Five things we learned from Pac-Man - <AUTHOR> http://www.bspcn.com/2011/01/26/5-things-we-learned-from-pac-man/

<comment><USER2> I am a sucker for a good Pac-Man article, and this one offers a few pellets.

The site's ad-intrusive layout, however, seems to demonstrate that the Number #1 thing we learned from Pac-Man was that he should convince the Ghosts to form a collective and use GroupOn to buy vouchers to (presumably) eat the pellets together??</comment>


Using Docker-in-Docker for your CI or testing environment? Think twice - <AUTHOR> http://jpetazzo.github.io/2015/09/03/do-not-use-docker-in-docker-for-ci/ <comment><AUTHOR> Good luck building images inside a docker container..</comment>


Ask HN: Ok to use HN for our blog comments? - <AUTHOR>

Comment threads on Wordpress blogs across the internet are often low-quality, whereas people seem to be well behaved and insightful on HN.  Is it okay to simply have a "Discuss this post on [Hacker News]" on every blog post?<p>Is there a posting rate above which this would be unacceptable?  I don't want to flood the "new" section. <comment><USER2> "Comment threads on Wordpress blogs across the internet are often low-quality"

I'd recommend switching to Facebook comments for your own blog if that's the concern. It improves quality dramatically.

<comment><USER3> Yep, or even better, Disqus. This gives people the option of using multiple accounts they already have, and people are concerned with their reputation, which always helps behavior.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I go with an in-Wordpress solution, it'll probably be Disqus. I initially liked the idea of having a clean troll-less page for users who don't care about commenting. Maybe this is just vanity. I also like having the entire discussion in one place, instead of a thread on HN and another thread on my blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your site will probably be banned. Instead of submitting, just check HN or one of the unofficial APIs programmatically and append the discussion link to a URL if that article is submitted.

</comment><comment><USER5> A link back to HN is generally enough when I'm on a blog post.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I test my product idea? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Can you be more specific? Creating a mockup/wireframe/protype with online tools like Invision or Balsamiq is a good start, and then putting it in front of people to gather feedback. You can also go straight for the MVP - build the smallest, cheapest usable version of your product and see if that fills a need and gathers good feedback. If so, you have encouragement to go further. More tips here: [https://www.productschool.com/blog/experience/product- manage...](https://www.productschool.com/blog/experience/product-management- books-series-the-lean-startup/#The_minimum_viable_product_MVP)</comment>


The disappearing or non-disappearing middle class - <AUTHOR> http://andrewgelman.com/2013/03/17/the-disappearing-or-non-disappearing-middle-class/

<comment><USER2> "Beyond all this, there's the challenge of reconciling these income data with other things we've been hearing about economic trends. For example, I recently read somewhere that Americans are three times richer than they were a few decades ago […] a quick web search indeed shows something like a doubling of inflation-adjusted GDP since 1970."

I'm no statistician, but I do know that GDP is at best only loosely correlated with "wealth," and it sure as heck doesn't say anything about where that wealth — or even the activity that it actually is a measure of — is increasing.

<comment><USER3> Positive correlation between GDP and wealth exists but it's hard to find causality. GDP is a misleading terms in economics. Two major components that Gross Domestic Product measures are private consumption and government spending - things by definition unproductive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The amazing thing is that the "big bulge" that Evans referred to in the original graph is clearly the bulge on the left (low-income) side of the graph, while McArdle incorrectly focuses on the artifact on the right (high- income) side -- and then none of the follow-on posts seem to point this mistake out.</comment>


Show HN: Tsv2csv Clojure Powered Command Line Tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cjbarre/tsv2csv <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, author here, I put this small utility together while exploring the idea of using existing tools to import macroeconomic data from the BLS vs a pure homemade solution with a full-on Clojure project.

With that project I ended up settling on using wget, my tsv2csv tool, and pgfutter for streaming data into postgres and GNU parallel to create and import all tables at once.

I couldn't resist creating this tool at the time because, honestly, I write LISP faster than I adjust to conventional tooling like sed and awk.

It's still a goal to learn those better, but when it came to full on scrubbing of rows and columns, I already had code like tsv2csv in my homegrown BLS importer and I knew how simple it was.

It's made to participate in streaming so it processes line by line from stdin to stdout.

Thanks!</comment>


CS researchers find way to derive laws of nature from stacks of data - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/11/48443-deep-data-dives-discover-natural-laws/fulltext <comment><USER2> I'm a modeler who works with experimenters. Their general attitude is that unvalidated models are about as useless as unexamined measurements.

In that context, this sounds like a nice piece of work-- it integrates the data analysis and model validation steps.

However, it's also clear that the algorithms were fed pertinent data from a meaningful physical setup. In other words, good experimental design carried a lot more of the burden of the discovery, than the computer algorithm that sorted through the data.

<comment><USER3> I spend a lot of time modeling and have used genetic algorithms and similar paradigms in the past. They are great -- if you can somewhat narrow down the relevant parameters. If you can't, the search space is insanely large.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very neat, but for some reason I'm not super impressed. I don't mean to be glib, but genetic algorithms have been producing impressive results for a while. And if you feed them a huge amount of raw experimental data, I have no doubt and I am not the least bit surprised they can discover and fit equations to it.

I suppose there is a possibility that for some more complicated things formulas don't converge and thus a brute force search would not be able to optimize a solution. However for most thing, I do expect solutions derive from other solutions and things converge.

Still, often the most brilliant things seem obvious in hindsight, kudos to the team.

<comment><USER5> The article _seemed_ to say that their system derived the law of conservation of energy from pendulum data. That seems pretty impressive to me, but maybe that's because I don't know enough physics to see how it's an obvious conclusion?

<comment><USER6> They derived laws that were already known. It won't be until their system derives _unknown_ laws and relationships, then we'll have something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hm. They were looking for conservation laws, threw out all trivial equations and kept the next set they found. Weren't they in fact building an engine to find what they knew was there? Isn't this just a program to fit coefficients? When did they stop running data thru their engine - when it found the "right" equations?

<comment><USER8> Not at all. Coefficient fitting is when you know what output you want, and you have a lot of inputs, and you have some idea of the functional form. In this case, they didn't say "I want to predict the position of the pendulum based on time given these initial conditions." They just said "here is a bunch of data" and it came back with useful equations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is amazing.

Computers are fantastic at deductive logic - taking a set of data and performing operations according to a ruleset to get something useful out of it. But they've been terrible at forming the rules themselves up until now.

If we can give computers inductive abilities then that's worldchanging.

<comment><USER10> This wasn't actually inductive though.

 _Given crude initial conditions and some indication of what variables to consider_

The only induction done in the whole process was done by the researchers in this step - otherwise the algorithm wouldn't have had anything to "evolve" to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand why computers need to figure out laws of the universe. There are so many dying concerns already on this planet - which can be solved by a man machine symbiosis. Personally I think such ideas are cool, but are not of great/immediate use. It reminds me of the machine built to find the answer to the question "What is this life about?" in "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy". 42!</comment>


Reviving the Apple 410 Color Plotter - <AUTHOR> https://www.nycresistor.com/2017/12/13/reviving-the-apple-410-color-plotter/ <comment><USER2> Great and simple write-up. Vaguely remembered nycresistor from other articles I've read, so I'm glad this was posted here.

I think HN would be well served to have more front page retro hardware hacking articles. They may not be useful in the same way as other posts, but they sure as heck are delicious brain food and a relaxing diversion.

<comment><USER3> Ask and you shall receive. Here's a simple plotter a friend of mine cobbled together from broken PlayStation parts at our Hackerspace:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16008772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16008772)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Plotters are just one small step removed from a 2D mill. This particular kind of plotter, where the paper is fed through to obtain one axis of movement suffers from bad registration, any kind of slippage on the paper (and there always will be some) will lead to registration errors. Try different kinds of paper to determine which kind gives you the least slippage by repeatedly drawing very large patterns in different colors and then studying the horizontal edges near the limits.

The command set looks like a modified HPGL.

<comment><USER5> I can't tell from the pictures, but around that time period diamond grit drive wheels came into use. Either the top or bottom drive wheels would have a diamond grit on their surface which would make an indentation pattern in the paper which acted to key the paper in place. The registration was even better than drilled paper which could develop a little slop around the pins and the holes.

<comment><USER6> Given how fast this plotter (not the type in the OP) throws paper around I'd say it works, at least in ideal circumstances.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYGPSAD5L_k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYGPSAD5L_k)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since OP mentioned the nice big HP x,y plotters, that reminds me I once wrote an emacs lisp HPGL driver to hit the serial port and run one in grad school. I'll have to dig it up sometime.

Edit, just remembered: it was probably to output one of the VLSI CAD layer formats, like GDS or EDIF.

<comment><USER8> Ah me to I remember having to produce custom drivers for GINOF so that we could use the full extent of then then top of the line HP plotter.

