Game Critic Uses Workaround for YouTube's Copyright System (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://kotaku.com/game-critic-uses-brilliant-workaround-for-youtubes-copy-1773452452 <comment><USER2> This video blew up a few days ago on Youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz14Ul-r63w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz14Ul-r63w) The author shows how to sort of turn the tables on the copyright abusers by producing an original song (if you could call it that), distributing it through a distributor (1) and then using it in your own video to be able to claim your own video for a 50/50 revenue split with the abuser. Seems slightly related to this one as well. In the end stuff like this goes to show that Youtube's systems are a complete and utter joke, but since Youtube has zero competition, it won't change.

1: The creator used CD Baby, if you're going to do this, I recommend DistroKid, it is about a zillion times better than CD Baby. Even the CD Baby creator endorses DistroKid.

<comment><USER3> Interesting info but what an annoying video. A good intro, and then an over- the-top montage. Skip to 2:00, ah wait at 2:29 he thanks about his sponsor. At 3:08 the content starts. Of course he rambles too much because I guess he needs to fill 10 minutes for more $$$?

<comment><USER4> .. or to conform to Wadsworth Law:

> For EVERY youtube video, I always open the video and then immediately punch > the slider bar to about 30 percent.

> For example, in this video [referenced video of length 1:42], it should have > just started at :40. Everything before :40 was a waste. This holds true for > nearly every video in the universe.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/kxfxy/and_so_ends_20_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/kxfxy/and_so_ends_20_years_of_frustration/c2o1cyy/?context=3)

<comment><USER5> Tip: use the keyboard shortcut '3' to jump to 30%

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This kind of "gaming" (ha!) the system has been around for a while now - another channel (Internet Comment Ettiquette) had a video called the "Copyright Claim Olympics" which featured a whole bunch of different types of content from many different copyright holders (olympic footage, movie footage, music videos, distorted audio/video, etc. etc. even mixed and dubbed over each other in order to make it even more difficult for content ID) to the tune of "if I can't have my ad revenue for my other videos that were clearly fair use/parody, nobody can have any ad revenue, fuck you Youtube content ID claim abusers!"

Unfortunately it was taken down (probably 20+ copyright holders complaining about a single video forced Youtube to do something about it) but can still be found on Vimeo with a simple Google search.

<comment><USER7> Yes, that's the exact same trick as Jim Sterling's "Copyright Deadlock".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note: story is from 2016. It's been three years, so it's unclear how relevant this story is to the current status of ContentID, copyright identification, and monetization on YouTube.

<comment><USER9> I regularly follow the relevant creator, he definitely still does this and still occasionally talks about it. From the handful of YouTube creators I follow it seems like the problem has only become worse in intervening years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Content ID is such bullshit. Here we are years later and it _still_ doesn't permit fair-use like critique; one of the shown matches is barely _21 seconds_ in length. How is that a substantial copyright infringement?

<comment><USER11> The DMCA is the issue, not Content ID. There's no presumption of innocence if accused of a copyright infringement and it costs nothing to make an accusation. On the other hand, a service provider has to accept the accusation or they can leave the content untouched but then open themselves up to secondary liability. All the while the accused has to certify under penalty of perjury that their content is not infringing (there's no equivalent for the accuser).

Content ID is a bandaid on the tumor of IP law. Yell at your government not Google for this.

<comment><USER10> I don't agree that companies should be absolved of blame simply because they're acting in fear of a lawsuit. You are right, the DMCA is the culprit here but equally disgraceful is the sheer cowardice on Google's part. They can afford to fight for their users and techno-utopian ideals but it's far cheaper to employ half-baked technological solutions instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So if I understand correctly:

1\. Youtube makes money from ads.

2\. Jimquisition is funded from Patreon, and despises ads on his content.

3\. To resolve this paradox, Jim has found a way to (allegedly) infringe on multiple parties' copyright

4\. Youtube's technology doesn't allow multiple monetizers, and therefore in this situation allows none.

If Jim disagrees with the funding stategy of YouTube, why bother with YouTube at all? Is free riding on youtube video distribution that valuable?

<comment><USER13> His use of others copyrighted content falls under fair use since he's doing reviews. It's YouTube and mega corporations fucking over and taking country the laws. Fair use does not mandate the original copyright owner be paid in anyway.

<comment><USER12> > It's YouTube and mega corporations fucking over and taking country the laws.

But it's precisely because YouTube is a megacorp attached to another megacorp that Jim can even upload videos without paying for distribution.

<comment><USER14> Is this relevant? The bastards are constantly changing the terms of our interactions with them, while banking billions and destroying the fabric of human life. They can't also complain that we're not "honoring the spirit" of those terms.

<comment><USER15> Video hosting is expensive, like really expensive. I started a site (scrim.tv) to try and disrupt YouTube for the reasons that are often expressed in posts like these and I'm pretty convinced at this point that YouTube basically breaks even in terms of profit.

<comment><USER16> Youtube isn't broken out from Google in their quarterlies/annuals, so outsiders can't easily know. I think the common belief is that YouTube the video service operates at some amount of a loss, supported by other parts of Google. This is justified (by Google the business) on the basis of market share, free video test data, ads, etc. This does make it particularly difficult to compete with in isolation, of course...

<comment><USER17> Every analysis I have ever seen that says that Youtube is losing money relies on paying commercial T1 provider rates for internet traffic, considering that Google is peered directly with pretty much every single ISP on earth, this titanicly overestimates costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting but note the article is from 2016.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great for making your video ad-free. But things have moved on since then, you can now guarantee 50% of the ad revenue.

[https://youtu.be/Mz14Ul-r63w](https://youtu.be/Mz14Ul-r63w)

<comment><USER20> The point is to prevent ads. If you can set the monetization preference to "not allowed" on your own song, then the new trick might work. It seems rather bazaar for 50% ads + no ads = no ads rather than just being taken down. I wouldn't be surprised if this edge case was fixed already and the system just leaned towards take downs. When people used to add copyrighted music to videos at one of my previous companies (2016), YouTube would immediately take the video down. Rarely did they allow it to stay up with monetization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Saw the headline and knew it'd be Jim. But yeah, this is ancient. Last I'd heard, the old tricks were starting to fall.

</comment><comment><USER22> IANAL, But doesn't monetizing the video and giving the proceeds to the claimant of the original copyright (nintendo) consitute infringement against the derivatives work author(Jim), assuming that the derivative work falls under fair use? Shouldn't Jim be able to sue both nintendo and youtube?

<comment><USER23> This falls apart as soon as it encounters the Terms of Service. [https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms](https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms)

> the Content you submit must not include third-party intellectual property > (such as copyrighted material) unless you have permission from that party or > are otherwise legally entitled to do so. You are legally responsible for the > Content you submit to the Service

> By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non- > exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable licence to use that > Content (including to reproduce, distribute, modify, display and perform it) > for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the Service.

> You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, > royalty-free licence to access your Content through the Service, and to use > that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, modify, display, and > perform it) only as enabled by a feature of the Service.

Once you upload something of yours to Youtube, your only recourse is to take it down again.

<comment><USER13> A company claiming copyright over fair use would be a violation of the derivatives legal rights and could easily be a lawsuit, YouTube would not be a party to it and it requires the content owner to have the money for a multi- year court case.

<comment><USER22> Given the terms pcj50 quotes, I wouldn't think you have any grounds to sue anyone. To me it reads you give them a license to do whatever they please with the uploaded content, that would include monetizing the content and giving the proceeds to someone else.

<comment><USER24> You wouldn't be able to sue _YouTube_ (but you can sue abusers). Abusing DMCA takedowns allows for civil liability (Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Incorporated). The problem is that nobody has bothered suing YouTube DMCA plunderers, because it could get expensive. It wouldn't surprise me if there were a class, so it's surprising that it hasn't happened yet.

<comment><USER25> My understanding is that copyright holders aren't typically filing DMCA complaints against YouTube. They're using YouTube's internal resolution mechanisms which lack the DMCA's disincentives for abuse.

<comment><USER26> This is correct.

Additionally (possibly off-topic) people often misunderstand what sort of abuse the DMCA penalizes.

