Show HN: ServiceBot – open-source platform adding sugar on top of Stripe - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/service-bot/servicebot <comment><USER2> The "Racist Meme" business example is pretty awful for multiple reasons. [http://blog.servicebot.io/meme-as-a-service/](http://blog.servicebot.io/meme- as-a-service/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Care to elaborate?

The purpose of that post was just to show in a humorous way the features of ServiceBot - not to detail an actual business.

The "Racist Meme" is a joke in itself (I'm assuming that's your issue with it) - if someone is willing to pay $1,000 for 5 minutes of effort than they deserve to have their racist money taken.

<comment><USER2> Profiting on and propagating racist memes is a bad idea (even as a joke). Having this be an example project for your company shows extreme lack of judgement.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review our app, Site Assistant - <AUTHOR> http://www.site-assistant.com I would really appreciate any feedback on any angle of S-A.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> Looks pretty cool. Lots of useful stats, though they are stats that are usually pretty easy to obtain elsewhere. I would have said I'm not sure I'd pay for it, but the plans are cheap enough. I just probably won't ever be _actively_ managing more than 10 sites at once, so I don't think I'd ever need one of the pay plans.

I actually have a buddy developing a similar concept to this that does a little more in terms of utility, though his hasn't launched yet.

The design leaves a lot to be desired. I would consider a severe make-over. A lot of the interface just doesn't _feel_ right.

Oh, and also, I couldn't do one of my sites, because it doesn't allow the .edu domain apparently. Is there a reason it whitelists the tld's that can be monitored?

 _edit_ I just realized this "review" came off with much more negative feedback than positive, which I don't think is appropriate, because I really do like this app. So, I'll just leave it at that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, those stats can be obtained by other means.

S-A helps webmasters that need to manage 30, 50, 100 websites and obtaining stats for that many websites (and making them easily viewable with views,filters, details) would take A LOT of time. S-A is made to start being useful after you add at least 10 websites.

==== I would really really appreciate if you give me some hints about the most painful parts of design/interface :) ====

.com .net .org .biz .info .us .eu .fr .si are allowed for now. The reason is that each TLD's whois returns differently formatted data that we then parse and extract the relevant bits from. They start repeating after a while and we will certainly be adding other TLD-s. We are still more focused at designing the core, what to show, how.. etc.

it's ok, and thanks a lot for your review :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just signed in. Feedback.

When I join something called "site assistant," I'm doing it because I want to add my site and start getting info about it.

But when I log in, the only call to action I see is "add group."

Where's my "add your site" button? I don't want to add a group. I'm at sitemanager.com not groupmanager.com

<comment><AUTHOR> hm.. good point .. I will think how to make this clearer.

otherwise current situation is that you add sites into groups so you must first create a group.

Maybe simple solution is that we precreate group My websites for you so you have a basic group and "Add website" button.

Thanks for feedback :)

<comment><USER3> That'd be perfect. Just give me an obvious link that says "add your site" after I take the time to register.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting idea, here is my feedback:

1) Whois information is basically worthless to me so I wouldn't lead with it. Lead with the SEO information as that seems the most interesting.

2) Emphasis the benefits of having the data, not just what the data is. How can I make more money or build a better site knowing this information?

3) Hire a designer, if your serious about the application spend $1,000 and get something that looks nicer (the buttons really need work).

4) Your pricing seems way off, how many people have more than 10 sites? I would give away 1 site for free and then charge for anything more. I feel like I have a large number of sites and I think I only have 11.

<comment><USER5> Though I like pretty graphics not less than other dude, in this case I advise to wait before hiring a designer. If you were doing an application whose use pattern is clear and firmly known, if everything is basically in there, then sure, add a layer of polish! But as far as I can see, this is not yet the case.

Maybe you'll have to redo your application several times before it takes its final form, and the buttons will change. It'll be better if sunken cost of design work not make you hesitate tweaking your app. After all, I think if your service will be of use, people will use it without any graphics. Look i.e. at tarsnap: it was launched and went to profit with very minimalistic, text-only, non-friendly website.

Whom is your site aimed at? SEO professionals? Nice graphics is not essential for them, I guess. So far it's not clear to me what value your site brings them. So far I see only that it displays whois and search engine info in one place. Nice, but probably not enough to pay for. Have I overlooked something?

Anyway, I'll show your app to my younger brother, who is SEO guy, tomorrow. It'll be interesting to know what he'll say.

Can I have your email, please, so we can better get in touch?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am iterating the whole thing as you say and one benefit of me doing the graphics also is that I can redo it quickly without cost or complications. And I did it several times already, mostly trying to get the message across better.

No, S-A is not aimed specifically at SEO. As it says it's for webmasters and by that it's more general. I am aware that this is sort of a bad point because it doesn't specialize in anything, it doesn't focus on any hot topic, as SEO is for example.

I offers more than it can be seen from those two screen shots. It doesn't go into extreme depths, it is focused at helping webmasters with A LOT, for example at least 30 websites. If you add just one website in, the info you get is probably not that valuable.

I will be very happy to hear any feedback from your SEO brother :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks nice but... I signed up and I get a 404 on the sign-in page. I tried to contact you but your email is an image. Why no contact form? So now I'm feeling frustrated.

I agree that 10 free websites is far too many. 1 for free then start paying after that. The pricing looks weird by being per 6 months. Make it yearly or monthly.

I'll look deeper when I can get in.

 _edit_ Got in, nice collection of information. I'm not frustrated any more :)

<comment><USER5> Re: 10 is too many

Hey, this in not meant for Everyday Normal Guy™. If you have 1 or 2 sites, you can do all that the service does by hand, no big deal. This is meant for some sort of professionals who have maybe tens of sites, or maybe many competitors whom they are supposed to watch too, and doing all this by hand is just too much work.

So to even get some taste of using the service I think you need several sites. Maybe you could give just 5 for free, but no less.

This is for now of course. If the service could do something special, i.e. pinging the servers at least, then maybe you could give away just 1.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, you said it better than I did.

2 out of 7 initial beta testers added more than 120 domains into the system each.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a way for me to test drive the app without having to sign up? I do not want to give my email address then regret that this app is not something I am interested in.

<comment><AUTHOR> So far there is not. Would a video of it's functionality help you at determining this.

Otherwise I was thinking of making a "get info for this webpage without signing up" functionality, but so far in my thoughts was that you would give an email and be notified on it after all bots collect the info (maybe a minute or two).

But this wouldn't solve the problem as you would still need to give me your email. I will think of making something in a way that you get info immediately. I think it's a good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can you please leave contact email, or better even, IM.

Can I IM you in icq or, failing that, Skype format?

</comment><comment><USER8> You need to allow all TDLs. My websites mostly use .me and .mn, I cannot enter them.

<comment><USER5> With allowing all TLD's comes the problem. Do you have to also show all search engines? It's a problem of usability and scope.

For example, being from Russia, I have hard time immediately using the service because most sites that I might input to the application end with .ru. But if the app allows .ru TLD, to be useful to me it should also show me Yandex and Rambler indexing stats, and then Google and Yahoo too. But not the Indian or Australian ones, please, or I'll be overwhelmed with the information. See, there's the problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is a very good observation. If you have a local website, then you want to have local related information about it. For example I wanted to create a localized version for my country (Slovenia), with adding a local search engine and google.si stats to search engine stats, and local directories. But this is hard to scale and as you note the scope becomes a big problem.

If we will go covering local search engines at some point the scope problem could be solved by offering you to choose from list of (ever growing) supported resources which you want to see in addition to general google/yahoo/alexa.</comment></comment></comment>


Golang arbitrary-precision fixed-point decimal library - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.shopspring.com/2015/03/03/decimal/

<comment><USER2> A library that seems to have been requested quite a lot by the golang community [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/golang- nuts/decim...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/golang-nuts/decimal)</comment>


CCTV Cameras Sold on Amazon Come with Pre-Installed Malware - <AUTHOR> http://artfulhacker.com/post/142519805054/beware-even-things-on-amazon-come <comment><USER2> Since the growth of third party sellers there should be no "even Amazon" about it. The image watermark makes it pretty clear it's a 3rd party seller.

I do wish Amazon would vet the stuff they permit sale of on their site though.

<comment><USER3> This isn't meant to be snarky: How does a company like Amazon, that sells damn near anything you could want, vet everything that they sell in an efficient manner? Even if you vet everything the first time around, what about updates? Software and hardware devices/gadgets are obvious, but this includes other physical goods that undergo a redesign as well.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure. Perhaps charge a vetting fee until your store established a level of trust. Whilst there are some great 3rd party sellers there's now a huge number of awful ones. Amazon is no longer a site that feels trustworthy.

Physical stores have to meet quality and legal requirements on sale of goods and what have you. The retailer can be sued if something isn't as described, or fit for sale. Things can and do get pulled. Mistakes are of course made.

Selling a bunch of stuff under the Amazon brand but disclaiming everything (take it up with the seller in China) except their own supply has taken it a little far. They became ebay but somehow still carry the trust "even Amazon".

<comment><USER4> > Physical stores have to meet quality and legal requirements on sale of goods > and what have you.

Yes, but that's probably the wrong physical analogy. Has a mall ever been sued because one of its stores sold illegal and/or deceptively advertised goods? I seriously doubt it. Now a mall (or Amazon) might kick a seller out if there are problems. This absolutely happens, but it's not very visible, and only occurs after the fact.

<comment><USER2> Your analogy helps focus the crux of the problem. How many malls have all their stores branded as the mall?

Amazon have been so successful integrating stores into their site that customers don't realise who they're buying from.

