Twitter shares drop after reporting declining monthly active users - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/27/twitter-earnings-q2-2018.html <comment><USER2> I think they lost the initiative the moment they decided to focus on censorship instead of combating spam/bots. Other things that didn't help include killing third-party clients a few years back, and screwing with the chronological timeline. Twitter was frickin amazing from like 2009-maybe 2013ish (though the whole TweetDeck aquisition in 2011 was a serious blow) and has been in steady decline ever since from a quality and usefulness perspective.

<comment><USER3> > focus on censorship instead of combating spam/bots

There isn't really a distinction between these two.

The crackdown on abuse was absolutely necessary, although it doesn't really go far enough, because the platform was getting a name for driving off high- profile users.

<comment><USER2> Er yes, there is a distinction between the two.

Scenario One: I, a real, active user that discusses a variety of topics, says something someone doesn't like and twitter decides to ban/shadow ban me.*

Scenario Two: I set up a network of fake accounts to automatically tweet, dm or @mention people pushing the same thing over and over to thousands of users.

Twitter has a block/ignore function. That is all that is needed to deal with scenario one in the vast majority of cases. When companies start introducing their politics and speech preferences into a global communications platform in the form of censorship and banning, the utility of that platform drops immediately. Consider if anyone ever said something in an email or sms that someone else disagreed with, we took away their ability to use email or sms. I know it's not apples to apples since those are primarily one-to-one platforms but you can see what I mean.

Meanwhile, combating scenario two almost always has a positive effect, but apparently is too hard of a problem for Twitter and its $2b/year budget to tackle as evidenced by the complete and utter lack of progress on that front since, from what I can tell, the platforms humble beginning in 2006.

*Note this is a hypothetical, my account is and has been in good standing since I signed up but I've seen many accounts go away or be silenced in this fashion.

Edit: Had wrong date for twitters inception. Fixed.

<comment><USER3> > Consider if anyone ever said something in an email or sms that someone else > disagreed with, we took away their ability to use email or sms.

Harassing people through SMS is a criminal offence in the UK and a number of other countries.

<comment><USER2> To be clear, I wasn't defending peoples "rights" to harass others. I was talking about topic censorship. If you use the platform to harass people then yeah, you should probably be cordoned off at a minimum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the endgame for companies like Twitter and Facebook? It seems like the only behaviour for publicly traded tech companies is grow or die. So what happens when they hit some theoretical maximum? Is it not acceptable that they're making money? Is there no steady state? Not saying that Twitter is there. But theoretically what does that look like?

"Hey, so we basically maxed out our target market share. We're healthy, profitable, popular, but this is basically the limit. There aren't any more people in our demo left on the planet to capture."

"Nope. Go make more money. Sell more ad space. Or shift focus to a new product or something."

"But that will either degrade the quality of our product or take our eye off the ball and allow a competitor to eat our lunch."

"Too bad. I don't care how profitable you are, only that you're more profitable than last year."

<comment><USER5> There are plenty of public companies that reach a steady state. What happens for those companies is their PE ratios shrink, they start paying out dividends and their expectation is to be a big lumbering giant whose valuation isn't expected to have dramatic swings based on outsized expected future earnings. What happened here is not "Wall Street" saying that Twitter must die, it's saying "Hey, your newly expected future earnings are no longer able to justify your prior valuation and therefore here's your new valuation based on all currently available information".

<comment><USER4> Okay so twitter has been in a "valued based on anticipated growth" state. And other companies can matriculate to a "valued based on reliable dividends" state? This I can understand. Thanks.

<comment><USER6> Yes. Bear in mind tech companies are terrible at paying dividends. Google has never paid one, Apple only really started after Jobs' death. No dividends means no reason to hold a stock unless you think the value will go up significantly (and ultimately the value is driven by an expectation that one day divis will be issued).

Facebook and Twitter are getting hammered because it's clear they're spending insane quantities of cash on attempting to "cleanse" their platforms of undesirables. Facebook alone announced they were going to hire tens of thousands more people to work on "security" (lol). That bloated spend reduces future dividend potential and causes their stock to be less valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't forget the part where they now show you tweets that people you follow have liked, just the same as if they had retweeted them.

I already unfollowed people who tweet/retweet too much for my liking, and now I have to unfollow people who 'like' things prolifically also? Ridiculous.

<comment><USER8> > Don't forget the part where they now show you tweets that people you follow > have liked, just the same as if they had retweeted them.

I rarely use twitter but the first time I saw these "person X liked this" I just looked up how to not get that. Turns out it's pretty simple, you just click on that tweet menu and select "I don't like this tweet", repeat for maybe one or two other tweets on your timeline, and then refresh your feed and they're all gone. People mentioned it can come back after a couple months, you'd notice quickly as your feed quality would suck, you just redo the same.

The only one I see now are "person X and Y liked Z tweet" but in that case I follow X, Y, and Z, so it's usually relevant.

<comment><USER9> >>People mentioned it can come back after a couple months, you'd notice quickly as your feed quality would suck, you just redo the same.

Don't you feel like a rat in an experiment?

What's the point of this if you don't even own the controls to the software?

Rhetorical questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Guys... I hate to break this to you but their MAU were always juiced due to rampant bot activity.

They said they were culling bot nets and this is the result.

A lot more culling to go, though.

</comment><comment><USER11> Twitter has some misguided PR priorities. So many news stories include tweets from extreme perspectives that have gotten thousands of likes/retweets/whatever. Since Twitter really works on their API for this, it's clear they think it's a good thing.

This is their biggest source of free advertising and it always presents Twitter as a fringe-fest or, worse, knee-jerk mob mentality and nothing more.

They really need to re-think promoting a system that gives the outside world a view of only the most extreme and unflattering view. No matter your political views, someone you respect will have negative Tweets presented in the news. It really makes it feel like it's only a platform for someone else.

</comment><comment><USER12> To me, the real TWTR story isn't the 14% drop this week, but that TWTR's price is up 100% from the level it held through all of 2016, a time which included takeover talks.

<comment><USER13> Trump effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Twitter is not showing not much growth in MAUs. Valuation is still high. Market cap is based on future cash flows. No future cash flows (MAUs) means market cap has to come down. Just showing profit is not enough. It just shows you can control expenses but does not deserve the huge market cap. This is a $1billion company posing as a $30B company. Anybody disagree?

<comment><USER15> I propose that MAU growth is a dumb metric for a company that is 10 years old. Companies exist to make money, not attract eyeballs. Plenty of companies make good money without reaching every person in the world, or even a sizable percentage of them.

<comment><USER16> Twitter is the type of company that only works due to network effect. Like ebay and facebook. So I'd say the age of the company is immaterial, it's how much of the market they've acquired so far. MAU growth is a fair metric.

<comment><USER15> Some networks are more valuable than others. Raw MAU tells you nothing about the LTV of those AUs. What's better for eBay: a shitload of people who never buy anything? Or a smaller network of engaged, repeat sellers and buyers?

And some networks have negative value. 4chan, despite attracting large traffic numbers and being a well-known cultural force on the Internet, has always struggled to attract advertisers.

To maximize financial value of its user network, a parent company must exclude users and content that subtract value. Examples would be lower-LTV users who drive away higher-LTV users via harassment. Or users who post content so objectionable that brands don't want to advertise against it. MAU growth alone tells you nothing about those things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They recently started logging out users and asking for mobile number. I didn't want to give my mobile number so I uninstalled the app. Occasionally visit the website and view some users' tweets (without logging in). But as it was mentioned elsewhere it's full of dark patterns and an irritating experience.

<comment><USER18> Can you delete your account if you wanted to without providing a phone number? On Instagram you can't once it starts asking you.

<comment><USER17> I don't think so since we are already logged out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it was straightforward to predict that monthly active users would be down after they banned the bots (and lots of accounts were tweeting about losing 4-7 figures worth of followers) -- I'm a bit surprised that this is being cited as the reason for the bloodbath. Surely this point is not a sophisticated analysis or am I way over-estimating owners of tech stocks that live and die on earnings calls?

</comment><comment><USER20> What I don't understand is the discrepancy between the size of their engineering workforce and the lousy quality of their web client on mobile.

<comment><USER21> This may be an intentional dark pattern / effort to drive users away from the web client and to the official app. Facebook and reddit do the same thing. More permissions = more juicy data to harvest.

