information._

<comment><USER11> TL; DR:

\- Intel(R) Content Protection HECI Service: Yo dawg, I've heard you like DRM, so I put some DRM in your DRM'ed hardware.

\- Intel(R) Integrated Clock Controller Service: should help not frying your gpu & getting less flicker on older cards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> if they knew, they will tell you. don't be too critical of them.

</comment><comment><USER45> There are answers on page two and this all played out months ago. Waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER46> they do ssl error</comment>


Classic Usborne Computer Science Books/Comics as PDFs - <AUTHOR> https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-books/ <comment><USER2> I really wish more publishers openly took the approach "we're not monetizing this anymore, here it is for free". It would help combat the damage of our extended copyright terms a lot.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Scroll down to download free copies of the Usborne 1980s computer books. NB > these programs don't work on modern computers.

This is sad to read when there are ways to make them run on modern computers! You'd still have to type the listings though (unless someone OCR'd them all...).

<comment><USER4> Indeed. For anyone interested, PC-BASIC might scratch the BASIC-on-modern- hardware itch:

[http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/](http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/)

From the docs [0]:

" _PC-BASIC is a free, cross-platform interpreter for GW-BASIC, Advanced BASIC (BASICA), PCjr Cartridge Basic and Tandy 1000 GWBASIC. It interprets these BASIC dialects with a high degree of accuracy, aiming for bug-for-bug compatibility. PC-BASIC emulates the most common video and audio hardware on which these BASICs used to run. PC-BASIC runs plain-text, tokenised and protected .BAS files._..."

[0] [http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/doc/2.0/](http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/doc/2.0/)

<comment><USER5> Or you could try GLBasic.com, a BASIC dialect that is cross platform compileable and fast. Has 3D capabilities too.

<comment><USER6> Is it compatible with the code in the books that we're talking about?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had a C64 but no software, so I had to make my own by typing out the code from these books by hand. I love them though be warned that the programs are much simpler than the covers would lead one to believe.

When I was done, I realized I knew how to code basic. No one had to explain loops or goto or if after you type it in a few times.

I will add that OCR is not going to help you because a lot of the code was PEEK and POKE. I suppose your basic interpreter could also emulate the C64 memory space.

<comment><USER8> Yup. I grew up in a solidly blue collar household that didn't have much money to spare. We got a Vic-20 at a garage sale, and I learned how to program by borrowing these books from the public library. Eventually we upgraded to an XT that came with GWBasic and I was blown away by how much more I could do (640kB of RAM! I can do anything!)

</comment></comment><comment> open-source-ux These are really well written guides. They are more readable and enjoyable to read than many programming books published for adults today.

I've often wondered why programming books don't use simple graphics or diagrams to illustrate programming concepts. Anyone writing a technical guide (of any kind) would benefit from reading these as a source of ideas and inspiration.

</comment><comment><USER9> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11051095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11051095)

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting. I've got several friends and family that "sell" Usborne books. I always figured it was just some MLM scam and always just told them no thank you when they tried to give me a catalog or a link to their really-long-url- with-numbers.sales.usborne.com page. But they actually look like a decent company. I'm kind of embarrassed now.

<comment><USER11> Not sure of their business model or their quality now, but content wise they were definitely a decent company. I grew up learning to code with their books about 30 years ago and they were great books, really made with care. An almost heroic effort given the niche market for that at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A great find. I remember having Machine Code for Beginners (IIRC) which I got after learning some BASIC. I think it put me off machine code for several years as it seemed to go on and on about how difficult machine code was. (It is/was, but some encouragemet would have helped).

</comment><comment><USER13> I used to get these books out of the library when I was about 8 years old. Unfortunately the code often wouldn't work as I was attempting to use the BASIC interpreter on my IBM XT. I never understood why but those PEEK and POKEs can't have helped...</comment>


Glibc Adventures: The Forgotten Chunks [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.contextis.com/documents/120/Glibc_Adventures-The_Forgotten_Chunks.pdf

<comment><USER2> I find it telling that the recommendations for mitigating these sorts of vulnerabilities include adding some slop to the end of allocations (which I believe will only prove to make off-by-one errors "acceptable" when they are clearly still incorrect; perhaps we will see off-by-two error now…) and introducing more randomization to allocations.

