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Lisp and the Jedi Masters - macmac http://tagide.com/blog/2014/10/jedi-masters/ ====== macmac Staying with the Star Wars theme here is a great quote: On Mutation and Programming: Assignment leads to mutation. Mutation leads to pointers. Pointers lead to suffering! \- Anton van Straaten	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Great Designers Steal—and Are Proud of It - hugoahlberg http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2011/04/why-great-designers-stealand-are-proud-of-it.php ====== alabut This is a great article on _why_ designers should seek visual inspiration from pre-existing work and I know exactly one on _how_ to do it: <http://cameronmoll.com/archives/000016.html> Cameron Moll calls it "nodes of inspiration" and this was highly influential on my budding young design career at the time. In essence, never rip off one interface entirely, instead you should rip off many elements from different sources and put them together in a seamless way. It's a good way to build up the skills to make your own stuff from scratch and is the design equivalent of studying someone else's code. ~~~ bryne It's kind of the design equivalent of studying someone else's code _and_ its execution in one fell swoop. It's also the equivalent of hitting the man pages and learning the syntax and vocabulary of design. That Cameron Moll link is great, thanks for that! ------ will_lam I think this statement applies to great product managers as well.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
BleedingBit: Exposes Enterprise Access Points and Unmanaged Devices 2 Undetectab - based2 https://armis.com/bleedingbit/ ====== based2 [https://cert.europa.eu/static/SecurityAdvisories/2018/CERT-E...](https://cert.europa.eu/static/SecurityAdvisories/2018/CERT- EU-SA2018-028.pdf)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
T-Mobile makes free tablet data offer: 200MB monthly for the life of your device - palidanx http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/23/4947704/t-mobile-makes-free-ipad-data-offer-official ====== skyjedi Tmobile just stabbed wifi-only devices in the heart. The slow painful death of wifi only starts today. Soon LTE will be as standard as a Wifi ~~~ thrillgore I sure hope there are no hoops I need to jump through to get easy LTE... ------ trendspotter that was my headline: "T-Mobile to Offer Free Data Service for Tablets with LTE" or "Buy the new iPad Mini retina or iPad Air from T-Mobile, get 200MB of free data every month"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Cisco Leap Frogs H.264 Video Collaboration with Real-Time AV1 Codec - clouddrover https://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/cisco-leap-frogs-h-264-video-collaboration-with-real-time-av1-codec ====== CWuestefeld In my experience, the weakness of current conferencing systems isn't in the software - it's a hardware problem. Specifically, their ability to capture and transmit usable speech is really poor. Between echo and poor noise gating, I'm not exaggerating when I say that I can make out fewer than 1/3 of the words in my team's conference calls. I don't care how efficient the video codec is, if I can't clearly understand what the other people are saying, it's all useless. ~~~ innagadadavida Great opportunity for someone to combine a HomePod, appletv and iPad solution. ~~~ slimscsi That sounds expensive for no reason. ------ chubs Coincidentally i'm trying out rav1e today (the open-source command line av1 encoder). At 1080p for a 2m40s movie trailer on a current-model mac mini 6-core, it's running at 0.153FPS. That means it's running at 157x slower than real-time. Kudos to these cisco chaps for being roughly 157x faster than rav1e! ~~~ ksec You simply turn off all the tools that are slow, and you end up with an AV1 encode that is very fast, but quality wont be anywhere close to your _normal_ AV1 encode. I don't doubt it will be of higher quality than AVC. After all AVC was the work started pre 2000 and published in 2003. ~~~ derf_ It is easy to dismiss what Cisco demonstrated like this, but if you listen to the talk, they argue that having _more_ tools available gives you more room to optimize for quality per bit _per cycle_ , in the same way that having more choices allows you to optimize better for just quality per bit (or any other objective, really). So it's not just a matter of turning things off, but of making good choices. It is also not just beating AVC. They claim that it is higher quality than their own HEVC work, which they invested in heavily before it become clear that the licensing situation was not going to just "work itself out". They once told us that even they were surprised how many of the HEVC tools you could wind up using for real time, if you used them judiciously (basically: all of them). I have worked with some of the team responsible for this project before, and we collaborated with them on some AV1 tools (most notably the CDEF loop filter, but also entropy coding and a few other things). They know their stuff, and really do seem to be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else on the RTC side of things. ------ kimburgess Talk here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op- rzboJ_1Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op-rzboJ_1Q) ------ stefan_ Real-time is such an unfortunate term when talking about video collaboration. A codec that can achieve real-time encoding speed is still useless if it has a 10 frame latency to output the first data, and arguably not _real-time_. ~~~ morerunes ~1/3 second is perfectly acceptable to me to be within the range of "real time", and is quick enough that I'd be willing to bet most people won't notice even in a two way conversation. ~~~ Benjamin_Dobell For live streaming and chat that's fairly acceptable. However, don't forget there are other potential use cases, particularly since cloud gaming is supposedly becoming a thing again. ------ ragerino Great to see improvements on the AV1 encoding side. I remembered reading something similar coming from Europe -> Allegro DVT AL-E210. [http://www.allegrodvt.com/products/silicon- ips/al-e210/](http://www.allegrodvt.com/products/silicon-ips/al-e210/) How does your solution compare to Allegros one? ~~~ snops Cisco are not using dedicated hardware logic like Allegro DVT I think. For phones etc, dedicated hardware will be very useful, but it takes time to get into products, which is why a real time CPU encoder is very interesting. Looking at the video ([https://vimeo.com/344366650](https://vimeo.com/344366650)) of the Cisco talk, at 20m18s they say a "real time low latency HD _software_ encoder" [emphasis added], which confirms it. ------ Causality1 When can we expect to see hardware AV1 encoding/decoding in mobile SoCs? ~~~ clouddrover It's starting to happen. Here's a SoC announcement from Realtek for AV1 decoding: [https://www.realtek.com/en/press-room/news- releases/item/rea...](https://www.realtek.com/en/press-room/news- releases/item/realtek-launches-worldwide-first-4k-uhd-set-top-box-soc- rtd1311-integrating-av1-video-decoder-and-multiple-cas-functions) ~~~ ksec >hardware AV1 encoding/decoding in _mobile_ SoCs? ~~~ arghwhat "Mobile" is subjective. There are laptops with desktop chipsets after all... Who stops a phone from having a set-top box chip? :) ~~~ errantspark Fair enough, but those laptops are meant to be used tethered to a power source. Set top box chips are generally far more power hungry than their mobile counterparts, just like desktop chips vs laptop chips. The issue here is that I'm not sure there's much of a market for phones that don't work on battery for more than 15 minutes. Then again, there's a market for water-cooling blocks for phones so I guess anything is possible. ~~~ arghwhat Those laptops do come with a battery, though, so someone out there is enjoying a whole 22 minutes of battery capacity. In all seriousness, though, integration into a set top box chip is a sign of commodity: A low power chip with limited application, where it is implemented not to power a large marketing department, but simply out of potential necessity. This is to me a far bigger indicator of "things coming soon" than, say, integration into a high-end GPU. ------ kalleboo So how far away is it until my phone can record 4K @ 60fps like it can with HEVC? I'm guessing we'll need hardware support built on these optimizations? ~~~ slimscsi My guess, 5 years. And the cisco “optimizations” May work well for a conference call with a perfectly still camera and low spacial and temporal information density. Applying the same techniques to handheld action video would produce very poor results. ------ thruhiker I haven't used Webex or any Cisco conferencing offerings recently but I have been very impressed by Zoom. It works really well when using computer audio with AirPods. I've used this setup for meetings across continents without thought to latency. This may be a result of Internet connections improving in general. I found video conferencing to be distracting in the past but surprisingly good now. ------ p0nce Well, real-time 4kp60 HEVC encoding is a reality since 2014 [https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140904005279/en](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140904005279/en) Since that time HEVC encoding has only become faster and less expensive. This real-time AV1 encoder achieves 1080p30, which is simply speaking 8 times less pixels than that 2014 demo. And compares against H.264 which says it all. ~~~ clouddrover > _And compares against H.264 which says it all_ They compared against HEVC as well. To quote the article: _" This means that we can substantially raise quality, while saving bits, all with a very usable CPU footprint. We have found that the real-world compression/speed trade-offs for AV1 are in fact excellent, and better than HEVC."_ And the business problem with HEVC is: _" HEVC (aka H.265) comes with unacceptable patent cost, risk and uncertainty."_ ~~~ p0nce It hasn't stopped HEVC from winning [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgE8-4rcXl0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgE8-4rcXl0) ~~~ clouddrover What do you believe HEVC is winning? The major online video platforms (YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, Twitch, etc.) are all going to AV1. HEVC had its shot but the terrible licensing stunted its growth and AV1 will replace it. Leonardo Chiariglione says the MPEG business model is broken and I think he's right: [http://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a- solut...](http://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solution/) ~~~ p0nce Leonardo Chiariglione also said "AOM will certainly give much needed stability to the video codec market but this will come at the cost of reduced if not entirely halted technical progress. " which is a very real concern. (a bit tired arguing with people defending Google's contraption vs a codec with innovation from dozens of companies) ~~~ metildaa AV1 is not jut Google's child, but rather Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix's collaboration to create a standard that isn't beholden to MPEG-LA: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1) ~~~ p0nce And who has paid the programmers on payroll on aomenc?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Breakthrough: US Military Files Patent for Room-Temperature Superconductor - sahin-boydas https://futurism.com/room-temperature-superconductor-patent/ ====== seren Another patent from the same guy is a gravitational wave generator. Maybe I missed something but I don't think that was possible. So I would take that new patent with some good dose of skepticism. ------ sahin-boydas [https://m.phys.org/news/2019-02-navy-patent-room- temperature...](https://m.phys.org/news/2019-02-navy-patent-room-temperature- superconductor.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How not to deal with customer feedback - jancona http://attepicfail.tumblr.com/ ====== paulgb What did he expect? He contacts the CEO, knowing that it's _not_ going to be read by the CEO, but his support staff at best, and _directly insults_ the support staff ("$12/hour Executive Relations college students") They didn't even send him a form letter C&D, they just warned him that if he kept pestering the CEO of a major corporation with his personal issues, they would. Judging by the name calling he does in the letter, I would guess the executive relations staff had already politely implied that he shouldn't be contacting them. Never thought I'd be saying this, but: I'm siding with AT&T on this one. ------ wooster He should send a cease and desist letter to AT&T telling them not to have their Executive Response Team call him again. He _did_ specifically tell them not to call him.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Genetic analysis of tiny mummified skeleton from the Atacama Desert - snake117 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/science/ata-mummy-alien-chile.html ====== sampo Just noting that the mummy is very recent, perhaps 50 years old. (Not a 50 years old person, but born and mummified about 50 years ago.) "Ata was stillborn or died immediately after her birth, perhaps 40 years before her remains were discovered." [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/22/genetic- test...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/22/genetic-tests-reveal- tragic-reality-of-atacama-alien-skeleton) ~~~ sho_hn That contradicts this article. ~~~ tedmiston Not necessarily, on age at least. The article just states: > After death, DNA disintegrates into fragments, which become smaller over the > centuries. Ata’s DNA fragments are still large, another clue that she’s less > than 500 years old. ------ vadimberman > Ata’s bones contain DNA that not only shows she was human The fact that there's a DNA already means it's not an alien, doesn't it? Having a life form with the same uber-complex chain of nucleotides as the life on earth developed is as improbable as a server on an alien mothership being compatible with a Macbook. (Quick primer on the subject: [https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/cracking-aliens- gen...](https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/cracking-aliens-genetic- code-180964124/)) Having said that, the NYT article reads like the researchers are still unable to explain the discrepancies between the age and the well-formed skeleton as well as the number of mutations. Were there any secret nuclear tests conducted half a century ago in Chile? But that would also probably be insufficient to cause all that. I would bet on experiments trying to cause deliberate mutations. ~~~ seiferteric Not if you believe in panspermia. ~~~ vadimberman It depends on the kind of panspermia. If it's about generic organic molecules then the DNA is a local construct. If it's about microorganisms, then it's different. ~~~ seiferteric True. It's also possible that DNA is the only form of life that really works, but we just don't know yet. ~~~ lovemenot There's 6-base pair organisms now. [https://www.sciencealert.com/new- organisms-have-been-formed-...](https://www.sciencealert.com/new-organisms- have-been-formed-using-the-first-ever-6-letter-genetic-code) Also, RNA seems to work and it's possible we started out using RNA and later evolved to DNA. ------ trhway not directly related, just by association - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation) \- i imagine that would be a one source of alien legends (not that i don't believe in aliens myself :) One of the references in the article is about such practice dating back to Neanderthals ([https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/202808](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/202808)) ------ steve19 I always had assumed it was a very clever hoax, now my heart bleeds for the poor little girl and her mother. Hopefully she will be reburied. ------ anfilt Pictures I have seen before always made me think that skeleton was a hoax. At least the Alien lunacy has been put to rest. Although, I bet there will be some people who would not believe the results. ------ ggg9990 Warning: photo of dead baby at top of linked article. ------ pvaldes mmh... I'm unsure about what to think. Reduced ribs, crest and pelvis shape suggest more a small monkey without tail than a human to me. Is too tiny for having calcified bones yet. Some things suggest human foetus, not stillborn. Other are not easy to explain.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Larry Ellison Will Step Down as CEO of Oracle, Will Remain as CTO - jhonovich http://recode.net/2014/09/18/larry-ellison-will-step-down-as-ceo-of-oracle/ ====== chollida1 Interesting that they name Co-CEO's in Catz and Hurd. I wonder how that will work, especially given Hurd's "tough to work with" reputation. Interestingly Ellison will be the CTO. This could be a shit show with 3 people trying to run the show! I mean does anyone really expect Larry Ellison to start taking marching orders. Will be interesting to watch the short interest on this company! I think the two headed CEO is what the street expected all along as Catz has been around for ever and alot of people thought that Hurd, the former HP CEO, was promised the CEO title when Ellison resigned. It looks like they, Catz and Hurd, will split the running of day to day operations as Hurd gets sales, marketing and strategy reporting to him, while Catz will continue to have finance, legal and manufacturing. Its down about a dollar after the close on about a third higher trading volume than normal. So it doesn't look like anyone is "spooked" by the news. ~~~ j_baker The thing that is weird to me is that Ellison is CTO. I don't really think he's a highly technical person, or is he? ~~~ phillmv Not to dwelve too far into Oracle hagiography but, >During the 1970s, after a brief stint at Amdahl Corporation, Ellison began working for Ampex Corporation. His projects included a database for the CIA, which he named "Oracle". Ellison was inspired by a paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems called "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks".[10] In 1977, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) with two partners and an investment of $2,000; $1,200 of the money was his. It's really not clear from the first few hits off Google what his role was in _developing_ Oracle, the application, but he's not like, _untechnical_. ~~~ nostrademons Relevant Quora question: [http://www.quora.com/Was-Larry-Ellison-a-good- programmer](http://www.quora.com/Was-Larry-Ellison-a-good-programmer) Also, apparently Bob Miner programmed the bulk of the original product and ran engineering, but the Quora link above says Miner considered Ellison a good programmer. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Miner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Miner) ------ dm8 If you want to read about Larry Ellison's personality and his management style, you should read - "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corporation; God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison". ([http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181369.The_Difference_Bet...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181369.The_Difference_Between_God_and_Larry_Ellison_)) It's one of the best books written on him and the way he managed Oracle right from it's beginnings. He was damn good at selling things. ~~~ mathattack Very good book. He will be revered, but he was behind some scandals back in the day. ------ mindcrime Not really sure what to say about this. I don't know Ellison, nor do I own Oracle stock, or have any particular interest in Oracle per-se. But nonetheless, I've always seen Ellison as an important character in our industry, and after reading a biography about him, I felt a sort of kinship with him based on some shared interests. At any rate, it definitely feels like the "end of an era" in a sense. I got my start in this industry in the mid to late 90's when Oracle, IBM, Novell, Microsoft, Borland, etc. were duking it out for supremacy, and - for better or worse - you've never really been able to escape Oracle's shadow to some extent. And Ellison was Oracle, in so many ways. Edit: It's been a while, but I think this[1] was the biography I read. I'll just say this: regardless of what you think of Ellison, he's an interesting character and reading about the history of Ellison / Oracle is quite fascinating. [1]: [http://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison- Orac...](http://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison- Oracle/dp/0743225058/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411072380&sr=1-1) ~~~ lawnchair_larry I'm not sure that you want to be finding kinship with sociopaths. ~~~ mindcrime I don't really buy that line of thinking. Nobody is perfect, and I don't see denying "a certain sense of kinship" with a fellow human being, which is based on certain shared interests, just because I might dislike or disapprove of other aspects of that person's character. That said, I don't think I'd _like_ Larry Ellison if I knew him (although I could be wrong). I'm just saying that there are things about him where I can see some overlap in thinking and interests. It doesn't mean I want him sainted or anything. :-) ------ smacktoward I'm guessing he wants to spend more time wringing extortionate license fees out of his family? ------ ChuckMcM Demonstrating once again that tech companies really don't "get" succession planning :-) I'm kind of half joking, if you look at a bunch of 'old school' BigCorps, the progression is (CEO->Chairman, SVPx -> CEO, VPx -> SVPx) and then the Chairman of the board retires and the CEO takes on both roles Chairman and CEO, priming the pump for the next cycle. Co-CEOs have so far been an experiment in disaster, something about not having an ultimate authority seems to really crimp organizations. I wish Oracle well but they have a lot of challenges to overcome, if I were a share holder I wouldn't be all that pleased with this arrangement as it seems to basically leave all the same people in place with all the same problems (Amazon/Google EC2/GCE, MySQL vs NoSQL vs expensive Oracle, Cheap Clusters with High Reliablity vs Expensive Servers, Etc.) ~~~ falsestprophet Larry Ellison may "get" more about running a Fortune 100 tech company than you give him credit for. ~~~ ChuckMcM You misinterpret my comment. He is _masterful_ at running Oracle, the problem is he is mortal. Successions are all about building institutions that are _immortal_. Which is to say they continue to exist even as humans come and go. That is one of the key differences between a democracy and a dictatorship. In the latter when the dictator dies the country goes into civil war until another dictator arises, but in a democracy the 'people' in the system are constantly replaced by the country continues. Same is true for corporations. Technology companies tend to be driven more by one or two individuals who don't design an institution so much as they just run the business. I am fascinated that places like Ford and IBM have been as durable as they have been. ------ bsimpson Someone in The Verge's comment section noted that this Forbes list will now need to be updated: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/forbes- releases-2014-list-o...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/forbes- releases-2014-list-of-most-punchable-ceos,35694/) ------ spindritf _The final Larry Ellison scorecard: Oracle stock is up 89,640% since he took the company public in March 1986._ [https://twitter.com/dkberman/status/512700128801464320](https://twitter.com/dkberman/status/512700128801464320) ------ turar Co-CEOs? I only know one company that had co-CEOs, and that didn't work out well for them. ~~~ MagicWishMonkey Yep, it's like Hurding Catz. Ok I'll show myself out. ~~~ jacquesm 120+ points, and who says HN has no sense of humor :) ~~~ wuliwong hahah, apparently the people that down-voted my positive response to his comment. sheesh. ~~~ wuliwong And the guy that downvoted that ^^ ------ joelrunyon Are there any more details into why he's doing this? ~~~ andyl Maybe it has something to do with him being 70? ~~~ valevk Wow, I never knew that he is 70. I thought 40-something. But he looks really young. In this picture he is 69! [1] [1] [http://www.channelweb.co.uk/IMG/834/272834/big- ellison.jpg](http://www.channelweb.co.uk/IMG/834/272834/big-ellison.jpg) ~~~ mrcarlosrendon His face looks great. I think you can see his age in his arm skin. ~~~ laichzeit0 Well he's obviously had some "work done". Which I think is great, why not? Money is surely not the problem, life's too short to look crap. ------ sebst Oracle's stock has already dropped 2.5%. [http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/18/oracle-stock- drops-2-5-on-n...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/18/oracle-stock-drops-2-5-on- news-that-larry-ellison-has-relinquished-his-ceo-title/) ------ azifali The end of an era for Oracle that existed as a software (licensing) company. I think that Ellison stepping in as the CTO is probably more important than him stepping down as the CEO. This move will perhaps will lay the groundwork for the next tens of billions in revenue for Oracle, in cloud based software and infrastructure. ------ sebst Will Oracle then become better? Maybe as good as Sun used to be? just dreamin'... ~~~ valarauca1 I doubt this'll happen. I wish this would happen. But I sincerely doubt this will happen. Sun really felt like a once in a life time company. I think the best thing we can hope for is board room infighting will just kill Oracle. ------ justinph What is with the capitalization on the headline on Recode? I read it and thought, who is "Will Remain"? It should be: Larry Ellison will step down as CEO of Oracle, will remain as CTO Headline capitalization is pretty easy: Capitalize the first word, then any proper nouns. That's it. ~~~ keebEz It is correct according to most commonly used guidelines for headline capitalization. You were describing how to capitalize stuff in a paragraph, not a headline. [http://www.grammarunderground.com/capitalization-of- headline...](http://www.grammarunderground.com/capitalization-of- headlines.html) ~~~ justinph Well, I stand corrected. Dang.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Email Etiquette - hiltmon http://www.hiltmon.com/blog/2012/10/24/email-etiquette/ ====== Snapps Bob, Thank you for the thank you card. With warmest regards, John \----- [Insert Unnecessarily Long Email Signature]	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords? - Pfhreak Perhaps I'm just more aware of it, or perhaps it's happening more frequently, but it seems like every couple of weeks a major service demonstrates that they have exposed some user data or passwords.<p>Intellectually, I know I <i>should</i> be using a different password for every service, game, and application I use. Practically, I reuse a handful of long, strong passwords.<p>I'd like to change that practice. I'd like to use a different password on every service, but that's probably a few dozen passwords. Too many to remember practically, in any case. There's a lot of misinformation out there about how to do this correctly, and I'm looking for examples on how to do it right. ====== sjtgraham After shitting the proverbial brick last week re the Apple ID/iCloud debacle, I downloaded 1Password and methodically changed the password to everything I cared about with a randomly generated string that included non-alphanumeric chars. Sometimes I find this inconvenient as the integration on the iOS app is not great (unless I'm missing something), and will never improve unless Apple exposes APIs allowing deeper integration; but my current thinking is the extra security is worth it. Previously all my passwords were the same thing modulo a changing non-alphanumeric char, which I understand is dumb, but I was too lazy to change them. The aforementioned Apple incident provided the final impetus for change. Obviously, it later transpired that the breach was down to social engineering and weaknesses in human security rather than compromised passwords, so all this is moot as the best security precautions are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Something else I found interesting is Apple allows a max of 32 chars in their passwords. I discovered this as the password I was trying to set was significantly longer than this. Does this not suggest that the passwords are not hashed? If they were the length of password would not matter as the hash outputs are identical lengths and Apple could set the db column size accordingly. ~~~ dbecker I also switched to 1password after that debacle (though I should have done it before). 1password is great on a mac, but accessing passwords (via dropbox) from a linux machine is a pain in the ass. Password management still seems like an unsolved problem. ------ bblough All of my passwords are randomly generated and kept in a password database. The database is then auto-sync'd to a cloud storage service. This keeps my passwords secure, but easily accessible. Specifically, I use Password Gorilla (since it's psafe compatible and cross- platform) and SpiderOak (since it's encrypted and cross-platform). ------ k_s I wrote a bit about this awhile back here ([http://software-and- algorithms.blogspot.com/2012/06/password...](http://software-and- algorithms.blogspot.com/2012/06/password-management.html)). Basically, I use HMAC to generate passwords based upon a single strong password and an account- specific phrase. ------ bdfh42 PasswordSafe is good <http://pwsafe.org/> and helps me keep a different password for every site. You can also save some ancillary information as well - useful for developers with data keys for api access. Simple and quick to use which helps maintain the discipline. ------ runjake LastPass Premium -- it runs on everything. I am happy with it, but I'll probably take a look at 1Password soonish. ~~~ pavel_lishin The price of 1Password turned me off. (There was also some UI glitch I didn't like, but I don't remember what it was, and Lastpass is no beauty itself.) ------ brudgers One of the ways I manage my passwords is by not sharing meaningful information about how I manage them in public. ------ koopajah There was a discussion right about this 4 days ago : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4343097> ------ israelyc I've been using RoboForm, not well designed (it seems like they are improving though) but works great on both Mac and PC (sucks on iOS). ------ lexbryan We are using LastPass. There are risk still though. ------ aayala keepasx ------ hboon 1password. ------ eswangren KeyPass has always treated me well, is free, and runs on multiple platforms.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Harvesting The Biosphere: Book Review - mrfairladyz http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Books/Energy/Harvesting-The-Biosphere ====== Pro_bity I really enjoyed the look and feel. Much like the NYT Snowfall. Finally some innovation in publishing. ~~~ robertnealan I'll agree it's somewhat refreshing compared to the standard design, but anything that requires a "scroll down" notice needs some further work in my opinion. The full screen background images switching from section to section is interesting but the left side being left column being taller than the right feels awkward and unbalanced. Either way, nice to see that B.Gates is actively blogging and continuing his philanthropic efforts. ~~~ Pro_bity I agree with you. The fact that you have to tell users what to do next with arrows and etcetera is much the same as using narration in a movie. It works, but it is a little like cheating. Nonetheless, I like the evolution away from standard text on a page with a picture or two.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Measuring YouTube Content Delivery Over IPv6 [pdf] - okket http://vaibhavbajpai.com/documents/papers/proceedings/youtube-ccr-2017.pdf ====== okket Abstract: We measure YouTube content delivery over IPv6 using ∼100 Sam-Knows probes connected to dual-stacked networks representing 66 different origin ASes. Using a 34-months long (Aug 2014-Jun 2017) dataset, we show that success rates of streaming a stall-free version of a video over IPv6 have improved over time. We show that a Happy Eyeballs (HE) race during initial TCP connection establishment leads to a strong (more than 97%) preference over IPv6. However, even though clients prefer streaming videos over IPv6, we observe worse performance over IPv6 than over IPv4. We witness consistently higher TCP connection establishment times and startup delays (∼100 ms or more) over IPv6. We also observe consistently lower achieved throughput both for audio and video over IPv6. We observe less than 1% stall rates over both address families. Due to lower stall rates, bitrates that can be reliably streamed over both address families are comparable. However, in situations, where a stall does occur, 80% of the samples experience higher stall durations that are at least 1s longer over IPv6 and have not reduced over time. The worse performance over IPv6 is due to the disparity in the availability of Google Global Caches (GGC) over IPv6. The measurements performed in this work using the youtube test and the entire dataset is made available [5] to the measurement community. [5] [https://github.com/vbajpai/2017-ccr-youtube- analysis](https://github.com/vbajpai/2017-ccr-youtube-analysis)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Can we persist hide YC job postings from the same company? - dpres Frequent job posts by YC companies prioritized on front page:<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Full-Stack Engineer in SF - 1 hour ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21508840)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 20 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21318785)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Full-Stack Engineers in SF and in ATX - 32 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213893)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring 2 Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 39 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21146429)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring 2 Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 46 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080481)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 54 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21003584)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Director of Engineer in SF - 75 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20822555)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 89 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695766)<p>ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 3 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20571209)<p>Would love a setting to turn this off, so new posts from same company are auto hidden. ====== dickeytk As the only form of advertising that HN does—I think this is a totally acceptable trade-off to being able to use it for free. ~~~ toomuchtodo Even if someone has decided they have no interest in pursuing a gig at a YC startup (no complaints personally, great folks, great opportunities for those interested)? Just prominently advertise [https://www.workatastartup.com/](https://www.workatastartup.com/) on the HN homepage instead or give us an option to hide them in our HN profile. ~~~ jamiequint Yes, because you're using the site for free it's not up to you. ~~~ toomuchtodo Browser extension it is then (you can detect the job posts, as they have no discuss ability), although I would love a way to donate to mods so they can go get a fancy lunch or something like that. I love HN, I think the mods' work is super valuable, but I block ads in general (while donating cash to non-profits and paying for news sources I consume), so of course I would want to filter what I want. EDIT: I'm apparently entitled because I don't want to see job postings that I'm not interested in in my news feed. Ce la vie. ~~~ dang I hear you—the front page only has 30 slots, and those 30 slots are by far the scarcest resource on HN. To burn one of them on an ad is a pain. Also, don't forget that we place Launch HN posts on the front page from time to time ([https://news.ycombinator.com/launches](https://news.ycombinator.com/launches)), especially when YC is in session and with a traffic jam towards each Demo Day. There have even been two of those plus a job ad on the front page at the same time, though that's rare—only once, or maybe twice, IIRC. It's just so reasonable for HN to give back to YC in exchange for funding it, though, that I don't believe the bulk of the community has a problem with it. It seems to me, if anything, on the modest side. Writing code to make the browser drop the job ad and slide #31 up to #30 isn't hard. The code for HN's 'hide' feature does something similar already. That's probably your best bet. ~~~ toomuchtodo I agree entirely. Those who want to see the job ads will see them, those who don’t will find a way not to, and that’s reasonable for everyone. I might add: is this the best way for HN to give back to YC, through ad slots? If so, carry on, it just feels like there might a more optimal way to pair potential candidates with potential startups (as you’re relying on quite a bit of luck that the right candidate will be on the front page at the right time interested in that particular role, job ad decay and all that). Without context, I’m unable to propose alternative methodologies, so I could be entirely wrong and these ad slots are objectively the optimal way. Thanks for the reply, I am not unappreciative of the forum or the work you folks do. ~~~ tomhoward > you’re relying on quite a bit of luck that the right candidate will be on > the front page at the right time interested in that particular role Often the way job ads get to people is that somebody happens to see an ad and thinks "that looks like a great job for my [friend\|relative\|etc]" and passes it on. So it's a wider net than you perhaps realise. Also, people actively job-hunting will go to the jobs page to see all active listings. But having the placement on the front page serves as an ongoing reminder to people that the job listings exist. ------ wizzwizz4 If you really want to hide it, you could write a CSS rule with the :has selector. Probably won't be _too_ long 'till that's standardised and implemented. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/CSS/:has](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:has) But, as the only thing really funding Hacker News, I think unobtrusive, easy- to-identify job ads are a worthy price to pay. ~~~ rapnie > the only thing really funding Hacker News Wouldn't YC also get value - maybe enough to fund HN - from analysing usage data (upvotes, downvotes, link clicks, maybe PII even, etc.), e.g. to perceive market trends, other topics of interest for services they provide their startup ecosystem? ~~~ kristianc > Wouldn't YC also get value - maybe enough to fund HN - from analysing usage > data (upvotes, downvotes, link clicks, maybe PII even, etc.), e.g. to > perceive market trends, other topics of interest for services they provide > their startup ecosystem? That kind of thing isn’t so popular around here. ~~~ rapnie You are being ironic, I presume. When near everyone who matters in SV / IT / tech is a user on your platform, I gather there is something of interest in the data trail they leave behind. ~~~ kristianc I mean, that argument could be used for any kind of data exhaust at all - data mining still has a massively negative reputation, particularly on HN. ~~~ rapnie Ah. Yes, sure, I very much share that opinion. Its done everywhere nevertheless. I don't know the people at YC (other than dang from his comments.. a great mod) and their moral/ethical stance. But they are in the business of trying to raise unicorns though, with potential multi-billion valuation. ------ badrequest The funny thing is, I've noticed these too, and all I come away with is the impression that nobody wants to work for ZeroCater. I can't imagine that impression bodes well on recruiting. ~~~ pmiller2 If you have LinkedIn Premium, you can see they've grown from 188 to 248 employees in the past year. Of those, 8 have been engineers. Overall, it looks like they have about 57 engineers in total now. ~~~ toomuchtodo How many people have left in that period of time? Churn is a valuable metric. ~~~ pmiller2 It doesn't say, but their average tenure is listed as 1.5 years. ------ whalesalad Alternatively it would be cool if comments could be open on job posts so that folks who've had experience applying, interviewing or working at the company can leave notes for others. ~~~ ianai Cool idea but highly unlikely to go anywhere constructive. Lots of anon accounts at the least. I’d like it, but it’s doubtful. ------ dang The job ads are already staggered so that a company's ad can't appear on the front page until it has fallen off [https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs](https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs). That's why you're seeing a week or two elapse between any of those posts. ------ redmattred Not sure why YC would build a feature to limit the audience of their job postings on a platform they own and operate ~~~ jacquesc You could argue that it might even increase the audience if specific users can hide companies they won't be working at and as a result they'd see more job postings from other places. ~~~ redmattred Fair point ------ itronitron I think a lot of companies post job openings as a form of advertising. I'm not saying that is what is happening here, but there always seems to be a set of companies that have the same positions listed for over a year, despite being relatively small companies. ~~~ JMTQp8lwXL When I see a position that's been open for awhile (one company has popped up here on and off for what feels like ~2 years), it seems to raise a red flag. If you can't fill the position, something is off. ~~~ hamandcheese Growth stage startups, as well as any engineering org above a certain size (a few hundred maybe?) are perpetually hiring. ------ the_watcher There's a "hide" button on every post on HN, including job posts. ~~~ thrower123 It's extra helpful on the 1st of every month. There seems to be more and more varieties of the "Who's X-ing?" posts every month. The hide button is a great way to unobtrusively clear out stuff you don't care about. One of the best features. ~~~ dang I'm glad you like it. I was going to remove it at one point, but a two- initialed founder of this site who shall remain nameless protested strongly against that idea. ~~~ dickeytk One thing: I push that an flag on my phone on accident all the time. Have you guys thought about a way to maybe hide it better?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google’s GDPR Workaround - donohoe https://brave.com/google-gdpr-workaround/ ====== bluesign I checked the sample log provided. Below is the google_gid for different publishers, there is no proof of overlap, they have different google_gid for same person. Which is exactly what google describes. [1] I don't understand what Brave claims. d.agkn.com CAESEP-S3Zs5f0_kq11XTCZP_mE id.rlcdn.com CAESEPpf2T4-2AsAR_4rer3RfNs image6.pubmatic.com CAESEB9H3qdV26kxEiz-BJ_TY-M pippio.com CAESEJyqG1Pg1j-_scqW8kDzTkg token.rubiconproject.com CAESEE1DyZ245WggYaQZEWpQWI8 us-u.openx.net CAESEPIJ9jHcY2j4jK3-DPmfar4 [1] [https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-g...](https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-guide) ~~~ mintplant This log [0], right? Did you miss in the article that it's the `google_push` identifier that's being used for syncing between adtech companies? If you search for it (AHNF13KKSmBxGD6oDK9GEw5O0kvgmFa3qM30zpNaKl72Og), you can see it being included in requests to lots of different adtech firms' domains. [0] [https://brave.com/wp- content/uploads/files_2019-9-2/sample_p...](https://brave.com/wp- content/uploads/files_2019-9-2/sample_push_page_from_session.txt) ~~~ bluesign There is unfortunately no way to prevent that part. BidRequest Data [0] and Request Time is already enough to fingerprint the user. "Google prohibits multiple buyers from joining their match tables." part is not technical, it is contract based. [0] Sample Data from Bid Request ip: "F\303\006" user_agent: "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 7.1.1; Pixel XL Build/NOF26V) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2924.87 Mobile Safari/537.36" url: "http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/popeyes-buttermilk-biscuit-29980768" cookie_version: 1 google_user_id: "CAESEIMlaNwMN-rtiDFzjwNIX6Y" timezone_offset: -360 detected_content_label: 39 mobile { is_app: false 3: "android" 8: 1 12: "google" 13: "pixel xl" 14 { 1: 7 2: 1 3: 1 } 15: 412 16: 732 18: 70092 19: 3500 } cookie_age_seconds: 12960000 geo_criteria_id: 9023221 device { device_type: HIGHEND_PHONE platform: "android" brand: "google" model: "pixel xl" os_version { major: 7 minor: 1 micro: 1 } carrier_id: 70092 screen_width: 412 screen_height: 732 screen_pixel_ratio_millis: 3500 } ~~~ rhizome _There is unfortunately no way to prevent that part._ Well there's absolutely _a_ way: single-source JS and no CORS. ~~~ _eht Lol. :/ ------ joefkelley I'm an engineer who has worked on ad systems like this and I'm really struggling to make sense of this article - what hope does a layman have? Here's my understanding: Google runs real-time bidding ad auctions by sending anonymized profiles to marketers, who bid on those impressions. The anonymous id used in each auction was the same for each bidder, which is in violation of GDPR. If Google were to send different ids for each bidder, it would be ok? Is this correct? Why would it matter that the bidders are able to match up the IDs with each other, aren't they all receiving the same profile anyway? Wouldn't privacy advocates consider the sending of the profiles at all an issue? ~~~ avanderveen This is a problem because companies can use this ID to correlate private user data, without _anyone 's_ knowledge or consent. There are companies that specialise in sharing user information. Some of them work by only sharing data with companies that first share data with them (an exchange). If you got this Google ID, and you had a few other pieces of information about the user, you could share that data with an exchange, indicating that the Google ID is a unique identifier. Then, the exchange would check if it has a matching profile, add the information you provided to that profile, and then return all of the information they have for that profile to you. So, let's say you're an online retailer, and you have Google IDs for your customers. You probably have some useful and sensitive customer information, like names, emails, addresses, and purchase histories. In order to better target your ads, you could participate in one of these exchanges, so that you can use the information you receive to suggest products that are as relevant as possible to each customer. To participate, you send all this sensitive information, along with a Google ID, and receive similar information from other retailers, online services, video games, banks, credit card providers, insurers, mortgage brokers, service providers, and more! And now you know what sort of vehicles your customers drive, how much they make, whether they're married, how many kids they have, which websites they browse, etc. So useful! And not only do you get all these juicy private details, but you've also shared your customers sensitive purchase history with anyone else who is connected to the exchange. ~~~ bluesign Considering google_gid is valid for you for 14 days only. It is very unlikely to build a profile around it. ~~~ cthalupa I have no doubt that if you had a record of my browsing habits for 2-3 days you could readily identify who I am the next time you have my browsing habits for that period of time. I wouldn't be surprised at all if 2-3 hours of active browsing was enough for this. ~~~ msbarnett Your device fingerprint alone is generally enough to tie your new google id to any previous ones. ~~~ raxxorrax Which is also a typical example of privacy violations in the name of alleged security. Some newer linux kernels (>2016) use random tcp timestamps offsets to prevent clock skew profiling. That is a security feature, not the shit big tech is offering here. But of course the mechanisms in question are suddenly implemented for fraud protection instead of user security. Yeah, bullshit. ------ gtallen1187 I'm glad this story was reported, and I'm thankful to the author for putting in the work required to report this story. But after the first five paragraphs, the author's shameless, repetitive self-promotion and insistence on referring to himself in the third person almost made this unreadable. The headline was enough to pique my curiosity to explore Brave's product offering. Unfortunately, actually reading the article had the exact opposite affect. ~~~ dvcrn I thought the exact same thing after reading the first few paragraphs but didn't even notice that the author IS Johnny Ryan, the person mentioned in the story, until you pointed it out. I didn't make it to the end, closed the tab and went over to HN comments for a summary. ------ rtbthrowaway I've worked in the sector for years and honestly thought this was well documented, common knowledge: [https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-g...](https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-guide) The only thing Google did in regards to GPRR was limit the number of parties in RTB they're including by default for syncing to a "trusted set" of parties. ~~~ annoyingnoob I think the silent/invisible nature of cookie sync'ing is what upsets people when they discover it. T he diagrams in your link show a single hop for the 302, in my experience that can be many hops going between different advertisers. The same thing happens on non-google platforms, like TradeDesk and others. The sync scenario can make it next to impossible to delete cookies when those cookies can be rebuilt using data from others. ------ teamspirit I think the HN community, and most consumers, tend to look at things from only one angle. Imagine you start work at some small shop that manufacturers widgets for consumers. What would you do when you have to advertise your product? You'd have to turn to Google is a similar company. Are there any real alternatives? (I am asking because I really want to know) I say this because I am in this position now. I have to figure out how to advertise my company's products and am torn on how to go about it. ~~~ drusepth The alternative is to spend hundreds of hours finding widget-related websites, trying to contact the owner(s), negotiating what ad spots are available, what ads are acceptable to run, and what pricing/terms will work for both parties, then managing that relationship over time to ensure ads are actually being displayed, being paid on time, contracts renewed, etc. It's definitely possible, but you're just doing everything manually that ad networks do for you. Whether that is worth your time (or worth it to hire someone to do this kind of thing for you...) is up to you. ~~~ soraminazuki > It's definitely possible, but you're just doing everything manually that ad > networks do for you. You've just explained how contexual ads used to work, which doesn't need all the invasive surveillance modern internet users have to put up with. ~~~ rtkwe Yeah and there's a reason the tech moved on from that. It was a LOT of work on both ends to negotiate and monitor the relationship. Instead now we have a central broker who both parties work with that has set up a computerized way to manage these relationships. Personally I think the solution that lets us keep ad supported content and easy ad placement would be for Google to force companies to provide bots they could run internally so the profiles never leave Google's datacenters and strictly monitor the output so the buyer bots don't leak information back to the companies. I think that would do a lot to alleviate the privacy concerns and breaches and is honestly how I though ads were being sold for the longest time instead of profiles being sent to companies buying placement. ~~~ soraminazuki > Yeah and there's a reason the tech moved on from that. It was a LOT of work > on both ends to negotiate and monitor the relationship. Instead now we have > a central broker who both parties work with that has set up a computerized > way to manage these relationships. I'm not disputing the necessity of a central broker. Contexual ads based on search keywords or website content used to work fine without surveillance, and can perfectly be automated by a central broker. Years ago, I didn't have much issue with online ads (with the exception of popups and spam emails). Nowadays, I'm forced to block them altogether to avoid the extensive surveillance by adtech. It doesn't have to be this way if adtech respected user privacy. ------ cj Snippets from the article: > The evidence further reveals that Google allowed [...] > Google has no control over what happens to these data once broadcast [...] Is it possible that Google _does_ have "control" over the data after broadcast, albeit legal control via contracts with advertisers (as opposed to technical control)? Perhaps Google's GDPR compliance strategy relies on the participating advertisers to comply with their contract with Google. If that assumption is accurate, perhaps Google's advertisers are in breach of their contract with Google which makes it appear as though Google itself is in breach? I could be off-base, the details in the article aren't incredibly clear to me. (For the record, I don't like Google's business model and I don't like Google's pervasive tracking -- I'm playing devil's advocate to better understand the issue) ~~~ michaelbuckbee The real time bidding on ad placements seems like a thing that a user could never give consent to as it's literally feeding your info to a massive ever churning list of companies that get to bid on it. Aka - you land on a site, it send your IP and whatever identifiers it has to 10,000+ companies who all then figure out if they want to bid on showing you an ad. ~~~ SpicyLemonZest Do you have to give consent for each individual third party your data gets shared with? I’d thought that if you give consent for some purpose, the company can use whatever processors it wants as long as it ensures they protect your privacy. ~~~ eitland Yep, thats what those ridiculous pop up boxes with 400 (I counted one) "carefully select partners" of the websitd you visit are supposed to be. It is IMO just a mockery of the intent of the law and I wonder when this will be punished. I personally think GDPR might be a bit strict, but adtech have practically been begging for this for years so acting surprised now doesn't cut it. ~~~ gregknicholson I seem to recall (correct me if I'm wrong) that European courts ruled that “agreeing” to a very-long EULA for desktop software didn't constitute _informed_ consent, because it's trivial to demonstrate that the users didn't actually read the entire agreement — even if they scrolled to the end, it's unreasonable to believe that most people read 10,000 words in 15 seconds. So I assume that eventually these performances of consent-gathering will be legally judged meaningless. ------ csours Do they have to prove that the RTB ID can be used to retrieve PII? Or only that the RTB ID is correlated with personally protected information? Is it enough that a RTB ID is pseudo-anonymous? (it always identifies the same person, but cannot be used to find that person's real information) - OR - is a RTB ID not even pseudo-anonymous? ~~~ simpss GDPR definitions are slightly different. A person is identified, if the ID references only one user in the whole dataset[1]. This also makes any information linked to the ID PII. the ID would be pseudo-anonymous if one would need some extra data, to which they don't have access to, for linking the ID to one specific user in the whole dataset[2]. So to answer your question, RTB ID is not pseudo-anonymous as it only references a single user out of all of them. [1] It's also important to understand the definition of PII in GDPR context. Which is any data that relates to an identified or identifiable person. Identifiable is the same as distinguishable. Knowing this helps to understand where the line is. [https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/identifiable](https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/identifiable) [2] Definition of pseudonymisation, 5'th bullet-point: [https://gdpr- info.eu/art-4-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/) sheds some light on this. ~~~ csours Awesome, thanks. (5) ‘pseudonymisation’ means the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person; ------ tbodt There's some documentation for this mechanism: [https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-g...](https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-guide) ------ hexadec This some great work on tracking down all of these measures to track users. I really hope we get to the point where dumb ads rules the web once more. Hopefully this results in more than a slap on the wrist, but I doubt it. ~~~ intopieces Why should ads rule the web at all? Surely the cleverest engineers to walk the planet can come up with a new way of making money that doesn’t involve psychological manipulation. ~~~ hobofan > Surely the cleverest engineers to walk the planet can come up with a new way > of making money that doesn’t involve psychological manipulation. If they could, they would've already done so. One of the things "the cleverest engineers to walk the planet" would probably need to do is to increase consumers willingness to pay for good content by a factor of ~10 for e.g. online newspapers with quality journalism to be profitable, which frankly sounds near-impossible. ~~~ phreack Not that I think their proposition is better but the Brave people particularly are trying to push a different model with their attention token scheme, so it's not that no one can think of something different, just that it's enormously hard to get people on board when the old advertisers are holding on to everyone using every single way at their disposal, legal or not. ~~~ brettz Brave is trying to be the middleman and launching their own ad network. I think browsers forcing a business model onto publishers still isn't the right answer. ------ matempo33 Sad that Brave did not do their work correctly, the google_push parameter they are talking about is not an identifier. Otherwise it’s true that RTB should not exist and violate GDPR, but it’s so complex that even Brave was not able to correctly state the workflow. See their release note (15 April 2013); [https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/relnotes](https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/relnotes) “Starting in mid-April, we will begin assigning a URL-safe string value to the google_push parameter in our pixel match requests and we will expect that same URL-safe string to be returned in the google_push parameter you set. This change will help us with our latency troubleshooting efforts and improve our pixel match efficiency.” ~~~ mintplant Okay, but the `google_push` parameter seems to be the same for all adtech providers swarming on the same user in the same RTB session. Nothing in your comment contradicts the claim that this allows them to sync up profiles for that user across providers, in the way that the switch to per-provider `google_gid` values supposedly blocks. ~~~ matempo33 Well, for 2 page views (same session), I have 2 different ‘google_push’ (Chrome with default parameters, no extensions). ~~~ mintplant Sure, but as