Advertising cannot maintain the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://evonomics.com/advertising-cannot-maintain-internet-heres-solution/ <comment><USER2> Article treats online journalism as "the Internet". The Internet is fine, the web is fine, online journalism has problems. What do they expect after a couple of years of the worst journalism the world has seen. Clickbait is not viable, well good riddance. Write something factual that we don't know instead. When journalism reports facts again in a manner that treats us like adults people might read it.

They might trust the economic advice along side the article too. But when have newspapers ever taken the stance that advertising should be informational and beneficial for the user. If people don't click it's not just the article that is inappropriate, the advert is too.

<comment><USER3> > people might read it

But will people pay for it? You cannot pay your rent or student loans with exposure.

<comment><USER4> Plenty of people pay for the FT, New York _Times_ , Economist, New Yorker, Atlantic, _et cetera_. One can't complain about click bait/advertising _and_ paywalls.

<comment><USER5> _> Plenty of people pay for the ..._

It is true that many pay for digital subscriptions but I did not interpret the _" will people pay for it?"_ as just a non-zero number of subscribers.

Instead, _" will people pay for it?"_ is often interpreted as shorthand for "would _enough_ people pay _enough_ money to make it economically viable?" (E.g. good salaries for journalists, strong profits for the publisher, etc.)

Yes, those websites you mentioned are attracting paying subscribers to avoid paywalls but as far as I can tell, _nobody_ is making significant profits from it. For example, NYT digital subscriptions are growing -- and ad revenue from online is growing -- but the profits (if any) are not replacing the lost profits from traditional print ads. For online subscriptions, many publishers are losing money or barely breaking even. No newspaper including NYT has solved the economic puzzle of digital subscriptions bringing the type of money that 1990s paper classifieds + ads brought. So far, the answer to _" will people pay for it?"_ appears to be _" no"_.

From what I can tell, the kind of publishing that works very well on subscriptions is industry-specific for a specialized audience. For example, the NationalJournal (costs $7000 to $25000) for following blow-by-blow legislation in Washington DC or Gartner Group (~$20k/yr) for business analysis news. On the other hand, the mass audience journalism like NYT and USAToday is replicated on too many other free sources. As a result, mainstream publishing will always depend more on heavy-handed advertising rather than subscriptions for the majority of revenue.

<comment><USER6> > On the other hand, the mass audience journalism like NYT and USAToday is > replicated on too many other free sources.

This is huge. For a story that anyone can cover ("Cat Stuck in Tree!"), there's mass-market competition where a hundred players can run their own versions of the same story. If one of those players is willing to work for free (or Reddit karma, or 'exposure', or whatever else), then the value of that information drops to ~$0.

Mass market journals used to get by on marginal costs, but those are ~0 too now. What they have left to offer is writing quality and accuracy, but its increasingly looking like those aren't worth what they cost. And the quality dilution of high-end journalism has made the problem worse, by driving journalists into ever-more-direct competition with the free sources they can't possibly outprice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I pay my ISP $70/month for a home internet connection.

I pay my mobile provider $40/month for 2GB Data

I pay $100/Yr to a hosting service for my ad-free web site and email for my business which will always be there while my business is running (as will the ad-free web sites of most other businesses I know of).

In addition to the above I pay various donations and subscriptions to certain sites I like and buy almost exclusively on line.

It seems to me there is plenty of money to keep the internet going without advertising.

To the multitude of news/media/blogs/click-bait sites duplicating the same content and that rely on advertising for their business model then good luck to you all, unobtrusive advertising was and still is ok with me, but because of the bad-apples it is now in your face and I ad-block everything.

<comment><USER8> I'll bet a lot of folks would keep paying those prices even if all they did was use email. I'll bet further that is still the _main_ reason many people have a home internet connection. That and internet banking, etc.

Things subsidized by ads like YouTube and myriad other distractions are a bonus. If they were to disappear no one would be dropping their internet connection. Trust me, with bandwdth as it is, free video is not going to disappear.

All things considered I think _non-commercial_ websites like Wikipedia or Internet Archive are actually the most valuable ones. And even without ads they will not disappear because passionate dedicated people create them for non-commercial reasons. And the cost for the individual to store data and publish online keeps decreasing.

The internet has heaps of inherent value that has nothing to do with advertising. Especially with today's computing power and bandwidth. It's like long distance calling anywhere in the world for a set monthly fee. And anyone can write software to send and receive over the network. Sign me up. For life.

Anyone who used the internet in the late 80's early 90's before commercial activity was permitted, when bandwidth was limited and expensive, knows this.

By all means argue for ads if it's your cash cow - try you best to save your golden goose, but spare us the absurd arguments that ads are what give the internet value.

<comment><USER9> _but spare us the absurd arguments that ads are what give the internet value._

Indeed. Some would argue they reduce the value of the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Examine this truism — that you would never pay a nickel for a New York Times > article that you enjoyed. What? Ten minutes of your time isn't worth five > cents?

Some questions:

\- Do I have to pay in advance, before knowing that I enjoyed an article?

\- How would I feel skimming in 30 seconds through an article that I had to pay for and move on to the next one? This is something I do routinely. Would I keep paying for that or would I totally skip paid-for articles?

\- Why should I pay for that NYT article and not for a free one from Reuters with about the same content? Should we differentiate between plain news, opinions, investigative journalism?

I understand that somebody writing a blog gets paid by something else and the journalist gets paid by that very article, but the journalist is competing for reader time (time, not news) with so many other things, from instant messaging to casual browsing.

To answer the question... 100k readers * 5 cents = 5k. Too much or too little? Did the article took a hour, a day, a month, a year to write? If it's a hour, no way, even 1 cent would be too much. If it's a month it's spot on, maybe even cheap. But competition from free news, even the ones reporting on that article, is hard to beat.

<comment><USER11> Isn't the value of the article completely divorced from the time it took to write it? (I don't pay more for a movie that took five years to make than one that took a week.)

News is one of the more obvious examples that things become less valuable as more people have access. If I am the only person in a room to have read an article, I am more interesting at a party. If everyone read it, I might as well be discussing the weather. If I find out about an earnings report a microsecond before other investors, that news is much more valuable to me than it is to them.

Journalists also have to deal with instances where weeks of effort failt to uncover anything worth writing about. The patron/artist model might be the only way to support individual journalists. It might turn out that journalism looks a LOT like private investigation or corporate espionage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A lot of people not in the Hacker News/tech world will definitely won't want to pay for internet content. People grew up with the internet being free, which alone will make most people extremely hesitant to pay for content. People LIKE the free crap content on the web. There is a reason websites like Buzzfeed, upworthy, <fill in click baity website here> have become popular.

<comment><USER13> I grew up accustomed to not paying for stuff because 1) it was free 2) I had no money.

