Tesla Delivers Record 97,000 Vehicles in Q3 - <AUTHOR> https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q3-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries <comment><USER2> I've practically stopped hearing about Tesla in the news, which must mean they're doing great. Great job, Tesla folks!

<comment><USER3> Actually they aren't doing so great. Everything has changed.

Before last year it was basically just Tesla and a few token cars e.g. Leaf in the electric vehicle space. Now every car company is jumping in and any detractors e.g. BMW CEO are being swiftly moved on.

And so Tesla is now competing against the most highly capitalised, profitable and experienced companies in the world. Porsche Taycan is based on every review the best EV car money can buy. VW has the ID.3/ID.4 coming out shortly which look seriously good and they have plans for 70 models to be released in the coming decade. You have startups like Rivian which are attracting significant outside funding and disrupting segments. And at the cheaper price points you have dozens of Chinese manufacturers entering the fray.

Tesla is about to have the fight of their life and all while they are losing hundreds of millions each quarter.

<comment><USER4> People have been making that exact argument for years. There have been so many "Tesla killers" that I've lost count. None have panned out.

The Taycan is roughly twice as expensive as the equivalent Model S Tesla and has greatly inferior range and, among people likely to buy electric cars, presumably less brand value. People haven't forgotten VW's emissions scandal. Let's not forget they haven't even shipped a single Taycan yet. BMW has sold a crappy, overpriced electric car/washing-machine-lookalike for years (i3) without it catching on.

Furthermore, there's no real competition on the horizon just yet for the Model 3. Tesla have a 3-6 year head start on making electric cars which will be difficult to overcome.

<comment><USER3> And you seemed to have completely missed my point.

Car companies have been doing nothing for years. But now for the first time they are all 100% committed to EV. And as we've seen with the Taycan, EQC and the ID.3/4 they can easily compete with Tesla.

<comment><USER2> > as we've seen with the Taycan and the ID.3/4 they can easily compete with > Tesla.

The Taycan is not really competing with anything but Tesla's highest-end and presumably lowest-volume products, and the ID.3 and 4 don't exist as production cars yet (AFAIK).

Competing with them is obviously possible but these aren't very good examples.

<comment><USER5> The Taycan is DOA. If I want an electric car then I'm getting a Tesla because it's the easiest to own, easiest to charge, the most proven and outperforms every other EV. If I want a Porsche then I'm getting a 911 turbo because it's their most iconic car. I'm not about to spend 150k on their first attempt at an EV, the riskiest model in their catalog and the one that will most likely sell the lowest volume. I don't understand where the market is for the Taycan. Forget about it being a "Tesla killer". It's good that they're going electric. I hope they stick with it and do well. But Tesla has already established themselves as a premium brand. It's not like Porsche is coming in and filling a void here. They are going up against the leader in the leader's strongest segment, and one which is low volume and not much pie to share.

<comment><USER6> > _The Taycan is DOA._

No, they'll be selling about 20,000 a year which is what they always planned for. They're actually increasing production capacity at the moment:

[https://electrek.co/2019/10/02/porsche-taycan-increase- produ...](https://electrek.co/2019/10/02/porsche-taycan-increase-production- high-demand/)

> _I'm not about to spend 150k_

There are two cheaper variants on the way. Buy one of them if you want:

[https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/cheaper-porsche-taycan- ev...](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/cheaper-porsche-taycan-ev/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That first line after the chart is the big takeaway in my opinion. The backlog of orders increased this quarter which is both good news, since it shows demand is not a problem, and bad news, since Tesla still can't produce cars fast enough.

<comment><USER3> Demand mix is a huge problem though.

Model 3 is cannibalising sales of the S and X models. Which means their ARPU and gross margin has rapidly decreased causing impacts to their revenue and profit.

Tesla's fiscal position is simply unsustainable.

<comment><USER8> I'm sorry for being pedantic here - but your final sentence does not necessarily follow from the previous.

Lowering ARPUs and tightening gross margin % are an issue - yes. But the single most important factor here is gross margin in absolute terms. If sales volume increases to offset decreasing ARPUs, this doesn't make 'Tesla's fiscal position simply unsustainable'.

<comment><USER3> Sales volumes are not offsetting decreasing ARPUs though.

That's the problem. And you only have to look at Tesla's profit numbers to see this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the last 4 quarters Tesla has delivered 271,521 model 3s. That would make it about the 12th best selling car in america. That is about as many escapes ford has sold. That is pretty phenomenal.

<comment><USER10> Edit: Didn't realize they were including Q4 2018

That's Tesla's total sales worldwide. About 50k of those sales are Model S/X. Their total sales for Model 3 in the US are at 114,500 for the year. Source: [https://insideevs.com/news/373812/ev-sales-scorecard- septemb...](https://insideevs.com/news/373812/ev-sales-scorecard- september-2019/)

Still great numbers but just wanted to be accurate.

<comment><USER9> I am using the last 4q.

You can use the data from here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3#Deliveries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3#Deliveries)

and here:

[https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release- details/tesl...](https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release- details/tesla-q3-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries)

<comment><USER10> Ah my mistake, I didn't realize you were including Q4 2018 :) Still think it's a bit of an unfair comparison to compare Tesla's worldwide sales to other car makers' US sales.

Edit: Just realized the Model 3 actually is the 12th best selling vehicle in the US for September! 20th best selling vehicle in the US in Q3 :) Source: [http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/us-vehicle-sales-figures-by- mod...](http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/us-vehicle-sales-figures-by-model/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wikipedia has a chart of past deliveries, for comparison: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3#Deliveries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3#Deliveries) Looks like Model 3 is up about 10% from the previous quarter, which is not like 2018Q2-to-Q3 which nearly doubled, but is still a significant bump up.

<comment><USER12> Gigafactory 3 in China comes online this month. Manufacturing lines are already validated. I'd expect an increased step up in quarterly deliveries going forward. Also, no more Fremont->China ocean shipping delay.

This puts Tesla on track to build and deliver 500k+ vehicles a year next year. This does not include energy storage sales out of GF1 in Nevada.

<comment><USER13> Tesla has never been able to bring a production line online without a year or so of significant problems.

<comment><USER14> Tesla's never copied an existing production line either though. The Model S, X, and 3 lines were all novel for Tesla. The Shanghai line should be a copy of the 3 line from Fremont for the most part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They had a leaked email posted last week that they were pushing for 100K. So 97k is less than was priced into the stock. Not sure why institutional investors don't like the stock and it's so heavily shorted and twitchy.

Tesla could use a COO to manage operational expectations and let Elon focus more on engineering in the future. It'll keep his twitter/email free from setting market expectations.

<comment><USER16> Institutional investors don't like the stock because it's a 16 year old company that's never made a profit a year in existence. It's pretty easy to see how that could make any money manager run scared

<comment><USER17> Amazon was kind of similar

Edit: Wow, so much hate for a one-line comment. I have five replies and three downvotes as of now.

I stand by my comment. I think Tesla is building long-term value (brand recognition, a reputation for innovation in an stodgy industry, technical know-how in multiple industries) that will allow them to be profitable. I know well how Amazon got here, but I don't care about the technicalities. It is the behemoth that it is because of the compounded value added over 14+ years. I see Tesla equally driven and able to take advantage of the things it puts in place now.

<comment><USER16> Amazon has been cash flow positive since 2003. Amazon has a unique negative cash flow cycle where they collected revenue significantly prior to paying their accounts payable. As long as they are constantly growing, it is basically like running a business on a credit card.

Tesla is in a completely different situation. Cars require massive upfront investment before their revenue is realized, and given the results just posted, Tesla will most likely post a quarter with declining revenue.

People should stop comparing things to Amazon. Amazon was successful because it was unique.

<comment><USER18> Semantics, but "negative cash conversion cycle", not "negative cash flow cycle".

<comment><USER16> You are correct; I type without proofreading

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Forecasters had expected 99,000, so below targets. Tesla has said they are targeting 400,000 for the year, so Q4 will need to be quite something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which forecasters? Morgan Stanley put out a note just this morning predicting 91,000 deliveries:

[https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/morgan-stanley- predicts...](https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/morgan-stanley- predicts-q3-deliveries-miss-tesla-capitulates-companys-autonomous)

One of the most prominent TSLA shorts was predicting 82,000:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/markbspiegel/status/1167484390366...](https://mobile.twitter.com/markbspiegel/status/1167484390366240768)

Full-year guidance is 360,000 - 400,000. They should have no problem hitting the lower end at this point.

<comment><USER4> Spiegel is remarkably and consistently wrong about everything related to TSLA, yet always full of sound and fury about it. From the aspect of a relatively neutral observer (me, although I like Tesla) he's a remarkable character study. I often read his Twitter in a state of bemused horror.

He runs his "long-shirt macro hedge fund" out of his 1 bedroom upper east side apartment but probably manages (significantly) less than 10MM USD, although he stopped releasing figures. I'm fascinated by how someone ends up like him. The absolute insistence in his own ability despite all reasonable evidence to the contrary is something to behold.

I have to acknowledge the possibility that his public personality is at least to some extent a performance, perhaps designed to raise his profile among potential investors. But he's so consistently and thoroughly repulsive (see his pinned Twitter non-apology for a since-deleted "joke" involving Epstein, Greta Thunberg, and child rape) among others that I don't think it's all performative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Am I the only one who thinks the Wall Street is playing dirty? Right before the report they increase the expectations so tesla miss, if they wouldn't increase it that should be a beat, same with eps last quarter. It feels like they force the news headlines to be 'tsla miss'. Or maybe I'm a bit fanatic, please correct me if I'm wrong.