long as the adtech providers each have their own stable IDs for you, they can still use `google_push` to link their corresponding stable IDs together, uniquely identify you, and merge their respective profiles. ==== Page View #1: \- Acorp: google_gid=qwerty, google_push=foo \- Bcorp: google_gid=asdfgh, google_push=foo \- Ccorp: google_gid=zxcvbn, google_push=foo By exchanging their `google_gid` values corresponding to the page load with shared `google_push` value foo, Acorp, Bcorp, and Ccorp can identify you as user qwerty-asdfgh-zxcvbn. ==== Page View #2: \- Acorp: google_gid=qwerty, google_push=bar \- Bcorp: google_gid=asdfgh, google_push=bar \- Ccorp: google_gid=zxcvbn, google_push=bar By exchanging their `google_gid` values corresponding to the page load with shared `google_push` value bar, Acorp, Bcorp, and Ccorp can _still_ identify you as user qwerty-asdfgh-zxcvbn, even though the `google_push` value has changed. ~~~ matempo33 I now see your point, thanks. I was thinking this “google_push” is probably not unique (a.k.a many users could have the same) but the adtech providers could check the ids + timestamps to help with the match. NB: Google is not syncing with everyone on the same page view so the adtech providers have to be lucky enough to be synced on the same page view. Another question is: what is the “google_push” entropy? Having worked in adtech, I can tell you the adtech providers probably don’t do that, for those reasons: 1) those adtech providers are usually competitors 2) if they work together, they can already sync their user ids directly together (so using google id is not necessary). So I don’t think Google intentions were malign here on this particular point (contrary to Brave communication and all the press coverage). But yes, Google shouldn’t add entropy by sending the same “page view id” to different adtech providers. Note that Google is “better” than the others here: every other adtech providers send the same user id to each partner (persistant identifier, not session or page view like google). And those providers are sometimes quite big: for example, AppNexus or Criteo trackers are also everywhere on the web. Overall, it’s the RTB system with all those cookie syncs that shouldn’t exist, and except for the “google_push” argument, Brave study is quite good (they are just explaining how the adtech world works). ------ notatoad can somebody explain in simple terms what Brave is actually accusing Google of doing? The article seems to be written in a way that matches the language of the GDPR legistlation, instead of language actually meant to be read by people, and i can't figure out what the "workaround" actually is. ~~~ unityByFreedom Agreed, this is so wordy, this is what I got, > Google claims to prevent the many companies ... from combining their > profiles about those visitors > Brave’s new evidence reveals that Google allowed not only one additional > party, but many, to match with Google identifiers. The evidence further > reveals that Google allowed multiple parties to match their identifiers for > the data subject with each other. BTW, many comments in here seem quick to agree w/this headline given how buried the details are. If someone has better detail, please share it. ~~~ gundmc I take exception with Brave's phrasing here. Essentially, Google assigns an anonymized identifier to a user and sends that to prospective ad buyers. The idea is that the ad buyer can use this to target ads to people who have visited their site as they browse other areas of the internet participating in Google's auction. This is called remarketing. An example. You go to footlocker.com and put a pair of sneakers in your shopping cart but decide not to buy. When you go read an article on the New York Times site, a potential advertiser recognizes your anonymized id and bids to serve you an ad for the sneakers. The issue Brave is raising is that the same anonymized id is served to each potential ad buyer. This isn't an issue with data Google collects or exposes, but Brave states that buyers could theoretically collude to build profiles by sharing the data collected on their own sites with each other joining by Google's identifier. There is no evidence of this actually happening and Google's contract with ad buyers specifically prohibits this activity. ~~~ nocturnial > essentially, Google assigns an anonymized identifier to a user and sends > that to prospective ad buyers. If it's anonymized then how could they send targeted ads to you? I think you're using a slightly different version of the word anonymous. How I use the word anonymous it means, roughly speaking, that it can't be traced back to you. Or in this context, google wouldn't be selling anonymized data to third parties who in turn could contact you. If they were selling data like X persons like product Y more then Z, there would be less of an uproar about this. ------ DrScientist Are Google engineers quietly working on alternatives? What is this repo? [https://github.com/PolymerLabs/arcs](https://github.com/PolymerLabs/arcs) Also there was an interesting story a while back about a clash between advertising and the Fuchsia engineering team [https://9to5google.com/2018/07/20/fuchsia-friday- respecting-...](https://9to5google.com/2018/07/20/fuchsia-friday-respecting- user-privacy/) ~~~ colordrops What is Arcs ~~~ ChoGGi It seems to be 'an open ecosystem for privacy-preserving, AI-first computing'? ~~~ lol768 Legitimately a meaningless description. I find it very odd the README and repository description are completely devoid of any meaingful information. ~~~ DrScientist Maybe they value their privacy :-) More seriously this article might shed some light: [https://internetfreedomhack.org/re-decentralise-the- commerci...](https://internetfreedomhack.org/re-decentralise-the-commercial- web) ------ crtlaltdel brave is incentivized to push this narrative, accurate or inaccurate as it may be. i am not ad-tech guru, nor digital marketer. i do know that brave's entire premise hangs on traditional ad-tech strategy remaining static, consumer sentiment around "big tech" to sour and a groundswell of "privacy focused consumers" to materialize. that groundswell is their identified target market for their product. ~~~ trpc What's funnier is that Brave """product""" is nothing more but a theme over Chrome that any 12 yo kid can do in 2 hours, an adblocker based on FOSS blacklists and some compilation flags that prevent Google from enabling its own server features and tracking system and redirecting the tracking system to their own servers. Yet their entire PR and marketing is based on "Google is evil!". In any other industry this scam would have been shut down and the management would have been sued to probably jail time. But in tech, many things are blurry. ~~~ Ayesh I also see how Brave likes to thrive on anti-Google pro-privacy camp and I personally pick Firefox over Brave any day if the week. There is de-Googled Chromium OS project, but Brave takes a few steps sideways by making further changes such as proxying location services, safe browsing API, etc. I doubt a 12 y/o could compile it though, let alone in 2 hours. ------ priansh EDIT: since everyone seems to be mentioning the 4% rule, I'd just like to point out that I'm not denying the existence of this, just denying that it is actually effective. Google has violated antitrust before, and walked away with a "big" fine that's a slap on the wrist. They've violated GDPR before as well once or twice, and got a "record breaking" 57MM$ fine. The 4% rule exists and clearly isn't enforced well. I know a lot of people love GDPR but I would be beyond shocked if the EU actually managed to hit Google with something that sticks. I very much hope I'm proved wrong! This sort of resolution was inevitable. I said it before and I'll say it again: GDPR is an annoying measure for developers, small businesses and startups. It doesn't do much other than put in place so many steps that growth tools for startups become risky to use. For big businesses that (ab)use big data, it's not much of a hassle because they can afford the legal steps as well as the change in infrastructure. They can even work around it and keep abusing data without consequences. If they're able to beat Google's lawyer army and actually prosecute them, then Google will take a whopping fine in the millions of dollars that'll be more than covered by their daily revs. ~~~ mola The European Union has decided that growth based on clandestine tracking of users, selling their PII without consent is not a legitimate growth tool. You know, like the way we outlawed violence as a "growth tool" Your other claims are more reasonable. But they would lead me to the conclusion we need bigger fines on bigger businesses. Not absolutely bigger, as the law already does, but relatively bigger. The more power you have to break the law, the bigger the stakes should be. ~~~ owenmarshall > Your other claims are more reasonable. But they would lead me to the > conclusion we need bigger fines on bigger businesses. Not absolutely bigger, > as the law already does, but relatively bigger. The more power you have to > break the law, the bigger the stakes should be. GDPR penalties are a flat fee or a percentage of revenue, whichever is _higher_. If Google is truly willfully violating the GDPR, the maximum penalty by law could be up to 4% of their global turnover. I would not call that pocket change. But more importantly, it is a relative increase in fine based on the law breaking company. (Will the EU actually fine Google ~6 billion dollars? Perhaps we will find out!) ~~~ Polyisoprene If their whole business model is selling personal data, then 4% is clearly just a cost of running their business. ~~~ hobofan Given that "European Commision fines" is its own bullet point under "Costs and Expenses" in Alphabet's latest quaterly report, that view sounds about right. ------ lpgauth I really doubt Google Adx would pass buyer_uid to buyers in EU28 countries. They were the first ones to truncate IPs in EU for privacy reasons. We've stopped cookie matching in EU28 countries so I can't verify if they do pass the buyer_uid. ------ amelius Targeted ads are already a serious leak of information. If somebody looks over my shoulder and sees the ads presented to me, they can infer things about me. Also, if a malicious actor targets an ad to a group of people, and some of these people buy the advertised items, then the actor can infer things about those people not necessarily related to the items sold. ~~~ billyc74 if someone looked over your shoulder and saw you browsing HN they could infer things too ~~~ thebouv Yet, they choose to surf to HN. They're not choosing to have targeted ads that share their info around the web and cause someone over their shoulder to infer things about them. That's the point -- we should have that choice. And the default should be "no". ~~~ kupiakos I understand the opt-in rather than opt-out, but does disabling Ads Personalization [1] not do what you're asking? [1]: [https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en](https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en) ~~~ tgragnato No, a Google account shouldn’t be required. ~~~ drusepth Why not? How else would Google know who not to track? It's not like they can identify you and remember that preference without a Google account... ~~~ superturkey650 Yes, that's why targeted ads shouldn't be a thing unless it's opt-in (not necessarily my opinion but it seems to be the point the parent was making). At that point, to opt-in you can create a google account. Currently though, Google will attempt targeted ads on people without a Google account by trying to identify and track them through other means. Ideally you would have site-specific or content-specific ads normally and personalized ads if you created an account and chose to opt-in. ------ senegoid The sharing of data is what makes RTB valuable and most likely viable. Because what Google are doing is not dissimilar to how any other RTB participant is acting, saying this is a Google workaround seems disingenuous. Unfortunately I fear this will only embolden Google to further monopolize digital advertising. ------ gnud Is it really a "workaround" if they're just breaking the law? I mean, if the allegations are correct, Google didn't find any loophole, they're just hiding the fact that they're selling person identifiers. ~~~ TheArcane EU should raise the 4% annual turnover rule to 10%. Google doesn't seem to be deterred ~~~ rat9988 There is a reason they didn't. They fear the US government's reaction. Edit: Why downvote? Do you really think that the US government will stay silent if the European Union threatens with such fines? Political tensions are something you take heavily into account. ~~~ panpanna EU should ignore the fines this time and start an "information campaign" regarding behavior of Google and others. I bet that hurts Google 10 times more. ~~~ nocturnial They could also do both. I'm _really_ tempted to write that they could use the fine to finance the information campaign, but I know that government finances doesn't work that way. ~~~ gowld Gov finances do work that way. That's how the anti-tobacco campaigns are funded in USA. ------ la_barba Is there any way to improve the matching of ads to the viewer without violating their privacy? ~~~ fmajid The matching is in itself a violation of privacy, at least if you interpret the right of privacy as "The right to be left alone", as former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it. ~~~ rpastuszak I think that’s incorrect, relevant ads could be displayed based purely on the site content, without user info attached to ad calls. We’ve been there. ~~~ 0xffff2 True and irrelevant. If you're displaying ads based on site content, you are matching ads to the site content, not to the viewer. ~~~ eitland It is actually relevant because they _are_ matching the ads to the user, only it happens by a proxy variable which is the site you are visiting. ~~~ 0xffff2 The original question was "Is there any way to improve the matching of ads to the viewer without violating their privacy?" Your answer is that we should match something other than the user, that happens to correlate with user interests. That is, by definition, not matching ads to viewers. ~~~ eitland In think either our idea of "by definition" or something else differs. Viewers get ads matching their interests, as proven by the fact that they are on a related website. I don't see how that isn't "matching ads to viewers"? ------ falsedan I think a large cause of impedance for engineers to understand the issue is: randomly-assigned ids don’t anonymise users, because you can still attribute an action uniquely to one user (even if you don’t know their name/personal details). I think of it like the UID I get on a UNIX machine: it identifies me, and anyone with /etc/passed can get my name, and things that don’t have access to it can still see “oh uid 1099 is logging in again to play nethack”. ------ laythea Presumably ads are so valuable because people click through them and go on to purchase. I realise I am in a minority, but I have never clicked on a digital ad and went through to buy something, and I never will. The minute I see ads on a webpage, I automatically associate that site with trash. (Please take note HN :)) It is as if humanity cannot be trusted with technology. This creates a certain "ceiling" for us in terms of development as a species. Such a shame. ~~~ bduerst The ads you're referring to here are called _display ads_. Most of these ads are not about getting you to click, but about awareness. It's the same thing as a full-page advert in a magazine that you flip through. For some readers, they will stop an read it, raising awareness to that brand/product/company etc. ~~~ laythea I take your point about being "exposed" to the product, however it must be the case that ads want you to click them, otherwise clicking them would not do anything. Which is not the case. A company spamming my eyeballs with visual ads to "raise awareness" does not get my money. I take particular offence to that, as it is _my_ screen. Not a Billboard for example. My point is proven in the HN website, where it enjoys a large readership, largely influenced by the sites clean, ad-free design. Slashdot used to be like that until they started displaying ads, and that is what brought me to HN. Thank you HN for not doing this. ------ afarviral At this point I'm just waiting for some of these tech companies to drop their analytics and drop targeted advertising, and just ask users for their advertising preferences or do advertising the traditional way... why do we HAVE to have targeted advertising? It's either hit or miss, or too creepy anyway... ------ jiveturkey > This, combined with other cookies supplied by Google, allows companies to > _pseudonymously_ identify the person in circumstances where this would not > otherwise be possible. At first glance, I would have thought this isn't a workaround at all. GDPR allows for pseudonymisation as a method of data protection. But, Recital 26 of the GDPR disallows this: > The principles of data protection should apply to any information concerning > an identified or identifiable natural person. Personal data which have > undergone pseudonymisation, which could be attributed to a natural person by > the use of additional information should be considered to be information on > an identifiable natural person. [...] That said, I don't think this is cut and dried, because Google themselves isn't providing the linkage to an identifiable natural person. The person that can make that linkage necessarily already has the identifying information. Get ready for a major legal battle. ------ bogomipz The article states: >"The primary targets of this campaign are Google and the IAB, which control the RTB system." Can someone say who makes up the IAB exactly? Is this just an industry trade group? ~~~ singron Yes. Take a look at their board of directors: [https://www.iab.com/our- story/#board-of-directors](https://www.iab.com/our-story/#board-of-directors) It's a mix of the major players in the digital advertising industry. Historically the IAB has taken actions that are good for the industry overall. It focuses on standardization/interoperability in the ad-tech space. It generally isn't a watchdog and doesn't regulate the industry except when the industry as a whole would benefit (e.g. self-regulatory programs that have no real effect but stave off state regulation). ------ panpanna Friendly reminder that this is all to show you "targeted ads". You can fight back by providing fake and bogus data. For example, there are browser extensions that do this for you. ------ decide1000 The article claims that personal data is shared along 2000 companies. As far I understand those companies do not receive personal information. I do not see real proof. ------ juanbyrge Kind of a ratty move by Brave to leverage all of Google's tech in their browser (blink, v8, etc..) while simultaneously suing them as a PR tactic. ~~~ ummonk Google didn't have to open source it. They open sourced it knowing it would encourage adoption. ~~~ juanbyrge Regardless this is a very calculated PR move by Brave. And the privacy zealots and anti-google cadre on HN and elsewhere are eating this up. They are effectively giving Brave free advertising and playing right into their hands. ------ therealmarv Surprise... I'm thinking every state outside of EU does not even need that sophisticated workarounds... just go directly to the target (you). ------ jwildeboer Hundreds of deflecting comments about coffee at McDonalds and astroturfing. Well done! Can we now talk about how Google uses creepy tactics to undermine privacy and the GDPR? ------ stunt I remember they dropped "Don't be evil" from their code of conduct a couple of years ago. ------ erichocean Does GDPR only apply to individuals, or can I find out all of the information that is being held by Google (or anyone else) on my EU-based business? ------ banku_brougham People are missing the point. Google is trying to manage GDPR and their previous business model which is selling all that user data. They are not going succeed and GDPR is going to prevail. ------ leegr Cringe ------ rvz It's really funny to see that yesterday, I was branded as a 'privacy nut' after the release of Android 10 as I was concerned about the privacy issues that are in Android. Then the Go modules proxy issue around the Go Programming language that raised suspicions about tracking usage statistics around downloading modules turned on by default without any consent and now this. I think there are some folks at Google who have just read too deep into both 1984 and The Google Book to go on to think that privacy violations like this is a normal thing. But what do I know? I'm just another 'privacy lunatic' on the net that wears a metal helmet (tinfoil hats are just not good enough) trying to protect my privacy. ~~~ zdw The Go module hash checking seems to be more about avoiding the problems encountered by other language repos integrity and versioning issues ( _cough_ NPM), and in terms of tracking it seems about as invasive as Debian's popcon. Enabled by default can and should be the default for security-related features. I tend to agree about the rest of the creepiness, especially anything personally behavioral. ~~~ nindalf On HN it is taken as gospel that any information sent to a server will absolutely compromise your privacy. If anyone points out that the information is trivial or useless the rebuttal is instant - it can be cross referenced with other sources to build a complete profile of you. If you want to know which Go modules I use, go check out my github. They're listed right there in import statements. If I'm hacking on a project that I want to keep private, I'll disable this feature with a command line flag - easy. My issue with the paranoid folks in that thread is not that they made no sense (they can't help that), it was they were attacking the person who implemented the feature viciously. He had implemented a feature that a majority of Go developers had been requesting for 5+ years, had done it in a way that improved clean build time, improved security and could easily be disabled or replaced with a private DB. Literally what else could that man have done? Even though all his work could be verified trivially (Go is open source!), they still chose to attack him. ~~~ stonogo > Literally what else could that man have done? He could have _not_ sent all build-time network accesses to Google by default. It's that simple. ~~~ nindalf No it isn't. Please tell me how you achieve security without storing hashes in a DB? The default is only for those who'd prefer not to run their own DB. You are welcome to run your own DB if you want. Why are you so upset that other people will be using a feature you obviously won't? Why are you upset when this leaks literally no info that your github repo doesn't already? ~~~ ori_b > No it isn't. Please tell me how you achieve security without storing hashes > in a DB? I bet the DB is small enough that you could default to just downloading it and syncing on your machine. ~~~ irq-1 256 byte hash x 10000 packages x 10 package versions = 25mb That's a conservative estimate, and if you try to sync only what's needed you're no better off then not-syncing. ~~~ ori_b Yeah, I've got 25 megs of disk space. If you try syncing the whole thing incrementally (rsync style) all you leak is the frequency of your updates ------ idlerig This is exactly what happened in the McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit. It wasn't some "Karen" who hit a bump while driving. It was an elderly woman (in her 70s, IIRC), sitting in the passenger seat. McDonalds already had complaints (and some lawsuits) over the (significantly higher than industry standard) temperature of their coffee, so this wasn't exactly out of the blue. She ended up with 3rd degree burns on her legs and crotch. She asked only for her medical bills to be paid. McDonald's refused, so she eventually took them to court. Even then, she only asked for medical bills (and now legal expenses). The jury decided that McDonalds was not only liable for those costs, but had treated the woman so poorly that they should pay punitive damages. The massive amount you heard about in the news was based on the amount of money McDonalds makes selling coffee in one day. But that's not the story that was spread by the shills... ~~~ mumblemumble The most interesting thing to me about that McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit is how different the narrative is in popular circles vs. in legal circles. It's a little bit like in _Rashomon_. In popular circles, the story is framed in a way that does make the lawsuit look frivolous. But this is also a case that has made it into the legal textbooks as an example of corporate negligence that's clear-cut enough to use for demonstrating the concept in introductory textbooks. Of course, in the legal textbooks, the version of the story that's told includes a lot of details that, as you point out, get excluded from the popular version. ~~~ endorphone Are you a lawyer? Because this take is quite remarkable, especially given that the _overwhelming_ public sentiment is that McDonalds was heinously negligent, coupled with a lot of supporting but not entirely factual claims to justify that position. I feel like the same people who were jeering at the victim just marched over to sainting her and demonizing McDonalds. The Internet extreme position machine. Everything has to be clear cut. How McDonalds no longer engages in "corporate negligence": they put pronounced warnings on the cup that it's a dangerously hot substance. That's it. They did not lower the temperature (as is frequently claimed, nor is the temperature at all outside of normal industry standards, yet this is being repeatedly stated throughout this thread -- coffee, brewing with boiling water, is hot). You can get a searingly hot cup of coffee from most quick-serve restaurants today depending upon how freshly it was brewed. This is a case where the solution is more warnings on things. This case was, however, an example of bad brand management, and perhaps throwing good money after bad for something they could have privately settled early on. This is certainly not a hill I want to die on, and generally arguing against the prevalent opinion (which is overwhelming the one that you and the GP have expressed, albeit almost always positioning it like it's contrarian) is self- defeating, however this whole case is fascinating in how public perception shifts. ~~~ ChainOfFools > The Internet extreme position machine. Everything has to be clear cut aka compression machine. optimized to trigger brains' reward circuitry for accomplishment by 'tidying up' unmanageable landscapes of disjointed data into easily stored and recalled bimodal silhouettes of same. ~~~ 205guy This is actually a very interesting and seemingly accurate description of what powers so much of the internet. ------ NullPrefix >I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though. ~~~ kspacewalk2 Should their point of view just not be heard then, in such discussions? ~~~ kaibee Hi kspacewalk2, I'm John and I have views on privacy that are completely genuine and happen to align with what benefits the corporation(s) that my company, TotallyLegitimateComments LLC, contracts for. I believe advertisement is a force for good in the world and can bring together people and products that enrich their lives while creating value for shareholders! While I'd love to share what wonderful businesses my company works with, various privacy agreements prevent us from doing so. However, I can tell you that they all appreciate the fact that you find their views important! We will continue to lobby your congressmen on your behalf to ensure that these views are reflected in the nations laws! Thanks and remember, corporations are people like you and me! Sincerely, John ~~~ thekyle This is a total straw man. ~~~ stonogo I'm not sure it is. [https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/116191039733676851...](https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/1161910397336768512) ~~~ maest Is that satire? I'm genuinely unsure if that's a real account, a shill, innocent satire or malicious satire. I wonder what that says about the state of "truth" on the Internet. ------ sam1r Just learned about Brave for the first time. Pretty neat stuff. ~~~ Kiro Only if you're into cryptocurrencies. I wish there was an alternative without the BAT stuff. ~~~ colordrops That makes no sense. BAT is opt-in and isn't even mentioned when you install the browser. ~~~ Kiro I would argue that the whole reason for Brave's existence is BAT. It's their business model and I'm surprised that HN normally hates cryptocurrencies with a passion but gives Brave a pass. ~~~ colordrops First, HN isn't some hive mind that takes stances as a collective. Second, cryptocurrencies are a technology and can be used for good or bad. To hate them is like hating linked lists. Third, there _is_ plenty of (undeserved) hate for Brave here on HN. Lastly, "the whole reason for their existence" is a subjective judgement. As long as they remain open source and don't force me to use their cryptocurrency, I am completely fine with it. ------ wtdata What is sad is that the EU commission doesn't take real action against Google. At best we are to expect a slap in the hand, at worst, the investigations will drag on and nothing will happen. ~~~ Barrin92 Google has been fined a _5 billion dollar fine_ already last year, that claim simply isn't true. But I agree with the implicit demand, they clearly haven't gotten the message. The EU should slap them with billion dollar fines again until they learn their lesson. ~~~ docker_up The executives should face jail time. That would certainly light a fire under Google's ass to finally "do no evil". ~~~ peterwwillis Jail time? For telling companies what kinds of shoes you shop for on Amazon? ~~~ docker_up Yep. Privacy violations and leaks should be punished with fines and jail time. Period. End of sentence. Just like execs have to personally sign for and are accountable for their financial statements, they should do the same thing with privacy. GDPR sets a very common leveling of the field so it's completely fair now. ~~~ peterwwillis "Privacy violation" is a huge, gigantic category of all kinds of things. One kind of privacy violation is completely different from another; some privacy violations are completely harmless, and some are actually directly harmful, and some in between. Giving jail time for any of these is like giving jail time for any kind of "offensive behavior". Maybe someone just didn't like what someone said and called it offensive, or maybe someone physically attacked someone else. You don't get jail time just because someone claimed offense, you have to prove harm, and fit the punishment to the crime. This is why I can't take privacy advocates seriously. Their effort to fight for _all_ privacy undermines the attempt to prevent _real harm_ from specific kinds of information being exposed. ~~~ feanaro How about systematic, deliberate, deceptive privacy violations in order to increase profits? That seems like a pretty distinct category from the cases you are concerned with. ~~~ peterwwillis > systematic, deliberate, deceptive I'll take your word for it, the evidence doesn't look clear cut to me, > privacy violations Again, _who cares_ if it was just your shoe size? We should not send someone to jail for leaking who your favorite pop star is. Did it, or could it, _do harm_? This is a nearly universal standard used to assess how someone is punished according to the law. > in order to increase profits Of course it's to increase profits, you think they're doing it for fun? Did we stop living in a capitalist economy and nobody told me? ~~~ feanaro The point is simple, though: they cannot do it to increase profits. Doing it for profit makes it more jarring than, say, collecting extraneous personal information through an error. Your shoe size point is simply a strawman. You've chosen one arbitrary data point in order to make the argument look less important. In any case, I'm of the opinion that _neither_ Google nor the governments of the world should be allowed to do this kind of large scale surveillance and profiling. And finally, > We should not send someone to jail for leaking who your favorite pop star > is. I agree with this completely. However if it's not just my favourite pop star, but it also contains all the articles I've read in the last two weeks, and my age, and what I've recently bought... All of these neat little data points about me, neatly filed in a profile made just for me, then the natural question that arises is: Why do you even have this? Who allowed you to start building this profile on me and on thousands of others? The systematicity and scale of it is hard to argue against. ------ nautilus12 "Don't worry about being evil" ------ a_imho Google has been violating GDPR from day one. ~~~ drusepth That's not surprising seeing as how GDPR was pretty much drafted explicitly against Google. ~~~ a_imho That's just your bias and no grounds for violating it. In fact, if it was true the more reason to comply. But it is obviously false, seeing Google can still do whatever they wish without serious repercussions. ------ metalliqaz Just 17 days ago I was downvoted into the abyss for suggesting that Google's GDPR "compliance" doesn't protect my privacy. And now this. ------ mfer Free startup idea: An ad service that did things simply without any targeted stalking involved. ~~~ alkonaut These exist. But so long as adivertisers _can_ buy ads with tracking, fraud detection etc, they will. The key to getting reasonable ads back is making the bad ads impossible for advertisers to buy. ~~~ mfer Do you have a reference? Looking around I didn't see anything. I might have missed it though. ~~~ edoceo Maybe Carbon ads? ~~~ carstenhag Yeah, carbon seems to be pretty good. I used to see it on codepen and some other design website. Always relevant, but carbon seems limited to developers and designers. Some other ad thing which doesn't need tracking: Sponsored posts or targeting people who follow someone on Instagram. ------ whenchamenia Maybe someone will finally take googles abusive practices to task. ------ aledalgrande After this, do you still want to use Chrome? Who knows what data they are sending when they control your desktop experience. ------ _pmf_ Slap on the wrist incoming. But looks like a solid case with a EU national (?) as plaintiff. ------ cavneb I am so glad that this violation is being exposed. Well done Brave! I invite any developer / blogger to check out [https://CodeFund.io](https://CodeFund.io). We are a non-tracking 100% open source ethical ad platform that focuses on funding open source. ~~~ dang It's ok to occasionally link to one's own site in relevant contexts, but only as a small part of using HN as intended—i.e. for gratifying intellectual curiosity: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) But it looks like you've been using HN primarily to do this. That crosses into spamming, so please don't. ------ downandout Yeah. Brave is desperately trying to compete with Chrome and can’t figure out why they aren’t making much headway, despite having better privacy (hint: users just don’t care about privacy, except for the HN crowd). These complaints filed by Brave, with their own employees posing as professional “victims” intentionally grasping at straws for evidence of privacy violations, smack of desperation. This is not the first claim they have filed, and sadly, it won’t be the last. Their claims thus far have been disingenuous at best, downright dishonest at worst. GDPR was not meant as a weapon with which one could hobble their far more successful competitors. It’s sad to see that a company that claims to care so much about privacy is undermining GDPR by bringing the worst fears of those that opposed it to life. ~~~ rhizome _(hint: users just don’t care about privacy, except for the HN crowd)._ I'm not sure that's true: uBlock Origin has twice as many installations as Brave does. You might say "oh, but that's just blocking ads!" But if you don't block ads, privacy problems are going to spring out of the woodwork like nobody's business. That is, they might not care about privacy by name, but they certainly care about it in effect. ~~~ downandout I’d say the vast majority of uBlock users care about user experience. The current ad experience sucks. Most local newspaper sites, for example, are unusable because of ads. But if it still preserved their privacy behind the scenes and didn’t significantly improve their experience, the install base on uBlock and other ad blockers would be near 0. ~~~ girvo And I'd say the opposite. My grandfather just wanted ads gone; user experience isn't even on his radar. I've seen the thesis you've presented here before, and while it sounds plausible, I don't think it's as cut and dried as it seems. People really do hate ads. We're inundated with them, constantly. Low grade psychological assault, at all times. I don't blame people for wanting a respite. ~~~ downandout Actually, you’re saying precisely the same thing I was. When I say “user experience,” I am talking about the ads being gone. No ads = better user experience. ------ lanevorockz Google has been very naughty in the past few years. It does look like they removed the “don’t” be evil motto for a clear reason. And people thought that Investment Banks were bad.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Flawed Algorithms Are Grading Millions of Students’ Essays - elorant https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa7dj9/flawed-algorithms-are-grading-millions-of-students-essays ====== dahart > Utah has been using AI as the primary scorer on its standardized tests for > several years. “It was a major cost to our state to hand score, in addition > to very time consuming,” said Cydnee Carter, the state’s assessment > development coordinator. The automated process also allowed the state to > give immediate feedback to students and teachers, she said. Yes, education takes time and costs money. Yes, not educating is both cheaper and faster. Note how the rationalizing ignores the needs of the students and the quality of the education. I live in Utah and my children have been subjected to this automated essay scoring here. One night I came home from work and my son and wife were both in tears, frustrated with each other and frustrated with the essay scoring which refused to give a high enough score to meet what the teacher said was required, no matter how good the essay was. My wife wrote versions herself from scratch and couldn’t get the required score. When I got involved, I did the same with the same results. Turns out the instructions said the essay would be scored on verbal efficiency; getting the point across clearly with the fewest words. I started playing around and realized that the more words I added, the higher the score, whether they were relevant or grammatical or not. Random unrelated sentences pasted in the middle would increase the score. We found a letter of petition online for banning automated scoring for the purposes of grades or student evaluation of any kind. It was very long, so it got a perfect score. I encouraged my son to submit it, and he did. Later I visited his teacher to explain and to urge her to not use automated scoring. She listened and then told me about how much time it saves and how fast students get feedback. :/ ~~~ piokoch Frankly, I can't believe what I am reading. The idea that some "AI" grades essays automatically is idiotic and has nothing to do with education. Where is the place for discussions? Where is the place for ideas confrontation? Where is the place for writing style development? How this AI is supposed to grade things like repetitions (that can be either good rhetorical tool or a mistake, depending on context), etc? Who the hell came out with such an idea. I would even hesitate to use "AI" for automatic spell checking as it is sufficient to give some character unusual name and it will be marked as error. My guess is that soon or later people will learn how to game that AI. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some software that will generate essay that Utah "AI" likes. ~~~ dagw _My guess is that soon or later people will learn how to game that AI._ Already been done. [http://lesperelman.com/writing-assessment-robo- grading/babel...](http://lesperelman.com/writing-assessment-robo- grading/babel-generator/) Here's a sample essay that is complete nonsense and got a perfect score on the GRE. [http://lesperelman.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/6-6_ScoreI...](http://lesperelman.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/6-6_ScoreItNow_2015_Feb20.pdf) ~~~ thombat The final paragraph from that example is steaming gibberish that nobody could mistake for English: "Calling has not, and undoubtedly never will be aggravating in the way we encounter mortification but delineate the reprimand that should be inclination. Nonetheless, armed with the knowledge that the analysis augurs stealth with propagandists, almost all of the utterances on my authorization journey. Since sanctions are performed at knowledge, a quantity of vocation can be more gaudily inspected. Knowledge will always be a part of society.Vocation is the most presumptuously perilous assassination of mankind." Yet the robo-scoring acclaims it as: * articulates a clear and insightful position on the issue in accordance with the assigned task * develops the position fully with compelling reasons and/or persuasive examples * sustains a well-focused, well-organized analysis, connecting ideas logically * conveys ideas fluently and precisely, using effective vocabulary and sentence variety * demonstrates superior facility with the conventions of standard written English (i.e., grammar, usage, and mechanics) but may have minor errors Any teacher faced with the requirement to use such tools would be better placed instructing their class on civil disobedience. ~~~ crankylinuxuser The let me posit another idea... There's 2 ways of finding out these artifacts of AI essay grading: pure luck, and being able to afford extensive test-prep (rich). The luck one can't be accounted for. So I im lead to believe that the purpose of these essays and their AI grading is to find and escalate rich people. ~~~ JustSomeNobody > So I im lead to believe that the purpose of these essays and their AI > grading is to find and escalate rich people. Well, of course. How many poor people are allowed to decide what is good for children's education? ~~~ crankylinuxuser The standard US response is: 'There's a reason why they're poor. Better pull themselves up by the bootstraps." Mixed alongside with poverty stricken neighborhoods are the primary funding, resulting in poor school systems. And those students obviously wont have the money or the access to get the test-prep needed to "succeed". It's all too laid out to be accidental. ------ VikingCoder My mother worked grading standardized tests. It was a hellish job for many reasons (limited breaks, etc.) One question she had to grade was essentially, "What's something you want your teacher to know about you?" It was an essay answer, and she was supposed to grade it on grammar, etc. Just the mechanical aspects of writing. (The real question explained the details more, but that was the core of the question.) She saw answers that would make you weep. "My daddy touches me." "I haven't eaten today. I don't know when I'm going to eat again." Stuff like that. And my mother was going to be the only human who ever saw their responses. Their teacher had no chance to see their responses, just my mom. So she goes to her supervisor and asks, "What can we do to help these kids?" The supervisor said there was nothing you can do. Just grade the answers. ~~~ harry8 Some of these will be 100% true as well. But don't make the mistake that there are no kids who go for shock value or are wantonly manipulative when they know it can't come back to them. So how many are true and how many false? I have no clue. Literally none. And no it doesn't make me feel any better about the screams of existential agony even if that were a low percentage. Could be high too. ~~~ dmoy For the not eating, it's pretty easy to get data. It's like 1 in 5 children live in food-insecure households in the US and maybe 1 in 20 of those very insecure, so not eating before school provided lunch is common enough that if you're grading tons of papers you'll run into kids like that. ~~~ stochastic_monk It could also be a student suffering from anorexia nervosa, which the confessional aspects of the essay would fit well with. ~~~ JustSomeNobody I'm confident that your example would of a less percentage than those mentioned in dmoy's comment. ------ drngdds This is my first time learning that AI-graded essays are a thing. Am I the only one who thinks that's insane? I feel like you'd probably have to have an AGI to meaningfully evaluate an essay. ~~~ Spivak In a forum of CS people I'm surprised this is one of the top opinions. Our field is full of super surprising results like this -- that you don't have to actually understand the text at beyond basic grammar structures to reasonably accurately predict the score a human would give it. Like this kind of thing should be _cool_ , not insane. I mean wasn't it cool in your AI class when you learned that DFS could play Mario if you structured the search space right? ~~~ cmroanirgo I came first in English for my school, many moons ago. Leading up to the finals, I regularly finished ahead of the hard core the English essay people, generally to my amusement. My exam essay responses were generally half the length (sometimes even shorter) than the prodigious writers. Although I've an ok vocabulary, I always made sure I made the right choice of word to hit a specific meaning, rather than choosing words with a high syllable count. I'd find it highly interesting to see what kind of result I'd get using an automated system. Why? Because, I once asked a teacher (also an examiner) why I got good grades above the others, and the answer surprised me: my answers were generally unique /refreshingly different, to the point/ not too long and easy to read. I suspect with this new system, I'd be an average student. It'd also be interesting to find out, several years down the road, if the automated system could be gamed at all -- I suspect it could, and teachers would help students 'maximise' their scores as a result of that. ~~~ rocqua It seems plausible that, under this system, you would eventually have learned to write longer essays. To my mind, that would be a school teaching you to be worse. In fact, throughout the article I kept being surprised by the idea that long is good. When writing, I tend to prefer being brief. ------ RcouF1uZ4gsC Unlike a multiple choice test where the primary audience is automated graders, the primary audience for an essay is other humans. If even Google and Facebook with their billions of dollars and billions of posts worth of data, still cannot always understand the intent and purpose of written content, what hope do these algorithms have? If it is cost-prohibitive for every essay to be graded by humans, then they should be dropped from the tests. Otherwise, we are missing the whole point of essays which is to communicate effectively with another human, not just match certain text patterns. ~~~ anigbrowl If it is cost-prohibitive then then maybe we should adjust the economic model, not abandon the measurement. ~~~ rocqua Sure, have less essay test questions, and start grading them for content not form. If you want to grade on form to test the ability to write correct rather than coherent sentences, make those separate questions, and mark them so. ------ jakear “In most machine scoring states, any of the randomly selected essays with wide discrepancies between human and machine scores are referred to another human for review”. And “between 5 to 20 percent” of essays are randomly selected for human review. So the takeaway is that if you’re one of the 80-95% of (typically black or female) people who the machine scored dramatically lower, but are not selected for human review, your education future is systematically fucked and you have no knowledge of why or how to change it. Absolutely reprehensible. Anyone involved in the creation or adoption of these systems should be ashamed. ~~~ kazinator The thing is, you could be similarly screwed by a biased human whose grading is not checked by a less biased human. At least the machines offer the following hope: even if unbiased humans are rare among paper-grading teachers, those humans can be used to train the machines, so then bias-free or lower-bias grading becomes more ubiquitous. Basically, the system has the potential for systematically identifying and reducing systematic bias. A computer program can be retrained much more readily than nation-wide army of humans. Humans can be given a lecture on bias, and then they will just return to their ways. ~~~ gibolt AI has a lot more potential for bias than humans. It depends on the input data which is likely heavily biased based on other data set results like face detection. It will only amplify any small bias present in the data. ~~~ Spivak It's amazing to see how the general opinion of CS people has _completely shifted_ in the last few years from "algorithmic scoring is important in removing the bias from human graders" to the exact opposite. ~~~ kazinator If we can quantify the bias in the machine, that gives us an opportunity to close the feedback loop and control the bias. The bias comes from the human-generated training data in the first place; the machine isn't introducing its own. For instance, the machine has no inherent concept of disparaging someone's language because it's from an identifiable inner city dialect. If it picks up that bias, at least it will apply it consistently. When we investigate the machine, the machine will not know that it's being investigated and will not try to conceal its bias from us. On the other hand, eliminating bias from humans basically means this: producing a new litter of small humans and teaching them better than their predecessors. ~~~ gibolt If... ------ rynomad Personal anecdote; I remember taking a standardized test, can't remember if it was SAT or CSAT (Colorado pre-SAT test). This was at a time when I'm confident that humans were the graders. I started with an intro that would be appropriate for a standard 5 paragraph essay; i.e. the thing you write when you don't know what you're talking about and you're just following a format. In the third paragraph I took a leaf from family guy, and just interjected "WAFFLES, NICE CRISPY WAFFLES, WITH LOTS OF SYRUP." for the next page and a half, I berated the very foundation of the essay prompt, insulting it the way only an angst ridden early teen can. ... I got a 98% on the essay. Fast forward several years. I write an essay for for an introductory college course final. My paper is returned to me with a coffee stain and a "94% - good work!" note scribbled on the top. That note was scribbled by a TA that would turn out to be my girlfriend for 2 years. One night in bed, she tilts her laptop to me, showing an article that I used as the central theme to the above essay; "can you believe this?" "Are you joking? Of course I can believe this, it was the subject of the essay you gave me an A on 2 years ago" She admits she didn't read past the first paragraph of anything she grades, and just bases grades on intuition based on how articulate the essays are at the outset. ... The point I'm making: Does AI suck at judging the amount of informative content in a student essay? YES Do humans suck at judging the amount of informative content in a student essay? ALSO YES ------ dlkf This is a great example of why it's grossly irresponsible for members of the ML community to talk about how AGI is just around the corner. In addition to the fact that we have no idea whether this is true, it primes a naive public for believing that technologies like this are worth the tradeoff. "People worry that computers will get too smart and take over the world, but the real problem is that they're too stupid and they've already taken over the world." ------ empath75 I imagine that any student that experimented with the form of the essay or wrote an exceptionally well argued piece in simple language would not have their test graded appropriately either. Any essay writing test which could be adequately graded by a machine is not testing anything of value. Edit: I’ll further add that as soon as people’s careers depend on a metric, the metric becomes useless as a metric, because it will be gamed and manipulated by everyone involved. Almost nobody involved is incentivized to accurately measure student’s writing ability. ~~~ HarryHirsch _Almost nobody involved is incentivized to accurately measure student’s writing ability_ It's the same reason you see keyword posters in math education. "Together" means "plus", that kind of thing. It's completely worthless, except for one- step problems, and even then it doesn't always work. What is happening is collusion between teachers and testmakers. You can't teach understanding, but you can teach test-passing techniques because the way the test is set permits this. You see the same thing here, in English you can get away with not teaching quality writing if you teach techniques to score well. ~~~ Spivak I feel like the mistake is assuming that essay writing is about the content. It's just a thing to give the student something barely non-trivial to write about. When your essays are graded they're marked down for mechanical and wording problems. There's really no point in trying or grade 'good ideas' on a subject piece you had maybe 10 minutes to skim. ~~~ HarryHirsch _a subject piece you had maybe 10 minutes to skim_ That's a travesty, and you know it because when the kids are in college and they have as much time as they like to write their assignments they all use the wrong words and then misapply them. ------ anm89 To me this brings up the absurdity of having essays on standardized tests. What about an essay is standardized? It's a totally nonsensical premise. This always gets made into some kind of techluminati conspiracy for the machines to ingrain structural racism whereas it's pretty clear all the algorithms fail to do is improve an already bad situation stemming from a flawed premise. ~~~ nitwit005 A number of states found out their schools were graduating students who genuinely could not read or write effectively. If you want to quantify that, you're forced to test it somehow. How would you test writing ability without asking them to write something? ~~~ anm89 Reading comprehension with simple factual questions. ------ jedberg Any state that relies on the AI as the primary grader does not understand the current state of AI. It would make sense to use the AI as a first pass, and then not _randomly_ grade the essays with a human, but specifically choose all the essays that are on the cusp of the pass fail line. Then use all those human generated scores to update the model, especially if someone moves from pass to fail or fail to pass. Then maybe throw in a few of the really high and really low outliers to make sure _those_ are right, and throw away your entire model if the human scores are drastically different (and obviously don't tell the humans what the computer score was so they have no idea if they're reading a "cusp" essay or an outlier essay). But putting the educational fate (and therefore future earnings) in the hands of an AI is unconscionable. ~~~ C1sc0cat But I bet the company took the decision makers to a really nice restaurant _nudge_ _nudge_ ------ bendbro I think machine learned grading of papers is insane, but at the same time I don't think we should be training or encouraging students to speak in AAVE (as the article suggests). I think the right approach for machine learned systems is to automatically "whitelist" essays rather than "blacklisting" them. Students in the middle of the distribution of essays aren't really interesting, so whitelist them, give them a pass. Those at the extremes can be either exceptional or terrible, but usually terrible. The judgement of those at the extremes should be decided by a human, not a machine. You wouldn't want to blacklist the Einstein of essays because he did something genius that is indistinguishable from insanity. However, I think there are some essays that can automatically be blacklisted. For example, those with: 1\. Plagiarism (perhaps human moderated) 2\. Extremely low word count 3\. Extremely high count of fake words And at the end of the day, these essay assignments aren't there to judge whether a student is the next writing sensation; they are given to judge whether the student can write legible sentences and words, to ensure they are prepared for the future. So perhaps it is at least possible to automatically blacklist on sentence structure and spelling (you should just lose points for invalid structure or invalid words, you shouldn't gain points for big words or complicated sentences). To make this fair, the student should be informed of this requirement. If they are informed and still fail, then they need to be remediated. If we discover that a disproportionate number of minorities are getting blacklisted, then we should investigate why the school is failing to teach them proper sentence structure and spelling, not pretend we can change the world to make AAVE an acceptable dialect of english in the workplace. ------ ironSkillet The underlying problem is that reading essays with a careful critical eye is _not_ scalable. But another issue this highlights is the complete misalignment of incentives of the people who greenlit the adoption of this technology. Because educational outcomes are much harder to evaluate over the course of a bureaucrat's tenure than budget sizes (longer time horizon and many exogenous variables), there is a natural inclination to make decisions that reduce costs as long as they don't have any _obvious_ (to them or their superiors) adverse outcome for students. This is a pretty low bar, especially so given that most bureaucrats do not have the background necessary to evaluate technical solutions. ------ userbinator I've heard stories from others in the industry of companies using tools like this on their _human-facing_ documentation and requiring a certain score from them. Imagine using Microsoft Word's spelling and grammar checker, not being able to add or override its decisions (without following an extremely lengthy and bureaucratic process), and being required to have less than X "defects" per 100 words. Naturally, this results in documentation that is perfectly grammatical and free of spelling errors, but verbose, full of unusual phrasing, and next to useless for its actual purpose of informing a human. Grading students' code using a machine is not such a bad idea in contrast, because in that case there is [1] no exceptions possible in a programming language, [2] the machine (compiler) has to understand it anyway, and [3] it does save time verifying correctness. But communication in a human language really needs to be assessed by humans. Anyone who thinks "AI" can accurately assess human language is either severely delusional, or trying to make $$$ from it. ------ robinwassen I am working with reducing the time teachers spend on exams and assessments. I have access to a cleaned and manually scored dataset of 550k essays that is exponentially growing. Looked at creating at a model based on this dataset to automatically score essays with NLP parameters such as grammar, structure, spelling, word complexity, sentiment, relative text length etc. The problem that I encountered was actually how to apply it in a useful way, since the problems mentioned in the article are quite obvious when you design the model. Options that I saw: 1\. Use it as autonomous grading with optional review by the teacher, see the linked article for the problems with this. 2\. Use it as a sanity check on the teachers manual scoring, but it would not reduce the work load and probably just undermine the teacher. Do you have any suggestions for how such a model could be applied in a practical and ethical way? Had some thoughts on how to measure actual knowledge about a subject, but that would require a massive knowledge graph which would introduce a huge amount of complexity just to see if it would be a feasible approach. ~~~ na_ka_na Here are some thoughts: 1\. Instead of grading, maybe you can use it for training, tutoring. If a student is learning to write essays, I'm assuming it's hard for them to get any feedback. 