<comment><USER22> Ding ding ding. The web page is so comically broken it can only be intentional. No user pages even load for me unless I do an explicit reload; the first time around, the spinner just spins endlessly.

<comment><USER3> Another fun one is that a _single_ page load can give you a "rate limit exceeded" failure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is the bubble finally bursting?

<comment><USER24> I think more time will tell. Facebook and Twitter are both still higher than where they were in March of this year. Same for Alphabet, Amazon, Netflix, Apple, and Microsoft.

<comment><USER25> amd, amzn, team had a good run yesterday. Seems like mixed bag. 12% fall for twtr considering it had more than 100% rise this year.

<comment><USER26> > 12% fall for twtr considering it had more than 100% rise this year

Of course, that number's currently at 19%; may end up day over 20

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Ahh, the big SV vanity metric comes home to roost.

</comment><comment><USER28> Well, they recently banned me for being under 13 when I opened my account in 2010, so I guess serves them right :P

<comment><USER13> That's actually a liability thing though, I think (COPPA?)

<comment><USER28> But how do I fix the past? I can't undo it, but I want to keep my account... :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like twitter, I don't really tweet that much though, don't really have that much to say.

I follow a lot of people, but I'd imagine if I looked at the stats, probably only the top 25% of those tweet regularly and the rest probably just get lost in the ether, or just don't tweet at all

</comment><comment><USER30> The surprising thing to note here is how much optimism the street has in $twtr. Just one quarter of small beat and the stock jumped 100%. After the drop today (to $34) it's still too high for $twtr which hasn't actually proved anything since the stock was high teens low 20s. If anything, their live streaming effort is pretty much down the drain, and Anthony Noto, who's pretty much the heart and soul of Twitter operation, left. I'm super surprised the stock is still mid 30s.

<comment><USER12> The Tweeter-in-Chief has provided more free marketing than money could buy. Twitter is now an indelible brand on decadal timescales.

They might go the way of MySpace someday, but, at present, there's nothing in the West quite like Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Honestly pretty pathetic that investors hadn't priced in the existence of bots into their valuation of the company. Perhaps I expect too much.

</comment><comment><USER32> Any ideas about where the users (twitter/facebook) are going to? What these users that are not on twitter anymore are doing instead?

<comment><USER33> You are assuming it needs to be replaced at all. These services are vapid additions to your life and once they are gone I think people will realize they didn't need to exist in the first place.

<comment><USER34> You're seriously generalizing. I only met my wife because of services like this; we met on Instagram and got to know each other over Twitter. I have other friends I similarly met and keep in contact with mainly over Twitter. I'm very glad the services exist.

There are alcoholics who have dozens of drinks a week and there are people who responsibly augment a night of socializing with a drink or two. Alcohol isn't fundamentally irredeemable because some people develop problems, and neither is social media.

<comment><USER35> but alcohol is not backed by a company containing thousands of engineers whose job is to make it more addictive.

<comment><USER36> Are you being sarcastic (serious question). Alcohol itself is chemically addictive and there are likely orders or magnitudes more people in the alcohol industry trying to make their alcoholic beverages more attractive (and thus spreading addictive substances further into the population) to consumers. It's an industry that easily tops over 1,000 Billion dollars globally.

<comment><USER35> read my reply to the other comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Hopefully this will encourage them to finally deal with their handle-squatting issue.

</comment><comment><USER38> Copy paste to Facebook if you use google trends on social networks.

Ask your self this will the world be a better or worse place without Twitter?

</comment><comment><USER39> Tremendous pessimism on this thread. It's time for an intelligent investor to buy.

</comment><comment><USER40> Twitter has been all smoke and mirrors since day one. Their platform was never going to really make money.

<comment><USER41> They made $265MM dollars last quarter, up from $178MM same time last year. That's on $711MM of revenue.

<comment><USER42> have they produced more profit than all their previous losses, yet?

i don't think a2tech is wrong until that has happened.

<comment><USER43> Is this how companies are typically valued?

<comment><USER44> Not exactly, but if those previous losses were financed by investors, then it could point to difficulty for investors to get a return in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Trump, but not in the way you might think. Facebook instantly becomes uncool once your grandparents join and try to friend you. Southpark knew this years ago. Now the iconic angry grandparent is on twitter. Not only are kids leaving as their grandparents sign up to follow Trump, everyone sees king grandpa in Trump. It isn't about politics or anger. Twitter is just falling off the uncool grandparent cliff.

<comment><USER46> Twitter would probably doing a lot worse if HRC won:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-17/what- is-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-17/what-is-trump- worth-to-twitter-one-analyst-estimates-2-billion)

I think when we imagined the internet the idea that the president could communicate with us instantly from anywhere in the world was one of the ideal use cases for it. Who could have guessed the reality of it though!

<comment><USER47> Trump would not have disappeared if Hillary had won. He would have lead the charge to take her down. Prior to the election he had already amassed a very large follower count.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you charge for hosting costs? - <AUTHOR>

I'm starting as a freelancer and am unsure how I can set up hosting for my client. Should I just ask them to set it up and give them detailed instructions or should I just set it up with my account and ask them to pay me monthly for the hosting? Or should I even ask for the bank details so I can set it up for them? We live too far away for me to help them in person.<p>How do you charge clients for on going costs? <comment><USER2> I tried getting the client to do it when I started last year and it was a pain getting data/details etc from them. Now I charge it at cost + 10% admin fee, invoiced with the project they're paying me for (and will then be invoiced at yearly intervals in future; I use freshbooks.) I'm not in the business to make money from hosting so don't see the point over-charging.

<comment><USER3> What about maintenance? I can't believe the 10% admin fee covers that.

<comment><USER2> What sort of maintenance? Server maintenance is the host's problem, software / upgrades etc I charge for. 10% admin fee is just setup and email creation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> martin-adams I used to host my client projects over the past 10 years and finally stopped (and thankful for it). Sometimes the hosting costs to the client is so small that it takes you ages to chase them for the money.

If you can automate payments and be strict on pulling the off switch when they don't pay, then that might be good.

My approach now is to get them to pay for hosting/domains, and give me their login details and I configure it all. Then you can invoice for you time separately and never be out of pocket.

The biggest pain I found is switching hosting providers, whether through saving money, better service. Getting all he clients moved would take best part of 4 months sometimes because I had more important freelance work to be getting on with.

</comment><comment><USER4> I generally set up a separate VPS and manage their hosting through their. Depends on the client, but I generally charge a bit more than the actual cost of the VPS each month.</comment>


Amazon caves in, will remove ads from Kindle Fire for $15 fee - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/amazon-backtracks-will-remove-ads-from-kindle-fire-for-15-fee/

<comment><USER2> Amazon didn't cave, this was just miscommunication with a few shills weighing in to create FUD. There was always going to be a way to opt-out. Amazon wants to make customers happy.

How to think of LCD ads: <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4490562>

How ads work: <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4490590>

<comment><USER3> How is this not caving? Amazon explicitly confirmed to both CNET and Engadget that there would be no option to opt out of the ads. Then a bunch of negative stories appear, and now Amazon says there will be a way to opt out. That's pretty much a textbook example of caving.

<comment><USER4> I find all these stories weird, since on the day of the keynote I went to check buying options for Kindle Fire and there was definitely a way to buy it without "special offers", at $15-20 more the original price. What gives?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Caves? I bet $15 is more valuable than the ads for most users. I wouldn't characterize this as Amazon "caving" in!

<comment><USER6> Letting people opt out of seeing your advertising makes your advertising worth much much less. The people who don't mind spending $15 to not see ads are basically the perfect demographic for expensive stuff.

Also, screw Amazon.

<comment><USER7> Is the last part of your comment really necessary? The first half of your comment was perfectly fine as it was.

<comment><USER6> Paying to remove advertising is a slippery slope. I will not tell my children about the era of 'premium electronics' that didn't scream advertising when you weren't actively using them.

<comment><USER8> So that warrants a 'Screw Amazon'. Really?

Amazon is subsidizing the cost of the device through the advertisements. Google subsidizes the cost of email through advertisements. AT&T subsidizes the cost of cell phones through contracts.

I don't understand. Why is subsidizing a device with advertisements suddenly evil?

<comment><USER9> You're assuming that because the device is subsidized, that this is somehow a value for the consumer. Cellular service companies don't subsidize phones because its good for the consumer, they do it to lock users into a service they might otherwise move away from for better terms and conditions. This is more valuable to the service then the consumer.

