The Story of My Startup.  - <AUTHOR> http://dailybooth.com/blog/?p=7 After an incredible amount of complications and pushing the launch date back over a year, we've finally just made the site live.<p>This is blog post documenting the entire story. I'd love to get some feedback from the HN community. <comment><USER2> I'd suggest you put a sample animation of the type of result people would get on your site on the front page. I don't think the intro text "your life in pictures" explains it well enough, but if people see even just a 5 frame animation they'll immediately recognize the concept. In fact, I'd stick the picture taking app on the front page and allow them to take a first snapshot before even signing up. Having the first picture there would provide a great incentive to follow through with the sign-up.

Also, if I may, and I know from experience it's harder than it sounds: It seems your concept got way more complex over time, when you really should have launched the simplest possible version as fast as possible and worried about widgets, following, minifeeds, comments, a proper logo etc. later on. Cool that you're online now though, good luck with everything!

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is a very promising idea.

I think the idea of an embeddable widget that flips through all your photos (like the videos you describe that inspired the site) would be really cool. I think if a widget like this is done right you could get some good viral growth from MySpace.

I'd think about capitalizing as much as possible on the timelapse concept and stray away from being just another photo sharing site. Right now, users profiles are just a feed of images, which doesn't seem that compelling..

</comment><comment><USER4> Great work, but ... looks like an example of completely missing the basics of the customer needs. Do we really need good design to start taking shots? Think about us already missing a year of pictures. Sorry for making it sound sharp.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi I have to ask because this is the third startup I've seen recently like this - what do _you_ do for the startup? What value do you add? I'm not meaning to be impolite but you hire a designer to design, a developer to develop, someone else is funding it... So you bring the idea, management and evangelising?

<comment><USER6> Thats what Product Managers and Project Managers do ..

<comment><USER5> Yeah, like I thought, middle management in a startup.

I like the post, and sure I guess it's great to have someone pull it together but if that person could also be adding some value to the actual building as well that would be even better.

<comment><USER7> So let me get this straight: to be valued in a startup you have to actually do the coding or design? There's a lot to be said for the value of vision and passion. They are probably the only two things you can't hire.

<comment><USER5> To be clear, this isn't directed specifically at the person who wrote the blog post but from my point of view to be valued in the startup you have to do more than tell everyone else what to do. Passion and vision are great, but you should be able to use these to practical value. Anyone can say "let's make this really awesome video game where you can do anything" but unless you are actualy coming up with some practical direction for the team your "vision" is useless.

<comment><USER7> No one said they just stand there are shout words off a task list.

How many non-technical founders do you know? There are a ton of successful ones out there, and when you meet them [as long as you don't say what you just did] you'll understand why they are successful.

<comment><USER5> Fair enough. I know a couple of non-technical founders actually and they seem to be focusing on sales and marketing + VC connections. I don't get that impression from some of the founders I'm reading on HN though. I certainly appreciate the stories but the impressions I get, and this may be incorrect, is that they are taking credit for the "design" (in the overall looser sense of the term) of their product when they have just given broad reaching goals and let the actual employees make all the little decisions that make or break the product.

<comment><USER7> It sounds like you have only ever come across poor business people. It's pretty easy though, they are about as common as poor coders and designers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congrats on the launch. Most entrepreneurs know the feeling of missing deadlines badly ;)

It's such a good concept, honestly, I would pay for a private one for my friends and family. The site didn't make it clear if privacy was possible.

</comment><comment><USER8> One little issue I found. On the user pages if you click 'daily booth' you get sent to /dashboard (even though I have not created an account or logged in): [http://ul.mikeyur.com/public/sk/Fullscreen-20090212-232617.p...](http://ul.mikeyur.com/public/sk/Fullscreen-20090212-232617.png)

And when you get sent to /dashboard while not logged in you get a little error: [http://ul.mikeyur.com/public/sk/Minefield-20090212-232757.pn...](http://ul.mikeyur.com/public/sk/Minefield-20090212-232757.png)

</comment><comment><USER9> Look at twitter... how long was that around before any attempt at monetisation emerged?

</comment><comment><USER10> Where's the business model?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. I have a few ideas that I'm going to be pursuing.

\- Setup a deal with flipclips.com (or someone similar) and let people purchase a branded flickbook of a period of their lives.

\- Maybe potential for some kind of picwing.com affiliate deal / application.

\- Some kind of "pro" account with more features (more picture widget output options etc).

\- Display advertising (yeah, know).

They're a few ideas I'm toying with.

<comment><USER11> The pro account is the best idea. Stay away from advertising, IMO, it looks cheap and turns people off. Personally I absolutely hate advertising and won't use any site with it. And I doubt much would come from the book idea/affiliations.

I would take it nice and slow. Wait until you have some serious users who have put a lot of time into the app. Obviously you and your friends have to catalyse that, looks like you already are which is good. Once you've got some nice multi-month videos to show, and perfecting all the little niggly bits about working with it (which YOU will be doing), try to get some publicity. It would be really helpful if you know some girls who will do it, your digg/reddit/etc-fu will be greatly increased if it's a girl.

Anyway, then start introducing new options. Pro members can get better quality video out - free is just the flash video, pro gets a full on quicktime version. Free has one "stream", pro can have several - they might want to do their cat or family members or something. Free can embed the flash output on their blog, Pro can embed _the picture taking app_ on their website and make a "my blog visitors" stream .. or something.

Pro is $20 once off fee. Get a bit of press exposure and who knows, it could really take off. The Pro account taking pics of their families sounds like it could have real potential. Maybe a family package deal - $50 for a year of photos including a printed book?

Anyway congratulations on the launch, many people don't know how hard it is to take a decently sized project from idea to fully realised implementation and release. It's _fucking_ hard and even more so if you're running on nothing but your own internal motivation. Good shit and well done.

<comment><USER12> > Stay away from advertising, IMO, it looks cheap and turns people off. > Personally I absolutely hate advertising and won't use any site with it.

I don't like ads either, but we (who actually care enough to e.g. install ad block+) are a minority.

You need money. Advertisement might help and it will only repulse a relatively small portion of the population.

</devil's advocate>

<comment><USER13> I love ads. And the cash they make. I don't think they cheapen a website at all, and you'd be hard pressed to find that many websites without some form of advertising.

Try them out, and see if they work, and see if your users find them useful, or horrible.

Also do the maths - how many Pro accounts would you need to sell to make the same amount as sticking a couple of adverts up?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Awesome story, well done, and great execution. Site looks good. Don't listen to all the naysayers about monetization. It is important (the most important thing), but if you are living/breathing/eating your business, you will come up with proper revenue channels. I'm sure of it. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for sharing and being open about all the problems you encountered. Launching an application is definitely not easy, nothing takes as long as you hope it will (even if you pad for unexpected problems) and it's really hard to declare something "done." Congrats on your launch.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is awesome. It's great to hear a story that isn't just "we did this, and bam, we launched and either a) lost all our money or b) we made $200m in the first day" :)

</comment><comment><USER17> whoa, it's the guy that made grabup -- love that application (amusingly I emailed them a few months ago asking to advertise (paid) on their site -- never got a reply)

great story, will be sure to track his blog and progress. Great to see awesome projects from fellow brits :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Great story Jon, I really enjoyed the read and found it quite inspirational. The launch video at the end with the music was classic, especially the 404 at launch and the music running out!

Best of luck with the site, looks like a lot of hard work has gone into it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great read. Congrats on the launch.

</comment><comment><USER20> Kudos on the launch. Looks really great. :)

Is there anyone else doing this? Just curious.

<comment><USER2> I seem to recall reading an interview with SkinnyCorp (Threadless.com) where Jake or Jeffrey said they had once built but then scrapped a similar project. While googling for that, I found <http://www.flickaday.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like it.

One thing: I can't find a way to delete my account in the settings panel.

<comment><USER22> Why would you want to delete your account if you like it?

<comment><USER21> Because it didn't work for me, I already have an existing way of doing this and I hate leaving stray accounts littered across the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks for sharing, very candid and interesting.

</comment><comment><USER24> the date on your site is 13th February 2009+1900</comment>


For modern development, Javascript is just something you need to learn - <AUTHOR> http://sidekicksrc.com/post/for-modern-development-javascript-is-just-something-you-need-to-learn/ <comment><USER2> I'm sorry but I have to side with the JS is utter crap crowd.

The single redeeming feature of JS is that it's implemented in all current browsers. If it wasn't for that fact I doubt anyone would have cared much.

It's just nowhere near as good as current alternatives for application development. Everything it can do another language can do better, except run in a browser - which is entirely out of control of the other languages so somewhat of a moot point.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry but I have to side with the "oxygen is utter crap" crowd. It's too reactive, causing all kinds of materials to degrade, and sometimes they even burst into flame! Helium, Neon, Argon are much better, but even Nitrogen, which isn't perfect, is better than Oxygen.

The single redeeming feature of Oxygen is that it's pretty much everywhere, and yeah sure we can all breathe it and don't have any other choices for gases to breathe. If it wasn't for that fact I doubt anyone would care much for it.