Now with the quality of stuff going downway spiral and my dev salary allowing me to pay, I could be potentially paying for quality content if a good, seamless micropayments standard emerged.

I think ideal smooth, frictionless micropayments solution could be integrated on the browser level. It is hard a problem due to UX considerations, fraud (clickjacking) etc. but imagine this:

There's a UI control built-in with the browser that is a button like 'pay 0.05$ for this article' (amount and some payment metadata embedded in the HTML page). The payment method is controlled somehow by the browser. On Android it caould be maybe integrated with Play Store payments, which already allows me e.g. to add a fee to my ISP phone/internet invoice.

For security, the payments would not be instant, but require an interaction with a browser built-in special page that lists to whom you pay how much and make you verify/correct it ('will pay 0.30c to NYT for this and that article and 0.15c to WSJ for that, proceed?'). You will get a notification from browser once in a while.

With such model it is voluntary micropayments though which may not seduce big players though.

<comment><USER14> $.05 as the author mentions is a ludicrous sum; less than a penny (your 0.3 cent or 0.15c!) is a laughably small sum, and I doubt sustainable (it doesn't take much fraud to eat all your profits when you make so little per user. Think Google's customer service is horrible? Just wait...) If a customer service agent costs $25/hour all in (terrible wages, desk, taxes), every hour they clock in consumes the profit from 500 articles at $0.05 per, even before any other costs.

Consider the nyt sells their cheapest digital subscription for $0.60/day. Why on earth should they price articles for less than that, considering you probably aren't going to read an article every day? They certainly don't want to cannibalize their subscribers already paying $0.60/day. And note that keeping eg a reporter in Egypt is expensive.

Further, even if you reply that they're only getting 5 cents for the ads you see (they get more: probably $100+ cpms for pmp ads), they can't afford to trade one-for-one: the people most likely to pay not to see ads are often the ones who advertisers most want to advertise to. ie people with disposable income.

I'd imagine the NYT would need $2+ per article for the economics to work for them. And quite possibly much more.

<comment><USER15> $2 an article would be ludicrous, when you can get the dead-tree version of the whole paper delivered to your doorstep for a dollar a day.

<comment><USER14> You conflate a subscriber who pays $450/year with a person buying a one-off with no further obligation. A profitable business will charge them wildly different unit prices. Much like itunes will sell you a song for $1.29 each and spotify will charge you $5/mo for unlimited music.

I'd charge $5+ for the article. Again, you also have to avoid cannibalizing subscription revenue.

<comment><USER15> It still doesn't really make any sense. I bought the Grantland Quarterly (RIP, Grantland), for $20, and it's a hard-bound book with ~35 articles in it. $.57 per article, and that's high-quality, longform pieces.

$5 will almost buy a paperback book of several hundred pages that will keep you occupied for at least a day or two.

Text is cheap

<comment><USER14> Not everyone can be a dilettante's hobby project financially supported by espn. You don't think Grantland actually made money do you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> author is clueless about online everything.

just like I'm now commenting that he's wrong, if this gets enough votes, should he sends the proceeds of the article to me?

internet content now is forums, user generated videos, etc. useless entertainment journalism is dead not because advertisement can't pay the bill. because it's dead.

</comment><comment><USER17> The "End of Advertising" on the web is something I hear fairly often, and the argument that paying for content is the only solution follows soon after. Unfortunately, both history and all of our data suggests otherwise.

For example, the mobile app ecosystem (the only large scale experiment we've run in online media since the web) started with a pay-for-use business model in the form of paid apps. While this worked for a while, it quickly gave way to free apps supported by advertising or other business models. Today, unless you are a game, it is almost impossible to build a business using pay-for-use exclusively. Reversing to a free model was forced by the low cost of entry into the market and resulting commoditization of mobile apps. You can't charge for something if a dozen other people will offer it for free.

I'm not a huge supporter of online ads and I do think the industry needs to improve. However, we continue to see that it is the only stable economic model for online media considering the volume and diversity the model needs to cover. Until someone shows something else working at scale, let's not throw away the only thing that is working.

<comment><USER18> _You can 't charge for something if a dozen other people will offer it for free._

If that's true, and at the same time people dislike adverts enough that a significant proportion will refuse to interact with them or even block them, then the market won't generate enough money to pay for the production of those apps. In the short term people will pay to make those apps by subsidising them with investment money (and lose it all if they don't make any money back), but in the long term we simply won't have people making the apps.

At that point the market will be underserved, customers who have a demand for the product will start to pay, and the pay-for business model starts working, driven by revenue rather than DAUs and ad impressions.

There's no reason to believe the end for advertising means the end of media. There is a demand for the products, and suppliers will continue to provide such products. What's needed is a working business model that both sides of the market are happy with. That doesn't _appear_ to be advertising-lead.

<comment><USER19> I'd be interested in your feedback on my site (in my profile).

It is advertising-driven but I maintain some standards which my readers have appreciated: ads must relevant, not animated, and they are self-hosted. At this point I don't think advertisers have had any issues with those rules and because of my repeat customers, I believe they get the results they are looking for.

It might be possible to charge readers, but I'm more interested in trying out good advertising practices instead.

<comment><USER20> Not OP but I'm privacy conscious and have multiple restrictive add-ons installed in Firefox so I had a look. Here's a screenshot of how your most recent article appears with Firefox + uBlock Origin + NoScript + Privacy Badger - not bad! - [https://i.imgur.com/FhH0vkx.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/FhH0vkx.jpg)

The site loaded very quickly and the top menu worked fine with JavaScript disabled. The ads in the right sidebar aren't explicitly marked as ads but it's pretty obvious what they are. I don't mind visiting a site like this and seeing a mix of original content and ads, all of which are relevant.

If more sites followed you lead here, more people like me would see ads. And if they upped their technical game and used server logging to measure visits instead of outsourcing it to third-party analytics providers, they would have a more complete picture of who is visiting their site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here is an idea. We put a hidden tag on pages that don't use ads for support, and couple it with a browser extension that would save that tag information over the period of a month. The extension would log how long you spent actively on that tagged page. At the end of the month you could pay what you choose, say $10, and it could subdivide that $10 based on time spent on a page, and factors like page type (for instance if you only want to support small blogs or news sites). This allows people to vote on content with their dollars. They don't have to click donate on every page and they keep their donations in their budget.

<comment><USER22> A couple browser extensions Google'd:

[https://www.syndicoin.co/](https://www.syndicoin.co/)

[http://protip.is/](http://protip.is/)

<comment><USER21> Neat! That's exactly what I was thinking of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am always comforting myself by thinking that idiots who want to tweak my brain were throwing a lot of bucks to display ads blocked by my adblock extension. I am more concerned about how they track us to not display ads, in fact...

