How I created and launched a website from the Internet café in Zimbabwe - <AUTHOR> http://munyukim.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/how-i-created-and-launched-a-website-from-the-internet-cafe-in-zimbabweafrica/

<comment><USER2> Good job! I really like the domain name.

Here a some ideas for improvements:

\- It might be a good idea if you'd make subsections for different hiphop genres, for example one for zimbabwean hiphop (e.g. mixdem.com/zimbabwe). People can find you on Google this way if they can search for this hip hop from zimbabwe and you might become the go to place for this specific genre.

\- Think about using more hiphop (ghetto) language.

\- Make a logo. It helps for people to recognize/remember your site. It would already help if you just write the name of your site in a cool type face.

\- It did not see a lot of comments on your site (none actually). This is very important for a community (look at Hacker News for example). Experiment with different ways to get more comments. For example you could put a text box on every page for people to leave a comment, even if they are not logged in. If they try to post a comment you could make them log in or register to post it.

\- It might be better to embed the videos in the video section directly into your page instead of linking to a page which does. This way people stay on your site, instead of going elsewhere (same of the downloads if it is possible).

\- Even though it's annoying, you could also put a frame on top of the page, when people click a link to another site. In this frame people could vote up the site or go back to your site to leave a comment.

\- Maybe add a share on twitter / facebook for specific news items or videos, which people want to share with their friends.

\- When I am on the page for a specific item I was expecting that clicking on the title would make me go to the site. It took me a second to see that there is actually a button "go to site".

I hope you find some of those suggestions useful. It is not meant as criticism.

<comment><USER3> please do not use ghetto language, that'd make my puppy cry :-(

<comment><USER2> Maybe your puppy is not the target audience ;). I think it would help make it feel less generic and more appealing to (some) hiphop listeners. I don't mean to overdo it just something like "I feel it" instead of "upvote".

<comment><USER3> haha, well, you might be right on that -- however, overdoing it might come across as insincere...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very humbling to read. I live in America, land of opportunity -- mostly taken for granted. I take for granted the freedom to jump on the internet at almost any moment I choose. I take for granted that I have constant access to a reliable power grid. I take for granted that credit companies want to extend me the ability to utilize a credit card. I take for granted that I have free access to a banking system. I take for granted that, since I work in technology, I can pick from a multitude of job offerings. I just plainly take for granted the fact that I had the fortune and advantage to be born into this land. Does America have her woes? Yes, as does everywhere. Your situation, munyukim, has created a stark contrast to what I have been afforded. I truly do respect you for what you have achieved with such environments and obstacles that you do face. Congratulations on a job well done!!

<comment><USER5> I second that. Sometimes we just forget how fortunate we are and how we take everything for granted. Congrats and a big thank you for sharing this with us, munyukim.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone ,i really appreciate all the positive responses .i never imagined my story would be on hacker news frontpage.

<comment><USER6> The space comes after, not before, punctuation like commas and periods. Just FYI.

<comment><USER7> FYI: "for your information".

<comment><AUTHOR> just updated the about page

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats! I've been told Zimbabwe has a pretty good education system despite its economic woes. Have to wonder how much talent is being wasted while Bob is in power.

<comment><USER9> I have a number of students from Zimbabwe who over here in the UK for 'political reasons' in my classes. I think once the country is back on an even keel, we will have to watch out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Zimbabwe indeed has got one the most affordable education system ,no matter where you live there is a school easily accessible.Also education is the biggest employer .However its really hard a tertiary level to get the most out of your education because of the economic situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is fantastic. I was in Tanzania last year and met a very cool kid without a lot of options. Orphan, no money, etc, but had a fantastic grasp of English and could definitely hustle. Tried to convince him to pick up programming as it seemed like the most accessible monetizable skillset available to him. Now I'll have something to give him to show it's actually possible. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER11> programming is definitely a skill which doesn't require a lot of resources, with a pc and decent internet connection, one can become very powerful.

<comment><USER12> "with a pc and decent internet connection"

Unfortunately, for many people in the world this, and as mentioned in the posting a reliable supply of electricity, is something that not everyone can afford or easily acquire.

There are many hundreds of bright young people (and older too) that I've met on my travels through small towns and villages in Asia and Africa. I far too often have thought that I wish I could give them a computer, internet, electricity, something to help them break out of their lives of unemployment, underemployment & poverty and engage in the wider world to make money to support themselves and their family. Even the seemingly basic solutions have far too many hurdles and levels of corruption to avoid.

<comment><USER3> might I ask how you ended up on those travels? job related or free-time? In either case: I'd be grateful for some details!

<comment><USER12> Some are job related where I've visited remote locations to check on resource sites or in conflict zones. Otherwise, I often go off the beaten track to find out what its like in remote areas. Originally for the landscapes, flora & fauna, now also to meet the people who live locally and to see how they live. Though I try very much not to be intrusive, exploited or voyeuristic about it, as I feel many westerners do that, still very much in the 19th Century tradition.

Its usually best to go on personal travel, though obviously more expensive and usually without a support network & connections that work often provides. For work or relief organizations it can be better, but you also may not have the easy option of leaving when it gets a bit dangerous, as can happen in some regions on very short notice.

<comment><USER3> thank you very much -- I'm still dreaming of somehow combining work and travel

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good job so far getting it up and running. Apply some kickstrap[0] and you will have a much cleaner looking website overnight. If you can get some better design going, your traffic should increase more.

[0]<http://ajkochanowicz.github.com/Kickstrap/themes.html>

</comment><comment><USER14> Hey munyukim, really good site and story, i have a question and an offer: question: What is your plans for monetization? How do you plan on making money with this? Offer: Private Message me if you need help with then programming, i'll be happy to help (been programming in php/mysql for longer than i care to remember)

</comment><comment><USER15> Very cool, Munyuki. Maybe it needs a "Translate to Shona" feature :)

I lived in Harare from 1986-90, long before I'd heard the term "Internet". It's really great to see Zimbabweans making their mark on the net.

Best wishes and luck, mate!

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats buddy! Shows that nothing can stop someone from creating good things. I'm not into hiphop but the site looks pretty well-made.

</comment><comment><USER17> >Zimbabwe, Africa

Off-topic, but it really shouldn't be necessary to provide a continent when naming a country e.g. Japan, Asia.

</comment><comment><USER18> > _If you find yourself in a position like me ,don't lost hope instead start a > project and tell people about it ,it doesn't have to perfect and use all the > resources you can get._

Inspiring story!

I'm curious about the tech stack for mixdem. Was it forked from an example link aggregator, written from scratch, php or ...?

<comment><USER19> If you take a look you'll see it's php from the URL's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have so many tools at my disposal but have only a fraction of your talent and perseverance...Great job!

</comment><comment><USER21> Thanks for sharing your story! I know a thing or two about building web crawlers and aggregators. Drop me a note and I could help you with some of the technical matters. Stay awesome and keep rocking!

<comment><AUTHOR> I would like to learn about crawlers .My email is firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Munyukim, I've had an idea similar to this in my head for some time. Your story is impressive, I'd like to speak more with you offline if possible. Can you send me your info? email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER23> How spooky, I was in Harare just two weeks ago for a friends wedding. The electrical grid only seemed to work for a few hours, however with a backup generator the Internet seemed reliable!

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow no power during the day? That's awesome that you took advantage of the resources available to you. Your story was very inspiring, thanks for sharing and I wish you the best of luck

</comment><comment><USER25> Fix your About page; ideally, it should say something about you.

<comment><USER26> Also link to your blog from your site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone know why the punctuation gets messed up from a lot of African computers? It is the best giveaway that a Cl emailer is a spammers.

</comment><comment><USER28> Great job. I'm willing to help with the front-end design and development, free of charge. Just send me an email (find it on my hn profile)

</comment><comment><USER29> Impressive story. Is it "the internet cafe around your corner" or "THE (one) internet cafe in Zimbabwe"? :-)

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, congrats! Thats a crazy struggle you have to go through- surely must pay off- just keep at it!

</comment><comment><USER31> I was hoping the blog will have some links from times past, talking about how it was going.

</comment><comment><USER32> Munyukim, excellent start! Keep building on your initiative, we'll be cheering you on!

</comment><comment><USER33> Any chance you'd throw the code on GitHub for some critique? :)

</comment><comment><USER34> Very inspiring story.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> feel free to contact me @ firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


CNC-machining a lion's head from a billet of aircraft-grade titanium - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/zq1zKeJFUKE <comment><USER2> The youtu.be version was autokiled. Try resubmitting the youtube.com version.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand. I just clicked on the original link above and it plays fine.

<comment><USER2> Your submission was [dead] for more than 3 hours until I vouched it.</comment></comment></comment>


The Ecosystem Is Moving [video] - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11086-the_ecosystem_is_moving <comment><USER3> Every time I see Moxie talking about decentralization, I can't help to think that this is all a big disguised agenda used to promote his own business for selling the Signal technology to any messaging vendors (WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, etc.)

He keeps bringing data privacy and data encryption as the sole motive for decentralization but that's not really the point. The main point is data ownership and freedom of usage.

WhatsApp and Signal are good messaging services indeed but:

\- We are tied to their official clients.

