Dogecoin just broke $2B - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/08/a-parody-cryptocurrency-just-broke-2-billion-for-its-market-cap.html <comment><USER2> When I found out about Bitcoin, I wanted to try some cryptocurrency to see what it was in practice, how it would work. Dogecoin was perfect for this learning purpose. I mined a little, bought about USD5 of it. Gave some tips on Reddit.

I liked the explicit purpose of the community to _not_ be a speculative instrument. You should always use it as currency and most users were against holding it as wealth. I guess they lost that battle to the speculative greedy forces.

Once I learned enough, I stopped playing with it and forgot about some coins left in my wallet. That ~USD5 is worth ~USD430 today. But I forgot about the coins _and_ the password. :) So, no profit from my early playing time.

<comment><USER3> > I liked the explicit purpose of the community to not be a speculative > instrument. You should always use it as currency and most users were against > holding it as wealth. I guess they lost that battle to the speculative > greedy forces.

Every coin lost that battle. Bitcoin was also intended as currency. At the moment, the amount of speculation far outstrips any legitimate use as currency.

The world has gone nuts. And what's worse, my co-workers talk all day about what Redcoin and Ripple and Verge are doing and whether they bought or sold at the wrong moment.

<comment><USER4> > Every coin lost that battle. Bitcoin was also intended as currency. At the > moment, the amount of speculation far outstrips any legitimate use as > currency.

We're seeing the reason economists consider deflation to be a bad thing.

<comment><USER5> It has nothing to do with deflation (bitcoin isn't even deflationary yet, it is still inflationary currently), it has everything to do with scaling the blockchain as a technology.

Bitcoin was the first to hit the point of big adoption, and it will need to solve the problem. Ethereum is starting to feel the problem now as well.

<comment><USER4> The price of goods (using USD as a proxy for goods, which is fine so long as you account for inflation of USD) in bitcoin is generally speaking decreasing. This means bitcoin is deflationary (despite new bitcoin still being mined).

<comment><USER6> Currently Bitcoin is neither inflationary nor deflationary.

It's a near zero swap (mostly other than fees). Nothing is created nor destroyed, which is why the primary argument for Bitcoin having much value today is as a value store.

You want to sell $1 million in bitcoin. Someone else is willing to pay you $1 million USD for those bitcoins. $1 million neither left nor was added to the economy. You now have the $1m USD to spend or invest as you see fit. You swapped positions, that's it. No deflation occurred at all.

<comment><USER4> I can buy more of whatever good I want for 1 bitcoin today than I could a couple of months ago, and I could buy more then than at the beginning of last year. That means bitcoin is deflating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> See also [https://uetoken.com/](https://uetoken.com/)

Named "Useless Ethereum Token", marketed with the strapline "seriously, don't buy these tokens", sold $353,180 worth of tokens.

<comment><USER8> How do we know these aren't wash trades?

<comment><USER9> Why bother if you have a mixer: [https://www.privcoin.io/ethereum/](https://www.privcoin.io/ethereum/)

<comment><USER8> To inflate success metrics

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Serious question... how does ${Price of 1 coin} * ${Total supply of coins} = ${Market cap}? Not all coins are going to sell for the peak price ... it seems like a moot metric at best.

<comment><USER11> The same way ${price of stock} * ${total supply of stocks} = ${market cap}

<comment><USER12> The classical wisdom is ${price of stock} is at least somewhat correlated with ${price of company assets} + some speculative modifier for future performance. The cryptocoins only have the latter.

<comment><USER13> We can also see there is a real sense in which market cap matters. There are many cases where companies acquire other companies that are publicly traded in one shot. When that happens, the offer is generally somewhere in the ballpark of the market cap. If someone wanted to acquire "all BitCoin", there isn't an equivalent way to use the "market cap" of BitCoin to mean anything.

(If you want to observe that value is thus still relative and that the people making the offer are themselves influenced by the market cap, go nuts. However, if you intend "valuations are relative anyhow" as a selective attack on the realness of stock market caps but then "accidentally" forget to apply the same logic to cryptocurrency market caps, I'll pass.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So, if I weren't sure that cryptocurrency was in a bubble before, I think it's safe to say that when DogeCoin pops a $2B market cap _something_ big is happening. And that big thing is probably not good.

<comment><USER14> Dogecoin isn't really a parody, not in the way that e.g. Useless Ether Token is a parody. It's a relatively lighthearted, fun cryptocurrency, but it's at least as legitimate as e.g. Litecoin, and the only way to see it as less legitimate than Bitcoin is if you see something magical about the fact that Bitcoin was first.

<comment><USER15> So you're saying we should wait and see how CosbyCoins do before calling this a bubble?

<comment><USER14> Dogecoin reaching a certain market cap shouldn't move the needle on that view one way or another, IMO.

(Personally I believe most cryptocurrencies represent a bubble, doubly so for Ether tokens. Not Doge though, that's going to the moon)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I bought a couple million dodge back in the day. Tipped my fellow Redditors half of that. I should go find that wallet.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually have a physical DogeCoin somewhere. A marketing firm had some made up (they look like casino chips) for fun and gave me one.

Now, I just have to find a machine to put it in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dogecoin started as a currency to tip users in forums and other message boards, like Bitcoin. Right now though it actually offers a lot:

\- lower transaction fee's than most other coins, faster processing

\- high volume, so it's cheaper to shift from Coin A to DOGE and transfer, than say LTC, ETH or BTC

\- it's a pair to trade small cap coins against, which BTC currently fails to do, as the smallest BTC unit 1 Satoshi is $0.0001459864 as of today

I personally have never bought it, but it's more than a meme right now.

</comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/7oxi53/developer_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/7oxi53/developer_brain_dump_incoming/) contains a response from the current Dogecoin devs, or at least one of them:

> I feel some are using our rise to illustrate the absurdity of cryptocurrency > pricing ([http://uk.businessinsider.com/dogecoin-cryptocurrency-has- > ma...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/dogecoin-cryptocurrency-has-market-cap- > above-2-billion-2018-1) for example). To me, in an environment where a > cryptoasset with $30 USD equivalent transaction fees has a market cap of > over a quarter of trillion dollars, I don't think we're the absurd one. Yes > we take ourselves less seriously, but that doesn't mean we're not serious > behind the scenes. We're a 4 year old currency with transaction fees barely > over a cent and significantly higher throughput than most other > cryptocurrencies.

(Disclaimer: I know him personally.)

</comment><comment><USER19> If someone puts a sell for a million of those dogecoins, it would send the price down to under 1 cent per dogecoin (current price).

<comment><USER20> Is that different than how stocks work?

<comment><USER14> Stocks - at least, blue-chip stocks - are usually thickly traded. The full set of shares outstanding does get bought and sold, at prices that usually remain roughly reflective of the market price (e.g. Dell being taken private, for a recent example). There are stocks that trade much more thinly, and this kind of absurdity can happen there, e.g. Bigfoot Project: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-18/bigfoot-r...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-18/bigfoot- riches-and-bank-activism) .

So there's no clear bright line between "legitimate market cap" and "silly market cap". But there is a quantitative difference, and it's worth thinking about how deep the order book is when you see these "market cap" calculations being thrown arond.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In a world where there is a coin (literally) named shitcoin[1] how can be dogecoin considered a parody? At least they used it for fundraisers?

[1]: [https://www.coinexchange.io/market/SHIT/BTC](https://www.coinexchange.io/market/SHIT/BTC)

</comment><comment><USER22> Cryptocurrency supporters like to say HN hates bitcoin etc. but for some reason "price point" stories keep getting voted up. I still don't get the fascination with price point stories. Do we need to post Google or Apple price points next time they break a marketcap?

That said yesterday's story about Dogecoin breaking $1B:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16090463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16090463)

Edit1: And Dentacoin also crossed $2 billion in marketcap:

[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dentacoin/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dentacoin/)

Edit2: Oops it is down to $1.6 billion.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is there anyone that became rich by invest in dogecoin ? Or nobody predicted this ?