I don't remember the last time I saw an ad against my will, and if I actually saw one, I think my brain filtered it just by the power of my revulsion. That said, I am aware that it works at a subconscious level not always like you want but the antidote is to fully use conscious processes in suspicious mode when buying something, isn't it?

So, let them pay the internet? If not, you really need your product to have a value that exceed its digital form, like you can see with Steam who appeal to players by connecting games to social. Or you need to be really pedagogic and make the purchase an active act of support.

Blendle is on the right direction with centralization + micro-payments but it should add a social layer where users could build another public identity with their stories listings, allowing them to comment, creating thematic feeds, make them addicted with superficial achievements, like I said: extra value other than just paying for something digital. I am not saying that's what I want.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was a bit disappointed. From the headline I thought it was an argument about why the ad-fueled internet is economically unstastainable. Instead Brin is mainly repeating the "moral" case against it while making some (reasonable) suggestions about why micropayments are not so impossible after all.

The later point might be right, but only likely to be tested if there is an advertising bust. At least Brin links to this ([http://idlewords.com/2015/11/the_advertising_bubble.htm](http://idlewords.com/2015/11/the_advertising_bubble.htm)).

</comment><comment><USER25> >Then why have all attempts at commercializing micro-payments failed? I assert that MP constitutes an inherently different market realm, with unique problems and incentives that demand innovative solutions, empowering payment-for- content by individuals surfing the web.

There is a pretty simple reason for this: All the embedded players (credit card processors, and banks) don't have the desire to deal with the extremely high volume and low (near zero) margin business this would create for them.

Institutions who produce content aren't high on MOST users list of places to give money to when there are plenty of ways to get said product for FREE... You want me to give you $5 today so I can spend $0.03 of it on some article. Maybe I forget about it (good for you) or you loose it (bad for me) and then I have to fight to get it fixed (making this a money loosing proposition on both sides).

The greed and avarice, of content producers and advertisers, destroyed what could have been a workable solution (ads), I have no faith that any micropayment platform or what ever else you can cook up is going to work unless it puts USERS FIRST.

<comment><USER26> >The greed and avarice, of content producers and advertisers, destroyed what could have been a workable solution (ads)...

I understand how content producers can be blamed for the state of internet advertising but I don't understand why the advertisers are also implicated. It's the content producers who manufacture and sell the advertising product. If an advertiser doesn't buy the product his competitor will.

<comment><USER25> Totally valid question:

How does malware get into ad's, the publishers didn't put it there: [http://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces- rea...](http://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to- turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware)

Meanwhile the industry itself calls ad blocking "immoral": [http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/iab-chief-blasts- adblo...](http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/iab-chief-blasts-adblock-plus- immoral-mendacious-coven-techie-wannabes-169194)

There is this gem linked from the article where some of them admit it might be their fault: [http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/iab-pivots-ad- blocking...](http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/iab-pivots-ad-blocking-and- issues-mea-culpa-we-messed-167583)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Evolve or die. Besides, the net exploded in popularity before ads became popular on it, they are not needed at all.

If you cant figure out how to make money off the net without using ads, you have bigger problems.

</comment><comment><USER28> What I've always wondered. Why do so many sites show TONS of ads likely making incredibly small amounts of money from my eyeballs?

Why not let me pay twice what they get from the advertisers to completely disable ads?

Google has some program like this for awhile anyways, but they never promised zero ads, just less.

<comment><USER29> They do this with mobile phone apps. ~$2 for an app with no ads, or use the free, "lite" version with ads.

<comment><USER30> Which is very different from a website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Internet has worked before the age of widespread advertising. It will prevail. It might just not be the internet we are having right now. Perhaps it's time to go back to p2p services, simple lightweight websites hosted from home.

</comment><comment><USER32> A nice article, but David only posted the first half with a teaser at the end. evonomics looks like a nice site, browsing the table of contents.

Google aggregates small $1 charity donations in One a Day, and then periodically bills you for a few weeks worth of donations. I don't see why individual companys couldn't provide the same with micro-payments if they were federated so one service would allow people to micro pay on any site supported by a federated partner.

<comment><USER9> Google has a program like that: [https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

<comment><USER33> It doesn't work the way you think it does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's basic economics. All else equal, an increase in the supply of a good drives its price down. In the past, journalists had a monopoly on journalism. Nowadays, anyone can write a piece of journalism and publish it, which means now we have a larger supply and lower prices. How lower? Apparently, close to zero, since a lot of people are willing to provide content for free. It turns out creating content is something that can be fun.

<comment><USER35> "Creating content" is not the same as journalism. The Web as it stands now is generally low quality. It remains to be seen if people are willing to pay more for higher quality.

<comment><USER36> The problem is even journalism in main stream print media is often of low quality. This just not obvious to most people because they tend to not have domain knowledge about the things that journalists usually write about. But judging from how they report on things related to physics and mathematics, my guess is they are equally uninformed and imprecise, when it comes to foreign policy, financial or economic news. The truly competent people in those fields do not become journalists anyways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> _What? Ten minutes of your time isn't worth five cents? What aggravates users about current pay-for-use methods is not cost, but hassle of transaction._

That is in fact the main fallacy. I "read" about 50 articles per day. That's 18250 per year. If my attention is worth $100 per year and half of that goes towards articles I read, that's not 5 cents per article but 0.27 cents.

</comment><comment><USER38> Are there any good donation platforms that are easy for both an end user and a publisher to implement? At the end of the article is a donation section, but instead of a simple 'donate 5c' button it asks for my personal details, defaults to making me donate X/month and then finally redirects me to PayPal.

</comment><comment><USER39> This problem is waiting for the Netflix of publishing.

Some people think .05 per article is low when Netflix provides unlimited movies for $10/mo.

Netflix recognizes that the cost of distribution has dropped out of sight. Publishing needs to do the same.

</comment><comment><USER40> I have no idea what the proposed "secret sauce" will be, and the article touches on many good point, but here's the big unavoidable problem: this is all wishful thinking.

Usable micropayments and customers paying for online articles will not emerge simply as a result of sufficient hand-wringing. What will make micropayments happen isnot disenfranchised journalists or charity thereupon by techno- utopians. Instead it will come from something with much different and forward- looking goals, like Bitcoin. Bitcoin actually has the properties to make micropayments viable in a way that anything resembling traditional economic payments simply cannot because of overhead (especially considering fraud). However Bitcoin still has to cross the chasm to mainstream usage before we can even dream of such benefits trickling down to online journalism, and I doubt it will because of the next problem...

Content is cheap! The article misattributes the state of online content as caused by the "original sin" of starting advertising, as if that decision happened in a vacuum. But of course from the very beginning the web dramatically lowered the cost of publishing and distribution. Initially there was at least a technical barrier to entry, but that has come down over time as well to the current state of Medium, Facebook, Instagram. The reason people expect free content is not because someone decided it had to be ad-supported, but because having an audience is the first step towards any type of monetization. Once you have an audience you can leverage it in all sorts of ways, some involving charging (eg. The Economist) and some involving branding/funnel-building (eg. Signal vs. Noise), but most people do not, and therefore there will always be a stream of people ready to put out free content just to get noticed.

