The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet - <AUTHOR> https://www.worth.com/inside-the-race-to-build-the-first-sustainable-supersonic-jet/ <comment><USER2> In my opinion it is disingenuous to call any supersonic aircraft sustainable. Independently of any clever aerodynamic design to moderate the drag coefficient, aerodynamic drag always increases like the velocity squared. Doubling the speed will mean applying 4x the force for 1/2 the time, so all propulsive efficiencies being equal, you will expend twice the fuel to go the same distance - at an absolute minimum. In reality engine efficiencies decrease at high-speeds, and you won't be able to completely eliminate the Mach 1 "barrier" (drag peak), or design an aircraft that is equally efficient in takeoff/landing... so the factor will be bigger than that. But x2 fuel consumption is a hard lower bound.

I don't believe this can be called sustainable. Air transport is already a major contributor to CO2 emissions. We as a civilization badly need significantly _more_ efficient ways to fly, not _less_ efficient ways. To even slightly suggest that this might be helping the environment is deplorable.

Also, air transport is already miraculous. Going around the world in a day is not enough for you? Really? Buy a book.

<comment><USER3> Nope, air transportation is not a major contributor to CO2.

There are over 100,000 flights daily. They account for about 2.5% of CO2 emissions yearly.

You know what is? Coal power plants that generate electricity.

Maybe we should focus on electricity generation from coal. I'm a little surprised that more hasn't been done.

[https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power- plants](https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants)

13 years ago Google attempted their RE<C project.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/30/why-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/30/why- google-stopped-trying-to-make-renewable-energy-cheaper-than-coal/)

<comment><USER4> Air transportation is a major contributor to CO2, if you limit the scope to the people who use it. It is estimated that about 80% of the world's adults have never taken a flight, and 94% of the world's adults have not taken a flight in over a year.

So, the real picture is that this 2.5% of global CO2 emissions are caused by as few as 6% of the population, who also are incidentally the richest and bear a high personal carbon footprint in other domains than transportation.

EDIT: I'll add to this that the aviation sector is growing, and therefore its global contribution to GHG emissions will grow as well in the future. Discounting the carbon footprint of the aviation sector based on today's numbers is a mistake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was surprised the article didn't mention Boom, which is targeting the business-class airliner tier. Their value proposition is different, and closer to Concorde: no plans for 'boomless' supercruise, but also vastly higher supersonic cruise at Mach 2.2. They haven't started constructing their airliner yet (named Overture) but XB-1, their supersonic demonstrator and testbed, is in fabrication right now.

<comment><USER6> It's clearly a submarine ([http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)) article. The article is so light, and so full of hot air, that it practically advocates for balloon travel, not supersonic flight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Feels like a losing battle against physics, combined with it only being really valuable in a single direction.

Overnight flights from east coast to EU are late enough that they don't impact productive time, and largely get in early enough for a full day of work.

Making that flight shorter - as anyone who's done a DEN-NYC redeye will tell you - doesn't actually help productivity.

Sure, on the return flight, it would be great to shave a couple hours off, but on the way there, with the time changes required, faster doesn't so much help with productivity. Especially with inflight internet these days.

<comment><USER8> Sounds like you only fly first class. Have you ever flown 10+ hours in economy and felt ready for work (or even vacation) stepping off the plane?

<comment><USER9> This will be a private jet, and they are pretty expensive. Apparently flying in a Bombardier Learjet costs something like $7000/hour [1], while a first- class ticket is more like $1000/hour.

[1] [https://www.aircharterserviceusa.com/about-us/news- features/...](https://www.aircharterserviceusa.com/about-us/news- features/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charter-a-private-jet)

<comment><USER10> > while a first-class ticket is more like $1000/hour.

I usually pay like 160eur/hour for top tier F products like the Emirates A380.

I just paid a little over 4000 euros for a 32h round trip with that particular offering. I don't chase after deals, I just tend to depart from a city without many F pax.

Of course, YMMV.

<comment><USER11> This doesn't seem possible - I have never seen first tickets that cheap from anywhere to anywhere. Can you provide a few example routes?

