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ansy

1,462 karma · joined April 24, 2011

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ansy··on How to make $250 a day (and get banned from the Android Market)
Regarding your social engineering comment, I think this is a side effect of digital content distribution in general. With all the scaling handled for you more or less for free, success is just a matter of gaining mindshare.

It has been happening for a while with blogs, YouTube, HN/Reddit comments. For an example just look at reposts. Pick the right title, be the right submitter, get the right first commenter, and some blog spam article has hundreds of votes on the front page while the original source goes without any votes or comments.

Just on the app store, money is involved instead of karma.

ansy··on Ultrabook: Intel's $300 million plan to beat Apple at its own game
A few nits to pick...

1) PowerPC is pretty alive and well. The Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii (U), and Playstation 3 all use PowerPC chips. There are a lot of these. IBM's Linux/AIX servers are all PowerPC and IBM incidentally makes the chips for the above game consoles as well. Not to mention the number of PowerPC chips in cars and other embedded devices dwarfs all the above in units sold.

2) Intel (probably) got out of the Xscale game not just because of hubris, but because it was necessarily enriching its competitor through licensing fees of the ARM architecture. Unless Intel could buy ARM, which it couldn't due to anti-trust, it should probably seek out a home grown solution instead of sealing its fate as another fab for ARM's designs. I'm not sure Intel didn't see the writing on the wall, it just failed to execute on a solution. Intel was probably very wary of trying to make a new architecture after the failure of the Itanium so it concentrated its efforts on a low powered x86 aka Atom. Unfortunately this was and still is a colossal failure. Intel still has no products for low powered devices and the arguments for an x86 solution are starting to fall apart fast.

3) Apple's success is a culmination of Steve Job's vision and Tim Cook's operational mastery. Apple's products before Tim Cook were beautifully designed, over priced, and under performing. Apple's product line without Steve Jobs was boring and unappealing. These last few years have been a golden age for Apple. To expect things to only get better from here would be to place all the emphasis on the company and ignore people inside it, not to mention history. I expect Tim Cook to keep Apple in a very competitive place while he's around, but companies have a tendency to lose their way. Just ask HP.

ansy··on Kindle Tablet Does Not Mean eInk’s Death
I don't think a touch based eInk Kindle is coming this year. I predict Amazon is going to try to use the same Android-based OS from the Kindle Tablet for the touch based eInk Kindle. Amazon will need to completely abandon the existing Kindle OS and remake the device from the ground up to add touch and other capabilities.

This should push out the development schedule considerably compared to past releases which were already long. The Kindle 2 came out 15 months after the first Kindle. And the Kindle 3 came out 18 monts after the Kindle 2. If history is any indication I'd be surprised if the Kindle 4 came out before Q1 2012 and frankly I think Q3 is more realistic.

It's possible the new Kindle will use Mirasol. But if it does, even Q3 might be agressive. Mirasol's production capacity is nowhere near enough to meet the demand for a Kindle device and it takes a while to build up the parts inventory even for less exotic components. I kind of think Mirasol isn't going to work because it won't be able to keep up with competing technologies by the time it's production ready just like PixelQi. A black and white eInk display just seems much more likely.

ansy··on Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away
Vegetarians are pretty diverse and really can't be considered as a single group. Some vegetarians eat fish, some sneak pepperoni pizza, some eat dairy, some will eat anything but steak, some extend the definition beyond food to clothing and furniture. The addition of test tube meat will just add one more variable to further diversify people under the "the vegetarians" label.

In a similar vein, would someone who identifies as Jewish or a Muslim eat test tube bacon? Well, some already eat real pork and don't get worked up about it. It just depends on how you interpret and practice your beliefs. And we've all got different beliefs that make us do different things.

ansy··on Top Apps missing on my HP TouchPad
Just to add, it appears there is Google Talk support available in synergy by extension. [1]

Hulu did work via support Flash on webOS. Although it was just recently blocked, there are apparently ways to unblock it. [2]

And I'm sure we're all aware that Yelp can just be bookmarked and used as a website. HTML5 is the future and all that.

[1] http://www.precentral.net/synergy-messaging-plugins-3-0-brin...

[2] http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Hulu_Fix

ansy··on US Government seeks to block AT&T & T-Mobile's $39 Billion Merger
The deal may get blocked, but your argument and thinking are completely wrong.