Ok, I'm paraphrasing and extending what you said to make my point... Javascript being in every browser, to the exclusion of all other languages, is a _huge_ factor in its popularity and utility, and it's the main driving force towards improving the language. If Javascript didn't become the in-browser language, it probably wouldn't have existed at all. Instead we'd have some other small language with similar design flaws, or maybe Perl would have been adopted as the in-browser language. At the time it was the main language for server-side web development, it was already embeddable and used for in-app scripting (like Lua is today), and I recall a browser extension for Netscape that let you use it instead of Javascript. IE, of course, would only have had VBScript.

Pick your poison.

<comment><USER4> I didn't see a point, just a bunch of facts and a smarmy, self-righteous turn- about comment. If I could downvote it, I would.

The parent comment said "Javascript is a bad language but it's incredibly useful because it's in every browser." and you just agreed with him after writing a bunch of sarcastic drek.

<comment><USER3> No, jpgvm said that Javascript is "utter crap" that no one would care about if not for the fact that it's implemented in all current browsers. She/he never said anything about it being useful. My point, which appears to have gone over your head, is that you can't dismiss one of the key aspects of Javascript's value and then call it "utter crap".

<comment><USER4> Uh, no. He specifically mentioned that running in the browser is why JS is so widely used, even though the language itself is worse than alternatives.

>The single redeeming feature of JS is that it's implemented in all current browsers. If it wasn't for that fact I doubt anyone would have cared much.

>Everything it can do another language can do better, except run in a browser

That's the exact opposite of dismissing a key aspect of Javascript's value, that's explicitly acknowledging it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The intrinsic smallness of the language can be alarming when you come from a bigger language (Ruby, Java)"

Bad examples. Ruby and Java are small languages too, just like JS. This immediately calls into question the credentials of the author. Not a good start.

"Null everywhere Attempting to access a property of a JS object that's not defined gives you… undefined. If it's important to your program that you know about this: write some code."

Or just, you know, use a better language?

"'Callback hell' isn't a problem for people who've written a lot of JS."

So that makes it okay then?

It's just another article written by someone so immersed in their own little world that they can't see the wood for the trees. The author probably thinks he has put together a nice a little counter-attack to that "other" article; but really he has just reinforced it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually Ruby and Java are both large languages compared to JS. Ruby especially - compare its object system with Javascript's, or consider it has 3 flavours of lambda ;)

Nice to take 2 quotes out of context of their explanations.

And finally, I've written a heap of Ruby, Python & AS3 and enough Clojure, Haskell and Go to be able to say: Javascript is a great little language. We use it because of history, sure, but learn how to use it before bashing it.

p.s [http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html)

<comment><USER5> Are you the author?

The whole article just seems to be missing the point entirely.

It pretty much answers everything with "oh but you can write a hack to work around that" or "oh there is some library you can use that plugs that gap". Whilst yes, these may be viable "solutions" for hacking something out. It doesn't refute the claim by the original article that JS is a bad language. It actually just reinforces it with yet more examples.

The only positives to take away from the article are where it highlights features coming in ES6 to _actually_ solve some of the problems. But these admissions seem to contradict the premise of the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.

No I'm not missing the point: I show how, within a few lines, these 'missing features' disappear. e.g: constants, type annotations, objects as keys.

Adding a whole language feature to save a few lines of code - not to my taste. You don't need a new language feature to express an idea if it can be trivially expressed in the language as it stands.

<comment><USER5> I didn't like the constants solution for nulls. Why not use a Maybe monad? I'm surprised that you didn't considering your claimed language experience.

I guess I just don't agree with your fundamental position on this. That writing yet more code to workaround a bad language is in anyway a long-term solution. At some point you'll want to bring more devs onto your team and then you'll need to explain all this technical debt and hacks to them. Not good.

I still believe you're missing the point of the original article you were refuting. It's not about being able to workaround something. It's about not needing to workaround flaws in the language in the first place. That's what defines a good language.

Further reading for you (unordered):

1\. [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/05/the-best-code-is- no...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/05/the-best-code-is-no-code-at- all.html)

2\. "The line of code you don't write is the line of code you never have to debug." \-- Steve Jobs

3\. Mythical Man Month (a book)

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe monad - like this one I wrote? [http://truffles.me.uk/playing-with- es6-generators-to-make-a-...](http://truffles.me.uk/playing-with- es6-generators-to-make-a-maybe-in-javascript). FYI - I'm sure you're not trying to be, but you're coming off as terribly condescending...

Yes: we disagree. I write 3 lines where others see a need for new language features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "There is no need in this world for manual screwdrivers because a drill can do the same job with less work."

I don't understand the vitriol. Is JavaScript perfect? No but I don't think anyone has ever made that argument. Can you build web applications with it? Absolutely.

The fact of the matter is JS can run on more "things" than anything else. Period. This includes legacy systems. Don't like the language? That's totally fine and, to an extent, understandable. But, holy shit, it's a highly accessible tool: learn it and stop complaining.

"But there are better tools!" Ok, that's great, but those tools aren't presently available in your toolbox. So write your own library to implement missing feature x. Syntax not terse enough for you? Write a preprocessor. Since you won't be the first, a lot of the hard work has already been done for you. Consider publishing it. Do what every other developer doing anything on the web has had to do for years: improve your sandbox.

"But these features should be standard!" They're not. Write the 3-5 lines to fix it and move on. Want to go the extra mile? Talk to the folks who run the show (the ecma folks).

Not happy with the tools? Fix them. Chromium and Firefox are OSS; write other runtimes into them. Push for their adoption. Does that seem like an insurmountable task? Then perhaps leverage what is available to you.

All of this religious debate is nonsense.

<comment><USER7> _How does it not blow your mind that you can write one bit of code and have it instantly available on the vast majority of devices released in the last 20+ years? Yeah, you 'll have to write polyfills and hacks, and there will be a lot of boilerplate, but think about that for a second: one bit of code and it runs on phones / tvs / computers / calculators / toasters. Do you have to write it using a tool that was originally designed for a dramatically different environment? Yup. Can you still do it? Yup. How is that not amazing?_

C and even C++ run in far more places than Javascript does or ever will. People using other languages won't be interested in or able to use your library written in Javascript.

Anyway, I don't particularly care about writing code that runs on every device ever. I want to write code to solve problems, and for a large set of problems Javascript inside a web browser is fairly useless. Javascript is great if your economic model is getting as many users as possible and then getting aquhired before you run out of capital. This is the case for a lot of people on HN, even if they don't realise it. However I'm a small time developer, not in SV, who programs because I enjoy solving problems and helping people, not to get rich. I'm only really interested in whether $(number of people who can run the code) * $(how much they can pay) > $(my cost of living) so that I can afford to eat. It means I don't care so long as the platform/language I choose has enough users to pay my bills, it doesn't have to be 100% of people. I realise that the industry giants at Google or Mozilla don't really care about people like me ('life style business' is usually a term of derision on HN). In a world of web based operating systems that only run web apps I would end up stacking shelves in the supermarket or on the dole because I dislike that technology stack enough that I can't be productive in it. That is why sometimes I bitch about Javascript.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand how you connected Javascript with that particular start-up mentality. "Solving problems and helping people" as a development approach is platform agnostic; if you wanted to do that through the web then hey, you would probably use Javascript to accomplish that.

<comment><USER7> My point is that the benefit of Javascript (i.e. being able to run on all consumer computers with (almost) a single code base) isn't a benefit that interests me. I tried to explain why because I know that a lot of people on HN have very different reasons for wanting to develop software -- people don't apply to YC because they are building a small lifestyle business to support their family.

>if you wanted to do that through the web then hey, you would probably use Javascript to accomplish that.

Well personally I wouldn't since as I said I'd rather not develop software at all then use Javascript/CSS/HTML.

Of course the rest of the industry has no obligation to continue supporting the open native platforms that allow me to use the technologies I prefer. However I don't think it is unreasonable to moan when I see those platforms being killed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really don't get all this rage at Javascript. Obviously it has flaws and warts, but I don't see it as being _significantly_ worse than other dynamically-typed languages. Yes, there are some misfeatures we'd all like to see ripped out and those provide some nasty gotchas. But once you learn the language it compares well to Python and Lua and other dynamically-typed C-ish- syntax languages.

</comment><comment><USER10> There's significant danger in the fact that people _don 't know that they need to learn it_. They just write what they know, and techniques that are actually supported across all browsers they're supporting (with IE8 or hopefully IE10 being the minimum supported browser) lie unused for quite a few years. That these techniques _need_ deep knowledge to make a solid result indicates a point of concern in the suitability of JavaScript for such things. Are ES5 and ES6 merely papering over the problems where a fresh-room approach might work better? (My answer: I frankly don't know. In the very long term, replacing JavaScript might be a good thing, but it would wreak significant havoc for quite a few years and would be impressively difficult to orchestrate from the browser manufacturers' perspective.)