<comment><USER21> What's the incentive for Wall Street "to play dirty"? Analysts at investment banks need to retain good relationships with the CEOs of the companies (they are not allowed to disclose any market relevant non public information but it still helps tremendously with their work) as well as the investors (by making good forecasts and retaining them as clients).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Cue $TSLAQ talking about the Tesla bubble.

Really cool to watch Tesla absolutely kick ass.

<comment><USER23> TSLAQ is actually quite happy with this number, with the stock down 5% AH.

The multiple on this stock has it pegged to be an extreme growth company, but 5% annualized delivery growth with shrinking ASPs is decidedly not a "growth" number.

TSLAQ is wrong that it's a fraud and/or insolvent. But they're absolutely right that its valuation is absurd and needs to eventually come down to meet reality.

<comment><USER24> I think the promises around FSD are fraud, especially since they took a lot of money for it on basically just an over-optimistic hunch of being able to deliver it.

<comment><USER25> Did you pay for it.

<comment><USER24> what's the implication supposed to be?

<comment><USER25> R u a dissatisfied customer

<comment><USER24> I'm not claiming fraud against me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good old zerohedge never misses an opportunity to shit on Tesla [0]. Question for Tesla owners: how is the reliability? I'd love to get unto an electric if only to never have to change my oil again but im curious as to what kind of maintenance requirements these cars have.

[0] : [https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/tesla-stock-tumbles- aft...](https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/tesla-stock-tumbles-after- disappointing-q3-deliveries)

<comment><USER27> Amazing, truly, but ... don't get the early version of a new model. I got one of the very early (RWD, 2012) Model S. It was awesome, but it had a far amount of birthing problems and thankfully I live close enough to the service center. However, I really wanted AWD so I swapped it out in 2014 and I haven't had almost no problems with it since.

Compared to the (notoriously reliable) Subaru Impreza WRX I drove for 10 years prior to that, there are no regular oil changes, etc.

I do spend more on tires now :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Tesla fan here but I have to point out that this headline seems very favorable. Other headlines indicate that despite the new record, the expected deliveries count was 99k.

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-stock-falls-after- co...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-stock-falls-after-company- misses-third-quarter-delivery-expectations-2019-10-02)

<comment><USER29> That market "expectation" was increased to 99K just this week, after the email from Musk was leaked with a mention of 100K deliveries.

Don't trust these market "targets": these are mostly published and (silently) changed to pleased some analyst's clients and make the SP price to move in a preferred direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> One day I saw 3 Tesla car carriers parked at the truck stop right next to each other (so about 26 or so Teslas - all model 3s). That was a bit unusual, there is typically one Tesla car carrier per day. This was off the 5 in CA (and at a Casino - lol)

</comment><comment><USER31> Yet $TSLA has lost ~5% in after hours trading. Wat.png

Edit: Wasn't aware of the 100k expectation.

<comment><USER32> The broad market was down almost 2% today, and Tesla is a higher alpha stock.

<comment><USER33> Do you mean that Tesla is a higher beta stock? According to Yahoo Finance, its beta is actually only 0.33. Source: [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key- statistics?p=TSLA](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key-statistics?p=TSLA)

<comment><USER32> Yes beta, and surprising on the actual beta. It seems my assumption was wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> German Carmakers Hate This Trick: Electric Vehicles That Work. Hopefully the eu wakes up and removes barriers for us good, so more europeans can buy teslas.

</comment><comment><USER35> The investors still don't like this.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can't wait to find out what easily justifiable voodoo they used to fudge the numbers this time.</comment>


Apple actually lost in Dutch court, not the opposite - <AUTHOR> http://jan.wildeboer.net/2011/08/samsung-v-apple-in-nl-happy-selling-samsung/

<comment><AUTHOR> For the interest - video of the Knight Ridder Newspad (from 1994!), that was used as a prior design by the court. Very interesting, if a little too talkative

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI>

<comment><USER2> Nice. Key elements at 2:30 - 1994 description of how tablets would be pervasive, image could be a (larger) iPad, and the statement that tablets would be for consumption and we may still use desktops for creating content.

It looks like it may have a slightly raised bezel around the screen, and it's a stylus based interface, but it's primarily a display in a rounded rectangle with a narrow black border, and it appears to lack other buttons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cache, since site isn't working

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://jan.wildeboer.net/2011/08/samsung- v-apple-in-nl-happy-selling- samsung/&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=AmS&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER4> The first article I saw only really mentioned that Samsung was banned from selling certain phones in the jurisdiction. APPLE WON!! YAY!! They said world will now be a better place, somehow.

After reading the second and third articles on the same topic that claimed Apple won (because of the BAN) I was confused. It seemed to me that Apple didn't really win anything at all. Especially with the majority of the points Apple were making being tossed.

I don't get the logic; Company A sues Company B over five bullet points, Company A loses four of them and wins one, Company A somehow wins the entire case. How exactly?

Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there an explanation somewhere of how the gallery in 2.x infringed, but the gallery in 3.x does not? It's not immediately clear to me how the two are significantly different.

<comment><USER6> Yes, in the verdict. The patent is on two things that are relevant here. 1: When you slide through pictures with your finger, and you move one picture to the right, is the empty space on the left filled with parts of the new picture? If yes, you infringe! 2. If you slide a picture a bit and remove your finger, does the picture pop back to the centre? If yes, you infringe!

Is this a ridiculous patent? Yes. But hey, that's the system.

Android 3.0 on tablets does not have this functionality as they run on a big screen with a different approach, hence Android 3.0 and thus also the Galaxy Tab that runs with 3.0 is not infringing. As this was the _only_ surviving point of Apple (all design stuff, copyright, copycat, patent claims have been thrown out) it needs a trivial fix from Samsung - that they already promised to deliver - and Samsung is the big winner here. Today the whole circus moves to germany, Düsseldorf court. Should be fun!

<comment><USER7> Doesn't anything that use Gallery3D thus infringe? (every AOSP based Android phone)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thank you very much for this info. It's a pity to see that once again the media got it all wrong.

</comment><comment><USER9> Amazing. I read the Dutch version also.

Funny that if you google this, you mostly find articles that says other wise :(

</comment><comment><USER10> Unfortunately its the end result taht matters.

<comment><USER11> Did you RTFA? The end result is a minor software change has to be deployed by Samsung, software which is already in Android 3.0.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: GAE + Django, is it worth it? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I'm wondering if you have any experience running  Django on Google App Engine? Any problems making it work?
I'm wondering if I should jump to GAE in order to use the new Mapper API. I could really use some cheap Map/Reduce (only map for now). Do you think it is worth it to learn a new language + framework? <comment><USER2> Yes, Yes, yes. I have implemented two small websites on GAE. It's fabulous. It has some scaling issues, but it scales up high enough for proof of concepts and minimum viable products. It is cheap, and easy to use. No futzing around with a server, ever. No DB installation or maintenance issues. Just write and run.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a related question: I am interested in getting started, and am currently heavily leaning towards GAE + Django. Friends say everything is swell, I like using Python, etc. Any reason NOT to invest more time in this? (Without, er, necessarily instigating a RoR debate).</comment>


Copyright to Class Notes: Do Students Own the Copyright to Their Notes? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kunvay.com/copyright-to-class-notes-do-students-own-the-copyright-to-their-notes/

<comment><USER2> Property, in the legal sense of the word, refers not to a particular scarce resource, but rather to a state-acknowledged bundle of exclusive rights that an individual may be recognized to hold over said resource. State acknowledgement of real and personal property, <b>combined with the rule of law</b>, are the basis of the stability of, and therefore prosperity of, the so-called 'first world'. Trying to extend these metaphors to intellectual property, to build fences around knowledge, without seriously rethinking the fundamental differences between ideas and manifest things, quickly generates absurdity. Should every teacher that I've ever had be entitled to some portion of the value that I am able to create applying the ideas that they have imparted to me? Did they create those ideas in the first place?

I believe people should be able to make a living from their work. That said, copyright is not an incorruptible shield-maiden descended from the heavens to defend creators. Copyright, among other things, makes legal interest portable. This has many upsides for the clever and the brave, but it also allows the naive and unwary to be fleeced, as the depressing nursing homes full of dirt- poor hit song writers could attest.

<comment><USER3> To elaborate, copyright has always been primarily for the economic benefit of distributors, and only rationalized as a benefit for creators. Tolerating the occasional absurdity was understandable when distribution was capital- intensive and economic incentives were needed, but now that distribution is nearly free, our expanding copyright law only serves to incentivize marketing, an activity of questionable social benefit that hardly needs encouragement.

<comment><USER4> _Copyright has always been primarily for the economic benefit of distributors, and only rationalized as a benefit for creators_

This statement is sort of nonsense. Copyright has always been exploited by groups of people formed to exploit it. Yes. But its "purpose" is and was independent of such.[1] The problem is that these groups are now re-writing laws to entrench their business interests as public policy. The "purpose" needs to be seperated more clearly. (1)It is independent of "copyright" per se, as a strategy; and (2) it is independent of any particular implementation of that strategy via law or fiat. The point of noting these differences is that in order to solve these problems they need to be framed more pecisely and more clearly. That's not to say I agree or disagree with the direction you are proposing. And I think you are dimensionalizing the problem in useful ways and at the right level of abstraction.