The DMCA prohibits claiming you own the copyright on some work that you don't. It does NOT prohibit claiming that anything infringes that copyright.

For example, pretend I'm Nintendo. I own the copyright on Mario. Someone posts a video of Mario. I claim that they infringe my copyright on Mario. Valid claim. No perjury penalty.

Someone posts a video of Doom. I claim that they infringe my copyright on Mario. Invalid claim. No perjury penalty! (This is the scenario people think is prohibited.)

Someone posts a video of Doom. I claim that they infringe my copyright on Doom. Invalid claim. Perjury penalty! I don't own any copyright to Doom!

It's the latter (rarely seen) case that the DMCA prohibits. AFAIK YouTube also prohibits that in their ToS.

<comment><USER27> > Someone posts a video of Doom. I claim that they infringe my copyright on > Doom. Invalid claim. Perjury penalty! I don't own any copyright to Doom!

Nor is this necessarily perjury. The actual statement you make under penalty of perjury is "that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." If you believe the statement that you own the copyright on Doom to be true, then it is not perjury, even if you do not actually own it. A case where this would matter a great deal would be the Happy Birthday song--Warner/Chappell believed they owned a copyright that they did not, and thus they could send DMCA takedown notices for people singing that song without fear of perjury (at least, until the courts ruled that they did not own the copyright).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd like to hear if anyone has a better solution than ContentID considering the scale, laws, and stakeholders involved.

Everybody likes shitting on it but it's the best solution to the problem.

</comment><comment><USER29> I particularly love hacks like this. Use the system against itself. Open source exemplifies this, but this is yet another example of the technique.

</comment><comment><USER30> I can't get past this guy's Nazi aesthetic. I know gamers love Nazis but damn at least be subtle about it.

<comment><USER31> It's played up in jest. He's acting like he's some great authority that everyone worships but in reality he isn't (and he knows it, that's the joke). Jim Sterling is big on showmanship, so much so that he eventually got into being a wrestler on the side despite having terrible back problems.

It's like Jack Black's band Tenacious D claiming to be the greatest band that ever lived, knowing full well that they aren't, but pretending they are is part of their shtick.

<comment><USER32> Just to play devil's advocate, Tenacious D doesn't use imagery that, say, evokes ISIS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What a garbage website. Please autoplay video advertisements for me. That is so helpful. Oh wait, who owns it?

p.s. Jim Spanfeller is an herb: Slate Web results The Media-Sensational Rise and Fall of "Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb": [https://slate.com/news-and- politics/2019/11/jim-spanfeller-i...](https://slate.com/news-and- politics/2019/11/jim-spanfeller-is-a-herb-rise-fall-blog-post-deadspin.html)

</comment><comment><USER34> Most articles I've seen about the YouTube system are wildly misinformed.

Here's the facts: in almost all cases [0], anyone can easily get rid of any abusive claim by simply disputing it, and filing a counternotice if and when it is elevated to a DMCA notice (copyright strike). The only way for the copyright holder to prevent this is by actually filing a lawsuit, and being as this requires a lawyer to sign off on, is extremely unlikely to happen for frivolous cases. Any article that claims that this can't be easily disputed, or that the burden of proof is on the YouTuber who uploaded the video (outside of the exception discussed below) is wrong, full stop.

[0] there is an exception for a small number of content owners. See [https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to- yo...](https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to-youtube- removals#contractual-obligations) and [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes- cont...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes-contractual- obligations-users-free-speech). As far as I can tell, the only company known to be part of this is UMG.

<comment><USER35> There are 2 different ways Copyright-Owners can interact with Content Creators via Youtube:

1\. manually file copyright strikes. If a Content creator has 3 of these at once, their entire channel gets taken offline. The dispute resolution mechanism leaves the video in whatever state the copyright owner chose (for possibly 2 months), and they get to keep the revenue from the dispute period, even if they lose (its possible that youtube has changed this).

2\. ContentID. Copyright-Owners just give Youtube a copy of your copyrighted works, and tell it if you'd like videos containing your content to be left alone, monetized for your adsense account, or have the video taken down until the offending content is removed. This can be manual, or automatic. Contesting these is basically impossible (its possible that youtube has changed this).

<comment><USER34> It's possible it worked that way in the past, but it's certainly not the case now.

If disputed within five days, all revenue is escrowed until resolution. And content ID claims can be easily disputed and must be turned into a DMCA claim if not withdrawn. See my post at [https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/how_youtube_copyright_claims_work_from_beginning) which goes into extensive detail on the process with sources. See also the eff links in my above comment which has the same information.

<comment><USER36> This doesn't go into the "three strikes and you're shutdown" which has been used extensively against small creators. For example (and notwithstanding the rest of the issue) how 2k Games knocked the Borderlands 3 leaker (SupMatto) off YouTube, permanently, by making dozens of copyright notices against their channel. There's also the case of Alex Mauer (a song writer) who took several channels offline as a side effect of her legal battle with a videogame creator.

Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline.

As a side note, the revenue escrow is very new. It took YouTube over a decade (Content ID was introduced in 2007) to come to this fairly reasonable middle ground. Just... don't take a vacation, OK?

<comment><USER34> 3 _unopposed_ strikes and you're shutdown.

>Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline.

Note that per [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en)

>If your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, you are eligible for a 7 day courtesy period after 3 copyright strikes before your channel is disabled. During this period, your copyright strikes won't expire and you won't be able to upload new videos. Your channel will remain live and you will be able to access it to seek a resolution for your strikes. If your strikes are resolved through a retraction, or we forward your counter notifications and they are ultimately successful, your channel will not be disabled.

The Youtube Partner Program is the system that allows for monetization, so everyone that's making money off Youtube ads is in it. I.e., everyone who's making money off Youtube ads has 7 days from receiving the strikes to file counternotices, and by my reading their account will remain active until those are resolved one way or the other. It says the channel won't be disabled if the notices are successful, implying that it isn't disabled even temporarily.

Regarding your examples, yes, if there's actual legal action then the creator will be in trouble. But that's true regardless of whether they got strikes or filed a counternotice. I stand by my claim above that legal action in obvious fair use cases is "astonishingly rare".

<comment><USER36> Once again, I would point out that most of these creator friendly policies and programs are quite new. Angry Joe has a video that covers when they were put in place, and most of those occurred in the last year, after a decade of creator-hostile policies.

> you are eligible for a 7 day courtesy

Seven whole days until your channel is closed forever. How generous. See: Vacation, holidays, natural disasters (or PG&E disasters)

Also, why doesn't the copyright claimants also only have a maximum of 7 days to respond? We're talking about Content ID claims here, as a reminder, not DMCA.

> resolved through a retraction, or we forward your counter notifications and > they are ultimately successful

Which can take upwards of 30 days per step in the process, no matter how quickly the creator moves. So, your channel is in hiatus for more 30 days. This is an eternity in a business which relies on consistent and frequent content output to remain soluble.

> there's actual legal action then the creator will be in trouble

Which was _not_ the case in either of the situations I posted. The actions only involved YouTube.

> I stand by my claim above that legal action in obvious fair use cases is > "astonishingly rare".

Does that really matter, if Content ID claims alone have devastated the channel's viewerbase?

Jim Sterling from the article has many a horror story of spending between 6 months and 2 years fighting copyright claims and associated from corporations and CEO's. So does sidalpha and Angry Joe. Can we really claim in good faith that they're lying by pointing at Google FAQs?

<comment><USER34> Most of the policies I'm referencing are a few years old. My reddit post I linked is from around a year ago and talks about all these policies except for the 7 day courtesy period, so I don't know exactly when that went into effect.

Anyway, if people are linking articles from 2016 I'm going to point out the current state of the policies.

>Seven whole days until your channel is closed forever. How generous. See: Vacation, holidays, natural disasters (or PG&E disasters)

It's not forever, you can always file a counternotice after it's been taken down. But yes, you should be prepared to defend your business. You want passive income, you can be prepared to check your email at least once a week.

> >Also, why doesn't the copyright claimants also only have a maximum of 7 > days to respond? We're talking about Content ID claims here, as a reminder, > not DMCA.