I'd still love to have the safety of a language like Rust for modern web development. At some point, someone will fix Emscripten support up for it, so then it'll be comparatively alright. (I like the theory of the one-language- from-end-to-end approach, but I want it to be a safer language than JavaScript.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Just saying that JS has a good debugger (it isn't that good, really) isn't nearly enough to counteract the original points about terrible exception handling. Exception handling isn't just about fixing errors, it's about controlling the flow of errors through your programs and handling them as best you can. Your customer doesn't want to step into a debugger to see what went wrong, they just want a nice error message.

</comment><comment><USER12> Web applications are only small part or "modern development", so no you don't need to learn js. Unless you're working on a "cool, but ultimately useless" web apps, JavaScript is useless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Context: the article is a reply to another post on the front-page: [http://live.julik.nl/2013/05/javascript-is- shit](http://live.julik.nl/2013/05/javascript-is-shit)

I probably should have titled it "Javascript isn't a shit language, you just need to learn it" to avoid this ambiguity: I'm not claiming it's a "must learn" for modern dev ;)

<comment> vezzy-fnord Indeed, I was just about to say that this article was a mere rebuttal and nowhere did it mention that you need to learn JS.

On the other hand, you're well on your way to becoming a successful marketer with your deceptive titles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately I'd have to have done it deliberately :) Here I just confused my message: not a great marketing skill!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Javascript _is_ shitty, though. I say this as someone who loves it, enjoys using it and understands it better than most. There are just some real undeniable fuck-ups in the design of the language. Don't get all defensive about it, be honest.

</comment><comment><USER14> Stockholm syndrome? You have to use/write Javascript doesn't mean it isn't bad.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great article. While JS isn't my favourite language, it has many redeeming features. For one, to get started, just open up a browser console, and have at it! No other language offers such a low barrier to entry. You can create a simple HTML file, run it strait from the browser, and voilà, you have a program.

Javascripts flexibility is why you see emulators, 3D games and simulations, everything written in Javascript. Every language compiles to Javascript, and you can edit code live in Javascript, having it render directly into the browser, without running a server, REPL, etc...

The main advantage of Javascript though is the freedom it gives to developers - you can be productive in it quickly, individual developers can get alot done with it in a short time, and it enables web apps to be created quickly.

Look at something like Firefox OS, how easy it is to script and develop for, and then you'll understand why JS is great.

<comment><USER16> _For one, to get started, just open up a browser console, and have at it! No other language offers such a low barrier to entry._

Languages do not "offer" browsers. Browsers offer languages.

 _Javascripts flexibility is why you see emulators, 3D games and simulations, everything written in Javascript._

It's because people want to deploy to browsers and there are no alternatives.

 _Every language compiles to Javascript_

Any language can be compiled to any other language if someone spends enough time on it. The reason people compile things to JavaScript is, again, because there are no alternatives.

 _The main advantage of Javascript though is the freedom it gives to developers_

This sounds like something from Ministry of Truth in 1984. We're stuck with a single language, with no proper way to bypass it. The "alternatives" are ugly hacks that still revolve around the same language, have most of the same problems, then add some on top and make development tool-chains orders of magnitude more complex. How on earth this is freedom?

<comment><USER15> > Languages do no "offer" browsers. Browsers offer languages.

You misread? I said it offers a low barrier to entry. I'm well aware of Javascript's relation to the browser, or Dart's in Dartium as a counter example.

> It's because people want to deploy to browsers and there are no > alternatives.

Flash? Java? C# (Silverlight)? Dart on Dartium? Native Client on Chrome? Some have came and went, some aren't catching on.

> This sounds like something from Ministry of Truth in 1984. We're stuck with > a single language, with no proper way to bypass it. The "alternatives" are > ugly hacks that still revolve around the same language, have most of the > same problems, then add some on top and make development tool-chains orders > of magnitude more complex. How on earth this is freedom?

So propose an alternative... Native Client in every browser perhaps? I wouldn't be opposed. Or is there another language you'd prefer? Dartium is here, you can test it today. [https://www.dartlang.org/tools/dartium/](https://www.dartlang.org/tools/dartium/)

> This sounds like something from Ministry of Truth in 1984.

Freedom, as in low barrier to entry and shipping an app. And certainly more freedom than MS, Oracle or Apple offer with their solutions.

What platform makes distributing to users easier, and still free from corporate control?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For me, javascript is not a brilliant language designed and descended from heaven from God (or from Guido van Rossum), instead javascript is a political plattform.

It is currently the platform which is able to spread over the biggest range of devices because it evolved from an ongoing cooperation game.

This game isn't sane, it's not efficient and the result is a mess, but it's our mess for the time being.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've yet to find a function, _better_ , which can apply even a partial ordering on language designs.

A lot of the same arguments against Javascript are heaped on C as well. I think anyone has used these languages long enough and understand them deeply enough are more than aware of their short-comings. It hasn't stopped C programmers from writing the software that runs pretty much the entire world. Neither has it stopped Javascript programmers from making awesome things.

I think the argument that, _X is a crappy language because it lets you do stupid things like Y_ , should be removed from the lexicon. I assume you've all seen the video of the _wat_ talk and any Javascript programmer worth their salt has committed it to memory. If they haven't then they're either still new to the language or ignorant and could use some help. Maybe point them in Doug Crockford's direction.

There's no perfect defence against human error. It's why we write tests, static analyzers, linters and come up with practices like code review and prayer (hah!).

</comment><comment><USER16> _'Callback hell' isn't a problem for people who've written a lot of JS._

I get the feeling that people who say this _write_ a lot of JS, but don't _read_ a lot of JS written by others.

</comment><comment><USER19> This was a really insightful response to a fairly typical neophyte language rant. I run a popular JavaScript meetup group and see a lot of JS devs trying to fit square pegs in round holes, struggling to make conceptual jumps from synchronous, O-O programming to a functional, continuation passing style. They gravitate to Promises or CoffeeScript, search endlessly for better control flow libraries, and try to write their own frameworks to make JS work like php/ruby/java, until eventually the light bulb goes on, and they get some of the concepts this article hit on. Thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><USER20> "The built-in option to check an object's 'type' is instanceof, which looks at the function an object was created with."

Nitpick, because I happen to be teaching myself the Javascript class system right now: _instanceof_ examines an object's prototype inheritance, not its constructor. _x instanceof Y_ if _x_ inherits from _Y.prototype_ , so it's possible to "sever" an object from its constructor by replacing the constructor's prototype property. Coming from a strongly typed language, this takes some getting used to!

</comment><comment><USER21> Javascript is a tool. The fact that it runs in a browser and on a server means that communication between the client and the server in a Javascript-based web application becomes a lot simpler. If you know how to use the tool, it will serve you well.

You can find things to gripe about in every language you'll ever work with. Javascript is available. Use it and contribute to it's community, or don't. Griping is not contributing. It doesn't solve any problems.

If you think Javascript could use improvement, write a library to help solve a specific problem or contact emca and report your problem/issue/idea-for- improvement.

Basically just stop complaining and start working. If you are of the opinion that Javascript is a horrible language that is bound to make your project un- maintainable and disgusting regardless of your expertise then choose a different language.

Off to write come C :)

</comment><comment><USER22> To the Comments here: Why on HN is always so much hate? Because you don't like Language X you have to say it in every post about it?

99% of the Comments are not about the Topic just about beliefs of other Commenters....

<comment><USER23> I don't hate Java/Python/C#/C++ because I know I can realistically choose between them when building server, desktop and mobile software. I hate JavaScript because I am forced to use it for web clients. And transpilers are useless because I can't really use my high-level GUI (QT, GWT, WPF etc.) libraries. I spend enough time debugging raw JavaScript, I struggle to see how putting something on top of it will ease the pain.

<comment><USER24> That's, IMO, is another discussion. This JavaScript you talking about are written by programmers that often don't know JavaScript well and uses it as a little glue language on the client.

That's poorly written JavaScript.

On top of that, what I see missing on all this flamew.., err, discussion, is the difference between a more loose, small and open language and a more consistent, closed and regular one. Both feel a lot different. Comparing it in a given scenario may be valid, comparing they without any context at all feels like apples and oranges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> JS might be a great language in isolation, but modern development or modern web development anyway.. in my experience wastes too many CPU cycles doing stuff that native applications were doing with higher performance years ago on some pentium 3..

Hopefully someone can solve the problem of distributing and updating native apps as smoothly as web apps (or websites, to be more accurate) with a minimal security impact and we can all go do some real 'modern' programming.

</comment><comment><USER26> Regardless of technical quirks, if you don't know JS, you can't work on the web. Period.

[https://www.quora.com/Computer-Science/What-is-the-most- valu...](https://www.quora.com/Computer-Science/What-is-the-most-valuable- computer-programming-language-to-know-for-the-future-of-technology-and-why)

</comment><comment><USER27> There are a few warts in javascript, but especially with "the good parts", it's really not that bad. Besides, it allows and encourages a lot of techniques which come from functional programming, which makes it a lot of fun for a functional programming hobbyist like me :)

</comment><comment><USER28> How could one compare "exception handling" and "debugging"? They are two differed things. JS exceptions handling IS weak by design, no matter what debugger you are using. :)

</comment><comment><USER23> ES6 is a 'future' development not 'modern' development language. It has not been released yet and it is unknown when it will be fully implemented by all mainstream browsers.