This second point I find particularly insidious because the very essense of this paper is that other attempts at randomization (e.g. ASLR) have been found wanting: as long as overflow is feasible there will be creative ways to access the instruction counter.

I wonder how much performance would degrade if a language with a similar runtime to C but with bounds checking (e.g. Ada or Rust) were used to write this sort of software. It seems like the only reasonable way to completely prevent these exploits, and I suspect profiling would reveal there are still hot-spots where selective optimization could bring performance back on par (if it is not already).</comment>


Protect Your Productivity: Block Incompetent Usability Annoyances - <AUTHOR> http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/01/protect-your-productivity-block.html <comment><USER2> _> Snap achieves its wicked mischief through loading JavaScript from its site; if the HTTP request fails, then it can't fuck up your browser. _

Alternatively, just use Firefox with No-script. Then when they read this blog post and change stuff coming from spa.span.com to spa2.span.com, or to somerandomstringthatssolongyouwontpredicit.span.com, the Javascript trying to make the request still won't work.

Or if a whole new site comes along that does basically the same thing, you'll block that.

Also, most blogs have RSS/Atom feeds which area a</comment>


Show HN: Send Your Favorite Articles to the Future - <AUTHOR> http://timecapsule.io/

<comment><USER2> I love the simplicity of the idea. Good luck with it!

I'd prefer it just sent me an email with all the links i've accumulated every week or two. I don't know exactly when I'll have time to read stuff but I could see myself getting into the habit of just looking back into your emails for specific articles.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love your design, but in Firefox for me the middle section under "it's as easy as" is not loading, and the "start using timecapsule" button is covering a phrase starting "Do..." at the bottom of the screen.

<comment><USER4> I am having the same problem on Firefox, but otherwise I think it is a great idea. As mentioned, you should consider how to handle articles that might get lost or deleted. It would also be interesting to allow to share a Timecapsule with friends (might have it already, haven't checked it out yet) so they can contribute to the same Timecapsule and have something to talk about sometime in the future. Keep up the good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys for the feedback in Firefox. I'll check it out. I think a few people maybe having a problem with the big black box (a video). Sharing a Timecapsule could be interesting! I'll keep it in mind for the next version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice, but it doesn't seem that useful for myself.

I normally don't know when I'll have time to read something, I just save for 'later'. I use Pocket for that.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a nice idea. I would use this so save articles or even bookmark them for later use.

This can be improved by implementing the "snooze" functionality of an alarm. If you're not ready to read an article when the X amount of time has elapsed, maybe allow a "snooze" the reminder to a later date.

<comment><USER7> +1 for snooze feature. Nice project, keep it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks awesome, found a use-case already. A motivational article that I figured I would more than likely forget about or need re-motivated in the future.

</comment><comment><USER9> What happens when the article you want to read in, say, a year is no longer available?

<comment><AUTHOR> As of this current version it would be gone. But I was already considering this as a first add in the next version. Will probably save the entire page or save the entire article so that it can be served anytime in the future without relying on the url. Also considering adding a user chosen backup outside of Timecapsule.io for their articles, so they can be confident that they are always available, even if something were to happen to Timecapsule.io, say in five years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd love to see some IFTTT recipes for this - the possibilities!

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting and nice execution. A must add, send to kindle ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> Pretty cool concept! Love the site

</comment><comment><USER13> Spam the future you.</comment>


Einstein's Mistakes - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-hans-ohanian12-2008oct12,0,2289223.story

<comment><USER2> FTA:

 _"The speed of light is either constant or not, and only measurement can decide what it is," Ohanian writes. For Einstein to make a postulation rather than propose it as a hypothesis to be tested may seem like a fine distinction. [...] But to Ohanian, the act was as outrageous as when Indiana lawmakers tried to legislate the value for pi. And so he adds it to his roster of Einstein's mistakes._

The reviewer missed something, here. Ohanian is an expert in the field, and clearly knows that the Michaelson-Morley experiment (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment>) predates special relativity by almost two decades. I think he must be making a subtler point that the review author failed to grok.

<comment><USER3> Somebody's screwing up badly, that's for sure, be that Ohanian or Johnson. Einstein is (as Einstein says!) emphatically not making a point about the speed of light at all, but saying that he is taking "The light from two events reaches me at the same time" as the definition of simultaneous. (Although, only for a moment, to show that even as the best definition of simultaneous there is, it has fundamental contradictions. That comes later in the argument.)

