Prototype Hardware from Lockheed Martin Surveillance Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Prototype-Hardware-from-Lockheed-Martin-Surveillance-Project-/221272094476?

<comment><USER2> If genuine this amounts to purchasing stolen goods, buyer beware. Not that at $10M I think there'll be any takers.

As always there is likely another side to this story and if you're a US buyer of this batch of stuff you're probably going to be dealing with that aspect of the sale.

The way I read this is: founder got screwed, founder uses ebay to put the pressure on his former employer to see if he can get compensation by threatening to expose the crown jewels of the company which he developed.

On another level, this story is just like any other minority shareholder dispute and founders should _definitely_ take a warning from this.

It is relatively easy to screw a minority shareholder, even a founder, if everybody else colludes. This can happen and it does happen, hell, it happened to me. If you're technically savvy but not business savvy you might as well settle for a fat salary in many cases, unless there is ample paperwork to document your position and sufficient trust between you and your partners.

I wouldn't touch this auction with a 10' pole, but there might be someone out there that takes the bait and thinks that this is peanuts for the goods from a counter-intelligence perspective.

To create a competing product based on this data would be a very stupid move and at that price I think you could do a lot better by doing it again with today's tech.

Essentially he is saying: my 10% of the company is worth 10 million dollars (or more) and that alone might be an indication of the kind of thing that lies at the heart of the conflict.

I hope the poster finds a way to fund his lawsuit in a less controversial way, if only because he's selling some of the evidence that he'll need in order to win it and because he's opening himself up to a substantial counter-claim and actively helps the opposition with an own goal.

If the poster of the ebay auction reads this: retract this auction, get a lawyer, if possible on a contingency basis but _at least_ for a few hours (which you should be able to afford out of pocket) to research the legality of your position. If a lawyer will sign off on this action in writing then go for it. But I doubt that will happen. Hint: a minor shareholder does not have the right to pre-emptively strike at the company based on the outcome of a lawsuit that still has to be fought. It is very well possible that when the dust settles that you'll own the assets of the company but until then this stuff is company property and you as a shareholder are acting against the interests of that company and probably against the terms of your employment contract. That's a (very) bad spot to be in and it may very well annul any and all rights that you still have or cause the tide to turn against you from having the moral high-ground to becoming the defendant.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another "spy rock", this one belonging to Britain and found in Moscow: [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/24/russia.politics](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/24/russia.politics) [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-16614209](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16614209)

Apparently one of the upsides of an idea this absurd and obvious is that when you get caught you can use _" Are you serious? Who would use an obviously fake rock to spy on people?"_ as a defense.

</comment><comment><USER4> $10,000,000.00 For something you could make with a Raspberry Pi, mic, webcam, wifi adapter?

      "RockCam included a 900MHz Spread Spectrum Frequency Hopping
      Microhard Spectra 910 radio..."

This is ostensibly to avoid detection, but with the proliferation of wifi all over the place, one station named "Linksys" or even one without broadcasting SSID will go unnoticed for a long time.

      "The custom mainboard we developed would enter in a deep sleep mode to
      conserve energy, and would be woken up whenever the PIR sensor was
      triggered to capture high resolution pictures that were then transmitted
      via spread spectrum radio link to a central concentrator that was
      Internet-connected."

So, it's using the same technology as those "advanced" hunting cameras you can buy on Amazon. Shouldn't be too hard to do something similar.

      "RockCam included deep cycle batteries which provided at least three (3)
      years of operation without recharging in the field"

A solar panel + battery pack would accomplish the same. Or if there's a lamp post nearby, you can tap into the power feed by running a small wire underground.

The biggest expense seems to be specialized hardware that provided encryption, custom data uplinks and secure RockCam-to-RockCam communication etc...

Edit: Further reading, the price isn't for hardware, but for software and other "data"? Er... If that isn't inviting a visit from MIB, I don't know what is.

<comment><USER5> You are tearing this apart based on current technology, but this was developed ten years ago, that is quite a few generations of technologies ago.

FTA: _Included in the auction_ A CD filled with backup materials during several years of the company (the most valuable part of this auction obviously).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this is more about making a noise than selling something. I doubt it will sell but it was worth doing anyway.

</comment><comment><USER7> wow. a steap price for a few modems, pc104 mainboards and a cd. it doesnt look like the cool looking rock is even included.

despite that, that backgrounf story is quite intersting and does look plausable, no major missuse of terms or jargon that I could find.

<comment><USER8> That CD you just glossed over contains backups of the company's files.

If you are in that industry that could be pretty damn valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As he says in the article, it's not the hardware that the price is there for, but rather the backups of years of his company's files, including conversation with Lockheed, etc.

Whether it's actually worth that is another matter entirely.

</comment><comment><USER10> For $10M, I'll build you a custom fake rock with a camera and wifi using "modern" technologies. I'll even throw in a touch screen and cellular connections. (Aka, a cellphone sitting inside a fake rock)

</sarcasm>

<comment><USER11> You can make this rock 100 times smaller by using Raspeby Pi :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ironic how the seller intends to use the proceeds of the auction to investigate whether the sale is legal.

<comment><USER2> That jumped out at me as well. He states that he believes he is within his rights and that may even be the case but as it is presented it does not actually look like it and this could come back to bite him, hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The hardware pictured is not included in the auction, since it burned in a fire. What is left is some circuit boards, a power supply, and cd-rom.

</comment><comment><USER14> At least it comes with free shipping...

</comment><comment><USER15> Note that the only accepted payment method is Paypal. If that isn't asking for trouble.....

<comment><USER16> Do you think Paypal will notice the 10 million dollars transaction? I'm not sure.. [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6056924](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6056924) :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For when ebay invariably takes this auction down: [http://archive.is/l9tZ9](http://archive.is/l9tZ9)

Hold up hold up hold up.

>I was told by the other execs that the product had not been picked up by Lockheed, and therefore that the company had been wound down and dissolved.

and then

>Included on this CD... a list of all the nuclear power plants and numbers of installed RockCams at each nuclear power plant location...

So... which is it? If the company was spun down and dissolved, then I imagine there wasn't any further activity that could end up in mail spools or shared drives or whatnot that he had access to. There wouldn't be a list of nuclear sites where this technology was deployed, because Lockheed never picked it up. Of course, he implies that the Russian "spy rock" incident was this technology --a plausible assumption, at least-- and that this implies the technology is still in the field. But he wouldn't be privy to where in the field the tech was deployed after the company was spun down. Were these devices deployed into the field (the Nuclear Reactor locations) during R&D or alpha/beta testing when the company was still active? If so, how does he know the devices would still be there?

The financial and other business data could be very useful in journalistic endeavours. ProjectPM would eat it up. Just imagine all of the social networks you could graph out (it _is_ just metadata; I'm sure they won't mind). However, I don't think the auctioneer is aiming this at journalists. I don't know of any journalists that have a spare 10 million laying around or otherwise have access to 10 million. If not journalists, then perhaps competitors in the field. Given the way he's worded this missive, the tone gives off an air that he'd be willing to sell to _anyone_. But surely this fella can't think that ebay is going to just let this auction continue? He seems to imply that he wants others to message him. No contact info is given. His ebay user isn't going to be around for long.

He gave his name though, and from that I found that this person was apparently on cryptome a month ago --listing his email as firstname.lastname@example.com; no public keys on pgp.mit.edu-- where he was "planning" all this out (poorly, if I might add):

[http://cryptome.org/2013/07/rockcam- spy.htm](http://cryptome.org/2013/07/rockcam-spy.htm)

>I don't think there should be any national security concerns with the release of any of this information.... However, I have no knowledge of any such derivative projects manufactured by Lockheed, Boeing, or otherwise, so I don't think there should be any national security concerns with auctioning off this hardware and related engineering blueprints to the highest bidder on Ebay.

And who he's aiming the auction at:

>I am also in possession of a year or so worth of electronic mail correspondence and communications by and between AWA, Lockheed, M2M, and various components such as DTRA that may be of use to other burgeoning startups interested in building covert imager hardware, so all of those documents, the prototype hardware that I have here, and some pretty pictures will be listed on Ebay today or tomorrow for NATO-friendly nation states to peruse and bid on.

Honestly, this all feels very hamfisted at best. I don't think this person really thought this through.

<comment><USER18> >no public keys on pgp.mit.edu-- where he was "planning" all this out

>a heavily encrypted link layer and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that I developed

I'm inclined to believe that he's able to set up a decent secure communication infrastructure, _if he 's telling the truth in the second quote_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some one will walk with metal detector find this rock and kick it. Game over! But hey at least its cheap!

