A collection of the worlds best SMS Marketing case studies - <AUTHOR> https://smsmarketingexamples.com <comment><AUTHOR> We've been building in the SMS eCommerce space for the past 2 years. We were previously operators of a brand using SMS as a key part of our online strategy, and later pivoted to create the most powerful conversational commerce solution available (blueprint.store) after seeing how important 1:1 connection is and the lack options available.

Throughout this time, we've seen hundreds of different examples of SMS marketing (both good… and very very bad) but without any real structure or review process. We wanted to dig deeper into the tools used, the different elements to each SMS strategy, and ultimately where are the stand-out examples? We've spent the last few months building detailed case studies and the tools used across the best SMS marketing examples in the world.

 _Our key takeaways from building that website._

The only 3 brands (out of hundreds) to really stamp their authority and execute on their SMS strategy. Interestingly, the each shared 3 key elements. 1.) They provided value to their audience before anything else (Before any offer or sales-y message, each of these brands created engaging and useful content to their subscriber base.). 2.) They didn't spam their audience with offers (The bottom line is important, lets not forget that, but these brands really see the long-term value in building trust and brand equity before any sort of sale request.) 3.) They each created their own persona and tone of voice (Every message and every touchpoint was carefully crafted with a friendly and approachable persona's/tone of voice).

If you wanted to check out the site - we're live on Product Hunt today: [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/sms-marketing- examples](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/sms-marketing-examples)</comment>


Breaking away from "The Man" - GridSpy goes Full-time. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2010/06/breaking-away-from-the-man.html

<comment><USER2> Congratulations! Taking the plunge is indeed a hell of a thrill, and spooky too.

I'm a big fan of your product and the way you've been handling it so far.

Also: I originally bootstrapped by doing consulting work; it's been 2.5 years now, and my consulting business is doing rather nice, but I'm still not doing the development work I wanted to do. So don't get stuck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the encouragement, it means a lot to me :)

I know what you mean about getting stuck.

I've seen others fall into the trap of independent contracting, favoring it over the project they planned to work on. I'm blessed (cursed?) to have a contract project that I really like as an alternative to GridSpy. It makes it that much harder to put the time into GridSpy that I need to.</comment></comment>


Help Me Get to Ag 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://geoff.greer.fm/2014/10/13/help-me-get-to-ag-10/ <comment><USER2> ag is the finest tree-searching tool ever when what you're searching isn't a git repo. Everyone should use it. I've found it particularly useful for non- git code trees and log directories.</comment>


36 maps that will make you see the world in completely new ways - <AUTHOR> http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/36-maps-see-world-new-ways/

<comment><USER2> "that will make you see the world in completely new ways"?

Really?

<comment><USER3> I thought it was cool....must we all be so cynical and reflexively shit on things because of a slightly hyperbolic headline? You should be able to learn something from at least one of those maps.</comment></comment>


"Only five people maintain Python-pip" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/kartar/status/1147361079418380288 <comment><USER2> At Google there is an internal document called "No Heroes". It basically says that if your load is too high - let the damn thing fail. Perhaps it's not important, and only you think it is. Perhaps the higher ups don't realize it's important and they need to be reminded of it. Reliable infrastructure cannot depend on heroic actions of a small group of people, and especially on actions of a single person. Let it fail - the world will take notice. Or not, in which case you should move to something more useful.

<comment><USER3> I would love to read this or have it available somewhere. It sounds like something a lot of people could benefit from.

If it is at all possible to post it somewhere?

<comment><USER4> Indeed, it sounds something that should have been part of their now-famous SRE book :)

Is it breaking any obvious NDA or can you share it?

<comment><USER2> Not affiliated any more, so I don't even have it. But yeah documents you write on payroll are corporate intellectual property (same as code is) so I couldn't just share it even if I wrote it myself.

I wish they added it to the SRE book. But it's not a hard sell if someone already believes that you need to distribute computation/data for higher reliability. Same goes for labor/know-how.

<comment><USER5> Sounds familiar to the bus factor. You want to keep it high in a project, wikipedia has some hints about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The longer I've been around open source, the less it's seemed like some ideological adventure where we extend human knowledge and capabilities for its own sake, while looking more and more like a set of intentionally confusing layers of abstraction and indirection around companies with plenty of money to spend on more engineering hours contriving to buy those hours well at below minimum wage by selling people on the above ideological vision.

Also, I'm going to guess that's something like five active contributors signed up, not five full-time engineers, meaning the actual number once you do the math for availability and such is probably closer to half an engineer. Could be five, but Heartbleed kinda put paid to reasoning like "pip is important, surely it has the funding for dedicated contributors who aren't distracted by something else being their real job."

<comment><USER7> What solution do you propose then ?

Money is always decoupled from value ( Warren Buffet paraphrased ).

Sometimes people who add negative value like the oil men in the Permian basin get paid 100x then your pip developer.

Screw that, large amount of the surplus generated by technology companies ends up in the hand of land owners instead of stockholders ! let alone the engineers building it - who might be riding on the work of open source volunteers. Its turtle all the way down.

If you are a volunteer, you are forgoing payment and are subjecting yourself to exploitation by others by definition.

Unless you have a mechanism for enforcement you are shit out of luck.

<comment><USER8> Isn't this the point of "copyleft"? Create a valuable product, require that when someone builds on it, that what they create also be free to use.

Open source software fails like this even if it's valuable because fixes and improvements don't necessarily make it out into the open, whereas Free/libre software, if it's valuable, gets stronger over time because fixes and improvements must be available to everyone.

<comment><USER9> Adding "fixes and improvements" to software haphazardly does not, in general, make it stronger. Quite often it can be the opposite.

Software projects need someone to maintain its course, make sure changes match the purpose of the software, and most importantly, reject changes that create a burden on the project.

<comment><USER10> Not only that, but onboarding yourself into a new project/codebase can take a significant amount of effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Five doesn't sound so bad. There are lots of FOSS projects with fewer or just one people maintaining them.

Besides that though, I wondered how much maintenance pip even needs. Shouldn't it be kinda stable?

But looking at [https://github.com/pypa/pip/graphs/commit- activity](https://github.com/pypa/pip/graphs/commit-activity) it doesn't seem so.

<comment><USER12> Reading about the attacks on the SKS keyserver network, I get that zero people have maintained SKS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Personally I'm more concerned about the attitude and atmosphere that implies that 5 maintainers are too few for a mature project with relatively limited scope. I'm more and more beginning to think how can we reduce the ridiculous amount of useless churn in software.

<comment><USER14> The problem is exactly that pip is neither mature nor has limited scope. Python packaging is constantly evolving, and pip needs to keep up with it. And you'd be very surprised if you ever look under the hood how incomplete the implementation actually is.

<comment><USER15> _Python packaging is constantly evolving_

I think there is a reasonable argument that that has been part of the problem with Python packaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Although I think five may be quite good comparatively, my thanks to the pip developers.

And if five is not a good number, this is indirectly one of the reasons that I enjoy using python. It has a 'batteries included' release, where I often write code without feeling like I need to $ pip install anything at all. If the 3rd party package delivery system is fragile, that isn't good - but it doesn't represent a dire crisis for me as a user of python.

<comment><USER17> Not my experience with Python

I wind up having to install as many packages as dealing with a Node JS project

<comment><USER18> Genuinely curious: what is your experience with python? What have you used it to do that requires so many packages?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thank you pip people.

Let's nominate them for PSF fellowship [https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSoftwareFoundation/Fellow...](https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSoftwareFoundation/FellowNominations)

</comment><comment><USER20> Most commenters are rightly worried about the "bus factor" element, but I'm just amazed at the returns that you can generate these days with so little manpower.

Five people literally enable entire ecosystems of developers across the world, multiplying their productivity by ungodly amounts and indirectly generating billions of dollars of value. Isn't that extraordinary?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is not unique to Python-pip. A bunch of popular packages are maintained by very few people. But the good thing is that it does not really matter than much with FOSS projects: as long as the source remains available, anyone can pick it up at some point and improve on it - or you can even contract people to work on it when needed to.

<comment><USER22> It's all fun and games until your heart bleeds

<comment><USER23> Or get hit by a (hypothetical) bus.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Read the thread. Feel like it's fine. What's the number people would be happy with? 10? 50? 500?

<comment><USER25> The other argument is the more people you have the greater the risk of a compromise - sometimes less is more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> That is probably why it works so well to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER27> Isn't there mainly one person responsible for writing Rust's Cargo? I vaguely remember them giving a talk.

<comment><USER28> There's a dead comment that posted this link with a sarcastic tone, but I think it's worth seeing:

[https://github.com/rust- lang/cargo/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/rust- lang/cargo/graphs/contributors)

Maybe 2/3 people actively doing most of the contributions with sporadic other contributions.

<comment><USER27> It looks like I was right, until about 2016, Alex Crichton was the only big contributor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How open are they to receiving help? Gatekeeping is often a big problem in open source software.

<comment><USER30> Very open - Python is one of the better communities out there for openness and inclusion. The pip folks are lovely people and would welcome your help - [https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/development/](https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/development/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wow! Five people dedicate time to maintain pip for no profit!