<comment><USER4> I'll argue that the branding issue is a distraction. Shoppers generally understand that Home Depot, Walmart, etc. don't make or comprehensively vet everything they sell, yet they still stand behind the customer experience via returns and support. I find holding Amazon to a higher standard of product vetting as compared to other mass retailers a difficult position to defend.

<comment><USER2> Holding them to exactly same standard as all retailers. It seems US and EU law may be vastly different on this front. Here it's the retailer held responsible for problems, so it's in their interests to vet as a normal part of the buying process, and they do.

New Company will find product looked at to decide if it's worth putting in the stores, that they meet electrical safety or whatever laws etc.[1] Only once approved will they be placed in store. They'll probably trial in just a few stores first. At least some retailers have an audit process for the factory too.

[1] [https://www.homeretailgroup.com/suppliers/how-to-be-a- suppli...](https://www.homeretailgroup.com/suppliers/how-to-be-a-supplier/) 80,000 lines, they say they assess all products, and mention lab testing and pre-shipment inspections. They're a mass market retailer with a lot of product at the cheaper end of the scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whenever I saw news like this I began to think: we need an OSS software project for various IPCAM on the market, the way as what Openwrt does to routers. So you can know for sure you're watching, not vice versa.

Most if not all IPCAM run Linux, the trick part is its codec libraries that is tied to some old kernel using some strange toolchains, that can be improved with vendor's help over time.

In the past TI owns the IPCAM chip market, now it's Huawei, whose chip (hisilicon) occupies about 80+% IPCAM on the market nowadays and TI is getting out of this game. The project may only need support one or two chip vendors.

<comment><USER6> an OSS project is not enough to give us any security, chips that are mostly made super cheaply in sketchy countries and that are complex enough to contain whole computers and OS's... If you are successful with your OSS stopping spying or any other mal-MITM, the spies will be further incentivized to move upstream, and then you discover that even more spies live up at the headwaters.

I'm not saying it's hopeless, I'm saying that the problem needs to be stopped at its root and systemically, with random selections and inspections, 3rd party audits, etc. That's not perfect either (as we see from banking regulation) but unless you start in a civilized country with checks and balances, there is no end in sight.

<comment><USER7> No flagship SOC in the world is immune to backdoors. Both Chinese & U.S. governments have massive spying programs with corporate participation. Good luck getting meaningful third party audits with highly complex, obfuscated, and proprietary designs that the companies will lobby against deciphering...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It is worth noting, that domain used by the malware (as well as some other domains) was seized and shut down by .pl's registrar's (NASK) security team (CERT). Here's the report of the operation: [https://www.cert.pl/PDF/Report_Virut_EN.pdf](https://www.cert.pl/PDF/Report_Virut_EN.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Thank you for mentioning this. It's as if the other user comments didn't actually read the article or go to the forum post that was linked to.

Looks like attackers managed to include this in a firmware update to launch DDoS. Amazing. Luckily the malware site is no longer working, so the users are safe. The users of the product mentioned that older versions of the firmware did not have this included.

Not sure how it happened, but to blame Amazon is ridiculous. I would look into the manufacturer a bit more to make sure it won't happen again before buying it.

To sum up. The price of the product is good. Amazon is still good. The company who made the product is now questionable. The firmware is bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I got a few of these (related) cameras on Aliexpress a little while back and yes, they also had the same malware. Saw it immediately as Chrome flagged it when I loaded the UI page.

There are some 'vanilla' firmware around that can be reflashed, but it's definitely not into most people's ability to reflash them.

it's too bad, it _is_ very nice hardware, and the price is incredible...

<comment><USER11> So if i just resolve that domain to 0.0.0.0 on my local network, is the camera safe to use?

<comment><USER12> No, I'd flash the firmware on the camera first before trusting it.

Alternatively, connect the cameras to a second network without any internet access at all, which is probably best for security to the cameras anyway.

<comment><USER10> You can also give them DHCP leases that don't set the gateway. That's usually a good idea anyway, and it's pretty easy to do if you use something like dnsmasq.

On my config I have an IP range on my subnet that is the default one and doesn't set the gateway. When I 'trust' the device I add it's MAC to the list of trusted ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In response to everyone asking about open standards and standardized platforms, there's already an open standard for networked IP cameras and it's called onvif, run by a non-profit organization (for what that is worth). There are open implementations for OnVif and virtually all cameras shipping from China already support OnVif.

</comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Chip- Camera-1080P-CCTV/dp/B00YMEV...](http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Chip- Camera-1080P-CCTV/dp/B00YMEVSGA)

 _We 're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site_

Wonder what Amazon is doing right now...

<comment><USER15> Probably sucking the money back out of that resellers account to pay for any unexpected costs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have found modern support for analog security cameras to really be coming to an end, which is pretty unfortunate, because they're often cheaper and pretty much impossible to come across these sorts of problems with. (I can't even find a PCI-E card with BNC connectors in this day and age.)

If you're going to buy ANYTHING with a network port (or Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, or heck, USB), you should be wary of where it came from.

<comment><USER17> Have you checked Blue Cherry? They have always been my go-to place for analog video input cards, and they have tons of them. Check [http://store.bluecherry.net/product-category/capture- cards/v...](http://store.bluecherry.net/product-category/capture- cards/video4linux-supported/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is so unfortunate. I've been wanting to do a security system for awhile now, but it looks like I will have to do it via USB webcam + raspberry pi instead of an integrated IP camera. I really wish there was was cheap IP camera hardware standard where the firmware could be easily flashed with something open source.

<comment><USER3> Check out the OpenIPCAM wiki[1]. It's not a standard, but it's a start.

[1]: [http://wiki.openipcam.com/index.php/Main_Page](http://wiki.openipcam.com/index.php/Main_Page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are there any cameras I can buy that aren't garbage in some way?

<comment><USER20> This isn't an easy to answer question - I'd answer differently depending on if you want cameras from home vs. business purposes and differently if you want local vs. cloud storage.

<comment><USER19> Fair. Just looking for something with decently secure firmware that I can permanently install outside, store locally on a NAS, and live stream remotely if I choose to. It's just kind of difficult to get a clear option because the market is saturated with junk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Link isn't working. I assume Amazon pulled the item.

Is this the same/similar item?:

[http://www.amazon.com/Annke-Sensor-2-1MP-Security- Camera/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Annke-Sensor-2-1MP-Security- Camera/dp/B01B2MO96K/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1460610078&sr=8-5&keywords=sony+chip+1080p+camera)

Incredibly cheap and zero reviews, so perhaps they've just reposted it with a slightly different product code on Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER22> Bought a brand new foscam HD off Amazon. Plugged it in, network immediately started acting weird. Router confirmed it was sending outbound traffic where it shouldn't.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think the safest solution is raspberry py + webcam, but I'm not sure if exist webcams suitable for outdoor use.

<comment><USER24> Raspberry py has direct memory access by a binary blob driver. The 'safest' solution, could include all the kernel/userland code to be audited by the community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> When are people going to demand standards for networked cameras, mics, and the like? My guess? Someone has to provably die as a result.

</comment><comment><USER26> Url changed from [http://thehackernews.com/2016/04/home-security- system.html](http://thehackernews.com/2016/04/home-security-system.html), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER27> We've passed the IoT stage, now entering the IoS (internet of surveillance). I wonder how many people bought this and will never notice.</comment>


Nginx Is Giving Away a Free O'Reilly Book on Cloud Native Devops with Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://www.nginx.com/resources/library/cloud-native-devops-with-kubernetes/ <comment><USER3> I used a disposable email service to receive the ebook. This is the permalink to the attached ebook: [https://email@example.com/143/Clo...](https://email@example.com/143/CloudNativeDevopswithKubernetesfullbook.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Really, you are getting something of great value for free in return for your e-mail, and feel obligated to try and contort and "screw" them? This is the exact sort of mentality that frustrates me as an entrepreneur. If you don't like the terms, then simply hit back. You're not entitled to anything. _end of rant_

<comment><USER5> Well the value of personal contact data can everyone decide on their own, but personally I would not rate that as free.

If you think your contact data (personal email and phone number) has no value, please share them here. You will probably get great value from it!

<comment><USER6> His email is available on his profile, so he essentially already shared it for free...

I agree that it's not exactly free because it has a value, just like your comment right now has one. However it doesn't represent a monetary loss from you (just like your comment right now), which I believe is what he meant by free.

If you believe your personnal email and phone number has a value higher than this ebook, than yeah, don't exchange them, that would be absurd.

<comment><USER5> Well he put his email in a not so easily readable format in there, so someone has to take effort and invest time to generate a correct email address from it. With this time investment getting to the email address costs money. So not for free ;)

But of course now we are definitely nitpicking on a philosophical level.

My point basically if someone says something is free, but requests your personal data in return, then that is not free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Step 1: implement Kubernetes

Step 2: completely transform your existing organization to be a matrix of agile teams with chargeback budgets aligned to resource use of shared services and collaborating on product lifecycles in scrum and kanban using full test coverage on both legacy and modern apps stored in asset-managed Docker containers in ci/cd pipelines triggered by Jira tickets deploying declarative immutable infrastructure and integrating an array of site reliability services that don't ship with k8s while adding policy and compliance enforcement with secret management and process auditing including in-line content filters using redundant services in multiple data centers without wasting resources or money

Step 3: document it

(I haven't read the book yet, so ymmv)

<comment><USER8> You're joking but it's almost too accurate to be humorous. This is being foisted on us right now and it's giving me nearly crippling anxiety.

<comment><USER9> I absolutely loved the concept of containerization when I started working with it a few years ago. Docker provided such a perfect way to ensure my application would build and run correctly when I pushed things up to my servers.

