Publishing on Medium, with the stats they don't make obvious - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/publishing-on-medium-b1f788c42634 <comment><USER2> _Every time I publish a post I'm offered a check box, checked by default, that means, "People who haven't paid Medium may not be able to see this." Since my goal is to make my writing as widely available as possible, I always uncheck this box._

Hmmmm, didn't realise that was the author's choice (default tbf). I'd assumed some sort of algorithm. Interesting. Kudos for keeping it free, anyway.

<comment><USER3> surprised by this as well! was it always the case? it is also very interesting to know that names i won't repeat here have chosen not to show their article to a wider audience. good luck with that!

medium is a very strange model, imo, because it feels backwards and honestly against what the internet stood for when it started.

<comment><USER4> As many for-profit companies, Medium was great when it was the underdog and their goal was "Sharing ideas and experiences moves humanity forward" and their implementation was to make a distraction free reading with no fuzz.

At one point, it changed (hint: they need to show their investors they can turn a profit) and it's now "Get smarter about what matters to you" with distractions everywhere + the added benefit of being tracked of every scroll/click.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The traffic from Hacker News is bi-modal. If a post takes off, HN provides > 50–60% of the views (along with some delightfully readable comments)(jk).

I guess it's my turn to add to that: I think this is more like a Pareto distribution than a bimodal one, since there really doesn't have two modes.

<comment><USER6> There are two types of people: The 80% that process Pareto distributions as bi-modal, and the 20% that see the gradient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author could move to a new blogsite and clone articles to Medium to keep that 18% audience. Treat it more like Twitter/FB/HN instead of the only source.

This has the drawback of more work for the author though. Perhaps there are tools that auto-publish to Medium for you.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm still lost with medium publishing.

* Did not check box for my most widely read article that had 15k views, so did not get any money. Clicked link for two other articles (10k and 5k reads), yet $$ for each is super different (I know it depends on /who/ reads, but hard to get a sense of what to expect)

* Still don't exactly know what it means when someone asks me to publish to their publication. Is it exclusive? I know it is distributed.

* Still can't figure out an easy way to separate out accounts (I write creative non-fiction and philosophy and poetry and I also write programming tutorials - not much overlap between the audiences) other than publishing into different publications.

In general I like the Medium model, I like being there as a reader and a writer, but it is hard to figure out the best way to use it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why ever check this box if you are not getting paid part of the income for the article.

<comment><USER10> One of the carrots is that your article is more likely to be recommended to people.

<comment><USER9> That is an admission, that one should not read Medium, as they show spam instead of relevant information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > My conclusion from these data is that I shouldn't bother with Facebook.

I would say the opposite. You have 2k page followers on Facebook (1% of your traffic) and 148k on Twitter (20% of your traffic). That means you need ~7.5k followers on Twitter vs 2k on Facebook to get 1% of your views. Thus, Facebook followers are 3-4 times better for your conversions. If you focus on Facebook, you'll get bigger audiences quicker.

(Assuming everything goes as it has gone so far, etc etc)

</comment><comment><USER12> The author gets a link that can bypass the paywall for sharing with friend and others.

</comment><comment><USER13> Behind a paywall of course.

<comment><USER14> You're saying this article was? It wasn't for me, and the author makes explicit that he never lets his articles be behind the paywall.</comment></comment>


The 20 Dollar Millionaire - <AUTHOR> http://www.esquire.com/features/the-state-of-the-american-man/ESQ0903-SEP_20DOLLAR?click=main_sr

<comment><USER2> This article is less interesting than the original, mostly because most of the stuff he gets isn't all that outrageous or interesting. Of course the hotel staff will bring you random objects for $20, and a stripper doesn't care if you want to talk about your dog. It's only interesting on those odd occasions where you get something which is worth, in some sense, more than $20.

The final paragraph, though, about the power of calling service staff by their names, is is interesting. Maybe I should try that. Anyone got any experience with habitually learning and using names (or just reading off their nametags)?

<comment><USER3> People really open up to you when you call them by name...

I never realized it, but almost every conversation I have on the phone goes like this:

        ring
        ring
        "Thenks for calling hacker news, this is PG, how can I help you?"
        "Hey, PG, whats up?"

This totally throws the customer service rep off. Most people just ignore the name and start screaming off their question. It makes you different and "fun" to them. Think about answering the phone all day. Suddenly somebody showing an interest in _you_ goes a long way.

I never realized that I did this until a good friend of mine pointed it out to me. I now feel kindof bad about being manipulative :( (although unintentionally).

The same thing also works for most other service people. Be _nice_ to them. Treat them like people and suddenly things happen for you :)

(there is a restaurant in Tempe, AZ that does _not_ serve fried pickles. However, if you're nice enough to the server, they'll generally pull some strings for you and BAM! friend pickles. I emphasize that they don't serve them because, if you get a server who is in a particularly bad mood and you ask for them, they will get sortof angry at you. I think they're a pain in the ass for the cooks.)

<comment><USER4> I'm going to go ahead and be the counter point on this. I worked at a shitty service job for years and nothing pissed me off like people using my name and trying to get friendly.

<comment><USER3> Umm...no offense, but how would you prefer that people be nice to you?

Did you just hate your job? There is no sense getting mad at the people that were trying to treat you like a human being. I _also_ spent many years working in service industry jobs. People talking to me like I was a person and not a piece of shit that was somehow below them made all the difference to me.

To each their own, I guess.

<comment><USER4> because it was fake. if they're not going to be sincere I would much prefer people just stick to business.

<comment><USER3> It sounds to me like you're assuming that everybody who tries to be nice to you is being _fake_.

My being nice to people when I talk to them is a result of my mid-western upbringing, as well as my working the majority of the jobs I'm talking about here.

It must suck seeing the world through your eyes.

<comment><USER4> well, I live in the 3rd richest county (used to be #1) in the united states. the people here are worse than you can possibly imagine (lots of inherited wealth).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bribing service employees to steal from the store for you (figuratively) seems like a good ROI:

<http://www.thetwentydollartrick.com/>

I'm not much for the false feeling of status resulting from bribery, though.

<comment><USER6> This is how almost everything works in my country. Road police stopped you? Give money and you're free. Want bureaucrats to process your documents faster? Give money. Want better medical service? Money.

The thing is, people are now _demanding_ bribes, and are not willing to do what they are supposed to do without money.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's another version where he takes his stack of 20s to Manhattan. Both are amazingly well written and quite intriguing.

<comment><USER7> This one?

<http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0303-MAR_20DOLLARS>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea... the search feature was being flaky for me... nice job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "So I went to twenty blackjack tables and offered twenty dealers twenty bucks for their best advice."

That would have made a fine N-List.

Also just noticed that Esquire has an interesting Javascript running if you copy text. If the text is long enough, it will add a link to the article to the copied text.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is the "millionaire" as in "People will treat you like a millionaire for 'only' 20 bucks"?

<comment><USER10> I think the hack here is that $20 is the price of renting someone's loyalty. $10 isn't worth it, $50+ makes you a bit crazy and possibly dangerous, bu $20 will get people to bend the rules temporarily without worrying about whether you're a criminal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You could get much of what he asks for if you asked for it and told the people why you wanted / needed it. Doubtful? Look at what some will do for Mardi Gras beads.

<comment><USER2> Mardi Gras beads are a good example -- nobody does anything for Mardi Gras beads that they aren't sort-of looking for an excuse to do anyway. Offering them a trivial reward just gives them an excuse.</comment></comment>


Catch The Buzz at DreamIt Ventures with Mark Hughes (Philly) - <AUTHOR> https://dreamit-ventures.ticketleap.com/Catch-the-Buzz-at-DreamIt-Ventures-with-Mark-Hughes-07-21-2009-06-30

<comment><AUTHOR> Mark Hughes, the CEO of Buzz Marketing was former VP of Marketing for Ebay's Half.com, Hughes grew eBay's Half.com from zero to 8 million customers in less than three years. DId you hear about a town that changed it's name to Half.com - that's Hughes who managed to create the first dot-com city in America. The buzz generating event was dubbed by Time magazine as "one of the greatest publicity coups" in history. 19 days after his Half.com Oregon event, eBay contacted Half.com and later acquired the company for over $300 million. Mark is the author of the best selling book "Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff."</comment>


Facebook world: What's missing from this picture? - <AUTHOR> http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/23/facebook-world-whats-missing-from-this-picture/ <comment><USER2> More interesting is that Russia is also missing. They don't have a Great Firewall blocking them, but instead a local competitor that people use, VKontakte. Originally that was a clone of FB circa 2007, but I guess since then they've added functionality of their own.</comment>


Spotify responds to Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich criticism - <AUTHOR> http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/spotify-responds-to-thom-yorke-and-nigel-godrich-criticism/055383

<comment><USER2> Lately I consume my music almost entirely via Spotify, and its increasingly apparent that there are a number of artists I love who are not a part of their catalog. As a consumer its frustrating, but then again I'm using the free service...

I really wonder what the future holds for cloud based entertainment in this regard. I now consume all entertainment via cloud services and Netflix / Hulu etc have very similar if not worse problems when it comes to movie and TV catalogs. You'd think that now we're several years into it that these problems would have ironed themselves out by now, but it seems to be getting worse. For the consumers we're all just screwed

<comment><USER3> I subscribed to spotify premium for a year and a half but recently cancelled my subscription and went to a competitor. I feel the UI/UX quality of the desktop version has degraded significantly and they are actually removing features as opposed to adding them.