2\. But then there's probably not enough money to be earned there. One trick might be to write an independent AI to summarize the essay back and see how closely it matches the essay title. This might weed out gibberish essays with sound English sentences. ------ choeger Such a stupid application of technology. It looks as if learning is completely out of fashion nowadays. First of all, complaining about minorities getting lower grades because their English is not as sophisticated as that of others is the inversion of the idea of teaching. That feedback is actually great. We have machines that can give that feedback (e.g., grammarly)? Then use it to make everyone's writing better. Grades are just a measure of the success of learning, after all. I never got why one would not allow a student to repeat a particular test as often as they like, tbh. Second, grading essays this way is a clear violation of the idea of teaching. _What_ do you want the students to learn? Structure? Knowledge transfer? Grammar? Writing an essay is such a complex task it is a really too broad goal. And then naturally grading becomes quite difficult. ------ amirmasoudabdol While this is already terrible, I’m aware of a few project that are trying to do the same with scientific literature. Basically they are trying to train models for scoring literatures based on their quality, novelty and what not. At the current rate and state of AI, I cannot ever imagine this is going to work. It was a few weeks ago that someone shared “The Dark Age of AI” on HN [1]. I think we are promising way over what Drew McDermott thought we would not going to promise. This is to the extend that we are applying AI on assessing Art, Creativity and even quality and novelty of Science, something that in a way we don’t even understand (or trying to understand) ourselves at the time that we are publishing it. [1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20546503](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20546503) ------ amatecha Grading... algorithms... for essays? How/why is that even a thing? That's absolutely insane. You can't grade someone's writing skills using algorithms. That is totally counter to providing a proper education. My mind is officially boggled. ------ colechristensen Quality of educational is proportional to quality of evaluation. Evaluation of how well someone follows arbitrary language conventions is worse than useless. I only got to university English 101 outside of some technical writing in the engineering department, but I have to say none of my education in writing was worth anything past elementary school. It is perhaps one of the most difficult things to teach and evaluate, to be fair, but I feel like I am missing a huge chunk of my education and general ability because of it. I can't write or form an argument particularly well, rambling on HN and the like is the closest thing to education I have had. Prescriptive language rules are not entirely useless. That is the best you can say about them. ------ waynecochran I would like to see how it scored on essays by great writers. “Sorry Mr Tolkien, I’m afraid you have to go to community college first.” ~~~ analog31 In my state, it's going to be "Sorry Mr Tolkien, but we eliminated all of the departments that are not STEM enough." ------ rkagerer I'm normally pretty open minded but this is just stupid. AI is nowhere near literate enough for this task. What kind of world is it when humans create merely for the consumption of machines. The product of our creativity deserves better. I would support any student who refuses to consent to their work being used in this fashion. ------ lopmotr I wish this machine bias wasn't always presented in such divisive terms as race and "disadvantaged groups". It can affect anybody. If you happened to develop a writing style that looks like typical bad essay writers' style, then you could be hurt by bias in the grading. ~~~ fzeroracer If an image processing algorithm fails to recognize black people or worse, profiles them, how else should this be described but in terms of race? If you don't talk about the actual problem, how can you possibly expect to solve it? ~~~ lopmotr There are many classes of people who have problems of discrimination. Short, ugly, ginger, etc. The intersections of all those classes are so numerous that everybody will have some disadvantage. But it won't be apparent unless you define their class and measure it. ~~~ crooked-v That's just substituting in smaller or harder-to-define minority groups, though. ------ Meekro From the article: " _All essays scored by E-rater are also graded by a human_ and discrepancies are sent to a second human for a final grade. Because of that system, ETS does not believe any students have been adversely affected by the bias detected in E-rater." ~~~ shkkmo Also from the article: > Of those 21 states, three said every essay is also graded by a human. But in > the remaining 18 states, only a small percentage of students’ essays—it > varies between 5 to 20 percent—will be randomly selected for a human grader > to double check the machine’s work. So that applies only in a minority of cases. ~~~ Meekro Oops, my mistake! That's worse than I thought! ------ inlined > the engines also focus heavily on metrics like sentence length, vocabulary, > spelling, and subject-verb agreement... The systems are also unable to judge > more nuanced aspects of writing, like creativity. This reminds me of a wonderful essay/speech by Stephen Fry on the harm done by pedantry. I also feel that schools focus so much on a single structure of essay writing and similarly take the joy out of language. [https://youtu.be/J7E-aoXLZGY](https://youtu.be/J7E-aoXLZGY) ------ danharaj This is a natural development of industrialized education. Treating children as individual thinkers would require for more resources and manpower than our system would like to provide. ------ rdtwo Bringing SEO mentality to standardized testing what could go wrong. ------ readme Absolute garbage. Kids would be better educated by reading and posting on HN than they would by attending English classes in one of the states that uses these tools. ------ MisterBastahrd Here's a thought: if classwork and homework is getting so overwhelming that teachers can't possibly grade all of it, then it's overwhelming for the STUDENTS too, and they shouldn't freaking be assigning so much busywork. You don't need a 5 page essay to determine whether a kid has read a book. You can figure that out really quickly in a classroom discussion without anyone having to lift a pencil. ~~~ dragonwriter > Here's a thought: if classwork and homework is getting so overwhelming that > teachers can't possibly grade all of it, then it's overwhelming for the > STUDENTS too There's no necessary connection there, especially if one of the reasons that teachers are being overwhelmed is that the teacher/student ratio is increasing. > You don't need a 5 page essay to determine whether a kid has read a book. No, you need it to determine whether a student has (1) read and understood a book well enough to apply structured thought to the contents and (2) has developed the writing skills to write a 5-page essay. Determining whether a student read a book is rarely, on its own, of significant interest in school. ------ mrarjen Reminds me of the plagiarism checker they had at my partners university, they would check identical words on specific subjects... Meaning every word in any order, so naturally there is a high % of overlap not only with quotes but also the words used regarding the subject, the teacher would take this literally as "you did not write this yourself" if 10% of words would be similar. Don't think anyone passed that class. ------ auggierose I can't believe that anyone would try to automatically grade essays. This is either deeply cynical or astonishingly dumb. ------ nyxtom Good lord what a terrible design. Rather than determine if the writer has a coherent understanding and a complex prompt, the system grades based on writing patterns. This is actually my biggest fear of AI. Deploying wide scale systems like this that have very clear flaws ------ lmilcin I live in Poland and it is the first time I hear about it. I am absolutely apalled. Not even at the idea of grading by algorithm, but by the fact that many, many people had to cooperate to make this happen. ------ wedn3sday You say "flawed algorithm," I saw "easily exploitable by intelligent students." ------ Smithalicious I don't even think _I_ would be qualified to grade essays, let alone an algorithm! ------ pauljurczak Teachers talk back and even may unionize! Crappy AI is cheap and can't unionize. ------ nostrademons It seems like these accumulated errors in the educational system and filters needed to get through it would create a market inefficiency that could be exploited by a firm willing to ignore degrees, grades, and test scores and judge for themselves whether a candidate can do the job they're being hired for. ------ gerbilly Why are we even bothering to discuss this on this site? Wouldn't it be better and less biased if we each wrote our own AI systems and had them discuss with each other instead? (And we should publish our training data as well, of course) ------ kwhitefoot Why are algorithms grading essays in the first place? ------ 40acres The sooner we get it out of our heads that this education system of ours is a meritocracy the closer we’ll get to actually creating a quality universal system. ------ bayesian_horse What are teachers but flawed Algorithms? ------ nyxtom It is becoming increasingly evident that the hubris for implementing AI is what is going to ruin everything. ------ crispcarb Because a (likely unsophisticated) algorithm is grading the essays, there's probably a deterministic method to do score well. This seems like a terrible idea. It's not a stretch to imagine the opportunity for nefarious behavior this allows - think of the recent college admission scandals, and how happy they'd be to have a guise of algorithmic indifference'. If used long-term, it could offer a big advantage to the wealthy in other avenues. Another hypothetical, probably not far from reality: the algorithm becomes solved (almost or completely) by some premier 'tutoring' company. Said company can charge a pretty penny given its stellar track record, offering yet another hidden advantage to the wealthy/elite. ~~~ aidenn0 Surely there's a deterministic method to score well on the math questions? ~~~ crooked-v An essay is to a math problem as a proof is to a grammar problem. ~~~ aidenn0 There's definitely a deterministic way to score well on HS level proofs. Also, I think you are overestimating the requirements for an essay on a standardized test.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
"It costs about $40,000 a year for a homeless person to be on the streets." - jashmenn http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/12/shaun-donovan/hud-secretary-says-homeless-person-costs-taxpayers/ ====== bunderbunder Great to see some attention going to this. Speaking as a relative of someone who directs an inner city emergency room: Americans, a not-insignificant part of the reason why your health care costs are so high is because your legislators' refusal to allocate money for providing cost-effective care to people with mental health and substance abuse problems means that they instead end up getting cost-ineffective care from the caregiver of last resort - hospitals - instead. Of course they can't pay for that service, so the hospital gets stuck covering their costs by jacking up rates. In a nutshell, what comes off of your tax bill goes onto your health care bills, and then some. America's approach to dealing with with the less-fortunate is, if nothing else, penny wise and pound foolish. ~~~ yzhengyu It is an evolutionary trade off due to how human beings instinctively handle cognitive dissonance. It is very amusing and somewhat depressing on how the most intelligent of individuals can be reduced to a frothing reactionary if you know his/her life history and deduce their biases. ~~~ warpedellipsis I can see the just world bias there, in the idea that "you should be able to afford it, tough luck if you can't". I don't see cognitive dissonance; how does that come in? ------ abbott what most people don't realize, some or most of the vagrant do not wish to have regular dwellings or homes. Usually due to mental illness or social irregularity, they feel more at home on the streets, than being provided housing by the state or city. I have heard testimony from the founder of Glide church in San Francisco on this very issue. "most of my people choose not to live in the beds we provide, because they simply want to be left alone." There are so many levels of homeless, some by choice, others not. Help the ones that want to be helped, and find a solution for those who don't. "We trip over them on the sidewalk every day. We curse, hand them a dollar, or don't. We feel pity, guilt and rage at their presence. The city spends $200 million a year trying to get homeless people off the streets and into a better way of life - but over 20 years, the problem has only gotten worse. The more able of the homeless find their way into shelters, counseling and housing programs. But the most chronically indigent, called the hard core, steadfastly refuse most help and stay outside. These 3,000 to 5,000 homeless at the very bottom are the most visible, and they give the city its dubious distinction of having what many call the worst homeless problem in the country." <http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Genetically engineered moth is released into an open field - sigmaprimus https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/news/world-first-genetically-engineered-moth-is-released-into-an-open-field-329960 ====== tmikaeld I'm sure other have the same question [0]: "But how does the self-limiting gene work? First, let’s step back and consider that each mosquito is made up of many cells. In order for each cell to survive, it needs to make essential proteins. The proteins are made when genes (made of DNA) are converted into RNA and subsequently the RNA is converted into protein. DNA → RNA → Protein … Happy cell However, when the self-limiting gene (DNA) is made into a protein, the self- limiting protein is able to block the process of converting DNA into RNA. DNA -X RNA -X Protein … dead cells, dead mosquito Without RNA, proteins aren’t made, the cells die, and the mosquito dies too." [0] [https://stringsblog.com/2017/06/19/how-it-works-a-self- limit...](https://stringsblog.com/2017/06/19/how-it-works-a-self-limiting- gene/) ~~~ raducu But natural populations of mosquitoes probably number in millions/billions and the don't have the mutation. How can you release a handful of lab mosquitoes into the wild and reduce the population by 90%? Shouldn't only their descendants die? ~~~ nmca Indeed a germline modification to produce only male offspring would do it. Children of men, and all that. ~~~ Accujack They're turning the moths gay! ------ psaux I assume over time, the diamondback female moth would be able to determine which males produce stale offspring and avoid them. There has to be some science to selective breeding. I am groc’ng now, I swore I watched a show where a beetle evolved to have selective mating distinction. Prior to Netflix and Prime, Discovery was my morning, lunch, and dinner, learned so much. ~~~ fifnir > the diamondback female moth would be able to determine I'll rephrase: If some females for whatever reason avoid the engineered males, they will produce more offspring ~~~ danShumway Good distinction. Evolution is hard to talk about, I still often have to take a step back and try to reword things that I'm talking about. Somewhat obviously, females that happen to produce a larger number of viable offspring will produce a larger number of viable offspring. That means over time, a lot of the new viable offspring will be coming from those females. Which means over time, a lot of the species will have similar genes to those females. Which means that _if_ the females all share a common mutation, over time a lot of the species will have that mutation. ------ aspyct Who gives clearance to that kind of experiment? Oxitec has done the same in the past with mosquitoes, with small to no result. Some say it's even worse now. [https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/09/...](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/09/24/genetically- engineered-mosquitoes.aspx) Now the same company is toying with moths. There's no way we can predict the outcome of such genetic engineering. If they achieve their goal and kill all moths, other species may decline. Or else they will simply make stronger moths, like they did with the mosquitoes: "very likely resulting in a more robust population than the pre-release population due to hybrid vigor." I believe we should all oppose such practices. Who is Oxitec to decide to run that experiment and potentially ruin the world for everyone of us? ~~~ stefan_ "There is no way we can predict the outcome", he said, writing from his climate controlled room surrounded by concrete for miles in any direction. Don't worry, evolutionary systems are continuous and highly robust. Remember, nature is out there rolling dices and so far, no killer moths have been spotted, despite getting in 190 million years of moth gene dice rolls. ~~~ close04 > no killer moths have been spotted, despite getting in 190 million years of > moth gene dice rolls Nature works much slower than humans and with different "targets". There's a reason we shun engineering of deadly pathogens that could wipe out the entire population, and the assumption that "it can't be done otherwise nature would have done it already" doesn't hold. ~~~ red75prime Unintended consequences are unintended because they weren't actively searched for. Why do you think that they will be more dangerous than random search performed in nature? ~~~ ngcc_hk It is the unknown unknown you worry about when change like this. I wonder the China part as well. Not sure still about the military lab on virus in wuhan. What is the governance and ethic model here? ------ danShumway I'm not strongly opposed, but I was pretty nervous about the mosquito trials, and I thought (perhaps wrongly) that mosquitoes were a really special case and we weren't going to start doing this all the time for every single insect pest. The argument for doing heavy population control on mosquitoes is at least backed up by a number of scientists who doubt mosquitoes play any substantial roles in their ecosystems. Have we drawn the same conclusions about diamondback moths? Are they at least an invasive species or something? I remain conscious of the fact that I am not an expert in these areas, but I also remain very nervous about genetic engineering trials in the wild. The fact that we're now doing this for agricultural purposes and not just to stop malaria rings a lot of alarm bells for me, but I don't know enough about this subject to clearly articulate _why_ it makes me so nervous. I can't credibly claim that my aversion to actively editing genes in wild animals isn't just an internalization of cultural norms from movies like Frankenstein. But the alarm bells are still there for me. Is there a timeline of other insects this company is looking at? Is it _just_ mosquitoes and moths, or is there a X year plan to start targeting other pests? ------ ChrisCinelli As genome editing become simpler, we will see more mutated organisms released in the wild by some not so scrupulous scientists. Some sci-fi movies come to mind. I feel a little uneasy with how the things that can go wrong. What can we do to prepare for this scenario? ~~~ doublerabbit Giant Spiders. Giant sized Tarantula's. ------ vectorEQ soon the first genetically engineered human is released onto the streets. to reproduce and spread their self-limiting genes. everyone will always be happy, and happily consume :O :D ~~~ mapcars >everyone will always be happy, and happily consume That's not how it works, if you are always happy you don't need to consume. What supports consumerism is a constant chase - "I need this to be happy" and big enough amount of goals to keep one busy for more than a lifetime so that torch will be passed to the next generation. ------ sigmaprimus Interesting number of comments on this thread, I posted this thread after doing a news search on GMOs because of a disagreement I had with a commenter on another thread. It amazes me how many people are OK with the currently accepted practice of growing food such as soy, wheat and corn using GMOs but move just one tick up the food chain and it's heresy. Personally I would love to tinker around with Crispr and a gene gun to grow some glowing plants etc. But I am afraid of what greedy corporations are currently doing with the same tech. This is truly a personal hypocrisy or paradox that I can't square other than admitting my own arrogance on this subject. ~~~ wtracy I think it's only because genetically modified plants are common enough already to not make headlines. When they were new, people went bonkers. (Many people still do.) ------ ptah would it not be better to encourage their natural predators? ~~~ ryan_j_naughton This moth species originated in either Europe / the Mediterranean, or Africa. It has spread worldwide. Thus, it is an invasive species. Introducing other invasive species as part control can really backfire. Classic example being the Cane Toad. [1] [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toad#Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toad#Australia) ------ Jaruzel We're going to rue the day we started doing this. As they say 'Nature abhors a vacuum' \- Once the diamondback moth numbers have declined significantly, another (probably more invasive) species will rise to take it's place. The planet's ecosystem has had billions of years to balance itself out, who are we to assume we can do it better? ~~~ ben_w > We're going to rue the day we started doing this. Perhaps. > As they say 'Nature abhors a vacuum' \- Once the diamondback moth numbers > have declined significantly, another (probably more invasive) species will > rise to take it's place. Eventually, but evolution is slow. Why would the replacement be “probably” more invasive? > The planet's ecosystem has had billions of years to balance itself out, who > are we to assume we can do it better? It’s not balanced. From one point of view, humans are a product of evolution and our errors are evolution’s errors, though even without counting humans other predator populations do sometimes wipe out their prey and then starve into their own extinction. From a different perspective, we can do better because while evolution is limited to the gradient descent local minima of natural selection, we can do extreme long-term planning — which is how we’re even physically capable of having this conversation, let alone perform the genetic modifications that this article is talking about. ~~~ mr__y >Eventually, but evolution is slow. Why would the replacement be “probably” more invasive? You don't have to wait for the evolution. There were already cases when a species from other country/continent was accidentally introduced to a new environment due to "parasite passengers" in shipping containers. While this problem exists independently of genetically engineered moths, since this already happened before[0], creating a void in an ecosystem might make this process easier. [0] the first thing that pops in my head would be chinese mitten crabs in Germany [https://cutt.ly/1rTUHN3](https://cutt.ly/1rTUHN3) ~~~ ben_w Hmm. I would argue that because what you describe is a problem that exists independently, that isn’t a convincing argument for _not_ modifying these moths. I accept I could be wrong though. I do have the feeling that this is straying outside my confidence zone. ~~~ mr__y I was commenting on this from parent posts: >>another (probably more invasive) species will rise to take it's place. >Eventually, but evolution is slow. While the evolution is indeed slow, I was trying to point out that there are other ways to introduce new species, that are not slow. >problem that exists independently yes, of course, but... if new species in small amounts are introduced to an ecosystem there is relatively high probability that they might not survive in that ecosystem. Now if there was some void in that ecostystem, the chances of that new species could be higher since their competition was removed/reduced. This of course requires some kind of coincidence - when the species accidentally introduced to the ecosystem can take over the place of moths being reduced. Since there are so many variables I believe it is close to impossible to asses the probability of such coincidence. I assume that this probability is very close to "unlikely" but still non-zero. ------ lowdose When can I buy a tiger the size of a cat with the character of a dog? In the USA alone it is estimated at least 10.000 of these animals live in captivity so there must be a market for a more civilized version. Are we on the path to engineer pets to our own wishes or is this pure sci-fi? How much investment/breakthroughs are needed to get there? ~~~ cgarvis Toygers are real: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyger) ~~~ lowdose It's still a cat.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Publicist Who Dreads Getting Caught for Her Illegal Airbnb - howard941 https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/publicist-illegal-airbnb-pay-the-bills.html ====== ackfoo The problem with Airbnb is that it transfers the cost of the increased traffic to the other residents. Some party asshat barfs in the lobby sofa and everyone in the building has to pay for that. I applaud their chutzpah, but if I find them operating in my building, they will get tossed out with all the civil penalties we can muster.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Which sites/platforms do you wish had an API? - Jefro118 One can build cool projects on top of APIs like those of Twitter, Facebook, and so on. Which sites do you wish had an API? ====== AznHisoka Here are the data-related API's I wish existed: 1\. Indeed.com - analytics on how many job ads mentioned a specific brand or keyword. 2\. Yelp - analytics on how many checkins a restaurant or chain got every month. 3\. Apple Store - analytics on how many downloads an app got every month. 4\. Amazon Reviews - an API to retrieve reviews for a product. 5\. Google Trends - API to retrieve historical trends for a keyword 6\. Google Search API - API to get search results for a keyword 7\. Linkedin Company Page API - API to get the feed for any company page 8\. Instagram API - API to get the feed for any instagram user or search results for any keyword Here are the non-data API's I wished exist (that could be potential low- hanging fruit startup ideas): ....None ~~~ james2doyle You can query Google search using the Firefox search bar endpoint: [https://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?client=fir...](https://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?client=firefox&q=a+query) This returns an array of 10 of matches for the term in `q`. This is how the AnyComplete command for Hammerspoon works: [https://github.com/nathancahill/Anycomplete](https://github.com/nathancahill/Anycomplete) ~~~ AznHisoka This is an autocomplete API. How can I get the actual search results for the query? ------ ken Is it too snarky to say I wish there were a _usable_ API for Google Sheets? I spent a week reading documentation, downloading sample code, searching StackOverflow, digging through mailing list archives, and trying to debug what was happening on my test account, but I simply could not get their OAuth workflow to work at all. None of the {documentation, setup screens, sample code, observed behavior} match with any of the others. I mentioned this on HN once before and got a "I thought it was just me!" response. ------ billconan I hope some major stock trading website can have api for 1\. historical data 2\. real-time data 3\. trading api credit card usage/history data (only for myself) that is across all credit card brand. ~~~ raquo I'm pretty sure APIs #1/2/3 do exist, although access costs thousands of dollars, making hobbyist usage impractical. ~~~ lkowalcz I think IEX has a free API with historical and real-time stock info: [https://iextrading.com/developer/docs/](https://iextrading.com/developer/docs/) ------ MoBattah All my banks, credit cards, investment accounts, etc. ~~~ nulagrithom I'm eagerly awaiting a US bank that lets me review transactions and things programmatically. Even better would be webhooks for transactions, or in front of transactions for custom verification. Oh the things I would build... ------ kqr Can I say all of them? Actually, something that may be even more important is free and open access to APIs. I'm okay with registration procedures for larger volumes, but not for hobby use. It seems to me an unnecessary obstacle. If the hit rates are similar to what a user with a web browser would produce why is my script forced to register when the web user is not? ~~~ setr The problem is you can usually just get around the limiter pretty easily, isn't it? Like one site I was scraping did rate limiting by ip; I just spawned 5 aws boxes to do the scraping. And with aws pricing model, there was no real reason to stop at only 5 boxes, since each request was independent.. If I were planning to make a profit on that data, I might well have spawned 1000 boxes to speed things up (took 2 weeks of 24/7 scraping on 5) ~~~ MoBattah Can you elaborate? ~~~ setr If you do non-registration rate limiting on an api, then you still need some identifier to calculate api usage; its not hard to find an identifier for a single machine (ie IP address, which isn't actually but close enough), But without registration, theres no way I can think of to associate multiple machines with a single person. And presumably if you're rate-limiting on individual users of the api (and not the total usage across all users), then you're trying to maximize the number of users accessing the api simultaneously (ie you don't want 1 user maxing out resources, denying all other users). But with things like cloud computing, its trivial for a single user to have an absurd number of machines (legally). AWS charges on compute-hour, not number of machines. Running 1 instance for 50 hours and 50 instances for 1 hour has the same cost. But for the server, that difference is significant; you apply rate limiting _because_ you don't want to be hammered for a short duration followed by nothing, at least not from one user. Registration can also be bypassed somewhat trivially (temporary emails and aliases), but its a good deal more effort than bypassing non-registration rate limiting. And presumably most people who want to scrape a dataset large enough to bother bypassing the limiter are nautrally, by their job, aware of what I've described. Bypassing registration takes a good deal more work, and more specific tooling So tl;dr Rate limiting by ip only affects 1 machine, but not necessarily 1 user Rate limiting by registration affects n machines, with 1 user Before cloud vps, 1 machine basically correlated to 1 user. Now its trivial for n machines to correlate to 1 user. ------ psoots I would like to see software producers provide an API to download the latest release and a list of previous releases. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to automate the installation of (primarily desktop) software (Slack, IntelliJ, etc.) ~~~ RunningDroid I think a Metalink* file would work for this as long as the software can figure out the versioning scheme in use. *[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalink) ------ vinylkey Netflix would be nice. I'd love to be able to create playlists, or even play random things. Trying to watch through Arrow / Flash / Legends of Tomorrow / Supergirl in chronological order is a real pain in the butt. ~~~ fenwick67 Even better - if all the streaming services had an API that I could query to see who has what shows / movies. I'm sick of searching 3 catalogs (hulu, netflix, amazon) and finding out none of them have what I'm looking for. ~~~ kaniskode You can use [https://www.justwatch.com](https://www.justwatch.com) for that. It's really useful for finding shows on services you use. ------ jacquesc Google Keep. We have been asking them for years, and Google hasnt done anything. Probably never should have started using it in the first place. ------ fgandiya Some of my college’s websites (dining services, course catalog). With an API, my senior project would be so much easier. Unfortunately, I had to scape the information needed which isn’t ideal. ------ ezekg Amazon. I'd love to be able to place orders without using a third-party that needs to know your CC/login credentials. So much automation could happen. ~~~ noamrubin We do this! You can even do it without opening an Amazon account. [https://zincapi.com/](https://zincapi.com/) Disclaimer: I work at Zinc. ------ 66d8kk Any online based computer game. GTA Online and Rocket League are two that spring to mind. The stuff we could create with that data! ~~~ nasso Eve online has tons of APIs, and the entire game is very data driven with an open market, industry and more. Its kind of a developers wet dream if you like that kind of stuff. :) ------ ken iWork files. There's been at least two completely different (and completely undocumented) formats so far, with not even a proprietary library for accessing them. I really wish I could provide integration with Numbers.app, but as a one-man shop I can't afford to get distracted with maintaining a reverse-engineered file format for one use case. ------ djbeadle GaiaGPS - I wish there was an easy way to query my GPS tracks! ~~~ pedalpete What does it mean to "query my GPS tracks"?? Do you mean query points within the track? Or search for tracks? Or something else? ~~~ djbeadle I would really like to programmatically download my tracks. I guess I could make all tracks public and then scrape the my feed page, but a more elegant solution would be nice. ------ MonkoftheFunk GasBuddy for displaying on my magic mirror ------ giza182 The google popular hours API. ------ rmprescott Mint ------ travmatt Amazon wishlist api ------ i_am_nobody XBox ------ m_samuel_l PFSense	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How I used Stack Overflow and GitHub to get dream job before 19 without degree - kuzirashi https://hackernoon.com/how-i-used-stack-overflow-github-to-get-dream-job-before-19-without-degree-8cb5184e2bec ====== magma17 Education system really works.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Icon Tryer Outer – easily try out icons on a mobile device - DanielDe https://www.icontryerouter.com/ ====== ent101 Very useful! do you think you might add support for device simulation? i.e. show how the icon will look on a variety of devices in the browser... ~~~ DanielDe Thanks! That's a good idea, but I don't have plans to do that right now. The intention of the project is to let you try out icons on an actual device, as opposed to in a simulator.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How does saved submisisons work? - avinassh I don't understand how this feature works. I searched and found that all the threads upvoted by me goes into saved submissions, but I tried, it does not seem to work that way.<p>I upvoted from front page or the submission page, but no difference<p>Can anyone tell me how does this work and how do I save submissions? ====== avinassh Okay, couldn't find any proper info. So installed Pocket chrome extension and saving them.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
LegoOS: a disseminated, distributed OS for hardware resource disaggregation - feross https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/10/22/legoos-a-disseminated-distributed-os-for-hardware-resource-disaggregation/ ====== slazaro I wonder when will they start getting legal trouble from the Lego Company. Using this kind of name seems like it just has potential downsides with no upside. ~~~ webmaven Yeah, I assumed from the name that this had something to do with Mindstorms. If the project gets any real traction, they'll have to rename. The obvious non-infringing name has unfortunate connotations, though. ------ patrickg_zill That is a pretty interesting take on what was called "single system image" in the past: but instead of worrying about all the pieces on a system, they made the system "inside out" and just worry about scheduling processes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A therapist’s guide to staying productive when depressed or heartbroken - marojejian https://qz.com/1089589/how-to-stay-productive-when-youre-depressed-or-heartbroken/ ====== alexibm I am 35M terribly heartbroken after my most important relationship for which I had great hopes, ended in a complete disaster almost 10 months ago. Person I loved the most, cheated one, shitted on me, got engaged to guy, sent me pictures of her/dude + wedding band on OUR anniversary day, told me that she will name a dog after child we were planning to have, got dumped in 6 months, because he didn't want to have her 10 YO son and came back without apologies, and when I refused to take her back, she went to Switzerland police and got restraining order against me ... just to shit on me more. So, I am banned from entering Switzerland.(I live in US) To be honest, I followed a lot of things on this list, but it still doesn't help. To this day, my productivity is shit. Somehow, I accomplish things being asked of me, but I feel like empty shell of former me walking around. Have to admit, alcohol helps me a lot. ~~~ erokar If it's any consolation it sounds like your ex has a personality disorder with sadistic traits. It is unlikely she will ever make anyone happy, quite the opposite. ~~~ alexibm She has traits of [Borderline?] Personality Disorder, but I found out about BPD after whole thing went down in flames and I started doing research. She is 35. Attractive. Abused childhood, absent mother that went around banging man and abusive stepfather, father left when she was 2. She had 3 marriages that collapsed, numerous engagements that probably fell as well, and shit-load of relationships that are short-lived(6m-1y). And of course, all men were terrible. On top, she has eating disorder and thin as rail. Entire ordeal sounds like some evil plot to destroy me. My older friends, who went through divorces, were shocked and said this by far nastiest break-up they heard about. ~~~ mratzloff It's not uncommon for someone with BPD. It only gets worse over time unless the person makes a concerted effort to work with a trained specialist to manage the symptoms, and most don't. You are neither the first nor last to have a marriage fall apart as a result of BPD. It's fucked up, it's horrible, but you will survive it. Eventually you'll have days where you don't even think about it. That said, I highly recommend you speak to a therapist. There are things you are doing to attract these personalities and it's important to recognize it so you don't find yourself in the same situation in the future. Also, read this book immediately: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442238321](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442238321) ------ arca_vorago I can say that as a combat vet with under control ptsd I just want to say these are good basic conversation points but I highly encourage people to attempt cognitive emotional behavioral therapy (CEBT/CBT), especially for people who dislike therapists and want to work throught their own shit. Once the science finally made it's way to practice, I have seen many fellow combat vets who responded poorly to other treatments make amazing progress under CBT/CEBT. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy) Drugs: Fuck that seratonin zombie bullshit! Try smoking some cannabis instead of drinking next time. I personally also have this theory that ayahuasca can cause ego-busting outlook shifts for people with everything from alcoholism to ptsd, but there hasn't been enought science done on the subject yet and I can't speak anecdotally because I haven't been able to afford the trip down to Peru. Other drugs with potential positive effects on ptsd/anxiety/depression are MDMA, peyote, morning glory, and salvia divinorum. Of course do your own research and consult a doc if you intend do any of this. It's a crime that so many potential medicines are illegal. ~~~ naasking MDMA and ketamine are employed in the UK for extreme depression and PTSD, IIRC. ~~~ DanBC I don't think MDMA is used, and if it is it's only used in research settings. There's a single clinic offering ketamine for depression. [http://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/service_description/ketamine-...](http://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/service_description/ketamine- clinic-for-depression/) ------ nxsynonym As someone who has major "on" and "off" period swings of productivity due to depression, this list is pretty on the mark. One thing I would add, which I've seen around here and other places, is the "no zero days" rule. Do at least one thing everyday to work towards your goal. Not only does this help instill discipline, it helps you prevent the snowball effect of having a bad day. ~~~ dualogy I absolutely need zero days rougly ever 8-10 days of full-time brain work. Nothing recuperates my fried circuits better than the occasional single day with _absolutely no agenda and not even the tiniest of goals_ , the rare day of _anything goes, nothing must_. Motivation drive and interest comes back so swiftly and with such vengeance on the next morning, I doubt there's _anything_ that remotely compares. Guess that's what this whole "weekend" notion was all about in the first place! =) ~~~ mbrameld Well, the comment about no zero days was in the context of trying to remain productive while depressed, not how to avoid burnout during periods of intense productivity. Do you agree context matters? ~~~ rjeli It's often ambiguous whether you're depressed, burned out, or both. ------ colechristensen This misses the mark as I see it because it doesn't emphasize the three most important things to helping depression: Bright light, sleep, and exercise. Light: get bright light to wake you up, experience bright light during the day (preferably sunlight), if you're having trouble sleeping, disconnect from any screens at least an hour before a scheduled time to sleep. Don't set up yourself in a dark closed-window living environment. Sleep: ahead of time, schedule times when you should be asleep and awake, always be trying to keep to this schedule. Stay out of the bedroom outside of these hours. Exercise: whether it's walking around the block, going to the gym, or hiking up a mountain, do what you can to exert yourself every day. It helps with the light and the sleep. These three things won't fix your problems but they will make everything better even if you can only improve them a little. ~~~ craftyguy >experience bright light during the day (preferably sunlight I'm in the Pacific NW, fall/winter/spring is coming.. :( ~~~ tqkxzugoaupvwqr Going outside and getting daylight on overcast days is still much, much better than any typical light indoors. If you measure the light in a room vs. outside, rooms are dark caves. Your eyes may say it isn’t dark, but you’ll get next to nothing indoors. This has a big effect on your mood and hormones. ~~~ craftyguy That's good to keep in mind. Some friends and coworkers are big on the 'happy lights' but they (the lights) make me want to pull out my eyeballs. Guess we'll have to get umbrellas and stand in the rain to be happy! ------ heartbroken20yo As a relatively young entrepreneur that fell in love a year ago, and then had the relationship fall apart a few months ago, I found falling in and out of love to destroy my productivity. I was in a multi month rut that I only crawled out of through therapy and understanding how to actually care about myself. As much as I know that I'd be better at handling the situation after having experience now, the sheer awfulness of having to run a business while feeling heartbroken turns me off from wanting another relationship. I guess I understand now why so many entrepreneurs I know have messy love lives. ~~~ anigbrowl It's not so much that you're not productive when depressed, as the awareness that achievement in other spheres of activity are not actually all that satisfying absent a nurturing relationship - also a problem for many lottery winners who find themselves trying and failing to consume happiness. I'm sorry that happened but you shouldn't treat it as an insurmountable problem. If you're just 20, your body isn't even completely done growing and you're also relatively inexperienced in dealing with intense emotions. You'll always bear the scars of the pain you felt from this relationship breaking up, and have regrets about whatever parts of it were caused by you, but you can and will heal. Being willing to accept help through therapy and reassess yourself means you're already a long way towards that. Be careful of the hesitancy to get into another relationship - a natural doubt, but one that can stiffen into a 'reaction-formation' is taken too far. It's certainly tempting (especially when you're younger) to just date casually for social and sexual companionship, but if you systematically avoid relationships then undertaking and sustaining new ones will be more difficult, and as you get older the frustrations and loneliness that can result will weigh increasingly heavy and result in bitterness. It may help to think of relating to others as a skill to be developed and continuously improved rather than as an achievement to be unlocked (which is way overstressed in media and marketing). A pet animal can help a lot with that. The obligations involved impose a sort of emotional discipline on you, but the rewards are unbounded as animals are generous with their affections. If you end up with a dog it will also improve your social life - people are well-disposed to the owner of a happy dog, and it also makes small talk much easier. ~~~ imcoconut This comment is extremely insightful and actionable. Thank you. ------ rkunnamp Stuff that helped me \- Staying near or staying along with your closest ones \- Sleep and Exercise \- Some ayurvedic pills that is known to relieve stress and help sleep ("Ashwagandha" to be specific. I wont say it is a magic pill, but when I take it , I used to get a deep sleep) ------ faitswulff Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is heal. ------ marojejian An essential element to resilience is to have a strong support group, ideally friends, or people who are going through a similar thing. In that vein - shameless plug: I've been working on a service (www.campfire.care) to build peer support groups for any focus. Groups of 5-10 people with the same issue meet regularly via video and stay connected via chat. The idea is that we are fundamentally social creatures, and struggling with a challenge alone is unhealthy. It is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. But peer support can be effective + inexpensive. And being part of a true peer group can provide a kind of value that professional mental health can't. You can't be friends with you therapist, and their job is not to truly empathize with you. Would love any thoughts / feedback! ~~~ DanBC You might be interested in the Q Community's work on peer support: [https://q.health.org.uk/q-improvement-lab/lab-1-peer- support...](https://q.health.org.uk/q-improvement-lab/lab-1-peer-support- available/) ~~~ marojejian Thanks! I will check this out. ------ dogruck If you're actually depressed, go see a professional. ~~~ asteli have you had to do this? there's a catch-22 here in that depression makes it way harder to invest the time in finding professional help. ~~~ dogruck Not personally. I've lost 2 loved ones to it. Just because it's hard to seek help doesn't mean that it's incorrect.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
In El Chapo’s Trial, Extraordinary Steps to Keep Witnesses Alive - danso https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/nyregion/el-chapo-trial-witnesses.html ====== bitcharmer From the article [about how isolated he is now and how unable to threaten or kill witnesses]: “(...) unless the government is suggesting that the defense team will disseminate hit orders from Mr. Guzmán, there is no realistic way for him to do anything” to the witnesses at all." Assuming that the leader of Sinaola cartel who had people murdered in thousands has lawyers that would deny him the means to order hits on witnesses is childishly naive. ~~~ TeMPOraL Also, it's not like other people in the cartel are incapable of taking initiative to support their boss... ~~~ londons_explore Exactly. One can assume that literally anyone who succeeds in getting him out of jail will be given lavish rewards and protection. ------ danso FWIW, the submitted article links to two more in-depth articles from 2017 about the NYC prison in which Guzman currently resides, in the graf that reads: "10 South, the maximum-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York City's most impenetrable jail" [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/nyregion/el-chapo- complai...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/nyregion/el-chapo-complains- about-conditions-at-manhattan-jail.html) [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/nyregion/el-chapo- guzman-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/nyregion/el-chapo-guzman- manhattan-jail.html) Google Maps/Earth view: [https://goo.gl/maps/2Qp8Xt7D5Fw](https://goo.gl/maps/2Qp8Xt7D5Fw) I worked downtown Manhattan for several years and had no idea a high-security prison "tougher than Guantánamo Bay" was sandwiched right in there. ~~~ pweissbrod I'm no prison security specialist but right in downtown Manhattan, of all places, sounds like the least secure spot to host this powerful escape artist of a drug lord of anywhere in the country. ~~~ murph-almighty I was curious and decided to map possible escape routes. He's pretty close to a 4/5/6, an R/W, a J/Z, and maybe a 1 train. That puts him at about 25 minutes from NY Penn, which allows him access to Amtrak or the LIRR. He's about an hour by public transport from LGA, but that would require a bus. The fastest route to JFK would be 1h11m if he took the A (which isn't all that close) followed by an airtrain. If he chose Newark Airport it'd be something like 25 minutes to NY Penn station + 25 minutes to Newark Penn station and maybe another 10 minutes to Newark Airport via NJ Transit, so about an hour. In other words, from escape to the front door of the airport he's looking at at least an hour of commute, by which point I'd hope someone noticed he's missing. This all, of course, assumes he takes public transport. ~~~ londons_explore I think he'd have a helicopter pick him up, and take him a couple of miles to be transferred to a supersonic jet. That jet would take him 100 miles into the atlantic and he and an accomplice parachute out with a liferaft and little engine. The plane carries on to mexico as a decoy. Radars aren't good enough to see small craft far from the shore in the ocean, so he can stay at sea as long as he likes and land anywhere. The search area would be huge - if we can't find MH370, we can't find him! ~~~ jaclaz >That jet would take him 100 miles into the atlantic and he and an accomplice parachute out with a liferaft and little engine. Why not a small submarine? ------ JohnTClark I always wonder, when they catch this kind of criminals, why not shoot them on sight like they did Pablo Escobar or Osama? Special forces officer: "it was low light operation and we thought that he had a weapon so we shot him." and thats that. ~~~ timavr Due process and presumption of innocence. As far as US judicial system is concerned Osama and Pablo are innocent. It is always better to try people in court then kill them, because it limits the chances that someone innocent can be killed. ~~~ swarnie_ > presumption of innocence. I know this is the cornerstone of all law in western countries but its a really difficult thing to argue for in this case. ~~~ timavr It is the best system invented. Like maybe someone learned mind control and made El Chapo do it. But when he is not under mind control he is 100% law abiding citizen. It will be a crazy defense, but it will be up to jury determine if that is the case. Or another scenario is that El Chappo had no choice because rogue officials in the US demanded him smuggle drugs to the US or his family will be killed. ~~~ supergirl except you can’t have a fair trial in the US anyway. so presumption of innocence is just a mythical phrase (same as freedom of speech). money wins trials in the US. in this case the defense has to outspend the US gov. plus all high profile trials become media circuses that influence the outcome. ------ gnode Whilst the benefit to the safety of the jury and prosecution's witnesses is obvious, this also seems incompatible with the defence's discovery rights. Although I'm not sure how the two could be reconciled, such that a fair trial could be held. ------ kolderman This is why the cartels should be treated like a military, not a legal problem. Drone strikes, thermobaric bombs and an acceptable level of collateral damage. There's plenty of El Chapos ready to take his spot, every decade or so you are able to actually arrest one of them. ~~~ fsloth No, the cartels are an economic problem. Make drugs legal, and the problem will fade away with time. Of course, not immediately. But when the lucrative funding of drug trade is cut off, it will slowly diminish their might. ~~~ Rjevski I used to believe that, but there was a recent article on here a few days ago about cartels diversifying their sources of profit by dealing stolen fuel, so although I support legalising drugs, I no longer think this will put an end to the cartels. ~~~ Shaddox While I understand your point, I don't think there's that much more money to be made from stolen fuel compared to the goldmine of drugs. A kilo of cocaine goes for around $26k in California. How much fuel would you need to sell in order to make that much? In Mexico a liter of fuel goes for about $1. ~~~ asah Drugs are also dense: $1mm in fuel is a huge quantity and hard to distribute. ------ olliej If this were a movie we could just attach a bomb to him that's set off if any witnesses die. But seriously at some point I find myself asking why we must have a trial with witnesses. If you have so much accrued evidence that you know these steps are necessary to protect witnesses that should be sufficient to give you life in prison/death penalty. Which is kind of gross, but if someone has clearly so much disregard for the law, why should they get to abuse it? ~~~ wjnc I think this a fair, populist point. I have the same struggles surrounding policing and justice. There are categories of society that act so clearly outside the societal norm that clear and present danger is easily established (say terrorists actively plotting). Still we hold to our procedural law. The killing squads of Duterte are an obvious example why you wouldn't want 00-style justice. But I do wonder if there is a middle ground. I presume not. So that would be my current answer: we hold to procedural law for anyone and everyone because any deviance from that is on a very short, slippery slope to fascism and dictatorship. (I use the term fascism loosely, but the Latin origin is appropriate.) ~~~ wallace_f We are clearly living outside the norm right now. Any cursory examination of history shows that slope to be insanely slippery. Even the subject of this article is the product state-run tyranny on its own people. Probably best to fight for those civil liberties we take for granted. ~~~ raverbashing > Even the subject of this article is the product state-run tyranny on its own > people Oh yeah, poor him, oppressed by the government. That kind of attitude only makes a huge mockery of those who obey the law. ~~~ wallace_f You misinterpreted my comment. My intended meaning is that if you end the War on Drugs, powerful, murderous cartel bosses would no longer exist. So even now, in times where we don't think of ourselves as living in tyranny, our state is creating it. The War on Drugd has always been a war on people, not a pro-humanity experiment.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Compiling MapD's Source Code - marklit http://tech.marksblogg.com/compiling-mapd-ubuntu-16.html ====== arnon > "I was blown away when I recently heard MapD was going to make the source > code for their GPU-powered database freely available on GitHub." When'd you have the time to write this, Mark? They literally only open-sourced their product 15 hours ago, and sent out the press release an hour ago. ~~~ maccard Can't comment on this specific instance, but there are many closed SDKs that I use daily that if they were to open access to I would be able to put together some getting started instructions within a few hours. ~~~ arnon My point is it appears as though he writes on behalf of MapD, and I wish that was clearer in his articles which he submits to HN. ~~~ marklit I don't work for MapD. I run my own consulting company in London and all of my clients are British firms and/or have a presence in the UK. MapD doesn't have a UK LTD setup or anything of that kind. My Bio and CV are right at the side of every blog post, how hard is it to read them? ~~~ sitkack > , how hard is it to read them? If you struck the above wording, the post would be stellar. Next time.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Producing Open Source Software (2017) - federicoponzi https://producingoss.com/ ====== wilsonrocks > Producing Open Source Software > How to Run a Successful Free Software > Project I feel like mixing these terms up might put off RMS, amongst others? ~~~ exciteabletom It is probably easier to list the things that _won't_ put off RMS. God forbid you use the DOM[1] in your JS! [1] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript- trap.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html) ~~~ MaxBarraclough I don't see your point. That article isn't against the use of JavaScript, it's against non-Free software. Stallman's position is that the principles of Free Software apply to non- trivial JavaScript code. That seems reasonable enough. His definition of _non- trivial_ JavaScript is such that any JavaScript that modifies the DOM, is necessarily considered non-trivial. Again, seems reasonable enough. If we want an example of RMS being unreasonable, we need only look as far as the Q&A after one of his talks, where he can generally be relied on to bitterly snap at an audience member for some inexact use of terminology, rather than gently clarifying before answering. ------ KajMagnus If you find something that can be improved — you can contact the author, Karl Fogel, there's a "Make a suggestion or comment on the book" link a bit down (not so easy to find). I'm going to send him a message — the book recommends dead-link Q&A forum software, whilst I've built something new & up-to-date. ~~~ kfogel Yeah, I've got some cleanups to that section pending. Looking forward to your suggestion, KajMagnus! Best regards, -Karl Fogel ~~~ clankyclanker If one was interested in buying a print copy, will those be generally available (lulu?) after the campaign ends?