<comment><USER29> smells like ES4 fiasco to me. Ambitious spec stuck in endless debates.

I've heard it was supposed to be finalized in 2012,then 2013,then what ?

They should go with a minimal spec ( let,proxies,modules,promises,deferred ) and deliver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I vote this because the post layout is much better to read (I doubt people are going to understand my point).</comment>


Ask HN:  The older you are, the more you want to see non-tech on HN? - <AUTHOR>

I suspect that the older you are, the more interests you have that have accumulated as a result of life experience.
Tech starts to look the same after you have seen so much of it.  In fact, I think that the older you are, the less likely you are to browse through technical books in a bookstore/library.
Moreover, you would be more interested in topics such as consciousness partly out of intellectual curiosity and partly out of consideration of your own mortality.
Finally, I suspect that older readers are more tolerant of others expressing various theories that they have about all sorts of things -- even without citations.  And this probably has something to do with placing greater value on life experience. <comment><USER2> I am a counter-example to your musings. I'm 50 and have virtually no interest in non-tech on HN. That's not why I'm here. I'm interested in programming, science, math, and technology, and interested in topics such as psychology only insofar as they impact on usability.

I do have very broad interests outside of technical topics, but regard as pointless and irrelevant here postings on consciousness, etc.

Including this one.

I've noticed in the past that whenever you try posting on topics outside of technical matters you are repeatedly ignored or flagged. Perhaps an alternative hypothesis is that while these things are of interest in general, they don't really belong here. The evidence seems to be against your hypothesis. Try applying some science and changing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps it's more of an industry vs academia distinction then?

A post on consciousness is of interest in theoretical computer science for example:

[http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/is-there-a-test- for...](http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/is-there-a-test-for- consciousness/)

<comment><USER3> This helps me clarify my thinking on your posted question. It seems that what I like about this community is that it is started by and run by and for Makers.

I have little interest in building a machine or spending effort talking about a machine that acts like a human. I am more interested in building a machine that is a tool that enhances human abilities. For example, we used to keep track of our resources with pen and paper. We have built machines that make that easier. We used to walk to school, now we have cars and busses to drive us there. We used to dream about flying, now it is routine.

The classic AI approach (speaking of Minsky and others there) seems to be aimed at replicating a human.

Conversation about consciousness strike me as ill-informed and are not of any interest to me. But perhaps I am a simple country boy after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nope, sorry, I think you're totally off-base.

I'm 36, and have been on the interwebs long enough to know where to find the other non-tech bits of interest.

I prefer just the facts here.

<comment><USER5> I'm 36, and my interests vary so much that I find having a community of smart people discussing multiple topics nice in and of itself. Most communities are either full of not-smart people or much more specialized. Of course, I still read both other types of communities, so perhaps I just have too much free time these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disagree completely. I am ~ 50 and really enjoy the tech stuff. for fluff I can always go do digg.

</comment><comment><USER7> And to complete the anecdotal refutation, I'm 21 and I'm perfectly happy to see non-tech articles on HN, as long as it's pepper over the techy meat & potatoes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good question, but for me _Tech starts to look the same after you have seen so much of it. In fact, I think that the older you are, the less likely you are to browse through technical books in a bookstore/library._ is really not true at all. I won't say my age, but I have been programming professionally since 1965 and always hit the computer section of bookstores first. (Sadly in apparent decline. My favorite was Borders, mainly because of their first store in Ann Arbor. It was more like a seriously overstuffed library with lots of big soft chairs and tables.) My technical curiousity is as great as it was when I was 12.

Yes, my interests are quite varied and wide, and I have places to go on the net and elsewhere to explore them. I come to hn because i look for the serious technical discussions you find here and the startup and business focus.

I am not interested in topics such as consciousness as I find them particularly undisciplined or worse. And not sure how that is influenced by our consideration of mortality.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's the opposite for me. As I get older I become more interested in tech stuff, and less interested in the general stuff. I used to spend almost all my time considering the meaning of life and all that.

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the best things about HN is precisely that there is a core focus to it, but that it touches on many related topics. Some of the most valuable areas for exploration are where one field of knowledge meets another. Each sheds some light on areas of the other that haven't yet been explored.

At 44, I'm backing up your argument. But honestly, I had already accumulated most of my eclectic intellectual curiosity a quarter century ago. Even so, I still browse the technical books at bookstores. Libraries are hopelessly out- of-date on anything technical that would interest me. I don't need the latest power users' guide to anything. I'm interested in new insights into building something that has never been done before.

</comment><comment><USER10> Your sentence _Tech starts to look the same after you have seen so much of it._ resonates with me a bit (I'm 43 and have made my living as a developer for over 20 years). What happens a lot is some old idea is dusted off and becomes a current fad. Sometimes this is because the old idea was a good one, but sometime it's because a younger generation is ignorant of history and why that idea didn't work the last time it was tried.

So sometimes there a feeling of "What! That again??" when some topic such as "NoSQL" comes up, but that doesn't, to me, make tech in general less interesting.

</comment><comment><USER11> Not the case with me. I'm 24 and I like reading all sorts of news on HN. The community here provides a level of commentary that you don't get at more general interest sites like reddit and digg.

</comment><comment><USER12> More non-tech on HN: No, for the same reasons others have said. That's what I'm here for. In fact, since I'm not planning to found a company, I'm more interested in the technical articles than the business stories (though I read both).

More interests with age: true.

Tech starts to look the same: sometimes, but there is more groundbreaking stuff going on than ever before.

Bookstores: yes, but is that because of my interests changing, because the books available are getting more superficial? Would you believe that in the early 1980s, the bookstore at the mall stocked comp sci texts? I bought one volume of Knuth there.

Consciousness: If I'm interested it's because it looks like we're on the verge of being able to program it.

Tolerance of others' theories: only if they're genuinely new.

Life experience: absolutely not. In fact, the one thing I've learned from joining Facebook this year is that most people spend their time doing stuff that would bore me to death.

My age: 50, and gratified to see so many others of my generation speaking up here. (I can't call us old, because we're not.)

</comment><comment><USER13> I like the tech and industry related business posts only. There are other forums for other things. Case in point, the one or two posts linked to stories from the New York Times that seems to show up every day. While I'm sure there is a subset of us who enjoy reading the articles in the New York Times those who do are probably already reading it natively and don't re-read them in this forum.

I realize the NYT is linked on the main page of the YC main site, but the two posts that seem to show up every day strikes me as being spam in a tech forum. They are not on topic. Same with the climate change conundrum posts, there are other forums that discuss that on a daily basis such as <http://www.abovetopsecret.com/> .

If this is a vote type of thing I would vote for tech and industry related business posts only. That is what makes us special and unique as a forum.

</comment><comment><USER14> You can always go to another website. I'd prefer websites to be focused. I'd want HN to be mainly about how to realize your dream in creating a successful startup. If I want hilarious stuff I'd go to YouTube, TMZ, etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know if it has anything to do with age, but I am more interested in the business aspect of HN than the tech stuff. _Meaningful_ changes to technology are slow and I can find that information all over the net.But people talking about startups, their problems and the solutions are fascinating. That stuff is much harder to find elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am over 50 and you don't speak for me. I want tech and startup news and nothing else. There are many other places I can go for poltics, arts and culture on the web.

I value the HN community as a chance to network with like minded people. I sometimes feel isolated living in a rust belt state where coders and startups aren't understood and barely even tolerated.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm 54 and come here first for the tech articles. But after lurking around for many months I've come to respect many HNers a great deal. So I also appreciate reading their thoughts and opinions on topics of the day. (healthcare reform, net neutrality etc.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Some of the best ideas come from intersections of knowledge. I typically enjoy and learn something from articles that are not tech related but are still voted up by the HN community.

</comment><comment><USER19> I appreciate a wide range of topics on HN so long as the discourse is civil. I'm 40.

</comment><comment><USER20> Just curious, how old are you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a hint: [http://cbm.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/transactor/v8/i3/p006.ht...](http://cbm.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/transactor/v8/i3/p006.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm fine with non-tech geek substance here, as long as it's _not_ politics!

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm 21 and open to all things hackish and interesting, tech or not. So... nope.

</comment><comment><USER23> "You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone

</comment><comment><USER24> 38 and prefer HN focused on tech and the business of it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would suggest that age can bring focus. You may have various interests, but you get better and sorting one from another at deciding which gets attention when and where. You've seen more, and you've learned how to choose what gets attention. To be selective.

This is different from the absorption of youth. It may actually get a bit harder to be so fully absorbed. But a bit easier to set aside an intriguing novelty that does not pertain to your current endeavors.

</comment><comment><USER26> Non tech on HN is called 'Reddit', you may have heard of it.