It's pretty amazing like the post states. After openssl's heartbleed I remember hearing about a critical FOSS fund to help with things like this. Much like how wikipedia is funded,it makes sense to fund critical projects like pip and npm.

<comment><USER32> Npm isn't FOSS.

It's owned by a private entity and it's server side code isn't available to my knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The situation is largely similar for rubygems, where a mere couple of people maintain the thing, and not even full time!

> 2-3 devs at 5 hours per week. [0]

The Ruby Together initiative aims to make the situation better through recurring donations.

[0]: [https://rubytogether.org/](https://rubytogether.org/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Well, thank you pip people! <3

</comment><comment><USER35> At least pip had a release in May this year.

It's even worse for pipenv. It was last released in November last year and there are a lot of bugs fixed on master, but there is never a new release.</comment>


New Weapon in Day Laborers' Fight Against Wage Theft: A Smartphone App - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/nyregion/new-weapon-in-day-laborers-fight-against-wage-theft-a-smartphone-app.html <comment><USER2> So we have an app that tracks on an hourly basis the following: people who hire against the law, people who work against the law, people who don't withhold income tax on wages, and people who don't report income to the IRS. All in a beautifully supeanable electronic format.

<comment><USER3> Since the developers have been working on the app for three years, I'm sure that they've built in safeguards. One simple fix that comes to mind is to store all data locally, except for the database of abusive employers. If people want to contact lawyers to recover lost wages, all of the information in the app is kept private since attorney-client confidentiality kicks in. With something like that, there is no additional risk to using the app.

P.S. This is not a criticism of you or your comment, danielvf (I think that the point you brought up is valid). One thing that does bother me about Hacker News, though, is that the top comment is almost always a rejection of the innovation at hand. The hacker part of Hacker News should be about improving imperfect systems, not instinctively criticizing and rejecting them. I feel like HN would be a much more interesting site and much truer to its culture if every critical comment had to include a potential fix for the criticism. If someone can't come up with a potential fix to add, then they haven't done enough research to justify making the comment in the first place.

<comment><USER4> The flaws (or potential flaws) in a given system are almost always more interesting to discuss than the ways in which it has succeeded. Praises ring soft, criticism is fun to debate.

<comment><USER3> I agree that it can be interesting and useful to discuss flaws, but potential solutions are what make the discussion worthwhile. Saying "This will never work for X, Y, and Z reasons" creates a much less interesting debate than "This has flaw X, but I think it could be solved by this change. What do you think?"

It frequently appears that people react negatively on HN purely based on instinct, without doing any research. The response to Dropbox's launch is particularly illuminating: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863) (I think that every Dropbox user can point out half a dozen ways it is better than FTP or a USB stick)

All of the criticism on the Dropbox post is addressable, but the discussion would have been a lot more interesting if the original commenters pointed out solutions themselves. That shifts the discussion from a feeling of "This will never work" to "Cool idea! Here's how you can make it better." The latter, and not the former, is important to the culture of HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is amazing. Technology being used to directly empower otherwise-very- powerless individuals, without adding regulation or inefficiency.

10 years ago, this would have been crazy, given the cost of devices. Now, it's a great idea. In a few years, it will be obvious.

There have to be a lot more tech solutions out there to help with societal problems.

<comment><USER5> This kind of idea crossed my mind a few years ago, but I thought smart phones and data plans were still out of the price range of day laborers. I was thinking along the lines of SMSing the license plate of any car driving up and getting back a rating via SMS. I also wondered about the blow back from "aiding illegals" in more conservative locales.

Someone should write the companion app to prevent wage theft from time clock workers. My understanding is that that problem dwarfs the theft from day laborers. The app would log GPS coordinates as a shadow time clock, and a back end that can ingest a time sheet and validate that the recorded times are correct.

<comment><USER6> When I worked retail back in college, after the store closed a manager would have to unlock the door to let you out of the store. Letting employees out was never a high priority, so you often had to wait a while.

Multiply that times 10-20 employees a night at ~1,000 stores and you've got a good chunk of change.

<comment><USER7> That sounds pretty illegal.

<comment><USER8> It's one of those things that sounds ridiculous when phrased one way but totally legitimate when phrased another for the same objective facts.

Ridiculous but true: "I'm locked in at work after I clock out and need to wait to be let out the front door."

Legitimate but true: "The front doors are locked after closing and the manager is finishing a task before unlocking it for me to go home."

Presumably there are still fire exits in the building so it's not necessarily a safety issue (or would be more of a safety issue if the front door was left unlocked while the employees clean up).

<comment><USER9> The problem stems not from being locked in the building, but in not being paid (usually overtime) for that time where your actions are dictated by your employer.

The employees likely wouldn't mind staying 3 hours after work while the manager does Whatever if they were getting paid overtime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is great. More apps to fight wage theft are needed. Geofence your workplace, and when you enter and leave, record that automatically. Compare with pay stubs. Report to labor law enforcement.[1]

Wage theft laws are becoming tougher. Some states allow triple damages. Some make it a crime. California has been sending employers to jail.[2][3]

[1] [http://www.wagetheftisacrime.com/](http://www.wagetheftisacrime.com/) [2] [https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2015/2015-133.pdf](https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2015/2015-133.pdf) [3] [http://www.alcoda.org/newsroom/2015/feb/convictions_in_wage_...](http://www.alcoda.org/newsroom/2015/feb/convictions_in_wage_theft_prosecut)

<comment><USER11> _More apps to fight wage theft are needed._

What would disrupting Labor Ready look like? An app matching employers with employees?

App processes payments, right? Maybe some sort of escrow.

As for deterring wage theft, there's got to be some good strategies. Maybe both sides enter hours worked. If values match, the payment is processed. If not, the disagreement is escalated somehow.

Each sides could rate the other (up or down). Leading to mutually assured (ratings) destruction if either sides cheats/rats.

<comment><USER10> _" As for deterring wage theft, there's got to be some good strategies. Maybe both sides enter hours worked. If values match, the payment is processed. If not, the disagreement is escalated somehow."_

In a union shop, that's what happens. The worker files a grievance and it's settled or arbitrated. This happens all the time; it's no big deal.

In Germany, there are workers councils to which such problems can be brought.

In the US, the worker gets fired for raising the issue, and can then sue for damages, maybe getting paid years later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like a great way to document illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. I'd be very concerned about this info falling into the wrong hands (or if I were of a different political affiliation, I'd be very glad).

The article unfortunately has no info on what if any measures are taken in the app to anonymize/potentially encrypt this info. I'd be highly skeptical, especially as the US government has no problem twisting the arms of companies to make them give up users' personal info.

Let's not forget one of the two presidential front runners is quite the outspoken critic of immigration. This could have real consequences if it isn't done right (otherwise I think it's a good idea).

</comment><comment><USER12> I've often wondered about a blockchain based union for shared-economy workers. Some kind of verified, distributed way to restrict supply of labour and push prices and costs up in the worker's favour.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looking forward to the hit pieces about how this is a tool for criminals, layabouts, and Mexicans to slander and sabotage upstanding American employers.</comment>


Do Cows Have Friends? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/bovine-friends-forever/598417/ <comment><USER2> Casually drops the fact that cows are artificially inseminated and their calfs are immediately taken away</comment>


Meet LiquidSpace: The Airbnb of Office Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/liquidspace_the_airbnb_of_office_space.php?sms_ss=hackernews&at_xt=4d75ba9cf594e2db%2C0 <comment><USER2> Congratulations Airbnb. You're now the X of something else.</comment>


Dronecode – Open source UAV platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.dronecode.org

<comment><USER2> To those wondering, like me, it looks like a spinoff nonprofit from/with DIYdrones.

[http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/introducing-the- dronecod...](http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/introducing-the-dronecode- foundation)

<comment><USER3> Also appears to just be a place for PX4 and ArduPilot for now, so it's not new products but rather a new umbrella over them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to know why these guys get a press release from the linux foundation, and I didn't in 2007 when I released mine.

<comment><USER5> Connections? Also drones are the hot thing right now.

<comment><USER4> Maybe.

[http://www.robots-everywhere.com/portfolio/navcom_ai/](http://www.robots- everywhere.com/portfolio/navcom_ai/)

Anyway, it's here, it uses a parallax propeller, and it was featured by parallax a good while ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is a press release from the Linux Foundation here:[http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news- media/announcements/2014...](http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news- media/announcements/2014/10/linux-foundation-and-leading-technology-companies- launch-open)

</comment><comment><USER6> I wish the Linux Foundation would be more progressive with naming the project. One of the member orgs, Skyward, has already switched away from the word 'drone' to a much more descriptive 'aerial robotics'.

<comment><USER7> I think that ship has sailed. "Drone" is a single, simple word that the public is using to describe flying robots. Trying to convince everyone to not use it will be a Sisyphean task.

I'd still like "hacker" back, but that ain't gonna happen.

<comment><USER8> I think the distinction he/she's looking for is that these particular drones aren't flying _murderous_ robots, just like all hackers aren't trying to steal grandma's social security number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So does this have something to do with Linux?