<comment><USER24> Not exactly rich, but I mined a couple of million of them back in 2013-2014. Still have a million left (the rest were stolen by Paul Vernon in the Cryptsy heist). Probably cost me around a thousand pounds in electricity and hardware costs, before I decided it was no longer worth it as all the altcoins plummeted in value. I held onto them for years because it didn't seem worth selling them for nothing. Obviously, I'm now happy I did.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you realistically turn those coins into cash now? What would happen if you tried to trade them for €?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> to me, this [1] is an indication that it's more likely due to the recent cryptocurrency speculation hype than actual user adoption

[1] [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=dogecoin,doge](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=dogecoin,doge)

</comment><comment><USER26> So tired of reading about cryptocurrencies.

"Is this gonna be forever? Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh"

<comment><USER27> So stop reading about them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I seen on an exchange people were using doge to move funds as other coins/tokens were more expensive or disabled, it's not a sign of a bubble but of it actually being used</comment>


Unhelpful abstractions - <AUTHOR> http://dave.cheney.net/2016/02/06/unhelpful-abstractions <comment><USER2> > Specifically, now every caller to this function has to pass in a mode value, > even if the file exists, even if they don't really care and are happy with a > default file mode.

Wouldn't this be solved by allowing for optional arguments (which go doesn't seem to support)? Also, why not just _explicitly_ set the file mode, even if the file still exists (as otherwise it would fail anyways)?

<comment><USER3> Probably worth mentioning that mode will be ANDed with the current umask, so _explicitly_ setting the file mode requires a little more work.

<comment><USER2> But this is also true if the file does not exist, and the could would then fail anyways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Sometimes it's better to be explicit than abstract.

This is a false dichotomy: after all, "open" is explicit and abstract (w.r.t. actual file systems).

The original article from Metz was interesting, but the example here is disappointing. The code was apparently used only once: why generalize?

And if you want to generalize, why not make use of two functions: a new one which implements "touch", and the existing os.Chmod?

<comment><USER5> You can only generalize if you understand the original functionality. Multiple examples help infer this, but it this case it was initially assumed what was wanted... _That 's_ the issue. The original programmer never communicated their intention, so we have to figure out what is required from context.</comment></comment>


Wi-Fi Gets More Secure: What You Need to Know About WPA3 - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/everything-you-need-to-know-about-wpa3 <comment><USER2> _Everything You Need to Know About WPA3_

Things I know about WPA3:

\- None of my routers support it, and I'm not gonna buy all new routers.

\- My printer doesn't support it. Heck, it doesn't support WPA2.

\- None of my IOT doohickies support it. Not gonna buy all new devices.

In this instance, I feel I'm more aligned with Joe Lunchbucket than Zap McTechburg. I still use my PSP. It's 14-years-old and not going to work with WPA3. My wireless printer is 15-years-old, and doesn't even do 5GHz.

By the time the average person upgrades all their gear to WPA3 stuff, it'll be cracked and we'll be on WPA5.

<comment><USER3> If you're using something like OpenWRT, you most likely don't need to buy new hardware.

The WPA3 functionality is already added to hostapd and wpa_supplicant [1]. Look for the terms SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals), DPP (Device Provisioning Protocol) and OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption).

The current experimental wpa_supplicant Debian package has this enabled [2]. I think the main challenge is upgrading clients, especially when vendors no longer provide updates.

[1] [https://w1.fi/cgit/hostap/log/?qt=grep&q=SAE](https://w1.fi/cgit/hostap/log/?qt=grep&q=SAE)

[2] [https://packages.qa.debian.org/w/wpa/news/20180722T152029Z.h...](https://packages.qa.debian.org/w/wpa/news/20180722T152029Z.html)

<comment><USER2> _If you 're using something like OpenWRT, you most likely don't need to buy new hardware._

Awesome! Point me in the direction of the firmware upgrade portal for my 15-year-old wifi printers, computers, and game machines from companies that no longer exist.

<comment><USER3> I agree, you have a good point with respect to a large amount of older hardware and I do not have a solution for that problem. What I can say is that I try to buy hardware which has support for open source software and has a community around it. So far this helped me to extend the life of these devices, as it does not depend on the vendor alone.

I'm not really sure how to interpret your 'Awesome!'. If it was meant snarky and if you're willing to, please have a look at the HN guidelines for comments [1]. We can then improve the quality of the discussion.

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

<comment><USER2> _I 'm not really sure how to interpret your 'Awesome!'. If it was meant snarky and if you're willing to, please have a look at the HN guidelines for comments [1]. We can then improve the quality of the discussion._

You're right. I'm sorry about that. Sometimes I forget which web site I'm posting on.

<comment><USER3> Thank you, I appreciate that!

Actually, thinking a bit longer about the problem, the issue in my mind is that vendors/producers do not have an incentive to update software if you only pay for the hardware once. For them it's just a cost. It's more interesting to sell more hardware. My strategy as consumer is to go to open source for such devices. But perhaps there are better strategies.

I'm aware of Cisco having a model to pay for software updates, but this is mainly for business clients. Does anyone know other vendors that have business models, that create incentives for updating devices? Perhaps even for consumers?

I remember that in the past MacOS updates had to be purchased, but this no longer seems to be the case. Is there actually a consumer market for such business models, where hardware and (paid) software are tied together for a longer life cycle?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm most excited about "Enhanced Open."

The reason Open WiFi never had encryption is essentially because people argued that if a connection cannot be perfectly secure then it shouldn't try to be secure at all. Or the exact opposite of defense in depth.

Enhanced Open does what we should have been doing since WPA1, Opportunistic Wireless Encryption. It is imperfect, but a substantial improvement over current Open WiFI.

To quote Voltaire "Perfect is the enemy of good."

<comment><USER5> This so much. Same with https errors (so people keep using http) and client side hashing in password forms ("but an active attacker could replace the Javascript and make you submit the unhashed version of your password" so we should just let passive listeners listen?)

<comment><USER6> _> Same with https errors…_

That's a branding issue: we've been selling "[https://"](https://") as secure, so we can't go back now and reeducate users. We should have decoupled the idea of security from the protocol used (https can be insecure) and used a separate channel entirely to communicate security, e.g. what browsers are doing now with padlocks or colour schemes. But it's too late to change the SSL UX.

<comment><USER7> Seems what Chrome is doing is a good idea. "Secure" is being phased out, then there will only be "insecure" for http, which it most certainly will be since there's no encryption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Didn't they use the backdoored PAKE algorithm from the NSA?

[https://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03554....](https://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03554.html)

Looks like no one was supporting this algorithm and it still got adopted for wpa3. What can we do about this? Are vendors this corrupt?

<comment><USER9> I think this is probably a misinterpretation.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Why? Is there good support for it that we're missing?

<comment><USER9> WPA3 Personal seems to be another name for SAE that was defined in 802.11s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can we see the details of this protocol? Not without paying. Good job they have a track record of not being the people who gave us WEP, we should totally trust that this time their open processes allowed for a secure system to be developed.

</comment><comment><USER11> I looked desperately in the press release for some version of Aerohive's Private PSK (PPSK) where you can have multiple PSKs for the same SSID (Ruckus and Cisco have their own versions too) but couldn't find anything.

The ability to have multiple PSKs and revoking\changing one of them but not the others would be really convenient for small and even medium-sized wifi deployments...

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h I'm confused. I run my home wireless off a Debian box using hostapd, and there's specifically an option where you can have multiple passwords on the same SSID, either per-client (by MAC) or for anyone. Is that what you mean? Is this a rare feature?

<comment><USER12> Hostapd is probably how Cisco, Aerohive, and Ruckus are doing it. It's not that it's exceedingly rare it's just not everywhere as it's not part of wireless standards.

<comment><USER13> I thought there were patents in this area, preventing implementation without licensing/getting sued?

<comment><USER12> I'm only aware of patents related to certain systems which implement more than just the base idea of using more than one security key for a given SSID e.g. the Ruckus patent on how Dynamic PSK automatically creates and assigns multiple PSKs from a controller portal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'll be happy if it just has a proper "incorrect password" message rather than "couldn't connect for some reason, could be any reason really but maybe your password is wrong?" that we have to deal with now.

</comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone ever consider bringing up a private LTE network (over unlicensed or shared spectrum), either at home, enterprise, or even MDU?

Density and security are less of a concern on LTE, and the peak throughput is catching up.

The question I have has always been: are we seeing a world moving towards a more controlled wireless network architecture or a evolved version of Wi-Fi type of ad-hoc architecture.

<comment><USER5> Are there LTE routers you can buy at reasonable prices? Would I then need a custom SIM card in my phone that only works at home? Does my device even look for mobile carriers on unlicensed spectrum? Basically, is this a real, consumer-grade thing or something you can only do with sdr and osmocom?

<comment><USER15> I think the short answer is no, currently there isn't a reasonably priced LTE routers that you can deployed by yourself. There are products available though. That's why the question can be interesting to be figured out to a certain extent.

Whether device look for carrier in unlicensed spectrum: the answer is yes, Licensed Assisted Access is happening, though slowly, as with any things related to carrier. See this link: [https://support.t-mobile.com/thread/144981](https://support.t-mobile.com/thread/144981)

Finally, it's certainly not something you can only do with SDR, but then doing it with SDR could be what makes it appealing though, it the price can be somewhat brought down. Good Wi-Fi routers nowadays cost a lot anyways, and some even wants you to pay monthly fee, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I look forward to using this in 20 years.

<comment><USER17> I see current generation wi-fi routers being discounted already. It could be a co-incidence but I am sure vendors would LOVE to sell you newer routers and will implement it within years, not decades.

As for devices on the other end, apparently it is possible to skimp out and have 1x1 instead of 2x2 [https://superuser.com/a/323778](https://superuser.com/a/323778) I don't even know why 1x1 is an option at this point. Don't make me think! In any case, mobile SoC manufacturers should incorporate this new technology much faster so I would assume the new WiFi will be readily available in mobile hardware not more than three years after the standard is final.

<comment><USER18> Or, get a router that supports OpenWRT (which a lot do, Netgear are pretty good about third party firmware) and you can have WPA3 now, for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The security of WiFi is much less of a concern for my home network today than it was during WEP time. Today everything I care to protect already runs over SSL and all the sensitive resources (documents file server, for example) are protected with authentication. This the only actual attack vector for me is WiFi or internet connection which I already share through public WiFi.

Same applies to WiFi in the coffee shops (do you remember the time when FB didn't use HTTPS?) and other places. Thus the WPA3 upgrade brings much smaller benefits compared to WPA2 upgrade.

<comment><USER20> > Today everything I care to protect already runs over SSL

Dns? Wins? Bonjour ?

> and all the sensitive resources (documents file server, for example) are > protected with authentication.

But are the files streamed in plaintext? (samba, nfs3, nfs4 without encryption)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The previous encryption methods didn't rely on asymmetric encryption, and VPN software nowadays often provides an option to use an additional symmetric-only key to protect the handshake. (This makes it quantum-resistant against attackers that don't have the symmetric key, while allowing to use DH to get forward secrecy against non-quantum attackers that later gain access to the key).

Does WPA3 maintain this protection, or is it now open to quantum attacks?

Also, is there a mode to allow connecting to open networks with authentication based on TLS certificates and domain names? For example, the SSID of the network could be a domain name, and the network would present a certificate for that domain (or some well-defined subdomain) to prove that it's indeed that network. This way, if you know the domain of the entity you're connecting to (e.g. a hotel), and see a WiFi with that name (and have a client that doesn't allow unicode for this mode), you could connect securely.

</comment><comment><USER22> Wifi is a layer2 standard. Always felt like security should be handled by upper layers. Layer2 secures one data-link segment at a time,layer3 secures a network connection at a time. There is a missing .5 protocol(.5== inter- layer,e.g.: arp,ndp,mpls and dhcp) that could use layer2 parameters to establish layer3 security.

Or maybe all that is needed is a feature-stuffed version of dhcp that would configure a default gateway and a secure l3 tunnel to that default gateway as well as on-demand tunnel establishment parameters for intra-vlan endpoints. This would secure wired and non-wifi wireless IP networks as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> Society has hit a new low when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers succumbs to clickbait headlines.

Compare:

      Everything You Need to Know About WPA3

and:

      WPA3

What is the difference, besides a creepy parental claim of knowing what I need to know? It's empty filler and often a lie. It should be struck from every title.

\- " _Everything You Need to Know About_ the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", by Albert Einstein

\- " _Everything You Need to Know About_ My Early Life", by Winston Churchill

\- " _Everything You Need to Know About_ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", by J. K. Rowling

<comment><USER24> It's pointing out that the article is a summary.

It's a common phrase in ending.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The only thing I like about the new standard is mandatory protected management frames, no longer can some s __ __y enterprise access point determine mine should be killed with deauth.

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems like this has some good security features, but with the move towards universal Https connecting to an unsecured WiFi network no longer carries the same level of risk it once did (other than exposing LAN shared resources). As good as prefect forward secrecy is, anything sensitive should already be being encrypted by the client (router passwords notwithstanding until that problem is solved).

I'd rather move towards a world where you don't need a password to access a WiFi network and people share their internet access freely. This would improve not only access to the internet, but also increase privacy because you wouldn't be able to rely on an IP address indicating someone's identity.

</comment><comment><USER27> Everything you wish or need to know?

<comment><USER2> Agreed.

Every time some headline tell me a "need" something, I keep going. Obvious clickbait.

And insulting. You don't know what I "need."

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> shit. all i need to know about it is that my airport is soon to be obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER29> curious if existing hardware can be upgraded later. i guess technically it might be feasable but vendors will try to make money and sell new hardware anyway. hoping for open router firmwares...

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h That would probably be radio firmwares; open router firmware isn't rare (openwrt, dd-wrt, tomato, etc.). And yes, it would be nice to get open radio firmware, though I'm not sure how that would play with FCC certification? I suppose if enough stuff is regulated in hardware it could work.

<comment><USER30> You don't need new radio firmware - this isn't that low in the stack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> No chacha20 support.. Only 128-bit encryption in personal mode..

<comment><USER32> The 128 bit encryption is probably going to be the last thing to break if there is an active attack against your network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This will take a decade to even begin deploying. There's billions of chipsets right now that will never support it. Does wpa3 support leaving wpa2 on? Otherwise I can't turn it on for a decade.

<comment><USER34> > My old stuff doesn't support this new standard, and it will take a long time > to proliferate!

I mean, yeah? How's that different from every other time there's a new standard?

<comment><USER35> We're about a decade further in the adoption of Wifi from when WPA2 was released. It's a completely different ballpark now that wifi is considered part of the basic infrastructure everywhere and baked in to exponentially more devices.

It took several years for people to pitch their old dell laptops and nintendo consoles that couldn't support the then-new standards. People aren't going to replace their thermostats, baby-monitors, security systems, home entertainment systems, and juicers over night.</comment></comment></comment>


Android Design *does* have a soul - <AUTHOR> http://scan.me/blog/2012/03/android-design-does-have-a-soul/

<comment><USER2> Good to hear this, Android apps were terribly inconsistent in their UI approach, and the only way they were getting better lately was because more and more start to look like they are actually iOS apps.

All the best to the new design guidelines!

</comment><comment><USER3> Cheers from Utah ;) Congrats on all the exciting stuff happening with scan.me lately!

</comment><comment><USER4> Great article by Mike about Android design.</comment>


Ask HN: What did you learn from your Y Combinator Interview? - <AUTHOR>

Be concise - Most common advice in all the research we've done, but still learn to finish saying things in less than 10 seconds
Insights - If building something in a heavily-crowded competitive landscape, be ready to have a ton of insights on how you're going to over come them some, if not all
Hair-on-fire problem - On being asked 'what drives us crazy or frustrates us the most?', we kept on going about our idea/product instead of being frank and telling them the things that REALLY frustrate us.
Be excited - We dropped our level of excitement after the first two minutes because we felt that we weren't impressing them enough. Keep your enthusiasm up throughout <comment><AUTHOR> What did you guys learn?