\- Which means that we are tied to the platforms they support

\- We are also required to have Google Play services installed on our Android phones

\- We are tied to phone numbers

\- And if (for whatever reason) we trip on their abuse detection services, we might get banned and completely prevented of using their own service (mistakes on their side can happen as we have been seeing with Google)

The point of decentralization is to avoid all these annoying constraints. Encryption and privacy are a bonus, not the selling point.

Also, all of his points about centralization are completely refuted by the efforts of the Matrix project.

<comment><USER4> There are trade-offs in user experience between a centrally controlled effort and something like Matrix.

If you've listened to him talk many times before, it seems almost disingenuous that you'd believe he hasn't made this choice because mass-adoption and user experience are the first priority of his design constraints.

It doesn't mean your criticisms aren't valid wants in a messenger but there is a logical and publicly explained motivation to why Signal is the way it is. One piece of good news is that being tied to phone numbers is a problem Signal appears to be solving in the near future. [1]

[1] [https://signal.org/blog/secure-value- recovery/](https://signal.org/blog/secure-value-recovery/)

<comment><USER3> It seems to me that these design constraints are more to their benefit than to the benefit of the users because it simplifies a lot the maintenance of their infrastructure:

\- By relying purely on phone numbers for user accounts, they remove a good chunk of infrastructure for having to deal with problems with logging in or missing passwords or stealing accounts.

\- And by relying on Google Play Services, they avoid having to maintain a push notification infrastructure.

And I'm okay with this! It's smart and effective but I just wish he would be open and honest about it and not spread FUD about decentralization and other alternatives as an attempt to justify Signal's design decisions and make it look like "the only true way of messaging securely".

When he was asked by the public during his talk about the phone numbers, he went a long way to give an answer that didn't really answer the question. It was almost like a politician trying to justify an ulterior decision.

He is a salesman, a very good salesman. A good part of his presentation was not even about the "ecosystem", he just was wandering off-topic walking the public through his point of view. You could see this when he started to sneakily dismiss decentralization with saying "I host my own email" basically saying "So I am an authority on everything about decentralization".

<comment><USER5> > \- And by relying on Google Play Services, they avoid having to maintain a > push notification infrastructure.

It was mentioned in a sibling comment to GP, but Play Services are no longer required. If you don't have them installed, Signal will use its own push notification infrastructure.

Indeed, this was not always possible, because they had to implement and maintain it first, in a way that would provide a good user experience for users. (And even then, the non-Play Services version is still somewhat detrimental to the user in the sense that their battery depletes more quickly, so it's a trade-off they'll have to make themselves now.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So in the beginning of the presentation Moxie brings up some valid cases where it's good that centralized services can rapidly iterate and improve such as WhatsApp being able to roll out end-to-end encryption with a single update, while email is still not encrypted despite the tools existing to do so for years. Basically centralized services can roll out changes quickly and decentralized ones are more or less set in stone.

However, I feel that maybe he isn't considering the downsides of being able to change quickly. Sure WhatsApp was able to add end-to-end encryption with a single update, but they can just as easily remove encryption with another update. Additionally, while I will admit that it sucks that email is not encrypted, knowing how many people and businesses rely on email every day, it should be incredibly difficult to make changes to it. I don't want a single person or company to be able too suddenly decide to change how email works.

One area where I am sympathetic towards Moxie and Signal is requiring phone numbers (mentioned at the end in the Q&A). Personally, I don't see it as being all that big of a deal and it does bring several advantages with it:

* Users get to store/control their own social network in their phones address book

* Users can switch easily between WhatsApp/Signal/etc.

Although I agree that requiring phone numbers does reduce the privacy of Signal users, I think it is a worthwhile trade off for making the app usable by the public.

Also, it seems like usernames might be supported in the future: [https://signal.org/blog/secure-value- recovery/](https://signal.org/blog/secure-value-recovery/)

<comment><USER7> This idea of phone numbers being easy to use is baffling to me. Phone numbers come with so much red tape it's unbelievable.

I'm still paying for a phone service in a country where I previously lived (5 years after leaving) because I can't move all the stuff that's linked to that phone number. I even had to send them a government issued photo ID recently so I could keep the number.

And to use the number without switching SIM cards I have a separate phone that I'm booting up just for that purpose. I actually bought a third phone to manage all my SIM cards. This time I was smart. I bought an Android phone with dual SIM slots in spite of being an iPhone user.

After listening to Moxie's talk, I realise that many of his arguments sound entirely plausible from a US centric point of view but make far less sense if you live elsewhere.

Building on top of phone numbers also assumes that end-to-end encrypted messaging will always be permitted in the mobile app stores. It's a reasonable assumption as far as the US app stores are concerned. I wouldn't bet on it here in the UK though, and even less so in many other countries.

<comment><USER8> Phone numbers are useful for exactly the reasons you find them frustrating: stability -- as you said, everyone and everything you associate with can and will store and contact you via your phone number indefinitely -- and portability -- everyone accepts and understands phone numbers, modulo international dialing.

Sure, something could and maybe should replace phone numbers, as the system is definitely messy wrt international dialing and countries changing numbering plans.. But the thing that replaces phone numbers in their usefulness will bring the same frustrations you express.

Email has mostly the same characteristics, especially for non-computer-people. My parents were paying $10/mo for dialup up to ten years after switching to DSL and Gmail, just to keep their old email address. I bring that up not to point out the extortion -- email could theoretically have had address providers decoupled from hosting provider through DNS, if it had been made user-friendly -- but to point out the value in the stable identifier. I know this is an anecdote, but the story of AOL email is similar, that 2.5 million people [1] were still paying $20/mo for their dialup and bundled email when "some of whom" (sorry there's no better information on this) had since switched to a different ISP, but kept paying AOL to keep the email.

> I even had to send them a government issued photo ID recently so I could > keep the number.

Governments will always want to link users to their stable identifiers. It's in their policing interest, for better or worse. Switching away from phone numbers will just shift the problem.

[1] [https://consumerist.com/2013/08/08/believe-it-or- not-2-58-mi...](https://consumerist.com/2013/08/08/believe-it-or- not-2-58-million-people-still-pay-for-aol-service/)

<comment><USER7> _> Phone numbers are useful for exactly the reasons you find them frustrating: stability -- as you said, everyone and everything you associate with can and will store and contact you via your phone number indefinitely_

No, not at all. Most of my contacts don't have my current actively used phone number or the old one I'm forced to keep. I have a whole box full of SIM cards I once used for one reason or other. Most of them no longer work (I think).

It's the same thing in the other direction. I have tons of phone numbers of some people and I have absolutely no idea which ones actually work.

You're right that email is the same mess, at least for people who don't have their own domain (which is most people).

But Signal is a centralised service. So why not use usernames?

The reason is not stability, because phone numbers can hardly be more stable on Signal than Signal's own usernames.

I believe the reason is that Signal was hoping to get faster traction by showing people who else in their phone book has Signal installed.

I find that creepy to say the least. And it's a very bad reason force the whole usability disaster that is phone numbers, SIM cards and phone companies onto all Signal users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This talk is basically an elaboration of Moxie's blog post from 2016 with the same name [1]. See also a response to this blog post by Daniel Gultsch, developer of the popular Android XMPP app Conversations [2].

[1][https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is- moving/](https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/)

[2][https://gultsch.de/objection.html](https://gultsch.de/objection.html)

<comment><USER9> Backup link because the OP 404'ed: [https://berlin- ak.ftp.media.ccc.de/congress/2019/h264-hd/36c...](https://berlin- ak.ftp.media.ccc.de/congress/2019/h264-hd/36c3-11086-eng- The_ecosystem_is_moving.mp4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Its funny how he mentions domain fronting as a technique to counteract censorship, and even uses Google as an example, while in fact Google (and also AWS) banned them from doing domain fronting a long time ago...

[https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the- front/](https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/)

<comment><USER11> Still works with other CDN's. No point in putting those companies on the spotlight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great talk. It could be an Urbit ad since most if not all of the mentioned problems (and many more) are exact reasons it was designed the way it is.

Stagnation of development is caused by fragmentation of platforms. For every app we need to develop the same app over and over and over, and then keep them in sync. That's why we need a precise, unified, and well designed OS/VM layer. Only then we can run and update the same app on many systems with ease.

The reason why it takes so many engineers is the byzantine stack of layers we've developed over the years and platform fragmentation. Which compounds with the fact that every decentralized app has to develop the same set of things over and over. If only the OS/VM layer had it ... built in - like in Urbit.

Censorship resistance problem described in the talk is not an issue if the ID is decoupled from the infrastructure. Something that I still don't understand why federated protocols don't get (I'm looking at you Mastodon). If you make them scarce and transferable it will additionally help fight the abuse.

The list would go on, but it has all been described many times.

<comment><USER13> > That's why we need a precise, unified, and well designed OS/VM layer. Only > then we can run and update the same app on many systems with ease.

Is this not exactly why the web has become a platform for apps? And wouldn't all of the issues inherent in the web also then apply to this OS you describe?

<comment><USER12> Web is built for client-server architecture. And that's what we've got - <USER2> of big companies, storing all the data, and our thin clients downloading only the part we look at.