This is a calculated move on Amazon's part to build a lucrative ad network. This isn't evil per se, but it's certainly not in my best interest as a consumer. Personally, I've done a fair bit to cut down the number of ads I see in a day -- I dropped my cable TV because the number and frequency of ads lowered my enjoyment of the programming. I've stopped buying gas at stations that blare ads from their gas pumps. So, I certainly wouldn't buy a device that wants to charge me extra to not see ads. Out time and attention is more valuable then the shells and trinkets being offered by these companies.

<comment><USER10> Most consumers prefer to get a free/lower cost phone in exchange for a contract commitment. Whether the "value" to the consumer stands up to scrutiny in financial terms is not really important; most consumers like it, thus it is a value to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This makes sense because the product is free so of course it would need to be supported by ads. Oh, wait...

<comment><USER12> Really. I mean, now I have to pay to not receive ads on a product I already paid for?

<comment><USER13> Yeah, someone should alert the newspapers. Oh wait...

<comment><USER14> Are you suggesting we should look to newspapers for sustainable business models?

<comment> yo-mf Are you suggesting there are no major online content publications and blogs that do not have ads plastered all over their sites like print-based media?

<comment><USER14> Not that I pay for.

I'm not paying for a product with ads (especially intrusive ones) in it.

<comment><USER15> Why do you think ads are so expensive? If an eighty dollar Kindle has ads, you think the Kindle should be free, so the ads are worth $-80 to you. I don't see an economic justification; is it a personal grudge against advertisers?

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure I understand what you are saying.

I never said the Kindle should be free. I see no issue with paying for it, and I even pay extra for the ones without ads. This is because, as I said, I do not personally want to pay for a product that also contains advertisements.

<comment><USER15> What is a Kindle with ads worth to you? I assumed you meant it was worth $0 which is not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> (not a kindle owner) Can someone with a kindle explain exactly how the ads work and why they would be offensive? From what I heard they just show up when you aren't using the device.

<comment><USER17> I don't know how the things work on the Fire, but in the ad supported e-ink kindles the ads are fairly unobtrusive. They appear on the rotating "screensaver" images (so you see them when you first pick up and start to use the device) and also as a banner on the home screen. They don't appear when you're reading books or otherwise using your Kindle. The ads I've seen were pretty tasteful too. No "one weird trick" belly fat ads or stuff like that.

<comment><USER18> I only had a Kindle Touch for a brief time but I seem to remember that there were some ads that I thought were not so great for kids. The kindle would just lie around in the flat, so kids would get their hands on it, too. Not so great in that they featured some mildly erotic or violent images (I don't remember exactly unfortunately - it certainly wasn't that big a concern, but it is worrying since you can not control what images will appear).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Don't think of it as a fee. Think of it as a $15 discount in exchange for having the ads.

</comment><comment><USER20> The problem with making a business model rest on paying to remove anti- features in a product is that once you have sold the product, you don't own it any more, and you are inviting competitors to remove the anti-features for a lower price.

Expect competitors who will sell, say, a $10 program that will disable the ads by rooting the phone and installing an alternate image without the anti- features.

<comment><USER21> At the $15 price point, the only other price point Amazon should worry about is $0.

I would imagine few people would go through the hassle and risk of finding and trusting a third party software to remove the ads to save $5 or $10

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think this is a smart move on Amazon's part (even if they feel slightly forced into it). I currently own a 3rd gen kindle touch with ads and preordered a "paperwhite" kindle with ads earlier this week.

It's quite likely that I would have never bought either kindle if I didn't know that I'd have the option, after purchase, to pay the difference and get rid of the ads. This way, I can see how bad they are and judge for myself if I'd rather go ad free.

Having this option on the latest Kindle fire would make me more likely to purchase the version with ads initially, as it's a lower price and I know I've got an "out".

In the ~9 months that I've owned the kindle, the ads haven't been offensive or obtrusive so I've never bothered to get rid of them (and I refuse to watch cable TV because the ads bother me too much).

</comment><comment><USER23> I see no mention of the duration for which this fee is paid for. Is this $15 fee per year, per month or lifetime?

<comment><USER8> I assume it's the same as the Kindle, where you pay a one time premium on the device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does a $15 fee mean that Amazon puts the value of ads for a customer over the lifetime of the product $15?

</comment><comment><USER25> Strange, I ordered a Paperwhite on Thursday and they charged extra for 'without special offers' (which I opted for). I'd assume that they would do a similar thing with the Fire.

<comment><USER26> What this is, is the option to remove "special offers" from a device with them, after purchase.</comment></comment>


Hyperscan: High-performance multiple regex matching library from Intel - <AUTHOR> https://www.hyperscan.io <comment><USER2> Based on the documentation[1], and not surprisingly, this library has been optimized for Intel processors. Particularly, you can enable AVX2 and AVX512 instruction sets in the regex. In addition to that, you can optimize the matching database to a specific Intel processor family (like Haswell or Sandy Bridge).

BSD-license, and they accept contributions. I wonder if they accept any flags that would allow optimization on AMD processors.

[1]: [http://intel.github.io/hyperscan/dev- reference/api_constants...](http://intel.github.io/hyperscan/dev- reference/api_constants.html#cpu-feature-support-flags)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if they support allowing AVX2 optimizations on non Intel processors; Intel MKL refuses to. I think for that reason alone I'd never use an upstream Intel library directly...

<comment><USER4> I built Hyperscan with my team in Australia (we've since moved on, or been moved on, from Intel). There are no shenanigans to prevent Hyperscan from using AVX2 on non-IA processors, although we didn't have any high performance examples of same when we were last at Intel (2017).

The mechanism is trivial to control IIRC and would not be difficult to patch. It is, after all and unlike MKL, open source.

<comment><USER5> Kudos for making one of the most impressive pieces of software ever. The level of optimization you achieved is truly rare these days.

<comment><USER6> I don't know anything about Hyperscan, but it surprises me that it has a truly rare level of optimization. How does the optimization compare with typical tuned linear algebra, for instance?

<comment><USER6> Rather than just downvoting, could someone answer the genuine question about how the optimization that's been done compares with the work on linear algebra which underpins so much? As a specific example, there's libxsmm for small matrices.

There's no aspersions cast on Hyperscan at all, just a query about what makes it "truly rare" for the benefit of people who don't have time to study it. It would also be interesting to know how it compares with hardware regex implementations, of which I haven't heard anything recently in connexion with bioinformatics where the interest was.

<comment><USER7> I might be the only other person to solve multipattern regex searching. It's easy conceptually, and fiendishly tricksy when you try to get the tests to pass. You want to take advantage of commonality between patterns but the matches must still be independent. The engine I wrote uses a classical interpreter backend, optimized well enough to beat TRE and the old PCRE handily. I'd read about the bit parallel algorithms and play with them a bit, but the pattern sets we'd throw at any given BP algorithm would break it, as any given BP algorithm comes with several caveats.

The genius of the HyperScan team is that they threw damn near every algorithm at their pattern sets, including some they invented, and divvied up the patterns into subsets that fit the particular algorithms well. Usually getting the tests to pass with one backend is the last act of any regex author—once it ain't broke, you're too exhausted to fix it. Contemplating the complexity that comes with a multi-algorithm backend makes me want to cry. But HyperScan did it.

So, to put it in perspective with linear algebra, imagine a library that first spent time analyzing given matrices, and then split them into submatrices and operated on them with different algorithms according to the particular patterns detected therein. That's kind of insane to contemplate in a linear algebra—it's really not a domain that compares well at all—but it's how HyperScan works... and that ignores all the crazy ISA tricks it used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We use this at GitHub to power the commit token scanning. It is very fast and handles multiple regexes at once. We are looking for secrets from multiple providers. Couldn't find a better option for this type of usage.

<comment> klaas- Can you run this as a pre-receive hook to actually prevent a public commit if it has suspicious patterns in it?

<comment><USER9> You can use gitleaks to do this now. I added that feature in v3: [https://github.com/zricethezav/gitleaks/releases/tag/v3.0.0](https://github.com/zricethezav/gitleaks/releases/tag/v3.0.0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had to read Hyperscan source code for work.

Honnestly, once you understood (some of...) the math/automata details, this is by far one of the best big codebase ever written.

So clean, beautiful, powerful. I've learned a lot from this codebase.

