The Public Domain Starts Growing Again Next Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/public-domain-starts-growing-again-next-year-and-its-about-timethe-public-domain <comment><USER2> > Disney hasn't been the best in allowing its own works to become part of the > public domain

Well that's the understatement of the century.

<comment><USER3> Fairy tales have provided a source of inspiration for the Disney studio....

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

<comment><USER4> But it is... difficult... to use Disney's fairy tales as an inspiration for your own work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hollywood is not going to contest: [https://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-i...](https://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-its-not-planning-another-copyright-extension- push/)

 _" We are not aware of any such efforts, and it's not something we are pursuing," an RIAA spokesman told us when we asked about legislation to retroactively extend copyright terms.

"While copyright term has been a longstanding topic of conversation in policy circles, we are not aware of any legislative proposals to address the issue," the MPAA told us._

<comment><USER6> The copyright for Mickey Mouse doesn't expire until 2023, so they still have some time.

<comment><USER7> The copyright for Mickey Mouse will never expire so long as they keep making new art of Mickey Mouse - the copyright for the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoon however will expire in 2023.

Copyright is not like a patent where once it expires anyone can use the novel work.

Something else, while someone could repackage the earliest Mickey Mouse shorts once the copyrights expire, it is unlikely that someone could make new Mickey Mouse related stories, because of trademark and other issues - beyond that, 1923 mickey and 2017 mickey only have a passing resemblance.

[http://createwebquest.com/sites/default/files/images/mickeym...](http://createwebquest.com/sites/default/files/images/mickeymouse.jpg)

What we identify (as in most consumers of mickey related cartoons) identify as mickey mouse - didn't exist until fantasia in 1940. So long as WDC continues to make artwork with that character in it, and continues to keep up the trademark - the character itself will never leave copyright or trademark.

<comment><USER8> In case you have not been paying attention, Disney Animation Studio is using the most famous clip from "Steamboat Willie" as part of their trademark.

By the time the movie enters the Public Domain, Disney will be able to defend the clip with a trademark defense.

<comment><USER7> That would be an interesting court case to read - but I suspect they'd not make the argument - trademark is not blanket, its for the purpose specified - so merely copying or redistributing the work wouldnt trigger it, unless you try to use it to promote animation works or similar.

<comment><USER8> OTOH, Disney is aggressively pushing trademark where it hasn't gone before. For example, they're asserting that "Movies about Snow White" are a thing only Disney can do, because "Snow White" is a trademark.

I could absolutely see Disney saying "That clip of Steamboat Willie is a trademark of Disney Animation Studios. If you use that in animation, you're diluting our trademark."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're wondering how we got into this mess: it's mostly Mickey Mouse's fault.

[https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the- public-...](https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public- domain/)

<comment><USER10> That's not really accurate. According to your link, Disney copyrights have been extended twice.

The first was with the Copyright Act of 1976. The main purposes of the 1976 Act were to update US copyright law to better conform to the Universal Copyright Convention and to prepare for the US to later join the Berne Convention; to update it to take into account new technology developed since the 1909 Act such as television, movies, radio, and sound recordings; and to codify various doctrines from case law include fair use.

The copyright extension in the 1976 Act was a side effect of changing terms to match those of Berne countries.

As far as I've been able to tell, the 1976 Act had very little opposition. Disney almost certainly was in favor of it, but I've found no evidence that they had any particular influence in drafting it or getting it passed, or even spent any lobbying money on it. There was no need for them to do so.

Disney did lobby for the 1998 extension (as did most major content creators), which extended US copyright terms to match those of Europe.

I don't know how Disney successfully lobbying _once_ (as part of a large group) for a copyright extension turned into the internet myth that they have constantly been getting copyright extensions.

<comment><USER11> > the 1976 Act had very little opposition

In the late 1980's, I talked with one of the government-side principals of the 1976 Act. They were at pains to explain that the Act should be viewed not as a failure, but as a success - a successful act of public policy damage control. Because you should have seen all the crazy [bleep] [Disney/Hollywood] wanted.

It seems I've been seeing a "oh, 1976 was just Berne, and Berne was no big deal" narrative more often of late. Perhaps as Disney spins up for extension- next.

Which isn't to say that some people don't honestly believe that narrative. Hollywood doing filter-bubble groupthink on copyright law has long been part of the picture. The angry public denunciations after SOPA, of a dishonest tech industry buying corrupt congressmen, was particularly striking. But after all, when everyone you know agrees that something is a great thing, anyone who opposes it can only be a bad actor.

<comment><USER12> > anyone who opposes it can only be a bad actor.

Are you saying Holloywood doesn't know what is and is not a bad actor? Who would have thought it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm always amazed how aligned nations are on copyright. I believe US actively pushed this in trade negotiations. I assume this is why.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_lengths)

<comment><USER14> Yes indeed, this junk spreads through WIPO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I always feel like the right solution would be to have a significantly shorter copyright duration, but make it extendable for a large and increasing annual fee.

I don't care if Disney gets to keep the rights to Mickey Mouse. The real problem is all the other stuff that gets swept along in the bargain.

<comment><USER16> Why even bother making it extendable? If the goal is to incentivize novel creations, I can't think why 20 years isn't very generous.

<comment><USER17> It respects the people in society who believe that, as long as a commercial work continues to make significant amounts of money, they are entitled to the profits of their labors.

It also respects the statistic that most creative works stop being commercially exploited within about 28 years [1]. A shorter default copyright allows society to reap the benefits of the default effect [2], in which a creator who is no longer interested in the sale of their work is psychologically more likely to just let the default option happen, which in a world with regular extensions of copyright would mean their work would enter the public domain and others could make use of their work.

It also forces creatives and companies to back up, with results, that they believe their works are, for their own benefit, worth denying the public access to. If a work deserves or needs more than 20 years of profit to justify its existence, fine, but your belief being backed up with a $20,000 deposit, and the knowledge that the cost to you is only going to go up from that point, speaks a lot stronger than just one's word.

[1] Average result of articles linked in [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/07/shorter-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/07/shorter- copyright-term)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_effect_(psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_effect_\(psychology\))

<comment><USER18> "Proof-of-Stake" as applied to copyright. I like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I almost wish this would be kept quiet. I'm afraid that if news of it gets out, corporations with an interest in extending copyright will wake up and start lobbying.

<comment><USER20> Although I agree with you that this visibility might backfire, but I believe the transparency is of higher value in such debates compared to strategical opaqueness.

<comment><USER21> > transparency is of higher value in such debates compared to strategical > opaqueness

I want to put this on a plaque and hang it in every public office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Lets hear it for Sonny Bono!

</comment><comment><USER23> Our copyright laws are ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER24> Don't get your hopes up.

</comment><comment><USER25> Again? [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=public%20domain&sort=byDate&pr...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=public%20domain&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER26> Problem is material in the public domain quickly becomes worthless. We already have many things, like the Fleischer Superman cartoons, for example. You just end up with cheap people bundling hundreds of public domain stuff with no real curation or quality for a few bucks in either physical or digital media form. Eventually, they stop bothering once they realize no one buys them; and it just gets thrown on youtube for fraction of pennies per ad click.

Doesn't even help creatives, because public domain stuff sees little to no creative half-life apart from the very best of the best. It's great for public in the same way f2p mobile games are great, as an endless mill of free content they can consume and forget, but once the brief flurry of monetization passes, the works become dead because there's no rights owner willing to spend the money to market or preserve the IP.

<comment><USER17> >Problem is, material in the public domain quickly becomes worthless

I wonder if Disney, which built its empire on repurposing public domain Hans Christian Anderson stories as animated films, would have agreed with your assessment.

The value of the public domain isn't in its literal resale, nor is it supposed to be: the value is in being a direct, continuing, and explicitly legal source of inspiration for the new.

<comment><USER26> Disney could tell you about all the competitors whose works have all languished in the public domain and have been forgotten where they survived. I don't see people making new Tom Swift movies, falling in love with The Shadow, or a massive Woody Woodpecker revival, for example.

People focus on the biggest of the big as if that solves anything.

<comment><USER27> The earliest Woody Woodpecker clips won't enter the public domain util 2035.

The Shadow debuted in 1930, so it is also not yet in the public domain, but was also in a movie as recently as 1994, and it still appearing in licensed comics in 2015 and ongoing.

Some Tom Swift books have entered the public domain, but not all, and the character is still covered under trademark law also.

You're making a great point about how copyright is too long, leaving characters to languish, but none of your examples are actually in the public domain.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vitamin D determines severity in Covid-19 so government advice needs to change - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200512134426.htm <comment><USER2> Not sure of the value of this study, the authors sketch out observational evidence only with no medical evidence of a link (correlation != causation).

<comment><USER3> The article basically states that and addresses the value aspect.

"Whereas there are currently no results from randomised controlled trials to conclusively prove that vitamin D beneficially affects COVID-19 outcomes, there is strong circumstantial evidence of associations between vitamin D and the severity of COVID-19 responses, including death."