Then came orchestration. Swarm was a bit slow to get out the door and is still buggy. K8s on the other hand shot past like a lightning bolt. While it evolved quickly, k8s has to be the one piece of software that I dread to work with the most. Setting up a cluster seems nearly impossible without compromising important features. Configuration is overly complex and difficult to discover. None of the (many) tools seem to do what I want.

In the end, I begrudgingly chose Docker Swarm because I was actually able to create a cluster that worked. Mind you, there are still truckloads of bugs that have sat gathering dust for years that I continue to run into. At least with this solution I'm somewhat productive.

May the heavens have mercy on your soul should you attempt any amount of networking in a cluster.

<comment><USER10> Kubernetes is hard because its trying to solve a hard problem. Agreed that cluster management itself is hard but GKE has been somewhat nicer to use.

If you can convince your organization to use GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine), your life will become simpler. Power of Kubernetes with none (almost!) of the pain.

<comment><USER11> > Kubernetes is hard because its trying to solve a hard problem.

Yeah, and for most of us it's a problem we don't actually have.

Use of these technologies seems aspirational to me. It's a kind of cargo- culting: as if using the methods of the software giants, will make your company into a software giant.

<comment><USER8> That's the problem I have with it. I'm supposed to fight with all this extra infrastructure and configuration...to deploy a standard php web app with 600 users.

<comment><USER7> If you have very simple use cases, you definitely do not need an orchestrator, or a cluster. The hype is too loud and pretends to be good for everyone when it's clearly not.

I want to coin a new term "SimpleOps": operations infrastructure which does not include complex components such as cluster orchestrators, service meshes, secret management, IAM, policy enforcement, telemetry processing engines, app tracing, and so on. If your app is simple, only use simple components and managed services.

You can still have DevOps best practices with very simple components, and it'll be easier to reason about, build, and run.

<comment><USER8> I would like to, but I don't really have a choice atm. Thanks for the advice though, I feel like it doesn't need to be super complex to do what we're doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Business email, company, job title — what if someone doesn't have one or more of these? I know one can give fake information, but why are all the fields on the form marked with an asterisk indicating that they're mandatory? It's asking for phone number too?! Thanks, but no thanks. This is not for me.

<comment><USER13> This looks like a job for Mr Fake McFakeFake, CFO[•], Fake Enterprises, New Faketon, Fakeshire.

[•] Chief Fakery Officer

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Its an eBook, not a book.

Even though I work in tech, I was excited that they were giving a way a print copy I could flick though easily, and bookmark, annotate or share.

EBooks have some advantages, but I still prefer print.

<comment><USER15> Im glad its an eBook, not a book. Since I work in tech, I am excited that its a eBook that I can search through easily rather than having to spend tons of time bookmarking and flipping through pages hoping to find what is relevant when I need it. Paper books have some novelty value but I much prefer the utility of full text search when its time to get something done.

<comment><USER16> Really? I like ebooks for novel style format, but for technical books - <USER2> I don't necessarily them read in a linear manner - I find them way worse to browse.

<comment><USER17> Likewise. Physical books simply lack the Ctrl+F key combo.

<comment><USER16> Ctrl + F feels like going to the index and looking something up. In that case its faster with an ebook.

However scrolling through / flipping through pages to find something feels much more effective with a real book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nginx is giving away an ebook with email newsletter subscription.

<comment><USER19> And also to use your email address to target you with advertising.

Expect to see lots of Nginx ads on Facebook, Twitter etc.

<comment><USER20> I'd rather see nginx ads than the ones I usually see to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's a lengthy interview with John Arundel, an author of the book: [https://semaphoreci.com/blog/2019/02/14/a-reality-check- abou...](https://semaphoreci.com/blog/2019/02/14/a-reality-check-about-cloud- native-devops-john-arundel-interview.html) You can get a lot from it without giving away any of your personal or fake information. :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this a proper ebook or one of those bullshit O'Reilly leaflets focused on a particular technology?

<comment><USER23> Actual book. 344 pages.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Needs a form fill with a valid email, but it really is the full just-released 300+ page book.

<comment><USER24> ...and name, work, phone number, and requires consent to receive emails from nginx...

<comment><USER25> ...easiest free content of my life...

<comment><USER26> Got a link?

<comment><USER27> I'm sure you can put in the work to fill the form with some made up info if you really want the book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why are half the comments complaining about giving name and email? Thanks for sharing this!

<comment><USER29> They thought it was free.

<comment><USER30> Well if I don't pay and only fill a form, it seems free to me.

<comment><USER29> That's the trick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "in exchange of your identity"

can't we stop calling confusing this with "free"?

</comment><comment><USER32> Forcing you to give consent to receive a newsletter in order to download the ebook is not the way to go

<comment><USER33> Do you expect them to get nothing in return?

<comment><USER34> That's the traditional definition of "free" (as in beer).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Example code that goes with the book is also freely available:

[https://github.com/cloudnativedevops/demo](https://github.com/cloudnativedevops/demo)

</comment><comment><USER36> Kubernetes is an overkill for 90% of systems. The hype will die off eventually, but not before ruining fair number of projects. Death by overengineering. I wonder how things even worked before containers :)

<comment><USER37> What are some example where you think Kubernetes is the right choice?

<comment><USER38> Google, Facebook, AOL , Oath/Y!

When you have a large scale platform with millions of users and you need to add / remove / change services at some marketing teams whim

<comment><USER37> Do they run on kubernetes though?

<comment><USER39> Google runs on its own container system, Borg. Kubernetes is a free reimplementation of Borg sponsored by Google.

<comment><USER37> So one of them rounded up?

I don't have hands on experience with kubernetes and a quite a bit skeptical because of its supposed complexity. Would be interested in success stories though where kubernetes magic was the much needed secret sauce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> i will not read an o'riley book if you paid me to do it</comment>


Big Data, Underground Railroad: History says unfettered collection a bad idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/11/big_data_underground_railroad_history_says_unfettered_collection_of_data.html

<comment><USER2> The idea that business should be allowed to collect everything, and that only use should be regulated is nonsense. It is difficult, but perhaps not impossible, to tell what has been collected. But once data is collected, those holding it can make it impossible (if they want to) to tell what has been done with it. Collection is the only possibly feasible place to draw the line. If we don't draw it there, we are simply agreeing that privacy is dead.</comment>


Thinking About Smart Home Power Usage - <AUTHOR> https://blakeniemyjski.com/home-automation/thinking-about-smart-home-power-usage/ <comment><USER2> > _The real shocker was when I decided to measure only the Wemo mini smart > plug with nothing connected was costing me $0.31 /day._

I can't buy this. That's 3,100 Wh each day, or roughly 130W constant usage. That much energy being dissipated in the plastic housing would be burning hot to the touch, or melt it.

I'd wager he's off by a couple orders of magnitude. 1.3W is much more likely for a smart plug to draw.

The 55W his Echo is drawing is suspect for the same reason. That's more power than almost any idling laptop.

<comment><USER3> To calculate the math more correctly, a 1W smart plug is contributing $0.09/month to the $400 electrical bill quoted. This is a stellar example of a micro-optimization, in programming terms.

Focusing on big spenders like "anything with a pump" and "anything that generates heat" would contribute significantly to reductions.

I once upgraded video cards, reducing my computer's power draw by 180W and lowering my electric bill accordingly. This was back in the early days of CFLs (they were terrible) so it may not seem like much, but it was on 24/7 and that was the power at idle. I think it worked out to something like $10/month of savings, which was quite noticeable for my total bill of $50 or so.

<comment><USER2> > _... and "anything that generates heat" would contribute significantly to > reductions._

I never measured it, but there was one area that I quickly put a Tasmota plug on. My stereo receiver under the TV.

One day I was putting around the den and I noticed a lot of heat emanating from the credenza under the TV. It was my Sony receiver just sitting there, dutifully amplifying the null input from the turned-off TV.

So I added the plug, and told Home Assistant to turn the receiver on whenever the TV was on, and turn it off when the TV is off. My guess is that I'm saving 20-40W this way. $2-$4 a month.

(FWIW, this is the first time I've ever been glad to have a "smart" TV. The only feature I use on that TV is the ability for Home Assistant to see it)

<comment><USER4> Home Assistant is great! I flashed a cheap ES8266 RGB Led controller with ESPruna firmware and hooked it up to HA over MQTT. What are some of your hardware recommendations? I also have a Zigbee/Z-Wave dongle for the RPi, so I'm not limited to WiFi only.

<comment><USER2> I use a Conbee II dongle with deCONZ for all my Zigbee stuff, and try to use Zigbee wherever possible.

The Hue bulbs are great, and also act as repeaters, so I have those sprinkled throughout the house. But they're expensive, so I used Sengled bulbs for most of my fixtures. The Sengleds are endpoint-only, though. So I mix those two bulbs to keep the mesh dense but also save some money.

All my door sensors are the SmartThings units. I use a mix of SmartThings and IKEA Trådfri motion sensors. One SmartThings water leak detector in the basement, a SmartThings button, and a Trådfri 5-button remote.

I started this just to have a convenient way to control lights. My house is really old, and almost all lighting is table- and floor-lamps that I would have to walk around and turn on and off. Or ceiling lamps with pull cords.

But after getting into Home Assistant, I started going a little nuts with the automations.

My favorite one: A month ago I was getting ready for bed when I realized I left my oven on all day long. For 12 hours it was keeping the oven at 375˚F. But then I realized that I already have a motion sensor in the kitchen, and if I just moved it to the door of the oven, the built-in temperature sensor could be used to remind me that the oven was left on. So now I have a rule in my automations.yaml: If the kitchen temperature exceeds the living room temperature by more than 10˚F for more than an hour, send a notification to my phone that I left the oven on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We used to use those Kill-a-Watt probes at work to classify smart home device power draw.

