Fly to 6 Continents in Style - <AUTHOR> http://flightfox.com/rtw <comment><USER3> But what about that elusive 7th continent? Here's one possible way to check that off your list. Find a research lab that is doing Antarctic Research and apply to join them as a volunteer. There are often positions for volunteers. As you can imagine, these are quite popular so it may be a difficult route, but it seems like there is always a need for people with electronics and computer skills. There are also job openings, eg <http://www.usap.gov/jobsAndOpportunities/>.

It may cost you your time, but possibly not much else. I went to Palmer Station as a volunteer on an oceanographic research cruise and was able to use my travel stipend to stay in Chile for a few weeks afterward. For all my hard work I also received the Antarctic Service Medal [1]. (Not exactly sure why since I was not affiliated with the Military!). Definitely one of the best deals of my life.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_Service_Medal>

<comment><USER4> Would love to read a bit more about your experiences, that sounds like a ton of fun! Consider this a request for a blog post.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, I would absolutely love to read this and share it with my mother. She's a huge nerd for expeditionary travel and research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So this is pretty cool and everything, but the frustrating thing for me is I would love to see the itineraries that won, but I keep getting greeted with a "only the contest owner can view flight details." I'd love to see this opened up - I think it would build a lot more trust in their platform.

<comment><USER7> Hi rj,

Here are the details for the economy itinerary, which was $1730 for 6 Continents. We're working with the expert of the business class itinerary to see what details he's happy for us to post.

       JFK 18-Oct-2012 GEO 18-Oct-2012 Delta (New York, US to Georgetown, Guyana)
       GEO 25-Oct-2012 JFK 25-Oct-2012 Delta (Georgetown, Guyana to New York, US)
       JFK 14-Nov-2012 TXL 15-Nov-2012 Air Berlin (New York, US to Berlin, Germany)
       SXF 29-Jan-2013 AGA 29-Jan-2013 EasyJet (Berlin, Germany to Agadir, Morocco)
       AGA 05-Feb-2013 LGW 05-Feb-2013 EasyJet (Agadir, Morocco to London, UK)
       LTN 26-Feb-2013 SAW 26-Feb-2013 EasyJet (London, UK to Istanbul, Turkey)
       SAW 18-Mar-2013 IKA 19-Mar-2013 Pegasus (Istanbul, Turkey to Tehran, Iran)
       IKA 29-Mar-2013 KUL 30-Mar-2013 AirAsia (Tehran, Iran to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
       KUL 02-Apr-2013 PER 02-Apr-2013 AirAsia (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Perth, Australia - YAY!)
       PER 07-Apr-2013 KUL 07-Apr-2013 AirAsia (Perth, Australia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
       KUL 09-Apr-2013 BKK 09-Apr-2013 AirAsia (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Bangkok, Thailand)
       BKK 18-Apr-2013 KBP 18-Apr-2013 Aerosvit (Bangkok, Thailand to Kiev, Ukraine)
       KBP 18-Apr-2013 JFK 18-Apr-2013 Aerosvit (Kiev, Ukraine to New York, US)

<comment><USER8> Would it not make sense to enable public viewing for it on the site - at least in instances like above where you are happy to let people know?

I feel the rough cost should be promoted up front, I remember the last time you did one of these promo contests (or at least the last time one was on HN) I found it interesting, then was put off by the fact that you didn't allow viewing of the winning itinerary, and the fact that information on the service didn't seem to be as accessible as it could have been... I then completely forgot about you.

This time I clicked around, entered some information and saw the prices - <USER2> signed up to pay for a search. If the results are good, or even suggest promise for the future, I'll be sure to remember you. But I'm not sure I would have done any of this if a.) I wasn't sat here watching a football (soccer) match that's boring the hell out of me and b.) Next week I need to go on a trip to two cities in hopefully a single day, i.e. good timing

Edit: More feedback, would be nice to have more flexibility in requesting flight details. For example my trip next week, I don't care what day it's on (any of Mon-Fri would be fine), but I don't want to put +/- 3 days because I don't want one flight Monday and the next on Friday. Additionally I want to go to two cities, I don't care in which order. Maybe you could take a look at my notes on <http://flightfox.com/contest/23238> and tell me a.) If it's OK that I specified them there and b.) If it might be possible to be able to specify them somewhere more efficient rather than just writing prose

<comment><USER7> Hi corin_5, coincidentally we're working on improved date flexibility right now. You'll be able to specify before/after and many more day period options. We're doing the same for passenger type. Not just adults, but students, infants, etc.

We can't enable public viewing because the experts don't want to divulge their most prized tips and tricks to the wider public. This is their livelihood, and we are mostly holding these contests to test their skills and proving something more interesting that the typical simple return trips.

Glad you're giving us a go. Please let us know if you have any issues or questions.

<comment><USER8> Another piece of flexibility feedback - wildcard destinations, for finding a decent priced holiday (obviously with some guidance on rough location). I guess this is possible from the competition you just ran, but I must have missed the option.

As to the reasons for not enabling public viewing... as you've publicly shared here on HN, could you not at least share that much on the site? Alternatively could you not offer an option for people to "buy it now", to use an ebay phrase? Or would the necessary price tag be too high for most people to be interested?

p.s. The 5 was attached to the number of minutes, not my name! ;D

<comment><USER7> Great point re destinations. You can actually do wildcard destinations right now, but it's just not obvious. We have an autocomplete function on the airport box, but you can enter anything you want. As you'll see on the RTW contests, we just entered "Round the World" for 'from' city and "6 Continents" for the 'to' city.

That said, we need to make this more obvious and probably tease out more adventurous use of this feature. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The deal with official RTW fares, at least in 2000-2008 when I was checking them, was to buy them ex-interesting country vs. ex-USA. They have a price set in local currency, so when a currency drops vs. the USD, it takes them 6-12 months to adjust prices. ex-CAI, ex-BKK, ex-KUL were all excellent places to buy for a long time.

A guy on flyertalk would maintain a list of ex-various *A RTW prices. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuTBktAWbGhwdHd...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuTBktAWbGhwdHdCWFpLUjVVLUxVeVJHNUxsVEdsOFE&authkey=CMST4bsD&hl=en&authkey=CMST4bsD#gid=0)

<comment><USER10> sbm13 (Another Flyertalker) maintains a version on that mashed up on Google Maps: <http://www.wandr.me/RTW_Fares.aspx/>

<comment><USER9> Wow, I remember when FRTWSTAR3 were <$7k, now they're about $20k. (post-9/11)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Six continents for what I spend per month on rent? Pretty amazing. Even at three grand it would be a great deal...

This seems like a useful service. I wonder how often it produces results this good.

<comment><USER12> I drove from Alaska to Argentina in 22 months, and my expenses on the road were identical to what they had been for the previous two years going to work every day.

It's very common to go traveling the world for basically the same amount of money you spend just going to work.

<http://theroadchoseme.com/the-price-of-adventure>

<comment><USER13> Damn, that really has me thinking about doing something similar. One advantage of being in Web development is I (and many others here) can work from anywhere as long as there is an an occasional Internet connection. Certainly nothing full-time (defeats the purpose of traveling), but a few hundred dollars here and there probably goes a long ways.

<comment><USER14> Do it! I commented elsewhere in the thread, but for my wife & I together we spend 3500USD/mo and are quite comfortable. Travel's a blast. I found I really prefer contiguous blocks of work (several-week chunks) so work and travel don't each distract me from the other.

Travel slowly, immerse yourself in the daily in-and-outs. Rent apartments, do housesitting. Stay at least a month in a big city, use it as a "home base," and make shorter excursions out from there.

At the same time, there's adventure to be had coding and traveling at the same time... had to mute myself in a Google Hangout daily standup once because the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohri> drums from the Delhi streets below were drowning me out. Brushed death on a Bangkok mototaxi in rush hour traffic en route to a give a meetup talk. Most exciting of all: found novel timezone bug in an app once by working in a zone (India Standard Time) with a 30-minute offset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really want to submit my upcoming trip to FlightFox but I'm not sure of the best time to do it and there also isn't a date range that is wide enough for what I want.

I want to travel anytime in late October or November (5 week window vs the 6 day window the site allows). I have 2 adults and 1 lap infant. I am going one- way from Berlin, Germany to Orlando, Florida.

When would be the best time to submit this trip? Is it even worth it given the best price I can find online is about 1200 EUR total?

<comment><USER7> Hi tayl0r, yes, you can mention your extra flexibility in the description section of your contest. We're working on better handling flexibility, such as in your case around dates/times.

The best time to submit is sooner rather than later since, for the most part, fares go up, not down. 1200E is a fairly good price. However, if you want absolute rock bottom prices, make sure you say that in your contest and our experts will really go to work.

As you can imagine, not everyone wants the lowest price, especially traveling with an infant. But I highly recommend you give Flightfox a go and see how our experts can help you.

The great thing is it's often just $20 or $30, which is not a lot compared to the price of your trip. At worst, we can refund your fee, but more likely, you'll see how the experts work and may save a couple of hundred dollars.

<comment><USER15> I just booked it from Flightfox. Only 1080 USD and the flight is shorter with less stopovers than the one I found for 1200 EUR. I'm pretty impressed and will definitely be using Flightfox again.

I really like how you can talk back and forth with the experts via the comment system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> OK, I don't get it (granted I didn't spend a ton of time reading through all the details).

What I was hoping for is some way I could book the "winning" itinerary through some means. I was ready to buy 2 of the business-class trips instantly, but it seems this is more of a "bragging" site (in a good way), showing how cheaply you've managed to book a given itinerary?