The fact that this dynamic is killing journalism as we know it is not going to change any incentives or behavior. It's not enough to say "all we need is X to save journalism", you have to explain who is going to build X, why they will do it, and why will users adopt it. I don't believe that enough people are bothered by the current state of affairs that getting rid of advertising, or paying journalists directly will resonate in any meaningful way. That doesn't mean people won't pay for content—obviously they _do_ pay for content—but you have to give them something they think is worth paying for. That's not to take anything away from ambitious attempts at alternative funding methods, but fighting against the fundamental market dynamics is not the way to do it, you have to come up with ideas and concepts that resonate with current trends and modes of thinking.

<comment><USER41> Dies bitcoin work as a micropayment service when the miner's fee for each transaction is itself a micropayment of about the same order?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've believed this for many years. Intrusive advertising is a cost to content consumers, one that they can circumvent by passively or actively ignoring.

</comment><comment><USER43> the article wa full of advertising that ground my poor ideapad to a halt. had to close the page before i could read it all.

</comment><comment><USER44> ... at worst, advertising is nothing but a tax on the quality of the internet

</comment><comment><USER45> [Comment hidden - Please pay $1.50 to read this comment.]

</comment><comment> awinter-py this is by scifi author david brin! should have put that in the title. scifi authors have opinions that are 30% valid, 130% interesting, 0% status quo.

</comment><comment><USER46> Money can maintain. People need to PAY.</comment>


Lego is celebrating some of the amazing women of NASA with new set of figures - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/10/18/lego-celebrating-some-amazing-women-nasa-new-set/775076001/ <comment><USER2> Aww, no Christa McAuliffe? I used to go to an elementary school named after her. The principal was well enough into space stuff that he managed to get a bunch of the local amateur stargazers to donate their telescopes for a stargazing night. I got to see the rings of saturn for the first time at age 7, it was awesome :)

Wish there was a lego piece for her, she was the perfect link between youth education and space. I wonder if NASA would ever consider sending another teacher into space.

Edit: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe)

<comment><USER3> Hey, I had a friend who went to that same school! We had an econ class in high school that had trivia at the beginning of every class. One day, the answer to a cryptic question was Christa McAuliffe. I asked my friend how on earth he knew that and he mentioned that he used to go to a school named after her. Is it in Green Bay, WI?

<comment><USER2> Haha yup. Well, Bellvue but it's probably the same city by now. Small world.

Glad your friend escaped Green Bay as well ;)

<comment><USER3> Oh, unfortunately he did not, but I did. :) Michigan now, though, so not too far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if it was inspired by this web comic:

[http://seasonaldepressioncomic.com/comic/lego- friends-2/](http://seasonaldepressioncomic.com/comic/lego-friends-2/)

<comment><USER5> That comic is rather missing the mark. "Lego Friends" is definitely not intended for grown-ups nostalgic about Lego.

But this set is definitely intended for adults, since they are designed as showpieces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Will the women all have lipstick like in the female scientist set?

</comment><comment><USER7> Most girls I've found are really into the ghosts and ghouls sets. Actually, even among adult women I've noticed a heightened interest/enjoyment in talking about paranormal/scary phenomena. I have no idea why.</comment>


Ask HN: Any solution for implementing native ads to ionic/Cordova app? - <AUTHOR> Seems all popular ad networks(Admob, etc..) provide native ads format, but do not support Cordova. <comment><USER2> Just google e.g. "admob cordova". There are several plugins. Some of them also have Ionic Native "plugins", also easily googleable. If you need help with installation and configuration, forum.ionicframework.com or StackOverflow is probably a better place to ask for that.</comment>


The Boss Doesn't Want Your Resume - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boss-doesnt-want-your-resume-1452025908 <comment><USER2> A dude from Compose here, I'm currently helping out with hiring.

If you'd like to know more about the process described in the article, we've recently blogged about it:

[https://www.compose.io/articles/compose-hiring-scaling- to-10...](https://www.compose.io/articles/compose-hiring-scaling-to-100/)

We have a bunch of postings up right now for those of you who are looking to give something like this a try (you may have seen us looking in the latest Who's Hiring):

[https://compose.io/jobs](https://compose.io/jobs)

If you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer.

<comment><USER3> So you are telling us that if we had a PhD, multiple awards from previous companies for actual work and not politicking/backstabbing/brownnosing, Coursera/edX certificates relevant to your area of business with almost 100% success rate on their most difficult courses, can program in 50+ languages, you would still ignore our past success and we have to go through your normal hiring process? I am sure this would bring you plenty proven world-class talent... /s

<comment><USER2> I'm glad you brought up the other side of things.

If you were an applicant of such impressive, world renowned stature the answer would be: yes, (sir), you still need to go through the regular hiring process.

It isn't an arbitrary request, like building a JavaScript calculator. The samples we ask that you complete closely resemble the type of work you'd do in the role.

When hiring engineers for example, we take a piece of our application, take a chunk out, then ask you to complete it.

If you're a major talent, it's maybe 2-3 hours of work.

If you were to circumvent this, or feel you "shouldn't have to do this", what message does that send to the rest of the team?

We're a remote, self-managing, and loosely structured group - would it be wise to suggest that you are to be treated differently than the rest of us?

It sends a poor message and reflects on the (entitled) attitude of the candidate.

Team work makes the dream work.

<comment><USER4> I think you guys will do great for junior folks (where a resume with little experience would be a hinderance traditionally) or perhaps people who are willing to jump through hoops to work from home, but I don't see it catching on (unfortunately?).

> If you were to circumvent this, or feel you "shouldn't have to do this", > what message does that send to the rest of the team?

Does everyone on your team get paid the same? If not, does that not send the same message? Is your HR process willing to let top talent go to a competitor who doesn't require such a test? (All real questions, not rhetorical)

<comment><USER2> We've had no issues attracting excellent and talented people. Most of them would be considered "senior".

You might be interested to hear that Juniors are the group most likely to be deterred by the sample. The (great) majority of candidates have backgrounds and capabilities up to or exceeding what we're asking them to do. We actually get very few under-qualified applicants.

The process appeals to people who appreciate a fair and objective approach to hiring as it demonstrates how we value those traits. We "set the tone" early by giving everyone an open and honest shake at proving their abilities, without the awkwardness of dealing with a biased human filter.

I don't agree with the premise of your salary comparison.

The process is willing to pass on candidates and wish them well if they aren't willing to take a test -- again, if it would be so "beneath" their skill and experience, that's a spooky indicator of attitude.