Basic things like: drag-n-drop sharing with friends, my friends list was replaced with people suggested to follow, still no outbox for songs I sent, no back button on "radio" stations nor a way to see the radio playlist/history, new UI for albums/artists/songs is horrible, Ctrl+F to quickly filter items in current result set was removed for some reason, no fuzzy search capability, etc.

I'm not sure what userbase Spotify is targeting but it's one I am clearly no longer a member.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, which competitor did you move to?

<comment><USER3> It's Google Play for now. Great desktop (when chrome is in --app mode) app, pretty abysmal android app. It's not without its faults either.

I did't mention the competitor because my primary complaint was to raise more awareness about the things Spotify could fix to bring me (and others) back as customers -- Not to drive business to someone else.

<comment><USER4> Sure, understood. I appreciate the heads up, though - I'm in a similar position, myself.

A bit of a tangent, but I'm also having some issues swallowing the "pay for a license" pill in a lot of respects, e.g. Spotify and Steam (of course, we all do it anyway), so if there's a chance to continue to do that but also own things, or otherwise move away from that ephemeral type of usage, then I'm interested, so always interested to learn more about alternative products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Musician, Spotify user, and Radiohead fan here. Spotify fulfills my dream of working in a record store so I can spend all day discovering music. This argument is behind the scenes paperwork between the service and the content owners. They should figure it out without bothering me the end user. If they can't, then they're both at fault.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Boilerplate response. One would think that they would want to nip this in the but. At least cite some specifics, there are clearly lots out there...

 _Writing or speaking about streaming music screwing artists? Read these articles first_ [http://musically.com/2013/02/13/streaming-music-screwing- art...](http://musically.com/2013/02/13/streaming-music-screwing-artists/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Its kind of the same problem like pirating video games for example.

People dont pirate games they really want to have, they pirate those they wouldnt be buying anyway..most atleast.

For music its the same for me.. I might listen to the Radiohead stuff on spotify (which i pay for). But would i pay for it if they take it away ? No.

<comment><USER7> Do you have the data to back up that claim? Last I checked, there aren't any _true_ communist societies out there and the ones closest to communism aren't doing too well...

You're basically making the claim that if people were left to freely choose, they will automatically pay the fair price for things they want?

<comment><USER6> No i am not. I am making the claim that most people that use something for free would not pay to use it if it wasnt as seen in countless fremium paying user percentages.

<comment><USER8> It's the same cost/benefit calculation I point out below.

For services like spotify (and I'm specifically referring to the part of the service where you can choose to play a specific song), there is cost to an artist, in lost sales. Meaning, people who would normally buy a cd/track, and who do not since they listen to it on spotify. I think people can agree this cost is not zero - some sales definitely _are_ lost - but they'll argue the magnitude of the cost.

There is also a benefit in terms of discovery. This is the streaming revenue, plus the sales that come from discovery. I think people can agree the benefit is above zero - discovery _does_ happen - but they'll again argue magnitude.

The question is whether the discovery benefit outweighs the cost. There are widely varying opinions on this, and it can really only be answered with data rather than by someone's strong opinion.

It's also tricky question to test because I think the counterfactuals may be impossible. How do you simultaneously test the success of a song on Spotify, and the exact same song not on Spotify? Maybe an artist with two equally popular cds could put one on Spotify and not the other and see what happens for a rough approximation, but I'm not sure. I'd love to hear more thoughts on ways this calculation can be approximately measured.

<comment><USER7> Spotify isn't really optimized for discovery. Service like YouTube, music blogs, hypemachine, are much better for this and their UIs aren't designed to replace your music player either, so listening to music on YouTube isn't going to replace buying (or some other way of getting the music file) the song.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is the inherent value of a listen (as in, of a song)? I assume the music industry has been trying to prop that up but with the democratization of musical content creation that price has to have been driven down. I've heard new music from new bands that I wouldn't have had a chance to in the 90's.

There are so many songs to listen to on Spotify that I can generally find something to listen to nowadays. If some artist I like withholds their catalog that does hurt me initially. I adapt and move on and listen to something else. Their loss.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's an ironic fact of history that the easier it has become to be an artist the more entitled these artists feel like.

Everyone else is forced to change their business models to just make a reasonable amount of money but somehow musicians feel like they should be exempt from this phenomena.

The reality is that it has never been easier to make money, just not as many as you used to. The people they should complain to is the record labels not Spotify. They are the ones taking the big cuts without providing any value.

Spotify is fundamentally a radio station with a few fundamental diferences.

So welcome to the digital economy. It's not easy but at least you can make money performing. A luxury most other in this economy don't have.

<comment><USER11> Nobody is forced to change business models the way artists are forced to change business models. Other business models are obsoleted by market substitutes. But that's not what happens to Radiohead; people don't listen to Radiohead substitutes, but instead effectively coerce Radiohead itself into providing its offering to them for free.

The core leverage Spotify has over artists is, at root, piracy.

<comment><USER10> Then so are radios.

Artists are only forced to do what they did in the beginning, namely performing. They can do that on top of selling for scale.

They have been fortunate enough being one of the first industries that got to take advantage of the scaleability technology has allowed for.

There is no natural born right to make a lot of money from recording once and then reselling the same piece without any additional cost. Thousands of brilliant musicians never got a record deal when the record labels where the gatekeeper, now everyone has a shot.

But everything comes with a price and so does this opportunity.

<comment><USER11> No, radios are not analogous; artists can refuse to have their songs played on the radio, but cannot effectively refuse to have their work pirated.

There are no natural born rights to anything. In the state of nature, humans contend not with audio licensing but with not being eaten by bears or having their heads split open by other humans. Past that, everything is a question of the social contract, and in our social contract, you are usually not entitled to consume the fruits of someone else's labor on your own unilaterally defined terms.

The same logic you use to entitle yourself to download music without the artist or owner's permission is the logic I could use to entitle myself to download your application's database.

<comment><USER12> Thomas, I honestly don't know how you do it.

Every time the copyright debate comes up, you tirelessly try to inject reason into it. But they're not having it. I simply cannot, for the life of me, understand why people think that it's their RIGHT to copy the works of others. I'm no saint - I love me some isohunt - but I don't have the self-entitled mindset that says "I'm _supposed_ to be able to pirate your stuff, your hard work be damned."

"Oh, well technology has outdated their business model, artists need to get with the times!" Well technology has _updated_ the NSA's surveillance model, but everybody's mad? If ease of copying is a justification for piracy, then ease of data collection is a justification for mass surveillance.

But the HN crowd is unaffected, because they're relying on SaaS to make money. I keep waiting for the day when someone invents a way to reverse engineer webapps, and all and sundry will be able to download $SociaLocalMobileStartuply.com's code, and freely use it to create their own competitor to it. Then we'll see the hypocrisy of these entitled pirates.

You don't have a _right_ to people's stuff. If you did, it'd be your stuff.

Keep up the fight, Thomas. You're a better man than I am.

<comment><USER10> Do you know how much musicians copy from each other?

If you really want to take this logic to it's full extend then be prepared to a much much more diluted payback.

Music has become a commodity business. Deal with it.

<comment><USER11> That argument is also stale. _Your_ favorite artists might be Girl Talk and Public Enemy, but Parquet Courts and Neko Case don't do a whole lot of sampling, do they?

Again: the problem is not that music is "becoming a commodity business". IT CLEARLY IS NOT, because consumers don't want "commodity music"; they demand Yeezus, Magna Carta, Hail To The King and Random Access Memories.

A commodity business is one in which prices are driven down by substitutes. But unlawfully downloaded copies of Daft Punk albums aren't a real market substitute for authorized copies of Daft Punk albums.

Instead, music is a market in which middlemen of varying stripes have achieved control over the market sufficient to dominate the returns for recording music in the first place. The middlemen of 2013 are actually worse in some ways than the middlemen of 1990; record labels worked on the VC model and signed artists were often ensured a middle-class standard of living, but today's middlemen are companies like Google that aren't in any way incentivized to compensate artists at all.

Music has been made to seem like a commodity by what is in effect a monopsonistic cartel. But that commodity status is an illusion, not a valid market outcome.

<comment><USER10> People choose between the choices they have. If Daft Punk didn't exist people would listen to something else and have the posters up on their wall of someone else.

They wouldn't instead buy a car.

The easier it is to learn and make the music, the more people will make music, the more competition there will be, the harder it is to make money. Music IS the product.

That is by all intents and purposes of this discussion a commodity and the music industry which includes musicians copy each other all the time.

How do you think musicans learn to play music?

Do you think they learn it by purely taking theory and turning it into songs out of the blue or could it be that they learn a lot of songs other have played, transcribe and through that build their own sense of music.

Copying existing music is the way most people learn. By copying others. You don't need samplers for that.

The middlemen in the 90's decided who should get access to their distribution. It is a far cry from the ability for anyone today to put out their own records on their own terms.

The ability for musicians to record a song once and sell it infinitely has nothing to do with being a musician. The copy of your original is NOT the you it's a copy and that is a commoditized business.

<comment><USER11> The question isn't whether Daft Punk will or won't exist. It's whether people will pay for authorized copies of Daft Punk, or unlawfully download unauthorized copies.