Anyone who misses this has no place judging Einstein! This definition of "simultaneous" is critical to understanding the thought process that led Einstein to relativity. Ironically, whoever missed this fact shows themselves to be firmly planted in the very pre-relativity physics worldview that Einstein proceeded to shred so very conclusively...</comment></comment>


Lance Armstrong's posterous - <AUTHOR> http://lancearmstrong.posterous.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Ok, I just thought that it's pretty cool they're landing people like that; nothing much to see there.</comment>


Simple fuzzy search algorithm similar to sublimeText - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/blaz_boy/status/443355511204114432/photo/1 <comment><USER2> This is probably a better link [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BicdfP_IEAADAFQ.png](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BicdfP_IEAADAFQ.png)</comment>


Ask HN: Given the sophistication of modern search engines, can this be my site? - <AUTHOR> Google has spoken about their JavaScript-aware crawler.
Could this be my site:
 <comment><AUTHOR> Assuming content is rendered quickly and ARIA is somehow employed? I'm asking about totally "pure js" single page applications, and their affordance to SEO and accessibility.</comment>


One Product Companies - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/culture-values/84ed69968938

<comment><AUTHOR> I am more than open to vocabulary and grammar suggestions and corrections. My native language isn't english. Thanks for reading.</comment>


Dropbox Is The Best Overall Startup - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/31/crunchies-dropbox/ <comment><USER2> I don't get these awards. For example, is Kindle Fire a better device than iPad 2 or iPhone 4S? Come on.

</comment><comment><USER3> How long is something called a Startup?

<comment><USER4> As long as it keeps acting like one.

<comment><USER5> How do we define 'acting like one?'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's good and all, but you're telling me that no significant innovation has occurred over the last 5 years (since Dropbox was just a Show HN) in start-up land‽

<comment><USER7> Even Dropbox has stagnated, IMO. Still no granular access control. I still can't share a document as read-only. I know they claim it's because each OS handles access controls differently, but it seems nuts to me that I can host the same file on S3 as download-only with an expiring link.

Dropbox is great for personal sync across devices, but it still isn't a group file sharing solution. Again, my opinion, but I think it ought to be both.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't the "Get shareable link" feature cover this?

<comment><USER7> Never heard of it. Spent two minutes looking for it on the desktop (right- click I assume), and on the web interface. No dice.

<comment><USER9> Right click on the files/folders you want to share read-only, go to the Dropbox sub-menu, and click "get shareable link". I use it all the time. I think it's exactly what you're describing?

<comment><USER7> I only see "Browse on Dropbox website..." and "Share this folder..." in the contextual menu.

I don't doubt you at all – I can see in their documentation that the feature exists. I just can't seem to make it happen.

Update: Looks like this only works for files that are already public, as far as I can tell. I managed to find "Copy public link..." if I right click in the Public folder.

Update 2: What a mess! Here's the doc that explains this buried feature: <https://www.dropbox.com/help/167> I was able to switch to the "new sharing model", whatever that means. I still can't generate the link, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which do you read on HN first (article or comments)? - <AUTHOR>

Depending on the title of an article, I can sometimes guess the opinion of the author and so I'm more interested in the HN commentary. If the article is something I know very little about, I will read that first. <comment><USER2> You may be interested in some previous submissions of this question and the evolution of the replies over time:

1533 days ago : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=145261> : 5 comments

1240 days ago : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=429802> : _Many_ comments

974 days ago : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=861970> : A poll with 17 votes

8 days ago : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4031889> : 5 comments

I'm sure there are more, my search used specific terms to reduce the number of items returned.

<comment><USER3> thanks for the helpful round-up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It varies depending on whether or not I know the source (Hacker News displays the domain from which the link comes) and the subject of the article. Sometimes I read the article first, if I know the source is reliable or if I know I am interested in the subject, and sometimes I read the comments first to figure out if other HN participants, more knowledgeable than I am about the subject, think the article's treatment of the subject is worthwhile or not.

</comment><comment><USER5> Comments, to see if the article is worth reading.

It's not uncommon to find an article that is little more than some glib anecdotal observation and all the interesting content is in the comments.