<comment><USER7> Hi brk, This was an in-house contest to test the skills of our experts. You can absolutely put up a similar contest to receive similar results. Love the idea about being able to book other flyers' itineraries. We're in a heavy product dev phase, so I'll share it with the team. Yes, in one sense we are bragging what real travel experts can do. The premise of Flightfox is, especially for high-value trips, you should leverage the skills and local knowledge of experts. Best.

<comment><USER16> OK, thanks for the explanation.

So, how exactly would I _use_ the site for my benefit (honest question from someone who books about 50-70K flight miles per year)?

<comment><USER7> If you visit the homepage, there's a "Get Started" button. The next page is a form asking for your trip details. Once you complete the form and pay the finder's fee, experts start competing to build you the best itinerary. You can communicate with the experts during the process to specify preferences. Clearly it works best with higher-value itineraries.

A more high level explanation is that Flightfox is a marketplace for freelance travel agents (and flight experts). We're bringing human travel experts online with a new crowdsourced model. Because customers pay a fixed fee upfront, we hope to remove the dependence on commissions. With diminishing commissions on flights, it's difficult to find agents who'll take the time to find you the best flights. That's what we're aiming to fix.

For frequent flyers like yourself, we're currently building out features to also earn/spend miles. I'm not sure if you do mileage runs or book award flights, but this is where we could become much more interesting for you.

<comment><USER17> So does the travel agent book the flight for you when you award him the finder's fee?

I mean I know it says in your FAQ: "Our experts provide detailed booking instructions for you to buy those flights."

But I am just not totally clear on how this works and how the prices listed are provided. Could you elaborate? Also, is there potential for price differences when an agent finds prices for someone in another country?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, this makes me want to book a flight in the near future just to get flightfox to find me an awesome routing.

What I'd really like is if they could take into account FF status, and also hotel pricing (at the particular chain I like, Starwood).

Book me a 3-8 week trip visiting as many places as possible from a set of N cities (plus transits anywhere) staying at Starwood properties (as nice as possible), using CX preferentially, with at least 20k miles on Star Alliance carriers, and avoiding UAE transit or stops, and willing to pay certain multiples for business class flights or upgraded hotels (St. Regis vs. Aloft).

Combining hotel and airfare bookings would make the whole thing a lot more valuable for multi-stop itineraries. E.g. spending $500 more for a BKK transit (and 3-5 day stop) vs. a SIN transit, since BKK has 5 star hotels for $120/night vs. $300/night.

<comment><USER18> i am curious about what you find wrong with UAE transit or stops. was fun to me.

<comment><USER9> Several people I know have gotten arrested on BS charges (related to being journalists/grad students and investigating the slave-labor-of-subcontinentals thing).

<comment><USER8> There's some other reasons too - as much as I'm sure I could avoid any public displays giving myself away, I'm not a fan of the idea of going to a country where the fact that I'm gay is enough to get me arrested. I've turned down work in Dubai for this reason in the past (twice) and would do it again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If I am interested in the business class itinerary - do I have to recreate the entire contest or is there a chance I can jump on this deal by paying the same finders fee?

<comment><USER7> Hi ashbrahma, please email us at team at flightfox.com if you're interested in this specific itinerary and we can help you get booked. Alternatively, if you're after something similar, but equally adventurous, also get in contact and we can work with you to post a new contest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In October of 2000 I took a 5 month sebattical trip to backpack through SE Asia. The ticket was called a pan pacific ticket, it allowed for up to (I think 7) stops. You just called and scheduled the flight you wanted when you wanted it. It had no set itinerary, and the ticket cost $2,300.

I went from SFO to HK, and then hopped all around Tom Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and was planned to go to Sydney for the last stop, but had to come back early.

I spent five months total, most of the trip was in hostels and beach bungalows, I stayed in a hotel in hong long and spent nearly $3,000 there over two weeks.

I spent over a month on Koh Phangan in Thailand, at Haad Yao beach - all my meals, drinks and bungalow for that month, as well as all the meals and drinks for a girlfriend from germany who stayed with me a week: $250.

I'd love to do this again, but now I have kids and it will be until they are in their teens before I can take them on a similar trip.

<comment><USER7> Hi Sam, we met a few couples traveling the world with young children. One of our friends even gave birth in Thailand and after a short break, just kept traveling. When you speak to their children, even though they're young, you sense a real difference. Anyway, just wanted to say that people do still do this. Here's a blog of the aforementioned friend: <http://almostfearless.com/> (update: she's expecting a second and is currently in Lebanon).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This post confused me in terms of itinerary options available. If you decide to setup a trip "contest", is there any way to specify whether you want economy or business class?

Also, in terms of experts guarding their tips, what's to stop users sharing/comparing/aggregating their contest and tips/tricks behind them elsewhere? Eg if someone asks on quora and several customers answer with details of their bookings...

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's a 25% affiliate discount: <http://flightfox.com/referral/16686>

</comment><comment><USER23> Did the trip span the entire month of October? This seems like a pretty awesome itinerary. I wish you could post the dates too, so people could see how many days they got in each city.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great stuff Todd! Is there any way to ensure that the best experts bid on the flights submitted. Seems like a few people really are crafty with their details!

<comment><USER7> Hi there, really it comes down to the size of the finder's fee. For a trip that will cost a lot regardless, it's worth submitting a large fee to attract the best experts. We have almost 1000 experts, and the ones who win these RTW contests aren't necessarily the ones that can help you. Some people know certains countries or airlines better that others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is the price of the business trip in anyway linked to certain political 'disagreements' in Cairo which happens to be one of the locations.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why not use <http://www.orbitz.com/> ?

<comment><USER27> This site supposedly lets one do complicated trips for less than one might spend on orbitz and the like. It's essentially 21st century travel agent mixed with a competition.</comment></comment>


IZEA "Goes Public" Then Pumps Stock in Laughable Infomercial - <AUTHOR> http://launch.is/blog/izea-goes-public-then-pumps-stock-in-laughable-infomercial.html

<comment><USER2> "Set it and forget it!"</comment>


Is Google indexing the links you are sending through Gmail? (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3824030.htm

<comment><USER2> I'd be surprised if they _weren't_ indexing these links. But so what? Are they disobeying robots.txt? If not, I don't see the issue.</comment>


For Aaron Swartz : Fire Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann. - <AUTHOR> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb Petition the whitehouse from this link <comment><USER2> use this petition it already has 6000 signatures.

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united- stat...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states- district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck)

~ Harsha

<comment><USER3> That one concerns Carmen Ortiz -- not Steve Heymann.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Need more signatures! come on people!</comment>


The Remembrance of Amalek - <AUTHOR> http://therevealer.org/archives/20744 <comment><USER2> This is about an interesting topic. Unfortunately it is written in the style in which you score points by making tenuous allusions, adding quotations from the right people, and inserting questions that have only the echo of meaning.

I quote at random:

"This King Phillip's War, which made us, is now close to three and a half centuries into the past. Yet what remains, and has not ended? The exorcist cannot caste out demons until he knows their names, so now, in our continuing American season of violence, it is required of us to identify these creatures so that we may balm the traumas they have inflicted. As Slotkin wrote, "A people unaware of its myths is likely to continue living by them."..."

</comment><comment><USER3> Gaseous literatwaddle.

Serious historians can tell you all about King Phillip's War. There's no need to try and parse Cotton Mather for insights about the modern US; that makes as much sense as reading Seneca to find out who Matteo Renzi will appoint to which position next.

It might be helpful to the reader had Simon noted that Philip had a brother, Wamsutta...who was given the name Alexander by the English. For all that hot air, Simon doesn't mention what parallel one might draw from the death of King Phillip, who was shot by another Wampanoag in the pay of Ben Church.</comment>


Intel CPU exploit threatens PCs worldwide - SC Magazine US - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmagazineus.com/Intel-CPU-exploit-threatens-PCs-worldwide/article/129194/ <comment><USER2> This is old news. why post it again ?</comment>


Beijing signals the end of Hong Kong's 'one country, two systems' framework - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/beijing-signals-the-end-of-hong-kongs-one-country-two-systems-framework/2020/05/21/aadce07b-b315-465a-bfec-7ed72b5fb14f_video.html <comment><USER2> Hong Kong's free press coverage of Covid was too much for Beijing.</comment>


The Up-To-Date Sandwich Book (1909) - <AUTHOR> http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-up-to-date-sandwich-book-400-ways-to-make-a-sandwich-1909/ <comment><USER2> Interesting things I noticed: (1) They say bread should be in "perfect condition [...] at least one day old". (2) They insist on removing the crust. (3) "Cut the sandwiches to either square, triangular, long, narrow, round, or crescent shaped". (Anyone ever had a crescent-shaped sandwich?) (4) "Rolled bread sandwiches" = pinned bread rolls. (5) The use of maiden hair fern is recommended for sweet sandwiches. (6) 'Smilax' = sarsparilla. (7) Americans were already widely using Tobasco sauce in 1909. (8) The word 'salami' was followed by (Italian Sausage) suggesting it was still considered exotic. (9) An early Welsh rarebit recipe. (10) Many interesting European references (Berlin, Limburg, Montpellier) (11) Reference to relatively obscure American ingredients of the era like 'Waukesha Cheese' (which apparently now no longer exists) and 'Hickory Nut'. (12) Suggestion of emptying (though a small hole) then stuffing a whole loaf with filling for picnics.

<comment><USER3> I have also noticed that there are a lot of recipes that include 5-6 yolks of hard boiled eggs. My guess is that eggs have grown significantly larger[0], but still that would be a pretty large amount of cholesterol!