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013) - randomname2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html ====== datamoshr The thing that bothers me most about this as a European is; I have zero say in this, in the US you can strike out against surveillance, you can write to senators, protest against terrible legislation. Actually have a voice, however faint it is. Whereas I don't get a say but the exact same treatment from your country. The Five Eyes have made me paranoid and the only escape seems to be downgrading your phone to a brick and carrying it in a Faraday cage. We may as well just go back to plain old telephones. ~~~ coroutines I was happy to see the disgust people had for the CIA black sites operated in other countries when that came to light during the Bush presidency. Not because of the torture, but because people here expected alleged terrorists to have the same rights as detained American citizens. I feel this is important to note, because we have a large population of young voters who I feel have concern for everyone - not just the US. This is very different from how my grandparents vote and I do think it's split along generational lines. In regards to overreaching surveillance: It's not ideal, but we over here do think of you when we vote.. I do. ~~~ blockross unfortunately you're part of a minority. The mere fact that the election will happen between Clinton and Trump makes me think that mass surveillance and lack of respect for other countries are going to continue and probably worsen. Clinton: [http://time.com/4150694/hillary-clinton-calls-for-more- surve...](http://time.com/4150694/hillary-clinton-calls-for-more-surveillance- to-fight-terror/) Trump (not that it's really necessary): [http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot- box/presidential-races/26167...](http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot- box/presidential-races/261673-trump-sides-with-rubio-over-cruz-in-nsa- surveillance) ~~~ Mtinie I'm hesitant to consider the next presidential election's results as a harbinger of the state of politics during the 2020 or 2024 races. The Baby Boomer generation's influence is waning and I'm optimistic that the next generations who did not grow up in a period of extreme mutual distrust like we saw post-WW2 and during the Cold War will be better suited to lead. It's going to take us, as a global group of people on the planet, a long time to unwind a lot of the hawkish and nationalist policies that have evolved over the past 150 years. Certainly there will be periods where charismatic leaders with latent agendas drag us backwards and temper the progress, but ultimately if each successive generation is even just a bit more inclusive and globally considerate than the last, we'll find a way to make this work. ~~~ talmand That sounds nice. It won't happen, but it sounds nice. Every generation has felt they could do things better than the previous (old people shouldn't be allowed to vote has been stated lately), until they learn what it was the previous generation had to deal with. The mutual distrust among certain parties do go away after time, look at all the countries that were at war in WW2 that are now allies. But there is always somebody that jumps in to take advantage of the newfound peace and harmony to further their agenda. Sometimes it leads to a return of mistrust, sometimes it leads to war. What you are describing is every agency of authority agreeing with each other across numerous nation-states, economies, cultures, and more. Some of which are directly opposed to each other, possibly violently. The human race is simply not ready for that level of cooperation and will not for a very long time. Losing sight of that will only lead to hardship and suffering. Likely the only way for such a thing to happen is for it to be forced among people with violence. Then that status maintained for multiple generations until the old ways have been forgotten. But your way is a nice thought and should be attempted at least. ~~~ dmix > old people shouldn't be allowed to vote has been stated lately Really? I'd be interested to see a source on that. Not questioning the validity, I so many of these college aged kids calling for restrictions on speech and political organization of people they disagree with. I'm not surprised that this would come up. Looks like we can expect a mommy-state as much as we can expect a liberalization of out-dated baby boomer policies. ~~~ talmand I've seen it in connection with the Britain leaving the EU vote. I wasn't implying I've seen it here, so I hope it didn't come across that way. ------ cdevs Man I will forever be grateful for the eye opening insights Snowden has provided to us. I now check for https and use tor and always block cookies. How is there not a monument in every city dedicated to this hero? ~~~ toomanythings2 So you think using any of that protects you from the Chinese, KGB, etc.? Did you forget to block localStorage, too? ~~~ peterkelly The KGB ceased to exist in 1991 with the break-up of the Soviet Union, a full three years before HTTPS was invented. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS) ~~~ toomanythings2 Has nothing to do with my point. Quit pretending the Russians don't have a spy agency. ~~~ zymhan Maybe if you're trying to make a point about spy agencies, you should learn what they're called first. ------ jacquesm How would America respond if it found out that say the UK is tracking cellphones worldwide, except for British subjects of course, but including all Americans on American soil? ~~~ themartorana They probably are, so the NSA can request such data from them if they need it. [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid- gch...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying- edward-snowden) [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables- secre...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world- communications-nsa) And so on. ------ schoen Apart from the political conversation I've always tried to encourage a technical conversation about how our mobile phone infrastructure is _really terrible for privacy_ on many levels. CCC events have had many presentations about this in the last few years, about IMSI catchers and mobile crypto attacks and abusing roaming mechanisms and databases. And it seems there's more where that came from; the system is wide open in many respects to exploitation by a sophisticated attacker, governmental or not. (I read somewhere that people in China are buying and deploying IMSI catchers in order to send SMS spam to passersby.) Some of the privacy problems are a result of economic factors including backwards compatibility and international compatibility goals. Some of the bad decisions for privacy were made by or at the behest of intelligence agencies, and some of those decisions _are continuing to be made_ in standards bodies that deal with mobile communications security. Ross Anderson described some spy agency influence in early GSM crypto conversations (which is one reason A5/1 is so weak), and it's still happening at ETSI now. I support political criticism of surveillance activities, but at moments when people feel overwhelmed and powerless, there is another front, which is trying to clean up the security posture of mobile communications infrastructure, or provide better alternatives to it. We can find lots of reasons why this is hard ("Bellhead" communities are much less ideologically committed to privacy and opposed to surveillance; communications infrastructure is highly regulated in many places, and it's hard to get access to radiofrequency spectrum; people want worldwide compatibility; there's a huge installed base on both the client and server sides; many of the infrastructure providers around the world are directly beneficially owned by governments; spy agencies do actively try to influence standards-setting in this area, plus sabotaging implementations and stealing private key material) and it's probably going to stay hard. But maybe some of the people reading this are going to some day be tech billionaires or working in or running companies that have significant influence in the telecommunications space, and be in a position to personally make future generations of communication technology take privacy and security seriously. ------ bnastic > The NSA cannot know in advance which tiny fraction of 1 percent of the > records it may need, so it collects and keeps as many as it can — 27 > terabytes [...] The location programs have brought in such volumes of > information, according to a May 2012 internal NSA briefing, that they are > “outpacing our ability to ingest, process and store” data 27TB doesn't sound much, even by 2012 standards. The article doesn't specify if this is the total size, just the delta over some period of time, or something entirely different? Certainly not something NSA would "struggle to ingest"? ~~~ advisedwang Well if each (lat,lon,cell#,imei) record takes, say, 500 bytes and they take a measurement every minute, 27TB is enough to record every American for 4 months. That's pretty hefty surveillance even if the raw size doesn't impress. ~~~ bnastic I don't dispute that, but instead the tone of the article that makes it sound as if it's such a huge quantity of data that NSA is struggling (or was struggling) to capture it all. ~~~ brokenmachine I agree that 27Tb doesn't sound too big for the NSA, but perhaps they are doing very deep and involved "processing" on the data, making the output size orders of magnitude larger than the input size. Better give them more budget, then they will be able to handle all the data! ------ exabrial Okay I hate to be the one to break the news to everybody here, but if you have a GSM phone this is quite trivial to do. The NSA hasn't done anything groundbreaking here, except maybe a Google search. ~~~ throwanem A measured reaction? Good God! We can't have _that_. ~~~ exabrial Sorry to disapoint. Please resume panic ------ ffggvv This shows clearly that Putin is a dictator, that China is communist and that the USA spys the entire world to protect its citizens freedom. /s ~~~ meric The "communist country" has a capitalist economy. The "free country" has total electronic surveillance. The "federation" is run like an empire in a dictator-like fashion. And north korea, the "democratic republic", is the most oppressive regime in the world. What a world we live in. ~~~ tonyjstark Seems like labels are not always telling the truth. It's a bit like in the supermarket, if something is called 'Premium' it's often nothing like that. ------ bicubic I'm on mobile and don't have any links handy, but it's fairly well known that you can ostensibly track every. single. handset. in the world if you can gain access to any one carrier's infrastructure. You can bet every spy agency from every country is doing this. ~~~ Zigurd To get a feeling for the size of the problem, the carrier logs all handset accesses on all transceivers. To do location tracking you have to get the carrier to give you access to those logs and you have to have the storage and processing to get finer-grained location based on overlapping transceiver accesses and precise times. It's a bit more than the carrier themselves would do for network quality monitoring, but not even 10X more. With this data your daily routine and divergence from that routine can be learned and detected. With this plus payment information, you've got enough to tell who is doing something interesting in real time. ------ furyg3 If Americans (of which I am one) and the US government believe that it is self-evident that all men are created equal, then surely they should apply the principles that they have enshrined in their constitution to all equals when dealing with them, regardless of whether or not they are a US Citizen or where on earth they are. ~~~ Practicality I think a good number of us do and a good number do not. There is a world divide right now and you may have laid your finger on what the difference is. Ironically, those who believe all men are created equal are loathe to divide from the rest, so it's an awkward divide. ------ jefe_ Not long ago you could buy SIM cards from kioskos, corner stores, etc. This is becoming increasingly rare, even in places with otherwise poor infrastructure. The shift was rapid but noticeable. ~~~ tonylemesmer As soon as you start using them, that's when you become an interesting subject. ------ progx And why we still have terrorists? ~~~ Zigurd Because terrorists establish normal-seeming patterns of movement that do not diverge from that pattern until it is too late. Whereas if you take some time off from work to attend a protest, the FBI knows to come knocking on your door to ask pointed questions about your friends. That's what's pernicious about these programs. They're not good enough to focus on terrorists, but there is plenty of fodder for harassment of protesters. ~~~ nacs Also I'm thinking they don't use smartphones that leak all kinds of other data and instead cycle thorugh simple, cheap/pre-paid, disposable phones which would make establishing long-term patterns more difficult. ------ cryoshon they are tracking our every single movement, and aspire to track our every single thought we have a duty to resist this totalitarianism by any means possible or necessary; fascism is here, and free men can't delude themselves with hoping for gradual change to the contrary any further. ~~~ toomanythings2 How many government employees does it take to track and analyze my every movement? ~~~ JChase2 A couple of engineers, depending on the situation. ------ mouzogu So now they can detect the location of the "target" and send a drone to kill them from the convenience of their office, before going on lunch break. This really sickens me. They are inferring so much and therefore many innocent people are and will suffer. To me this system is pure evil however much the nsa try to sugar coat or spin it. Who gave them the right to do this, to track people around the world and in many cases perform extra judicial assassinations. ~~~ benevol > Who gave them the right to do this Before Snowden, themselves. After Snowden, the silent citizens/voters that we are did (and continue to do). ------ tmaly I am really amazed that more people are not outraged at this. When things like the Pentagon Papers came out or when Watergate hit the news, people reacted and change happened. Today everything gets buried in a sea of noise and entertainment. Long term this cannot be good for the general health and welfare of society to not ponder on and discuss. ------ mSparks I wonder if they manage to track my cell phone more accurately than my cell phone manages to track itself. My phone rarely seems to be sure what country it is in, let alone which town. Simply lost count of the number of times I've been like, "yeah, I'm sure the weather is lovely where I was a week ago, but I'm more interested in where I am now". Must be quite depressing for the NSA analysts stuck in their cubical watching people run around the world having fun while they stuff another donut down their fat american face. ~~~ throwanem Actually, most of the smartest people I've ever known have worked for NSA, in both analytical and other capacities. Some of the fittest, too, for "does century rides on the weekends for fun" values of "fit". ------ anonbanker ..And people ask me why I don't have a cellphone in 2016. ------ kseistrup Please edit the title to reflect the fact that the article is dated December 2013. ------ duncan_bayne Well, in fairness, that's actually more aligned with their actual mission, not to mention legal under American law. This isn't great news as a non-American but from their perspective, surely this is just the NSA doing their job? ~~~ NietTim Right, so fuck the US even more.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
To Sell Weapons, Defense Contractors Make War Seem Fun - kushti https://theintercept.com/2016/10/06/to-sell-weapons-defense-contractors-make-war-seem-fun/ ====== arkad I'd love to see how George Carlin decodes this 'war is fun' language.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The next Napster? Copyright questions as 3D printing comes of age - ph0rque http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/the-next-napster-copyright-questions-as-3d-printing-comes-of-age.ars/ ====== noonespecial _That’s the future lawmakers, inventors, and designers need to start thinking about, because it’s coming. They need to envision a not-too-far-off future where 3D printers are as common as inkjet printers and users trade 3D designs as fluidly as they exchange URLs. And they need to think about how to use the law to vindicate IP rights without stifling innovation._ Perhaps when scarcity has been vanquished to this degree it might be time to start thinking about growing out of all of this "IP ownership" rent-seeking as a society. ~~~ rick888 Until we have robots that are creative enough to create the actual item (not copy), we still have scarcity: not everyone has the skills to make the song, movie, or anything else that can be copied. Currency is just paper and ink that has a perceived value, why should IP be any different? ------ seiji Doctorow's Printcrime: <http://craphound.com/?p=573>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Seattle restaurant jobs have fallen -900 this year vs. +6,200 in rest of state - zackliscio http://www.aei.org/publication/minimum-wage-effect-seattle-area-restaurant-jobs-have-fallen-900-this-year-vs-6200-food-jobs-in-rest-of-state/ ====== sharemywin So from my calculations the 900 _9.5=81k versus 135,000_ 1.5=202500 workers took home 2.5 times more than others lost per hour. Also, the overall job market improved. Sorry, for the people that lost their jobs.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail - foxh0und https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/technology/jeff-bezos-national-enquirer-blackmail.html ====== personjerry This was already posted, original article (by Bezos) discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109474) ------ JimmyAustin Peter Thiel (worth 2.5b) destroyed Gawker with a contribution of 10m to Hulk Hogan's legal fund. If Bezos contributed a similar proportion of his fortune (112b), he would be contributing 448m. Not only is the National Enquirer about to be in the shitfight of its life, but every single other lawsuit it's going to be facing will be armed to the teeth with amazing legal talent. Couldn't have happened to nicer people. ~~~ throwaway2048 Not sure that billionaires destroying media outlets is something to be cheered on. ~~~ JimmyAustin "Billionaries destroying media outlets" is an emergent property from two facts: \- Some people can't/don't get justice because they can't afford a lawsuit. \- Rich people can give money to poor people to get them that justice. In order for Bezos to destroy them legally, they still need to have messed up in some way. ~~~ untog It's all but inevitable that a news publisher will get a story wrong at some point, that's why corrections get issued. So it's still a lot of power to put in the hands of the already powerful. ~~~ neveroffensive There's a difference between a correction to a flawed article and attempted blackmail though... One is an accident that can occurre in the course of good journalism, the other is something else entirely. ~~~ untog Oh sure. I was talking in the context of Thiel and Gawker, not Bezos and the National Enquirer. ~~~ wutbrodo Yes, but this isn't an accurate description of gawker's case either. This wasn't a case of accidentally falling on the wrong side of the legal line and only realizing when it's too late. They repeatedly ignored direct court orders, eg to take down the video. ------ FreedomToCreate To modify a quote from The Dark Knight: "Let me get this straight, you think one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, who owns the Washington Post and pays out of his own pocket to send rockets to space, won't stand up for himself so your plan is to blackmail this person? Good Luck ~~~ aerovistae Same thing I was thinking. That said, I _hate_ the National Enquirer and I am praying this leads to their destruction. On a tangentially related note I also believe there ought to be laws restricting paparazzi from harassing people. I think it's awful every time I see someone trying to walk down the street or out of a hospital or courthouse and swarmed by cameras that won't leave them alone even in moments of grief. They're people. I don't understand why it's considered perfectly acceptable to treat them that way just because they've become well-known. Just a thought connected to my disdain for tabloids. ~~~ sytelus You are missing the point. Entities like National Enquirer are not like Gawker that was bankrupted by Thiel with his wealth might. These entities are funded by politics aka American GDP aka your tax dollars. As Bezos clearly outlined in this letter, Trump administration helped these people have very lucrative deals with Saudies to get their financing, very likely, US government doing some favors to Saudies in return. Even if Bezos managed to bankrupt them, they will immediately popup with new name pretty much next day, by same owners and would run in exact same way doing exact same things. You can't kill it. ~~~ nyolfen the justice department certainly can in fact kill it ~~~ sytelus It takes less than an hour of paperwork to spin a new business entity that is exactly the same as old. Bankruptcy laws limits financial losses for owners. Entities like AMI are often set up in a way so such financial losses would be negligible, if any. ~~~ nyolfen it's pretty difficult when you're in prison ------ loeg Blogspam; primary source is [https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you- mr-pecker-146...](https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr- pecker-146e3922310f) , discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109474) . ~~~ CydeWeys A New York Times article is not "blogspam". ~~~ loeg Usually not, but this one surely is. It's 90% direct quotes and paraphrase from the primary source, adding nothing of value; and it elides the incredibly relevant letters exchanged between Bezos et al and AMI. I think it's a pretty great example of how to blogspam and it's somewhat tragic that the NYT is resorting to blogspam for clicks. ~~~ chockZ I'm sorry, but how else would you write about this story? Is the NY Times just supposed to not cover it? The story is literally the post by Jeff Bezos, which they link to first in their article. ~~~ ehmish No, but we should really not have upvoted it quite so highly considering it's a non-primary source that isn't really adding anything ------ labster Looks like David Pecker just lost his Prime membership. Enjoy a lifetime of 14 day shipping, bro. ~~~ Maxious Also using AWS for the National Enquirer website including Route 53 for DNS [https://twitter.com/ryanhuber/status/1093665718464327680](https://twitter.com/ryanhuber/status/1093665718464327680) ~~~ cure I wonder where they have stored those alleged incriminating photos... An S3 bucket backing some sort of CMS system they use to run that website? ------ ggm I can relate to _a plague on both their houses_ but it is important to worry a bit about 'law of unintended consequences' effects. Bezos is going to get something ordinary mortals cannot, (redress) because of his money. So he isn't a champion for fundamental rights against press abuse, he's a champion for millionaires rights. A real win here is for a global press industry to adopt redress measures ordinary people can use, and for stories to reflect fundamental truths, not twisted outcomes. Jeff is still a union-busting, extractive parasite in my personal opinion. He might have made a worldwide empire which drives the economy, but he also helped wreck small-town shopping alongside costco and walmart, and their international cohort of economically efficient traders. Its lovely to be able to buy anything. Its truly sad to walk past small town life consisting of boarded up shops. ~~~ lxmorj I don't buy that "buying your shit at huge markup from a local shop" is some great boone to a community. It's effectively a tax on everyone in town, subsidizing the one family that owns the shop. There are plenty of businesses that are more local-friendly, but household necessities aren't one of them. ~~~ ggm That tax keeps people in jobs. That tax kept social capital i the town heart. The bigstore on the edge of town, and mail-order destroys social capital. I absolutely get the prices were higher. I have lived this experience in different times, and short of cash I resented paying that markup in the corner store. But now, older and I think a little wiser I realize that what I did, was suck energy out of the local community. I miss the corner store, and I miss fresh bread from a local baker, and I miss the small indie bookshop and record store. If the price of these things for a small town is a "tax" then can we be grown up and discuss the tax? I mean sure, you can drive the utility truck down the road to the costco, but what kind of a local are you, if the store-owner is on their hunkers because you stopped shopping? Are you a local at all? ~~~ the_reformation So you expect all customers to accept higher prices because of the community aesthetic you personally enjoy more? ~~~ ggm Yes. I think I do. Which is at the heart of any tax discussion: _So you expect all local citizens to accept higher taxes because of the community utility function you expect everyone to contribute to_ What you're driving to, is that get off my goddam lawn and I drive over the border to buy cheaper and screw the lot of you get off my lawn is really fine.. except it isn't. Its pretty sad. But sure, its legal, go for it, don't worry, I can't stop you. I can feel about it, but you don't care what I feel so there's no downside. Right? ~~~ lxmorj It's a super inefficient mechanism. You're better off having everyone save a bit by buying from Walmart, and be able to afford to go out to dinner once a month - instead of never. ~~~ ggm The small towns I know, its your aunt who runs the store which shut, and its your cousin who used to run the garage who is now nickel-and-diming. Neither of them are working for tips in a restaurant. ------ AndrewKemendo I've read both Bezos' letter and this article and I can't find what value this NYT article adds. There aren't any additional details, no comment from AMI or others, no additional context. ------ ilovecaching "Hey guys let's threaten one of the most powerful, shrewd businessman on the planet who has more money than God" Well, rest in peace, hope Bezos doesn't launch them into space. ------ MisterOctober Another thing that strikes me is : Wouldn't that AMI lawyer feel embarrassed to type up that pathetic threat letter? "Hi, I am a high-powered attorney; my client has instructed me to describe some photographs of you that some may construe as naughty..." It just seems, I dunno, like beneath the dignity that one normally associates with being a lawyer? I mean damn, if that's what the job entails, I bet most people would rather drive a truck ~~~ tw04 The type of person who asks their lawyer to send a message like that probably only hires lawyers that are willing to send a message like that. ------ dboreham Baffling to see a _lawyer_ commit such an obvious and blatant opsec gaffe. Also: can of whup-ass duely opened... ~~~ asdff There is always a market for a lawyer that will say "Sure, I'll do that." ------ rhegart This is actually insane. I know how it’s so wrong, but I’ve always been curious at the inner workings of the behind the scenes things for the elite. It’s like a movie...good on Bezos for not giving in, hopefully we’ll see some justice here. Bad on him for cheating though ------ eanzenberg This is pretty disgusting, on the level of the "fappening". Can you imagine if the National Inquirer was blackmailing Jennifer Lawrence over her nude photos? ~~~ ychen306 unfortunately yes ------ Waterluvian This seems like absolutely the right strategic move in his position. ------ rhema I know it's morally wrong to exploit people like Jeff Bezos. If he were some nobody, this would not be news. As it is, he is undoubtedly one of the richest and most influential people in the world. Because of this, his very human mistakes aired out in public seems tit-for-tat. This is the sword of Damocles in action. It's a natural disincentive for too much ambition and opulence. ------ amrx431 RIP National Enquirer. ------ Lorenzo45 Here's to hoping that this evidence gets us one step closer to impeaching Trump. The core theme of his letter seems to tie all of this back to the president. ------ bokumo It appears Jeff Bezos has partially doxed Howard Dylan. In the email he published he removed Dylan's phone number and email address, but the image included, probably as Dylan's signature, clearly shows his phone number and email address. ~~~ morpheuskafka If your an exec at a media company, it is understood that your (business) phone and email will become widely shared public knowledge. This wasn't even his personal information, but simple a work email and phone that doesn't even belong to him, but to his employer. ------ diogenescynic Trump’s minion trying to blackmail Bezos because of the Washington Post’s investigations into the Trump admin. Just further evidence that Trump must be impeached, and sooner rather than later. ------ nvr219 dang ~~~ mlthoughts2018 No need to bring any mods into this. The legal system can handle it. ------ jamesrom Something about this begs belief. Stand by. ------ empath75 I hope he takes them to the cleaners. ------ thisisweirdok World's richest man uses Medium to post an article? OK. ~~~ rjplatte Where would you post it if you were him? ~~~ philipov I'd buy a country and have it inscribed in the earth so it can be read from space. ~~~ ellius You’re the kind of person I’m rooting for to become a billionaire.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Singularity Institute's Scary Idea (and Why I Don't Buy It) - billswift http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2010/10/singularity-institutes-scary-idea-and.html ====== Udo The problems begin with this concept of a "provably friendly architecture", which probably doesn't exist. Heck, humans aren't exactly provably friendly either. But the main argument against this design goal of being somehow provable and intelligent at the same time is that we have fundamentally conflicting paradigms: The first is the idea that in order to build an artificial intelligence, we'd need to build an actual artificial person. Complete with their own internal representation of the world (or as you might say: its own hopes and dreams). It's an approach to AI that is fundamentally uncertain in the way individual AI entities will turn out personality-wise, but _it is_ guaranteed to work. We know this approach will work, because we are ourselves machines built on this principle. ==> good chance of success, somewhat limited danger Then, conflicting with that comes this notion of a provably friendly/unfriendly design which sounds like it was made up by CS theorists who think intelligence is a function of raw processing power and thought patterns are in any way related to rigid formulas. They're very likely wrong, but luckily that also means this group of researchers will never produce anything dangerous except maybe a lot of whitepapers. ==> virtually no chance of happening, no danger I do agree though that there might be a third kind of AI, a sort of wildly self-improving problem-solving algorithm that has no real consciousness and simply goes on an optimization rampage through the world. This would be a disaster of possibly grey goo-like proportions. BUT, this approach to AI is also very likely to be used in tools with only limited autonomy. And because the capability of an unconscious non-entity AI to understand the world is limited, the probability of it taking over the world also seems limited. ==> small probability of autonomous takeoff, but if it happens it will be the end of everything ~~~ metamemetics > _a sort of wildly self-improving problem-solving algorithm that has no real > consciousness and simply goes on an optimization rampage through the world_ That sounds pretty similar to humans. ~~~ Udo That's funny but doesn't really make sense unless you manage to confuse consciousness with conscience. ~~~ metamemetics I meant the human species as a collective has no single consciousness. And also that individual humans do not have metaphysical consciousness. ~~~ Udo > _I meant the human species as a collective has no single consciousness._ Neither has an AI species, but that's not the issue. The point being made here was that a danger could arise from a very efficient and powerful automaton that has neither self awareness nor recognizes other beings with minds as relevant. From that I argued the threat of it happening is actually low because by its nature this kind of AI would probably lack the means to instigate an autonomous takeover of our planet. > _And also that individual humans do not have metaphysical consciousness._ Ah, I finally see where our misunderstanding comes from. Science doesn't talk about consciousness (or metaphysics) in the spiritual sense. The question whether people have metaphysical consciousness or not really depends on your definition of those terms, so arguing "for" or "against" isn't really gonna do anything besides getting you karma for oneliners. As far as practical AI research is concerned, the definition of consciousness is the same for humans and non-humans and while there are different degrees of consciousness possible, there certainly is an agreement that the average human has one. ------ moultano I'm always unimpressed by how certain people are that a hard takeoff is even possible. As near as we can tell, designing things is hard. (At least so long as the P NP boundary exists.) I don't expect revisions of an AGI to have enough marginal intelligence over previous revisions to offset the increase in complexity that designing a further better one requires. It seems more likely to me that any given AGI will asymptote or grow logarithmically (rather than exponentially) simply because designing things seems to in general be exponentially hard relative to the number of states involved. ~~~ AngryParsley You don't have assign high probability to hard takeoff to support ethical/friendly AI research. The consequences of a hard takeoff are so huge (potentially destroying humanity) that even a low chance is worth making lower. Humans have been running on the same hardware for several thousand years. Just our improved knowledge and culture has been enough to keep us growing at an exponential rate. If our brains were end-user modifiable and had APIs, we'd be able to increase our growth rate even faster. An AI could do even better than self-modification. It could buy or hack enough computers to give itself thousands of times more processing power. I don't assign high probability to that sort of scenario, but it is high enough that it's worth ameliorating. ------ billswift And the Less Wrong discussion of it - currently at 66 comments and growing - [http://lesswrong.com/lw/2zg/ben_goertzel_the_singularity_ins...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2zg/ben_goertzel_the_singularity_institutes_scary/) ------ Ratufa Somehow, I'm not comforted by reassurances that an AGI is likely to have a human-like value system, given how humans have often treated other humans who are 1) Different from themselves in some way and 2) Technologically more primitive. ------ nickpinkston Warning! Overly verbose blog post! Topic: Scary idea = AI ending the human race. ------ metamemetics Ever since Frankenstein was written, I think we have always been unfairly predisposed to think our creations will turn on us. Probably due to the ubiquitous nature of inner-guilt or as a social legacy of Christian sin. ------ billswift And now Robin Hanson has weighed in at Overcoming Bias [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/10/goertzel-on- friendly-a...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/10/goertzel-on-friendly- ai.html) . Mostly agreeing with Ben Goertz's position. He is pretty skeptical about, and has been for some time, the hard-takeoff position. ------ iwr So paradoxically, the Singularity Institute can grow into a great enemy of AI research. Should we deem Ray Kurzweil the first Pope of this anti-science religion?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Do you us any Hacker News extesions? - arunsathiya ====== thinkingemote Nope but I want one for Firefox mobile to make certain things more thumb friendly like upvoting or collapsing threads ------ arunsathiya I had added a text to the `url` field when creating this post, but it appears it's not included. Let me paste it below. I have started to follow Hacker News more than ever, and a few challenges that I have are: no dark mode, when creating a discussion, there is no easy way to add new lines (no multi-line input field), hard to identify OP's comments in a thread, etc. In other words, I am generally wondering if there are extensions out there to improve the default HN experience. ~~~ Tomte > when creating a discussion, there is no easy way to add new lines (no multi- > line input field) What do you mean? The text field on [https://news.ycombinator.com/submit](https://news.ycombinator.com/submit) is five lines and scrolls if you add more lines. ~~~ arunsathiya Oh, thanks! I was using the bookmarklet to create text posts. The submit link that you shared does seem to have a multi-line input.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Coin Card Teardown - monkeypod http://www.bitsofcents.com/post/124593977646/coin-card-teardown ====== joshstrange I had the beta and a final Coin and neither one were reliable enough to to trust. You HAVE to carry backup cards which more or less defeats the purpose. Then there is the slightly embarrassing, extremely annoying "Your card didn't work/Do you have another card this one isn't swiping". I've stopped carrying my coin altogether because if you have the cards you might as well use the real ones (I tried for 7+ months to use coin first). ~~~ markbnj They probably didn't have the ability to test it on nearly enough readers, given that there are literally thousands. They may also be running into some timing issues based on how people swipe. Those are things you sometimes just can't work out barring wide scale testing and adoption. ~~~ Someone1234 Right. But file this away in the "not my problem" draw. You can make all the excuses you want, but this is ultimately up to them to resolve, not for the consumer to deal with. ------ ceequof The specs aren’t listed on the FDK site but the safety data sheet shows it is a 3V battery although amperage is unclear. All lithium-ion batteries have a nominal voltage of 3.7V, like how all alkaline batteries have a nominal voltage of 1.5V. It's just how the chemistry works. ( _Actual_ voltage can vary quite a bit, depending on where you are in the discharge curve: [http://i.stack.imgur.com/UkodS.gif](http://i.stack.imgur.com/UkodS.gif)) And to be somewhat needlessly pedantic: you want "amp-hours" there, not "amperage". Amp-hours is the unit of capacity, amps is how much current is being drawn at that very moment. In the automotive metaphor, amp-hours (or watt-hours) is how big the gas tank is, while amperage is engine horsepower. ~~~ Dylan16807 Lithium is not lithium ion. Single-use lithium batteries are made in a variety of voltages. This chemistry is in fact three volts. ~~~ ceequof Whoops, guess I'm wrong. ------ stephengillie _What Coin has managed to do in such a thin package is really impressive. It’s a shame they weren’t able to do it more reliably._ It's a really cool idea. I actually wonder what the technological hurdle was that held them back - mechanical (reliably magnetizing the coils, easy-to- break components due to narrow size), software (programming issues), or QA (reliable SoCs, reliable builds, reliable solders)? ~~~ pjc50 I suspect flexing the PCB caused the usual problems of hairline cracks in solder joints, resulting in intermittent faults. ~~~ thaumaturgy If that's true, I wonder if something like a paper circuit would work? e.g., [http://www.instructables.com/id/Paperduino-20-with- Circuit-S...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Paperduino-20-with-Circuit- Scribe/) ~~~ pjc50 Flexible substrates are not a problem - the industrial solution is polyimide (Kapton) or just really thin FR4. The problem is inflexible components. As soon as you bend a curved surface attached to a small flat rectangle (IC), it pulls at the joins. You might get better results with bare die+wirebonding, then encapsulating with slightly flexible epoxy. That would allow the bondwires to flex and take up the bending. Doesn't help with the discrete components or the battery. ------ ngoel36 I was so damn excited to use my Coin - the idea was brilliant. I tried to so hard to use it, but with a 30%+ failure rate, it became completely useless. Simply not worth the embarrassing "Sir, your card didn't work" or "Is this real?". And if I have to carry backups anyways, what's the point? ~~~ BrentOzar I like it because it got me down from several cards (debit, credit card A, credit card B, business card, business debit card) to two (debit card, Coin). The debit card is my backup to Coin. ~~~ ngoel36 I formerly did the same, but it became insufficient. There are at least 4 cards that I need working at all times: (1) Debit card, as you mentioned, to be able to withdraw cash in a pinch, (2) Chase Sapphire Preferred - card with no FX fee, (3) Corporate Amex for charges I don't want to take on personally, (4) Starwood (SPG) card to amass a non-negligible amount of points on hotel stays. And maybe a 5th on which I'm trying to spend a large amount on quickly (for example - I might be planning to put $1500 on a random card with a big signup bonus, and it might be critical for me to get points I need for an upcoming reservation) I of course have all of these loaded into my Coin, but each has failed enough times (forcing me to use the debit) that I started carrying the others as backup. Then I found myself carrying 5 cards....plus the Coin. And if Coin is targeted to users like me (who carry multiple credit cards, optimizing for different uses)....then what's the point? ------ yrral Fcc photos of the coin pcb here [1] I think that the coils that drive the magstripe are only activated when the buttons to the left or right of the stripes are depressed (e.g. by the process of swiping). Also, I believe coin only transmits track 2 [2]. Why it looks like there's 2 coils is curious to me as well. [1] [https://fccid.io/document.php?id=2397353](https://fccid.io/document.php?id=2397353) [2] [https://support.onlycoin.com/hc/en- us/articles/204263414-Coi...](https://support.onlycoin.com/hc/en- us/articles/204263414-Coin-Compatibility) Some merchants require your full name (also known as Track 1 card data) as a part of the transaction process. Coin does not transmit Track 1 data and may be rejected at the point of payment. ~~~ joezydeco It seems like a logical thing to do, especially when you're trying to a) save power and b) time the speed of the coil's "stripes" to make the reader think it's seeing a physical card. It's probably also the source of a lot of rejected swipes. Conductive rubber pads and/or membrane switches are always a bad thing. Necessary for this design, but they'll always fail you in the end. ------ treycopeland I received my Coin about 2 months ago. I was excited to test it out after preordering almost 2 years in advance. The concept of having all my cards on one central card was a great idea. But having it not work at some locations was rather embarrassing and frustrating. I have decided the Coin was a fail and I will not carry it anymore. But, Coin, keep innovating. You tried. ~~~ lvs It sounds like just another startup hardware offering with a spotty launch. But I've always been confused about the perceived "embarrassment" of a card not working at the point of a transaction. This seems to be a common marketing trope in payments, but I don't know what it comes from. It's a piece of technology, and tech often doesn't work quite right. Sometimes my phone restarts itself. What's the big deal? ~~~ rio517 I have been super broke and unable to pay bills at two points in my life - just out of college and trying to find a job after the dot-come bust, and again when my startup failed. During those bad times, I'd lose track of my finances and a few times couldn't pay for my groceries. I can't describe in words how much I felt like a total, utter failure. All the fears I had about how I was going to pay my bills that month, the pressure from family to pay them back for money borrowed, the pressure from roommates to come up with rent - all came bubbling up in those moments. After all, I was the first kid in my family to go to college. I was the smart one who was supposed to have his shit together, but there I was - totally broke. It creates a fear that is not rational and hasn't gone away (at least for me). About a year ago, I forgot my bank card at TJ's and only had $20 bucks on me. I was embarrassed in ways I can't describe. I was cold sweating to the point I was soaking my shirt. I had to leave everything except for some essentials I needed for that night. One of the cashiers lent me $5 to help me pay for my groceries (I paid him back). I feel weird that I accepted the $5, but I wasn't thinking rationally. I wanted to scream "no, really, I have my shit together now." I kept telling myself that this is not a big deal... chill out... But I just couldn't calm myself down. It was like poverty PTSD. Even though I now have paid off all my debt, school loans and have a healthy nest egg, I still have these fears. Whenever my card won't go through on the first try or I type in the wrong pin number, my heart jumps. It's entirely irrational. ~~~ Domenic_S I can relate to your feeling, and this ONE WEIRD TRICK will greatly increase your positive feelings: get a credit card with no fees that you pay off every month. Once I got my Amex, I never again wondered if that swipe would go through -- it just does, every time. That of course comes with its own set of problems (ahem, budgeting). ~~~ jldugger Doesn't really solve OP's problem of forgetting their card, or my own of 'the network is down.' ------ scoot If the mag-stripe emulation is just a simple electromagnet, I'm curious how they detected the position of the read-head in order to modulate the magnet correctly to emulate the data that would otherwise be read at that point of a traditional mag-stripe. Or is it more sophisticated still? ~~~ msandford My guess is that this is why they have so many problems. I'd guess that there's probably an accelerometer somewhere to give them an idea of what the swipe velocity is, so they can know how fast to play everything back. But ultimately the way they've chosen to do this seems to be very difficult, especially if those are two very long single coils. It feels like it would be much easier from the software side if they had made them addressable somehow so that they could control every bit individually by either energizing or not energizing a particular coil. Then you'd have eliminated the swipe speed variable from the equation and a lot of complexity would drop right out. Honestly looking at this teardown I'm surprised it works at all. ~~~ joezydeco Doesn't seem to be any accelerometers anywhere. There _are_ two hidden membrane switches to either side of the coils. The card is probably using the press and release timing of that button as it travels through the reader to guess at the speed of the physical card. There are patents for dynamic magnetic stripes that have individual coils for each bit. That is probably way too costly for this design, or perhaps too expensive to license it. ------ mmosta Pretty cool. I'm interested in knowing which component failed? did the second card fail in the same way? or was that remedied in the revision? Did the display and button still work? Hopefully the issue was with the coil, flex PCBs and displays are more or less a solved problem, batteries not so much. With the Nordic 51822 they're lined up well to roll out NFC after the mandated phase out of mag-strip in the US (p.s how are they still a thing?). It'll be interesting to see if they'll survive if a chip-and-pin foothold overshadows NFC. ------ nadams Was I the only one who canceled their pre-order after they asked for your social security number? ~~~ jackreichert I cancelled my preorder after I got the app and saw that silly tapping security code. I decided to try out Plastc after that. We'll see what that's like. ~~~ mildweed After being burnt by Coin at $50, I'm not jumping at the chance to waste $150 with Plastc. ~~~ jackreichert I hear you, I got my $50 refund, got some credit for finding a share link for Plastc and felt $100 was worth it for my single attempt at using the tech. ------ Globz This is the first time I am reading about this product but why mag stripe over smart cards? isn't it less secure and deprecated technology? it seems very useful but relying on mag stripe isn't the best move, no? Perhaps they couldn't "switch cards" while using smart cards so mag stripe was the only solution? ~~~ jackmaney > isn't it less secure and deprecated technology? Uhhhh...no? I've lived in the US my entire life, and while I've seen pin and chip readers, I've never had a pin and chip card, never known anyone who has ever had one, and never seen one used. Ever. ~~~ jordanthoms That'll change very shortly, first of my US credit cards was just reissued with a chip and you can expect that all of yours will be within the next year or so. Note that it is Chip and Signature though, not chip and pin. ~~~ jackmaney My bank card expires in a couple of years, so we'll see if my next card is chip and pin (or chip and signature). Hopefully, things will have changed by then. ------ upofadown >I was surprised by the number of test pads exposed on the Coin - all those small metallic squares are programing points / test points. This suggests to me that Coin is still going though some debugging since it’s rare to see so many pads still exposed on a shipping product. Perhaps their tester just couldn't probe the smaller pads/components. In general, any shipping product these days is going to have a significant number of test points, it is just that they are often not explicit. ------ tdicola > It doesn’t look like there are many other products using the 51822 Actually the nRF51822 is starting to pop up in a lot of products, especially those that use BLE. The BBC Micro Bit will be built around it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Bit) ~~~ mik3y How's the toolchain support / dev environment for the Nordic parts these days? I remember the "other" popular chips (TI CC2540 and friends) had a gross and expensive requirement on "IAR Workbench". ~~~ tdicola Luckily GCC works great with it as it's an ARM Cortex M0. I use the GCC ARM embedded toolchain here and haven't had issues: [https://launchpad.net/gcc- arm-embedded](https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded) The only gotcha is that you need to sign up with an account on Nordic's site to get access to their SDK and libraries, however I'm pretty sure that's just a formality and it's free to sign up (just can't distribute its firmware source, etc). ------ myth_buster I'm curious to know whether given proliferation of the NFC alternatives available now like Apple/Google Pay is there a problem that Coin Card addresses which the former don't. Is paying in the restaurants one of those use case or will we see table side point-of-payments in near future which would make it obsolete. ~~~ fluidcruft For what it's worth, all of my banks have already replaced my credit cards with chip-and-pin capable ones in preparation for October's rebalancing of fraud liability between merchants and banks. I can't imagine merchants will be too keen to accept these Coin cards. ~~~ dboreham Are you sure? I ask because the majority of US card issuers have opted to use chip&signature, not chip&pin cards. In my wallet I only have one chip&pin card (Well Fargo). The rest are chip&signature. Whether or not they send you a PIN is a good indicator of which auth method the card supports. ~~~ fluidcruft Hmm. Perhaps not... I hadn't heard of chip & signature until your comment. I set the pin online during card activation, and hadn't thought about it closely. So, it obviously must be chip & signature. Anyway, that doesn't change that you can't clone the chip's contents. Perhaps you could punch the chip out (like a sim) and array a few of them inside a next-gen type of Coin card. Chip & signature answers the "Amazon laughs at your chip&pin card" loophole I had been sort of half puzzling over. ------ jtchang I actually have the Nordic NRF51822 / NRF51 development board and it is super fun to play with. I come from a web dev background so getting into hardware is rough. The toolchain for building firmware is crazy. It's kind of like in webdev we dynamically generate css through sass and then put it through all these different stages (minification/etc). Except this is all old school Makefiles. Made me cringe a bit. ------ deegles Does cloning your card to a Coin make you liable for fraudulent transactions? I assume it would be against the ToS for most cards to allow cloning. ~~~ concerned_user That is what signature is for, isn't it? If bank can't prove it is your signature then it is a fraudulent transaction. Technically cashier/clerk should not accept the transaction if signature doesn't match but I've rarely seen them check it. ------ sciencesama can we make eddystone beacon from this chip [http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Bluetooth-4-0-BLE- Bl...](http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Bluetooth-4-0-BLE-Bluetooth- Low-Energy-CC2540-chip-Module-Iphone-4S/417006_819192101.html) ~~~ leybzon feels like it should be possible Eddystone is just a message format Some embedded coding skills will be needed thou ------ dimino My Google Wallet card does the same thing this does. ------ jackmaney I'm amazed that this idea actually caught on in the first place. "Wait, you mean I can put every single source of (non-cash) money in a single card, for a single point of failure? And if it breaks, I'm effectively penniless? WHERE THE FUCK DO I SIGN UP?!" ~~~ concerned_user Also imagine it gets stolen, good luck remembering all the cards you had in there and banks you need to call. Payment gateway route, like paypal, gives same convenience and less headaches. ------ dougb Coin is an interesting idea, but I figured [https://www.dynamicsinc.com/](https://www.dynamicsinc.com/) would sue the pants off of them for patent infringement once they went to market. Dynamics CEO is a former patent attorney. dynamics seemed to have all the pieces in place to do the same thing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Review my Startup. Help a guy out. - pghimire http://helpaguyout.com With my own experience, and others, I always thought there is a market for a service where an otherwise socially awkward guy could ask a girl a question (about anything) and get genuine advice. I wanted to make the service paid, so the women actually had some incentive to spend some time crafting a thoughtful response. Also, wanted to make everything discreet, so that women did not need to hold anything back, and guys owned the responses they paid for. At the same time, wanted money to be very nominal so that anyone could use it - so thought $2 would be just right. I split a buck with the answer provider. Guys can request responses from multiple ladies (5 responses = $10). Guys have option to reject any reponse deemed unthoughtful and request refund.<p>Income has been interesting so far. About 20 guys asked questions last month. Some of them requested multiple responses. October total $90. Through word of mouth, about 600 ladies have signed up so far to provide reponses. An email is fired every time a new request gets posted, ladies "reserve" the question and respond on a first-come-first-served basis and guys receive reponses within a few hours.<p>I would like to get some suggestions from the HN community as to how to make it scalable? I know there is a market for a service like this but just haven't been able to get any traction. What can I change, improve? Or is this whole concept is just flawed and I should just "move on".<p>Thank you for your feedback. Pete ====== jonschwartz I like the idea. I think with a little tweaking this could really take off. Here's my thoughts 1) For the front page, its a little right in your user's face that you're taking a 50% cut of the money. I would word that differently. Not sure exactly how. Maybe take out the bit about how much the ladies get paid and explain that in the signup process, or separate the "how it works" by gender on separate pages. Its just a little too "kimono wide open" on the financials. Also, "Just click here within the next 7 days for a full refund." should either be eliminated or reworded to say something to the effect of "You can get a refund within 7 days of getting a response." While we're on that subject, are you going to award the money to the lady regardless of whether it was rejected? If not, you should clearly state that. I don't think you do. You just say answer the question and get paid. There's nothing talking about the approval process being tied to the money. 2) The bullet points below the top box on the front page repeat a lot of the information that is in the top box. You don't need to repeat yourself. Consider combining those two spaces into one. 3) While "meet the ladies" is a whimsical title for that page, it doesn't actually deliver (as people have already stated). You're not actually introducing us, more telling us about demographics. Maybe "Who are the ladies?" is more accurate and consistent with the message of the page (I noticed you have a link titled exactly that which points to the same place...) 4) You need something to convince us to trust you. A demo of a question/answer? Screen shots perhaps? Testimonials would definitely go a long way. 5) The menus could stand to be cleaned up. Either you don't need the "login/register" links or you don't need the "guys ask a question" and "ladies answer a question" links. I would lean towards getting rid of the latter. That allows you to move buzz down to the footer (its not that important to have up at the top. The average user doesn't care how much you've been talked about... sorry. The "guys ask a question" link points to the login page. I'm not sure why the "ladies:..." doesn't also point to a login/register page. It should as well. Also, fix the capitalization on the text of the login page. You Don't Need To Capitalize Every Word Of A Sentence. 6) On the buzz page, get rid of the buzz in Spanish. The site is in English. Don't expect anyone to take the time to pop it into Google Translate or for a majority of people to know Spanish. Sorry this kinda jumps around alot and is probably a little too snarky. I hope this helps. Good Luck! ------ gallerytungsten 1\. Site seems a bit slow. 2\. "Meet the ladies" - I would expect to see some pictures. Graphs? That isn't cutting it. 3\. I would expect to see some sample Q&A. You don't demonstrate any value, so I'm not compelled to sign up. ------ tgrass Looks fun. Simplify the page though. 