Notes ______________

[1] As a point of history, copyright predates the industrial revolution. And thus predates widespread organizing economic actors as corporations. Authors and independent professionals were in a much different position in society, and corporations were relatively few, etc. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law>

<comment><USER3> Your Wikipedia reference begins with "The history of copyright law starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books." Not 'authors of books'. Printers. Why? Because printing books was expensive, and printers needed some assurance they were going to have a monopoly if they were going to invest the money. How is that in any way contradictory to my statement?

<comment><USER4> _and only rationalized as a benefit for creators_

The public policy goal is to spread knowledge. If the printing is a critical step, it needs to get done. You're conflating ends and means. It was eg the guttenburg bible that increased the spread of literacy and the use of vernacular language in european history, right?

Ergo _Dante: Inferno_ etc.

In other words, this is constructive criticism. I'm not slighting your observations. The point is that the public policy goal which makes copyright "poltically correct", needs to be articulated clearly and benchmarked for performance. Even in your formulation, it is this what shields it from reform. That's the end [or not].

And so, then the question is: what _means_ [x from the set X] do we pick? Well, we need to look at all the alternatives. The, its ends<=>means + some thought optimaztion or "natural selection" or whatever. Is a different framework.

<comment><USER4> Its a fair question to ask: Since the original dynamics were set in place, we don't need to print books, since we don't need capital to distribute recordings, etc should we re-evaluate in light of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > For copyright to even exist at all the work must be fixed in a tangible > medium.

Examples of a "tangible medium" would include, of course, graphite markings, magnetic dust, or the strength of nodes in a neural network.

<comment><USER6> What about my intangible spiritual soul? Is my whole life a lie? Which part of me will go to heaven? :o

<comment><USER7> You are born with the rights to your soul, otherwise you wouldn't be able to contractually give it up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> University degree programs come with some of the scariest shrink-wrap licenses I've ever seen. If colleges really thought this was a problem they wouldn't need copyright.

The public perception of universities as some kind of noble public service needs to end.

<comment><USER9> Can you give an example of one of those licenses?

<comment><USER8> They're usually not public, so finding one would take a lot of digging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had to sign (hit accept on a webform) an agreement when I started at my university that said the university would own any intellectual property I produced using university resources. Which I am to assume is just to cover them for anything I create for assignments.

I am not sure on exact details of the agreement, as this was just under a year ago now and having asked for the agreement since I haven't been provided with a copy of it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was never much of a note taker in class, however most students I observed who were tended to copy verbatim that which the lecturer was presenting, either in slides or on the board.

Rarely was there any use of " _their own skill and knowledge to interpret what has been said_ " that allowed them to " _claim ownership of them_ ".

I agree that _some_ notes may be significantly original works, however the arguments made are somewhat incomplete and rather broad, to their detriment.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Copyrights for Back to School so as not to copyright infringe.

<comment><USER12> > Copyrights for Back to School so as not to copyright infringe.

Does this make any sense at all to anyone else?

<comment><USER13> I've read it several times and gave it a few minutes, and I've got nothing.</comment></comment></comment>


Another iPhone 6 mockup - <AUTHOR> http://thefrustum.com/blog/2014/2/7/another-iphone-6-mockup

<comment><USER2> That looks alot like the Samsung Galaxy line to me. I suspect Apple would want to stay away from anything with such a close resemblance to their biggest competitor.</comment>


Underground Cellar – A Wine-Buying Site That Rewards You With Free Bottles - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/15/underground-cellar-is-a-wine-buying-site-that-rewards-you-with-better-bottles-for-free/

<comment><AUTHOR> I was curious about this, as I've been making use of [https://www.tastingroom.com/](https://www.tastingroom.com/) from time to time, but may give this a try. Signup via FB was a bit rough however, and and I ended up having to remove all its permissions.

I'll probably give it another try and pick up a few bottles to see if it's worth it though.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for giving the site a whirl! We know we have a lot of tweaking to make the experience better- I'd love to learn more about the issues with the FB signup? What type of device were you using? Feel free to call us as well and we can place an order over the phone 888-977-9899.</comment></comment>


What you didn't see on TV, from Kardashian heckling to stars covertly snacking - <AUTHOR> http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~/607073196/0/usatoday-newstopstories~Emmys-What-you-didnt-see-on-TV-from-Kardashian-heckling-to-stars-covertly-snacking/ <comment><USER2> Please stop creating these fake accounts, or we'll have to ban your main account and site as well.</comment>


Addons.mozilla.org disclosure - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2010/12/27/addons-mozilla-org-disclosure/

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like the misconceptions about password hashing are out yet again.

</comment><comment><USER2> Wonder what is being used for per user salt.</comment>


Why don't black and white Americans live together? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35255835 <comment><USER2> The article seems to suggest that latent racism from the banks, real estate agents and white buyers remains the main engine for segregation even today.

While I haven't lived in US, it seems to me segregation can persist in an unequal society even if racism is marginal: it's enough that buyers of all races observe that higher blackness is correlated with poverty. If that's the case, buyers will rationally flee black areas for the sake of property value. Black affluent buyers will flee to white areas for the same reasons, but if they are a minority they can't balance out. So depending on the correlation of home ownership with wealth (strong in the US), you get a vicious circle where black areas get blacker and their initial majority black residents become trapped there due to declining property values, with the banking and commercial sector entrenching the segregation due to risk aversion.

So once initiated, ethnic polarization is self sustaining even if the initial instigators (racism) become largely irrelevant. Poverty itself becomes the engine of segregation, so the only way to break the cycle is to promote equality.

</comment><comment><USER3> "It may seem odd because we have stereotypes of the South, but residential segregation levels are lowest in Southern cities such as Atlanta, Houston and Dallas," she says.

...so they live together, but just in the South?

This piece had a lot to say about historical prejudice, but doesn't adequately explain why segregation persists. A single anecdote and a throw-away stat about profiling prospective home buyers don't explain things well at all.

<comment><USER4> Having lived in Baltimore for 10 years, I can say that there are multiple causes for continuing segregation. There is no satisfying way to explain it and no end in sight.

You are right that this about far more than realtors steering people one place or another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are historical reasons, e.g. racism embodied in the 3/5ths clause of the US Constitution. There's American mythology that racism is principally a southern flaw even though there were no Major League Baseball teams in the south when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier...unless one considers Washington D.C. a southern city and it is and was directly under the control of Congress in which since the US Civil War legislators from southern states have been in a distinct minority.

But even with free choice, it is worth considering the effects of Schelling's segregation model. Across a large population small preferences go a long way.

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

[http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/demos/schelling/schell...](http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/demos/schelling/schellhp.htm)

</comment><comment><USER6> This article is on point.

One only needs to go to NYC's Upper East Side to see this in action. Right above the UES (Yorkville, specifically) is Spanish Harlem.

Before 96th Street? Multi-million dollar penthouses and rentals abound that will impress your friends and family guaranteed. "Gourmet organic" bodegas. Expensive-looking restaurants. Upper-middle-class creature comforts all around.

After 96th Street? Projects. Junk-food bodegas. Domestic abuse shelters. Police cameras. Unmistakeable poverty oozing through the sewers. It's frustrating to watch.

(This contrast is even more stark in much of America. My girlfriend and I went to Memphis during a road trip last year. She went to college there and wanted to show me how quickly Memphis goes from "filthy rich asshole" to "filthy shithole".

There was an approximate 2 block radius of really expensive-looking homes and tree-lined streets that bordered the college. Outside of it? Endless projects.)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's sad but some older minority folks grew up fearing white racism or hating whites, and never wanted to integrate. Maybe it's just a small irrelevant data point, but a friend's grandmother went to her grave hating whites because her white teachers from elementary through high school would tape her mouth, and her sister's, with duct tape for hours for speaking Spanish.

The reality is that we live in a racist world, which continues to perpetuate because blacks / Browns and whites are divided, for the most part, across economic lines that will take a long time to be erased, and those economic lines create cultural lines that are harder to bridge.

</comment><comment><USER8> According to Schelling's model even slight preference to be with your own color leads to segregation [http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling- model-segreg...](http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling-model- segregation/)

<comment><USER9> Here's an interactive link illustrating the same phenomenon: [http://ncase.me/polygons/](http://ncase.me/polygons/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> related article that I stumbled upon the other day [http://goplifer.com/2016/01/02/why-i-live-in-a-white- neighbo...](http://goplifer.com/2016/01/02/why-i-live-in-a-white- neighborhood/)

</comment><comment><USER11> "For there to be complete integration in the United States, more than half of black Americans would need to move."

...or, you know, half the white people. Or a mix of both, and maybe throw in other groups besides black and white.

</comment><comment><USER12> I imagine it's because of fear and inconvenience.

[http://www.phillymag.com/articles/white- philly/?all=1](http://www.phillymag.com/articles/white-philly/?all=1)

</comment><comment><USER13> Let's not leave out the history of Sundown Towns[1]

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

</comment><comment><USER14> Is this a trick question?

I'm gonna go for "because the US is still a massively racist country."

<comment><USER3> Is the South less racist because it's more integrated?

<comment><USER15> The actual quote is "residential segregation levels are lowest in Southern cities such as Atlanta, Houston and Dallas" not "the South" generically.</comment></comment></comment>


The Fair Use of Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://davidbarnard.com/post/8653446531/the-fair-use-of-ideas <comment><USER2> This article exhibits an unhealthy hidden assumption: that ideas (or maybe concepts) can be owned. That may be true legally, but it isn't true ethically or practically.