<comment><USER2> nothing, it was too short.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A radio/podcast adblocker featuring ML and Shazam-like fingerprinting - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio <comment><AUTHOR> Blog article presenting the project here: [https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing- audio...](https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-audio-ad- block-radio-podcast/)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is very cool, but you're gonna get a lot of push back from people who feel more attached to their podcast hosts than they do to random websites.</comment>


Priority Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.priority.jobs/

<comment><USER2> How can I try your product?</comment>


For Sale: The $100 House - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08barlow.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> From city-data.com's data on Detroit:

      All numbers are per 100,000 residents, anually:
        Murders:       46
        Rapes:         40
        Robberies:    763
        Assaults:    1440
        Burglaries:  2060
        Thefts:      2430
        Auto Thefts: 2280
        Arson:         88

Aggregating "stealing" crimes, gets you 8,970 or about 9% chance per year. Adjust this for being "those rich dudes from out of town with all that electronic stuff" coupled with the $100 houses not being in the better parts of Detroit and I recommend good offsite backups and a personal philosophy that does not form attachments to material possessions.

<comment><USER3> Almost sounds like you need a compound, with double razor wire fences with an electrical charge somewhere in between.

<comment><USER4> Location location location. If you fear/hate your neighbors that much, why move there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Haven't there been recurrent musings on Hacker News about getting a bunch of friends together and buying up a whole city block in Detroit? Most of us could easily afford it, free and clear.

I'd totally be in if Google would open a Detroit office. ;-)

I predict that this is what'll happen with a lot of the rust belt cities: as prices drop low enough, people will move in and the city will be transformed into something no longer so rusty. Kinda like how Boston reinvented itself with high-tech after all the textile mills moved south in the 40s and 50s.

<comment><USER6> _Most of us could easily afford it, free and clear._

$55 per $1,000 in assessed value due in property taxes, per year.

$75 if the property isn't covered by the "homestead" exception (i.e. you get one discount for a primary residence, everything else gets assessed at $75 per $1k.)

I rather doubt the city assessor's office will agree that the fair market value of your $1 house is $1, particularly after you invest money in making it habitable and/or after you successfully cause the neighborhood to be desirable.

Though for a fraction of what you pay in rent in San Fransisco you could own a perfectly suitable house in a perfectly suitable neighborhood in much of the Midwest.

<comment><USER7> Interestingly, the "assessed" value in Michigan appears to be 50% of the "fair market value" of the house. So that would be an effective tax rate of 2.25%, not 5.5%. (This still seems to be higher than other midwestern areas.)

<http://www.lansingmi.gov/finance/assessor/faqs.jsp#6>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had discussed this with a reporter from Bloomberg a while back, who challenged me to buy one of these houses and see what happened; if I didn't live in an amazing place, I would definitely be doing this right now, for the exact reason that is alluded to in this article. As artists have been priced out of New York, Paris, and most of the other usual spots where they were able to congregate and cheaply live/create, there's been a real need for a new urban home; Berlin kinda does this in Europe, but we haven't really seen any particular place carry on the baton from New York here in the US. Detroit may very well become that city!

</comment><comment><USER9> I grew up in Detroit (suburbs) and plan to spend a little time there between relocating.

My cousin opened a restaurant by the old Tiger stadium and he is doing well. He DJs too and loves the Detroit scene. It has its own culture. Between Detroit, Windsor, and the Detroit suburbs there is a lot to do.

I grew up in Royal Oak, MI which is where the young professionals are settling now. We have a good downtown with decent night life, a lot of restaurants, boutique clothes stores, and good coffee shops. The winter weather isn't that bad. If you want bad--try upstate NY or upper MI.

My only complaints:

1\. You need a car. No matter where you live expect to drive everywhere you go. I live downtown in Syracuse, NY and love walking to most places.

2\. There are parks and such in the suburbs but the majority of lakes (aside from the great lakes) were sold off to the highest bidder. I really admire the twin cities in MN where someone decided to turn their beautiful lakes into public parks. When comparing MI to MN, I really feel like someone sold out the MI people.

</comment><comment><USER10> Gentrification, as I've heard it called, has its benefits as well as costs. As artists (or other creative types, like hackers :) move in and beautify a place, demand from professionals goes up and prices skyrocket. Even with the overall real estate market going down, I'm having a heck of a time finding a combined office/apartment at what seems like a reasonable price in my city, which is currently going through a major downtown renovation.

If only Detroit wasn't so cold...

<comment><USER11> Their weather is fantastic in the summer months due to the great lakes. Lots of fishing/hunting/hiking nearby if you're in to that. Casinos, Canada (i.e. more casinos, plus legal underage drinking) a number of other cities are all nearby. Hockey worth watching, other major sports that are easy to get tickets to.

Might not be a bad place for a cheap summer home.

<comment><USER10> The hockey and outdoor activities would actually be quite nice, though I have easy access to good hiking where I live now. A ridiculously cheap summer home would also be fun, but when I think about it, I always come to the conclusion that the benefits of the summer home "feature" are outweighed by the long-term maintenance costs.

[Edit: though if a large hacker-driven entrepreneurial project actually managed to take over a city block, I would seriously consider moving in. I wonder how the music is in Detroit these days...]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's another risk, namely "community activists".

If you succeed in rehabbing in a depressed area, various rent-seekers will demand that you "share the wealth".

These folks often have considerable political clout, which has something to do with why those areas are depressed.

For some of them, your success is a problem because they're been paid to "improve the area". Since you succeeded without help, something is wrong, and it's not them. Or, you owe them.

<comment><USER13> [citation needed]

<comment><USER12> [http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090301/O...](http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090301/OPINION03/903010308/1008/OPINION01)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Actually foreigners can buy property in Detroit. There was a story in the local paper about a group of Chinese investors buying up blocks of houses.

Can you imagine a Michigan YCombinator where they would own a block of houses and provide a place to live? A self contained entrepreneurial village? It would have to be an outsider as the locals just don't think that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm seriously considering a move up to Detroit. Is anyone else interested in getting a "hacker block" setup?

<comment><USER11> Count me in. I won't live there, but I only live about 2.5 hours away, and could quite trivially afford a 2nd home there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A couple of years ago you could even have remortgaged it for $100k! Win-win...

Interesting idea, though. Seems to me that as more and more people find themselves able to literally work from anywhere, this will happen more and more often. Why move to the end of the world to live cheaply, when you can just move to a cheap city within your own country and enjoy the same benefits, but with a similar culture?

<comment><USER6> I'm often left to wonder this one myself, although I make a poor example for someone living in "my own country".

Much love for the folks in Silicon Valley, but lately we've got this series of tubes thing that can ship your code to your customers from just about anywhere. I used to live in St. Louis. Nice place! As of 2004 a roommate and I split a nice two-bedroom apartment, in a safe neighborhood with a nice twenty- something atmosphere, for about $800 a month.

If rent is $800 and your California-ramen-profitable startup is clearing about $3,000 a month then in St. Louis you can probably eat your ramen in a modest house which you bought to have a place to consume ramen in.

<comment><USER16> Well, part of the "do it in the Valley" advocacy is social or VC-oriented. All those alpha geeks in one place make a lot of connections, work together, recommend each other, go to similar events during rare non-work hours, and some even hire each other or found 2nd startups with partners they met working for their previous employer. For me, it's easy to grant the truth of this because the history of how these startups began is public record. I'd rather not try to deny that such connections have great value.

I tend to take a more romantic view, one that says that it doesn't matter so much if you don't live in SV or Cambridge, MA even if the current metrics show that your startup will be more successful in those places.

I wonder whether SV/Cambridge will lose a little pull since VC has dried up a lot. Also, buying a home is going to get a lot cheaper in rural places. Of course, not all cheap places are equal, but what if it truly, really didn't matter where you located? There's crucial things to research like infrastructure, high speed network capability, the reliability of the public utilities. The Midwest US could be a great place to found a startup.

It seems to me the desire to reach ramen profitability by operating cheaply can outweigh the cachet of advice and networking in the meatspace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If a group of us set up a Hacker block in Detroit, I'm sure it would hit the New York Times as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> I dunno about Detroit, but if anybody wants to join me in my move to Richmond, Indiana, I just bought a 4-bedroom house for $8000 there (cf. <http://www.vivtek.com/blog/keyword_house.html>). Closing next week, paying cash, and it still has its wiring, and a three-year-old roof.