Just like in any criminal or civil trial in the United States both sides can settle and the plaintiff (i.e. the DOJ) can drop the suit. Once the plaintiff drops the suit the trial is done. The judge and court are immediately removed from the equation.

Also, the DOJ just filed the suit. A lot of preparation needs to happen before a judge even decides if the court will hear the case. Much less actually go to trial and reach a decision.

While the trial moves forward AT&T will desperately try to reach a settlement with the DOJ to get them to drop the suit. Taking a case all the way to a judge or jury decision is the least desirable for both sides. It costs way more in legal fees, mountains more at this level, and the trial could drag on for months or years. Then there is the appeals process. Horrifyingly expensive and time consuming and in the end AT&T could still end up losing.

The DOJ has AT&T by the balls so if it wants something there's a good chance AT&T will agree to it now that the suit is in motion. And the only reason the DOJ got AT&T in this position is because it initiated this lawsuit. Without the lawsuit the DOJ had zero leverage. AT&T has enough skin in the game it might try to fight to the end, but it could be almost as bad as giving up and paying the fee if it won and twice as bad if it ended up losing.

What is interesting is that AT&T is saying the DOJ didn't ask for concessions before filing the suit. Or maybe it did and AT&T didn't think the negotiations were going this badly. Either way, the DOJ probably wants more than it thought it would get with or without more leverage.

ansy··on Google+ Can Be A Social Network Or The Name Police – Not Both
Google should relent on this issue. It's clear the policy is polarizing and even Google should have the good sense to react to customer feedback. It is not in Facebook's position to do what it wants because it can nor should Google be that kind of company.

This doesn't affect me. But I don't see the convincing argument against pseudonyms. Gmail has pseudonyms. Twitter has pseudonyms. Blogger has pseudonyms. Why can't Google+ have pseudonyms?

ansy··on What happens when AOL finally decides to go private?
AOL Mail, AIM, MapQuest and other odd services seem like a good fit for IAC [1]. Really, IAC might be able to buy the whole lot and rebrand itself as the new AOL. Barry Diller seems to have figured out how to efficiently run a hodgepodge of unrelated internet content providers and services as unglamorous as Ask.com and Match.com while AOL has failed with arguably better properties.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company)

ansy··on The Patent Pledge
PG, was this pledge created in response to litigation you have experienced with YC companies?

There doesn't seem to be much evidence companies with fewer than 25 employees are getting sued unless there's something left unspoken here.

I think it would be more constructive to begin the discussion of what patent reform should resemble so that companies and individuals can show support for it. Some kind of software patent working group that can put forward a vision that everyone can get behind. If enough people and companies come to support a way of thinking then it will slowly affect current behavior and ultimately shape the legal framework of the future.

Even if it was a problem that companies smaller than 25 were being sued for patent infringement, I'm not sure the legal litmus test should be how many employees are at the company.

ansy··on US Government seeks to block AT&T & T-Mobile's $39 Billion Merger
There are at least a few problems with that happening from what I'm aware.

1) That would require Verizon's cooperation and it isn't the company under scrutiny. For all Verizon cares AT&T's merger can fail and those guys can get stuffed with the breakup bill.

2) Verizon and AT&T use almost completely different LTE frequencies. Although they are both in the 700mhz band, they have separate subsets between 700mhz and 800mhz that don't overlap much.

3) Verizon and AT&T currently only use LTE for data. Voice is still carried over the existing 3G network until some future date. Even then, whose network would these hybrid phones be designed to fall back on in the absence of LTE? All the hardware to support multiple network standards isn't free in terms of financial cost or design constraints.

4) If the US government really wanted spectrum to be shared in this way it would have enforced it when it freed up the 700mhz spectrum a few years ago instead of auctioning bits of it off to individual companies for virtually exclusive use.

ansy··on US Government seeks to block AT&T & T-Mobile's $39 Billion Merger
The DOJ may be using its leverage to get better concessions out of AT&T. Basically, because AT&T set such a big cancellation fee for itself, the DOJ can bargain up to just less than that amount. It's saying, "shape up or we'll seriously make you eat that $7 billion fee!" I actually think the huge cancellation fee means the deal is more likely to happen because AT&T will tolerate a lot of regulatory arm twisting before walking away.