"Research like this is still exploratory and we need further trials to have concrete evidence on the level of vitamin D that is needed for optimal immune function."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Observation evidence of the link. No link to the study or data. Quality of these "science" publishing websites is going shit.</comment>


Sneak Peek of PineTime Smart Watch and Why It's Perfect for Teaching IoT - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/sneak-peek-of-pinetime-smart-watch-and-why-its-perfect-for-teaching-iot-81b74161c159 <comment><USER2> Twitter link for article so all can view it: [https://t.co/b6b5ctZSXd](https://t.co/b6b5ctZSXd)</comment>


My name is only real enough to work at Facebook, not to use on the site - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/c37daf3f4b03 <comment><USER2> Not trans but I identify with the letters "chx" much more strongly than my real name. There are thousands, perhaps ten of thousands of people out there who know me by this nick and nothing else. My own brother often calls me that. British Columbia doesn't allow me to take a single word as a legal name but once I get citizenship I am very seriously considering changing my legal name to a name where the abbreviation makes it a sort of retronym. (Charles Harry Xavier?)

<comment><USER3> How is it pronounced? "chix"? or spelled out C.H.X?

<comment><USER2> I heard both :) not to mention the Hungarian pronunciation of c-h-x where I originally come from -- I am using this nick for more than twenty years and 1993-2005 I heard it only in Hungarian as my contact with the Western world was mostly virtual. Then everything changed at the first DrupalCon in Antwerp but I am getting off topic here.

<comment><USER3> That is a more fantastic answer than I thought i'd get! Even the pronunciation doesn't adhere to traditional name conventions :-)

I love it, good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How sad is it that the "protest" they come up with is to _deactivate_ their accounts for a _day_?.

Facebook is terrible. Ditch it entirely. Or do like I do and leave up a bare bones page with a bit of contact information for old friends and _never visit_.

<comment><USER5> >Facebook is terrible. Ditch it entirely

And then...? What? Try to get people to invite you to events on Google Hangouts or whatever Google has?

<comment><USER6> I just stopped caring about being invited to "events". If the event is so impersonal that it needs to be broadcast rather than two or three people organizing and then blasting a simple text message like "Hey beers at 5PM at <Insert Restaurant or Bar Here>. Come if you can!" I just don't care.

<comment><USER7> I definitely disagree with this. Facebook's utility for inviting people (even close friends) is huge to me. The messenger system is way better than text messaging, integrates well with its calendar and reminders, allows people to see who else is coming, doesn't cross platforms poorly (like group texts to Iphones + Android, in my experience), includes a map and permanent details, can be accessed online, ... etc, the list goes on a long way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I guess this is the work of a bunch of trans-haters abusing the report feature.

Assigning the right amount of power for an automatic filter is a science itself, though. Heuristic AV scanners and spam filters suffer from the same issues.

For example even big telco providers (Ay Yildiz Germany) get caught up for now MONTHS in Gmails spam filter with no way to change this. Their emails are discarded already at SMTP delivery...

<comment><USER9> I have my doubts about that since they also seem to go on spurts of banning Native American using their real names.

<comment><USER8> I don't know Native American names, but I guess the filter classifies their names as having too much entropy when compared to the other 1.1bn FB users.

1.1bn gives a pretty exhaustive list of common names for a given country region.

<comment><USER9> Well, its a known problem and their continued foolishness is a pain to people including those who do not work for Facebook but have to deal with ticked people because they are the local computer person.

> 1.1bn gives a pretty exhaustive list of common names for a given country > region.

If the last name is a person with a Wikipedia entry then their pretty exhaustive list is not very exhaustive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Personally, I disagree with this one point.

> Cynics will tell you that using your "real name" is so they can sell your > details to advertisers. That's not the case.

Facebook is selling _access_ to their profile of a person for targeted ads and tracking across the web - which includes a real name. No, I haven't worked at FB, but I get the business side from a Product Management perspective.

Yes, ad impressions can factor into it, but one could argue that there would be more engagement using a name that a person is currently using or known by, resulting in increased time on the newsfeed, not less.

It's all about a story to sell advertisers though. Facebook is an advertising platform. We use "real names" is just a marketing bullet FB can hold up to advertisers in glossy material and sales pitches.

Real name policies are indeed a made up solution mistakenly used by some to address trolling issues as well. The thing is, that argument has been proven false, time and time again.

Ello, that underdog social community, is proving right now that pseudonymity can work.

I guess the real question is, "Are we willing to walk the talk and support the companies that are standing up for users on this issue as well as privacy?"

Of course we might have to sacrifice some features we are used to, but ultimately it's the only way to send a message that will be heard.

Google, afterall didn't change it's stand on real names just out of some epiphany or random act of kindness. That story is a little more complex for sure, yet our eyes and where they spend time is the ultimate metric in today's ad model.

My eyes choose Ello these days.

<comment><USER11> "I guess the real question is, "Are we willing to walk the talk and support the companies that are standing up for users on this issue as well as privacy?""

An interesting question.

So on one hand we see that we have some kinds of companies that can provide useful global services (facebook, google, wikipedia, sourceforge (before ads), mozilla, github, etc), but it is impractical, unsavory or counter productive to make "users" pay (because we're not only passive "users", but active contributors to the services facilitated by those companies.

The "solution" found by those companies is to extract the needed money from other companies in exchange for advertisement.

On the other hand, we can print money to give to banksters only to satisfies their shareholders, and with no benefit whatsoever to the general population, on the contrary.

What if, instead, we printed money to give to those internet companies and associations providing useful services? They wouldn't then have to use advertisements, and therefore could better protect the privacy of the users/contributors.

<comment><USER10> An interesting proposition, but since so much of the online (even offline) world is ad driven these days (or rushing to be), there would be too many businesses wanting a piece of that action which might contribute to an shortage of ink :) (figuratively speaking).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How illegal is to provide a fake ID documents to Facebook? ("fake" in the sense of "editing it in Photoshop")

<comment><USER13> Why would it be illegal at all? Facebook isn't a government authority.

<comment><USER9> Well, faking documents for a bank is a crime, so just because they aren't government doesn't provide protection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Facebook needs to be replaced by something that is people oriented instead of marketing oriented. Fat chance, but one can dream.

</comment><comment><USER15> Could Facebook implement a PageRank type algorithm that gets people with already verified real names (perhaps they paid for something by credit card on FB, or are registered with a .edu email that matches their initials), to then say whether their friends name was real? Surely there's a way of proving someone's real name without making them use their legal name.

<comment><USER16> I wonder if they simply want the legal name. If part of the purpose of Facebook is to sell networks of people to marketers, then being able to tie your network identity to your home loan, car loan, and credit score is going to be very appealing.

<comment><USER15> If we take the article at face value, then the answer is that "no, they don't want your full name" for marketing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is the use of WASP in this case wholly inappropriate and clearly intended to be derogatory? Why is it tolerated and not considered a form of hate speech?

<comment><USER18> _" Facebook likes to think of names as a one-to-one mapping. You have one name, and that name is how people refer to you at all times. It's a very WASP notion of how names work, and the reality is far more complex."_

Nope. Not inappropriate. Not derogatory. Not hate speech. Different cultures treat names different ways. Here, "WASP" is a reference to the dominant American culture. I didn't bat an eye when I read it.

<comment><USER17> My point is, the term WASP is used here not as an enpowerment, but as a target of blame for the subject matter. If WASP is a reference to dominant American culture, why not just say dominant American culture? White Anglo Saxon Protestants are in no way responsible for Facebook's naming schemes. Maybe it isn't offensive to you, but it is unquestionably slang, and I would add yes, offensive, because it's a) not true, b) out of context, and most significantly c) in direct contrast with the article's call for understanding of other cultural identities.

<comment><USER19> I personally don't see a big contradiction between calling for a more diverse understanding while pointing out that what is nominally "normal" is part of a very specific dominant cultural segment.

And given that the term originated among sociologists, some of them WASPs themselves, I think calling it "unquestionably slang" is strong. Ditto "offensive". If you're offended, you can just say, "I'm offended" without trying to cast it as some sort of false objectivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, "Zip" used to work there and she hasn't used her connections to get this resolved? While it's unfortunate that this happened, that's pretty standard in this situation. Make a call - it sounds like she knows the right people.

<comment><USER21> And what about all the people who _don 't_ have contacts at Facebook?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Summary: Facebook has an overly rigid process governing names and this guy has an edge-case problem.

Is this not a solved issue? How do women who change their name upon marriage use Facebook? Does Facebook recognize legal name changes? Is that not in effect here?

<comment><USER22> It says something that my comment is getting downvoted, though I'm not sure what. Is it sensitivity to saying scenarios that are statistical anomalies "edge-cases"?</comment></comment>


UN Population Report: 8.5B people by 2030 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/Key_Findings_WPP_2015.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> The summary of key findings report linked here are only part of the package. Check out [http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/](http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/) for additional details and data.</comment>


SlackBot – A chat bot for Slack - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/scrapinghub/slackbot <comment><USER2> This links to a fork.

We use it in our startup and it works quite well. I miss Python3 support though.</comment>


Discovery's Teardrop - <AUTHOR> http://www.jacook.name/discovery/discoverysteardrop.html <comment><USER2> This was a beautiful read. I too feel an emotional connection to these great machines and the fantastic people who design, build, and pilot them. To me, our missions into space perfectly captures everything to be admired in Humankind. It represents our inexorable daring in the face of great adversity, it showcases our insatiable curiosity, and, since the the end of the Cold War, it has united people across the globe in the greatest adventure upon which we have ever embarked as a species.

From the ground the moon and the planets seem so far away, so ethereal. Yet just knowing that we have sent people and probes to touch them underlines how obtainable the impossible can be with grit and science, _per ardua ad astra_. It gives me hope.