[0] My grandma used to halve the number of eggs in recipes from pre-WWII books

<comment><USER4> I thought we have abandoned this whole eggs=cholesterol=bad nonsense few years ago now?

<comment><USER5> It's still working its way through our culture.

[http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/panel-suggests-stop- warni...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/panel-suggests-stop-warning- about-cholesterol-in-food-201502127713)

Changing the dietary guidelines (in the US) was only recommended 2 years ago.

Like salt, fats, and other things, it'll take a while before we come down from some of the hyperbolic concerns that grew up around cholesterol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a german, I love the name for a sandwich with raw meat and fine chopped onions: "Cannibal Sandwich". Sounds much more badass than "Mettbroetchen".

</comment><comment><USER7> That site looks to be a treasure trove of wonderfully odd and unexpected old books to enjoy

<comment><USER8> They all come from the Internet Archive which has so many great books like this if you can find them.

<comment><USER9> You don't know what you don't know -- so curation is a wonderful thing, I'm loving this book and I wouldn't have thought to search for it nor would I probably have come across it in my travels.

I got curious and looked up their donate page, they send you post cards and a letter from the editor once a year and stuff, so that's kinda neat. [https://publicdomainreview.org/support/](https://publicdomainreview.org/support/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The previous owner(s?) must have really like sandwiches.

I think it would be fun to try all of the recipes somebody had previously checkmarked as a way to stretch back into the past and connect with part of their life (and maybe gain some insight).

Besides, who can resist tongue sandwich? (p75)

</comment><comment><USER11> Quick, someone feed the instructions for each of these sandwiches through an RNN.

</comment><comment><USER12> obligatory Detroit Grand Pubahs.. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8nxIFerN-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8nxIFerN-A)</comment>


Michael Moritz on immigration reform - <AUTHOR> http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/41716630960/immigration-reform-stop-ejecting-the-brightest-minds <comment><USER2> Newsflash: tech industry investor wants immigration reform to increase supply of labor with tech skills, thereby decreasing cost.

Whether you're for immigration reform or not, let's not ignore the Econ 101 here, and let's call a spade a spade. There is no such thing as a "shortage of engineers." The state and federal governments have spent literally a hundred years subsidizing the technology industry by building massive public research universities that pump out thousands of engineers each year. My alma mater (Georgia Tech) is precisely one such institution. When companies talk about a "shortage of engineers" what they mean is that there is a shortage of people willing to work as engineers at the prices they would like to pay. Of course, it's Econ 101 that if they raised the prices they were willing to pay, the number of willing suppliers would go up.

I'm actually in favor of skilled immigration. My dad was an H1-B, and I have very bright friends who came here to study and struggled to get sponsorship. However, claiming that anyone who opposes the status quo is simply xenophobic is disingenuous. Let's not pretend that there isn't a trade-off between limiting labor supply to maintain wages and expanding it to make the U.S. a more attractive place to start a technology company.

It is the people of the United States that defend our borders, and it is therefore the right of those people to decide who gets in those borders and who does not. The people are entitled to decide for themselves what kind of trade-offs they want to make re: immigration, based on what benefits them the most. One can make a credible case that the U.S. is in danger of losing it's place as an attractive place to start a technology company if we don't allow more skilled immigrants. One can also make a credible case, without any xenophobia necessary, that we already do a lot to create a large supply of engineers in this country, and that the U.S. is not in any danger of losing it's attractiveness at the moment, and that we'd rather enjoy the higher wages that come from limiting the labor pool.

<comment><USER3> Econ 101 also distinguishes between elastic and inelastic supply. Engineering labor supply seems pretty inelastic - doubling engineering salaries might only raise supply 5% (some students switch majors, some engineers choose to work more hours or retire later). That is the definition of a shortage - there is not enough at any price.

<comment><USER4> That seems a pretty bold claim to make that doubling salaries would only raise supply by 5%. During the tech bubble people were coming out of every nook and cranny imaginable.

<comment><USER5> Yeah... but they weren't producing anything, which caused the crash.

<comment><USER6> No, what caused the crash was that there was no bigger fool to sell overvalued stock to. Engineers coming out of the woodwork were simply responding to the economic incentives that existed for them (and that's the problem with bubbles, it's that incentives get distorted).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think it's xenophobia that's preventing us from "stapling a green card to every diploma," as Mitt Romney put it while advocating for the idea. Making immigration easier for educated workers is popular and has fairly broad bipartisan support.

So why hasn't it happened? Many of those in favor of a "comprehensive" solution are wary of letting the most popular parts of immigration reform pass individually, lest they end up with the less popular remainder (some form of normalization for existing undocumented immigrants) standing on its own and thus harder to pass. Similar logic worked against passing a real "DREAM" act prior to the President's somewhat dubious selective-enforcement scheme.

Relatedly, there's a strong feeling among some reform advocates that focusing on skilled labor from Europe or Asia at the expense of unskilled labor from Central and South America is yet another example of discrimination and at least metaphorical fence building. Why help those who are already well off enough to get a college degree in the U.S.?

<comment><USER8> One other factor is the preceived threat of wage imbalances acting against U.S. non-naturalized citizens ("We'll be flooded with H1B's who will work for 25% less and undercut our sons and daughters!"). I'm not sure how much of an issue this actually is in practice but it's definitely something to think about, especially before we start stapling green cards to diplomas.

> Why help those who are already well off enough to get a college degree in > the U.S.?

You answered your own question. It's about skills, not how much money the immigrant already possesses. The proof is in how famous India is for sending over tech entrepreneurs, despite being otherwise maligned by stereotype in many of the same ways that those from Central and South America are. They are able to come over and work here in the U.S. because they possess skills which are desired.

If you look at immigration practice as being simply that anyone who wants to come to America and work hard should get a fair chance, then that is probably unfair. But there are those who argue that we should be selective and prioritize towards those who would contribute most.

But I suppose all of this just adds to your argument that there's many competing factors in play here, even for a topic as obvious as this.

<comment><USER7> Just to be clear, I am in favor of substantial increases in skilled immigration, as well as shortening the visa->green card->citizenship route as much as is practical for those who have a clear capacity to contribute to our society and express a desire to do so as citizens. I'm only trying to explain some of the politics as I understand them.

 _One other factor is the preceived threat of wage imbalances acting against U.S. non-naturalized citizens ("We'll be flooded with H1B's who will work for 25% less and undercut our sons and daughters!")._

I suspect that the "keep your job or you're gone" nature of H1B visas creates much more downward pressure on wages than increasing the supply of skilled workers does. Regardless, we want growth in industries that require skilled workers. I'd rather have 5 million software engineers in this country making $80K on average than 3 million making $100K.

 _But there are those who argue that we should be selective and prioritize towards those who would contribute most._

I can see the other side's argument about fairness, but to me it's a slam dunk that you invite in people that are likely to produce economically a large multiple of what they consume in benefits. I'm happy to figure out what to do about unskilled labor, too, but coupling the two seems counterproductive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everybody who supports this bill should really read it first. There's SO much wrong about this bill that I don't even know where to start.

1) This bill will remove per-country quotas for Employment Based Green Cards. Just look at the backlog right now and imagine what would happen if these quotas were removed.

2) The cost of applying for H-1b will be INCREASED. What that means is that small companies and start-ups who struggle with hiring engineers will have to pay more for each one of them. It used to be 2-3K/application and for a small company it might be pretty substantial. At the same time companies like Wipro and Infosys will not even notice this increase.

3) The bill does not really help people who graduated here to STAY in the US. Yes, it will make it easier for them to get a visa, but what they really need is their green card. I was on H-1b for many years and the only thing I wanted during these years is to get my green card ASAP and start my own business.

Take a look at Canada's startup visa that just was introduced. They bring new jobs to Canada by giving permanent residency to people who want to start businesses and CREATE jobs (not take the existing ones). Current US bill will NOT allow entrepreneurs to stay in the US, it will only help to bring more cheap labor from overseas, but will not solve the problem of talented people leaving the country.

<comment><USER10> You are encouraging people to read it first... but then you say it provides only visas and not green cards while the text says, "...Overhauling the country's legal immigration system, including attaching green cards to advanced degrees...". What gives? <http://goo.gl/MZuod>

<comment><USER9> That's a totally different bill... Which, by the way, is even worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think I could even count how many contractors I've worked with that were on H1-B's and yet were doing basic Struts and Dreamweaver code monkey work for my place of employment. Work so basic that it doesn't even need a software engineering or computer science degree. I have absolutely no idea if we have a shortage of "highly skilled" workers, but I've seen with my own eyes that H1-Bs are abused for work that definitely could be done by a citizen. So I'm not inclined at all to be sympathetic to the call for more H1-B's that will lead to just as much abuse, and leave the same shortage of actually highly skilled workers.

</comment><comment><USER12> I support this reform, but we should consider the unintended consequences.

Tying US citizenship with graduate work will incentivize universities to treat graduate students like slave labor, moreso than they are already. This is a recipe for exploitation.

<comment><USER13> There is an unintended consequence for everything, including inaction.

<comment><USER12> That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq.

I'm simply suggesting thinking through the consequences rather than simply cheerleading.

For example, would we be comfortable with 90% of science students being not from the US?

What if we make a system where no one born in this country can actually afford to do graduate work?

Remember, the foreign-born students don't have the kind of undergrad debt load that we have in the US.