<comment><USER19> Uh, wow, that house is huge. What is the town and neighborhood like? This is crazy...

<comment><USER18> Richmond is a town of about 20,000 people, rust belt, some local industry still surviving. It has Earlham College, a Quaker liberal arts college. In terms of "scene", well, from comments here I'm sure all you young urbanite whippersnappers would be disappointed. In terms of sending my daughter to Earlham College for classes at $100/credit hour through the local high school's talented-students program, though, I'm totally pumped. Also the concept of not paying rent or mortgage at all, well -- thank God I can work entirely online, but y'know? This is really working for me.

Yes, the huge is freaking huge. I didn't actually think to look at aerial photography until after I'd bought it. I could probably start my own artist's colony just with the one house. Or hacker colony, whatever the hell that means. I guess with a big enough pipe, that would work out.

See the half-hexagonal bay window structure on the second floor? That's going to be the library.

The neighborhood is mostly blue-collar, mostly rentals now. In the early 1900's, or 1890, when this house was built, it was the Place to be Seen. I'm told there's a slight trend towards gentrification; these houses are truly stunning, and they built them to last.

I guess for the sake of fairness, I should quote city-data.com:

       	 	2007:
      Murders 	0.0
      Rapes 	37.7
      Robberies 	153.5
      Assaults 	255.9
      Burglaries 	1220.1
      Thefts 	3668.3
      Auto thefts	323.2
      Arson 	115.8

<comment><USER20> Wow -- that seems like a lot of rapes and other crimes for such a small town (20k).

<comment><USER18> Ha, yes, it was adjusted to per-100,000 to match the stats quoted above for Detroit. It was a lot of theft, though. I don't think I want to open a gas station there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does Detroit still have a decent music scene? I haven't heard anything interesting coming out of Detroit since...the early 90s, I guess. But maybe just missed it.

I'm not planning on staying in the valley forever...might be fun to be involved in reinventing a once great city's downtown.

<comment><USER22> A lot of garage rock; notably, The Detriot Cobras and The White Stripes are from Detriot. A few others, too: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_music#Rock_and_roll>

<comment><USER21> That'll do fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> <http://redemptionincorktown.blogspot.com/>

A friend of mine's blog about buying and fixing a house in Corktown in Detroit. It is very interesting to see a dilapidated house that is from 1856 be renovated to a 4000+ sq. ft. place. He is very handy and has done habitat for humanity for years so it may be a stretch for some people to do.

Nonetheless, a personal look at white middle class living in Detroit.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does Detroit have a decent music scene? The city has a very vibrant music scene whether it be rap,rock, blues or jazz with national artists showing up at local clubs for impromptu jam sessions.

</comment><comment><USER24> They're doing a good job laying the groundwork for "The $100 Newspaper" ..

</comment><comment><USER25> Are foreigners allowed to purchase property in Detroit at such prices too?

<comment><USER12> > Are foreigners allowed to purchase property in Detroit at such prices too?

How many places don't allow foreigners to buy property? (I've heard that Mexico has restrictions on foreign property ownership within a certain distance of the ocean.) How many charge more?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> is there a good search engine for searching these things? houses may be low enough to buy for recent college grads; if no such engine exists .... ycombinator idea? :-)

<comment><USER18> Realtor.com is the best place to start. Not everything gets onto the MLS systems, but most of it does eventually. Prepare to be amazed.

<comment><USER26> amazing; thanks; hacker news really needs to get it's own block</comment></comment></comment>


Face Masks Considerably Reduce Covid-19 Cases in Germany - <AUTHOR> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.21.20128181v1 <comment><USER2> It seems like, with covid-19, the mask protects the wearer more than expected. Just another anomaly of this virus.</comment>


GitHub's network graph still sucks - <AUTHOR> http://subimage.com/blog/2011/08/30/github-your-network-graph-sucks/

<comment><USER2> And it still uses canvas rather than SVG, so it looks ugly on Retina screens and clunky custom scrolling doesn't work on touchscreens.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why do people "explain something for the uninitiated" and the proceed to write about something that only the initiated would care about? I enjoyed reading the piece, but next time skip the "uninitiated" bit if there is no chance the uninitiated will read or care about the content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading the article & the feedback.

I did that because I have designers who read my blog and don't know WTF github is. They might be interested in the user experience aspect of the post, but could be completely unaware about source control or github.

<comment><USER3> I'm glad that I did not come off as too much of a jerk. If you think about it there was a lot more that would need to be explained than simply what github.com is.

The network graph could be awesome but for anything with more than 4 forks its just an odd looking subway map.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Please stop offering your services - <AUTHOR> This is not a sustainable model.
There are thousands of HN users, each with their own areas of expertise.
Often, a good test of whether something is worth doing is "what if everyone did the same?" If everyone was more polite, the world would be a better place. If everyone treated others better, the world would be a better place.
But if everyone posted "Offer HN" posts, even if they all did it just once and with a genuine desire to help, rather than a secret need to build their public profile and/or get some interesting serendipitous contacts, HN would become much less valuable.
To those who believe that this new "Offer HN" craze is something worth encouraging, if that's the case, please create a site that's better tailored to making those offers. Maybe you can even get pg to link to it if it's good. You'll certainly get feedback, and so on.
But please don't post any more "Offer HN". Despite the generous impulse behind them, they are basically just spam that's pushing out other more interesting stuff, at the moment.
Related: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840143 <comment><USER3> I actually think it is fascinating to see this, and I don't think they're spam at all and suggesting they are really not nice at all.

HN is many things to many people don't let your particular view of what HN should be dictate the status quo.

> But if everyone posted "Offer HN" posts, even if they all did it just once > and with a genuine desire to help, rather than a secret need to build their > public profile and/or get some interesting serendipitous contacts, HN would > become much less valuable.

That says more about you than it does about the people offering their help. How could you possibly suggest that those doing this are doing it out of a secret need to build their public profile. That's a pretty cynical worldview.

> To those who believe that this new "Offer HN" craze is something worth > encouraging, if that's the case, please create a site that's better tailored > to making those offers. Maybe you can even get pg to link to it if it's > good. You'll certainly get feedback, and so on.

Do you feel the same about Ask HN threads ? What about rate my startup ? Aren't those people 'cynically using the business, design and cumulative knowledge of HN' for their own betterment or the building of their public profiles ?

> But please don't post any more "Offer HN". Despite the generous impulse > behind them

Please do !

> they are basically just spam that's pushing out other more interesting > stuff, at the moment.

Such as ?

Angelgate ? Blocks of Ice ? Parachutes ?

edit: I've posted the opposite of this article here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840143>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, you're part of the Secret Cabalistic Society of HN Worship now, you're not allowed to disagree anymore! Get in line!

More seriously - call me a cynic if you will, but when I see people offering help with the Twitter API or with SEO or tax advice or even help with RoR, well, I don't know, something smells fishy to me. That help is freely available on numerous forums to anyone who's looking for it, and it is a pretty standard model for those industries to offer free consultations before reeling you in.

Of course, I'm not saying that's specifically the case with these specific offers, but I'm sure we can all see where this is going.

<comment><USER4> I think you're addressing a problem before it's arrived, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I agree that this isn't sustainable, and at some point, the offers are going to become less genuine and less valuable. However, after looking at the bloggergirl copy deck suggestions, I want to clearly state that she (and other offers) don't fall into this group. Great work.

I'd encourage users to ask for help. We're already doing it in the form of "review my ..." Good posts with time invested in describing the problem and asking for very specific help will bubble up from newest, and those that are looking to get out of doing work won't hit the front page.

On the contrary "Offer HN" posts are hard not to upvote...for now.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, malbiniak! I agree that, as interesting as Offer HN could be, the real opportunities to help others will be in continuing to read Ask HN posts and offering your services there, where there's a good match.