Does anyone know more codebases as well written as Hyperscan ?

<comment><USER4> ex-Hyperscan guy here: thanks for the kind words. I'm sure my team (who are primarily responsible for the cleanliness - as a developer, I make a great "ideas person") would appreciate it.

Can you disclose how/why you were reading Hyperscan source for work? Just curious, no agenda.

<comment><USER10> Wow thanks for your work then !

It was for a (now failed) startup selling IPS appliances. What really helped us in the end was that we could run the runtime in C (C++ was not possible); however the compiler/tooling we used was fairly old (...) so I had to dig into the codebase details to make it work.

As a side note, if I had to say something bad about Hyperscan, it would be the lack of high level documentation. I don't know now, but back then only a couple of blog articles available... I always had been curious : was it something intended to prevent copycats ? Lack of time ? Why not try to explain more the high level math/automata details ?

If the high level documentation were to be improved, I'm pretty sure the number of companies integrating Hyperscan would increase, hence Intel sales would increase (since it has been bought by Intel ;)

<comment><USER4> The lack of high level docs up to the point of open sourcing was partly due to prevention of copycats but mainly due to lack of resources (chiefly time) to spend time writing. We were a small team and time spent on documenting stuff we all understood pretty well was time spent not chasing customers or improving our product.

Later: well, there is a Hyperscan paper and there may be more material coming out later.

Also, not to be a jerk, but a lot of people claim that they will read/understand/use this kind of documentation and my experience was that only a fraction actually _do_ , and of those fraction, most of them don't behave in a way that's actually _useful_ enough to justify having made all those docs. One is more likely to wind up with people kibitzing and making inane tweaking suggestions ("use more NFAs! no, use more DFAs"); less likely is meaningful OSS contributions or using the software when they might not have before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As per the documentation, the library supports a subset of the PCRE syntax.

[https://intel.github.io/hyperscan/dev- reference/compilation....](https://intel.github.io/hyperscan/dev- reference/compilation.html#pattern-support)

</comment><comment><USER12> I wrote something very similar many years ago. I described it as a reverse search index. The queries/regex gets indexed into a search tree and then text is run thru it. It supported hundreds of thousands of parallel regex searches. I called it dClass:

[https://github.com/TheWeatherChannel/dClass](https://github.com/TheWeatherChannel/dClass)

</comment><comment><USER13> Related, but ClickHouse utilizes this for their regex parsing.

</comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately no backreferences

I use FLRE: [https://github.com/BeRo1985/flre](https://github.com/BeRo1985/flre)

That is also an impressive project, with multiple subengines from which it chooses the fastest one. All written by one guy. Basically no documentation though

I wonder how the performance compares

</comment><comment><USER15> Could matching algorithms be expressed as a graph of tensorflow primitive ops and run on Google's TPU?

<comment><USER4> I suspect yes. This would be a wonderful project for someone. Do note that many regexes can be expressed as a dataflow problem. We had an experimental subsystem (called "Puggsley") that was a data-parallel take on the problem; this wasn't published, but is pretty much an independent invention of the same ideas in icgrep.

The major headache is the prospect of loops that are bigger than 1 character position - these aren't as trivial to express (I have ideas, naturally).

I don't know how well this fits in with Tensorflow - it may be too finegrained? But of course, getting onto custom hardware can yield massive speedups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Time to raise the rule count limits in regexp-based adblockers then!

<comment><USER17> Maybe, when webassembly supports SIMD.

<comment><USER18> I'm fairly sure the parent was talking about content blocker-esque architectures, where the regex matching is performed in native, browser code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are there command-line tools for it?

<comment><USER4> There are example codes; that's about it. This would be a good project for someone, but there's a _lot_ of code in a "grep" that isn't there in Hyperscan (finding and displaying lines and line numbers, lots of command-line goop and options, pretty colors for results, etc. etc.).

Also, the limitations of Hyperscan might be quite noticeable. It doesn't support all pcre facilities (e.g. capturing and arbitrary lookaround). It has a considerable compile time - I wouldn't want to use Hyperscan to grep short files! Justin Viiret (another ex-Hyperscan team guy) has a blog post about this comparing our relatively heavyweight optimization strategy with RE2 (which gets down to the business of scanning a lot quicker than we do). You can find it here: [https://01.org/hyperscan/blogs/jpviiret/2017/regex-set- scann...](https://01.org/hyperscan/blogs/jpviiret/2017/regex-set-scanning- hyperscan-and-re2set)

(sorry about the giant 01.org "dickbar", we couldn't control that)

The upshot is that most people looking for big collections of regexen in huge amounts of data aren't really running 'grep' type tools. If someone wanted to do that, like I said, it would be a good project.

<comment><USER20> Any guesstimates as to when it starts to become worth it to use hyperscan vs pcre etc?

30 regex and 1 meg of data for example.

I'm somewhat curious as I have a couple of scraping things I do where I can compile the regex once and keep it hanging around (or save to/load from disk if that's feasible) for 3 to 5 minutes at a time.

<comment><USER4> Well, 30 regex is not a great case for libpcre as libpcre really doesn't have a multiple regex mode. Thanks to some excellent work in libpcre2 with accelerated searching, it's no longer the "7-10x slower than Hyperscan on a single regex" case of the past (still frequently slower), but it wouldn't surprise me if HS was 50-100x faster than libpcre once compile time isn't a factor.

However, the compile times of HS for 30 regexes might be not entirely trivial (maybe a second, probably less). A megabyte you'd probably see benefits but I think the benefits might not be drastic.

Probably the best way to find out would be to fire up hsbench (a tool that comes with Hyperscan now), figure out the slightly weird corpus format (sorry) and get some numbers for yourself on your own workload.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you really need speed you should use FPGA.

<comment> matt-noonan This is a pro-level troll!

For context, see slides 5 and 6 about the history of Hyperscan and Sensory Networks Inc.: [https://openisf.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/oisf- keynote-201...](https://openisf.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/oisf- keynote-2015-geoff-langdale.pdf)

<comment><USER21> History is not a benchmark) Software universal algorithm can not be faster than custom algoritm on FPGA for each job.

Here is a real history [https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1115990630793207808](https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1115990630793207808)

<comment><USER4> You are correct that the failure of Sensory Networks from 2006-2009 to develop an effective FPGA matching algorithm does not imply that no-one can do it. However, the rest of what you said is an assertion for which there isn't really that much proof. FPGA is wonderful when you have the sort of available parallelism it needs; it's not great competing with s/w if the problem is expressed in algorithms with serial dependencies.

I think FPGA could do a great job of achieving worst-case performance by simulating NFAs in a very straightforward fashion (beating s/w). However, no- one does this as the headline numbers are terrible.

The thread you posted contains an assertion by someone who built an FPGA parser with no performance numbers to back it up; the performance comparison may well reflect relative skills with software and hardware as opposed to the limits of software. Interestingly, one of the first responses refers to another project of mine. :-) (simdjson). Unfortunately, given the subsequent posts on the thread, it does not look like the author can provide further details on the system, which is sad.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Fun idea for recruiting - <AUTHOR> https://www.divio.ch/en/github/ <comment><USER2> I think this is an awesome idea and is incredibly straightforward. Here's what we got, here's what you'll get, what have you done? I assume however that once they've selected some good candidates, based on github participation and code, they take the time to get a feel for the actual person. I know a lot of really great developers who are just horrid to work with in a team environment.

Good to see you guys are being innovative with your hiring. I love the NO-BS approach.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly our plan, thanks for your reply!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You win, made me share the link just because it's got my score attached!

But I do wonder what the scoring system is like? Do you optimize based on what you're looking for, or just general awesomeness?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's directly based on what we are looking for, in this case an intern/junior dev. However, you will get a nice score if you are a good python/django developer as well :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Divio doesn't go so well in divio's test:

<https://www.divio.ch/github/u/divio/>

<comment><AUTHOR> The algorithm is not optimized for organizations as we're only looking for real people ;) But you can check out the high score here: <https://www.divio.ch/en/github/highscore/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty sweet internship deal

</comment><comment><USER7> Linus Torvalds isn't quite qualified.