You keep using this term "commodity" as if it meant "any market where offerings have a low cost". But that's neither a good description of the music market nor a valid characterization of commodities markets, which include pork bellies which are used to make bacon like you might find in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich as well as gold, silver, and crude oil, which aren't cheap.

A commodity market is one in which good are standardized to the point where one provider's offering is as good as any other's, and so the only determinant of price is cost; commodities markets often feature low prices as a result of competition. But Daft Punk isn't competing with Blaft Smunk and Zaft Tunk for who can offer the cheapest dance album. Music consumers demand _Daft Punk_ and will not accept substitutes.

You comments pretend that what's happening is that music consumers are driving prices down by avoiding artists who don't pay for licensing on consumer- friendly terms. But of course that's not what's happening. Instead, consumers acquire content that isn't licensed at or near "free" by unlawful mechanisms ranging from ad-supported P2P networks to Google's ad-supported Youtube site. P2P networks and Youtube don't reliably remit any payments to artists, and their significant impact on pricing is a market _inefficiency_ ; they're free- riders.

What makes music appear to be a commodity market is the coercive impact of technology coupled with the market power of a cartel of specific buyers which makes it untenable for almost any artist to sell music directly to consumers. Music is made cheap by piracy, and cheaper still by the fact that a monopsony effectively controls authorized sales.

I might feel like these were pedantic points, except that you're the one who keeps invoking economics in defense of the status quo, as if there were real economic principles supporting it.

<comment><USER10> Yes it is the question whether or not they exist. People will buy something else. It's not like people walked around saying. "I wish there was a band like Daft Punk."

People like music naturally and depending on what time in history you lived in will like different types of music, but music is the fundamental product that people are buying.

They would buy more or less whatever was available to them, cause that is how music works. Repetition and the more you hear a song the more you will end up liking it.

You can choose to play a game of semantics and not accept the term commodity but the reality is that 50 years ago people paid for music because there was real cost involved, just like they today still pay for a concert. Today to be in a position to have a band the price has come down many many times. That's the primary commodity part.

There is no "hard labour" involved for most of the music you hear today.

They understand that they should pay for it and there is a classic supply/demand principle in play.

With digital distribution and copying there isn't the same supply/demand principles in play. The artist don't pay for the medium that holds their music, they barely pay for the recording anymore, the consumers do themselves.

This is the difference in value. I like the music of bands and I am ready to support them, but I liked a lot of bands a lot before the internet and I didn't buy a fraction of what they were selling.

This has all changed and it is at no cost to music in genreal only to the individual musician. But I would much rather live in a world where record labels weren't the gatekeepers anymore.

Both the musicians and their audience is much better off.

<comment><USER11> This seems to be an argument that the price of music has fallen because we no longer have to pay for little plastic disks. Nobody was paying for the plastic disks or the clunky reels of magnetic tape.

I'm having a hard time understanding how musicians could be better off in 2013 now that a manipulated robotic market has driven the price for recorded music down to $0. As hard as it may be to stomach, the facts seem to indicate that they were better off in the era of A&R reps and cigar-chomping label execs. The things people claim make musicians money in 2013 were also revenue sources, also in the mix, in 1981 (another idiosyncratic tech belief is that the Internet taught musicians how to make t-shirts --- which also get pirated!). Most live musicians make fuck plus all on touring.

What might be the case is that 2013 is a better time to be a _hobbyist_ musician; you might get some national exposure. But since the entire market for recorded music is collapsing, along with many (most?) classic artist follow-on jobs like recording engineering, session musicianship, scouting, and promotion, it seems like 2013 is a distinctly worse time for professional musicians.

(I'm not a musician but come from a family of musicians; my brother is a professional musician, for instance).

 _ps: I 'm not voting your comments down, and voted the parent up; I couldn't disagree with you more strongly but appreciate your civility, which is unfortunately atypical of music licensing discussions on HN._

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't expect you to vote me down just because we were in disagreement. I know you well enough for that :)

But back to the discussion.

All people start as hobbyists when it comes to playing music. It's something you do, not because you have to, not because it helps others, but because it's fun. It's for most a performing art.

More people can start as hobbyists today than ever before and more people do. More people are also today able to put out records for almost no money.

50 years ago it was both much more expensive and the only distribution you had was the one that the lables owned.

Today everyone can put out a song and everyone an access it. A professionally sounding song has also been driven down to almost nothing.

You need a string quartet? No problem, here is a sound. Need a xylofone? No problem, here is a sound.

Spotifys data show that people are listening to much more off-chart music, because they suddenly have access to it. Bands that was never heard of before or wouldn't have had a chance now has an audience. They wont make Elvis kind of money, but they can at least make a little.

This is the reason why music is a commodity. Not the individual artist but the process of making music and reselling the same performance.

The individual artist can still sell their concerts and do so in fact at many times higher prices than they used to, and people are buying it.

Most musician always made fuck all on touring. Let alone on their records.

I made fuck all when I was a struggling musician myself. Very few people have ever made money on music besides the record labels.

Music isn't an industry it's performing arts and that you can always make money on.

The record industry has nothing to do with music besides it selling it. If anything is a myth, that is the myth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Whilst I don't see this being resolved any time soon, the whole thing is getting a little stale. It's the major record labels and the artists who've had (often big) pre Internet successes that are complaining the loudest.

Things change (for some better, for some worse) - but you have to adapt and get on with it. Artists are still making (and enjoying making) music and labels are still releasing music. The ones that go the furthest are the ones that embrace the situation, take advantage of it and work towards making the most of it.

Hell, a lot of the younger artists and labels don't know any different.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd love to see a feature that showed how much I've personally paid to each band I've listened to.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have to respect Thom Yorke's decision. These services only have their own profit in mind and do not come even close to fairly compensating artists. Thom's work is pretty niche to begin with and he probably doesn't see more than a few hundred dollars a month from streaming. For the number of plays he gets, this is probably not worth his time. Plus, hipsters love it when their bands turn down mainstream services. Makes them edgy and exclusive. This is a good business move for them

</comment><comment><USER16> I pretty much exclusively use Spotify to listen to music. It's incredibly convenient. I love it.

It annoys me when artists decide not to participate. With Radiohead I at least 'kinda get it' in that their new album is a pay-your-price album, so sure whatever, fine. But for example, Taylor Swift's Red album is not there. What does she want me to do? Buy it on iTunes?? No thanks. If anything, it might make me want to pirate it.

What Spotify _should_ do for these cases is what Xbox Music already does. If the song is not available for free (a-la Radiohead, or Taylor Swift) then you can purchase it just like on iTunes. Except that you get the benefit that it acts like any other song on their free catalog (syncing playlists etc. etc. etc.)

The only problem I see with this is that if it becomes an option, what would make an artist want to go the free route rather than the "pay to have" route? Then again, Xbox Music seems to be doing fine. Everything that is free on Spotify is free on Xbox Music (+ some others) and then Xbox Music gets the advantage in that many songs which just are not on Spotify are at least able to be purchased for ~1 dollar on Xbox Music.

<comment><USER8> I'm having trouble understanding your comment - because you explain exactly why artists would choose not to participate if there is a "paid" option, but then you say it annoys you when artists decide not to participate. Why does it annoy you?

Spotify has a discovery benefit, but it also robs track/cd sales. This is in contrast to something like Pandora, where the discovery aspect is just gravy, and a person still has to buy the tracks to listen on demand.

If an artist is being rational, they compare the discovery benefit to the track sales loss, and act accordingly. If a fan begrudges that choice _to the extent of feeling justified in pirating_ , then what does that say about the fan? Spotify is actually complicit in reinforcing this attitude.

<comment><USER17> Maybe the happy medium is cutting the labels out of the deal, allowing artists to self publish on the platform and see larger cuts of the proceeds for their contribution to the network. $500/m and $1/bn aren't exactly chump change until you realize the artists are getting tiny percentages of those payouts. If Spotify were to offer a convenient distribution platform and enticing terms to ditch labels and self publish the might find a sweet spot. That being said, piracy is popular because it's easy and free, the artists aren't competing against it because everyone's a pirate, they're competing against it because it's a more convenient alternative. Skip out on the most popular platform and your fans will adopt the alternative with a path of least resistance.

<comment><USER8> Just a couple years ago, iTunes availability was seen as a more convenient alternative to piracy. Now apparently Spotify makes iTunes so relatively annoying that piracy is preferable. I don't really think B flows from A, not without a lot of fans being encouraged to expect music for free when it isn't really free.

iTunes isn't that much more annoying than it used to be. People just started to feel more entitled to free music, encouraged by the newer services, and paying artists less. That's why it's a long slippery slope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is not new. Spotify have been screwing artists for a long time.

"Got paid £8 for 90,000 plays. Fuck spotify." [https://twitter.com/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336](https://twitter.com/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336)

</comment><comment><USER19> Spotfiy et. al need to evolve to cut out the middle man. Just as app developers can publish directly into the App Store, musicians need to own their work and publish it directly to different marketplaces.

<comment><USER20> Funny how you would take App Store as an example of cutting out the middle man. App Store has been more about changing the middle man from multiple publishers on the market to just one.

<comment><USER19> Good point. I guess I mean cutting out one of the middle men. As it is now with music there are two middle men: The publisher and the store. Publishers are getting decent money from streaming services, so that would be nice if it went directly to the artists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What does this mean for In Rainbows on Rdio? It's basically the reason I subscribed.</comment>


Building A Full-Text Index In Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://garysieling.com/blog/building-a-full-text-index-in-javascript

<comment><USER2> This is pretty cool, but the fundamental problem is still that you (or someone else) have to load an entire PDF (or set of PDFS) before you can use the full text indexing to search it.