Do most drones run embedded Linux, or some other OS? (honest question, I have no idea)

<comment><USER3> Most drones run dedicated code. When most OSS drone projects started, embedded Linux systems were still substantially more expensive than microcontrollers, and real-time control systems are probably harder to achieve with Linux than by hand.

Many hobbyist drones are even still based on old 8-bit AVRs because the first few popular projects were based on Arduino.

As far as I know every major project has moved on to 32-bit ARM, though, usually using STM32 Cortex M0 parts.

The Parrot AR.Drone is the only popular drone I know of running Linux as a primary control system.

<comment><USER10> It's difficult to get the real-time processing and performance you want for a quadrotor control loop with Linux. You usually want to write firmware or use an Real-Time OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
        committed +32 -12
        ---- is_terrorist();

<comment><USER12> I'm sure this was made in jest, but this is probably a real concern with folks at the NSA. With stuff like this becoming consumerized and easy to use, how long do you think it's going to be before some jerk decides it'd be a good idea to strap a bomb to one and fly it into a building?

<comment><USER13> Radio controlled cars/planes are pretty cheap and have been around for a lot longer than "fully autonomous" consumer drones, so maybe the Feds should start staking out hobby stores.

<comment><USER11> but someone who is going to weaponize a drone isn't going to the hobby store. they are going to get the parts from elsewhere or they will seek underground marketplaces with bitcoin.

in the line of fire 1993 movie, john malkovich plays an assassin who creates a gun from toy car parts so the weapon can't be traced or even be suspected. he assembles it just before attempting the hit but it's foiled.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hipster VCs - <AUTHOR> http://bryce.vc/post/65465242202/hipster-vcs

<comment><USER2> Nice: "...we're also susceptible to moving on to the new new before the old new has proven itself out or reveals all of it's innate potential..."</comment>


Steve Jobs' Health Is Everyone's Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/yes-steve-jobs-health-matters-aapl <comment><USER2> His health isn't anyone's business. However, investors have a right to be concerned if a company is too dependent on one person. (This is true even if the person is perfectly healthy; there's always the "hit by a bus" scenario.)

Company executives should be responsible for showing their investors that all critical duties can be handled by at least 2 different people.

</comment><comment><USER3> Uh, no, it's not. And neither was it people's business whom William Jefferson Clinton elected to sleep with. There is still a right to privacy in this country. And if there is not, then I recommend emigrating to Canada.</comment>


In China, 'Fortnite' Penalizes Minors for Playing Too Much - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzd4x/in-china-fortnite-penalizes-minors-for-playing-too-much <comment><USER2> How can anyone here endorse something like this in any way? I get that video game addiction is a real problem, but constant surveillance is not a healthy alternative. Some people are cool with this because "kids need to be studying or playing outside, not playing video games!". But this is just an instance where your interests happen to shallowly align with the government's.

By the time we get to an issue you take offense with, there's already going to be a precedent of censorship and restricted activity and you'll be screwed. To be clear, I can't stand microtransaction-packed cash grabs and I don't game at all, but I also don't believe it's the government's place to say how we should be spending out free time.

<comment><USER3> How can people endorse? Pretty easy - cognitive dissonance, projection, vicarious tithing, etc. People are really complacent about other people suffering things they themselves would hate. We're asshole in that way.

<comment><USER4> Or, you know, people don't consider it "suffering", but "doing what's better". How about that?

If a parent demands that a kid eats his veggies instead of the "burgers and ice cream" the kind wants, it's not necessarily suffering.

Or if you still consider it suffering, it's not like all suffering is valid and should be respected.

It's very easy to make everyone happy, giving them whatever they want all the time, doesn't mean its best for them. Not even if they're adults. Not only what someone wants might be bad for them, but what someone wants might also be bad for others (like someone "wanting" to blast his favorite tunes at full volume at 2am). In those cases it's best that they "suffer" not getting what they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unlike other heavy-handed attempts by the Chinese government to control their populace, this one seems like it has potential to be a net positive.

On the other hand, I expect minors to get creative at circumventing the blocks. "Borrowing" a parent's ID, for example.

<comment><USER6> I think a lot more of their efforts are positive than we think--but don't make the news. It's just what's good for the Chinese government is of higher priority than what's good for the Chinese people. For something like this where they aren't in conflict they do good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It has been years China actually do this.

I believe this started from World of Warcraft. I remember I was 16 when I started to play World of Warcraft, all kinds of regulation started to appear in this game, for example: needs to register with an adult ID card, adding flesh to skeletons, no longer gaining experience when you play too long for a day etc.

For China itself, I think it's just a typical culture resist, just like pop music in the 70s (It's actually a big deal if you try to listen to Taiwan pop music, but young people just love it).

But like other posts mentioned in this thread, it's far more a problem about how people think, just like Europe could probably do this as well. Parent themselves think kids playing video games is a guilt, much more than the government. It's pretty sarcastic that in China, typically parents spend more time on their smartphone. However back in the day, parents don't have time to play with video games because they have less time to be addicted like kids. So they tried to forcibly control their kid about playing video games without any consideration. There even quite some parents who send their kids to do electroconvulsive therapy, just like the movie "A Clockwork Orange".

I personally think the video game is not a problem. Most adults won't play video games all day long because they have their work to do, but kids in school just have to deal with senseless homework, without seeing any points of doing it. When I look back, I always think I should fight more with parents and school, and spend more time on things I like, homework is not cost effective anyway.

I strongly believe the society should fix all other things instead of fixing kids. The problem is, fixing kids just seems too easy than those hard ways.

[1] About electroconvulsive therapy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Yongxin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Yongxin) [2] A good movie about typical Chinese parenting: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3401962/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3401962/)

</comment><comment><USER8> It's hard to think about a government's place being to limit things like gaming or viewing of entertainment. Though the intent is probably positive in this instance, it's the place of the parents to be instituting and upholding rules, not the government. It's an incredibly slippery slope.

</comment><comment><USER9> Many games in China implement limits like this. World of warcraft has a fatigue system that scales xp for example

<comment> crooked-v The difference with WoW is that it frames it as a temporary bonus for time logged out, rather than a penalty for time logged in, with the "normal" progression being the lower rate.

<comment><USER9> No, there are multiple systems in China. All other regions have rested xp, but in this region, extended playtime reduces your regular xp rate all the way to zero. You can see it in the api as "fatigue" scaling

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I could definitely see something like this happening in European countries under health concerns.

</comment><comment><USER11> The article uses the term "government" but the citation refers to Tencent doing this voluntarily, as a form of preemptive self-regulation. The distinction is blurred but this does not appear to be a law or public policy at the moment.

<comment><USER12> Don't bother. All sense and logic gets thrown out of the window when "chinese government" is mentioned in an article. You can literally make stuff out of thin air and the crowd will gobble it with no questions asked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find it difficult to be against such a system

<comment><USER3> It's easy if you believe people should be free to live their lives as they want

<comment><USER14> Okay, putting asbestos underwear on:

In most modern societies, we agree that children have limitations on the "people should be free to live their lives as they want" mindset. Otherwise, we'd be letting four year olds subsist solely on candy, hot dogs, and twenty hours a day of the Best of Elsagate.

We've traditionally trusted the compromise for that to parents. But parenting is hard. We're running on a mix of science and lore for a lot of it. Even beyond that, a lot of parents may not follow best practices, despite the best of intentions. Then add the too busy/doesn't care/actually incompetent parents.

The state has an enormous vested interest in the next generation coming out well-skilled and socially balanced. But they can't put a child development expert into every house in the country 24/7\. They've had to trust parents who are spotty at best at their job, because there were limits on how they could intervene.

For the first time, we have wildly popular entertainment products that phone home and do remote work as part of normal operation. This makes a technical intervention possible in a way they couldn't do with prior moral panics (TV, comic books, bawdy novels).

In some ways, this is actually a tame and tolerant way to deal with the fear of gaming abuse. They're not saying adults can't have games, or even that kids can't-- just restricting usage when you reach a level that implies they're sacrificing something else (school, sleep, or family life) to make the hours. I wonder if a future evolution of this would integrate into directly the schools and the social credit concept-- if you can play Fortnite II: Electric Boogaloo 14 hours a day and somehow maintain straight As, it will let you, but bludgeon your character when your grades slip.

<comment><USER15> We can't put an education expert in every home, but we can put all the children in "correct child raising institutions" where they'll follow strict schedules, intense education and balanced diets. So that we'll be sure the kids will be productive elements for the society when they grow up.

I bet in a few generations people would start asking questions like "if it wouldn't be the state, who would raise our children?".

Joking aside, it's not the state's role to raise our children. It's only role should be to make sure the kids are not abused and that's it.

<comment><USER16> > it's not the state's role to raise our children

Why not? "It takes a village to raise a child", they say. The state is the embodiment of communal action.

> It's only role should be to make sure the kids are not abused

Where is the line between abuse (where the state should intervene) and simply neglectful or poor parenting (which can be very damaging)?

<comment><USER3> These are hard questions and that's exactly why the state doesn't belong here. Parents make mistakes. Governments make genocide. Leave parenting to parents, even if they aren't perfect. The government isn't either.