Urbit is built for p2p architecture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Backup on PeerTube: [https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/12be5396-2a25-4ec8-a92a-...](https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/12be5396-2a25-4ec8-a92a-674b1cb6b270)

</comment><comment><USER15> In this video, Moxie Marlinspike--the developer of Signal, someone who has been consistently extremely negative on not just the idea of federated and decentralized systems but of open protocols and alternative clients for centralized systems (to the point where it shocks me he still does any development as open source, given how hard he pushes on the idea that people who fork his clients are actively doing something that harms the world by leaching resources from his organization for their own client, which I feel like misses the entire point of why people are doing those forks in the first place)--makes the argument that, because decentralization doesn't _automatically and inherently_ solve hard problems _merely due to the technology being decentralized_ , we should not waste time working on decentralized systems and instead work on and support centralized ones (one would imagine, particularly his).

While he clearly understands it not only was _but still is_ a very difficult problem to make a centralized service private (as he points out how much work has gone into making some basic aspects of Signal seem usably private), he doesn't want to admit the idea that someone could or should spend commensurate time also working on researching or improving decentralized systems :/. In the process, he ignores attempts to work on what I'd consider the primary problem (something someone thankfully poked him about during the Q&A, though I'd say not hard enough)--transport obfuscation--and thereby goes so far as to claim that decentralized systems are fundamentally less private (using an example involving peer-to-peer video/audio calls on Signal that they decided to instead route through their centralized servers) based on that assumption of non-private transports (as clearly we should all trust Moxie Marlinspike and the handful of people who work at Signal with our metadata over anyone else we might want to be able to choose to trust).

As part of this, he spends a lot of time trying to argue that people don't actually have any useful control in a decentralized system anyway, which is, of course, extremely convenient given how he doesn't really acknowledge that the entire point of his thesis is that he and his centralized organization not only should but in fact _must_ maintain _all the control_ so that he can follow the moving ecosystem :/. Meanwhile, he cites federated systems of the past as clear and unmitigated failures, including specifically IP, a layer upon which he somehow manages to build Signal on top of despite being supposedly fundamentally and horribly flawed due to being a decentralized protocol frozen in time and nearly impossible to change (which isn't even true! IPv6 was insane for actively going out of its way to break transition paths, but as many people have pointed out it didn't have to be that way; and even within IPv4 we have seen a lot of manipulation and progress in the form of protocol extensions. many of his other examples are also clearly flawed if you know anything at all about the protocols involved).

"Finally"\--a word I use here both in terms of it being the most repetitively frustrating things about this talk (and so I list it last) but also as it came up again at the very end (thereby closing the video) due to a question from the audience poking him hard on this point (to great applause)--he continues his apologetic rhetoric for the idea that phone numbers are somehow _better_ as an identifier than any other possible alternative--something that is so wrong on the face of it that we can point at _ludicrously_ popular chat systems, such as Kik, that were largely popular _because_ they did not use phone numbers at all, in addition to the vast majority of popular social networks that merely use phone numbers for account password recovery (and while many of them now require phone numbers to sign up, that is entirely unrelated to the service and how you use it, and was usually not the case when the service first came into existence: it was way more common to require an e-mail address than a phone number)--to the point of seriously claiming multiple times that ceding control of identity to the telecom infrastructure (something we know is horribly insecure even if you trusted all of the players, which I don't think anyone does) is one of the things that makes chat fundamentally better than e-mail (?!?).

Really, the best line from the video came from someone in the audience asking a question, leading with: "thanks for the thought provoking talk... you said so many things I disagree with, it is tough to pick a question" :/. For me, that feeling goes well past just this talk and his positions on chat systems: his love for Intel SGX--a technology that has been broken multiple times and whose key feature, Remote Attestation, is just "DRM" by another name--puts him on what I would argue is "the wrong side" of the war over general purpose computing, wanting to rely on user-hostile hardware to protect decentralized cryptocurrencies (such as his MobileCoin) from attack by anyone... other than Intel, obviously, as they can be trusted?... or any governments that can lean on Intel, as maybe we like those governments?... or of course, anyone with a zero-day hardware side channel attack, as we can pretend all of those have been found? :/... essentially, in the end, most of his positions just seem like a way to shill for centralized government control over everything, with metadata being protected only by the security of the memory of his servers (something which was pointed out by yet another question from the audience, and for which he didn't really have a good answer) wherein the best case scenario is that laws like the DMCA end up being what protect us from attackers as opposed to actual math :/.

<comment><USER16> > because decentralization doesn't _automatically and inherently_ solve hard > problems _merely due to the technology being decentralized_, we should not > waste time working on decentralized systems and instead work on and support > centralized ones (one would imagine, particularly his)

That is an extraordinary mischaracterization of his talk. What he actually says is that decentralization makes many desirable characteristics -- enumerated at some length in this video -- more difficult. The implicit argument, then, is since we're struggling to achieve certain desirable characteristics even in centralized systems, we should focus our efforts there first.

<comment><USER17> The talk can be taken in two ways.

1) It's a reasonable comparison of centralised and decentralised systems.

2) It's a way to discredit decentralised systems so people move to Signal because Moxie is a corporate / government shill or want to be the personal Jesus or something.

Which explanation looks more likely to someone, is mostly based on how they personally trust Moxie. And a lot of people in the community don't consider Moxie trustworthy.

In my personal opinion, this talk made a lot of people angry, precisely because Moxie went to Anarchist club (CCC) and had a talk that can be summarised (again, in my personal opinion) as "give up on decentralisation, give all power to ME ME ME and I'll take care of you, pinky swear." Of course Anarchists don't want to hear that.

But to someone who trusts Moxie or centralised power in general, this might seem like a crazy interpretation.

<comment><USER18> 3) Sharing his belief that centralized trumps decentralized for a bunch of practical reasons and of course Signal is going to be a centralized system based on this belief.

(I don't necessarily agree with Moxie but I saw his talk as neither of your 2 points.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The irony of a talk that speaks out against decentralized systems being only available on decentralized backups of the centralized original…

</comment><comment><USER20> The link gives me an error

<comment><USER14> Backup on PeerTube: [https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/12be5396-2a25-4ec8-a92a-...](https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/12be5396-2a25-4ec8-a92a-674b1cb6b270)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Link is dead now. 404

<comment><USER14> Backup on PeerTube: [https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/12be5396-2a25-4ec8-a92a-...](https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/12be5396-2a25-4ec8-a92a-674b1cb6b270)

<comment><USER22> The irony of having to rely on a federated system to watch this video because the centralized one removed access to it is not lost on me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why is he saying that email is not encrypted? Isn't it actually encrypted when traveling from server to client? Who uses ports without SSL or TSL anymore?

<comment><USER24> He is referencing end to end encryption. Google can see Your to/from/subject/metadata headers even if you bother to use gpg

<comment><USER23> Then that's a problem with us using a centralized system (Google) for emails, right? So email is not really decentralized.

<comment><USER25> Replace "Google" with "your email provider". Even if there were many diverse email providers with significant adoption, the problem would remain.

Unless you're using PGP (and -- critically -- the other people know how to use it as well), then your email is stored as plaintext on your email provider's email server (and the email provider of anyone you send the email to, as well as any forwarding agents that passed the email along).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tremendous demand for stationary storage outstrips Tesla 2020 supply capability - <AUTHOR> https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tremendous-demand-for-stationary-storage-outstrips-teslas-2020-supply-ca/577157/ <comment><AUTHOR> > "We have seen an inflection point in interest for utility level storage, > primarily driven by progress in reducing costs. At the moment, the demand > level for this product remains above our capacity," the company said in its > update.</comment>


Which web programming language would you like to learn most? - jan-hocevar

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably Python for me.

</comment><comment><USER2> Python

</comment><comment><USER3> c++ Def (:</comment>


The highest ROI way to increase signups: Make a minimal homepage (Guest Post) - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/2013/07/29/the-highest-roi-way-to-increase-signups-make-a-minimal-homepage-guest-post/ <comment><USER2> Whenever I see a minimal homepage with nothing but a glib sentence and a signup form I just assume this is a service that only cares about getting my data and bleeding me like a turnip.

I understand that it might work and why it might work and yes, a minimalist layout gets the clutter out of the way and comes straight to the point but personally it's not a model that inspires confidence.

How well would it work if I walked into a store, and they insisted on having me agree to a purchase before I even got to see what it is they sell? Much less a tiny store whose interior was nothing but a blank white room with a credit card machine inside, that just said "The Best Thing Ever" over the door, and nothing else?

... actually that _would_ probably work and that's what annoys me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just like Manish, I too do not agree with what Andrew is saying. It is ridiculous to compare DropBox, Linkedin, Quora, pinterest to the home page of some unknown startup. I am also not convinced you can do any kind of testing for homepages for startups which have very low volume traffic.

IMO, I think you should just stick to your gut feeling, do what looks and feels right for home page, if this mean putting more content, so be it.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is easy if you have an established brand. The home pages in example made perfect sense to me as I know those companies. I am not sure this would work for startups that are new to the market.</comment>


The Wine-Dark Sea: Color and Perception in the Ancient World - <AUTHOR> http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/hoffman_01_13/

<comment><USER2> I've read that blue Lapis lazuli stones were used in ancient ziggurat monuments for the high levels. Unfortunately can't find any good sources now. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapis_lazuli](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapis_lazuli)

The same blue stones were used in Tutankhamon's mask.