I wish that the spirit of international cooperation that has grown around this endeavour will endure over the coming decades and beyond.

<comment><USER3> Beautiful read of a comment too. I agree entirely and perhaps the mission to Mars will give humanity that hope and connection again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm always surprised on how uneven and hacked together the surface of these shuttles look. I'm pretty sure there's a solid reason for keeping it that way, one would just think it's easier to spot issues on the surface if it's more consistent like the surface of a plane.

<comment><USER5> We are all used to the smooth and refined surfaces, assembly, PCBs, etc. of consumer products. Things like the Discovery are unique, there is no real manufacturing process built around them. A passenger plane looks much less 'hacked together', but it's still a bit hacked compared to a Macbook Pro. This is because of the difference in the numbers: 1 vs 1000 vs 1000000 pieces.

Also, this is constantly repaired, updated, etc., not just thrown away and replaced by another one.

<comment><USER6> The number on the surface of a new tile is more or less the filename of a CNC gcode program that can create a new tile to a precision quite a bit higher than you can see visually... You can read a tangentially related discussion of this here.

[http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000534.html](http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000534.html)

There's at least 20K HSRI "model numbers" and over the years probably many more as revisions were made, they made lots of Q+A test pieces and there were many revisions and lots of repairs and there's a lot more than just black HRSI tiles, I'd estimate somewhere in the realm of "way more than 10M tiles" were made over the years. The hotter they get the smaller and thicker they have to be, something about differential thermal expansion stresses or something.

The TPS as a whole was quite a technological accomplishment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice. Now I want a font geek to look into why Discovery's name is done is a nice Helvetica-like typeface but the final "y" has that odd kink at the end of it.

<comment><USER8> That's just perspective and topology playing tricks on you.

It's just extremely boring Helvetica. Here's the shuttle from another perspective (with "Discovery" in Helvetica Bold added for reference): [http://i.imgur.com/kRxj2vj.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/kRxj2vj.jpg)

<comment><USER9> Here's another even closer pic.

[http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/...](http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/KRT-US-NEWS-SCI-SHUTTLE-10-ABA.jpg)

That is definitely not Helvetica. The dead giveaway is the 'e', the crossbar is too high. If my eyes aren't fooling me, the terminators on the 'c' aren't parallel either. If that's not enough, the 'r's terminal is too long.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, your right, it imitates Helvetica but doesn't seem to be quite it. I wonder why. Maybe there is some mundane explanation, though, since there must be hundreds of Helvetica clones out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As an aside, I would highly recommend making a trip out to see Discovery if you are ever in the DC area (the Udvar Hazy Center is just a few minutes' drive from Dulles airport). They let you get remarkably close to the shuttle (close enough to touch, although you shouldn't do so). Also, they chose not to clean her up very much when they installed her (as is somewhat evident in the linked photos). As a result she retains all of her scars from usage and re- entry, which I think makes her feel both much more real and fantastical.

</comment><comment><USER11> Fascinating read. Too bad that the conclusion is still a hypothesis.

Also, this is the first time that I have taken a close look at the surface of the shuttle, and as @dewey noted, I too found it to be very uneven and blocky. From a distance, they look reasonably smooth.

</comment><comment><USER12> My grandfather helped design the tiles used on the space shuttle. Every time I see a picture of one of the shuttles it brings back good memories of him.</comment>


2020 will be the year of Linux on the Windows desktop - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/2020-will-be-the-year-of-linux-on-the-windows-desktop/ <comment><USER2> Another step along the way of Microsoft 'doing an Apple'.

Apple made life easier and cheaper for itself by outsourcing its underlying OS to the BSD maintainers, thus saving itself the costs and angst of maintaining its own OS.

Then they concentrated all their efforts into just making the Apple Desktop, along with several apps.

I predict that in a few years, Microsoft will merely make a Windows Desktop running on top of an underlying Linux OS.

For Microsoft, that will be full circle. Windows started off as a windowing app running on top of MSDOS.

<comment><USER3> Except apple has backpedaled in recent years and basically let the unix underpinnings of macos ... rot.

If I was in charge over there, I would immediately add a bunch of apple- curated command line tools. Think of apt-get or pacman or yum from an apple repo.

What could apple do by throwing just one or two clued engineers at that? It could renew so much goodwill.

part 2 would be to add an expandable/upgradable macbook pro wrt memory/ssd/etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> so linux has a wide device presence and now its getting into the win desktop, i can only wonder how long it will take for the general public to realize windows isnt needed to install linux OS and use it for free no saas subscription required

</comment><comment><USER5> The revolution will be coopted.

<comment><AUTHOR> The establishment has been co-opted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ROFL!!!!!!</comment>


Russian Exact Copy of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://vkontakte.ru/ <comment><USER2> China has at least two copies. of those I remember, faceren.com and xiaonei.com.

one of them was sold for around 5M iirc. The concept works, the entry barrier is low, being copied is inevitable unless you move very fast.

This isn't a bad thing imo though; the local dev teams understand local culture better. faceren and xiaonei both looked like carbon copies of facebook when I saw it on TechCrunch (or something). If you look at faceren now it's completely different.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what the mindset is of someone who duplicates--exactly--not only the functionality, but everything down to the layout and color scheme. It doesn't seem that this kind of venture is going to penetrate very far, especially outside of Russia. Then again, the recent article posted about Friendster mentions they are focusing on smaller Asian countries (Malaysia, etc). I guess this is the web equivalent of a niche company: trading potential success for potential market safety.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think they are looking to penetrate other countries that don't speak Russian. Although USA and other non-eastern-european countries are available to register under, you still need a Russian connection somewhere for it to be useful.

I also have issues with handing over too much of my info to a Russian company, as their track records aren't that clean.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's written in Russian, but pretty much everything is the same. From the "Wall" feature, to posting of pictures, Groups, ETC. They did add a little bit of new features, but not much.</comment>


Ask HN: Is using ASP.NET MVC, C# with Azure a bad idea for startup? - <AUTHOR>

I have idea that I want to start working on (website first). I have experience with Microsoft stack c#, asp.net MVC 5 and Azure. I think these are very good tools if not the best. I am very excited for MVC 6. The only concern I have is to find people who would want to join me (In case I am on to something). the other option is to learn latest technologies in open source world and AWS but that will require lot of learning time for me.<p>Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> I've been developing on the .net stack since its inception and it has worked well for me. I scaled and e-commerce company to $24 million in revenue using MS commerce server and .net. I use azure to host (while I have credit via bizspark). There are legions of programmers who work on this stack day in day out. Stackoverflow is a classic example of a high traffic site built using the MS stack. Why don't I ever hear people say is Ruby on Rails on AWS a bad idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! Stackoverflow and POF are great examples of building scalable app on MS stack. That was enough reason for me to go with .NET. I asked this question because I hear everyone talking about Ruby/node.js/scala/java etc. I am happy that .net is embracing open source now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Go with what you know - get out there and test/validate the concept instead of learning another technology.

FYI go check out BizSpark which is a pretty amazing program - 60k/yr of hosting credits and whilst you continue to host on Azure there are no licensing costs. Architect your software stack properly using repositories/interfaces and develop against these if you are worried about lock-in to Azure - done correctly it will allow you to adopt a hybrid approach of mix and match of offerings between vendors.

Some basic considerations:

a) Ability to find quality .NET talent in your local area? (It's not hard to stand out and attract quality developers in .NET simply by adopting a strong open-source usage/contribution policy. Using languages such as F# behind the scenes will make you stick out even more.)

b) .NET makes hiring simpler - you'll obtain the opportunity to use and reuse the same language/code on the server-side as on the client side. Using Xamarin means you don't need to hire a Android mobile guy to do the app, then hire a iOS guy to redo the same project in another language. You get product/feature release parity for essentially free.

c) Are you in this for the long haul or are you aiming for exit? If exit consider the technology stack of potential acquirers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think it's most important to prove the idea, even if you do that with a stack you later throw away for another.

I doubt that the .NET stack is the "best" for anything. But that's something to consider later down the road once you've proven your idea is good enough to warrant more sweat investment.

<comment><USER5> I agree. I think whichever stack you pick will be the "wrong" one for some people, anyway :). What matters is bringing something useful and usable right up front, because if you even can't do that, then it doesn't matter which stack you pick, you'll never get off the ground. I'd suggest picking the one you're most comfortable with, that helps you get things done instead of getting in your way. Once you've proved a concept and gained a bit of feedback and traction, then you can start looking at other stuff, if that's even necessary.

(Full disclosure: I build things using both ASP.NET MVC and node.js: they both have their strengths, and both have their weaknesses). Which one is "best"? IMO, it depends on the context, and what you're trying to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The startup I've been helping out is using the Microsoft stack. Why? The exact reason you stated...when you already know everything there is to know about the .NET world, learning something else is time being spent that could've been used to get to market sooner. They've got 30 years combined experience in .NET, why would they use anything else?

They're using NancyFX for their application server. MVC 5 for the consumer- facing website. Mobile app is written in C# using Xamarin.

We're in a smaller city, where everyone seems to use .NET, so finding people OUTSIDE the .NET world is actually a bigger problem where I'm at. Silicon Valley is certainly the exact opposite.