Emphasis on "used to". They are not very accurate at all, and the sampling interval over which they take data on wall power draw is slow enough that you will miss important changes in current draw on your DUT. We have since switched over to expensive, calibrated Agilent power analyzers with better time resolution.

The post is well intentioned, but I challenge his data collection methods. His tools are not up to the task he has set himself to. It is not nearly as simple as the folks who sell Kill-a-Watt's would have you believe.

<comment><USER6> Do you have some of that data available? I think his data does seem off, but all these always on devices have to be costing something right? Curious what that cost actually is.

<comment><USER7> > _but all these always on devices have to be costing something right?_

They probably are; that depends on how badly they're designed. But that doesn't mean they _should_.

Consumer devices aren't usually as efficient as they could be with some more design work, which I think makes people have a wrong reference point about how much power is needed to do things. As a counterexample and a way to reset the reference, consider e.g.:

\- That there exist radio devices that are designed to run for _years_ off a single CR2032 battery.

\- That there are microcontrollers that can still execute your code while drawing nanoamps.

\- My 9 m.o. kid has a plush moon with a string attached to it; when you pull it, it plays a loud melody (that part is mechanical) and flashes LEDs for ~30 seconds. Both are powered from the mechanical energy of your pull.

The way I see it, a typical device on standby and/or a typical wall wart not charging anything shouldn't pull more than some micro- or even nanowatts. So they shouldn't cost you more than a hundredth of a cent a month each. Now of course they do, there are probably some engineering constraints here (like more complicated devices wanting to keep RAM powered), and there are definitely business constraints (low-power design is more expensive). But to me, a device whose standby mode is noticeable on the power bill is simply broken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My utility also installed smart meters recently - the Focus AXRe with Gridstream RF. It theoretically has Zigbee in it. It even has the Zigbee logo on it. I haven't figured out if I can read it yet, but in fairness I also haven't put a lot of work into figuring it out either. At the very least I could not get Smartthings to see it. So if anybody knows anything more about this meter I would love to know. :)

But I DID discover that my utility, buried down in like 5 menus on some random screen of the account portal, offers a usage graph at 15 minute intervals. It's not real time - it seems to be delayed by 1-3 hours - but it is _far_ better than getting a surprise bill. And while it used some weird SAP JSON interface, I could deduce what was what and could get the data out of it.

So I whipped up a script to basically scrape this "API" and shove the data into InfluxDB. I also added daily scrapes for the billing page and the rate page so I know when I was billed and how much the current rate is. This is because my utility bills at a lower rate for the first 1,400 kwh, and a higher rate for everything over that. I was not able to discern any pattern to when the bills were issued and the utility company was very unhelpful in this regard, just "sometime ever 27 to 35 days depending on holidays and weekends."

This [0] is the result of combining all the data. While I would really like realtime data directly off the meter, even being delayed a few hours is better than a random surprise $370 bill. I've written enough scrapers in my life to know it will probably break at some point, but it's been humming along nicely for the last few months.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/SwdHnCV](https://imgur.com/a/SwdHnCV)

<comment><USER9> I couldn't find anything called a "Focus AXRe", looking at a few different products that came up for "Gridstream RF" the compliance docs only list that they're zigbee coordinators, not endpoint devices. ex: [https://zigbeealliance.org/zigbee_products/gridstream-rf- enh...](https://zigbeealliance.org/zigbee_products/gridstream-rf-enhanced- focus-ax-zigbee-enabled-endpoint/) see 8.1 on pg 7. AFAIU, that means it expects to control other zigbee devices, not report to coordinators like the ST hub.

You could see if you can find your actual meter here: [https://zigbeealliance.org/zigbee_products/?product_type=cer...](https://zigbeealliance.org/zigbee_products/?product_type=certified_product&se=Gridstream+RF)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the Netherlands when smart meters where introduced one of the requirements was that the meters should have a port with a defined standard (DSMR[0]) which could be used by the house occupant to read metrics for themselved. The standard is pretty well setup with newer versions giving per second power/gas usage readings in human parsable ascii over rs232 on an rj11 connector.

[0] [https://www.netbeheernederland.nl/_upload/Files/Slimme_meter...](https://www.netbeheernederland.nl/_upload/Files/Slimme_meter_15_9e94f87c14.pdf)

<comment><USER11> I have an implementation [0] of DSMR for esp8266 that I integrated to home assistant over MQTT.

[0] - [https://github.com/WhoSayIn/esp8266_dsmr2mqtt](https://github.com/WhoSayIn/esp8266_dsmr2mqtt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems stunning that you could charge an electric car for 8 months without realizing you're not on a TOU plan.

We've got an EV and rooftop solar, and while I knew it was going to be an arbitrage scheme to begin with (with Net Metering, you don't use your solar to charge your car, you absolutely don't want to charge your car while the sun is shining), it was surprising to me to what extent usage had nothing to do with production. They're 2 entirely different things you treat entirely separately.

I thought I understood NEM2.0 pretty well (here in CA). Instead of the old NEM1.0, where 1kWh of generation = 1kWh of usage credit, it's bucketed by time of day. I actually thought NEM2.0 would be better for us than NEM1.0 -- we have generous peak hours (1pm-7pm) so we generate a TON of electricity off the roof at up to 38c/kWh during the day, and consume most of our power at much lower rates overnight. So 1kWh generated might be worth 2kWh into the car!

What I didn't factor in was that NEM2.0 credits are bucketed by month, and the consequences of that.

Yes, it means we generate very little in the winter, while our usage is just as high as in the summer, but that would wash out over the course of a year.. except for tiering! It hadn't crossed my mind how much tier 2+ usage we'd have in the winter. Which means it actually can pay off to charge the car at work in the winter, while it's pointless in the summer.

We're on a grandfathered TOU plan that I wanted to keep for those generous generation credits, but I'm thinking of moving to an EV plan because the _much_ cheaper charging rates might offset the more-generous peak hour timing and credits. (peak would be 4-9pm though, which means we generate less during peak, and we also use more at peak, since typically we get home around 7pm, all of our evening usage would still be at peak).

</comment><comment><USER13> The problem of saving power with small household devices is similar to the problem with micro-transactions. The overhead of connecting devices into a smart system is far greater than the recovered cost in terms of both money and energy. A smart switch can easily run to $100 to purchase and install and $10 a year to run. So it needs to save you ~$20 a year to be worthwhile. For large appliances that are regularly used such as swimming pool pumps, air conditioners, scooter or car chargers then it can be worthwhile.

I'd like to see smart blinds and curtains become more popular as windows can act like a giant highly efficient solar panel heating your home up when the conditions are right. Sadly again the cost of setting up and maintaining such a system could be ~$100 a year so only certain buildings would actually see a return on investment.

<comment><USER14> 'Dumb' timers and thermostats have existed for a long time, the value of something smarter isn't necessarily about reducing power consumption.

I put smart switches on my exterior lights to run them on a schedule. The value proposition was 'People don't arrive to darkness because we rarely remember to turn them on.' I'm trading an increase in consumption for utility.

My 'dumb' pool pump timer died and I replaced it with a more expensive smart model. Now, in addition to running the schedule, the pump also runs when the temperature approaches or drops below freezing. It may be running more or less than under the 'I manually override the timer when it's unusually cold and I remember' scenario but the value proposition was 'Prevent a pipe burst because I forgot to turn it on.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://permies.com/w/better-world](https://permies.com/w/better-world) : this covers this exact topic... in several different ways.

Most of the electricity being used in the Wisconsin winter is going to be for heating. The best dollar ROI is typically weather stripping and insulating followed by using a heat pump ( preferably ground looped ), and of course the best choice might just be a rocket mass heater.

For passive solar options : [https://www.builditsolar.com/](https://www.builditsolar.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> We recently installed two Curbs (energycurb.com) in our house and it's not only been very educating but also made it possible to zero in on the largest consumers. Upgrading the water heater to a heat pump unit took us from barely breaking even on our PV to a daily surplus of about 3kWh. The next largest consumers are the file server running 24/7 in the basement and my work machine.

</comment><comment><USER12> Side note: Has Disqus ever worked, for anyone?

I've tried dozens of times over the past few years. It never provides a 'logged in' comment box. Once I login, if i try to login again, it complains about a form submission error. I've never bothered to troubleshoot because mostly I want to avoid using Disqus but a couple times a year I decide to give it a go, and.. nothing. I have or had an account, which doesn't seem to work. I've also tried to use Twitter integration, which seems the least-bad (because my twitter account is rarely used for anything anyway).

<comment><USER17> Sounds like an adblocker or something blocking a resource that Disqus "requires" in order to function.

<comment><USER12> I don't run 'em, but could be something built into Safari. I always figure "oh, maybe it's an early product, they'll fix it".. but disqus has been around awhile :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I never understood the claim that smart switches on LED lightbulbs will conserve energy. The duty cycle of the average light bulb is fairly low; I would guess they are switched on for <10% of the time, on average.

If so, adding a 'smart switch' that uses 0.5W to a lighting fixture that has a 10W LED light bulb increases its average power usage by about 50%. You must be fairly sloppy to make that a gain, compared to a manually operated switch.

<comment><USER19> Lots of people have gotten lazy about turning off lights since LED is so cheap. E.g. I think our kitchen light is on around 12 hours per day because the switch isn't very convenient. Or the garage light - if it's left on during the day, it probably won't be noticed until morning.

Also kids tend not to turn lights off.

But yeah, even if you are saving money, smart switches are pretty expensive. It will take a while to recuperate the extra $ and time invested.

I would focus on switches that control several lights at once. E.g. our garage lights use 100 watts in all. Kitchen uses 65. Hallway 50.