<comment><USER13> You are so, so misguided in your thoughts. I came to this country for graduate studies and took on a loan for a portion of it, amounting to almost $20K. Took me the better part of 2 yrs to pay it back. I came from a modest family background. While I didn't have an undergrad loan, I certainly didn't have any money to back me up.

Most foreigners grow up with far fewer resources than you did in this country. The USD is still stronger than 99% of currencies. While I don't dispute that college education is ridiculously overpriced here, that is a different, unrelated problem.

<comment><USER12> This is not about you, this is about what is good for the country.

Is it good for the country to disincentivize graduate work for people who are born here?

Is it good for the country for every STEM lecturer to have bad english language skills?

This is already the norm at many state schools, and makes people drop those subjects because they can't understand or relate to their teachers.

Of course it is hard for immigrants to relate to the spoiled "fat" americans, but the social and cultural realities exist and are not trivial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Stripe's engineering department would be at least twice as large if we could get working papers for the programmers we are eager to hire."

It looks like Stripe has decided hiring foreign workers is the only solution to the problem instead of trying to find another solution. There are _plenty_ of good programmers who could work for Stripe in the US, maybe they just aren't attracted to the company, to living in SF, don't know about the company, etc. Maybe they should think about their hiring process more generally rather than waiting on hiring some particular group.

<comment><USER15> "It looks like Stripe has decided hiring foreign workers is the only solution to the problem instead of trying to find another solution."

That makes no sense. Hiring people from outside the US is harder, slower, and more expensive than hiring US citizens.

We just care a lot about working with the best people, and we're willing to spend months obtaining visas for them in order to do that.

<comment><USER16> What do you mean by the "best" people? Are there not people in the USA that would work for you, who fit your qualifications? If they won't, why not? Think about it, stop trying to fool us with your red herring about wanting the "best". What you really want is the "best" at prices competitive with the "average" American. One might almost think you were getting them for cheap. _Hmm_

<comment><USER17> "Hiring foreign workers for cheap" is a myth. The US Labor Department has specific laws that it strongly enforces to ensure foreign workers cannot be hired below market rates.

<comment><USER16> You know how they get around this, right? They simply change the title. I.e., they hire a senior engineer and slap them with a mid-level title. If you haven't seen that happen, you haven't been paying attention. There's also the more important and salient benefit of hiring H1-Bs--the strong bond it creates between the employee and their visa status. You'd have to pay a US citizen much more to make them sign such an onerous and one-sided contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The unintended consequence I most fear from this kind of immigration law modification is the same unintended consequence I've observed from every attempt to tie real-world advantages to diplomas: watering down the diplomas. The blog post author writes, "It would be wonderful to provide foreign-born students with advanced degrees in STEM subjects from U.S. universities a clear path to permanent residency." From the lawyer's point of view, the interesting questions then follow. What is a foreign-born student? What is an advanced degree? What is a STEM subject? What is a clear path to permanent residency?

I by no means oppose expansion of skills-based grounds for legal immigration to the United States. Mindful that all of my own ancestors arrived to the United States (or to the pre-independence colonies of Britain) in an era before there were any restrictions at all on immigration here, I'm generally quite supportive of expanded immigration to the United States. That improves the local cuisine, the local music, and the local economy in general. Mindful that my wife was able to find a legal channel for immigration to the United States (based on that status of being my wife, in that case) and that many of my friends and neighbors are first-generation immigrants to the United States, I am also aware that there quite a few channels to legal immigration to the United States already, some of which already strongly favor people with STEM degrees or STEM work experience. I'd be glad to see more people like that come into the country--that would be good for my personal local business of teaching mathematics to the children of people who are aware United States K-12 education underperforms (see my user profile for more details on that). But the tricky issue will be setting detailed criteria for immigration on those grounds and perhaps (or perhaps not) an annual number of visas issued on those grounds that fit an overall sound immigration policy for the United States.

Anyone who doesn't think a simple policy proposal like that of the blog post kindly submitted here might be subject to abuse and fraud needs to think again. Immigration to the United States is very highly desired, and some people will cheat to attain it. There is no particular reason for United States voters to vote to make immigration any easier than it has to be to achieve some generally agreed national policy goal, despite own my pro- immigration opinions.

<comment><USER19> I am sure you are not advocating a defeatist line of reasoning. Of course, any proposal could be subject to abuse and fraud. It is a matter though of moving things in the right direction or not.

As to the questions you raise about how to define the requirements (what is foreign-born national, what is advanced degree, what is STEM), a possible start is the current "advanced degree exemption" for H1-B which currently grants an additional 20,000 H1-B visas.

I am aware that those get filled up pretty quickly too but it illustrates my point that you can define some sort of requirements to answer the questions you raise. In this case, the requirements are: \- degree must be from accredited US university/institution \- master's degree or higher \- foreign national (which is different than foreign-born national) is anyone who is not a US citizen or permanent resident

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > _Today, it is impossible to satisfy Silicon Valley's appetite for engineers > and scientists with people born in America._

Well, at the price you're willing to pay anyway. Try competing with banker bonuses (or even _gasp_ VC pay) and watch the population shift.

Sounds like he's all for capitalism until he has to open his own wallet.

<comment><USER17> Wait, are you suggesting that software engineers currently do not make enough money (which is laughable), or that they should be paid as much as bankers (which is also laughable)?

<comment><USER20> Laughable?

There is a shortage. A capitalist believes that price solves supply issues. Are you not capitalist? Do you prefer a centralized planning, say from a gov't program to import people?

<comment><USER17> There is a shortage of available engineers, period. It's not a matter of companies not paying enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Meanwhile many of our locally born students are graduating with unemployable degrees and wondering why they can't find a job. Maybe we can get our acts together and start raising children in this country who aren't under the delusion that everything they do is special, and that a degree in Sumerian with a minor in communications will entitle them to anything other than a pile of student loan debt.

<comment><USER22> I dunno. I went to school in India where almost everyone is shoehorned into the Engineering/Medical undergrad career. While, I don't think it is particular hard to not succeed at these professions, I am not convinced it is a good thing to do just because it is an economically prudent option. Sometimes, the purpose of going to school is to open the mind and expose it to different ideals. Maybe I am being a naive optimist but I would like to think that we can surely let some of the citizenry indulge in that without having to force everyone to join a technical shop to create a factory ready worker (much as is happening in India/China.).

<comment><USER21> It's a fair point, and I agree we need to find a place for other academic pursuits as well. I think the problem is we have been giving students the impression that _any_ degree is worth getting, and that simply isn't true. A bachelors in English from a liberal arts school is worth nothing. Now if you want to extend that and do post-grad work, then you are actually making an effort to persue a career in a field (probably academia). But too many just do the undergrad and then expect a job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "In Silicon Valley, which has always been blind to any attribute other than ability." I look at what laughably passes for management and leadership in the valley, and wonder if anyone actually believes that anymore.

</comment><comment><USER24> I find it hard to believe that it would be bad for the US overall to let highly skilled people come here and work. They would increase innovation, grow the economy and raise employment as immigrants have done throughout US history.

However I have to admit it would probably reduce the wages of similarly skilled existing workers at least in the short run. This is basic supply and demand: more supply means lower prices at least in the short run.

For example would skilled US programmers be paid as much if any skilled programmer in the world could come here compete for their job? Probably not just look at the prices for contract programmers in India, Eastern Europe, China, etc.

However in the long run almost everyone should be better off because the flip side of lower prices is greater volume: more innovation, economics growth and employment as well as lower prices. There are other less understood benefits such as immigrants increased likelihood to start businesses.

Also in the long run it won't matter as much where people are located. Eventually most US skilled workers will be competing with similarly skilled workers throughout the world. So we might want to adapt to this future reality now as it will only get harder in the future. People piling up student loans need to know what future wages will be.

Overall I think we should be willing to take the risk and accept some disruption now. It should help almost everyone in the long run and it will happen in some form anyway. But I can understand people's reluctance to personally bare the costs.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd be a bit concerned about the "American schools are not performing, and getting worse, and thus Americans aren't suited to tech jobs" message, politically, even if it is largely true. The us citizen voters who will lose out (if they believe the economy is zero sum and of a fixed size) will think foreign competition will hurt them as the primary effect, and thus will vote against it.

<comment><USER2> It's not even true.[1] "American schools are under-performing" is a bit of truthiness used by demagogues on various sides to support one of the following agendas:

1) discrediting the public education model

2) demanding more public money for educators

3) demanding more public money to subsidize employee training

[1] See: [http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth- abou...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa- scores-usa.html)

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I meant "even if the "us needs immigration message" is largely true", not that the American schools underperforming message is true.

The thing is that immigration might increase supply, for a specific job, but there's the complementary goods/etc. aspect to people with different skills in entrepreneurial tech work, so it overall increases jobs available.

(I do think some US schools underperform, but the big funding disparities seem to have been addressed. Demographics are a big thing, but it would still be good to figure out causes of and correct the lower performance of various minority groups, vs. just accepting it as natural)

<comment><USER2> Note: I'm not accepting the performance of minority groups as "natural." Rather, I don't think the problem lies with the education system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have one question: from the perspective of a sincere, hard-working individual who wishes to immigrate legally to the US, what hope is there if a proven advanced degree or experience is not going to do it?

<comment><USER10> It is difficult only if you are from Indian or China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've frequently discussed this, most often in dejected frustration among friends and colleagues. My wife went through a Ph.D. program in electrical engineering and 90% of her research group were foreign born. As native US citizens ourselves, we did not suffer the desperate living conditions to which Ph.D. students on a half- or quarter-RA subject themselves and their nascent families. But we observed it plenty.