<comment><USER16> A hard question it might be, but you don't get to write it off. If you think the state should intervene in cases of "child abuse" but not "bad parenting", you need to define - and justify - that line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In China, Fortnite is not popular at all

</comment><comment><USER18> No different than restricting access to cocaine.

</comment><comment><USER19> Just because a removal of freedom seems to be beneficial doesn't make this any less of a human rights abuse. The right to free expression is inherent in all people, and it is unconscionable that the Chinese government censors expression in this way.

<comment><USER12> You must have not heard of parental control features. Is limiting a child's screen time also "human rights abuse"?

<comment><USER20> No, we are not talking about parents. Unless you are implying that people should receive their social, cultural, etc. values from a government?

<comment><USER12> Way to escalate an issue about teenagers playing a video game.

If you've been through a public education system you've already received social and cultural values from a government.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


GCHQ Builds a Raspberry Pi Super Computer Cluster - <AUTHOR> http://www.i-programmer.info/news/91-hardware/8385-gchq-builds-a-raspberry-pi-cluster.html <comment><USER2> Surely they missed a trick with the name there... the Raspberry Super Pi, or Raspberry SPi, for short, would have said it all.</comment>


Dropbox trademark application being challenged (filesanywhere) by 3 rivals. - <AUTHOR> http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/07_-_July/Rival_sues_Dropbox_over_rights_to_the_name_and_website/

<comment><USER2> It is quite generic. I've been calling my network-writeable folder "dropbox" since before there was a web. I should rename it now because someone wants to name their company after the colloquial expression for the functionality?

<comment><USER3> To be fair, Dropbox never said (to my knowledge) that Filesanywhere should be forced to stop using the term. Filesanywhere instead is demanding that Dropbox stop using the term, and that for some bizarre reason Filesanwhere should own the domain.

I think the term is fairly generic, but so are a lot of trademarks up until the point they become trademarks. I'm not sure how the courts and PTO will settle this one.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, it's a game of silly buggers all around. At least it's not on the level of the "app store" nonsense.

It's also hard not to develop a rather cynical attitude towards the USPTO given the unending tide of negative press swirling around it. The system is infamously broken. What are companies supposed to do? Not file applications? Not try to defend a granted trademark because it's generic, only to have someone turn that against them? Is it the company being overly grasping or trying to do their due diligence in a high-stakes game of CYA?

<comment><USER3> I feel like trademarks aren't quite as screwed up. Trademarking colors is completely broken, but I don't think everything is. I think "Dropbox" is a reasonable name. While it's obviously been used in the past, it was not widely used, and it has not been used as a _brand_. I think it's reasonable to allow a company to use it. I also think that anyone who previously used the term should be allowed to continue to use the term indefinitely (but not as branding).

I think Filesanywhere is outright trolling, as they never tried to establish the term as a brand. They have a legitimate claim to use the term, and to dispute Dropbox's claim, but not a legitimate claim to the domain. The domain existed 4 years before the Filesanywhere product launched.

Patents on the other hand are appearing more and more broken. 99% of software patents are crap, and probably 100% of "business method" patents are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting search shows how filesanywhere uses the name "Dropbox":

<http://goo.gl/imygS>

<comment><USER3> Looks like they've been using the term publicly since at least August of 2004.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20040804025347/http://filesanywhe...](http://web.archive.org/web/20040804025347/http://filesanywhere.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I seriously doubt filesanywhere was unaware of drobox for the last 2 years. My guess is they were waiting for the opportune time to cash in.</comment>


Why Does Work Start At 9 A.M.? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2012/01/18/why-does-work-start-at-9-a-m/ <comment><USER3> > For instance, it's well-established that men perform more effectively under > routine and structure.

\- Citation needed.

Blaming "men" for the 9-5 workday is easily one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Come on.

<comment><USER4> I agree, there was a whole lot of "citation needed" in that article. The underlying assumption with that statement, is that women do not work best in rigid structure. Now we have 2 pieces of really dubious information. There's no data for either.

And wasn't 9-5 a banker thing? There are a lot of professions that don't work 9-5 that were established a long time ago, like farming. They don't start at 9am, they start when it's light out so they can stop when it gets hot and resume later.

And the 2 weeks notice? That's because it's reasonable to find a McD's employee in 2 weeks after they post a "Help Wanted" sign. I hear tech employees can and will give longer notice in order to ease transitions.

<comment><USER5> In Norway the standard hours are 8-16 (8am/4pm) which includes half an hour lunch. I believe that in Sweden it's 8-17 (8 hours work, 1 hour lunch).

It's also normal to have three months of notice (and it's not optional for the worker). It's not uncommon that they'll let you leave with a shorter notice if you ask for it, unless they really need you during that time (for e.g. training new staff).

<comment><USER6> Don't forget that Sweden also has 25 days minimum of vacation time annually. USA is, from what I gather, one of the few countries in the world that does not have a legally required minimum annual leave.

To be let go earlier is not only a problem of asking, it's also that you are entitled to three months of salary. So, most of the time, they would like to keep you in order to not have triple the salary costs (one for you, one for the new guy and (virtually) a third for whomever is occupied with training the new guy instead of doing their regular job).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Who decided 14 days is the proper amount of annual vacation time?

Worth noting that this is a fairly uniquely American standard and would be illegal in most of Europe.

<comment><USER8> Adjusting to two weeks of vacation/sick leave was a challenge when I immigrated to the US. After five years with my current employer I now get four weeks.

It's a symptom of the belief that "you should feel lucky to have a job" - <USER2> should be grateful to have two weeks of leave, not expect more like most other OECD country. I am also constantly amazed at how many coworkers don't use the small amount of leave they get.

It'll be interesting to see if changes in employment patterns will eventually push the US towards a mandated number of vacation hours.

<comment><USER9> It's not a symptom of the belief that you should feel lucky to have a job. We're talking about the same country where people who go to college expect jobs to be handed to them.

Instead, it's a complex cause rooted in a country built on entrepreneurship and a strong belief in the "free market" (whatever that means). This is why it's not regulated by any government (federal, state, or local). The US has a lot of factors that lead to its vacation policy, but, "You should feel lucky to have a job" is not one of them--that sentiment is a more recent attitude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure the claims of the article really stand up to scrutiny. For example: _They [women] aspire to different goals — relationships over status; they communicate differently — collaborative over top-down; and thrive in different work environments — open-air over individual cubicles._

If true, women should flock to tech startups and academia and avoid big banks/corporates/government. In reality, the opposite occurs.

Similarly, consider the "routine and structure" that men supposedly require. It seems that stereotypically female professions (teaching, HR) have lots of structure and thrive on enforcing it, while stereotypically male professions (programming, sales) are characterized by an individualistic "get shit done" attitude. The article more or less agrees with this - it's women, not men, who work hard at squashing changes and making the system remain as rigid as a 1900's factory.

Overall, this is a fairly weakly reasoned article that should at least acknowledge where it differs from reality.

<comment><USER11> > If true, women should flock to tech startups and academia and avoid big > banks/corporates/government. In reality, the opposite occurs.

Maybe you missed the part where she said she comes in a little before 9am and leaves by 5. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Same as why everyone is using QWERTY keyboard when there's no scientific evidence that this particular keyboard setup is king.

The benefit of everyone using Qwerty, though, is apparent.

So same with 9am starts. So that the team is together at around the same time, for example. This can be overcome with proper communication channels as in a remote worker setup, but that's a special case.

Sometimes the effects can justify the means.

<comment><USER7> It's also not just about internal communication it's about other companies and partners you deal with being available at the same time. While email can allow people to offset communication due to its asynchronous nature, a lot of businesses are still run primarily over the phone.

If you're a service provider, there's a big advantage in being available at the same times as your clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> tl;dr: the patriarchy.

For the real reasons you'd want to look to the industrial revolution and Taylorism.

PS. Women we're allowed to work when we standardized start times so everyone would arrive at their station at the right time. You can't run a mill with only half the workforce, so during the industrial revolution it was extremely important for everyone to show up on time. That's the real reason and it has nothing to do with men's inputs and everything to do with the needs of the means of production. Before that you started work as the sun rose because we had no need for standardized start times.

The 9 to 5 thing is more an evolution of a whole bunch of inputs, the final input being primarily Henry Ford and the 8 hour day / 40 hour work week that finally allowed everyone to actually consume all the goods they were producing. That is up until now when production has again outstripped consumption.

PPS. I really get annoyed with revisionist feminist history.

</comment><comment><USER14> Actually this is something that I've ran into with my girlfriend. We both work in multinationals that have offices close to each other so we leave and come together.

Her boss is in another country and doesn't enforce a starting hour for her schedule. But I'm having trouble convincing her to start earlier (I want 8 AM) in order to leave at 5 PM. Her reason: she doesn't want that the other girls in her department (Recruitment) mistakenly consider her a slacker behind her back. She thinks that sometime down the road, when asked, somebody will answer that she doesn't work hard enough because she's leaving earlier than 6 PM without mentioning that she's coming in earlier.