<comment><USER5> Or it may be an indicator of the attitude/shortsightedness of the hiring company.

From the candidate perspective, one way to assess the viability of the hiring strategy is imagine if most, or a significant number, of companies doing this. This eats significantly into each candidate's time, and edges the job seeking dynamic in favor of the companies, and against the candidate since the candidate is forced to value the cost of opportunity searching versus doing something else. This also dramatically would increase the stress of a job search - I experienced it first hand over the course of last year when a good portion of companies wanted projects done, all which would have totalled maybe 100 hours of extra work on top of everything else normally associated with interviewing.

This is not a sustainable balance for job seekers - ultimately this acts against most job seekers' self-interest. I'm fine with doing project-based tests ability/attitude-wise but this reasoning is why I pass up on them.

<comment><USER6> Anyone who could not only criticize but also resist straight up killing for the opportunity to work with the only and only grayfox is an anomaly. Either you are incredibly unaware, or on the next level of talented to not recognize this. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter, in which case, stop posting on HN, and start writing books. People need to hear your wisdom.

<comment><USER2> Fighting was the only thing... the only thing I was good at.

(That made my day, stranger, thank you).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Resumes, interviews, and referrals disproportionately favor the BSers, conversationalists, and the well-connected. No surprise that employers have buyers remorse. For how much emphasis companies put on hiring, I'm surprised there aren't better ways to identify diamonds in the rough.

<comment><USER8> Diamonds-in-the-rough are also a tremendous value. It's very cheap to hire someone that can't (or doesn't think that they can) get a job elsewhere. It really is surprising that more effort isn't spent trying to identify and hire them.

<comment><USER9> So isn't that just really a form of exploitation of someone's low self esteem, background, or career ignorance?

<comment><USER10> Everyone looking to get their start needs to start somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm always torn between appreciating guys like this for their good advice, and wanting to scream because the entire rest of the industry _still_ hasn't twigged to this gobsmackingly "water-is-wet" obvious fact. How can so many smart people be so deeply, enduringly stupid?

<comment><USER12> This used to wig me out a bit. We have people we turn down thank us for having a decent hiring process ... and I think what we have is a good philosophy with an imperfect implementation.

But it's actually really hard to do what we're doing. It's not hard in the "can I get a rocket to land itself?" sense, it's more of a grind and commitment problem. It's hard to spend the time developing a new position in a way that works with our process (2-3 weeks of work, minimum), it's tiring to keep up with people who apply, it's painful to fight for rigorous hiring criteria. I can see why places just go with the default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't seem to read it without subscribing or signing in..

<comment><USER2> Oddly, if you Google the article name, then click the first link, you can (temporarily) circumvent that pay wall.

<comment><USER14> as a note: if you click the web link above, it'll automatically google the title for you.</comment></comment></comment>


Ad targeters are pulling data from your browser's password manager - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/30/16829804/browser-password-manager-adthink-princeton-research <comment><USER2> Do most users of these plugins know that this is happening? Are these services free or paid?

> "The plugins focus largely on the usernames, but according to the > researchers, there's no technical measure to stop scripts from collecting > passwords the same way. The only robust fix would be to change how password > managers work, requiring more explicit approval before submitting > information. "

<comment><USER3> > Nearly every web browser now comes with a password manager tool, a > lightweight version of the same service offered by plugins like LastPass and > 1Password.

Pretty much everyone using a browser uses a password manager in some form, since the browsers' built in ones are included.</comment></comment>


Hue – Web interface for analyzing data with Apache Hadoop - <AUTHOR> http://gethue.com/

<comment><USER2> Voting for Hue</comment>


Create pdf files from any Documents.. - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdistance.com/2011/12/create-pdf-files-from-any-documents.html

<comment><USER2> I actually prefer PDFCreator (<http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/>) for this sort of task when I'm running Windows, though it seems that these both basically do the same thing.</comment>


Four Ballads of USS Thresher (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2013/04/four-ballads-of-the-uss-thresher/ <comment><USER2> I thought this Phil Ochs lyric was moving and thought-provoking:

      She'll always run silent
      And she'll always run deep
      Though the ocean has no pity
      Though waves will never weep

... but then I saw that at the end he goes for the unsubtle political club like Seeger:

      Oh can't you see the wrong?
      She was a death ship all along
      Died before she had a chance to kill
      And she'll never run silent
      And she'll never run deep
      For the ocean had no pity
      And the waves they never weep
      They'll never weep

Regardless of whether I share the sentiment, I don't like being told what to think.

</comment><comment><USER3> When we did our diving tests on the USS G.W. Carver, I didn't know about the Thresher. I might have been a lot more worried when we dove to test depth and blew our tanks to surface like a cork. What a ride!

<comment><USER4> Holy heck, Gold Crew patrols 57-65 here. Small world, indeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the same spirit, and in my opinion _much_ more powerful:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7aw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7aw)

The way that storm builds up in the music is incredible.</comment>


Docker Containers "Cheat Sheet" Now Available - <AUTHOR> http://developers.redhat.com/blog/2016/06/28/docker-containers-cheat-sheet-now-available/ <comment><USER2> Nice cheat sheet, but just know that you will be forced to join the RedHat Developer network (free) if you want a copy of it.</comment>


In The Age of Distraction, We Need One Thing More Than Ever: Books - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/in-the-age-of-distraction-books_b_883622.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This post, while thought provoking, doesn't directly say what I think of as the main point: many modern electronic devices are loaded with "interruption technology," while books are not. For example, a smartphone can interrupt you with various types of alerts, or encourage you to interrupt yourself by checking up on emails, text messages, etc.

In my own essay on this subject ([http://www.filterjoe.com/2011/05/06/smartphones-most- pervasi...](http://www.filterjoe.com/2011/05/06/smartphones-most-pervasive- interruption-technology/)), I propose the following simple solution:

Acknowledge your interruption device(s). Move it out of the way when you want to read on your designated reading device, whether it's a book, a Nook, a Kindle, or even an iPod touch.

Many people find reading on a designated electronic reading device is no more difficult than reading printed books. You just need to keep away the interruptions and distractions.

EDIT: fixed link

<comment><USER2> > Many people find reading on a designated electronic reading device is no > more difficult than reading printed books. You just need to keep away the > interruptions and distractions.

I don't own any particular electronic reading device, but I find that reading from a paper book gets me in a different mental state than reading from a computer. I believe this is a cultural bias because of my past experience with computers and books, but for me paper books still get me able to concentrate in a different way on what I'm reading.

I still have to try e-ink e-book readers, and see if I can rewire my mind to actually work in the same way as if I was reading a paper book. I've already tried with desktop and laptop computers, even turning off all distracting software, and couldn't achieve the same experience as with paper books.

