Show HN: Play music by typing - <AUTHOR> http://benzguo.com/bayan <comment><USER2> I created a music auto-player since I was too lazy to play your guy's songs by myself. Paste this in the console.

      // SETTINGS
      var input = "rsa ecde srgu yhgr bv rsa ecde srgu yhgr bv hybtg ser erv";
      input += " hybtg iii r hybtg ser erv tvr rrr rvgres rrr rvg rrr rvgres ";
      input += "ggg rgh grs sxebbe cuuuhbgres grs sxebbe cbbbgvrsai";
      var TIME_INTERVAL = 300;

      // Add jquery
      var script = document.createElement('script');
      script.src = 'http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.0.min.js';
      script.type = 'text/javascript';
      document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);

      function play () {
        // Sound array setup
        var soundArray = [];
        var down = $.Event("keydown");
        var up = $.Event("keyup");
        input = '  ' + input; // hack
        for (var i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
          soundArray.push(input.toUpperCase().charCodeAt(i));
        }

        // Start sound
        var index = 0;
        function playSound () {
          up.which = soundArray[index];
          $("body").trigger(up);
          ++index;

          down.which = soundArray[index];
          $("body").trigger(down);
          // // is there another?
          if (index < soundArray.length) {
            setTimeout(playSound, TIME_INTERVAL);
          }
        }
        playSound();
      }

      (function loadjQuery () {
        if (typeof jQuery === 'undefined') {
          setTimeout(loadjQuery, 100);
        } else {
          play();
        }
      })();

<comment><USER3> Huh, this doesn't seem to handle commas or semicolons at all. I can't immediately see why, since string.toUpperCase() maps "," to "," and ";" to ";", as it should. And switching input to

"uyvyu,pl,ynuuupl,kmk,,uyvuyvyu,pl,ynuuupl,kmk,,uyvppp;[[;plp;;;pl,kmk,ynuu,,,kmmml;pl,,kuu,lp;[,lp;l,"

completely breaks it about half way through.

Anyway, cool hack!

<comment><USER4> That's because the keydown event uses keyCode instead of charCode, and the two don't always match. Try typing Shift+U and then '[' on this page to see what I mean: [http://unixpapa.com/js/testkey.html](http://unixpapa.com/js/testkey.html).

Since KeyboardJS is already loaded via requirejs, we can require it and then use it to get the keyCode for each character in the for loop.

        var KeyboardJS = require('lib/keyboard');

        [...]

        for (var i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
          var code = KeyboardJS.key.code(input.charAt(i));
          if (code) {
            soundArray.push(code);
          } else {
            soundArray.push(32);
          }
        }

Here's an updated version of the script, using your example as input: [https://gist.github.com/peterjmag/489364ca58330c348c33](https://gist.github.com/peterjmag/489364ca58330c348c33)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In possibly the geekiest thing I've ever posted to the Internet...Here's the Super Mario Bros. theme!

rsa ecde srgu yhgr bv rsa ecde srgu yhgr bv hybtg ser erv hybtg iii r hybtg ser erv tvr rrr rvgres rrr rvg rrr rvgres ggg rgh grs sxebbe cuuuhbgres grs sxebbe cbbbgvrsai

It'd be cool to integrate my site [http://www.soundslice.com/](http://www.soundslice.com/) into this.

<comment><USER6> Great idea! This is tedious to work out, but I think I made a couple of improvements:

rsa ecde sghu bhg rvc _(play this line twice)_

hybtg xer erv hybtg iii hybtg xer erv tvr

rrr rvgres rrr rvg rrr rvgres ggg rgh

grs sxebbe cuuuhbgres grs sxebbe cbbbgvrsai

And a couple of additions:

rsa ece xdx szs

Play this one fast:

srghil;l xrtnio/o dvbj,. '''i _(I couldn 't find a high enough A)_

<comment><USER6> And an attempt at the underworld theme, although this one was harder to pick out (and hard to type up to tempo).

rieudj rieudj b.v,to b.v,to tvfr tvxsf rybgjun tcdex

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The beginning of Game of Thrones theme:

        g e rvg e rvc
        v s rcv s rce
        (bhu g bhu g bhu g)

I love the idea of having a layout where all patterns are movable. Going diagonally up-right gives you whole tone steps, diagonally down-right gives you semitone steps. An octave is QT, a major triad is QSD, a minor triad is QWD, a major scale is QZSXDRVT or AWXECFTG or ASEDRVGB. I could pick this up right away, in some ways it's easier than the piano, which I've played a lot. I really wish there was touch response, but computer keyboards don't support it.

The behavior of cmd as the pedal is a little weird. When you release the pedal, the sound should stop. Maybe it's just a Mac bug, though.

The top row seems to be an octave higher than it should be, that interferes with moveability. Though I understand you probably wanted to expand the range.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting layout. Horizontal rows are diminished triads, so it takes a minute to figure out the pattern for your standard maj/min chords. It's very counterintuitive for someone familiar with piano and guitar (or at least me), but that can be a good thing.

<comment><USER8> Well, the cool thing is that the layout means that all chords are completely movable. Take the pattern for a C major chord: QSD. If you shift over one key for each finger, you get an F# major chord: EFG. You can move that same finger pattern anywhere and always get a major chord, unlike, say, a piano or guitar (assuming you're playing in standard).

The idea of fully movable chords was drilled into my head by the design of the Ableton Push, and I've always loved it, though I think that's far more intuitive than this.

<comment> jay-anderson I fully agree. This is one aspect of the common keyboard layout that makes me sad: you have to learn many different patterns for every key. With this you only need to learn functional patterns (major, minor, etc.) and suddenly you know them for all keys. Other layouts have been attempted (see the janko layout), but they never caught on. I wonder if the mobility of accordions is one reason they've been able to have more variation.

How does the ableton push solve this problem? Looking at a video it almost felt like they were switching modes for a scale (almost like a harp does with its pedals). I'm probably off here, but I couldn't quickly find docs on how it worked.

<comment><USER6> The Ableton Push has several different configurations. I think you can use patterns based on any scale you want (including chromatic). Jordan Rudess did a little video series exploring the push: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz39lPgqfhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz39lPgqfhE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome. The first thing I did was run my finger across the qwerty row from left to right, which immediately made me think of Toccata and Fugue, prompting me to pick out this excerpt:

        8[8 [;plol mum yhtg cec esaqa qwertyuiopluyn
        tgytgytgytgy huyhuyhuyhuy 4iu4iu4iu4

Transposed down a half step to D-flat minor to better fit this thing's range. It's not a perfect transcription by any means (the arpeggio suffers from limited polyphony, for one), but it's pretty cool that it was so easy to get this far!

</comment><comment><USER9> _EAR TO EAR GRIN_

More music please from the talented among us!

I've tried things like this before, but this is great.

I knew playing all those typing race games would come in handy one day!

</comment><comment><USER10> I wrote a Python script to convert note names into keys:

[https://gist.github.com/aclissold/c6dcdee3838f23cee7cd](https://gist.github.com/aclissold/c6dcdee3838f23cee7cd)

…But I stopped caring when I got to filling in the dictionary of notes, so if somebody else wants to finish it, be my guest! ;]

</comment><comment><USER11> Is nice that you can open the JavaScript console (F12) and it shows the name of the notes (along the musical octave).

Is a shame there are some chords that you can't play (chord: pressing notes at the same time), such as "yup". But I think is a hardware limitation rather than a bug in the JavaScript.

<comment><USER12> It depends on your keyboard. I can play "yup". What happens is keyboard ghosting: [http://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/antighostingexplain...](http://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/antighostingexplained.mspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A patriotic tune

uyvyu,pl,ynuuupl,kmk,,uyvuyvyu,pl,ynuuupl,kmk,,uyvppp;[[;plp;;;pl,kmk,ynuu,,,kmmml;pl,,kuu,lp;[,lp;l,

</comment><comment><USER13> Does anybody know if a desktop equivalent version of this exist?

I would love to hear nonsensical boops as I code.

</comment><comment><USER14> A quick heads-up: I left the page open to play with it later and about an hour and a half afterwards, it apparently started blaring quite alarming noise out of nowhere. Didn't hear it myself but it freaked out the unlucky person in the room.

</comment><comment><USER15> This may be an easy question for others, but not for me- how does it load the app code? When I view the source, it only shows the loading of google analytics and require.js, but the console/Debugger shows 10 .js files?! Thanks.

<comment><USER16>
        <script data-main="js/app" src="js/require.js"></script>

That data-main attribute is a magic signal to require.js to load js/app.js. From there, app.js tells it what else to load.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The layout doesn't make much sense to me.

[https://www.image- line.com/support/FLHelp/html/img_glob/qwer...](https://www.image- line.com/support/FLHelp/html/img_glob/qwerty_keyboard.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER18> Interestingly, mashing random keys of a single row makes an acceptable melody. Do accordeon players aldo randomly mash keys? :D

Also, perfect thing to test my N-key rollover keyboard (which only goes to 6 due to USB limitations...)!

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice! I noticed pressing alt+key will hold the note, but you might want to change that to shift+key since 'w','q','t' and 'n' won't work (I got a little carried away).

</comment><comment><USER20> Here is another project that also uses this keyboard layout, with a marimba sound:

[http://michaelscottnelson.com/app/Charmonika2/](http://michaelscottnelson.com/app/Charmonika2/)

<comment><USER8> Song Of Storms from Zelda: Ocarina Of Time sounds _awesome_ on here: 347 347 J8J8JYT T34FT T34FD

<comment><USER12> Hmm that doesn't sound like Song of Storms...I ended up with this:

236 236 ; 7;7;oi ibnji ibnjh 236 236 ; 7;7;oi ibnji ib

Maybe the keyboard makes different sounds sometimes? Or maybe I'm off by a key...