<comment><USER3> What are you using as the backbone of your Xamarin app? Forms? MvvmCross? ReactiveUI?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not at all..... 'start-up' ... you start quickly and go up.... so whatever takes you up is fine...don't overthink and don't try to be perfect. And don't get emotional on the choice of language or platform. One company I worked for uses asmx web services, their coding is like late 90s, Database schema sucks and they even use aspx pages with query parameters to give to clients. BUT guess what? They are earning so much and have big clients. Now they have good money, they are rebuilding the code, database better..... so don't focus more in technology, it's all about selling your idea

</comment><comment><USER8> Just keep in mind that it will affect recruiting.

For example, I wouldn't consider a job working with that kind of stack and I'm sure many other people like me exist.

<comment><USER9> That can be said about any stack, can't it? If he chooses language A, and I only know language B, C and D, then obviously I will not apply.

<comment><USER8> Of course, but I might anticipate the effect of a straight Microsoft stack to be a bit more off putting than most stacks for various reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd be more concerned your startup idea is a bad idea :-) -- if you're a Pro .Net Developer with 'deep' knowledge of the stack, go with that.

<comment><AUTHOR> only one way to find it out ;). I am not pro in asp.net (well I dont know much web stuff) but know enough to get things started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just as an anecdote, I'm currently doing iOS contract work for two different start-ups in my area that use .Net and MVC as their stack. It hasn't affected their ability to execute at all. One of them is building on Azure and one is on AWS.

</comment><comment><USER12> Put an e-mail address in your HN profile so I can contact you. How can someone join you on your adventure if we can't contact you?

<comment><AUTHOR> done :)

<comment><USER12> Just clicked on your profile. Nothing there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Generally, I advise against using Microsoft stack. But since your goal is to build a company/startup and you have experience with MS stack I think it's a good idea to use what you already know. That way you can have more time to focus on the product/business development matters. Learning a completely new technology stack while you are trying to build a business doesn't seem right to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well .NET is open source now. great reason to stick with it :)

</comment><comment><USER14> If you know the Micro$oft stack and you can develop in it efficiently . . . definitely build your MVP with it.</comment>


Pokémon Sword/Shield causes Roku devices on the same network to crash/bootloop - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dxc5yg/psa_pokemon_swordshield_causes_roku_devices_on/ <comment><USER2> So apparently the Switch (via Pokémon Sword/Shield) is sending out probes to try and find other switches connected to the network (for local communication probably), along with the standard bluetooth probes it does. Select Rokus do not like being randomly probed/data being flung at them, and start bootlooping as a result.

<comment><USER3> Wow this is pretty bad. What part of dropping the packet in the worst case is hard ?

<comment><USER2> There's another comment that claims it's the fact the switch is trying to pair constantly with it (which doesn't sound right, I've been doing some BT dev here and I haven't had my switch trying to pair even though I'm playing at the same time). Regardless, good job Roku either way I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like the affected Roku doesn't sanitize the bluetooth input and/or incorrectly trusts a bluetooth connection with a certain formatting. Yikes.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but it's also ridiculous to have the Switch spam IPs in the space like that. Boo on both of them.

<comment><USER6> Broadcast for service discovery is totally fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's pretty terrible of Roku.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this why I can't play online? I have a Roku TV...

<comment><USER9> no that's completely unrelated</comment></comment>


Antarctica just registered its hottest temperature ever - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/world/antarctica-registers-hottest-temperature-on-record/index.html <comment><USER2> I for one am waiting for us to be able to setup a McDonalds and Walmart round them parts! YeeeHaw!

Honestly the thing that concerns me more is our new zombie overlords who will come from this melting process. [https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a30643717/vi...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a30643717/viruses- found-melting-glacier/)

</comment><comment><USER3> During the creation of this planet I'm sure Antarctica saw temperatures higher than today.

</comment><comment><USER4> To save you a click: 65F.

<comment><USER5> 18.3° C.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 65 F.</comment>


Porsche's Challenge to Tesla - <AUTHOR> https://fortune.com/2019/09/30/porsches-challenge-to-tesla/ <comment><USER2> It's actually funny they have "Turbo" in their names.</comment>


Today Is the Day I Get Fired - <AUTHOR> http://blog.katworksgames.com/2016/03/11/today-is-the-day-i-get-fired/ <comment><USER2> I recommend this state of mind if you can embrace it. I first came across it as "Today is the day I will die." While dying is significantly more impactful than being fired, it also frees you from thinking too hard about how this thing you are doing might kill you. It is sort of an extreme of course.

I've found the best employees often have let go of the fear of being fired. They can speak truth to power, stand up for what is right as opposed to what is expected, and they generally leave the place better than they found it. It was interesting watching people at Sun change when Sun going public suddenly meant those people didn't have to work if they didn't want to. Much more engaged, much more willing to look at alternatives and to take risks in pursuit of a better outcome overall.

That said, the philosophy only works when you also have a high degree of integrity. If believing that you're going to get fired tomorrow means you're totally ok with emptying the coffee tin people put money in to cover the cost of the office coffee service, then that doesn't work so well :-).

Sometimes I'll do the exercise where I write down in my notebook all of the things I can think of to worry about and then rank them from most important to least. I find it can help with perspective.

<comment><USER3> "I've found the best employees often have let go of the fear of being fired. They can speak truth to power, stand up for what is right as opposed to what is expected, and they generally leave the place better than they found it. It was interesting watching people at Sun change when Sun going public suddenly meant those people didn't have to work if they didn't want to. Much more engaged, much more willing to look at alternatives and to take risks in pursuit of a better outcome overall."

If you are 20, with no kids or family, it's great to have this mindset. However, you can't have this mindset if you have a family or other people to support.

Every place I have ever worked has politics. You need to figure out these politics to survive and many times 'standing up for what is right' will get you fired or you will seen as a person that causes strife and passed up for promotions.

I can't tell you how many times I've worked on a software project where we were making really bad decisions that came directly from management.

Doing things the 'right way' means going against your superiors, and it has many negative consequences. When you are young, you can take these risks.

It's one of the reasons I started my own company. I was tired of playing politics.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ideas for iPhone Japanese Hiragana Memorization app - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys,
So I created an iPhone app for memorizing the Japanese Hiragana. Essentially, at the moment, it's a very basic flashcard app. You look at the alphabet, double-tap and it flips to reveal the "English" pronunciation of it. I have some promo codes if anyone would be interested in helping me out.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hiragana-swipe/id450666339?ls=1&mt=8
I tried to keep the feature set simple. I think I will add voice to it eventually and maybe have some sort of quiz mode to test the user. I'm open to any ideas you guys may have.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I guess it depends on your target market.

If it is for native english speakers then adding voice files for each kana sound would be a good thing.

For native Japanese speakers ( usually kids ) I'm not sure they need sounds.

I released something similar: <http://ethyreal.com/projects/19-Kana-Trace>

My app just focuses on writing the characters. My english responces mentions sounds and adding quiz functionality.

However even though I didn't think it would do well there I translated the UI into Japanese and most of my users come from Japan.

In Japan they just want their kids to practice and don't seem to care about sounds or quiz features.

But that's just my experience.</comment>


Torrent host ordered to pay damages - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/torrent-site-webhost-ordered-to-pay-piracy-damages-121024/

<comment><USER2> I don't know what their logic behind this was.

BREIN is described on wikipedia as _"an association in which the Dutch recording industry and movie studios participate"_ [1].

They describe themselves on their official homepage as _"joint anti-piracy program of [...] distributors of music, film, games, interactive software and books"_ [2]

As participants they mostly refer to different Associations (producers, Motion Picture Association, Film Distributors), but no single direct tie according to this site to any governmental institution.

 _Sow how can a privately operated anti-piracy Organization request the takedown of a torrent site and then successfully sue the ISP if it doesn't comply?_

This is sick

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREIN>

[2] <http://www.anti-piracy.nl/english.php>

Update:

According to their reporting about the incident, the ISP _"[...] disclosed identity details that clearly were falsified and held back other identifying details"_ [3]. I guess/hope their punishment was because of that. Though they further state that _"The court ruled that Sumotorrent is 'evidently', i.e. clearly, illegal, and XSnetworks should have known that."_ , which is in my opinion not really a justifiable logic for a court.

[3] <http://www.anti-piracy.nl/nieuws.php?id=282></comment>


Wages For Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://wagesforfacebook.com/

<comment><USER2> From a technical standpoint, I find the forced scrolling on this page incredibly frustrating. I read faster than the vast majority of people, yet I could not take control of the scroll bar to read the page at my own pace. I gave up about a third of the way through.

(Yes, I'm aware of noscript and the like. I've chosen not to browse with it, to have the same experience as the vast majority of the non-tech population this site owner might want to reach.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the copy/pasted text for those those who cant be fucked with the auto- scrolling website.

"They say it's friendship. We say it's unwaged work. With every like, chat, tag or poke our subjectivity turns them a profit.They call it sharing. We call it stealing.We've been bound by their terms of service far too long—it's time for our terms.

To demand wages for facebook is to make it visible that our opinions and emotions have all been distorted for a specific function online, and then have been thrown back at us as a model to which we should all conform if we want to be accepted in this society. Our fingertips have become distorted from so much liking, our feelings have gotten lost from so many friendships.

Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make us accept unwaged work. In its turn, the unwaged condition of facebook has been a powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that facebook is not work, thus preventing us from struggling against it. We are seen as users or potential friends, not workers in struggle. We must admit that capital has been very successful in hiding our work.