</comment><comment><USER8> nice frontend :)</comment>


A Cold War Hero: Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski - <AUTHOR> https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured-story-archive/colonel-ryszard-kuklinski.html <comment><USER3> I am not sure what OP wants to say with this submission... Is it that the US treats differently people who defect to them than people who defect from them? That's... not very surprising. In some way it feels more fair than the way the Soviets treated Kim Philby, a British spy and defector: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby) (tl;dr: he wasn't a KGB colonel like he was promised, he was kept essentially in house arrest, and had a 500 rubel allowance).

As for Kukliński, being a Pole myself, I have mixed feelings. I very much prefer that my country is in the American sphere of influence (and not the Soviet as it used to for almost 50 years). However, if WW3 had happened, we would've been be on the Soviet side. Zbigniew Brzeziński said that Kuklinski's information had permitted them to make counterplans to disrupt command-and- control facilities rather than only relying on a massive counterattack on forward positions, which would have hit Poland. However, I have no dellusions that anybody in the US would have any doubts about turning Poland into a radioactive wasteland if that served the American interests of the moment...

Also, the Polish government after the fall of Communism wasn't very eager to pardon Kukliński. That happened only after Clinton's administration threatened to block Poland's NATO accession if he weren't exonerated.

<comment><USER4> Being on the Soviet side would have been worthless as well of course, as it was clear that central Europe would be a nuclear wasteland in any case.

Operational plans of the Soviets against NATO foresaw the first wave of attack led by troops from Warsaw pact nations (East Germany, Poland, etc.) - <USER2> would have been completely wiped out by NATO defenses, but depleting their arsenals. The second wave would have consisted of fresh Russian troops which then would have swept through the rubble of Europe.

These plans have been made public a few years ago and here in Austria they were part of a exhibtion. Austria would have suffered a similar fate, some plans seeing Soviet tank troops advancing along the Danube, some plans ignoring it but in both cases seeing nuclear weapons (tactical) be deployed by both sides. NATO would have nuked bridges instantly, the WP denied NATO Vienna as a bridgehead.

As a Pole myself it is pretty clear that if you're caught between two power blocks (Germans, Russia, NATO, Soviets, whatever) you're always fucked whatever "side" you're on. You're collateral damage in their power struggle.

<comment><USER5> "In matters of military contingency, the expected, precisely because it is expected, is not to be expected. Rationale: What we expect, we plan and provide for; what we plan and provide for, we thereby deter; what we deter does not happen. What does happen is what we did not deter, because we did not plan and provide for it, because we did not expect it."

[http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/6127193/learning-to-live- wi...](http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/6127193/learning-to-live-with-the- bomb/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the article:

"Polish Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski was a patriot who showed his love for his country in a very courageous act. He risked his life and the safety of his family to protect Poland from the Soviets during the Cold War by spying for the United States."

Oh such delicious double-speak...you spy on us, you are a traitor. You spy on your country for us, you are a patriot of your country.

<comment><USER7> Technically Poland was under soviet occupation, so it was like Vichy France during WWII, but for almost 5 decades.

<comment><USER8> If technically Poland was under Soviet occupation, then technically Italy was under US occupation.

There's much more of a case for Italy being a US satellite state than Poland being and independent state under foreign occupation. There was no independent Poland in the century before World War I. Only the two decades of upheaval between World War I and II allowed for some Polish independence.

US troops occupied Italy and are still in Italy today. Not that those who ran the US economy disapproved of what Mussolini had been doing. As Fortune magazine memorably said in 1934: "The wops are unwopping themselves". Plenty of US investor money went to Italy, and Mussolini even had some support in US liberal circles. Then World War II happens. Northern Italy, which the fascists had to work to keep down, mostly liberated itself in the days and weeks before Allied troops even arrived there. Then in 1948 the US very openly rigged elections so the Christian Democrats would win. Gladio was set up as a secret government in case the left was voted to power. As late as 1976, Italian voters voted 34.4% for the communists, 9.6% for the socialists (who still had the hammer and sickle emblem), 1.5% for the ultra-left Proletarian Democracy etc. Secret P2 lodges pulled strings at high levels, strategia della tensione was put into effect with bombings by the far right blamed on the left, with leads back to the highest levels of government. US intelligence had a massive involvement in Italy. It was no less a "satellite state" than any eastern European country.

Hungary was called a satellite state of the USSR even though it had had an independent communist revolution after World War I, put down by foreign intervention. Hungary was independent of the USSR until 1956, when the right took over and announced its desire to join NATO. England and France were invading Egypt around this time.

<comment><USER9> USSR/Russian troops entered Poland in 1939 and left in 1992. After WW2 it was decided at Yalta that Poland will be communist country no matter what Poles want, there were falsified elections, till early fifties there were partisans fighting against new government in less populated areas. People that had the misfortune of fighting Germans in right-wing instead of left-wing partisan groups during WW2 were mass-murdered in tousands (some left-wing groups members too just in case). Political parties other than communist PZPR and pre-war socialist PPS were outlawed (PPS was outlawed a few years later too). There was censorship.

Between 1945 and 1989 if you asked Poles whether they want to be occupied by USA instead of being "independent Warsaw Pact member" 90% or more would instantly agree.

Say what you want, but for most Poles Kukliński did good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you want to see a _true_ Cold War hero, a person who prevented a nuclear war from starting, read about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)

<comment><USER5> And this chap, who talked two colleagues out of firing a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis:

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

<comment><USER11> I'd just like to point out, that this Arkhipov guy was one cool character. If there is a flash point full of hot heads... like American cowboys depth charging Russian subs, and Russian madmen intent on teaching America a lesson... the world wants guys like that to be there to "break up the fight".

This was a military man WAY ahead of his time. There were not a lot like him in the 60's.

A bit off-topic, but just as an indication of this guy's background, we were taught about his role on K-19 as well as B-59. Sangfroid like this is what you hope to have in a crisis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm sure Snowden will get his own medal in the mail any day now. After all, he did what he did to advance liberty and peace, too.

<comment><USER13> The medal will probably be radioactive and covered with cyanide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "1995, the court dismissed Kuklinski's sentence completely, declaring that he was acting under special circumstances and the higher need of his country. Kuklinski finally returned to Poland for a visit in the spring of 1998."

truth being told, USA, like always, bullied Poland into withdrawing the charges ( and that "helped" them join the structures of NATO) which is quite well described for example in the latest book by Leszek Miller, who dealt with the case as a prime minister after 1989.

( I don't have a personal opinion about Kuklinski's choice - it was treason, it was patriotism, it was many things - everybody lives by their own ethical backbone ).

<comment><USER9> To be fair Miller is not exactly neutral on that matter (he is postcommunist from SLD - which was called PZPR before 1989 and ruled communist Poland).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another terrible title edit by the mods.

<comment><USER16> What was the original title?

<comment><AUTHOR> "He did so for the noblest of reason — to advance [..] liberty and peace [..]"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Quote shortened due to 80 char limit. More about Kukliński here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kukli%C5%84ski](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kukli%C5%84ski)

<comment><USER17> Yeah. The _Legacy_ and _Opinions in Poland_ sections are particularly interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Kuklinski was given the codename GULL for his love of the sea.

Well, that's one way to explain it.

<comment><USER19> What would your explanation be?

<comment><USER20> GULLible, I guess.

<comment><USER18> I was actually thinking of the noun 'gull' ("A person who is fooled or deceived."), not the adjective 'gullible'.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


If Assange Burgled Some Computers, He Stopped Being a Journalist - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/assange-can-t-be-both-a-criminal-and-a-journalist <comment><USER2> The central point of this article is that there's a fundamental difference in a person's culpability if they help someone to procure secrets, vs if they just receive and publish those secrets. Therefore (the idea goes) he's not entitled to be seen as a "journalist" any longer. Besides the fact that there's no such legal status as "journalist" in criminal law anyway, it's clearly a pretty shallow and disingenuous attempt to try establish an arbitrary line between Assange and other journalists.

By analogy, there's no real difference in knowingly receiving stolen property, vs assisting in stealing it yourself. They're both crimes that you can be put on trial for.

Journalists could have been accused of helping Snowden get away with it too, but the media closed ranks around them for some reason. What's the real reason Assange is being thrown under the bus?

<comment><USER3> > Journalists could have been accused of helping Snowden get away with it too, > but the media closed ranks around them for some reason. What's the real > reason Assange is being thrown under the bus?

Because, under US law, there is a legal difference between receiving whistle- blower information, even if it was stolen, and assisting in the stealing. That distinction actually _matters_ legally - it's not just people "throwing Assange under the bus".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No he didn't stop becoming a journalist. Journalists don't get a pass to break the law.