<comment><USER8> Are you playing it on the submitted link or the player in the parent comment? I believe the submitted post is off by a key.

<comment><USER12> Ah, I was playing on the submitted link, not the parent of this comment. My bad. Well I guess we have TWO ways to play Song of Storms now :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I remember a few years back there was a site similar to this idea and you could actually share! I think you could add an option to append to fragment #

 _edit_ : is this open source such that people can contribute?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes please! [https://github.com/benzguo/bayan](https://github.com/benzguo/bayan) fair warning, I'm a total js noob

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I love this! My favorite part was 'discovering' my own 'cords'. So far, my ear prefers AEF, AWF, ECG, AEG, and AFY.

Also, you can make a key stay down by holding down Control (Command on a Mac)

<comment><USER23> Be careful as to not press Ctrl/Cmd+W though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Someone made a native version of this a few years back. Had a lot of fun playing with it for a week in 2009.

[http://keybored.wikidot.com/](http://keybored.wikidot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER25> I am too lazy to use this site without some kind of interactive help.

I would like to same some kind of feedback, like piano diodes that get on and of for you to follow a tune or tell you when you get wrong.

</comment><comment><USER26> I made something like this recently [http://www.gravitypersists.com/musicspiral](http://www.gravitypersists.com/musicspiral)

</comment><comment><USER27> Someone should make a keyboard that assigns nice sounding intervals to the most common digrams/trigrams so that typing normal text produces better music.

<comment><USER28> Well, if you like the general sound of playing the home row in this layout, then simply remapping this thing for Dvorak might get you somewhat far toward that goal since the home row actually contains the vowels and common consonants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Very fun. This is a nice range, very different from the keyboards included in music software. I wish I could figure out which button is which note.

<comment><USER11> You can open the JavaScript console (F12) and it shows the name of the notes (along the musical octave).

<comment><USER30> Nice to have that showing on the keyboard screen, also a way to switch keyboard layouts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I used to play bayan, so I figured out the layout even before I saw the url. The orientation of keyboard makes it a bit hard to play though.

</comment><comment><USER32> While we're all posting transcriptions of songs: Take the A Train.

d h dthc r rfvh cdey bx e d hdthc r rfvh rrthxrthr rtherthr c d h dthc r rfvh cdey bx

</comment><comment><USER33> I created a similar thing a few years ago: [http://kreolmusic.com](http://kreolmusic.com)

</comment><comment><USER12> I found the song from Donkey Kong arcade! Or at least a close approximation.

q s drd q s drd q s drd q s drd q s drd ...

</comment><comment><USER34> qwdtytdw qertytre qxctntcx zxctbtvwq

The scales produced by typing along one row reminded me of the castle theme from Super Mario World. If my javascript-foo was greater, I would write a function that types this, but alas.

<comment><USER35> >qwdtytdw qertytre qxctntcx zxctbtvwq

This is the best part of the app! A simple string is simplified music notation for this keyboard, and if you are a touch typist, that means you can play anything on the fly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me of a program from the demo disk that came with my C64.

</comment><comment><USER12> Song of time: ib n ib n io,jnji b th b

</comment><comment><USER37> this thing is so slow for me on FF that it skips half of the notes I hit.. :(

</comment><comment><USER38> i LOVE this. i want to hear this everytime I write code.</comment>


Neuropolitics: Where campaigns try to read your mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/world/americas/neuropolitics-where-campaigns-try-to-read-your-mind.html <comment><USER2> The article doesn't use the words "privacy" or "confendentiality". There's a presumption that there are no limits to spying on private citizens; we're free game, with no interests or rights; take as much as you can from them.

The longer the public takes to understand and react the harder it will be to undo. Already there are organizations that are highly invested in it, from Internet companies to law enforcement and security (and their vendors, such as StingRay) to sales and marketing operations. They will not give up their investment easily.

Clearly these organizations think there is something wrong, or they would openly disclose it and talk about it. But if that's what you want, great - just give me a reasonable way to opt out (i.e., without walking around in a ski mask and with use of modern necessities like telecommunications and public transit).

<comment><USER3> Aren't we "fair game", though? When it comes to winning or losing an election, there's no law that could stop the deployment of these technologies, but merely influence how openly they could operate.

I'm not trying to doomsay here, only pointing out that this would be far from the most brazen that political campaigns are routinely known to be, both ethically and legally speaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This could actually be very invasive and in a gray area privacy-wise. I guess this is a matter of not having expectation of privacy in a public place where the camera/sensors are being set up?

I live in Mexico and had no idea this kind of techniques were being used, let alone by politicians.

Recently there has been a lot of enforcement here on privacy policies being displayed physically in places where the business may be collecting your personal data, yet I've never seen an ad saying "I'm recording your reaction and using this for research".

</comment><comment><USER5> Adam Curtis's "Century of the Self" covers the historical context of advertising, propaganda (rebranded "Public Relations" by Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays), and Western politics in the 20th century fairly well.

The rise of advertising and focus groups to design products and politics to appeal to emotional desires.

[https://vimeo.com/75776128](https://vimeo.com/75776128), [https://vimeo.com/75779119](https://vimeo.com/75779119) (pt2), [https://vimeo.com/10245146](https://vimeo.com/10245146) (pt3), [https://vimeo.com/75784765](https://vimeo.com/75784765) (pt4)

</comment><comment><USER6> If only everyone knew how far off they were from reading anyone's mind though...these measures are indeed objective, but interpreting them still requires leaps of faith. If someone's heart rate drops during one of these sessions is it because they are bored, or relaxed? Their skin conductance, the things you see on their fingers, will be low in both of these situations. Good luck with the EEG - the best statistical algorithms in the world still can't to distinguish boredom from relaxation. Snake oil, dammit!...but phone me in as a private consultant for $1000 an hour and I might change my mind.</comment>


Six ways to never get lost in a city without GPS or Sat Nav - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15125287 <comment><USER3> Interesting that of these six methods, only one or two would actually work in the United States, and then only in a few cities.

\- England doesn't really do Cable TV like America does, so you actually do see these dishes everywhere. In America, you don't ever see them. You'd probably violate your lease for installing one.

\- American cities have hardly any churches compared to Europe, where 5 out of every 7 buildings you pass will be a Church of some form.

\- America is 20 years old. Anything older than that is due for replacement. Hence no weathering.

\+ (1/2) People. Cool. American cities do in fact have crowds, so you can follow them. But unless you're in NYC, you're probably going to end up at a parking garage.

\- American cities tend to follow a grid, and are much more decentralized. Everything you need to get to is in every direction. Every road is six lanes wide, even the dead ends and alleys.

\+ (1/2) New York might have clouds, but I've never seen one in LA.

So yeah, if you're lost in a US city, you might as well just ask somebody.

<comment><USER4> as well as weathering you can look to see which way the trees are bent. in the UK most trees lean to one side as the wind is mostly from the SW.

"American cities have hardly any churches compared to Europe". what? I thought there were loads of churches in america?

<comment><USER5> Not easy to find good numbers for this, particularly for the US. One source [1] refers to around 65k, another source's number [2] is an order of magnitude higher. Of course, church isn't very specific: it could refer to only christian houses of worship, to houses of worship of various sizes, it could refer to the religions themselves, etc.

For Germany, numbers are more reliable: there are about 45000 christian churches (split roughly 50/50 between catholic and protestant, [3][4][5]). Plus about 2500 synagogues and less than a thousand mosques [6], so less than 50k overall. I imagine that the situation in other Western European countries is similar, but it'd be interesting to know if that's true.

So depending on the correct number for the US, the number of churches in the US is either a lot lower or a lot higher. Huh, I guess this isn't very helpful. :D

[1] [http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070129165140AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070129165140AA6neZq) [2] <http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/721939.html> [http://www.ev-akademiker.de/projekte/kirchen-oeffnen-und- erh...](http://www.ev-akademiker.de/projekte/kirchen-oeffnen-und-erhalten/) [3] [http://www.ev-akademiker.de/projekte/kirchen-oeffnen-und- erh...](http://www.ev-akademiker.de/projekte/kirchen-oeffnen-und-erhalten/) [4] [http://www.ekd.de/aktuell_presse/news_2005_09_30_3_rv_kirchb...](http://www.ekd.de/aktuell_presse/news_2005_09_30_3_rv_kirchbautag.html) [5] [http://www.ekd.de/aktuell_presse/news_2005_09_30_3_rv_kirchb...](http://www.ekd.de/aktuell_presse/news_2005_09_30_3_rv_kirchbautag.html) [6] [http://www.cosmiq.de/qa/show/1470093/Wie-viele-Synagogen- und...](http://www.cosmiq.de/qa/show/1470093/Wie-viele-Synagogen-und-Moscheen- Gibt-es-in-Deutschland/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looking at the sun did me in the first time I crossed the Tropic of Cancer near the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice. I am very used to using sun angle at different times of the day to find cardinal directions. That works very well where I usually live (45 degrees north latitude). But on a visit to Hong Kong, I kept going exactly in the reverse direction I "knew" I should go, and I finally figured out that near the end of June, at the latitude of Hong Kong, the sun was to my NORTH for the first time in my life, and looking at shadows or the sun angle kept reversing my sense of which way was north and which way was south.

As a separate issue during my first visit to Hong Kong, I found my American (and Taiwan) habit of assuming that road traffic drives on the right side of the road made me tend to look the wrong way most recently as I was about to cross streets. I almost got run over by a truck because of that. Habitual behavior is harder to correct than truly novel behavior.

P.S. The submitted article's advice on using wind direction (shown by movement of clouds) as a constant direction over short time spans works very badly here in the American Midwest. There are enough flagpoles in my neighborhood that I can readily observe wind direction as I walk or bike to do errands, and I've frequently seen radical changes in wind direction revealed either by flags near ground level or by clouds high in the sky in just a few hours.