Many of her research colleagues were effectively deported (forced out of the United States) after graduation if they could not find a firm willing to sponsor them. Sponsorship is itself an exploitative and extremely costly endeavor. Many small companies cannot afford it.

The situation seems to me a travesty from every angle I can conceive.

The author of this article paints the situation adequately, but I want to add a few more points:

1\. Since many of the more xenophobic among us Americans are strongly motivated by national defense, I find it especially important to paint the following picture for their consumption: educating these bright minds in the United States and then sending them packing may in fact exacerbate national defense. Considering how many engineering students arrive to our universities from nations we are fearful of (rightly or not) such as Iran and China, it seems especially naive to educate their brightest to the pinnacle of our ability and then send them home--especially since they want to stay here.

Similarly, if your aim is to keep your enemies weak (and again, I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just that it may be what the more xenophobic among us desire), then certainly creating a brain drain within their society serves us at their expense.

2\. A commonplace misguided belief that economics is a zero-sum game may also explain some xenophobia. This colloquially takes the flavor of, "they are taking our jobs." The only way to combat this is through repeating the point that immigration creates jobs. We as Americans are better off having these highly-educated job-makers in America than overseas creating and enriching companies that may end up competing with our own.

As a free-marketer, I am not all that motivated by such an "America over everyone else" point of view, but if that IS your point of view, then again you should want these bright people staying here and creating jobs or bettering our firms rather than overseas in the hands of our competition.

3\. It's quite frankly inhumane in many cases to send these students packing. Even in the relative squalor that they endure living, for example in Los Angeles on mere hundreds of dollars a month, they still want to live here and create a family here. The American dream exists in their eyes. Sometimes I think of those who were sent back and wonder whatever became of them, but I cut those thoughts short because no happiness comes from that.

4\. Just as a minor point, can you imagine the feeling of being kicked out of the US after earning your Ph.D. here? I imagine it might breed a tinge of America hatred when they get back home.

<comment><USER22> > 4\. Just as a minor point, can you imagine the feeling of being kicked out > of the US after earning your Ph.D. here? I imagine it might breed a tinge of > America hatred when they get back home.

Erm...so? No offense, but someone could trip and get hit by an American made automobile and develop a hatred for America. Not that you don't make other valid points but this is not something that motivates anyone to support immigration.

<comment><USER27> I should clarify that I personally am not much motivated by a concern of hatred of America overseas. But I know that many people are concerned about our reputation, and I am attempting to formulate a point of view that they may (or may not, I'm not sure) relate to.

Namely, that by kicking people out of our members-only club, we might be breeding resentment. You're right, though, any number of other things could contribute to the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One things conspicuously missing from the post is the idea that companies will set up foreign offices to hire the workers there if they can't hire them here. Maybe that idea died along with the whole outsourcing push of the mid-00s.

</comment><comment><USER28> _The xenophobia underlying current immigration policy_

Absolute, shameless liar. <http://peoplemov.in/>

</comment><comment><USER29> The current immigration setup ensures that high skilled immigrants come into the country only as employees which understandably depresses salaries.Immigration reform on the other hand ensures that some of them have the autonomy to found companies which increases demand for more engineers and raises their salaries.

</comment><comment><USER30> Michael Moritz is a billionaire investor. It's easy to understand why he'd like to increase the supply of technical labor in the US. This lowers his cost of labor, contributing to his further enrichment.

Foreigners desirous of US citizenship similarly favor "immigration reform" for self-interested reasons.

The marks here are American tech workers (and American workers in general) who buy into various elite rationalizations for why labor needs a pay cut so people like Moritz can pile up more billions.

<comment><USER31> It's generally considered poor form to create a novelty account just to comment on a posting here.</comment></comment>


Stardew Valley has sold over 10M copies - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ConcernedApe/status/1220407295667920896 <comment><USER2> Well-deserved. Such a great game</comment>


Show HN: All your fundraising info in one URL. Shareable. Trackable - <AUTHOR> https://onepager.vc/auth/register <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the marketing page that outlines the basic features: [https://www.openscout.vc/onepager-product- hunt](https://www.openscout.vc/onepager-product-hunt)

Here are some examples of completed OnePagers: [https://onepager.vc/snap](https://onepager.vc/snap) [https://onepager.vc/facebook](https://onepager.vc/facebook) [https://onepager.vc/spotify](https://onepager.vc/spotify)

It won't verify your email so can just put firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


The Game You Win If Someone Tells You "No" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.en.idealist.org/rejection-therapy-the-game-you-win-if-someone-tells-you-no/

<comment><USER2> The problem is that usually people don't say no directly. It's not always clear if they can't or don't want.</comment>


Deploying multiple WordPress sites on Docker for production - <AUTHOR>

This tutorial shows how to deploy a micro docker container with WordPress. Each microcontainer has its own instance of Nginx and PHP-FPM. An Nginx server as a proxy sits on the front end serving connections to one or more sites hosted in the containers. It uses Alpine Linux and persists all data on the host's file system. The logging is also available on the host system. The benefit of doing it this way is that each site sits in its own container, so if it is compromised, no harm comes to any other site or services running on the host system.
It also does not link containers, instead opting to attach the database to the first IP address of the network Docker sets up, thereby avoiding the need for complicated service discovery. It also includes instructions on how to deploy Redis on the same box and use that with WordPress. Also includes instructions on how to do SSL for each site. It's being used in production.
http://www.dockerwordpress.com/ <comment><USER2> This is very good, but should have been submitted as a link directly to your site.

> each site sits in its own container, so if it is compromised, no harm comes > to any other site or services running on the host system.

But what about the security shortcoming of running Docker containers? this does not seem to do anything to address it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The process serving the website, Nginx and PHP-FPM, does not run as root. It's no less secure than running a non-root user like www-data to serve your site. If you can breakout to root within the container, you can potentially get to the host system. But that's absolutely no different than any other Linux system. If you break out of www-data on a normal setup to root, then you have root.

All that Docker is acting as is a chroot that's easier to deploy and configure with its own networking stack.

There is one weakness that I will be addressing soon, which is that Dockergen is running within the same container as as the Nginx proxy, and that's a bit dangerous -- not that dangerous because there is no user defined code that executes in the proxy's container and no way to upload anything to that container... but if there were a weakness in Nginx that would allow users to upload code to the proxy container and execute that then it might be problematic. For this reason Dockegen will be moved to a separate container that is not interacting with the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just as a precaution, you should probably not be using their logos on your site without either company giving you permission.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, i decided to ditch the logos. though i am just attempting to promote their product and if they prefer i don't do that, then that's their choice...</comment></comment>


Evolved Virtual Creatures - <AUTHOR> http://www.karlsims.com/evolved-virtual-creatures.html

<comment><AUTHOR> YouTube link, if you don't want to download the video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXzcPNsqGA>

<comment><USER3> Firefox 3.5 supports Ogg right in the browser. Just click the link (for those using Firefox)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now for the bad news: <http://www.genetic-programming.com/patents.html>

<comment><USER5> Now for the good news: SCOTUS is taking a patent case and is expected to invalidate method patents within the next year or two (which is pretty much all of the ones listed).

EDIT: Now for the best news: Most of those patents are not American and could not be patented in America (b/c the US does not allow patents on algorithms).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Classic work - the paper is well worth reading. A couple of highlights:

Using a fitness metric of 'distance travelled by CG', one solution was simply to build a very tall tower, and wait for it to fall over.

The evolved solutions would exploit bugs in the physical modelling - <USER2> the maths by moving two blocks very close together.

</comment><comment><USER7> You can run the simulations on your computer as a screensaver: <http://www.spiderland.org/screensaver></comment>


5 Reasons KDE Is Better Than Unity - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/01/5-reasons-why-kde-is-better-than-unity/

<comment><USER2> Oh my god, this is so sad. What has the Linux-on-desktop world come to? "You can manage your windows with it" is actually an advantage.

On a lighter note, if there is still hope, it lies in the little not-so- popular desktop environments like XFCE. Those both have sane UI and are not ugly pieces of bloatware.

<comment><USER3> xfce might not be "bloatware", but it also lacks some things. The atrocious "support" for keyboard layout switching comes to mind. Short of writing your own scripts that directly call setxkbmap with parameters added by hand, you have no chance of having this working properly. (And yes, I know there is a plugin, and no, it still doesn't make it work)

That alone makes xfce _absolutely_ unusable to me, although it is otherwise very nice.

Another nice feature concerning "you can manage your windows with it" is KDE's default ctrl+f8 desktop grid, that actually makes handling multiple desktops really easy and really lovely to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You know what? Unity is a disaster. GNOME 3 isn't much better. But for me that still makes KDE not even an option I would consider.</comment>


SVD Recommendation System in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://www.igvita.com/2007/01/15/svd-recommendation-system-in-ruby/

<comment><USER2> yeah, it's cool, except the article has a number of mistakes, corrected at <http://ekzept.livejournal.com/185329.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is kinda old news; what I would want to see is a framework incorporating persistent and updatable on the fly SVD recommendation / latent semantic indexing.

<comment><USER4> Try this one: [http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~signal/defevent/papers/cr1062....](http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~signal/defevent/papers/cr1062.pdf)</comment></comment>


What it takes to be a Developer - <AUTHOR> http://savedelete.com/what-it-takes-to-be-developer.html <comment><AUTHOR> hi ... if you are a developer you will agree to the most of them for sure :)</comment>


Parse (formerly zStack) releases Android SDK - <AUTHOR> https://www.parse.com/docs/android_guide

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the submission Alan. Unfortunately we're still in private beta so most people are getting hit with a login page on that link.