As someone mentioned already, you can give your services away to a lot of people, and possibly only 1 will really need it, be grateful, and pay it forward. So why not save your free services for that 1 'special' HNer who _asks_ for help? Just a thought...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't worry, these things always run their course. At least this is driven by generosity. Plus you have to admit it's sort of interesting to watch new forms of internet behavior evolve.

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure. Do they run their course because posts like this one encourage them to run their course, or would they fade away by themselves anyway? :-)

My worry is, this one is a good idea in the wrong place. This is basically a strong variation on reddit's AMA, which has taken a solid hold there and isn't going anywhere. Since HN doesn't support sub-forums, there is a risk that we could be "stuck with" this for a while, if it has the durability of AMA but no sub-forum/site to hide in.

Another possible danger is that the community will lash back against it because of the noise, even though it's a good idea, and so we'll lose a good idea. I really do think that if someone made a special site for this (which wouldn't take that long to code up), it might be something of lasting value.

<comment><USER7> They die on their own. The only thing posts like this do are discourage helpful people. It causes them to see the community as hostile, and they take their helpfulness elsewhere.

These people aren't -just- posting these offers. They also contribute to the site in other ways. Their loss -is- a loss to the community.

Gently nudging them into something more helpful is great, but flat telling them to go away is very bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why do you get to decide what this site does? Who are you to tell people to go post that stuff on another site?

If it's pushing out 'more interesting stuff', it's because people have upvoted it because THEY find it worthwhile.

I'll admit, I find them mildly annoying, but much less annoying than the total crap that occasionally gets posted, like videos of dancing bears and such.

I watch the rss feed and I see -all- of that crap. And I ignore the stuff I don't care about, and upvote the stuff I do.

<comment><USER8> On the other hand, as of this writing this complaint post has 131 points. That seems to suggest that more people are against the offer posts than for them. Curiously, the only post on the frontpage now with more posts is "Things Paul Graham is Wrong About", another post with a flamebait title. Not surprisingly, flamebait attracts the upvotes!

<comment><USER9> That would only be a reasonable deduction if HN had < 262 users. As it stands, it's impossible to judge based on a score that cannot be downvoted, and that's without considering selection bias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I respectfully disagree that they are "basically just spam" but yet I agree with a few other points you make. No, it isn't sustainable but yes it makes HN a more interesting place. I'd far rather see those types of posts than some of the things that I'm sure you think are "more interesting". And I don't say that in a mean-spirited way; what I mean is that we all have different interests and just b/c you (or 400 others like you) don't like it isn't a sufficient reason to kill it/them.

</comment><comment><USER11> could not agree more, those are all from the last hour. perhaps we shall have a '/offers' or something else which hackers can go there and offers their goods.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839375>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839394>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839450>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839460>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839662>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839611>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839736>

<comment><USER12> <http://news.ycombinator.com/offerless> (as pg posted a couple of posts up)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Often, "what if everyone did the same" is a very bad test. For example because not everybody will do the same.

I'm not sure whether that's the case here.

<comment><USER14> Indeed. It could argue against almost anything, because the real problem indicated is a lack of balance, not an inherent harmfulness of the thing in question. For example: "If everyone became a DBA, society would come crashing down, so I should not become a DBA."

DBAs are good and helpful — they just aren't the be-all end-all of human existence. I don't think anybody should be held up to that standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The community as a whole seems to appreciate them, based on the upvotes.

<comment><USER16> That's not a fair assumption since there are no downvotes. If 20% of people really like something, and 80% hate it, it could still very easily own the front page.

<comment><USER17> The hypothetical 80% who hate it are free to vote up the items they'd rather see (higher) on the front page instead.

<comment><USER16> What if they only like 1 in 10?

Regardless you're focusing too much on the numbers I threw out there solely for example. The point is that without down votes its entirely possible for a number of similar items to hit the front page even though a majority of people dislike them, thus invalidating the idea that a number of similar items on the front page means a majority of people find them useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Tell swombat: What/who gives you the right to say that?

Swombat, you are one of the greatest contributors, but you are wrong here. Let them offer, it does not hurt anyone. I think the community is quick to identify the honest folks from those who aren't.

Some people love to help just as much as you love to comment. Saying stop offering services is not so different than saying stop giving feedback on ask HN.

Maybe we just structure the way people Offer HN. They could just probably share the feedbacks here so a lot more companies can benefit from it.

At any rate, keep offering if you want to offer. If you do not care for offers just skip them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Once the community gets tired of it, they'll stop upvoting them, or maybe even flag them. That's the beautiful thing about HN.

Offer HN: A cane to shake at people.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'll start worrying about this once it becomes a problem. So far, it's been 2 days. For now, my asumption is that it will go away soon, and it's fun to watch for a while.

</comment><comment><USER21> > Often, a good test of whether something is worth doing is "what if everyone > did the same?"

Nice try, Kant!

<comment><USER22> That's why I didn't become a doctor. I thought, if everyone else became a doctor, there'd be no-one left to fix my car or grow food for us to eat.

<comment><USER23> That's why I'm not going to comment on this. If everyone did it, then it would overwhelm the servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Of all the types of posts to complain about, this type seems odd. Do you really think this trend will continue for more then a week? A month, tops?

</comment><comment><USER25> If it was undesireable, there would be no option to use it. If people offer their help, its up to the people that take them up on it to determine whether its a bait for service sales tactics. Asking people to stop volunteering their help for free is not a good idea in general. It mean's you're probably reading HN too much, and possibly on a screen that's too small. Just get used to clicking on the "More" button, it works! :P

</comment><comment><USER26> > _But please don't post any more "Offer HN". Despite the generous impulse > behind them, they are basically just spam that's pushing out other more > interesting stuff, at the moment._

I disagree. I think they are interesting stuff. In any case, HN has a voting system so what goes on the front page will be whatever the community finds interesting.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think Offer HN is appropriate in some situations where the offer is something particularly unique you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere on the Internet such as the Ivy League UG Application reviewer. The rest of it is offering info you could probably learn through Googling.

</comment><comment><USER28> I enjoy having access to "thousands of HN users, each with their own expertise" and the gall and cojones to offer their wisdom (and fragile reputations) up to the community.

In this age of "what's in it for me", the minimal networking benefit offered is the very LEAST the community can give to support the model. We should only be so lucky.

I'm curious as to your background, since it sounds like by your post, your entrepreneurial pursuits have resulted in great wealth which allows for access to unlimited operations, creative and technical knowledge in all areas of business by responsible, domain-expert, timely and proactive professionals.

You, my friend have struck CEO paydirt, can you offer us your secret?

</comment><comment><USER29> Why worry about sustainability ?! If someone wants to do good for the community by offering their skills, let them. "Sustainable model" - <USER2> like throwing words around.

I'm going ahead and blaming global warming for this post ;)

</comment><comment><USER30> If it gets really bad, won't the community just respond by having a monthly "Who's Offering" thread, much like we now have the monthly "Who's Hiring" thread?

</comment><comment><USER31> If people didn't think these offers were interesting/worthwhile, they wouldn't get sufficiently up-voted to stay on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't think we should be worried about these. As PG said, it's fascinating to see how Internet evolves. My only worry is that for some "Offer HN" posts I'm not yet prepared to ask for their help, however, I certainly see myself looking for these "services" in future and I'm not sure how it will pan out then ;)

</comment><comment><USER33> What is great about HN is that the community can decide on how useful they are and it will run its course. If there is other content that is "worth" more to users, it will rise to the top. I am going to add a section to the Hacker Newsletter for these since they appear useful at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER34> I haven't read a lot of HN over the last two days, but I saw that we had one "Offer HN", and then a slew of them.

I think it's a great idea -- pay it forward! But I wonder if I would want to visit a board full of "Offer HN" posts. "Ask HN"? Sure. "Rate my startup"? Sure. But not so much "Offer HN"

Perhaps that means I'm selfish but geesh, this thing could go on forever.

It's the same problem as job offers/requests. It's such a common thing -- it could easily pollute the board.

Not happening yet, sure, and I'm enjoying watching them so far. But this could turn out to be a worse meme than Erlang Innards.

I don't know. I'll let you secret HN leader cabal-types figure it out. I just know that after about 20 "Offer HN" posts, I'm burnt out. And I don't feel that way about the other types of posts. Beats me why.