That's a fair criticism. Presumably Youtube feels that they need a longer time to satisfy claimants and avoid DMCA filings. Remember, content ID claims do not harm the channel at all, so there's no real rush to get them removed except for getting the ad revenue out of escrow.

>So, your channel is in hiatus for more 30 days.

On my reading you can keep uploading while the counternotice process continues.

>Which was not the case in either of the situations I posted. The actions only involved YouTube.

Looks like Alex Mauer was involved in legal action [https://leonardjfrench.com/2017/06/30/imagos-softworks-v- ale...](https://leonardjfrench.com/2017/06/30/imagos-softworks-v-alex-mauer/). Not familiar with the other case but looks like it's not obviously fair use to share leaked content, could be wrong.

>Jim Sterling from the article has many a horror story of spending between 6 months and 2 years fighting copyright claims and associated from corporations and CEO's. So does sidalpha and Angry Joe. Can we really claim in good faith that they're lying by pointing at Google FAQs?

What are they claiming? Have they claimed to have submitted a counternotice that was rejected? Can you link me to someone going through a timeline, with dates on what was disputed when, showing that Google FAQs are wrong? Because I've not seen that. I have seen someone posting about getting a counternotice rejected mistakenly and getting it overturned by tweeting at Youtube. And then there's the UMG exception as my first comment noted.

But most horror stories I've seen are people who get a bunch of claims and don't even seem to consider filing a counterclaim, or think it's too risky based in bad info. Or, very very rarely, people who actually get sued.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good biographies to read? - <AUTHOR> I enjoy reading biographies. I'm reading "Classic Feynman" right now and it's great! Which ones would you recommend? Thanks!<p>Update: Thanks for the recommendations, thus far! <comment><USER3> Linus's biography, Just For Fun, is not bad.

I have sentimental attachments to Man Out of Time, the Tesla biography.

No Man Knows My History is about Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church. It is naturally controversial to the LDS, for its depiction of Smith as a polygamist con man who fell sideways into a religious racket and never quite fell out. I found it very readable, full of color. It might depend on your interest in the period and the subject matter.

Stephen King's On Writing is about half biography, half writing manual. I thought it was terrific. It's had several rereads already.

<comment><USER3> I forgot another all-time favorite. I must've read this one when I was about 10 and a couple of times since. Genghis Khan: Emperor of All Men, by Harold Lamb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The key thing is to differentiate between a biography and a hagiography.Oppenheimer is a must read let it be "American Prometheus" or my favorite "[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195166736/qid=1151026828/s...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195166736/qid=1151026828/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5599574-8264820?s=books&v=glance&n=283155)".

This guy is awe-inspiring in almost every sense of the word.Despite reading all biographies you still feel a sense of enigma about his personality. Try understanding why the american government revoked his top secret clearance despite being "da man" at Los Alamos. He could walk into any deep technical discussion and lead them through their blocking situations.He can write poetry and amazingly well read about other cultures and still finding time to deliver more than expected results. Thats one heck of a biography to write..

</comment><comment><USER5> The Man Who Knew Infinity, about Ramanujan, is a biography that I reread regularly, if only as an example of somebody who continued to do what he loved against all odds. Whenever I get overly frustrated with a math or programming problem that I can't seem to overcome, I go through some of my favorite passages in there, if only to remind myself how lucky I am to be able to what I love with the support of the people in my life.

Also, I can now safely say that reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X in high school was a key moment in my personal development.

<comment><USER6> Along the same lines, "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers", about Paul Erdos. Very enjoyable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The auto-biography of Benjamin Franklin! Incredibly relevant to entrepreneurship.

<http://www.earlyamerica.com/lives/franklin/> or

<http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/148>

<comment><USER8> I would recommend other biographies over his autobiography. He flatters himself and omits too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Craig Venter's autobiography was intriguing. It would be especially good if you were already familiar with Biology and DNA. I ripped through it and reading it was quite enjoyable.

<comment><USER10> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I liked 'Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction' interesting read. It wasn't a cover to cover for me, more something I could pick up during lulls

</comment><comment><USER12> Gandhi's autobiography is great

Also Jan Swafford's biography of Charles Ives is amazing (genius American composer who was also an early 20th century multimillionaire insurance tycoon)

</comment><comment><USER13> The most entertaining and useful biographies are of people whose most interesting features are flaws. You could read about JFK winning elections despite his crippling levels of charm, and the fact that his dad was one of the richest people in the world; or you can read about Mao, who (according to the last biography I read) was disgusting and dull, but still managed to rule a large country despite the threat of coups. For similar reasons, Shockley is probably more interesting than Noyce, Jobs more fun than Woz, etc. But that depends. After thinking about the question for a little while, I realized that I don't notice that much variation in biography quality. It's there, but I'm mostly using the book to visit a historical period in the company of some interesting characters, so the author/tourguide is not such a big deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I would have to disagree. I think the quality of biographies can vary greatly. Some do not bring the person "to life." An author may only highlight and write about the events of the subject's life, without delving deeper into the personal qualities or characteristics that make someone so intriguing.

I want to be able to understand the subject as thoroughly as possible. Some authors are able to do this more effectively than others, in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I highly recommend Born Standing Up by Steve Martin if you're at all into comedy. One of the more enjoyable books I read recently. I'd say it was entirely unrelated to Hacker News, but pmarca did paraphrase it in his talk at SuS.

<comment><USER15> I second this - I've never really found Steve Martin funny, but I thought his book was very interesting and different from most biographies in that it was about success achieved not through prodigious talent but just years and years of grinding it out and slowly improving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One about the Roman statesman Cicero.

He was an idealist with huge character flaws, which makes him pretty interesting to start with. But he lived in a time when Rome was descending from Republican rule into autocracy - and both resisted and accidentally advanced the change.

On top of that it is pretty interesting reading for a geek - a poor reserved law scholar with speaking problems became one of the greatest orators of history and clawed his way to the top of one of the Roman system, partly due to his command of the minute details of the law.

<comment><USER8> I found Cato more interesting. The Cato vs Caesar rivalry almost has a good vs evil dynamic to it. A Caesar biography should be required reading.

On the subject of evil people, Mao's biography is great. It's hard to believe people so nuts exist, and that people will follow them.

Albert Speer's autobiography is also good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> These might not be biographies but they are good non fiction.

 _It's not about the bike, my journey back to life._ \- Lance Armstrong

 _Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman!_ \- R. Feynman

 _Into thin air_ \- J. Krakauer

</comment><comment><USER18> Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein is superb if you have the slightest interest in him.

</comment><comment><USER19> Tim Pat Coogan's "Michael Collins" is good -- it's as much a condensed history of Ireland from 1916 to the mid 1920s as about Michael Collins.

</comment><comment><USER20> <http://www.biographicon.com>

<http://www.biographicon.com/view/lypys/Democritus>

<http://www.biographicon.com/view/r8r22/Hypatia_of_Alexandria>

<http://www.biographicon.com/view/4yf4i/Ethan_Allen> \- a good start on the New England rebel. One of my favorite books is this entertaining work on the amazing life of Allen: [http://www.amazon.com/Ethan-Allen-Charles-Albert- Jellison/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Ethan-Allen-Charles-Albert- Jellison/dp/0815601891)

<http://www.biographicon.com/view/hhnvz/Johnny_Ramone>

</comment><comment><USER21> Though I know it may not be a single biographical book, Founders at Work is a great series of short biographies/interviews. If you're more interested in any one of them, you can probably find a biography on them or even their personal blogs.

</comment><comment><USER22> The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie- there's an unmistakably personal feel to it, as if Carnegie is sitting right there imparting the lessons and stories of his life to you and you alone. He's an incredible writer and it shines through in every page.

Free download link (don't you love the public domain?): <http://manybooks.net/titles/carnegiea1797617976-8.html>

Richard Branson's autobiography, Losing My Virginity, is also a great read even discounting the perfect title- together, Branson and Carnegie really drive home the importance of taking risks and leveraging up at every opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER23> Not that it's an actual autobiography, but "Journey to the End of the Night" by Louis Ferdinand Celine was based closely on his own life and was really something to read, albeit a tough something to get through at times.

I was warned that it would be difficult to relate to as a "modern-day young democrat" and in my case at least, they were right. I've since bought two more of his books though (all of which seem to be fairly autobiographical) and can't wait to read them as well now.