I'm skeptical of these kind of articles.</comment>


Archer Daniels Midland: A Case Study In Corporate Welfare - <AUTHOR> http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html <comment><USER2> Not to mention their disgusting history. I read the book "The Informant" (unlike the movie, not a comedy) about this whole situation and they were some disgusting people. However, crime is a lot easier when "[d]uring the 1992 election, Andreas gave more than $1.4 million in soft money and $345,000 to individual candidates".*

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Daniels_Midland#Price_fi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Daniels_Midland#Price_fixing) *<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_Andreas>

</comment><comment><USER3> One reason that Dole didn't come close to getting elected in 1996 is the strain of libertarianism in part of the Republicans. Among libertarians, Dole was often referred to as the "Senator from ADM".

</comment><comment><USER4> It's hard to beat Cato for solid libertarian policy research.

</comment><comment><USER5> CATO should consider changing the title to:

Archer Daniels Midland: Poster Child for Corporate Welfare</comment>


Data Visualization with Angular and D3 on the Twitter Stream API - <AUTHOR> http://dev.topheman.com/datavisualization-with-angular-and-d3-on-the-twitter-stream-api/

<comment><USER2> this is great, well done, I've really enjoyed playing around with this.

Does twitter-stream-channels support the follow [1] part of the of the twitter streaming api? Didn't see any mention of it in the docs.

What I'd really like to do would be to give it a big list of users to follow and then filter for keywords on that list. I did try changing "track" in channelsDescription.json to "follow" but to no avail.

[1]: [https://dev.twitter.com/streaming/overview/request- parameter...](https://dev.twitter.com/streaming/overview/request- parameters#follow)

<comment><USER3> Hie bvm, I replied on my blog (didn't note you first commented on hacker news ...)

[http://dev.topheman.com/datavisualization-with-angular- and-d...](http://dev.topheman.com/datavisualization-with-angular-and-d3-on- the-twitter-stream-api/#comment-197)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> #apple usually does not refer to a fruit.</comment>


On The Shortness of Life: An Introduction to Seneca - <AUTHOR> http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/24/on-the-shortness-of-life-an-introduction-to-seneca/

<comment><USER2> On the Brevity of Life is a great work. I found it particularly interesting that Ferris made bold the sentences and paragraphs that he did. In particular, he seemed to avoid the advice that Seneca was giving. Seneca was not advocating idleness or balance. No, indeed he was recommending isolation, asceticism, detachment from frivolity and dissociation with business affairs so that one may focus on the pursuit of virtue through self-control by rational thought. More directly, he suggests that the best life is to study the ancient works. In his own words:

Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They annex ever age to their own; all the years that have gone ore them are an addition to their store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious fashioners of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other men's labours we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrested from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our betters?

For more information on Stoicism (in the classical, not popular, sense) : <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism>

</comment><comment><USER3> I just read the whole thing. Took over 45 minutes but I was train commuting so it was worth it. I actually own a printed copy of his lectures (one of those philosophical impulse purchases near the independent bookstore's register) - but I never read it.

My biggest takeaway is that I need to live my life with more reflection (not constantly looking back in the rear-view mirror - that's more living in the past but pausing from my daily/weekly routines regularly and reflecting on life). Maybe something as simple as sitting outside on a park bench and watching people go by. Or calling up old friends and finding out what is going with them more regularly.

Reading about the old men who were Senators, those who indulged in wine/drink, those who basked in their followers' attention makes me think how far we've progressed in civilization since Roman times. Technologically, yes but philosophically and metaphorically - we'll always be human.

</comment><comment><USER4> "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." -- Chaucer

<comment><USER5> "Ars longa, vita brevis" is a Latin phrase, a translation (by Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae, 1.1) of an aphorism originally by the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, and is one of the sources of the popular English aphorisms "Life is short" and "Life is short, art long."

[wikipedia]

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those interested in Stoicism, Epictetus' Enchiridion (The Handbook) is an excellent short introduction.

<http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> I really enjoyed this related post:

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practical- guide-for-entrepreneurs/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks you. I'd never heard of Stoicism.

Just printed out three copies of this post, one for myself, two for friends (to begin with). Wow. It crystallizes all the bits of Power of Now, Zen, Entrepreneurship, How to be Happy, taking risks, going for "failure" that I've been selectively grasping onto. Thank you.

"failure" in quotes because as the author of that post says:

> What a Stoic does is turn every obstacle into an opportunity.

EDIT: five copies printed

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Don't save sex for old age." -- I forget who said that.</comment>


Show HN: Realtime Multiplayer Tetris in HTML5 (unfinished) - <AUTHOR>

About a year ago me and a buddy joined Google's HTML5GameJam, a game building hackathon.
Finally I've had the time to dust the project off, upgrade some of the required libraries (node.js bumped from 0.4.2 to 0.8.11 in the meantime) and did some minor patching to get it done for some finishing touches and hopefully release somewhere this year.
We implemented the full real Tetris® (yeah, that means T-Spins and funky stuff Tetris addicts like) in MVC, with configurable renderers (canvas, ASCII, Divs), input methods (keyboard, swipe, touch), 2player split mode and offline singeplayer.
The multiplayer support is inspired by Tetrinet  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TetriNET ), powerups are all implemented but it's not yet possible to bomb one of your opponents.
I have no clue how the (self-hosted) hacked up node.js game server will perform , and there's no game rooms yet, but the basics work.
Please have a look, comments, suggestions and inspiration would be appreciated. How should we do the touch input for instance? I'd like it if I can be as good a Tetris player on my mobile as in the browser with the keyboard. <comment><USER2> Very cool! One small "quirk" (I think). When you press space to force the block to the bottom, you can still change it's position with the arrow keys.

EDIT: Ahh wait, Drop & Move is official Tetris specs, nice job!!

</comment><comment><USER3> Make sure you get properly licensed before you release this in any significant way; The Tetris Company is well-known for its litigious nature.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have indeed looked into that.

As far as I could distill, the problem is on the worldwide trademark Tetris©®(tm) that some people use to designate the type of game. The word to use is Tetrominos, then the game itself does not need licensing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really Cool. some of the T-spins coul not rotate in all directions but still good enough. I scored 5927 before I bombed out!!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable Link: <http://goo.gl/RJa1f>

</comment><comment><USER5> Did the server explode? I am imagining smoldering tetris blocks all over the floor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Server is alive and kicking :) Make sure you have port 8000 and port 83 unblocked.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: server is a bit broken now, rewriting and adding gamechannels :)</comment>


May is Earth's hottest on record - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/may-was-the-hottest-month-on-earth-since-records-began-says-nasa <comment><USER2> We live in a time where it is far easier to invent wild new technology to extract and sequester CO₂ from the atmosphere than it is to convince industry and individual to reduce the amount of CO₂ they contribute, let alone convincing people that a problem actually exists.

<comment><USER3> It is significantly easier to engineer a solution for a single, large (generally industrial) pollution source than a billion small pollution sources for both technical and political reasons.

So, for example, electric cars are incredibly useful _even if they have the same carbon footprint as combustion cars_ simply because they move the pollution source to a single point (the power plant).

In addition, there is not a lot that an individual can do that will dramatically affect his carbon footprint. Neighborhoods don't magically become walkable or bikeable. Businesses don't magically implement work-from-home because a low-level employee wills it (see: Yahoo).

Most carbon reducing solutions require buy-in from a group of people, and that takes forever, if you can get them to agree at all.

<comment><USER4> "In addition, there is not a lot that an individual can do that will dramatically affect his carbon footprint. Neighborhoods don't magically become walkable or bikeable. Businesses don't magically implement work-from-home because a low-level employee wills it (see: Yahoo). "

I don't buy that, that attitude I largely why we're in this situation.

It's the individuals which make up the whole, if each individual did something, then the whole would be better off.

<comment><USER5> What do you mean you don't buy it? Parent post is saying that's what the problem is. You seem to agree that it's the cause of our problems, then saying "I don't buy that".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A 99% chance that this year will be the hottest on record. [0]

I would say that now is time to panic, but the time to panic was twenty years ago. Perhaps the West will pass from 'apathy' directly to 'resignation' and skip 'panic' altogether. Bring on the apocalypse!

[0] [https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/742668462699499520](https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/742668462699499520)

<comment><USER7> Why call out the west? A quick google search shows China as the top contributor to global warming, with Russia and India in the top 5.

[http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/sci...](http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each- countrys-share-of-co2.html#.V2V21OYrJE4)

Seems to me this is a world wide issue, that calls for a world wide solution.

<comment><USER8> That's completely unfair. China is a huge importer of CO2 emissions. Where do you think the dollars behind all those plastic toys and electric components come from?

Statistics like these don't account for a countries carbon footprint relative to population; there's no way that Poland, with a GDP of $13k per capita, produces _fewer_ CO2 emissions than South Africa with a GDP of $6k per capita. But it is likely that South Africa has more manufacturing and mining operations to support exports.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Serious question, not trolling: Why do many HackerNewsen seem to feel that global warming is a bad thing? For all we know, the changes brought on by a warmer climate may be great for humanity as a whole.

<comment><USER10> One reason is the already mentioned feedback loop. We might like it a few degrees warmer, but we wouldn't like to accidentally turn Earth into Venus.

Another is that rising water levels means flooding coastal areas, which means mass-scale migrations of people who lived there, which will probably end up in wars, famines and generally whole lot of crap for _everyone_.