<comment><USER5> That's true. I guess the problem for me is that Obama pardoned Manning who did the actual law breaking, some and supporters cheered. Now those same people are eager to see Assange pay for the crime of telling Manning how to log on as a different user.

Seems, selective.

<comment><USER4> Manning was not pardoned, his sentence was commuted. People gave it a pass because Manning was clearly mentally ill and therefore the Army was partly responsible by putting him in a position to do what he did.

<comment><USER5> Slightly pedantic, but you are right. Sentence communicated by the Obama Admin; effectively pardoned considering the life in jail possibility.

Oh, but now there is an issue. Are trans people mentally ill according to you - or just Manning? Because he committed a crime, then became a she - they no longer are responsible for their actions? Not bad enough to lock up, but bad enough to punish associates for.

By that reasoning, Assange allegedly helped someone that doesn't exist anymore, commit a crime that no one pays for. Seems like my original point.

 _Edit: Remembering that not only would Assange not now how ill Manning was (to head off any claims of exploitation) but the info Wikileaks has published has all been true and most users here celebrated its release. That if you agree with the US Gov here you are arguing that supplying information like that on encryption cracking or hacking or any topic that someone could abuse should leave you vulnerable to their misuses, that sure seems like a bad policy._

<comment><USER3> I don't think MaupitiBlue was claiming that all trans people are mentally ill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looking at the transcripts behind the indictment, Assange gave assistance to Manning to log in as a different user to protect his identity as a source.

It's standard for journalists to give material support to their sources in whistleblower circumstances in order to help protect their identity.

<comment><USER7> > It's standard for journalists to give material support to their sources in > whistleblower circumstances in order to help protect their identity.

I don't think it's standard for journalists to give material support for the criminal acts of their sources. For instance: what if Assange had assisted Manning by giving him a gun so he could kill someone who'd discovered that he had blown the whistle, in order to help protect his identity?

I think the key question is, did Assange help Manning commit any crimes, or did he merely report the information resulted from Manning's un-assisted crimes?

<comment><USER8> While your metaphor is merely intended as a comparison of _aiding a crime_ , it's made hazier by the introduction of a crime of a grisly nature (murder) committed directly (the source pulls the trigger; it is not a murder caused by a third party without the knowledge of the source and the journalist)

A better comparison would be a journalist buying a wrench that can pry open a certain box, or conversely, a lock that makes it very hard to open a certain box.</comment></comment></comment>


7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-1-559d4e805cda

<comment><USER2> This is an excellent pratical howto design article, given by a non-designer. Here is the summary of the tips:

\- Light comes from the sky

\- Black and white first

\- Double your whitespace

\- Learn the methods of overlaying text on images (part2)

\- Make text pop— and un-pop (part2)

\- Only use good fonts (part2)

\- Steal like an artist (part2)

part2: [https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating- gorgeo...](https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui- part-2-430de537ba96)</comment>


Show HN: My side project - Docco as a Service - <AUTHOR> http://docmaps.io/

<comment><USER2> Very cool. Any plans to add support for C++?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I am gradually extending the language support and refining the user experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How about mobile app projects?

<comment><AUTHOR> The site is language neutral, but I do go beyond standard Docco for Objective C and Java apps.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you have/use a foot rest at your desk? - <AUTHOR> I am wondering if using one does improve your posture and help you to be more productive? <comment><USER2> No, I'm quite active with my feet (vibrating or how it is called in English) to help me thinking. It would make the other people in the room freak out by the sound of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> No.

Used to; gave up years ago as I don't think it helped and it was just another thing to adjust/kick/break.</comment>


Kidfluencers Are Online, Recruited by Advertisers and 4 Years Old - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/business/media/social-media-influencers-kids.html <comment><USER2> Previous discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286701)

</comment><comment><USER3> The article mentions this, but the FCC already regulates children's television, is it appropriate for there to be regulation on videos targeted at kids as well?

I, for one, don't plan on exposing my kids to this until they're old enough to hate advertising as much as I do.

<comment><USER4> For weird technical reasons I believe the FCC isn't able to regulate internet video content _per se_?

<comment><USER5> Weird technical reasons like there is no law directing them to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One time I saw a ten-year-old kid on YouTube demonstrating and promoting toys in what was clearly a paid promotion. It struck me how well-rehearsed and refined his "YouTuber voice" was. I was like "God, what monster have we created?"

<comment><USER7> I'm going to play devil's advocate and say this isn't something new or newly created at least, you can see kids on billboards posing as if they love the products they're advertising, be it clothes or toys. Walk around a GAP clothing store and that kind of messaging is everywhere. TV ads for kids feature kids doing enthusiastic things that is likely acting. All in all, it isn't as new as we think it is, it's just an extension of something already there.

<comment><USER8> My personal favorite creepy "kids promoting a toy" video is the Kazoo Kid from 1989, [0] which has been in turn used as the basis for hilarious mocking remixes. [1] The Kazoo Kid has grown up and was evidently unharmed by the exploitation of his innocent charm to sell toys. [2]

[0] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cRpdIrq7Rbo](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cRpdIrq7Rbo)

[1] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g-sgw9bPV4A](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g-sgw9bPV4A)

[2] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wzkIboOqN8Q](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wzkIboOqN8Q)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They're real, and they're effective. My son watches Ethangamer and has already asked me to install 2 games he saw on there.</comment>


Ask HN: How does Groupon make money? - <AUTHOR> I'm having trouble understanding how Groupon generates net profit? From what I've read, its sort of like a Group Buying model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_buying) ?
So for example, if Suzy Wong's Chinese Restaurant gets 50 new customers from Groupon, which side is taking the risk here, is it not the restaurant? What if all 50 customers don't show up and end up cancelling, is the restaurant stuck with the extra bill of materials in anticipation of a surge in new customers?
What happens when those 50 customers don't end up coming back, again, who benefits here?
Seems to me this is a careful balance of satisfying consumers & business owners needs while also watching for Groupon's bottom line? <comment><USER2> Groupon typically sells coupons for 50% of face value, and pays the merchant 25%. So Groupon keeps 25%, the customer saves 50%, and the merchant effectively sells product for 75% off list price.

Depending on the merchant's cost structure, they may still make a small profit at 75% off list price. For example, coffee shops, yoga studios, and laser tag have mostly fixed costs and low variable costs, so during quiet times they can offer deep discounts and still come out ahead.

Most merchants lose money on each sale, but expect repeat business from those customers, so they compare the cost with advertising. After the initial group of idealists, most Groupon users were bargain hunters, and so the repeat business wasn't as valuable as some merchants hoped.

Many merchants make money on add-ons even without a repeat visit. For example, Groupons for dinner don't include alcohol, which can be a large fraction of the bill.

Another factor is the redemption rate -- some coupons are never used, and in those cases the merchant never has to provide the product and keeps the money as pure profit.

So, it was a good deal for some merchants and not others. Which is true of every form of advertising.

<comment><AUTHOR> You really hit the nail with those simple percentage, its clear as day to me now.

So it seems to me that Groupon really makes sense for businesses with fixed & low variable costs, thick enough margins to come out ahead and either repeat business or extra spenders.

I think the advertising comparison makes sense here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> They make money by taking a cut of sales which the retailer is forced to discount, doubly cutting into his profits. Groupon is an obvious scam (at the expense of merchants) and was started by a guy with a history of scams.

<comment><AUTHOR> So the retailer is forced to provide a deep discount, even if it forces them to sell at a loss? Who gets the final say here, might we assume Groupon? If so, why would retailers continue to utilize Groupon if it ends up being a net negative operation?

Can you elaborate on why you think its a scam? What did the founders do previously which supports those allegations?

<comment><USER4> There are always customer acquisition costs. But you hope you get some combination of repeat customers and the customers who do come end up spending more.

For instance one breakfast place we frequent is always running a $20 worth of food for $10. We always end up spending more. Besides soft drinks have ridiculous margins. Movie theaters make most of their money from concessions, food (movie and dinner type theaters) and the bar.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see so the primarily utility of Groupon is that businesses can pay for a chance of repeat customers and/or extra spenders? I think the theater is a good example of the latter.