<comment><AUTHOR> I too am unable to read a book on a computer or laptop. I've tried. While it is possible to get around distractions temporarily with readability tools, unplugging from the internet, etc., there are still 2 issues:

1) You're used to using your computer for many other things, so it's hard to avoid temptation.

2) Physical issues:

* Light emitting monitors are not natural for human eyes

* Monitor resolution is lower than print resolution

* Reading at a desk for long periods is uncomfortable

It's possible to read with small laptops, especially netbooks, away from a desk. But not anywhere near as easy as with an e-book reader or tablet, due to weight and bulk.

e-book readers like the Nook or Kindle are lightweight enough to be used anywhere. E-ink feels better on the eyes for many people and the resolution is pretty good (and for those who prefer LCD, the Color Nook or iPod touch can be used).

I've read lots of books on a Kindle 2, an iPod touch 4g, and lately the new Nook (Simple Touch). For me, all of these work fine for book length text.

EDIT: formatting</comment></comment></comment>


With 750K Paid Users, Evernote Brings In $18 Million A Year - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/08/with-750k-paid-users-evernote-brings-in-18-million-a-year/

<comment><USER2> They appear to be talking revenue, not profit, so I'm confused.

        Trying to do the math...
        750K x $60 = $45M, not $18M
        750K x $45 = $33M, not $18M
        750K x $5 = $3.7M, not $18M

So, they're not using monthly income data and they're not using annual either, apparently.

I guess we can assume that their average account life is 18/45 = 4.8 months?

<comment><USER3> It is possible that they are making $18M this year and just hit 750k users. In which case, growth is skewing things. So if they had 500k users a year ago, many of the new users might still be on monthly plans, without bring the account life down that low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using Evernote since 2007 or 2008, whenever it appeared (granted, with a non usage delay in between), and it is a great idea well executed. What's interesting is that many people forget that Evernote is also a powerful cloud plattform with a solid API. The ability to save all your notes in a standardized way in the Cloud and then install individual apps for filtering, processing, or managing them has huge potential.

I think we've only seen the beginning of where they'll go. In comparison to Dropbox mostly because Evernote as a whole is a bit more difficult to grasp.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a huge fan.

The headcount projection caused me to pause a bit. Tripling staffing to almost 400 people seems like a huge jump. I wonder what else they've got going on - it feels like a big number for it all just to be allocated solely against Evernote proper.

<comment><USER6> This Article: [http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company- of-...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company-of-the- year.html)

Has slightly more depth and seems to suggest that they are launching small semi-independent "studios" to work on other memory-related problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm kind of blown away that they needed $95m in VC to create a $18m/year company. They probably would have done better by investing in high-growth mutual funds.

<comment><USER8> Or they pulled in 18 million over the past year but their monthly revenue is now higher, and thus on a growth trajectory to pull in much more than 18 million next year.

This also doesn't include advertising revenue to their 20 million user base.

And it's a startup... so you know, the whole idea is that it might make more in the future. I know it is a lot of money, but they are supporting 20 million users & 8 million active.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's pretty huge. But how can they keep up the growth? I can't see the growth happening if they just target consumers. What can they do on the enterprise side?

<comment><USER10> What makes you think they've exhausted growth potential with consumers? What makes you think this isn't suitable for companies?

I don't really see your point.

<comment><USER9> I don't think this isn't suitable at all. I'm sorry if my questions seemed condescending but they were just questions. I'm interested in Evernote's plans for the future. That's all. Geez

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anybody else confused as to why "tripling his employee count" is a goal of Libin's? Not being snarky, just don't get why you'd want more chefs in the kitchen (unless they're building a few new apps or something)

<comment><USER5> Well, yeah - that's kind of what I was trying to point out earlier - I just was just afraid of coming across as snarky :)

I chalked it up to literary license on behalf of the writer - it doesn't seem like a rational business goal on its face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I used to be a paid user but then quit after their iPhone app crashed each time I wrote a note. They took forever to update to iOS5 and that seemed to cause their issues. In that period of time I found Orchestra and haven't seen a need for Evernote for me personally.

<comment><USER13> Note that this isn't directed at you personally, but rather towards the instant gratification culture at large:

I'm sorry, but "They took forever to update to iOS5"????

A quick google search shows that iOS5 was released on October 11th 2011. That makes it less than two months ago. In what world/dimension is 58 days "forever"?

Don't get me wrong, if you paying for a service, it should work, full stop, but complaining and saying that two months is forever trivializes your (valid) complaints.

<comment><USER14> The expectation in the iOS world is that developers work on updating their apps during the developer beta, and submit their updated apps shortly before release when Apple says to (October 5th in this case), and then Apple releases them to the store on Day 1.

In that context, 58 days is 57 days more than a lot of the competition.

Given THAT, it sure does look like Evernote released iOS 5 updates on Oct 4th, so this whole point is moot:

[http://blog.evernote.com/2011/10/04/evernote-for-ios- update-...](http://blog.evernote.com/2011/10/04/evernote-for-ios-update- improved-text-handling-checkboxes-ios-5-support-and-more/)

<comment><USER12> You're right, they did try. But unfortunately, it didn't work for me. I expected more from the "Number One Company in 2011"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why can't Credit/Debit Card have ID and Password like netbanking? - <AUTHOR> Whenever we wish to buy something online we have to search the wallet and see the info and type online.<p>Why can't companies like Visa, Mater Card, etc give ID Password facility for easy pay online? <comment><USER2> > Why can't companies like Visa, Mater Card, etc give ID Password facility for > easy pay online?

They already do. You can pay with a username and password, just like PayPal, or Amazon Pay, etc.

Visa Checkout: [https://usa.visa.com/pay-with-visa/visa- checkout.html](https://usa.visa.com/pay-with-visa/visa-checkout.html)

Masterpass: [https://masterpass.com/en-us/](https://masterpass.com/en-us/)

AMEX Express Checkout: [https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/express- checkout/](https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/express-checkout/)

It's up to merchants to accept and integrate them in their shopping carts.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can if you use a virtual credit card such as the one I was CTO of (Entropay / Ixaris).

But ID and password are not necessarily 'better' by many important metrics including ease of use and security, eg is entering such info into a PoS terminal, or your phone near one, easy and safe? At your desk is less of a challenge.

</comment><comment><USER4> Most Debit Cards in India require a PIN to verify the transaction on POS (and sometimes online as well, in case One Time Password doesn't work / not available) which actually makes sense.

Now, the same debit card (if international) would not require a pin/otp in case of transaction happening on a US payment gateway. Now, it really depends how banks (or the country) handles the credit/debit card transactions.

Here's a good read on why US has the least secure cards: [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/us- dete...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/us-determined- to-have-the-least-secure-credit-cards-in-the-world/473199/)

</comment><comment><USER5> There are tools to easily automate this process.