<comment><USER12> Most Emirates long haul flights departing from AMS,BCN or MXP seem to be that cheap, I'm sure there are other cheap airports but I'm too lazy to look. This is probably the case with all the euro airports that don't charge super high fees and lack large quantities of F pax.

I'm seeing MXP-HKG at 4000eur for a round trip, MXP-BKK for 3800eur. There are probably even better deals available if departing from some third world countries.

I guess you're from the UK, I'm seeing BHX-HKG priced at around 151GBP/hr. Shockingly, LHR-HKG looks even cheaper at somewhere around 100GBP/hr.

<comment><USER7> I think you're seeing corona virus at work. Those F tix are usually more from what I've seen.

<comment><USER10> I was paying those prices last year. Only the LHR rates there seem highly unusual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think contrary to what people think, Supersonic jets is actually sustainable from a physics perspective. One of the things I'm most excited about is active flow controls on planes. The whole idea is to dynamically create laminar seperation at strategic locations. The effects of this is pretty astounding. It can drastically minimize the drag of the plane and can be also used as flight controls. I can't remember the exact year but NASA did a presentation about this and project the technology to become more prevalent by 2035. Another thing NASA is working on is to use the same jet technology to create perturbations in the wake of the plane to minimize the noise from the Sonic boom.

</comment><comment><USER14> I flown many long haul flights. The first time I heard Musk propose using rockets for international travel I thought it was insane. I still do. But if they are accident free for the next 10 years; would I then? Probably - if they could manage to keep my trip under ~3Gs.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I wonder, would a suborbital ballistic trajectory save fuel compared to chugging along in the atmosphere?

If this were to become common, would need some thinking how to distinguish this from a ballistic missile attack, though.

<comment><USER16> Even in conventional aircraft a parabolic flight plan (the vertical path) is optimally efficient, all other things being equal.

In practice it'd be a nightmare to separate traffic. Additionally it'd increase the pilot workload significantly considering the cruise phase of flight is typically the "ahh, I'll order some coffee from back" time as the primary duties then are (a) monitoring aircraft state (i.e., scanning the gages) and, (b) changing the radio frequency each time the flight moves into a new sector and checking in with ATC.

[me: aircraft dispatcher for a US carrier in a previous life]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One thing they got wrong in the article was on profits - whilst the Air France operation struggled, the British Airways Concorde operation was profitable, especially when they did research that showed most people thought seats on Concorde were more expensive than they actually were.

</comment><comment><USER18> The only way this thing could be honestly sustainable would be if it were hydrogen-powered.

That might also be a prerequisite for profitability. But the airframe would need to be quite different from current designs because hydrogen tankage needs a lot more room than kerosene fuel would. Extra space on an aircraft is fairly cheap to provide. What is difficult is more weight, including extra fuel needed to get enough range at higher speed. Hydrogen fuel fixes that by having 3x energy per kg.

<comment><USER19> Methane is a more than viable alternative and there are a few others. Of course for both we'd need infrastructure to generate it from renewable energy (as opposed to extracting using or extracting hydrogen from natural gas). In terms of energy density, methane is good enough for space flight. E.g. the spaceX raptor engines burn methane. The long term plan for SpaceX is to use renewable energy to generate methane; which as solar & wind cost drops, might actually become cheaper than using natural gas. On Mars this will actually be the only way to generate methane as there is no natural gas there.

Even just switching to natural gas would already be more sustainable as it burns a lot cleaner and there's less need for energy intensive processing of crude oil to produce kerosine (not to mention shipping oil around the globe using oil tankers & trucks powered by bunker & diesel fuel). Kerosine is nasty stuff in terms of sustainability.

So, there's a path to 0 carbon for jets (supersonic and otherwise). Even compressed natural/synthesized methane gas is viable for GA and there have been some prototype planes for that. For jets, you'd want the cryogenically cooled liquid variety because it's easier to store (lighter tanks).