<comment><USER11> And while people love to trash on the East Coast Elites and other nonsense, these coastal cities in many countries are the economic centers of the world. You can't just displace NYC and Tokyo and Hong Kong and Sydney and so on and think "no big deal, it's just some displacement" because it will rock the world economy like nothing we've seen if these cities become swimming pools.

<comment><USER12> You could displace them, slowly, but you don't have to. You could just keep building [1] tide [2] barriers [3] instead [4].

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

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_Pass_S-1_of_Saint_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_Pass_S-1_of_Saint_Petersburg_Dam)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How about instead of linking to some blogspam, you link to the actual source: [http://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/may-2016-sets-new- record...](http://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/may-2016-sets-new-records)

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems that about every 2 or 3 months, we have the hottest month on record.

<comment><USER15> Every one of the last 13 months has broken the record for the hottest month on record.

In other words, May 2015 was the warmest May on record, June 2015 was the warmest June on record, same for July 2015, August 2015, September 2015, October 2015, November 2015, December 2015, January 2016, February 2016, March 2016, April 2016, and now May 2016.

[https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201604](https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201604)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one more than a bit annoyed by that link at the end to 'what you can do'? 'Personal responsibility' has been the neo-liberal hands off policy excuse every time, while the problem is completely structural and systemic.

</comment><comment><USER17> At risk of being redundant (I've mentioned this book a few times), I highly recommend Stewart Brand's "The Whole Earth Discipline". [1]

Brand, for those unfamiliar, was a key player in the personal computer revolution of the 1970's. He created the "Whole Earth Catalog", which inspired many of the internet's pioneers, and was a hero of Steve Jobs. He later helped create "The Well" \-- the first big online community, and was present at countless other cultural moments like the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, and the forming of the Green movement.

The Whole Earth Discipline chronicles his early participation in the environmental movement, and how he's diverged from that movement over the years.

It's presented as a pragmatic guide for addressing climate change and explores things like urbanization, genetic modification of food, and nuclear power -- and how these things need to be reconsidered by environmentalists.

1: [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6411373-whole-earth- disci...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6411373-whole-earth-discipline)

<comment><USER18> _was a key player in the personal computer revolution … was present at countless other cultural moments_

One of the first major cultural moments he participated in was the "Mother of All Demos" - he was the camera operator at Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center in Menlo Park. This was the experience that turned him on to personal computing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > human emissions are now 25 percent greater than in the last big El Niño in > 1997/98

Sigh. It's not as if we were clueless about the effects of emissions 20 years ago, already

</comment><comment><USER20> "I'm making too much money to care" \- Oil and coal executives

<comment><USER21> You mean China

<comment><USER22> Per capita, China produces less carbon than the first world. What gives us more right to burn carbon for quality of life then them? Besides that, we buy their crap - basically we export the carbon costs of our goods.

<comment><USER21> Yes, but the environment doesn't care about at per capita stats - only the total CO2 output. China output is growing, West is not.

<comment><USER22> Do Chinese people have different biological needs? Do they require less food, less transportation, less shelter? Then why the hell should they have less carbon than you or I?

Pick a per-capita number and stick to it. Anything else is hypocrisy.

<comment><USER21> Yes, but - those "per capita" numbers for China are not for all the Chinese populace's needs - it's for huge factories, etc that benefit relatively fewer and are a growing menace to the climate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tma-1 And it won't improve until the world population starts limiting its meat intake.

<comment><USER23> I can't see why the parent has been down voted:

"Meat production is a major contributor to climate change. It is estimated that livestock production accounts for 70 per cent of all agricultural land use and occupies 30 per cent of the land surface of the planet. Because of their sheer numbers, livestock produce a considerable volume of greenhouse gases (such as methane and nitrous oxide) that contribute to climate change. In fact, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that livestock production is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases."

[http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/food-and-our- plan...](http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/food-and-our-planet/food- and-climate-change/)

(David Suzuki is a biologist and climate change activist here in Canada)

<comment><USER24> Because, as meat consumption produced less than a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, the claim that "it won't improve until the world population starts limiting its meat intake" is simply false.

Reducing meat production would help, certainly. But it ain't a blocking requirement to getting global warming under control.

As an aside, while I'm choosing to accept that 18% number, counting methane in that list is a bit misleading as, while it is a far more powerful greenhouse gas, it has a far shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than CO2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> the issue is not with oil industries. it is with media/news industries making every fucking thing a sensation, a breaking news solely to get their ratings up! what it does in turn - it makes people numb. we only react on things that are super violent, super graphic and immediate, now. its the media industry thats greedy and inhuman.

</comment><comment><USER26> Serious Question: Why does the US always get away with average or below average temperatures? Every time I see one of these maps, USA (outside of the West Coast) is always blue.

<comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex#Climate_change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex#Climate_change)

[http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/polar-vortex- to-v...](http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/polar-vortex-to-vist- central-u/36890008)

Changes in weather patterns brought about by melting arctic ice has brough cold arctic winds south over much of the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone have a good argument for why carbon emissions should be zero rated?

<comment><USER29> Economically for the planet a carbon tax would make sense but individual countries may be better off pollution and letting others worry about the damage.

>Many large users of carbon resources in electricity generation, such as the United States, Russia, and China, are resisting carbon taxation. (Wikipedia)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Hottest on record" here means "hottest since 1950"(when proper record keeping began).

<comment><USER31> I don't know where your quote comes from but actually the record (as stated in the source NOAA publication) starts in 1880.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Can someone give me a summary of what will happen to the human race if we burn all of earth fossil fuels?

How will it affect daily life? I've never seen it put in these terms and frankly it seems daily life would stay the same. Wouldn't mind being proved wrong.

<comment><USER33> 1\. Food prices will go up, probably by quite a lot.

2\. Your chance of contracting an infectious disease that used to only live in the tropics will be higher.

3\. Depending on where you live it will either be much dryer or much wetter rather than more temperate.

4\. Obviously, at that point, energy prices will have to be much higher as there won't be as many fossil fuels. Or else we would have transitioned to renewable sources/nuclear by then.

5\. If we're talking about even more worse case scenarios, there's the death of large chunks of life in the ocean as corals will have been bleached and the fish that live there died. Also runaway algae blooms, deaths of birds and other animals that used to live on those now dead fish.

6\. Areas near the equator, like the middle east, that supply important resources will be basically uninhabitable for large parts of the year if not the _entire year_.

7\. Areas in the far north that are covered in permafrost will turn into swamps/bogs instead. Also, in some projections, places in Europe that are warmed by the N. Atlantic stream may end up being much cooler and similar to other places at similar latitudes (e.g. Canada/Russia).

But again, many of these are unlikely to happen until late in the 21st century, so you're likely going to not be alive then anyways.

<comment><USER32> So it seems that with a one time move you could avoid 4/5 of these?

Not including the fish one since it doesn't really affect daily life IMO, or the oil price one since that is just what happens when you run out of something and not a consequence of GW, IMO.

Seems like only daily life effect of GW (assuming you migrated to somewhere else over the course of 50 years) will be higher food prices. Though I'm also curious if over time innovation will make that change rather insignificant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Another relevant story this week:

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctic- co2-hit-...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctic- co2-hit-400-ppm-for-first-time-in-4-million-years/)

<comment><USER17> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11918741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11918741)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's almost as though there is some kind of ongoing trend of which this is just a part.

<comment><USER36> Obviously not global warming though. /s

<comment><USER35> Obviously not! That would be madness. /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What if Earth will be warming faster than we have predicted. Time to prepare time B with some geoengineering?

At least fund research to have some plan and prototypes. Maybe that should have priority over article citing business :-P.

<comment><USER33> What you're talking about is basically the _Blade Runner_ scenario where everything is overcast, many animals that used to be alive are replaced by electric sheep, and Mars starts to look better than many places on Earth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I am also of the opinion that we are currently treating the internet just like we treated plastic/fossil fuels 20-30 years ago. The amount of digital data being generated on a daily basis with no regard to the massive DCs that host all the servers with A/C on full blast 24/7 is staggering. And nobody seems to care..

<comment><USER11> That's because while also a troll haven, the internet and parallel technical revolutions have done more to improve access to education, free speech, news, productivity (not to mention small businesses, new money, new economies, and just so much more) and so on than any other 20 year period in history.

FaceTime and like software alone have so vastly increased our family's access to each other across global distances that it's hard to put a number on, let alone having pocket access to the wealth of the world's information nearly instantaneously.

Yes, there are concerns as you mention, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would roll back the way things work now. I'm willing to bet many people would give up cars and meat before the Internet and related technologies.

<comment><USER38> I didn't say we should give it up. My point is people's attitude is complete carelessness.</comment></comment></comment>


PHP: a fractal of bad design (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ <comment><USER3> I am sorry but this is one of those posts (from 2012, no less) that should be killed by dang because it only instigates a black hole of useless discussions and adds absolutely no value. Do yourself a favor, save your brain cells, do whatever you think is productive and nice this weekend. Sometimes it's better to just ignore trolls.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is one major reason why PHP is so popular:

The step from HTML only to a slightly enhanced webpage with dynamic elements is easier than with any other language (JS included).

Combine that with the simplicity of mod_apache (that is available on almost every web host) and it is the easiest way into programming.