<comment><USER7> > I kept going exactly in the reverse direction I "knew" I should go

I had _exactly_ the same problem when moving from Australia to Japan, and it didn't go away after 4 years living there! I always wondered whether it was to do with the sun angle, or some other effect, as I seemed to suffer from it at night too. I wonder if there's been any studies of this kind of effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's cute, but really doesn't do much to address the issue of being lost in a city. When I'm lost in a city, my problem isn't whether I'm heading north or east, or where the nearest station is - it's whether I took the wrong turn three blocks ago, and where that side street I'm looking for is.

<comment><USER9> Once you're lost, my old navigation method can work wonders, and it's really simple: Turn onto progressively busier streets (determined by traffic control, not by current traffic).

You made it to your destination in some small residential area, but how are you ever going to find your way out of here? Just drive straight along until you come up to an intersection. You've got a stop/yield sign, and they have nothing? Turn. You're on a plain two-lane street, and the crossing street is divided with a boulevard? Turn. You both have lights, but they have the crossing button or turn signals? Turn.

In very short order you'll find yourself on a major street, which is a street you'll be more likely to recognize and be famliar with. You're no longer lost and can try locating your destination again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina, with no GPS and very basic paper maps. I don't think these tips are useful at all to someone constantly on the move in new places. I'm typically excellent with directions and only got "completely lost" a dozen times or so. (For some reason, Bolivia had me convinced North was South...) Those six methods assume a lot that doesn't work everywhere.

1\. Tons of places have no satellite dishes.

2\. Good idea, but you need to find a town to find a church...

3\. Surely you need to be a local to know about weather patterns.

4\. Assuming people have jobs, are going to work, and there is some kind of mass transit that stops at some kind of known location regularly.

5\. You have to already know if you're North or South of the city..

6\. What? again, you would have to know which way is North/South before you look at the clouds.

<comment><USER11> Well, the title does say "in the city". There are other ways to orient outside of one...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The other thing that it might be possible to do though obviously not if you are a complete introvert is ask someone.

<comment><USER12> This does assume that you to some extent speak a language the local population also understands.

<comment><USER13> And that the local population is helpful. In the country where I live people will offer help without being asked if you read a map in the middle of the street, but good luck asking someone for directions if you're not a native.

<comment><USER14> In Japan if you ask someone for directions and they don't know it, rather than say that they want to look helpful and will make something up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd rather just look at the sky and see the direction of sunrise or sunset to find the direction instead of looking for TV satellites or churches etc.

And, I can't help but notice that the author starts by saying these are the ways to find directions when GPS is knocked out or if there is no one around to ask for directions and later speaks about following the flow of people!

<comment><USER16> I think these are all meant for different situations. For example you can't look for the Sun if its cloudy. Also, the horizon is usually blocked by a lot of buildings in big cities, so even if it is clear, you won't be able to find the sun pretty easily. Also, if you don't have a watch and the time is somewhere between 11 and 1 o'clock how can you tell if the Sun is in the Southeast or Southwest?

<comment><USER17> > _For example you can't look for the Sun if its cloudy._ //

I do - one can often tell where the brightest part of the sky is even on an overcast day; knowing roughly the time and season (for a known geography) then gives a rough direction. I read a report that polarising sunglasses help this too but I've never actually tried. With me it's sometimes more of a perception that the sun is in such a direction whilst I can't really make out that part as [particularly] brighter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have personally tried walking off randomly in Paris. I didn't use any map or GPS or even my direction sense. I just kept walking randomly and I realized it is very difficult to get lost in a city like Paris even if you wanted to. You pick any direction and walk for about 15- 20 minutes and you would definitely find at least a sign post pointing in the direction of a nearest metro station, and once you are in a metro, you are in the grid, you are not lost anymore! And of course, in a city like Paris there are always people around irrespective of the time of the day to ask for directions.

</comment><comment><USER18> We were in Marrakech earlier this year - I really tried very hard _not_ to get lost, but it's almost impossible not to. Even the GPS on an iPhone and Google Maps didn't help that much (and produced a horrific bill for roaming charges). Far easier to pay one of the locals to walk you to where you want to go - <USER2> least round the souks where it is completely maze like.

Another approach to in-city navigation is, of course, to have a centrally located conspicuous landmark. In this town an ancient castle on top of an extinct volcano serves splendidly in this role.

<comment><USER19> Yes, asking locals is the only way to go. There are things that map will never help you with i Marrakesh.

After two days in Marrakesh locals told me that there is a shorter way from my riyad (kind of a guesthouse) to Jamaa-el-Fna (main square). Easy! You just have to turn left here instead of right, after twenty steps use the arch to find seemingly dead-end internal yard, enter some non-descript door and ... wait for it... smile at the receptionist of the spa salon on your way to their front door, which opens to one of the main streets. And from there it is a direct way to Jamaa.

It is like a magical world from child fairy tales, with wormholes in time and space behind every corner.

<comment><USER18> We stayed at a riad quite close to the souks, along a very windy lane down the side of a mosque. Even 20 minute walk from the taxi that took us from the airport to the riad was an adventure!

Strongly recommended: <http://www.riadzolah.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm from Chicago where the streets are gridded n/s/e/w and the addresses are numbered according to distance.

"Block numbers are consistent across the whole city. Standard blocks, of 100 addresses each, are roughly 1/8th of a mile long. (Hence, a mile is equivalent to a street number difference of 800.) Each street is assigned a number based on its distance from the zero point of the address system, the intersection of State Street and Madison Street. A street with a W (west) or E (east) number runs north-south, while a street with a N (north) or S (south) number runs east-west. A street's number is usually written on street signs at intersections, below the street name. Major thoroughfares are at each mile (multiples of 800) and secondary arteries at the half-mile marks. Thus, Western Ave at 2400 W is a north-south major thoroughfare, while Montrose Ave at 4400 N is an east-west secondary artery.

In general, "avenues" run north-south and "streets" run east-west." \- <http://wikitravel.org/en/Chicago>

General \- <http://www.chicagohomeestates.com/info/chicago_street_guide>

</comment><comment><USER21> Another way of finding your way around is city route numbers.

In South Africa most major routes in metropolitan areas have "M" numbers (metro route numbers). I once managed to navigate across Johannesburg using these alone. Unfortunately, in Johannesburg at least, they are not widely noticed by the public, except on freeways, and increasingly not replaced when they are vandalised or stolen, but they are very useful if you know about them, both for finding alternate routes, and for orienting yourself when lost.

They are usually consistently numbered. In Greater Johannesburg, even numbers go east-west, while odd numbers go north-south, and the signs also include a compass direction. In Durban, where there has been a huge number of street renamings, they have become indespensible for me when I visit the city.

EDIT: As an aside, if you ever drive in South Africa, do not rely on Google Maps (which has numerous errors). Rather buy an up-to-date map book or GPS. The map books by Map Studio are quite good.

</comment><comment><USER22> I used to think I could get around by following street numbers. Because, you know, street 3 is next to street 4 is next to street 5.

Then I discovered in San Jose, 4th street is nowhere near 3rd and 5th street.

Then I discovered in Denver, there are two 21st streets in different parts of town.

Now I have a GPS.

<comment><USER23> My favorite block in NYC is a triangle, bounded on two sides by one street (Waverly Pl) and one side by two streets (Grove st and Stonewall Pl): [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=West+4th+Street,+New+York,+NY&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=West+4th+Street,+New+York,+NY&hl=en&ll=40.733533,-74.000902&spn=0.002047,0.004128&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=68.344727,135.263672&vpsrc=6&hnear=W+4th+St,+New+York&t=m&z=19)

<comment><USER24> Or this section of Queens where there's a 23rd Street, 23rd Avenue, 23rd Road, 23rd Terrace and 23rd Drive in close proximity: [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=23rd+Street,+Queens,+New+York,...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=23rd+Street,+Queens,+New+York,+NY&hl=en&ll=40.777706,-73.919502&spn=0.00602,0.010954&sll=40.733533,-74.000902&sspn=0.001506,0.002739&vpsrc=6&hnear=23rd+St,+Queens,+New+York+11101&t=m&z=17)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> In Europe ( _1_ ) streets are numbered starting from the end of the street closest to the center of the city. This is very handy for when you're making your way back to the center!

 _1_ : though I'm not sure how widely this applies, it's worked for me in several countries.

</comment><comment><USER26> Use paper maps?

</comment><comment><USER4> I got lost in Venice once when i'd just arrived. It was midnight on a sunday and there weren't many people around as I was trying not to think about the film "Don't look now". It was about then that i realised that although i had what looked like the hotel's address, it wasn't going to be quite that simple to find.

<comment><USER27> Oh, Venice doesn't count. Getting lost there is an experience in itself... although probably it would have been better not to have it so soon, and presumably tired and hungry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I gave a presentation about this a few years ago. It's pretty UK centric.

[http://tomtaylor.co.uk/talks/eight-ways-to-orientate- yoursel...](http://tomtaylor.co.uk/talks/eight-ways-to-orientate-yourself- anywhere)

</comment><comment><USER29> Yea, try doing this in Venice, then talk to me :)

</comment><comment><USER30> This is great advice, but I just read the title as "Six ways to never have fun in a city"

</comment><comment><USER31> I think the author is trying to say, "use your sense of locality; you know, that thing we're all born with". Ironically, we don't really need to put an effort into using the tricks the author conjured up - it's all automated in other ways as part of the process of orientation. But, yes, I am aware of the fact that a small percentage of the population has practically no mentionable sense of locality at all, and may need to navigate manually rather than relying on inherent abilities.</comment>


List of Hacker Spaces Around the World - <AUTHOR> http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

<comment><USER2> Glancing at the US portion, I find it interesting that a lot of the states that traditionally think of themselves as the "Git 'r' done" and "Do it yourself" states have fewer hacker spaces. (e.g. Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota and more)

I wonder if that is because they lack a more hackeresque spirit or because those states being rural don't need a designated hacker space.