Exactly what AT&T will need to do I'm not sure. AT&T will probably be forced to sell any T-Mobile operations that overlap with AT&T's existing service just like in the Verizon-Alltel merger a couple years ago. Presumably this will be to small regional carriers so choice is preserved for people in those areas. AT&T will probably need to agree to some kind of consumer price protection at the very least to keep AT&T prices at current levels or lower for a number of years and protect existing T-Mobile customer contracts. AT&T might also have to sell or spin off its TV and home internet operations. The issue of ridiculous text messaging fees might come up, but nothing will be done about them.

ansy··on 7-inch Amazon Tablet launches in October, 10-inch Version in Q1 2012
Amazon's 7-inch will be its answer to the Nook Color, and will probably hit the same price point. It should be no more expensive than $250 and maybe as low as $199. Amazon might even use ads to reach the low point. It will be slightly faster and a more fully fledged Android device. Amazon is probably betting this is the device that will sell through the roof.

Amazon's 10-inch will be more like the Kindle DX than an iPad killer. It will just be available for users with very specific use cases and sales expectations will be low. It should be priced between $400 and $500, double whatever the 7-inch costs. Amazon can't have high hopes going up against the iPad after seeing the bloodbath of 2011, but there's not a lot it can do about it either. At the very least it will make the smaller tablet look like a better bargain by putting it next to a much higher priced alternative, which I suspect is the role the Kindle DX plays more than anything else.

ansy··on WSJ: A Very Gloomy Picture Of Larry Page's Short Tenure As Google CEO
I think the jury is still out on the Motorola deal. That is a lot of money just for patents. Even for Google's checkbook. And if Google intends to spin off the hardware business expect it to take an even bigger loss on its investment.

If Google+ stemmed defections to Facebook that is a good thing. But hopefully a lot more is in store than what Google+ delivered. It was not nearly enough to undo Facebook's market dominance.

Eric might have found another solution to the Motorola merger if he was heading the company. But who knows if it would have been better. He already passed on both Palm and Sun. Together they would still have been much less than Motorola and probably twice as useful.

ansy··on Official enrollment for Stanford's online AI class has begun
Why does this require students to submit a birthday? This seems like an unnecessary disclosure of personal information.
ansy··on HP to produce one more batch of Touchpads
This has been forwarded before and I agree with detractors to this kind of thinking.

First, HP is a big company that has much better ways to turn money into more money than making something people are unwilling to buy at a reasonable price.

Second, growing the webOS ecosystem in this way founds it on false principles. Everything that seems to work when you're selling for a loss, might not work at all when you're selling for a profit. Just imagine if HP started off selling a $99 TouchPad, blowing out the doors, piling up billions in debt, and then found out everyone wanted an iPad when the price went up to $500. Oops.

The best modern example of this I think is Groupon. Groupon has been growing like crazy by taking a huge loss. For every dollar it takes, two dollars go out the door in the form of advertising and client acquisition.

Groupon is already of questionable value to some businesses. When the time comes for Groupon to fix its profitability the value proposition may be lost entirely.

ansy··on HP to produce one more batch of Touchpads
I suspect this is just HP clearing out the supply chain of already purchased parts and units still at the factory. HP's cost is probably just a few dollars per unit to ship and possibly assemble them.

I find it hard to believe anyone approved an entirely new order of parts at $300 BOM just to sell them for $99.

ansy··on Groupon Co-founders invest $4M in fast-growing E la Carte (YC S10)
I think this is pretty gimmicky, although that might be good enough for a certain subset of casual bar food kinds of restaurants.

If you want a more efficient restaurant, this is certainly not the best way to get it. Put the menu up on a big board like McDonalds, Chipotle, Panera, or other already high volume eateries like street vendors. Want to be even faster? Cut down the menu complexity. Fewer menu items means less customer analysis paralysis and a more streamlined kitchen. Anyone in the restaurant business already does at least some data analysis on every sale and have regional and store by store A/B testing. I mean, they have to know what's selling when they do inventory and order more food.

What doesn't make you more efficient (i.e. turn orders and tables faster)? Giving just one menu to a table full of people then include a bunch of games and surveys on it. But if you want to have a table gimmick to keep people around ordering more appetizers and rounds of beer, this might be the ticket.

ansy··on Samsung reportedly recruits ex-HP VP for PC business; considers buying webOS
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2938470

This was discussed yesterday as well, although the DigiTimes link is the original source of the rumor. Keep in mind DigiTimes also originated the refuted rumor that Samsung would buy HP's PC business.