<comment><USER20> > Also kids tend not to turn lights off.

Teach your kids ? What is this laziness of saying "kids won't do X" ?

<comment><USER19> Its called reality. Kids are people, not machines. Parenting is more comparable to pushing on a string than writing a program.

I've seen some people spend 17 years (and counting) trying to teach their kids to turn off the lights.

Much less your average 5 year old, most of which probably lack the mental awareness to always remember to turn off the light when they leave a room. Hell, my 5 year old almost ran barefoot over shattered glass because she really wanted to throw something in the trash - she forgot the glass was there about 10 seconds after we told her not to come over here while I cleaned it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Incidentally, I was wondering how a "smart" home could centralize power distribution to use less energy.

Yes, the hub would be always on, but you get to kill every sleeping device, such as the TV, "smart" lightbulbs by making the hub control them directly, phone chargers and various transformers plugged in the outlet, idling computers, etc.

Just ask the hub to turn on your computer, for instance.

</comment><comment><USER22> The real usage is DNS. I set up a PiHole last week and... Wow. 70% of requests are my fiance's echos (my Google devices, which I am trying to convince her with, are below the noise floor, go figure).

The privacy concerns are real, but I actually use smart assistants a good deal of time when I am at home.

</comment><comment><USER23> In winter, assuming you have a gas-powered furnace, isn't this "wasted" electrical usage environmentally beneficial, by reducing your use of natural gas for heating?

</comment><comment><USER24> Are you in the Milwaukee area by chance? Funny that you post this today, We Energies just called me today to notify me they were installing a new meter for our unit.

</comment><comment><USER25> How do you turn off smart bulbs which require power to retain connectivity settings/configuration?

<comment><USER26> My Hue smart bulbs retain connectivity and configuration settings when powered off (via the light switch). If they didn't it would be awful -- you would have to reconnect and reconfigure every bulb in the house after each power outage. I assume the data is stored in some kind of flash memory.

<comment><USER27> My personal guess would be that the settings are stored either on the Hue hub or within the app you use to connect to it. Mostly because, I've noticed, after someone turns off my Hue bulbs by accident by flipping the switch and then turns them on, they don't get restored to the same scene setting as they were before. I have to manually change back to the scene it was on before being powered off.

On another hand, after reading some articles a while ago that mentioned security issues surrounding smart bulbs (when it comes to selling them to someone after using them in your own home due to some persisted settings), I bet that your theory could be correct as well.

<comment><USER28> That changed with updated bulb firmware. Initially bulbs would reset to their default state on power on, but they're now able to save state. The way I read it this behavior is not dependent upon the hub or app.

The Phillips app is so junky I just use the hard power switches somewhat frequently.

[https://huehomelighting.com/new-power-feature-to-retain- colo...](https://huehomelighting.com/new-power-feature-to-retain-color-when- turned-back-on/)

<comment><USER27> Luckily, their protocol is interoperable, so I don't think you are required to use their app, even for their initial setup (not 100% sure on the last part, but I am about 90% there).

Their lights work great with HomeKit, as well as many other devices do. So instead of having a separate app for Kasa switches, app for Hue, app for LiFX, and an app for Nanoleaf, I can control them all straight from HomeKit. Considering that this is easily doable, it seems totally possible to do this with something other than just HomeKit as well.

<comment><USER28> _Their lights work great with HomeKit, as well as many other devices do. So instead of having a separate app for Kasa switches, app for Hue, app for LiFX, and an app for Nanoleaf, I can control them all straight from HomeKit. Considering that this is easily doable, it seems totally possible to do this with something other than just HomeKit as well._

Ehhh... I can't speak to the rest of the HomeKit integration but the Siri stuff isn't so great either. First it required upgrading the hub, it still only works with Philips bulbs (even though the Hue can control other smart bulbs like IKEA whatevers). After setting it up I still get "device not responding" responses from Siri at least 1/5th of the time.

Using a different app would potentially improve the problems between the hub and phone, but not between the hub and the zigbee devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I had this scenario too. I purchased PowerTag by a Schneider Electric and then tied this into Home Assistant via Node-red. This gave me usage on individual circuits and automation resulted in a 40% reduction in energy usage.

For curiosity I wired in an SDM eBay brand meter and it was within 1% of the Industrial grade PowerTag.

Another option is emonpi and it's easier to install than both of the above.

Happy metering! (Oh and you're lucky, Power in Australia is $0.28/kWh</comment>


Show HN: Random Street View - <AUTHOR> http://randomstreetview.com <comment><USER2> I don't mean to gatecrash, but as I have been running a near identical site for a few years I feel compelled to comment.

The street views generated on this site are not really random; they are picked from a predefined list in a db. This is why duplicates appear after a number of clicks.

I run [http://www.mapcrunch.com](http://www.mapcrunch.com) which also generates random street views, but with more options - you can define a region on a map (like a city) and generate street views from within it. You can also restrict the generated views to those taken within buildings, or within urban areas. The views generated are also totally random.

I don't have any objection to someone copying the concept of an existing site / service, but I feel that if you do so, you should at least try to differentiate it in some way - most easily done by making improvements or including superior functionality.

<comment><USER3> I don't know if it's fair to say he's copying - there's always the chance that they came up with it on their own. Are you really saying that you're the first person to come up with this idea?

Anyways, I think your site is much better... thanks for sharing. This is cool.

<comment><USER2> I didn't say he copied my site directly (clearly the design is totally different), and even if he did I don't mind at all.

My site wasn't the first, [http://www.globegenie.com](http://www.globegenie.com) was. I liked the concept and built an improved version.

My only point was that if you are going to take an existing idea, build something better.

<comment><USER4> That presupposes that he realizes the idea was already executed.

In any case, even if he did, I can think of a number of very good reasons why building something similar to another already executed idea is still a worthwhile endeavor. For example, maybe he wanted a new portfolio piece or maybe he wanted to learn some new technologies.

I like both. Yours is nicer though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice! So interesting. This is the kind of thing that, 30 years ago, you could only dream about. Stuff like this reminds me how much we take things like the Internet and Google Street View for granted, and sometimes you need to step back and think how amazing they are.

But stepping forwards to a minor detail... are there keyboard shortcuts? If you click on the image, you can already use Google controls to pan/walk around using the arrow keys and +/-..., so that all works...

But it would be awesome if there were another shortcut to move to the next/previous location, so I could move around, and between images, solely using the keyboard.

Anyways, great work!

[Edit: another thing, so many locations seem to have... not much going on. Instead of picking a random spot by area, it might be interesting to pick a random spot by population distribution... so that half the locations would wind up being urban, and you'd see a _lot_ more people.]

<comment><USER6> No, no! Don't do it by population distribution! The rural areas are what I _want_ to see! Ahem . . . I mean, the random distribution ensures that everyone gets to see things they weren't looking for, and that's good.

<comment><USER7> Lots of those, too. My random view put me on the North Slope Haul Road in Alaska. Even more strange, there was a second Google car in the picture!

[http://randomstreetview.com/#13i9ir_-2hkyi5_-5r_a_-2](http://randomstreetview.com/#13i9ir_-2hkyi5_-5r_a_-2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would love to know how much Google spends on StreetView.

When they first started sending those cars around, I think everyone collectively mocked, "Haha. Well you're certainly not going to photograph every street in the world."

<comment><USER9> What about "Haha, Well you're certainly not going to create a 3D point cloud of every street in the world"...

Google's self driving cars are just doing that.

EDIT: I can't find the post I once read, but this post also makes some clear: [http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130502024505-99...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130502024505-9947747-google- s-self-driving-car-gathers-nearly-1-gb-per-second)

EDIT 2: Here a video of the presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXylqtEQ0tk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXylqtEQ0tk) @ 3:30 you can see the generated (and stored) point cloud.

<comment><USER10> That bit blew my mind.

I'd love to see some of those point clouds. Maybe Google has an artist-in- residence who could 3D print varies landmark locations?

<comment><USER11> That was actually a little bit sobering for me. I thought the AI techniques they use were much more general, autonomous and independent of map data. I didn't know that location information of traffic signs, pavement etc. are taken from map data. But it makes sense to prefer data from most reliable sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some interesting non-street views in there:

[http://randomstreetview.com/#fnso2_17h6mm_b0_a_-8](http://randomstreetview.com/#fnso2_17h6mm_b0_a_-8)

[http://randomstreetview.com/#68vsh_19xpmm_100_a_-1](http://randomstreetview.com/#68vsh_19xpmm_100_a_-1)

[http://randomstreetview.com/#vbpgr_60bxi_b6_a_-1](http://randomstreetview.com/#vbpgr_60bxi_b6_a_-1)

[http://randomstreetview.com/#953ql_19j07c_1ix_a_-g](http://randomstreetview.com/#953ql_19j07c_1ix_a_-g)

<comment><USER13> Here is one on a train, I'm using the arrow keys to ride it through town.

[http://randomstreetview.com/#rkof5_5zmfd_- av_a_-a](http://randomstreetview.com/#rkof5_5zmfd_-av_a_-a)

<comment><USER14> I ended up on the same train, not far from where you are.

[http://randomstreetview.com/#rklpm_5zotk_- k_a_3](http://randomstreetview.com/#rklpm_5zotk_-k_a_3)

Maybe I got the cached results of a prior search?

<comment><USER15> Yup, same train for me. Came back to this thread just to post it, only to find you two already had.

I recall some "random street view" site a while back having the same behavior. Not sure if it was a different site, or same one is just making the news cycle again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [http://geoguessr.com/](http://geoguessr.com/)

<comment><USER17> Had a play.. nice site. I did feel slightly cheated than in 15 guesses 80% or so were in the US. A tiny bit less random and a bit more variety would be great :)

<comment><USER18> I felt like a disproportionate amount of mine were in Australia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's definitely something intriguing about seeing random mundane scenes (with occasional awesome exceptions) in far away locations.