</comment><comment><USER6> Article, to see what it's about, before getting into the debate/discussion.</comment>


We're committed to supporting democratic processes around the world - <AUTHOR> https://elections.google/ <comment><USER2> That's rich considering they just had a leak where they admitted to trying to alter the 2020 election outcome:

[https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows- whis...](https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whistle-exec- reveals-google-plan-to-prevent-trump-situation-in-2020-on-hidden-cam/)

</comment><comment><USER3> seems fine, nothing to worry about here</comment>


Is it time to move away from silicon-based solar? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/02/is-it-time-to-move-away-from-silicon-based-solar/ <comment><USER2> PV "breakthroughts" are a dime dozen. Usually things quickly break apart due to these reasons:

1) The solar cell has to stable for 20 years in the field, not the 5 minutes it requires to collect the data for your publication.

2) You have to make 200 million cells per year with a yield >98%. Can you really do that?

3) Manufacturing cost on paper and in reality are two completely different things. Reducing material consumption is good, but it is not the only cost driver. Again: YIELD.

The first point is something that can be partially answered with a lot of additional research. Doable by a university, but often much more frustrating than the research they'd really want to do.

The only answer to the last two points is to try it on a large scale. And people did that for many technologies, see Nanosolar, Solyndra and many more. The problem is that so many failed, that currently nobody is willing to invest in new PV technologies.

Right now there is only silicon, CIGS thing film and CdTe thin film on the market. I doubt that a new technology is going to become relevant anytime soon as all of these technologies still have some room to breathe.

The article mentions, that 15 years passed without a new efficiency record in Si based solar cells. This is completely meaningless until that number is approached by mass manufactured cells.

<comment><USER3> 64% of residential solar costs are the so-called soft costs of permitting and installation. PV's tech problems are smaller than its social/political problems. [http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/12/nrel-soft-costs-now- larg...](http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/12/nrel-soft-costs-now-largest- piece-solar-installation-costs/)

<comment><USER2> Yes, especially in the US. There is also a huge bureaucracy problem.

Even at the current cost of PV and the current electricity prices, residential PV generation amortises in areas where a lot of air conditioning is required. This basically applies to the entire south west of the US.

The problems rather seem to be ignorance and an unwilligness to see a house as a long term investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about lower efficiency, but much cheaper panels? What is it that drives price up so much? Production capacity? Market forces?

<comment><USER5> That's exactly the direction some folks have gone.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_indium_gallium_selenide_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_indium_gallium_selenide_solar_cells)

One of the startups, nanosolar, seems to have failed.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar)

You can actually pick up some nanosolar stuff on ebay right now.

[http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/151190922913?lpid=82](http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/151190922913?lpid=82)

I am not sure if there are any other companies still trying to make a go of this but last I checked -- a couple of years ago -- there were two or three others.

<comment><USER6> I was always under the assumption that Gallium Arsenide was the future after silicon.

What's the difference between GaAs and CIGS?

<comment><USER5> A number of people realized that they could lay down really thin films of CIGS materials and process the cells reel-to-reel. Imagine loading up a 10 ton roll of thin stainless steel in the morning and having 200 acres (or some crazy number) of solar cells by evening. If they had been able to sort the process technology out it would have been INCREDIBLE.

But of course the devil was in the details. This was a hardware based company so it's not terribly surprising that their R&D time went out past their funding. Look at how badly hardware Kickstarts do on average, blowing multiple "deadlines" because often-times hardware is more difficult than software. Not that it's impossible, but it's definitely unforgiving.

When it absolutely has to be exactly right the first time it's going to take a lot longer than you think, even once you account for the fact that its' going to take a lot longer than you think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > But that manufacturing innovation hasn't been matched on the basic research > side; it's been over a decade since the last time anyone set a new > efficiency record for silicon cells.

> The material in question is gallium arsenide, which can be fashioned into > solar cells with efficiencies twice those of silicon

What about this breakthrough doubling the typical solar panel efficiency to 44.7%? Isn't it based on silicon solar panels, too?

[http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-media/press- releas...](http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-media/press- releases/presseinformationen-2013/world-record-solar-cell- with-44.7-efficiency)

<comment><USER8> No, anything in that range of efficient is a multi-junction cell. Multi- junction cells use a range of layered materials, each tuned to a narrow spectrum in which they can convert more efficiently than silicon, for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The material used in silicon solar cells Galium Arsenide isn't an environmental friendly material. For us to have large quantity of solar power the materials used in the solar cells can't be dirty in themselves or the environmental advantage are lost.