</comment><comment><USER19> I cannot help but notice a few commercial hardware projects involved who have made it clear they do not like their hardware/software being used in things like military applications.

While I haven't heard Xbee's stance on such things, would they perhaps care to clarify their stance beyond "most persons are able to use our products, the use is up to the end consumer."

I would wholly appreciate it since hobbyist part manufactures depend on the community around them, and we really do like some of the makers out there as well as their efforts for disseminating open ended hardware for others to tinker with.

edit: Thank you diydrones community and others! Promoting responsible use while not seeking to limit the possible innovations of others.</comment>


Developers and Depression – Getting Unstuck - <AUTHOR> http://tinyletter.com/devsanddepression/letters/developers-and-depression-getting-unstuck

<comment><USER2> I've watched the video by the author of this newsletter, and a lot of things did ring true for me. [1]

I moved to the Bay Area all the way from Russia, as a student, with the intention of diving deep into this startup and developer world. Eight months later, however, I still have no clue at all what I'm doing. Don't have enough projects for a portfolio, don't have enough proper skills for a resume.

Got overwhelmed with classes due to not paying enough attention in class, decided not to take any classes in summer - with the intention of working on some projects and maybe figuring my life out. Here we are what, three weeks later, and all I have is a static mockup page for the project and I haven't opened a code editor in a week.

I still don't know if I actually have a problem or if I'm just lazy, however. On bad days I feel like it'd be really great if I could just get some magic pill that would make everything great and solve all my problems. On better days I almost feel like I can defeat all of this and just go marching forward. On days like that I can spend twelve hours staring into code and produce something, but then days, weeks, months will go on with nothing at all.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa- Mc2KSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-Mc2KSk)</comment>


Ultrafast Chips that Run on Light: Nanoswitch Breakthrough Brings Us Closer - <AUTHOR> http://techland.time.com/2012/09/12/ultrafast-chips-that-run-on-light-nanoswitch-breakthrough-brings-us-closer/

<comment><USER2> What a terrible article- it's like it's written for children.</comment>


This guy turned his failure on 'Shark Tank' into $28m from Richard Branson - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ring-from-shark-tank-to-richard-branson-2015-8

<comment><USER2> Turning down an offer because it isn't right for your business is _in absolutely no way whatsoever_ a 'failure', especially when turning it down still gets you many thousands of dollars worth of media coverage.</comment>


"Stop Spam, Draw Shapes"   - <AUTHOR> http://www.josscrowcroft.com/demos/motioncaptcha/

<comment><USER2> That's a pretty cool idea, but I don't like that it's an added step for the user when submitting a form.

I used to get a TON of spam on my website(s) until I threw in a hidden text field. When the form is submitted I assume the submission is spam if the hidden text field's value isn't blank. I don't get spam anymore and people don't have to mess around with a captcha (plus nobody's complained).

...although I'm sure it's only a matter of time until the spammers figure this technique out.

<comment><USER3> It looks neat, but fails basic accessibility tests. Blind? Can't use a mouse? You're out of luck.

<comment><USER4> Read again: he includes a hidden field for the "normal" user (blind or not) and spambots fill that field out anyway and get caught. Pretty clever, but not hard to work around as a spammer if this get widely adopted.

<comment><USER5> Blind users would have a different sort of HTML rendering mechanisms (screen readers, braille output, OCR, etc) that might make hidden tags visible input unless you somehow indicated to them that the field was a honeypot. I'm not sure on the details, but the concept of hiding a field from the user's view probably doesn't translate very well once you leave the visual rendering arena.

<comment><USER6> I can't speak authoritatively, but I believe the "hidden" attribute of a field is not a visual cue, it is a presentational cue. In other words, it hides it from all presentations, whether visual, audible, tactile, or other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have concerns about this. While it is a neat concept and the implementation is impressive, the reality may be problematic. A lot of users may not have the dexterity to accomplish this task with a pointing device, like my Mother. Not to mention anyone with special needs that requires an alternate input device.

<comment><USER8> Very good point, thanks for the feedback. The full release version will have an option to toggle back to a standard letter-based CAPTCHA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish people stopped trying to solve the CAPTCHA problem with other CAPTCHAs.

This proof of concept, while pretty cool from a geek point of view, doesn't do anything to solve the problem in a better way.

Stuff like hidden fields, timestamp analysis, crowd-sourced classifiers (like Akismet), on the other hand, do.

<comment><USER10> i gave up trying to do creative spam filtering long ago. email address obfuscation, greylisting, etc. i put my domains behind postini (shame they got bought out by google) and never have to deal with spam anymore. my e-mail address is in plain sight in lots of places, and i only get false positives once in a rare while that i have to login to postini and forward to my inbox.

same thing with spam comments on my site. i didn't bother with captchas or other annoying requirements like openid. it submits everything through defensio (<http://www.defensio.com/>) on the backend and if it looks like spam, you just have to put in an email address to manually confirm the comment and re-train defensio. otherwise people can leave anonymous comments without any hassles. the amount of comments that need to get manually verified are very low, and i never see spam get through.

<comment><USER11> Why is it a shame that Postini got bought out by Google?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like it would be quite a bit easier to solve than the current text-based capchas. You don't even need to do OCR.

<comment><USER13> Hell, in it's current form it's entirely client-side; hardly seems like it should even count as a CAPTCHA. $(form).attr("action", $("#mc-action").val()) and you're done.

Even with server-side validation, it's still trivial to break; it only requires tracking a line through an otherwise blank image.

This is fundamentally unusable as a CAPTCHA, and can't be made significantly better. The whole point of a CAPTCHA is to be difficult for computers and doable for humans, hence stuff like warped characters and image categorization. Tracking a line against a blank BG is not difficult for a computer.

<comment><USER14> I don't like it for accessibility reasons, but if you have a site with n disabled users (say, a site for archers?) it might work well.

Certainly, not hard for spammers to break, but as long as it doesn't have widespread use, they won't bother putting in the effort.

<comment><USER15> > as it doesn't have widespread use, they won't bother putting in the effort

But this can be said about almost any Javascripty custom trick, and there are ones that no effort from user and don't have accessibility issues beyond requiring JS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> this was already submitted & commented: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2620870>

</comment><comment><USER17> One of the key notes of humane UI design is that the average user is _terrible_ with the mouse. Joel Spolsky touches on this in one of his articles:

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000063....](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000063.html)

Depending on the sensitivity, this CAPTCHA could definitely drive away users.

<comment><USER8> Very interesting - thanks.

I'm looking to include a "Switch to default captcha" option for those concerned with usability (myself included)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I write a completely stupid bot that just submits a rectangle, I'll have 10% chance of getting it right.

You need a lot more shapes… but there aren't many shape/size/position combinations that are easy for humans.

You need complicated images, as plain shape/background (and in general shapes on background that are separable on histogram) are easy to trace.

<comment><USER8> I'd suggest taking a look at the readme - it covers this and more!

<comment><USER15> I don't see where it addresses problem of generating large enough number of shapes that are hard enough to recognize with computer vision.

I'm afraid that nice gesture recognition algorithm is not enough to defend against bots programmed to recognize known solutions & replay (slightly randomized) predefined answers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's almost no chance that my elderly parents would have the dexterity to pass this.

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting idea. I thought it might be more confusing if it described the shape to draw and put the 'prototype' line of a different shape in the box. Robots would be trying to match the prototype, humans would be drawing the requested shape.

For whatever reason I don't have the dexterity to draw a correct shape very quickly :-) That suggests if the captcha was used a lot (like every time I submitted a comment or something) I would quickly become frustrated and stop participating.

</comment><comment><USER20> It seems like this would be a total stopping point for mobile users, too.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's kind of interesting that it uses the ribbon brush from mrdoob's harmony. I guess it would make a match more likely if you did it really quickly.

<comment><USER8> The plugin actually combines two libs, the Ribbon brush is used only for display (could be any brush if you switch out that class in the JS), meanwhile the points you draw are also tested against the Protractor gesture recognition algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The recognition seems so-so - I drew something that looked NOTHING like the image and it accepted it. Are you using chaincodes for recognition?

</comment><comment><USER23> Spammers don't have to respect DISABLED attributes on forms. Client-side tests are not trustworthy.

</comment><comment><USER24> And how the hell do you expect blind people to be able to submit the form?

</comment><comment><USER25> I was expecting to see something completely unsolvable on a trackpad.

But I was proven wrong: <http://i.imgur.com/QO8pY.png>

This looks pretty sweet, I wonder how the shape matching works.