<comment><USER15> I hit exactly the same problem in an old job I had. We had flexi-time and most people would work 10am - 6pm or so yet I decided to work 7am - 3pm.

The same hours, the same amount of work but you should see peoples faces when you walk out the office at 3pm...

<comment><USER16> My experience is the opposite. Our department recently changed flexi-time start from 7am to 6:30am, leading to moaning in other departments where they want the same (mainly because the car park is full by 7am).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Um. So, I've read the article. My TL;DR:

There is no scientific research on the adequacy of the current working schedule, as it was adopted arbitrarily by managers. Furthermore, it was established by men for men, without asking women for input, which makes juggling family, career, relationships... difficult for women.

Yeah, there's a wonkish phrase in the middle of it, which reeks of pseudo-evo- psych. I'm talking about "it's well-established that men perform more effectively under routine and structure." So what.

<comment><USER18> _which makes juggling family, career, relationships... difficult for women._

Working 9-5 makes this hard for men too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I work 11-7. Oddly, everyone thinks you are working your ass off when you send out emails at 7pm and never even realizes you are never around before 11.

<comment><USER8> The downside of this is when people only see you coming in "late" and never see you still working at 7pm.

<comment><USER19> Well, I am in a cube farm, my "team" is distributed so I am lucky that nobody every sees me.

Besides, you ever notice the more important the person the later they come in? None of the SVPs at my company are ever in before noon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My biggest issue with all of this is the very notion that you can make policy decisions "scientifically". Having a study to back up every major corporate standard is neither realistic nor even advisable. Many of these things are too nuanced, and include way too many variables to pretend you can get an outcome that is "right" based on data.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is 9 - 5 (9-17 for me) common?

Are lunch and breaks included in that?

9 - 5 is 8 hours and a normal workday is 8 hours?

<comment><USER22> No--really sloppy article. I'm not sure when and how the "9 to 5" phrase entered the lexicon but, wherever I've worked, the "official" workday has always been 8-5 or 8:30-5 with an hour or half-hour respectively for lunch.

<comment><USER15> In the UK and most of Europe it's usually 9-5. The US likes to stretch out the workday to get more out of its wage slaves :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_game>

</comment><comment><USER24> Not all work starts at 9 A.M!

<comment><USER25> Confirming. This week I am round 10 last week I managed to pull off getting here before 8 two times. Flextime is great. Tomorrow I am gone at 3pm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> At Artemy Lebedevs Design Studio work starts at noon.

</comment><comment><USER27> things must be going real slow over at forbes these days :/

</comment><comment><USER28> It's called the "8-hour day", and it was the result of decades of struggle (including a lot of deaths after police/national guard intervention) from overworked factory workers and employees, in many countries.

It was established to be 9-17, historically in most countries.

There had to be some compromise, in order to co-ordinate a lot of things: the start/end of the school day. The start of services such as buses and the subway. 9 o' clock was a nice compromise.

Probably it also had something to do with, well, electric light not being available at the time (not everywhere at least). And people of course has to wake up before 9 o' clock in order to go from their home to work.

The 8 hour day was before idiocies such as "my work is my life/passion" were uttered by mere employees. It was a time that people struggled to work _less_ and have a more balanced life.

Hackers are especially bad at understanding this, because they tend to have little personal life (citation: judging from a lot of people I know, hacker's blog posts, the typical stereotype --which must have some basis--, and most hacker's cultural artifacts), and because they work with interesting problems tend to think that everyone must equally strive to work as much as they can and that "if you love your job, you won't have to work a day in your life".

Well, it doesn't hold for most people, the very people that provide all the infrastructure you use everyday. Few ticket collectors in theaters want to work _more_. Few burger flippers. Few mailmen. Few policemen. Few grocery store employees. Few gas station attendants. Few pilots. Few truck drivers. Few farm workers. Few nurses. Few iPhone or Android phone builders. Few accountants. Few office workers. Few garbage collectors.</comment>


Announcing TypePad Micro - <AUTHOR> http://everything.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/typepad-micro-blogging-announcement.html <comment><USER2> Is there any notable innovation here over tumblr?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a version 1 for sure, in terms of features, but there are definitely enough features for most, as well as a universal profile that can be used across the growing network of TypePad motion powered websites, TypePad Connect'd blogs, etc. It is significant though since it is the first time that TypePad, the largest paid blog service, has offered a free blog.</comment></comment>


Anonymous message to NATO - <AUTHOR> http://circleof13.blogspot.com/2011/06/anonymous-message-to-nato.html <comment><USER2> If this isn't a hoax (and it smells like one), then I expect some folks to learn an interesting lesson.

I'm not sure if these folks understand the definition of the word 'sedition' or not but they should at least look up the legal consequences of being convicted of treason. It is one thing to joke about wishing harm to a government, but once you step outside the established process for instituting change legally in the government to one where you seek to force change you will find that the 'rules of engagement' with respect to the Government's response have changed in favor of the Government.

Many of those new rules have specific exemptions carved out so that the folks in charge no longer are bound by protecting your 'rights' as specified by the Constitution.

From the form [1] the Justice department fills out with respect to people it is trying for treason, reasons to ask for the death penalty include:

Grave risk to national security -- In the commission of the offense, the defendant knowingly created a grave risk of substantial danger to national security.

And we have the Pentagon recently saying that by policy a 'cyber attack' will be considered an act of war.

Grave risk of death -- In the commission of the offense, the defendant knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person.

And since the military depends on its network systems to prosecute warfare they will argue an attack on these systems puts warfighters (their word for soldiers) into grave risk of death.

There are even this 'bonus' modifiers for treason like:

Obstruction of justice. The victim was killed in an effort by the defendant to obstruct justice, tamper with a witness or juror, or _in retaliation for cooperating with authorities._

Where they will argue that if some punks DDoS DoD contractor's computers in retaliation, it might result in disrupting the computers that fly the predators over a battlefield for example.

However, I suspect it's a hoax. Nobody would be so stupid as to set them selves up for the kind of response this would get if it was for 'real.'

[1] [http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/tit...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00076.htm)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure about this, but is it possible for something attributed to Anonymous to be a "hoax"?

Since I thought Anonymous supposed to represent whoever calls themselves Anonymous, I didn't think there was a way for someone to "fake" that: by publishing this as Anonymous, they now _are_ Anonymous?

<comment><USER4> Nope, nowadays everything Anonymous has to originate from AnonOps and the rest of the whiteknights who've been huddling around them since Chanology. If you're not in with the <100 LOIC crew, you're not true kvlt^H^H^H^H^HAnonymous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't believe the Government is actually trying to defend HBGary after all that has been revealed about them. Are they doing it because they hired them to do all that? I suppose it wouldn't be much different than how they reacted in the Wikileaks case then. They'd do anything to protect themselves regardless of how ethical or unethical it is.

EDIT: I also wonder if the way our democracy currently works has become obsolete. We vote for some people every 4 years and then they can basically do whatever they want, with the only repercussion being that their actions might be revealed to the press, and in some cases some scandals will be created, though rarely. If they're unlucky the people will vote for the other party on the next election. But does that truly matter if basically the parties are pretty much one and the same?

I think we'll eventually need a "Liquid Democracy" (perhaps sooner than expected). A democracy where decisions can be influenced by the people a lot more often than they are now, and the people can have a much more immediate impact on a politician's career or a Government if they screw up.

<comment><USER6> Mark Thomas' book "The People's Manifesto"* suggests making political promises prior to entering elected office legally binding.

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Manifesto>

<comment><USER2> However one of the challenges here is that the information that is available to someone 'in' the office and someone 'seeking' the office is often very different. As an exemplar Obama promised to 'shut down Guantanamo' but once in office he was no doubt made aware of what that would entail and perhaps agreements that were already in place with other countries with respect to people being held there which made 'keeping' his promise impossible. (or at least keeping it would do more harm than not keeping it)

There is really only one solution, and most people give up on it before trying, that is an informed electorate. A good hacktivist system for informing the electorate would be to distill the gigabytes of data that is available in the public record for easy consumption.

For example create a database of every single non-classified vote in congress and the senate, for each representative maintain how they voted and links to the bills as presented. Cross connect to every admendment they have offered or voted on, every committee vote they have participated in. Every person who has ever given them or their campaign money, every organization that has ever created an advertisement for them and where they got their money. Make location based connections between visitors and their representatives.

There are lots and lots of databases which are now loosely connected and hard to search and manipulate. There is a UX problem as well since most of the data bases are weird or hard to talk to.

Imagine if you could go to this website, enter your zip code, and get a summary of everything your representative or senator or county supervisor or mayor or school district board member has been involved in since they were elected. You could pull out a document, and pick out the top three, five, ten or twenty questions you would need to know answers to in order to decide if you felt they were 'good' at their job. If you wanted to run against them you would have a good start at understanding their positions and you could go out and talk to the voters and ask if they agreed or disagreed with that.