1\. Use a real picture for the male/female on landing page. 2\. Watch your kerning. On the guys_ladies.png the text could use some adjusting. (and the first instance of 'For' should be lowercase) 3\. Remove the "Risk Free". I can't find the article, but I've read, and would agree, those labels lower one's trust in a site. 4\. A stat breakdown of "your ladies" undermines trust even more. That is not "meeting the ladies" but getting to know their demographics. The idea is interesting, and I imagine the market could be good for it. How do you see incentivizing the right "ladies" ? ~~~ pghimire Thanks tgrass. 1\. Great point. I will replace them. 2\. I need to rework that image. 3\. Good to learn about "Risk Free". I had no idea. 4\. I never looked at it from that angle. What do you suggest I say / show as far as "Who are the ladies?" is concerned? Or do I even bother? I simply wanted to share the fact that there are real "ladies" involved with the site who will be responding. 5\. At this point I do not have any filters set to incentivize the right ladies. Every question asked gets emailed out to all the ladies and I simply ask them to respond only if they can relate to the question. As the user base grows I can certainly allow the "Asker" to target by demographics, etc. => Any input on price structure and scalability? Thanks again. Appreciate your input. ~~~ tgrass Re: 4. I would show profiles. Let the females write their profiles and showcase say a half dozen at a time. Additionally, I wouldn't call them "the ladies." It seems to cheapen them. If you're selling a more machismo site, see what Maxim is calling women in general these days. Realize that whatever label you use must appeal to both the men but also the women. Maybe be euphemistic, but not as vulgar as nuts and bolts. Your prices seem reasonable. You might consider having a level which is free, receiving an answer from a newbie, where a higher paid level could get a more thoughtful reply. That would allow new users to experience without commitment. I really want to stress that the idea looks good. The aesthetic execution is rough. ------ shiftpgdn Couple of things: 1\. You ask for registration information far too quickly. You should allow the users to get a little more invested into what they're doing before prompting for registration/payment information. 2\. Meet the ladies doesn't have any information on the actual women who would answer your questions. It's just generic pie charts. 3\. PayPal only? :( 4\. To the end user what sets this apart from Yahoo! answers? 5\. No examples anywhere that I could find. Otherwise it's a clever idea and you're off to a pretty good start. ~~~ pghimire 1\. Agreed. Should probably engage users first. Will work on that. 2\. I wanted to keep their info confidential and just show the demographics based on info provided. What do you think I should show? Should I even include "Meet the ladies" link? 3\. Just testing the idea out. So for now, Paypal only, yes :) 4\. To an interested user, I think confidentiality and a guarantee that someone will actually spend the time to fully study his question and respond thoughtfully (small monetary incentive). Moreover, the questions we are getting tend to be longer and very detailed. I don't think Yahoo Answers users will have the patience to study the question carefully and take the time to repond to every issues raised. 5\. Good point. I will include some examples. => Any thought on pricing structure? => How about scalability, do you think take-off here is simply dependent on sheer number of users? Thank you for your feedback. ------ qbproger How do I know it's really a lady answering my question? ~~~ pghimire We'll that's a tough one :) I don't either. But when they sign up I clarify the intention of the service and make them agree to my terms. It's a simple system designed to help guys beased on honor system. If you have any suggestions, pls let me know. ------ egmike Just a thought, but maybe consider offering the ladies a bigger percentage? They're the ones doing the actual answering and you're taking 50%... Or, maybe increase the cost per question so that they get paid more (but still, you should probably give them a slightly bigger chunk). Just a suggestion though, maybe $1 is enough. ~~~ pghimire That would be fine with me. However, right now I am struggling to get traction among guys. Once it picks up, I can definitly implement various pricing structures. Just wanted to keep it simple for now. Thank you for your suggestion. ------ Jabbles This is a website, not a startup. Why is this better than Reddit relationships? <http://en.reddit.com/r/relationships/> ~~~ pghimire Hi Jabbles, I did not even know that existed. Thanks for pointing that out. However, I am trying to take a slightly different approach and monetize it. If you have any suggestions, that would be great. Thanks. ------ bcrawl I want to know if you really have these "ladies" who will answer these questions or is it just a mock up of what your plan is. Or in other words, is this a joke? ~~~ pghimire No this is not a joke:) I encourage you to spend two bucks and try the service yourself. May be you'll get a tip or two:)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Knuth and Plass line breaking algorithm in JavaScript - apl http://www.bramstein.com/projects/typeset/flatland/ ====== ugh The web is now twenty and browsers are still incapable of something as basic and commonplace as hyphenation and justification. It’s a real shame that this problem has to be solved with JavaScript in 2010. How old is TeX again? ~~~ tumult I've been asking for _years_ why browsers do not have this. The only reply I've gotten is for performance considerations, which is a bad answer for several reasons. ~~~ bramstein Internet Explorer actually has this through the (almost standardized) text- justify CSS property. It still doesn't do hyphenation, but Hyphenator.js (<http://code.google.com/p/hyphenator/>) fills that gap pretty nicely. Performance isn't a good argument in my opinion. The algorithm isn't that expensive. The most expensive part right now is retrieving all the text metrics, but you would get that a lot cheaper in the browsers rendering engine. I briefly looked at hacking it into Webkit, but then gave up due to a lack of time. ~~~ aristus I also looked into it recently, and Damon from the Gnome project attempted it in 2002 or so. Also Adobe+Google are trying to get it into WebKit. The problem (as far as I can tell) is that people have tried to do it all at once, and pushing such a large thunk of code upstream is very hard. I suspect that if you take it in pieces: first get a decent hyphenation algo into Pango, then get that into FF and WebKit, then work on the line-breaker, and then get a new CSS rule approved by the W3C... well, maybe you could get it done in 3 or 4 years. ~~~ thezilch W3C [...] 3 or 4 years; don't hold your breath. ~~~ ugh Last I looked the CSS3 working draft included a hyphenate property. ------ sfvisser I must say this is a very pretty render for a web-based text. Too bad the justification breaks when zooming in/out. Also, the computation takes a while. Is this a dynamic programming algorithm? Maybe browsers should support this natively. ~~~ bramstein Zooming is problematic, I haven't quite figured out a reliable way of fixing it yet. The problem is most apparent in Webkit based browsers, Firefox seems to handle it much better (though there are still some small problems--most can be fixed though.) Yes, this is an application of dynamic programming. The computation is actually quite fast, most of the time is spent in retrieving the text metrics (put each word in a span, retrieve width and move on to the next word.) If that can somehow be alleviated it would become a feasible solution. I agree with you that browsers should support this natively (Internet Explorer actually does.) If you are interested, I've written a bit on this subject in this Typophile thread: <http://typophile.com/node/71247> ------ tomkinstinch Looks great, but it would be nice if the hyphens were removed when copying text. ------ leif I recall the first interesting example usage my professor taught of dynamic programming was this example (well, described, not taught). He basically just said that all you do is take the L^2 or L^3 sum of extra space and minimize it using a DP. The fact that that yields great-looking text I thought was pretty cool. ------ Groxx I see no hyphens... breaks (eg: lines 3-4), but no markers for them. edit: wait, they're there when I zoom out a couple levels. Weird. ~~~ bramstein That's probably a bug, what browser and operating system are you using? ~~~ dchest Same here, Chrome 8.0.552.215, Mac OS X 10.6.5. ~~~ bramstein I have the same Chrome version, but I'm running Ubuntu. Perhaps it is a font issue. I will check it out later when I have access to a Mac. Thanks for reporting. ~~~ dchest I set font family to Times, and, indeed, I can see hyphens. ------ eegilbert This is beautiful. Fantastic work. Now, I'd love to see someone work this into WebKit or Gecko's core. ------ elblanco Great work! The output is beautiful. Looking forward to this being a standard library in the future. Do you know how well it might handle cases of text that already has some formatting? Also: It blows up in IE9 for me though, many of the lines go on for quite a ways. ------ metageek For those who don't know the algorithm, here's a bunch of links about it in Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_wrap#Knuth.27s_algorithm> ~~~ bramstein I would also highly recommend "Digital Typography" by Knuth. It contains a more detailed description of the algorithm as well as many interesting historical and technical chapters on TeX, MetaFont and computer typesetting in general. ------ bodhi Looks very nice. The only annoying thing I can see is that copying the text ends up with word-breaks in the hyphenated words. ------ nixy It looks really good in Firefox! However, I just tried printing the page and though it still looks decent, the justification is a lot worse than when rendered on-screen. ~~~ bramstein I honestly hadn't thought about printing it out yet. I had a quick look, and I think the issues you are seeing can probably be fixed. My initial plan was to render PDFs server-side, instead of relying on the browser's print mode. ------ NathanKP Does anyone know if there is a good jQuery plugin for this, or do I need to take the code from this demo and make my own plugin? ~~~ bramstein As far as I know, this is the only implementation in JavaScript. It might be possible to turn this into a jQuery plugin at some point, but there are probably quite a couple of bugfixes and changes needed to turn this from a tech demo into a drop-in plugin. ------ bhickey At the default zoom on my G1, the results are poor. Pull back a bit and everything looks swell.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask YC: How do the Karma points work? - senthil_rajasek How are some comment points negative?<p>What is the difference between new and newest? ====== brlewis When you get more karma you can vote comments down. That's how they go negative. New (in the title bar) and newest (in the URL) are the same. ------ senthil_rajasek Does anyone know what algorithm the karma point system follows? ~~~ aston If you're asking about front page ranking. it's been released with arc2, and looks like this: (= gravity* 1.4 timebase* 120 front-threshold* 1) (def frontpage-rank (s (o gravity gravity)) (/ (- (realscore s) 1) (expt (/ (+ (item-age s) timebase) 60) gravity))) (def realscore (i) (- i!score i!sockvotes)) (def item-age (i) (hours-since i!time)) Which is summarized, also in the code, as "[net] Votes divided by the age in hours to the gravityth power."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: I made an artsy protest website - patientplatypus http://www.thedailyblech.com ====== h2odragon no calls for immediate action through generous donations? no "it's all the fault of evil white Republicans?" your prophecies of doom are on a 10 year clock? where's the urgency in that?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How many great minds does it take to invent a telescope? - Hooke https://aeon.co/ideas/how-many-great-minds-does-it-take-to-invent-a-telescope ====== DanAndersen It's fascinating to learn about the transitional period of the Scientific Revolution and just how all these various advances and changes in thinking actually happened. It's usually a lot more complex than we think of now. The article's mention of optical problems in early telescopes is actually quite an important one when it comes to the history of geocentrism vs heliocentrism and the Galileo affair. One of the objections to heliocentrism is that if the Earth moved then we should expect to see stellar parallax, which was not observed (certainly not with the observation technology at the time). The Copernicans responded by positing that the stars were extremely far away, but you can imagine how such an evidence-lacking response would seem like trying to explain away one hypothesis by adding a new one. But in addition, the geocentrists seemed to have solid observational evidence on their side: the apparent diameter of stars when viewed through the telescope either implied that the stars were close enough that we should be seeing parallax with 1600s-era instruments, or that the stars are far away and all absurdly giant in size. It turned out that the manufacture of the telescopes themselves created an optical illusion now known as an Airy disk ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk) ), which makes the stars look like disks and thus have a misleading apparent diameter. It wasn't until 1835 that this phenomenon was understood! For anyone interested in the long and complex history of geocentrism, helicentrism, Galileo and his contemporaries, I have to strongly recommend reading the nine-part series of posts "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown" by SF author Michael Flynn. It makes for a wonderful bit of weekend reading, and you'll come out of it with a great appreciation for the slow, methodical process of scientific understanding: Part 1: [http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic- smac...](http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic- smackdown.html) Table of Contents: [http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic- smac...](http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown- table-of.html) ------ swayvil Yesterday : how can messed up glass deliver any kind of respectable observations? Today : how can messed up <foo> deliver any kind of respectable observations? ------ yasserd99 Inventing a telescope require many great minds, but inventing a whole universe from scratch might not require intelligence. Think about that	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Twitter All Your Bash Commands - kirubakaran http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/geekstuff/twitter_and_bash_bad_ideas.html ====== byrneseyeview Finally, a use for Twitter: exercise Orwellian oversight on sysadmins. ------ tdavis Does the script have the ability to remove all my typos and those sets of commands I run 50 times in a row trying to debug some stupid mistake? ------ axod Amateur. I twitter my _MOUSE_ position. ~~~ eru Amateur. You use a MOUSE? ------ Tekhne I can not conceive of a more colossal waste of time. In fact, I'd like the brain cells back I lost from writing this comment. ~~~ astine Sorry, no refunds.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Walk Faster and Ignore the Roses - yubrew http://summation.typepad.com/summation/2007/09/walk-faster-and.html ====== run4yourlives That's horrible advice. Listen, as much as we all want to get rich and be ultra-productive, none of our accomplishments are coming with us on that fateful day. Make sure you enjoy life for enjoyment's sake alone sometime. That doesn't mean not to work, but it doesn't mean you should only work either. ~~~ DanielBMarkham Agreed. Look -- you can't succeed unless you're in it the whole way, but you're a person, not a robot. Unless you balance your life somehow, you won't make the race. The coder who works a 24-hour day is not necessarily any better than one who watches a movie and codes for one hour. That's the crazy thing about this business. You have to make sure your brain is as tuned up as possible. Running fast is never going to get you as far as running smart.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
BountySource campaign to modernize the AVR back end in GCC - cbmuser https://www.bountysource.com/issues/84630749-avr-convert-the-backend-to-mode_cc-so-it-can-be-kept-in-future-releases ====== cbmuser This is a BountySource campaign I created that aims at funding the work on the AVR backend in GCC so it can be converted from the cc0 to the MODE_CC register representation similar to the m68k backend. Without this conversion work, the AVR backend would be removed in the GCC-11 development cycle. Relevant links: * m68k campaign: [https://www.bountysource.com/issues/80706251-m68k-convert-th...](https://www.bountysource.com/issues/80706251-m68k-convert-the-backend-to-mode_cc-so-it-can-be-kept-in-future-releases) * GCC bug report: [https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=92729](https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=92729) * GCC wiki on cc0 transition: [https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CC0Transition](https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CC0Transition) * Deprecation notice for cc0: [https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2019-09/msg01256.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2019-09/msg01256.html) If you are interested in keeping the AVR backend in GCC-11 and beyond, please consider supporting this campaign with a one-time donation.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Identifying Arbitrage Opportunities with Graphs - nicolewhite http://gist.neo4j.org/?7331087 ====== TheAlchemist Besides the fact that you don't take into accunt the spread (the buy / sell prices, which are never equal), the big risk associated with this kind of 'arbitrage' is the fact that the transactions won't occur simultaneously. What happens if during the sequence of this 'arbitrage' prices move enough to offset the potential gain ? ~~~ j_lev Doesn't take into account the fact that FX is "last look" for the provider of the liquidity and so any one of the transactions along the way could be rejected. In fact even if the trade wasn't rejected at the time of transaction, the liquidity provider could come back later and request a particular trade be reversed or manually adjusted as it was unprofitable for the liquidity provider. Also doesn't take into account that in FX specifically, arbitraging is heavily frowned upon and if you are caught you are likely to have your account closed down. The reasons for both of the above is that unlike for commodities/equity/futures/etc which are traded on a market, FX is more like a "gentleman's wild west" ie no defined market rules, but a lot of unofficial gentlemans agreements in place about what you can and can't do. Various exchanges have tried to offer a standardised FX product and they all have the same issue - because a transaction on an exchange doesn't allow "last look" provision and the market makers _have_ to honor the transaction, once an arbitrager infiltrates the market the market makers are basically at the mercy of the exchange (and all the latencies and rules within) and are forced to widen their spreads to the point that it no longer an attractive marketplace for all other market takers. Having said that, arbitragers still do exist in FX. The most (in)famous one in Japan is a guy "Arb-san" who was making a motza in the countryside in Gifu. He had a great blog where he uploaded photos of his cars and piles of cash and trading rig, and commentary of how he was sticking it to the dumb banks. Unfortunately I can't find this blog anymore, but I did manage to find a profile of someone with the same name online that has some cars that I recognise from the that blog: [http://minkara.carview.co.jp/en/userid/1956440/car/](http://minkara.carview.co.jp/en/userid/1956440/car/) ~~~ jklein11 Can you explain the rational behind arbitrage being heavily frowned upon? Either arbitrage is effective, and prices are set efficiently without any intervention, or they aren't and the exchange makes collects their fees for the trades. ~~~ j_lev Essentially the assumption that prices are set efficiently does not hold for FX. Errors in pricing can occur, and when there is an arbitrage opportunity and a market maker loses money then it is assumed (possibly) due to a pricing error which the arbitrager shouldn't have taken advantage of. A bit of history how the messaging protocol works might make things clearer. In the old days a trade would take place over the phone as follows: You: "I'd like to buy USDJPY, $1 million worth please" Market Maker or broker (MM): "Ok you can get $1 million dollars worth for 123" At this point there was a gentleman's agreement you would respond within 4 seconds whether you want that price or not (as the market may move) You: "Mine, I'll take it" Here you have completed your side of the contract and cannot back out. You just need the MM to confirm that they can still get your USDJPY 1 million 123 (this was traditionally confirmed with a trader sitting nearby who could see all the prices and volumes being published in the market and could give a price at which they could hedge the entire volume and still make a profit. These days traders still perform this role to a small extent but generally the broker would read a price off a screen themselves). If they can, MM: "It's yours, USDJPY 1 million at 123" and the transaction (contract) is confirmed good. The position is transferred to you, and the trader who provided the original price hedges the risk and gets out of the position, flattening his trading book. If the market has since moved and the trade is no longer profitable, MM: "I'm sorry the price has changed, you can now buy at 123.1" and you jump back up to the previous Ok, so all this has been upgraded with technology over the years, specifically messaging is now done via the FIX protocol (same as is used for other asset classes). But the basic flow is still the same: You: Request price at a quantity MM: provides price You: decide whether to take that price MM: confirms that the price is still good, then sends you confirmation the trade was good (and hedges the trade), or otherwise rejects the trade. The issue arbitraging causes is that if the prices in the market move and those moves are known to the arbitrageur but not to the market maker then the market maker gets into a position where they accept and confirm the trade, but can't hedge out at the price they thought they could, and so lose money on the trade. A few of these trades and the losses start to build up, and if it keeps happening with a certain client (remember, no anonymous exchanges here) then it's easy to punish that client (show them worse prices, cut them off completely, etc). If an arbitrageur is hiding behind a third party then the market maker might have enough clout to punish the entire third party (in which case it would be in the third party's interest to seek out the arbitrageur and punish them themselves). ------ murbard2 This doesn't take into account available volume. For that you need to solve a min-cost flow algorithm, using for instance the Ford–Fulkerson algorithm. ~~~ codesci Available volume? Forex is the most liquid market in the world. ~~~ foobar2020 Yes. But if your arbitrage pattern is only 3 pips profitable, and you are exchanging millions at once, you might expect that the amount of available orders matching your path may actually matter. ------ dataker I'm assuming one would have to manage a hedge fund to actually be benefited? Seems somewhat unfeasible for an individual investor. ~~~ ziles88 Well, hedge-funds don't play arbitrage games anyways. This is for scalpers and mostly day-traders. Banks don't even really play arbitrage - not as a means to profit at least. Only benefit to being a hedge-fund is you have lots of money to play with, which you'll need because the profits in arbitrage are very thin. You need likely 20K+, good spreads, fast execution, and an automated strategy to consider it worth your time. ~~~ syphon7 Hedge funds make insane amounts of money using arbitrage strategies. ------ genericacct You know it is a recent snippet because it mentions currencies that havent been in use for over a decade.. ~~~ to3m Bringing it up to date must be one of those exercises for the reader. ------ grandalf been using neo4j lately and loving it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Deep Learning with JavaScript: Neural Networks in Tensorflow.js - memexy https://www.manning.com/books/deep-learning-with-javascript ====== memexy There is also a discount code you can use, "42foryou", for a 42% discount.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How do you delete your Hacker News account? - antrover ====== arkitaip You can try emailing pg, but that's more of a rumor as it's unclear what account deletion would do. Certainly it would not remove your contributions on HN. ~~~ antrover It'd be nice if there were a terms of service stating this when signing up. ~~~ chc You should assume it when signing up for any site unless otherwise indicated. ~~~ antrover Assumptions are the root of all evil. ------ runjake If you use the search, you'll find that to delete your account, you need to email pg. I've done it before. He'll take care of it. ------ eslachance Now why would you ever want to do that? :P ~~~ msinghai I guess he is frustrated and (possibly) read few productivity blogs. :) Just joking :) ------ Moloiio hack HN	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Productised services: #1: Product companies - joshuacc http://swombat.com/2011/12/12/productised-services-products ====== j_baker Am I the only one who finds the designation "product company" useless? To me, it's as meaningful as "wet water". _Every_ company has a product. Now certainly some companies have more tangible products than others. And it's not always clear what a company's product is. But at the end of the day, a consultant's expertise and knowledge are just as much products as Apple's iPhone. ~~~ swombat The difference, as I discuss in this article (and the next), is that a "product company" sells something other than skilled time, whereas a "services company" sells skilled time. When you buy Windows, you're not buying someone's time. When you buy a consultant, you're buying someone's time. Clear?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
New mobile version of NYTimes is awesome - uladzislau http://mobile.nytimes.com ====== adamjernst Agreed—mostly because it's SIMPLE!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Where's the highest impact place to donate this giving season? - BenjaminTodd https://80000hours.org/2015/12/where-should-you-donate-to-have-the-most-impact-in-giving-season-2015/ ====== chei0aiV I donated to the Software Freedom Conservancy: [https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/](https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
World’s first anti-ageing drug could see humans live to 120 - evo_9 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12017112/Worlds-first-anti-ageing-drug-could-see-humans-live-to-120.html ====== DKnoll [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23900241](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23900241) [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Everyone’s waiting for the Azure ascension - ridruejo https://cote.io/2016/07/06/everyones-waiting-for-the-azure-accession/ ====== sharemywin you wonder how much of that is exchange moving to the cloud. Then, existing sql server and sharepoint deployements. ~~~ tracker1 Possibly quite a bit... If I were moving to the cloud, I'd rather test/switch to Azure SQL, instead of a self-hosted SQL Server instance... much lower cost per month that way. Of course for anything green, I'm more inclined to look at either RDS PostgreSQL on Amazon, or self/vm-hosted RethinkDB.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Mashups Are Breaking the Mold at Microsoft - bootload http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/business/10slipstream.html?_r=1&ex=1360386000&en=60296335da445fc7&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin ====== altano I tried to play with Popfly. It wouldn't work in Safari so I downloaded Firefox. Then I had to register an account. Then it loaded fine, but it failed to pull the News.yc feed. So I tried digg... nope, wouldn't load that either. I tried 4 boxes and I couldn't get any of them to work. I guess the app is still working out its kinks... ------ zetatios I'm always glad to seem Microsoft doing something neat -- they have a lot of bright people. That said....Popfly won't load on my browser -- fully updated firefox running under ubuntu (strangely, the error message implies firefox is supported).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: OpenAPT first release – Automate your APT repositories layouts - rmedaer https://github.com/ALLOcloud/OpenAPT ====== djsumdog This looks awesome. I'll need to try this out. I've used aptly to create repos before. Here are my ansible scripts: [https://github.com/BigSense/vSense/blob/master/ansible/roles...](https://github.com/BigSense/vSense/blob/master/ansible/roles/repo/tasks/apt.yml) [https://github.com/BigSense/vSense/blob/master/ansible/roles...](https://github.com/BigSense/vSense/blob/master/ansible/roles/repo/templates/aptly.conf.j2) Publishing was kinda a nightmare: [https://github.com/BigSense/vSense/blob/master/ansible/roles...](https://github.com/BigSense/vSense/blob/master/ansible/roles/build/templates/ltsense.jenkins.xml.j2#L53) It's still using the very old Jenkins pipelines (the server is gone now so none of that even works) and a config management system that's long dead. I desperately need to rewrite it and this looks like a good starting point for at least the deb repos! ~~~ rmedaer Managing, organising and publishing APT repositories became a nightmare for us as well. That's why OpenAPT is alive. It moves APT management from script paradigm to state description paradigm. Indeed with OpenAPT, you don't have to write command lines anymore but instead you describe the state you want to achieve. Just like Ansible does. Btw, it's a brand-new project. If documentation is lacking, feel free to open issue(s). We will be happy to help you. ------ cassianoleal Nice! A few years ago a coworker wrote a similar thing ([https://github.com/queeno/aptlify](https://github.com/queeno/aptlify)). Unfortunately it seems to be abandoned at this point, so I do hope your project gets the tracktion it needs! ------ kitotik My brain parses all caps ‘APT’ as ‘advanced persistent threat’. In regards to the package manager, doesn’t OpenAPT imply a closed apt? Is that a thing? ~~~ rmedaer What do you mean by "closed apt" ? ~~~ kitotik Exactly. What is meant by “OpenAPT?”? ~~~ rmedaer Understood! The name is inspired by "Open __* " projects. For instance OpenAPI. The goal of this project is first to design a specification format for APT repositories like OpenAPI is doing for HTTP APIs. I have to admit that it is not the best name ever. I'm "open" to any better proposal. Feel free to open an issue with the best meaningful name idea you have! ------ techntoke I think most people would be better off abandoning Apt or RPM and use containers, Snap, AppImage or switch to a distro like Arch/Alpine. ~~~ alrs This notion is completely upside-down. Distro packaging means that global teams of developers are backporting bug and security fixes all day, every day, and running them through massive CI systems that have been in existence for decades. Containers are great for scaling, and terrible for software distribution. Done right, they need to be rebuilt daily to pick up the latest fixes in the underlying OS. Snap and AppImage mean you're on the hook for care and feeding of every library you bring in, yourself. Rolling distros mean that you need a staff to integrate all the changes that are happening with no cadence other than "apparently today's update broke X". More likely, it would be a team dedicated to "apparently Y has been broken for a week, we found the problem, we're trying to upstream it, but now service X relies on the new functionality, so we're doing a conference call with them tomorrow to find out if they can roll back that change." ~~~ techntoke > Distro packaging means that global teams of developers are backporting bug > and security fixes all day, every day, and running them through massive CI > systems that have been in existence for decades. I said nothing against distros, but I said I preferred Alpine/Arch. If you look for these massive CI systems, they don't exist for any retail-based distro like Ubuntu/RHEL. Why would you even need to backport fixes if you have a CI system that builds from source? The only systems doing massive CI are distros like Arch/Alpine/Void/etc because there package manager is designed with it in mind. Apt is better than RPM, but it still has shortfalls when it comes to creating and maintaining packages. > Containers are great for scaling, and terrible for software distribution. > Done right, they need to be rebuilt daily to pick up the latest fixes in the > underlying OS. That isn't called building right. If your package has that many dependencies, then you could just bind mount the tool. No need to rebuild the container at all, however most of the time you don't need to rebuild that often, especially for Go. > Snap and AppImage mean you're on the hook for care and feeding of every > library you bring in, yourself. They have a simple YAML setting that does this for you > Rolling distros mean that you need a staff to integrate all the changes that > are happening with no cadence other than "apparently today's update broke > X". More likely, it would be a team dedicated to "apparently Y has been > broken for a week, we found the problem, we're trying to upstream it, but > now service X relies on the new functionality, so we're doing a conference > call with them tomorrow to find out if they can roll back that change." Rolling distros doesn't require that you upgrade a package, and I've never had a problem rolling back using my cached repo or one of the mirrors that caches packages daily. ~~~ alrs Whoosh.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What is going to happen in 2015 - kernelv http://avc.com/2015/01/what-is-going-to-happen/ ====== jorgecastillo I more or less agree with everything except this points: >2/ Xiaomi will spend some of the $1.1bn they just raised coming to the US. This will bring a strong player in the non-google android sector into the US market and legitimize a “third mobile OS” in the western world. The good news for developers is developing for non-google android is not much different than developing for google android. The "third mobile OS" is Windows Phone and even if something else takes this spot, it's still not that great to be third. >3/ More asian penetration into the US market will come from the messenger sector as both Line and WeChat make strong moves to gain a share of the lucrative US messenger market. I doubt those companies will be more than marginal players in the us market next year, maybe later? >11/ ... patients treating patients (p2p medicine) ... This seems kind of insane! I didn't understand the following very well, if someone can explain or point me elsewhere, I'd really appreciate it: >8/ The horrible year that bitcoin had in 2014 will be a wakeup call for all stakeholders. Developers will turn their energy from creating the next bitcoin (all the alt stuff) to creating the stack on top of the bitcoin blockchain. Real decentralized applications will start to emerge as the platform matures and entrepreneurial energy is channeled in the right direction. I don't see the point of bitcoin or any other virtual currency? To me nothing beats legal tender currencies. ~~~ zanny > To me nothing beats legal tender currencies. Go run a tip system on reddit using fiat currency. Go try sending money to someone in Ethiopia in fiat currency. Ensure nobody can steal your money without you making a mistake first (either giving someone else access, or leaving your wallet password in the open). Transfer a large sum of money (in excess of, say, 100k) in seconds between an arbitrary sender and receiver. ~~~ sanswork >Go run a tip system on reddit using fiat currency. changetip is off chain so it doesn't matter what currency you use it would work the exact same. There are other micropayment and tipping systems that don't use bitcoin and they are just about as successful as changetip(not very). >Go try sending money to someone in Ethiopia in fiat currency. Try sending money to someone in Ethiopia using bitcoin in a way they allows them to actually use it in Ethiopia. >Ensure nobody can steal your money without you making a mistake first (either giving someone else access, or leaving your wallet password in the open). Ensure that if you do make a simple mistake(how many relatives do you know that have installed toolbars? Thats the level of simple mistake you have to avoid) you will lose all your money with no recourse. >Transfer a large sum of money (in excess of, say, 100k) in seconds between an arbitrary sender and receiver. Large wire transfers are simple and given the cost and difficulty of acquiring 100k worth of bitcoin would almost certainly be cheaper and faster. ~~~ jaimeyap > Large wire transfers are simple and given the cost and difficulty of > acquiring 100k worth of bitcoin would almost certainly be cheaper and > faster. I would add to that safer too. Something goes wrong you can call the banks and they can roll things back. There is a paper trail that works in your favor. ------ 7Figures2Commas > Capital markets will be a mixed bag in 2015. Big tech names will continue to > access capital easily (see 1/), but the combination of rising rates and > depressed prices for oil will bring great stress to global capital markets > and there will be a noticeable flight to safety around the world. Safety > used to mean gold, US treasuries, and blue chip stocks. Now it means Google, > Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. So several of the biggest momo plays of an extended bull market are now safety stocks? Notwithstanding the fact that anyone who has even a modicum of knowledge of the public equities markets will cringe at the notion that GOOG, FB, et. al. are the new Treasuries (they're not), it's worth pointing out that Google's shares were basically flat last year and Amazon's shares lost more than 20% in 2014 as investors started to question the company's strategy in light of the fact that some of its big investments clearly aren't working. That Wilson lumped these two names in with FB and AAPL, which had excellent years, tells you how informed this prediction is. ~~~ dualogy > Safety used to mean gold, US treasuries, and blue chip stocks. Now it means > Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. Hahaha, OK folks Wilson just called the top of the bubble right here. ------ api The "death of the file" is a really mixed bag. The replacement is walled gardens with no privacy, control and perhaps even ownership of your data, questionable security, and the potential that your data could vanish if one is acquires or goes under. ~~~ gaius I have a friend who had a Kodak camera that, you plugged it into your PC and it uploaded straight to Kodak's photo hosting (this was before we called such things "cloud storage"). If you wanted your own copies of your own photos you would need to go onto said site and right-click download them one at a time. One day Kodak decided they weren't going to run this site anymore, and just deleted the whole lot. She was heartbroken. And I look at all these guys selling similar solutions, and I got to wonder at what point did they knowingly cross the line to exploiting and victimising ordinary users? ~~~ api There's a whole raft of home automation devices, printers, etc. that will become bricks if certain cloud servers are turned off. Personally I think this fad will crash and burn, but it will take many rounds of consumer disappointment and flagrant disregard like you describe. Eventually "you control it" will become a selling point. ~~~ ghaff For the most part, home automation is a horrible mess right now with incompatible proprietary systems that mostly don't even solve any particular problem. That said, there's a definite tradeoff between having devices that just work and maintaining control over all the information storage and information flows. In the case of the parent comment, automatically backing up photos is actually a great feature for a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't back them up at all. But it's not so good when the service shuts down or your account gets hacked (as in the celebrity photos this past year). ~~~ scholia There's a difference between doing it out of self-interest (Kodak, Apple) and providing a user service. It would be perfectly possible to provide automatic backups of photos via the user's choice of cloud (Dropbox, OneDrive etc) with the cloud service copying them to the user's chosen personal storage (PC, NAS, whatever). That would work except for the people who don't and/or won't have any personal storage. However, if people won't look after their own data, I'm unlikely to be too sad when they lose it. ~~~ ghaff >However, if people won't look after their own data, I'm unlikely to be too sad when they lose it. I'm going to disagree with you on that. This piece that John Gruber wrote after the celebrity iCloud account hack is spot on IMO: [http://daringfireball.net/2014/09/security_tradeoffs](http://daringfireball.net/2014/09/security_tradeoffs) "Over the years I’ve received numerous emails from past and former Genius Bar support staff, telling similar stories of heartbreak. Customer comes in, their iPhone completely broken, or lost, or stolen, and they had precious photos and videos on it. The birth of a child. The last vacation they ever took with a beloved spouse who has since passed away. Did they ever back up their iPhone to a Mac or PC with iTunes? No. In many cases they don’t even know what “iTunes on a PC” even means. Or maybe they connected the iPhone to iTunes once, the day they bought it and needed to activate it, and then never again." For many people it honestly is a choice between an automated cloud service and going without a safety net at all. Do I personally depend on a cloud provider when I can avoid it? I try not to with anything I really care about. I use cloud providers but have plenty of my own backup systems as well. But I'm not the typical consumer. ~~~ gaius I like a deal where you pay a fee and get a service. The "free" stuff can vanish on a whim. ~~~ ghaff While paying for a service gives one more confidence and, if it's a large company, I'd be surprised if they just shut things down overnight, you don't really have meaningful recourse if they just go belly up or just make a really bad IT mistake. Ideally, use multiple storage locations--private and hosted. With respect to the parent comment about Kodak, they actually transferred things to Shutterfly and photos supposedly did not just go away: [http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/05/business/la-fi- tech-...](http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/05/business/la-fi-tech-savvy- shutterfly-20120705) This also wasn't really a "free" service as it was supposedly a feature you got with the camera. ------ julianpye Why Xiaomi uses its own Android flavour for the Chinese market is clear. But I don't believe they will push their own Android flavour to the US and EU markets, but rather use Playstore-enabled versions. Their first goal is to compete against Samsung in handset price. And Samsung has shown that it is very hard for an Asian manufacturer to introduce their own OS flavours and apps into a Western market. ~~~ unsigner They can't make Playstore-enabled versions; Google doesn't allow you to make both Google- and non-Google Android devices. It's either all Google or no Google. ~~~ arihant Their international versions outside China come with Play store. In fact, there is no way to get their own store outside China. ------ rjurney Having tried an Oculus Rift generation 3, where the tracking is PERFECT and the resolution is adequate, I think VR will do better in 2015 than he suggests. ~~~ Morphling At first Oculus seemed like a cool idea, but you can really only play "simulator" games with it, games where you sit in a vehicle otherwise it ruins the VR feel and you might as well just play on a monitor. Only other thing I've seen was some sort of sculpting thing, but I'd imagine the novelty would wear out there pretty fast. More I think about whole VR thing the less I think it will actually be a thing. I'm sure when Oculus Rift comes out for reals a lot of people are going to buy them, but I don't really see a lot of value for developers supporting them in most games, but someone comes up with killer app/game for it. ~~~ gumby > At first Oculus seemed like a cool idea, but you can really only play > "simulator" games with it, games where you sit in a vehicle otherwise it > ruins the VR feel and you might as well just play on a monitor. Check out castAR which you might consider an "inside out" VR experience that projects the virtual world into the real world. Thus you can walk around and look at 3D objects from all sides, see other players, your coffee, or whatever is in the real world, instead of the VR approach of sitting in one place looking around. So it's a way of working you _can 't_ do with a monitor. (CastAR can run regular VR apps too with a small adaptor, but that feels less compelling than the mixed/augmented reality) [http://www.technicalillusions.com/](http://www.technicalillusions.com/) (note: We're hiring in Mountain View!) ------ zevyoura > 3/ More asian penetration into the US market will come from the messenger > sector as both Line and WeChat make strong moves to gain a share of the > lucrative US messenger market I get that it's very hot right now, but is the US messenger market actually lucrative? Who is making significant money from it? My understanding is the leader in the sector as far as revenue goes is WhatsApp, which last I heard was on track for ~30M in 2014[0]; doesn't seem like enough of an incentive for a bunch of Chinese players to enter the market aggressively. [0] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/28/whatsapp- revenue/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/28/whatsapp-revenue/) ~~~ sanxiyn Line's revenue in 2014 was ~600M, which is 20x higher than WhatsApp. [http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/29/chat-app-lines-revenue- doub...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/29/chat-app-lines-revenue-doubles-year- on-year-to-reach-192-million-in-q3-2014/) ------ arihant Xiaomi's MIUI is not much different from other OEMs offering their own layer of UI over Android. It is in no way a third OS. I doubt here if Fred ever used a Xiaomi phone. If not, it is weird at best that a comment about it's future is second on his list. Moreover, Xiaomi's international versions come with Google Play services and all Google apps installed, just like any other phone. You do not get Xiaomi's app store (similar to Kindle store) in international versions. You get Google Play store. It is really just another Android phone, from an OS standpoint. They have fixed a lot of things bad with Android, like permissions control and integratedness. But that doesn't mean that it is a different OS. ------ lifeisstillgood The oculus rift purchase was listed as a major factor in football predicted revenues in the next few years in an impressive book I read over Xmas I was knocked sideways by a book this Xmas - "The secret footballers guide to the modern game". It's a really good read especially for those of us who thought / think brains and insight vanish at the boundary of real life and sports. It's written by a top class footballer with current links to top flight commercial and sporting people. And he mentions Facebooks acquisition of Oculous Rift. It's part of how the current commercials are tipping in favour of clubs and how leagues will stop dancing to the needs of TV schedules Expect one club in 2015 to do a Louis CK - put out a self published "view from the pitch" via oculus rift and make more money directly than they would from traditional TV rights. Then everyone else will follow once contracts expire. ------ bendyBus 8/ A new generation of apps redefining work habits is well overdue. The obvious driver I see is that people's expectations for software usability/design are set by consumer apps. Also millenials are entering the workforce, and they have never had to take a course to learn how to use a piece of software. Any tool which requires training is arcane in their eyes, and probably rightly so. Add zero downtime, access-and-share from any device, auto sync & backup, beautiful UI to the list of requirements. Some of these are being addressed by office 365 and the like, but unbundled web-based productivity software looks ripe to dethrone mircosoft as THE enterprise productivity software vendor. ------ dguido > 10/ cybersecurity budgets will explode in 2015 as every company, > institution, and government attempts to avoid being Sony’d. VCs will pour > money into this sector in the same way they poured money into the rental > economy. and, yet, the hacks will continue because on the open internet > there is no such thing as an impenetrable system. This seems misinformed. You don't need perfect security to avoid getting hacked. And perfect security is, actually, an attainable goal if you care to work towards it and take heed of current research (see, for example: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/projects/ironclad/](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/projects/ironclad/)). Is Fred trying to say that all the money spent on security will be wasted? I could agree with that. IMHO security is a classic case of a lemon market where buyers are unable to determine the security properties/utility of wares before purchase. Buyer sophistication is low and nearly all are beholden to marketing (the same is largely true of VCs choosing investments!). Or maybe Fred is saying that it will take years for security investments to pay off. I agree with this too. "It can't/won't happen to us" is still a pervasive attitude, even in 2014, and it generally takes a major incident at each and every company to 1) wake them up and 2) inform them about what works and what is snake oil 3) drive adoption of new tech. (related problem: convincing management to divest themselves of old, broken tech that never worked in the first place to free up budgets.) People talk about the talent gap in security a lot, so we try to train more experts in this field. But the same gap is present elsewhere: I have yet to see many VCs with a sophisticated understanding of security. I'm not sure where they could learn if they wanted to. If I had to predict something, it's that new-money security experts from companies with acquisitions/IPOs in 2014 start funding security tech that actually works. In the meantime, DARPA continues to lead: [http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/](http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/) ~~~ tptacek He's not saying it's a market for lemons, though it is. He's saying that even when big companies select the best vendors, the end results aren't meaningfully different. For a Fortune 500 enterprise, retaining the very best firms in the world and selecting the very most secure products does not foreclose on Sony-style outcomes. To accomplish that, enterprises need to rewire their entire internal IT processes to orient themselves towards security. Nobody does that, for the same reason that most modern software isn't built with processes (immutability, strong typing, pattern matching) that foreclose on bugs. There's a benefit to selecting security expertise carefully. But that benefit isn't "insurance against the Sony outcome". I'm unaware of a VC that's intelligent about security, but the expectation that they would have any security domain expertise misconstrues the job of a VC; it's a little bit like thinking that an energy options trader would have a significant understanding of mechanical engineering principles. It's much more important that they know how to evaluate addressable market size, go-to-market plans, and sales management. ~~~ marcusgarvey >I'm unaware of a VC that's intelligent about security See Ted Schlein of KPCB. ------ richardwhiuk Xiaomi will spend some of the $1.1bn they just raised coming to the US I doubt that. Most of the $1.1bn would be spent defending against IP lawsuits that operating the US would make them vulnerable to. Xiaomi's phones look like a better rip off of Apple than Samsung was able/willing to do, and Apple will sue them if they enter a market with good IP protection. ------ datashovel My prediction for 2015. Something related to machine learning / AI will hit the consumer market that will truly amaze, and feel like it's ahead of its time. I don't know what this "something" will be, but it will be obvious when it happens. ~~~ datashovel And if not 2015, I think we're certainly only a few years away from some groundbreaking stuff in that space. ------ zxcvcxz I hope the US de-schedules weed. ~~~ waterside81 The Feds won't have to - if each state continues to make it legal/regulated, it's the same effect as descheduling it. It's kind of ingenious, actually, on the part of the Federal government. ~~~ Alex3917 There is still a lot of stuff that depends on weed being legal at the federal level, beyond just the consumer not getting arrested for buying small amounts. We're never going to see serious investment in the space until sellers can access bank infrastructure, there is no longer a risk of DEA raids, state laws are aligned with federal laws, etc. It's not going to happen in 2015 though, unless it gets tacked onto some other crazy spending bill, which is unlikely. It'll probably happen sometime between 2016 and 2024. ~~~ sophacles Question for the historically minded folks here - Has there ever been a situation where a bunch of states decided that making something legal (or conversely illegal) against the federal government's position, cause a change in federal policy? How did that work? Can lessons from that apply now to the marijuana debate, amongst others, in the US? ~~~ ghaff [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law) When the US passed the 55 mph speed limit, it was generally ignored by motorists and wasn't really enforced by a lot of states--and it was eventually repealed. Key difference though is that the feds never had enforcement authority unlike the case with the DEA. ------ AndrewKemendo _After a big year in 2014 with the Facebook acquisition of Oculus Rift, virtual reality will hit some headwinds._ Agree, but I think that Augmented Reality will really breakout in 2015. VR and AR are complements, and the press from Oculus and VR over the last year really helps people understand AR. Because of the potential practical applications, I think AR will become more widely adopted and help to spread AR/VR adoption. ------ chubot +1 for 2015 being a tough period after the hype for VR and wearables. They will both be a thing, but people always overestimate progress in the short run and underestimate it in the long run. +1 for cybersecurity budgets exploding. How would one make a financial bet on this fact? It doesn't seem doable through a "normal" brokerage firm; it seems you need to be a VC or early investor. ~~~ larrykubin If you want to invest in some larger publicly traded companies, there is a new cybersecurity ETF, ticker symbol HACK. You could buy some shares of the ETF or shares of some of the individual holdings. A list of holdings can be found here: [http://www.pureetfs.com/etfs/hack.html](http://www.pureetfs.com/etfs/hack.html) ~~~ chubot Hm it sounds interesting. But I'm wondering if the managers of this fund have actual computer security knowledge, or are "general investor" types: [http://www.pureetfs.com/about.html](http://www.pureetfs.com/about.html) Partnering with "world class industry experts" is a bit too vague for me. It sounds like they are spread across many verticals, so it's hard to judge their expertise in a particular vertical. I think most current security solutions aren't very good. There's a really big problem with information asymmetry, in that the customers of security products have less knowledge than the vendors. If that's true, then I imagine that most of the value created in the security space in the next 10 years will be from new companies. Would you buy this fund yourself? Just trying to be a bit critical :) Thanks for the information. ~~~ justincormack The don't need expertise it is just an index fund, like the majority of ETFs, it is based on the ISE Cyber Security Index [http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20141111006259/en/ISE-...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20141111006259/en/ISE- ETF-Ventures-Launches-ISE-Cyber-Security%E2%84%A2) and has a bit of Juniper and a bit of Splunk and other publicly listed "security" companies. ------ jacobsimon God I hope people don't start using "n/" and other silly twitterisms in their normal writing. ~~~ Jonovono Why? How does that upset you more than people using n.? ------ on_and_off I hope that he is right on point 7. I plan to emigrate to the USA and the H1-B route is just insane. I am a skilled engineer in a field where there is a lot of demand, it should be extremely easy for me to move there. ------ wslh I would add Microsoft will leverage their position in the open source / cloud space with .NET for Linux. Reddit use and value will increase. ------ andyl Fred predicts Chinese companies will make a big entrance to the US market in 2015. At the same time, China restricts US companies in their markets (Gmail blocking being the latest example) Why do we (in America) allow this asymmetry? Is it a mistake to give Chinese companies an open door? ~~~ npalli General Motors makes 58% of its entire profit in the Chinese Car market. Ford makes 18% of its profit from China. So clearly, US gains by trade in cars. This is clearly one example. The broader point is that a whole lot of US companies make money in China. [http://www.wsj.com/articles/detroits-road-through-china- narr...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/detroits-road-through-china-narrows- ahead-heard-on-the-street-1419922609) ~~~ seanmcdirmid But don't that have to split those with their JVs, or is that their actual non divided take? (Forgive me, WSJ is blocked by the GFW) The US has a decent case against China if they want to go to the WTO, but I guess they've decided for now at least, it's not worth it. ~~~ tacticus Wouldn't the US need to at least follow WTO findings if they wanted to use the WTO for that or risk China just ignoring it. ~~~ seanmcdirmid Sure, but I don't think the case is weak. Much of China's internet blocking is blatantly economic, and whats more: China refuses to officially acknowledge that it blocks these websites at all, it just does. However, like everyone says, US companies make money in China, while the US wants to maintain a strong relationship, while WTO action would probably just devolve into another pointless tit for tat, so why bother going there?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The nicest cease-and-desist ever (Jack Daniel's) - boredguy8 http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/26/more-proof-if-proof-were-needed-that-jack-daniels-mellows-you-out/ ====== ColinWright <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4279063> <\- Many comments <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280953> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4282486> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4286471> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4287593>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Breaking News: Box Secures $150 Million in New Funding - vcexperts https://vcexperts.com/reference/buzz ====== shrig94 There's a redirect back to the home page when clicking on this link.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