In fact, I would say it is too easy to automate this process, and there should be a standard way of requiring the user to perform some sort of interaction that can't be automated away. Of course, the user should be able to choose when this functionality is required, like for all purchases over a certain amount or something.</comment>


Show HN: HelpCenter.io – FAQ / knowledge base for every project - <AUTHOR> https://helpcenter.io <comment><AUTHOR> I've started the HelpCenter.io project with the main idea to provide an affordable solution for every solo entrepreneur or business to quickly create help centers for their app/service/product thus reap the benefits of having one. The app has recently went out of beta and we are up for releasing a new dashboard design and more great features this year.

Feel free to give it a try with our 14 days free trial which won't ask for payment details unless you decide to give us a chance. Many people ask why we don't have a free subscription plan and I would like to explain. There are few reasons for this and the most prominent one is "quality" — more specifically 2 types of quality.

First, the quality we want to provide. No business is able to persistently provide good service for free and even 1 customer has their operational costs. We are building a sustainable product and we can guarantee that we won't shut it down even if we only have 1 user.

Second, the quality of the websites being created with helpcenter.io. Anybody would like to be sure that their help center is in a good company, not surrounded by all kinds of crappy websites. We can provide such guarantee only when everybody has to pay for this service.

Hope you like what we are building and striving for. Looking forward for any feedback and ideas you might have.</comment>


Ask HN: How to quit the job you hate? - <AUTHOR> I want to quit the job I hate so much. I have been way too long on the same job (more than 10 years).
I have savings enough for 1+ year. But I am fucking afraid. What is the best strategy? Just jump out of the ship?
Should I look for another gig while being on the job? The whole idea of finding new job makes me sick. I am tired and don't look forward the job where I have to learn b/c I grew a little sick of programming in general. My current job kills the love to coding!
Ideas? <comment><USER2> You're burnt out. I'm in a similar situation so I decided to leave my job without any backup plan but my savings. I do have personal projects, things that I've always wanted to work on (lack of time and energy). I also plan to visit the people I appreciate in life for the next month or so.

I was working in the hottest company in the game. Landed an onsite to the 2nd hottest company in the game :-) when I was quitting. They contacted me in the first place and decided to bring me onsite without doing any phone screen. I cancelled everything last minute and didn't even show up. I was simply burnt out.

I'd say, the rule is much simpler than you think: life is short and you're unhappy. Your job is not to work for anyone. You're job in life is to make yourself happy no matter what it takes. Quitting could be the best think you could do right now. Don't be afraid. We're coders and everyone is looking for coders... do what you like!

<comment><USER3> I got this off of a post from someone else on HN:

Fuck working hard for people who don't care about you.

Fuck working hard for another dollar to spend impressing people who don't care about you.

But, when you find those things that are their own reward, then, work hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In general, it's easier to get a new job while you still have the old one (because potential employers usually prefer candidates who have jobs). It sounds like almost anything would be preferable to staying where you are, so why not put together your CV/resume and apply for a couple of things that look not-terrible locally. If nothing else, you'll get some interview practice and learn a bit more about what's available and what you're interested in.

I see from a comment that you're about to become a father. I moved jobs two weeks before that happened to me; as long as you're up front about needing the time off, a new employer should be fine about it. If they're not, that's a sign that you probably don't want to work for them anyway.

</comment><comment><USER5> >The whole idea of finding new job makes me sick.

Don't look for a job, look for people you can help.

Get out of your bubble. Start attending meet-ups, workshops, conferences. The more, the better. Find out who is doing interesting work, what problems are they trying to solve. Who might need someone with your experience and skill- set. The job opportunity will find you.

<comment><USER3> Spot on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whilst I don't know how's the job market where you are from, 1+ year savings should be more than enough to quit without fear (if it's not then you might want to consider why). You can take a break to regain your love for coding and to think what you want to do next. If you feel restless while on the break you can take courses or do some personal projects. Once you feel more refreshed you can start looking for a job with the right mindset. Don't leave it for the last minute, though.

You can obviously look for another job right now and just swap, that would be fine, too. But consider your current state of mind, which is due to your current job being so horrible. If you interview right now you might be nervous, more focused on getting out of there than finding a job you will really enjoy and thrive in. And that might not end well.

As a disclaimer, I will say that I've been in both situations and the first went better than the second (not that the second was terrible; simply not as good as the first). What I just wrote in the paragraphs above is me looking back and rationalising both outcomes.

Whatever path you choose, good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing your experience!

I think that not having fun (I know this is rough simplification) is terrible. What worries me is more that I have weird sadness in the evening when I have finished my work and have not touched any side project or did some learning. I don't have any energy for learning and that makes me feel worse...

<comment><USER6> Side projects are not mandatory, don't feel bad about not doing any if you can't.

Also, not all learning or your spare time has to be related to programming. Take a hobby that takes your mind off coding completely (I suppose your baby will take care of this :)). You know what they say: "you can't miss something if you never go away". It truly helps to disconnect now and then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An old co-worker of mine jumped ship in the way I wished I had. He had something like 16 or 17 days vacation, and he took every Friday off from September till the end of the year. He used those Fridays to look for new jobs and interviews.

</comment><comment><USER8> First, before you leave your current job write down your plan. I see you still love coding so it should not be too difficult to find a new job

Go to meetups in your area to get a clear view of the current tech landscape, look at firms you are interested in on linkedin/github. Also, get your resume/github/portfolio updated You could also take the consultancy route and start building applications for people. These involves doing a lot of handshaking, talking and marketing. If this is your thing by all means go for it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Life is too short to do what you hate. Either follow your dream or you'll work for someone else to build theirs. You're in control.

As cliche as all of that sounds, it is totally true. I fired a bunch of toxic clients last year and don't have savings. Screw it.

<comment><USER10> amen

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you have savings for 1+ year and have been more than 10 years on the same company, you'll probably be allowed to get a leave. You could get a 3 months, 6 months leave or whatever you feel like, to think your next movement, explore options of what you would like to do, maybe experiment with new technologies and start some side projects to see if you still like coding but you don't like your work, or if you don't like coding at all, maybe experiment with other areas of work, even do some courses. Then go back from the leave refreshed, probably with new skills and a new view of things.

By then you might have a better idea of what kind of job you would like to do, so you can start looking for another job while you still have a job (which is always good in terms of negotiating power).

<comment><AUTHOR> I am afraid to realise that 6 month of leave will not resurrect my passion for programming. But you are right, I should do it.

One thing which brings chaos into equation is that I am going to become a father in 5 months. This brings some emotional instability in my thinking. I am planning to take leave in 4-5 months.

Some part of me still has a hope that it can be solved without quitting the job...

<comment><USER11> Ok... then I think you should consider switching jobs before being a father... otherwise you'll probably not do it for at least the first year. Also, it's great that you take 4-5 months of leave when the baby comes but don't think you'll have much time then to explore technologies, etc I know because I have a 5 month old baby...