<comment><USER3> I'd imagine that there is not as much of a hacker culture in terms of techy projects.

<comment><USER4> I am from Omaha, Nebraska and I can say there is plenty of it going on... as far as official places to go? Not likely. Hackerspaces seems to confirm that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a member of Noisebridge, and I think it's pretty great. If anyone is in the San Francisco Bay Area, drop by some time.

<comment><USER6> I'm hosting a fundraiser for Noisebridge Wed the 9th [http://www.yelp.com/events/san-francisco-let-me-make-you- a-d...](http://www.yelp.com/events/san-francisco-let-me-make-you-a-drink-for- something-awesome)

<comment><USER7> Somehow I missed this - thanks much for putting it together!

Noisebridge is one of the things I miss about the Bay Area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I looked at the hacker space in my area (Grand Rapids, MI) and was actually angry at how pointless every single one of their projects appeared to be[1].

[1]: <http://www.viget.org/Viget:Projects>

</comment><comment><USER9> Great. Found a space in Bangkok I wasn't aware of and a python presentation this Friday.

</comment><comment><USER10> nice - i just added our new coworking space in asbury park, nj - <http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Cowerks:_Asbury_Park,_NJ>

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm a member of familab, the Greater Orlando (Florida), space. We're still struggling financially, and working towards our incorporation. Unfortunately, we've had to downsize, but that hasn't put a stop to our hacking. Hopefully I can meet up with some like minded people at Defcon and gather some advice and/or new members for our space. If you're ever in Orlando and want to peek at the space, let myself or our mailing list know. Any full member with a key can give you the grand (read: 1 room) tour. :)

<comment><USER11> Thanks to the HN users who emailed or dropped by. I had a few people contact me or drop by the space; pretty cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice. I was able to instantly add a local hackerspace: <http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Buffalolabs>

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm a member of TOG, a Hackerspace in Dublin, Ireland (our website: <http://www.tog.ie>)

You can also see the Hackerspaces that have added themselves to OpenStreetMap here: <http://technomancy.org/osm-hackerspaces/>

</comment><comment><USER14> Good to see Jaaga (<http://jaaga.wikidot.com/>) here. I work here and its an awesome place to be in. Would love to see more Bangalore hackers turn up.

<comment><USER15> Hey, i just noticed it. I browsed thru their site and it looks like Jaaga concentrates more of Design and non-hacker stuff.

I'm a colg student and web developer who often works on personal projects too. I would love to work on anything social. Any place for people like me?

P.S: Just found out that there is another HackerSpace in Bangalore called Protospace (<http://protost.ation.in>). Their site is down tho. But their membership fee from the hackerspace page <http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Protospace_Bangalore> says Rs.2000-4000, sounds too expensive.

<comment><USER14> Jaaga does have folks from design/art community frequenting it, but that doesn't make it any less of a community place for devs. As of now, there are 3 (tech) startups working (full time) out of there. You should come over and have a looksie

<comment><USER15> Whats the membership fee?

And any timings for the venue? I didn't find such details on the site. Is it so that I'll have to have an idea and "apply" for it like the site says?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It probably makes more sense to also have the states/cities alphabetized as well. Otherwise, you have to scroll up/down or search for "Chicago" to find all the Chicago hackerspaces.

<comment><USER17> Hit the arrow-looking button on each column heading to sort by that column.</comment></comment>


How Microsoft killed the Kin - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/30/what-killed-the-kin/

<comment><USER2> "Steven Sinofsky -- president of the Windows and Windows Live groups -- is making a play for the entire mobile division as well in an attempt to bring a unified, Windows-centric product line to market"

Because that's why Windows Mobile has been shedding market share - it's not been "Windows centric" enough.

I wonder how many painful years it will take before companies figure out that people don't want a Windows-family, or Apple-family, or Google-family set of devices or services. Personally, I just want to be able to pick the devices, websites and services I want and have them operate reasonably well together.

That is why Android is so appealing to me. Or it would be if only they had decent media playing/syncing, which is the one thing the "device families" actually seem to do well :/

<comment><USER3> It would be interesting to see if Sinofsky does pick up Windows mobile, he has been attributed in large part with success of Office 2007 and was pulled to do Windows 7 after the Vista fiasco, so he has 2 good back to back performances.

Many believe he is the current natural successor to Ballmer but don't quote me on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I want to think of something positive about MSFT but I can't find anything. Can anyone remember the last time MSFT innovated something (not followed an existing market/paradigm) and led the market by sheer quality of the innovation (not because of monopoly)?

The only product that I can think of is Xbox360.

<comment><USER5> _Can anyone remember the last time MSFT innovated something (not followed an existing market/paradigm) and led the market by sheer quality of the innovation (not because of monopoly)?_

I can't remember the last time any tech company created a market/paradigm and then proceeded to lead it [1]. Can you think of any companies?

[1] Presumably you meant for some particular measure of time.

<comment><USER6> FPGAs by Xilinx starting in 1985?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _This move allegedly set the release of the devices back 18 months_

This sure says a lot about the crazy pace of the SmartPhone market. I picked up my iPhone 2G the other day and had the sense of nostalgia typically reserved for things like my Apple 2, NES, Atari ST, etc. 18 months might as well be a decade with the current pace of innovation.

<comment><USER8> To put it into a specific timeframe, 18 months ago was approximately 6 months after the iPhone 3G's launch (and 6 months before the 3GS). In fact, that puts it right around Christmas 2008.

Wow. They could have launched that Christmas. That's around when the first Blackberry Storm came out too. It feels like forever and a day ago.

They could have been on their second generation by now. Instead, they bungled it.

I wonder how much the project cost them.

<comment><USER9> It's not just about the fact that this particular project cost them a significant delay, it's the fact that they are operating on time schedules which are wholly inconsistent with the pace of the market at the moment.

Apple, Google, RIM, and maybe even soon HP (via their PalmPre acquisitions) are all well inside WinMo's OODA loop. Not just inside it a little bit, but running laps. You can't survive in this market with an 18 month _release cycle_ , let alone a release cycle so long that 18 months is just a fraction of it. Even if MS manages by herculean effort to come out with a high-quality, highly innovative winmo 7 release they'll still be dead in the water due to the ability of every other competitor to iterate N times over between then and the next winmo release sometime in 2015. Step 1 in the winmo division should be making every effort toward a much, much shorter ship cycle otherwise they have no chance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is what is so sad about MS. At some point they forgot they are a software company, and started thinking they were a Windows company. They are imposing a requirement on themselves that competitors don't have.

</comment><comment><USER11> Still doesn't explain why they would bring a shitty product to market and spend millions promoting it. Truly think Ballmer has no shame and doesn't get embarrassed. Its npt like the phones didnt come across his desk. MicroSoft needs a general for a CEO that can bring everything together, know what a great product is, focuses R&D, and ships products people love.

<comment><USER12> > know what a great product is,

Microsoft has long lost this ability. Too much Kool-Aid, IMHO.

They really believe they are a cool company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> While those devices could have been appealing to teenagers - at least in combination with a cheap data plan - i really don't understand why microsoft wanted to go into that niche market with a stripped down OS that shares some interface similarities with its big brother windoes mobile 7. Add those experimental devices and the average, non-geeky customer, which this is clearly aimed at, is totally confused. We, of course, know that this isn't WM 7, but the average Joe who read 4 lines of text about WM 7 in some magazine could easily assume that this is microsofts next big thing, which of course it isn't. It just feels so unnecessary, dead before it launched.

<comment><USER14> > the average, non-geeky customer is totally confused

I must be average and non-geeky then. I'm totally confused by Microsofts mobile strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _It seems that after doing some initial work on these phones based around Danger's proprietary Sidekick OS, Andy Lees -- the SVP of Microsoft's mobile division -- instructed everyone to go back to the drawing board and rebuild the OS based on Windows CE. It appears the company didn't want a project that wasn't directly connected to its Windows kernel. This move allegedly set the release of the devices back 18 months, during which time Redmond's carrier partner became increasingly frustrated with the delays. Apparently when it came time to actually bring the Kins to market, Big Red had soured on the deal altogether and was no longer planning to offer the bargain-basement pricing deals it first had tendered._

The strategy tax kills again!

<comment><USER6> It's generally call the platform tax I thought.

BTW, the original Sidekick OS is based on NetBSD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 18 months ago the kin would have been more well received. Particularly at a lower price point.

<comment><USER12> A dumbphone? Not even 18 months ago. They would have to launch this in 2005 for it to have a chance.

<comment><USER17> A dumbphone with a few select (and highly refined) features from the smartphone, but with dumbphone pricing (plans _and_ hardware) could have done well then.

Hell, it can still do well now. Imagine a facebooking, tweeting feature phone that costs you $20 a month to operate. It would be a huge hit.

<comment><USER12> The Kin has the hardware of a smartphone and costs the same to manufacture. Still, it has dumbed down functionality. It would have to be sold at a huge subsidy and it's unclear how much of the $20/month would actually be profit.

Anyway, there is a hole in the market for aggressive bandwidth management on smartphones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I should note that as of this evening Microsoft was still running Kin ads on Hulu.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good riddance.

The Kin was the Hip-e of smartphones.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was pretty sure the death of the Kin was due to the horrid advertisements they aired.</comment>


Yahoo acquires GoPollGo - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/09/yahoo-mobile-acquires-gopollgo-polling-service-shuts-down-all-widgets-polls-and-properties/

<comment><USER2> The announcement at <http://gopollgo.com/> hits all the acquisition bingo spots:

* "We are excited"

* "It has been so rewarding

* "We're so excited"

* "we couldn't be happier"

* "thanks to all our users,"

* "As of today, we'll no longer be supporting [GoPollGo]"

<comment><USER3> The founder of GoPollGo actually responded to this comment but nobody can see him because he's hellbanned.