HN cyclists: How about a new cycling forum? - paulsingh I've been cycling for a number of years now (~150 miles/week these days) and have been getting a little annoyed with some of the existing cycling forums out there.<p>I pulled a little something together over the past few days (yay, for open source stuff!) and, if you're interested, would love to have a few HN'ers help me build a better cycling community.<p>Any takers? http://www.paceline.cc<p>At the very least, would love some feedback on the idea, the features (or lack thereof) or anything else you think is relevant.<p>Thanks! ====== paulsingh <http://www.paceline.cc>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The top five reasons why Windows Vista failed - nickb http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10303 ====== jwilliams Another problem - change for change's sake. They wanted to push a new product, so they changed stuff that was perfectly fine. A lot of this ended up being cruft and eyecandy that was just unnecessary and annoying. Microsoft is laden with this problem now - Windows and Office are technically very stable. How they break away from this will be difficult/painful.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bug Out Bag Essentials for Reasonably Rational People - mehdiyac https://taylorpearson.me/bug-out-bag/ ====== peter_d_sherman >"In the 1990s, the Argentine peso was pegged to the U.S. dollar. That meant the Argentine government guaranteed that you could always change one Argentine peso for one U.S. dollar. If you had 1,000 Argentine pesos in your bank account, you could walk into the bank and ask for $1,000 U.S. dollars and they’d hand it over. By 2001, the peg had become unsustainable for a number of reasons and the government of Argentina abandoned it. As a result, the exchange rate went into freefall. Imagine if you looked at your bank account and the value had gone down by 75 percent over the course of a year and you hadn’t spent a dime of it. That’s effectively what happened in Argentina. In less than a year, the exchange rate went from 1:1 to 4:1. If you had US$10,000 worth of pesos in your bank account in 2001, a year later you would have had only US$2,500. Attempts to withdraw U.S. dollars as the exchange rate plummeted were thwarted for most citizens, because the run on the bank (where everyone tries to take their money out at the same time) meant there were no U.S. dollars left to hand out. Mimi told me she slept outside the bank for a week to no avail. 75 percent of her life savings disappeared. The same happened to others, and crime increased. To add insult to injury, she had to install bars over her windows to prevent her house from being robbed like many others in the neighborhood were."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Frank Talk About Site Outages - keyist http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/09/17/frank-talk-about-site-outages/ ====== mcyger Great overview. If I sold on Etsy, I would be more confident that they are proactively striving to reach 100% uptime and quickly addressing actual downtime. I love the structure of their problem solving references: root cause analysis, time line of event post mortem, single point of failure. And, of course, the fact that they actively measure the real customer experience from multiple places around the world. Customers may not realize it's a local infrastructure problem when they go to Etsy so being able to proactively find and address these issues makes for fewer customer support calls and more satisfied customers. Kudos to Etsy for the post. ------ Poiesis Their CTO, Chad Dickerson, seems a standup guy from everything I've read. Used to love his stuff at InfoWorld. (Note, the post does not appear to be from Chad). ------ djb_hackernews I'm surprised they've made it this far with multiple single points of failure. It sounds as if they only have one database! ~~~ mcfunley We are in the midst of migrating from some vertically partitioned postgres databases (each with a warm standby) into master/master mysql shards. The PG databases weren't SPOF's in the worst sense of the word. They could fail over, but this isn't as outage-resistant as the new setup. And we did have more than one, but each was still pretty monolithic. So are most databases for most sites before they've grown up completely. Also, keep in mind that it's pretty easy to code yourself a single point of failure even if your hardware doesn't force it upon you. Working things like that out of a big codebase takes time. ------ Maven911 now imagine having a job where you deal with outages all the time and putting out fires and having to listen to stressed out people all the time...welcome to my world :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Is AWS support worth it? - bqe Have you gotten benefit out of AWS support? We're currently on the developer level paying $49/month, and our support bill is going to go up to over $2,000/month for the same level of service. Our experience with AWS support up to this point has been that they blame us ("you must have changed something, this is why our DNS resolver won't respond") for their outages which fix themselves after a few hours.<p>We're considering upgrading to Business level support, but I'm not convinced it's better. ====== PaulHoule I think not. You can get free support for things where you really need support (ex. "I want to increase the number of machines I can run simultaneously") As you point out, downs happen in AWS and when they do happen they fix themselves and there is nothing anybody can do about it until they do. Hypothetically it might help to have help from people who understand the platform, but so far I as I can tell the two things it takes to get hired at Amazon today are: (1) a pulse and (2) being willing to relocate, and I think (1) might be optional.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Better than E-Ink: Tcl NXTPAPER – New Reflective LCD with no blue/backlight - tyler109 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzgij1q_W1Y&feature=youtu.be ====== phonon How is this different from a commercial transflective display, like [https://www.winstar.com.tw/products/tft-lcd/transflective- tf...](https://www.winstar.com.tw/products/tft-lcd/transflective-tft.html) or [https://www.distronik.com/tft-lcd/transflective-sunlight- rea...](https://www.distronik.com/tft-lcd/transflective-sunlight- readable.html) ? ------ shannifin Wish they showed a bit more, I'd be interested to see how video or animations look on it. I often get headaches that make looking at digital screens painful, even when dimmed. I'd be curious to see if a display like this would help. ------ gen3 This seems pretty similar to the SHARP memory LCD displays that came out a while ago. I wonder if it has the same performance. That short demo looked pretty choppy. ------ messo I want this in a 27"-ish monitor for programing and text work in general! ------ anotheryou So like a gameboy ------ gandalfian Wonder what happened to Pixel Qi screens? Where they actually better? They come and they go before you get to see them for real. ~~~ tyler109 The RLCD technology is actually much more advanced than PixelQi tech. The first recent commercial attempt of a RLCD display was a black and white tablet from Hisense, check here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s4dJu2_ur8&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s4dJu2_ur8&t=2s) and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXqCTk7FjLw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXqCTk7FjLw)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Metro and WinRT: Too early to call, but I’m paying close attention - atlei http://www.pseale.com/blog/MetroAndWinRTTooEarlyToCallButImPayingCloseAttention.aspx ====== atlei Microsoft UI:Win32/MFC - WinForms - WPF - Sliverlight - WinRT ? Which technology does MS Office use ? Which one will MS Office 2015 use ? If you want to create a word or excel document in the future, will you use a tablet with Metro or "classic desktop" with a mouse and keyboard ?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
This: Why Atlantic Media is funding a social platform - yrochat http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/08/this-why-atlantic-media-is-funding-a-social-platform-for-sharing-links-one-at-a-time/ ====== a3n > Each user can share just 1 link a day. Sounds great, if you're an Ent.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tech tips for people who are going to die someday (2015) - tosh https://medium.com/message/deathhacks-b767903b7c15 ====== fmajid This is the legendary Tom West from Tracy Kidder’s “Soul of a New Machine” ------ XorNot I don't know what I learned from this, but it was as touching a eulogy as I would ever hope to receive. ~~~ keithpeter I learned to cherish manual controls and to think about the will and documenting the basics (I'm 14 years younger than Tom West was when he died). ------ tomjen3 While I am not planning to die, there is a few sheets of paper stapled together in the bottom of my safe, saying how I want to be buried and what should be done with my assets (should prevent any undertaker taking advantage of grief), but I haven't included any passwords for anything. That is intentional -- not only does my e-mail hold some pretty personal things (not all of them mine) but I don't see a point in having anybody else go through my personal stuff. Anybody feeling like that? ~~~ queezey I am not a/your lawyer, but what you are describing is known as a ["Holographic Will"]([https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/holographic- will.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/holographic-will.asp)). Such a document may not be sufficient depending on your state/circumstances, and may not be respected by the probate court if the document is lost, destroyed, or otherwise called into question. What you want is a [Testamentary Will ]([https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/testamentary- will.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/testamentary-will.asp)) that has been notarized and/or signed in the presence of witnesses. ------ madrox My father died several years ago, and in spite of how organized he was, we really struggled through the digital aspects of his passing. I would add...make sure the digital mementos are backed up and easy to access. Make sure family knows where it is. It's unpopular to say these days, but Facebook was the service most prepared for his passing. We memorialized his profile and my sister was able to manage communication on his behalf to his friends. We were very grateful. ------ frobozz Sadly, 1000memories.com seems to have disappeared. ~~~ nicolas_t Rather shameful for a company backed by YC to not follow through with their promise. They were acquired by ancestry.com which still exists so I imagine they could have made sure that in the case of any acquisition the new owner would commit to follow through on that at least. ~~~ jessamyn I had a very long and angryish set of dealings with them about this. I finally got an engineer to let me download the archive but man... promises promises... ------ nateburke Beautiful. A wonderful tribute. And a sobering reminder that final goodbyes can come quicker than we expect. [https://seeyourfolks.com](https://seeyourfolks.com) ------ starpilot I will never die. ~~~ AnIdiotOnTheNet Even if you invent some science fiction means of attaining immortality, even if the universe is not doomed as all current physics predicts, the most infinitesimal probabilities inevitably occur on an infinite timeline. You will die someday. ~~~ gcb0 I guess you missed the point. in most societies, specially western, death is never a concern unless you are terminally ill. which is insane. I read the comment you are replying to as a joke of the article title. As in, how can something be for "for those who will die someday" instead of "everyone" plain and simple. ~~~ AnIdiotOnTheNet I read the title as the joke: it's really for everyone, with a built-in reminder that you are mortal.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GnuBio launches as open-source genome sequencing startup - obsaysditto http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2010/05/31/daily32-GnuBio-launches-as-open-source-genome-sequencing-startup.html ====== zeugma From the article: "The company [...] has licensed a suite of intellectual property from Harvard that, together with other intellectual property[..] enables the company's business model." "Company's name[...]was chosen [...]because it is a term that is asociated with shareware in Linux." Sic, I think there is a confusion here. ------ carbocation > But the hardware is just the first step. Boyce says the company will > approach institutes with an enticing offer. "We will sell you these cheap > systems, or sequence your samples ourselves, but there is a catch. After a > certain time period has elapsed, you have to give us those samples for our > open source database." Awesome. Their license requires you to release your sequence data to them. It's as if by using GNU/Linux, you had to release your documents and music publicly. Although generally I support freedom of genetic information, this has to be done at the level of the IRB and with informed consent from the people giving you the DNA. As an aside, the article grossly misstates what a biomarker is. ------ kljensen Boy, as the Free Software Foundation, I'd be displeased with their GnuBio name.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Time since Opera Mini for iPhone was officially submitted to Apple - edd http://my.opera.com/community/countup/ ====== jsm386 _Opera Mini requests web pages through the Opera Software company's servers, which process and compress them before relaying the pages back to the mobile phone. This compression process makes transfer time about two to three times faster, and the pre-processing smoothes compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones._ How is this not a massive privacy/security issue? You are trusting Opera to not look at your content, and as mentioned later on: _Opera Mini has received some criticism because it does not offer true, end-to-end security when visiting encrypted sites such as paypal.com.[49] When visiting an encrypted web page, the Opera Software company's servers decrypt the page, then re- encrypt it themselves, breaking end-to-end security_ ~~~ glymor The whole point of Opera Mini as an app is for them to rearrange your content; complaining that they can see the content seems schizophrenic. ~~~ KWD However, Opera needs to be sure to disclose/advertise the app as a proxy and not just a browser. Personally, I will never want to use a "browser" app with a proxy in the middle, but as long as others are fully aware of what they are downloading then they at least knowingly get to assume whatever risk is involved. ~~~ TallGuyShort The people who actually care (i.e. you and I) already know about it. The people who don't care, have much bigger security concerns, IMO. Most people don't check for SSL when entering credit card information, so I doubt they would care about this if they thought it good speed up their browsing as much as Opera says it can. edit: Though I do agree - I would trust them a little more if they were a little more outspoken about the security implications of what's going on. ~~~ stanleydrew I didn't know about it. I had Opera Mini on my old ADP1 and had no idea it was acting as a proxy viewer. Or maybe Opera Mini on Android isn't the same as the one currently submitted to Apple? ------ pg What a weird platform the iPhone is, when established companies like Opera have to resort to such things. ~~~ ynniv Hmm. My mouse was on its way to the downvote button when I noticed who made this comment (that I paused is also interesting). Apple has placed very few restrictions on the iPhone, almost exclusively so that they can control the majority of the user experience. To that end, they have said that applications which can run other applications are not allowed. Reflecting on other industries, this doesn't bother me. Do we expect Barnes and Noble to allow people to run a competing store in their store? Maybe a newspaper giving free ad space to someone who re-sells it at a profit? To me it's strange when people expect Apple to conduct their platform in a wholly different manner than a traditional business. To put the icing on this cake, it would be a non-issue if Opera-for-iPhone simply augmented the built in browser components instead of shipping something which unnecessarily violates the terms of the store. We could easily see a Firefox, Chrome, or Opera on the iPhone if they used WebKit for their JS and DOM parsing and rendering. Maybe that is too much to expect from a browser company, but I certainly don't expect companies to pout and stomp their feet when Apple doesn't give them what they want. ~~~ lambda You wouldn't expect a competing store in a Barnes and Noble because that's their store; they own it. However, if Apple is going to sell me a phone, then I own the phone. I should be able to install the apps I want on it, regardless of who wrote them or sold them to me. If someone sold you a house, but with the restriction that you could never sublet, could only ever use approved furniture from Ikea, and you had to give them regular access to inspect the house to make sure you're not violating their rules, would you buy such a house? Why are we willing to buy phones with such restrictions, then? ~~~ bonaldi Plenty of people accept similar restrictions to live in gated communities or in exclusive apartments with tenant associations. That's what Apple's offering: A gated community. Businesses have to play by its rules to get in there. If you too want the benefits of living in its world you don't get to paint your house pink. ~~~ jhancock What's wrong with it? Apple (and many others) are using federal criminal laws to enforce their business model. It is very possibly a criminal act to unlock your iPhone. Why should the FBI and our criminal judicial system be used to protect a business model? The gated community you refer are not using criminal laws; just civil contracts to enforce the position. ~~~ ubernostrum _Why should the FBI and our criminal judicial system be used to protect a business model?_ So far as I can tell they haven't. And, yes, the judicial system will get involved if you run afoul of your gated community's regulations: you'll be evicted by an officer of the law, and you'll be arrested and jailed if you attempt to remain in your former home after the eviction. ~~~ jhancock "So far as I can tell they haven't." The threat of imprisonment is not a deterrent for millions of people to have unlocked phones?? Don't confuse the home ownership issue. The actions you are talking about (law officers arresting you) come after a civil process is lost. Such civil processes must be instigated at the cost of the plaintiff, not the government. Apple, and anyone else locking devices are relying on the threat of criminal penalties. It is enough that the act of unlocking the phones is illegal and closes off competition. If it were not for laws that provide for these penalties, there would be a huge secondary market of unlocked devices, instead of the grey/black market that exists. ~~~ ubernostrum _Apple, and anyone else locking devices are relying on the threat of criminal penalties._ As they say on Wikipedia: "citation needed". Last I checked Apple hadn't bothered going after anyone who'd unlocked their phone, or even anyone who'd distributed tools for unlocking phones. Also, it's questionable that the law would even support that -- there's a DMCA exemption for cell-phone unlocking, for example, which means the only likely grounds for going after someone would be civil proceedings based on breach of user agreements. Which means that, um, you're spouting off a bunch of hyperbole unrelated to actual reality. ~~~ jhancock I live in a reality where I can read public U.S. documents. Here's one where Apple requests to keep it a criminal act to unlock an iPhone: "Apple Inc. submits this responsive comment in opposition to proposed Class #1 contained in proposed exemptions labeled 5A and 11A3 submitted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation" [http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2008/responses/apple- inc-31.pd...](http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2008/responses/apple-inc-31.pdf) To date, it is legal for an "individual" to unlock their phone (an iPhone's additional behavior, not so certain) but it is still a criminal act to provide services or create tools to assist such acts. The fact that the government isn't currently prosecuting does not make the threat any more real. The threat keeps the unlocking market from being legitimate and pervasive. The current Copyright Office exemption only applies to a narrow range of activity leaving wholesale unlocking a gray/black market. This link has a solid catalog of the current state of the Copyright Office's DMCA position: <http://www.eff.org/cases/2009-dmca-rulemaking> You can see the most recent EFF request is September, 2009. It seems pretty clear the status of jailbreaking is still up in the air. It took me one Google search to find dozens of quality sources of information on this topic. Next time, please do your own search before publicly accusing someone of being disconnected from reality. ------ gokhan Great move by opera. \- (Try to) Force apple to act quickly (When do you think Opera Mini will be approved by Apple?). \- Create something viral to promote it (669 tweets at the moment). \- Involve customers, convert new users through voting (Upcoming guesses) Costs an iPhone and some developer time. Brilliant. ~~~ alain94040 _669 tweets_ Not to rain on your parade, but do you think Steve Jobs is scared by 669 tweets? He has taken much more heat (think FCC letters about monopoly behavior) and still didn't move. ~~~ there 669 tweets are 669 mentions of opera and have nothing to do with steve jobs. this is marketing, not trying to scare steve jobs or apple into anything. ------ yumraj Well, call me a pessimist but they should ask people to estimate when it would be _rejected_. Apple will use the standard response that it replicates functionality already present in the iPhone, i.e. Safari, and could/would confuse users. I'd be extremely happy if I'm provided wrong. A request to Apple fanboys: Kindly reply with _why_ before you downvote me. ~~~ pclark downvoted because there are already browsers in the app store that "replicate functionality already present in the iPhone" ~~~ carussell Call bullshit on the idea in those words, sure. But don't downvote _the comment_ that describes it. That's the actual rationale developers have received for app rejections in the past. ~~~ pclark when was the last account of this happening? i haven't read much about a rejection of that kind for ages. ------ barredo This is a very clever move, and I think Apple will either approve or reject the app asap. If they reject it I guess it will be under 'security' concerns, and not duplication of iphone functionality, followed by two months of blog posts and tweets about how Apple is evil and how Opera Mini is insecure and a CPU-hog in the other hand ~~~ mbreese Why should Apple treat them any differently than any other company? I assume they'll have to wait in line, just like everyone else. And when they deny it for security reasons, there will be a long laundry list of changes that would have to be made. I do think you are right though about how there will be the inevitable onslaught of Opera vs. Apple posts (similar to the Apple vs. Adobe posts). But, I think that this will be a little more cut and dry. Opera would have had a better argument if they had actually submitted a browser, as opposed to a proxy. ------ valums _When do you think Opera Mini will be approved by Apple?_ Never, and it's a pity. Opera looks really impressive, judging by their video. ------ natch I don't get this. Why submit an iPhone app that is (apparently) without iPad functionality, during the time window when Apple has started accepting "universal" iPhone/iPad apps? Why not get it right, do it as a universal app, and then submit it? Maybe it's because they hope to avoid the duplication of functionality trap. On iPhone, at least on the current OS for iPhones, you don't get multiple content panels on the same screen except as part of a horizontal scroll. On iPad, I believe you do, so in that case there would be duplication. ~~~ fhars The iPad has no cell connectivity, so the main selling point of opera mini, reduced cell bandwidth usage, is useless on the iPad. ~~~ mtarnovan Some Ipads will be 3G enabled <http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/> ------ protomyth It would tick some iPhone developers off if these guys got faster service because of a stunt. ------ wrath Do I smell the start of an anti-trust suit brewing??? Assuming there's no slight of hands trickery in the demo, the performance is very impressive. I was under the assumption that the bulk of the performance issues on Safari were network and cpu related... ~~~ EsquireCats Problems with this line of thinking: 1\. Anti-trust implies monopoly. No monopoly on phones here. Plus it's Apple's store, you can't have a "monopoly" on your own product. 2\. Apple haven't exhibited a consistent pattern of app rejections to imply any particular competitive bias. (They host many applications from their traditional competitors.) 3\. Point 2 is moot, as it's still not a monopoly to begin with. If you'd like to see what real monopolistic-competitor crunching behaviour is, then read up on the halloween documents. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_l...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_leak) Compare Apple to Microsoft and IBM... Apple don't have the slightest on these mammoths. ~~~ orangecat _Compare Apple to Microsoft and IBM... Apple don't have the slightest on these mammoths._ Microsoft indirectly funded legal attacks on Linux; Apple is seeking to destroy Android entirely by abusing the patent system. Microsoft made it slightly more inconvenient to run competing browsers; Apple bans them altogether. Apple may not have the market share of that MS or IBM did, but they certainly have the attitude. ~~~ EsquireCats This statement is remarkably light on fact and heavy on sensationalism. Apple have received numerous patent disputes for technologies included in the iPhone. They hardly "threw the first punch." I also wouldn't call this an abuse on the patent system - apple's current action is -precisely- what the patent system is useful for. Abuse would be similar behaviour to IBM in the 80s where they would racket money from start ups threatening them with the weight of their patent portfolio. Also numerous browsers are available for the iPhone. I'd really be more swayed into believing apple were this big evil company - if the other companies weren't as bad, if not worse. I'd say they are all a little rotten, however by far I recognise that Apple is reasonably clean for a company that has had more than 30 years to make big public mistakes. ------ jacquesm It duplicates functionality the iPhone already has, does that mean they'll reject it to be consistent or will they approve a bunch of other apps that have been rejected for that reason ? ~~~ ZeroGravitas Well it can't be rejected for consistency because there's a bunch of browser apps already. ~~~ mbreese All of the existing browsers ultimately use Safari's DOM/JS engine. What would be really interesting is if there were a Gecko or a full Opera engine based browser. Opera mini isn't really a browser, it's a proxy, so I'm not sure this would fall under the same category anyway. ------ drtse4 Hmm, you can guess when the app will be approved. I'd like to see some stats on those guesses, i bet that the results will make clear that the average user has no idea of how long the approval process is (i expect that the majority of votes should fall in the 1-3 weeks range). ------ 27182818284 What happens if Apple approves Opera Mini within 24 to 36 hours and then uses Opera Mini as an example to direct attention away from the app store's flaws? ------ barredo Is there a way to bypass Opera servers in Opera mini (in settings) even if it makes your web browsing experience a bit slower? ~~~ maggit No. Opera Mini only understands what they call OBML, which is what the Opera Mini servers give the handsets. Opera also produces Opera Mobile for mobile devices, which is a full-fledged browser. This is a separate product. ------ gcb soon in an european counrty near you: the iphone browser ballot! And in other news: opera should leave the iphone and fix the zillion bugs on the other platforms that lacks a decent native browser. Posted from a nokia with Opera mini. ~~~ EsquireCats I laughed - but there are already plenty of other web browsers on the iPhone platform. ~~~ ugh Different chrome but all the same engine. ------ j23tom I wish one day without news about Apple.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Client-Side Web Development Book - rammy1234 https://info340.github.io/ ====== rammy1234 Free so it’s worth reading	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GE Powered the American Century, Then It Burned Out - haaen https://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-powered-the-american-centurythen-it-burned-out-11544796010 ====== Aloha The article gives the answer early on - the company is still in a phase of change from selling GE Capital - for 20 years they were used to using Capital as a source of excess cash to paper over other temporary market issues elsewhere in the company - they no longer have that ability - so now the cyclical nature of normal business will show directly on their balance sheets and statements. GE will probably be just fine - in a decade. ~~~ xapata I'm dubious that business has a cyclical nature. It's hard to distinguish a random walk from noisy waves. ~~~ Aloha Demand for certain goods and commodities are cyclical - I design dispatch consoles, we tend to get customer verticals in clusters - public safety, power/utilities, transportation and it continues in a cycle, based on replacement intervals (on a 20 year lifetime) - I know Motorola sees similar cycles too - they'll oscillate between public safety and commercial markets. I know there are similar business cycles in aviation, power generation and industrial controls. ~~~ xapata If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that the demand for dispatch consoles follows a wave with a 20-year period, because the device must be replaced approximately every 20 years? I can believe that for an individual buyer, but for the market as a whole to follow the same period, that'd imply that every buyer made the bulk of their purchases at around the same time. That seems unlikely. ------ protomyth Well, maybe their "rank and yank" fostered a low teamwork environment or they fired the people who would actually of helped them with the next big thing. Frankly, their management contribution to American business has to be one of their darkest legacies. ~~~ tinkerteller My employer is famous for hiring folks at executive levels from GE and I can tell you without doubt that most of them had been some of the the worse execs I have came across. I can easily see GE as frothing with some of the worst senior level clueless "talent" out there. I think GE used to be great under Jack Welch because he ruthlessly demanded results. When you operate in that mode virtually anything works because everything other than success gets brutally weeded out. You can start any number of new businesses and the evolution system implemented by ruthless pruning eventually will yield successful species. After Welch left, GE decided to use most of his principles as blueprint except one: demand top notch results and ruthlessly weed out everything else. One company that operates like GE under Welsh these days is Amazon. It would be very hard for any exec to spend 5 years at Amazon without showing amazing results. On the other hand I know plenty of execs at big 5 tech who have sailed through for as much as decade by simply "managing up". ~~~ raverbashing This seems like a "darned if you do, darned if you don't" mentality Allowing managers to coast and play office politics sucks but also squeezing them doesn't seem very positive (though I'm sure it's great for results) ------ haaen Non-paywalled version here. [https://outline.com/zyHms4](https://outline.com/zyHms4) ~~~ latchkey This is turning into the modern day 'first comment.' HN should really just generate this link as a feature. Edit: My bad, this has been covered: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320147) ~~~ paulcole Copyright Infringement As A Service (CIASS)— I like it! ------ captainperl TLDR; 11,000 words of gossip about GE CEO promotions with no insight into the actual business problems. Makes the authors look like incompetent wannabe "journalists." ~~~ graycat Nice and short, and I tend to agree. The article ended with an invitation to people who know about GE or some such to comment, but apparently need to be a subscriber to the WSJ to do that. Subscribe to the WSJ? When I was at FedEx, I subscribed to the WSJ, got the copy each day, but soon concluded that the content was not very useful, had serious flaws like your "no insight", and have nearly totally ignored the WSJ since. "Gossip"? I agree. And I have an explanation that applies to the WSJ, Forbes, etc.: The writing is not to be informative but a manipulation of the assumed emotions of the readers. The manipulation is to write the _stories_ so that a reader can imagine that they are C-level or BoD people, have a vicarious emotional experience, and, thus, tell themselves that they are _learning about business_. No, they are learning about applied formula fictional, manipulative story telling. The stories concentrate on gossip, cut of the jaw, grimace on faces, style of eyeglasses, and other personality fluff as if that is what is really important; no, it is what is assumed a reader, maybe the guy in the mail room, the floor cleaning squad, or a security guard, can best find interesting. It is as if the assumption is that only a tiny fraction of the population cares about serious business information but nearly everyone has emotions. Manipulation of emotions, not meaningful information. A good fraction of the comments mention the stuff that GE has long believed that "a good manager can manage anything" or some such. I heard this strongly when I worked at GE. To me the problem with that claim was that it called for management with too little knowledge of the business, just as in your "no insight". Yes, early in my career, I was at GE: I was the applied math, statistics, digital filtering, fast Fourier transform, numerical analysis, curve fitting, etc. guy at the HQ of GE Time Sharing. Looking back, the place was devoid of "insight". In the WSJ article, they keep mentioning GE Power. Okay, that has to do with gas turbines. Yup, GE got into that field early in the history of aviation for turbines for superchargers for airplanes at high altitude with thin air. There the need was just desperate. Sooooo, GE has gone now nearly 100 years with gas turbines. More generally apparently a pillar of the business has been urgent demands from the US military: (1) The engines on the FedEx planes were from GE in Lynn, MA and originally for a USAF drone. (2) The bigger part of GE aircraft engines was in Ohio and did the big high bypass gas turbine engines, IIRC, originally needed for the Lockheed C5A. [For subsonic flight, high bypass works better than pure jet. Why? For throwing mass m out the back at velocity v, pay (1/2)mv^2 in energy but get momentum change, which is what moves the plane, mv. So to get the most momentum from the given energy from the fuel, want lots of m and less of v. So of course do throw some hot air out the back but also have a big _fan_ , ducted propeller, grabbing huge volumes of air and pushing it out the back _around_ the core that is burning the fuel, that is, _bypassing_ that core. Of course, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and some others around the world also are into aircraft jet engines.] Theme: GE was really slow to come up with new businesses. That is, their Power division is from initiatives nearly 100 years old. It's been a good business, but there have been too few such while the rest of business charged ahead, e.g., with computing while GE missed out. GE was early in both transistors and computing. Some of their computing was the computer for the MIT Project MAC, MULTICS. Suddenly some in GE saw that their transistor business was no longer just a profitable cash cow, that technology progress, really integrated circuits, would mean new R&D and capital expenses. So, the generalist managers with "no insight" bailed -- got out of the transistor business and sold the computer division to Honeywell. But MULTICS was a big deal, the first with a lot of stuff, e.g., attribute control list security (ACLs) still important, and lots more. IIRC we can trace much of the architecture of the Intel chips, 386 on, back through Prime Computer (a _super-mini_ computer based heavily on MULTICS and started by some Honeywell engineers) to MULTICS. Lesson: Due to the generalist managers with no insight, GE missed out on the future of computing. For more, in principle, there's no good reason GE could not have done what Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, QUALCOMM, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc. have done. Lesson: GE just did NOT do well cooking up good new businesses internally. Yes, the generalist managers would buy businesses based on whatever, sell divisions based on whatever, but for all that financial musical chairs, with only a few exceptions, e.g., GE Capital, long essentially an unregulated bank, just would not think hard about the future of new directions in business. Yes, there are some close parallels with IBM. I worked there, too, in an AI project at their Watson lab. For one of the problems we were trying to solve, I did, later published, some applied math, a colleague called "radical, provocative", that was much more powerful than what we were doing with AI. I also proposed a research direction, in applied stochastic optimal control, the field of my Ph.D. dissertation, but IBM and Watson management didn't want to let me do. Uh, stochastic optimal control can be a massive user of computer hardware and in a sense an ambitious direction for AI. Since then the Princeton ORFE department has been working hard on that direction. Lesson: IBM's Watson management and IBM more generally blew a good opportunity. Reason? A big one is the "myth of the generalist manager". Suspicion: Long the internal GE office power politics was really severe with heavy emphasis on severity and appearances over reality, lots of gossip, etc. The WSJ article hints at this, and, besides, it's standard and called "goal subordination", i.e., fight with the guy down the hall, _subordinate_ the goals of the company to those of personal promotion via political infighting. One of IBM CEO Gerstner's early remarks at IBM was that it was IIRC "the most inwardly directed, arrogant, process-oriented company" he ever saw. From my time in both GE and IBM and the WSJ article, I have to agree with that remark of Gerstner and suspect it applies to both IBM and GE. Fun stuff: Simple, O(n) solution to the Google lake volume puzzle: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18648999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18648999) ~~~ astrange How did you end up working at both GE and IBM? I hope you've found something better to do by now. ~~~ graycat Yes Dad's father ran the village general store, and his stepfather ran the village feed and grain mill. So Dad had a background in running a business. Still he got a Master's and a job for a salary. It paid the bills, paid for both my brother and I to get Ph.D. degrees, etc. But it wasn't real _business_. I was at GE because they gave me a big raise from working the Navier-Stokes equations for the US Navy. Soon I was making in annual salary six times what a new high end Camaro cost. That was enough for some Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap Farm Park, Shenandoah times, good French cheese and grape juice, big times on Turkey Day, XMAS, etc. for my wife and I. She went for her Ph.D. Later I wanted to do applied math on Wall Street -- learned of Renaissance Technologies and James Simons only much later, too late. And by then my wife was seriously ill so to have a stable job to help take care of her, I took a job at IBM's Watson lab in an AI project. I saved money even in grad school; at IBM for the first time in my life, I lost money -- cost of living in NYS was outrageously high. For now, right, I'm doing a startup, am a sole, solo founder, do all the core applied math and the computing. So far the computing is 100,000 lines of typing and appears to run as intended. I'm rushing to gather more input data and go live. Latest problem: My first server has 4 memory sticks, DIMMs, DDR3, ECC, each stick 4 GB for 16 GB in total. Last night I discovered that Windows is seeing only 3 of the sticks and is using only 2 of them. So, later today will remove and replace the DIMMS and see if that gets me back to the 16 GB of main memory (when I first plugged the computer together, Windows saw and used all 16 GB -- last night the Windows memory test feature looked at the 8 GB and found no errors). Will be installing two new hard disk drives, 2 TB each. Just fixed a hard error on a hard disk -- with careful use of ROBOCOPY options, moved the data off, did a _long form_ format, moved the data back, and I no longer get requests from Windows to run CHKDSK, check disk. That's how the work goes. ~~~ gregw2 I hear you about the DIMMs and ROBOCOPY. Tip: I spend less time on that hardware minutia and backup reliability and restore operations now that I rent servers on AWS. You might want to try it. Focus your time where your value add is. Also looks good to investors/customers. Also helps avoid overprovisioning (capital expense that doesn't get recovered when business falls through).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What great (business) ideas do you have that you won't pursue? - mavsman We've all got great ideas with either not enough time or not enough motivation to execute on them. Might as well toss them up here and hope someone else rides with it. ====== mavsman A car hookup (e.g. OBD2) that tracks your driving stats and then gamifies it. I know certain insurance companies have car hookups that supposedly can help you get a discount for safe driving but it would be more interesting to give feedback to the driver, put it on a scoreboard, and share it. Then you should be able to see how you can become a better driver (e.g. less abrupt stops, etc). There would be a varying number of stats you could have, based on what kind of sensors your car has on it. Ultimately you could use this to integrate with insurance companies but that's secondary to gamifying safe driving and actually improving driver safety and abilities. Instead of taking the focus off of driver skill, like self-driving cars, this would improve road safety by emphasizing the importance and skill of the driver. ------ newyearnewyou I have a list of them. I review it every change of seasons (quarterly). I can't afford any of them, and my background is so average I don't think I'll ever get investment. I'm working on simple things (Amazon FBA, etc.) to net a decent profit to get one of them going.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What do you think of my startup's newly redesigned landing page? - akos http://www.chilledlime.com/sorry.php?source=hn ====== asto Doesn't look very good on chrome. Even if you fixed the cross browser issues, it would look amateurish. I'm not trying to be rude, my websites tend to look amateurish at first go too. You might want to hire a designer for a redesign though. ------ jesstra Unfortunately it doesn't look very good on my laptop - mbp retina, chrome. Suggest you try some cross browser test tools - take a look at <http://browsershots.org/> ------ akos Sorry guys! I designed it in firefox not chrome. I am now trying to make it cross-browser. Thanks for the helpful responses :) ------ jray too much amateurist	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Calpers CIO made false disclosure, resigns 2 days later - rsj_hn https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/08/calpers-chief-investment-officer-ben-meng-made-false-felonious-financial-disclosure-report-more-proof-of-lack-of-compliance-under-marcie-frost.html ====== silexia Finance used to be a boring but scrupulously honest area of work. Unfortunately, many finance people are now corrupt. Private equity for example in the last thirty years has turned into a mechanism to make its operators rich while destroying the businesses it invests in. [https://joelx.com/private-equity-destroys-hospital- chain/159...](https://joelx.com/private-equity-destroys-hospital-chain/15949/) ~~~ rsj_hn Naked Capitalism has done a great job covering this stuff, and has many articles describing the corruption in CalPers.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Oracle Pits GraalVM Against Google Go - ekoutanov https://www.javaworld.com/article/3440103/oracle-pits-graalvm-against-google-go.html ====== Strum355 If it didnt have such awkward "support" for reflection and missing support for key methods in Java, GraalVM would be much more likely to be adopted	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Gitlab 13.3 with coverage-guided fuzz testing and a build matrix for CI/CD - ipm42 https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/08/22/gitlab-13-3-released/ ====== lindsayolson Hey all - GitLab's 13.3 release is live today. Quick preview of what is inside: Coverage guided fuzz testing: You can now run coverage-guided fuzz tests against your Go and C/C++ apps! Kubernetes Pod health dashboard: In GitLab 13.3, you can view the health of your Kubernetes pods in the new out-of-the-box Pod health metrics dashboard (personal commentary: super excited about this one!) Merge Request Approvals shows who participated in the review: Code review often involves multiple people and multiple iterations. It can be hard to know who has been reviewing the merge request, and which of those reviewers has approved and who hasn’t. There is much more included in this release, so head over to our blog post (linked: [https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/08/22/gitlab-13-3-rel...](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/08/22/gitlab-13-3-released/)) and check it out. As always, let me, and our Product Team know what questions you have! (link to feedback issue: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/239761](https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/239761)) -LO	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tell HN: On Skype for Mac, you now have to do Cmd+Q twice for it to quit. - mindfulhack I'm a little paranoid and skeptical of Silicon Valley companies and their dirty tactics to surveil on and profit from our data as much as possible, so I thought I'd report a small observation to HN which is probably overblown and paranoid, but here goes.<p>Since recent updates of Skype for Mac, doing Cmd+Q in the app does NOT quit it. I have to do it twice. I can repeat this behaviour every time. Can anyone else?<p>Do you think it's an innocent mistake or a deliberate attempt to make Skype that little bit more persistent on your computer and to get you used to having less control over it?<p>If it's a new 'feature' (like how with Mac Chrome you can turn on accidental Cmd+Q prevention), I never turned it on.<p>We know MS ideally wants you keep Skype in your 'taskbar' at all times, thus my paranoid reflection. I can't stand it when companies try to give us less control over our hardware/software, and we know MS is notorious about this with their desktop OS. ====== oil25 I don't understand. If you don't trust Skype so much that you're paranoid over the quit behavior, why not use another program to communicate? Not that your paranoia is unjustified - the Snowden leaks made it abundantly clear that service is not secure nor private. ~~~ quaquaqua1 Some people simply refuse to use anything else, for example, in a job interview situation. Power dynamics call the shots sometimes! ~~~ Nextgrid Refuse anything else, even _the phone_? Which industries are you in? In the software world I never had any issues getting by with the phone and/or FaceTime. ------ Sevii Chrome requires you to hold Cmd-Q down before it will close. ~~~ decentralizer Which sometimes lets you close other applications at background accidentally.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Study: Blue light from screens can steadily blind us - dtien https://www.fastcompany.com/90216977/blue-light-from-screens-can-steadily-blind-us ====== sp332 _Some people._ People with normal levels of alpha-tocopherol (an antioxidant) have the damage repaired and don't go blind. People over 60 should watch out for this, and it's not a small thing, but the article doesn't qualify the risk at all. Somewhat better discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17724995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17724995)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The human brain can create structures in up to 11 dimensions - touristtam https://www.sciencealert.com/science-discovers-human-brain-works-up-to-11-dimensions ====== sharemywin Wouldn't feature be a better term? or Am I missing something?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Font Combiner Unicode Kickstarter - emily_b https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/876222823/font-combiner/ ====== emily_b A Kickstarter campaign to raise funding for full Unicode support, code refactoring and other new features. Font Combiner is an application that allows easy drag-and-drop font supplements, with a lot of other features. [https://fontcombiner.com/](https://fontcombiner.com/) A successful campaign will bring about a new evolution of this application and some exposure on HN could be decisive in gaining some momentum. If it's not a cheek, a few up votes and perhaps a few social shares would be hugely valued. Any pointers for further promotion or suggestions for adjustments to the pitch would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all. ------ ChainsawBaby Looks very promising and interesting, hope you'll reach your goal. Also, backed your fundraising :D ~~~ emily_b Thank you very much.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it - SmkyMt https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/15/the-crucial-service-trump-left-out-of-his-massive-infrastructure-goals-and-how-the-fcc-wants-to-fix-it/?utm_term=.17dfebd7ece9 ====== theandrewbailey I'm cynical that this will bring meaningful improvement. Government has given money to telecoms before, and it's only brought us mediocre service, and brought executives huge paydays. Where's the fiber, Verizon? We (NJ and PA[0]) gave you huge tax cuts 20 years ago for universal fiber service. You and NYC agreed to provide everyone with fiber.[1] Meanwhile, AT&T keeps merging with promises that are meaningless or eventually reneged on.[2] [0] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/verizon- pennsyl...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/verizon- pennsylvanias-com_b_7532008.html) [1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/nyc-sues- verizon...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/nyc-sues-verizon- alleges-failure-to-complete-citywide-fiber-rollout/) [2] [https://muninetworks.org/content/atts-many-broken-merger- pro...](https://muninetworks.org/content/atts-many-broken-merger-promises) ~~~ rayiner I think offering subsidies to spur private deployment of broadband is a terrible idea. If the market doesn't want to build it, we should think hard about whether we should build it, and if we conclude we should, the government should just build it.[2] That said, the "huge tax cuts" are fictional. Teletruth's idea of a "tax cut" is a company being able to charge any more money than they would have under regulated rates.[1] The "billions" in "tax breaks" are from the companies charging higher rates to their own customers, alleged cross-subsidizing between various services that were previously regulated at different rates, and accelerated depreciation of infrastructure (which came at a time when major parts of the network infrastructure were upgraded to fiber, even if the last mile remained copper). It wasn't the government writing anyone a check, or even giving any company a special tax credit. Also, this bit of conspiracy theorism exactly inspire confidence in the calculation methodology: > Recently, (April 2015) a TV media company decided to not run an > investigation we had worked on together about Verizon’s failure to properly > upgrade the networks by 2015. After an interview with Verizon by the > company, the word ‘liabilities’ entered their vocabulary and they doubted > that there was a tax break that came with the Chapter 30 Pennsylvania > broadband plan. [1] That is, of course, one of the purposes of deregulation. Governments chronically set regulated rates too low. For example, environmental groups estimate that water/sewer rates nationally are about _half_ of what they should be in order to account for the scarcity of water and the need to maintain and upgrade aging infrastructure. But no elected PUC official wants to raise grandma's water or telephone rates. [2] And if the government does build it, we should ditch the emotional appeals for FTTH and rely heavily on sensible, cost-effect point-to-point wireless. ~~~ AnthonyMouse > If the market doesn't want to build it, we should think hard about whether > we should build it There are good reasons to expect market failure here. New players very rarely enter infrastructure markets with existing incumbents because having to compete with the incumbent in a natural monopoly market is not expected to be profitable. And the "accidental duopoly" markets aren't going to do it. Both players try as hard as possible not to compete with each other because they both know that increasing speeds or lowering prices would only provoke the same response from the other and make them both less profitable. So you're really asking whether a monopoly incumbent would do it, which doesn't have much to do with markets at all -- it turns on whether the cost is more than the increase in monopoly rent it would allow rather than whether the cost is more than the value. And the existing monopoly rent is already high because even slow internet is much more valuable than none. > And if the government does build it, we should ditch the emotional appeals > for FTTH and rely heavily on sensible, cost-effect point-to-point wireless. FTTH is a one-time expense. The maintenance cost of underground fiber shouldn't be any higher than wireless, and then you don't need to worry about spectrum or wireless line of sight obstructions or interference or any of the other problems with wireless. ~~~ rayiner > FTTH is a one-time expense. The maintenance cost of underground fiber > shouldn't be any higher than wireless, and then you don't need to worry > about spectrum or wireless line of sight obstructions or interference or any > of the other problems with wireless. Most of the country doesn't bury utilities.[1] Point to point wireless is a lot cheaper than burying fiber, and also a lot cheaper than maintaining aerial fiber that can be torn down by storms/tree branches. [1] My fiber line hangs free from a telephone pole and is secured in the middle with a bent nail. But hey, that's one of the reasons my neighborhood in nowhere Maryland has fiber, while most of Silicon Valley does not. ~~~ AnthonyMouse > Most of the country doesn't bury utilities. And they waste money in the long run as a result. It's the same situation -- pay once to put utilities underground and then you don't have to pay forever fixing the fallout from every different kind of weather. ~~~ rayiner That's great, but time value of money being what it is, you'd rather pay for something later than paying for it now. One of the factors Google used in choosing Fiber cities was whether the city has arial power lines versus buried ones. Requiring cable burial is just another one of the many anti-development measures that keeps places like Silicon Valley from having fiber when far less wealthy places have it. My neighborhood, in a part of Maryland where I can get to horse farms in five minutes, has fiber. It didn't even have public water/sewer until two years ago, but it had fiber. Tiny, non-to-code lots, arial power lines, and easy- going permitting authorities played a role in making fiber deployment feasible. ~~~ amazon_not > That's great, but time value of money being what it is, you'd rather pay for > something later than paying for it now. That assumption only holds if the cost of the inputs do not rise with time. In fiber builds up to 80% of the costs are labor. If/when labor costs rise more than the cost of money then you are worse off putting off an inevitable/intended investment. Furthermore if putting off an investment causes duplicate costs (build aerial, later replace with buried) or causes you to forego OPEX savings (aerial vs. buried facilities maintenance costs), then you are actually worse off by paying later. Thus the time value of money is not the end all and be all. ------ gumby > Pai is proposing an ambitious program whereby the FCC could expand corporate > subsidies for building networks while scaling back regulations that, he > said, deter private investment. Given the history of the players involved (e.g. Verizon and AT&T pocketing billions in subsidies to extend service, then paying those billions out in dividends and doing no upgrades at all), this is clearly a case of "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me." Or is this simply purchasing a nice post-government job with the taxpayer's money? Either way it isn't plan worth supporting, no matter how important broadband expansion is. Or rather, "especially because broadband expansion is important". ------ xf00ba7 The question is....does the FCC really want to fix it? ~~~ 086421357909764 My thoughts are only in capacities that support the large incumbent ISP behemoths. I would imagine establishing standards and removing city / county ordinances restricting companies (outside of the big players) from installing services would be a bigger step. It's ridiculous to think that some cities want to provide better services but the lobbying arms of the big guys simply shut it down. We have plenty of people pushing to improve broadband, it's this incentive the rich, restrict the poor (relative to operating budgets) scenario that's only going to be exasperated by these types of counter productive rules. ------ petra So basically the government will be responsible for the costs of building the thing, but companies will own the monopoly ? and fiber will have a very long monopoly. This is the reverse of what will be needed in a possible, high-unemployment future: instead of large bills, we need to aim towards extremely low-cost of living(probably by using community owned fiber in this case). And in general, creating jobs towards that aim, seems like a decent strategy to transition into that high-unemployment world. ------ aanm1988 > Pai is proposing an ambitious program whereby the FCC could expand corporate > subsidies for building networks while scaling back regulations that, he > said, deter private investment All hail our corporate overlords. We give you the offer of more money (in the guise of helping consumers of course). ~~~ baldfat (sarcasm) Yeah now my paycheck isn't going to welfare and Unions. The real enemy of the middle class /sarcasm	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why is it difficult to remember things from before 3-5 yrs? - sambeau http://www.quora.com/Human-Memory/Why-is-it-seemingly-more-difficult-to-remember-things-from-before-3-5-years-of-age ====== sambeau The first answer to this is really cool…	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