Of course this would require the usual suspects to get off their ass and start innovating. E.g. Boeing had some plans for this [https://www.wired.com/2012/03/boeing-freezes-design-with- liq...](https://www.wired.com/2012/03/boeing-freezes-design-with-liquid- natural-gas-powerd-airliner/) but not much seems to be happening. In light of Boeing's recent trouble with the 737 Max, this might be worth revisiting for them. Also the blended wing concept that Airbus demoed recently would apparently be quite good for holding liquid methane tanks. Also a 60% reduction in fuel cost sounds like it should be a nice incentive.

I wouldn't be surprised to see SpaceX pivot to producing jet engines at some point as it's an obvious thing to do and they seem to have a lot of competence around the logistics and technology involved with generating, handling, storing, and burning methane.

In any case, SpaceX is already doing supersonic flights powered by methane every time they launch a Falcon 9 and they have some wacky notion of actually using their spaceship to enable 90 minute hops to the other side of the planet.

Guilt free sustainable supersonic travel is possible but it requires people to start thinking out of the box. IMHO the first aviation company that nails this is going to do extremely well.

<comment><USER20> > Methane is a more than viable alternative

Is it?

[https://www.sightline.org/2019/02/12/methane-climate- change-...](https://www.sightline.org/2019/02/12/methane-climate-change- co2-on-steroids/)

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191216140715.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191216140715.htm)

[https://www.livescience.com/52715-natural-gas-not-as- clean-a...](https://www.livescience.com/52715-natural-gas-not-as-clean-as- people-think.html)

We're already coming to the conclusion that electric cars aren't that clean so when I hear about carbon neutral supersonic planes I kind of feel like I'm in a bad dream.

<comment><USER19> You make a good argument why synthesized methane is a great alternative to natural gas.

Also, electric cars are way cleaner than ICE vehicles over their life-time. I don't think there's any dispute about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What about Boom Supersonic? They are partnering with Prometheus fuels that pulls carbon out of the air and turns it into fuel and also focusing on a commercial jet rather than private. There isn't even any mention of sustainability other than in the title of this article.

<comment><USER22> This definitely read to me like a paid (by Aerion) puff piece. No surprise there's no mention of competitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The CO2 emissions argument is easily resolved: just price tickets high enough that journeys can be made carbon negative.

</comment><comment><USER24> The race to spend excess liquidity injected by central banks: a bubble story.</comment>


Ask HN: What is a typical day for you at your job? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm Stanley Employee #427 A typical day at work :-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBtX0S2J32Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBtX0S2J32Y)</comment>


An Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning - <AUTHOR> http://www.yudkowsky.net/bayes/bayes.html?repost <comment><AUTHOR> I'm very interested in applying theory or formula to "real life". PG used this to handle spam. What other types of things could Bayesian reasoning be used for?

<comment><USER2> The possibilities are endless. Replace the phrase, "Bayesian reasoning" in your sentence with a subject that you know well. Say, Calculus for example.

Do you see why your question is hard to answer? Don't feel bad, we all get excited when we hear about a new cool tool that promises to solve XYZ. Java (back when it was new), wavelets, Bayesian analysis, RoR, etc.. Consider two extreme options:

1) Find a problem you want to solve, and then figure out what tools will help you solve the problem.

2) Learn a tool really well, and then start applying it to problems. (grad school is really good for this.)

If you really want to do (2) with Bayesian analysis, look at this post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14540> . Either path requires lots of effort, but both can be rewarding.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you tell that your app is going to require a subscription? - <AUTHOR> TL;DR: We've started to promote our product and received a lot of attention, but without mentioning that it's going to require a monthly subscription. How would you talk about the subscription without generating a lot of disappointment?
We're currently working on a service to help speech therapists which is also have an app. We're planning to start our beta next month, so we've started to spread the word about the product this week.
Our strategy was to talk about some of the features  of our product, together with useful content for our public to start generating some interest and nurture it until the launch date.
Unexpectedly, we've received a lot of attention (actually the amount expected for a month in a week) and a lot of people are sending us messages to ask about the product. This is great, but I'm worried that a lot of people might get disappointed as soon as we start sharing more details with them, as we haven't mentioned, yet, that the service is supposed to require a monthly subscription (+- US$9).
How would you manage their expectations in order to introduce the paid plan without a lot of disappointment?
Some background:
* We're based in Brazil. I don't know if it's something which only happens in here, but people seems to always assume that apps are free. <comment><USER2> Here is an email I received from rollbar.com when they announced price increases. I was impressed enough how they chose their words to save the email.