A word of caution: Not very inspiring material, just interesting literature. And it definitely had a profound influence on many subsequent authors.

</comment><comment><USER24> Assuming you're looking for a slightly hacker oriented biography then I can heartily recommend "The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Inventive Life of Robert Hooke" by Stephen Inwood.

It gives an interesting insight to what it might have meant to have something of the hacker mindset in the 17th Century, and his connection with some of his contemporaries (Newton, Halley, and Wren notable amongst them) add to the general interest. Plus he was a supremely odd and cranky person.

</comment><comment><USER25> John Forbes Nash: "A Beautiful Mind" by Sylvia Nasir

Richard Feynman: "Genius" by James Gleick

"The Passion of Ayn Rand" by Barbara Brandon

"John Adams" and "Truman" by David McCullough

"Lincoln the Unknown" by Dale Carnegie

<comment><USER26> I second the recommendation of _Genius_. It is incredibly rich and stands up well to rereading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tycoon-Henry-American- Century/...](http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tycoon-Henry-American- Century/dp/0375707255/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212090149&sr=8-1) The People's Tycoon - Henry Ford and the American Century. He was a lot of things people didn't realize he was and wasn't a lot things people want to believe he was.

</comment><comment><USER28> James Dyson - Against the odds ([http://www.amazon.com/Against-Odds- Autobiography-James-Dyson...](http://www.amazon.com/Against-Odds- Autobiography-James-Dyson/dp/1587991705))

Very inspiring read, especially the parts about how he kept going for almost 10 years and persevered to truly innovate in a market that had seen no innovation for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER20> Don't miss this short read by Tom Wolfe on co-founder of Intel, Robert Noyce: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=190524>

Better yet, read the full version: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60385> It's excellent.

</comment><comment><USER29> If you have any relatives, famous or not, that have kept a journal, or written family history - it offers a unique biographical reflection. You can read biographies about the greats, but you also can not be something you are not, and reading about relatives can offer needed perspective about your capacities.

</comment><comment><USER30> I just finished reading "My Startup Life" by Ben Casnocha. It's a good introduction to the entrepreneurial world for people just starting the journey, and it has some good insights that can benefit anybody. (Book site: <http://mystartuplife.com/>)

</comment><comment><USER31> It's a bit more than a biography, but I'd recommend "The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America" by Louis Menand. It's about the lives and history surrounding Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey, and the pragmatist philosophy they were involved in creating.

</comment><comment><USER32> Peter the Great: His Life and World, by Massie (this book won a Pulitzer but all his histories are very good)

</comment><comment><USER33> "Yeager" The biography of Chuck Yeager -- first test pilot to break the speed of sound. His description of going above 80,000 feet, the subsequent failure of the aircraft and what he does to regain control is chilling. The book's a good read. Direct and to the point -- like the man himself.

</comment><comment><USER34> George Washington Carver <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver>

Edward W. Bok <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_W._Bok>

</comment><comment><USER35> "Surely you are joking Mr. Feynman" [absolutely rockstar of a autobiography]

"Every Second Counts" Lance Armstrong [poignant]

"A beautiful mind" John Forbes Nash [moving, and heart wrenching]

My personal favourite: "Icon" Steve Jobs

</comment><comment><USER36> I must have read close to 50 biographies.

I love "Titan" about John D. Rockefeller (in many ways a hero of mine). and Losing my Virginity - Richard Branson (so honest and realistic).

</comment><comment><USER37> "Made in America" by Sam Walton turned out to be an unexpectedly good read.

"Let my people go surfing" by Yvon Chouinard (climber and founder of Patagonia) is an all-time favorite.

</comment><comment><USER38> Lincoln's War Cabinet by Hendrick Burton - learn to surround yourself with ideas you don't necessarily agree with and be influenced by the most unlikely minds

<comment><USER39> >"Lincoln's War Cabinet by Hendrick Burton - learn to surround yourself with ideas you don't necessarily agree with and be influenced by the most unlikely minds"

"Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin explores the same topic, specifically how Lincoln made up his cabinet from talented rivals.

Apparently Obama referred to this book (reference [http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/obama- propos...](http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/obama- proposes.html)) which made me curious enough to buy it. It is a great read and a fascinating study in leadership.

<comment><USER38> ah, yes - great book!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm just finishing reading The Fabulous Showman: The Life and Times of P. T. Barnum by Wallace, Irving. Recommended.

</comment><comment><USER41> Thomas Edison or Benjamin Franklin. Such brilliant minds with some many little anecdotes us hackers can relate to.

</comment><comment><USER42> Iacocca: An Autobiography He was responsible for the ford mustang, and later went on the revive Chrysler.

</comment><comment><USER43> I found Peter Kropotkin's autobiography (Memoirs of a Revolutionist) to be rather interesting.

</comment><comment><USER44> The Last Lion - <USER2>

</comment><comment><USER45> J Paul Getty - As I See It.

Carl Icahn (unofficial, out of print) - King Icahn

</comment><comment><USER46> Shantaram - amazing.

<comment><USER47> Too amazing to be biographical; so classified as fiction [http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi- bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&DB=loc...](http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi- bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&DB=local&CMD=010a+2004050316&CNT=10+records+per+page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Monash: The outsider who won a war. - Roland Perry.

</comment><comment><USER49> theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln. Great leaders

<comment><USER8> White supremacist imperialists and proto-fascists, but hey whatever floats your boat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Richard Feynman: "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman".

Not a conventional biography, but Richard wasn't a conventional man either.

</comment><comment><USER51> If you want to go philosophical, read Gandhi's My Expirements with Truth.

<comment><USER52> Not just philosophical, very practical.

PG's "lies we tell kids" is just scratching the problem that Gandhi dedicated his whole life: can you live in a society and always tell the truth and only truth?

<comment><USER51> Very true. He has noted that he had told only one lie in his life. You can find his famous quotes here.

<http://thinkexist.com/quotes/mahatma_gandhi/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found Crazy Horse fascinating. He was this eccentric loner and then much to his dismay thousands of people started to follow him around in a time of crisis because he seemed to know what he was doing. Then he had this bizarre christ-like death.</comment>


Where do app downloads actually come from? - <AUTHOR> http://arc.applause.com/2015/05/07/app-discovery-and-download-solutions/

<comment><AUTHOR> Google's report may be a little self-serving, but it does show some interesting trends in app discovery.</comment>


Why some software companies still make you talk to a salesperson - <AUTHOR> https://blog.reifyworks.com/why-some-software-companies-still-make-you-talk-to-a-salesperson-4de8e946afe4#.3zs4rd8hl <comment><USER2> It's pretty funny doing it the other way, where your customers expect a huge sales process and you built out self-serve first.

You hear things like: "We'd like to set up a meeting to plan a trial in Q1 and a full deployment in Q3"

Well, how I would do it is go to the form on the front page, add a credit card and do the trial. When Q3 comes I'd go the plan page and slide it all the way to the right.

Of course, that's not how their purchasing works, so you hold extra meetings and add extra cost. But it's funny when someone tries to jump through hoops and you have to hold them up for them.

<comment><USER3> From the enterprise customer side, I assure you, we also feel your pain.

<comment><USER4> I recently bought a piece of enterprise software and before we got our login credentials the company we bought it from made me complete a six hour software training.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some good points here, but doesn't help the frustration as a potential customer.

The old adage when the price listed says '$ call us', it's a big number. For a certain class of application (ERPs, CMS, etc), sure does make sense, because pricing is very complex. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I would be baffled by a company that tells me the cost is tens or hundreds of dollars, but this doesn't exist.

The middle ground is products that are in the low hundreds to several thousands of dollars. There's a number of times where I have come across something that appears to fulfill a need I have, but that I could also do myself (whether by spending a week or because there's an open-source version that does 80% to base on).

Keep in mind there's always extra friction and admin overhead to dealing with commercial software, which has to be considered as part of purchasing: does it need a license to run on my build server? Does it have any kind of per-user charge, requiring extra system work to track? Are there redistribution licensing problems? Is there some stupid DRM that's going to cause me grief? Are you capable of dealing with a separate technical user (me) and paying user (my accounting department)? Am I going to have to deal with annual renewals? etc..