By denying our facebook time a wage while profiting directly from the data it generates and transforming it into an act of friendship, capital has killed many birds with one stone. First of all, it has got a hell of a lot of work almost for free, and it has made sure that we, far from struggling against it, would seek that work as the best thing online.

The difficulties and ambiguities in discussing wages for facebook stem from the reduction of wages for facebook to a thing, a lump of money, instead of viewing it as a political perspective. The difference between these two standpoints is enormous. To view wages for facebook as a thing rather than a perspective is to detach the end result of our struggle from the struggle itself and to miss its significance in demystifying and subverting the role to which we have been confined in capitalist society.

If we take wages for facebook as a political perspective, we can see that struggling for it is going to produce a revolution in our lives and in our social power. Not only is wages for facebook a revolutionary perspective, but it is a revolutionary perspective from a contemporary viewpoint that points towards class solidarity.

It is important to recognize that when we speak of facebook we are not speaking of a job as other jobs, but we are speaking of the most pervasive manipulation, the most subtle and mystified violence that capitalism has recently perpetrated against us. True, under capitalism every worker is manipulated and exploited and his/her relation to capital is totally mystified.

The wage gives the impression of a fair deal: you work and you get paid, hence you and your boss are equal; while in reality the wage, rather than paying for the work you do, hides all the unpaid work that goes into profit. But the wage at least recognizes that you are a worker, and you can bargain and struggle around and against the terms and the quantity of that wage, the terms and the quantity of that work.

To have a wage means to be part of a social contract, and there is no doubt concerning its meaning: you work, not because you like it, or because it comes naturally to you, but because it is the only condition under which you are allowed to live. But exploited as you might be, You are not that work.

To ask for wages for facebook will by itself undermine the expectations society has of us, since these expectations—the essence of our socialization—are all functional to our wageless condition online. In this sense, it is more apt to compare the struggle of women for wages than the struggle of male workers in the factory for more wages. When we struggle for wages we struggle unambiguously and directly against our social exploitation. We struggle to break capital's plan to monetize our friendship, feelings and free time, through which it has been able to maintain its power.

Wages for facebook, then, is a revolutionary demand not because by itself it destroys capital, but because it attacks capital and forces it to restructure social relations in terms more favorable to us and consequently more favorable to working class solidarity. In fact, to demand wages for facebook does not mean to say that if we are paid we will continue to do it. It means precisely the opposite.

To say that we want money for facebook is the first step towards refusing to do it, because the demand for a wage makes our work visible, which is the most indispensable condition to begin to struggle against it. Against any accusation of 'economism' we should remember that money is capital, i.e. it is the power to command labour.

Therefore to reappropriate that money which is the fruit of our labour—and of all our friends' labour— means at the same time to undermine capital's power to command forced labour from us.

And from the viewpoint of work we can ask not one wage but many wages, because we have been forced into many jobs at once—we also work for google, twitter, microsoft, youtube and countless others. From now on we want money for each moment of it, so that we can refuse some of it and eventually all of it.

Wages for facebook is only the beginning, but its message is clear: from now on they have to pay us because as users we do not guarantee anything any longer. We want to call work what is work so that eventually we might rediscover what friendship is."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I feel like I need wages for putting up with that UI for 30 seconds.

<comment><USER4> +1. yikes. If you want to convince me of something, at least don't make it painful to read.

In the little I gathered, it seems their argument is about as well thought out as their UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone provide a tl;dr; for this? I'm not nearly on the inside enough what audience this site is targeting...

<comment><USER6> Douglas Adams metaphorically summarized this a long time ago IMO:

MAJIKTHISE: We'll go on strike!

VROOMFONDEL: That's right. You'll have a national philosopher's strike on your hands.

DEEP THOUGHT: Who will that inconvenience?

MAJIKTHISE: Never you mind who it'll inconvenience you box of black legging binary bits! It'll hurt, buster! It'll hurt!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As some of my smarter and richer friends tell me about stuff like this - "No one gives a fuck".

</comment><comment><USER8> #thegridcometh

</comment><comment><USER9> Social media is work, just like housework is work, and it's about as dull as waged work too. Work is a relationship where some entity extracts surplus value off your unpaid labor.

I like the forced, scrolling text: makes you slow down and pay attention, but also not switch tabs halfway through and get distracted.

<comment><USER2> > _" slow down and pay attention"_

Why do people assume these are always the same thing?

If you read a book at 1/10 your normal speed, I imagine your reading comprehension would drop significantly. It's harder to focus on something when you're constantly distracted by its inappropriate speed, and it's harder to get value out of it when you can't process it in a normal way because you're constantly waiting for the next step.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Reportedly Planning OS X-Style Cheap, Annual Windows Updates - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/28/microsoft-reportedly-planning-os-x-style-cheap-annual-windows-updates/

<comment><USER2> Does this mean they will now be charging for what was service pack updates?

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't they already do that?

<comment><USER4> This is more, smaller boats leaving more quickly; the current model is more like build a big boat, ship (win2k), fire the captain, build a big boat, sink it (windows reset), build a huge boat, ship (vista), fire the captain, build a smaller boat, ship (7), build a slightly larger boat, ship (8), fire the captain. Now they propose to run ferries to the users every few months, with bug fixes and new features along for the ride.

<comment><USER3> I was thinking of service packs, of which a few seem to come out every year.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any regrets choosing higher salary over more interesting work? - <AUTHOR> I'm interested to here stories from anyone who chose a job purely for the high financial rewards over less well paid but potentially more interesting/intellectually stimulating? How did it work out? Did you every regret the decision? <comment><USER2> over in....??? over interest?

I think you've been cropped ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, tiny mobile browser interface outfoxed me :-)

<comment><USER2> Maybe try posting it again?</comment></comment></comment>


Minimizing Defection Might Be the Solution to the Tragedy of the Commons - <AUTHOR> https://getpolarized.io/2019/07/26/Minimizing-Defection-Might-be-the-Solution-to-the-Tragedy-of-the-Commons.html <comment><USER2> 1) I find it amusing that an article regarding the supposed "Tragedy of the Commons" uses several Wikipedia quotes 2) The Tragedy of the Commons was thoroughly analyzed, with a great deal of empirical, historical data, by Elinor Ostrom. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom) Yes, one component of successful, long-lived common resources is related to group size. But you don't have to take my word for it, read her book, "Governing the Commons".

<comment><USER3> There's a huge tendency for smart people like computer scientists to think that, because they're smart, they can come up with "the solution" to systemic problem X without reading into the deep academic literature around it. I knew when I saw the title of the article on the front page that I (or someone) was going to need to preach the gospel of Ostrom in the comments.

<comment><USER4> That's an unfair sweeping generalization about "smart people like computer scientists". Far more fair to say they enjoy thinking about, discussing, and attempting to solve problems. Trying to solve problems is a _passion_ for all the good programmers I know.

And predicting / guessing at solutions without having done the "deep academic literature" reading is actually an excellent learning technique that connects you more deeply to the reading if you decide to go down that path. Or do the predicting in a blog post and get free answers from the experts correcting you.

I've "invented" a few things in my life only to later find the existing patents. I had so much fun doing it and learned so much, I'm glad I didn't know about the patents ahead of time.

<comment><USER3> I mean, great that you had that experience, and thankfully you didn't make a blog post talking about how you solved ______. It's fine to come up with ideas on your own, but if you don't know enough about the field to know whether you're on the right track, don't announce to the internet that you've found the solution.

<comment><USER4> That's a strawman. Author's own words, right in the intro:

"I might be wrong but would love some feedback. It's an exceedingly complicated topic which has been researched for hundreds of years so it might be that this observation has been made before."

And that very important word "might", right in the headline too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > What if we could solve this problem through core changes in our society?

Yes, we call the necessary changes 'the state'. It's exactly to solve a collective action problem that the state first appears: military defense and preventing actual defection in war. Strong states prevent defection but then suffer from bad principal-agent problems, since rulers tend to advance their own goals - like waging war.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have to agree with some of the commenters that your write-up is pretty bad, because far too general for such a well studied problem.

Let me try to help you along in your thinking: The tragedy of the commons is not a generalized version of the prisoner dilemma. I guess you meant to say a prisoners dilemma is a more generalized version of the tragedy of the commons. This is however also not true. Logically because there is no sensible pay-off where everybody defects, but the other player. The commons would be largely destroyed way before everyone gets their pay-off so all the players would never collectively decide to do that (and decision is a integral part of the prisoners dilemma). You could make it into a NxN dimensional prisoners dilemma, but that is not useful for another reason. The tragedy of the commons is about future benefit (keeping the commons so everyone can extract more than they could individually at a single instance) a prisoners dilemma is an instant game. You could model the tragedy of the commons as a repeated prisoner dilemma. The problem is that free riding is not a rational option if you repeat it often enough. In the real world free-riding works, because we expect to play a limited number of rounds and in the long term we are all dead. The number of repetitions one expects to play is however not the same for all players.