<comment><USER26> Wow, that's the exact opposite of what I ran into:

<https://skitch.com/jameskilton/fdcir/motioncaptcha-demo>

It's a good idea, just needs to be a little more on the lenient side for those of us who aren't artistically inclined.

Edit: Hmm if you go faster it has a fuzziness to it:

<https://skitch.com/jameskilton/fdci7/motioncaptcha-demo>

<comment><USER8> That's thanks to mrdoob's Harmony, specifically the Ribbon brush (<http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Excellent work! reCAPTCHA is rather unfriendly to non-English users.

<comment><USER8> thanx :o) watch the repo to see when it becomes ready for use on live websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Here is another take on captchas, with the source.

<http://jordan-adams.co.uk/humancheck/></comment>


Identity theft at epidemic levels, warns Cifas - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41011464 <comment><USER2> Paraphrasing from a comment I can't find anymore:

Identity theft is a PR con job. Think about it - the idea that a criminal can "steal your identity" is patently ridiculous. What they actually do is defraud your bank, or a vendor, or the government, by impersonating you. Instead of taking responsibility for being defrauded and paying for effective countermeasures, these institutions try to convince us that when _they_ get defrauded it is somehow _our_ responsibility. Then they _sell us_ the countermeasures.

It's one of the most impressive strategic manipulations of public understanding that I've ever seen.

<comment><USER3> You took the words right out of my mouth.

I'd add that we don't formally teach the basics of our credit system (or even our financial system) partly because children would easily poke holes into the accepted explanations.

"Why would a bank let someone pretend to be me? Shouldn't the bank ask for more info?"

"Why does it take forever to know my credit but any business can get in a second?"

"Does the government run the three companies that set your credit score? Why not?"

It's a kind of unconscious, societal embarrassment that manifests as an educational taboo.

We don't talk about what we don't want to think about, or more specifically, our society doesn't teach what it has accepted without critical thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Update your computer's firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware programmes. Up to 80% of cyber-threats can be removed by doing this

Does identity theft usually involve malware? I would think the biggest "cyber- threat" risk is phishing and I don't think firewalls and antivirus are going to help you with that beyond what safebrowsing already does.

Antivirus can actually open you up to certain attacks with memory corruption vulnerabilities in the file parsers that automatically run.

<comment><USER5> "Antivirus can actually open you up to certain attacks with memory corruption vulnerabilities in the file parsers that automatically run."

Yeah, I thought the idea of firewall == snake oil was pretty well-accepted among computer-literate people. The kind of people who might benefit from it will just make an exception for malicious software without reading the prompts, and power users know what to download.

And in addition to that it makes people even more insecure as it promotes a false sense of security. It seems that having a firewall makes people even more likely to turn their brains off and clicking "yes" on any dialogue without reading it. Favorite quote after finding malware on someone's system: "But I have a firewall, this is impossible!"

But most importantly is probably the viewpoint of the top comment: Banks and other companies have changed the narrative so that users are responsible for their poorly implemented security features.

This is quite absurd, when you think about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If the general public would learn and implement even one out of the below list items, they would significantly improve their online security

1\. Learn how to type facebook.com into the URL bar vs. Googling for Google, then searching Facebook, then clicking the Facebook ad that redirected to a phishing site (happened to my sister)

2\. Use password hygiene (you'd never reuse the same kleenex would you?)

3\. Use a password manager

4\. Don't be obstinate when computer people try to help you improve your online security.

5\. Update your crap, stop clicking Remind Me Later

A dismissive sniff is NOT the proper reaction - those computer nerds aren't wearing spandex anymore deary.

"I don't want to do that!" Well fine, I'll wave goodby as you do the equivalent of driving down the freeway with no doors, no seatbelts, and three flat tires~!

<comment><USER7> Oh come on: you may make a point of users not caring about security, but in essence it all comes to the entities that actually care: banks, who need to prove it was user's fault; government, whose voters are not going to vote for the president who could not deliver a safe government; shops who pay for chargebacks...

Why don't we just stop trying to make users remember all of the safety measures they've got to take care of (which by the way sound to a layperson more like a cargo cult rather than a genuine problem), and implement proper public-key authentication on all of the websites?

Identity theft is a problem - that's true. But the solution is the practical one and not ideological.</comment></comment>


Biohackers Are on a Secret Hunt for the Coronavirus Vaccine [video] - ur-whale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BTvVnOgc10 <comment> ur-whale If you want to help them, they have a bitcoin funding addie:

[https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/bc1qccn54y3l4a9un7dhq...](https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/bc1qccn54y3l4a9un7dhqnuewd22jx5vnruhf0dqve)</comment>


Mixergy is now a paid subscription service for interviews older than a week - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/daniel-delaney-vendrtv/ <comment><USER2> I like mixergy and think that the interviews are great. But I still believe that this monetisation strategy is a strategic mistake. The reasons are these:

1\. I've seen a few of these interviews being done online by others. This game is a winner take all game. The most popular such site is going to have everyone wanting to be interviewed there, and everyone will watch it because popular names are interviewed then. So it's important in this niche to become the dominant force and stay there, giving competitors no chance. Putting a paywall is going to lead to fewer incoming links and less traffic on old videos, slowing down growth, and giving others a chance to catch up

2\. The payment model is unusual for video. People want to purchase a video and have it on their drives. They don't want to have to watch hundreds of videos in a single month.

3\. The price is high. $25 for a month of access to video is a bit high, in my uninformed estimation

I think that a better strategy would be a focus on growth and improving the quality of the people, and focusing on breaking more into the mainstream. This particular move is going to slow down growth, and I think it may be difficult to get certain names on when they know that they are doing the interview for someone elses profit.

And my final argument is this: This model shuts down the possibilities of further experimentation. When the videos are closed, it's not possible to test other ways of monetising the traffic arriving at the videos.

<comment><USER3> I agree - the business model seems a bit forced. I think your first point will translate into quite a reduced maximum popularity. I would have tried the opposite approach and gave sites some easy way to embed clips of the interviews on their sites/blogs.

People are used to paying for live video (PPV). People are used to paying to download content. They aren't used to paying for old content.

This seems to be like giving away your new hits for free and charging for the long tail - not sure that is ideal.

<comment><USER4> I agree that an opposite model would probably have worked out better -- charge for early access instead of archive access. Those who appreciate and anticipate new installments can pay to receive them sooner, [past] interviewees are perhaps less disturbed because the content will ultimately become free, and users searching the web for things like "Paul Graham interview" or similar would be able to find the content and get hooked, thereby creating new paying customers.

It'd really be interesting to hear Mixergy's thought process on this, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I found out about this I emailed Andrew. This is what i wrote:

 _I noticed recently that you've started charging for your older interviews. Good on you, I hope you do good business.

I have one idea you might want to consider: Sell short edited versions of the interviews. This is the opposite of what most online ebook and tutorial video sellers do. They show some short teasers for free, but ask you to pay for the "full program". In your case, the full program is the teaser - it's a treasure hunt to find the golden nuggets of business wisdom interspersed in 60 minutes of internet video chat. I bet you lose out on a lot of viewers simply because they don't have the time to sit through hour-long interviews. I think you could sell edited, 15-minute versions to those people. Cheapskates like me will continue to watch for free, but people with less time will pay for condensed honey drops of entrepreneurship gyaan. Actually, I might pay too as I get busier with my business._

Andrew replied saying he loves the idea and has has a vision along those lines; he just needs the time and resources for doing it. As he has stated in his own interviews before, he is trying to create an internet treasure which will have long lasting value. I'm sure he won't let us down.

</comment><comment><USER6> I definitely like the model, but I think $25/mo is too high, especially when compared to other sources of information. The $50 and $100 options made me chuckle a bit (sorry).

The Economist print edition comes at $15/mo. 30 days of New York Times, delivered in print is $29/mo. That's a lot more content than Mixergy. And you have similar similar sites like BigThink and the Stanford ECorner podcasts, which are free.

But I'd pay $5/mo, or better yet, $1 per video.

<comment><USER7> _That's a lot more content than Mixergy._

If you convince the Times to ditch the lifestyle coverage of things of importance to Upper East Side liberals and focus on interviewing Wufoo about conversion rates, I'll buy a subscription to them, too. Until you do that it strikes me like you're comparing a Ruby library and a chia pet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm slowly building a membership section, but I didn't mean to put this and every single other post on my homepage behind a pay-wall. The outsourcing company I use made a mistake. I fixed it this afternoon.

But yes, I am moving towards a paid premium model that will include older interviews. And this won't be the last time I'll make a mistake.

<comment><USER9> It makes a lot more sense to me to put the recent interviews be behind the paywall, and make the back catalog free.