Independent invention happens all the time, and basically upends the concept of "idea as property". Wbo invented the computer? Babbage, Turing, Atanasoff or Eckert and Mauchly? Who invented radio? Marcon, Lee de Forest? Who invented the telegraph? Did Morse invent anything that Claude Chappe did not?

Since ideas can be developed independently (Knuth-Morris-Pratt string search, anyone?) and since one inventor really can't tell if someone else "stole" the idea or invented it independently (that is, there's no possession involved), then "stealing" really isn't the proper concept to apply.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your comments make a lot of sense for certain classes of ideas, like inventions. However, it is less clear to me that they apply to other sorts of "ideas as property," like musical compositions, novels, poetry, etc.</comment></comment>


Singapore Confronts an Emotion Deficit - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-20/singapore-confronts-an-emotion-deficit

<comment><USER2> I love statistics, but it seems to me that studies on self-reported states of emotion are fatally flawed no matter how you do the math. In this case, that is to say that just because the majority of people in a society reported neutrally on your study, does not mean that you can imply the negative.

In fact, however, what it does mean is that you can imply nothing, not even that your sample study is "confronting" an "emotion deficit".

This study, and others like it, are generally interesting, however, as they raise questions like: how do you quantify happiness? how do you quantify satisfaction? how do you quantify love? how do you quantify things that simply aren't currently quantifiable? Which brings up the reality, that if you cannot quantify such things for the individual, you surely cannot quantify them for an entire society of individuals? Or can you?

<comment><USER3> As a Singaporean, I don't think we have an "emotional deficit". We just have greater risks when speaking up. For example, a lady working here was hounded out of Singapore because of a facebook post. The online lynching mob even included the Prime Minister.

Another case, a cab driver casually mentioned off the record there was _once_ , he earned as much as 7k SGD in a single month. The journalist wrote the article seemingly to suggest that he was bragging about earning 7k every single month. (By Singapore standards, 7k is pretty high income) The cab driver was hounded out of his job as a result.

It's dangerous to speak up. There is no protection of free speech. So Singaporeans learn to play safe. Because we never know when a supposedly anonymous innocuous survey will end up quoting you by name.

The outcome of the survey is a damning reflection of how illiberal Singapore is.

But hey, dont go away, some say we have the most business friendly environment in the world.</comment></comment>


Can you help me with my thesis research? ( - <AUTHOR> http://www.wellsriley.com/blog/2012/can-you-help-me-with-my-thesis-research/

<comment><USER2> Glad to help out. Took about 7 minutes to fill out, for those interested in contributing.</comment>


How Not to Email Your Professor - <AUTHOR> http://digg.com/video/how-not-to-email-your-professor-you-dingus

<comment><USER2> Not much to discuss here. Just don't do what that dingus did, unless you really don't care whether you take the course, whether you pass, how well you do, and whether you will ever need this prof to write a recommendation!</comment>


Show HN: PlaidML, open source deep learning for any GPU - <AUTHOR> Our company Vertex.AI has been working on this for a while but this is the first public release. We're starting with using PlaidML to bring OpenCL support to Keras and more frameworks, platforms, etc are coming. Yes, this means you can use use your AMD GPU for deep learning dev. Sorry, no Mac or Windows support yet although the brave can try building from source (it should work).
http://vertex.ai/blog/announcing-plaidml
https://github.com/plaidml/plaidml <comment><USER2> Congrats! Is there a short summary about how your approach is different from existing stacks (like tensorflow, or nnvm)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Our functional goals are similar to NNVM (deep learning for all devices) but I don't know much about their technical approach. I think some of the developers are here in Seattle actually so hopefully we'll meet them at some point.

As far as differences vs TensorFlow, Keras, etc, we're not aiming to replace the developer-facing Python APIs. You can run Keras on top of PlaidML now and we're planning to add compatibility for TensorFlow and other frameworks as well. The portability (once we have Mac/Win) will help students get started quickly. It's much easier to write kernels in our Tile language than raw OpenCL or CUDA so we think this will help speed up research as well. On the throughput side we already outrun cuDNN in some cases and it's likely we can give Volta users a boost once we add support for its tensor unit.

<comment><USER3> To expand on this a bit, NNVM is mostly a graph serialization format and graph optimizer with a cuda/cudnn (and now TVM) backend. In this NNVM is very similar to XLA. Our approach handles both full graph optimization (though we have a lot of work to do there) and kernel creation and optimization through an intermediate language called Tile. TVM seems somewhat derivative of our approach, though it lacks a reasonable mechanism for optimizing kernels.

PlaidML and Tile are able to create optimal kernels for just about any architecture. This approach reduces dependencies and ensure that new hardware will just work.

We intend to have NNVM and Tensorflow backends in the future. The keras backend is only 2000 lines of code (thanks to tile).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As the owner of a mac with an amd gpu, I'm very excited to see support coming soon. Been wanting to get into ml but been pretty discouraged with all of the popular libraries being cuda-only.

<comment><USER3> The Mac build should be coming in the next two weeks. We're just tweaking compiler parameters to make sure Intel GPUs work as well as they should.

<comment><USER5> Great! I look forward to that announcement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty good perf on AMD compared to CuDNN! What conv kernels are you using?

Is PlaidML for inference only?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! It's all there in the source, they are generated at runtime. Training has some problems with memory consumption but we will fix that.

<comment><USER6> Sweet! If you can really get 16bit training going at 26 TFLOPS with Vega 64 then you've done something AMD themselves can't seem to be able to pull off

<comment><USER3> Yeah we'll be able to as soon as their OpenCL driver supports it or we write a direct ROCm backend. We have one in the lab now -- we definitely have room to improve its perf. We'll be looking at that a lot more in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice! I will try it. Did you test the inference on Intel GPUs?

<comment><USER3> We have done some preliminary tests. We need to tweak the configuration before we formally support them. When we officially release os-x support we will also support Intel GPUs (should happen in the next two weeks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good for you, but AGPL is basically a nonstarter for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's your application? AGPL is compatible with research and education, for closed-source commercial use we have other options available.

<comment><USER8> I'm just not willing to put time into learning an AGPL system, especially since I already have NVIDIA cards.</comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox's hiring practices explain its disappointing lack of female employees - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/16/dropboxs-hiring-practices-explain-its-disappointing%E2%80%8B-lack-of-female-employees/

<comment><USER2> _"Perhaps a question on how Dropbox might be used to solve income inequality or the unaffordability of housing in San Francisco would reveal as much about someone's creativity—and more about their character—than questions about superheroes."_

I wonder whether the motivation for this question is:

a) I am genuinely unaware that this question carries freighted assumptions which would project into the hiring process.

b) I am aware that this question carries freighted assumptions, but think they are justified because they tend to counterbalance pre-existing biases in the hiring processes.

c) I am aware that this question carries freighted assumptions, and if it thereby biases our hiring process, I am totally cool with that result.

</comment><comment><USER3> So they want geeky employees. They ask geeky hiring questions. Not a lot of women are geeky. Conclusion: hiring practices are biased against women.

I guess that's technically a correct conclusion, if many women can be placed outside the 'geeky' box. If you have an axe to grind (and face it most essays begin with that) then you can pound out 1000 words.

But what's actionable about that? Dropbox should succeed in some other way? Because they are succeeding, spectacularly. And changing their fundamental practices could arguably endanger that.

No I'm not all about the bro culture; I'm about not twisting culture to fit your favorite PC issue. 'Geeky' is working for them.

I'd suggest doing what Stanford does (did? in my day anyway). They work hard to find minorities that fit their culture. Instead of bashing the culture as the problem. Because bashing is just not helpful; and because they're starting with demonstrable value that could be destroyed by misdirected reforms.

</comment><comment><USER4> Biased hiring practices like...GPA?</comment>


You Might Not Need an Apple Watch App - <AUTHOR> http://developer.telerik.com/featured/you-might-not-need-an-apple-watch-app/

<comment><USER2> Buying smart watch is a good idea but investing huge amount of money for it not a good deal.</comment>


Things I Realized as a 23 Year Old Looking for a Job - <AUTHOR> https://rightbywords.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/things-i-realized-as-a-23-year-old-looking-for-a-job/

<comment><USER2> Aren't they cute when they're young?

<comment><USER3> The author seems self-aware and has a great sense of self-deprecating humour. The article sums up every literature graduate I've ever met.</comment></comment>


Let's give up on academic freedom in favor of justice - <AUTHOR> http://www.thecrimson.com/column/the-red-line/article/2014/2/18/academic-freedom-justice/?page=single

<comment><USER2> I believe the name to look up in this case is "Trofim Lysenko". This social experiment has been performed once already, and its spectacular and predictable failure should stand as a powerful argument that it need not be repeated.</comment>


Second Wachowski Sibling Comes Out as Transgender - <AUTHOR> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/second-wachowski-sibling-comes-as-873674 <comment><USER2> why should I care? Is it because of the political statement this makes in helping spread acceptance for LGBT community?

if not, then neither a person's religion nor a person's sexual preference should be a public topic.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't care about religion or sexual preferences either, to me it was just surprising that 2 brothers actually feel that they are a woman, something you don't hear everyday but is entirely possible. And I thought maybe this is hackernews worthy because the Wachowski's are maybe some hacker's heroes.