<comment><USER27> This isn't Reddit, or Digg, and it's one of the reasons why we don't like comments like the above. Please refrain from snarky one liners. See: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html></comment></comment>


Why is it so hard to get the business model right for an itinerary planning app? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The more often you interact with an app the more likely it is to be viral and engaging.

You can overcome it some if there is a large transaction that you can recover money from.

Travel apps are hard because people only use them about once a year.

If you targeted business travelers some how though you might find a niche there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Classic test - frequency of problem or the magnitude of the problem before pursuing a solution.</comment></comment>


Immediate Payment Service (IMPS)(INDIA) - <AUTHOR> http://www.npci.org.in/aboutimps.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> In India NEFT transfer changed the way money is transferred but it was batch. Now this one allows you to transfer the money in real-time. The NEFT system now has become a system in which details of target account is check like name and account number and branch code. In IMPS that check not done but transfer is real-time so most people does not even need exchange account number just MMID and Mobile number and you are set.I generally transfer Rs.1 and check if it is transferred to right account and then transfer confidently.</comment>


Mobius – .NET runtime running on .NET Core - <AUTHOR> https://tooslowexception.com/mobius-net-runtime-running-on-net-core/ <comment><USER2> You might find this project interesting OP[1]. The aim is to create a self- hosting CIL JIT/AOT for the purposes of an operating system. Ultimately you'd have an OS written in 100% C#.

It has got a good few years of history and a lone brave contributor who I'm sure would welcome some help with open arms.

[1]: [https://github.com/mosa/MOSA-Project](https://github.com/mosa/MOSA- Project)

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought about doing something similar in university. But I used LLVM as the compiler backend: [https://github.com/lostmsu/CodeBlock](https://github.com/lostmsu/CodeBlock)

Written in F# of course.

<comment><USER4> I've been wanting to make some .NET apps for our family's use (like a timer etc.) but don't know C# so I figured maybe I should just start off learning F# since I have a FP background. So is F# pretty much Rust but with GC? Or is it more like TypeScript -- in the sense that it's based on OCaml which maps nicely to JS (i.e. ReasonML) -- but also with sum types?

<comment><USER5> If all you are wanting to do is make desktop gui stuff for your family C# + Winforms is super easy to pick up.

<comment><USER6> Or perhaps skip it altogether.

Most of my "family" apps is just quick hacks in JavaScript. Simple to throw together, runs on everything with a browser, like the tv, and is easily published on anything serving static files, like github pages.

Edit: For some more hobby like projects C# works out quite nicely though. I'd say it's probably easier to stick with the beaten path here if not seeing a particular advantage from a functional language. I hear F# is quite nice as far as a functional languages go though.

<comment><USER4> I've been wanting for a while a lightweight Electron alternative that doesn't use web views, just native APIs, and uses Lua instead. So it would be an .exe file that looks for a main.lua somewhere, and runs it, giving access to modules that wrap the Win32 API in high-level functionality. Then you could run a command that combines the .exe and the main.lua into a new .exe file that you can distribute. It would be super lightweight and wouldn't even need a compiler to be installed to be able to make tiny lightweight apps.

<comment><USER7> So something like LÖVE2D with wrapped Win32 APIs? That would be super cool, I wonder if anyone has done something like that.

<comment><USER4> I know there are Win32 Lua APIs. Maybe this is a 10 line windows app that just loads those in a host that loads main.lua?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The big question, for me at least, is can this be used to containerize a .NET application without having to package a full Windows OS into the container?

<comment><USER9> In case you weren't yet aware, .NET Core runtime can be containerized on Linux. .NET Framework is the (mostly) Windows dependent runtime. Mono is the open / Microsoft supported translation of .NET Framework to Linux.

<comment><USER8> Right but converting a big application to .NET Core is hard. Is this project not sort of an emulator to allow a legacy .NET Windows app to run on .NET Core? I had better read TFA better.

<comment><USER10> You're postponing the inevitable. .NET 5 is .NET Core.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but many legacy .Net apps were delivered without source-code, the original developer is not available, and now people like OP and me are looking to run this old crap (for paying customers) without having to maintain a dedicated Windows VM.

<comment><USER12> Have you tried decompiling it? Telerik Just Decompile will decompile it back out to C#. It ultimately depends on agreement you had with the original developer as to whether it is legal or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Definitely useful for research. "What if the .NET CLR could do X" can be answered more quickly with code like this. I wonder if this could support something like runtime macros. Maybe you can do that anyway using Roslyn.

</comment><comment><USER14> ... so it's like running Wine on Windows NT 4.0?

<comment><USER15> No, it's an interpreter for CIL. Wine is mostly an implementation of the Windows API, not an interpreter or emulator of any kind.

<comment><USER16> They say it has a JIT, a just-in-time translator. Not an interpreter. Wine also has a translator that translates Windows application's calls to Win32 into calls to Linux API.

The comparison with Wine is not totally incorrect.

<comment><USER17> JIT is a compiler - bytecode to native code. Wine is not a translator in that sense - it doesn't rewrite native code to change the APIs it calls. It just provides an implementation of those APIs, which may (or may not) ultimately invoke some POSIX or X API.

<comment><USER18> It might be an interesting perspective to think of almost any software library or framework as a kind of interpreter or translator from the layer above it to the layer below - e.g., a web browser is a translator from DOM constructs to native draw calls?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do companies buy ads when they are the top result in search? - <AUTHOR> For example, go to google.com and type in: "Squarespace". Squarespace has an ad at the top and then they are the first result. On the surface, this seems counter-intuitive because a user searching 'squarespace' would likely choose the organic link anyway. This is very common. Why do companies do this? Is it a defense mechanism so other competitors do not win ad placements right above their organic search result? <comment><USER2> This study ([http://searchengineland.com/google-research-even-if-you- rank...](http://searchengineland.com/google-research-even-if-you- rank-1-organically-you-can-double-your-clicks-with-paid-search-116713)) is a bit old and possibly biased (since sponsored by Google) but when I worked in SEM the experience we had was the same which was the top organic position + the top paid position netted overall more traffic to our site than with just the organic position alone. The other considerations are:

1) Brand SEM terms are cheap - if you own the brand, especially something like Squarespace, your ad will have a high quality score and will thus pay a much lower CPC than a competitor trying to vie for eyeballs with your brand name as a keyword. This means that brand terms generally are pretty cheap to buy.

2) Real estate ownership - The more real estate on the page you own the more click share you will get. This will keep other organic listings from getting click share which may mean your competitors will get less traffic off of searches for you.

3) Control over message - Ads provide a high degree of creative control which means you can change the copy and also add on Ad Extensions like sitelinks, app download buttons, "click to call" buttons, etc. These are all things that are harder to control on your organic listing.

<comment><USER3> This reflects the core argument to do this...but the truth is more subtle. Agencies and in house SEM teams are inherently biased to want to spend on brand terms because a) they can attribute more sales to their channel and b) Justify more spend which equals more revenue for most agencies...

I am not discounting the validity of the argument to bid on brand terms and I bid on brand terms for most of my clients...but I always disclose this inherent bias before making a recommendation...

In truth, every brand should test for themselves how it impacts their bottom line and if protecting their brand is worth the spend...

\</comment></comment><comment> The cynical voice in my head thinks that most digital advertising today is really ad tech companies hijacking revenue that brands earned already...and if not for competitors using that same tech, no one really needs it... (i.e. remarketing, custom audiences, branded search, first party data, etc...)

In reality, I actively spend my clients money on these tactics and congratulate myself on the results I generate for them... but in the back of my mind I am waiting for the ad tech bubble to burst and media companies disappearing and being replaced by branded content, content marketing, etc...

Edit:spelling

<comment><USER4> It's (a) all the way down. The expression is robbing Peter to pay Paul - we've even tested it - while running ads on branded keywords does increase clicks, it increases the CPA from zero to potentially pricey. The net benefit is so- so, and if the client doesn't understand that they're cannibalising their organic traffic you have a problem - I.e. 99% of the time.

The only reason I've ever witnessed is SEO/M ego rubbing, and the conversations usually go:

"we are spending more than our monthly revenue on brand ppc ads!"

"But you cover the entire first page of Google for your terms, branded and product. Turn the ads off."

"But all our traffic cones through the ads!"

"That's because you're swamping your organic terms."

"Oh gee, I don't know, worm-tongue SEO/M-master, what do I do?"

"Spend more money with my PPC agency! We know more about web development then web developers, we studied drama and literature. And we have a certificate from google saying we're good webmasters. Do your development agency?"

<comment><USER5> If you are so sure of yourself, model it.

[http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2016/04/21/compare-actual- vs...](http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2016/04/21/compare-actual-vs- predictive-data-with-ga-causalimpact/)

[https://google.github.io/CausalImpact/CausalImpact.html](https://google.github.io/CausalImpact/CausalImpact.html)

Because some of the people who studied marketing did not sleep through their econometric classes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To add some anecdotal data, even when our company was at #1 for our main search phrase and when there were fewer PPC competitors, we were still getting more traffic with PPC + organic, rather than leaving it just to the organic listing. It's like there were 2 different sets of people - those who tend to click on ads and those who tend to click on organic results. And you want both. That was quite a long time ago. Nowadays, for our main search phrase, there are 4 PPC ads at this time. And Google is now blending ads much better with the organic results, they are barely distinguishable to the untrained eye. Being #1 organic result doesn't bring you that much benefit in that setup, you're actually being #5 overall - barely visible.