With 737 Max, Boeing Wants to Win Back Trust. Many Are Skeptical - pseudolus https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/business/boeing-737-max.html ====== salawat >Boeing will not be relying solely on its executives to win back the public’s trust — a recognition that its leadership has lost some good will. That's putting it mildly. Seems to me they should be putting as much effort into their engineering, quality, and manufacturing departments. That'd likely put them in a much better place to reclaim goodwill. Props to the unions for sticking to their guns. I hope they hold out for a full acceptance of responsibility from Boeing. The age of faultless corporatism needs to come to a close. Now's as good a time to start as ever.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Uno: a Segway-like motorized unicycle - hyoogle http://www.maximizingprogress.org/2008/05/ben-gulak-uno-inventor-in-mit-class-of.html ====== mechanical_fish From a link in the story: _Gulak first applied to MIT last year, but was waitlisted and decided to take a year off rather than settle for another school._ What the hell does it take to get into MIT these days? Does the robot you build in your basement have to be able to pass the SATs, too? ------ someperson Trevor Blackwell did something similar a while ago (and he is a founder of YCombinator too): <http://tlb.org/eunicycle.html>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
BBC Worldwide partners with Thoughtly - marveloustiger http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/worldwide/2016/BBC-Worldwide-partners-with-Thoughtly ====== visarga Is BBC still sitting on 1 million hours of archives locked under copyright, collecting dust? In the meantime cats and kids playing video games flood YouTube. Other videos get commented on, voted, embedded in blogs and playlists, and their treasure rots neglected... They should try to open it up and give it back to humanity. ~~~ dbbk We're working on it. [http://store.bbc.com](http://store.bbc.com) ------ goldenkey Sounds like a poorly made decision considering hiring 1 skilled employee could yield most likely just as much insight. And it would stay in the org. ~~~ calewis It's a terrible place to work though and they fail to retain good talent through a combination of poor salary, lack of career progression,incompetent management and regular re-orgs. ~~~ brador Thoughtly or the BBC? ~~~ calewis The BBC, I can't speak from experience for Thoughtly. ------ qnada Solving problems they didn't even know they had in the first place...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Life of a Freelance Dancer - wallflower http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/arts/dance/18dancer.html ====== marketer One of my friends from high school is a freelance dancer in SF. I'm amazing by what those girls are capable of. It takes so much determination to keep going. Most girls can't make a living on dancing itself, so they have to have to find side jobs. Since there's almost no monetary incentive, they do it mainly for the love of the craft. It's physically demanding because they're often in the studio for the entire day, and they have to be careful to avoid injury. It's emotionally demanding because they have to put themselves in the abstract mindset of choreographers and directors, who they may not agree with. These girls are fearless. I'd compare it with being a software consultant, but without the pay and flexibility. ~~~ wallflower That's awesome. I like your point about how they are flexible in mind (dealing with directors/choreographers). Part of me is jealous of their life - and in a way I get so much more satisfaction out of building an IPhone app for a non-profit (for free, pro- bono) than some paid work. In general, I think my freelancer friends (some artists) are better off in a changing economy because they're not scared of being fired, quitting their job, or being rejected... because they've been through so many gigs they are immune to those very common fears. I hope that you get opportunities to see your friends perform. Showing up is important. ------ julius_geezer Saw that article, found it interesting. A hard living.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Distortion-Free Wide-Angle Portraits on Camera Phones [video] - Ultramanoid https://people.csail.mit.edu/yichangshih/wide_angle_portrait/#supp ====== bitL I always wondered why Zorin's original work [1] didn't make it to photography nor 3D rendering/gaming; we basically had 2 decades of ugly perspective distortions everybody got used to. [1] [http://graphics.stanford.edu/~dzorin/perception/sig95/index....](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~dzorin/perception/sig95/index.html) ~~~ dTal I can't quite see why this is a hard problem. Surely simply converting to a spherical projection would do the job? ~~~ Luc But then straight lines become curves. This maintains straight lines. ------ diydsp I would have liked to see the results compared to ground truth. ie a picture of the person taken from the center the lense. And i would have like to see more false-positive rejection. e.g. stuff that gets detected as a face but isn't- at the edges of photos, but really that relies on the robustness of the face detect heuristic, so it's a short and sweet heuristic that will make people look more normal at the edges of photos. ------ bufferoverflow I think some of their examples are either fake or not shown in full. [https://i.imgur.com/eRP0fZc.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/eRP0fZc.jpg) Look at the top-right corner. ~~~ yorwba The examples are not shown in full, because they also correct for nonlinearities in the lens projection. [https://people.csail.mit.edu/yichangshih/wide_angle_portrait...](https://people.csail.mit.edu/yichangshih/wide_angle_portrait/shih_sig19_supp.pdf) The image on the left is a rectangular crop of the image after lens correction, the one on the right combines lens correction and their warping method. That combination allows them to pull in a few pixels that would've been outside the rectangular region otherwise. ------ jimbo1qaz Going into this paper, i expected they would be correcting for barrel distortion. I was disappointed to read that they instead: >we formulate an optimization problem to create a content-aware warping mesh which locally adapts to the stereographic projection on facial regions, and seamlessly evolves to the perspective projection over the background. Reminds me of this person who wrote a youtube tutorial with the factually incorrect title "Manually correct perspective in Photoshop". He did not correct the (already correct) perspective, but rather selectively distorted parts of scenery photographs so bridges looked "vertical". In fact, he was making those parts of the image no longer conform to the mathematical photo projection. Instead of picking a better-suited image projection, that video and this paper selectively fudge parts of the image to use a different projection. [https://youtu.be/BocAGkS8yRQ](https://youtu.be/BocAGkS8yRQ) ------ antpls Wow, Let's hope it will be included in the next release of Camera apps of major phone OSes ~~~ Ultramanoid Given that the authors are all from Google, I guess we can expect this to be working on the coming Pixel 4 at the very least. ~~~ makr This is actually already working on my Pixel 3 right now. ~~~ nitrogen Samsung's camera app as well on the newer Galaxy phones ------ app4soft What about testing it for aerial imagery? ~~~ ris It works by detecting faces and using a different projection for them. How exactly would this be useful? ------ randyrand what projection do our eyes use?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Drug firms fueled ‘pill mills’ in rural WV - joe5150 http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20160523/drug-firms-fueled-pill-mills-in-rural-wv ====== kbouck For a street-level perspective, I recommend the documentary "Oxyana" [1] about pill abuse in Oceana, WV And for a more in-depth look at the origins check out Frontline's "Chasing Heroin" [2] [1] [https://youtu.be/jrE1uxGd6OQ](https://youtu.be/jrE1uxGd6OQ) [2] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/announcement/chasing- heroi...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/announcement/chasing-heroin-a-two- hour-special-premieres-feb-23-on-frontline/) ------ gohrt Half the story is missing -- who is paying for those pills? Insurance coverage? Individuals paying cash (and suspected of reselling, or fueling personal addictions?) Are individual patients' prescriptions for two many pills? Or too many patients getting prescriptions compared to averages in other cities/states? ~~~ ubernostrum Many "pill mills" are essentially drug-dealing operations using a doctor and a pharmacy (who get a cut of the profit) to obtain huge quantities of opioids which are then sold on demand, cash-only basis, to anyone who wants them. In some cases the doctor gets paid to just sign a big stack of blank prescription slips to be filled in later. In other cases the doctor is paid to "prescribe" for anyone who comes in and complains of pain. Also note that quite a lot of the problem is blamed on pharmaceutical companies allegedly misrepresenting the effectiveness of "extended-release" formulations of their drugs, leading patients to take larger doses and become dependent. Purdue has plead guilty to misleading the public about the risk of dependence with OxyContin, for example.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why switching jobs is almost always a good idea - alexpotato http://alexpotato.com/blog/why-switching-jobs-is-almost-always-a-good-idea/ ====== joelennon If you're not happy in your current role, make your employer aware of that fact. If you believe you are underpaid, say it. If you're overworked, say it. I'm not saying you'll necessarily get results but I think people all too often look for the door when what is making them unhappy can probably be resolved where they are. Of course if you're miserable and need a change that's a different story. But remember that if you're good, losing you is going to hit your employer hard. The cost of replacing good people is so high, any good employer will try to resolve any issues you may have in order to keep you. ~~~ existencebox I'm curious to hear your advice on the following: At once point I was hired by a bigCo, had been working at a university as a research sysadmin. They made a mistake, and thought that because they hired me _at_ a university I was a college hire, apparently ignoring the years of industry experience on the resume, and placed me at the lowest salary level. After 6 months, this mistake came to light, and after agreeing with my manager that the position was basically insulting given the background, I was told simply "well we can't do anything about it until the next promotion cycle, and even then we can't really 'catch you up'". This still stings in terms of time that I've now entirely lost pushing my career upwards. I decided to stay and wait it out rather than fight the decision or leave, I'm just curious about whether that would have been your decision in the situation. (this turned out a bit long and ranty; my takeaway is just, I've run into too many situations where telling my employer I was unhappy/underpaid resulted in basically a "nothing we can do", and my switching to a higher paying base job) ~~~ learnstats2 Your manager was wrong to not fight to correct this for you. Even if his/her hands were tied higher up, I would have considered leaving on this basis alone: it shows nobody at the company is willing to look after your interests. However, you must have agreed your salary at some point? As illustrated in the article, the start of the job is the most opportune time to negotiate. Once you have started on a low salary, employer can safely assume you don't need a high salary and has little reason to pay you more. (You confirmed that this was the correct decision for them by deciding to wait it out) My conclusion is that you'll now likely always be behind on your salary for as long as you stay with this company. ~~~ existencebox To his credit, my manager was extremely forthright in fighting for me, but his hands were tied in being limited to the typical periods. Yes, I did agree to the salary, but as that I was coming from an academic position (and was honestly/still am relatively new to shopping around for jobs) the salary seemed like a vast improvement and I didn't think to dig deep into actual level. Thanks (to other child posters as well) for your thoughts. (to answer some side posts as well; I didn't mean to come across as having excessively many years experience, but that I was just not a college hire and hope I didn't mislead. This introspection also doesn't preclude looking for other options simultaneously, and I've certainly learned my lesson about asking more of some sorts of questions during my offer.) ------ goblin89 > The first six months of a new job is taken up primarily by learning new > systems, procedures, who to talk to etc. <…> in the beginning, you will > probably feel a lot less stressed out. Weird, for me it’s the opposite—the most stressful time is when I don’t know how things work. Battling lacking or missing onboarding processes instead of working on challenges I thought I was hired to solve can be demotivating. ~~~ blazespin Yes, the first 6 months are by far the most stressful. You are far more replaceable in the first 6 months than you are after a few years. You will earn more money though. Switching jobs is the fastest way to get a pay raise. ------ S4M The post really makes the OP sounds like a headhunter ("don't worry, the grass is always greener somewhere else..."), in which case I would be very wary of his advice. ~~~ pdpi "I’m a career coach and can help you master every part of the job search process." Right on the money. ------ LukeB_UK My Dad always said to me that if you ever wake up and realise that you're not enjoying work anymore (or even worse, dreading it) then that's the day you start finding something or somewhere else. ~~~ japhyr He's right, burning out in your job and staying in that job makes people age quickly. Life is too short to be stuck in a miserable job, if you can do anything about it. ------ d357r0y3r In my current role, I like the company, the product, and my co-workers, but I'm almost positive I could be making 20,000 more a year in the same area. My pay is (I feel) relatively low because I'm a junior software engineer, so I'm torn on whether I should just stick it out and ask for a large raise/promotion in a few months, or put my feelers out. ~~~ KedarMhaswade Is it the lack of making enough money that bothers you? If you dig deeper, what would you say? If you were to ask yourself "What it is that would keep me motivated?" \-- what answer emerges? In his book, "Drive", author Dan Pink argues mostly successfully that it's not the salary or the stock options or other perks that keeps effective individuals motivated. He summarizes that it is the pursuit of that illusive trio -- "Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose" that keeps people motivated in their work and in their life. In my experience, if remaining in a job or switching jobs cannot be traced to one of these three, then the decision one takes (remain in a job or switching jobs) is not likely to turn out to be a good decision. ~~~ d357r0y3r It's not the money that motivates me. I get the most satisfaction from writing good code and pretty/usable UIs, and that is what ultimately drives me. My feeling is that I could get the satisfaction I describe above at many workplaces, but all things equal, I'd like the option that pays more. ------ wbsun This post shows the best of hacker news: comments are often way more better than the original post! I'd agree with one of the comment got downvoted: the post itself is really 'manipulating' and like an ad of nonsense: the only good thing is its title. But the comments here, which are people's real experiences and lessons, are so valuable! ------ lumberjack If every "five years of experience Java Swing developer" starts looking around for a better job position, isn't that a bit similar to a sector wide union asking for a raise? ~~~ slapresta You say that as if it were a bad thing... ------ steven2012 The problem with this mentality is that if you move around TOO much, then people won't want to hire you because they will think, rightfully so, that you won't stick around. I routinely reject resumes where the person has 3 or more jobs of 2 years or less on their resume. ~~~ peacemaker You're missing out on a lot of talented people with that kind of prejudice against short term job terms. You have no idea the background on why people chose to move jobs so simply dismissing them on that one fact seems premature. ~~~ steven2012 I disagree, and I very much disagree with the assertion that I would be missing out on "a lot" of talented people. "Talented" and "excellent contributor" are not the same thing. I would much rather put in the effort to recruit someone who is very good that will stick around for 2-3+ years and contribute versus a genius that sticks around for 12-18 months. This comes from experience. ~~~ AlwaysBCoding Very short sighted mentality. It assumes that people are cogs and the measurable effect of working with someone is the amount of tangible output. Working with extremely talented developers can fundamentally change your perspective about how you should be building your system / approaching a problem that can have huge future benefits. I would rather work with a genius for 12 months than a cog for 3 years. ~~~ billsossoon Are you kidding? The notion that people (even talented people) can be swapped in and out every 12 months is a far greater assumption that people are cogs. From a co-worker perspective, yes, I'd rather work short-term with someone talented. From a managerial perspective, I'd first choose the talented employee who has demonstrated an ability to commit, then I'd choose a less talented (but with potential to improve) employee who I believe has an ability to commit, then it's roughly a tie between someone mediocre and someone talented who will likely abandon their project in the lurch. Those last two are both pretty lame options. ------ swalsh Can't think of a better thread then this for a question that's been on my mind. I started at a new company last May. In the beginning I was on one team, I had a pretty rough time because the work was so different from my previous company (very boring). I was about ready to move on, but then my wife found she was pregnant, and so I decided to stay anyways because the fact that the work was easy meant I never worked over 40 hours. A few months later my boss moved me to a new team because I had completed literally the next 5 months of planned work in about a month so there was little left to do, and things did a complete 180. On this new team I had a bigger role, but I was able to work on more interesting things. Basically I built a framework that around 8 developers worked full time on. It's now at the point where just one overseas guy can do all the work. Last week we started talking about new projects I could attack at the company. Then on Friday he announced that he's leaving. When I went into his office to congratulate him on the new position, he hinted that he wanted me to join him at the new company in a position that would be kind of a bump for me. I'm inclined to follow him because the current company is a company where engineers are lead by non-engineers, and he's one of the few gems in the place. However i'm not sure if it's a good move (especially with the baby coming in 3 months!). I should also mention that last week he told me they were planning on letting go of all but 2 of the developers that my framework replaced :( I felt safe with him around because I built it, but i'm not sure if they hired an MBA to replace him he would do the same math. ~~~ kyllo If you have a great boss and he leaves for greener pastures, and gives you the opportunity to follow him, I think it's usually a good idea to accept. Having a boss who you like and who likes and trusts you enough to take you with him to the next company, is priceless. Staying can be risky, as the replacement boss is an unknown factor. In your case, it sounds like a no-brainer. ~~~ kyrra My company made employees sign agreements that if they did leave, they were not allowed to actively recruit people from the company. One guy did it and they sent him a cease and desist. Your manager should be careful incase he signed something similar and doesn't remember. ~~~ dennisgorelik That's why his boss _hinted_ about job opportunity at the next company, but did not directly offered a job. ------ jarjoura This is why all the big tech companies give substantial raises in RSUs. It's that carrot stick along with the promise of a promotion always just within reach that makes job hopping difficult. At least plan to stay with a company for 2 years. It never looks good to have resumes with pages of jobs. ------ sidcool I have been in the same job for the past 9 years. I am happy here, but I feel a need to change. Team is great and friendly, pay is above average, but I am not concerned with it much as it's enough for me and my family to live happily. Another reason I feel is that I have become comfortable here. Things are being gotten-done pretty easily. I don't have to exert myself too much. Team has faith in me. I love the ppl and do as much as possible for them (I am an Engineering Manager). But the urge to change is heavy and to some extent inexplicable to me. I already have 2 offers from other companies. I am wanting to talk to my boss, but fearing a bit. Sigh... ~~~ sktrdie If you're happy why change? Yes change is almost always good. But it's similar to saying that you should leave your girlfriend simply because you've been with her for too many years. Think of a job as a relationship. If it's good both ways, no need to change. ~~~ sidcool That's another way of looking at it, and that's where the confusion is stemming from. I am still undecided. ~~~ sktrdie If you're undecided you're probably a bit unhappy in your current position. Therefore change! :) ~~~ sidcool Nice revelation :) Thanks. I resigned. ~~~ sktrdie Wow really? Well I hope you thought it through and didn't just rely on a "stranger's comment" for this decision. In any case, I wish you the best and trust you'll have the skills to find something you really love - everyone should aspire to do what they love. ~~~ sidcool Oh no, I thought it through. There's some risk involved and some leap of faith, but I will own anything that happens. Good or bad, it's going to be my shit. ------ ishener There is one point that was missed in this post: promotion. Are you more likely to land a promotion in your current job, or are you more likely to find a another job that is also a promotion to a position that you have no experience in? ~~~ glesica My guess would be that it doesn't matter. Plenty of managers and senior people are hired from outside of companies these days. And in any case, if you don't make more money, it doesn't even really matter: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employees...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employees- that-stay-in-companies-longer-than-2-years-get-paid-50-less/) ~~~ zeroonetwothree The set of candidates that leave to get another job is different from those that stay. They are likely more skilled/motivated, and that's a large part of the job-switching premium. If everyone were to try to switch jobs many people would not be as effective. ------ Eric_WVGG I thought this was gonna be a riff on the Monty Hall problem. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem) ~~~ thisjepisje You wanted a more fulfilling job, but what you got was a goat. Bummer! ~~~ Eric_WVGG #winner [http://xkcd.com/1282/](http://xkcd.com/1282/) ------ EGreg This should be titled, "Why switching jobs is usually a good idea for overworked, underpaid people who have been working for at least a few years at their current job." But that wouldn't fit on HN. ------ michaelochurch This is bad advice. The right answer is often to change jobs, but the explanation given here is pretty terrible. If you have a pattern of working significantly less in your first 6 months on a job than later on, then you're making a mistake. That's the time to establish a reputation, figure out what is worth working on, and get a mental map of the organization so that you can actually get things done. It's the hardest time in a job, if you do it right. If you let the "honeymoon period" blind you and slack in your first 6 months, you start getting grunt work thrown at you and that's how you end up overwhelmed and struggling at the 3-year mark. If you do the first 6 months _right_ and gain the credibility, alliances, and reputation that'll put you on a good vector, you (a) have a much higher chance of getting on a fast-track, which means better work rather than more of the same, and (b) can get away with slacking and recharging (as you seek external promotion) if you are passed-over for some reason. Also, for higher-level positions, switching jobs often means changing locations and doing that every year is pretty miserable... especially if you have kids. At some point, you're specialized enough that unless you live in New York or SF-- which are pretty much out once you have kids, unless you're in a hedge fund or a VC firm-- you're going to have to stick with a job for a few years just because there aren't many jobs in your specialty and location. It's worth changing jobs for a genuine promotion, but a high frequency of lateral movement looks really bad. Given also that it can be hard to tell if a new job is a genuine promotion, it's better to stay where you are if you have something good and you're continuing to advance. ------ codazzo If somebody ever asks me "what does mansplaining mean?" I'm just going to say, "Well you see, it's quite easy. Just read this blog post" In all seriousness, there was no need for the point in this post to be explained through such exemplary mansplaining. ~~~ Robin_Message Oh come on. I'm not even sure "mansplaining" is a thing, but even it is, in no way does "mansplaining" == "socratic method". Also, did you even know Alex Potato is a man†? I know two Alex's, one male, and one female. I've never spoken to a potato. Or is it automatically "mansplaining" because the topic is about a specific woman being underpaid/overworked, and any helpful suggestions to that specific women (that reframe the situation and empower her to improve things herself) are automatically sexist? I mean, I'm happy to condemn employment conditions that systemically underpay women, but that won't actually help Sam, whereas this advice might. In conclusion, whilst obviously not everything men write or say that is intended to be supportive of feminism is actually helpful and supportive, it really worries me that if men who are trying to help are shot down for missing the mark, then fewer will try in future, and the only ones left commenting will be the trolls who are looking for such a reaction. † I mean, we could assume they were because they appear to work in software or the like, and play paintball, but we shouldn't do that because it would be sexist, right‡? ‡ Did I just "mansplain" there too? Ooops. ~~~ mparramon He's a man: [http://alexpotato.com/career/about.pl](http://alexpotato.com/career/about.pl) ~~~ mcnamara I don't see anything on that page that indicates Alex has stated a gender identity, so that's an awfully presumptuous thing to say. Maybe you should stop mansplaining?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
White House Names Google’s Megan Smith the Next CTO of the US - llamataboot http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/09/04/white-house-names-googles-megan-smith-the-next-chief-technology-officer-of-the-united-states/ ====== Someone1234 My first reaction was "I didn't know the US had a CTO" and after a quick Wikipedia search it appears as they didn't until 2009 under Obama who appointed the first one. The article nor Wikipedia make it clear exactly what a CTO's job in the White House would really entail. It sounds like a bunch of random stuff which utilise technology in some way or another. But at least, for now, they have a technologist with decent technology credentials. I wonder how long until those role gets given to someone with the right political connections (or someone with good relationships with technology contractors/lobbyists)? Because, to me, this role's primary job should be to wrangle in the technology contractors who are near constantly ripping off the US Government and under- performing/failing to deliver. They can try to spread technology in schools and such, but then they run into the limits of the White House's powers and or the states right's dilemma (although this could definitely promote third party educational resources, like Coursera or Khan Academy). ~~~ chton Considering they took a Google executive, this could already be "someone with the right political connections". Google is one of the biggest lobbyists, I wouldn't be surprised if this had something to do with their efforts. Still, at least it's somebody with proper qualifications. A techie, not a politician, so I'm hopeful either way. ~~~ ape4 Seems like their would be a conflict of interest when making decisions about search, web-based mail, self-driving cars, mobile phones,... (Google stuff). But I agree a techie is better than anything else. ~~~ deathhand Would you rather have an exec from an ISP instead?(Comcast, Verizon, etc) ~~~ citizens [https://fiber.google.com](https://fiber.google.com) ------ khc "Macgillivray, though, also does a bit of engineering of his own. After leaving Twitter, he hand-coded a script for resurfacing old Gmail messages to which he hadn't yet replied." The article links to [https://gist.githubusercontent.com/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f37...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f375/raw/awaitingresponse.js) , which has a comment that says: * This script is based on and is nearly identical to: * [http://jonathan-kim.com/2013/Gmail-No-Response/](http://jonathan-kim.com/2013/Gmail-No-Response/) I don't think modifying an existing script counts as "hand-coded". Anyway, I still find it interesting that WashingtonPost links to a javascript file directly. ~~~ Someone1234 If you remove the top comments from both, there are only four lines changed and one additional line (var searchLabel = 'inbox') added. 2 of the 4 lines changed simply alter the labels from "AR" (awaiting response) to "No Response." So really is is two lines of actual logic different and some labels. ~~~ ceejayoz I think the takeaway here is not "he didn't change much" but "the new deputy CTO for the US uses Github and knows enough about coding to adjust scripts to his liking". ~~~ scintill76 Well, that just takes the wind out of our hate-sails. That's the charitable (and probably objective) interpretation. I guess people are taking issue with "hand-coded", which is an odd term that may imply things that aren't really true. It's possible it did indeed mean "customized" though. ------ miles932 Megan Smith is a complete package. Hyper brilliant. Very excited to see her make a substantial impact! ------ sadfaceunread Having briefly met with Megan a couple years ago, I'm pleased with this appointment. She asked good questions and seemed to think through the consequences of rough conceptual ideas diligently. ------ DanielBMarkham Just to give some idea of the scale of things we're talking about, there's a Federal CIO council[1], with scores of memebers. The Feds have tons of agencies spending hundreds of billions on IT. Most all of these agencies were created by _Congress_ , not the president, and although they report up the executive branch, they're also accountable to various and sundry legislative committees. Many times the decisions around tech and contracting have been legislated in some fashion. They just aren't made off-the-cuff. The CTO is truly a stupendous job, even for someone working at Google scale. I would be very surprised if this turned into an operational role. I imagine it would be advisory and policy-based only. There's simply too much to get your head around and not a lot of levers to pull to make things happen like it does in the commercial world. Still, I am very optimistic that there is much goodness to be done here. It's just not a CTO job in the way most of us would understand. [1] [https://cio.gov/](https://cio.gov/) ------ ksk On the surface of it, I don't mind that they recruited from the industry. However, if the CTO is in a position to influence government contracts or other spending towards Google, then I would be against this - same principle applies to ex-Goldman Sachs execs taking up key finance related Government positions. ~~~ tinalumfoil What other choice do they have? They're not going to hire someone right out of college and there aren't a ton of people already in government that have the qualifications for that job. It's difficult to blacklist people who have former employment at a company when that company hires the best in the industry. ------ worklogin If there was any doubt that Google is in the sack with the US government, this consistent funnel of execs from Google to the White House should quell it. ~~~ cromwellian If the Whitehouse isn't recruiting top Silicon Valley talent to fill technical positions, would you rather they fill them with executives from Washington D.C. area beltway bandit management consulting companies? They've got to go somewhere for the talent pool and credentials, and that means tapping Google, Twitter, et al. It helps that Google and many Bay Area companies lean progressive and helped both Obama's campaign, as well as fixing ACA Web sites. If the suggestion is this somehow proves some nefarious NSA connection because a few employees went to work for the government, that seems pretty fallacious to me. ~~~ azakai I think the contrast is to the complaints we often hear when a top financial position is an ex-Goldman exec. Or in general when a top regulator is recruited from the industry they will soon regulate. In those cases too, you could say "well, how else would you rather they fill those spots?" And yes, it is likely the a Goldman exec would have lots of expertise in the financial sector, so it's a natural place to recruit from. Still in both those cases, and with Google here, there are large potential conflicts of interest. People that complain about Goldman execs in Washington will also complain about this appointment, and there are valid reasons for such complaints. ~~~ magicalist One big difference is that the CTO role is _not_ as regulator, so you don't have the large concerns you have with putting a cable company exec in charge of the FCC, or an RIAA lawyer in charge of the DOJ's copyright enforcement policy. There may be some instances when a conflict of interest comes up, but as others point out, that's virtually impossible to avoid for anyone with expertise. Many here might not object to an academic being appointed to the role who specializes in open source and advocating for the limitations of copyright, but of course there's a huge conflict of interest there, too. ~~~ azakai What would be the "huge conflict of interest" with an academic in this role? ~~~ magicalist Sorry, I missed your response. The conflict of interest would be their tendency to see everything from the lens of their life's work, and of course to actively advocate for their values, which are already well formed in the relevant domain. Barring financial conflict of interest (e.g. stock still owned from the previous job), it's just as much of a conflict of interest as someone previously at one of these related companies but no longer employed there. ------ abhiv I find this conflating of the US as a country and the US Government annoying. Megan Smith is the CTO of the US Federal Government, which is an entity separate from the US as a country. It doesn't make sense for a country to have a "CTO". Do all technology decisions made anywhere in the US have to have her approval? Logically, if she were the CTO of the US, she would have as direct reports all the CTOs of all the companies in the US. ~~~ corin_ The President is "of the United States" not "of the US Government", it doesn't mean everyone in the country reports to him - I think you might be over- thinking the terminology a little bit. ------ scrame Wow, I wonder if the Washington posts jaw hurts after writing this fellating sack of courage propaganda horseshit. ------ golemotron I hope that sometime in my lifetime government will stop trying to ape the nomenclature of business. ------ known US need CIO, not CTO ------ metacorrector Because US citizens need somebody from Google's business model and school of thought fighting for us on the inside and helping the gov't formulate our data and privacy policies? ~~~ llamataboot Alex Macgillivray has a reputation as a staunch free speech and privacy advocate. [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter- al...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter-alex- macgillivray-free-speech) ~~~ gress ... who was happy to work for Google. ~~~ DannyBee My how history gets rewritten so quickly. If you want to assault Andrew's credentials as a staunch defender of free speech, etc, you are going to have to do better than "he worked at Google". He worked at Google at a time when Google really was on the front lines of defending this stuff, and _he_ was the one doing it. If you want to blame Google, blame Google. Amac is pretty much unassailable, IMHO. He was on the right side of every legal/policy decision I can think of during his tenure. He eventually left, IMHO, precisely because he saw an opportunity to be a staunch advocate for these kinds of things at twitter. ~~~ gress Fair enough. At least you acknowledge that Google no longer stands for these things. ~~~ DannyBee I have never claimed Google no longer stands for these things. I just don't believe Google is on the front lines anymore, because people (like you) damn them either way. ~~~ tptacek Their security teams do important work, and largely it seems because they profoundly give a shit about these issues. They're still the front line technically. ~~~ gress On security, yes. On "free speech, etc.", no. ------ nickthemagicman I'm really happy this position was given to a chick. Hopefully inspire more girls to enter tech and help to mitigate the sausage fest that is the technology industry. ~~~ sergiotapia Her sex has nothing to do with this and I was hoping that for once the HN thread wouldn't involve either side of the debate. ~~~ MrZongle2 No kidding. I would simply hope that the best PERSON for the job was appointed to the position, gender (or race, religion or sexual orientation for that matter) be damned. ------ spindritf US government has a CTO? Moldbug has advocated[1] turning the USG into a corporation for some time now. Not the first prophet to be called a kook at first. [1] [http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formali...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html) ~~~ GFK_of_xmaspast Not the first kook either.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
VLC cone (2005) - omn1 http://nanocrew.net/2005/06/23/vlc-cone/ ====== partomniscient Interestingly it also became so popular it led to further memes [1] [1] : [https://politicalmemestoday.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/prot...](https://politicalmemestoday.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/protestor- helps-cop-install-vlc-media-player.jpg) ------ 8bitsrule That cone always reminds me of Season 1 of 'Newton's Apple' ... opening theme. (It was changed for Season 2. ) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWIrDST8TcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWIrDST8TcY)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Microsoft Works to Perfect Windows Vista - ionela http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/technology/06soft.html?ref=business ====== ionela An advertising blitz intended to help Microsoft polish the tarnished brand of its Windows Vista operating system began this week with a head-scratcher of a commercial.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
“Google Drive” would like to receive keystrokes from any application - bathtub365 https://i.imgur.com/Gi60T9T.png ====== dortmunder13 Lastpass says: "The app needs this permission to provide a global, system-wide shortcut to bring up the search field, so that users can quickly locate a vault entry and copy passwords or launch sites. You can deny this permission request, as the Mac application will continue to work. It will just disable this function from working." I bet it's similar here, they want a system-wide shortcut to get to google drive. Seems like an oddly named permission. ~~~ mirthflat83 I like how they named it. If you can get permission for systemwide keystrokes it is also obviously able to see what you’re typing in other apps. More straightforward for those who are not tech oriented. ~~~ soulofmischief Sounds like a bad API. There should be a way to register shortcuts and macros without giving keystroke information to the app. ~~~ tryptophan Doesn't linux work like this? Where certain input starts at the top (kernel), and then goes to the first program that "listens" for a certain key/combo? So you could have a program only listen/capture certain keys? ~~~ jankotek XWin app can listen to all keystrokes in system. This was fixed in Wayland. ~~~ capableweb How would you write an application that uses global shortcuts in Wayland? ~~~ ubercow13 Probably through a series of incompatible and as-yet-unimplemented APIs for each desktop environment and window manager you want to support. ------ djsumdog So there's no Apple APIs for global shortcuts and apps like Lastpass and Google Drive have to request all keystrokes to implement one? Has this problem been fixed on Wayland? Because I remember it having the same issue. ~~~ jjeaff That's what I was wondering. I just came across this with the Google calendar API. I was annoyed that the Facebook business appointments gcal sync wanted full access to read all my calendars and any calendars shared with me. All I want is for it to be able to add appts. But apparently, the gcal api doesn't have the granularity to even allow full access to a single calendar. ------ dudus I guess this is some security model on Catalina. I couldn't find any info on what features of Google drive specifically would not work if you deny but there are plenty of questions online for different applications. Here's one for last pass: [https://forums.lastpass.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=349965](https://forums.lastpass.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=349965) ------ mistersys This is really just an example of the impressive security policies of macOS, if I'm not mistaken as long as you have admin permissions you can trivially create a keylogger on Windows 10 without any such special permissions. ~~~ Loranubi Well if you have admin permissions, you should be allowed to do anything. ~~~ acdha That philosophy has been very helpful to malware authors over the years. The modern approach has been to make that less of a binary decision and make sure the user can see it happening and change their mind: e.g. allow you to write an app which does something privileged but require a prompt and prevent it from hiding its actions. ------ coding123 History catching up to today's security environment. This is also how permissions and APIs evolve over time. Apple (and hopefully other OSes) is likely working on a global hotkey hook system, that has a less intrusive permission requirement. Unfortunately it will take YEARs before applications in general start using that. And this is Absolutely the correct thing for the OS to do. ------ floatingatoll Using dynamic overriding to intercept and NSLog calls to UIKeyCommand should be sufficient to find out precisely what key(s) they’re setting listeners for, but I don’t have the experience to finish this idea. Someone who’s familiar with dylib injecting would know: [https://stackoverflow.com/a/27608606](https://stackoverflow.com/a/27608606) ------ therealmarv I strongly suggest this alternative software for the desktop: [https://www.insynchq.com/](https://www.insynchq.com/) Worth every penny and is (for me) the better Desktop client. ------ dorianmariefr also happened to me on a random game downloaded from the App Store: [https://i.imgur.com/dr0YVVG.png](https://i.imgur.com/dr0YVVG.png) ~~~ ThePowerOfFuet You should let Apple know about that at [email protected]. ------ onreact Intriguing! Can you please provide a bit more of context? ~~~ bathtub365 I wish I could, I just had the dialog pop up out of nowhere while I was using my laptop. I have no idea why it wants this access. ------ limeblack Bad keyboard shortcut or bad drag and drop support maybe? ------ d33 Isn't it just badly implemented shortcut support? ------ teamspirit I don't understand, I use skhd [0] which uses global shortcuts for things like window switching and I've never seen such a request. Unless asking for accessibility permission is the same thing, which I doubt (but admittedly don't know for certain). [0] [https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd](https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd) ~~~ sukilot Accessibilty is even more powerful/general control than this. [https://www.howtogeek.com/297083/why-do-some-mac-apps- need-t...](https://www.howtogeek.com/297083/why-do-some-mac-apps-need-to- control-this-computer-using-accessibility-features/) ~~~ teamspirit Indeed it is. I clearly had it confused. Thanks! ------ rsync So google drive is also a keylogger ? Not surprising. I wonder - is there a way to look up app permissions without actually installing them ? Which is to say, can I, using my web browser, browse either the apple app store, or google play store, and research, in advance, what a particular app is going to request (or demand) access to ? ~~~ dessant I doubt Google Drive is a keylogger. Apps should be able to register global shortcuts and get notified when a shortcut is triggered. There is an open source client app for Google Play called Aurora Store, it lists declared permissions and known trackers within the app. The data is provided by Exodus Privacy: [https://reports.exodus- privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.google....](https://reports.exodus- privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.google.android.apps.docs/latest/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Jay Walker's Library - aresant http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker?currentPage=all ====== grinich Full article without pagination: [http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker...](http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker?currentPage=all) ------ Luc My library has a Darwin bobblehead, a 4-bit relais computer, a rock from the top of Vesuvius, a small meteor, a 1kg pure tungsten cylinder and a magnesium one of the same size, some robot arms, a variety of Game&Watches, a Sterling engine and a steam engine, and a 1 cm scale cube. It all feels kind of inadequate now (on the other hand, that's enough crap already!). ~~~ mtts Mine has books. ~~~ Luc Yeah, but then those are implied. > 2500 last time I counted. ~~~ Ixiaus Impressive. Have you read all of them (that would be even more impressive)? I know a lot of people with incredible libraries in their homes but they don't read any of the books the have... ~~~ Luc It's quite an unordered mess, so it looks less impressive than it sounds! I'm just getting old and have been buying for a while. I think it is compensation for my _awful_ memory - I read books with pencil in hand, underlining and making notes in the margins, so I like to keep the books around after I have read them. Also libraries here often don't carry the books I want to read (or they're translated), so buying makes sense for me. I don't do this with novels of course. Lately I have been thinking I should make notes on the computer instead, like Derek Sivers does, e.g. <http://sivers.org/book/ArtOfProfitability> To finally answer your question, I have a stack of about 250 books I haven't read yet. Some of them I'll probably never read - I once bought the 10 best poker books, but I just can't get interested in the subject anymore. ------ boots I had the great pleasure of visiting the Walker library last year. Not only is the library packed inch to inch with incredible artifacts as Wired describes, but it is truly his own as well, with items that have been great personal inspirations to him as well. What surprised me the most, however, is how down to earth the entire family is. They are all energetic yet realistic, and some of the friendliest people I have ever met. ------ ryanelkins That is a pretty sweet library. I could totally see myself doing something like that someday - mostly because I love to hoard things I find interesting. Some of those items are extremely unique or rare though and it does make me wonder how much of those kinds of things should end up in private collections versus being more available to the public to some degree. It seems like the risks of losing some of these artifacts would increase over time if they are held privately. That's not to say that people shouldn't be allowed to own them privately... just something to think about. ------ mhunter In case you were wondering, Jay Walker is the founder of Princeline: <http://www.ted.com/speakers/jay_walker.html> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_S._Walker> [http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/54/2000/LIR.jhtml?passLi...](http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/54/2000/LIR.jhtml?passListId=54&passYear=2000&uniqueId=AJXH&passListType=Person&datatype=Person) ------ RyanMcGreal s/library/museum ------ mitjak If Wikipedia were to become a physical library, that would be it. ~~~ chasingsparks I'm a big Wikipedia fan, but I think its corporeal form would be more likely to resemble the U.S. Government Housing and Urban Development building rather than this. ------ alxndr How do you dust all that stuff??? ------ Ixiaus This is very cool, it would be more cool if he made it a public museum. It would obviously cost money to move the stuff into a proper building with security and staffing but would be great for so many people... ~~~ joezydeco Being a patent troll and all, I'm sure Jay Walker could care less about sharing anything with the public. ------ chasingsparks Ask HN: I need some motivation. Have anything for that? ;)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Beginner’s Guide to Optimizing Pandas Code for Speed - chasedehan https://engineering.upside.com/a-beginners-guide-to-optimizing-pandas-code-for-speed-c09ef2c6a4d6 ====== stevesimmons This is a good point to plug my talks on 'Pandas from the Inside' (A), 'Big Pandas' (B) and 'Pandas 2.0' (C) that I presented at various PyData conferences over the last 18 months: \- PyData London 2016 - (A), 60 mins, videos online \- PyData Washington DC 2016 - (A), 90 mins, videos online \- PyData Amsterdam 2017 - (A) and (B), 3 hours \- PyData Berlin 2017 - (A) and (B), compressed 90 mins, video probably online \- PyCon UK 2017 - (A), (B) and (C), 2 hours PDF slides for (A) are here: [https://github.com/stevesimmons/pydata- ams2017-pandas-and-da...](https://github.com/stevesimmons/pydata- ams2017-pandas-and-dask-from-the-inside/raw/master/slides-1-pandas-from-the- inside.pdf) Others are in my other repos on github: [https://github.com/stevesimmons](https://github.com/stevesimmons) ------ deepsun Doesn't NumPy use SIMD instructions? There's no mention of that in the article. ~~~ VHRanger It does under certain installations. Anaconda tends to favor intel MKL on most x86 systems ------ VHRanger Main performance tip is to find ways not to copy data generally: \- use .loc[] \- use inplace=True ~~~ audiometry can you elaborate on `using .loc[]` -- what is the defective approach it replaces? ~~~ sceadu I would assume using df[['colA', 'colB']] for projection/column selection? ~~~ sceadu Also, I would caution about using inplace=True. See: [https://tomaugspurger.github.io/method- chaining.html](https://tomaugspurger.github.io/method-chaining.html) (ctrl+F: "Inplace?") ------ setr There's something really offensive about attributing "premature optimization..." to xkcd, even as a joke ------ L_226 step 1 - don't use pandas ~~~ bunderbunder Pandas isn't perfect, but for small- to medium-size datasets, I haven't seen much that matches its performance, and I haven't seen anything that matches its combination of performance and ease of use. ~~~ closed As a person who deeply enjoys developing with python, I'd have to reluctantly say R's tidyverse is a delight to use and often faster than pandas in my experience. ~~~ bunderbunder Ah, good to know. I haven't touched R in a while. Does tidyverse fix up the mess that is string handling in R? ~~~ closed Sorry for the late reply. stringr does a pretty good job (though I like how python handles strings better).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple buy map service to compete with Google? - edw519 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10364988-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5 ====== jgrahamc That's a really annoying headline because it's not a question, so why's there a question mark? ~~~ ZeroGravitas Apple buy map service. To compete with Google? I think that's what they were aiming for. ------ mtholking the class references on these two are strikingly similar: <http://www.pushpin.com/api/1.3/docs/> [http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/reference.htm...](http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/reference.html) ------ volida here is two links what it looks like <http://www.pushpin.com/api/1.3/docs/tabs.html> <http://www.pushpin.com/api/1.3/docs/maptype.html> ~~~ truebosko If there's one thing that stands out for me in Google Maps at a very quick glance it's the colours. I've always loved Google's brighter, more distinguishable colours more than any other services (MapQuest uses/used such muted ones as well.) ~~~ volida Zooming-in in Europe, it appears that they don't have any license for maps outside the US. ------ jrockway You are missing a few words: " _Did_ Apple buy _a_ map service to compete with Google?" ------ georgekv [http://blogs.computerworld.com/14835/apple_purchased_mapping...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/14835/apple_purchased_mapping_company_in_july_to_replace_google) Apple bought Placebase in July it seems.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What Is It to be Intellectually Humble? - jseliger http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-it-be-intellectually-humble ====== ScottBurson The best definition of humility I have heard is: keeping in mind the possibility that one might be wrong.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Diversity Crisis in AI, 2017 edition - rmeertens http://www.fast.ai/2017/08/16/diversity-crisis/ ====== anasayubi I don't see how you plan on targeting diversity within AI by hosting classes in a concrete location (that too in the US). You want diversity? Send your employees abroad to 3rd world countries. I lead a university society in Pakistan that focuses on raising awareness and expertise in AI. We're in dire need of mentors and experts. ------ DarkKomunalec > guess what the diversity stats of the Google Brain team is? It is ~94% male > with 44 men and just 3 women and over 70% White. She has a point complaining about the 94% males, but as the US is 72.4% white, I don't see what's wrong with "over 70% White". > just 3% of Google’s technical employees are Black or Latino Heh, Asians are once again not diverse enough to even mention.