<comment><USER2> you are right. I am only speaking for myself, and also I'm naive to think there is no need for political speech in this space to further establish LGBTS(lesbian gay bi-sexual transgender and straight) equality.</comment></comment></comment>


Review my startup idea: Multiplayer game servers on demand - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I have just put up the landing page for my soon-to-launch startup, Cloudfrag.com, and I would really appreciate some feedback. Many of the ShowHNs of late have suffered from a distinct lack of detail in their landing pages. I am hoping mine does not suffer from the same problem.
http://www.cloudfrag.com
The traditional model in game server hosting (for PC games such as Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, etc.) is to charge a flat monthly fee, regardless of how often the server is used. As you are tied to one particular game when renting a server (or must pay a fee to change games) this becomes less cost-effective if you play a variety of games.
Cloudfrag is my attempt at solving this problem for myself and other gamers - the site lets people run their own servers, but they only pay for the time the server is actually running. This should make it a lot cheaper to have your own game server, especially if you either don't play much, or play a wide variety of games. It is currently in closed beta, and will be going to public beta soon.
I am keen to receive feedback on the landing page and the idea itself, so do let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Mike <comment><USER2> Differentiating based on pricing alone is tricky. I'd suggest convenience of setting up dedicated servers -- 0 to frag in 15 seconds or less.

In terms of pricing, charge hourly _but_ have an easy discounted day/week/month pass option. (1 hour for $0.25, 1 day for $5, 1 week for $20, 1 month for $40 -- I have done no market research, these are just to show the discount curve.)

I strongly suggest selling credits rather than doing actual utility billing. Gamers are pathological customers in a lot of ways. Wait for credit cards to break, massive fraud issues, etc.

I do not like Cloud* branding for someone who is not selling to developers. That doesn't seem to communicate value to the customer for me, since Cloud is a meaningless buzzword outside our industry. MultiplayerOnDemand, your strap line, sounds better. (GameOnDemand?)

In terms of getting users for this, you have many options. Advertising rates for gamers are low... for a reason. You probably monetize better than T-shirts, so that is a definite plus. I would start trying to recruit folks for it right now, individually -- your gaming buddies, clans, what have you. If you can't give it away, you'll never be able to sell it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback Patrick.

I had not thought about the day/* pass option, so far I have been looking at hourly rates. Users will deposit funds to their account, and when the server is started the cost will be deducted from their balance. I definitely do not want to get in to utility billing, it seems like a headache I don't want!

Wrt the name - I came up with it on the spur of the moment and did not really think about it much after that. Cloud is indeed irrelevant to a lot of the target market, so MultiplayerOnDemand might be a better option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1) I think you could charge in 24 hour increments pretty easily. Maybe the longer the server is running the cheaper it gets, so you could incentivize people to leave them up for longer periods of time.

For example (not real prices) maybe $5 per 24 hours and then $16 per week then $22 per month or whatever.

That way it's easy to take no risk at $5, but if you end up wanting to keep it up you're not paying $5 x 30 days which would _suck_.

2) I don't think you need to have the server end automatically. Letting me close it myself would be fine as an option, especially with the payment scheme I outlined above.

3) Let use prepayment. They fill up their account with $100 and when it runs out there's no overbilling. This adds a huge sense of security to the buyer. Probably also let people pay on-demand if they want by leaving a credit card on file.

4) Latency is _soooo_ important. Offer servers in west/central/east coasts. Do not use shitty oversubscribed bandwidth providers!

If you do Urban Terror or BC2 I'll try it out for sure. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) The charges will be in hourly increments to keep things simple. I might explore different options in future.

2) I'm not sure about this one, I think it might need to be an option the user can set. I would hate to be in the position where someone asks for a refund because they forgot to turn their server off. It could be ok if there is a big warning that ensures they realise they have to pay if it is left on.

3) Yes, definitely pre-payment. Credit card on file is a nice idea, I will look at that in future.

4) Couldn't agree more. There will be multiple locations so people can choose the closest one.

Thanks staunch, I appreciate the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a really cool idea.

I started a game server hosting company years ago, and my biggest challenge was renewing existing customers. Customers rarely lasted for more than 2-3 months or so. My business's biggest enemies were customers' parents (a lot of gamers are under 18, after all), and in-game clan/community politics (groups break up, people switch games/communities, etc.). I know these things seem petty, but it's hard to achieve growth without strong renewals.

I suspect that a lot of potential customers hesitated during the buying process for these same petty reasons: they were uncomfortable with the risks of prepaying for a month (or 3 months or 6 months) of services, knowing they might lose interest in the game, have their clan break up, or get grounded by their parents.

If this is as serious an impediment to finding new customers as I think it was 7 years ago, then on-demand game servers may be the solution.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback and good wishes snikolic.

I was in a similar situation to your customers - I would rent an L4D2 server for a few months, then let it expire if I was spending "too much" time on a new game. This was the initial inspiration for Cloudfrag.

It sounds like you might have some interesting ideas and experiences in this area - if you would like to share, my email is in my profile.

Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool - my friends and I are fairweather online gamers, we really prefer to play with each other via co-op or maybe once in a while we run TF2 or L4D2 on a whim. An on-demand service would be great.

Feature request (not sure if it's there): would love to be able to start a server, and send out email invites to friends with clickable join links that would connect them to the server.

Related: if you need help with designing, sending, and managing emails (especially for that last feature), I'd be happy to help. I'm the Product Manager for PostageApp (<http://www.postageapp.com>) and we're all about email. Let me know if I can help!

<comment><AUTHOR> It sounds like you and your friends are the type of people I am building this for.

Email invites are on the to-do list, although I am not sure whether or not I will enable that for the beta yet. I haven't thought about the implementation yet, but I will keep you guys in mind.

Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER5> Then please let me into the beta! Haha, no problemo though, I always dream about booting up my server and hosting for a limited time, but it's always such a pain in the butt to manage it all.

If you can do it at a reasonable rate, would be a very happy customer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the look of the landing page...it's clear, concise, and descriptive. And the design isn't overwhelming. From a UI standpoint, I approve.

One thing that might be helpful is labelling the games you do intend to support. That was the first question that I had. I see at the bottom you can view images of TF, Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, etc...but it would help if you were a little more explicit. It has those 3 listed under "Games, Games, Games", but I would love to know about the "many more". Overall it looks really nice!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

I'll work on making the games list more prominent. As for "many more", I'll be posting a poll to see what gamers would like to play first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great idea Mike. A few years back when i gamed online more I would've been all over a service like this.

Have you ever used webex, gotomeeting, etc? It'd be slick if you could make the startup experience a bit like those so you can start your server and get the connection details into your friends hands in one step.

</comment><comment><USER8> Question: can multiple people chip in some money for a server? Would it make sense to allow this? (E.g. a group of friends may wish to split costs.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this will be possible - I will go in to more detail in a blog post, but essentially you will be able to create a group of people who can pool resources, and then pay for servers with funds from that pool.

It might not be in the beta - if not, I will add it soon after. I have a few features aimed at groups/clans, as anecdotal evidence suggests they are the people most likely to pay for a server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Clickable: <http://www.cloudfrag.com></comment>


Building a company - <AUTHOR> http://avlesh.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/building-a-company/

<comment><USER2> majority of startups fail. Most likely yours will, as well. Let's say you succeeded. Do you want to work against all odds and succeed by creating a small company with small returns? So much hard work, just for peanuts? -by Rajesh

@Avlesh

You got great advice from great adviser and turned them into positive. i feel good you didn't giving up at that time neither you will and now we have grate entrepreneur to follow. Keep it up :)</comment>


Village Starter Kit - <AUTHOR> http://www.thingiverse.com/mkaisercross/collections/village-starter-pack/

<comment><AUTHOR> How helpful would a 3d printer be to a village in a developing country?</comment>


H.264 to Remain Fee-Less for Free Internet Video Through 2016 (via DF) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mpegla.com/main/Pages/Media.aspx

<comment><USER2> The same thing happened with .GIFs, royalties weren't actively pursued for a _very_ long time, but when they were it became a problem.

Let's not make the same mistake again.

<comment><USER3> For the curious, a quick search yields claims of 2025 and 2028 as the last patent expiration date. This announcement shouldn't please anyone.

<comment><USER4> How can that be if the standard was ratified in 2003?

<comment><USER5> Some of the patents may have been applied for, but not granted until after ratification.

<comment><USER4> For patents filed after 1995 the patent term is based on the filing date of the application, not the date the patent is granted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the drug dealer business model. "Sure, the first hit's on me. If you want more after that, you know where to find me."

<comment><USER7> Surely this only happens in films ?

<comment><USER8> No.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love the abundance of 'XXX is sued by MPEG LA' press releases on their 'media' page!

I guess they designate lawyers using 'squad/platoon/battalion' instead of boring old 'department' ;-)

</comment><comment><USER10> While MPEG-LA clearly has the prerogative to go after people who infringe its patents by distributing decoders and encoders, isn't this whole "Internet Video" fee thing only enforceable if you enter a contract with them?

There's no way they have a valid patent on vanilla HTTP! I could see some of their patents covering some stuff like generating a seek table, but how the hell could they enjoin you from sending a blob in response to an HTTP request?

Isn't it possible for a video site to never directly enter a contract with MPEG-LA? Is the shrinkwrap EULA on second-party encoder software valid?

<comment><USER11> That might be true, if you could arrange things such that your site was _solely_ copying around H.264 files it received from elsewhere. But in practice, any site serving video has to be doing at least some transcoding or analysis (think about normalizing aspect ratio or resolution, anonymizing, converting from mpeg2 camera files, etc...), and that requires licensed software.