So if it turns out the direct cost is less than building it myself, it's a much easier decision. If it's significantly higher, now I have to really weigh the above against the opportunity cost and risk.

When I can't even see where in the spectrum the software lies, but I'm going to have to spend at least 30 minutes on the phone with some sales person to figure that out (plus probably deal with them periodically harassing me for the next year), the whole thing is that much less appealing.

I tend to move on to the next one, and only come back if there are no remotely similar options. It makes me sad a bit because there's no way this company can know they lost me as a customer merely by putting '$ call us' (even if the price would have been acceptable).

<comment><USER6> >When I can't even see where in the spectrum the software lies, but I'm going to have to spend at least 30 minutes on the phone with some sales person to figure that out (plus probably deal with them periodically harassing me for the next year), the whole thing is that much less appealing.

Just went through this exact process with Bomgar. Our company was debating between TeamViewer and Bomgar. TV = All pricing on page. BG = Can't see anything, must call in and 'speak to salesman'.

The sales process with BG was so long and drawn out - multiple emails to setup calls, wouldn't provide basic info in writing, etc. In the end we just went with TeamViewer highest end edition.

Came to find out about a month later that Bomgar pricing may've been the cheaper option for our use case. Oh well...

<comment><USER7> I did something like this when choosing a builder to build a new house. $200k+ decision.

The ones with their pricing for fixed plans listed publicly on their site got our business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No. The reason you have to talk to a sales person is so they can size you up and figure out how much they can charge. It's called price discrimination.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. When there is no price list, I do not even bother to go further, I switch to another product/company.

Else I know I am gonna get screwed. First, the price will be set as my face fits (there is even an expression for that in my language, I am unsure how it translates to English which does not seem to have the equivalent saying); that means depending how the salesman judges me, he will set a price according to the maximum of what he imagines I am ready to pay. If I call from another company, I may get a different offer for the same product. If I word my request differently, he may infer I am the sucker of the day.

Then he will expect me to bargain. Fuck that. That means his second or final offer still provides him the reasonable benefit he needs. Which also means that he only provides lubricant now and he was ready to fuck me dry with the same plastic smile in the first place if I did not bargain. How can I trust someone like that? How can I trust I got a fair price? What if I hear someone else got a different price? Will I be pissed at the seller or... very pissed at the seller?

Oh, and meanwhile, he has wasted my time, and he has wasted his own time talking and talking, or exchanging several mails across several days. I have had salesmen coming to my office, and then during the meeting calling their company each time I asked something to get a different price than the official one. What is the point of this cinema? I know the guy on the phone is just reading a price list, he's not making complex financial calculations for stuff in the range of $100. Why doesn't the first guy have it? He knows he's not going to use the official price anyway.

If they get kicks from that, that's fine, find themselves a game or a sport that does the same. Because now they are costing their company money, and that money has to be taken from _the price I pay_ , so I necessarily pay more than if they had just put a price list. _Price list that they do have ready_ , because they're not pulling the prices they tell me out of their asses. But they keep it 'secret', as keeping it secret is the only justification of their job existence.

I just want a price list, that includes the proper benefit to have their company live fine, that's all. I can read the varying "prices per quantity" columns as the salesman does, thank you.

EDIT: and I forgot the case when the price is 1 or 2 orders of magnitude _higher_ than what we can afford. I want to know it _immediately_ , before I spend any minute considering the product, which may be all bells an whistles, but since I cannot afford anyway, it doesn't matter. So it makes me adjust my expectations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this article misses the biggest reason Sales exists as a profession: because customers need help understanding what they're buying!

It costs money to hire Sales people, and if a company were able to sell its products entirely as a self-service option, that would help them improve margins. So people in the Sales profession have to justify their existence every single day - what have you done for me lately etc.

The only way to succeed in the profession is to show results, to help customers understand and extract the value of what they're buying so they can come back to buy more and tell their friends.

You might see Sales people succeed in the short-term by lying or cheating their customers but that doesn't last. Your reputation catches up to you. Depending on the industry, every one knows everyone else, and the only way to truly succeed in the long term is to make sure you create a win-win for both the customer and your employer, every time, on every sale.

<comment><USER11> > I think this article misses the biggest reason Sales exists as a profession: > because customers need help understanding what they're buying!

This is another common and overlapping problem, companies that can't explain what they're selling. No one should need to talk to a salesman to understand what they're buying, if they do then the marketing has failed. I wonder if this is caused be sales teams being in charge of the website and not wanting to make themselves obsolete.

It seems to be infecting OSS too, just last night I was considering installing fedora but the website manages to tell me absolutely nothing ([https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/](https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/)).

<comment><USER12> > No one should need to talk to a salesman to understand what they're buying, > if they do then the marketing has failed.

I think it's a bit simplistic to suggest that an entirely one-way communication can solve all problems well.

<comment><USER11> Where did I suggest that? No one is saying you can't have information and salesmen.

<comment><USER13> information doesn't upsell itself

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not listing the price is an instant no purchase for me. I can't evaluate the worth without knowing the price.

<comment><USER14> I am in two minds about this. While I agree that listing the price is best (we do this), many potential customers have a very poor idea of the worth of a software product to them. We find many of our customers had at first dismissed our products because they didn't know what they do. This is where sales staff are supposed to step in and help the customer understand the value.

<comment><USER9> Write proper documentation.

<comment><USER14> Having just spent the last three week writing a manual for a new product I have to laugh at the suggestion. Absolutely nobody reads manuals.

<comment><USER11> Documentation and manuals are two different things. A lot of people read documentation.

<comment><USER14> I am not too sure what the difference is between documentations and manuals other than the format. The funny thing is if you don't provide a manual people ask where is the manual, but if you do they don't read it.

<comment><USER11> A manual will typically document every function of the software in mind numbing fashion. "Section 4, Subsection 7 - Adding Foos - To add a new foo click the add button as indicated in the picture below".

Documentation is much more encompassing and often in more of a wiki format. You could include a recipes section for example, which apart from being useful for customers, it can also show off what the software can do. A FAQ section is another very common one. People asking for a manual is really people asking "how do I do X".

<comment><USER14> Well by this standard the manuals I write are documentation. Nobody reads them :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing to note is most people, often especially those with purchasing authority in a company, are not technical and don't care about software in itself. They need solutions to their problems first and foremost. Often, the best way of educating them is through a sales process that breaks down the discovery and identification of the problem and mapping that to solutions that currently exist or can be made to exist with the product offering of a company. The stereotype of an overly pushy car salesperson is a caricature; the best sales people are good at educating potential buyers and thinking through problems they face...not aggressively ramming excessive products down your throat. That being said, there are plenty of terrible sales people out there, to be certain, but it is not useless or misguided as many other folks are alluding to in this thread. I am not aware of any software company doing north of a billion in revenue without a sales function.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not only do they make you talk to a salesperson before buying their software... a lot of these places make you talk to a "salesperson" (i.e. an internal recruiter) before even referring your resume to someone who can actually evaluate it. Which is sad because I find these "buffer" discussions to be a waste of time, and all-around drag coefficient in the process, generally.

(Though I understand also what secondary functions they serve -- or at least appear to serve -- for some companies).

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting how these techniques translate over to recruiting too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Salespeople are most effective in situations where convincing one person or one committee within a large prospective company to buy your product will unleash tens or better yet hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to you, the seller. Most other situations should probably be handled with a great web page that shows reasonable pricing.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think Atlassian is the reference for this. Next to no salespeople, prices up front. Seems to work for them.

<comment><USER15> They are actually more of an exception to the rule. It's certainly possible to have a good software business that is self-service through and through, but very few large (as in multi-billion $$) software companies actually are this way. Even the companies you might think of as good examples will still often have a sales operation to go and get the big contracts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Call us" is an instant no sale for me.

I also don't buy from companies that don't publish their manuals online. I nearly always read the manual before buying, because 99% of the time the marketing copy or "specifications" page is inadequate to properly evaluate the product. If the manuals aren't published, they might have something to hide or they might be in the habit of making documentation conditional on support contracts. Either way it makes it impossible for me to evaluate the product.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's a fun fact that lots of companies require that you call them for the price of their very simple and standardized-products, but I know exactly how much it costs to send my stuff to mars.