<comment><USER7> IOW: "Nice business you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My experience with Google ads was that it is very easy to accidentally get them to display your ad in this way, without you knowing it.

You choose a list of terms you want to show your ad in, but by default Google will also put your ad up in "related" searches. If your company or product is already popular enough, it's likely to end up in the related searches for the terms you chose.

This cost me quite a bit of money before I found out I was wasting money on these ads by accident.

<comment><USER3> > by default Google will also put your ad up in "related" searches.

I don't mean to be harsh, but you shouldn't be spending money on search advertising without taking the 2 minutes to understand match types. There is no default other than showing you very closely related variant matching (i.e. plural to singular)...

Yes, if you run broad match keywords and dont use negatives, you run the risk of wasting lots of money...but it's hardly a default setting.

<comment><USER9> I think he means related searches as in [http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/06/g...](http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/06/google-related-searches-competitors.png)

If I understand his comment, if you select the term "sweatshirt" your add is also displayed when people search "American Eagle," and that may be yourself and you're wasting money.

<comment><USER3> He was referring to running broad match keywords by accident...My point was that its reckless to advertise without understanding match types... Google gives you nearly complete control over which terms they show you on using keyword match types and negative keywords...No one should be advertising with Google without understanding this.

[https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497836?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497836?hl=en)

<comment><USER10> I wish you could try to frame your criticism in a more engaging and friendly way. In my opinion, it's exactly this kind of absolutist reasoning that seems to be killing community and conversation.

Of course he and many others can advertise on Google without understanding match types. The point of the service provided by Google is that it's on the whole, significantly easier than "traditional" ad buying. Regardless of the repercussions, AdSense _let_ him buy ads without that understanding.

With this kind of fervor, I have to presume you're either genuinely very, very bad at providing people with advice or, what I presume to be the case, angry or pessimistic about something else entirely.

Frankly I think you owe the comment an apology for your tone regardless of the validity of your opinion on what training ought to be necessary before using a particular web app.

<comment><USER3> I somewhat agree with your point about the tone. I will apologize after writing this.

(Edit: Your post has me confused because you start off talking about tone and than you fail to take your own advice about reasonable discourse.)

Your assumptions however are way off...I would never criticize someone for something remotely excusable, but advertising on Google without taking 2 minutes or less to learn something as fundamental as match types is about as reckless as buying a rolex on the streets from a guy on a manhattan street corner and than feeling ripped off...Some things, like match types, fit into the category of reckless despite how easy you want to think running Adwords is.

My frustration is that so many people waste so much money on digital advertising because "they think they can do it themselves."

This specific guy was sharing advice warning people about adwords wasting his money. Adwords didnt waste him a penny, his unwillingness to do less than 2 minutes of preperation or asking a pro led to that...

Even with over a decade experience, I still learn new things about Adwords almost daily...The idea that people think that its simple and they can run it themselves is frustrating, but to not even know about match types, I cant think of any excuse that justifies it short of arrogance and/or laziness.

Adwords is an auction. When my competitors choose to waste money, My costs get driven up. It hurts everyone but Google...so take the 2 seconds to read up on how to do it or dont complain and tell the world it doesnt work.

Or ask me, Im happy to help with basic strategy for free, its in my best interest for my competitors to run advertising that is accountable to a bottom line and thay doesnt compete in irrelevant query auctions.

<comment><USER8> > "I cant think of any excuse that justifies it short of arrogance and/or > laziness."

You're not very nice, calling me arrogant and/or lazy.

It was simply a false assumption that the matching would be strict by default. And possibly a mistake that a lot of people are making, considering all the companies that are advertising for themselves.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry. It was wrong to call you arrogant or lazy and I apologize.

You might be right about other companies making those same assumptions...I would love to understand more about their thought process. When you started with adwords, did you consider hiring a pro or run a few searches for beginner tips or did you just follow the onboarding to get started? I am not asking to prove a point, I am asking to get an idea about what a newbie might assume when getting started with Adwords.

I would never try to fix my cars engine on my own, nor would I fix my sewer line. I would probably atleast watch a youtube video before changing my oil...I genuinely want to understand what people think when they assume they can run adwords on their own without researching how to do it effectively?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I attended a talk by Nordstrom's SEO team and one of their findings was people who click on the top ads spend more than people who click on non ads links. They seemed to think the paid search results might align closer to what the buyer was looking for.

That being said they were not 100% sure.

<comment><USER12> _people who click on the top ads spend more_

Probably because they are less web savvy and less aware of the options they have.

<comment><USER13> I don't see why clicking the ad makes you less web savvy. You're not the one paying for it.

As an alternative, perhaps people who click the top ad are pressed for time, which is often the case with high income individuals.

<comment><USER14> >>> I don't see why clicking the ad makes you less web savvy.

Web Savyy people have AdBlockers. It's the first thing to install right after the operating system itself.

Clicking the ad means you don't have an AdBlocker, therefore you are not web savyy.

<comment><USER13> ...

We're talking about ads in Google search results, right? Not banner ads? Am I missing something??

<comment><USER14> Yes we're talking about ads in Google search results. They are blocked by adblockers.

(Well, except the official flavour of AdBlock Plus, which was paid a shitton of money by Google to stop blacklisting them :D)

<comment><USER13> I use ghostery...not exactly an ad blocker but it blocks most ads. I guess it spares the Google search text ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yep. It's a defense mechanism.

Also prevents someone from buying an ad for Squarespace.co or some other domain for a phishing site, which could result in bad press from a """"hack"""" (note the use of quotes, it's not hacking.)

<comment><USER16> This happened with torrenting sites and other free software. Top results were ads that charged people money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As others have already explained, it is done to prevent competing services from achieving the number one spot for your search result.

There is a very cool and informative video from Google that shows what goes into bidding for and awarding the ads that are shown. I had truly encourage you watch this:

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PjOHTFRaBWA](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PjOHTFRaBWA)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'll add one more - analytics. It's the only way to get accurate impression numbers. Which is a useful thing to trend for brand keywords.

<comment><USER19> What's wrong with impression numbers from Google Search Console? They're free.

<comment> angry-hacker Only very limited 3 months of worth data. Everything costs nowadays when it comes to Google. And Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I got in to a debate with my business partner about this very subject. It turns out non-technical people tend not to distinguish between organic results and paid results. For example, he personally clicks our brand based ad instead of our organic result when he googles us. I had to explain that we were spending money every time he did that.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you don't advertise on your brand keywords, your competitor will. We spend quiet a lot on our brand keywords to avoid competitor siphoning off our brand traffic.

<comment><USER22> Isn't this trademark violation? I'm not from the US, but years ago I used to work for a local index-style search engine (before Google ate everyone's meal), and IIRC we consulted our lawyers and came to the conclusion that this is not legal, and we didn't sell these sort of ads.

<comment><USER3> [https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am a little late to the party, but want to address one topic that I didn't see mentioned below.

One answer to your question is "volume", with a related cause of personal incentives.

You're getting those clicks for free and buying ads on branded terms is just cannibalizing your organic results. Now, instead of $500 per day, you want to scale your campaign to $5,000 per day.

How do you do that? Your return will be less efficient as you seek volume, but you need to spend the $5,000 as effectively as you can.

You (or the agency) look better / get paid more when they're able to spend with a better return. It's probably not your department, or your KPI, what the organic SEO is like. So if you cannibalize some conversions from organic in the SEM attempt to spend the budget and raise conversions, you're probably happy, because you're hitting KPIs that matter to you.

It would take a wise leader to recognize what is happening. Even then, they might decide that although the efficiency of the overall SEO/SEM spend is lowered, it provides more volume. If your company is focused on growth, they may prefer volume over efficiency.

It's rational, once you try to see the larger context in which these decisions are made w/in a company. (It also has it's drawbacks)

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes - It is mainly so that a competitor doesn't show up above your organic search results by buying your keywords and it adds another line item for your brand.

</comment><comment><USER25> A group of economists at Ebay ran a series of experiments to measure the value or promoted links when the brand already own the top organic link [http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/stadelis/Tadelis.pdf](http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/stadelis/Tadelis.pdf)

They find no measurable short term benefit to purchasing the "Ebay" keyword on sales.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, ask them how they felt about it when they turned adwords off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I actually overlap with SquareSpace on non branded terms in some areas and helped lead the search group at a top search agency in my last job. Not tooting my horn, just sharing my credentials since these threads inevitably have lots of uninformed rants and assumptions.

Many brands could see a lift from bidding on brand terms not just in click volume from covering more of the SERPs but particularly conversion rates from controlling one of the most prominent placements of your brand online.

Ad extensions can do wonders for many, and Google didn't fully let you control messaging for your homepage like you can with brand term ads.

Beyond that there are a few other really compelling reasons that make it a no brainer in many cases.