Also, consider that if you switch jobs you probably want to tell the new employer that you plan to have parental leave in 5 months, otherwise they might opose, being a new hire...

Unless you did freelancing of course, but if you currently don't have much love for programming I don't think that is a good option.

So you should consider, with your current knowledge and skills, and not enjoying programming, if you would enjoy better maybe being a software development manager, or a technical recruiter, or technical sales or business analyst?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It depends on your circumstances, but as someone who just jumped ship with some savings... it is much less stressful to get a new job first. I'd strongly suggest getting a new job before leaving! Even if it is one where you are underpaid: a consistent paycheck is very valuable.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for sharing your experience and thoughts. That gave me some insight.

</comment><comment><USER13> find another job first.</comment>


Julian Assange Hearing – Help Wanted - <AUTHOR> https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/03/julian-assange-hearing-your-help-wanted/ <comment><USER2> As an Australian I am ashamed that our government has left Assange out to dry. His actions and cause aside, letting one of your citizens effectively be tortured [0] is unacceptable.

0: [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/31/julian- assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/31/julian-assange- shows-psychological-torture-symptoms-says-un-expert)

<comment><USER3> Have you complained to your elected official?

<comment><USER2> Yes, and thank you for pointing that out. I encourage everyone to do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> He writes a bit confusing, but if I understand correctly, he wants help in the following:

\- Finding an information about what was the "the intention of parliament" passing the 2003 Extradition Act.

He writes: "I feel fairly confident that to get the Act through the Commons and especially the Lords, ministers will have been obliged to give some reassurance it was not intended to use it against peaceful political dissidents."

</comment><comment><USER5> Craig Murray's coverage of the Assange trial has been superb.

</comment><comment><USER6> I really wonder if he knew what he was getting into when he went down this path.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps he was one of the few people, who really had insight into how far the depravity of government and censorship really goes. So perhaps he knew or could have known.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> After only a few weeks of self-quarantine (which is nothing as I can still have most of my regular freedoms, going outside etc) its insane to think of what Julian has been put through.

It's getting to the point where even a mass murder has probably suffered less than this guy has and really, for hosting documents provided by whistle- blowers ?

<comment><USER9> Really? You don't think prison with tons of other hardcore criminals would be worse?

<comment><USER10> I don't know what Assange is experiencing. I haven't been paying attention. But I have heard from numerous criminal defense attorneys that pre-trial solitary can be _considerably_ worse than prisons with the "hardcore criminals".

As a recent example, the infamous Michael Avenatti, a purely white collar criminal, was being held at MCC New York (a jail that's literally downtown. It's crazy. Look it up). This is where El Chapo was held and where Epstein killed himself. At one point his attorneys begged the judge for relief as he was sleeping without any blankets in about 30F temperature, always in solitary, not allowed to have materials or even legal documents.

I imagine conditions in the UK _could_ be similar but I hope to God they aren't.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Looking for an html template for API? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a free html5 template that is well suited for APIs and one liners? Basically I have a product centered around one line commands in the terminal and would like to build a good introductory webpage.<p>something like heroku's cloud page with the terminal commands
https://www.heroku.com/ <comment><USER2> It does not have an exact API demo, but I think some of the stuff over at [http://www.startbootstrap.com](http://www.startbootstrap.com) would be well suited to your needs.

In particular this one, [http://startbootstrap.com/sb- admin-v2](http://startbootstrap.com/sb-admin-v2), could be a good start. It is made with all bootstrap styles and easily changeable and extensible.

</comment><comment><USER3> Like [http://daux.io/](http://daux.io/)?

Also, check out embedcurl.com

<comment><AUTHOR> yes something like embedcurl</comment></comment>


Yahoo to Acquire BrightRoll - <AUTHOR> http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/102392414764/yahoo-to-acquire-brightroll <comment><USER2> 1\. I have heard that Brightroll does have many talented individuals , few even joined from Google. How do they see this acquisition ? Anyone from Brightroll also on HN can comment ? Excited , nervous ? Worried about culture change ?

2\. Yahoo does have long history of getting acquihires and then shutting down the application. Now brightroll is quite big acquisition ( 400 employees ) to shut it down completely. Yahoo might consider re-org though.

Does anyone have number how many employees Yahoo has laid off this year (2014 )? I am getting business insider article saying Yahoo has laid off at least 1000 since MM took over as CEO [0] ?

3\. I am interested in knowing how No Work from Home policy is going to be seen by Brightroll ?

4\. Do you think MM have some strategy she is following or is this just let's spend all money we got from $BABA ?

Do surface painting to please investors , acquire another company, lay off few more followed by rinse and repeat until cash is spent or something concrete happens ?

I have invested in Yahoo for 4 years now but considering whether I should hold or sell by stock. I would love to hear what others think about Brightroll . In general is this acquisition good or bad ?

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-quietly- cut-100...](http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-quietly- cut-1000-jobs-at-yahoo-2013-6)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yahoo has a lot of cash to burn from the Alibaba acquisition. Here are my completely outside guesses as to who they acquire:

\- Adroll

\- SayMedia

\- Tapjoy

\- InMobi

<comment><USER4> YouTube

<comment><USER3> Youtube is worth $30B+ by todays market standards. Google made a great move buying them 8 years ago

<comment><USER4> Yes and yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For those who are curious: looks like they paid $640mm

<comment><USER6> Can you point to the source? With net revenues of >100M it looks like they could have just IPO. 6X revenues seems low.

<comment><USER7> most of the public video ad companies have fallen substantially

<comment><USER8> Yeah you're right, Tremor video is trading about dollar for dollar, revenue to market cap at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How many employees does Brightroll have?

<comment><USER10> approximately 400 employees[1]

[1] [https://investor.yahoo.net/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=88227...](https://investor.yahoo.net/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=882270)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What does youtube use for video advertising?

<comment><USER12> you're kidding, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> as a brightroll stock holder.. any news on how they were bought? stock deal/cash or mix?

<comment><USER14> Per Yahoo's Investor Relations Press Release ([https://investor.yahoo.net/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=88227...](https://investor.yahoo.net/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=88227...)), "Yahoo is acquiring BrightRoll for approximately $640 million in cash. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions."

<comment><USER13> thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Breakfast is the most important meal of the day - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679722/the-data-that-proves-breakfast-is-the-most-important-meal-of-the-day

<comment><USER2> What utter tosh. Those 'data' prove nothing of the sort.</comment>


Show HN: TimeQ, time tracking and invoicing software for freelancers - <AUTHOR> https://timeq.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! I built this after trying some of the mainstream solutions. Some of them tried to do too much for me, while others didn't combine tracking+invoicing, or were too expensive imho. I created it for myself and after a few months using it, I'd like to make it public.</comment>