We're letting people into the beta daily. If you sign up and say you're from HN, we'll put you at the top of the list :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah! - Sorry to those that only got the login page.</comment></comment>


GDPR: Block EU Visitors with Cloudflare and .htaccess - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/zero-master/57ce7f5091503ca637747df5ba4fe71d <comment><USER3> In Croatia you get fines for not having a valid fire extinguisher even though there is one in the corner right there. Why? Because "they went out of their office and cannot return empty handed, so let's write this small fine at least".

Also, public companies (those owned partially by the state) are exempt from GDPR...

That is why GDPR sucks, it is just another tool in almost despotic government.

</comment><comment><USER4> Although I dislike this solution for 99% of websites out there, there are valid short term reasons to use this solution.

Imagine e.g. a user survey on a US University which saves data not in a GDPR compliant format. Why should this very local small group website be GDPR compliant when it's almost 100% sure it's only used from the US?

OK, but now I ask myself what happens if a Europe exchange student also participates...

<comment><USER5> > Why should this very local small group website be GDPR compliant when it's > almost 100% sure it's only used from the US

Because it's the least one should do regarding privacy. When not mandated by law, doesn't mean you don't have to do the right thing.

Many companies that sell your data are complaining at the moment because they have to come clean about their malpractice. Don't let them distract you from the compnies that always did the right thing and were gdpr complient before the laws were written.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a massive overreaction. As somebody in the EU I hope this GPDR hysteria that the tech industry seems to be experiencing passes quickly.

<comment><USER7> What do you recommend the small businesses in the US do that have no business presences in the EU, but have EU visitors to their sites?

It's not hysteria if it's a legitimate legal threat that could destroy your ability to feed your family.

<comment><USER8> Tell your users what PII you collect about them and why, ask for consent and give an option to opt-out.

There is not "legal threat" if you are open about your business model, keep the collected PII reasonable and safe and don't sell the data without consent. Honoring requests for information or deletion is still a problem for you if you served EU users in the past if you don't delete/anonymize that data - <USER2> if you block access. If you're not open about your data processing and handling and don't ask for consent, don't blame the GDPR for a business model that can't be honest to your users.

<comment><USER7> You are confirming that all it takes is a little slip up, and your entire life is ruined by legal fees. Or even just the "whiff" of potential slip up, not even a real one, but only a perceived slip up, and your life is over.

I have been in court before, if you have not, perhaps that is why you are ignorant of the horrendous dangers this law puts on everyone.

<comment><USER9> No. After one small slip up nothing would happen, unless someone notices it and reports it to the regulator. At that point they'd write you a letter and explain where they think you're going wrong, and point to best practice, and ask you to confirm what you're actually doing.

<comment><USER7> You mean like they did with Google and Facebook, on the FIRST day the law went into effect?

[http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/25/technology/gdpr- compliance-f...](http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/25/technology/gdpr-compliance- facebook-google/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a great canary to weed out shady businesses and websites which cannot account for how they treat their users data.

Meanwhile other businesses which takes the GDPR seriously gets a massive boost in trust and reputation.

Guess which ones are going to get meaningful new business and which ones will be deemed unreliable and untrustworthy?

<comment><USER7> I think this was meant as a hammer on Facebook/Google cartel. I doubt even MS, Amazon, or other large companies will be as adversely affected.

The GDPR targets the very business models of companies that collect data and sell it. For this I applaud it's effects, but it's a big nasty dragnet, and innocents are likely to get hurt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Re: messe - the massive overreaction seems to be from Americans in this thread insisting that since their perception of government regulators is as inefficient, a drag on business, and intent on vindictively fining people contrary to the provisions of their enabling legislation. (To me) seems like hand-wavy alarmism about the threat of international law and supranationalism to perceived individual freedom.

</comment><comment><USER12> Blocking EU visitors doesn't actually make you GDPR compliant.

<comment><USER7> I am not compliant with Chinese, British or German anti-free speech laws either. Why should anyone feel threatened by a foreign government's internal laws? The US is a sovereign nation (as are almost all others) and EU laws do not apply here.

<comment><USER6> They certainly apply if you wish to do business in the EU.

<comment><USER7> Isn't that the crux of the matter?

The GDPR _explicitly_ states that it's irrelevant if you want to do business there or not. It claims global authority over all nations and businesses that interact with it's "citizens", NOT "do business in the EU".

This is an unprecedented legal overreach. Just because we want the hammer brought down on the FB/Google beast, doesn't mean we should chop off our own hands to accomplish it.

<comment><USER9> > This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of > the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the > Union, regardless of whether the processing takes place in the Union or not.

This one doesn't apply, because the controller or processor is outside the union.

> This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects > who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the > Union, where the processing activities are related to:

> the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the > data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or

This one does apply, and look, it mentions services, but also...

> the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place > within the Union.

...this applies too. You're monitoring the behaviour of EU citizens; those people have protections.

<comment><USER7> Let's compare this idea. I should be able to sell verboten art in Germany because I am an American citizen, and it's legal to do so here (but not there), so I "have protections" by my laws in the US?

Or am I misunderstanding how you are justifying the GDPR?

<comment><USER13> And Germany is free to stop that merchandise at the border, and then burns it. They only very, very rarely do so, but when they do, they will go after the customer that bought it.

Same thing when it became clear 2 years ago that sending large amounts of opiates through the mail into Germany is not actually a problem.

So theoretically, you are allowed to sell that art, because those laws don't apply to you. In theory it should be stopped at the border, and your customer may get arrested for buying it.

In practice, you are allowed to sell that art, and nothing is stopping you.

Needless to say, Germany is crying foul ! We make rules, and don't enforce them, and others don't automatically enforce them for us ! Evil capitalist data-selling election-stealing swine !

<comment><USER7> So if American laws (free speech) don't protect Americans in Germany, why should German laws (GDPR) protect Germans in the US?

(note, I fully support the spirit of this law, and am happy they are shutting down the data cartels abuses)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is almost spite from US companies that don't want to conform to EU regulations

<comment><USER7> How do you recommend any company that makes less than a million a year to live under the threat of accidental destruction at the whim of a foreign nation?

Do you think we should comply with every countries laws? What happens when they conflict? (like US free speech laws vs China, or even Britain?)

<comment><USER14> I never said I was pro or anti EU regulations, the EU need to learn they are not the only player in the market</comment></comment></comment>


Marketplaces are hard - <AUTHOR> http://dangoldin.com/2013/07/13/marketplaces-are-hard/

<comment><USER2> Good summary. Fortunately you have the likes of Balanced to make life slightly easier. Outside the US we're screaming out for a similar service.</comment>


Ask HN: Marketing Tips for Developers? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a coder who builds websites that I think are awesome and useful. The problem I have is getting people to my apps and conveying how useful they are to the general public.<p>How can I get better at this? Are there any videos I should watch? Any websites or books I should read? Any tips? <comment><USER2> I've been satisfied with the simple (perhaps unsexy) strategy of writing answers to people's problems.

If your site solves a problem, there's probably a lot of forum posts and yahoo answers questions and blog posts about the problem. Google the problem from the user's perspective. For example, something like "how do I make animated gifs from videos?"

I registered an account on about a dozen forums and answered all the similar questions without spammily forcing my solution. Same thing with yahoo answers and blog comments. It doesn't even really matter if you get inbound links or not. With a few days' effort, your site will be mentioned as an answer on all the top search results for the problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Googling turns up these relevant articles:

This seems to me to be the best of the lot; some great descriptive tips and links to other articles.

<http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/checklist.htm>

Here's one even mentioning Y-Combinator:

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/24126/How-to-market-your- website-o...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/24126/How-to-market-your-website-on- the-cheap-by-cofounder-of-redditcom)

And some others:

[http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/07/09/good-programmers- don...](http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/07/09/good-programmers-dont-need-no- marketing/)

<http://www.wordsinarow.com/marketing.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> A good presentation for mobile apps marketing (not websites but quite similar in general concepts) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwomf0ZBlE></comment>


Ubuntu Unity 8 and convergence projects canceled…finally - <AUTHOR> https://cd-rw.org/t/ubuntu-unity-8-and-convergence-projects-canceled-finally/642 <comment><USER2> Personally I've been using lubuntu and lxde for years now I never appreciated unity for desktop but I do appreciate the fact that ubuntu gives me choices, lubuntu is pretty awesome and stable and lets me use my system resources to run apps instead of taking over most of my resources just to run a fancy desktop.</comment>


3D-printed liquid metal brings stretchable gadgets closer - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23255830 <comment><USER2> this is the beginning of the t1000, right?</comment>


Ask HN: C++ in Intro Class to Programming and Writing Code at Exams on a Paper? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN.
My local university is undergoing through CS curriculum/program updates, but they still hold very tight onto the idea of teaching Programming Intro with C++ and writing code at exams on paper which the staff manually type into editor, compile and check for "correctness".
I find this practice utterly unjustified.
What do you think?
I'm quite concerned about the fact that many(and I mean it) students do actually ditch the idea of becoming programmer after failing in that very class. <comment><USER2> This is a bad idea. because one missing comma could screw up the program not mention which compilers they would likely run the program.

That being said if you are comfortable with basics you can learn a lot from this book

[http://www.keithschwarz.com/coursereader.pdf](http://www.keithschwarz.com/coursereader.pdf)</comment>


Show HN: Skuuddle – Arrange face-to-face interactions with online acquaintances - <AUTHOR> http://www.skuuddle.com/getapp.php <comment><USER2> When the description of an app starts like "XXX changes the way you meet new people. XXX is so much more than a social app." then I feel I've come across yet another app where the developers watched The Social Network and recreated... Facebook / Google+ / Bebo / Path / {add an existing social network} _?