Limiting defection is in this case not external to the tragedy of the commons, as any way to resolve the prisoners dilemma is, because it reduces the pay- offs the participants get. Preventing defection costs and there is a balance to be struck to the costs to preventing an additional free-rider and letting him free-ride. There is also a moral component to this. Limiting defection means also being able to limit entry. The commons has de-facto become 'our commons'. There is the description of a 'mutual protective agency and one of the most common is the state.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anybody interested in "the commons" should familiarize herself with the work of Elinor Ostrom.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unionization is a bad example. If all union members were unable to defect, the employer would still reject their demands for above market wages, because he could replace them wholesale with workers from the larger labor pool, at market rates.

If all workers in the world were forcibly enrolled in a global union and prevented from defecting, and this union demanded a doubling of wages, this would just lead to 1. some companies shutting down, and 2. other companies seeing profit margins decline to below the rate that the supply of labor versus the supply of capital determines as optimal for economic development, resulting in more unemployed workers, and a one time boost in wages for employed workers, as labor's share of income increases, at the expense of lower recurring increases in wages, as the rate of economic growth declines.

Anyway, smart contracts could indeed be a solution to defection. They are a potentially massively scalable coordination tool, allowing huge numbers of people to enter any given agreement at minimal cost.

</comment><comment><USER9> > _Interestingly enough, the optimum solution is always present when N=1. If > there's just one actor (you) then you're not likely to destroy your own > property._

Two objections:

1) Who said one person would necessarily understand it as "[his] own property"? Unless it is truly their property (e.g. their own house), it's conceivable that a single person could still consider the place they are in expendable (because e.g. they could move elsewhere, or they care more for short term profit for it and don't consider long term issues from their behavior).

2) Even worse, who said people respect their own property that much? People can't respect their own bodies (sedentary lifestyles, obesity, junk food, etc), their own families (domestic abuse, cheating, etc.), their own houses (tons of neglected, broken down houses), or even their personal lives (from alcoholism and drugs, to all kinds of subtler self-sabotage)...

</comment><comment><USER10> Solving the tragedy of the commons. I wish you luck.

Interestingly, you hint at, but don't really acknowledge one of the classic solutions (typically pushed by the libertarians): privatize the commons. This is equivalent to your intuition of trying to set N=1.

Of course, the other classic solution is regulation, which is not too far from your union example.

Of course, both the classic solutions have downsides. Privatization makes it harder for everyone to share the good, and also leads over time to stratification and unequal society. Regulation means bureaucracy, which easily becomes captive to politics and money.

<comment><USER11> There are a wealth of real world examples of communities working together to collectively manage the commons without either privatisation or state regulation.

If you want to know more you should familiarise yourself with the work of Elinor Ostrom.

<comment><USER10> That's great. If a group of people comes together to collectively manage a commons, that sounds like regulation to me. It's all semantics though.

<comment><USER12> There is a subtle technical difference in the literature, where regulation is externally imposed and codified, while communal management is devised, enforced, and most importantly, flexibly changed by those actually involved with the appropriation and management of the resource.

<comment><USER10> Thanks. That makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No doubt many specific problems could be addressed by work on the tragedy of the commons.

But at the same time, theories around a healthy market _require_ defection in order to "guarantee" competition. So in its rawest form, we have an economic system that requires a system that is known to produce some bad outcomes (climate change) in order to avoid other bad outcomes (collusion). This poses large systemic challenge indeed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the dichotomy between collusion and cooperation is a good one.

I've been thinking about the Hong Kong protests a lot lately which is I think what spurred this post.

I've been trying to rationalize defection as something inevitable and not just collusion. If it can be mathematically modeled then it's easier to think about rationally.

<comment><USER13> I had always though the difference was an assertion of the speaker's values: HK protesters are cooperating to stand up for their rights vs The Phoebus cartel is colluding to the disadvantage of consumers.

But maybe there is an objective detectable difference, perhaps related to defection reluctance. It would be great if there is some additional force at play that differentiates between them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Toward minimizing defection, the article offers these example solutions:

> What if unions gave perks to employees including job references, health > benefits, etc BUT to participate in the union you had to put forth a $5k > bond. This could be deducted slowly over time from your paycheck.

> ...

> Consumers could do something similar for corporations as well. Have reserved > payments given out over time but only if the companies don't create any > externalities for which the consumer doesn't approve.

There are multiple practical problems with these approaches, which might be grouped into two broad categories:

1\. How do you prevent collusion? I defect and pay you to keep quiet. Or I pay you to falsely accuse another member of having defected.

2\. What due process determines whether defection has occurred?

In the constrained world of a system like Bitcoin, this can be easy, but only if the outside world doesn't enter. The minute we start invoking oracles to inject external state, then the entire system begins to revolve around how to prevent the same kinds of collusion/misrepresentation behaviors in the oracles.

</comment><comment><USER15> There's been a trend lately of low-quality academic-lite blogposts being upvoted on HN. This, unfortunately, continues the pattern. I blame Wikipedia (and reddit-style intellectual superficiality); it's a double-edged sword that makes everyone think they're an expert. The Tragedy of the Commons is _extensively_ studied in Game Theory (we spent half a semester on these types of problems) and has been at the heart of many social experiments over the past century (Ostrom was already cited a few times in the thread). Anyone that's done more than skim the Wikpedia article knows that group size is a primary element, but it's not the whole story.

To say that the blog post brings nothing new to the table is an understatement. I really wish OP just gave a newbie-friendly introduction to the problem (which would seem more appropriate given their exposure), as opposed to proposing a "solution" \-- the hubris is palpable.

I mean, take a look at this quote: "Interestingly enough, the optimum solution is always present when N=1" \-- it's wrong on just about every level. First, that's not a solution (and saying _optimum_ is incredibly telling; the term of art is _equilibrium_ , anyway), and second, common property (even if you're the only actor) is still not _your_ property (think about a park in a city of population 1; there's a difference between that park and your back-yard). That's the whole _point_ of the thought experiment.

<comment><USER16> I think your characterization is unfair.

> it's a double-edged sword that makes everyone think they're an expert

I did not get the impression that the author thought he was an expert. By reading, I think it's clear the author is aware that he's not an expert.

More generally, I don't mind articles written by people who aren't subject matter experts. Mainly because I think most new ideas come from outsiders.

<comment><USER15> I guess I'll have to disagree. In my book, proposing a solution to X implies being an expert on X.

<comment><USER4> Why gatekeep on who can brainstorm about solutions? If a non-expert stumbles on a great solution, you would throw it out? I don't like ANY of the author's solutions. The article still got me thinking about negative externalities in a new way.

<comment><USER15> Let me put it this way: I can't take someone "solving" the Tragedy of the Commons without mentioning Nash equilibria, Pareto efficiency, or Ostrom's empirical studies seriously any more than I can take someone "solving" the Riemann hypothesis without mentioning prime numbers seriously.

<comment><USER9> So, if someone does formulate a working solution in a novel way, but they doesn't mention Nash equilibria, Pareto efficiency, or Ostrom's empirical studies (either because they're not a necessary part of a solution, or because they've came at it on their own, without having prior knowledge of these, and thus formulated was was needed of them on their own terms), you'd don't want to hear about it, because dogma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >If your company cares about the environment but all your customers care about is price then the companies that have a higher priced product will go out of business.

I can picture Yvon Chouinard's middle finger slowly sticking up

[https://bcorporation.net/directory/patagonia- inc](https://bcorporation.net/directory/patagonia-inc)

</comment><comment><USER18> Oh look, a justification for the Berlin Wall.</comment>


Gigster raises $20M from investors including Marc Benioff and Michael Jordan - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/gigster-20-million-redpoint-ventures-marc-benioff-michael-jordan-2017-8 <comment><USER2> A lifetime ago (~17 years) I pitched Michael Jordan on investing in my tech startup. I got the meeting through someone that had previously run one of his golf ventures. While I pitched to Michael himself, his investment decisions at the time were essentially all made by his money manager, a shrewd and difficult guy named Curtis Polk. I believe he still runs Michael's financial affairs.

At my meeting with Michael and his team, Michael said "you've convinced me, now you have to convince Curtis". I assume that's his standard response, so that he doesn't have to reject anyone and can blame Curtis. But in this case Michael called my contact that setup the meeting after the fact and said he actually wanted to invest, but Curtis told him that he would make him sign a waiver saying he was doing it against his advice if he did. Michael liked what he saw enough that after he turned us down, he setup a pitch meeting with another very high profile potential investor.

The point of this story is that if you see a big celebrity name attached to an investment, odds are that the decision wasn't actually made by that celebrity investor. The smart ones have built very high walls around their fortunes, and the gatekeepers are the people you should be talking to if you want a celebrity investor. My mistake with Michael was spending most of my time talking to him, and barely addressing Curtis, who turned out to be the actual decision maker.

<comment><USER3> Now I'm curious to know about your startup. Care to share?

<comment><USER2> Not really, it ended up burning through millions and eventually crashed. This was at the height of the dotcom era. Not my finest accomplishment.

<comment><USER4> I like your honesty.

It sounds like MJ was right to listen to Curtis. Smart people listen to even smarter people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Gigster has found a sweet spot in providing experts in fields like machine learning and blockchain, where talent is hard to come by — and so too are full-time jobs, Dickey said._

I think that's where it breaks down a bit. Full time jobs seem pretty plentiful even for mediocre devs. Gigster's model (based on their site) is to have top-tier talent that can easily get a very high paying, stable job. What I've yet to find is the pull of Gigster for someone that has options. There are so many full-time jobs for these devs if they are what Gigster is selling.