Create a mod_[ruby|python] that just evaluates ERB/Jinja templates and is as simple to integrate into apache and you might be able to do something good.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's strange that, given how badly designed PHP really is, it's so surprisingly flexible that things like my PHP preprocessor can exist: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861616)

I'm _sure_ you could write a shorter, (maybe) faster, cleaner preprocessor for Python, Java or Erlang, but I'm not sure it would be a viable solution, there. With PHP, I got this 'mostly unused hash comments' thing readily available, like a low-hanging fruit. And then, there was token_get_all() - <USER2> squeezer...

</comment><comment><USER6> At least half of these things are either examples of _good_ design or neutral. That said, there isn't a single language for which I wouldn't be able to produce a laundry list of "bad design" that's equally as long and disturbing as this one.

Insulting PHP developers and their work is certainly not the best way to "hurt" people's "opinion of PHP." It's a great way to come off as a pompous asshole, however.

</comment><comment><USER7> For someone new with PHP, this might be an eye-opener.

How long would the list of problems be for any other non-statically typed language? Like for example, Javascript?

<comment><USER8> Someone new to something isn't usually looking for negatives - they just want to find out how to get something done and go and solve a problem / make something.

<comment><USER7> True, but even new people read on hackernews.

At least it would prepare them for what is to come.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you don't like PHP, you're in luck! There are many, many, many other languages you can use.

Let other people make their own choices, no need to rant about a language you dislike to try and convince them to not use it.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is an out of date article that doesn't have much value any more -- many of the points seem to be bad practices anyhow. Like most languages, if you never learn it in depth, all you see are the warts. This same article could be written for nearly every other language; how many "This Language Sucks, and Here's Why" articles are going to keep popping up?! Please kill this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Can we stop these post, it was fun once but that start to be really boring.

PHP is badly conceived, we all know that, get over it !

</comment><comment><USER12> I couldn't get past the paragraph analogy. I'm sure they thought it was clever, but actually it was unnecessary, inaccurate (as all analogies tend to be) and portrays the person the article should be targeting as a dumbass.

</comment><comment><USER13> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3820431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3820431)

</comment><comment><USER14> Sigh, again another PHP is bad, please give me attention, rant...

Nobody is forcing people to use it.

<comment><USER12> I doubt everyone who has to use PHP at work wants to be doing it, some of them are forced to by their circumstances. How else do you think these sorts of articles come to be?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Oh, it must be Summer again.</comment>


Generation of diagrams and flowcharts from text in a similar manner as markdown - <AUTHOR> https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/ <comment><USER3> I use this not infrequently when producing documentation. But it's one of those things which is most of the time ok, but when it's not it's very dissatisfying, and I don't have a concise term for the (common) source of that dissatisfaction. When it produces a poor layout, you have to either abandon the tool completely for that use case, or you have to use an entirely different tool set to fix the output (like just editing the SVG).

I think this is a bit challenging, because if you're hand-writing the structure describing the diagram, you likely have some preconception of what it should look like, but the language doesn't give you a real mechanism to express that. And because the diagram is meant to be _looked_ at, the author's preconceptions may actually be quite relevant in how effective the diagram is at communicating content to a later reader. This is in contrast to a compiler, where the author may disagree with the specifics of the output, but so long as it _runs_ to produce correct behavior, the author should not complain too much (i.e. the primary "audience" is the platform which will execute the program).

As an example, only this past weekend, I tried to produce a diagram about an HMM-style graphical model, where nodes occur in sequence in a few parallel families. I had hoped that because of the regular structure of the links, the layout would reflect that regularity. But instead, nodes of each type were sort of all over the place, and the regular structure was actually not immediately visible in the diagram.

<comment><USER4> I've been considering integrating the ability to embed diagrams written with Mermaid into the issue tracker I'm building [0]. Would you say it's ready/robust enough for that? People typically want to scribble down quick architecture or sequence diagrams (or maybe some class diagrams).

0: [https://kitemaker.co](https://kitemaker.co)

<comment><USER5> I really like Mermaid, and use it quite a bit (people forget how long they spend dragging boxes, arrows, aligning in Visio/DrawIo), but for some diagram types, you have no control over layout, there isn't even hinting (yet - <USER2> continues to improve).

Sequence diagrams are great. I imagine Gantt charts are fine. Flowcharts will sometimes be rendered unintelligibly.. adding/removing a link or new element will completely rearrange the layout. If you have any implied order of your flow (as simple examples on the website imply) this maybe rearranged as your flow gets more complicated. If you want flowcharts over swim lanes (either distinct or implied - think of data-processing ingress on an app), or the start point first and the end point last - this isn't a great tool. There is support for subgraphs, but you have no control over their location either.. so if you want a _web-firewall-loadbalancer-app-db_ type flowchart, it may be rendered in a circle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. Of course, generating diagrams from text isn't new. This especially reminds me of DOT as implemented by Graphviz and others, see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_(graph_description_languag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_\(graph_description_language\)) ; DOT is widely supported.

There are others too, including:

* Graph Modeling Language: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_Modelling_Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_Modelling_Language) * PGF/TikZ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGF/TikZ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGF/TikZ) * pic (for troff)

If someone has used both Mermaid & an alternative I'd be curious to hear a detailed compare & contrast.

</comment><comment><USER7> This looks outstanding. I've been hooked on [https://websequencediagrams.com](https://websequencediagrams.com) and it has transformed my creation of sequence diagrams from dreaded chores to joyful learning-by-doing experience. This project looks to replicate some of the success of that site, uses very similar syntax for sequence diagrams, and can do much more. I'm psyched!

</comment><comment><USER8> Direct link to the live editor: [https://github.com/mermaidjs/mermaid-live- editor](https://github.com/mermaidjs/mermaid-live-editor)

Another diagram-from-text tool: [https://www.diagram.codes/](https://www.diagram.codes/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I find that the gantt chart and sequence diagram are really useful for documentation, but the class diagrams and flowcharts aren't useful for anything but really simple flows. Basically the diagrams are just too cluttered to read, not sure exactly why, but I think its the spacing due to graph issues.

</comment><comment><USER10> Search for "site:mermaid-js.github.io graphviz" returned nothing. Odd. So how does it compare?

<comment><USER9> I tried both and the javascript support for mermaid is better and has run without problem. I first found it looking for a markdown plug-in for diagrams and mermaid has been great for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like mermaid but actually prefer PlantUML - I think PlantUML has a slightly simpler declarative syntax that fits better with the spirit of Markdown, and with the macros and layout hinting you can usually tame complex diagrams whereas I find with Mermaid it ends up being more incomprehensible.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some bikeshedding:

What about "Top-Down Graph" or "Graph Top-Down" rather than "graph TD"?

Or "Entity Relationship Diagram" instead of "erDiagram"?

Just to make it even more easy to read. The others could remain as shorthands.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know how this compares to plantuml?

</comment><comment><USER14> PlantUML is a good tool for that as well

</comment><comment><USER15> The principle sounds like LaTeX and its various packages for creating diagrams.

</comment><comment><USER16> markdeep which includes plantuml and various other tools. Note too that plantUML has evolved into a more general diagramming tool with standard library icons

</comment><comment><USER17> Obligatory Emacs plug for ob-mermaid, wsd-mode and plantuml-mode</comment>


'The Big Short' Writer to Pen WeWork Drama from Blumhouse, Universal - <AUTHOR> https://variety.com/2019/film/news/wework-movie-charles-randolph-blumhouse-1203421119/ <comment><USER2> It would have been perfect heist if it was based on Neuman's autobiography or if somehow he profited from the movie!</comment>


While U.S. Workers Fear Automation, Swedish Employees Welcome It - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/609857/while-us-workers-fear-automation-swedish-employees-welcome-it/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_content=2017-12-28&utm_campaign=Technology+Review <comment><USER2> _The jobs disappear, and then we train people for new jobs. We won't protect jobs. But we will protect workers_

That says it all, doesn't it? In the USA, if you lose your job, it is somehow your responsibility to retrain yourself, which is infeasible in many cases.

This is an excellent example of where "economism", mindless adherence to Econ 101 principles, fails catastrophically as a system for reasoning about the real world.</comment>


Samsung now makes much more money on mobile than Google makes overall. - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-google-vs-samsung-2012-11

<comment><USER2> But of course, the profit margin on consumer electronics is (orders of magnitude?) lower than that form online advertising.</comment>


CyanogenMod Adds Support For Revoking And Faking App Permissions on Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/05/22/cyanogenmod-adds-support-for-revoking-and-faking-app-permissions/ <comment><USER2> So I'm really disappointed. It appears that the post has been updated to note that this patch set will never make it into CM, and the people commenting on the code review request are openly negative about it, citing concerns about pissing off Google/app developers/carriers, and making it more likely that manufacturers will make it harder to root/unlock devices.

Of course there's absolutely no evidence that any of these things are true, though I'll grant that they're valid concerns, to some extent.

It still pushes the notion that, despite being an open-source platform, Android isn't really "ours". It belongs to Google and the wireless carriers, and our ability to run our own version of a supposedly-open mobile OS is entirely at their whim.

I absolutely love CM and have been running it on my N1 for close to a year now, but it just sounds like they're too afraid of backlash to add features that could (with some refinement) really protect users.