        Your account is on a plan from prices that we set back in February 2015. Back then, we were 5 people in a San Francisco coworking
        space trying to figure out if what we were building was going to be useful to anyone other than our early adopters.

        Over the past year and a half, we've learned a ton about just how valuable Rollbar can be, how it fits into the modern
        software development lifecycle, and where it can go. Tangibly, we have:

          * Grown our full-time staff over 3x, from 5 people to 17
          * Hired dedicated support staff
          * Released and improved countless features, including SSO, 2-factor
            auth, and tons of integrations

        ... and we're extremely excited to keep working on our mission—to help developers build and maintain software, quickly and
        painlessly—for many years to come. To have the resources to do that, we need to adjust our prices to better reflect the
        value that Rollbar can provide, and we hope that you'll stick with us on this journey.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your help, mtmail! They really know how to communicate. Maybe the path really is through transparency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If most - or all - of your users are Brazilian, then I'm afraid you'll have a hard time. People here don't realize the value in software/apps.

Offer a full month trial to your existing userbase, and 1 week trial to new users. The Rollbar email is a great example on how transparency can go a long way. Consider offering different pricing plans with different set of features. Power users are more likely to pay more, and casual users can continue using limited features at a smaller price.

Also, as much as I agree with traskjd comment, I don't think it holds true to Brazil. You probably know what I'm talking about. I'm afraid the strategy here must be "price as cheap as you can", unless you are dealing with a very special audience (or with enterprises).

I'm happy to know how this turns out. Consider sharing a blog post with your experience :) Good luck / boa sorte.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, unfortunately I have the same perception as you have about how they (although I'm a brazilian myself) value apps and online services here.

The income of my target audience seems to be around US$10100/year (or R$32500). That's fairly low to make me consider if, even if providing a lot of value, they'd be wiling to pay a premium fee for the service.

On the other hand, I have a niche audience (not more than 10k people in Brazil) so, pricing it too low could make the product unsustainable.

I really appreciate your help and be sure that I'm gonna share the results of all this thing.

Thank you very much, napsterbr! Brigadão. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would expect speech therapists to want to pay for the app, speech therapy apps and apps for doctors in the states are usually pretty pricey.

I wouldn't expect any medical office to balk at $9/mo . . . if anything you should raise the price, that seems too inexpensive. I'd do three plans $49, $99 and $199 depending on features/levels you can offer or maybe per doctor/staff/patient depending on your app.

Do you have Hipaa style privacy laws regarding electronic medical records in Brazil? That usually commands a premium here so same app for non-medical $99/mo for medical $199/mo.

[https://www.appointmentreminder.org/pricing](https://www.appointmentreminder.org/pricing)

I think you're pricing too low, if it provides value speech therapists are going to expect to pay for it.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now I'm not sure whether I'm being too pessimistic or just if we're really very poor in here. hahaha

Actually, doctors usually make a lot of money (at least US$70k/year) here in Brazil if compared to other careers but, unfortunately, it doesn't seems to be the same for speech therapists (most of them won't make more than US$15k/year).

I really like your price anchoring and completely agree with you but, at the same time, I'm also afraid to scare my audience. hahahah

As soon as I have any results about this thing, I'm gonna blog about it and share here!

Thank you very, very much for you help and attention, saluki!

<comment><USER4> y, if they are at a lower salary you would have to keep the price lower . . . maybe try an introductory price for those already interested at $9/mo and increase that to $19/mo after 30 days . . . and see if signups keep coming in. Or maybe you're on the mark and charge $9/speech therapist, not sure if they typically work one on one with a group of patients or if they work for a clinic where you'd have 10 therapists under one main speech therapist. maybe do individual plans at $9 and then office plans for up to 15 at $99 or up to 25 at $199/mo contact us for larger plans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hope it helps, but I wouldn't worry about it. Give a trial so they can test it out. If people are disappointed, then they weren't likely to be your target market anyway (especially if they assume the apps are free!)