</comment><comment><USER35> Let's not address this problem prematurely.

This will likely simply fizzle out after awhile. If it doesn't, then we can discuss it and see what solutions are out there. But for now, no damage has been done and the "Offer HN" threads have been rather substantive in quality.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think there is a big difference in an 'Ask HN' post and a 'Offer HN' post.

In general terms, an 'Ask HN' post is the HN crowd helping an individual. Everyone can participate to help that individual. An 'Offer HN' post is one person helping one other person (or maybe a small handful). I enjoy seeing the occasional Ask HN post because I can participate/contribute in some way to most of the requests. For Offer HN posts, I can't participate unless I have that specific need.

To me, there is less 'value' to the HN community from the Offer HN posts to the Ask HN ones for that reason. Yes - I understand 'value' is subjective, but this I think my point is reasonably objective from a 'whole community' point of view.

</comment><comment><USER37> Startup concept:

Think about this tiny trend in light of the unemployment situation in the USA. I imagine that most if not all of these offers are from people who are employed. What about the 20M (or whatever it is) who are not?

If there was a site where they could volunteer to work for a startups, think of the army of available talent. And these don't need to be tech startups only. If it could be set up so those volunteering could be compensated later that might be good, but even without any promised compensation I bet people would do it.

Does anyone know if such sites exist, sites that easily let startups hook up with volunteers/remote interns?

</comment><comment><USER38> As long as it is genuine, uncorrupted generosity, I don't see the harm. There are not that many offers and it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that there are people willing to spend time and effort on this sort of stuff :)

</comment><comment><USER39> I think it's nice, but that OP has a valid point about sustainability. There's a lot of this in the arts sector, and while it's awesome in some ways it also exerts a downward effect on prices at the lower end of the market. Arty types like helping each other out for cheap; they genuinely love what they do, helping out advances everyone's skills, and the whole is often greater than the sum of the parts. But the fact that many of them are not in it for the money is often misread to mean 'not interested in money.'

A common problem for freelancers in film and graphic design is getting callbacks (or even referrals) where clients propose paying peanuts or even that the creative should do this bit of work for free - the client is sure of success and it will either be great for the portfolio, or there'll be a lot more work coming down the pipe, or they have a great rolodex. They think [whatever job you do] is _extremely_ important, but most of their budget has gone on [something else important]. So they frame it as a sort of partnership situation, only most of the benefits end up flowing towards them. Sometimes this is straight-out greed, more often it's well-meaning incompetence or an inflated sense of entitlement without any deliberate intent to rip anyone off. But it often looks like a good prospect, and the more people that are involved, the more they reinforce each other's belief in the project...Titanic syndrome, if you will.

Unfortunately for every one of these low-budget projects that scores big and gives everyone involved a big career boost, there's about 99 others which don't. Half pay for themselves in other ways - making new contacts, or building new skills, or by a decent product. A third or so suck but are over quickly, and easy to screen out in the future. The remaining sixth are jobs from hell, where it's apparent within 24 or 48 hours of starting that something is terribly wrong but you're going to have to see it through to the bitter end.

I'm not suggesting such people are lurking on HN, but to the extent that a reputation for karma-based mutual aid builds up around the community, it will start to attract people on the lookout for freebies. Have a look at the gigs section on Craigslist, under the creative, writing or crew headings rather than computers. Generosity is great, but sometimes it ends up as the 'tragedy of the commons' - so don't undersell yourself either.

</comment><comment><USER40> OP's post is the one time I wish front-page items could be down-voted

</comment><comment><USER41> While I do not think that they are spam, I think that the trend will eventually have a negative impact on the community. If you eat too much chocolate you will get sick of chocolate.

</comment><comment><USER42> > Often, a good test of whether something is worth doing is "what if everyone > did the same?"

I don't buy this logic; it implies, for instance, that no one in the world should be a professional programmer, because if everyone was, no other jobs would get done.

In this specific instance, I think the Offer HN submissions go against the "News" part of Hacker News, but a few here and there are not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps allowing anyone to downvote self-referential posts would help stem the tide?

</comment><comment><USER43> Altruism doesn't exist, and this is not a bad thing. To 'provide help', even anonymously, is to help yourself by bettering the environment in which you live ("Karma" sans magic).

I don't think anyone has posted any sort of story or comment to HN (or read HN for that matter) without _some_ hope for personal betterment as a result.

As far as chilling trends in the future, I see HN as 'the new Slashdot', and I'd be more afraid of it following similar patterns over the long term.

</comment><comment><USER44> I offer things by putting them on my blog. For example, I wrote a long piece about getting press the other day: <http://blog.jgc.org/2010/10/how-to-hack- media.html>

I prefer that approach and anyone who wants to ask for PR advice can contact me.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm sure glad Hanna Montana Linux Distro[0] still made it to the front page.

[0] <http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html>

</comment><comment><USER45> [http://techstartu.ps/r/techstartups/comments/nk/welcome_hn_r...](http://techstartu.ps/r/techstartups/comments/nk/welcome_hn_refugees/)

<comment><USER46> Wherein the top post is a meta-discussion about css.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Personally I just don't click offers for now, as it just don't worth the time to go over all the offers in the current form.

</comment><comment><USER48> What if someone wanted to offer a physical product to HN community as a thank you? Would that be appropriate?

<comment><USER3> That's already happened, someone offered a whole pile of books, including some pretty valuable ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Not to be overly melodramatic, but I think this is my last comment here on HN for better or worse, simply because this is exactly the microcosmic ideal I've hoped for HN from my beginning involvement--if it dies, there's no need to drag things out and I am grateful for all of HN's _relentless resourcefulness_ I've encountered. And if not, I'll probably be helping HN continue to develop this idea further through _action_.

I think I can safely assume the majority of active members representative of YC here have startups that are in need of traction, but of a different kind not yet fully explored; but nevertheless, in need of _resources_. I hope I'm also not mistaken in the feeling most of us feel "not ready" or not in the right stage for official seed funding and don't necessarily fit into traditional crowd funding landscape, or simply don't want that much of a burden to worry about while developing.

Yes, money is a burden because it's an anchor you must tie yourself to in most cases, and is hard to come by. I've read it many times here before, as it should be, since this is the YC news. However, there could be something faster...

So, this new or new-old, dare I say _model_ , is a natural progression--or in pg's adapted words, _evolution_ (hopefully I am not putting words in your mouth). To where? Call it Crowd Ramen Funding (CRF), where the angels are the untold majority.

All that's needed is a standalone site to register your startup with the community, associate needed resources to your startup/project, and have others with those available resources either give or lend them to you while you're still getting off the ground. It doesn't have to be big; maybe some food, a sheltered corner to hack under, language manuals, maybe some light consulting, or other things of this nature. And like other crowd funding platforms, you make sure there are enough hands to help you down the edge so you don't have to _take the dive_ by yourself. _In return_ , the angels may receive the startup's product if it was something they personally wanted, or maybe simply the joy of having helped a hacker or two that is adding more value to the world than he or she is taking out, or maybe it's a kind of symbiosis not easily definable.

In short, I feel I'm not alone when I say this has much more potential than just being slash or pipe "Offer", and being so, it really is out of place in the header. HN community participation shouldn't be a function narrowed in scope by its site header, nor should the header sacrifice its functionality of directing users contributing and reading news. I think at heart it's really a classical inheritance problem, in which case, it's best to just extend rather than subtype the current functionality. May the entire _community_ see this _thing_ through to either a bitter end or choosing to forward it on into the future. That is all.

<comment><USER3> Please don't leave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> _But if everyone posted "Offer HN" posts_

That's a false proposition, isn't it? Everyone is not going to offer his services. It's going to happen on occasion, and it's usually useful when it does happen.

If it ever did rise to the level of spam, then HN already has a mechanism for dealing with it. But it's nowhere near there.

Offering services (e.g. SEO) gives occasion for interesting discussions on topics as well. This is certainly useful for the community.

</comment><comment><USER51> Premature Optimization - You are solving a problem that may not need to be solved, or to put it another way

Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that may never come due.