We also managed to put one of those HP's through its design life in less than 2 years because of how intensely we used it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really should find mine. I got it for free off of a local computer store's junk table about 12 years ago. My understanding is that it's fairly uncommon, at least compared to the Imagewriter I/II. Would be cool to take the roms and try to write an emulator for it, though I think emulating the Laserwriter would be more valuable from a historical perspective, since it was so influential in desktop publishing (and one of those odd cases were the peripheral had a faster CPU than the computer it was connected to, much like the Commodore 1541 disk drive).

Edit: And on second glance it's quite possible that 410's Z80 is clocked faster than the 6502 in the Apple II.

<comment><USER10> The CPU seems to have run at 4MHz ([http://www.cpu- world.com/CPUs/Z80/NEC-D780C-1.html](http://www.cpu- world.com/CPUs/Z80/NEC-D780C-1.html)).

However, I spot a 4.9152 MHz crystal on the photo of the PCB (a quarter from the left, halfway down)

So, I guess it either is overclocked or (IMHO more likely) that that clock is divided into a 2.5MHz clock.

Either way, I agree with you that it likely had a faster clock than the 1MHz of an Apple II.

However (certainly if you can get around with 8 bit registers; it shifts a bit if you can use the 16 bit parts of a Z80) a Z80 has to be clocked faster (some people claim by a factor of about 2:1) than a 6502 to _be_ faster (extreme example: a NOP takes 4 cycles on a Z80, 1 on a 6502)

In summary, I guess this _is_ faster than the Apple II it was designed to connect to, but not by much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The simple plotters of the past were really great pieces of kit; and fun as the day is long.

Even the little Commodore 1520 was a very capable machine in a toy form factor. Four independent color pens, and a great tool for learning geometry and programming at the same time.

<comment><USER8> Yes I remember using one to print the results from an experiment at my first job we had a rig that used a high speed cini camera to record the movement of an "object" when subjected to high flow regimes underwater.

To digitize it I covered the wall of a spare office with graph paper and projected the film onto the graph paper and manually using pencil marked up the graph paper then transcribed the x,y coordinates which I than plotted on a HP A3 plotter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I thought it was kind of neat that the service manual was generated on a Lisa.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best laptop for Linux? - <AUTHOR>

Hi! I am looking for the best laptop that I can buy to run ubuntu on.
Macbook seems perfect, except for the fact that some people say I might have issues installing ubuntu on it(single boot).
The best alternative I could find is t440s, but there are some complaints about screen and trackpad.
Should I get macbook air, t440s, or there are some other, better alternatives? <comment><USER2> Buying a Macbook only to put Ubuntu on it seems like a bit of a waste. You get Unix out of the box, and the battery performance is stellar. The gesture support is awesome, but I don't know if the drivers available for Ubuntu will help you maximize that. There's also quite a lot of very good software available for OS X that's not available for Ubuntu (Alfred, Tower, F.lux, and Dash come to mind).

This isn't to say that Macs are the superior choice, but from what I can tell you'd be throwing away a lot of the above by switching to Ubuntu, and those are a big part of the value proposition of the Macbook. If you're going to shell out for the Macbook, just use OS X.

<comment><USER3> In my experience, some software installs are easier with apt, relative to brew. Also, there is some advantage to having an environment installed on my dev machine with the same package manager as in production.

That said, if you don't mind the overhead, you can achieve a similar outcome running a virtual machine inside of OS X.

<comment><USER2> True on the package management point - I can see the advantage there. Still, I stand by my point that if you're going to buy a Mac, it makes the most sense to use it as a Mac. As great as the form factor is, it alone doesn't justify the price point for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I see a lot of people suggesting Macbooks.

I have a Macbook air I got from work. The lack of buttons on the mouse is a serious pain in the arse if you ask me. Then you have to buy an adaptor to plug it in to a monitor. No ethernet either (who uses ethernet these days? The hotel I was staying in in Germany supplied me with internet via ethernet).

Installing Linux was less than straightforward (the reason I am using Ubuntu and not another distribution, though I did have the same problem with an Asus laptop, and secure boot).

I preferred my more traditional Lenovo laptop that I had before this, but a lot of these are personal niggles, and depends how you want to use the machine.

<comment><USER5> Macbook Air owner here as well.

When you're talking about the mouse, do you mean the separate Magic Mouse? If so I agree; any standard PC mouse is way easier and better to use. If you mean the touchpad, then I honestly have no issues with it. It responds to clicks just fine.

The lack of an Ethernet port was definitely a downside for me, but it hasn't hurt me yet since everywhere I've gone with Internet has always had wireless.

Honestly, my biggest gripe is the Command key. The position is where the Ctrl key normally is...some applications, both terminal and GUI, have Mac keyboard shortcuts with Command serving in place of Ctrl, and then some others still use Ctrl. I constantly find myself forgetting which to use when I'm in an application I use less frequently.

<comment><USER4> I should have said trackpad.

I can emulate a second button (right click) with two fingers, but it is pretty fiddly, and I often mess up with fat fingers. And I really miss having a third button for pasting from the current buffer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd highly suggest the Dell XPS 13 developer edition [1]. It's actually sold with Ubuntu pre-installed. High end machine, and it's actually cheaper than the Windows version with the exact same specs.

Another great option is the Acer Aspire S7. According to the Arch Wiki, everything just works [2].

[1] [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd)

[2] [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_S7-392](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_S7-392)

<comment><USER7> I have a Dell XPS 15z which came with Windows 7. I installed Kubuntu on it dual-boot. The only time I boot into Windows is to do my tax (Aus Tax Office tool was Windows only for a long time - that might have changed now though).

Not quite everything works on the 15z. The external HDMI out will not work unless you restart (no hot plug for an external monitor). The Nvidia/Intel hybrid graphics system was also poorly supported until recently.

Otherwise everything seems to work fine. I rarely need to reboot (usually only after a kernel upgrade).

It might be a good idea to check out the Ubuntu Hardware Support Wiki before you buy, for example:

[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops/Del...](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops/Dell/XPS/15z)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In general, macs have great linux hardware support. Also, they have an unrivaled track pad. Seriously, I will keep buying macbooks until I find another multi-touch track pad that is better. Btw, does anybody know of one? To tzury's point, the "homebrew" package manager basically makes it so a mac can act as a decent dev machine. Virtualbox will help fill in those gaps. FWIW, check out the Dell XPS 13 developer edition: [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd.aspx](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd.aspx). It comes from the factory with Ubuntu loaded and supposedly good developer friendly features

<comment><USER9> This is kind of false. Thunderbolt is not properly supported in the kernel. The keyboard is funky etc. You _can_ run Linux on an MBA, but you're honestly better off going with a hardware that isn't actively hostile to open standards.

Re trackpads: The trackpad on the thinkpad X1 series is great

<comment><USER8> That's a good point. Given that I seriously never use my TB port, I totally forgot that driver support is not great. Rumor has it that the existing patches ([https://github.com/anoever/thunderbolt](https://github.com/anoever/thunderbolt)) will make it into the 3.17 mainline.

And I'll have to check out the X1. Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I currently have a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display running OS X Yosemite. I also have a Thunderbolt Display (27-inch).

I wish I could buy an open hardware laptop similar to the Novena laptop ([https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open- laptop](https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop)), but made more for software developers. It would look like a Macbook Pro but have official support for Linux. It would have a 256GB SSD drive, a 64-bit ARM processor, 16GB of RAM, a 15-inch Retina display (touchscreen), wifi 802.11ac, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0, stereo speakers, headphone port, SD card reader, HDMI, microphone and a webcam. My budget would be as much as $3000. I would install Ubuntu 14.04 on it (ideally it would be officially supported and even pre- installed).

I've seen rumors of a new MacBook Air with Retina display, a touchscreen and an ARM processor in mid-2015. It will probably be my next laptop unless someone starts a crowdfunding for an open hardware laptop.

I also have a Chromebook Pixel from I/O 13 but I wish Google would release a new version that's more polished and with better specs. It's actually a fantastic laptop.

</comment><comment><USER11> I like my Lenovo X1 Carbon. It's nice and light but still quite capable for my needs (web development). Everything just worked for me, with the exception of an external display which I spent about 20 seconds trying to get to work. It could easily have been user error given my lack of experience with external displays.

<comment><USER12> I've had the opportunity to play with X1 Carbon not too long ago and found it to be pretty damn impressive. Haven't used it with linux, but if I was to get a high-end laptop, I would definitely get an X1. Nice to see that it's also linux-capable.

<comment><USER13> I'm using one since over a year, can't recommend. No proper support for the docking station (which goes via USB3 and doesn't support video output), power plug wears out really fast and causes ubuntu to reboot quite often when plugging it due to some short circuiting, disk is really slow for an ssd and working with vagrant sucks due to it, 802.11n driver doesn't work properly, etc etc.

It looks well, feels well, but it's not suitable for devs. I'm a long time lenovo x200 line user, and the X1 is really bad compared to those models.

Can't recommend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I redid my Lenovo T520 into a Ubuntu 14.04 machine. A few observations:

The pros: 1\. Super fast boot 2\. Super fast just about everything 3\. Awesome command line 4\. great for development

Cons: 1\. Battery life sucks on Linux. No optimizations of any kind. In windows, I was able to work for 3+ hours on my battery, now I am happy if I get 1 hour on Linux.