If you're running a service (say like DocumentCloud) you're way better off precomputing a full text index on ingest and providing a search API than shunting over substantial parts of your stored documents.

Definitely cool as a piece of gear, but not terribly practical from a client- side perspective i'd think.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that is certainly true. The other issue with the technique I see is if I tried to scale this I'd probably hit some maturity issues with these libraries.

For what it's worth, it looks like DocumentCloud uses Open Calais, which is a Thomson Reuters product - I used to work there in a different division, they have a bunch of interesting products in this space.

<comment><USER2> Oh neat, what'd you do at Thomson Reuters?

I notice your blog is filled with NLP related goodies. I've been meaning to screw around with Stanford NER lib, to see if i can train up some custom recognizers for particular document domains of any utility.

<comment><USER3> I worked on a bunch of products, but the longest term one was the a side- product to WestLaw, Firm360, which was a market research tool for law firms that came from an acquisition (FindLaw). I worked on some of the data- warehousing stuff, and got to talk to a lot of people who worked on the content side. There were some teams near me that did similar things (People Map / KeyCite).

<comment><USER4> Thank you for posting this and for your hard work at TR. I'm developing something related to this stuff - <http://youtu.be/3m194rui52Q> (it's a really old video!)

Uses some sorts of social Open Calais-type activities

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now all we need is for someone to port an LibreOffice editor in JavaScript :)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the thought crossed my mind. There are enough people trying to make online products like Google Docs or places to post Powerpoint presentations that it may have already happened somewhere internally. Or, maybe everyone is just using LibreOffice/Muhimbi and doing it all on the server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> lunr.js looks pretty nice, seems very useful for tiny browser based stuff. For something a bit more heavyweight, I've used natural node[1] which is quite good - though not available in browser.

<https://github.com/NaturalNode/natural>

<comment><USER3> That one looks neat - it has some interesting NLP features like Wordnet integration and bayes classification.</comment></comment>


Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/worker-fired-for-disabling-gps-app-that-tracked-her-24-hours-a-day

<comment><USER2> New brave world, 2015</comment>


Ugrep: Faster Fuzzy Interactive Grep - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Genivia/ugrep <comment><USER2> For having spent some time playing with ripgrep and hyperscan ([https://sr.ht/~pierrenn/ripgrep/](https://sr.ht/~pierrenn/ripgrep/)) the benchmarking part looks really odd to me.

The T5/T6/T7/T8/T9 are no way extensive enough to show a difference between hyperscan and ripgrep. Plus, the benchmark already includes the pattern compilation time in the hyperscan benchmarks so this makes even less sense.

So the only upside left to this tool is usability. And from a quick test I don't really see the point. I'd prefer to use something written in a safe language (e.g. Rust) than this so I guess I'll just stick with rg.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use this an ripgrep. By default I tend to use ripgrep. It skips various files, e.g. tarballs, ".git", ".svn" and so on. It's quite quick as a result. I also like the output a lot, though it's kind of annoying that the output format changes when output to the screen vs when redirected (e.g. to a pipe). It would be nicer if ripgrep always redirected things through less with colours (the way that git does it).

Ugrep is great because it can grep through tarballs. But the default output format of ripgrep is nicer, plus ripgrep seems quicker when searching recursively with loads of files that could be skipped (so tarballs, etc). I'm guessing ugrep skips less files.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure there are some cases where the performance difference comes down to skipping more or fewer files, but there's a lot more to it than that. In many cases, skipping files is actually slower! I did some analysis here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/i6pfb2/ugrep_new_ultr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/i6pfb2/ugrep_new_ultrafast_c_grep_claims_to_be_faster/g0xybge)

> It would be nicer if ripgrep always redirected things through less with > colours (the way that git does it).

The -p flag should help there.

Disclaimer: I am the author of ripgrep.

<comment><USER3> > I'm sure there are some cases where the performance difference comes down to > skipping more or fewer files

My use case if probably weird, various times I grep for things across about 13k of full rpm package checkouts. So 13k directories, each with their .svn directory, one or more tarballs, possibly some patches/scripts, plus a spec file. I used to specifically tell GNU grep what to search for (grep something _/ SPECS/_.spec), partly to avoid getting too many unwanted matches. Ripgrep is smart and quick enough to not need anything special. I like ugrep because sometimes it's needed to check the sources as well. Total size is 50-70GB, the spec files make up a tiny bit of that.

The distribution recently added a daily updated tarball with just the specs (7 or 20MB compressed depending if the .svn is in there). I'm planning to switch over to that. I'll spare you the details for why it's more difficult than it seems.

Thanks for the -p advice!

<comment><USER4> Gotya, thanks for elaborating! In case you didn't know about it, there is also ripgrep-all, which uses ripgrep internally, but can also search oodles of non- plain-text files, including tarballs: [https://github.com/phiresky/ripgrep- all](https://github.com/phiresky/ripgrep-all)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Disclosure: I am the author of ugrep.

Here are my 2 cents.

So what is going on with the new ugrep tool? [https://github.com/Genivia/ugrep](https://github.com/Genivia/ugrep)

As a small organization specializing in open source software we needed a search tool like grep but updated to handle many compression formats including tarballs, with filters to search PDF, DOCX, and other formats. And narrowing down the file type of the archive contents to source code when necessary. Why? For example to look for differences that explain bugs, for finding potential vulnerabilities in older software that is archived, and to check for open source licenses/violations.

OK. But what about performance?

At the same time, I worked on designing a new fast pattern matching method that in simple wording uses logic/hashing to detect possible matches fast, before performing a regex match that is more CPU expensive. This method is extensively tested with many configurations of parameters to find the optimal parameterization as tested on several machines. This was then compared to the best-known algorithms I could find and implemented in C (tested in memory, not on files and not reported in the ugrep project). I will gladly share this method publicly eventually in a technical paper. For a while I contemplated filing a utility patent, but did not move forward on that because I want this technology to be freely available to everyone and not proprietary. Of course, it would be nice to receive some recognition and not get ripped off. Most of the grep tools just use what is already available publicly and aren't doing something new that is clever, with the possible exception of hyperscan.

Secondly, I am glad to see that ugrep is useful to many others. In my conversations with ugrep users, performance is not their top concern but having these new features that ugrep offers that other grep lack. As long as ugrep is very fast, they are more than happy. They also suggested that ugrep should be compatible with GNU grep's options and not try to be "too clever" to skip files and directories, at least not out-of-the-box. None of the ugrep perf tests skip files or directories and includes all hidden files/directories, binary files, and compressed files.

Combining all these requirements and suggestions by users into ugrep wasn't trivial. But I believe we accomplished that goal reasonably well. Having said that, ugrep is relatively new and still evolving.

There are a lot of opinionated folks when it comes to performance. Many in my domain of expertise realized already over a decade ago that it is a folly to pursue "the best performance" when the variety of architectures is vast and hardware and software are still evolving, even when slowly. There is no set of perfect benchmarks. There are always assumptions and requirements that affect the results wildly (I am a professor in CS and spent my entire career as a researcher, including in the area of high-performance computing.)

I enjoy working now and then on deep and challenging coding projects, such as ugrep. It's a crazy fun project to work on when I have time.

Cheers!</comment>


US FTC halts Canadian company allegedly carrying out domain registration scam - <AUTHOR> http://thestandard.com/news/2008/06/17/us-ftc-halts-domain-name-registration-scam

<comment><USER2> Not really Hacker News, but it is about time!

I have received many of their "bills" in the past and every time, been incensed by the scam. I actually received one yesterday for my latest start- up's domain. Incidentally, yesterdays was the first that actually said, in large, bold letters that it wasn't a bill, but was a solicitation. What has had me so incensed is that for folks who don't know better the letter from ILS looks pretty darn official. And given GoDaddy's memorable ads during the SuperBowl, there are a lot of folks who don't have any idea what they are doing who have purchased domain names.

In short, these folks are nothing but scamming jerks and I'm happy to see someone taking notice and action against them.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is about time, I felt a massive sense of justice when I heard this happen. They sent so many fake bills to me, forcing me too figure out what bills are real and which are fraudulent.</comment>


Microsoft To Rebrand Search. Will It Be Kumo? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/23/microsoft-to-rebrand-search-will-it-be-kumo/ <comment><USER2> The name "live.com" is awful for search, and yet Microsoft has poured millions into it. I don't understand why they don't just buy "search.com", "find.com", or something similar. The high price for the domain would be, on the scale of Microsoft's cash hoard, a reasonable marketing expense.

<comment><USER3> I doubt c|net is giving up search.com, but you have a good idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cuil#.

</comment><comment><USER5> does anyone else feel like this is a stupid idea? they spent all that money building up the live brandname...only to throw it away for something completely random

<comment><USER6> what Live brand name?

<comment><USER5> they spent millions getting people to use the search from live.com

<comment><USER7> and it didn't work.