It's typically the recent stuff that's 'hot' and therefore has the most value, while the older stuff tends to be more of a curiosity with less value.

Plus, a wide-open back-catalog is more likely to attract references from places like wikipedia, from people trying to cite it.

<comment><USER10> IMHO that makes no sense.

The back catalog is more important to a real entrepreneur. Someone looking for entertainment in the disguise of education content would find the "hot" stuff interesting.

Someone building a business cares about specific topics because they are having issues with specific things like search engine marketing, sales people, partnerships, law, etc. That may or may not be covered by the latest "hot" stuff but a quick search in the back catalog is likely to turn up a good interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, instead of being a bunch of a-holes and complaining about it. Why not just offer him a suggestion here: [http://mixergy.wufoo.com/forms/what- price-do-you-think-is-fa...](http://mixergy.wufoo.com/forms/what-price-do-you- think-is-fair/) Tell him what you are willing to pay, if at all. From the feedback he receives, I am sure he is smart enough to pivot based on this feedback.

This is his start up, it is his right to experiment as he desires.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is probably one of the most shameful and depressing discussions I've ever read on this site. It's amazing the backlash this appears to be causing. For a community full of people running startups and sites, either full-time or on the side, the concept of being upset over having to pay someone for their time is appalling.

Most of the users here should appreciate that a person's time and effort are not free. If you don't feel Mr. Warner's time and effort is worth what he's charging then go somewhere else and find a similar resource. To come here and pout like upset children that your free toy might be taking away from you is sad. To threaten to go out of your way to circumvent his system as some of you have is even worse.

For those of you who have products or services you actively charge for, I hope you have had the common sense not to chime in against this decision as if it was an attack on your very being. And if you haven't, imagine how you would feel if someone so callously ripped your decision to try to earn a living on your work.

</comment><comment><USER13> I predicted this move several days ago based on this comment.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1130231>

I have long suspected that Andrew has been using fake accounts or paying people to put a positive spin on his threads. The above comment was made by a brand new a account and follows a trend of other fishy comments.

<comment><USER14> _"I have long suspected that Andrew has been using fake accounts or paying people to put a positive spin on his threads. The above comment was made by a brand new a account and follows a trend of other fishy comments."_

I have had the same suspicion for quite a while and am surprised no one has looked into this. Glad to hear someone else thinks it's not _just_ the little voices in my head.

<comment><USER15> PG addressed it here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1131005>

AndrewWarner does link directly to HN and ask for votes, so it's quite likely that people register specifically to upvote/comment for his submissions.

I would like to see him comment on the ruby35 account, it is quite suspicious: <http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ruby35>

<comment><USER8> Thanks for that. I hadn't seen his comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A lot of accolades in this thread. As for me and the rest of the silent majority, we poor ambitious upstarts will find a new home. I might consider it if I knew my contribution would lead to significantly greater production value, like airplane tickets for in-person interviews or investigative reporting.

Eulogy: Andrew was flirting with becoming a figure in start-up world... something which can't be bought. Managed to sell it.

<comment><USER17> Please. $25/month is two-hours of work for a cashier at McDonald's. If think the value of his work is below that, you probably don't have the right priorities to build a startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hey Andrew, what about letting those videos be free, and selling DVDs per months, peoples can watch the content online for free (advertising support) in this way you keep growing and peoples willing to pay can order videos on a dvd, let's say each interview on a dvd cost 5 $. Next option, you can aggregate videos of each month as dvd and sell them for ~9,99 $ , and the next alternative will be to create an ebook from the transcripts of each month videos and sell it for a couple or dollars, you can organise this in topic (ebook transcript for freemium Business model, ebook for videos plattform entrepreneurs.....you can combine it as you want: we call in in mechanical eng variants)... That's my 2 cents. Some peoples may pay the 25 $ , but most of your users won't, if you want to go with the subscription , what about 1,99 $ /months * many users and steady grow?

<comment><USER19> The advertising model will not generate much revenue. As Rupert Murdoch is wont to say, the online publishing marketplace has an infinite supply of inventory, which drives down prices for display advertising.

The DVD idea might work for some small entrepreneurs who are not in the Internet startup space, but since most of the Interviews are focused on tech and the audience likely wants to see the videos online, there is a conflict there. Maybe Andrew should start expanding into other areas of entrepreneurship that appeal more to the non-Internet crowd?

One other note about transcripts: They are a pain to produce, as most of them have to be done manually. Prices are coming down thanks to online services and Mechanical Turk. But once voice-to-text tech improves to the degree where it's possible to instantly convert any podcast or video interview to text (and thence to e-book or whatever) that will really open the gates to e-book and custom publishing models, IMHO. It will also boost the output of journalists, who now have lots of overhead related to listening to audio post-interview and transcribing some of the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Today must be April 1st. 25 dollars a month seems a wee bit overpriced. I wonder if YouTube could get away with charging that much for the millions of videos that they offer. In any case, at $25 per month, I would love to learn what percentage of free users convert to paying customers. With 1% being a typical conversion rate for Freemium, I'd be surprised if they even got one tenth of one percent to convert.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder, were the interviewees aware of this and are they OK with it?

Bummer, I did not even watch the full PG yet, an it was 11 days ago.

<comment><USER22> Hint: try a search engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> We need Andrew to interview Andrew about this decision:)

Also, Andrew's lack of posting in this thread tells me that he is sitting back and watching the natural reaction rather than tainting it with his own participation.

</comment><comment><USER24> Also, Andrew Warner is not exactly lacking funds.

[http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/04/08/the-andrew-warner- stor...](http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/04/08/the-andrew-warner-story- how-a-21-year-old-created-a-385-million-dollar-business-by-returning-his- jcrew-clothes/)

So he's charging because he can, not because he must.

<comment><USER17> This is akin to asking why Sergey Brin charges for AdWords when he's already a billionaire or why the richest person in the world still makes money off of Windows. Your logic is moronic.

Welcome to capitalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> As much as Jason Calacanis can be annoying, This Week in Startups is always a great show and he seems to have found a great monetization strategy for it - corporate sponsors of service providers to startup people.

I probably won't be paying for Mixergy on a monthly basis, but if he were to get a couple companies to sponsor the show for a couple hundred dollars an episode i would gladly sit through the intermittent plugs he would give throughout the broadcast.

</comment><comment><USER26> The good thing is that the transcripts are still free. So I'll be reading more and hearing/watching less. Kinda like switching tv for a good novel, I'd think.

</comment><comment><USER27> The best response to this will be to not pay. Watch this week's video, and maybe save the stream. Take the responsibility for archiving into your own hands.

<comment><USER28> > _Take the responsibility for archiving into your own hands._

That's called copyright infringement.

<comment><USER29> That's time-shifting for personal use... Pretty sure that's legal.

<comment><USER30> Not if you had to break even the most trivial content protection schemes to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Subscribed, on the theory that if I can't get one sale a month out of Mixergy, I must be doing something wrong.

<comment><USER21> How do you get sales out of subscribing to Mixergy?

<comment><USER7> The example which most immediately pops to my head is for subscription businesses: watch the Wufoo interview. They drop three important bits of information in fifteen seconds: the most popular plan is the middle one, the highest grossing plan is the most expensive one, and Andrew adds that another business (CrazyEgg) similarly found that concentrating on the needs of the higher end of the market was much better ROI on time than concentrating on the $9 / mo customers.

People have burned through hundreds of thousands of dollars and learned less about pricing than was included in those 15 seconds.

Andrew draws out gems with sufficient regularity (signal to noise ratio: quite high) that I'm fairly confident I'll grab at least one idea and improve my business as a result of it.

On the subject of price points: I wonder what the above says about basing one's pricing decisions on the opinions of people who think $25 is a lot of money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> eh I don't think it's the end of the world, you gotta try different price points to see what works or what doesn't. + I don't think it'll affect the true fans who tend to watch these interviews live/same day.

Only change I would do, is make the time limit a little bit longer. Maybe 2-3 weeks/month, before a video goes behind paywall.

The monthly fees are kinda a downer though, until you think about it. Those people who want to watch all interviews, are better off paying a monthly fee, instead of being nickle and dimed to death with per video fees.

The whole idea here isn't to charge people, but to get more participation out of your audience. This way more people will watch people live/right away. And will be much more likely to discuss it in real time...creating more buzz about the interviews. Which should lead to even better guests.

\+ think about it...the reason you are complaining that he is starting to charge...is because you realize just how valuable the content is. And if the content is valuable...what's $25?

</comment><comment><USER32> Just videos = not worth $25 a month in my humble opinion - especially when the transcripts are not behind the pay wall.