So, why Gigster? They don't have any mention of compensation levels for devs. They do mention that you only get paid when milestones are reached. What determines if a milestone is reached?

I'm not saying there isn't a "why", but they certainly aren't selling it. "Work remotely on your own schedule on new and interesting projects from top firms while making top money and without having to worry about the business side of things - we'll take care of that for you." That's a pitch. But they seem to have the attitude of "We're Gigster, of course everyone should want to work for us." Their job page doesn't have anything about why one should want to work for them, but mostly about how great the applicant should be. Even Google tries to sell applicants on working at Google and that's coming with a steady, large paycheck.

As a dev, there are certainly concerning parts of Gigster:

 _Fixed Price: Your project will cost the same amount regardless of who builds it and how it's built. Once we quote you a price, we'll stick to it no matter what. . .Guaranteed Work: During the course of a project, our team will gladly make necessary revisions to ensure that you're going to market with the best product possible._

So, if the client requests major revisions that doubles the workload, am I the one that's working for free or does Gigster cover that? Who determines if it's the dev's fault for building something crappy or the PM's fault for not getting things right or the client's fault for wanting something other than they said they wanted? If there are major revisions, do I not get paid because there aren't milestones set for revisions?

I'm not saying that there aren't answers to those questions, but if they're serious about attracting top talent, I think they need to sell why a dev should work for them. Are they just looking for people who have big names behind them like Harvard and Google, but have been having trouble finding a full-time job?

<comment><USER6> I think this is a bait and switch for what they are selling. Devs don't take this the wrong way but I think this site is for mediocre engineering talent to get freelance jobs without changing their geographic position. Like you mentioned, why would a great engineer working at a big name company with plenty of options switch to this type of situation.

Freelance world is brutal, milestones are hard to quantify and the constant churn of a project from dev to dev will almost certainly result in poor architectural decisions.

I think there is a small amount of top engineers who might like this option if they wanted some time off but also wanted to work from time to time. Take a few months off, pick up a project, repeat.

However, as someone who works at a big name tech company I see no reason to leave my job and more specifically stocky equity unless they were paying 2x or 3x my base salary.

<comment><USER7> Ability to work the hours you want, part time, from wherever you want? I assume most people who decide to go freelancing is not for the steady money but for the freedom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked at Gigster and I would say to stay far away. Far far away. I worked there to work on python/django/rails/startup stuff. The move to enterprise is sure to kill them. No good developer wants to do enterprise dirty work and enterprise companies want clunky outdated stuff. They exhausted the startup scene to the point I'm sure they have a really bad reputation among startups.

So many issues that the point is just to screw the clients and take their money. No top talent. They started something called lambda and actually most of the backend is plugged from existing code. Also you won't get paid like they say, you will fight to get paid and still it will be disputes after disputes. They still owe me money and when I disputed with them, they took me off the network. It's all a huge lie. They got sued by someone already. No benefits nothing. You're good though if you're in on the scam. My teammates bullshitted about the client/project we were working on and many people left. Buyer beware!

</comment><comment><USER9> Despite the celebrities, Marc Benioff is easily the most intriguing investor on that list. SalesForce's customers frequently need tweaks and customizations - and demand for these programmers is unnecessarily high. I wonder if Benioff sees Gigster as a solution to his own growth problems.

</comment><comment><USER10> Curated odesk/elancer/freelancer is area of strong need. Original thesis around fixed price generic development was a false offering that did not work well for clients or them - logical that they dropped this. Marketing of top tech talent is also a fraudulent statement according to many who have worked with them. They would do better to pursue the real opportunity with out the misleading marketing.

<comment><USER11> 100% this. At Upwork the ratings are clearly setup to make you select people. You see people with top ratings but when you go through the individual they are much worse. Something is going on with their aggregation. I find freelancer is the best platform for getting decent people but still have issues.

I wonder if there is a model for something like freelancer where they set up offices around popular freelance cities, and people have to work in the office with a quality control manager for X years (3?) before they can work wherever, assuming they don't get weeded out.

<comment><USER12> They could partner with WeWork

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Having built a marketplace company around digital services I was a massive skeptical of Gigster but their revenue growth is phenomenal. Congrats to the team. Super keen to see how & when they expand to new verticals outside of software development.

<comment><USER14> I am constantly hiring for my startup and skeptical of gigster. If I wanted to pay top dollars I would rather have the dev work in person and meet at least once a week

Machine learning talent is best recruited from uni directly unless you can pay top dollars. The silicon valley startup mechanics really baffles me, but money over powers everything including mediocre ideas

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Gigster had some controversy here 7 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13541162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13541162)

<comment><USER16> That controversy showed Gigster's big-scale thinking, I'm sure VCs actually liked that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was working on something similar, but it was called Giggly. Albeit never launched like most shit i wrench on, the gig based economy is huge. These guys could have it in the bag if they scaled back a bit, all this machine learning may be great for the back-end but not something that needs to be part of the pitch. They are also ignoring the actual problem this service should address, which is the markets where actual gig based jobs reside, photography, dance, web site build outs, seasonal office temps, not just development or tech. Gig based job aggregator categorized by industry is where this would thrive. My .02

</comment><comment><USER18> anyone have experience working with them? Is it really different than sites like upwork in terms of client quality and rates?

<comment><USER19> I joined about 2 years ago and have probably earned $50K+ on the network. Pros (at least in the past):

* Paid on time. * Paid pretty well considering no sales, customer service, debt collection. * They (sometimes) let the developers make decisions on architecture, stack etc. * On most recent project was able to define deliverables and milestones. * Met some cool people.

Cons:

* As they move to Enterprise focus, flow of jobs has slowed to a trickle. I expect $20mil will help fill the sales and project pipeline though. * They are really pushing a subset of tech (Swift, React, some homemade stuff) * Hard for new developers (who don't know React) to get work. Teams have formed/gelled and tend to work together.

I have more or less moved on to focus on my own startup full-time but haven't ruled out trying to pick up a gig in the future. I'd likely need to level up on React which I don't want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > the thousand or so tech workers on its marketplace

That seems rather low for a company with 60 employees and 4 years of history, especially considering that only 30% of them are supplied with fulltime work.

<comment><USER2> This is mostly a puff piece touting their new investment. The idea of "gig" marketplaces isn't exactly revolutionary, and Gigster is far from the only (or best) one. But you would certainly think it is if the only information you had about this space was gleaned from this article. I actually kept looking for the "sponsored article" disclaimer based on how it was written.

<comment><USER21> Any insights on what's better than Gigster? Asking for meself.

<comment><USER22> TopTal.

<comment><USER21> How is it better? TopTal pays 3-5 times less and differentiates rates by country where contractor resides.

<comment><USER23> So you're saying that Gigster pays their subs ~$180/h? That's over $330,000 per year. So how much do they charge clients then? ~$300/h?

I doubt it. Their prices are probably similar to TopTals.

<comment><USER21> Gigster offers fixed price projects, based on $100-150/hr rate.

If you manage to get things done faster, which can happen pretty often, you end up with rate even better.

And yes, it's possible to make that amount of $ on gigster

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Gigster used to give fixed price quotes, but it looks like they may have stopped doing that based on the website copy. Can anyone confirm that?

<comment><USER16> Which copy do you have in mind? It seems they still give estimates per project. However they have also increased that esitmate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nt really related to gigster specifically or this raise, but…

I would be curious to hear the "BHG" theses from various companies. At a sufficiently ambitious scale, the thesis would have to be tackle some core (and IMO open) questions in economics, the "theory of the firm" family of questions.

One (not the most ambitious) thesis could focusing on standardised tasks, anything from uber to tax returns. Another would be focusing on well defined tasks, like building an app from good specifications.

More ambitious ideas would need to deal with poorly specified (or completely unspecified) jobs. Jobs with substantial creative elements. Jobs with a risk of failure. It would need to deal with cross collaboration.

I don't know much about this area, but it would be interesting to hear about it.

</comment><comment><USER26> So this is Uber for senior developers.

<comment><USER27> > So this is Uber for senior developers.

Senior in web developer years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is this different than work market and the radically less structured fiver or upwork?

Are there guarantees I am missing to see?

</comment><comment><USER29> Has anyone used Gigster and had a positive experience? How did they compare in costs, schedule and quality?

<comment><USER30> I applied last year in May, and haven't heard anything since then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> any time celebrity investors start making news, I automatically raise an eyebrow.

the $20 million matters, of course, but what possible relevance does the identity of the investor have?

<comment><USER32> The celebrity has large budgets for other projects, and he or she may direct to the other project manager: 'please use my other investment's product, I want to make sure it actually works'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> How is this exactly going to be different from the thousand of other competitors that are now complete garbage marketplaces by the millions of indians and mediocre programmers pouring low-cost offers into it?

</comment><comment><USER34> anyone know if the part time projects are too time consuming to do with a full time job?