<comment><USER5> well it sort of did...i.e. for me if I can't find something on Google, as a last resort I'd do a quick search on MSN live. Of course at that point I'm desperate so I'd also look on cuil(just to see if they'll finally give me a good result), ask.com and yahoo

before that I'd skip msn stuff all together</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In 5 Years, We Could All Have 'Digital Twins' That Make Decisions for Us - <AUTHOR> http://nr.news-republic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=3&articleid=29132267&m=d

<comment><USER2> These ideas only work if the "agent" or "digital twin" is driven by open- format data controlled by the user. The analytics algorithms making recommendations can be OSS or proprietary, but the data store needs to be open-source and legally owned by the user, e.g. federated from their home (e.g. ownCloud) or personal cloud (VPS).

This enables competition among apps that use the personal identity data, without the limitations of API tokens or an ecosystem business tax. It also allows users to consolidate their own data, which can never be done by a single corporation, no matter how large, since competing corporations will present barriers to data interop.

The barriers are interoperable knowledge representation and social ontologies, rather than machine learning algos. Similar to the challenges faced by interoperable semantic webs, e.g. [http://dime-project.github.io](http://dime- project.github.io)

</comment><comment><USER3> I know of them as "intelligent software agents", as in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_agent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_agent) . They were part of marketing hype in the dot-com era. At least, our company had a product with the slogan "the first intelligent agent for bioinformatics", or something like that.

W00t! Traces of it are still on line. See [http://www.genomeweb.com/informatics/microbial-genomics- arra...](http://www.genomeweb.com/informatics/microbial-genomics-array-techs- highlight-genome-conference) , from 1998.

Like most articles concerning futurists, this one doesn't cover the decades of previous attempts which would suggest that the task is much more difficult than the optimistic 5 year prediction.</comment>


GitRoyalty–The First Open Source Paywall - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sdrzn/introducing-gitroyalty-the-first-oss-paywall-42833efa0d42 <comment><USER2> Interesting decision -- make users to pay for the configuration scripts so their language ecosystem installer works. Basically they pay for their laziness of setting up such a file on their own.

I like the honesty that "pirating" projects is really easy and not even tried to deny.

<comment><USER3> Thank you ktpsns! You're exactly right, anyone can create free forks after accessing the complete repository once, but that becomes a security risk as new versions are released with bug fixes, security updates, etc.

I think paying a small subscription fee as little as $0.50/month for the convenience of not having to make free forks over and over again is worth it, especially for tech businesses that can usually afford it.

<comment><USER2> Oh, that was not even my point. You are talking about the possibility of passing data _after_ having paid. I think there is no way to prevent people from doing so -- the industry has decades of years experience with pirated licensed software. So you better don't waste your time for implementing "preventing forks" on your platform --- if I pay on your platform for getting access to a repo which I can clone on my computer, I will push my copy to some other remote, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While this is pretty ingenious, and "solving" open source funding is a noble goal, there's a pretty practical impediment to GitRoyalty working in the real world: For new or existing projects, a big draw of open source is the on- boarding process.. You can download, install, and start playing with a library or application to see if it meets your needs with almost zero friction. And that's a big part of the selection process for any new project.

But with GitRoyalty, you can't even install the software to see if you want to use it or take a dependency on it.. without at minimum ponying up a credit card and signing up for a free trial.

My take is that this roadblock will turn away new users in sufficient numbers that it'll hurt projects with this paywall in place. Users will leave in droves for competing projects with less install friction. Not because they don't believe in paying, but because they don't know if they want to pay _yet_.

The projects that can afford to turn away users like this are the well-known ones with big-name maintainers, corporate sponsors, and thousands of GitHub stars. But these also happen to be the projects least in need of funding.

As difficult as it is to implement, a better place for a paywall would be after the user has installed the software, evaluated it, and decided to roll it out in production. That would bring the payment closer to the point of value, and also keep the on-boarding friction nice and low.

<comment><USER3> > without at minimum ponying up a credit card and signing up for a free trial

You're right, there's a bit more friction before you can install and use a project, but I think if a user gives enough value to a certain open source project then that friction shouldn't be enough to deter them from using it altogether.

It's also worth mentioning that once you input credit card information and connect your paypal account, you never have to do it again for future subscriptions. You just go to a payment page, hit 'Subscribe' and install the package, all in a matter of seconds.

Here's a bit more information about how subscriptions work: [https://gitroyalty.com/docs/faq/how-do-subscriptions- work](https://gitroyalty.com/docs/faq/how-do-subscriptions-work)

<comment><USER4> Yup, totally understood about the second subscription. The challenge is getting that first subscription though, when a particular user hasn't yet signed up for (or even heard of) the service. At that point, it's a fair amount of friction from where I'm sitting.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What unlocks with karma, and when? - <AUTHOR> I've just been a little curious about this recently, since I've noticed things appearing that weren't there before.  I now have a "flag" link under the title on comments pages, and can set a topcolor in my profile.  What becomes unlockable, and what are the milestones to each? <comment><USER2> At 250 apparently you can change the color of the bar on the top.

6 more points to go!

*Thanks to everyone who voted this up. I can now confirm that this is indeed legit. On your settings page you can enter a six digit hexadecimal number that will change the color of the top bar. I'm going to try some of these out! <http://www.somacon.com/cgi/colorchart.pl>

<comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/topcolors>

<comment><USER4> Cool, it looks like these are actual live topcolors from HN database (distinct colors set in preferences by all users).

I made a color map sorted on hues and lightness: <http://alteredqualia.com/visualization/hn/colors.png>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty interesting to me. When karma was implemented at /. we used to expose the number, but then the number became why people did things on /. Then we obscured the number by replacing it with english words like "excellent" for the top karma scores, then we started paying off in terms of allow people to moderate and meta-moderate. It was pretty neat at the time, but I have to admit I like HNs system. It seems like it embraces the karma rather than obscuring it as some kind of necessary but lamentable side effect, which is how it sometimes felt at /.

<comment><USER6> I always, always, wanted /. to announce the 'excellent' in the Mortal Kombat voice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 20 karma – downvote comments.

200 karma – make polls (<http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll>).

250 karma – customize the top bar background color.

??? karma – flag posts and comments (on their individual page).

<comment><AUTHOR> Flagging is much lower; somewhere in the 100s.

<comment><USER8> _Flagging is much lower; somewhere in the 100s._

It's 51, the same as downvote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My question would be: why the secrecy? HN worried that transparency about the processes of ratings & their "rewards" (which (plus + $5.00) will buy you a cappuccino) would lead to abuse of the system? I think openness system would allow for HN viewers to discuss the value of different site-karma processes -- enabling the site designers (and all of us) to benefit more from the community's collective genius and experience (on this issue the way it does on others).

<comment><USER10> It's simpler than you think. As moderately dangerous new features got added, I gave them karma thresholds to avoid abuse. Since there's no man page there's nowhere to list them all. Most got explained individually in News News though.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the reply. That leads me rather automatically to rephrase my question: "Why no man page?" And (sorry to be such a newb) what is News News? Do you mean just <http://news.ycombinator.com/news> ? If so the SEARCH button/form is proving hard for me to find !?¿?!

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no search. See: searchyc.com

<comment><USER9> Great lead, frisco. Perhaps if they eventually get stable and maybe offers some "advanced search" YC will want to incorporate it into HN site. [or at least put a link to it atop HN page - why should visitors have to ask a question to know where to go for a search feature?] It's speed seems excellent (early on a Monday morning).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> your destiny unlocks with karma. it ensures that in your next re-incarnation, you do not come back as a Digg user

</comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of a band that gave out stamps when you came to their concerts.

The top levels were awesome:

30 Stamps: Special Date #1 Dinner and dancing with Dave.

36 Stamps: Special Date #2. Dinner and dancing with either Jean, Mike, or Murray.

50 Stamps: Ass Brand. The Frühead gets the Früvous budgie-dog (Larry Boniface Clebdon) branded on their ass. This is administered by a member of the band.

</comment><comment><USER13> You've won everything you're going to get. Congratulations.

<comment><USER14> No, I believe there's a higher threshold yet to post polls.

<comment><USER15> How do you post polls?

I'm in like...the top 250...I should be able to.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll>

<comment><USER16> Thanks! I wanted this so many times earlier. Never figured how to post a poll.

This should have been exposed from the submit link.

<comment><USER17> _This should have been exposed from the submit link._

I believe this is a not so subtle way to discourage gratuitous use of polls. I, for one, think that having it be an invisible feature is a great win for human decency--the knowledge that it is there prevents people from "vote up if" posts, but having it hidden doesn't remind people constantly that they can run polls to their heart's content. Since polls are almost universally free of useful content, but people _still_ love to create them, this is, perhaps, the best that can be done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have downvote arrows on comments, but at some point they ceased to affect the score. Which is to say, I click on the downvote, and the points go down by one, but upon reloading the page, the score is the same as before.

(And yes, it's happened enough times that I know it isn't just someone voting the comment back up in the intervening period.)

<comment><USER8> _I have downvote arrows on comments, but at some point they ceased to affect the score._

It's part of karma-grump protection. One's downvotes do not count, unless he upvotes first and at least as many times. If you run across something you want to downvote, first find something else to upvote. If you want to rack up downvote ammo to spare, upvote often. For example, if you upvote 10 times in a row, you will have 10 downvotes available. After that, your downvotes will no longer count, unless and until you do more upvoting.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39301>

 _I'm considering adding an additional layer of protection against grumps: to only allow users as many downvotes as they've made upvotes. That way each user's net contribution to the global karma would be at least neutral._

<comment><USER19> Thanks for pointing this out. I suspect there may be something genuinely broken with my downvoting, though, because despite having only upvoted for a good while, my downvotes continue to not count.