...due to spamming GoPollGo polls on HN. Virtually no other contributions otherwise.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=LeBen>

Too funny.

<comment><USER4> That's not Ben's username...you're completely wrong here.

<comment><USER3> Am I now?

In response to you:

>BenSchaechter 1 hour ago | link [dead]

>Hey, I'm the real Ben. You can check my history, etc. I did post a fair amount of GPG posts to HN, though =)

Submissions from him:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=BenSchaechter>

[dead] Poll: Do you think there is a technology bubble? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by BenSchaechter 359 days ago | flag | discuss 2.

[dead] Scoble Asks: What will Facebook's stock price do after it goes public? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by BenSchaechter 362 days ago | flag | discuss 3.

[dead] Poll: Are you planning on buying Facebook stock? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by BenSchaechter 366 days ago | flag | discuss 4.

[dead] Facebook "Likes" Just Got "Cray Cray" (techcrunch.com) 1 point by BenSchaechter 370 days ago | flag | discuss 5.

[dead] CrayBook (github.com) 1 point by BenSchaechter 370 days ago | flag | discuss 6.

[dead] Poll: How Do You Deal with Vendor Prefixes? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by BenSchaechter 437 days ago | flag | discuss 7.

[dead] Poll: LESS or SASS? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by BenSchaechter 489 days ago | flag | discuss

Submissions also from him on an alt account:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=LeBen>

    	 [dead] Show HN: We just launched the GoPollGo iPhone app. What do you think? (gopollgo.com)

1 point by LeBen 126 days ago | flag | discuss 2.

[dead] Poll: What method did you use to vote, or how do you plan to vote? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by LeBen 184 days ago | flag | discuss 3.

[dead] [Poll HN] Who do you think won the VP Debate? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by LeBen 209 days ago | flag | discuss 4.

[dead] Real-Time Poll: Who's winning the debates? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by LeBen 218 days ago | flag | discuss 5.

[dead] TechCrunch Poll: Which is your favorite S12 Demo Day Company? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by LeBen 261 days ago | flag | discuss 6.

[dead] TechCrunch Poll: Would you ride in one of Google's self-driving cars? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by LeBen 275 days ago | flag | discuss 7.

[dead] [Poll HN] Who is at fault: Craigslist or Padmapper? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by LeBen 289 days ago | flag | discuss 8.

[dead] TechCrunch Poll: Do you think Marissa Mayer will be able to turn Yahoo around? (gopollgo.com) 1 point by LeBen 297 days ago | flag | discuss

.

Notice all that [dead]? That means he was hellbanned on his main and his spam account. Deservedly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just recently I read pg's old essay on Microsoft. (<http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html>)

> The surprising fact is, brilliant hackers—dangerously brilliant hackers—can > be had very cheaply, by the standards of a company as rich as Microsoft. > They can't hire smart people anymore, but they could buy as many as they > wanted for only an order of magnitude more.

This seems like Marissa Mayer's strategy.

<comment><USER6> But what happens to these hackers when they arrive to a company that has Yahoo's culture? That's their problem. Their culture is the same one as any shitty American company.

<comment><USER5> The essay addressed this:

> Put them all in a building in Silicon Valley, surrounded by lead shielding > to protect them from any contact with Redmond.

Assuming Yahoo should do the same. :)

<comment><USER6> Does Yahoo! have a track record of doing this?

<comment><USER7> the mobile team is on one floor in one building at the sunnyvale campus

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Title correction: Yahoo acqui-hires GoPollGo. Like Summly, the service itself will disappear completely.

<comment><USER9> Well, in a way. Yahoo products with Summly integration are in the app store right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would be excited to go work for yahoo at this moment in their history. They're making some relatively big moves to get their game back.

<comment><USER11> It _seems_ like Yahoo is following through their "focus on mobile"[1]. However, what other (recent) big moves have they made?

(As an aside, their weather app for the iPhone is very well done.)

[1] <http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/16/yahoo-mobile-earnings/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How to hire smart people for your multinational corporation and get free PR in the process: \- comb through startups with talented founders \- "acquire" their "company" \- Make techcrunch headlines \- 2 to 4 year committed employees, team oftentimes included \- ??? \- Profit

<comment><USER13> The acquired companies rarely survive and the technology or systems they developed are usually gutted and stripped and the founders generally flee for the exits as soon as they can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The announcement is posted at <http://gopollgo.com/>

Congratulations on the acquisition, OP.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yahoo is really upping the mobile aqui-hires. I wonder if people are excited to actually go work at Yahoo or if they're just happy to be acquired.

</comment><comment><USER16> Congratulations, Sam!</comment>


"Here I Stand, at Age 80" - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmfjM-SGlGs <comment><AUTHOR> Personal computing and hypertext pioneer Ted Nelson reflects on his life's work and the ways computer history could have turned out very differently.

From the video desc.:

'What I want known about my ideals and work over the years. How a very bad career plan led to discoveries, hopes and adventures. In some ways this is an alternative history of personal computing and world hypertext.'</comment>


New Relic ending Server and legacy alert features - <AUTHOR> https://discuss.newrelic.com/t/important-upcoming-changes-for-new-relic-servers-and-legacy-alerting-features/49474 <comment><AUTHOR> > After the EOL date, New Relic Servers and the legacy alerting features will > no longer be available in the New Relic user interface and data processing > will stop. Also, New Relic Alerts will only be available for paying accounts > and will be removed from non-paying accounts starting on the EOL date.

The biggest change here is that it severely limits New Relic's free plan.</comment>


From optics engineer to founder of YC-backed material sciences company - <AUTHOR> https://elpha.com/posts/elc4128p/backed-by-the-department-of-energy-and-y-combinator-i-m-dr-whitney-gaynor-ceo-and-co-founder-of-sinovita-technologies-ama <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! This is a conversation we had on Elpha with Dr. Whitney Gaynor, CEO of Sinovia Technologies.

Elpha is a community for women in tech to talk candidly online and I'm the co- founder and CEO. Hope you enjoy the conversation!

I'll be in the comments if you have any questions.

<comment><USER2> How could one find posts like this without a direct link? Is there some portion of your posts that are public? Every action I try prompts me to sign up, but I do not meet the sign-up criteria. Just wondering if there's a still a way to passively view/read some portion of your content, without attempting to comment/participate.

Cool AMA, thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes our main feed at [https://elpha.com/top](https://elpha.com/top). Thanks for the feedback we will add a more clear way to get back to the main feed from a specific post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a specific reason Elpha isn't positioned as a community for all persons to talk candidly online?

I look forward to a future where such platforms exist for all people, and don't need to be bound to any particular kind of identity.

I'm concerned about such tools, despite being well-meant, widening divisions rather than healing them.

<comment><USER4> There are plenty of communities that allow all persons to talk candidly online. However, these communities of all persons tend to be dominated by the majority voice while other voices get drowned out. These majorities don't usually consist of women and other groups.

<comment><USER5> I find my belief that women are equal in talent and ability contradicts the notion that such segregated 'safe spaces' are anything but sexist; how do we reconcile the opinion that women are equal with the opinion that women need segregated spaces (professional-related)?

<comment><USER6> You can probably reconcile by talking in person with women who use these spaces.

<comment><USER5> Is this not the most (or at least a) reasonable place to discuss? It would seem rude to walk into a club and ask 'why should you exist'.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft's HoloLens and the future of luxury car buying - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-hololens-volvo-s90-showrooming-experience/ <comment><USER2> Strikes me as a combination of (a) gimmick, and (b) solution in search of a problem. How far are you really going to get through the car-buying process without being able to see a physical vehicle?

This technology may have its uses, but selling cars isn't one of them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not just luxury car buying. I've been convinced for a while that AR and/or VR will be the future of almost-anything-buying. It's one significant disadvantage to buying things online now: you get way more choice, but it's often difficult to be really sure what something will be like, going only from 2D pictures and a text description. And in some cases - clothing in particular - even if you have exact specs and great images of the item itself, it isn't terribly useful without context. (Cars would fit in that category too.) With VR though (and help from 3d cameras and body mapping), shopping for clothes online could be a better experience than in person. You could virtually try on 10 shirts faster than you could get into a fitting room in the real world, and see them from arbitrary angles as well. Or take furniture. Rather than looking at pictures, how about seeing exactly how that side table will look _in your living room_? The possibilities are endless.

Admittedly until we get true "virtual reality" you won't be able to tell how a pair of pants or a couch or whatever actually feels, nor will you really be able to virtually test drive a car (which as the article suggests is a pretty significant part of the buying process) but it will still be a completely different world from e-commerce today, and in many ways better than shopping in brick and mortar stores, even aside from the convenience of not leaving your home and the infinite selection of the internet.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to see some non-fake pictures of what you see through Microsoft's device. Remember, it cannot darken anything; it can only add light. Yet their demo videos clearly show dark virtual objects against a lighter background. That's fake.

Applications will either require a dim room, or will be bright shiny lines on top of the background.

<comment><USER5> I agree that Microsoft would have push well beyond the established best of AR technology in order to darken things in the hololens, but I can't tell what's likelier: that they're totally lying in their demonstrations, or that they have kept some bit of truly state-of-the-art-advancing innovation a secret.

It would be very easy to lie, but it is also difficult to believe that Microsoft would bet so hard on selling this product as revolutionary when it provides a fundamentally weak experience.

So Animats, is there something concrete that you're basing this claim off of, or just a general knowledge of AR technology and its limitations? I genuinely want to know--I've spent a lot of time wondering about this, and I've seen good points on both sides.

For anyone curious, Abrash does a great job of explaining why darkening is so hard here[1] and this reddit-speculator[2] does a great job of highlighting some incidents where hands-on hololens reviewers specifically noted "dark projection" during their user tests.