<comment><USER20> I found it weirdly compelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's a guy on Twitch who livestreams "playing" a game with something like this, except there's no map. It's a similar site that shows you a random location and he basically "walks" around and tries to drop a pin on a map as close to the point as possible. Sounds kinda boring but I ended up watching an hour of it and it's interesting the sort of visual clues and techniques you can use to suss places out.

<comment><USER22> Not sure if its the same one as the video you are referring to but here is a game that does exactly that.

[http://geoguessr.com/](http://geoguessr.com/)

<comment><USER23> Geoguessr is actually awesome for social gatherings and stuff, its amazing how you can sometimes get pretty close just from the first glance

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's quite banal, but it always baffles me that everywhere something is happening at the same time. A wast complexity which we can only make sense of because it all works according the same principles. People build roads, houses, raise families and eventually die. Isn't there a word for this feeling?

<comment><USER24> Do you mean "sonder"?

[http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/s...](http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder)

<comment><USER11> Yes! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What's your randomizer? Maybe it's just me or maybe a lot of France looks the same but I swear I'm seeing a lot of repeats, perhaps as much as 1 in 20.

<comment><AUTHOR> Random street view locations are retrieved from a database (on-the-fly lookup is too slow); France had not so much records; that has changed over the last 5 minutes though. Try again :)

<comment><USER26> Got the same issue with Peru, not that random. Regarding France, being french, I can assure you that there is a lot of records ;)

Btw you could use city location from wiki/dbpedia to generate random lat/long.

<comment><AUTHOR> Peru just solved as well :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm getting lots of really pretty scenery in Bulgaria. So much that it's making me think about moving. I love this!

People interested in mapping and computers may also like this BBC Radio 4 programme "mapping the void" which covers some of the open sourced volunteer projects. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03s6mf0](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03s6mf0)

<comment><USER13> Hmm, I found one of the infamous ghost towns and thought the opposite (I don't deny the beautiful places).

[http://randomstreetview.com/#p0sb5_f2nu7_p7_a_-f](http://randomstreetview.com/#p0sb5_f2nu7_p7_a_-f)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I might have found the most English looking location (also very beautiful)

[http://randomstreetview.com/#vmyhk_-2h1og_4l_a_-g](http://randomstreetview.com/#vmyhk_-2h1og_4l_a_-g)

<comment><USER28> Who'd have thought the most English looking location would be in Wales ;)

<comment><USER27> Good catch - my UK/Great Britain/England geography is not great.

[http://f.kulfoto.com/pic/0001/0039/GY22q38509.jpg](http://f.kulfoto.com/pic/0001/0039/GY22q38509.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Neat! There was a similar project here a few years ago: [http://www.mapcrunch.com/](http://www.mapcrunch.com/) comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3215460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3215460)

</comment><comment><USER30> Does it actually pick a completely random spot? Because the first one it showed me was a place I visited recently halfway around the world.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've been enjoying a similar site, [http://www.mapcrunch.com/](http://www.mapcrunch.com/), for 2 or 3 years. It is very well done. You can select one or many countries in the options menu. It's a great way of enjoying the world from your couch.

</comment><comment><USER32> Denmark has separate paved bike streets out in the middle of the countryside! I sure wish the road systems in the United States were more bike friendly.

[http://randomstreetview.com/#xqgi5_5um0z_64_d_-7](http://randomstreetview.com/#xqgi5_5um0z_64_d_-7)

</comment><comment><USER33> I ended up shrinking the map/location bar and then clicked on the "next" button and tried seeing how long it would take me to figure out where I was. There are a lot of immediate clues, like what side of the street people are driving on, the ethnicity of people if they're at the side of the road, the condition and type of the cars/buildings and a lot of geographical features like mountains and red soil.

It reminded me of a thought exercise I used to do about what would I do if I were kidnapped and then drugged/blindfolded/disorientated/whatever and then dropped somewhere in the world. I'd come up with elaborate strategies to try and find my way back home.

</comment><comment><USER34> Even though I mostly end up in the middle of nowhere this surely makes me want to travel :)

</comment><comment><USER35> Check out this sweet dragon.

[http://randomstreetview.com/#wrua5_dhcmy_2m_a_-3](http://randomstreetview.com/#wrua5_dhcmy_2m_a_-3)

Seriously, this is a fantastic thing you've made. I'm enjoying it immediately.

<comment><USER36> Amazing. This is literally the end of a small road in the middle of nowhere (no offense), Lithuania. How few people ever see this person's home, and how few outsiders does this person come across in their back yard? And all of a sudden, here we are, all looking at this person's yard with more intrigue than they'd ever guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> There's an interesting game one can play with such sites - get a random location, and try to find your way back to an airport without looking at a map

...Of course, this was easier before google indexed so much countryside....

</comment><comment><USER38> Wonderful ! The sites like yours remind me why I love Streetview, which is like a gift for me. I take this opportunity to share one of my favorites blogs, "Dreamlands - Virtual Tour". It's a photograph blog, like every photograph blogs, except that all pictures are made with Streetview ! You don't have to speak french to enjoy it. Some places are incredible. [http://dreamlands-virtual-tour.blogspot.fr/](http://dreamlands-virtual- tour.blogspot.fr/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Ok now I'll spend my entire day on this! However, my friend also visited the website and guess what? The same sequence of streets was showed to him. How this random works?

</comment><comment><USER40> Yes!!! I sometimes do this manually by zooming out the map and then dropping the Street View pin with my eyes only half open (can't drop him in the ocean).

</comment><comment><USER41> A non-random Street View project that has some very interesting images.

[http://9-eyes.com/](http://9-eyes.com/)

</comment><comment><USER42> If you want a true long tail street picture app, there is a new one - Mapillary - with only phones and HTML5 no cars etc involved, e.g. [http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/jvEX_s9fM7SwTDoMdeYDOw](http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/jvEX_s9fM7SwTDoMdeYDOw) \- works everywhere where you can have a smartphone and GPS fix.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is fantastic. I've seen similar sites, but this kind of thing never gets old no matter how many sites there are. I'm from Australia and I find it highly comical that every street I was given was basically a dirt road in the bush, haha. I wasted a good while on this, not the kind of thing I should be doing when I've got work to do!

</comment><comment><USER12> It's funny seeing the attention these vehicles draw coming out in some of the photos. This is especially true on dirt streets in the middle of residential areas.

Walk this one back down the street, you can see the pedestrians watching.

[http://randomstreetview.com/#-6p0t9_-nfxtl_qa_a_-2](http://randomstreetview.com/#-6p0t9_-nfxtl_qa_a_-2)

</comment><comment><USER44> been around longer and funner: [http://www.geoguessr.com/](http://www.geoguessr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting! A few things:

\- Some locations repeat after a short while \- Not sure how the randomization is done, but some countries like Botswana and Bulgaria seem over-represented \- Address language seems random (often English, sometimes other, not much relation to where location is -- e.g. some US locations had addresses shown in Czech etc.)

<comment><AUTHOR> A small bias towards more variety was introduced to prevent 80% of locations being in the US. Repeating locations are possible but should be increasingly rare.

I'll further tweak the randomization patterns for the better. And fix the address language indeed.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Hey, did you get the idea after seeing [http://smwh.re](http://smwh.re) ?

</comment><comment><USER47> I built something similar for university. Though it uses location from Instagram, the photo, and description text to provide some context. [http://sm.rutgers.edu/thebeat/](http://sm.rutgers.edu/thebeat/)

</comment><comment><USER48> I recall something similar that would show random places on street view and you had to guess where it was located on the map. The closer you were the more points you would get. Does anybody remember how that was callled, because that was way cool.

<comment><USER49> [http://geoguessr.com/](http://geoguessr.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I chose United Kingdom and on the second click it showed a street in my childhood hometown!

</comment><comment><USER51> This is really neat! The very first place it took me was overlooking a _sweet_ crater in Yosemite. Then there were a couple boring ones then a super awesome church in the Czech republic. ... And now I'll forget about this forever.

</comment><comment><USER52> You can use this to answer questions like below:

1\. How much of the roads in the world passes through dessert?

2\. What is the chance that you would see a person if you had been driving all over?

3\. How much of the streets are in urban areas?

And so on...

All you need to do is just press next few times and count!

<comment><USER53> That's a great idea. It'd make for a great education app, perhaps walking the user through the solution for their own town.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This was on mobile as a game a while ago [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/map- mayhem/id608008620?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/map- mayhem/id608008620?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER55> I didn't even know that Google had street view cars in rural Africa! [http://randomstreetview.com/#-en562_fdoqw_-2i_a_-7](http://randomstreetview.com/#-en562_fdoqw_-2i_a_-7)

</comment><comment><USER56> Wow, it only took me two clicks to get a glitched out shot : [http://randomstreetview.com/#p6d4o_-4vsu8_93_a_4](http://randomstreetview.com/#p6d4o_-4vsu8_93_a_4)

</comment><comment> l-p Well, is really does what it says, that _was_ random: [http://randomstreetview.com/#phyzb_dnid7_-d_r_-5](http://randomstreetview.com/#phyzb_dnid7_-d_r_-5)

</comment><comment><USER57> Great! I am getting lots of beautiful scenery. An up vote/down vote or ratings system would be great, and then you could start compiling a list of the most beautiful (or interesting) views.

</comment><comment><USER58> I was surprised to see that most street-views in the world are rural.