And here's my comment on the issue: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2939477

ansy··on Samsung May Buy webOS
Samsung is not a M&A company. That really hurts the chances of this happening even if there are forces within Samsung and HP pushing for it. The top management is skeptical of successful mergers, and at a tightly controlled company such as Samsung that makes a big difference.

I still contend the best buyer of webOS would be Google. The patents are gold, the price is probably right, it eliminates the possibility of a partner turning into a competitor, and the talent would integrate easily. Everyone's already in the valley. Just shut down webOS for good, put the developers on Android or ChromeOS, and tell consumers to look forward to great webOS features making it into future Android and ChromeOS releases.

ansy··on H-P's One-Year Plan
It is astounding how people, WSJ contributors inclusive, only see HP as a pusher of cheap laptops and crappy inkjet printers.

Assuming I'm reading these numbers correctly[1], the PC division posted earnings of $567 million in Q3 2011. Compare that to $1.2 billion in earnings on enterprise services, $699 million from enterprise hardware, and $892 million from printing and imaging. Revenue from commercial printers was twice the revenue gained from consumer printers.

All told, while the consumer business is a respectable chunk of change even to HP, the consumer business has the thinnest margins, is shrinking, and at the end of the day earns much less than the enterprise side of the house.

HP makes a killing on enterprise services already. More than double the earnings of its entire PC business. Buying high margin software products like Autonomy for its services division to push on customers is easy money. The fact that HP's software business only earned $151 million on $790 million in revenue in Q3 2011 is a tremendous lost opportunity.

HP is not a consumer company anymore. It doesn't need a consumer oriented CEO. It's an enterprise company that needs an enterprise CEO.

Yet somehow, even "financial commentators" fail to recognize any of this. A very disappointing article from the WSJ.

[1] http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-n...

ansy··on Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay
I think one of the factors working against the QR code is it does not have a recognizable uniform function. The code can contain an text or data in any number of formats which isn't apparent to the naked eye. The text might be a URL, or it might be a poem, or it could be a vCard.

This causes consumer confusion. It's almost like we need standard contextual decorations around the QR codes to hint at the contents. Like how http, www, and underlining tell people a string of text is a web URL.

Or maybe just new, incompatible subsets of QR codes that have an unmistakable appearance and purpose. Sometimes connectors both physical and virtual are designed on purpose to be incompatible even though technically it's all just hollow tubes or copper wires.

I would maybe liken QR codes to SGML. We need something more like HTML. Limited but with a standard interpretation that everyone can understand.

ansy··on China airs documentary proving military university is hacking U.S. targets
Signals intelligence and counter-intelligence is a narrow view of how computers can impact the battlefield. While the NSA and CIA may have some capability beyond listening in on enemy communications, I question whether the responsibility to make attacks on foreign targets which could be considered acts of war should be left separate from the military.

Weaponizing computers can have a much broader use that would be appropriate for a Cyber Force in addition to military intelligence operations. For example, today we might want to knock out a communications array, a factory, or a power plant in enemy territory. Our options at the moment are to send in missiles, bomber jets, or an elite ground unit. But those aren't always good options. The missiles and bombs could cause unwanted collateral damage to civilians. Missiles and bombers are crazy expensive and so is the cost to get them to the target. The risks to using an elite ground unit are enormous not only to the unit itself but to foreign policy if they are killed or captured.

But a Cyber Force could electronically disrupt or disable a facility through any number of means. This would be far cheaper in terms of financial and human costs. Even if there are counter measures in place for the facility to run offline on a private grid, such an attack could sufficiently hinder it until it can be disabled more permanently.

This is no different than sending a bomber jet instead of an infantry platoon. The goal is to make a surgical strike, the generals need to choose the right tool for the job. For an increasingly large class of technologically advanced targets in increasingly urban areas the military will more often want to employ hackers instead of bombers.