Here are some alternative links

Organic solar cell [http://www.heliatek.com/newscenter/latest_news/neuer- weltrek...](http://www.heliatek.com/newscenter/latest_news/neuer-weltrekord- fur-organische-solarzellen-heliatek-behauptet-sich-mit-12-zelleffizienz-als- technologiefuhrer/?lang=en)

A question in my mind is if plants is the ultimate solar cell, cheap to produce, naturally converting solar energy into biomass, sugar and potentially diesel. There are also ecoli based solar conversion.

Boing Green diesel breakthrough [http://www.energypost.eu/exclusive-report- boeing-reveals-big...](http://www.energypost.eu/exclusive-report-boeing- reveals-biggest-breakthrough-biofuels-ever/)

Ecoli biogasoline [http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/30/kaist-researchers- produc...](http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/30/kaist-researchers-produce- gasoline-from-escherichia-coli/)

</comment><comment><USER10> As an active user of silicon-based solar in self sustained home I would say that we need a more efficient and cheap battery technology. By cheap I mean cost/cycles, current lead acid batteries offer less than 1000 cycles considering 30% usage, improving number of cycles 10 fold and usage to 100% would be great.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is he trying to violate the laws of thermodynamics?

      The front has to let sunlight in, but then keep photons from
      escaping. ..... This takes photons from a broad area and
      funnels them into the PV chip. The other end of the U acts
      like a reflective cap, making it very hard for a photon to
      escape from the chip without being reflected back into it.

So basically a funnel with a wide part and a narrow part? And since it's narrow it's less likely for a photon to enter?

That actually doesn't work - the intensity at the narrow end is higher, and the total number of photons going in each direction is exactly the same.

One way mirrors do not, and can not, exist.

(One thing that does work is having slanted walls and lots of reflections giving many opportunities for the photon to be absorbed. But if it doesn't it will inevitably escape again.)

<comment><USER12> Somebody has already explained it in the comments in the article:

"The light coming in the from sun is pretty directional, and a parabolic setup will focus it down to a handy point. The photons being emitted by the the chip are more diffuse and so most will be reflected back down to be re-captured."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Alta Devices has been in the thin-film GaAs space for years. They've attracted nine-figure investments and posted really spectacular efficiency of ~28% in GaAs thin films. It's all very exciting, but these discoveries are not untrodden ground.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff(rev131204)a.jpg](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff\(rev131204\)a.jpg)

[http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sources-Alta- Dev...](http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sources-Alta-Devices-GaAs- Solar-Startup-Purchased-by-Chinas-Hanergy)

</comment><comment><USER14> There's nothing wrong with silicon PV arrays, they're easy to manufacture in high volumes and low cost, they have reasonable efficiency levels and high durability. The problem facing greater adoption of solar power continues to be the storage problem. If people want to improve deployment of solar power then they should work on that problem first and foremost.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd think the greater natural abundance of silicon, coupled with the lower toxicity vs an arsenic compound, would make such a move unlikely in deployments that don't require maximum power output for a given area (satellites, for example).

</comment><comment><USER16> there are nascent technologies for refining silicon into solar grade that are like 30-50% cheaper than what is currently used, they just need to be brought up to production scale. So, to answer the title- no

</comment><comment><USER17> gallium arsenide costs a fortune, way more than twice of silicon</comment>


Singapore Travel Handbook for Conference/Meetup Attendees - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rubysg/singapore/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> MRT is pretty awesome. The trains are all automated. The buses are pretty nice too (and double decker).

The Adler Luxury Hostel is one of the best hostels I've ever stayed at, and it's right off the train in Chinatown. I suspect most people using this guide have hotels booked for the conference, but I'm just leaving this out there for people visiting on their own.

I never got fined in Singapore, but I didn't realize some of the things in this guide are banned (drinking on a train, brining a Durian on a train, etc.) If you ever see litter in a mall or on the street, it stands out. A lot. The city is extremely clean, because littering fines are like $400.

The Tree Top Walk is amazing. If you can spare a full day for it, totally do it. Don't feed the monkeys. Walk around the reservoir. You have to get to it by bus, but if you plan it right, it's a really nice hike.