<comment><USER59> Yes. Check Ukraine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This site does the same thing and has been around atleast a few years: [http://www.globegenie.com/](http://www.globegenie.com/)

</comment><comment><USER61> At first I thought, what is the point?

Then I clicked next a few times and visited random parts of France, Lithuania, Norway, and Harju County, Estonia on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

This is really cool.

</comment><comment><USER62> My colleague just showed me [http://geoguessr.com/](http://geoguessr.com/), which is a pretty fun twist on the same concept.

</comment><comment><USER63> I used to love to just take a 'walk' using street view from time to time. This is great. It really gives you a sense of how enormous the data set is.

</comment><comment><USER64> Reminds me of the fantastic game based around random street view: [http://geoguessr.com/](http://geoguessr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER65> This was pretty cool

[http://randomstreetview.com/#m19t2_-1xxgr6_-o_a_-7](http://randomstreetview.com/#m19t2_-1xxgr6_-o_a_-7)

</comment><comment><USER66> This would make an awesome wallpaper/screen saver.

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://randomstreetview.com/#slideshow](http://randomstreetview.com/#slideshow)

<comment><USER67> Hey Y'all on OS X. Just compile this little tool [https://github.com/liquidx/webviewscreensaver](https://github.com/liquidx/webviewscreensaver)

Then add the url [http://randomstreetview.com/#slideshow](http://randomstreetview.com/#slideshow) to the url playlist of the screen saver.

Or get the binary here: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/c03r77x5vm1wirp/WebViewScreenSaver...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/c03r77x5vm1wirp/WebViewScreenSaver.saver.zip)

One neat feature/bug is that if you have multiple monitors the screens seem like they are pointed to different angles of the same exact place. I suspect the randomness algo is based on JS timestamps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Cool.

Within a few minutes of clicking NEXT I started getting duplicates.

</comment><comment><USER69> Or not so random. I keep getting USA, Taiwan, Estonia and Sweden far more often than any other countries. Do they have the most streets? :P

</comment><comment><USER70> Wow, the second random street is in my hometown.

<comment><USER71> You've gotta get a tinfoil hat, or a lottery ticket. Perhaps both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I'm curious: has Google used any of its autonomous vehicles to perform mapping for Street View?

</comment><comment><USER73> Would be cool if it gave you a slow 360 view instead of just a random side of the road. Good job!

</comment><comment><USER74> reminds me of a manager i worked for in 2000. he wrote a random lat/lang algo and actually used it for his vacation trips.

[http://www.abulsme.com/trip/spottool.html](http://www.abulsme.com/trip/spottool.html)

this is a clear upgrade :)

</comment><comment><USER59> Can we go by city? PLEASE. I think you could charge something for this. Maybe a one-time fee.

</comment><comment><USER75> I would love to see a like feature here to aggregate the most amazing pics around the world.

</comment><comment><USER76> You should weight the streets by population, as that is what people "experience".

</comment><comment><USER77> It's really awesome to see how much of the world looks almost exactly like my street.

</comment><comment><USER78> I guess I hit the API limit very quickly after 20-30 tries. Map does not refresh anymore.

</comment><comment><USER79> Simple. Enjoyable. I just found several dozen places I want to travel to.

</comment><comment><USER80> Strangely hypnotizing! Fun!

</comment><comment><USER81> Love it. Could be the source for some interesting social activities.

</comment><comment><USER82> Great, i landed in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma.

Story of my life...

</comment><comment><USER83> Amazing :) An auto turner and a timmer would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER84> This would be pretty awesome as a screensaver.

<comment><AUTHOR> Try [http://randomstreetview.com/#slideshow](http://randomstreetview.com/#slideshow) , and switch your browser to fullscreen modus.

<comment><USER85> That's great and all, but a real screensaver provides a cheap way to lock a computer, and is functional and can be beautiful as well. This is beautiful, would love a screensaver of this to lock my computer when I step away from it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Really enjoying this! Thanks for building!

</comment><comment><USER87> kudos for the mobile support that's what i'm going to do on my ride home today

</comment><comment><USER88> This is really awesome, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER89> Not random.

</comment><comment><USER90> I don't see North Korea?

</comment><comment><USER91> good idea!

</comment><comment><USER92> How does it work without flash?? I was never able to use street view because in google maps when you zoom in it just says in a popup:

      To use street view, you need Adobe Flash Player version 10 or newer.
      Get the latest Flash Player.

<comment><USER93> It's a canvas element that they render to now. It's very similar to the previous Flash implementation, in that it's an area of the screen they can draw on. It just happens to be in Javascript instead of Actionscript now.

<comment><USER92> But if i go to maps.google.com and zoom in, it apparently is using flash and doesn't work. The linked site does work. I'm guessing there's some API you can use for google maps, and it uses the non-flash version. But is there a way to use the non flash version on maps.google.com?

<comment><USER94> I think that the map without flash is still gradually rolling out, but you can apply to have it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> I don't know if others suggested this but it might be interesting to define a rectangular region and it would only return views from inside that rectangle. Let's see how well I actually know my hometown.

<comment><USER2> You can do this on www.mapcrunch.com</comment></comment>


Reddit's CEO Allegedly Fired a Worker for Not Recovering from Cancer Fast Enough - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_former_reddit_employee_and_leukemia/ <comment><USER2> Pao needs to be replaced. Whether the hate the community at reddit has is justified, it does exist.

The company is begging for a reddit clone to pop up and steal the users.

<comment><USER3> Her optics at this point are _terrible_.

\- CEO of a community-based site where the community doesn't like her (to put it nicely)

\- Lost a very public lawsuit against a previous employer that revealed quite a bit about her personal and work habits -- and it wasn't exactly glowing, often downright damning.

\- Tried to recoup legal costs for the lawsuit she started and lost

\- Was ordered to pay legal costs to her former employer because of the wrongful lawsuit she brought against them

\- spent most of the first parts of her Executiveship at reddit fooling around with the lawsuit

\- It's strongly suspected that the damages she claimed in her lawsuit were to cover her husband's financial problems

\- Her husband appears to be a real piece of work too

\- Fired a community manager in the middle of a community event, regardless of the reason for firing her, it could have waited.

\- and now fired a cancer patient

On top of these perceptual problems. She also doesn't appear to have any relevant leadership experience for running such a company. It's not like she worked her way up to the top position by starting in the mail room and through moxy and determination worked her way up through the management ranks.

She was a lawyer for 2 years, then spent about 3 years in BD/sales, then managed a BD team for a few years and then spent the rest of her time at Kleiner Perkins representing their VC investments before returning back to BD at reddit.

Basically she went from a very short career in law, to a career in BD. She has a total of 4 years of any kind of measurable management experience. A transition from BD to CEO is fairly unusual.

Somebody previously here on HN said it feels like reddit is being taken over by marketers, it's just as bad, it's being taken over by a Business Developer.

What's really going on here is that Ellen is trying to "clean up" reddit to make it more palatable as a strategic partner for other companies to work with. Reddit's wild-west reputation makes it difficult for many companies to work with them. This is what her focus is, probably with the ultimate goal of cleaning up the image for some kind of M&A. This is what BD people care about. Not about the ins and outs of running a company.

Reddit _should_ be a much more valuable company, and I have a feeling the board is trying to pivot it into more of a sales channel for corporate partners to pump astroturfed advertisements to and to host special sales events or mod dedicated company/product subs for a fee. There's not much reason to continue to tolerate her at this point except that this is what they want.

It's kind of what Digg tried to do, and it may be inevitable for these kinds of narrow margin community-based sites that to start really capitalizing on the community, they go this way. But maybe they're hoping they can make the jump without screwing up as badly as Digg did. It's not looking that way however.

> The company is begging for a reddit clone to pop up and steal the users.

This has been true for a _long_ time before Pao came on board. It's not really clear what the reddit devs seem to be doing, but empowering the mods to better manage their communities is not one of them. Something like Reddit is _not_ terribly complicated software-wise, the large number of alternate communities (this one included) kind of goes to show it's an understood technology. It's basically a community-in-a-box at this point. The network effects will determine what happens next.

As far as these firings go, she can't reverse them. That kills any authority she may still have.

<comment><USER4> And now new Digg is capitalizing on the drama

[http://digg.com/2015/talk-to-us](http://digg.com/2015/talk-to-us)

<comment><USER5> This is pretty pathetic. Also, if you look at Digg's front page, it looks nothing like Reddit. I wonder how they will steal any user from them.

<comment><USER6> When digg stole from reddit it was different, when reddit stole from slashdot it was different... People are more likely to move to something new and different, as strange as that sounds.

<comment><USER7> But... reddit stole from digg.

I'm not sure if Digg ever stole from Reddit since I think Digg came first in popularity for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Assuming this is true. I don't know what it takes to make such a despicable action, this is character defining. There was so many decent alternatives there is no excuses for this behavior.

</comment><comment><USER9> Submitted site adds pretty much nothing to the original source:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_fo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0idl/i_am_dacvak_former_reddit_employee_and_leukemia/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks. URL changed to that from [http://nextshark.com/ellen-pao-reddit- dacvak-ama/](http://nextshark.com/ellen-pao-reddit-dacvak-ama/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> is possible in USA to get fired with no procedures, or not getting any money?

<comment><USER12> Yes. Most of the US is employment-at-will by default, which means that you can legally be fired without cause, notice, or compensation other than that due based on work prior to the moment of termination.

(Now, there are still reasons for which it is illegal to fire people, and, in part to avoid disputes over whether one of those were involved -- and, on the procedural end, in part to actually work to resolve issues that might be resolved short of firing -- employers will often apply substantial procedures before firing, and even when firing offer a severance package, potentially explicitly contingent on an agreement not to sue.)