2\. Nvidia drivers are still a pain. I tried the built in Ubuntu driver and got super slow refresh rates on a dual 24" setup. On the other hand, the native Nvidia drivers freeze the machine every now and then. Guess I'll just have to live with it

3\. Docking the machine sometimes screws up the resolution. Boot the machine undocked, and then dock it seems to be the trick. Not sure if other systems have this issue.

<comment><USER15> Did you try installing tlp ([https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP)) for your battery problems? I usually get the same battery life as if running windows.

<comment><USER14> Awesome recommendation! Thanks so much. Installed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have wondered the same thing for quite some time now and I decided to simply install Ubuntu on my 2013 Macbook Air. Everything works out of the box (except the iSight webcam), and with a bit more polishing, you get good battery life and trackpad gestures.

Before taking that decision, I had read plenty of reviews of various models, but could not find a decent PC out there that would be both light, and powerful, with a good screen (something the MBA might not be best at to be honest). The best results I found were the Yoga 2 Pro (but Linux compatibility does not look great), and the Asus NX500 that has not yet been released, and that appeared to be disappointing based on pre-production version reviews.

<comment><USER16> I have a Yoga 2 Pro and can at least confirm that Linux compatability isn't wonderful, though it is usable. The main problem is that HiDPI is a serious issue for lots of software that I use everyday, like Chrome and Android Studio. I almost wish I would've bought a MacBook Pro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use a Dell XPS 13 and it works like a charm :)

</comment><comment><USER18> I just ordered a System76 galago- it's a 14' machine with a 16 gbs memory, i7 quad core processor and runs Ubuntu out of the box. On the other hand, my 2010 MBP has done me well until now.

</comment><comment><USER19> My coworker just bought a Schenker s403 because he was looking for a replacement laptop to run Ubuntu on. European company, but they ship to the US, and they'll happily throw in a US power cable if you request one in comments when purchasing. I'm pretty sure you don't have to pay VAT either, so that gives you an extra discount there.

</comment><comment><USER20> The 1080p IPS screen of the T440s is supposed to be really good, I guess the complaints are about the 1600x900 TN version?

Here's a review of the screen: [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update- Lenovo-ThinkPad-T...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Lenovo- ThinkPad-T440s-20AQ0069GE-Notebook.110564.0.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> This may not be the answer you are looking for, but after more than a decade of all models of thinkpads and few dells I've realized the best Linux laptop is a MacBook Pro with virtual box that is running my Linux server.

This way I get the best UI shell and have all my Dev work done on Linux.

<comment><USER9> Try a tiling window manager and you won't go back to that fluffy Mac drop shadow frivolity ever again. It looks very pretty, but for getting work done, managing windows is a needless chore, and animations on everything just slows you down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have an asus zenbook and it was super easy to install ubuntu (also single boot) and no driver issues at all.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've been happy with the offerings from System76. Haven't done a tremendously rigorous comparison.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not a recommendation for the best laptop, but perhaps a useful tool to see which tools Ubuntu themselves recommend:

[http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/](http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Have you considered an Asus Zenbook?

See [http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=asus_zenb...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=asus_zenbook_ux301la&num=1)

</comment><comment><USER3> We're running Debian on two of our MacBook Airs, one dual boot, one mono. No major complaints or issues. Quite a nice experience, and seems to be a conversation starter in cafes and coworking spaces.

</comment><comment><USER26> The issues you encounter installing Ubuntu on an MBA should be resolvable with Google and not a whole lot of effort.

However, hardware compatibility and installation issues are more or less what you're choosing when you choose Linux as a desktop OS. If that sounds like a fun project (and it really does to a lot of people) then you'll be fine with an MBA. If you want something that "just works" then, sadly, you want a proprietary OS.

If you get enough RAM on your MBA, running Ubuntu in a full-screen Virtualbox window all the time will get you a Linux machine without the driver/wifi/power issues.

System76 is also worth looking into, since they claim to provide a "just works" UX for Ubuntu directly on top of hardware.

</comment><comment><USER27> I was very happy running Ubuntu on a System76 laptop (less happy running Debian on it) and have been so happy with my ZaReason desktop that I'll probably get one of their laptops in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER28> you could start with various hardware compatibility lists, but the only recent recurring issues i remember is with some wireless chipsets, ATI graphics chipsets and off-brand printers.

And my HP Pavilion that i couldn't get wifi to work on, seems ot have made it onto this list anyway: [http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/make/HP/?categor...](http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/make/HP/?category=Laptop)

</comment><comment><USER29> I agree. Macbook is the best option in my opinion. It also enables you to enjoy from all worlds - Mac OS, Linux and Windows...

</comment><comment><USER30> I have a Lenovo Y500 ideapad and my partner has a Lenovo thinkpad edge (e530?). Both are great.</comment>


Zenbox CustomData: Make Gmail your customer admin dashboard - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zenboxapp.com/zenbox-custom-data-supercharged-your-admin-da

<comment><USER2> I really like the idea of Zenbox, but I had to turn it off because the Chrome extension was bringing my browing experience to a crawl, on all sites (not just gmail). Hope team Zenbox can resolve the performance issues!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, there are a few challenges around this - we need to get it order ASAP. We've had a few performance-only hack days, and have another one this weekend.

It'd probably be work a blog post talking about some of the challenges around eeking out performance in places where you're not accounted for (as an extension, for example), and some ways to work around it - once we've fixed it, of course!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really cool, can't wait to try this out!</comment>


JQuery 1.10.0 and 2.0.1 Released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jquery.com/2013/05/24/jquery-1-10-0-and-2-0-1-released/

<comment><USER2> The jQuery Blog is the only blog I care about that doesn't have an RSS feed. I've waited years for them to add (or fix?) their RSS feed. With Google Reader shutting down, it seems that RSS feeds aren't popular, so maybe the jQuery Blog will never have an RSS feed. I looked for a solution just now and learned that Twitter accounts have RSS feeds. Here's the RSS feed for jQuery's Twitter account, which isn't full of typical Twitter noise:

[https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_...](https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=jquery)

<comment><USER3> Huh - it does have an RSS feed though, it's just the one provided by Wordpress: <http://blog.jquery.com/feed/>

If you put <http://blog.jquery.com/> into your feedreader it should be able to just automatically detect the feed (it's embedded in the page using a <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" .../>).

<comment><USER2> When I try to subscribe to <http://blog.jquery.com/> or <http://blog.jquery.com/feed/> in Thunderbird, I receive an error stating that "the Feed URL is not a valid feed". Also, I couldn't find a feed URL at the jQuery Blog that validates at the W3C Feed Validation Service.

I've seen multiple commenters at the jQuery Blog state that the feed is broken for them too. The following search results bring up some of these comments:

[https://google.com/search?q=site:blog.jquery.com+broken+feed...](https://google.com/search?q=site:blog.jquery.com+broken+feed+OR+rss)

I recall that this issue was acknowledged at some point by one of the contributors at the jQuery Blog. I don't recall who acknowledged it though, but I seem to recall that they stated it would be fixed eventually, which is why I didn't look for a solution until today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wouldn't it make more sense to call it 1.9.1? Then there'd be a predictable link between 1.(9+x).y and 2.x.y.

Now, according to the post, 1.11 will have feature parity with 2.1. Will 1.12 be equivalent to 2.1.1 (assuming there is one) or 2.2? It seems needlessly confusing.

<comment><USER5> I understand it as 1.12<>2.2, and 1.13<>2.3 and so on.

How is the link 1.(9+x).y<>2.x.y clearer than 1.(10+x).y<>2.x.y?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you all for working on this and making my webdev life and that of many others a lot easier.

</comment><comment><USER7> How long does it usually take, before the new version is up on Google's CDN?

[https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.0/jquery.m...](https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.0/jquery.min.js)

<comment><USER8> It can take at least a couple of days - I was checking it after the release of 1.9.1 and was surprised how long it took them.</comment></comment>


The End of uBlock Origin for Google Chrome? - <AUTHOR> https://www.ghacks.net/2019/10/12/the-end-of-ublock-origin-for-google-chrome/ <comment><USER2> Question: would you continue using chrome if you had to do it without ublock?

Right now the only thing that requires you to have a copy of chrome around is, funny enough, Microsoft Teams.

<comment><USER3> I switched from chrome several months ago, for firefox, I just got tired of the way google was doing business.

I'm curious, why you need chrome for teams, I use it on the web in firefox daily, I know teams desktop is an electron app but I believe itself contained and doesn't require a separate copy of chrome to be installed, no?

<comment><USER2> I'm not using the electron app. I want to use it directly in the browser, which does not work on Firefox (at least on Linux)</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter Contest Winning as a Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.hscott.net/twitter-contest-winning-as-a-service/ <comment><USER2> The news to me here is that those contests actually pay out. I assumed the vast majority were just marketing ploys, where they never picked the winner, or chose one of their own sock puppets. After all, who would ever know?

<comment><USER3> A friend of mine works in radio and he says that some of the contests are won by "loyal listeners" or friends of the hosts. The "winner" gets a text that basically says, "Call in now and I'll put you on hold, then play surprised when you are caller 12".