But if he adds a forum - he can create a good membership site out of mixergy. And $25 per month for it is doable.

(I personally think its just an experiment to control high bandwidth costs...)

</comment><comment><USER33> This is something all publishers grapple with so I'm not going to fault Andrew for exploring ways he can make money for his time investment which is substantial. I think the pricing is a bit high ... I'd be more likely to pay $100/year for a subscription but I'm not sure if there's enough value in these interviews to warrant more. There might be but I'll have to think about it.

I also think it's going to prevent new users from discovering the value of the site and returning/becoming fans. Yes, you can watch one or two recent videos for free (currently doesn't work?), but I think people become fans when they can dig into the archive and watch some other interviews. I became a fan after discovering a link to a video somewhere and then spending a few hours digging through the archive. I'm not sure people who are just discovering Mixergy will get out the wallet on the strength of one or two videos, so they'll be less likely to dig deep and find the value of site. I wouldn't have done that, and probably wouldn't have returned except for the occasional link that shows up in a stream somewhere.

It's a tight rope to walk. There are a ton of monetization options he can explore and I don't blame him from trying. Just hope he doesn't put off his audience/guests or lose his momentum while trying to find the right path forward because this is probably the hardest one to sell.

</comment><comment><USER34> I tried watching the EventVue interview <http://mixergy.com/eventvue-josh- fraser/> which is less that a week but behind a pay wall.

How can the bandwidth be high if it is being hosted on justin.tv? I would suggest an advertising model where there are short 20 second ads (maybe 5 per interview). Though I really like the interviews, 300 ponds a year 20 interviews is way too high (I watch about 2 a month).

Best of luck Andrew, I hope it goes well!

<comment><USER35> same here. Was trying to watch <http://mixergy.com/daniel-delaney-vendrtv/> which was posted on feb 18th (3 days old) but it is behind the pay wall. how come? basically, any video i am trying to watch is behind a pay wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> <http://www.justin.tv/mixergy/all>

</comment><comment><USER37> Here's what Andrew is doing; he's being enterprising:

"An enterprising person is willing to try out new, unusual ways of doing or achieving something."

I'm not agreeing that this is the best route for him to take, in fact, I don't think it will work (I could be wrong) - but there's nothing wrong with trying new things.

Andrew is obviously testing this, just sitting back and absorbing these comments and the financial results of this test.

I don't think this exact model will work, but at any rate, good luck

</comment><comment><USER38> Three subscription options: $25, $50 or $100 per month for exactly the same product. Normally tiered pricing is used with different product variations to target different market segments more effectively. In this case, since the product is fixed and surely nobody would voluntarily pay the higher price, he must be using this as a psychological trick to make the $25 seem more reasonable - an interesting idea.

<comment><USER10> I'm sure it's just a test.

<comment><USER38> What is he testing? He is not, for example, testing if people would pay $50 because I'd assume 99.99% of people who would pay $50 will instead pay $25 whilst that is an option.

<comment><USER10> I didn't say it was a good test. Actually I sent him an email about it as soon as I saw it. Never-the-less, I still don't think that it makes any sense that people are acting like whiney babies because Andrew is trying new things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think people may have assumed Mixergy was a philanthropic service to the entrepreneurial community by Andrew, which is why some here seem quite upset about this decision..

I don't necessarily think instituting a pay wall for older videos is a bad idea.. I'd love to see Andrew post some stats for his community about how successful this decision is/was when the dust settles a bit.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think the pricing model per month is not the best. A much better model would be a pay per view model, perhaps $5/video?

<comment><USER41> It looks like the videos are still free on iTunes. Not sure if this will last or if it will change to a pay per episode like you mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I just signed up simply to support his work even though I watch all the interviews in the first week anyway. For me, the content is worth more than $25/month. I would also like to see a forum as added value.

I'm not sure that this is the best possible model, but if it's not then Andrew will figure it out once he has some data.

</comment><comment><USER43> Please create an iphone app instead where old interviews can be accessed simply and charge for the app.

EDIT: simple->simply

<comment><USER44> Aren't the interviews done in Flash?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> My first reaction was _well, that sucks_. I was wrong.

I think this is an excellent business model for Mixergy. As a fan of Mixergy, I am happy that I have a weeks time to listen to the interviews before they go behind the subscription wall. Andrew, keep up the good work.

<comment><USER46> I think the model is sound as well but the prices are a bit expensive and its all-or-nothing. I'd love some sort of micropayment option per interview. At his cheapest option, $25/month, that's either $300/year for interviews, which is over double the price of my highest paid subscription to anything right now (the Economist).

They're arguably worth it, but I can see folks with tight budgets not willing to pay that much for any content.

Also with so many good startup eyeballs I am curious if the sponsorship angle was considered, specifically from service providers. There seem to be a ton of lawyers & other products that would kill for eyeballs and ears in Andrew's market.

I'm a big fan as well but I still find this a bit startling. But I do appreciate as well the fact that you can watch interviews free for the first week. That is plenty -- he could have cranked that down to one day and personally I'd still find my way over there to watch/listen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I would be really interested in seeing data on how much people decide to pay for the interviews.

</comment><comment><USER48> Are the transcripts going behind the paywall too?

<comment><USER49> if not give me one reason to pay for the video. content=content. ( BTW, I only read the transcripts, because it's less time consuming)

<comment><USER48> Well I thought the transcripts were edited with community help. _If_ that were true, and if I spent some time editing something I thought was going to be free and then the site owner took it behind a paywall I'd consider it a slimy move, but that's just me.

(So, I just archived all the available transcripts that I was interested in. Who knows when _those_ go behind a paywall?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Bummer, didn't really see that coming. For some reason I felt like Andrew didn't need the money (from what little he posts about his background and experiences with his former company). There was this feel that the main goal of the site was really to collect and chronicle the modern day entrepreneur... and really, he was doing a bang up job at it. (Dare I say the best job yet?)

Guess I can't blame him for wanting to profit, but this particular move for profit just feels cheap. I would've much rather see some other ways of profiting. i.e. Quarterly Boxed DVD Sets, etc.

</comment><comment><USER51> Almost all interviewers profit. So I don't see why an interviewee should be offended that Andrew is profiting.

Most interviewers profit by charging advertisers. The advertisers then become the customers and the viewers are just "users." By choosing to charge his listeners directly Andrew is making his viewers his customers.

A business naturally tries to please its customers. To the extent that advertisers' and viewers' tastes differ, we can expect Andrew's business to change for the better: it will be more pleasing to viewers.

<comment><USER10> I agree. By aligning his success with his audience, his podcast will get better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> "However, I think this is a really bad business move, second only to using a fake name. It creates distrust and devalues the community aspect of the product."

Were you passing judgment on Andrew Warner, as that is not his birth name, but a professional name that he has adopted?

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm glad that Mixergy is starting to charge. You have to pay the bills some how. Would also like to see additional content like private forums.

I think the price is a bit high. He should of had a $10/month option and I would have signed up tonight.

</comment><comment><USER54> I think this is going to hurt viewership, thus making the site less attractive to interview subjects, and thus further hurting viewership in a feedback loop.

</comment><comment><USER55> If he isn't really in it to make money I would push the pay wall back to like a month... or 6. Let the long tail bring some moneys in as his library grows.

</comment><comment><USER56> Hey guys, i think he has removed the paywall.

This thread is very useful!

</comment><comment><USER57> I subscribe to the video podcast and I have a bunch of old ones I haven't watched yet. I wonder if he'll shut that down..

</comment><comment><USER58> my money is safe... not worth it.

</comment><comment><USER59> What about interviewees ? They spent an hour assuming their video would be available by anyone but later on they found out he started to charge of it? Does it fair? (I assume that he didn't inform them beforehand)

Finally I'm sure out of thousands people 10 will subscribe but potentially that's pretty much it, that model wouldn't work unless you got something crucial. And to be honest this is just chit-chat. Yes I love to listen Paul Graham talk on stuff but none of the interviews are actually ground-breaking or great, it's just good time.

That's why I doubt if anyone would actually bother to subscribe.

Give it 3 months then I'm sure he'll change the model.

<comment><USER60> I was just going to post the same thing. If I was an interviewee, I'd be kind of pissed I'd given my time for free, just so someone else could throw it behind a paywall.

<comment><USER61> I am tempted to start contacting some of his old interviewees and ask them what they think about it. I'll ask them to contact him if they are pissed by the fact that they were tricked into giving their free time. Many of them precisely said in those interviews that they were only doing it to give back to the community.

<comment><USER62> I'm sorry, but that's a douchebag move if you don't warn Andrew ahead of time.