_ but adding extra stuff that is missing from these social networks.

Engineering wise I'm sure it's a fun challenge to build something like this, but product wise I can't see how this will get traction.

My advice would be to target a niche group (either geographically or interest wise) if you are going down the social app route. It's a chicken & egg problem getting a community that makes using an app worthwhile.

PS: I wanted to try the app, but the first line of the privacy policy scared me off: "You will not provide any false personal information on the App, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission."

Damn right I won't give real data to test run an app I have no reason to trust. Since on the registration screen the only thing to read is the privacy policy, which does an excellent job intimidating me as a person - I guess so much for the test run.

<comment><USER3> To reinforce your point, even Facebook followed that exact strategy by starting exclusively in ivy league schools. Then expanding to all colleges. Then opening the gates to everyone.

<comment><USER4> The day it opened to the world was the day it died

<comment><USER5> Many a startup wishes it could "die" in the way Facebook did :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Try to make lingo a bit simpler, I think most people won't get through all the complicated explanations:

> Catching up with Facebook friends has never been this easy or straight > forward before.

This does not mean anything to me, does not deserve main spot.

> Download the app to see what all the fuss is about

Maybe go with "Download the app and start meeting friends for real", emphasize what is it actually about.

> Life's too short to sit around at home

This should be at the top of the page

> Skuuddle helps you be the most socially proactive version of yourself.

I can imagine people with blank expressions when they read this. I would re- word that to "Go out and meet people, a lot", ok, maybe not that simple, but you get what I mean.

> Skuuddle helps you turn your acquaintances into friends.

"Skuuddle helps you turn your virtual friends into real ones."

And so on.

<comment><USER7> It's like tinder minus the fucking, got it.

Maybe that should be their tag line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any app that tries to make me talk to strangers is an instant no from me. I can do that quite easily without an app and I choose not to, daily.

<comment><USER9> This is not the case for many people. There are people that need this "catalyst".

This can happen when you move to a new town/country. Or when you're just not socially weired to be open to strangers with easiness.

<comment><USER10> I mean, an app like this does have value imo. Maybe not _this one_ , but _like_ this. Ie, i'd love to meet other people trying to meet other people, but like online dating, i want the right grouping.

I don't want friends with no common interests. Right there that means going to a bar and making a friend is not likely to fit my profile desire. I could go to a common interest ground, like a sports bar or gaming center, but then i'm with a group of people who are not all looking for friends/etc.

I think there's room in this scape for most people. A dating site for friends. However i'm not sure what good features or UX is needed to wrap this concept in.

<comment><AUTHOR> The app collates your phonebook/Facebook contacts and you can create your own groups! You can create groups for people who are good friends, besties or acquaintances. So when you're making a plan to do something, you can send out an invite to whichever group you choose. At that point, invites are sent out randomly (you can also choose instead to handpick who you invite) to those in that group. It's kind of like social potluck. Let serendipity choose who you end up hanging out with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Congrats on your launch, nice website and getting to the first page of HN! Some feedback :

1\. It took me a moment to figure out what the app actually does. As some other posters suggested, the name doesn't sound very straightforward.

2\. I think it's an idea that could be explained very nicely in a video. Happy people, happy places. Everybody using the app.

3\. Can somebody explain me (this is not the first time I see it) why so often the download buttons are "download on the app store" and then "get it on google play"? Why a different verb? Is there any implicit reasoning behind it?

<comment><USER12> I assume it has to do with the official branding of both Google Play and the Apple App Store. The official button images that they've approved use the verbs 'get' and 'play' respectively, and I believe it is probably against their TOS to use non-approved graphics/text/branding for download buttons.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that's exactly what it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand what is this from your homepage

<comment><AUTHOR> Skuuddle is an app that aims to expand your active social circle. The app does it by mining your phonebook/Facebook contacts. You can categorize people into groups depending on how well you know them.

When you're making a plan to do something (throw a party, go see a movie or gig, for example), you can send out an invite to whichever group you choose. At that point, invites are sent out randomly (you can also choose instead to handpick who you invite) to those in that group. It's kind of like social potluck. Let serendipity choose who you end up hanging out with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _" Skuuddle helps you be the most socially proactive version of yourself."_

Um, what? Also, at least provide some real use screenshots/videos, I'm not going to download some random app and give it permissions to my contact list, location etc. just to check it out. I didn't try this app, but if you want to get any traction (especially in such competitive market as socializing), make a better and more informative landing page. Flyer like product pages only work if you are an already well established brand.

</comment><comment><USER15> Three points possibly worth considering: 1.) The app should probably have a web interface, trying to get someone to download the app before they sign up may prove difficult. 2.) Social networking is a crowded space, does this one have some kind of angle, some "reason for existing"? 3.) Not sure about the name...Skuudle? What does it mean? This is my most tentative point, there is after all a popular dating site called zoosk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for providing your feedback.

\- We're using Facebook as the conduit to sign up for the app, and we're hoping that encourages user.

\- Our "angle", is social potluck. First, the user categorizes their contacts in groups depending on how well the know them (besties, pals, acquaintances and so on). Then, the user can send an event invite (can be public or private) to one or more groups of contacts. At that point, the invites are sent out to a random set of people in that group and the first ones to accept get to attend the invite.

My making it social potluck, the app makes it more likely that you'll meet up with contacts you might not otherwise make the effort to meet, or might find it a bit too forward to invite.

\- we're going to a name that would stick in the mind. something that would be fun to say as well...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This feels like what Meetup does. What makes this app different?

<comment><AUTHOR> The difference is that, the app enables to manage events, whether public or private. You can use it to organize a party, and find events in your city and send out invites to random subset of your contacts. Kind of a social potluck

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Kudos for not messing with scrolling on you landing page!

</comment><comment><USER18> In a nutshell, an app that shows you which of your contacts happen to pass by close to you or viceversa, so you can socialize in person with them. Is that correct?

<comment><USER19> I don't think so... Based on [http://www.skuuddle.com/#features](http://www.skuuddle.com/#features) I'd say:

      - Lets you find people who aren't contacts who happen to pass close by you.
      - Lets you organise events with open invites.
      - Lets you discover nearby events.

<comment><USER18> You're right and I'm right too. I tapped the link on my phone and went to Google Play. The description there is different and it reads

> Skuuddle is a powerful tool that mines your existing phonebook contacts, > Facebook friends, and even acquaintances to expand your active social group.

That seems at odds with the features on the desktop site which I checked right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The name could definitely be better. I have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to figure out what the app actually does. A one or two line explanation in the landing area would be great.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hey congrats on launching your project, regardless of feedback and however it goes you should be proud of the work you and those around you put in, don't forget to reward yourself and reflect on the experience.

\---

Feedback, now, it is negative, but please don't take it personally, it's purely intended as an honest, transparent brain dump from when I landed on the page.

1\. Rather than telling people something as you see it in the main paragraph - tell them WHY this product is needed in your minds and WHY you made it, I don't think many people are going to read that paragraph to find out why the app exists and why it might be important or valuable to their lives.

2\. The front page is very noisey, I didn't know where to look and it felt 'too bright', I don't know why but when I saw the bright baby blue it made me think of either something disposable or something to do with babies / baby care (no idea why!), so the blue makes me think of immaturity for some reason and the yellow makes me think of danger or healthcare for some reason (again, I don't know why healthcare, it's just what came to mind so I thought I'd mention it).

3\. Source code - where is it? If it's not open source why? and if it uses some open source components what are they?

4\. Privacy / Security information, independent audits or the source code would be useful to instil trust. What data do you store / share / ask for / share with, how and where is it stored and handled (or classified) and why.

5\. 'The possibilities are endless' \- sounds like lorem ipsum title, from what it looks like the possibilities are actually very limited and that might be fine but saying that this product gives or opens you to endless possibilities, as a side node, I can't see the reason to clutter the page with # tab-like titles that scroll you down just a few lines as the landing page isn't that long, on my desktop for example it's not even 1 full scrollbar from top to bottom.

6\. Facebook is dying and quickly, why not integrate with other platforms or do something decentralised / network neutral? When I think of Facebook in 2017, I think of out-of-touch social meetup groups, privacy concerns, a different kind of blue (yes as in the colour), siloed culture and social bubbles. I just don't see it as relevant and I watch as more and more people say similar things every few months.

6\. Can you export your 'data' at any time? and if so to what formats / where can I sync it to?

7\. Silly, petty thing that doesn't _actually_ matter but your site / app just launched but the page says copyright 2016, I know it's silly but it caught my eye for some reason.

Again, _please_ take this just as constructive criticism, I'm probably not your target audience, I just wanted to give honest feedback and it shouldn't put you off want to improve / change the product, create new products dream of ideas or down right disagree with me - that's all fine and I really hope you keep whatever passion and ambitions you have rolling forward.

About me as some random internet person that saw the site and brain dumped for you: Male, early 30s, works in IT engineering (ops platform delivery in a very devops like culture), I have 330 apps installed on my iPhone 7+, I use macOS on my work desktop and laptop as well as my home desktop, I have a couple of Linux (Fedora) laptops / handhelds and I also have an Oneplus 3 Android phone just for playing with. Location is Melbourne, Australia, Personality is driven leader and enabler, overly outspoken (as you can tell), know what I don't know (which is a lot) and this is now sounding like a dating profile!