[http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities](http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities)

</comment><comment><USER21> yep. You know how much effort engineering takes? Sales takes the same effort, from people of similarly specialised actual talents.

Respect your sales people - they need to be as good at their gig as you are at yours.

<comment><USER9> > You know how much effort engineering takes? Sales takes the same effort,

Yeah, sure. That's the perfect example of typical commercial bullshit speech that drives me nuts at you guys.

> from people of similarly specialised actual talents.

Yeah sure, they are not at all people who ended up there because:

1\. They were not able to do anything else.

2\. They have a lust for money and playing with people.

Please cut the crap, when you hold this kind of speeches, I know you're already trying to make me a fool.

<comment><USER22> I think sales takes a lot more effort. I guess things are subjective?

By the way, salespeople who make 6 or 7 figures in commission per annum didn't pick that job because they weren't "able to do anything else."

Are you telling me SV engineers have picked jobs where they make 6 figures coincidentally? Or maybe they just ended up there because:

1\. They were shy nerds who couldn't do anything but code 2\. They hate money so they pick jobs that put them in the 90th income percentile

Or maybe... it looks like things are a bit more complicated and clichés aren't adding much to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What if companies listed the mean, median, and mode pricing for their solutions?

"Here are the mean, median, and mode prices for the solutions we offer to our customers:" ?

</comment><comment><USER24> Talking to a salesperson is a good way to get a tremendous discount. Wait until you're near the end of quarter and they're desperate to fill their quota.

<comment><USER9> It means they screw you with great contentment the other months. I don't wanna deal with such individuals.</comment></comment>


Why success for Banjo means you should leave your phone in your pocket - <AUTHOR> http://untether.tv/2012/why-success-for-banjo-means-you-dont-need-to-take-your-phone-out-of-your-pocket-with-founder-damien-patton-part-2// <comment><USER2> Soon, we won't even need to turn the phone on.</comment>


Case closed: why most of USA lacks 100Mbps 'Net connections - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/case-closed-why-most-of-usa-lacks-100mbps-net-connections.ars

<comment><USER3> One estimate of over $200 Billion has gone in extra payments and fee allowances to telecoms.

In Pennsylvania, Verizon et al. were given billions of extra fees, in return they were to provide high speed broadband of T1 speed or better. They took the fees, but did not deliver the broadband; later it was found that due to the way the law was worded, no penalty for non-performance could be applied.

IMHO, the ONLY thing that telecoms understand is force or the threat of force. Get serious about opening up rights of way that the state government already has, to all comers, and they will act quickly to drop prices and improve service.

<comment><USER4> No kidding. Apparently getting your city to build its own fiber network is a sure fire way to get a telecom off its ass, as demonstrated by a Minnesota suburb:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=907617>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm still not sold on the idea that we all need 100Mbit+ Internet connections. It's like building 4 lane highways to replace rural backroads. Most people aren't going to pay significantly more so it's not an appealing venture for private companies to make on their own except where competition exists and they have to offer more competitive packages in an effort to play defense. They're not doing it because offering a wideband connection brings in tons of new customers or more revenue from existing customers. It's purely a defensive move. There's also some question of how much bandwidth is enough. I move from a 10Mbit connection at home to a 100Mbit+ connection at work and I don't notice any difference. Sure files download quicker but we're talking 10 seconds versus 20 seconds in most cases. I can't really think of anything I can't do on a 10Mbit/sec connection. I'm also at a loss to figure out what room exists for innovation. Better quality streaming video? Sure I guess so but all things considered that's not my top concern.

So instead of focusing on raw speed maybe we should be focusing on reliability, pricing, latency, improved customer service, and a modest increase in speeds to get us all to this 10-15Mbit/sec range that is completely acceptable performance. Get people some choice so they at least have 2 or 3 providers and, over time, they will compete with each other as faster speeds are actually something customers need/want and not just a statistic that has almost no real meaning today.

<comment><USER6> Is there anything that you do in the office or within your home LAN that you can't do remotely? Extremely large video files, transparent network storage, etc.? Then you'll find a use for 100 mbit Internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps if someone researched where most telecom lobbying dollars went - <USER2> which government/(congressional?) positions tend to have their people siphoned off by the telecom corporations... we might discover where there is disincentive to get these recommendations into action.

As one famous whistle-blower said, "follow the money." [/cynicism]

<comment><USER8> If this chart ( [http://www.creditloan.com/infographics/corporate- campaigning...](http://www.creditloan.com/infographics/corporate-campaigning- where-do-politicians-get-their-money/) ) is to be believed, ATT was the largest donor in the 2010 election cycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> AT&T stopped by my home to say that they ran fiber (uverse) to my building. Great, but I have to buy a TV subscription to get internet from them! Same policy from Verizon FIOS.

Ironically, my cable company allows me to get internet only _and_ they are faster (20/2 vs 18/1.5). Certainly none them are 100Mbps.

<comment><USER10> I have verizon FIOS and have no TV contract.... hmm

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "And a huge chunk of the population (over 30 percent) never go online at all—less because they're retired and not interested; more often because they can't afford the prices."

From the survey, the main reasons given for no internet use at any location are...

Don't Need/Not Interested: 47.2%

No Computer or Computer Inadequate: 22.3%

Too Expensive: 18.6%

Lack of Skill: 4.3%

Can Use Somewhere Else: 1.4%

Other: 5.5%

To me, it looks like more people don't go online because they aren't interested (47.2%) than because they can't afford it (22.3%+18.6% = 40.9%).

Of Americans without internet access (31.3% of the population) only 18.6% go without because of the cost of access. That's just 5.8% of population who can't afford access, which seems like a very small fraction to me. Now, slightly more of those without access attribute it to a lack of a computer, but this isn't something that can be fixed through the market for internet access.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is not the first time where deregulation of an industry that happened in the past decade has brought about bad results.

<comment><USER13> Giving an industry subsidies and protecting it from competition is not dereguation. It's regulation.</comment></comment>


Anandtech Reviews the Eee Pad Transformer - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4277/asus-eee-pad-transformer-review

<comment><USER2> This looks really awesome. The tablet price is almost about right, but the dock is a hair too pricey.

In concept though (and apparently in practice if all of the iPad owners who tote their tablet around with keyboard in tow is any indication) this is a potential future of computing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm waiting if I can use CTRL and META in Connectbot. If that's true, this thing will replace my EEEPC 1001HE.</comment>


Trouble Ticket System is broken - <AUTHOR> http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2008073345215.gif

<comment><USER2> While I am tired of people bitching about Redditization and of people bitching about the bitching about Redditization, I still want to bitch that giving away the punch line wasn't very nice at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of a software vendor who sold us our Accounts Payable system. It didn't work. So we couldn't pay them.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's funny. I found this on my own and thought about posting it here, then I saw this.</comment>


Show HN:WebEngage - a better KissInsights with advanced targeting and reporting - avlesh-singh

We have recently launched an improved version of short surveys for websites called WebEngage. WebEngage surveys are displayed on a users website via a light-weight JS widget. There are some advanced survey features inside WebEngage -
a. Ability to add multiple questions to a single survey (it is shown as one question at a time to the user).
b. Ability to target these surveys on advanced parameters, like -

    Referring websites (e.g show a survey only to visitors from Google).

    Cookie, Browser and Platform based targeting.

    URL pattern based targeting.

    For "first time visitors only" targeting etc.
 c. The aggregate response to each survey displays visual charts on survey performance, answers to the survey, user demography etc - these stats are comparable to best survey tools out there.
Do give it a try - http://webengage.com. Look forward to your feedback. <comment><AUTHOR> I personally use WebEngage in my blog - it turns out that its a real delight to use it as an admin when it comes to feedback & creating those small relevant timebound surveys on the fly. So would definitely recco it if you're looking for a real delightful product.

<comment> avlesh-singh Thanks Sampad for those kind words.

</comment></comment><comment> avlesh-singh Clickable - <http://webengage.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> You already did a "Show HN: WebEngage" 3 days before this one.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463407>

Why are you spamming HN?