During the right time of year, you can also go to the Ballet Under the Stars. That's a truly fun and spectacular show.</comment>


Teuton – A German Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.fiber-space.de/EasyExtend/doc/teuton/teuton.htm <comment><USER2> "Teuton is a German programming language, written for German people. Teuton is the hitherto unwritten programming language that presumably every drunk student who has just visited the Oktoberfest or who otherwise drank too much wheat beer wanted to develop. Teuton has no special characteristics other than that it is German."

LOL, at least he's honest.

<comment><USER3> It's well-suited fuer die Hausdrachen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks similar to the British dialect of PHP: [https://aloneonahill.com/blog/if-php-were- british/](https://aloneonahill.com/blog/if-php-were-british/)

</comment><comment><USER5>
      solange "Gott mit uns!":
        versuche:
          "Nach Osten!"
        ausser:
          "Deus vult!"

</comment><comment><USER6> Furor Teutonicus is sadly lacking in this specification. What a disservice to the migthy ancestors!

</comment><comment><USER7> This is not taking the joke far enough.

If I want to use an existing programming language just with some keywords/identifiers replaced, I can just use Excel.

</comment><comment><USER8> Fun to wonder if this is what Plankalkül would have evolved into.

<comment><USER2> Plankalkül was an odd programming language (for starters, it had a 2-dimensional notation) but then what early programming language wasn't odd from today's POV?

It did influence ALGOL though, so we have an evolutionary line from it to the present day even.</comment></comment>


I didn't have enough Facebook friends to prove to Airbnb I was real - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2014/nov/14/airbnb-wont-let-book-room-facebook-friends

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it even possible to use Airbnb without all of Facebook, Google and Linkedin accounts?</comment>


This chart shows how zoning has gone wrong with the US housing market - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/11/20/9769216/construction-cost-chart <comment><USER2> "It shows that across the country as a whole, the price of houses has grown much more rapidly than the price of building houses. The issue is, roughly, zoning."

No, the issue is that the cost of land in those areas is increasing faster than the cost of construction.</comment>


A hole in Sandy Hook reporting – psychiatric medication - <AUTHOR> http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/the-giant-gaping-hole-in-sandy-hook-reporting/

<comment><USER2> I think this would have been a stronger article if it had addressed the counterpoint that was floating around in my head the entire time I was reading this: correlation doesn't equal causation.

While this phrase has become somewhat cliche, this is a perfect example of a case where it is important to remember the principle. Considering the types of disease that these medicines are meant to treat, I think it's pretty obvious that some, if not all, of the "side effects" mentioned could just be symptoms of the underlying disease, which were apparently not effectively treated by the medicine. But this is quite different from saying that the medicines themselves actually _caused_ the symptoms.

Of course the article could end up being totally right. It was just poorly argued in my opinion because it failed to address this point that any reasonable reader would consider.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, there's a reason the article doesn't present any actual evidence for its claims. I'm sure that the author believes what he is saying, but no, statistics doesn't work that way. The article should be cut out and stuck in an undergrad psychology textbook under 'confirmation bias'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now HN is carrying stories from World Nut Daily? Gimme a frickin break.</comment>


A field trip to the Internet Archive - <AUTHOR> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/05/a_field_trip_to_the_internet_a.html

<comment><USER2> The Internet Archive is one of the great Internet resources. Everyone who uses the Internet should be aware of their collection and support them.</comment>


Windows Phone is currently five times more profitable for us than the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://blog.anlock.com/?p=28

<comment><USER3> I am quite sure that, for every company that claims WP7 is more profitable than iOS, there will be more than five companies saying otherwise.

As was pointed out to me a couple weeks back, the plural of anecdote is not data. And this one isn't even a plural.

<comment><USER4> They had had microsoft people helping them, including helping to code. Who knows what sort of other help they got from MS? An average developer may not get that help, which might make the difference between doing well or not.

<comment><USER5> The article states that the people merely worked at MS. It's a big company, we the reader have no idea which product group they work in or if it's even related to WP7. I feel like the content of your comment is misleading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _there is fierce competition and a LOT of noise in the App Store, making it extremely difficult to stand out_

With 500k+ apps in the store, what are the chances that a user is even going to _see_ your app at this point? Without a ton of marketing muscle or the good graces of the kingmakers at Apple just hanging your shingle out in the App store doesn't get you anywhere.