<comment><USER35> Back when I was with them, about 2 years ago, there really weren't any part time projects. The one project I worked on I was the second developer for, and most of my time was spent untangling their spaghetti so I could actually get something done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Weird. I was so sure that "Michael Jordan" would be the Berkeley CS professor in this context. I guess not!</comment>


Ask HN: Freelancers; do you charge in your currency or your client's currency? - <AUTHOR> I live in Europe. When working for clients in The States I charge in USD. This means I have to up my rate to take the exchange rate etc. into account. I've been considering changing and charging solely in Euros from now on (and lowering my rate accordingly). Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I typically charge my US clients in dollars and eat the exchange rate. For my German clients, I charge in Euro. For my Swiss clients, I charge in Euro.</comment>


"Indian IT Firms Will Go on a Buying Spree During a Trump Administration" - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/11/28/wipro-infosys-india-it-firms-acquisitions-recruiting/ <comment><AUTHOR> If their fear is true then it proves that they were wrong and abusing the H1-b system which many have raised fingers already.</comment>


Toxic meeting culture - <AUTHOR> https://erikbern.com/2017/12/29/toxic-meeting-culture.html <comment><USER2> > There's about 47 million blog posts about why meetings suck and I'm not > going to pile more onto that heap.

Then proceeds to discuss more ways that meetings suck.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you launched your project this year? How are things so far? - <AUTHOR> I've pre-announced Cachoid ( https://www.cachoid.com ) here as a Show HN. I'm still working to understand the impact (or lack thereof) and how I need to proceed further. Would love to hear how you're handling your launch. <comment><USER2> I launched my OSS project Plsm (formerly Plasm)[0] and have 27 stars and 14 hex downloads. It is the most successful (in terms of stars and usage) project I've worked on. Show HN helped that as well as /r/elixir

[0][https://github.com/jhartwell/Plsm](https://github.com/jhartwell/Plsm)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've soft-launched my service which allows Instagrammers to sell their photos to brands as authentic marketing material.

It's done ok so far, and I'm planning a more formal launch very shortly pending feedback from beta users!

[https://brandfox.io](https://brandfox.io)

<comment><USER4> I think you need to make it easier for people to get started. I almost didn't signup because I had to create an account before I could view any of the photos for sale. It would have been much easier to jump in if I could have just started browsing photos. Make make me signup after I have gone through a few pages of pictures.

The real kicker was when you asked for my credit card right away. I am a big fan of credit card up front on subscription services with a free trail. But I just wanted to see the product. There ins't anything for me to be excited about yet. Luckily I noticed that I could just click something in the menu to skip this step. I would put of asking for the card until you they go to make a purchase. You have my email address so you can already follow up if I abort at the CC step later.

<comment><USER3> Hey Chad

Thanks for the feedback! I maybe need to make clearer that you actually can browse the pictures without signing up at [https://brandfox.io/discover](https://brandfox.io/discover) \- the link is on the front page.

That's a good idea re the credit card part. The service is free to use and you're only charged if you purchase a picture but perhaps I could make that clearer and offer the option to skip (you can always do it in the settings later).

Thanks so much for the feedback and I hope the Board Game Tables business is treating you well. It looks mighty impressive from the site :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Launched my new productivity web app at [https://60secondseveryday.com](https://60secondseveryday.com)

Things are going okay so far...got about 30 beta signups and now moving into open for public use. Working on getting my first 10 customers.

<comment><USER6> Cool idea!

My only concern is that I live in Barcelona and I'm wondering how do you deal with foreign numbers. Do I have to pay for an international call?

Also, have you considered other ways of recording the 60 seconds?

<comment><USER5> So currently, we only support numbers within the US and Canada. While there are plans to expand to other countries, it isn't a priority at the moment.

For people living in other countries, we recommend that they purchase a US phone number (which can be done for as little as $1/month through something like iPlum).

And I'm assuming you mean through an app or something else?

<comment><USER6> I guess creating an app for this might be too much trouble to make a customer stick to the service, it's kind of an entry barrier, but could it be possible to make it using WhatsApp's calls for example?

<comment><USER5> Exactly - plus, daily notifications get blurred out in the users mind over time. Most people don't want to download yet another app as well.

WhatsApp unfortunately doesn't provide an API - otherwise, that would be a great idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This week I launched a closed beta of [https://keygen.sh](https://keygen.sh), a SaaS product I've been building for ~8 months. Looking to gather feedback and launch the full product next month.

<comment><AUTHOR> I recall reading your announcement here on HN. I'm using a license verification system for the cPanel Varnish Plugin ([https://www.unixy.net/varnish](https://www.unixy.net/varnish) ). I only distribute python byte code so this is where I do the licensing logic. But I know real well it won't deter determined crackers. But the licensing system and the cracking effort has to be tedious enough for folks to become conscious of their actions and their damaging aspect (more cracking leads to fewer releases leads to fewer resources leads to a dead product). At least for people with a modicum of conscience.

I also recall being confused as to how this will work with an on-premise IaaS type app. For example, I'm gauging interest for shipping "Cachoid" to service providers so they can offer it to their end users. And this is where I think Keygen could help. What kind of pricing are you considering so far?

Thanks

<comment><USER7> If I understand correctly, you're wanting to implement Keygen into an on- premise infra app that you would be selling? If so, that's definitely the sort of thing Keygen was designed for, even giving you the ability to lock down licenses to specific machines.

Still trying to figure pricing/costs as the beta progresses (let me know if you'd like an invite), but the hosted SaaS will likely start out at ~$29/mo for the smallest plan (single product), increasing with product/user/license volume. On-premise plans (self-hosted) will be solely based on volume and required support levels.

<comment><AUTHOR> > If I understand correctly, you're wanting to implement Keygen into an on- > premise infra app that you would be selling? If so, that's definitely the > sort of thing Keygen was designed for, even giving you the ability to lock > down licenses to specific machines.

Yes, that's the plan in consideration. I'll get in touch should that pan out.

<comment><USER7> Sounds good! Reach out anytime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been working on [https://elyxel.com](https://elyxel.com) since last May and launched a private beta this week. The biggest takeaway for me so far is that even if it doesn't get much traction I actually finished a long standing side project before jumping to something else. Plus I got the benefit of learning elixir and Phoenix.

<comment><USER4> Your website is pretty much blank. Only words on the home page are about, login, and Elyxel. Also this post didn't explain what your project is. The about page contains a vague one sentence description.

You need to explain what problem you are fixing and how your product fixes it if you want to get any traction. People aren't going to signup if they don't know what they are signing up for.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If the iPhone came before Jobs founded Apple, would he jailbreak it? - <AUTHOR>

I obviously never knew the guy, but something tells me he would have... <comment><USER2> without a doubt. Considering his "blue box" selling start up I dont think theres any doubt he would have hacked the iphone....The irony of his stance on jailbreaking was amusing to say the least, complete 360 turn.</comment>


Gideros Mobile Studio helps you write once and run on many mobile phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.giderosmobile.com

<comment><USER2> Looks very similar to Corona, allthough maybe not a full featured (yet), similar goals, both use lua. However pricing is more attractive than Corona, and the ability to build ios apps on a PC could win over a few users. I might look into porting my corona based game into this to see how it goes.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. Please keep us informed about your feedback. Feel free to contact us anytime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting, although seems specific to games.

I am currently looking for a framework to write a relatively simple CRUD type application.

Ideally, one could deploy it on pad type devices (iPad AND Android tablets)and phones( iPhone and Android) phones. Bonus, also would work on a regular desktop (x86 Win or Linux).

Requirements: sockets, vector graphics (although I suppose, I could make sprites for each platform).

Of course, perfect write once - deploy everywhere tool does not exist.

<comment><USER3> We support vector graphics right now, we plan to support sockets soon. Thanks for the feedback, cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I swear, one of these days I'm going to write an IDE that doesn't look like it was made in 1992. I may be a techie, but gosh darnit, I'm spoiled by iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps. I want the stuff I'm using every day to LOOK nice.

(No offense intended, I just looked at the screenshots and my first reaction was "oh no, not again!")

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. I see what you mean. We plan to improve the design soon. Cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> @gorkemcetin, I would probably pay an arm and a leg for cross-platform API for mobile for access to audio/video recorders. Like what Flash does for desktops' webcam.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, I think it pays to just learn the two languages, and maybe write a test adapter that allows you to keep your (hopefully larger) code base in one language.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it's focused on game programming (which is good compared to html5 frameworks).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> @cbartlett we can help you with your work, just let us know :)

</comment><comment><USER9> we've heard it so many times before...</comment>


Book Summary: "How to Develop a Perfect Memory" - <AUTHOR> https://fastertomaster.com/how-to-develop-a-perfect-memory-dominic-obrien/ <comment><USER2> There are some interesting ideas there.

To me, these kinds of things are great mind hacks. If I can find even one useful ideas that I can apply, I've bettered my mental abilities.

I'd gladly read 100 articles of junk for 1 that brings a tiny improvement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would you pay for a book that is not even close to cutting edge of learning pop science?

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazon affiliate link spam.</comment>


Fundable.com Launches - Kickstarter with an angle... - <AUTHOR> http://www.fundable.com/

<comment><USER3> I would prefer to get convertible debt notes instead of equity - <USER2> probably be easier for most folks to understand and would avoid having to deal with equity negotiations.

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks very interesting. I like the interface, but I worry that the interface will make people blind to the long tail.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree -the interface is super clean.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Keygen – a dead-simple product licensing API built for developers - <AUTHOR> https://keygen.sh?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I'm the founder of Keygen. I posted it here awhile back when it was just a landing page and I'm reposting because I launched it last week! I'd love to answer any questions. :)

</comment><comment><USER2> What is "licensing"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Licensing--as in generating license keys and associated data for users of an app that you're selling.</comment></comment>