Alternatively, HN is keeping a backlog of my uncounted downvotes, and counting them in order as I make more upvotes. Thus, as long as there's a backlog, any new downvote I make will initially not count.

Personally, I think the >=0 net karma rule goes too far. I've tended to downvote more than I upvote because I drift towards policing behavior (not "grumpness": not all people who downvote more than they upvote can be classified as grumps, which is a highly subjective notion anyway), and generally have high standards for what I consider worthy of an upvote. Social moderation systems have to account for the variety of sociological roles. Not to mention, the net karma of the _site_ may be negative, but a >=0 rule will never allow this state to be represented.

It is also impossible to determine what my net karma contribution is, and thus that the >=0 rule is even in effect. Net karma contribution should appear on a user's profile page, or at the top menu bar. I shouldn't be expected to track my karma contribution manually.

<comment><USER8> _because despite having only upvoted for a good while, my downvotes continue to not count. [...] I drift towards policing behavior_

If you have downvoted a single user many times in a row, you might have triggered an anti-karma-bombing feature. [http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+karma+...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+karma+bombing+%22by+pg%22) I would email pg at this site to inquire, and be ready to apologize if an apology seemed called for. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Every two weeks it seems like someone writes this post and it hits the top 10. Astounding.

<comment><USER13> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=404872>

There was one a month ago

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> At 600+ karma, you get infinite bonus mushrooms and infinite ammo. You have to beat the game twice on impossible mode in the military suit and max out all your guns, though, even the stupid one that takes forever to fire and then the zombie eats your head because you were sitting there trying to warm it up instead of shooting zombies, which would have been the logical thing to do.

At 1000+ karma, you take off your helmet and guess what you're a chick. If you win three times in a row on impossible mode with perfect karma without getting shot once, using nothing but the annoying gun that takes forever, you take off your armor and guess what you're a hot chick. Then you can play the game again wearing a bikini.

At 2000+ karma, Paul Graham comes to your house, tells you the meaning of life, and makes you a sandwich. It is the best sandwich known to man. Only rich people can make this sandwich.

<comment><USER10> These numbers are way too low. I'd have to have gone to 94 people's houses and made them sandwiches. (I already explained the meaning of life in a footnote in "Great Hackers.")

<comment><USER22> _[3] I think this is what people mean when they talk about the "meaning of life." On the face of it, this seems an odd idea. Life isn't an expression; how could it have meaning? But it can have a quality that feels a lot like meaning. In a project like a compiler, you have to solve a lot of problems, but the problems all fall into a pattern, as in a signal. Whereas when the problems you have to solve are random, they seem like noise._

<http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html>

<comment><USER8> The text linked to the footnote:

 _Nasty Little Problems

It's pretty easy to say what kinds of problems are not interesting: those where instead of solving a few big, clear, problems, you have to solve a lot of nasty little ones. One of the worst kinds of projects is writing an interface to a piece of software that's full of bugs. Another is when you have to customize something for an individual client's complex and ill-defined needs. To hackers these kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts.

The distinguishing feature of nasty little problems is that you don't learn anything from them. Writing a compiler is interesting because it teaches you what a compiler is. But writing an interface to a buggy piece of software doesn't teach you anything, because the bugs are random. [3]_</comment></comment></comment></comment>


San Francisco Renters: Guide to make millions from your greedy landlord - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@patrickN1/san-francisco-renters-step-by-step-guide-to-make-millions-from-your-greedy-landlord-aacc1c734e9c <comment><USER2> Alternative article : landlord wants to quick families out during covid19 crisis so he can buy a new SUV.</comment>


Ask HN: Which ecommerce site has the best search and recommendation engine? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://expertrec.com](https://expertrec.com) is one nice recommendation system that I use for [https://putforshare.com](https://putforshare.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nordstrom.com</comment>


When should startups have to start paying employees? - <AUTHOR> When do you think the law should require a startup to comply with minimum wage and similar laws?  I ask this question because I see far too many companies run into serious problems for not complying with these laws and being devastated by the consequences.
It's pretty overwhelmingly the case that at the earliest stages of a startup, the founders typically pay themselves nothing.  They are working for equity.
The same is often true for the earliest "employees."  Often time they are treated as independent contractors, even though that's not technically legal.  The law probably requires that they be paid at least minimum wage, but the company doesn't have the money for that.  Instead, again, the work for equity. It seems so unfair when a disgruntled early employee or even co-founder has a lawyer write a demand letter seeking $100,000 in unpaid wages and penalties.  Everyone made an informed decision to work for equity.  Everyone knew what they were doing.  But the law doesn't care.
And, worse, in California, certain people in a management capacity (like directors) can have personal liability for unpaid wages. The usual response I hear to this is that the law is screwed up and way too employee friendly.  These laws should be ditched and let people enter into whatever employment relationships they want.  We're all adults. I see this as a cop out.  If you look more broadly at the world of employer-employee relations, there is a long, dark history of ruthless employers using the uneven power dynamic to cheat employees.  I don't think most people here would like the stories that are likely to come out if you ditched basic labor laws. The problem is it doesn't "feel" like these laws should really apply to early-stage startups.  My question is where one draws the line?  And I'm curious what people think. <comment><USER2> When should any company pay employees? Always and with no exception!

There is a name for people in a company who share the risk of running a company, and that name is owners.

There are also names for people who want all the gains for themselves and all the risks and losses for their employees, and they are not flattering names.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I see two broad (but fuzzy) lines that can be drawn: 1) The requirement to pay at least minimum wage (i.e. not pay people in equity) should apply to anyone who is functioning in a traditional "non-exempt employee" capacity. This shouldn't be all that controversial. People in these positions most typically earn less and for good reason have been the most protected under labor laws. Most founders and early employees are fulfilling roles that, with proper pay, would be considered exempt under labor laws. 2) Some sort of revenue or asset test. If you could pay your employees, but are not doing so, I have less sympathy for you. Investors are willing to put money into a company that will pay for reasonable salaries. So, even if your only assets come from investment (i.e. you don't have enough revenue coming in), that's not an excuse not to pay people.

But this doesn't seem to be enough, does it? These two factors would say that any company that can't afford employees can simply not pay anyone who would otherwise be an exempt employee. I don't see that as sufficient. There could be other criteria: 3) In addition to #1 and #2, the "employee" would have to own at least X% of the equity of the company 4) Or maybe just X% of the voting power of the company (even if not the economic ownership)?

Those are just examples. Or maybe part of the solution is protection in terms of a liquidity preference of sorts. If a company has a less-than-stellar M&A exit, preferred shareholders (investors) typically have a liquidation preference that ensures they get their money back before anyone else shares in the merger proceeds. This seems sensible as a matter of investor protection – they put in $X million and understandably want to recoup their investment before other shareholders get a windfall. This might mean, however, that an early employee who didn't get paid in cash and only has common stock, might get nothing while an investor who put in a bunch of money is made whole. What is the rationale for the investor being made whole, but an employee who worked for free getting nothing? The law could, for example, require that upon liquidation, employees who worked for free get a certain amount of money. (The law already provides a preference for wages in the bankruptcy context, but this is different. I'm imagining a situation where companies would be able to lawfully hire certain people for payment only in equity, rather than cash.) I'm curious to hear your ideas. How do you change the law to match the reality that startups can't usually pay employees at the earliest stages, while not ending up in a situation where unscrupulous employers can take advantage of employees?

</comment><comment><USER3> What about not hiring someone if you can pay him/her properly?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, let's say there are two co-founders who start a company they are bootstrapping. They don't pay themselves for the first 3, 6, 9 months or maybe even a year. Isn't that typical?

Then let's say they have a dispute, with one having to leave after a year working together. The departed co-founder files a claim against the company for unpaid "wages."

Now, the two co-founders had knowingly worked together for that year for equity - they were bootstrapping. But the departed co-founder has a slam-dunk case against the company for unpaid wages and probably waiting time and other penalties (as well as attorneys' fees).

I think most people on here would think that's absurd. But that's the reality.

And in California, not only is the company liable, but the remaining founder may be personally liable, as well.

I sympathize with the idea that you shouldn't hire anyone until you can pay. But does the co-founder situation I described make clear the problem?</comment></comment>


Milking Scooters for Cash Helps Cities Build for the Future - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/scooters-cities-fees-mobility/ <comment><USER2> I tried a scooter recently. They might need to come up with a way to reward people for following the rules of the road in addition to parking the scooter correctly.

<comment><USER3> Airports have been doing this for luggage carts for decades. It's not rocket surgery.

<comment><USER4> Hey, wait a sec... I thought I made up the phrase "rocket surgery," first using it in my blog about 2-3 years ago. Are you the inventor? If so, all possible kudos!