Then the question arises, why can't businesses do this themeselves? Why can't the breakfast place you frequent just advertise $20 worth of food for $10? Why Groupon? Is it because Groupon can send foot traffic on demand for a cut of the sales?

<comment><USER3> Yes, like Amazon, Groupon has its own traffic which would be hard for a small business to reach otherwise.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Laundering Money Online: A review of cybercriminals' methods - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.2368

<comment><USER2> Honestly speaking, this paper has nothing to do with criminal money laundering. Just a snapshot of third-grade forum with script kiddies out of inner circles.

Money laundering is when several fake corporations established and begin transfering shitpiles of botnet and card money from Baltic states to "isles" to such an extent that whole countries are scared of opening accounts for "internet startups" after that.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, I just now learned arxiv isn't peer reviewed. Considering magnitude helps with perspective.

However, is it far fetched to think illicit funds might finance the development of a virtual economy, in a mobile game perhaps, that could be used to launder money? Seems theres a need for fraud detection practices to extend into virtual economies as well.

<comment><USER3> _However, is it far fetched to think illicit funds might finance the development of a virtual economy, in a mobile game perhaps, that could be used to launder money?_

I don't think so.. The lure is that it can be fast and automated, and that using new technology will help avoiding the feds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I sort of flashed back to the scene in Office Space where they try to get the guy selling magazine subscriptions to tell them how to launder money :-).

Everyone knows the first step to laundering money is to open an Italian restaurant :-)

</comment><comment><USER5> I especially enjoyed a fraudster's description of his son's profits in World of Warcraft:

      In 2006 or 2007 my son sold 80,000 gold to IGE and they paid him $70 per 1000g. That's right, $5,600
      directly to his PayPal account. He got most of the gold through selling as he types this: "aq20 spellbooks
      from guild bank around level 60"

<comment><USER6> Whats surprising is that PayPal didnt close his account as soon as such a sum arrived

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think there is some confusion in this paper about laundering vs transferring money.

<comment><USER8> I think you're correct. The title confused met with the content. It's all about transferring money from one place to another and a way to cash it out and use it. It's actually still "black" money because it's not laundered yet.

Laundering is when I can justify to the IRS that my fund are earned legitimated eg. no criminal activity AND I paid my taxes on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting read. I did not expect online games to be up there. For a lot of games, there really isn't much of a profit to be made, considering that all the chinese gold farmers are competing with one another and making the _real_ money (the exchange rate in MapleStory is awful and you would make more money panhandling). A lot of these methods seem to require a _lot_ of work to clean a little bit of money, though. I would wager that actual drug lords use something a little more clever in practice; after all, that's what they pay their lawyers for.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is chump change. No one needing to launder decent amounts would bother with these methods. It takes too much work to launder too little money.

</comment><comment><USER6> When was this written, both Silk Road and Liberty Reserve have been closed rendering this rather useless

</comment><comment><USER11> very interesting</comment>


Why iTunes downloads don't use HTTPS - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/itunes-downloads-https-encryption/ <comment><USER2> As TFA points out, Macs have a built in service for caching content downloaded from Apple's various servers that can be turned on in the sharing tab of the control panel on the Mac you would like to adopt this role.

The other Macs and iDevices on your network will detect the caching server and start using it instead of overloading your WAN link every time a large file like a new OS version or OS update needs to be distributed.

Encryption would interfere with caching.

More information on content caching:

[https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/17/howto-mac- content-c...](https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/17/howto-mac-content- caching/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Even if the downloads where encrypted, an all seeing observer could probably still detect what you download. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14070130](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14070130) as an example. I'm not sure how easy it would be to fingerprint the entire iTunes database and how unique download sizes would be. Might be an interesting research topic.

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel like the arguments given here are kind of weak for not implementing HTTPS. Plus, fingerprinting and such can be cirumvented pretty easily by adding padding data to the payload of a random length.

That said, I don't think it matters too terribly much here, and in situations where privacy is much more important, Apple seems to be blowing Google out of the water, since their business model isn't inherently anti-privacy.</comment>


How to Write an Open Source JavaScript Library: 23 Free Lessons on Egghead.io - <AUTHOR> https://egghead.io/series/how-to-write-an-open-source-javascript-library <comment><USER2> Isn't Jasmine used more often than Mocha/Chai on open source? Perhaps just for the front end projects?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say that it's likely that Jasmine's more common, but both are quite popular. I personally prefer Mocha/Chai syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There are definitely more lessons to come!</comment>


The Rust Belt Theory of Low-Cost High Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/01/cheap_high_culture_in_baltimore_buffalo_detroit_and_other_midsize_cities.html

<comment><USER2> He missed the big picture in my opinion: in these cities, _everything_ is cheaper. You can get a new-ish, nice 3000sqft house for 200-300k in a good to excellent school district in my area (Grand Rapids, MI) ... for those of you on the west coast, take a look at the houses on grar.com to get an idea of what housing money gets you in the midwest. Gas? $1.75/gal right now, way less than some of the larger cities, especially on the west coast (even when gas prices were high, they were less high here). Food, movies, broadway shows, symphony, land, taxes, all of life's expenses are less. I used to live in a trendy 1200sqft condo in the city center (it had all the perks - rooftop deck with pool and hot tub, indoor parking, community room with pool tables, walking distance to bars/restaurants, etc.) for $1200/month. Now I live an 18 minute drive from work (13 minutes from downtown) on 11 acres, and I paid < $200k for my place (although it's only 1500sqft).

If you have to take a pay cut for a software job from $150k in Silicon Valley to 75-100k here, you still come out with a much higher standard of living and more left over to save for retirement. What baffles me is that more tech companies haven't set up shop in these areas. Around here we have Michigan State University, Grand Valley State University, Calvin College, U of M, and many other schools with solid engineering programs cranking out a steady supply of good to excellent engineers. I think that other rust belt cities have similarly good schools.

Everything you need to live is on sale from the perspective of an individual, and talent is on sale from the perspective of an employer. In Detroit there is much engineering talent available due to the presence of the automotive industry, and once again, everything in certain areas on the east side of the state is _incredibly_ cheap. I guess the real question is what has failed for these cities - has leadership failed to attract industry, has the community failed to advertise the wonderful things happening in them (Grand Rapids, at least, is a good place to live), or are people just unwilling to put up with the winters?

<comment><USER3> > or are people just unwilling to put up with the winters?

This is slightly related; It may not be tomorrow, next week, or next decade, but eventually, there will come a time when climate change makes living in the west and/or southwest prohibitively (or increasingly) expensive. I'm not talking full abandonment often espoused by preppers, far from it. People will continue to live in the west, it's not going to disappear. However, it will become cheaper _by orders of magnitude_ to live and do business elsewhere in the country.

The biggest reason for this is that fresh water will be at a high premium. They're already experiencing drought issues in the west and southwest due to climate change, and I suspect places like Las Vegas will be the first to turn into a ghost town.

Many people mistakenly believe that we can pump water around the country where its needed. While we have the technology, infrastructure and motivation to do it, we don't have the legal authority. You see, a few years ago, the Great Lake states and 2 Canadian Provinces signed the great lakes water compact. It's a (federally) legally binding contract which forbids exporting the water from the great lakes out of their respective states. In short, if you want cheap water, you're going to need to move back to the midwest/north east. I'm 1000% confident that the "rust belt" will rise again. It's only a matter of time.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that global warming doesn't necessarily mean nicer winter here (Ontario). I mean, ask buffalonians about the lake-effect snow they saw last November, and scientists say that was caused by the warm lake.

<comment><USER5> As a Buffalonian, it was actually something of a communally binding event; people definitely took advantage of the opportunity to show their resilience and live the ethos of "the city of good neighbors."

Speaking personally, it's the biting cold that starts about now and goes to about mid March that beats you down. But the weather's pretty good the other 9 months of the year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My wife and I recently moved to Baltimore from another rust-belt city with underrated culture: Philadelphia. Both punch above their weight in art as well as food. We were all just as the Walters yesterday. A gorgeous museum with no entrance fee, in a city more famous for its dilapidation than for its art.

The linked-to article about Detroit is quite depressing:

> Officials at the city-owned museum, which, along with Detroit, has struggled > financially for many years, had said as recently as two weeks ago that such > a huge commitment — money to help the city pay its pensions — would be > "completely unfeasible." But in a statement on Wednesday the museum said > that it had reached out to corporate leaders in Detroit and would commit to > a multiyear effort that would "stretch our fund-raising abilities to their > capacity" as a way to protect its collection.