<comment><USER63> Information should always be free to the community and Mixergy should concentrate on monetization with different ways rather than subscription model....

<comment><USER17> "Information should always be free"

Wrong.

The provider of that information should be able to charge what he wants. It's capitalism.

<comment><USER64> Actually the market will force him to do something. _that's_ capitalism. You don't just charge whatever you want without regards to market forces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Well, I've read all 60 comments on this thread, and I'm not convinced. I think this decision is bullshit. The type of people who need to see these videos don't have the kind of money Andrew is asking for.

What is the ideal story for these videos? That some kid who doesn't know what to do with his life stumbles across them and is inspired to start a startup. Is that going to happen with a $25/month paywall? Of course not.

Andrew - what's the purpose of your site? Is it a social service? Or is it a for-profit business? I do not get the impression you are poor. I cannot imagine how the bandwidth costs of the site exceed $100/month or so (and if they do, talk to me). But if you see it as a for-profit business, I think it will fail. And if it's supposed to be a "giving back" social dividend for your own success - and that's honestly the impression I got - then this nickel-and- diming will shoot it in the head.

<comment><USER66> _The type of people who need to see these videos don't have the kind of money Andrew is asking for._

I think that's the strange thing about this.

On one hand, Andrew makes out to only have an interest in helping others out. But then he starts charging. It's starting to look like the guy who wants to teach you how to make a million dollars next year -- if you'll only buy his $29.95 book

Of course, it's his site to do with it what he wants. And I don't begrudge a man for wanting to make a few bucks. But this doesn't fit into what he _says_ he's trying to do.

It's almost like he can't help himself -- he wants to tell a story a few years from now about how this venture made X dollars. As if by doing it for free, somehow it undermines his image as a crafty businessperson.

But that's just idle speculation on my part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> $25/month is not a big deal. Andrew works his butt off setting up these interviews, researching the interviewees and their companies, and then talking to these folks for 60 minutes each time (not to mention paying for transcription services, hosting fees, etc.)

The sense of entitlement here is appalling.

<comment><USER21> I can only speak for myself: I only think it's weird that the interviews were given when the site was free. If the interviewees are fine with it, and obviously for the coming interviews, I wish him luck. I personally won't subscribe, but then entrepreneurs also aren't entitled to me having to buy their product.

25$ not being much: if you are not Ramen profitable, it is (It's 5 days of food). To put it in perspective: 25$ is the price of my internet flatrate or a book like "Founders At Work". At the moment I don't buy every book I fancy.

Not saying the interviews are not worth 25$ (don't know), but it is not a "sense of entitlement" to simply have other priorities for spending 25$.

<comment><USER17> IMHO, the value that most people here derive from Mixergy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 1-tank of gas</comment></comment></comment>


New droplet-based electricity generator: A drop of water generates 140V power - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205132354.htm <comment> chupa-chups BS-o-meter: V is not a unit of power.

<comment><USER2> The title (and the article for that matter is poorly written). There was an actual number in the article; 50 W/m².</comment></comment>


How to do user tests [slides]  - <AUTHOR> http://kev.inburke.com/slides/user-testing

<comment><USER2> I didn't get slide 13 (Other common problems/questions). Are these more bad questions? Are these questions users often ask?

<comment><AUTHOR> These are questions users ask - that you need to work around

<comment><USER2> Great. Thank you.</comment></comment></comment>


Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion - <AUTHOR> http://www.dirtdon.com/?p=1452 <comment><USER2> <http://wiki.freebsd.org/BSDgrep>

_BSD grep has been imported to 9.0-CURRENT on July 22, 2010. It has been obtained from the OpenBSD and the FreeGrep projects to make it appropriate for our needs to provide GNU compatibility and let ports build without problems. GNU compatibility is almost 100%, the only missing feature is -P (--perl- regex), which is not possible to support without having PCRE in base system and anyway, it was disabled in GNU grep for the same reason._

Somewhat ironic as OS X includes PCRE. Not sure why Apple didn't stay with GNUgrep.

<comment><USER3> Since the introduction of the GPL3, there's been a steady purge of GNU software from OS X. This is why Apple's GCC, bash, etc. are stuck at old versions lacking a variety of useful features.

I'm kind of curious what they'll do about Emacs. It doesn't have a BSD- licensed counterpart like everything else they've removed... Maybe they'll just leave it out.

<comment><USER4> _Since the introduction of the GPL3, there's been a steady purge of GNU software from OS X._

Is it all GNU software that's being purged, or just the GPLv3 licensed stuff? If the latter, I can't say I blame them. The former case can go either way but I guess it's good to future-proof early.

<comment><USER3> As far as I know, _all_ GNU software went to GPLv3. Literally all of it. Even things with no substantial updates since 2007.

<comment><USER5> Isn't (one of) the points of the GPL that you cannot change the licensing of the software?

<comment><USER3> Short answer: Not quite.

Long answer: One of the conditions for contributing code to the GNU project is assigning copyright to the FSF. That means they're legally the sole copyright holders for all software they distribute. The official reason for this is so they can pursue GPL violations in court without involving the actual authors of the code. It also permits them to change the license on any of their software. Finally, there are various reasons they might be able to do this anyway even if they didn't have the copyright assignment rule, so long as the new restrictions didn't conflict with whatever license the original software was distributed under.

<comment><USER6> So, in theory, FSF can overnight change the license of all GNU softwares to shareware and sell them?

That's really fucked up. (I trust they won't do such a thing, but I didn't think such a thing could be possible)

<comment><USER7> Well it's more likely than you might think over a span of a couple decades...

But, I _think_ if they were to go rogue it would be a matter of forking a GPL- licensed version of the software and continuing development on that under an open license.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it is likely at all even in decades, and if they did they would be sued by loads of contributors for violating their binding promise to adhere with free software spirit in future licenses. You get some guarantees when you assign your copyright to the FSF.

And all this is ignoring that most GNU programs are licensed under a GPL variant _and_ any future version, so they would not need the copyright to upgrade the license anyway.

<comment><USER7> I'm not saying it's a thing that's going to happen, just that you shouldn't have some blind faith that it won't ("I trust they won't do such a thing"). I'm pretty sure RMS would agree with the sentiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> something i'm curious about - for linux fans who have made the switch, is osx an "acceptable unix"? people keep trumpeting the fact that it combines the best of both worlds, a seamless gui experience atop a full-fledged posix core complete with a bash prompt you can drop down to as easily as you can in linux, but philosophically it seems that for the little things like package management, command line utilities, etc., the experience is closer to cygwin than it is to linux proper - you can do it, sure, but it will involve falling back to a third-party ecosystem.

<comment><USER10> I may be a Linux fan, but there you go: Mac OS X as Unix is inferior to Linux. Package management in Ubuntu is second to none, I have newer version of everything, sane terminal colors and fonts out of the box, I don't have to download monstrosity that is Xcode just to get a damn compiler, compiling some non-mainstream sources may not work out of the box.

<comment><USER11> Package management in Ubuntu is not second to none, it is second to Debian. Dont get me wrong Ubuntu has done a lot of wonderful things, but lets give credit where credit is due...

<comment><USER12> I'd actually disagree on this point.

Ubuntu has introduced a number of refinements to the dpkg world that have been pretty good.

Most useful, in my mind, is their set of tools for working with PPAs. They're much simpler to run than setting up an entire new repository of packages.

<comment><USER11> Seriously? You think that PPAs and your other unnamed improvements tower over the apt package management system? Without PPAs apt-get would be yet another kludgy package management system? Sure apt-add-repository is a nice time saver but how hard is:

      echo deb http://repo.net/ unstable main >> /etc/apt/sources.list

I think we might be miscommunicating because I can't imagine anyone making this argument. I'm not sure how old you are but I can remember what package management was like on slackware and redhat a decade ago when I switched. Moving to debian was like a scene in a movie when it goes from black and white to full color.

<comment><USER12> With respect to PPAs, I'm not speaking from a user perspective, but from that of a sysadmin having to maintain mirrors. PPAs are just easier than setting up all the key signing and mirror infrastructure.

Yeah, apt and dpkg are great compared to what else was available a decade ago. But that doesn't mean that Ubuntu's additions, however incremental, are worthless or somehow inferior to Debian. Incremental gains are still gains.

<comment><USER11> I'm confused about PPAs and setting up a mirror infrastructure. What mirror infrastructure? What key signing is involved in a mirror that is not involved in signing packages for a PPA?

Ubuntu's additions are nice. But they are minor improvements to apt/dpkg. Without them apt and dpkg would still be phenomenal.

<comment><USER12> I administer a small number of systems and deploy custom packages to all of those.