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty surprised by how often I win those things. If I'm driving and a contest of any sort comes up, I'll call the number immediately and repeatedly for a few minutes, just hanging up and pressing redial. Anecdotally, I seem to win whatever prize in about 1% of those that I dial in for.

I've found that I sometimes don't even receive the prize, and occasionally don't even know what the prize or radio station are when I'm calling in as it's reflexive at this point.

<comment><USER5> Please don't do this unless you have a hands-free system!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is amazing, is the source available anywhere? The full list of winnings is staggering.

[http://www.hscott.net/winnings.txt](http://www.hscott.net/winnings.txt)

<comment><USER7> I've created a word cloud of the list. [http://i.imgur.com/vXWzqSQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/vXWzqSQ.png)

<comment><USER8> I'm curious, what'd you use to generate this?

<comment><USER9> Wordle is one such website.

[http://www.wordle.net](http://www.wordle.net)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> His favorite thing is the hat, "because it really embodies the totally random outcome of these contest".

I think it shows what's wrong with his idea: he has a prize that doesn't really have any significance to him. However I'm guessing other entrants to the contest (if there were any) actually are fans of the show, and would value the hat much higher.

<comment><USER11> The hat came with a Visa gift card. If you look at his full text list, it's actually pretty impressive and full of things that would probably have significance to him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _I ended up not claiming the majority of the things I won because I wasn't able to use them or attend them._

It sounds like the bot could be made (slightly?) more intelligent, to avoid entering contests that you're certainly not eligible to.

 _so I had to spend a decent amount of time going though my DMs to find legit winner notifications._

Making the bot read DMs to find them seems an easier task than determining eligibility.

Reading through the winnings list gives an interesting idea of the scale of how many ticketable events happen globally... he only won a tiny fraction of the contests but there's already more tickets than any single person could ever make use of.

<comment><USER13> It'd have to be a _lot_ more intelligent, and then some. It's quite a leap to go from matching "RT" and "win" to checking what kind of thing the prize is, whether it needs to be mailed or claimed, and what the location is where that needs to happen.

<comment><USER14> It would need to be a lot more intelligent to be perfect, but there are probably a few keywords you can use to filter out the bulk of prizes you don't want.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure how the filter would work to catch something like:

 _-tickets to Carrot Top at Golden Nugget Casino in Atlantic City_

So I'm pretty sure there's going to always be a modicum of human involvement in the claiming part. It could auto reply with some PO box address maybe. He did note sometimes he didn't receive the item (ex: 'tupaware').

<comment><USER16> Judging by the word cloud [1], you could simply ignore all posts with "ticket" in the tweet and that would help for the majority of cases.

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003570)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There was a bot/person winning competitions run by local companies in Kenya, that selected a random winner from tweets that had their hashtags: [https://eugeneqaana.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/the-safcom- scam...](https://eugeneqaana.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/the-safcom-scams/) (Ignore the wrong conclusion though) So to answer the writer, yes, someone had thought of it before. It was probably not as sophisticated.

<comment><USER18> I feel like whoever ran that contest should have checked to see that all of the winning accounts were connected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's something random for you. The "tupperware lids that have been warped in the dishwasher" contest is almost certainly a reference to Jeff Foxworthy's 1998 concert album "Totally Committed," where he was joking about the crap that people sell at garage sales.

</comment><comment><USER20> Seriously the best thing I've ever read on Hacker News.

<comment><USER21> Lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Do you really have to declare and pay tax on competition winnings in the US? Would you have to do this in the UK?

I never would have thought..

<comment><USER6> [http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/10/do-you-pay- tax-...](http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/10/do-you-pay-tax-lottery- win)

        HM Revenue & Customs doesn't regard lottery winnings as income, so all prizes are tax-free – hurray! However, there could be tax implications once you've banked your winnings.

I'm struggling to find other answers, the Daily Mail's 'This is Money' website says the opposite is true and that it's counted as freelancer income.

[http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-2551709/I...](http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-2551709/I-just- won-5-000-industry-award-Do-I-pay-tax-it.html)

        HMRC has produced guidance in the context of freelancers who win prizes and the short version is that they view most prizes as taxable income of the freelancer.

Grey area? An interesting area.

<comment><USER23> Re freelancing - the context is that the prize is an industry award; they won it as part of their work and so if they're a sole trader it counts as income in the normal way and would be taxed accordingly.

Gambling income is tax free in the UK as I understand it, you pay tax to take part (the tax at that end is greater unless the company pays out more than it receives!).

<comment><USER6> Ah excellent, thanks for the clarity regarding the freelancing. Admittedly I skimmed those articles to try and claw the information as fast as I could.

(Having a website which looks like the DailyMail open at work (even during break) isn't the best look!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You could create your own contests with the prizes and see how many followers you gain. It'd be nice to see how effective are these strategies.

</comment><comment><USER25> While most likely not illegal, this feels rather unethical to me. Presumably most of these contests are promoters trying to use the contests as a marketing tool and the prizes as a reward to fans. This bot just aims to take as much as possible.

<comment><USER26> I'd rather presume that most of these contests are actually other bots designed to generate buzz to promote events or, more likely, harvest market research data. I have no sympathy for such devices and have no problem watching robots fight over cowboy hats.

<comment><USER27> Wait a minute, your response to other _competitors_ maybe losing out is to critique the _operators_ of the contest? I don't think anyone claimed that the Twitter competitions were operated by true fans who'd be disappointed to have their offerings games, but that true fans might be interested in winning some of the prices, notwithstanding that they are offered as part of a marketing campaign.

<comment><USER26> Yes. I'd stake that the majority of retweets today are in fact bots. See below...

"OK. 1 more chance. If no one RTs, replies, or even talks about this tweet, I will donate £15,000 to a charity of your choice. Any questions?" \--> 369 retweets, most by suspected bots.

[https://twitter.com/rickygervais/status/324632844829876224](https://twitter.com/rickygervais/status/324632844829876224)

<comment><USER27> I'm confused. Did you mean _contests_ (as written) or _contestants_? I agree that bot vs. bot is nothing to lose sleep over, but I thought we were talking about bots vs. actual human fans who want to win an autographed knick-knack or a pair of tickets to an event or whatever.

I'm not big on competitions or surveys, but I occasionally participate in one spontaneously for amusement, and on those occasions where I've won something it's been highly enjoyable. I'm much less inclined to do if I think about mechanized competitor-bots or suchlike, and think that automating such activities is astonishingly selfish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is so impressive it left most voters speechless. 269 points and only 35 comments at the time of this comment.

<comment><USER29> It's neat but not exactly the type of thing that sparks lively debate.

<comment><USER14> I disagree!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My friend and I once wrote a python script to participate in Q&A contest (first answer will win the contest) on twitter. That running script actually prints an recent question of particular twitter handler and asks for prompt to type an answer. Once you type an answer (after googling or whatever you want), it just posts that answer in reply of that question's tweet. We also decided to hit the google search for answer and crawl answer but I think it would need some work.

<comment><USER3> You ever win?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> By looking at the list of winnings, It's quite funny how cheap you can get some people to retweet (and probably get some more audience) by offering such things as:

-free infographic

-some logo

-lipstick from Avon

-graphic

-wall planner

(and so on and so forth)

</comment><comment><USER32> Great read! I wonder if similar bot can be created for instagram. Lots of marketing contests over there as well :)

<comment><USER33> And Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This was awesome, but I was disappointed to read that he didn't cash in the New York Fashion Week prize. Sure, it would have cost him some $$$, but what a story! I bet it'd have been worth paying a small premium for the adventure.

</comment><comment><USER35> Amazing! I thought about doing that but gave up because I was too lazy to configure a bot. I would have never expected it to work so well.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wow, very interesting.

Can this be used for other purposes - like finding ideas for an app/website/biz, finding deep discounts on products etc?

</comment><comment><USER37> Reminds me of Lazlo Hollyfeld in Real Genius

</comment><comment><USER38> Let's extend this with a network of geographically diverse users of the script on different accounts. That way our chances of winning AND our chance of having someone near the contest are both increased.

</comment><comment><USER39> One crazy idea I have is to run contests on Twitter where I post obscure movie lines or music lyrics and the person who replies first with the answer wins.

I wonder if someone could create a winning bot.

</comment><comment><USER40> Per that xkcd graphic, I did try the ebay 1 cent auctions. But then stopped it as it was all junk from china in epackets.

</comment><comment><USER41> He should run a few bots in parallel to augment his odds.

<comment> undrcvr-lagggal Indeed. It was probably hard to do because he's using Python which has problems due to its GIL. I myself would have went for Go, whoms CSP model matches this problem perfectly.

<comment><USER42> He could just run the code in multiple process. Enough with the GIL bullshit.

<comment> undrcvr-lagggal That would be inefficient because you'd need to allocate extra stack, process datastructures, context switching, etc.

<comment><USER41> From experience, when you can, it's just better spawning multiple processes over doing multithreading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Awesome work and a great read!

</comment><comment><USER44> Awesome morning read! Nice hack!