I've heard that the field of view is smaller than videos make it appear, and also that the image it displays is not fully opaque, but nothing that suggests that they can't darken. If it turns out they can, it would be a pretty big deal, and if it turns out they can't, hololens may be a dud.

[1] - [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see- hard-...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-ar- anytime-soon/) (3.5 years old)

[2] - [https://www.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/comments/30koy9/hololens_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/comments/30koy9/hololens_and_the_projection_of_darkness/) (7 months ago)

<comment><USER4> Reviews [1][2] indicate that 1) Microsoft won't let reviewers take a picture of what the device really shows, and 2) the demos seen by the reviewers aren't nearly as good as Microsoft's videos. Microsoft has made progress in getting the weight down, and the tracking is apparently good enough.

[1] [http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/wearables/microsoft- holo...](http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/wearables/microsoft- hololens-1281834/review) [2] [http://www.digitaltrends.com/vr-headset- reviews/microsoft-ho...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/vr-headset- reviews/microsoft-hololens-hands-on/)

<comment><USER5> Hm, I may have been unclear -- I didn't mean to question your claim that Microsoft is not showing us real pictures/video, as they clearly are not.

I was (and am) curious about the ability to display darkness, which you specifically claimed the hololens cannot do, and it sounded as though you knew so for sure.

Every indication from hands-on demos is that it can actually display black, which is surprising and impressive, but no one I've seen has _explicitly_ said so, so it may still turn out to lack that ability. I'd love to find out :)

The primary difference that seems to be reported between videos and demos is (as told in your links and mine) that the field of view is extremely limited, which is understandable, but does make the videos misleading.

Anyway, thanks for the links!

<comment><USER6> _Every indication from hands-on demos is that it can actually display black, which is surprising and impressive, but no one I 've seen has _explicitly_ said so, so it may still turn out to lack that ability. I'd love to find out :)_

When our team tried it, it looked like it displayed a very dark grey - if not necessarily black.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, you are going to spend a significant amount of money on a luxury car and, somehow, you don't have the willingness to go there in person actually experience the car and you settle with a simulation?

That's a lot of enthusiasm.

</comment><comment><USER6> Our company can do this today free to everyone worldwide with markerless 6DOF AR on an iPad/iPhone. Just need the 3D model of the car. Don't even need to go to a showroom, you can do it in your driveway.</comment>


Crispr pioneer among University of California researchers boycotting Elsevier - <AUTHOR> https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/crispr-pioneer-among-university-of-california-researchers-boycotting-elvesier-/3010833.article <comment><USER2> These people at Elsevier and their ilk are simple thugs who have leveraged their oligopolistic power into a web of extortion and coercion. They force the people who create their content to give them the copyright, even though they created nothing but the bars of the jail they imprison the content therein. Firstly, a coercice agreement is not enforceable no matter how they embellish it with soft language. It is like a robber who asks you if you like his gun? Look how pretty it is, and how lethal it is and how badly it could hurt anyone shot by it, so you do not want to get in the way of any bullets do you? By the way, I see you are carrying a heavy burden of valuables, would you let us assist to to carry that burden - good. We will watch over the valuable and test their ability to be spent on good works for the needy (us)

So they are simple thugs to be dealt with by police and the law by exposing and cancelling their coercive and forced copyright assignment agreements and placing those copyrights into a copyleft or similar position. This applies to all prior work and all new work going forward. The cost of running this process will be less than 1% of the monster eye breaking gougery that the colleges now bear.

It has to come, they have to go. And recall the way they have kept the poor contries down by denial of access - that has kept the third worlders with first world brains, locked in an unethical cubbyhole. In the mead time, get a few dozen seed boxes online with the last 20+ years of research data indexed and downloadable for free or very low fees. All well hid by technical means for anonymity. I wish I could do more, but do this much damage to those evil thugs is already a good days work,

<comment><USER3> Elsevier's wickedness goes beyond coercive publication contracts. They set up a vanity journal for Merck to publish their dubious results concerning Vioxx in. Merck basically published marketing material as scientific papers in order to promote Vioxx, while conveniently withholding information about the drug's dangerous side effects, and Elsevier covered for them, making these publications look likr an independent journal.

The Vioxx debacle is one of the most blatant and straightforward examples of "evil big pharma" in the modern era, and Merck holds most of the blame -- but Elsevier is complicit in the deaths of people who took Vioxx also.

<comment><USER4> I'd never heard of this, but wow the details[0] are pretty shocking. It was so blatant.

[0] [https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/merck- published-f...](https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/merck-published- fake-journal-44190)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it interesting that Elsevier gets blamed, when authors could simply publish in alternative journals.

Why don't they? Because their career is dependent on high impact journals because their bosses don't care about lesser publications.

This problem could be readily solved if they turned their anger against the school administration for pretty much forcing authors to publish in Elsevier journals.

<comment><USER6> > This problem could be readily solved if they turned their anger against the > school administration

Not exactly. I'm an academic (mathematics), and I don't care much about what my bosses think of me. From what I've observed, within my university there don't seem to be consequences (positive or negative) for much of anything.

So who do I care about impressing then? Well, my bosses, a little. But mostly my peers within the scientific community. They are the ones who decide whether or not to invite me to conferences, whether to fund my grant proposals, and whether to interview me if I decide to apply for other jobs.

The problem is pretty entrenched. Really, we are ourselves to blame.

<comment><USER7> Kind of. Basically no academics care what the literal name or publisher of the journal are. What matters is that Journal X and Y are at the top of the field, so they attract the best papers and the best editorial staff and can pull the best reviewers.

In theory, if everyone decided that starting January 1, 2021 all the previous academic effort devoted to Journal X could be instead turned to Open Science Journal Not-X, the impact on scientific endeavor would be essentially zero.

But getting everyone on board for that is a difficult task. Most faculty have no direct involvement in the allocation of subscription fees, so they don't really experience much cost (only that of emailing the occasional paywalled PDF to a less-well-placed colleague). It's easier to just keep on doing what we've been doing.

<comment><USER8> > Basically no academics care what the literal name or publisher of the > journal are.

This is patently false. Some universities and even governments enforce whitelists of reference publications, and each researcher is evaluated based on how many papers he manages to publish on them. Failing to meet quotas has a negative impact on the researcher's evaluation and ultimately may result in termination. Researchers may not care if a paper they read was from GloriousJournal or ModestPublication or even arxiv, but researchers without tenure who need to publish to avoid perishing do care. If you're starting out and you manage to produce 1 or 2 papers a year, you'll obviously care a lot where your work will be published

<comment><USER9> I think you are talking past each other.

The real problem is network effect and collective action.

Whether it's whitelisting, "impact factor", or whatever, lots of tenure committees will have evaluation criteria you have to meet. So in that sense you are very correct.

What misterdoubt was saying, I think, is that nobody in the field actually actually cares that it is Y Journal of X, what they care about is who is publishing in it. Elsevier or whomever isn't what makes it a high impact journal, it's the papers and researchers.

So while what you say is true, it's also true that if everyone in a field could mostly agree to drop Y Journal of X in favor of X letters, or whatever, it would work fine and the tenure committees wouldn't take long to catch up. There might be a year or two of confusion, but that's it.

<comment><USER8> > What misterdoubt was saying, I think, is that nobody in the field actually > actually cares that it is Y Journal of X, what they care about is who is > publishing in it.

No, you did not understood the problem. They do care _a lot_ about if it's journal X or journal Y. They care because their job depends on it because the journals that count are regulated into a whitelist and sometimes even into a legal bill, which is outside of their power to change or influence, and they do care because getting your paper into a exclusive paper is a mark of prestige that signals whether your work is worth publishing along with other meaningful work. It's disingenuous and even clueless to assert otherwise. This blind and baseless assertion that journals don't count ignores fundamental and very basic aspects of working in research, particularly how important it is to have your work accepted into the right publication or venue. Otherwise arxiv and blogs would suffice, don't you agree?

<comment><USER9> FWIW, I understand the problem quite well.

misterdoubt was drawing a distinction between a journal, i.e. the publication itself, and it's constituent papers & researchers. You are simply denying that distinction, which isn't an effective refutation of their idea.

To me it seems you are being intentionally obtuse here, so I'll leave it at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just read that Elsevier made £2.54 billion in revenue last year. I didn't know academic publishing was such a lucrative business.

By comparison Penguin Random House makes €3.3 billion euros in revenue last yr and they sell a ton of books. Simon and Schuster makes $800m/yr.

I guess annuity's from businesses and non profits using a legacy business model that predates technology beats selling books. No wonder they want to protect the business.

<comment><USER11> It's amazing how much money you can make taking content provided to you for free, getting academics to review it for free, and then charging outrageous prices to access it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As long as there are 1000 applicants for one tenure job, Elsevier will stay around. Even 100 scientists abandon Elsevier, 10000 PhD students elsewhere queue up to publish their papers in journals owned by Elsevier.

<comment><USER13> That doesn't mean that academics can't slowly tarnish their reputation until eventually (years, decades, centuries) certain journals are no longer relevant. Change takes time. That doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile endeavor.

<comment><USER12> Committees should rely on the quality of published articles, rather on where these articles are published. As long as the latter mentality persists, it will take a long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If I'm understanding the idea correctly they are saying that will not review more articles for free as peers, for Elsevier journals. There is a difference between: "I'm boycotting your work" and "[As you bill me for everything] I don't feel obliged to keep working for free for you"

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent to see. Scientists are hampered by the kind of informational gatekeeping the current journal system represents, and Elsevier is the most predatory of the bunch -- the late 90s Microsoft of scientific publication.

Remember, you can't spell "Elsevier" without E-V-I-L.

</comment><comment><USER15> Universities should collaborate on creating (or improving existing) open peer review and publishing platform. It can be based on MIT's PubPub[1] or created from scratch. Adding more features like in Authorea[2] and Overleaf[3]. Since PubPub sources are on GitHub[4], it is easy to improve today and now. Enhancing the existing infrastructure around arXiv and bioArXiv will help too. Today many universities trying to pursue their objectives or creating their platforms. But the complexity of the task requires a united effort.