You don't need 'term limits' you don't need 'manifestos' you just need people to vote and to care about what their vote means. Then you will get the government you deserve (and some of us will still want to relocate to the lunar base when it opens but that is a different rant)

<comment><USER7> ->However one of the challenges here is that the information that is available to someone 'in' the office and someone 'seeking' the office is often very different

I haven't read the wikipedia entry yet, but thinking about that, if they don't have sufficient information while seeking the office, then they should only promise what they know can achieve. It would make things easier and more transparent, in my opinion.

<comment><USER8> But that requires you to know what it is you don't know. Cue Rumsfeld's piece about known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

<comment><USER7> You're right. But I would rather know what it is a candidate _knows_ what he can accomplish plus the things he _wants_ to. I could vote knowing that some things will get fixed (from my POV, of course) and some might get fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm quite sure I'm not the only one seeing traces of The Mentor's manifesto [1] here. _"Damn kids. They're all alike"_.

[1] [http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=...](http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=txt)

<comment><USER10> Christ, I remember reading that when I was _really_ young, and getting told off for it. I think my dad must've just read the first few lines and freaked out. Thanks for the flashbulb memory there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm tired of corruption... no, I'm sick to the back teeth of it, and I'm angry.

I wish Anonymous every success because if it were left to me, If I were the one to choose what sort of justice was to be portioned out to the people abusing the privileges we the public bestow on them, it would look an awful lot like a stick with a nail in it.

They should be thankful they're going up against Anonymous, because it's understudy looks a lot more violent.

</comment><comment><USER10> You would've thought they could've pirated a better voice synth.

TBH their video editing and their propagandizing are both weak when compared to the awesomeness of the Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UNe6U9iFXI>

In that video they specifically call out Iran, China and France. "States will fall, undermined by cipherspace... the laws of mathematics always prevail... the oppressive laws will be destroyed..." etc etc. Jokers. This one is fun too, and a bit more specific: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1e_FYy1qMc>

And they're nice people as well, who actually know what they're doing. Go and hit up their IRC.

<http://telecomix.org/> <http://werebuild.eu/>

</comment><comment><USER12> NATO and the US military are the ones protecting the Internet's vital infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the military and NATO play a crucial role in protecting the freedoms Anonymous waxes poetic about them usurping.

<comment><USER13> _Unfortunately, the military and NATO play a crucial role in protecting the freedoms Anonymous waxes poetic about them usurping._

Really? No seriously, really? Is the USSR still a threat to democracy? Or do you consider the handful of terrorist a serious threat to the very nature of our democratic society?

Frankly, I don't think the terrorists have a snowball's chance in hell against us. They may occasionally launch a successful attack, but so what? Did each bombing of London bring the IRA closer defeating the British? Nope! Terrorists can't win, they can only terrorize.

I think our willingness to be terrorized, and curb our freedoms in the name of safety, is the real threat to democracy.

Right at this very moment, and rather atypically, the military and NATO are playing a crucial role in fighting for Libyan democracy.

This would be great if they weren't simultaneously providing Bahrain with tacit approval of the incredibly brutal and bloody crushing of their democratic movement.

The world's a complicated place these days and the US military and NATO have not had a real enemy since the USSR collapsed.

<comment><USER14> >Did each bombing of London bring the IRA closer defeating the British?

The IRA's goal was never to "defeat the British", it was to force them out of Northern Ireland and unite the island of Ireland in one nation. After the Good Friday Agreement, the British withdrew troops, gave up many governing powers in Northern Ireland, and laid the constitutional framework for a potential future referendum to unite Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in a single nation. In short, the PIRA got most of what they wanted. The Good Friday Agreement was an (largely successful) attempt by both sides to end The Troubles, so to claim that the PIRA was unsuccessful is a bit disingenuous.

<comment><USER15> You should also note that if the majority of people in Northern Ireland wanted to be part of the Republic they would actually vote that way at any of the relevant elections.

Having said that, the minority community in NI had been treated pretty awfully over the years so I think the current situation is a pretty decent compromise.

<comment><USER14> Those favouring reunification are a minority, but a growing one since the paramilitary disarmament in 2005: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_and_politics_of_Nort...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_and_politics_of_Northern_Ireland#Views_on_the_Union)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anonymous is composed to various factions, many of which are probably at cross purposes of each other. I can't see them putting as much enthusiasm at challenging NATO as they did attacking Westboro or even Libya; the risks and difficulty are probably exponentially higher.

That said, LulzSec is attacking the FBI now, so I suppose for all of their hacktivism, these anarchists aren't known for their reason.

</comment><comment><USER17> Declaring they are not a threat to NATO and throwing down the gauntlet to NATO in the same message?

I am more confused than anything else.

</comment><comment><USER18> The best comment i would be able to write was already written below the article itself:

" "a campaign of misinformation against Wikileaks and it's supporters"

No apostrophe in possessive "its".

We are English teachers. We are reading what you write. Expect us.2 Proofread."

</comment><comment><USER19> The original report was not from NATO, it was from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. It's basically a place where lawmakers from NATO countries can go pontificate and bloviate over things. If I recall correctly, it's not a consensus body and it makes no decisions for the alliance. It doesn't even have a formal tie to the North Atlantic Council.

It's not the North Atlantic Council, it's not the Military Committee, it's not even the Civil Communications Planning Committee. If the suggested report were from one of those committees, then I'd be just as concerned as Anonymous.

</comment><comment><USER20> I love their signature:

We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.

<comment><USER21> I'm all for their movement, but that signature is like...pathethic. Feels very immature, like they had to base the movement on a statement from a Hollywood movie (...that was lame too). I hope they can focus on cause instead of appearing as products of Hollywood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> TLDR: You can't be above the law, but we can.

It's ironic and a great pity that an "organisation" which demands transparency and accountability is completely lacking in both. The most respected revolutionaries walk the walk and lead from the front.

</comment><comment><USER23> The video and the text are not fully the same content. I do not understand why someone would make it look like they typed up the voice over but changed the words.

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't see an awful lot to argue with there. Unless you disagree with universality.

</comment><comment><USER24>
      ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

</comment><comment><USER25>
      So come at me bro

Oh dear, Anonymous needs a copyeditor

<comment><USER26> <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/come-at-me-bro>

<comment><USER25> I know the source. Its still a lame phrase that knocks away at their credibility

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cyberattacks have been defined as an act of war. Are the cyber-fat-pizza- eating-slobs who populate Anonymous prepared for the results of declaring war against sovereign states ?

</comment><comment><USER4> ITT: more over-eager moralfags pumping out more MS Sam voiced vids to NATO draft paper. Slactivists everywhere rejoice and begin rehashing usual pedantic arguments.</comment>


Google's Much-Hyped Instant Messenger Allo Is Losing Steam in India - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/pranavdixit/google-allo-isnt-going-anywhere-in-india?utm_term=.fwkZk1X7j#.ys0YpXeLq <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like it's impossible to overcome the combined network effects of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.</comment>


iTerm 3.1.6 released - <AUTHOR> https://iterm2.com/downloads.html <comment><USER2> Looking through the change log: GPU based Metal renderer ([https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/wikis/Metal- Renderer](https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/wikis/Metal-Renderer))

This might offer great performence, I'm looking forward to compare this with alacritty.</comment>


ITER Tokamak: First Plasma Through High-Fusion-Gain Deuterium-Tritium Operation - <AUTHOR> https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/3121 <comment><USER2> Oh, this is just the plan for 2025-203x. I thought maybe they'd actually got it running.

<comment><USER3> What if I told you that even if everything goes perfectly by 2045, ITER is not a power plant, just a proof of principle? They would have to do further engineering to figure out how to effectively convert the heat generated into electricity.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure if they shouldn't rethink the ITER plan now magnets are much stronger and build something like the MIT design instead ([https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/09/nuclear-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/09/nuclear- fusion-on-brink-of-being-realised-say-mit-scientists)).

There seems to be a bit of a sunk cost fallacy going on at ITER.

<comment><USER5> ITER is not the route to an economical fusion reactor. The supporters have even stopped promoting it as such. It is now a research reactor. We may find out some novel information on how plasma behaves in a certain regime, but this data is not likely to be useful in building a future reactor. The amount of resources that have been diverted from fundamental fusion research to be spent pouring cement and building magnets is a tragedy. We should have a thousand $3 million dollar or a hundred $30 million dollar experimental reactors, not this monstrosity.

<comment><USER6> Scale is everything for fusion (plasma). ITER is very important, as it represents the current most likely way. (Hence the name.)

That said, it's big, design by committee, slow, meticulous, etc.

It's not a fail fast market-driven experiment.

Also, most of the money is spent on the fundamentals, planning, developing operational knowhow, basic material science and plasma vessel engineering.

All in all, it could be better, but at least ITER is actually being built. MIT's ARC is still somewhere between "secured funding for a scaled down prototype" and actually will build something. Though it's great news, that they got funding (from Eni, an Italian energy company).

<comment> Tuna-Fish > Scale is everything for fusion (plasma).

No. Q is everything in fusion. Scale is one way to improve Q in a Tokamak. The problem with improving Q by increasing scale is that it makes the reactors uneconomical. A reactor the size of ITER cannot ever be economically viable, even was capable of producing massive amounts of electricity.

Luckily, scaling up is not the only way to increase Q. The better way is to use more powerful magnetic fields.