Hope that helps in some weird way!

-Sam.

<comment><USER22> Why would they provide the source code and export abilities? Do you get access to the source code of facebook, twitter, gmail...? What exactly would you be exporting or syncing if it uses contacts that are already in your address book or friends list?

<comment><USER21> if by people you mean me as the person evaluating the site and looking for information about the production, I'd want to see the source code to give it a once over to see how / where my data was being handled and if it was a sensible choice to recommend to friends or relatives.

No I don't get the source code for all of Facebook, although they do open source a number of projects, they're widely known or at least suspected of misuse of peoples information and / or meta data and because you can't see the source it's a good reason not to use the platform, and I for one no longer do.

Twitter and google are the same story, they open source many projects and services that run and monitor their platforms, those are trustworthy and it shows an investment in society in general, the bits we can't see however are the parts of I am wary of.

I personally would like to export point-in-time state of contacts before / after sync A) in case anything wrong B) for my own personal trending / information over time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Catching up with Facebook friends has never been this easy or straight > forward before.

Isn't that what Facebooks for?

</comment><comment><USER24> Not available in your country :(

Canada

<comment><USER25> Also no web application at launch in 2017? It's a bit on the exclusive side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > not available in your country.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where are you located?

<comment><USER26> canada

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not available in my country (UK)

</comment><comment><USER28> Not available in the US yet?

</comment><comment><USER29> If you had two phones one for farming and one for business this would be good for meeting up</comment>


Go to Newsweek.com, press ↑, ↑, ↓, ↓, ←, →, ←, →, B, A, hit Enter - <AUTHOR>

Go to Newsweek.com, press ↑, ↑, ↓, ↓, ←, →, ←, →, B, A, hit Enter<p>Credit goes to Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/cf02e/go_to_newsweekcom_press_b_a_hit_enter/ <comment><USER2> Here are more sites that feature the Konami code: <http://konamicodesites.com/> (note: you have to perform the Konami code to enter that site!)

<comment><USER3> I had no idea this code was such a big part of pop culture. There are some really mainstream sites listed.

Now that I'm thinking this through...the type people who do the technical work behinds the sites probably sneak this stuff in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Won't load for me. DDoS by Konami Code?</comment>


The Book of Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/02/22/the-book-of-steve-jobs-apple/

<comment><USER2> Very surprised that this didn't get more attention.</comment>


The New Racism: This is How the Civil Rights Movement Ends - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119019/civil-rights-movement-going-reverse-alabama

<comment><USER2> This long-winded essay about "how the civil rights movement will end" boils down to a couple sentences in which the author describes a few Republican votes he didn't like:

"Republican majorities in Southern statehouses are undoing so many of the hard-won gains of the civil rights movement suggests that the end is nigh. Whether it's by imposing new voter-ID laws, slashing public assistance, refusing Medicaid expansion, or repealing progressive legislation like North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, the GOP-controlled governments of Southern states are behaving in ways that are at times as hostile to the interests of their African American citizens as Jim Crow Democrats were half a century ago."

So his basic thesis is, if you don't believe in welfare you're as hostile to blacks as Jim Crow.

<comment><AUTHOR> For some definition of "his basic thesis" meaning "radical misrepresentation of his basic thesis," sure.

Whether you like the ideology behind the forces at work in the American South or not, the real effect of these policies is to make the lives of the poorest and most marginalized people in these states worse. In the American South, it just so happens that this means black folks.

I don't know what you'd want out of an article on this issue, but I sure hope it wouldn't be a false rendering of the realities of the situation in the hopes of pandering to some sense of feel-good political ecumenicalism.</comment></comment>


Why the Internet Archive sucks and what we can do about it - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewcoyle.com/blog/2013/01/18/why-the-internet-archive-sucks-what-we-can-do-about-it/

<comment><USER3> Hi, I work at IA. We know the UI has issues, but it probably isn't going to change anytime soon. However, we are building more APIs to let communities who use archive.org build their own front ends, and let IA handle the storage. Using our JSON Metadata API you can build your own site or browser plugin that fixes some UI and UX issues.

Also, we support an S3-like API to ease uploading to IA. Also, we have just deployed a new python module that you can install using pip:

        pip install internetarchive

In addition to a python module, this installs a command line tool called `ia`, and you can upload from the command line easily. IA `items` are similar to S3 `buckets`, and you can create an item like so:

        ia upload itemid file1.txt file2.mp4 --metadata="title=foo"

You can also use existing S3 libraries such as boto.

<comment><USER4> All good things, but you can also just use good old curl from the command line. Here's a Gist I made of how to upload a WARC file (basically, an archive of a website) to the IA; this can be adjusted as needed for any kind of file:

[http://gist.github.com/Asparagirl/6206247](http://gist.github.com/Asparagirl/6206247)

The IA is one of the best things on or about or containing the Internet. People should donate to them, hint hint: [http://archive.org/donate/](http://archive.org/donate/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know what sucks, this link bait title. How about: "The Internet Archive is awesome, but their UI could be improved. I have some ideas."

Maybe they're allocating their limited resources to capture information before it disappears. Their UI works, yeah, it could be improved, but... priorities.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Archive has open positions, welcomes volunteers, has amazing office space (an old church in the Richmond) and is one of the places with the best people in the city. They also host semi-open lunches on Fridays. OP, if you're serious and passionate, I would encourage you to reach out to them :)

<comment><USER7> Seriously, I'd almost live in a tent to work there.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, if they weren't located in the US, they'd be my dream employer...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Use the advanced search, map out your ideal response api: [http://archive.org/advancedsearch.php](http://archive.org/advancedsearch.php) And build a better ui.

I tried it out and made a little music player in under a few hours.

Example (url may break): [http://archive.org/advancedsearch.php?q=description%3A%28amb...](http://archive.org/advancedsearch.php?q=description%3A%28ambient%29+and+mediatype%3A%28Audio%29+AND+num_reviews%3A%5B5+TO+200%5D&fl%5B%5D=avg_rating&fl%5B%5D=date&fl%5B%5D=description&fl%5B%5D=downloads&fl%5B%5D=headerImage&fl%5B%5D=identifier&fl%5B%5D=num_reviews&fl%5B%5D=source&sort%5B%5D=avg_rating+desc&sort%5B%5D=&sort%5B%5D=&rows=50&page=1&callback=callback&save=yes&output=tables)

</comment><comment><USER10> tl;dr: The IA site could use a redesign. (Anybody who's ever visited the site knows that. It doesn't mean the IA sucks.)

Edit: It's also not clear to me why the author suggests starting the redesign with the home page. I would assume most people who land on the IA pages do so through third-party search engine results, not through the IA home page.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the Internet Archive's UI isn't all that pretty/fashionable, but I never had much trouble finding what I was looking for: In most cases either the prominently places Wayback Machine or the Search does it for me. The categories also seem clear to me. It could be prettier/slicker but it seems quite usable to me for a site of this type with a huge amount of content that has to be organized and made accessible somehow. Seems to be more a matter of fashion or taste than usability to me.

Sidenote: On the other hand, the OP's blog is a horrible experience on my mobile phone (or a small browser window): First I have to scroll through the superlong sidebar advertising another blog of the author, then, when I finally reach the article, after two short paragraphs, I have two scroll through _another_ advertisement for this other blog. I almost flagged the submission as blog spam, before realizing that the article continues for a bit after the next advertisement.

Edit: Also, the IA's links work without Javascript. Something which can't be said about a lot of modern site, where often basic functionality like this breaks with NoScript.

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://openlibrary.org/](http://openlibrary.org/)

Looks like one of their projects and has a nice site.

What are your expectations for archive.org?

Any examples of resource heavy sites that have amazing UI?

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a crap shot at IA. There are many more real problems with IA that may never be addressed and this isn't even a technical one. Think about this - <USER2> used to driven by a tape library. The fact that they've managed to keep any of that data online and accessable should make you bow down in honor.

They've survived years of horrific linux kernels and file systems and STILL HAVE THE DATA ONLINE! What else do you need? I'm not saying they're saints, but cut them some slack will ya?

</comment><comment><USER14> this week i found that IA has hundreds of magazines scanned about a hobby of mine (wood working). That's awesome! I can read these on my ipad for free and don't need to hit up shoddy sites, bad apps, or expensive digital subscriptions.

[http://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Home%20and%...](http://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Home%20and%20hobby%20woodworker%22)

</comment><comment><USER15> I suspect the reason why the user experience sucks is because a better UX would bring much more users. With an annual budget of 10 millions, it would not be able to sustain the same traffic as say Wikipedia. While server costs increase almost linearly at this level, revenues from donations increases at a slower pace as core users are more inclined to make a donation than casual users.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wasn't sure where this article was going, and then realized... oh, he's critiquing the UI. Cheap.

</comment><comment><USER17> Couldn't agree more. Why didn't this redesign happen a long time ago anyway?</comment>


New Performance Monitor for Windows - <AUTHOR> https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-Admin-Center-Blog/Introducing-the-new-Performance-Monitor-for-Windows/ba-p/957991 <comment><USER2> Ah, Windows monitoring tools.

Another great one is Driver Verifier. If your computer crashes due to hardware fault, you can use Driver Verifier to inspect the problem.

Driver Veriier will then likely render your machine un-bootable until you can sneak back in via a recovery boot disk, and disable Driver Verifier.

[https://www.howtogeek.com/363500/why-you-shouldnt-use-the- dr...](https://www.howtogeek.com/363500/why-you-shouldnt-use-the-driver- verifier-in-windows-10/)</comment>