</comment><comment><USER45> What did they do with the things they didn't claim? Just seems a shame to have let the unclaimed prizes go to waste.

<comment> liviu- >In those cases, I just messaged them back and told them to give the prize to someone else.

<comment><USER45> oops, missed that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is brilliant.</comment>


Facebook's Got Nothin' on Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Facebooks-Got-Nothin-on-Google-3083

<comment><USER2> Hmm, this discussion has been going on for quite a while now and obviously will so in the future. I have to say that I feel the FB vs. Google discussion doesn't make much sense to me, and the only thing worth comparing is that they are both big. Clearly, the all social approach from FB is not a direction Google thinks is worth following. Doesn't make Google vs Apple way more sense here?</comment>


U.S. Orders Chinese Company to Sell Grindr App - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-orders-chinese-company-to-sell-grindr-app-11553717942 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498975](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498975).</comment>


Qik.im - Two in One: Fastest Url shortener ever + QR code generator - <AUTHOR> http://qik.im/?ref=yc2

<comment><USER2> Most URL shorteners offer a QR code for any short URL:

* <https://bitly.com/4nVG8Q.qr> (QR shown by default if you use a mobile device)

* <http://safe.mn/4rZQ/q> (QR shown by default if you use a mobile device)

* <http://goo.gl/rJFmD.qr>

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice! One thing I'd like to see is if it didn't generate a new short URL for the same long URL. For example, both <http://qik.im/BV0> and <http://qik.im/6Br> point to this page (I shortened this page's URL twice).

<comment><AUTHOR> duplicated urls, i'll take a look at that, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't say I've ever experienced a need for more speed in a URL shortener, honestly. Neither in the shortening phase, nor the lookup. The auto QR code generation is nice though.

<comment><USER5> Second that. Speed is not something I ever even considered to be an issue.

If it were me (which it's not), it's the QR code feature _in combination_ with the existing idea of URL shorteners that I'd be promoting as the differentiating factor — i.e. "Qik.im — Short URLs with QR codes". I think introducing the concept of speed into the copy detracts from what's cool about it.

Nice work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is fast once its loaded, but slow image and page loads make it less speedy seeming.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey ellioth, which image is loading slow, the QR code or all images?

<comment><USER6> Pressing the button to get a QR code and a link is instant.

It's the general page load, your logo and the actual front page that takes a while, especially given how little is on the page itself. I suspect it's to do with your hosting speed. I'm in the UK so if some US hosting is v.slow to here.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, I think is the hosting, should be faster... i'll fix that, thanks for the feedback btw :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> this thread was featured in HN, thanks guys <http://qik.im/me6>

</comment><comment><USER7> nice! it even shorten non-existing URLs.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, still gotta fix that, but it works to create a QR with text data.

<comment><USER8> Looking good! :)</comment></comment></comment>


Don't sell Technology to Indian Businesses - <AUTHOR> http://blog.architgupta.com/dont-sell-technology-to-indians-businesses-or <comment><USER3> The article was a bit difficult to follow, perhaps due to liberal use of 'Indian' English and missing prepositions. Sorry, I know this is meta - <USER2> would like to hear what you have to say and would likely find it interesting. I would _appreciate_ if you were to revise your writing so that it is more readable. I believe you are capable of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am the author. Pardon the poor English. Can you give me a couple of example phrases? I'll maybe try to re-write.

Another person also complained about the writing, so an opportunity to learn here. :)

[Edit: I see feedback below. I'll take another pass soon.]

<comment> johnx123-up I can't understand about your clearTax site. Is it similar to <http://80g.in/> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> ClearTax is for filing your Income Tax Returns. Its like TurboTax for India.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is going to be a rant...

I am an Indian! Currently staying in Bangalore.

Indians don't buy Technology? This is BS, right?

Indians pay for technology all the time. From the poorest to richest. Just because they don't click on paypal and the money doesn't land in your start up's account it doesn't mean Indians don't pay up. The average levels of Piracy in India will more or less be the same as they are around the world.

Indians pay for things that bring them value. Not just because you built something. And it is you who built it.So first understand what value you bring common Indian masses.

I know of Auto drivers and cab drivers who get costly metering and taxi dispatch systems fitted to their vehicles. And they are really poor people. They are paying for technology, because it brings value to them. Do you know how many people use mobiles phones in India? Even the poorest people might be earning less than $1 a day(I know many beggars who carry mobile phones) use mobile phones in India, and they pay their bills.

I know Temples, Churches, Mosques use scrolling displays outside their compounds for various announcements. The displays survive in tough weather. And they sell. They bought it because it adds value to them.

I know ordinary middle class people, buy handy glucometers( for diabetes/blood sugar level testing) and Nebulizers and Sphygmomanometers(To check their blood pressure levels), Glucometers made by Accecheck. Why do they buy this technology? Because it brings value to them.

Millions of middle class Indians use solar technology and rain water harvesting systems. And they pay for it, you know why? Because it brings value to them.

I can go on and on... Citing examples.

India is like every other country and Indians are like people from any other nation.

People pay up when they see some value in the product. So any time you accuse Indians of not paying up. Ask your self a simple question.

 _What value does my service/product bring to the people_

If you can't come up with a good answer to this question. Really the problem is with your product strategy.

Not Indians. Or India as a whole.

PS:

In this case 'Tax filing' software/means is worth dime for a dozen in this country.

EDIT : To all people who are downvoting this, Truth is bitter. An MVC site which has a thousand clones or which doesn't bring any value is not bound to succeed.

Seriously ask your self what value you bring to the world or _why should people buy from you_.

<comment><USER5> I am also an Indian, also from Bangalore.

India and other poor nations account for a larger share of piracy worldwide. Here's a somewhat old study but it still serves to prove my point. [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime- soft...](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software- piracy-rate)

Almost all the auto drivers here use the meters that come with the auto. Newer 4-stroke autos have better mileage so auto drivers or auto lending firms buy them and they come with digital meters by default so more autos are starting to get them. I don't know about taxies because I don't use them.

 _Most_ temples, churches and mosques here don't.

Buying a glucometer saves a trip to the doctor just for that. It is a reduction of cost and there is no cheaper way to do it. In the case of software however, piracy or a cheaper option is almost always available.

Of course you can go on and on but you have proven nothing. You have chosen to speak of a minority who do understand the value of technology and pay for it. I can also show you people/businesses who use FOSS or legally purchased software in Bangalore. Would that mean piracy doesn't exist here or that it is not prevalent? There is always the outlier class in any society. You cannot depend on them for a viable business in most cases.

<comment><USER4> Your post only proves my point(That people build things without knowing what value they add). Do you know how much metering for an auto costs? Do you know how much Taxi Dispatch system for a taxi costs? And neither the meter or the TDS comes with the Auto/Taxi. They have to pay for it from their pockets. I know this as a my father is a Taxi Driver.

Do you know how much booking for taxis happens through emails/SMS and other online systems. The number is enormous. Those who sell, sell. Those who whine, whine.

Coming to your point about Glucometers, again, people buy them because they need them regularly. So they pay for value. Why shouldn't they? I know at least 3 homes around me, and I live deep in Bangalore, not in BTM and Jayanagar types where only rich people live. People in those 3 homes have Nebulizers. They are ordinary middle class people who earn less than me.

Your problem is simple, _You refuse to learn from failures_. And you believe the problem is with people around not with you. If you have the same attitude you will never succeed in business. Business requires learning a lot from feedback.

Piracy is a global problem, Not just in India.

Your assumption that Piracy is an Indian monopoly is ridiculous to say at the least.

You say viable business cannot be set up in India. From where do you think crores of Indians derive their livelihood from? Have you heard of Jamshedpur an entire city set up by Tata's?

Again as I said, those who know how to do buisiness in India do it by _building value_. Those who can't just whine.

Lastly code is not the answer to all the problems in world/India. And business success doesn't depend on code alone. It depends on understanding people's problems and solving them. People pay if there is value, not just because its built.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/article4475.ec...](http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/article4475.ece) Post that announcement in 2009, new autos have had only new meters. If the notification is issued the day after a new auto is bought, it will be a loss of money to the auto owner. The notification was issued in Jan this year if I'm not wrong and it is now compulsory to have digital meters. The reason why it took from 2009-12 was because of auto-drivers resisting the change. Of course, all this because a majority of auto drivers are assholes whose only aim in life is to fleece passengers. It amazes me that of all people, you are bringing up auto-drivers as an example of technological change.

<comment><USER4> Auto drivers are no bigger assholes than us software engineers, to be really telling frankly.

If a software engineer can hop jobs every year without adding even 6 months of value to a company and he submits false rent receipts to save taxes(Which is stealing or fleecing as your describe the national treasury by the way)or when he reads online forums in the day time instead of working(which is fleecing the company by the way) etc.

We should not point fingers at other occupations and pass sweeping generalizations on other people.

This is the classic Indian mentality. We expect the poor to remain poor. An Auto driver is not supposed to earn well. The son of a cab driver like me is not supposed to be an engineer and earning well. And if we work hard and succeed we are assumed to be crossing our bounds. And the traditional Indian crowd can't stand this.