<comment><USER3> You call twice in three days, spamming?

He clearly didn't get enough uptake from the first submission and wants to try his luck again. HN is very fickle about time of submission. Even good submissions can be pretty much buried if done at a poor time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a big fan of <http://www.luckyorange.com/></comment>


Project 100 - <AUTHOR> http://goproject100.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a bit worrying that they should have to bet on the Tesla S gimmick to give the project some traction. Are there no other ways to attract the people of Las Vegas to a modern transportation system ?</comment>


Accepting credit cards online for recurring payments in Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.piesync.com/blog/2013/accepting-credit-cards-recurring-payments-europe/

<comment><USER2> I find it strange that everytime I read something about payments in Europe it's about credit cards. I don't know anybody here in Germany that uses credit cards as their main way for payment, most people I know don't even own a credit card. If you don't offer direct debit or wire transfer I won't buy anything from you.

<comment><USER3> If you want to sell internationally, credit cards are practically the only way possible. If you ask me, there is no standardized way to allow users to pay via wire transfer (internationally and instantly). Heck, even amazon.com does not support international wire transfer.

I think even consumers are getting used to the fact that ordering online internationally is done mostly via credit cards.

Another question is, how would you handle automatic recurring payments?

<comment><USER4> The standard way of handling recurring payments is to send recurring invoices and have users pay those. I don't see the issue.

(I agree with you that CC's are the only practical way nonetheless.)

<comment><USER3> Yes that's true, and many businesses work that way. It heavily depends on the use case.

That's why I carefully added "internationally and instantly" between brackets here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well my experience with braintree is that if your business model is innovative enough they won´t take the risk to process your payments (told personally by a braintree representative in a phone conversation, after a brief explanation of our business model). At least they are very kind, and they´ll tell you before hand, so you don´t have to waste time with all the legal paraphernalia. A pity because the API seems really fast to implement and well thought.

Respecting Paymill... well we are not going to put data on the hands of the Samwer brothers right away(just in case...).

edit: typo.

<comment><AUTHOR> The API does work like a charm. If history can be a reference, Paymill is going to get bought by one of the big players who want a quick start in the European market (Stripe comes to mind). But I do get your reluctance.

What alternatives are you now considering?

<comment><USER5> By now we are working with Paypal to show the concept (Not an API you would recommend dough...). But we are planing to create a Ltd. in the states to work with Stripe. It will also make it easier to close a round with american VCs. We are based in Spain and the Spanish VCs are not what you could call that "venturous". They are more likely to invest in "me too" startups, or proven models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Are there any other important payment solutions we should be looking out for (available in Europe, Belgium) that I forgot to mention in the blog?

<comment><USER6> As I just posted in the comments on your blog, Google Wallet is a serious consideration if your app is available in the Chrome Web Store (or on the Play Store). They charge relatively little and support European accounts and subscriptions.

There's also the Google Apps Marketplace to consider if your app targets the enterprise, which also hooks into the same payments APIs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another interesting discussion on this topic: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091069> (not limited to recurring payments)

</comment><comment><USER8> Is Braintree really holding the first $3000 in reserve until you stop using them? That sounds rather weird and unexpected.

<comment><USER9> It's neither weird nor unexpected. Reserve accounts are a decades-old tool of the credit card processing industry for approving new or unusual businesses.

The bank is taking a considerable risk: whatever the merchant's expected transaction volume is, the bank could be on the hook for up to 6 months worth if that business were to go bankrupt or otherwise disappear without fulfilling its obligations to customers. They would all charge back their payments, and with the merchant gone, the bank underwriting the merchant account is on the hook for all that money. If they start out at $10k a month in revenue, that's $60k in risk for the bank.

If a company has no track record, poor or no credit, or a business model that doesn't fit well into a known risk model, the bank can mitigate the risk that it'll lose money by establishing a reserve account. It might be a fixed reserve (i.e. $3000 for a new company with low expected initial volume), or a rolling reserve (i.e. holding back 15% of your gross sales up to some limit for an existing account that has seen a jump in its chargeback rate).

The alternative is to deny the application altogether. Now, a bit of speculation... Stripe, PayPal Pro and other 3rd-party processors that act like first-party processors are able to take more risks (like letting you start taking payments right away without a formal application and underwriting) because they've negotiated permission with their underwriting bank to process payments on behalf of their customers with only one or a few real merchant accounts. By pooling many customers on one account, and charging a premium on the fees, they can absorb more losses and even handle merchants with >1% chargeback rates without the underlying merchant account reaching those risk barriers, which is all Visa/MasterCard/Amex care about... as long as on average, their customers are running legitimate, healthy businesses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's a nice post, glad you have got the solution for recurring payments. In India we don't have that open yet.</comment>


Linux gaming is BETTER than windows? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T_-HMkgxt0 <comment><USER2> Back in 1998, a group of my friends and I all built "Celeron 300A Dual CPU" boxes, to, among other things, play Starcraft under WINE.

At the time, with a little bit of PCB modification, you could modify the relatively inexpensive 300A CPUs ($150 each IIRC), and get them to run in dual socket boards at 450MHz. I recall the similar CPU rated for 450MHz dual socket being $500 or $1000 each.

Windows, at the time, had no ability to run on multi-processor machines, where Linux had pretty good support for it already.

So one could run StarCraft under WINE under Linux, spread out some different tasks like graphics from the body of the game engine, and run the game significantly faster under Linux than under Windows.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not really.

But I'm glad that Steam and WINE exist.</comment>


Hackers Prove They Can 'Pwn' the Lives of Those Not Hyperconnected - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/hackers-prove-they-can-pwn-the-lives-of-those-not-hyperconnected/ <comment><USER3> This is a silly article with an alarmist title. They look at a list of sites she likes on Facebook, then they phish her from one of them. Then she lets them into her house where they look for post-it notes with passwords on them. For a grand finale, they open her garage door. I guess the takeaway here is don't let people that identify themselves as "hackers" through your door and into your home office if you have passwords written on post-its, but I am fairly certain this is a rare occurrence.

<comment><USER4> I'd disagree, I think is an excellent example of people who think they don't need to worry about security because they aren't on the Internet very much. It was all pretty mundane I agree, right up until they had her power of attorney and social security number.

This should be a wake up call to the have-nots: You aren't safe just because you don't post on Facebook and you don't use the computer. Just because you don't drive doesn't mean you can't be hit by a car.

<comment><USER3> _> It was all pretty mundane I agree, right up until they had her power of attorney and social security number._

They only got these _after she let them into her house and gave them physical access to her computer_. Of course it's only common sense that anyone that is allowed into your home and onto your computer can "pwn" you and worse - <USER2> or not. That's why 99.9% of people, including this woman, wouldn't allow strangers into their home and give them unfettered physical access to their computer.

The article title implies that they were able to "pwn" her through "hacking". The only mildly interesting they did in this regard was the spear-phishing attack based on her Facebook likes.

<comment><USER4> As I read it, they got that information from her email, and were I a betting man I'd say probably Yahoo or Gmail. They already had her password; getting it from the website would be trivial. This is all my own assumption of course.

The underscore here is that a limited use case person, someone who occasionally posts limited things and doesn't do anything beyond casual ebaying can still be a victim.

<comment><USER3> Yes, they got it from email, but they didn't get into the email until they were in the house and got the password from a post-it note for the main account, and the daughter had the browser auto-fill it. They wouldn't have had either of these without a willing participant that let them into the house to find the information. It's like saying "I was easily able to rob the bank vault after the manager opened it".

<comment><USER4> You make it sound like achieving remote access to this machine with two dozen malicious programs on it would be difficult. I highly doubt the machine is as hardened as her Facebook is.

The chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well actually, looking at the things my parents and parents in law did on their home networks, their Smart TVs and so on, having this in a understandable form for the lay person is really good.

To understand, that your door opener, your TV and other things can be "hacked" is important. The information to use different passwords for every service is important.

We as people in the know have to help our elders and peers to see how easy it is to use a pwd-mgr and have a little bit more basic security.

If nothing more, this piece goes a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER6> Don't trust password managers. They are hackable pieces of software just like the ones you are trying to protect. And they are not reliable (see last news of Lastpass acquisition by LogMeIn).