[1] [https://www.pubpub.org/](https://www.pubpub.org/)

[2] [https://authorea.com/](https://authorea.com/)

[3] [https://www.overleaf.com/](https://www.overleaf.com/)

[4] [https://github.com/pubpub](https://github.com/pubpub)

<comment><USER15> A few years ago, there was also an extensive discussion[1] about possible improvements for the current publishing model and platforms. See several follow up posts[2][3][4] too.

[1] [http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/04/16/beyond-papers- gitwikxi...](http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/04/16/beyond-papers-gitwikxiv/)

[2] [http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/04/27/gitwikxiv-follow-up- di...](http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/04/27/gitwikxiv-follow-up-distinctions- in-academic-tools/)

[3] [http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/04/22/gitwikxiv-follow-up- an...](http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/04/22/gitwikxiv-follow-up-an-open- attribution-standard/)

[4] [http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/05/20/gitwikxiv-follow- up-a-...](http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/05/20/gitwikxiv-follow-up-a-path-to- forkable-papers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I found this page[1] interesting as it explains some of the costs associated with UC's use of Elsevier ( _" 5\. Is Elsevier content expensive?"_) along with Elsevier's view of the negotiation ( _" 6\. What does California Digital Library want, and what has Elsevier offered?"_)

[1] [https://www.elsevier.com/about/california-digital-library- an...](https://www.elsevier.com/about/california-digital-library-and-elsevier)

</comment><comment><USER17> Why does academia still tolerate the archaic scientific publishing world when there is the Internet?

The fact that people are still so dependent on these useless hegemonies sickens me.

It only takes a little bit of courage and everyone else will join. Scientists are only keeping themselves captive by playing along.

<comment><USER18> A couple reasons:

\- Elsevier, and other commercial publishers, also publish the journals for the societies I am a member of. Where my peers are. Where the audience is clear.

\- "The Internet" has not exactly done a great job of coming up with a substitute. Every time this comes up on HN, there's all kinds of comments about academic publishing being "ripe for disruption" and yet somehow nothing manifests itself.

\- "It only takes a little bit of courage and everyone else will join." People have tried this, and while it ends up being an admirable principled stand, it's mostly an affectation of secure senior academics who don't have to scramble for funding. For the rest of us, it's not "a little bit of courage". It's "lets detonate your career and hope some people come along."

\- The alternatives put more burden on individual academics. Preprints require shepherding, and marketing and curation. Open access publishers put the costs directly on a lab, which especially for new faculty, is often a fairly substantial portion of their total funding. I can submit a paper to a PLOS journal - or I can submit a paper to a journal that's potentially better _and_ hire an undergraduate to help with the work for a new project. Or send a graduate student to a conference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What is the reasoning for having subscriptions for journals? Does the journal work like some sort of filtering system to weed out the bad articles and only provide the user with good articles?

<comment><USER20> There are a bunch of dubious journals and conferences around the world, and researching a topic without filtering down to a handful of journals can turn up a lot of crap.

There's been a number of times where I've been researching niche topics and found "peer reviewed" publications where the math was incorrect, the code examples were invalid syntax, and had results/analysis that I couldn't recreate.

Sometimes I wonder if the authors submit to journals until they find one that sticks.

That's not to say "good" journals don't have "bad" publications. Some have various levels of peer review, like full text/abstract only/not reviewed at all. Sometimes you wind up with content that deserves a tech blog post, not a journal article. But different strokes for different folks, it's not hard to filter out mentally once you're familiar with the literature.

<comment><USER21> More than a bunch! The scale of it is astonishing and depressing.

See _Inside the Fake Science Factory_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ras_VYgA77Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ras_VYgA77Q)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 31 is too few? Its remarkable that top scientists are among them , but i doubt busy PIs like her review stuff regularly.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why is a European company at the center of this? I thought EU was pro open access.

</comment><comment><USER24> Surely if Elsevier was so bad the magical hand of the free market would simply have solved it by now.

<comment><USER2> Elsevier has one hand in your pocket and the other firmly grips your b*lls..</comment></comment>


Startup Rising: Iran - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/05/20/startup-rising-iran/

<comment><USER2> Here's a bit of historical trivia that may or may not be relevant in connection with Iran as a potential new exciting market for VCs. I do believe it's something that every hacker should know. I quote from the Wikipedia article on the 9th century Persian Mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al- Khwārizmī:

 _Some words reflect the importance of al-Khwarizmi 's contributions to mathematics. "Algebra" is derived from al-jabr, one of the two operations he used to solve quadratic equations. Algorism and algorithm stem from Algoritmi, the Latin form of his name. His name is also the origin of (Spanish) guarismo and of (Portuguese) algarismo, both meaning digit._

<comment><USER3> Looking at the word " _al-jabr_ ", part of me wonders if this might've been the lexical root that inspired Frank Herbert to name his mystical device "The Gom Jabbar" in his novel, Dune.

Meanwhile, in an effort to stay on-topic, and not get distracted by so much navel gazing...

From the article:

      Mobile penetration is over 120% — meaning many people have more than one device.

Pure speculation on my part, but might this be due to a trend in keeping burner phones, in order to avoid a heavy-handed state-sponsored surveillance apparatus?</comment></comment>


Tech firm is fights federal order for data on visitors to an anti-Trump website - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tech-company-is-fighting-a-federal-order-for-ip-addresses-to-find-visitors-to-an-anti-trump-website/2017/08/14/a65b7544-8152-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html <comment><USER2> Discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15011636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15011636)

</comment><comment><USER3> More information from a professor of law at GW:

> What makes this tricky, I think, is that Dreamhost is only involved in the > initial search stage of a two-stage warrant. Computer warrants are > ordinarily executed in two stages. First, the government gets access to all > the electronic records. Next, the government searches through the records > for the particularly described evidence. Courts have broadly allowed the > government to follow this two-step procedure, in which they get all the > stuff in the initial stage of electronic evidence warrants so that they can > search it for the relevant evidence. Given that, Dreamhost's objection is > slightly off. As I read it, Dreamhost is essentially challenging the widely > accepted two-stage warrant practice. Some federal magistrate judges in the > "magistrate's revolt" have made that argument, but they generally have been > overruled at the district court level.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2017/08/15/a-closer-look-at-dojs-warrant-to-collect-website- records/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Suggestion: "Tech firm fighting federal order for data on visitors to an anti- Trump website"

Or "Tech firm fighting federal order for visitor's data of anti-Trump website"

v "Tech firm fights federal order for visitor's data of anti-Trump website" — can't even gzip it!

<comment><USER5> Just delete "is" and add an "s" to "fight".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suppose one silver lining here is that groups with agendas that don't align with the administration will think harder about where to host their sites.

Dreamhost is trying to do the right thing, but hosting it outside the US would be a better idea.

<comment><USER7> Or choose a host with deeper pockets (e.g., Amazon, Google, GoDaddy), but then you have to trust them.

Personal, my VPN is on almost all the time, even at home, not just on free unsecure wifi. I think, ultimately, that's the best option I have. Hopefully, the provider does what they say (i.e., no logs).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >tech firm is fights

Weird title</comment>


Piracy is Not Theft: Problems of a Nonsense Metaphor - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-not-theft-111104/ <comment><USER3> Piracy and copying seem to have more to do with the accessibility/usability of a product than its cost per se. In that sense, piracy is the market attempting to provide what people want when the copyright owners are unwilling to do so.

Here's an example (I deliberately picked an issue that seems trivial): I deeply resent DVDs that force me to stare at the FBI/INTERPOL warning for several seconds before I can advance to the menu - which also frequently takes a long time to load - or, God forbid, the actual movie. (Again, this is not even to raise the issue of DVD Regions, different release dates for different areas, and all that nonsense.)

These things are steady, low-grade reminders that the heavy-handed UI wrapped around the movie exists to accommodate someone else's interests, not mine. If a DVD is really egregious - and that seems increasingly to be the case - I'll rip the movie, strip out the menus, warnings and other crap, and re-burn it or just watch it on my computer. Yet I can't help but notice that it's easier simply to download the torrent of a movie than it is to rip it from a DVD.

Now consider that in Canada, where I live, a planned update to our federal copyright legislation would make it a _criminal offence_ to make a personal copy of a DVD I legally purchased for my own use - with no exception for "fair use", which doesn't exist in Canadian copyright law (we have "fair dealing", which is weaker and more limited in scope than "fair use"). It would be illegal because DVDs are nominally protected by DRM - even though the encryption was broken 12 years ago - and it is a criminal offence to break a 'digital lock' for any reason.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure why you'd pick a trivial issue on purpose because - no offense - it doesn't make for a very compelling argument. In your specific case, the effort to rip a movie to avoid watching the FBI warning etc is a bad deal for you: it takes far longer to rip and burn than to just do something else for the ten seconds until the movie loads.

Piracy advocates/apologists can make a case that piracy is about convenience but there is no whitewashing that it is as much about paying. I deal with this all the time with artists I work with. Here's one email I received just this morning:

"I'm very tired and down right now. I'm getting sick of being contacted by companies pretending to help me, then asking for thousands upon thousands of dollars for everything. There are so many people feeding from struggling indie artists. Things are so bad right now in music. I actually don't think it's possible to do all this on your own but I'm really trying.

The biggest thing that need to change is the general public's attitude towards new music right now. They expect it for free and don't have any respect towards the amount of work you do and how much it costs to make it. They still think 'signed' artists are 'real' and we are just beggars on the street in comparision."

This is an indie artist who has 1,000s of fans, is high on the internet-radio charts in his area, etc. He has spent tens of thousands of dollars to put a good product out and he spends literally 60-80 hours a week on fan contact etc.