<comment><USER10> But you don't have to enter a contract with anyone to get that licensed software -- you can just buy it at retail. MPEG-LA would have to come after you somehow via the software's shrinkwrap EULAs (which have never been tested in court _at all_ ).

<comment><USER11> This isn't true at all. That EULA doesn't transfer patent rights, except as allowed by the patent holder. It's a license from the software manufacturer, _not_ the party that is going to sue you.

<comment><USER10> But the patents don't cover the process of making the files available to the public via HTTP supported by ads -- it would appear that these restrictions on that are a novelty of MPEG-LA's standard contracts for licensing the patents.

They're obviously enforceable on the organizations that entered into those licensing agreements directly, but what if I bought an licensed encoder off the shelf?

Is the on-disk format itself somehow patented, such that the files themselves are patented articles? Wouldn't that fail the machine-or-transformation test rather egregiously?

<comment><USER11> No no no, you're making the assuption that "buying an licensed encoder off the shelf" gives you some kind of patent license. _It does not._ It's a license to run the software from the manufacturer of the software. It sometimes contains a transferable license from the patent holders, for some purposes. Read carefully.

But walking into Fry's and buying a codec product off the shelf for $49.95 doesn't automatically allow you to start a video megasite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reading through the fluff On2/Google's VP8 codec still looks pretty interesting:

[http://www.on2.com/index.php?id=439&news_id=641](http://www.on2.com/index.php?id=439&news_id=641)

It will be interesting to see if Google pulls it out as an alternative to H.264.

<comment><USER13> Anyone has hands on experience with that codec? Are those claims true?

<comment><USER14> If VP8 is half as good as they claim, Google could make it a very serious competitor to H.264. They own the codec, they own YouTube, they have a web browser and a smartphone OS and they're coming out with Chrome OS before too long. They have leverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's a trap!

<comment><USER16> We can't compress video of that magnitude!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1098336>

</comment><comment><USER18> Not long enough, offer a license that doesn't expire until 2030, then we might bite.</comment>


NASA's head of human spaceflight abruptly resigns, citing 'mistake' - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/20/tech/nasa-head-human-spaceflight-doug-loverro-scn/index.html <comment><USER2> Lite version: [http://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_7eda1158db94865aca6bc688110...](http://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_7eda1158db94865aca6bc688110b6b17)

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree, human spaceflight is a mistake - an expensive distraction from scientific missions.</comment>


Waymo's Move to Sell Lidar Units Is a Bet on a Bigger Market - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/waymo-selling-lidar-fought-uber-protect/ <comment><USER2> So are Mobileye/Velodyne pretty much going to go bankrupt because of this?</comment>


Mending the Bitter Absence of Reasoned Technical Discussion - <AUTHOR> http://al3x.net/2009/04/04/reasoned-technical-discussion.html <comment><USER2> Internet discussion, quite frankly, sucks. It's driven by emotions and not logic. People are crass, rude, and take snipes they'd never do in person.

It used to be people wrote long letters to each other, like with a pen and paper. In that format, you had to make a case and defend it. In the new format, if you're writing more than 3 sentences you're a regular Tolstoy. The format has gotten shorter, the response time more immediate, and the audience less educated.

I remember when C++ was finally overshadowed by newer languages like Java with fancy IDEs.. Old timers quickly found a lot of complete crap coming out from programmers who never had to do things "the hard way" If you never had to take the time to think about classes before you wrote one, everything is a class.

Likewise if you've never had to take time to think about what you're writing before you comment, everything is a short, knee-jerk response.

Combine all of the above factors and you get an endless stream of tripe. It's the uneducated talking to the uniformed about topics that make them unhinged.

It's interesting that somebody associated with Twitter would make that observation. The format keeps getting shorter and shorter, and the time frame more and more immediate. Can't he see the connection?

<comment><USER3> Not all internet discussions are like that, and in-person discussions sometimes are like that. Long letters were always very rare; a prolific letter-writer in the 1800s might have written hundreds of them in a lifetime, but a more typical number might be ten. I think the majority of human discourse throughout the millennia has consisted of things like schoolgirl gossip, parents scolding their children, "ain't-it-awful" discussions in bars, and requests for phone numbers shouted over loud music in dance clubs. What you're observing is that more of that stuff is being done in writing instead of by voice.

People do seem to be more willing to disagree with each other on the internet, but that doesn't necessarily worsen the quality of the discourse.

<comment><USER4> So all that has happened is that the Internet has allowed schoolgirl gossip and yelling in bars to be broadcast on an international scope and compete with professional journalism and scientific discourse. I suppose that cannot be helped with the democratization of the media. Still, if the common man is going to have that kind of power, should we not urge everyone to use it responsibly, and to try to raise the level of discussion, especially in what is supposed to be a professional context such as software development. Of course, that is what Hacker News is attempting to do; I'm hoping it will work.

<comment><USER3> The way I see it is that the internet has allowed professional journalism and scientific discourse to compete with schoolgirl gossip and yelling in bars.

One problem, though, is that the needs of these forms of communication aren't really the same. In a low-latency medium, for example, it's difficult to avoid strong structural biases toward both recency and immediate responses; these are both corrosive to the quality of the discourse. (I think these structural biases mostly account for the very low quality of professional journalism, but they are even stronger on e.g. reddit or HN.

pg and I have written some things about this:

[http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2008-January...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2008-January/000878.html) <http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html> (under "Fluff Principle" and "Comments")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "One comment that seemed particularly uncontroversial to me was at the core of this nerd firestorm: Ruby is slow. For the next several days, I could think of only one thing: why is something you can measure controversial?"

This is exactly what needed to be said, and repeated until it is fully and widely understood. Cognitive dissonance should not be assuaged at the cost of the rational and empirical.

<comment><USER6> The regexp engine isn't slow. The bignum support isn't slow. The development time isn't slow.

If you wonder why there's a firestorm, it might be because of sweeping generalizations.

<comment><USER7> Isn't that a lot like saying that despite the VM system, OpenBSD 2.1 wasn't slow because it had a pretty good "gzip"?

<comment><USER3> Python is slow. For loops containing arithmetic, array indexing, function calls, and similar primitive operations that also exist in C, it's maybe 100× slower than C. But programs written in Python are usually not 100× slower than C programs with similar functionality. They may be 10× slower or 3× slower or, very rarely, faster; that's because their inner loops tend to be in operations like regexp matching, array arithmetic, data compression, string hashing, and the like, and Python's implementations of those things aren't themselves written in Python — they're the things you're likening to "gzip" here.

There's a selection bias here. If you write your compiler or interpreter or pathfinding algorithm in Python, it's going to be a lot more than 10× slower than if you wrote it in C (or Java or OCaml or whatever). So people don't write those programs in Python, so we don't get to compare them.

I've been writing about Python because I know more about it than I do about Ruby, but I think most of the same things are true of Ruby, as well.

<comment><USER8> Sure -- minimizing the number of Python statements is a decent optimization heuristic in Python (and, as a bonus, that can help you optimize for human readers as well when not taken to extremes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let us see how PHP and Ruby compare out of the box versus Java:

First PHP vs Java: [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=php&lang2=java&box=1)

Now Ruby 1.9 vs Java: [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=yarv&lang2=java&box=1)

And finally Ruby 1.9 vs PHP: [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=yarv&lang2=php&box=1)

So, both PHP and Ruby 1.9 have a hard time when trying to keep up with Java and in these tests Ruby seems to have an edge over PHP. Not to mention that Yahoo one of the biggest enterprises on the web uses a lot of PHP for their services, but there are ways to further optimize PHP so who knows what each user can do to improve performance.

My point in bringing PHP into the spotlight is just to show that there are other languages that a priori were just as slow as Ruby but given their niche have had enough success to endure "slowness" criticisms.

The languages that are considered fast have often to face potent competitors which make for an immersive experience seeing them develop in the marketplace. Ocaml what, I hear you say?

<comment><USER3> Ruby 1.9 is a big improvement over Ruby 1.8, but last I heard, a lot of people still had to use 1.8. In six months maybe "Ruby is slow" will no longer be a valid argument for PHP over Ruby, but if you're using Ruby 1.8, it's still valid.

PHP, and I say this as someone who thinks it's awesome, isn't so much a language as a way to glue together a bunch of C libraries, so its speed isn't that important.

<comment><USER10> One of the reasons Ruby 1.9 adoption is so slow is that the people who really needed speed have long since moved on. 1.8 is still good enough for most of us who use Rails every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The following line in the post is the crucial thing. "Amazing how suddenly reasonable and transformed a person can be when they're forced to look you in the eye"

And I think a version of that is included in the guidelines for HN. The power of Internet conversation is the 'detachment' which can work both ways. It can get the nerdiest of nerds to get to talk to large audiences without inhibition and thus contributing to the society at large. However, it can also get them to show their nastiest sides, which probably would have been hidden but for the detachment provided by the medium.

</comment><comment><USER12> Unfortunately, the thoughtful, intelligent, facts-minded individuals are vastly outnumbered (or at least, out-shouted) by trolls and fan boys on the Internet. Even more discouraging is that the latter are the least likely to read an article like this and take it to heart.

<comment><USER13> I think one of the problems Alex is pointing at is when thoughtful, intelligent, facts-minded individuals act like trolls and rabid fanboys, for example when their favourite programming language or text editor is mentioned in less-than-glowing tones.