<comment><USER13> It baffles me that it is legal to offer somebody anything "contingent on an agreement not to sue". How are disputes resolved ? Especially in this case there is almost a guarantee of a dispute, isn't there.

How would an employer defend that this agreement wasn't made under duress ? That both sides were equal partners in the negotiation about such a contract ?

I'd think the right to sue about anything is the most fundamental of the inalienable rights, because without it, the other rights wouldn't effectively exist.

<comment><USER14> When leaving a company they can't make you sign something, because no one can make you sign something.

But of course they can give something in exchange for signing something. You can think of it as a mini settlement.

I don't think it is great, because many people will just sign things thinking they have no choice, and the timing and mechanics of how these things happen are often used against people.

I've had exit contracts given to me. They were full of things that benefited the company and had nothing that benefited me. I said 'There's no benefit to me signing this, what do I get if I do?' They didn't offer me anything, so I didn't sign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "In early 2012, he was supposed to move to San Francisco when he was diagnosed with Leukemia."

"Fortunately, reddit's then-CEO, Yishan Wong, allowed him to keep his job and continued paying him until he was ready to work again"

So he worked for the company from 2012-2015..3 years. It sounds like at least a year of this was spent in and out of the hospital and he continued to get paid. It's not like he was fired on the spot.

Reddit gave him plenty of recovery time..and it just didn't work out in the end. I see no problem with what they did.

"Victoria (aka /u/chooter) was, without question, one of the nicest, most passionate, most efficient workers at reddit, and I honestly can't fathom why she would have been terminated. It was such an honor to work with her, and as many mods have already stated, she truly took her work to heart and tried to provide a service to the community. She was one of the most well-known admins and was just incredible at her job. Without her, there would be hundreds of incredible AMAs that would have never happened."

We only see one-side of the story. Why was she let go? We still don't know.

<comment><USER16> The fact that we only know one-side of the story* is actually the biggest "wtf?" in all of this, in my opinion.

That the reddit executive staff hasn't really addressed this entire shitstorm publicly and officially by now is absolutely mind-boggling given what reddit is. They are giving the impression that they still see this just as a conversation between mods and admins and are basically ignoring the public spill-over (except for Alexis' dismissive comments).

*(really we know less than one side of the story since AFAIK Victoria hasn't really talked about it publicly, which from her side is totally understandable for either legal [if severance is involved] or just not wanting to get blackballed reasons).

<comment><USER17> Do you really think that any legal department would allow anyone to comment in such case?

Anything they say might lead to a law suit, in such cases if they comment on anything it will be in the form of the most anemic press release possible with every fact checked about 10000 times before hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That emotionally sucks, but the guy hadn't actually done his job for almost a year and still felt entitled to it?

<comment><USER19> "During this time, I had sat down with Ellen Pao (current reddit CEO) to discuss my future at reddit and when I was able to move. I had told her that it would still be at least a month (but probably closer to 2 or 3) before I was finally able to move to SF, and she said she was 100% fine with that. We discussed my position, and ultimately determined that I would be returning to the Community Management team. I met some of the new members of the team, all was well, and then I flew home on day 3."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can HN not get caught up in the drama of reddit? Please. (Btw, instead of just down voting because you disagree, how about you try to discuss why you think being caught up in the drama is a good thing)

<comment><USER21> No. This is one of the most significant events on the internet today . A first of its kind social phenomenon. This needs to be analyzed like everything else.

<comment><USER20> Getting caught up in the drama won't add any value to the adolescence nature of reddit. We could posts analysis talking about the details regarding the matters at hand. But this submission is adding fuel to the fire of childish behavior.

<comment><USER21> >Getting caught up in the drama > childish behavior

You are the one who seems to be caught up on the drama by taking sides .

<comment><USER20> No. This submission is clearly smearing one side, the CEO of reddit. This submission is not showing a balanced view of anything. I'm not taking her side nor am I taking the accuser's side. Both are being very emotional and I'd hope that instead of being emotional and pointing fingers, that we'd be a little more mature in the HN community.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will we ever colonise an asteroid? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180612-will-we-ever-colonise-an-asteroid?ocid <comment><USER2> very interesting article ... thanks for sharing</comment>


Wilfred Owen: Bugle marks centenary of war poet's death - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46092004 <comment><USER2> I put together a nicely formatted and public domain ebook of Wilfred Owen poetry earlier this year for Standard Ebooks if anyone wants to read:

[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/wilfred- owen/poetry](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/wilfred-owen/poetry)

(bonus: vorticist cover art by Paul Nash: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Nash_(artist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Nash_\(artist\)) )

<comment><USER3> Excuse my peevishness, but your attitude is typical of programmers who decide to dabble in "nice formatting". I downloaded the epub book in the expectation that the typography would be a shambles, and it was.

I get that this is a hobby for you. But the arrogance and vanity of software folks who think they can do typographic design (without any training, eye for type, or respect for the real skill and tradition of typography) just leads to bad results.

This goes very much for [http://sile-typesetter.org](http://sile- typesetter.org) as well, for example.

I probably sound completely intolerant. What I'm trying to say is: your smugness is misplaced.

<comment><USER4> Typographical passion is no license to break the site guidelines. Please review [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and don't attack anyone personally on HN again, even if they suck at something and you're perfect.

If you'd like an example for how better to treat others on this site, look no further than [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18382766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18382766).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Poetry was used by all sides during the war and the efforts to get the right poetry were a secret government propaganda effort that wasn't known of at the time.

There was a big fear that the Germans were trying to undermine the morale of people in the UK so poetry was the 'big guns' for seeing off that threat.

The WW1 poets were not having to start from a blank page, a handy anthology of poetry was provided as a starting point, this has plenty of gems from way before the war to remind people what they were fighting for:

[https://archive.org/details/spiritofmanantho00bridiala/page/...](https://archive.org/details/spiritofmanantho00bridiala/page/n25)

There was another battle going on back on the home front, for women's rights. Poetry played a part in this struggle too.

</comment><comment><USER6> My favorite of his poems is 'Dulce et Decorum Est'

[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et- decoru...](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est)

 _Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin..._

<comment><USER7> Covered Wilfred Owen in some depth in Secondary School, although his poetry is quite depressing compared to say, Rupert Brooke, I was always fascinated with him due in part that I share the same surname with him.

<comment><USER8> It's common in British school to compare and contrast "The Soldier" with "Dulce et Decorum Est".

Personally the poem which had the most impact on me was "Suicide in The Trenches"[0]. Hit me like a tonne of bricks aged about 14, I read it every Rememberence Day now.

[0] [https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/suicide.html](https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/suicide.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.

Read: it isn't. It was senseless, and the hope of many of those who lived (and probably many of those who died) was that there would never be another war. It is a pity their hopes for peace weren't realised in the 20th century, and an even greater pity that they don't look likely to be realised in the 21st.

<comment><USER10> While it's true (and tragic) that the Great War did not fulfil the hope that it would end all wars, many of those who served (and died, or lived) would not have agreed that their sacrifice was senseless. They saw the battle against tyranny and for the freedom of their country as the most worthwhile thing they could ever do.

Try John Lewis-Stempel's book _Six Weeks_ [1].

Although his poetry graphically portrays the horrors of war, and does not at all glorify or glamorise it, Wilfred Owen _chose_ to return to the front, though he had been invalided home and could have remained safely in Britain.

[1] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Weeks-Gallant-British- Officer/d...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Weeks-Gallant-British- Officer/dp/1409102149)

<comment><USER9> The peace movement in the UK was spawned from people returning from war who said "never again". In the UK we've had a century of people acknowledging how many people died and for how little, done through song and music and culture more generally.

We don't acknowledge the fact that the war achieved little (except for creating the conditions for the Nazis to thrive in Germany) and was generally opposed by lots of forces around Europe who felt it was not in the interests of workers. By way of example, there was a conference of socialists held in Basel in 1912 which saw the war coming, and which apportioned work to the different social democratic and Labour parties around Europe which was mostly concerned with making sure war didn't break out.

Large numbers of people oppose the war long before it even broke out, and even now, it is hard to say what purpose it served ("plucky little belgium" actually being a substantial force for evil in the world at that point..).

<comment><USER10> > The peace movement in the UK was spawned from people returning from war who > said "never again".

And yet just a couple of decades later, the country went to war again. I don't believe everyone had already forgotten the horrors of 1914-18; but we realised that sometimes it was necessary, despite the cost.

<comment><USER9> The point is that the alternatives to war are hard but they are always there. The people returning from the first world war wanted them pursued more readily, and had they been pursued more readily in 1914, there would perhaps not have been a war on the same scale or even at all. WW2 was the consequence of the failure to find a rational settlement after WW2.

To say the first world war - or any other - was senseless, is to recognise that there was no existential threat, and there was little real attempt at diplomacy. There were alternatives that didn't involve millions of people being marched to their deaths. At the point at which we acknowledge that, we have to ask why so many died and what for.

Diplomacy is the natural response of normal working people, because historically we're the ones who get mown down by machine guns at the behest of our betters - people who start wars but don't fight in them.

If you feel WW1 was necessary and proportionate in the face of Europe's challenges at the time, I'd be intrigued to hear why. Can you outline the case for war?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> barrow-rider Everyone seems to harp on 'Dulce et Decorum Est' \-- presumably because they had to read it in an English class at some point -- but I always rally liked 'Futility'. It's like you can hear Owen losing his faith in God.

<comment><USER11> I have English class to thank for showing me his work. I ended up picking up a book of his poetry soon after.

What struck me is his stark change from a Romantic poet to his Wartime poetry. I would like to add the cynicism in "Inspection" as a companion to "Futility" to mirror the loss of faith.</comment></comment>