But my point stands true right.

The digital meters sell because there is a demand, and there is a value to it.

Business demands value.

<comment><USER6> _We should not point fingers at other occupations and pass sweeping generalizations on other people._

You ask him to refrain from making generalizations, but YOU are the one that is making a lot of them. Nobody said that they don't want you to succeed because you are the son of a taxi driver, there was no need to even mention it in an anonymous online forum. It is YOU who is trying to get sympathy from this fact. Please try to understand what you are doing.

I must say that I agree with asto; you have not countered his assertions, skirted but not tackled his points. It is an undeniable fact that piracy is rampant in India. Whether it is "good or bad for the country" is debatable, but the fact that it exists is not.

<comment><USER4> Oh!

True,

By me asking to build business which add value I did a big mistake, but him by pointing the _whole nation_ to be of people who are pirates has done a very great thing.

By the way bashing India to get moments of glory has become fashionable for many Indians these days.

They do it all the time, to get visas abroad or settle down abroad.

If there is so much problem here, why don't you guys leave this place and go and settle down in your promised land.

<comment><USER6> I'm going to ignore your potshots, and focus on the few points that are worth commenting on. _By me asking to build business which add value I did a big mistake, but him by pointing the whole nation to be of people who are pirates has done a very great thing_ Firstly, he did not assert that the whole nation is pirates. He said most are involved in piracy, which is pretty much the truth. Again, you fail to address the points which asto made, instead you are just complaining and generalizing about anyone who speaks against you. The only way to improve a problem is by acknowledging it first. Denying a problem exists/ brushing off with flimsy reasons will just aggravate it.

<comment><USER4> I will end this too.

But I am not able to understand what problem young entrepreneurs actually have.

I know for sure that as a nation we are honest people. We pay for stuff as we always have been.

The problem is simple, India is a different nation and you need to build stuff that solves peoples problem and they will buy those solutions from you.

For a moment I can't imagine why anybody would blame the whole nation just because one start up failed. Or a certain part of the nation pirated something, which by the way happens around the globe. Most of such people are basically wannabe westerners and for whatever reason they just want to run from here. May be they think its honey and milk outside. Or may be they just want to go and settle down abroad.

All that is understandable and we Indians have no problems with that, but don't defame a whole nation to justify your actions. Writing books, blog posts and publicly ridiculing a whole nation just so that you can get your moments of glory outside.

My advice to any person starting a start up in India would be simple and straight. Understand what problems people have and solve them, give them a good pricing and people will buy it.

This is what big successes of India have been doing. This is what Tata's and Ambani's did, This is what NRN's and Premji's or the modern era did. They gave value to people at affordable prices. They built industries and sectors that has fueled India's growth for a decades now.

None of them wanted hit and run success with a tiny 3 web page MVC website and then expected the entire nation to make them millionaires regardless of whether the product they sold was useful to them. They faced numerous failure but they did go on and blame the whole nation for that. They looked internally and solved their problems.

Focus and build stuff that matters. Give a good pricing. The market here is huge. People will buy.

<comment><USER6> The assertion being argued was whether Indians are quick to adopt technology. They certainly are not, and it has to do with our low-trust society. By that I mean that Indians are wary of being conned by scams, online or offline. (Notice that I am referring only to those technologies/businesses that involve monetary transactions with Indian companies. Of course, the whole nation has embraced the likes of facebook and orkut). Have you noticed that most of the companies that you mentioned get most of their business through exports and not through the domestic market? Why didn't facebook or google start in India? The tiny 3 web page MVC websites you mention are as important as any Infosys (in fact, it might be even more important as they promote creativity while a company like infosys or wipro stifles it). Nobody doubts the success of Ambani or Tata, but they are a one in a million company. If it was easier do do business, we might have had many more. Also, I'm not going to argue with you anymore on the extent of piracy in India. To do so is...laughable. Nobody buys genuine windows for their systems. Nobody buys original Games/Movies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Completely agree with the "don't want to pay for software" bit. Heck, they don't want to pay for ANYTHING. Pirated windows, pirated accounting software, cheapass website because they look for the cheapest deal... the list is endless.

<comment><USER7> I am not so sure. I see two problems in the current situation here.

1\. Pricing. The cost of most software is comparable to its cost in U.S. A windows 7 professional edition costs around 8000 bucks, which I think is pretty high. I am sure most people would gladly pay if they thought it was reasonable. Same with books.

2\. Convenience. Most people are wary of using their credit cards or debit cards online. For physical goods, there is Cash On Delivery which is working out pretty well for a lot of companies. Not sure what the alternative is for software thought.

For example, look at Flipkart. They are killing it.

Also could not make much out of the article.

<comment><USER8> Flipkart & other ecomm portals are not offering any technology. They are using a fairly simple website to let people order everyday goods.

The concept of ecommerce is pretty old in itself. The fact that Indian consumers have woken up so late to it re-emphasizes that Indians resist technological intervention. It is not as if internet penetration, credit card penetration and logistics infrastructure has changed radically in the past year in India. It is the only the investment scenario that has changed. Archit's article in some sense calls for more such investments in other technology and technology enabled products.

<comment><USER7> The mention of Flipkart was for parents argument that Indians don't want to pay for anything and would pirate things it they can. Flipkart sells books and music successfully which a lot of people here don't seem to be willing to pay for.

>>The fact that Indian consumers have woken up so late to it re-emphasizes that Indians resist technological intervention

Maybe I see things wrong but I don't think Indians resist technology. Its that the technology got here late. Also, its just that it is a different market and different factors at play here.

<comment><USER9> I know this is early days for Flipkart's music service, but are there any numbers available on how customers have responded to it.

<comment><USER7> [http://www.pluggd.in/forum/discussion/524/flipkart-flyte- get...](http://www.pluggd.in/forum/discussion/524/flipkart-flyte- getting-8000-downloads-including-both-single-tracks-and-albums-daily).

Its just the beginning. I am sure that its going to increase. A lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As already mentioned, the writing style makes it hard to get to the heart of the matter.

For me, it reads like a cathartic post from a stressed out entrepreneur. Needs to be 'understood' rather than being taken literally.

The gist of the post can be summarized so:

Is it a good idea to start a software products company in India? No, it isn't, because VCs will never fund it and you will never make it by bootstrapping. Even if you do, "fast-followers" will clone your business and get the benefit. Heads you loose, tails they win.

Then we have all the obstacles one has to grapple with. Not least are the unreasonable, uncouth, undiscerning customers who want to free-ride as much as possible.

The future will be better but now it's so bleak... :(

\----

Being a Bangalore based entrepreneur focused on Indian enterprises and small businesses (co-founder, Greytip), I can relate to the frustrations but also strongly disagree on many counts.

Yes, there may not be a market for Online Tax Filing due to all the factors Archit lists out, but, it could also be because there are already many players in the domain. Moreover, it is a once a year business opportunity so it's a tougher nut to crack.

As for customers willingness to pay for software, it is all about value for money. A $5 per user pricing, although reasonable in the developed world, will not cut ice in India. A 50 cents per user pricing may yet work.

Which brings us to the key challenges to doing business in India: how do you keep costs low and still make profits, break-even before you break out of runway, and not compromise on quality and service.

Some days you put your head down and get going, some days you silently scream in the dark, and on some days you just rant... ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good one Sayeed. :-)

It was a rant. $5 pricing once a year. If that's outside of the affordability range, my business will be in trouble. Most people pay though, so I am not too worried.

VC funded business is fine IMO, just be prepared if you create a market, fast followers are coming. True for most companies across the world I suppose(Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz). Hence, I wrote about brand building, while you create value.

I think the takeaway is:

"the key challenges to doing business in India: how do you keep costs low and still make profits, break-even before you break out of runway, and not compromise on quality and service."

I think this is true for across the world. I mean everyone loves a deal! So maybe create a business for the richer part of the world.

Mostly food for thought. I like what GreyTip is doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> /s/Indian/Indonesian and I just written an article about Indonesia.</comment>


Maxwell's fluid model of magnetism (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.05926 <comment><USER2> If people are interested in the historical developments of EM theory and the various physical analogies maxwell used, I'd highly recommend "Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field" by Forbes and Mahon. It has a interesting description of these, and also emphasizes the insights Faraday had - he wrote about the potential of EM waves ~30 years before maxwell came up with the mathematics.

<comment><USER3> And if you want to know what kind of thinking Einstein used to move from Maxwell equations to light being quanta I recommend: Einstein lecture by Douglas Hofstadter (Feb 4, 2018) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXdQfPrU64g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXdQfPrU64g)

You might want to jump directly to point: [https://youtu.be/NXdQfPrU64g?t=704](https://youtu.be/NXdQfPrU64g?t=704)

<comment><USER4> I have a quick question: is the modern understanding that "the electromagnetic field itself quantized" OR is it just shorthand for "light emitted specifically by atomic electron orbitals changing is produced in discrete energy levels because the energy levels between orbitals are discrete"?