What a particularly grotesque expression of intergenerational wealth transfer: taking art away from the young to pay for pensions for the old.

<comment><USER2> In Detroit, the situation is simple and difficult. The city's population used to be much larger. The city made commitments to its then-workers based on the assumption that population and revenue would hold fast. The city's population shrank dramatically, leaving a small tax base to support huge legacy costs. End result has been a bankruptcy, cuts to city pensions, and a city that is solvent but running on a shoestring budget. The final bankruptcy resulted in the DIA maintaining its full collection and being transferred to a private nonprofit, made possible by funding from donors and the state (they basically paid the city the value of the collection, and in return, the city relinquished ownership of the DIA). All of this was accomplished by the state, which at the behest of the governor temporarily wrested control of the city's finances from city leaders and appointed an emergency manager (who, admittedly, was the one looking into selling the collection ... but with hard times come hard choices).

They are working to reduce the footprint of the city by literally plowing sections of it under, thereby reducing upkeep costs, and through this process will eventually end up with a physically smaller city that is financially feasible given the current taxbase (fun fact- you can buy a decent fixer upper house in Detroit for less than the cost of a used car, due to massive oversupply). Outside of Detroit proper, the surrounding areas have fared much better.

<comment><USER7> > The city made commitments to its then-workers based on the assumption that > population and revenue would hold fast

Just a few years ago the pension board, without oversight, continued to give out 13th checks (a bonus pension check for the 13th month of the year) in years that they happened to have above-average returns. Of course, the years with above-average returns were supposed to balance out the years with below- average returns.

Google _Detroit 13th check_ for more on that one. Some groups sued to get the 13th check turned back on, arguing that the issuance of them, even though it happened without oversight, created an expectation of them and therefore a contractual obligation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Having lived in London for many years, although now moved to Austria, I feel privileged to have enjoyed free and very cost effective "high culture" for many years. So much so, that I simply forgot this wasn't the case in many other locations.

All London's major museums and galleries offer free entry.[1][2] The BBC Proms, a classical music festival in the Royal Albert Hall spanning almost three months each year between July and September, offer £5 tickets to every concert, if you're willing to promenade (stand).[3] Even tickets for reasonable seats can be obtained for less than £20, although popular concerts do book out well in advance.

The article author's assertion that high prices in "creative-class capitals" are driven by "deep-pocketed local elites and high-spending tourists," is clearly not true everywhere.

[1] [http://www.timeout.com/london/museums/free-museums-in- london](http://www.timeout.com/london/museums/free-museums-in-london)

[2] [http://www.visitlondon.com/tag/free- attractions](http://www.visitlondon.com/tag/free-attractions)

[3] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/features/ticket- prices](http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/features/ticket-prices)

<comment><USER2> Many museums in the US (at least in the midwest) have "free days". In my town, for example, the art museum is free on Tuesday and during certain weeks of the year (when we have art festivals, for instance).

<comment><USER9> The source of funding for a lot of these events in the US is somewhat insidious though. Case in point is Museums On Us is sponsored by Bank of America. Museums oftentimes barely charge anything for admission partly because a lot of their cost expenditures are highly restricted by the grants and agreements of donors they've signed. Museums are visited more than sports stadiums in the US but museum professionals are hardly paid pro athlete salaries. Good example of how museums in general are struggling and desperate is that Fisk Art Museum was motioning to sell off the most prized parts of its collection to private buyers including Georgia O'Keefe works explicitly donated by her to keep there so that art is accessible to everyone - at a historically black college at that. The grant structured nature of musums has really made it hard for them to operate with modern operating costs, and given universities' shift toward pro sports for revenue we can't sustain most museums. Many are literally one person with 20+ volunteer staff, some of whom were ex-employees that were laid off but just love the collection that much. Other museums are run by descendants of tycoons and will exist basically forever.

So do be aware of how you support your local museum. In some cases, I might argue they're total losses and we'd do everyone involved a favor by letting it dissolve. Many museums are glorified corporate or robber baron legacy temples. Museums aren't necessarily money-driven either and each one is highly reflective of whom the board has appointed to lead it.

I'm not being anti-corporate, just making it clear that museums can be corporate-run and are highly variable in operations.

Disclosure: my wife is a museum collections curation professional

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't exactly speak of low-cost high culture but, if you take out the 'high' part, I can say I've been living this way for the past several years. I enjoy several cultural outings per month, free or low cost (and usually w/in walking distance), simply by being "location independent" (ie, living outside the States). For _years_ , I haven't had to spend more than $600/mo in living expenses, having lived tons of different experiences across different countries/cultures and, frankly, I wouldn't trade it.

Standard of living hasn't always been the best but, in the foreign cities I've now lived the longest in, I've often found the standard way better than anything I found in the US (a period spanning most of my life).

The main take-away for me has been that a higher/better standard of living in exchange for lesser pay is a game-changer. The kinds of things danjayh (currently the top comment) says make it totally worth it. Take the pay cut, make the change. You may surprise yourself.

</comment><comment><USER11> How are low cost concerts and museums funded? Are donors sufficient? Is it the low cost of living and resulting reduction in staff costs? Is it sustainable in the long run?

<comment><USER12> Successive years of excellent portfolio management. Assets are purchased with donor money to create an endowment that makes the entire ship self-sustaining. Or in the case of some places (e.g. Harvard), becoming an economic juggernaut within the community.

Actually, "excellent" is the wrong adjective. "Competent" is all that is necessary. However, the non-profit world is often beset with incompetent employees at all levels, from your average worker all the way up to the top directors (well, usually B begets A). There is a problem in the field of people interpreting "we are a non-profit" as "we are a charity in all aspects, including hiring". There is definitely a feeling that only "heartless" (i.e. for-profit) companies worry about productivity.

Let's put it this way: if'n you ever had the notion to lie on your resume to get a job, look first to the non-profit world[1]. I've seen several instances at several locations of people with long-standing careers where they STILL aren't competent at the skills they lied about having on their resume when they got hired.

[1] that should be read as an indictment of the field, not a recommendation for lying on your resume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who has lived on the East coast the vast majority of his life, currently lives in DC, and has spent quite a lot of time with friends who live in Baltimore, this doesn't really mesh with my experiences. Specifically, I don't think comparing Baltimore and DC is a good example. There are other locations that you could compare to DC to make a better point, but to bring up Baltimore as the main subject is not a strong argument.

Yes, you'll be hard-pressed to find a beer in DC for $3, that is for sure. It's not impossible, but Baltimore is definitely more of a beer drinking town than DC.

But all of the other talk on music and cultural events is way off. Many of the museums in DC are free, and there are far more of them. I would say the Hirshhorn Museum is the finest modern art museum I've ever been to, and it's completely free, with a wide, rotating selection.

For theater, the Kennedy Center has several shows for as little as $10, so I feel like you could probably beat the "7 shows for under $100" metric Mr. MacGillis has thrown down. But there are also many, much bigger events of much more variety as well. And that's just one theater, there are a lot of theaters in the DC area.

I also haven't been terribly impressed by Baltimore's housing offerings. They aren't _that_ much cheaper, when you start considering the commuting costs, and it's starting to age poorly. Everyone I've known to buy a house in Baltimore has had to do major renovations. Even living in somewhere like Bethesda is not that much more expensive than Baltimore and you are still inside the DC metro area. But taking an hour on a good day to drive 20 to 30 miles to work (he says he and his wife still work in DC) is ludicrously unsustainable. There aren't any major road projects going in the north-south direction between DC and _Philly_ , as far as I know. The traffic we have today is the best traffic we're ever going to have.

Where I think Baltimore succeeds far and away from DC is in neighborhood culture. You just don't have neighborhoods in most of DC and the suburbs. I mean, there are neighborhoods, but there is no identity to each neighborhood. It's all just bedrooms for the Pentagon and Arlington contractors. Why didn't he talk at all about that? The DC area is a monotone, corporatized town. You don't have a local bar. You don't have a local hangout. You don't have that place to go "where everybody knows your name". There is no local flavor because there are no locals.

I understand the point he's trying to make. I'd like to get out of DC eventually, because the costs are astronomical (I think it's the 5th most expensive area in the country). But it won't be to go to Baltimore. The way in which he's used Baltimore is not playing to Baltimore's strengths.</comment>