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bootstrapping an Idea: the Paid Beta - WadeF http://bryanhelmig.com/bootstrapping-an-idea-the-paid-beta/ ====== fudged71 This model might be great if you have a successful and well-researched idea. But I'm concerned about validation, costs, and pivots. What happens when your learnings pivot the app in a direction that [some] paid users aren't interested in? They have bought access to a service which might not align to their needs anymore and they likely wouldn't have access to the version which they paid for. Sure, a dollar is a small amount, but I feel as though the effect is more pronounced than with free services. Heck, free services get flack a lot of the time for changing strategy or shutting down. I guess if your feedback and learnings are from the vocal majority, you might underestimate the backlash from the silent _real_ majority. Furthermore, what happens when you have 10 paid signups (let's say $10 total) for a service that needs $100 worth of infrastructure? Do you end the service and refund the money? Do you pocket the money and move on? Do you fork up the remaining infrastructure cost from your pocket and continue? I thought the value of kickstarter and the MVP model was the validation to support the product, whereas this model seems to have a grey area in that regard. ~~~ bryanh So, basically, that boils down to: I have a critical mass of paying users and I have to disappoint a small portion of them. I hope I'm not misrepresenting your comment because on the spectrum of problems afflicting early stage startups, _them's the good kind_. On a more serious note, we didn't have too much of a problem with it and we had to say "no" quite a few times. We'd just offer to refund their money and explain the situation the best we could. ~~~ fudged71 Yes but you're describing this as an alternative to the free beta/mvp model. With an equal number of hypothetical users, you're disappointing paying users, where the alternative is that they haven't paid (and I postulate that they would be less disappointed because of it!). Perhaps the free model could be a more positive experience for a brand, and have less frustrations on the customer service side. I guess it's just another factor to consider. They both seem to be viable models. And I'm not experienced with either. ~~~ WadeF We actually found people who paid us to be much more helpful and understanding with potential issues. Probably because they knew we were working hard on solving a problem that they paid for. We also offered a money-back guarantee, but barely anyone ask for one (<1%). Customer service isn't bad since the volume for a paid beta isn't what you'd see for a free beta. This has the side affect of keeping your beta group contained so that you really get to know your users. Free users were the opposite. They would be angry when things didn't work out quite right and complain about the beta price (roughly $5, though we moved it around some). Free also has more issues on the customer service side simply because you have to do more of it. I can certainly think of scenarios where a free beta makes sense, but if I'm starting another B2B company I would charge from day one all over again. ~~~ fudged71 Interesting observations. Thanks! ------ callmeed I really like this and I'm doing it with a new product we are building. We have existing customers on our main product and this new one is based on a survey of them. So, I think we have enough validation to do a paid beta. ------ asperous I think in a kickstarter-like way, this could work. If you make your users feel like buying in early could benefit them in the long run, and that they get some say in how the product develops, I could see myself paying into a startup service I really felt like I needed. Of course, it only takes a few of these to crash and burn, or completely not listen to their users and turn against them to make people lose trust in the whole model. ------ salman89 There is a valuation issue here - if you have # of customers x, price your product at y and make revenue z=x _y, your valuation in future seed rounds will somewhat become based on revenue z. If revenue z is not pivotal to your runway, you might be better off pitching to VCs that your revenue can be z'=x_ y', where y' is your real value to customers. If y and y' differ by a significant factor (which the OP seems to be advocating), you can make a significant negative impact on your valuation as a company. I don't see that charging customers a fraction of what they would pay in the future provides the benefits the article says: "It meets two pretty crucial components of a proper early stage startup: talk to users and write code." You can talk to free users and you will still be writing code. "The minor revenue is not the prize. The fact that someone will pay you at all for some promised product is the prize." If you are providing real value for your beta customers, it will not be hard to determine that they would pay in the future. ------ frozenport Most small companies launch products that would be considered beta by any major company. We already have paid beta! ------ bradleyjoyce I would consider my company, <https://socialyzerhq.com>, to currently be in a paid beta period. Our paying customers are amazing. They provide us awesome feedback and encourage us to keep going. ------ alexsilver This sounds great on the surface but I'm always wondering about specific implementation of this method. How do you charge people for a promise? Do you set a certain timeline so people have something to look forward to? ------ chmike Would this work for projects with a strong network effect ? Let say a new whatsapp (example). ~~~ comex It seems apparent that it wouldn't - convincing all your friends to download some random app is one thing, convincing them to pay more than $2 is another. Then again, app.net went with this model and a fairly high price and is moderately successful. (The combination of a target audience generally highly willing to pay money for internet things and a large amount of hype probably helped.) ~~~ chmike Thanks. This is surprising indeed. Will it stick ? I doubt it was bootstrapping. ------ capex This is very specific to Zapier. It won't be applicable to a majority of the startups. ~~~ bryanh Really? Asking people to pay earlier rather than later can _only_ work with Zapier? ~~~ jasonbarone I don't agree with that but you have to admit Zapier is in an entirely different category than most apps. The product is delivering things almost no other app is doing, and it can solve major problems with high development costs. I would have thrown money at it without even using the product, whereas these newly executed old idea apps are just not that interesting...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Weebly featured in Chrome Web Store - drusenko http://blog.weebly.com/2/post/2010/12/weebly-launches-as-a-featured-google-chrome-web-store-app.html ====== drusenko To answer the question that will inevitably come: It's more than just a link. We're really excited about this for a few reasons. First and foremost, it eliminates any sign-up friction to use the app, and that's pretty important. Chrome users are generally logged in with their Google accounts already. Second, it's an important discovery feature that hasn't previously existed for the web. Chrome will be driving people to the web store, and a large install base of users (120M+ active) will hopefully be using it as a trusted source to find, rate, and install applications. Third, Google is really pushing people building on web technologies to create their websites more like traditional apps. If you look at the NYT or Sports Illustrated apps they demo'ed today, you'll find a lot more in common interaction-wise with apps for the iPhone or iPad than you would with your traditional website. The difference is in the technologies used to make the app work. Weebly is already a very complex and rich web application, and it's always been awkward to describe it as a "website" instead of an "application". EDIT: Also we'd really appreciate if people would try out the app and give it a rating at [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cnocophcbjfiimmnhl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cnocophcbjfiimmnhlhleaooedeheifb) ~~~ babble Off topic question: How do you feel about so many people creating website with spammy content for SEO purposes? I've come across a few of them. I'm sure a ton get made. How do you deal with that? ~~~ drusenko We fight spam fairly aggressively, and the amount of spam created on the system is a very small percentage of the legitimate users. You've probably visited multiple legitimate Weebly websites before but just didn't know we were behind them. From what we can tell, we have a lower percentage of spammy sites created than sites like Blogger or Wordpress. But it's an ongoing fight. ~~~ babble Gotcha, thanks. Was just curious. Good luck and congrats. ------ klbarry Weebly is great, I wish that design contest went somewhere though (it seems like there is still few basic design choices) ~~~ drusenko Actually, the design contest results were amazing. We had over 2,000 submissions, and a couple hundred of those will end up being implemented in Weebly. We're actually waiting until we can fully support all of the "features" of some of the best designs before bringing them in to the gallery, but half of the finalists are already live and available.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers - geuis I know there are plugins than can somewhat do this, but no solutions are universal or great.<p>Please update all of our browsers so that no automatic video/audio can play without user interaction/permission.<p>Its getting to be impossible to visit many sites today without being bombarded by video and sound playing by default on the web. In the worst cases such as on mobile browsers like iOS Safari, visiting a site will start playing media that kills whatever you're already listening to in another app.<p>This is eating up our data and inconveniencing millions of people using your products.<p>Please help us enable a better web. ====== tfgg Things that make me just close tabs straight away: 1) Autoplaying videos, especially ads. 2) Pop-ups / overlays. 3) Loading lots of extra elements causing text to jump around. Especially true if I'm just browsing around and click on something that looks interesting, the above will take that thing from "this might be worth 30 seconds" to "not worth it". Why kill that little dopamine boost someone just got from clicking on a link to your site? If you're wondering why your bounce rate is so high... though maybe these dark patterns bring in enough ad revenue that it's worth it. I don't see how 3 helps that, though, just lazy coding. Or maybe other people are more tolerant and it doesn't really affect the bounce rate. ~~~ JustSomeNobody Your know there are HN readers who write this crap. I wonder if they'll chime in on why they do. ~~~ TeMPOraL So the other day I met the guy who makes all that crap on-line I told him you can have my cash But first you know I've got to ask What made you want to live this kind of life? He said there ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed; ain't nothing in this world for free I know I can't slow down I can't hold back though you know I wish I could Oh no there ain't no rest for the wicked Until we close the shop for good... ~~~ Gracana Formatting text this way makes it hard to read on mobile and in text browsers. I couldn't even reply just now, my text wouldn't show up as I typed it, I had to click "edit" so I could view and edit my post by itself. [edit] dang, can something be done about this? Flagging for format? Maybe a little drastic, but try reading HN in elinks, you'll see that a long line breaks the whole page. How about line wrap? Desktop users would be unaffected, and it would be a better compromise for mobile. ~~~ peeja Wouldn't it be easier to just fix the CSS? ~~~ CamperBob2 Or get a browser that works? ~~~ Gracana The web would be a lot more accessible if so many designers didn't think like you. ------ Ruphin What you are really asking is for Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS to make a better web _for you_. Because you don't want media to autoplay does not mean it is a good solution to just block it outright for everyone. Some websites have legitimate use for autoplaying media. Some users (believe it or not) actually _like_ their videos autoplaying when they scroll through their Facebook feed or whatever media site they visit. Are their usecases and desires not legitimate? Your argument is in the line of "I don't like going to Starbucks, so legislators should get together and ban Starbucks stores for everyone". Even if you have a legitimate reason for not liking Starbucks, the solution is for you to just stop going there. If you don't like websites that use autoplaying media, then stop visiting them. Or, like some others in this thread suggested, install some plugin or other software that makes sites behave the way you want to. A call for browser vendors to implement some opt-in setting that does what you want would be much more realistic suggestion. (As some other comments pointed out, for some browsers this setting already exists) ~~~ morganvachon Your Starbucks example is flawed. Starbucks employees don't barge into your office with a boombox playing at full volume and screaming at you about their latest drinks, then make you pay for the taxi that brought them there, simply because you opened an article about their new store in your area. That's what autoplaying ads and videos on the web do: They catch you off guard with loud, annoying audio that you can't always just turn off, and if you're on mobile you're paying for the privilege with your data allowance. You didn't ask for it, it attacked you without warning. > _A call for browser vendors to implement some opt-in setting that does what > you want would be much more realistic suggestion._ On this I agree with you entirely, and I think that's what the OP is actually asking for. ~~~ RyanOD "barge into your office"? Seems to me when you visit someone's website, you're in their office, not the other way around. I'm no fan of the auto-everything web, but I don't think your analogy here is sound. ~~~ morganvachon Only if "their office" is out on the street in full view of the public, just like the rest of the web. Since we're ripping this analogy to shreds anyway, let's take a different view: You call up Starbucks on the phone (i.e. visit their website) and request that they read you their new menu and describe to you their new store location (read: you click on the link with the info you wanted). Before they do as you asked, without warning they turn on a megaphone, point it to the receiver, and start playing a looping advertisement for a new Harry Potter line of toys. You didn't ask for that Potter nonsense, you're now deaf in that ear, everyone around you is looking at you funny, and you hang up the phone in disgust rather than wait through three iterations of toy pimping just to find out some simple information they claimed to have on their info line (website). Then, on your next phone bill you see a per-minute charge for that call (as in, they used your metered data to spam you). ------ the8472 firefox -> about:config -> media.autoplay.enabled = false additionally the dom.audiochannel.mutedByDefault and media.default_volume settings may also be useful if you want slightly different behavior. If you want a more blunt tool you can also use content blockers to block media content until you opt into it for a particular site. > I know there are plugins than can somewhat do this, but no solutions are > universal or great. How so? There are about a dozen FF addons covering different use-cases like muting inactive tabs or all tabs but a designated one. If none of them meet your particular expectations that might also indicate that everyone wants something different and it is difficult for browser vendors to cover all expectations. Maybe you should modify an existing addon instead to do what you want. ~~~ ynak I'm taking a more drastic way; turning media.{mp4, webm, ...}.enabled into False never let YouTube and other media autoplay(even play nomally) without any addons. When I want to watch videos, download them by youtube-dl and watch locally. ~~~ Exuma You download YT videos before watching them? Seriously? Sometimes the suggestions on HN are literally insane in the amount of effort people go through to avoid things that wouldn't be a problem in the first place if you did something simple like use adblock software. I saw some other post where a guy hand edits tens of thousands of entries in his hosts file... yeah dude what an amazing use of time. ~~~ morganvachon Watching later with youtube-dl is actually the recommended way to do YouTube on OpenBSD; various "OpenBSD as a desktop OS" tutorials mention it, and in practice it works very well. On that particular OS it is due to the lack of a native Flash plugin, but even with YouTube offering most of their videos via HTML5 it actually makes for a better experience to download and then view them. I'd imagine it could even be automated trivially, by calling youtube-dl via a browser plugin, or by writing a script to pass YouTube URLs to with a simple GUI thrown together in FLTK or TCL/TK. As for the _hosts_ file, a hand-edited file works great, and you don't have to do thousands of entries on your own. You can find some great examples all over the web, then tune them to your own needs, saving a lot of time. For example, there are at least two out there for Windows 10 users to block all communication with Microsoft's servers, avoiding any telemetry and tracking by the OS. If your router is smart enough, you can even upload your _hosts_ file to it to block any device on your network from getting ads and being tracked. ~~~ kalden_ > actually makes for a better experience to download and then view them. Can you specify how? I was doing this when I didn't have enough RAM for the Youtube player with latest Firefox and it's not what I personally felt. The current player has size options (larger or full-screen), annotations and comments can be disabled (e.g. with Adblock lists). In the end it's always having the video canvas in front of your eyes. Maybe integration with a tiling WM? > I'd imagine it could even be automated trivially, by calling youtube-dl via > a browser plugin, or by writing a script to pass YouTube URLs to with a > simple GUI thrown together in FLTK or TCL/TK. Existing means for VLC integration aren't that bad either. ~~~ morganvachon > _Can you specify how?_ For me it was because Firefox on OpenBSD, even on a modern, fast system (quad core AMD64 with 8GB RAM), is so slow and stuttery with any streaming video it was too painful. Using youtube-dl and playing it via mplayer worked much better, and you can customize mplayer's controls to mimic YouTube's if you like (though I never bothered). VLC is another great option, it's designed for streaming so yes that would be a great alternative. I personally don't use VLC on non-Windows OSes except on Haiku. ------ massysett This behavior is so bad that I have changed my browsing behavior. I visit only selected, trusted news sites, as "free" sites are horrible offenders here. Google is much less useful while on desktops as it is likely to return obnoxious websites. So far I have not had a bad autoplay problem on iOS. However a growing problem is obnoxious pop up ads that are difficult to escape. Overall more of my Internet usage is shifting to apps because the Web is just too annoying. Years ago the Web was like a friendly, boisterous marketplace in a safe town. Now it's like the street in "Casablanca" where I must constantly guard against someone picking my pocket. It's not worth using except for a few sites I trust. Google in particular had better watch out. With Web hostility their search is not as useful. One reaction of theirs has been to pack more information directly into their search result. ~~~ amasad You're implying that the web has gotten worse, but in my experience it used to be much worse. Just the memory of the sea of pop-ups that you had to fight when browsing the web makes my stomach turn. However, there seem to be a recent trend in auto-platyng video, in fact this is not only happening on the web but on apps too like Facebook and Twitter. ~~~ cyberferret Facebook and Twitter seem to be going for the auto repeat play on videos too, so unless you physically stop them, they just keep playing over and over again. Annoying if you have turned away to do something else or have scrolled down the page a bit more - you have to go back up and find the offending video again to stop it. (NB: I normally play videos with speeches or music clips, so I don't need to SEE the video, but just listen to the audio.) ------ hashtagMERKY I really dislike auto-playing audio and video as well, for all the reasons you mentioned, but also for a less logical reason: it just makes it feel like the browser isn't on your side. If a site is automatically playing audio or a video advert, its design is not in the user's interest, so in that situation your software has to choose whose side to take. I just want and expect the software I have installed on my computer to take my side, and always act in my interests. It probably sounds silly but I just think software should always be primarily designed for the end user. ~~~ Tepix What makes you think the browser is on your side? You are getting it for free, therefore you are paying in some other way. Look at Mozilla. They claim to be the champion of your rights, yet they enable 3rd party cookies by default and hide the setting to change it. That's just pathetic. They should stop their masquerade and just admit that they are Google's puppet (they are providing the money to keep Mozilla alive) and NOT serving the user's interest. ~~~ mcbits Unless I've misunderstood something, I don't think Mozilla has received much if any money from Google for a couple of years now. They have search deals with Yahoo, Yandex, and Baidu in their respective markets, which would make me nervous about the future if I worked for Mozilla. Not sure whether those deals might lead them to make decisions against the users' interests. ------ fjarlq There are a couple Chromium bugs filed about this: [https://crbug.com/107923](https://crbug.com/107923) and [https://crbug.com/514102](https://crbug.com/514102) Overriding autoplay can lead to a confusing user experience -- play/pause synchronization issue with embedded YouTube videos: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1217438](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1217438) The Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension is often suggested for Chrome, and it has 112,213 users, but it's far from perfect: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable- html5-auto...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable- html5-autoplay/efdhoaajjjgckpbkoglidkeendpkolai) ~~~ hub_ But then Chrome and Youtube come from the same company. Maybe they should coordinate. ~~~ vurpo How could they? They can't just disable autoplay but make an exception for YouTube, that would be wrong in so many ways. You can't make that into a web standard, so it would promote browser fragmentation, for example. So how about a whitelist/blacklist? Well, since users can't even agree among themselves on which websites belong on which side of the fence, such a list would quickly become a nightmare to maintain, still be based on someone's personal bias, and would still leave small websites at a disadvantage. Pretty much the only thing that would work is a permissions question to the user, like there is currently for e.g. location access. "Do you want to allow _videosite.example.com_ to automatically play video content? \ _Allow, \_ Allow and remember, \\Deny" ------ fgpwd There should be a media play permission just like there is for accessing your webcam or showing notifications. You give the permission once to a website such as youtube, and from them on videos would play automatically for the domain youtube.com. No videos would play on any website to which you deny this permission. ~~~ jasonkostempski Netflix is one of the offenders with their new full screen video ads when you first hit the site. ------ glandium My "favorite" case is a site that sometimes embeds videos, and also has autoplaying videos for advertising. You can't listen to anything from the former because of the latter. Even worse, when you pause the advertising video, it autorestarts after a while. So if the embedded video is long enough, you just can't watch it entirely. So, in fact, while e.g. Firefox has a mute button for each tab, I also wish it had an individual mute button for each <video> and <embed> element. ~~~ kijin You can actually mute or pause individual videos by right-clicking on them and using the context menu. Many videos override the context menu, though, and it won't help with ads that automatically restart themselves. An option to disable an object altogether would be more useful. A more drastic solution that I sometimes resort to is to nuke the offending part of the page (often an entire sidebar) using the built-in developer tools. Just select the area you want to nuke in the "Inspector" tab, and hit the Delete key. ~~~ the8472 > Many videos override the context menu, though Which in turn can be overriden by shift-rightclick ~~~ marmaduke Ah great tip. ------ cyberferret Another suggestion - enable pausing on video. ANY video. Keep seeing more and more advertising videos that don't even give you the ability to pause. In the past 12 months or so, I am really finding my web browsing experience hitting new shitty lows. Pretty hard to see the content you want these days behind that clutter of Outbrain ads, pop up newsletter subs, auto playing videos and the like... ~~~ kevincox This is actually quite difficult because even though they are using the browsers video pipeline the browser doesn't know anything about the UI of the page so it is very hard to expose a way for the user to pause/disable any video across all sites. I guess a hotkey that puts buttons on all videos might be good but I'm sure some sites would find ways to layer fake videos that would defeat this. It all comes back to the difficulty of running non-free software. ~~~ brassic You don't need a pause button on all the videos. You just need a single button that pauses all the videos. I would be delighted if the escape key on my laptop served this purpose. Of course, now you have no UI no restart a particular video. But the advertisers would figure this out about 30s after a global pause feature was introduced. ~~~ mikro2nd Look at your keyboard, up there, top row, right hand side. You might just be the person who has found an actual use for that button labelled "Pause". Congrats! ;) ------ ivank I wrote [https://github.com/ludios/mute-new- tabs](https://github.com/ludios/mute-new-tabs) and I am now happier with a quiet Chrome. The idea is to mute all new tabs and unmute them only when you interact with an in-page volume control (or manually unmute via the tab icon/context menu). This solves only the sound problem though, not the data consumption. ~~~ eru Awesome, thanks! Any chance you are putting it on the official extension store? ~~~ ivank I am open to handing it over to someone I can trust who wants to distribute it there. ~~~ eru Cool. I never published an extension for Chrome ever, but following the guide at [https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/publish](https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/publish) looks bearable. If you put your repository under some kind of open source licence, I can try the process on a lazy Sunday afternoon, if you like. My email address is in my profile. ------ emidln In the past, I was responsible for analytics around a decision to autoplay or not autoplay videos on a media site. The site did both mobile and desktop videos. voluntary customer feedback was universally negative * bounce rate decreased substantially (around 40%) * total interactions with the page increased almost 3x (clicks on significant UX elements such as like/subscibe/additional video plays) * interactions for those using some form of adblock stayed the same (presumably these people also had an autoplay off plugin) In summary, what users say they like and what they actually like are wildly different. The average user seemed to engage more when we removed the burden of first interaction. We did eventually kill autoplay, but only so we could have a consistent experience between YouTube and non YouTube videos (YouTube took efforts to stop counting autoplayed videos for advertising purposes). ~~~ wott The number of times I have to click a bit everywhere at random in a panic because some shit autoplay sound or video started yelling and I can't figure which one it is and where it is :-[] ~~~ emidln Presumably you don't click on a button that says share and then click facebook, and then complete the share action in a panic. If you do, I love you and would love to find out how to induce your kind of panic in more people. ------ gkya Nowadays I find I can't use the WWW without JS blocked except on a select whitelist of websites. I can't stand downloading 10-15 megabytes for <=1KiB of actual substance. I can't stand the amount of amateurish design decisions I need to fight using websites, some unfortunately unavoidable like my university's web services, or the stupid Edmodo app imposed to us by our professors, etc. And I detest icons, because each and every app / website have different opinions on icons and a different set of cryptic icons which I fear clicking. Also webfonts in many cases are an abomination as many times they are used where a simple stupid half-a-meg PNG would do the job. "Share" buttons that come with some kilobytes of JS, floating headers that leave me five pixels to see the text I'm reading, well, this is an endless list. I'll spare a separate sentence for history-fiddling, I am disgusted when when I hit back unexpected things happen. Google, Youtube, Github, these fiddle with history and replicate browser's things (page loading, history keeping ...) in JS. And as the user I don't have the chance to affect the actual website makers, so blocking JS / cookies / media is the only option. ------ madeofpalk > In the worst cases such as on mobile browsers like iOS Safari What site does this? You can't (auto)play media on iOS without direct user action for exactly the reason you specified. iOS 10 changed this slightly to allow silent or muted videos to autoplay when visible on the screen [https://webkit.org/blog/6784/new-video-policies-for- ios/](https://webkit.org/blog/6784/new-video-policies-for-ios/) ------ forgettableuser I am now a victim of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it". I hated Flash. I either avoided installing it or used a Flash blocker. So I always managed to avoid the auto-playing problem when the Internet primarily used Flash for everything annoying. Now that Flash is about dead and everything is HTML5 now, neither of these techniques work any more to avoid auto-playing. ~~~ username223 I too long for the good old days, when web garbage was mostly confined to Flash and popups (and punch-the-monkey GIFs). Now it's all an HTML5 wasteland full of warring JavaScript. Good job, W3C! ------ izak30 I make art installations and UI/UX research. A modern browser is one of the best technical canvases. If you are working on browsers and you turn things off, please always allow me a backdoor for my own browsers to turn them back on. Complex software control of multimedia and the whole browser experience gives me the ability to develop new ways of interacting with computers. ------ ZenoArrow In my opinion, the problem isn't with auto-playing videos per se, but rather the audio that comes along with it. For example, GIFV is a format that uses auto-playing videos to replace the GIF, and by doing so cuts down on Internet bandwidth usage. I'd suggest that's a legitimate use for auto-playing videos. I only really get annoyed with auto-playing videos when I hear the sound from them, so perhaps the fix should be targeted in this area. It may cause problems for things like YouTube playlists, so I don't think the fix is as simple as 'mute them all by default', but whatever the fix is should rely on some form of user control. ~~~ csydas Well, part of the issue is the audio is part of what they want you to hear because it's considered more effective than just text moving. Animated ads were tried, and I'm going to assume that they weren't considered as effective given the fact that we have video ads instead of Gifv ads. My outsider-looking-in perspective leads me to believe there must be a decent amount of money in the auto-play video ads else the news sites wouldn't bother. Certainly they know they're annoying and frustrating, but if they pay, then I guess they have little reason to care. There's no effective blocking solution at the moment, and people are still coming for the news almost a year into this practice, so it obviously isn't hurting the numbers enough to make an impact. I do feel that sometimes the anti-advertising commentaries need a more directed focus, since at the core a lot of people want content for free without the annoyance of the ads. I certainly do, but I also respect that this content creation and the providing of the content costs money - if a site has an anti-ad blocker and they ask me to turn it off to proceed, I respect their wishes by just _not continuing_. I have yet to come to an article that I felt was worth it, and if the provider's position is "ads or nothing", then I'll respect that. I just ask that they respect my wishes (Do not track, ad blocking, etc). I'm well aware that sites and advertisers don't do this, but I do feel it's important to show the respect. My not going to the site is more than likely logged as a non-click-through, and I hope this makes the intended impact of showing them my preferences. ~~~ ZenoArrow Perhaps I wasn't clear enough before. I'm not expecting advertisers to respect the wishes of individuals. I am suggesting that there should be some form of user control over video auto-plays. The question is what form this user control should take. For example, perhaps whitelists for domains that are permitted to have audio content could be a good solution. These whitelists could be controlled by the user. You would then only opt-in to sites that had content you wanted to listen to. ------ onion2k _This is eating up our data and inconveniencing millions of people using your products._ The data issue can be addressed by only having videos play automatically when the user is on a wifi connection. This is the default for mobile devices already, so it's arguably already solved for _most_ users. The "convenience" issue is something that I strongly suspect is actually something that people think one way but act another - lots of users claim to hate auto-playing videos but then they watch them a lot. Facebook's video engagement statistics are hard to argue with - a well designed video that works without sound (eg something from Buzzfeed) gets a tremendous number of shares, likes and click through engagements. I strongly suspect that turning off auto-playing video, even by default, would actually make the web _worse_ for the majority of people. For those who prefer them not to autoplay, browser vendors _do_ provide that, but the functionality is usually buried in the equivalent of chrome://flags somewhere. ~~~ frankzinger The data issue can be addressed by only having videos play automatically when the user is on a wifi connection. This is the default for mobile devices already, so it's arguably already solved for most users. Not all WiFi connections equate to an infinite amount of data. Due to circumstances I am on a connection for which I pay per GB and it's shared through a WiFi router. I do not want my browser to download videos unless I asked it to. ~~~ egeozcan I have a 3G Mobile Wireless Modem/Router (TP-Link M5250[1], heavily recommended btw) and this "if wireless connection present, download all the things" attitude really annoys me. Android is a big offender. Why on earth I don't get a "download updates automatically only on this particular network" setting... Whatsapp, Google Maps and many other apps too make the same false assumption. [1]: [http://www.tp- link.com/en/products/details/cat-4692_M5250.ht...](http://www.tp- link.com/en/products/details/cat-4692_M5250.html) ~~~ kpozin You can configure Android to treat any specific WiFi network as metered, so apps that care will treat it the same as a mobile network. Look in Settings > Data usage > Wi-Fi > Network restrictions (might be in an overflow menu). ------ IvanK_net I completely disagree with this proposal. All websites should be allowed to play sounds any time they want to. Without it, webapps can not reasonably compete the native apps. I am a developer of web games and being able to play the sound from the beginning, without any interaction from the user, is one of the most essential parts of the game experience. If you visit a website which unexpectedly plays a sound, you should stop visiting it / downvote it / ask the authors to stop doing it. When you are surprised by the sound, the problem is not in browsers, the problem is in authors of webpages / webapps. ~~~ AndrewUnmuted > Without it, webapps can not reasonably compete the native apps. This point, on its own, sounds rather nice to me. After all, the various implementations of modern HTML and Javascript that allow these 'webapps' to function are the same ones being abused ad nauseum by news organizations and other media entities. I don't deny the usefulness of these modern web development features. I also recognize that because most of the world is on Google Chrome, this makes cross-platform support easier for developers. However, I also realize that web apps are popular because of how much easier it is to track, monitor, and collect users' data and behaviors when they are forced to access your application from the browser. My observation has been that auto-playing media in browsers is a common strategy to artificially inflate a site's media engagement figures. The strategy is cheap, prays on users' media illiteracy, and is incredibly dishonest. Worst of all, it allows media companies to sidestep the more expensive problem of producing engaging, high-quality content in favor of dumb little gimmicks to keep inflating their engagement figures. I don't know about everyone else here, but if the content is interesting to me, I'm willing for my right hand to leave the keyboard for about 0.5 seconds in order to click the 'play' button with my mouse. ------ wfunction CNN especially gets on my nerves. They seem to have gone out of their way to do everything they can to make sure all plugins/extensions that try to block it fail. ~~~ codingdave I have edited my hosts file so anything from cdn.turner.com is routed to 127.0.0.1. Works like a charm for CNN.com. All the text, none of the media. ~~~ wfunction The problem is sometimes I DO want to watch the video. I just don't want it to always autoplay. ------ inian It is not as simple as that. Even if videos are prevented from being auto- playing, people resort to much much worse techniques. For example, GIFs - which are much bigger that the corresponding video, worse for battery life etc. To combat this, Chrome recently enabled autoplaying of videos if the video is muted on mobile browser. Hopefully this gets the number of people using GIFs down. Or who knows, people might start animating images on canvas or something. Allowing auto play in some conditions seems to be lesser of two evils according to me.. ~~~ bunderbunder Heck, I'll happily accept not auto-displaying GIFs, too. For non-animated content everyone is using PNG or SVG nowadays, so I doubt there'd be much collateral damage. ------ moepstar Facebook is IMHO the biggest offender in that category, dozens of "in your face" videos no one asked explicitly for... Luckily, there's a setting if you can be bothered - and luckily, for many marketing departments around the world many can't... "Look, how many views our videos have on FB"... ~~~ kccqzy Or you can use likes and shares to influence the Facebook algorithm so that it never presents videos to you in the timeline. If you always like/share text posts and don't watch any videos, Facebook will stop putting videos on your feed. ~~~ moepstar Still, i shouldn't have to do either - neither liking sht i don't really dig, nor having to turn off some setting because somebody thought it is acceptable to just change the default behavior... Also, i don't want to give them _even more_ data about me, even if that is an uphill struggle, more and more seeming sisyphus-like... ------ dredmorbius Yes, absoutely, and please. I filed this bug myself July 2015, though I believe others have existed for years. [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=514102](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=514102) In the meantime, I've taken to blocking hosts and/or domains which are used to serve autoplay media. A small list generates exceptionally high mileage. [http://pastebin.com/FzAgkRnB](http://pastebin.com/FzAgkRnB) I implement this on the router via DDWRT, which protects the entire LAN. You can also add this to your own /etc/hosts file(s) on individual machines, or go further and have a local DNS server be authoritative for these services. The block is intentionally global, and encouraged, as _media providers themselves will find that they cannot reach anyone, anywhere_ so long as autoplay is a default. Again: the Internet and Web are ultimately a user-determines-policy system. And if servers say "fuck you" loudly enough to users, then users can say "fuck you" back. And win. DD-WRT instructions: [https://www.dd- wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Ad_blocking](https://www.dd- wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Ad_blocking) ------ oftenwrong I wrote a small extension for personal use that can set various <video> preferences on a site-by-site basis. One of the main things I wanted to be able to do is disabled autoplay. However, I found that a lot of sites just start the video from js instead of setting the 'autoplay' attribute. I was able to put in some stronger defense by using MutationObserver to stop a video that was played without the user clicking play, but then I found that some sites have code that will force a video to be playing, so even a manual pause would be overridden, and the site's js would contend with my extension's js. There's no way to stop autoplay if we allow free, programmatic access to videos (without blocking js too, which I use noscript for). I had the same problem with the 'loop' attribute. I wanted videos to not loop. I found that some sites loop videos without using the 'loop' attribute. I would disable 'loop' on the <video>, but the <video> would be replaced by a new autoplaying <video> when the original video ended. This is about the point that I gave up on my extension. ------ r721 At least "Click to play" setting for HTML5 audio/video would be great. ------ chenzhekl Autoplay is a feature specified in the W3C standard. Thus it's not the browser makers but websites should be blamed for abusing autoplay. ~~~ lewiseason Another commenter suggested it should be something your browser prompts you for, similar to location or camera access. This seems to solve the poster's issue, whilst keeping within the spec (I assume?) You're right though, websites shouldn't abuse autoplay. ------ ianai I remember you had to click play on flash at one point. It was an option you could turn on in preferences. I'd love to have it back. ------ Belenus There are some sites that display not ads but fake virus alerts. When I visited one of these sites, I got a message blaring out of my computer to call a phone number or to reinstall my computer to get rid of a "virus." (Hopefully it was not.) Every time I closed out of the message box a new one would appear, and I finally managed to close out of the site. It's happened a few times. This may not entirely relate to the topic you were speaking about. :) ------ hashhar For __Firefox __: For Flash, change the Flash Plugin setting to Ask to Activate. For HTML5, switch `media.autoplay.enabled` preference `about:config` to `false`. Or try out FlashStopper [1] to stop both HTML5 and Flash. [1]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/flashstopper/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/flashstopper/) ------ phobius Agree this is an annoyance - how would you propose keeping features like YouTube or Netflix autoplay/playlists in this scenario? ~~~ geuis To be honest, I don't think either should auto-play anyway. I personally prefer to using the Youtube website on my phone vs the app because its a better experience. Given that situation, I am usually looking for the video description and/or comments rather than the video before I start watching it. Unfortunately, Youtube hides the description under a tap icon and you have to scroll past all of the recommended videos to see the comments. Its not an ideal experience. ------ FullMtlAlcoholc Here is a chrome extension that mutes audio for all tabs except thw selected one: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smart-tab- mute/dnf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smart-tab- mute/dnfbgicfhchdpogmafjifjgbcjdaikgn?hl=en) ~~~ hello_there This is an improvement, but I don't think that sound is always welcome in the selected tab either. With a few exceptions (like YouTube) I'd like sound to be off by default. ------ mschuster91 News sites are the worst offenders here. Especially those who put an un- pauseable, unskippable, un-muteable ad in front. I want to read the damn article, not listen to a fucking ad that drones over my Spotify music - so I can't even Fn F10 to get rid of the ad. Worst thing is that many of these video ads can not be caught by Adblock Plus... ------ thomasdd There are situations when you need to play video on load. (for example, you want a nicely designed content or DIVs.) But Maybe a browser option to enable/disable video playback would solve this. Maybe disabling audio would be as an option, so as webdesigner you can show the relevant visual content but without sound. ~~~ lucaspiller > There are situations when you need to play video on load No there really aren't, not on page load [0]. Show a nice still with a big play button on it - people know what that means. It's probably going to load faster too, so people won't be stuck staring at a blank section for 15 seconds. Or even worse, start reading and scrolling the first two paragraphs, then wonder why some audio started playing. And as others have said, you may be costing the user money - there is no way to tell if they have to pay for their data usage, so be kind and minimise how much data you need. [0] I may be able to excuse you if you are building a streaming video service, and want the next episode to play automatically. ~~~ pdkl95 > [0] That could be handled by allowing the media tag to be changed and restarted with a new URL during (and _only_ during) the "ended" event[1]. That would allow continuing an already playing video with minimal side effects. E.g. only alow something like this: var video = document.getElementsById("current_video_tag"); var play_next_video = function () { video.src = "https://exmple.com/next_video_url"; video.currentTime = 0; video.play(); }); /* this should work / video.addEventListener("ended", play_next_video); / but these shouldn't */ video.addEventListener("progress", play_next_video); setTimeout(play_next_video, 1000); [1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Guide/Events/Me...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Guide/Events/Media_events) ~~~ kuschku And what if you want to support changing the video through remote control? Say, allow the user to open the site on their phone and TV, and the phone shows play/pause/next buttons, the TV shows the episode, and the phone can be used to skip to the next episode? (Data synced because the user is logged in on both, via a standard webbrowser)? ------ martin-adams This happened to Flash in IE I think about 10 years ago. Every flash animation on the page had a some form of 'click to play' cta. I find that pages that have sound more annoying than video, but isn't a major problem for me as I have headphones plugged in permanently. I think I would prefer such a feature request as a user option, like a permission request. This is how popup windows, full screen, taking control of the cursor behaves. I do worry about the data usage on mobile though with autoplaying videos. Even pausing them doesn't stop it from fetching more in the buffer. I suspect there may be some valid use cases for autoplaying (such as background looping videos, YouTube, etc), particularly when run in some type of kiosk mode on a TV. It's another example of where some spoil the experience and the behaviour of the web ends up getting locked down to stop them. ------ therealmarv There are use cases where this useful. Not that I like that but autoplaying video (without sound) is e.g. needed for some splash backgrounds (like AirBnB is using) and many ads use that feature too. I would like only sound automatically muted (like Instagram and FB is doing with their videos). ------ hobarrera Video: Arguable, since a lot of times is part of the basic design and very lightweight. Audio: MUST be muted be default. There's nothing that I hate more than opening something in a new tab for later, and a few seconds later, having to track down there that damn noise is coming from. Always, always, mute tabs be default! ------ msinclair Another problem that Facebook has (and I'm sure others have as well) is attempting to fetch dozens and dozens of videos. At once. This generally locks up even desktop browsers as they try to preload the content. I've seen it trying to grab 130 videos before. Pretty ridiculous. ------ ccvannorman Last night I watched episode 8 of Cosmos (I highly recommend Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson) and learned that for 2+ decades (from 1920s to 1940s), oil industry knowingly propagated bad science that poisoned millions of people in pursuit of profits. Sadly, pop-ups and auto-play videos lead to more profits, at least perceived/short term. No amount of whining by us will change a board meeting at a medium-large company result. "We need to do X that will piss off Y customers but result in Z more profits." Companies always choose profits. I'm on board with getting these things changed but appealing to big corporations because "it sucks" is never going to amount to "but it makes us more money." We need a different strategy. ------ dustinmoorenet As an old Javascript developer, I don't see how the browser could do this without making legitimate websites suffer. You have the freedom to run JS code at any point in the DOM load, after an amount of time (setInterval or setTimeout) or after user interaction. And you can start and stop audio and/or video through JS. So you can't restrict automatically playing media without also restricting the ability to programmatically control the media for legitimate reasons, like media control buttons and hot-keys. I think it is best to avoid shitty websites. My short list: Facebook, and TV network websites and their affiliates. There are lots of websites that do the right thing. ------ Houshalter How can they stop it without breaking lots of things? Javascript has the ability to play sounds and videos without going through the standard video player. If you disable it, wouldn't it break various web apps and games? ~~~ eru Why? You can make the javascript believe that it's playing, but not actually output anything. Just like when I am setting my computer on mute and turn off the screen---but in the browser instead. ~~~ Houshalter But that still affects legitimate uses, like games and web apps that want audio. ------ Esau This is something that used to be easier - practically everything depended on Flash and you could either not install Flash or install Flash with Flashblock. Now with everything rolled into the browser, the problem has gotten much worse. ------ rebootit I found most addons for chrome were broken so I made a less broken userscript for Tampermonkey: [https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/24811-html5-stop- autoplay/...](https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/24811-html5-stop- autoplay/code) Here's Tampermonkey: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo?hl=en) ------ intrasight In my opinion it isn't the browser vendors who should decide what content gets displayed. On mobile, I browse with JavaScript disabled. Pages load fast and I don't get anything but HTML. ~~~ atom058 Second this! I too have resorted to disabling Javascript as a solution to the annoying/user-unfriendly mobile web. Fortunately, most sites still fail with a fair degree of grace, i.e. making it possible to read the content of the page with JS disabled. The fact that most news sites load approximately 10x faster is a nice bonus as well. On Android, there are plugins for Firefox and Chrome. The plugin I use for FF comes with a handy quick-setting in the address bar. Makes enabling JS again easier on the rare occasion where it is actually necessary. Furthermore, disabling JS on my Kindle is the only way to make the experimental browser reasonable to use. Oh, on a side note: if devs would please stop loading article text over JS, that would be great. Same goes for styling elements with JS without reverting to something reasonable if the browser has it disabled. ------ lucaspiller I'm using the "Disable HTML5 Autoplay" for Chrome which works to block it, but it does break some sites. Notable Amazon Prime Video doesn't automatically start playing the next episode, and Facebook videos (and GIFs) won't play even when you click play. I would suggest at least making it opt-in through the browser-popup. However that's another annoyance - the number of sites I now visit which ask to send me notifications. ------ TheCoreh Dear browser makers: Please don't. There are legitimate uses for this feature. If websites are abusing it, simply stop visiting them, or install an ad/content blocker. What maybe browser makers could introduce is a "switch" to disable autoplay and audio, and manually enable it per tab. But this feature should be not active by default. Also, we should be complaining with the ISPs and Carriers about their data caps, not at sites for using data ------ Broken_Hippo This - so much this. A common scenario in my house: The spouse or I muttering obscenities over the autoplay ads, along with a comment of, "Use your powers for _good_ , dammit! For good!" I find these intrusive. So much so that I occasionally browse with the computer muted - especially if the source of entertaining sound is coming from the spouse's computer or if I'm looking at cooking sites. Most times, I'm just wanting text. ~~~ clarry Give all your monies to the advertisers. Maybe, just maybe they will stop bothering you once you have no more money to buy whatever crap they are advertising? ~~~ qbrass They'll just advertise ways to earn more money. ------ zetafunction Chrome for Android blocks autoplaying videos. To get around this, sites now use JS to decode and render video into a canvas. For example: [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=178297...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=178297#c73). As one might imagine, this is not so great for power usage… ------ hello_there Chrome already require webpages to ask permission in order to use resources like camera and microphone. I think it should do the same for speakers. ------ skaplun I think you are reacting like this because you're over using the medium(the web). For the average person its nice that their family's videos autoplay and autoloop without having to do something. Video and sound are big parts of the experience, which happens to not fit a certain advanced user group like you. So a browser setting would work but not disable for all ------ amelius Imho, a better solution would be to be able to disable sound by default, and then allow sound to be turned on per-tab. ~~~ antocv Exactly, I dont even let the "web-browsing" user access anything in /dev aside from null, zero and {}urandom. The browser doesnt have flash or mp4 or other "video-plaything things", webgl or webrtc enabled. On android (without google), WebApps sandbox to browse "web apps". youtube-dl if I want to watch a movie, simple. ------ tobyhinloopen No. Browsers should not interfere with autoplay. It is still a tool. Don't drop features because some abuse it. ------ nekdev That's stupid. Many apps really need vidéo autoplay: \- YouTube \- video usages (webrtc) \- some apps for people with disabilities... You may ask for an option of disabling it by default (which will make some apps not working) but not impose your choice and "insult" developers choices that have a far better pov than you. :/ ------ sdfjkl Yes please. In fact, let it be a preference if I even wish to buffer that stuff, rather than just not autoplay it. Because, being mostly on low- bandwidth, metered or very crappy connections, I almost certainly do not want several dozen MB of completely unwanted garbage shoved down my (metered) pipe. ------ amelius It's not really possible to robustly implement this, because a browser cannot possibly know if you are hitting a "play" button. So somebody who would like to trick the system (e.g. advertisers) could just make e.g. a menu item behave the same way as a play button. ------ jaredsohn Recent versions of the MuteTab Chrome extension (that I wrote) allow muting all tabs by default, along with a lot of other muting-related behaviors. [http://www.mutetab.com](http://www.mutetab.com) ------ untog I'd be more content with autoplaying videos, but muted. I was glad when iOS 10 introduced autoplaying video because it means people will stop converting every damn thing to GIFs, which are far more bandwidth intensive than videos. ------ pinsard Maybe it's about time we start to use the internet less as an entertainment source (web) and more as only a medium to reach what we need, be it business or pleasure. Less is more should help us adjust the industry behavior. ------ dawnerd I can't way I want this default. I do find it annoying though when sites decide to put a very small 100x100 auto playing video at the bottom of the page. Cnet is one of the bigger offenders ------ ClayM oh man, auto play on mobile apps that kill what you were listening to, requiring you to switch back the other app makes me want to throw my phone out the window. ------ Traubenfuchs Try out the Bloomberg Website. There is an autoplay video on every page and it moves to a fixed position if you scroll away. Someone should be slapped for this. ------ Reverberb AI will indeed kill humanity.not by going renegade but doing exactly what we tell. Soon enough we gona lose all capability of doing the most simple tasks ------ hd4 1\. Use a predefined adblocking hosts file on your system, if you have Linux, just replace your existing /etc/hosts file with this [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) This will kill 90% of popups and autoloading, for the others.. 2\. If you use Chrome, use the option that stops plug-ins autoloading (search for plugins in the Settings search-box) 3\. If you use Firefox, remove or simply don't install Flash. For HTML5 you should look for controls that stop autoplaying. ------ greggman YC's AirBNB autoplays video on the front page. Drives me crazy since while traveling I'm often on a bandwidth restricted connection ------ _RPM Who decides this? I imagine it's much more than a developer's decision. It may be a higher up decision based on business goals. ------ timdeneau Agreed. The default behavior for the web audio/video autoplay attribute should depend on a permission request for whitelisting. ------ timothyh2ster I simply leave when it happens; what could they possibly have to interest me when they are dumb enough to auto-feed their stuff. ------ jarnix It's not up to the software developer but to the developer of the site, I don't understand your post! ------ eridius iOS safari has always blocked auto playing video, so I'm not sure what you're complaining about there. Very recently they've finally started allowing it for video that has no audio track (or that has the audio track muted), which seems to match what you want. ------ Scirra_Tom If auto playing videos is a bandwidth concern, perhaps gif's should be treated similarly. ------ Joyfield And Firefox, please remember the sound volume i set on your HTML5 player for a specific site. ------ Tempest1981 Or at least provide an option for autoplay, so savvy users can turn it off. ~~~ ffggvv You are so savvy that you can't even search online? On firefox go to about:config and set media.autoplay.enabled to false. ------ cmdrfred The only problem is I want YouTube videos to do this when on that website. ~~~ clarry Whitelists & blacklists should really be a default feature in browsers. The big toggles that make you wide open for all the shit on the web or just break all the web are no good. ------ jfoutz how about a :obnoxious selector for links? autoplay video, please register, and messing with history would be lovely. I guess it's because there's no good way to populate the selector without visiting the link target. ------ ams6110 I've disabled all media players in my browsers. Problem solved. ------ oriettaxx yes, absolutely This summer in Greece we had to pay about 500$ f.... penalty for over using our 3G internet access (we just forgot a laptop & brower open for a night). ------ hartator Or bear a world where ad-blocking will be 100%. ------ codecamper agreed! investing websites are terrible for this. cnbc starts a video playing for every article. there goes my bandwidth. ------ ricardobeat Actually iOS didn't have auto play until recently. Back then the outcry from developers was the opposite - "y won't you implement the standard!" ~~~ ricardobeat Restrictions were lifted in iOS10 less than four months ago: [https://webkit.org/blog/6784/new-video-policies-for- ios/](https://webkit.org/blog/6784/new-video-policies-for-ios/) ------ nextos media.autoplay.enabled=false does the trick in Firefox about:config. ------ mproud Apple has been going so far as to automatically disable Flash, which really helps. ------ ffggvv Ask this on their bug tracker. ~~~ dredmorbius [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=514102](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=514102) ------ quakephil Step 1. Install adblock. Step 2. ? Step 3. Profit ------ necessity You should be using NoScript anyway so just use it. ------ boubiyeah Can't agree more. ------ thetinman Turn off flash. 99% of your problem solved plus other benefits.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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