I'm not saying you should ditch password managers and just memorize all of your password. I'm just saying: use them as a well-informed user.

Back in the days, Bruce Schneier suggested to write passwords down on a piece of paper and keep it in your wallet as the _least weak_ security measure. Today, based on this article[0], he actually recommends the use of a password manager _" [...] simply because it allows you to choose longer and stronger passwords."_, which basically means it's the lesser of two evils.

[0] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/09/security_of_p...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/09/security_of_pas.html)

<comment><USER7> Not all password managers are commercial, closed-source, and cloud-connected. This probably wasn't a main point of yours, but since you mentioned LastPass I felt this should be clarified.

I'm currently using PasswordSafe (in Wine on Linux) with git to version/synchronize between systems. It _is_ kinda painful, but at least it's nice to not be syncing to somebody's cloud or running in a browser.

I've been thinking about converting an old Android device into a more secure password manager. I envision having the device hold the decryption key for the PW "vault" as long as it's connected to my authenticated system. I either request credentials from the PC and approve on-device, or select them on the screen, and it types them as a USB keyboard (or perhaps some other way less prone to garden-variety keyloggers.) I guess I haven't because it's kind of a lot of effort and will lower convenience levels. :)

I ought to at least find a better way than the clipboard, to transfer passwords from the manager app to the browser etc...

<comment><USER8> I want a small hardware, non-connected tablet that acts exclusively as a password manager. It connects to the computer I'm using as a USB keyboard device and only "types" a password when I physically tell it to ("yubikey on steroids"). Backups and system updates via flash card with encrypted filesystem. No wifi, no bluetooth, no phone, no ethernet, no other purpose.

Edit: heh, that's funny, you edited your comment as I was replying? Now we just need someone to build it for us :)

<comment><USER9> This exists: [https://hackaday.io/project/86-mooltipass](https://hackaday.io/project/86-mooltipass)

<comment><USER7> Cool, thanks! It's funny that I and other potential target audience members here, were apparently unaware of this; the internet is a big place. It's a bit too expensive for me, I think -- at least the pre-assembled version. I may steal the smartcard idea, though (or some other form of hardware security.) It might be possible to coerce a phone's SIM slot into serving as an interface to a card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Summary: Hackers send grandmother phishing mail. Grandmother enter her email address and password. Hackers go into house of Grandmother. Hackers change settings on router and and television of grandmother.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I don't consider the phishing scams interesting at all. This seems like more of a marketing stunt than anything. And it's borderline not hacking.

They actually didn't even do the whole thing themselves. Instead hired a phishing service...

To me this is more similar to people dressed as UPS truck drivers going inside an apartment and stealing keys. Or a cashier taking a picture of a customer's credit card.

P.S. Excellent bot if it is a bot. It seems to be taking sides on an issue and not just summarizing, which I haven't seen happen previously with any other summary bots.

<comment><USER12> Social Engineering is absolutely hacking. This wasn't a sophisticated example, but it's still a very real threat.

<comment><USER13> I guess I have a narrower definition of hacking, specifically that it is using technology in a way it wasn't intended. If you ask someone for their credentials and they give them to you, I don't see that as being "a hack," although I guess modern parlance would say the victim "was hacked."

<comment><USER14> "Hacking" is in everyday parlance not too far from "gaining unauthorised access to a technical system."

Social engineering is often a very efficient alternative to rainbow tables, wiretapping, buffer overruns and other technical exploits.

<comment><USER12> It's often the only or best way too. The more secure a place is the easier it is to get in. People become very trusting. Carry a clipbord and look like you know where you're going and you can walk damn near anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _" Critical points were that Mrs. Walsh needed a new garage door opener..."_

I'm surprised they only care about the electronic locks and didn't show how easy it is to pick most of the mechanical locks. Especially when they are talking about the "not hyperconnected" hacks.

<comment><USER16> Or, you know, break the window, if the garage has a window, or use some other more brute force technique. Less stealthy, but not incredibly different for most purposes.

<comment><USER17> And with just a roll of duct tape you can silently break a window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Fake virus warnings also sucker a lot of older people. Putting them on Chromebooks kills a lot of birds with one stone.

<comment><USER19> There's still the possibility of malicious Chrome extensions: I had to eliminate one or two from my son's Chromebook recently. The naive will always be vulnerable to bad actors unfortunately.

<comment><USER20> I recommend this extension to find malicious chrome extensions. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-apps- extens...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-apps-extensions- de/ohmmkhmmmpcnpikjeljgnaoabkaalbgc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So many people here are dismissing this as unsophisticated.

Burglars have always targeted items that are valuable to them. Easy to sell, gets a good price, etc.

Now we have digital assets in the home, and burglars are going to focus on those things too. For most of the population, and probably many of "us", physical access to those digital assets isn't particularly secure. And to have those assets "taken" today is much more far reaching than to have lost a stereo or checkbook.

Just because the attacker had to get off his couch and go somewhere shouldn't minimize this threat. "Physical access means's you're pwned" is a true statement.

One thing I do at home, for example, is to use full disk encryption on my laptop, _and hibernate it when I leave_. So that if someone steals it, it's just a plastic brick. For exactly the scenario described in the article.

<comment><USER22> I have always considered it to be a good practice to use disk encryption on laptops (or other mobile devices), but after thinking about the burglar scenario, I think it is better to encrypt the desktops as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> >> To spare Mrs. Walsh any actual harm, the hackers used a service called Phish5, which does not actually store passwords and is often used by employers to test employees' ability to spot malicious phishing cons.

I'm signing up for Phish5. Looks like exactly what I need for my team.

</comment><comment><USER24> An interesting piece and definitely has some merit depending on the audience. False sense of security. Bad habits. This is kind of an exaggerated approach to teaching.

For anybody who doubts that "gaining physical access" automatically disqualifies the results, let me share a recent uptick in a specific con in my area that could very well be adapted as a template to other unsuspecting areas:

Two men in hard-hats and workman clothes approach a home, clipboard in hand, and claim to be with the "power company" and want to have a moment of time to talk about some trees close to the power lines. It's a right of way issue. They ask for the resident to come out and take a look with them. All seems pretty normal.

The talker gets the person or couple's attention while the other makes a quick excuse to go back to the truck out in front of the house. The talker carries on about how they're going to take care of the trees at no cost to the residents, and they act very cordial overall. Meanwhile, the partner has gone into the home via the front door which was left unlocked, goes for the most likely targets of value (ex: jewelry). The partner goes to the truck while talker wraps up and leaves. By the time the residents notice anything is amiss, the duo are long gone.

Trust-cons are a huge issue for a large portion of the population, in my opinion. Being prepared to be charmed while being fleeced is not how normal people go about their day.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's easy to dismiss it as a phishing scam but these days some of them can be very convincing and elaborate. It's not hard to obscure URLs, obtain good looking SSL certs, and have a good story behind it. Social engineering will always work.

</comment><comment><USER26> So "those not hyperconnected" means just normal people?

I don't claim to be hacking proof since I don't control every bit of my data myself, but if someone came into my house they wouldn't find passwords in a notebook or saved passwords in my browsers

</comment><comment> tefo-mohapi This is more about how hackers use phishing (old) to get passwords etc. Nothing new. Actually looks like phishing works best on those not hyperconnected or heavy internent users because they would most likely know the pitfalls.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hackers can "pwn" you by not even hacking you. If someone can hack e.g. your phone provider or something you can get even worse problems and you did not anything wrong.

</comment><comment><USER27> does anyone really say 'Pwn' anymore?

<comment><USER28> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Aren't they crackers instead of hackers?

</comment><comment><USER30> yeah you can break into anyone's homes without a computer, imagine that media!

</comment><comment><USER31> So cute :)</comment>


Marketing software through affiliates - <AUTHOR> http://successfulsoftware.net/2009/01/26/marketing-software-through-affiliates/

<comment><USER2> I write affiliate systems and have to say that they do work very well for the company using affiliates. The affiliates that actually make enough to quit their day job are probably few and far between, however. There are also a few shady characters out there that can make your business look bad and also flat- out steal from you/other affiliates.</comment>