(P.S. emacs sucks.)

<comment><USER14> I suspect that many smart people do not troll but engage in a marketing game to preserve the status quo. It keeps the attention focused on the current leaders, away from newcomers that could potentially disrupt the status quo. Often the products or technologies of both sides resemble each other a lot. Their commonality is much larger than their differences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ruby is a particularly strong magnet for this kind of controversy. As he notes, many of its strengths are not easily quantifiable, while its weaknesses are. Add in stereotyping, tribe mentality and cynicism and it creates drama.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sure... Nice write-up.

From the Hacker News site I have been following the recent controversy and even participated in some discussions. :-) Your Honor, I plead guilty! :-)

I cannot blame them (Twitter) when they seek their goals for a better business with higher quality and performance. I even respect their creative skills. So I don't have a beef with them even when Ruby gets caught in the polemic.

Ruby to this day continues to be an open source project put together by a community that for better or for worse has most core developers being Japanese.

But since about 3 or 4 years ago, Ruby has had other developers seeking to implement compatible Ruby versions... That is, Ruby has outgrown itself and continues to do so. JRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, IronRuby...

At the end of it, though, Ruby continues being relatively slow when compared to other kinds of languages. But first read the following article to see some reasons why is that: [http://blog.headius.com/2009/04/how-jruby-makes-ruby- fast.ht...](http://blog.headius.com/2009/04/how-jruby-makes-ruby-fast.html)

Since Ruby's beginning, it was not out to reach C level performance. And JRuby for one improves upon some of the shortcomings of the main C implementation of Ruby quite well, not without its own shortcomings though. :-)

So, what do we have in the controversy? Twitter is a little sick of complaints of it letting the ball fall when much more is required of their services, so they go overboard when defining a solid platform for it with Scala. Not to mention that they simply can't go converting their entire system to Scala just yet and they are still happy with the Ruby part of the equation at creating the web interface the users see.

What do we have then? More options of development. Instead of C, C++, Ruby and Java, include Scala there as well. Each with their own pros and cons. We know that, right? But if it were simple to use each one of those languages and more when providing a set of services, we would not have a beef with who chooses what when developing. Nature has it that while it's possible, it's much tougher to get it working. That's partly why big companies like Google try to minimize their options of tools and in doing so help to set standards throughout the industry.

Such standards, fortunately, don't apply for everyone, otherwise Twitter might have started with something other than Ruby on Rails.

</comment><comment><USER16> The part of this essay ( or blog writeup ) on _How To Have A Reasoned Technical Discussion_ can be put up on the HN guidelines maybe !

</comment><comment><USER17> Very good article. This should be right up there with famous articles such as "How to disagree" and many others. I think this should be required reading for many of the technology blogger equivalents of political bobbleheads out there.

</comment><comment><USER18> For deeply technical conversations I research answers I give and back up what I say with links to source material or a log of the commands I ran. This seems to be quite unusual, and I believe most technical discussions would benefit from a similar approach.

</comment><comment><USER19> There Is More Than One Way To Do It - TIMTOWTDI - it's a pity that that slogan is confined to the Perl community. No other slogan is so effective in imposing a culture of civilized dialog between competetive projects.

</comment><comment><USER20> A breath of fresh air.

</comment><comment><USER21> Bah! Reading all the bickering on this page about a blog entry about bickering has been a huge time-suck, including formulating this response. If you have come across this comment please leave before it's too late!

<comment><USER22> Well it's Sunday morning here, beats going to church :)</comment></comment>


Goless: Go-like semantics built on top of Stackless Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rgalanakis/goless <comment><USER2> IIRC stackless python implemented microthreads and channels before go existed - thats the whole point of stackless python - so whats the benefit here on top of that?

[http://www.stackless.com/wiki/Tasklets](http://www.stackless.com/wiki/Tasklets) [http://www.stackless.com/wiki/Channels](http://www.stackless.com/wiki/Channels)

<comment><USER3> "microthreads", channels, and the select statement predate go at least by a couple of decades in Alef, Plan9's libthread, Limbo, Newsqueak, etc.

<comment><USER4> They go back to Occam and Modula-2, among others, way before your list.

<comment><USER3> "at least" is there for a reason.

<comment><USER4> Well, given that you only listed projects where Rob Pike worked on, I wasn't sure what else covered by your "at least".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What tulip should have been.

Being a long time gevent user, I found goroutines pretty familiar and even unspectacular (no pool.map?!). What really converted me to Go was all of the other ways I found writing Go programs to be more pleasant and less error prone than Python programs:

* consistent formatting for all code

* superior distribution story

* compiler magnitudes faster and more effective than pylint

* programs run faster and use far less memory

* far simpler semantics make it easy to read

* higher quality standard components (net/http, eg)

What I traded for this was a 10-20% drop in productivity, which I was fine with. I use Python for all sorts of quick & dirty tasks still, including some batch processing where there's a big discovery phase, but I write all my software in Go.

</comment><comment><USER6> The big question is whether this mimics the "non-blocking" behavior of goroutines - if you block in a goroutine with a select on a channel in Go (or rather, if you do ANY synchronous operation, including network calls, channel operations, etc.), Go will automatically context switch off the goroutine and run another one. But if you have a tasklet that selects on a channel, will Goless/Stackless automatically run a different tasklet, or will that tasklet stall a thread (or worse, the GIL)? What if the tasklet is doing a synchronous HTTP call or waiting on a future to complete?

<comment><USER7> Hi ceptorial, I have toyed around with this a lot. Ultimately goless is just a wrapper over stackless a gevent, which bother offer monkeypatches for the stdlib. So if you want this behavior, you can just monkeypatch first, and everything _should_ work. I decided not to wrap the monkeypatching (for now) because I did not want to get bugs about how it doesn't work :) However I should make note of this in the docs. You should make an issue or PR!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm pleasantly surprised to see pypy beat go by an order of magnitude in the select_default benchmarks. Could it be a bug, or is it real?

<comment><USER9> Even if it is real, Go is otherwise going to stomp Python performance-wise.

That's not a statement of pride or fanboyism or whatever... it's just the nature of the two languages.

However, I have recommended and continue to recommend that if A: you are using Python B: you want something Go-like and C: Python's performance is currently good enough for you, Stackless/gevent/perhaps this library is a much better solution than translating tons of code to another language. You can get a lot of the bang-for-the-buck with this approach without incurring huge rewrite costs. If you're starting from scratch with Go-like needs, Go is a better starting place IMHO, but Stackless/gevent is definitely "good enough", no sarcasm.

It is, IMHO, a very underestimated library in the Python community. And yes, I know lots of people know it exists... this is a statement of my yet-higher opinion of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi, I didn't realise this was where all the cool kids hang out. Google alerts 4tw</comment>


Ask HN: Is all software written with the latin alphabet? - <AUTHOR> I know many languages allow variable names using UTF-8 characters, but are there any programming languages where the language's reserved words (if / then / else / function / class / etc.) are not in english or the latin alphabet? <comment><USER2> This classical chinese programming language was posted here recently: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22213406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22213406) I know that the ussr developed a cyrillic based programming language (on my phone now so can't find an exact source). Early ODRA computers from Poland used the latin alphabet but instructions were nonetheless from polish rather than English.

Would love to hear about other cases.

<comment><USER2> Turns out wikipedia has a page on this issue: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English- based_programmin...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English- based_programming_languages) I'm sure it's not comprehensive though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can use Unicode symbols in GHC Haskell for e.g. λ. Then there's APL of course which also re-uses a lot of ancient Greek and other symbols that these days would most likely be in Unicode.

[https://wiki.haskell.org/Unicode-symbols](https://wiki.haskell.org/Unicode- symbols)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_\(programming_language\))

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4)

</comment><comment><USER4> Piet comes to mind, but it's not exactly a "serious" language: [https://esolangs.org/wiki/Piet](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Piet)

Esolang also has a category for Chinese/Japanese/Korean languages: [https://esolangs.org/wiki/Category:CJK](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Category:CJK) And one for non-textual languages: [https://esolangs.org/wiki/Category:Non- textual](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Category:Non-textual)

</comment><comment><USER5> Not an 'ordinary' language, but maybe aheui[1] fits in?

[1]: [https://aheui.readthedocs.io/ko/latest/specs.en.html](https://aheui.readthedocs.io/ko/latest/specs.en.html)</comment>


PIA and Freenode joining forces - <AUTHOR> https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn <comment><USER2> Makes me feel a tad better for my yearlong PIA subscription :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if this is a sign that freenode is returning to their old ways [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/29/buy_a_piece_of_net/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/29/buy_a_piece_of_net/)

<comment><USER4> I don't think it will sink to what it was when lilo still lived. I find it funny that article calls him "professional online beggar", because he was way worse than that. Not that the network was better handled after his disappearance though.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for that! After all, it's not properly a comment thread about freenode until a newly registered account turns up to piss on our founder's grave.

<comment><USER6> I didn't know lilo was no longer with us. That sucks...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. I have a lot of trust in PIA for now.

<comment><USER8> I think they're one of the better VPN companies but they're under US jurisdiction, which makes them vulnerable to NSLs and other forms of government surveillance. Yes they don't log, so they can't be subpoena'd for past information but they can be compelled to provide ongoing interception.

I'd be interested to know however whether the US government can intercept traffic to/from:

\- Servers located in the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated and staffed outside the USA.

\- Servers located outside the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated or staffed inside the USA.