<comment><USER3> I first used it on Usenet 30 years ago, and I don't _think_ I originated it (although I worked for an organization that did, in a sense, surgery on missiles).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If only there were some other, perhaps larger, vehicle type that could be "milked for cash," maybe in proportion to its size and the amount of space it takes up while not in use.</comment>


BBC uses RIPA terrorism laws to catch TV licence fee dodgers in Northern Ireland - k-mcgrady http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/bbc-uses-ripa-terrorism-laws-to-catch-tv-licence-fee-dodgers-in-northern-ireland-30911647.html <comment><AUTHOR> _" The BBC declined to give any details about its use of RIPA"_

Nothing like transparency. The rest of the article strongly suggests this is to do with the detector vans. This is partially confirmed by a FOI query: [https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/prosecutions_from_tel...](https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/prosecutions_from_television_det)

It _sounds_ like everyone in authority believes that the use of detector vans is regulated by RIPA. I think this is due to section 2:

 _(2)For the purposes of this Act, but subject to the following provisions of this section, a person intercepts a communication in the course of its transmission by means of a telecommunication system if, and only if, he—

(a)so modifies or interferes with the system, or its operation,

(b)so monitors transmissions made by means of the system, or

(c)so monitors transmissions made by wireless telegraphy to or from apparatus comprised in the system,

as to make some or all of the contents of the communication available, while being transmitted, to a person other than the sender or intended recipient of the communication._

The detector vans are rumored to work by picking up the IF of the TV's heterodyne receiver. I guess this counts as "interception" of a signal, even though it's a signal that was publicly broadcast in the first place.

This could all be cleared up by a clear statement from someone about what surveillance is taking place, but of course everyone loves secrecy and there's no honesty in public debate.

<comment><USER2> "Detector vans" are a myth.

There is no reliable evidence that they exist. The BBC likes to perpetuate this myth for obvious reasons.

EDIT: sorry, I mean there is no reliable evidence that they are actually used for enforcement. Several vans do exist that were used in TV advertising to start this myth. Whether they worked or not is very debatable. (Certainly their supposed detection mechanism wouldn't work with LCD TVs, now more common than CRT TVs.)

<comment><USER3> Well the vans seem real, [http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Detect%20the%20Detector%20vans.h...](http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Detect%20the%20Detector%20vans.htm), but yes their being equipped with detector equipment is probably not real.

[https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/55922/response/164153...](https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/55922/response/164153/attach/html/4/IR2011006%20TVL%20response%20following%20IR%20final.pdf.html) however is a FOI response from TVL (run by Capita IIRC) that "TVL uses detection evidence when applying for search warrants". But "detection evidence" is not defined and probably means the guy in the van seeing a CTV connection/aerial/dish or looking through the window and seeing a TV???

<comment><USER4> Couldn't they just be looking through house windows for a 50Hz flicker? Wouldn't that be enough to indicate a TV is in oepration?

<comment><USER5> Incandescent lamps will also present the flicker

I agree, Detector Vans are mostly a deterrent, but nothing technological about them

Most "TV detection" that's done is actually someone looking at the window and seeing a TV, or by other means.

<comment><USER4> There's always this, although it probably doesn't work on LCD screens:

[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ieee02-optical.pdf](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ieee02-optical.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A perfect example of bad cases making bad law and bad law then being abused.

British truants and TV watchers alike now have the honour of being treated as terrorists. The fact that it's not some overreaching surveillance body, but a pedestrian mob like the BBC who is abusing this law so blatantly, shows how badly made this law really is. Obviously, it has no safeguards against this kind of misuse. The "lawmakers" who built this travesty should be sent back to primary school.

<comment><USER7> Many peopel might not know that the IRA bad lands (think steve earls copperhead road) where no go areas for quiet a few "crown servants" such as the BBC and The revenue man

Arently a substatial minority of NI poluation where some what shocked post good friday when they where told "ah you have to start paying like every one else now"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let us pause for a second an think what could possibly happen with anti- terrorism laws like this in not-so-advanced democracies where there is little protection of the average citizen from the abuse of state power.

Let us also think about how the leading democracies export the "democratic software" (laws) and they get copied/cited in not-so-advanced democracies in making their own laws. It is very easy for a barely-democratic state to cite a western democracy's law as a precedence.

Let us then think about how many people live under democratic laws (and under strong rule of law) and compare that to the number of people without that.

Depressing.

I fear that these badly written anti-terrorism laws are like software flaws that will flow from system to system and harm many more people than we can see right now.

<comment><USER9> This is kind of an odd case though, where they are charging for a broadcasted signal. Does this happen in other countries?

<comment><USER10> A lot of European countries have license fees to cover public broadcasting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think maybe "terrorism" is just the new term for crime of all levels now. Because crime makes people afraid right? Perhaps I'm terrified that if too many of those rotten tax dodgers skip out on thier tv tax there might not be another season of Doctor Who. Scary stuff.

<comment><USER12> There is a useful guide for this: [http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303...](http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/11/Terrorist- chart.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the sounds of it ("detection equipment") this appears to be the use of detection vans that was done for decades prior to RIPA, but that now is being done subject to RIPA because RIPA covers that activity.

RIPA is an awful, awful law for a lot of reasons, but the article seems to sensationalise it in that RIPA does not appear to have suddenly allowed the BBC (or rather TV Licensing, which is a separate organization) to do something they weren't allowed to do before in this case (unless something much worse is hidden behind the "detection equipment" name).

<comment><USER3> It could be other things. They maybe are asking ISPs to look for packets related to live viewing of TV over the internet, that seems to fit the RIPA descriptions too. Indeed I'd be surprised if Capita weren't doing/looking to do that as they could potentially find lots of people to send nastygrams to that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those of us outside the UK, they are required to pay for a license when they own a TV and watch live television. It's about $215 a year.

[http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need- one/topics/te...](http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need- one/topics/technology--devices-and-online-top8?WT.ac=home_plt_technology)

<comment><USER14> It's currently a criminal offense to watch broadcast TV in your home without one.

There is legislation moving through parliament to make this a civil offense as magistrate courts are swamped with these cases.

[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/24/in-court- non-...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/24/in-court-non-payment- tv-licence-television-desperate-cases)

<comment><USER15> It's an offense to watch or record transmitted television stations in your home without a TV license.

But it's perfectly legal to own a TV and use the on-demand portions of iPlayer (everything apart from viewing the currently-being-broadcast channel streams), Netflix, Google Play, 4od, Demand 5, DVDs, Blurays, etc etc.

This is what I do. The TV Licensing website has a page where you can provide them with your reasons for not owning a TV license. This page explains (implicitly) all the things you can do sans license. And, hopefully, filling this in makes them less likely to pester you (I haven't had any contact from the licensing people).

Here is the text from TV Licensing:

 _You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it 's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder._

Note how the second sentence arguably introduces confusion. You don't need a license if you use a computer but don't "Watch or record TV as it's being broadcast".

<comment><USER16> Wait, I can't quite parse your last statement... is it legal to watch BBC on demand and Netflix/DVDs without a licence, or not? (I suspect the former, but then I know nothing about this law.)

<comment><USER17> It is legal. The only time a license is required is when you're streaming 'live' television by any means.

Effectively what this means is you can't dodge a license to watch television by watching live (By live I mean stuff that would be on the TV if you turned it on at that moment) TV through your iplayer. In Britain (not sure about other places), the iPlayer has a button to allow you to tune in to live TV. It's when you click that button you are in breach of licensing law.

The whole thing is stupid and archaic, but that's the price we pay for ad-free state TV.

<comment><USER3> There seems to have been some progress here, last time I read the relevant Act I'd swear that it referred to the legality of having "receiving means" (not sure on that wording, I do have bad memory!!). So you were technically in breach if you had a TV with an aerial, it wasn't necessary to show you watched it?

Am I misremembering?

This change is actual encouraging for me as the new box I got to use for catch up services I think allows live TV (as a paid extra) and so I was concerned I might be accused of being in breach of the Act, but it seems not. Always nice to know.

<comment><USER17> IANAL, but it seems a little bit of a silly idea to criminalize owning a TV. For that matter, 'receiving means' surely also includes having a laptop or tablet in the house, as that's a means of receiving live TV.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I know that I had to buy a TV license when I moved in with my SO, but I'm not sure if that's because we bought a TV (we never watch it) or if my SO just did the necessary paperwork out of habit.

<comment><USER3> > _having a laptop or tablet in the house, as that 's a means of receiving > live TV._ //

Well that's probably why the law was updated (if indeed it was) - the same rules used to apply to PC TV-tuner cards too though, having a tuner card was considered "receiving means" and meant license was needed for any premises where that computer was plugged in.

We have a TV but haven't had broadcast TV for many years, since our aerial blew down and we had no money to get it fixed - we stopped paying the license then as we no longer had receiving means. Just watch DVDs, iPlayer and the like (and use it for Wii).

As an aside, you can use a laptop to watch live TV anywhere (in UK), as long as you have a license for your "home"; but if you plug it in (eg to charge) then the premises you're at need a license!

<comment><USER18> So even if you don't plug in, say you're on a train or in a park, you can't legally watch live TV without a license for your home? I remember 15 years ago people (not many admittedly) having battery-powered handheld TVs - if a homeless person were to use one of those on the street would he be breaking the law?

<comment><USER3> AFAIK - yes (license required per address [with some exceptions]) and yes (homeless person acting illegally).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's not like there's a history of state abuses in Northern Ireland "to combat terrorism"....

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Honestly I'm not surprised and I don't think it'll change now that it's been exposed. It's a good example how these powers can be abused for idiotic reasons and why we need to be wary of them.

</comment><comment><USER20> I haven't seen van Eck phreaking[0] or Tempest[1] mentioned yet. Not that the BBC would use the tech, but it seems pertinent.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_\(codename\))

<comment><USER21> It's exactly what the "detector vans" claim to use.

<comment><USER22> They _used_ to have some of that equipment. Amongst other things, looking for 15625Hz spikes (from the horizontal frequency of PAL CRTs).