\- Control the landing page URL, particularly for setting parameters or a/b testing

\- Controlling site link messaging and URLs to help searchers self select a more relevant experience, particularly if you have multiple audiences

\- Potentially a slight boost to account level quality score (I've seen mixed data on this)

\- I don't see this mentioned enough, but you can get solid organic query volume data in AdWords now

\- Super valuable insight into the raw queries. Are people searching for "your brand vs new competitor brand?" Are they searching around some horrible PR that you were unaware of? Maybe they are looking to see if you sell a product and if you don't you should consider it. With secure search everywhere now, this is arguably one of your best data sources for these sorts of insights

For the pennies per click you pay it is absolutely worth it in many cases. If you have doubts, Google just released their data driven attribution model in AdWords, which, among others, can help inform whether you are giving too much credit to them (although this can be hard to actually determine).

For most companies I'd fully educate on the pros and cons and recommend trying them before making uninformed assumptions. At this point, I typically default to enabling them fwiw.

</comment><comment><USER27> Marketers often work with middle man companies to create the ads, you'd be surprised I think if you heard how many times the ad owner never even looks at the results of how it looks to customers.

But also lots of the other reasons posted here are very true too.

<comment><USER3> SERIOUSLY???? I have to beg my clients to stop googling themselves!!!

In all seriousness, clients obsess about their ads and how it appears way more than the agencies do...They often don't realize that it can hurt their CTR, their quality scores, and pollute the data used to measure results... Google built an ad preview tool for this very reason.

<comment><USER28> How does it hurt and pollute? New to this.

<comment><USER3> A big factor in how much you pay for every click is quality score. The likely biggest factor in quality score is your relative click through rate for the position (i.e. Google wants to show the ad that gets clicked more because it makes them more revenue, if you get clicked 10% of the time for a keyword in position 2 and your competitor gets clicked 8% of the time, Google wants to show your ad and even gives you a discount of sorts on the click via higher quality score.)

So, if you google your keywords to see how your ad appears, you have 2 choices. Click on your ad, which will cost you money or dont click and lower your click through rate which can lower your quality score, especially if you do it often.

The issue of polluting data is that now your agency or whoever is managing your SEM sees either a lower click through rate if your dont click or a lower conversion rate if you do click and will make optimization decisions without knowing how many searches were you.

Google has an ad preview tool in Adwords to let you check without impacting your data.

In the greater scheme of things, if its a high volume query, the harm is minimal, but if its a high value term with low search volume (i.e. a big ticket local service) it can really hurt you.

<comment><USER28> Getting it now, thanks. This field is deep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Because if they don't their competitors will.

</comment><comment><USER30> Side question: would you click on the ad or on the organic search result? Why?

<comment><USER31> Organic, always. No desire to encourage advertising.

(Yes, I'd be willing to pay a modest subscription if Google got out of the advertising business. No, I doubt this pledge will ever be put to the test...)

<comment><USER32> Here you go:

[https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

Please let us know the amount you contributed.

<comment><USER31> "Not yet available in your country". (Although there's a "waitlist" button now which I don't remember from when this first appeared, so thanks for getting me to take another look).

Note, also, that "fewer adverts" isn't the same as "Google out of the advertising business"! Although, in practice, I probably _would_ pay for the former as well if it were an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Localization is also one of the reasons. For eg., I live in japan and when I search for amazon in google, the organic result is .com but the top ad link is .co.jp. And I always click the ad link.

</comment><comment><USER34> It increases the clickable area that will result in a visit to your site, it blocks others from taking up any of that critical real estate (via ads or organic rank), and like others have said, it's probably relatively cheap for the brand owner to bid on their own brand.

I think increasing the clickable area is pretty important, especially with mobile users.

And customers, since they know it's an ad, might be nice and click on the organic link instead. :-)

</comment><comment><USER35> If they didn't buy the ad, someone else's ad would be at the top. Many people don't distinguish between the top search result and the ad.

</comment><comment><USER36> Marketers and ad reps are very good at rationalizing and justifying their existence.

As someone else mentioned down thread, I'm happy to reward those who cannibalize their organic results and help ensure that their adwords budget doesn't go unused...

</comment><comment><USER37> I think to circumvent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb)

</comment><comment><USER38> Brand reinforcement. The more you see it, the more you know it, the more likely you are to trust / use the brand. It's simple really.

</comment><comment><USER39> Because the ad is the first search result. We don't even really care that much anymore how our "organic" results play out.

</comment><comment><USER40> Because competitors will big on your company name and you want to appear before them in the search results.

</comment><comment><USER41> Googling in Munich (logged in in Chrome) for squarespace I get an ad for siteground.com.

<comment><USER42> Googling "squarespace -squarespace" I get the ad for squarespace without competing ads or organics.</comment></comment>


50th Anniversary of May 1968, Paris:  Memories of an Illusory Revolution - <AUTHOR> https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/29/may-1968-paris-memories-of-an-illusory-revolution/ <comment><USER2> 1968 was a crucial turning point in the economic history of France. After 1968 France enjoyed almost 20 years when the working class saw large gains in wages. Income inequality shrunk dramatically. See here:

[http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and- inequ...](http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and- inequality/#xtor=RSS-32280322)

an excerpt:

In France the years 1945-1967 are marked by high rates of growth, but also by a movement of reconstitution of inequalities, with, at one and the same time, a steep rise in the share of profits in national income and the reconstitution of highly ranked salary scales. The share of the 10% highest incomes which was barely 31% of total income in 1945 gradually rose to 38% in 1967.

...The break came in 1968. As a way out of the crisis, General de Gaulle's government signed the Grenelle Agreements which included, in particular, a rise of 20% in the minimum wage. The minimum wage was officially indexed on average wage gains in 1970 and, most importantly, all the successive governments from 1968 to 1983 felt obliged to grant very high 'special hikes' almost every year in a social and political climate far from stable. The result was that the purchasing power of the minimum wage rose in all by over 130% between 1968 and 1983, whereas at the same time the average salary only rose by about 50%, whence a very strong compression of pay inequalities. The break with the previous period was clean and wide-ranging; the purchasing power of the minimum wage had risen by barely 25% between 1950 and 1968, whereas the average salary had more than doubled. Driven by the strong rise in low salaries, throughout the years 1968-1983, the total payroll rose significantly faster than did production; as a result there was a considerable fall in the share of capital in the national income. All this took place at the same time as a reduction in the number of hours worked and an increase in paid holidays.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found these reflections interesting. Since she was there at the time and doesn't draw any simplistic conclusions, I thought the essay might make an interesting HN post. It's a political site, but the article is not so politicized.

This one is slightly more ideological but still more personal and also quite interesting: [http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/05/some- reflecti...](http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/05/some-reflections- on-may-1968-now-half-a-century-ago-.html). I found it pretty consistent with Diana Johnstone's piece.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this. It sad that these protests came to nothing. Marx is more relevant than ever.

Do you have any good french language sources?

<comment><USER4> Marx is relevant? Socialist intellectuals have been moving the goalposts for decades, after failure upon failure to achieve their stated goals.

[http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/hicks...](http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/hicks-ep-chart-56-evolution-of-socialist- strategies.gif)

To put it bluntly, Marxism has failed dismally in every place and at every time it's been tried.

<comment><USER5> Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. The parent dipped a toe in that tarpit, but that's no reason to jump in.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER3> Sorry was merely stating why I was greatful for the source. Perhaps I should have phrased differently. Sorry :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've never understood how May 68 is so important. What was changed afterward that makes this period so important to be remembered 50 years later? Could someone explain this?

<comment><USER2> 1968 was a crucial turning point in the economic history of France. After 1968 France enjoyed almost 20 years when the working class saw large gains in wages. Income inequality shrunk dramatically. See here:

[http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and- inequ...](http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and- inequality/#xtor=RSS-32280322)

<comment><USER6> But I don't why this is so important that this particular months has to be commemorated, long after any economic changes has faded away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> French posters and Spanish civil war posters were so great. The events (the Spanish Civil War) was terrible, but man the art in the posters is always very compelling.

</comment><comment><USER8> I see it as a irony that in 68 there were many communist activists in the West, while Czechoslovakia - socialist country - was invaded by 'allied' eastern bloc armies. Reason was that local politics shifted towards what was called "communism with a human face", meaning it introduced freedom of expression.

Any attempt to implement Marx ideas resulted in unimaginable amount of suffering and injustice, scarring nations for decades to come. I am dismayed that he still has so many followers, and quite a lot of them seem to be Westerners.

<comment><USER9> It's because the West never really experienced mass-scale communism. The two things closest to it are: (1) some socialist ideas implemented in rich countries like in Scandinavia, where you pay huge taxes, but at the same time you receive quite a lot from the state in different forms, (2) small-scale communist communes, such as the Longo Maï which, as far as I can tell, still functions since '68, although the spirit is different - and they accept donations, so it's difficult to say the commune is self-sustaining (and nowadays it's practically impossible anyway).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's fortunate for France that the revolution came to nothing. Marxist policies have destroyed every country that has embraced them.