Running a custom mirror, signing packages, managing keyrings on the mirror, and getting them on all systems is nontrivially harder than using a PPA and associated scripts.

Now, I run a mix of Ubuntu and Debian systems. I don't use PPAs that much, but when I do they're just plain easier.

Yes, it's an incremental gain, but that's a gain. It makes them better. They weren't first, but they're innovating. Sometimes, the "innovations" aren't fantastic especially some of the more harebrained stuff on desktop (PulseAudio, avahi). But no longer is Ubuntu just a Debian rip-off: They're producing new and useful additions.

The relative merits are debatable, and so I'm not going to continue that thread. In the end, it boils down to X + epsilon > X, for any epsilon > 0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Apparently pre-10.8 the grep program that came with Mac OS X was GNU grep. 10.8 comes with BSD grep.

<comment><USER14> It's definitely GNU grep on 10.7.5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This contradicts a clear historical trend in which Perl regex syntax and POSIX regex syntax (not the same) are being more widely adopted as time passes. It's a definite step backward.

<comment><USER3> This wasn't a deliberate decision on Apple's part to remove this particular functionality. Rather, they switched to a different implementation of grep (BSD instead of GNU) and it leaves out PCRE support by default. If word of this gets back to whoever made the change, it should be a simple matter to reenable it for future versions of OS X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This bit me in our "golden file" checking portion of our product's test suite. I moved the golden file checking regex to a Perl script. Apple's obsession with removing GNU utilities has been annoying but I suppose the test suite should have taken grep portability problems into account.

<comment><USER17> Yes it should have. You could still run into problems as PCRE regexes are not quite the same as Perl regexes. Why not just check for and use pcregrep?</comment></comment>


SpaceX loses its third Starship prototype during a cryogenic test - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/spacex-loses-its-third-starship-prototype-during-a-cryogenic-test/ <comment><USER2> It's funny how extreme the reactions are here. It's either the end of the world or exactly as planned. Both are nonsense.

To me, this looks like it was definitely a noteworthy fuckup, but in the big picture it doesn't seem to be a major setback -- nothing like the recent Boeing issues. That is, as long as a pattern of such events doesn't develop. SpaceX continues to push the industry forward in interesting and exciting ways.

To continue the arm-chair quarterbacking... I feel like a moderate decrease in process aversion would be a good response to this incident. Reduce the chance of similar future fuckups without slowing down too much.

<comment><USER3> From a process design/management view I'm not sure you're right. In fact I think you're probably wrong, but there is definitely room for disagreement.

To oversimplify things massively, "how careful do we want to be to avoid testing failures" is a parameter that SpaceX management gets to control. At the extreme careful end everything costs billions of dollars because you're paralyzed analyzing things and double/triple/quadruple/quintuple checking things. At the not at all careful end of things you keep building "complete rockets", pointing them at mars without any testing, and blowing them up. Obviously neither is rational.

They've settled on some parameters that are basically "don't worry that much about test failures, but keep the failures really cheap". They seem to be doing pretty well by doing that. They're experimenting with manufacturing techniques, hiring and training a workforce, building facilities. The prototypes that they are building keep failing, but that looks to be a relatively minor cost considering that the current primary goal is (according to them) to build out the manufacturing processes and make the design easy to manufacture.

Being slightly more careful would undoubtedly reduce the numbers of prototype failures, but would it actually be worth the cost of slowing other things down? Remember that the main cost of this program to SpaceX is engineering salaries, the faster it goes the cheaper it is.

So of course this test didn't go as planned, of course it would be better if it had worked, but would it have really been worth it to management to reduce the probability of this test failing? Like I said, maybe they aren't being careful enough, but I don't think we have any real evidence for that right now and I personally doubt it.

<comment><USER4> I think this is where NASA went wrong in many respects. They got so risk adverse, they built a bureaucracy of checks and oversight that moves slow. That's one of thew reasons the industry needs fresh blood like SpaceX

<comment><USER5> Two reasons and probably more:

1\. The risk is different when there are human lives on the line.

2\. NASA is publicly funded and if they want to keep receiving funding, they can't be blowing up the public's money.

<comment><USER6> I feel NASA's approach is right for manned spaceflight, but is not sensible for robotic missions - metal is cheap, design time is expensive. I feel the public appearance is not a hard - nosed calculation, but Is instead a pr requirement

<comment><USER7> I actually disagree with you. For one, consider that Starship is ultimately intended for manned spaceflight... yet SpaceX is still trying things and blowing stuff up (or imploding or...)

From my armchair perspective I think the risk adversity criticism is justified. NASA should take much more risk even in human spaceflight... in the early stages of platform development. First see if you can build the damn thing and build it repeatedly. Later, after that period, reduce risk and prove out and refine things to the human spaceflight standard. If you jump immediately to, "my God people are suppose to fly on that thing!" well, you're probably going to pay the Russians a lot of money for a fairly long time.

I do agree with you that the political management becomes a real issue. Politicians and bureaucrats are naturally disposed to a certain cravenness about such issues once they get to significant positions of power (senior execs of many companies do, too). But I think a charismatic leader that's out in front of the messaging could pull it off.

<comment><USER6> Well, ironically and counter to your point, Russians had the same basic design now for nearly 60 years!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I love about SpaceX is that they truly take on the start-up approach of fast iteration, in complete opposite to most of their competitors.

This is a silly loss, as it sounds like it was a test procedure error and not a valuable experimental failure. But even then, how much is lost? The rocket was built on-site in a tent, welding some cheap steel together. They've got more test articles being built. The engine is probably salvageable. This is a month or two set-back at worst.

And just like when our software fails in a silly way, I'll bet you there will be new automatic tests, procedures, etc, so that this kind of error can't happen again. They'll learn, iterate, and continue to move fast (and break things).

With nearly all of their competitors, any kind of failure like this would be millions of dollars lost, months or years of setback. This fundamental difference is why SpaceX is slowly coming to dominate the industry.

<comment><USER9> Every bit of negative Elon Musk oriented news brings out an apologetic post excusing failure and painting it positively, with a pile of democratic support.

This is a failure, and failure is perfectly ok working on something like this, but what drives people to volunteer their time to spin such things as positively as possible or even signal boost ? I can't believe it's purely investor driven. It's almost as if people are finding personal purpose in sacrificing their time to this cause.

<comment><USER10> Why do people cheer for sports teams? Many nerds avoid team sports, but we share some of the same psychology as the more typical.

Many people like to dream big, but most of the time life is mundane. SpaceX's efforts are the embodiment of sci-fi fantasy with a chance of becoming real. Why not cheer?

<comment><USER11> I have for years thought of SpaceX as my sports team to cheer for. I get just as excited watching their launch livestreams as many get watching football games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "this may have been a test configuration mistake"

The article makes it seem like this is a good thing, I.e., there's nothing inherently wrong with the design.

If true, it means it may be a procedural escape which can be every bit as dangerous. Some of the fallout from the CST-100 Boeing Starliner issues seem to point to process escapes as well. Makes me wonder if in the rush to get "boots on the moon" by 2024 we may be letting schedule get the best of us...

<comment><USER3> This is an early manufacturing path-finding test article and test, not a test article and test designed to validate that the system is safe. The procedures, design, manufacturing techniques, and everything else are still being developed and certainly haven't been validated yet. Failures are expected.

It is a good thing that there is nothing inherently wrong with the design, just because that would mean more re-design work for SpaceX. A procedural issue (possibly this failure), a manufacturing defect (MK1 failure), a failure due to a temporary hack (SN1 failure), etc are all understandable errors and easily fixable at this point in time.

Starship isn't really being driven by the "boots on the moon by 2024" push by the government. Starship is a private venture being developed on their own schedule (and with their own money).

<comment><USER12> I worry that the people who ran this test either didn't know what they were doing, or were too tired or didn't care.

The top tank was covered in ice, indicating it was nearly full, while the bottom tank had no ice. That leaves three possibilities:

* The intention is the bottom tank was pressurized with gas:. There is no way that much gas at ~4 bar is safe. It would destroy all nearby buildings if it failed. That's a serious safety failing.

* The intention is the bottom tank was filled with LN2. Whoever was running the test didn't notice the tank didn't turn white, and didn't have any kind of level gauge or flow meter?

* The intention is the tank was unpressurized. The design could never withstand the top tank filled and the bottom tank unpressurized and empty. Whoever designed and ran the test didn't understand the basics of the design.

All of those 3 possible explanations point to more than a simple oversight, and IMO suggest the team working at 3am might possibly not really understand what they were doing.

<comment><USER3> > There is no way that much gas at ~4 bar is safe. It would destroy all nearby > buildings if it failed.