I think they phased it out in the mid-80s, or at least stopped replacing the parts when they stopped working, so there very probably isn't any working equipment left now—that's my impression, at least.

Since then it's gradually phased over to essentially SELECT address FROM addresses WHERE residential=1 AND tv_licence=0; now, with a side-order of retailers reporting the addresses of people who've bought TVs (so if you bought a TV, but not a TV licence, you're probably going to get a letter, and probably thereafter a visit).

<comment><USER21> People who sell television equipment have to, by law, ask you for your name and address and pass it on to TVLA. You don't have to provide them with an accurate address. I'm not sure if ICO has looked at this dual or perhaps misleading use of data holding by shops.

I agree that they probably use their database. I wonder how they get a warrant though? Surely a databse entry isn't enough?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Strange it's news now, as BBC has been already pretty openly abusing the spirit of the RIPA legislation to hunt down petty fee dodgers. Here's a word from the BBC from 2012: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/how- does-the-bb...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/how-does-the-bbc- use-ripa)

<comment><USER3> It's probably a New Year thing - the TVL people can I imagine more likely win people over to buying a license at New Year when people are thinking more towards being forthright and honest as they set plans for self-improvement??

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Aren't compulsory fees to support local broadcasters a bit out-dated? (Regardless of the blatant abuse of the law here.)

<comment><USER25> it depends really, do you want your broadcaster to be answerable to the market?

one of the strongest arguments for the BBC is it's under no obligation to meet any commercial or state interests. Some people may beg to differ on that viewpoint, but the BBC is generally highly regarded in the UK and abroad, especially for its news coverage

If the license fee didn't exist then the BBC would have to make programmes that satisfy the mainstream, which is usually the lowest common denominator.

<comment><USER26> It's kinda like using the National Lottery to support niche interests like opera. A trick to get the unwashed masses to subsidise the toffs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Im not much surprised. A lot of people told that things like this will happen.

</comment><comment><USER28> The BBC has dragged Western Civilization to a new low. Certainly not the finest hour in the long history of the British Empire, is it?

</comment><comment><USER29> The craziest part of this is that in the UK you need to pay a fee to pick up publicly broadcasted unencrypted television signals. I wonder what the hell is the basis of this "fee"?

<comment><USER30> The basis is that those signals must be paid for somehow.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any good reason for HEAD and BODY tags in HTML? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on an HTML template language and it seems like the HEAD and BODY tags are just noise.
The element types in head are invisible--title, meta, link, script--so should I skip the extra head indentation level?
This is probably a dumb question, in fact I think the spec makes them optional, but curious if there's a good reason to keep them around. <comment><USER2> This was asked on stackoverflow a while back, here is what they had to say [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5641997/is-it- necessary-t...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5641997/is-it-necessary-to- write-head-body-and-html-tags)</comment>


Nvidia CEO Unveils GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/09/01/nvidia-ceo-geforce-rtx-30-series-gpus/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24343672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24343672), which is also on the front page and was posted a bit earlier.

I'm going to change its URL to this one, though—so thanks. In the future we're going to have karma sharing so that multiple submissions can share credit for a story like this; for the time being it remains a bit of a lottery.</comment>


An Open Source Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X - <AUTHOR> http://ashchan.com/projects/gmail-notifr

<comment><USER2> "Real-time email notifications considered harmful"

Seriously, if your daily activities require actual thought, turn all that shit off. If you need to know when a critical email shows up from time to time or from specific people, find a tool that does that or wire one together yourself with IFTTT and a push notification service. Your flow will thank you.

<comment><USER3> Gmail Notifr allows one to set a larger check interval than 'real-time'. As the author of the app, I set my accounts to check every 120 min (work) and 240 min (personal).

<comment><USER2> That is a start, but any interruption at any time can be disruptive, and email is a particular problem.

What would be handy in a tool like this is being able to set up what I described above; normally don't ever notify me, but allow me to turn on real- time notifications for particular people on demand, or other rules for knowing when it makes sense to interrupt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using (G)Mail Notifir[1] for a while, and got the current version for free when it first came out. If I hadn't, I'd pay the $3, FWIW.

[1]: It was originally called Gmail Notifir.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm using MailTab Pro, which does notifications as well as presenting a mobile web view of the gmail website. I actually end up doing a lot of my email writing and processing directly from the web view because it's so much faster than the full Gmail site.

</comment><comment><USER6> I just use this in Chrome. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google- mail-checke...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-mail- checker/mihcahmgecmbnbcchbopgniflfhgnkff/details)

</comment><comment><USER7> We built Chime to keep us from having copious pinned tabs. Let me know if any of you find it useful. [http://chimeapp.com](http://chimeapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> I just pin a tab in Firefox. Keeps me from compulsively checking my email, while still letting me know when new mail has arrived.

<comment><USER9> Same, plus the "Unread message icon" option from the Labs tab in Settings.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I didn't know about that one; haven't checked the labs in a while. Also found a preview pane feature which I'm going to test out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't Ubuntu have similar notification widget?</comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on Unequal Equity Among Co-Founders? - <AUTHOR> I just read two contradicting articles [1][2], both written by a prominent figure in the field. Even after reading the HN's discussion about the first article [3], I still can't conclude which approach is better.<p>[1] http://blog.eladgil.com/2017/08/unequal-cofounders.html<p>[2] https://blog.ycombinator.com/splitting-equity-among-founders/<p>[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17371345 <comment><USER2> This won't be an answer for you, but there is a helpful tool to help in debating the question - The Founder Pie Calculator:

[https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fd0n/35%20Founders'%20Pie%20...](https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fd0n/35%20Founders'%20Pie%20Calculator.htm)

In particular you can fill it out yourself and ask your partner to fill it out, then compare notes. This will give you a subject to discuss and see if you can align your expectations. If you come to an agreement +/\- some margin then you have your answer, if you don't it's something you want to know sooner rather than later.</comment>


How to Differentiate Average Programmers from Good Programmers - <AUTHOR> https://www.codementor.io/savingfunda/how-to-differentiate-average-programmers-from-good-programmers-98g1uip92 <comment><USER2> This is nonsense for several reasons. tl;dr Don't use trick questions in your interviews. The candidate is not there to read your mind.

1\. An interview setting is a terrible place to observe whether someone will "break" the specs. In someone's job, it's clear that their goal is to provide value to the company. Specs have a real purpose and real users. In an interview, candidates are likely to assume they're being tested on coding, not on coloring outside the lines.

2\. Some of the "expectations" are directly contradicted by the specs. No one's job should be to do good work despite having shitty specs. If you need a developer who ignores explicit requirements in a spec, you either A) have a shitty developer who does her own thing despite what the specs say, or B) shitty management. Either way, why would you test for this?

3\. Nitty-gritty details in an interview setting aren't a test of whether someone is a good developer. Example from the article:

> _A good developer will make sure to close streams in right way and release > file descriptors while an average programmer forgets about that._

Are you fucking kidding me? You could pick any tiny "good practice" at random and say, "An average developer doesn't do this, but a good developer does." And most of them will be your little pet peeve that rarely matters in the real world.

Besides that, details are the easiest thing to screw up in a high-pressure interview (and technical interviews are _always_ high-pressure).

Are you really trying to find out if someone is good to work with, or are you trying to see if they'll discover the tiny traps in your interview? And have you even tested this strategy to see what kinds of devs you get vs. what kinds you reject?

I genuinely hope no one in a hiring capacity sees this post and follows the advice. Or, if someone is in an interview like this, I hope s/he is able to get an offer somewhere else, because this company optimizes for terrible indicators of skill.</comment>


Building a web crawler from scratch in Python - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/fprime/how-to-create-a-web-crawler-from-scratch-in-python-2p46 <comment><USER2> I found this mega helpful in terms of a building walk through. Can you point me to any other python walk through (not the tutorials, like ATBS) that build core things like this method-by-method and explain each method in plain language.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it just me or is the service being advertised here(proxyorbit) seem less than ethical or legal? The way it is described and the way terms are worded, it sounds like they are selling access to open proxies that they have found without permission or have even asked permission to use them.

If true, integrating the proxy service into your product like they suggest just seems like a terrible idea for a number of reasons.</comment>


Ask HN: How to work with people who's just waiting for an exit. #startup - <AUTHOR>

In this startup, this employee has been around for a while, almost at beginning of company. I'm not sure what's his contributions to the company are but he doesn't seem to do anything on a daily basis, at least nothing that translates to increasing company revenue. He's always working on his "side projects" that has nothing to do with company products. I got a feeling that he's just sitting around, getting by, waiting for an exit to happen.<p>Is this a prevalent thing in startups these days? <comment><USER2> There are two possible scenarios here. Either you are above him on the organizational chart, in which case you probably have the authority to let him go.

More likely(As you're not sure what his contributions are), you are lateral to him on the chart. Possibly try to engage him in what you're working on. Maybe he's not particularly self driven and would value the guidance from someone more senior. If he turns it down, either just ignore it and move on(if it is not affecting you), or if his failure to do work impacts you directly, then complain to your manager. T

</comment><comment><USER3> rest and vest... :)

why not discuss your concerns with founders or to that person... some time people do work that is not tangible... adding value is vague concept.... talk, understand what person does, put your self in that person's shoe... may be you'll get some answers...

Nash, [http://joday.com](http://joday.com)</comment>