<comment><USER7> I think a better comparison number is [grand total of all apps sold per day] / [total number of apps in store].

When the customer base is 20 times larger, even 10 fold competitors still keeps the market twice as attractive.

<comment><USER8> That would be true if sales went down linearly when you get farther from the top spot. But the reality is much closer to a "top X take (almost) all".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I remember seeing similar posts... Oh yes, Angry Birds at one point was more profitable on Nokia N900 than on iPhone.

Make of this what you will.

</comment><comment><USER10> This makes sense as while the WP7 market is a lot smaller, a far greater percentage of people looking for Educational games are being exposed to it.

Now I guess it all depends on how much competition there is on WP7, also being at the top stop gets you more sales which helps to keep you there. If you don't get some initial good sales to put you there results could be vastly different.

A better comparison would be an app that hasn't got any help from top lists on either platform.

</comment><comment><USER11> A lot of nonsense here. They claim to have been "featured by Apple". This was most probably just in the "What's Hot" section buried under 5 levels of clicks on the iTunes desktop app. The rankings they claim are actually pitifully small. Selling 5 times as much wouldn't be such a big deal.

The apps themselves appear to be yet another bunch of spelling apps for young children. This has been done to death in the app store. Unless the app is spectacular, it's no shock that it didn't do so well.

I have an app that apparently is doing far better than this in the young kids iPhone space. I didn't spend any money advertising it. However, it is something that hasn't been done 1000 times already by everyone else looking to cash in.

</comment><comment><USER12> Without any sales numbers, this post is meaningless. You could have at least given an indication.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would like to know what the development time difference is between these platforms. Also, what is the WP7 SDK like?

For a single developer this could be a good time to write WP7 apps. But iOS is so attractive because of its SDK and the wealth of third party libraries available for developers to leverage.

<comment><USER14>
         For a single developer this could be a good
         time to write WP7 apps

Personally, I doubt that.

In my circles I have a lot of non-technical and technical people. I don't live in Silicon Valley, or in the US, so the echo chamber that a lot of people from this community does not apply to me.

I see a lot of iPhones and Android phones. Galaxy S and S2 were huge hits. Low-end Android phones were hits too, like LG Optimus One - great value for the price. I see my friends and acquaintances with these phones, like a friend of mine who's a taxi driver has a Galaxy S in his pocket. But I know NONE with a WinMo 7 phone. Its market share is completely abysmal.

Now, this company may have had the _first mover_ advantage. Cool for them - however, personally I want a smaller piece of a bigger pie. The reason for that being that this pie is growing, exponentially even. Competition may be fierce and you won't get rich over night, however the 700 million users that Facebook has will be nothing compared to the number of people carrying Androids in their pockets, 3 years from now. A lot of people have ridden the first wave, especially when it comes to Apple's App Store. However a bigger wave is coming and I don't want to invest the limited resources I have in Microsoft's me-too-me-too platform.

Another problem is one of trust - WinMo 7 is the successor of WinMo 6, but it's a completely different platform. This is understandable, as WinMo 6 simply sucked and in my view it was the same story as with IExplorer 6 - <USER2> got something working, then they reinvested resources in the latest fad du- jour, leaving customers and developers disappointed, WinMo 7 being their latest attempt at preventing irrelevancy. I have no trust left for Microsoft to do the right thing in regards to its developers or customers, fucking with their learned knowledge all over again, or leaving them in the dust. I mean - they are discontinuing Silverlight for Christ's sake.

<comment><USER15> On WinMo 6, I think you are skipping over the history with that one. When it was released (WinMo 2,3,4,5,6,6.5) the hardware was too expensive for the consumer market, so it was sold to commercial consumers. They biggest concern for them was business apps, photos, gps, and --wait for it-- barcode scanners. The types that could be used from 30 ft away.

For that industry, WinMob was much better than the competition (this is before the IPhone/Android was released). There were lots of models, multiple configurations, and some of them even made phone calls.

Since then, smart phones hit the consumer market, the app needs have change (consumers don't need lazer enabled barcode scanners and multiple gps hardware configurations). But, WinMob 7 doesn't replace WinMob 6, because of the complete lack of external hardware drivers. IPhone really doesn't fill that gap either. Just Android.