To me, it always felt like the latter, but I've never seen that written down explicitly, and everyone seems to talk like it's the former. I mean sure, 99.99% of the time experiments that emit or absorb photons are performed using atoms (and hence discrete electron orbitals) but that's certainly not the only way to create or or absorb photons. There's Cherenkov radiation, Bremsstrahlung, etc...

<comment><USER5> The EM field itself is quantized. You start with the classical electromagnetic field and you try to quantize it. The rules for this are not precise nor formal.

That means something a little different to "photons can only have specific energies" (that applies only to very specific atoms or atoms with certain structure; in many materials, electrons can exist in bands of continuous energy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like this illustrates a problem with the world of physics today (and other areas). This paper sounds like it could be the beginning of something new/better. But the effort required to bring all of that together was probably significant, and I kept seeing "to first order" which indicates it's nowhere near complete.

I guess my point is that QM took a long time, and work from a lot of people to reach the point it has. Any replacement will likely need a lot of work by a lot of people, and there don't seem to be very many people working outside the box. Or perhaps that's just because nobody wants to publish half-baked ideas. I'd rather see new ideas published and get shot down than yet another experiment confirming spooky action at a distance in some new configuration.

<comment><USER7> Well, I'm always enthusiastic when I see such new developments and I'm certainly going to read through it later in the evening. That being said, I'm also more skeptical whether this has a chance to work, especially if it's a classical construction. Why? Well, you'd probably need to study physics for a few years to really appreciate the answer, however I can sum it up quite simply: At the beginning of the 20th century we realized that our models are allowed to contain whatever objects you can imagine (and put in a consistent mathematical form, of course). In particular, theories are allowed to operate on objects which don't even take number values as long as they are objects which obey the defined rules. This realization is so refreshing, so liberating that it allowed for the construction of a number of magnificent things like quantum mechanics, field theory, standard model and strings. However it's hard to convey this truth to someone who's mathematical education finished (even) at an engineer level. Thus, you see the media and half-physicists always focusing on the same stupid "paradoxes" when there was never one to begin with. The insistence of many mediocre people against quantum mechanics (and modern physics in general) is analogous to an ancient Egyptian protesting that: "we should have a theory where everything is explained with natural numbers" which is the only object that his limited imagination can directly connect with reality. Another argument which people tend to use is that "QM is complicated", but nothing stands further from the truth. It might be hard to derive the solutions, but the postulates are really simple and there are no simple alternatives with the scope of validity of QM. The only real way of proceeding is to learn the lessons of quantum theory and build upon it, someday we may be lucky enough to find simple mathematical rules (but likely highly abstract) that govern the universe.

So as you see, I partially agree with you. The "spooky action" kind of experiments are stupid, but for the opposite reason!

<comment><USER6> Thanks for that. I am that engineer / half-physicist and I can appreciate my own ignorance in this area. I have my own interest where my depth seems to go beyond most people studying it, so I know your frustration if only a little.

>> "we should have a theory where everything is explained with natural numbers" which is the only object that his limited imagination can directly connect with reality.

That part though... Physics has a problem where the people practicing it can't even make a satisfactory connection to reality. Even from the outside we see this in debates about "interpretation" which go on among physicists. To be satisfied with the mathematics is one thing, to have a satisfactory connection back to reality is quite another. Don't let the beauty of the abstractions blind you to that.

<comment><USER7> It seems like you've really missed the crucial part. The whole point is to have a theory which will mirror the __relations __of objects in the world __not the objects themselves __. The former leads to truth, the latter is silly. All the interpretations stuff you read about is, unluckily (for the public image of physicists), a fools game. QM is as it was 100 years ago and no progress has ever been made in the "foundations of quantum mechanics", most people who work in this area are either philosophers or very confused physicists. Who's to blame for this state of affairs? Well, there has been plenty of wrong stuff said about QM in media and even in academia. Part of the problem is that people still insist on using the old classical language in the description of quantum experiments. Examples: * "nonlocality" \- quantum theory is a local theory, it's only when you assume that it's "classical in disguise" you get nonsense * "delayed choice" \- should have rather be called "post-factum reasoning"

As I said before if you really dig down deep, you'll realize that this is because our classical macroscopic quantities like "value of momentum", "magnetic moment" etc. are not the same things that exist "down there". The language of nature turns out to be much more subtle. Quantum Mechanics is really the best you can get when you try to hold on to the old classical ideas. Thus an alternative to QM would most likely have nothing to do with classical mechanics at all, it would need to be something entirely new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's quite simple really. The aether is real, but has been suppressed for the sake of "national security".

When this insight goes mainstream (almost 200 years after it was discovered), stuff we reckon as science fiction today will become reality.

</comment><comment><USER9> Only took a quick peek at this, but it seems to resemble Feynman's Absorber Theory

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%E2%80%93Feynman_absorb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%E2%80%93Feynman_absorber_theory)

<comment><USER10> Sorry don't see a connection.

<comment><USER11> It is yet another interpretation of the classical electromagnetism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found this page about Purcell enlightening -

[http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/mrr/MRRtalk.html](http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/mrr/MRRtalk.html)</comment>


How I used Airbnb to fund a hit iPhone app - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2012/01/23/how-i-used-airbnb-to-fund-a-hit-iphone-app-and-you-can-too/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

<comment><USER2> "Let's say a $100-per-night room is booked for a conservative 20 nights out of the month. That's $2,000 of income every time you flip the calendar! At that rate, you can fully fund a basic $10,000 app in five months. "

Only if you don't tell the IRS, or New York City, or New York State about your extra income.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do people usually report AirBNB income to the IRS?

<comment><USER3> You basically have to.[1] I just recently got a notice from AirBnB where I had to verify my info for a 1099 issuance. If I recall correctly, it's fairly hard to ignore this (systematically speaking).

[1]<http://www.airbnb.com/help/question/122>

<comment><USER4> And don't forget about the costs of furnishing, laundry bills, cleaner bills, and so on ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you've already got a nice pad in NYC or SF, is it really that likely you can't come up with $10k? At most that's only a few months rent...

<comment><USER6> It's quite likely. I live in NYC, and pay $1000 a month rent. So "a few months" = 10 months = most of a year.

While I have over $10k in savings, I don't have so much money than I can just throw $10k of it into risk. I don't think I'm that uncommon.

<comment><USER5> I get what you're saying, but the guy in the article is talking about renting an "extra bedroom in a nice neighborhood". Look at that guy's place -- he's got a duplex penthouse in what appears to be fairly nice shape with at least 2 bedrooms. Most likely substantially more than $1000/mo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it not just easier to learn Objective-C / Cocoa touch, than have strangers filing in and out of your spare bedroom for 5 months?

<comment><USER2> It is possible that the OP is not capable of doing that and thus needs to hire someone to do it for him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool. I've used AirBnB as a means to travel and live abroad for an extended period of time while working on my startup. I've connected with developers in countries like Germany (lots of iOS developers here) and am building something together with one of them now. It's a fascinatingly global market place.

</comment><comment><USER9> "How I used Airbnb to fund a hit iPhone app"

Is it possible to know how many downloads or how much revenue this "hit" app is getting right now? Anyone care to share some numbers?

<comment><USER10> While I'm unaware of a way to determine stats on downloads or revenue... you can use App Annie (<http://www.appannie.com/cloth/>) to get a reasonable idea of how the app is doing.

From App Annie: They've been featured roughly ~110 times on the app store in various more prominent areas. And their ranks look semi-decent.

My 2 cents: He's at least made his money back and probably a little extra on top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is 10.000$ really a problem to raise if you call an apartment your own which sells a room for 125$ a day?</comment>


Hilarious NoSQL Parody Video [YouTube] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXc-QDJBXpw

<comment><USER2> Strange definition of "funny"! Who are these "normal people" that are being talked about? Does anyone decide whether or not to use craigslist based on their database? "Users" are mentioned, but of course the users of databases are actually developers, not the actual end users of whatever the developers are making.

It is reasonable to believe that not all developers are idiots. Developers have to make choices all the time and databases are just another choice. If they make a bad choice for their use case then they suffer the consequences.

Yet another "I did A because of B & C and all people who make different choices must be wrong".</comment>


Thngs – a place for every thing - <AUTHOR> https://thngs.co/ <comment><USER2> The CC licensing of the images on this site is more than a little suspect. I'd love to know how this user [https://thngs.co/users/4](https://thngs.co/users/4) owns the rights to thousands of professional catalog shots spanning the last ~100 or so years.

It's one thing to lift images for use on your site but quite another to release those stolen images under a CC license.

<comment><USER3> I learned this the hard way myself. Bad idea to blanket license user uploaded content without some kind of verification in place.

<comment><USER4> Sounds interesting, I was going to use this for a project, mind sharing some wisdom?

<comment><USER3> Not really much to share other than you can get you in some legal hot water. Luckily for me it was caught before I got in too much trouble. Now my terms just say something along the lines of "images are property of their owners".