<comment><USER3> Well I don't think CM is necessarily "ours" if you are referring to users. I would bet that every major CM contributor has their own apps in the market, so obviously they're interests lie much more on the vendor side than the user's. That's why you see here more interest in accurate data collection than in privacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did something quite similiar last summer - we got it published ([http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~arb33/papers/BeresfordAREtAl- MockDr...](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~arb33/papers/BeresfordAREtAl-MockDroid- HotMobile2011.pdf)) but we never looked at getting it into CM. I guess they're more receptive to the idea than I expected them to be!

The whole faking data thing works quite well - every app we tried with our implementation basically worked as intended (i.e. if you prevent the app from accessing the internet, everything still works apart from functionality which explicitly depends on accessing the internet), which is a nice consequence of apps being written for mobile devices where access can't be taken for granted.

<comment><USER5> I find it interesting (but not all that surprising) that so many people developed a similar concept. The research professor I was working with this past year actually published a similar system: <http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/jiang/pubs/TRUST11.pdf>

<comment><USER4> That does look pretty similiar to what we did. I've emailed Plamen about it - hopefully we can integrate all this stuff to give CM users full control over what apps do with their personal data :)

TaintDroid is pretty awesome as well: <http://www.appanalysis.org/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This alone makes my android device feel 100x safer and now I can finally start trying more apps. Google should implement this in the core asap (as well as a firewall).

Some apps have some crazy requests that need explaining!

Does the iphone have any such granularity control for permissions? (official or unofficial)

<comment><USER7> I would also like to see that developers were required to state why each permission is needed and present this to the user at install time.

<comment><USER8> But users might actually read the developers' explanations, in which case they would need to be true. If no 3rd-party verifies the permissions explanations before the app is released, then the only value is as a legal agreement between the developer and end-users. I would expect that to devolve into a 30-page EULA per app ... which has already happened, for many apps.

@ck2 is performing as thorough of a verification as possible without source code access. If I were a malicious app developer, however, I might program my app to wait a week before transmitting any user data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've wanted something like this to be part of the OS, although it causes a bunch of hassles in BlackBerry (from a developer's perspective).

There was a discussion on Android-Developers about this (as a core OS feature), in which (I think) Dianne Hackborn (one of the Android developers) came out strongly against the idea of allowing users to choose which permissions to allow/disallow for an individual application. (Edit: I think this is what I was remembering: [http://groups.google.com/group/android- developers/browse_thr...](http://groups.google.com/group/android- developers/browse_thread/thread/eae545087448b1b1/9833ebc8a343674b))

I think it's a good feature to have in some cases. Some applications, for example, the Yelp application, request features I'd rather not give, but I'd still like to use the application in general. It's not that I feel the applications are openly hostile - I would never trust the permissions library in that case, but I have no desire to give my contacts list to the Yelp app. This is just one example - I'm sure a lot of people would try to disable Internet on apps that use Internet solely to show ads, for example.

<comment><USER10> I would love it if this was combined with the UX of NoScript so that I could greenfield my perms and allow them selectively, granularly, and optionally permanently. At any rate, hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the PII giveaway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is super-neato, but what I am really waiting for is a way to fake device capabilities in the market, so I can finally use the RememberTheMilk app on my rooted gTablet!

<comment><USER12> alter your build.prop file

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't the apps just fall over when they try to perform a revoked operation? I doubt they'd expect it

</comment><comment><USER14> As an Android app developer, I'd totally support this as part of the native platform. While I haven't gotten an e-mail from a paranoid user asking why Fresh Comics needs their location data, I've gone ahead and done a small writeup on why my app needs the location permission, why I need that data, and what I do with it afterwards:

<http://freshcomics.us/support/privacy-location-information/>

In my role as a developer, I'd support a way that I could specify these details in a more standard & concise way and allow the user to enable & disable permissions as needed without having to make an all-or-nothing decision whether to install the app.

As a user, I'd appreciate it even more. :-)

<comment><USER15> I can understand why fine-grained permission selection would be an onus to developers without really providing much of a benefit for the average user, but I would love seeing brief explanations under each permission ("needs internet because: downloads ads", "needs to read messages because: analyzes text").

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> @everybody: "This way we can disable Internet access on apps and games that are just downloading ads."

In The Business, we call this "piracy". Unless, of course, the developer is an altruist who did not intend to monetize their app, but accidentally dropped in an ad window.

Like web browser ad blockers, I expect that developers will ignore this UNLESS it begins to eat into their general user base. Then will come the code libraries that try to guess whether the permissions are accurate or not (e.g. timeout on internet connectivity downtime).

Or fewer free apps, I suppose. Either solution fits the new game theory equilibrium. My money is on "Google is not going to martyr their ad-supported app developers by rolling this into their Android OS builds", with a distant second to "faux-permissions detection libraries".

<comment><USER16> Imagine you were visiting a free art exhibition and someone was constantly shouting "BUY THIS PURSE BUY IT NOW!" into your ears. Probably a bad analogy but maybe you get my mindset.

If you cannot sell your product, well, maybe it is not worth running after profit. If you do not feel like sharing it for free, maybe someone else will.

I do not consider anything with advertisements (or "submit your mail adresse to get the download link") to be free. The ad publisher is getting my attention, personal data or whatever, it is not free of drawbacks for me.

Disabling parts of an application can hardly be considered piracy.

<comment><USER17> Let me play devil's advocate here for a moment.

You say that you don't "consider anything with advertisements (or "submit your mail adresse to get the download link") to be free", so you consider your agreeing to these things to be your payment for the software/service/whatever, right? If so, by not viewing the ads, giving your email, etc, you're not paying the price for the product and are thus pirating it.

You use a service that charges your credit card when you use it, but you realize that you can block the call to the server that does the charging and use it just fine. Is that acceptable? It's technologically equivalent to ad blocking in reverse and blocks payment; the only difference is that the currency is USD or EUR rather than eyeballs.

<comment><USER16> Ha, good catch. My argument crumbles to dust.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon's Kindle Price Punking - <AUTHOR> http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/amazons-kindle-price-punking/

<comment><USER2> That's a $30 discount _upfront_. How long until Amazon makes that $30 back? Amazon is not forcing you to purchase the ad based one, but it _is_ an option. If that option is worth $30 to the purchaser then fantastic, they just got the Kindle for less.

No story here, just a whole bunch of FUD in which the author feels entitled to the Kindle at $79.99 without the ads.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just because this article _hyperbolises the effect of ads on "book culture"_ , doesn't mean it is in any way insightful or correct.</comment>


SOL - $300 solar powered Ubuntu laptop - <AUTHOR> http://solaptop.com/

<comment><USER2> The laptop looks pretty cool. I like the ruggedized trim, even though I'm not sure it's more rugged than a thinkpad.

That site is way slick though.

Unfortunately the site was too slick for me to find much in the way of specs. I gather it'll use an Intel CPU, which makes me wonder about power usage -- is the solar panel on the back enough to power the laptop in direct sunlight? How long to fully charge if it's off?

</comment><comment><USER3> More details on Google+: [https://plus.google.com/109344265064351301756/posts/bZwduor7...](https://plus.google.com/109344265064351301756/posts/bZwduor754a)</comment>


Show HN: Sortable/filterable table of Quadcopters/drones - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedronechart.com/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for putting this together! I've been meaning to get a drone for a while, and it's starting to look like it's about the right time for it.

From the perspective of a first-time buyer, what I would most like to see added is pricing. As I'm sure you intend for this list to become more comprehensive, I would also like to see negated filtering, i.e. whereas you can filter by all drones that do currently have a feature, it would also be helpful to filter the list by drones which do not have a given feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

Pricing keeps coming up, so we're going to look at what we can do. We don't want to get into providing accurate prices (they change too frequently and it'd be a game of cat and mouse; and the intention is not to be a price comparison site) but it's been asked for enough that clearly we need a way to at least show the difference between a $50 toy and a $3000 rig.

I'm curious about the negated filters - why would you want to only consider things that _don 't_ have a feature? If you don't care about a feature, you can ignore the filter for it, but why (for example) would you specifically want something that doesn't have GPS or doesn't have Altitude Hold?

<comment><USER2> I totally understand the pricing issue, and I think a rough estimate would be perfectly fine, even if they were rounded. A "price range rating" might also work, e.g. $, $$, $$$, with each rating representing e.g. $0-99, $100-299, $300+.

The negated filters are mostly for when I would anticipate the list to be much longer, so that after you've decided which features you definitely _do_ want, you can say "this list is still too long to narrow down my choice, so I'll just check off a few features I don't necessarily want but which most assuredly would also affect the price".

<comment><AUTHOR> > "this list is still too long to narrow down my choice, so I'll just check > off a few features I don't necessarily want but which most assuredly would > also affect the price".

Wouldn't the price filter remove the need for this (while also ensuring you don't discount something based on the assumption that features always add to price)?

Currently the filters are nice toggle switches, but we'd have to change the UI to support "doesn't have", so we'd have to come up with a good UI and be sure it's really adding value to really do it.

Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe add category for "follow me mode" and other fancies?

Seems like list could be expanded. Magic, GoPro, etc

<comment><AUTHOR> This currently exists as an "Intelligent Flight" column; though I expect we'll need to split it out soon when the support features vary more across models.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like "avoidance" and "intelligent flight" being Y/N fields is a bit misleading.

How did you score that one?

Seems like a large scale of abilities. Does the mavic really have avoidance if it can't do multiple directions like the phantom 4 pro? Is the avoidance 100% bullet proof?