And, Silverlight (and Flash) are being discontinued as Web platform(s). It still exists for development on other systems. But it could be argued it is just WPF at that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> They are claiming 5 times more sales, so are they saying that Microsoft take the same cut as Apple? Also the app was language learning app for (presumably) the very young, how likely is that these youngsters would have (extended access to) an iPhone? I can easily imagine giving the kids a Windows phone as a play thing because you didn't care if it got damaged or not.

So isn't piece this just saying putting your product in the right marketplace results in more sales than putting it into the wrong marketplace?

</comment><comment><USER17> So they make $5 per day on Windows Phone as opposed to $1 per day on iOS? This stat is meaningless without figures...

<comment><AUTHOR> They don't give figures, but they do give this info in a previous posting about their iPhone version:

 _"Rankings

We have reached the following top charts and have also been listed in 36 more countries around the world:

US: Top 100

UK: Top 50

Australia: Top 50

Germany: Top 25

Austria: Top 25

Switzerland: Top 25

France: Top 25

Italy: Top 10

Spain: Nr. 1

Mexico: Top 10

Greece: Nr. 1

Canada: Top 50

Argentina: Top 10

Colombia: Top 10

Chile: Top 10

User Ratings

Our paid versions have received 90+ reviews across all countries with an average of 4.5+_"

No raw sales numbers, but it seems fair to guess they've made more than $1 on the iPhone version.

I'm actually surprised there aren't more people targeting the education market. On my iPad I tried to find good educational apps and I'm having a really hard time. It's probably one of the few app categories where I'd pay decent money for a good toddler+ app, and have only found a few worth a dime.

<comment><USER11> Ha. That basically means they are selling nothing. You can get into the top 100 iPhone Games/Educational section with about 20 downloads in a day. But these are their peak figures. Their boast about being in the top 400 for 2/3 of the time is laughable. That basically means they sold 1 per day. As for the other countries, that's even less meaningful. You can shoot to the top of that category with 5 downloads.

Basically, this was one unprofitable app on the iPhone. Making 5 times more on WP isn't so impressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually what you're saying is even worse. You're basically saying that almost no one makes money on the iPhone. Unless you're Rovio or PopCap -- you're selling nothing.

And given the fact that I already know a few independent WP7 devs who can make a living purely from WP7 apps makes me wonder if the iPhone app store really is the iPhone lottery for developers. This can end up actually turning into a really bad story for iPhone developers.

<comment><USER11> No. I'm saying the Games/Educational category is very small and takes very few sales to be in the top 100 and almost nothing to be in the top 400.

What I'm _really_ saying (in my other comment) is that this was a wholly unremarkable app with very little to differentiate it from all the other apps out there. This article is just cynical linkbait to try to squeeze out some extra sales.

You can get away with selling unremarkable software in a new market. As soon as news of a gold rush for WP7 emerges then it will be just as tough as the iPhone market in no time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hint: if you develop primarily in Objective C and find the iPhone app market too crowded, make an iPad app.

</comment><comment><USER19> First mover advantage.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone one on HN developing on Windows Phone and seeing similar results?

<comment><USER21> We're porting our game (Infinite Flight) from Windows Phone to the iPhone and we're expecting much better returns on iOS.

We will have more data when it comes out in a couple of months.

<comment><USER20> Would love to hear more about it.

Also porting is interesting - we're in a position where we have a bunch of highly optimized, debugged C/C++ 'backend' code. Since native code isn't supported on Windows 7 Phone, we'll have to port our app by rewriting it all in C#. Unfortunately, it's not practical option for us at the moment.

<comment><USER22> That does tend to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks for WP7. I'm surprised they haven't figured out a way to deal with that.

I'm going the other way - my own code is all in C# (Mac and Linux with Mono, and MonoTouch and MonoDroid for the mobile platforms) so deployment to any of the above platforms becomes relatively easy. (I'm writing games, so I can hoist a lot more of the otherwise platform-specific logic into OpenGL, OpenGL|ES, and XNA, respectively--still requires building different GUIs based on desktop vs. phone but is a lot nicer than Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux vs. iOS vs. Android.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's good to be a early bird, because if it becomes successful you can say it was a good choice, and if it fails you at least tried.</comment>