Put more eloquently than I can: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk&t=43m47s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk&t=43m47s)

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, even with higher magnetic fields, DT fusion is unlikely to ever be practical. That's because the power density of the reactors is inherently limited by wall loading and minimum size considerations from neutron cross sections.

Look at the numbers. The power density of a PWR fission reactor core is 100 MW/m^3. If you consider the volume of the primary reactor vessel instead, it's 20 MW/m^3.

The power density of ITER is 0.05 MW/m^3 (counting gross fusion power). Even if you just include the volume of the plasma, it's 0.6 MW/m^3.

What about higher field concepts like MIT's ARC reactor? If you look at the paper on arxiv where details are given, the power density is 0.5 MW/m^3 -- 40 times worse than a PWR.

The low power density is devastating to the economic case for fusion. Magnetic fusion reactors will be complex, expensive things, with superconducting magnets, complex cooling systems, breeding blankets, heating and control systems. They will be much more expensive per unit mass or volume than a simple PWR reactor vessel. And much of that complex system will need to be periodically replaced due to neutron damage. If the power density is 40x worse they cannot possibly compete.

Yes, (SP)ARC is better than ITER. But ITER is so horribly bad that a reactor can be an order of magnitude better and still not have any real chance of competing.

<comment><USER8> I don't see why the number of cubic meters matters?

If you give me a machine that outputs 50kilowatts, I'll happily give up a cubic meter of my house for it...

<comment><USER7> Because size (and complexity) directly correlate with cost. So unless fusion can enable cost reduction elsewhere, if the nuclear island is inherently larger, more complex, and hence more expensive than in a fission plant, power from it will be more expensive than from a fission plant. And in that case, why would any utility want one? New and risky (in the sense of having a significant chance of not working as well as hoped) technologies like fusion will be adopted only if they are significantly less expensive than more proven alternatives.

The size and complexity also directly affect reliability. There is more to go wrong in a fusion reactor than in a fission reactor, and repairing anything there will be difficult because hands-on work will be impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whatever happened to the German stellarator? Seem to recall Merkel being present for one of the first tests a few years back, ITER seems to get more coverage

<comment><USER10> It's going really well:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X)

It's not, however, something that designed to directly head toward fusion power itself but instead to better understand components that could be improved to make fusion power.

In addition now with fusion there are heap of companies trying to get fusion power going in about a decade or so. Probably the most interesting of which are:

[https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/](https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/)

and

[https://www.cfs.energy/](https://www.cfs.energy/)

Who are both using new developments in high temperature superconducting tape fabrication to increase the magnetic field to get to fusion faster than ITER.

<comment><USER11> Why not the vortex compression types of "reactors"? a.la [http://generalfusion.com/](http://generalfusion.com/)

<comment><USER7> General Fusion recently gave up on their original design (a spheromak-type plasma inside an imploding liquid metal vortex.) Instead, they're going to a spherical tokamaka where liquid metal compresses the plasma from the outside.

In this new concept, there is now a solid wall on the inside that is not shielded from the plasma by a thick layer of liquid metal. That means power density limits due to limits on wall loading will apply to their reactor, just as they do to conventional DT magnetic fusion reactor schemes. So, the major theoretical engineering advantage of their idea has been lost.

<comment><USER9> That was a large Bezos Foundation investment wasn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Royal Society held a two day conference 6 months ago if anyone is interested. They've posted the audio files, video would have been nicer but audio is handy;

[https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and- lectures/2018/03...](https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and- lectures/2018/03/tokamak-development/)

<comment><USER12> With the advent of REBCO superconductors things seem to be in flux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What about polywell fusion? Can anyone with expertise comment on this design?

<comment><USER14> Most mainstream physicists believe that the polywell design cannot work due to bremsstrahlung and electron cusp losses, as described by Rider. [0] Bussard and some of his followers have argued against some assumptions made in the Rider paper, but as far as I know, no one has found any loopholes big enough to allow a practical, power-producing reactor.

If you're interested in alternative fusion reactor designs, though, you might want to look into the levitated dipole. [1] There is a lot of evidence suggesting that this design avoids most of the major problems that plague tokamak development. [2][3] The remaining obstacles (as far as I can tell, mainly interchange instabilities and engineering difficulties) don't seem insurmountable to me. MIT made a serious attempt to build a levitated dipole reactor in the late 2000's, but unfortunately, the US Department of Energy cut off all funding in 2011.

[0] [http://fsl.npre.illinois.edu/IEC/Rider,%20Phys.ofPlasmas1995...](http://fsl.npre.illinois.edu/IEC/Rider,%20Phys.ofPlasmas1995.pdf)

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

[2] [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/92cb/3e1ec34a707b2920f1c03a...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/92cb/3e1ec34a707b2920f1c03a6d1f4f2497d72b.pdf)

[3] [https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/95395/99ja014...](https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/95395/99ja014_full.pdf?sequence=1)

<comment><USER15> >US Department of Energy cut off all funding in 2011

Sigh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> HN title seems misleading. I read it as ITER has achieved first fusion, when in fact the news is a revised plan.

<comment><USER17> > first fusion

We already have fusion. We just don't have fusion that sustains itself. Unless this is a specific term that I'm not understanding?

<comment><USER18> No fusion yet at ITER. They've only just started building it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is way big of a project. There are so many promising approches, to put that much money into one very long very expensive mega project.

An international competition with a wider array of technology and more iterative could have achived more.

If you look how far some organisations get with tiny amounts of funding.

<comment><USER20> Most research advances are either:

\- Small, incremental, predictable improvements, due to more accurate modelling, tighter tolerances, bigger budgets, etc.

\- Big breakthroughs, usually on shoestring budgets.

The largest impact comes from the latter, but they're very rare and unpredictable. We might fund thousands of small projects over decades and see nothing particularly substantial.

Big budget projects are riskier, since we can't fund many of them. Hence these tend to be the first type of project: where we can be quite confident on the capabilities and outcomes, so we'll see _some_ improvement; even though it might not be as promising as the _possibilities_ claimed by umpteen smaller projects.

It's also easier for individual institutions, companies, countries, etc. to fund smaller projects themselves. There's no point wading through the politics required to pool resources into a large international collaboration, if we're just going to divide up those resources between a bunch of small projects anyway ;)

<comment><USER19> > The largest impact comes from the latter, but they're very rare and > unpredictable. We might fund thousands of small projects over decades and > see nothing particularly substantial.

But that is not the case in fusion. We had many advances in fusion by small companies.

> here's no point wading through the politics required to pool resources into > a large international collaboration, if we're just going to divide up those > resources between a bunch of small projects anyway ;)

I do understand the political problem. However still it could be collaboration for a contest, rather then organize this project as a multi country technical problem.

And I would even be happy with just 3-5 projects that get many, many billions in the end. I mean lets be honest, if it costs $20 billion (and lets be honest it will be way more) to develop it will never be economical anyway.

There are lots and lots of people who would be happy to get a couple million for some fusion projects. Others believe they could build a break even project with 10s millions. And we could reinforce projects that make rapid advancement.

It would also create a large fusion industry with different companies going into 'supplier' mode and so on.

<comment><USER21> > And I would even be happy with just 3-5 projects that get many, many > billions in the end. I mean lets be honest, if it costs $20 billion (and > lets be honest it will be way more) to develop it will never be economical > anyway.

It's a science project. It doesn't have to be economical. It is there to establish the path to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station)

> There are lots and lots of people who would be happy to get a couple million > for some fusion projects. Others believe they could build a break even > project with 10s millions. And we could reinforce projects that make rapid > advancement.

Many people believe many things. There's a reason we do ITER: It has the best chance to actually work, unlike all the "cheap" 'hey, I'm a genius, I can do it with far less money!' projects out there.

<comment><USER19> > It's a science project. It doesn't have to be economical. It is there to > establish the path to > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station)

Its a wildly expensive science project that produces far less science and far more overhead and waste.

And as we have already established, for such a long project it gets overtaken by technology.

And the 'powerstation' will cost billions upon billions more and it will still not even be close to economical.

> Many people believe many things. There's a reason we do ITER: It has the > best chance to actually work, unlike all the "cheap" 'hey, I'm a genius, I > can do it with far less money!' projects out there.

By what definition of 'work'? They might manage to get break even if they throw enough money at it. But if you had said, any project that shows break even can get 1 billion. That would be an effective use of money.

An I'm not saying any of these projects should get 20 billion because they think they are smarter. But how about getting 2 million and if you show impressive results you get 20 million and then maybe 200 million.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get a startup job if you lack resume? - <AUTHOR> I am starting to look around at jobs in several US markets. I'm primarily considering python and clojure jobs, even though my professional experience is .NET.
I feel a little trapped by the fact that I don't have a lot of open source in those languages, nor have professional experience. For context I am 24, EECS major at reputable public university, Python experience from some small projects and a Django app in progress. Clojure experience with small wrappers and simple TODO list apps. 1 year of professional .NET web dev experience at Big 4 accounting firm. I feel like I'm a bit of a generalist as far as tech stack, but I would like to do more back end and work on something intensive.
Do you have advice for people in a similar situation on what your approach would be at maximizing odds of getting a good startup job in SF, Austin, or NYC? <comment><USER2> Your best bets are to network, and to do Open Source contributions.