As drones get more sophisticated and capable, the metrics will need to evolve too.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was under the impression that P4 and Mavic has the same (forward and downward sensors)?

You're right though, both of these fields are a bit vague and I think in time they'll need splitting out; but I think for now they're probably ok (as some reasonable forward avoidance and some ability to pre-program a flight, whether it be waypoints or following).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've started building a comparison chart for Quadcopters and would appreciate feedback! Only just started but I'd ask for feedback to make sure it's going in a good direction.

[https://www.thedronechart.com/](https://www.thedronechart.com/)

The goal is to be a really simple chart of popular drones and specs that can be sorted/filtered/linked to to help you quickly see which drones might suit your needs. It won't include reviews or other subjective content, just facts/specs/etc. (and no prices, because they fluctuate too much). In the future it might do drone vs drone comparisons but for now it's going to just be a filterable/sortable table.

All filters persist in the URL so you can easily share links, eg for drones with GPS and gimbals, the link looks like this:

[https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gimbal=on&t-gps=on](https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gimbal=on&t-gps=on)

You can also click the Share icon next to a drone to highlight it and move it to the top - this also goes into the URL so you can send someone a filtered list with a highlighted recommendation. Eg., a GPS-equipped list with the Mavic Pro highlighted is like this:

[https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gps=on&dr=dji-mavic- pro](https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gps=on&dr=dji-mavic-pro)

All of this is generated (sadly not in realtime) from a public Google Doc (there's a button at the bottom of the page):

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ac0f5RKq86v-_mDdjb08...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ac0f5RKq86v-_mDdjb08mXq6-eQj3sr7ier2yiFEixE/edit?usp=sharing)

Although editing the doc is restricted to us, anyone can add comments. This means the community can help fill in the blanks or correct things with comments, and we will frequently review the comments and update the real data.

All feedback is very much welcome! What things you think should filterable? What columns are missing? What columns are useless fluff? Should we exclude really cheap toys? Flags are intended to show where the drones are available to purchase (we're only adding US/UK for now) but if it turns out 99% are available in both, we might just ditch them (there's a filter to go with it, but it's hidden while the data isn't fully populated).

We'll continue working through populating more data over the coming days; apparently there are a lot of quadcopters out there! ;)

Note! The site does include affiliate links/banners (but fairly minimal, we detest ad-heavy pages as much as the next guy). I'd really love to upgrade my Syma X5HC to a Phantom 3 Standard so I hope this might help towards that in addition to being a useful tool for others.</comment>


Apple's Long-Rumored Game Controller May Soon See The Light Of Day - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/29/apples-long-rumored-game-controller-may-soon-see-the-light-of-day/

<comment><USER2> If I may repurpose an old comment of mine:

"The console industry used to sell high-end wedding cakes. Now they sell wedding cakes, some sheet cakes, and occasionally a pre-boxed slice if there are leftovers. These are your only options for snacking in the living room. You order a wedding cake, go pick it up in a few days, and hope it tastes good.

They are about to find out what happens when piping hot cookies are hand- delivered in 30 seconds or less to the living room, for free.

The only thing Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have going for them right now is that the iPhone and iPad are drawing away virtually all of Apple's not- inconsiderable attention.

Here's how it will work: Apple will release a $99 controller. It'll look like a SNES controller mated with an iPhone 3GS: 4" standard-resolution multitouch screen, D-pad, four buttons, two shoulder buttons, and a Lightning port. (Inside is NOBODY CARES. gyro, bluetooth, Wifi, iOS SOC, battery.) And, naturally, it will be the least embarrassing looking item in your living room.

You'll take it out of the box, type in your Wifi password, log in to iCloud, and THAT IS IT.

The Apple TV (of which there are millions already installed) leaps into action. All the plumbing is silently set up, the App Store icon appears, a free showpiece game immediately offers to install itself, and Apple connects a half billion users to the television overnight.

Most of the Wii U's best controller ideas are co-opted, the overall controller complexity is a scant third of anyone else's, it retains all the power of touch controls, it requires no complicated setup whatsoever, all the game state is cloud-backed, dozens of touch-resistant game genres suddenly find a home in the lowest-walled garden of any shipping console, customers can add more controllers if desired, and the whole panoply of mobile software can infiltrate the last screen standing.

The Apple TV is a freaking trojan horse, if Apple wants it to be. Nobody else has the UX to stave them off, or the ability to hit the price points Apple can, or their sheer distribution power, or their sheer brand power, or anything.

Free cookies. Not nut-and-raisin filled wedding cakes. Which one is your kid going to reach for?"

<comment><USER3> So what you're saying is now Apple can share in on the decline of console gaming market?

What happens when 50 million people plug in an Apple controller that requires little more investment then buying Apple stuff and plugging it in? You get a bubble market of casual shovelware games that destroy the credibility of the entire concept as a serious contender in the industry. You design a LCD (least common denominator) peripheral with LCD UI and LCD functionality so you can have a huge, market that couldn't care less about your product and can't wait to find an exciting risky alternative. Sounds great for quarterly profits though.

<comment><USER2> Well, we can all agree that the $69.99 title-in-a-box model has reached something like saturation, yes? There's no reason to believe anyone wants to enter this market, least of all Apple which years ago lost the knack for selling software titles at $25+.

I think the future of consoles depends a lot upon how large the exploding Freemium/Recurring models can grow. That pie is growing, and there's no reason to believe it can't work in the living room as well as it does in the pocket.

So my argument is that Apple can have the biggest slice if they want it, and that that slice alone may be worth more than Consoles As We Know Them.

<comment><USER4> I don't know, COD , Skyrim, Halo etc still seem to be having healthy sales.

I don't see any reason that you couldn't have these titles on an Apple Console though. But it would probably depend on Apple making deals with the developers. I can see EA wanting their AAA titles to be listed on a special shelf away from all of the dross.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, the AAA franchises are doing great, but they're still part of a stagnant market that's selling into a market that doesn't see the value in what they consume.

Apple would need to spend a fortune in hardware costs just to enable the current expectations of AAA titles, and even then they wouldn't be bringing anything to the table that Sony and MS aren't already.

<comment><USER4> I think it might run the same risk that I think the OUYA does in that case.

Sony & MS will launch new consoles with some jaw dropping must have launch titles to push sales to "hardcore gamers". At the same time they wait to see which independent Apple/OUYA titles are becoming popular, approach the devs and get ports for their consoles.

As the price for the next gen Sony/MS consoles drop the reasons for buying the other consoles start to shrink because all of the best games are available on the PS4 anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/03/29/the-rumored-apple- bran...](http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/03/29/the-rumored-apple-branded- gaming-joypad/)

Settles that.

<comment><USER6> A denial about a completely new product is something I'd think Dalrymple could easily get wrong. Unless he's actually talking to Tim Cook, he can't possibly be aware of _everything_ Apple is doing.

<comment><USER7> Like him or not, he has excellent connections at Apple and has never been wrong with his yeps and nopes. It's a sure bet he's right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Samsung: our Game Controller is long in the works. Some news outlet: Google is rumored to be working hard on Android Game Controller, will be called Nexus G.

</comment><comment><USER9> _> This patent from 2008 describes an accessory that wraps around a portable electronic device with touchscreen (sound familiar?) and includes a standard D-Pad and button_

Wasn't there a YC company that made _exactly_ this?</comment>


Osama bin Laden filled a gap left by the Soviet Union. Who's the baddie now? - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/osama-bin-laden-soviet-union-baddie?1 <comment><AUTHOR> If you enjoyed this, you might like Adam Curtis' documentaries, such as The Century of The Self - a documentary about the rise of mass consumerism[1], or The Power of Nightmares - an incredible 3 part documentary on how the neocons needed an enemy in the east as much as Osama needed an enemy in the west in order to strike terror into their own sides[2].

[1] - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM>

[2] - <http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares>

</comment><comment><USER2> I think it's gonna be China eventually. And instead of WW 3, it's going to be Cold War 2.

<comment><AUTHOR> China is the obvious option, although modern Russia is sufficiently non- aligned to be viewed suspiciously (although it's not possible to form a simple narrative as to why we should hate Russia anymore). China represents everything that we seem to be moving towards, but under a banner that can be summed up as the evil enemy. My concern is that in a quest to limit Chinese control (The Chinese are the reason our economy is the way it is, the Chinese are buying up all the rare earth metals to sell to us at inflated prices etc.) we become the difference between us and the 'enemy' (in terms of freedoms, surveillance and individual rights) narrows, leaving us in a bizarre situation where we fight to sustain the very thing we become.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mobile Flag Football Playbook (Weekend Project) - <AUTHOR>

http://scorebookz.com/flag_football_plays
I am a UX Developer based in Chicago and did this as a weekend project to try out HTML5 Canvas (put it on Scorebookz.com, which is my fun/side project away from work).
Stuff used:
 - HTML5 Mobile Boilerplate (http://html5boilerplate.com/mobile)
 - HTML5 Canvas
 - <USER2>
 - Javascript/JQuery
 - JQuery mobile vmouse plugin
Just quick and dirty, but would enjoy any feedback people have.
Also, if you play flag football. Try out the plays, they work pretty well. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://scorebookz.com/flag_football_plays>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is actually very cool IMO.

I'd like to see it adapt to a larger size for iPads. If it did that and used local storage, it might be attractive to youth coaches.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's really cool but why is it so narrow?</comment>