I'm sorry: piracy sucks. People can crow about the labels etc all they want but they have changed their business model: they sign 360-deals with artists because recorded music sales are a loss-leader; then they promote acts like Justin Bieber because they know 13-yr-olds are more likely to a) pay for music and b) much more importantly, buy all the associated merchandise that feeds back into their 360 deal. So if you think they are 'dinosaurs' you're wrong; they've already changed to service the market that exists - leaving lots and lots of independent musicians with no pipeline into wider exposure. And if one thinks being on the internet is 'wider exposure' I have a bridge to sell you;)

As much research into human value strategies has shown - the truth is that people dislike for paying for things increases dramatically when they think others aren't paying; that is, when there isn't fairness going on. It's not talked about enough - that piracy 'poisons the well' by leaving people who would pay for things feeling like rubes for doing so.

This particular artist has 1000s of fans who listen to his work several times a week; he sells a digital download version of his album for $3 - yes the same $3 that will get you a half-hamburger at McDonalds - and he has sold zero - literally ZERO. Before any debate about the quality of his work or fans or exposure - all of which are well above-average for indies I have worked with - the ugly truth is that people don't pay when they can get around it - <USER2> doesn't matter what the amount.

So, with respect to all, complaints about "inconveniences" are not compelling at all when I know how much blood, sweat, and tears artists are putting into their work. Pro-pirates like to tout how 'free' makes things more accessible - but they are totally blind to the fact that 'free' keeps as much content inaccessible as it leaves legacy content accessible. At best, it's a zero-sum game, a choice - and as such it's no point of support for why one way is better than another.

As I have said many, many times - I'd much prefer a world with things worth buying than one where everything is for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Question for the article author: Could you explain why "piracy" is not _also_ a nonsense metaphor?

Piracy is an act of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea.

It feels like 99% of arguments are between people who haven't clearly defined the meaning of words they are arguing over.

<comment><USER6> I believe nowadays "piracy" isn't being used as a metaphor at all, it's just a re-purposing of a word. No one is conflating the act of sea robbery with copyright infringement. No one is saying "Our navies need more funding because of these pirates." With "theft", there's no metaphor being used. It's trying to set things up to use theft as a synonym for copyright infringement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Depriving others of revenue IS theft. If the terms of use for a service or product require payment then any use without payment is, in effect, theft. These juvenile justifications are how 13-year olds comfort themeselves about their behaviour. Don't want to pay? Don't use it.

<comment><USER6> "Depriving others of revenue IS theft." - No, it is not. This is a much more complex scenario, and reducing it to simple lines like that doesn't further the discussion at all. (Not to mention there's a million ways to "deprive others of revenue". What if I slander you, so that people stop buying your service? Do you really want to call that theft?)

Take the example of a DVD you've already purchased for personal use. If I rip that to play on my unlicensed OS, is it theft? What if I rip the DVD so I can email a link to my brother, instead of shipping him the DVD? Calling this theft is pointless, unless the point is to unfairly frame the debate.

<comment><USER8> > "what if I slander you"...

An even more important example - What if I open up a competing business with better advertising and greater value for money? That deprives others of revenue, but is neither criminally nor civilly illegal, and only in certain cases could it even be considered immoral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >...Paulo Coelho made a Russian translation of The Alchemist available without permission from his publisher. As a result the sales in Russia skyrocketed from 1,000 books a year to over 1,000,000.

I feel uncomfortable with this example because it was the author who chose to give his book away.

I'm of a mixed mind about piracy in regards to media content. I don't agree with it but it's the only thing that manages to force content owners to rethink their business model. If it wasn't for Napster and the like, there wouldn't be an iTunes or Spotify. If it was up to them we would still be paying $20 for a CD. The same is happening with TV and movies and I'm sure they will be facing the same situation as broadband gets faster.

I don't include the print industry in this because they are more lost than any other because it's so poorly run.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think theft can be simply defined as: "Taking something that isn't yours without permission."

On the plus side, the various rationalizations people come up with to justify theft of creative works shows that they have at least some bit of conscience left.

Teacher: "Billy I gave you an 'F' on your paper because Bobby already passed in that exact same paper."

Billy: "But I wrote the paper! Bobby must have stolen/copied it and passed it in first!"

Teacher: "But Billy, you still have your original paper so how is that theft?"

</comment><comment><USER11> "Bootlegging" always seemed like a more appropriate term to me. Although perhaps that has the connotation attached that the illegal distributor is profiting from the materials in question.

</comment><comment><USER12> Copyright is just a dirty hack to make capitalism work with information, a domain capitalism not at all good at dealing with.

</comment><comment><USER13> "There is no loss when something is copied, or the loss is radically different from losing something like your bike..."

The question is not about tangible loss, it's about property rights, and the forceful encroachment thereof.

Being semantically picky about the concept doesn't alter the fact that the property of one individual is interacted with apart from their prerogative, i.e., their right to property is being violated - by force.

There is a loss when something is copied by force, the loss of one's right to private property. Call it theft or not, the legal repercussions should be the same.

<comment><USER6> A lot of the issue is about how the debate is being framed. There's no value in a discussion to shift terms around to confuse the issue. Copyright infringement is well defined; there's no need to use "theft".

"Call it theft or not, the legal repercussions should be the same."

You are aware there's a difference between uploading a file, and breaking into your house to steal a physical DVD? Why on earth should a license violation be considered a _criminal_ offense?

<comment><USER14> Identity theft is still called theft, even though there's no actual stealing going on. You still have your identity, it's just copied.

I'm waiting for another GNU license violation story to come out, because when a company uses source code in a proprietary app and doesn't follow the license, people here throw around the word "theft" even though there's no actual stealing going on. A good example is the Thesis Theme.

<comment><USER8> The trouble with the term identity theft is that there typically _is_ actual stealing going on, but that it's not actually your identity that is being stolen.

Identity thieves don't normally just go around introducing themselves to strangers with the stolen identity. Were that the case, it would rarely be a problem. They apply for loans with no intention to repay, and buy goods with the goal of landing the bill with the real owner of the identity.

<comment><USER9> It's curious that you mention this because I had my identity stolen when I went to college. A Chinese student was currently using my SS# at a school. The same school. I had to go out of my way to prove I was the correct owner of the number.

He is charging loans on my account. Is that not a form of theft?

<comment><USER8> This is why I used the words "typically" and "rarely" above, but I'd still argue that your identity wasn't the thing that was stolen from you, rather that they used your identity to steal something, either from you or someone else.

Not being from the same country as you, I don't really understand what it means to have someone else use your social security number, but as I said above, it is theft, not of your identity, but of the money being lent to the false "you".

Basically, the term "identity theft" could be likened to "knife crime" or "gun deaths". "Knife crime" rarely refers to the theft of a knife, but to crime (robbery, assault, murder) committed using a knife.

<comment><USER14> So using your reasoning, we can still call piracy "theft"?

<comment><USER8> If you can show that something is being stolen, then yes. If, on the other hand, no stealing is going on, then no.

The problem I have with the "piracy is theft" thing is that I think its use makes it harder to convince people who counter with arguments saying that the original owner still has the "stolen" item.

For one thing, it's an extra step one needn't take. First you have to convince them that it is actually theft, then you have to convince them that they should do something about it.

If you start with the simple position of "this thing normally costs money, and you haven't paid for it", then you can get straight to the heart of the matter.

Note that I say "convince" and not "be more right than". People indulge in all sorts of self-justification and moral balancing, particularly if they can convince themselves that it's a victimless crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the argument whether a copy is theft is irrelevant. In my view, hacking into a bank's database and adding a few thousand dollars to your bank balance would be theft as well even if you didn't modify any other accounts or data. The point is that you steal money from the copyright owners when you copy their work without their permission because you owe them money you and you didn't pay.

<comment><USER16> Adding a thousand dollars to your bank balance _does_ deprive others. It's hard to take anything else you say seriously when you make such a basic mistake.

<comment><USER15> But that's exactly my point. In my view, you also deprive the interested parties in copyright when you don't pay for the content you use or redistribute.

There's no need for ad hominem attacks, we're all civil, nice people on Hacker News.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not theft. It's worse. Theft of something like a television means just that physical physical is stolen. It's the cost of doing business.

Over time, if piracy is not stopped, users will get the idea that your software is free and will be unwilling to pay for it in the future. This has the potential to destroy the profits for your entire product. Big companies like Microsoft and Adobe can handle this, but it's devastating to a smaller company.

Companies also lose money through support calls from people that haven't purchased the product (this happens more than you think).

Think about the newspaper industry: It's dying because you can get news stories anywhere, for free. Why would it be any different for the software industry?

Torrentfreak is a pro-piracy site. They want to change the word "theft" to something positive so piracy is accepted as a positive thing. It's not positive.

Piracy is the equivalent of a big company farming their work out to China: they don't want to pay the big prices here (software that's expensive) or worry about restrictions (drm/copy protection), so they go somewhere else where it's cheaper (piracy sites/bittorrent).

<comment><USER6> You realise that some of your arguments could be applied equally to open source software?

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure why I got down voted. I made my points and wasn't a troll about it. I suppose down voting = difference of opinion on HN these days.......

yes, and they stand for open source software too. Open source is devaluing developers in the long run. With all of the free open source software being released, many companies don't need software engineers because all of the hard work is already completed. Many only really need software mechanics, which tinker with the already existing code and add features. As more and more owners realize this, salaries for developers will slowly drop.

I've already seen this at a few companies. Instead of hiring a team of developers to work on something, the company hired one developer and used an open source app. You don't really need a college education for this type of work.

<comment><USER6> Just quick: I downvoted because you made a silly argument. You dismissed physical theft because "it's the cost of doing business" (ignoring physical harm). Then you went on a generic complaint about the decline of industries.</comment></comment></comment></comment>