Wat?

This is a launchpad, the safety assumption at play here is that this vehicle (and in fact a much larger vehicle with this vehicle as a second stage) can be filled with liquid methane and liquid oxygen, explode (with the energy of a small nuclear bomb, a few kilotons), and no one will get hurt. The area around the launchpad is kept clear during testing by local law enforcement for this very reason.

Hours before the test that failed, in a different test, the same test article was pressurized with room temperature nitrogen, likely up to ~7 bar (based on previous tests for which we were given figures).

For comparison, this is the same location that the following test was performed at, all the additional structures you see have been added recently by SpaceX as ground support equipment and they are undoubtedly perfectly aware and ok with the idea that they might be damaged in the case of a failure [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYb3bfA6_sQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYb3bfA6_sQ)

As for the rest of your post, yes, if you assume the people running the tests were incompetent then they would be incompetent. We can't fully rule out the idea of course, but it's far from the only option. Most likely the failure was not nearly so simple as "we forgot to pressurize a tank" \- particularly considering that the bottom tank was clearly pressurized as it was venting.

The most reasonable suggestion for a proximate cause I've seen, for instance, is that the pressure release valve on the lower tank iced over and leaked until the pressure was no longer enough to support the above mass and it failed. This is supported by the evidence that we know they were having valve issues related to cryogenic liquids earlier in the day, and that the bottom tank was inexplicably venting for roughly 13 straight minutes before the failure. It doesn't quite line up with Elon's suggestion that this was possibly a test configuration error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Depends on the lead time for making new ones and the supply of money.

Von Braun's V-2 team built 700 rockets before hitting a target.

<comment><USER14> And they were the very first ones to actually try. Quite a difference to a company that can build upon 80 years of experience.

<comment><USER15> Most of this experience has not been made public though, but yes, it's quite different

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> i know that this sounds stupid but failure is par core for spacex. i remember a time when landing rockets were impossible and then it changed to landing orbital class rockets is very difficult to being surprised when a rocket doesnt land successfully. hopefully we will remember these failures and hopefully spacex comes through again with better designs and sees this project to success.

</comment><comment><USER17> I really don't understand how people try to defend Elon Musk and team on anything and everything they do. It's nice they are pushing the edge, but please, when things fail, let's acknowledge failure and shortcomings and learn from them rather than try to spin everything SpaceX or Tesla does as faultless and forward.

<comment><USER18> But failed test aren't failures. That's why you have tests, so that you get failed tests and not dead astronauts.

<comment><USER19> Ha, say that to my previous PM...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's a good thing they're trying to break it on the ground, PR be damned. Better they than hiding failures like Boeing

</comment><comment><USER21> interesting that the visible deformation started at 01:56am and the test continued until full failure 10 minutes later

[https://youtu.be/kkqgkccWKYI?t=130](https://youtu.be/kkqgkccWKYI?t=130)

While i've happened to be wrong anytime i've questioned Musk's decisions/approach, looking at that and the previous pressure test failure and how the body crumples, i wonder whether the way the Starship body is built isn't faulty by design - like all this steel plates horizontally oriented.

Of course, fast and cheap is the only way to get to build hundreds of Starship, the Liberty ship of our time, yet the current structural design of the body seems to require re-work.

<comment><USER22> All rockets are thin metal cylinders. How do you mean this is faulty by design when it's fundamentally like any other rocket?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder what their financial situation is. The combination of Starship failures and C19 would make it very difficult to raise money.

<comment><USER24> They have a good sized future launch manifest and they have like 60% of the market now. Maybe not hurting too badly.

[https://www.spacex.com/missions](https://www.spacex.com/missions)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is there a good web page somewhere that keeps track of all starship prototypes currently being built?

<comment><USER8> Reddit's /r/spacex is probably the most informative place about SpaceX and what they're doing.

A good example, here's their info on Starship prototypes: [https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/starships](https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/starships)

<comment><USER26> The Reddit wiki is super nice; for the rest, I think NASASpaceflight is just a bit better. [https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50522.0](https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50522.0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yeah, hardware is unforgiving like that. Made a mistake in calculations? Start over and spend a few weeks making another widget. There better not be a mistake in that, otherwise lather, rinse, repeat until you figure out how not to make mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER28> I honestly love Elon Musk and much of what he tries to do, but how are these tests still running? Are rocket scientists and engineers immune to the coronavirus?

<comment><USER29> The whole rocket industry is considered relevant to national defense, and thus "essential", so they don't have to stop if they don't want to. And Elon doesn't want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> with the amount of welds this thing has, it wouldnt surprise me to see more of these failures. every single weld needs to be perfect and not leak

</comment><comment><USER31> How stupid can arstechnica be?

They didn't loose any Starship, they are still testing tank weldings with various pressure tests, which had a problem from the beginning. Then they switched the manufacturer and the tank welding might still not be good enough. Or as announced it was just a bad test.

Such iterations are totally expected, it's the third now (SN3, serial number 3), but no engine tests yet in integration with the spectacular new Raptor engine.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is SpaceX: the fourth time's the charm.

</comment><comment><USER33> Good thing they have plenty of backups!

<comment><USER34> They've lost two of the three Starship prototypes.

Thankfully, they seem to be fairly easy to build, and the tests aren't burning through the really expensive bits thus far, the engines.

<comment><USER35> You mean two not including this one?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Better than in orbit around Io.

</comment><comment><USER37> No way they will fly one of these to the Moon in 2022. Will see the Shuttle effect, ie. introducing engineering workarounds that will greatly increase costs.

<comment><USER38> I saw somewhere a spreadsheet that keeps track of Musk's promised and real timelines.

Musk seems to be off by 1.8 on average.

1.8 is also one Mars year in Earth years. Coincidence?

<comment><USER39> Curious, does that spreadsheet include everything applicable from [https://elonmusk.today](https://elonmusk.today) ?

Because I am not sure how you average out against an infinite time frame (E.g. where are the country-wide summon, snake-charger, car carrier, etc?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It appears likely that this was a test procedure failure rather than a hardware failure. Which brings up the question, why were they doing it at 2AM? Either they were using night crew who are presumably not their A staff or they were using highly fatigued day crew.

Edit: everybody is taking this as an attack on night crew. It was poorly worded -- I believe the latter is more likely, since Elon expects his employees to work 80-100 hours a week. [https://www.businessinsider.com/elon- musk-says-80-hours-per-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk- says-80-hours-per-week-needed-change-the-world-2018-11)

<comment><USER41> Thank you for insinuating the night crew is not just as capable as the day crew. It really makes it seem like you have never worked In a 24/7 industry

<comment><USER42> With engineers, that may well be a fair assumption. Night shift is less desirable, therefore people with more options will be less likely to settle for it, therefore the better people are in the day shift. Unless this is like shift work where people rotate between day and night shifts - but that would be highly unusual for a company like spacex.

Just playing devil's advocate, but the logic chain is plausible.

<comment><USER43> Perhaps reclusive people have more time and energy to dedicate to their craft increasing their skill level and propensity to work night shifts? I'm just spit-ballin'.

Smart people seem to be very good at conceiving a plausible chain of logic for almost anything. Something Star Trek demonstrated well with the the Vulcans. I mean that as no snark towards yourself, it's just a subject I've been thinking about recently.

<comment><USER42> Haha, yeah I can rationalize almost anything and make it sound plausible. It's a talent of dubious merit.

I think the take-away here is there's no reason to assume that both shifts would have equal skill - likely there will be some differences, and it's a question of how much and why. It would be odd if it turned out there was no difference at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is really bad. I don't know how much money they have left but I cannot imagine they can continue blowing up prototipes that took weeks to build every other week like this.

<comment><USER45> These are relatively cheap prototypes. No engines, just the fuel tanks and body. Cheap stainless steel, fabricated in weeks. If this was Boeing, it'd set them back years. The whole idea is to crank out a steady stream of cheap prototypes to iterate design ideas and fixes rapidly.

<comment><USER46> At most other companies you have a whole hierarchy of executives who want their bonuses, so you have that risk aversion where they will spend tremendous time and resources covering their asses first. Failure is failure, it's not just a step to more improvement in that world.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: onHand - Accept appointments from your website - <AUTHOR> https://www.onhand.co

<comment><USER2> Neat Idea, but tried to setup an appointment with someone using it and it wont let me select the day. e.g. [http://redbearded.com/](http://redbearded.com/)

No JS errors either, so not sure what I am doing wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's odd. May I ask what browser and operating system?

Are you choosing an available day (i.e. one that isn't grayed out)?</comment></comment>