Same could apply to text too. If some user comes and pastes an entire section of a website that's also not good. I haven't run into that yet so I'll have to see how that turns out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With the cryptic HN titles, I like to make a guess on the content behind the title, then compare. [x]

Expectation: _A system for organizing things around the house by attaching programmable chips to things, tracked by a device /app that notifies if out of place._

Reality: _A catalog database of products, old and new, with descriptions and attributes (manufacturer, materials, prices, etc). Like a Pokedex, [1] but for things._

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay_of_Pok%C3%A9mon#Pok.C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay_of_Pok%C3%A9mon#Pok.C3.A9dex)

[x] Edit: Apparently there IS an HN:TL;DR [https://github.com/Bachmann1234/hn- tldr](https://github.com/Bachmann1234/hn-tldr)

</comment><comment><USER6> > Thngs is a simple tool for the preservation and structuring of data about > physical things.

Not much data...

It's clear that the data is geared toward a graphic design/visual artist mindset rather than a engineer mindset. When I see something like the Optima M12[1] all I want is to see what's inside, but they never open it up.

[1] [https://thngs.co/things/7666](https://thngs.co/things/7666)

EDIT: Infinite scroll that breaks your back button remains an anti-pattern. I scrolled down to Asimo, clicked Asimo, and after reading a bit, clicked back, only to discover myself at the top of the page with none of the content I had already looked at loaded. Cool, I guess I'm done looking.

<comment><USER7> Sorry for scroll, I can't do everything at one time((

<comment><AUTHOR> Please fix the footer when you are at it. It keeps jumping away from my mouse cursor as new items at the bottom of the page are loading.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for reporting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So is this like a curated catalog version of Google image search?

It certainly is very cool, I clicked on the Olympic torch on the home page, then clicked on the category of the item's page, and got a whole list of Olympic torches - [https://thngs.co/search/Typology%3AOlympic%20Torch](https://thngs.co/search/Typology%3AOlympic%20Torch). This is something that wouldn't work as nicely with image search.

On the other hand, this is restricted to "things", but that kind of search is something I do for all kinds of terms.

</comment><comment><USER9> First of all: I think this is a very cool idea. It's like a generalised Pokedex! Imagine you could just take a foto of something with your phone and ask the Index what it is, how cool's that? :D

So yeah, I get why people are connecting this with wikipedia but to me that's not the point. Wikipedia is a knowledge base of important stuff people want to seriously look up.

With the pokedex I can just snapshot some sneakers the guy next to me wears on the tube and get the some infos and maybe personal opinions. It's way more silly and informal but thats what you get when you can add ANYthing.

Think about it, I could add my old Gameboy and have people share their memories and good ol' stories about "back in the day". You could even add your old dog and if somebody asks the index about your dog it will say "That's Dave's dog" xD

This "thing" is way more personal, individual, informal than Wikipedia. Wikipedia is as steril as an OR, with sharp knowledge like a scalpel.

This is just things. Simple, but I can definitely see a trajectory where we end up thinking: how did people live without it? :D

(not this particular version, but if you take the idea and turn it up to 11)

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks like a big idea.

Features that come into my mind:

-Locations where the "thing" is currently available.

-Advanced visual search of "things" by drawing dimensions (I need something of this shape and color, made from that material).

<comment><USER7> I can open you a small secret - there is fully dynamic structure of things. Also there are "renderers" for any kind of special inputs in editor and they are easily extendable. (editor: [http://imgur.com/wPgJ27L](http://imgur.com/wPgJ27L) )

I love your idea about visual search! We already have idea of visual "ruler" to mark known dimensions directly on photo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why not just add all of this to Wikipedia?

<comment><USER12> Wikipedia would not accept it, the things are not notable.

Wikipedia does not bill itself as a datastore about everything, but rather only about the important things.

Also the data they store about each thing, is not everything about the item, but only the most important things about each item.

A lot of people have issue with this: After all, it's not like they are going to run out of space. But nevertheless, that is what they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

\- Steven Wright

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me a little of [http://openfoodfacts.org](http://openfoodfacts.org)

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of an app my friend of of mine built (or started to) a few years ago. skore.org (SSL isn't current). The idea was basically similar, except it included people and was meant to include connections (e.g. Bill Gates associated with Microsoft).

</comment><comment><USER16> With a name like that, you should pivot to thongs. Clearer message.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is really neat. Immediately made me think of the virtual arcade museums in Ready Player One.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great idea, would love to see this integrated into Wikimedia or something similar

<comment><USER7> how to integrate it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I feel like the objects I found in the page are only the ones that are notable due to something (design, popularity.. ). It's an example of survivor bias.. Do not misunderstand me, It's a great idea, but maybe a title like "Awesome Thngs" would be more appropiate.

edit: typo

<comment><USER7> here are ordinary things: [https://thngs.co/starbucks](https://thngs.co/starbucks)

<comment><USER19> I do not consider Starbucks an ordinary brand, do you ? It's full of hype

<comment><USER7> I mean that Thngs consists of everything that could be considered "thing" \- from subway cards to ancient artifacts, from japanese cola bottles to Vespa scooters. I really don't know if hamburger is suitable "thing" for this, but salmon in a can surely is!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The links at the bottom of the screen promptly disappear as the next batch of infinite scrolling loads. That's pretty annoying when trying to click them and I'm always surprised when this kind of thing survives to production.

I love the general idea of this site though. A friend asked if it was possible to view items by year, but I didn't see any way to do so, and searching for a given year doesn't do it.

<comment><USER21> Use date of appearance:

[https://thngs.co/search/Date%20of%20appearance%3A2001](https://thngs.co/search/Date%20of%20appearance%3A2001)</comment></comment>


September 11th - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/09/september-11th.html <comment><USER2> I get the point the author is trying to make, but September 11th may not be the right event to illustrate it. Many things have gotten worse after September 11.</comment>


Show HN: Chrome extension that puts a comment section on any site you want - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mytwocents/gmcmamjffgpegfhbkbldeamchnadoick <comment><AUTHOR> MyTwoCents adds a comment section to any site you want (client-side). The idea is to offer discussions on sites where there originally is none or where comments are disabled. I could think of it being used on news sites, youtube with disabled comments, netflix, live sport streams...

It currently uses the Facebook comments plugin (let the hate come... :D, but I chose it for simplicity for the MVP, and for mainstream users) and comments obviously will only be visible to people with the extension installed (so little bit of a chicken and egg problem).

Happy for any feedback and ideas! :) Also if you have any ideas for what sites/communities it could be useful, let me know...

And if you wanna share some love on ProductHunt: [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mytwocents](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mytwocents) <3 :)</comment>


Ask HN: How does a dev become a growth hacker? - <AUTHOR> I saw many courses for getting into programming and this seems reasonable, because it's a rather good defined thing to do.
But growth hacking not so much.
How does a dev get into this topic? <comment><USER2> It's best to learn through practice. If you're working on a web business, define a growth objective and use your development skills (AKA problem solving skills) to achieve it. So a good example would be to try to improve new user activation from 20% to 30% in the next 30 days. We had a similar goal in my company recently and our VP of engineering generated and implemented an idea that gave us a 300% improvement in new user activation. It was a new onboarding flow. Generally you need to run a bunch of tests to find a handful of things that really make a difference. Other objectives you might want to consider would be improving customer retention or customer referral or even building embeddable widgets for 3rd party sites. Developers have an advantage with growth hacking because they can not only have good ideas, but they can also execute relatively complex ones. Reading can help, but doing is really how you learn it.

</comment><comment><USER3> > But growth hacking not so much.

Because you search with wrong keywords ("growth hacking"). The right one is "marketing", probably combined with "startup".

<comment><USER4> I'm still waiting for "growth hacking" to become synonymous with dark- patterns.

When I encounter growth-hackers the majority of the time I feel like I've just been spammed, or tricked somehow.

"Growth Hacking" is the new "SEO".

<comment><USER5> I absolutely agree, we have two key examples I think. LinkedIn, the masters of dark patterns and short sighted, metric driven optimizations over UX and Uber who do a massive amount of deceptive activity such as [http://www.vox.com/2014/8/27/6074919/the-uber-recruitment- sc...](http://www.vox.com/2014/8/27/6074919/the-uber-recruitment-scandal-isnt- scandalous) (the author paints this is a good thing but I have to question his motives.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> All of Brian Balfour's stuff is top notch. Get readin': [http://www.coelevate.com/growth-machine/](http://www.coelevate.com/growth- machine/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Start treating inbound.org and growthhackers.com like you treat Hacker News. Everything else will take care of itself.

<comment><USER8> Any disclosures required or are you just a happy user?

<comment><AUTHOR> inbound seems a bit suspicious, but the other link seems legit

<comment><USER9> Inbound is pretty well known. I havent looked at their content in years so I dont know if it's any good these days but it is legit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's a great lecture by Alex Schultz on growth:

[http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec06/](http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec06/)

On a side note, elocution is also something to notice in that lecture. He doesn't mumble, he speaks full, clear, sharp, sentences. The ratio content/time is high.

Reminds me of the anecdote of Niels Bohr complaining to Paul Dirac about not knowing how to finish a sentence in an article, to which Dirac replied: "I was taught at school never to start a sentence without knowing the end of it."

</comment><comment><USER11> Stop trying to be a growth hacker and focus on building/marketing a successful business. You will learn all you need.</comment>