USSR.

North Korea.

Cuba.

Vietnam.

China.

Those that have recovered have done so to the extent that they have _abandoned_ Marxism. Economically speaking, even fascism (e.g. China) is better than Marxism.

It's probably better from a human rights perspective, too. This was first published in 1988, but is still highly relevant:

[https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/marxist- dreams-...](https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/marxist-dreams- soviet-realities)

 _How many died altogether? No one will ever know. What is certain is that the Soviet Union has been the worst reeking charnel house of this whole awful twentieth century, worse even than the one the Nazis created (but then they had less time). The sum total of deaths due to Soviet policy — in the Stalin period alone — deaths from the collectivization and the terror-famine, the executions and the Gulag, is probably on the order of 30,000,000._

<comment><USER10> I don't think that any of those countries were prosperous before Communism either.

\- Gulag-style camps and secret police already existed in the Russian empire. USSR managed to have an "industrial revolution" over 20 years and beat Nazi Germany, then was the first country to space and was one of the world's superpowers right up until the end.

\- If you look at the history of both Koreas post-WWII, you will see that the economic system has little to do with how DPRK is now.

\- Cuba has done OK considering the embargo. Cf Haiti

\- Colonialism and the Vietnam War did more damage to Vietnam than Marxism could have

\- Again if you look at how poor the situation in China was pre-civil war you will see that the claim that Marxist policies "destroyed" China is false.

> What is certain is that the Soviet Union has been the worst reeking charnel > house of this whole awful twentieth century, worse even than the one the > Nazis created

I think it is hypocritical to call the USSR worse than the Nazis when at least 80% of the German casualties of the war were on the Eastern Front, thanks to Stalin's brutal policy to industrialize the country.

<comment><USER11> >USSR managed to have an "industrial revolution" over 20 years and beat Nazi Germany, then was the first country to space

That's just half the story. Space exploration was built on slave labor (everybody knows Gagarin, but who would remember Korolev and Ghlushko?) and all the industry largely rots because it proved to be not competitive after USSR collapse, so eastern block is poor in the end and still has to bear the cost of forced aspect of it.

<comment><USER12> This. A space program is not very impressive if your population has to live under dystopian conditions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Free knowledge base that can be read/edited by humans/machines - <AUTHOR> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Wikidata

<comment><USER2> Sounds like Freebase (<http://www.freebase.com/>).</comment>


Go 1.5.1 - <AUTHOR> https://golang.org/doc/devel/release.html#go1.5.minor <comment><USER2> So does Go have generics yet, or what? :-^

</comment><comment><USER3> Release notes are here: [https://golang.org/doc/go1.5](https://golang.org/doc/go1.5)

<comment><USER4> Those are the notes for 1.5

This is the 1.5.1 release which fixes some bugs found in 1.5</comment></comment>


Germany's eurozone dilemma: should they stay or should they go? - <AUTHOR> http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/6084773/germanys-eurozone-dilemma-should-they-stay-or-should-they-go.thtml

<comment><USER2> The suggestion is insane. If it wasnt for the Euro our german exports would have never brought us our wealth that we currently have.

And by the way... judging by our german deficits right now... we wouldnt be allowed to join the eurozone right now, so we are not that much better either.

The eurozone is not only a currency it is mainly an investment in peace. Whatever happens economically is not gonna change that. The promise of a peaceful europe after centuries of nonsense wars is more than enough benefit to work on keeping the eurozone strong.

<comment><USER3> But what happened in the past does not mean that going forward is makes the most sense for Germany to stay the Eurozone. And you seem to be assuming that keeping the Eurozone "strong" is even a possibility, which seems doubtful as long as the Mediterranean members can redeem their fiscal excesses by having the Northern European members bail them out.

What's going to make them fundamentally change their ways? For how long will Germany's gains from being in the Eurozone be spent propping up the profligate PIGS?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's rather interesting that every story I read advocating that any member of the eurozone should get out for one reason or other, was written by someone not in the eurozone.

I wonder if these people are trying to make the situation seem worse than it is in order to further drag down the value of the Euro. It certainly looks like that and I'm not one to believe conspiracies.

Yes, the situation is bad, but if the eurozone crumbles, every country involved will suffer. We would have trouble exporting goods and protectionist policies would be common.</comment>


Show HN: Bring your own Data: automatic ML (side project) - <AUTHOR> https://www.byodata.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I just added regression models to the mix. Thanks to everyone who signed up and uploaded data already. I'm available on the slack channel on the bottom of the page to chat about site support and just about data in general!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey all. I challenged myself to build an alpha of a product over the Holiday break and here it is! Upload a csv with data you want to make a machine learning model out of and Byodata will build a model using the best algorithm it can and makes the model available using an online form and an API

Right now, it's free to sign up and use 100%. All I ask if that you please join the slack to let me know how you are using the product and how you are liking it.

There will be bugs :) and I will fix them as they come up. I'm pretty dedicated to enhancing this product in the coming weeks/months.

Right now it can only do classification but I will be adding regression next week and clustering later in January.

If you think you have data that byodata can't support, let me know on the slack and we can figure it out!

Thank you all.

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool concept! Excited to see the regression model come out

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll let you know when it's ready</comment></comment>


The Five Orders of Ignorance  - <AUTHOR> http://126.96.36.199/search?q=cache:7LZ_aMQV3x8J:www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/diwan/3308-07/p17-armour.pdf+%22The+five+orders+of+ignorance%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3 PDF version is here: www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/diwan/3308-07/p17-armour.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> PDF version is here: www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/diwan/3308-07/p17-armour.pdf

<comment><USER2>
        http://www-plan.cs.colorado.edu.scribd.com/diwan/3308-07/p17-armour.pdf

errr..I mean:

[http://scribd.com/slurp?url=www- plan.cs.colorado.edu/diwan/3...](http://scribd.com/slurp?url=www- plan.cs.colorado.edu/diwan/3308-07/p17-armour.pdf)

:-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If everyone understood these things and could think clearly about them, CMMI would just be a bad dream, rather than a productivity nightmare.</comment>


Ask HN: How does your team do eng scoping? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Often, for us, information and requirements are constantly evolving which we counteract by having a very business oriented development team. It's not an easily scalable solution, but it has been effective to have a developer who understands the business involved in the process start to finish to try and bridge the gap between user requirements and actual requirements of a working solution.</comment>


Show HN: Forge – a library for dynaimcally revising function signatures - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dfee/forge <comment><AUTHOR> With forge, you can _add_ , _delete_ , or _modify_ individual parameters as well as _convert_ argument values or _validate_ them.

        import forge

        def sumthree(a, b, c):
            return a + b + c

        @forge.compose(
            forge.copy(sumthree),
            forge.modify('c', default=3),
        )
        def sumthree_default(**kwargs):
            return forge.callwith(sumthree, kwargs)

        assert forge.repr_callable(sumthree_default) == \
               'sumthree_default(a, b, c=3)'

        assert sumthree(1, 2, 3) == \
               sumthree_default(1, 2) == \
               (1 + 2 + 3)

Today a major revision (v18.6.0) was released.</comment>


US drone rules hamper firms hoping machines can take over dangerous jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/10/us-drone-rules-faa-safety-mining-industry <comment><AUTHOR> Beyond the mining applications mentioned in the article, I can see aerial or tethered robots working on highrise building construction, washing windows on existing structures, or examining and treating specific plants rather than "cropdusting" entire fields in agriculture.

A fresh era of technology transformation is underway and robot drone applications are already creating an economic ecosystem of tech companies and new jobs for operators, while replacing some dangerous jobs in the process.

The FAA is late to form rules for commercial UAVs based on Sec 333 that Congress has already passed in 2012 (the FAA rules were supposed to be complete one year after to enable commercial UAVs [1]. Perhaps we need congress to pass more direct regulations that allow for expanded commercial use, while leaving hobbyists and tinkerers free to experiment and build new things. I'm a member of the AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) and the biggest concern among members is the ongoing erosion of our right to fly (although hobby craft are supposed to be exempt from FAA rulemaking per Sec 336 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 [1]) as the FAA has recently lumped any "non-hobby" RC planes, quadcopters, and sUAV "drones" all in the same bucket of full-scale manned-aircraft.[2] This would include tiny handheld lightweight drones to larger craft up to 55lbs.

[1] [http://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Sec_331_336_UAS.pdf](http://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Sec_331_336_UAS.pdf) and [http://www.faa.gov/uas/legislative_programs/section_333/](http://www.faa.gov/uas/legislative_programs/section_333/)

[2] [http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2015/02/15/dotfaa- an...](http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2015/02/15/dotfaa-announce- proposed-rule-for-suas/)

<comment><USER2> One job I would mention is inspection of power lines. Having watched videos of inspectors actually stepping out of helicopters onto the lines is enough to think this is a good candidate.

The simple matter is there are so many jobs that can be done with drones that we haven't likely imagined. The simple ones are easy; checking crops, structures like those found on suspension bridges, to simply being airborne over large forested areas looking for fires.</comment></comment>