It seems to me that as long as you're using a US-based VPN server, there's always the risk the cloud or transit provider can be compelled to intercept traffic regardless of the owner's jurisdiction.

The question of how well protected non-American servers operated by Americans are still seems to be unanswered too. Microsoft seems to be winning their case against handing over overseas data[0] but Google seems to be losing[1].

[0]: [https://secure.politico.com/blogs/under-the- radar/2017/01/mi...](https://secure.politico.com/blogs/under-the- radar/2017/01/microsoft-data-broad-appeals-court-234098)

[1]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2017/02/03/google-must-turn-over-foreign-stored-e-mails- pursuant-to-a-warrant-court-rules/?utm_term=.8c2a760dfe1c)

<comment><USER9> > \- Servers located in the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated and > staffed outside the USA.

Not terrorism/other serious crimes, but Megaupload had the same constellation (they had some US colocated servers), and it will unfortunately likely end with Kim Dotcom being deported to the US. So yes, such a service constellation may very well lead to deportations to the US as soon as some bought-off or incompetent US judge/DA gets his rubberstamp.

The massive outreach of the US (not just this, but also that their citizenship is bound to paying taxes, even abroad - leading to the massive ... called FATCA) is something that really angers me. But hey, it's difficult to argue with a country that might send four dozen Tomahawks based on the current Fox News programming. (Obviously sarcastic, but the "the US regularly abuses its foreign power" still stands)

<comment><USER8> I don't think this really affects VPNs though. Megaupload is a criminal case which the US appears to have substantial evidence supporting. I still think it's an overreach but what crime can the US accuse a foreign VPN operator of, that would lead to a successful extradition request?

<comment><USER10> Accessing child pornography. Participating in terrorism messaging boards. Commercial copyright infringement. It's easy to imagine a crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Purchased by" is a clickbait lie.

Please can we use the actual title of the actual blog post.

Edit: Thanks!

<comment><USER11> Ok, title changed from "freenode IRC network purchased by VPN company PIA".

Submitters: Please use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait, as [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) asks.

<comment><AUTHOR> it is misleading, it's hard to read the post as anything other than the announcement of an acquisition, once you remove the corporate waffle

<comment><USER11> I understand that reaction and share the dislike of corpspeak. But since someone involved with the project is disputing that interpretation, we should stick to what the post actually says.

<comment><USER12> Shouldn't we then also ask said person to clarify exactly how the interpretation is incorrect?

EDIT: Nevermind, seems that was done below.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> freenode is such a dumpster fire. Well, it's always been a dumpster fire, but since a ton of opers resigned because it wasn't clear what was happening with the donations, it's just getting worse and worse. Let's see what comes from this.

<comment><USER13> This post is the truth, freenode always has been really poorly managed from its inception, its amazing it remains so popular.

During the javascript irc flooding attacks a while back, efnet took 1 day to patch their servers, rizon took 3, freenode took 7 months (of nonstop netsplits and network breakage)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> PIA has already supported Freenode for a long time.

In return, Freenode has consistently sabotaged the Tor service so that the only way to connect safely is with a VPN.

<comment><USER5> tor was being used for password brute force attacks and required significant infrastructure fixing to make it work safely.

It's now fixed.

If you continue to have problems, please file a support ticket rather than throwing around unfounded accusations of sabotage.

<comment><USER15> How was it fixed, if you happen to know?

<comment><USER5> Rewriting a bunch of stuff to achieve a combination of less information leakage and better rate limiting, I think.

I did briefly attempt to understand the relevant chunk of C code, but my eyes crossed and I developed a headache.

So sorry if that's a bit vague.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel there could conflict of interest. Also it's unclear how now sponsored server are related or unrelated withing legal frameworks to the fact that the author has role in PIA.</comment>


Is Amazon Building a Superkindle? - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/is-amazon-building-a-superkindle/

<comment><USER2> It's unfortunate; It seems Apple watched Amazon "test market" a product. When Apple saw there was a viable market for such a product, Apple focused on it. Now everyone will be trying to catch up. Now Amazon wants to play for real? I really feel it will be to late for anyone to make a completive product. We have seen these strategies from Apple's competition in three markets now. Apple/Jobs very politically tamed the insatiable music labels, and now the book publishers, while at the same time locking out the competition's bids. I don't think Amazon played their best game here.</comment>


Toward better CPU load estimation - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/741171/ <comment><USER2> > A user who starts a browser on a mobile device wants it to respond quickly, > but PELT will take a few 32ms measurement cycles to fully understand the > load that the browser is placing on the system.

Isn't the obvious solution to just give a boost to a process that receives user input and/or that is launched by a process receiving user input? (I believe Windows does this?) Why isn't Linux doing this?

<comment><USER3> Android does exactly that. (Called foreground processes.) It breaks things that require steady throughput and low latency, like media handling. Everywhere where you need a wake-up estimate and are using a dumb controller to get runtime, you get immense noise.

It is also highly unnecessary. If you have preemptible kernel, standard task start handling puts new tasks on top of their parents tree of tasks to be scheduled. (Tunable in sysfs.) If there is no restart, boost shouldn't be necessary on a preemptible kernel anyway, especially rt enabled ones, as lock holders on input will get woken up.

About the only place where it is useful is in boosting cpu clocks. This is also where it breaks timings the most.

<comment><USER4> > About the only place where it is useful is in boosting cpu clocks.

This is true, but it is still absolutely critical for making Android usable. If you disable boosting i.e. allow tasks to take several frame refresh periods to accumulate load and bring the CPU freq up, you get a really painful UX.

<comment><USER3> Not really. 90+% of the time touch screen process gets the cpu boosted before you're even done touching the screen with modern ondemand coufreq. (I mean like 4.12 or newer) Try it out one of these days, but don't forget you can tweak sampling periods.

Conservative cpufreq uses load. Ondemand only sort of does.

The problem still remains getting predictable tick timings working well. (not missing deadlines)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does one install this new way of measuring CPU utilisation?

<comment><USER6> You have to enable the SCHED_UTILEST flag when compiling the kernel. Most end- users don't compile their own kernels, as doing so requires a very large and time-consuming amount of configuration, but you can if you want (might want to start with your distribution's configuration as a base).

<comment><USER7> Do note that this does not work on multiple CPU's (e.g. 2 sockets) it does however work on multiple cores. ( 1 physical CPU with multiple cores )</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review a simple URL un-shortening service. - <AUTHOR> http://unshort.me

<comment><USER2> I'm at a loss to understand why someone needs an API to unshorten a url. Can they not just unshorten it themselves?

What's next? A webservice API for doing DNS lookups?

<comment><USER3> I can see several reasons for this:

1 - Build a database of short to unshortened URLs as a backup in case that one of the shortening services goes under.

2 - Such a service can be useful for anyone who wants to know where the URL points to without clicking it (or without the skills to unshorten it themselves).

3 - It could allow for batch unshortening

4 - A database can still unshorten URLs that no longer exist etc..

<comment><USER4> > for [anyone] without the skills to unshorten it themselves

I think I'm one, because I don't know of any way to unshorten these tiny URLs without visiting them or using some such service.

If you know of one, could you enlighten me? Thanks...

<comment><USER3> It's really not hard. For example, on the command line:

         $ curl -I http://tinyurl.com/9a4xj6
         HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
         X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.8
         Location: http://www.hostingcoupons.org/godaddy-coupons/
         Content-type: text/html
         Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:26:48 GMT
         Server: TinyURL/1.6

or in Python:

         >>> import urllib
         >>> u=urllib.urlopen("http://tinyurl.com/9a4xj6")
         >>> u.url
         'http://www.hostingcoupons.org/godaddy-coupons/'
         >>>

etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the way of the tinyURL API better - you simply get the new URL in the body of the response. Otherwise, I am not sure it is easier to parse the XML response from unshort.me than to simply resolve the redirections directly.

<comment><USER6> Er, my URL-unshortening service just returns the URL ;) <http://therealurl.appspot.com/>

There are some possible uses for such a service, I think. For example if you want to get this functionality via JavaScript (eg JSONP), or perhaps you just don't want to bother with HTTP.

(unshort.me, I hope you don't mind me plugging it here - if you do, let me know (email's in the profile) and I'll delete this comment. Looks like we're about to have as many unshortening sites as shortening ones, at this rate :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is simple service that let you un-shorten URLs created using any of the URL shortening services.

I thought it might be useful to create a single place to un-shorten URLs. I know some of you are tired of hearing about another URL service, but it works with all of the shortening websites such as TinyURL, bit.ly, tr.im, even with Hapylink and others.

<comment><USER7> What made you decide to solve this problem? Did you encounter issues that this solved?

<comment><USER8> Personally, I see value in it.

If I get a shortened URL link from someone, and I'm at work, I would like to go to that site and see what that TinyURL really is before following the link

<comment><USER9> It would work great with a firefox/whatever plugin that would show you this link as a tooltip, avoiding the copypaste grind

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those who want to the original url before clicking a tiny url, you can use Untiny (<http://untiny.me> ) Firefox addon (UntinyFox) <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10181>

(or check in <http://untiny.me/extra/> )

</comment><comment><USER10> I developed <http://untiny.me> for one reason, some tiny services (e.g. <http://tinyurl.com> ) is blocked in my country for no reason ... and may some others are blocked in others countries too...

</comment><comment><USER11> It aint better to check the http header? It's fastest than a full api request (even for a light one like this)</comment>