The point, then, was that this will be equally true for enemies wishing to attack the United States. A dedicated team of hackers can easily cause as much or more damage than a fleet of bombers. And the United States can either be ready for it or watch as enemies walk over them with impunity like the United States air force flies over enemies today.

ansy··on Profit Profit Profit
The parent had a specific question about Apple's profits outside of hardware sales. Third party advertisements do not make money for Apple.
ansy··on Oracle's 'APIs are copyrightable' defense = nightmare for programmers
To me copyrights for APIs should be treated the same as for recipes and games. You can't copyright the list of ingredients or design, respectively, but you can copyright any text or images that goes with it. In the case of an API, the specific documentation such as JavaDocs would be copyrighted.
ansy··on Profit Profit Profit
Apple has suggested the App Store is just above break even [1]. I personally find this believable. I download at least 15 free apps for every paid app. It might even be worse. Approving, hosting, and marketing all those free apps comes at a cost that adds up.

By contrast Apple likes to mark up hardware at 100% over bill of materials. That is to say if $300 worth of components goes into an iPhone, Apples wants to sell it for at least $600. The major exception to this is the iPad which Apple takes less to keep pressure on the competition.

Regarding iAds, I believe iAds was suppose to have sold around $65 million worth of ads for the initial launch. The revenue from that being split between Apple and the app maker. This is a tiny drop in the bucket. And there are reports Apple is having a hard time getting advertisers to renew. [2]

[1] http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_app_store_runs_...

[2] http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/10/apples-iad-program-strug...

ansy··on Apple working on cheap 8GB iPhone 4 alongside worldmode iPhone 5
It should be noted that the 8gb iPhone 3GS was not available at launch. It was added to the lineup as the budget option only after the iPhone 4 was released [1]. So this should not be a real surprise.

The real question is what Apple will do with the 3GS. Will Apple keep it available and turn it into a low-cost prepaid phone? Apple's own Tim Cook has suggested Apple is exploring its options.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_3GS#Timeline_of_iPhone_m...

[2] http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/05/low-cost-iphone-could-launch-s...

ansy··on China airs documentary proving military university is hacking U.S. targets
Computer hacking as a new battlefield is inevitable if not already a reality.

Much like how at one time in the US there was no Air Force and airplanes were part of the Army, right now there is no Cyber Force and hackers are part of the Air Force. If computers really are a new theater of war, there probably needs to be a new branch of the military to recruit, train, and deploy new kinds of hacker-soldiers.

The hacking operations of the Chinese right now are like American high-altitude spy planes and satellites flying with impunity over the China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The longer the US delays to enter the cyber arms race the more it risks conceding dominance for the foreseeable future.

I could actually see a lot of positive economic synergy if the United States were to establish a Cyber Force to recruit and train computer security specialists.

EDIT: I recognize the US does have a Cyber Command. It's in the Air Force. The point is it's under-funded, understaffed, and under-publicized. Recruitment is pretty much limited to a handful of people already in the Air Force with computer backgrounds. There are no commercials on TV or recruitment offices to tell people to join the hacker corps like there are for the other military branches.

Mixing geeks with paratroopers isn't effective. The US needs a new branch that can make its own rules, recruitment standards, and awards to be truly effective in a different kind of war.

ansy··on Dear HP: Please Keep Making Those TouchPads
I think that's called Groupon. Taking billions of dollars of investor money and tying it up with no hope of making a single dime. You'll get millions of users and entrench yourself deeper and deeper in a broken business model.
ansy··on Chrome Extension that adds anonymous live chat to every site you're browsing.
While I give the author the benefit of the doubt he or she has every intent to respect privacy, if I really care about my own privacy I should do what I can to protect it myself before I place my trust in a third party.

It's like revealing my own secret to someone and telling them not to tell anyone else. I have the most to lose if my secret is revealed. If that isn't enough for me to keep it to myself what is preventing anyone else from revealing it?

Because I don't care to let people follow my browsing behavior site by site, I had better not broadcast it to begin with.

EDIT: I should add, I do have some initial doubts about the anonymity guarantees in this extension. Is all traffic encrypted? Can I be sure nothing is getting unintentionally logged by say a forgotten debug statement or server request logs? I've seen credit card numbers turn up in Apache access logs. Is my IP actually obscured from others or is it merely my name? Even Tor is hesitant to guarantee anonymity.

ansy··on Chrome Extension that adds anonymous live chat to every site you're browsing.
This always seems like such a good idea to me. Like walking around a busy city bustling with people all around.

But then I realize I would never use it. The idea of broadcasting my browsing habits page by page to a third party is creepy beyond belief.

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