</comment><comment><USER52> Thank. God. This was getting unbearable. Understood the generous nature behind all these offers but c'mon. Not the venue.

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't think there's any interesting phenomena going on here, and to me the "Offer HN" posts look quintessentially like spam. I don't read HN in order to see a lot of folks touting for business - no matter how talented or fast on the keyboard they may be. I know business is thin on the ground right now, but please post that stuff elsewhere.</comment>


IPhone software sustainability and the death of Mac software - <AUTHOR> http://www.taptaptap.com/blog/iphone-software-sustainability-and-the-death-of-mac-software/

<comment><USER2> Couldn't it work in reverse? There must be people who learned Cocoa/Objective-C only to get on the iPhone bandwagon, and are therefore closer to Mac software development than they would ever have been without the iPhone.

The article doesn't seem to think that a Mac app store would work, but I know I'd like one (speaking both as a maker and user of Mac software). I know I'd buy more, too; it would be easier to know what's actually available, and I'd discover apps for unexpected things.

<comment><USER3> Have you seen <http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/> ?

You're free to submit your software here as far as I can tell, and I don't think there's any requirements (no annual fee etc). I guess the problem is most Mac users don't know it exists

<comment><USER4> Such directories don't do _enough_ for users, which is why they do not get as much attention as the iPhone App Store.

From the article:

 _What if Apple did an App Store for Mac software? I doubt they'd actually do it. Apple loves control and there's no way that they can have total control over Mac software sales since the current distribution and sales methods are in place and well established._

Apple could release new SDKs for other kinds of machines, which require software distribution through an App Store. This would give them control over such a market.

I think this may well happen. The "Apple Tablet" would be a great platform to get this started. Having such a walled garden would seem great from the non computer-savvy end user's point of view. The user pays an "Apple Tax" and the government polices everything and keeps things clean and safe. As it was and still is (not as much) in the freewheeling "wild west" of the online world, if one doesn't have certain skills, one is a second-class citizen at the mercy of the more skilled individuals. In such a walled garden world, the "law abiding taxpayer" would be the one catered to, and those special skilled individuals become the outlaws. (Or become civil servants and use their skills at the behest of the government.)

For better or for worse, I think that this is actually what a lot of the less sophisticated computer users want! (Witness Linux distros like Xandros.) It's also in Apple's DNA -- getting people to pony up for a well-tended, smoother experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an incredibly one-sided view. Clearly if you're a Mac developer, you switch to iPhone development and you start receiving truckloads of cash, you're going to think Mac developers would be stupid not to do the same. However:

1\. Most iPhone apps are _not_ incredibly successful.

2\. Taptaptap has the full weight of the MacHeist marketing machine behind it.

Even if a swathe of Mac developers did move to iPhone, it wouldn't be long before the majority moved back to the Mac when the _iPhone Dream_ didn't materialise. Indeed, if Mac development was going to die, it would have done already.

<comment><USER6> neither of your points matters if you believe his assertion that (roughly) the 1000th most popular iPhone app generates 5x the revenue of the 100th most popular Mac shareware app.

<comment><USER7> Not entirely a fair comparison. It's comparing shareware apps to the entire iPhone market. I'd venture to guess that nobody would call anything put out by Microsoft, Adobe, EA, or hundreds of other companies shareware, but those same companies are all in the same iPhone market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> App Bodega (<http://www.appbodega.com>) is a somewhat successful Mac app store that I find useful for finding new apps and keeping track of app updates. It's also really well done in terms of UI / usability. It's a shame they failed to even mention it - they're not helping the situation.

Oh, and from what I understand Apple _is_ working on a Mac app store. As someone getting ready to launch a Mac shareware app I found this quote especially hilarious:

"Mac software sales since the current distribution and sales methods are in place and well established."

</comment><comment><USER9> Apple _would_ have complete control over the software they wanted to offer on a theoretical Mac App Store. Not so different from the retail boxed software they sell at Apple Stores. I don't think it's on the top of their priority list but I bet it happens eventually. If you look at Steam on Windows you see there is a proven model for success with desktop app stores.

<comment><USER10> But Steam's DRM system actually provides some value to the customer: it makes for a very effective anti-cheating system.

If you are detected cheating, you get banned at a random point within a few days (to kill your testing cycle), and you lose your purchase. The only time you ever see cheating is during free-pass weekends. I normally pirate everything, but this is worth paying for.

<comment><USER4> A well tended walled garden in the form of an App Store for Apple Tablet computers and newer consumer-oriented computers _would_ provide a lot of value.

To most users, a general purpose computer is a _power tool_ that they'll never make full use of. What most people really want in a personal computer is a backplane for various _appliances_. They just want to buy those things, install them, and have them just work. If an App Store ecosystem could mean Apple could completely shepherd users and take care of their every need, then this would add value in much the same way. And Apple would be able to figure out how to market this and get paid handsomely. This is the exactly the direction that Apple is going with their retail stores. (Especially with the revamp to increase the social interactivity.)

<comment><USER9> I think so too. We've enjoyed some good times with security-through-obsecurity on OSX but it's not going to last forever. I'm leaning towards wanting most of my apps being vetted and distributed through a trusted source. Of course I would want to keep the option to install anything I wanted. Given the choice I would choose to install via a Mac App Store whenever possible. I feel like anti-virus, anti-malware, etc are like missile defense. Yeah it might work most of the time, in theory, but if one slips past and hits your city it doesn't really matter. I find when I use Windows these days I am irrationally paranoid about installing _any_ third party software. If/When OSX increases in popularity and becomes a bigger target I fear the same thing will happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This reminds of the "Desktops are dead" articles that have been written for years. With the growth of people in the world using more and more computers everyday, there is plenty of room for new distribution channels, stores (Slate Store?), platforms and such. Even this developer who authored an article about the death of Mac software said they would continue writing and supporting it.

And it may also just be semantics, but since when is writing for the App store not Mac software?

<comment><USER12> > And it may also just be semantics, but since when is writing for the App > store not Mac software?

Since the App Store launched. Mac is Apple's line of computers. The App Store sells applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, neither of which is a Mac.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd be interested to know how the shareware market is doing on Windows ... no really, selling shareware is still viable? If it is, I've got a cool idea I'd like to implement.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why am I being presented with raw fish?</comment>


Show HN: Become a Web Developer - learn coding, resumes, interviews, and more - <AUTHOR> https://HeyMentor.co <comment><USER2> Hi

So how exactly does this work? I noticed that you indicated one can "start for free", does that mean that users will pay for advanced lessons? How much would that cost? Do you have an outline of the syllabus and the time commitment necessary to cover the curriculum? I am about a month or so away from starting my journey to becoming a front-end entry-level web developer and was instantly intrigued by this. Would love to hear back from you (on this and other matters).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your questions, iamjeff,

A pricing page used to be present on the site, but no one would ever get to see the content because the price deterred users away.

The pricing page is still available, just not in the navigation. The first section of content is available for free, then after that, a free 7 day trial is available, followed by pricing of $29 a month.

[https://heymentor.co/plans](https://heymentor.co/plans)

The curriculum is meant for someone with very basic or no programming knowledge to go from their current level of understanding to knowing how to build complete web applications with ASP.Net, various JavaScript libraries, various database types, and realtime data, while also learning how to articulate knowledge in interviews, write resumes to match job postings, and determine what the needs of the business are. They aren't hiring developers for the heck of it - they want to solve a problem. It's your job to find the problem and help them solve it. If you can illustrate this fact in your interview and have the skills to back it up, you will be offered a job.

<comment><USER3> > _A pricing page used to be present on the site, but no one would ever get to > see the content because the price deterred users away._

That should probably tell you something. If something is out of my price range that's fine, but I know to know it right off the bat. If I have some level of interest in a service and I am willing to pay $100/mo for it, I will check the pricing page to see if they have 2-figure monthly plans or if they start at $250/mo.

If you hide the price I am going to assume it's enterprise pricing either in that it's a large investment, or that you just want to talk to me first to try to charge as much as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still trying to validate the idea, and attempting to remove friction. It's not meant to be deceptive</comment></comment></comment></comment>