Start hanging out in the chat channel the devs you aspire to be like hang out in, listen first, see how they respond and how they ask questions. Read through all the channel guides to posting. And then start asking questions. Once you feel comfortable doing so, start answering questions. Always give thought out, in depth answers.

Also, find Open Source projects which interest you and are of a decent size (subjective measure, but you want it large enough so you'll get exposure but not so large there are tons of new people already). Then do some of the work no one wants to do, but that they need done - testing, documentation, wiki gardening. This has two purposes - to teach you about the project in a good way, and to ingratiate yourself to the project committers. You want success, punch your ticket first. Once you've done that a bit, pick an issue that's tagged as a starter or mentored, depending on your project, and discuss how you'd approach it with the committers on Slack or Zulip or their medium of choice. Then execute, and finish it.

Do those two things well and you'll have no problem finding a job, assuming there's no culture fit issues when you do a face to face.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the help! I will work on making those things happen!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The obvious advice is to go and talk to other python and Clojure developers in your area (find local meetups). Build something that you can show. Either your own projects or other open source projects.

Some Clojure specific advice.

Other than local meetups we have a vibrant online community. Join and participate in Slack Group @ clojurians.slack.com and in Discourse @ [https://clojureverse.org/](https://clojureverse.org/)

If you like contributing to open source I highly recommend Cljdoc ([https://github.com/cljdoc/cljdoc](https://github.com/cljdoc/cljdoc)). We have a lot of beginners friendly issues. You will get a pretty good idea about the project from the readme and we can get you onboarded quickly if you drop by our slack channel #cljdoc. Here is a curated list of other open source project that you may find interesting. [http://open- source.braveclojure.com/](http://open-source.braveclojure.com/).

Godspeed!

</comment><comment><USER4> What it comes down to is being able to highlight the experience you do have while building new experiences.

So it sounds like you've built a small portfolio and have 1+ year of professional experience. At this point, just apply to startups, you will probably hear back!

The general recommendations to get into a specific aspect of software are, as others have mentioned: open source contributions, personal projects that are relevant to the core business, consulting or contracting work that is relative, and meetups/conferences.

I mentioned a lot of these things in this article: [https://www.algodaily.com/lessons/getting-your-first- softwar...](https://www.algodaily.com/lessons/getting-your-first-software-job- without-professional-experience)

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's what always worked for me when I was younger and in your position:

\- When i find technology (or company) I love - I go ahead and built something cool using that technology to gain skills.

\- Then i pimp my "cool thing" on social media everywhere.

\- I add this to my resume as a "work done for XYZ", where XYZ was actually my own consulting Co.

Worked like a charm.</comment>


Understanding the Underscore( _) in Python - <AUTHOR> https://morioh.com/p/1477eed8e338?f=5c22e47440738156a7078a19 <comment><USER2> Very good article. Just to mention that Python does support getters and setters via the @property decorator. Instead of doing p._age to access the private attribute, you must add inside the Person class:

      @property
      def age(self):
          return self._age

      @age.setter
      def age(self, value):
          self._age = value

Then access the value of _age with p.age</comment>


Gawker's Kinja retreat is more evidence publishers struggle as tech companies - <AUTHOR> http://digiday.com/publishers/gawkers-kinja-retreat-shows-false-hope-in-publishers-licensing-tech/ <comment><USER3> The concept of what a CMS is still pretty vague for many in the journalism industry...Nieman Lab recently published a piece [1] about the New York Times first blog (which is now shutting down)...reading it gives you a good sense of how just having a WordPress blog changed the top-down hierarchy of how they did stories and published on the web. Even today, when you read the retrospective, it seems that many of the editors and reporters still don't really know what a blog or CMS is...there's even a couple quotes by an editor who says now that they've moved off of WordPress, they're able to create more "beautiful" articles than ever before.

[1] [http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/11/how-one-blog-helped- spark-t...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/11/how-one-blog-helped-spark-the- new-york-times-digital-evolution/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I agree with this article completely. I've worked on a few platform implementations for publishers and this is a very crowded, complex space. The business model is really more around service and support, and no publisher is going to let another publisher embed themselves that deeply into their company (not to mention the paranoia about giving a potential competitor access to your article library and metadata). Platforms evolve over time, and you don't want your competition deciding how you should evolve.

Besides, it's not like there is a shortage of AAA publisher platforms out there. A company like Gawker is also not remotely at the scale that a lot of these platforms can handle: the big thing right now is multi-media CMS that allows a single article to be published online, in print, via syndicated newsfeeds, in multiple languages, etc. Someone like Gawker's business model is far too limited to even address the problems that a lot of publishers have.

</comment><comment><USER5> I worked for a financial publishing company that prides itself on being more technically advanced than its competitors. (The nice thing is, it's easy to be ahead of the curve technologically in the financial services industry.)

Shortly before I left, the CEO started adamantly insisting that it was, in fact, a tech company. It was a nice thought, but underscored how much he did not understand about what that would actually mean. You're not a tech company just because you employ a few people who know what Angular is.

<comment><USER6> What makes you a "tech company"?

I took some time to try to think of what defines a tech company, and it's hard to draw the lines.

Would be interested to hear what you think.

<comment><USER4> Anymore, every company that's not a "tech company" is trying to become one. Turns out the market values standard interfaces and APIs, even if they're locked behind API keys and business agreements.

Technical competency (specifically around APIs and internal platform development) is no longer optional. It's not something you can just outsource to a vendor either; it's got to be a core part of your operating model or else your competitors will steal your clients by being easier to integrate against.

This means that many companies we think of as "tech companies" will need to redefine themselves in terms of the problems they solve. This has started to happen as well - Amazon is a merchant, Microsoft is a business services company, Apple is a consumer electronics company and Google is an advertising vendor. Their tech platforms all exist to support their core businesses - <USER2> the other way around. Incidentally, this is why "Google" became "Alphabet" \-- new products under the "Google" umbrella were being tainted by its revenue base (and thus, internal political power base - he who controls the revenue makes the decisions) in advertising. Customers just expect a technology- enhanced experience in each of these areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's still light years ahead of what you get with any defaults on CMS system.

I always found Gawker's site and comment system to be quite nice. Though I miss the "old days" back in say 2011.

Who is the competition?

Does anyone know what platform runs sites like Breitbart.com and US Today? I see similar layouts on other websitse.</comment>


Ask HN: How to Donate to Charity Through API - <AUTHOR> Does anyone know of a good service or plan of attack for donating to charity through a REST API?
I'm writing an Amazon Lambda job that will run every week, check how days that week I committed to GitHub, and charge me money if I'm not keeping up with my goal. I could just have it send me angry emails or something, but I think having real money on the line will keep me motivated.
I don't want to have money go to waste or anything, so I think a nice use of it would be to give it to a charity. However, I haven't yet found an easy way to go about this. Has anyone faced a similar challenge and found a good solution? Most everything I've found is about solutions for the charities themselves, which isn't what I'm going for. <comment><USER2> You might be able to pull off the payments side using cryptocurrencies. Check out the CharityCoin directory for Bitcoin addresses: [https://github.com/charitycoin/directory](https://github.com/charitycoin/directory). You also might want to check in with the Stellar folks ([http://slack.stellar.org/](http://slack.stellar.org/)). They're working on some cool international projects dealing with financial inclusion, though there's a good chance you'll have to build the necessary connections to the Stellar network yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem here is that I'll have to fill up a wallet with Bitcoin now, and then pay them later. That takes away the sting of, "Wow, being lazy cost me money". Still, right now, this is the one of the best ideas I've found. Paypal has a Payments API, and I can pay charities through it, but it's not a very good API, and it really seems like it'll be painful.

You'd think it would be easier to give money away!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why don't you simply pick a bunch of charities you like and donate to them? I don't think spreading it thin across too many organizations makes a lot of sense. Even if you were to donate $100k per year, why not make it $100k to one project you really like?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was planning to just pay one. But, I need an easy way to do it. Sure I could just send myself an email with the details and do it manually, but, then again, I could have done this whole thing manually!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recurring Billing Solutions - <AUTHOR>

I'm researching recurring billing solutions for my web app.  So far I have taken a look at:
http://www.chargify.com
http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com
http://www.payfacade.com
http://www.cheddargetter.com
http://www.spreedly.com
...and obviously Pay Pal.  Any recommendations here?  I am looking for something that is affordable and easy to use from a development perspective.  There have been threads like this in the past but I wondered if anything new has come out since then. <comment><USER2> We use freshbooks and love it.

</comment><comment><USER3> recurly.com</comment>


How to get into grad school - <AUTHOR> http://shantirao.com/gradschool.html

<comment><USER2> Stupid. SOP is very important. Stopped reading when I saw you saying "nobody reads that"</comment>


Pentagon's Craziest PowerPoint Slide - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/revealed-pentagons-craziest-powerpoint-slide-ever/

<comment><USER2> One of these monsters is hanging immediately to my right. Sigh.</comment>