I'd also suggest charging more than $9 a month. I appreciate there's a currency difference between the US & Brazil, however that's really not a lot of money. Consider the human support side alone. One question from each customer would likely take months to recover the cost of (and that's after you paid to acquire them, and provide the service).

Just my 2c, but hope it helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> It definitely helps, traskjd! You really got me thinking by mentioning the effort necessary to provide support. Initially I thought that the whole service is kind of self-explanatory but we're receiving a flood of questions about the product without even have launched it yet. Imagine when they all start using it.

I'm only afraid to scare them by pricing it too far from their expectations, but you really have a good point!

Your help was very important. Thank you very, very much! :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lead in with a free month, if you provide value they should hopefully convert.

<comment><AUTHOR> __crossed fingers __. hahahhah</comment></comment>


Ares Drone Kickstarter – Finally, a drone everyone can fly - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aresdrones/ares-finally-a-drone-everyone-can-fly

<comment><AUTHOR> Ares Drones has produced a simple easy to use drone that flies by using your finger to draw.

We have paired this cutting edge drone and IOS technology with stunning HD and 4K cameras to produce a line of products unlike any other.

Aerial photography and videography has never been so simple.

Please checkout the Ares Drones Kickstarter.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aresdrones/ares- finally...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aresdrones/ares-finally-a- drone-everyone-can-fly)

And for further information about Ares Drones checkout

[http://www.aresdrones.com/](http://www.aresdrones.com/)

Thanks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Atmel Corporation mentions us in their blog. again, just scroll down a bit.

[http://blog.atmel.com/2015/03/27/12-smart-crowdfunding- campa...](http://blog.atmel.com/2015/03/27/12-smart-crowdfunding-campaigns- you-may-want-to-back-this-week-2/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ares Drones makes Kickstarter Tech Weekly Blog; just need to scroll down a bit to see us.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/tech-weekly-cookies-and- cac...](https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/tech-weekly-cookies-and-cache)</comment>


An Introduction to Redex with Abstracting Abstract Machines - <AUTHOR> http://dvanhorn.github.io/redex-aam-tutorial/# <comment><AUTHOR> This was posted once before by HN user 'ingve' but didn't get much attention [1]. Though the most recent and largest (39 pages) JFP paper, " _Systematic Abstraction of Abstract Machines_ ", is probably the best version to read, the earlier " _Abstracting Abstract Machines_ " may also be helpful. There's also a CACM highlight version of " _Abstracting Abstract Machines_ " that's only 8 pages. All of these papers are available.

\- " _Systematic Abstraction of Abstract Machines_ " from JFP 2012 (39 pages)

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.3539](http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.3539)

\- " _Abstracting Abstract Machines_ " from ACM ICFP, 2010, (12 pages)

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4446](http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4446)

[http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2014/cmsc631/papers/vanhorn-...](http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2014/cmsc631/papers/vanhorn- aam.pdf)

\- " _Abstracting Abstract Machines_ " from CACM highlight 2011 (8 pages)

[http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/dvanhorn/pubs/vanhorn-might- cacm...](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/dvanhorn/pubs/vanhorn-might-cacm11.pdf)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10963677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10963677)

<comment><USER2> Oh thanks, that looks pretty interesting, and will distract from shitposting on random pop-science/political quasi-journalism articles for a while. It seems that it was the purpose of HN, but I'm not sure anymore.

However, it is unfortunately hard to make relevant comments on such articles. As the introduction says, it's pretty quick to set everything up (just one apt-get away), the clean racket syntax allows to define a calculus very neatly, but that's a far cry from being able to say much about it. I think I'll try to follow the tutorial with a classical calculus (λμ) and see how that turns out, but that's going to take some time. So here goes "This was posted once before by HN user 'ingve' but didn't get much attention".

<comment><AUTHOR> The types and quality of stories on HN are like the tides; it regularly varies. One of the goals for HN is to have a good, balanced mix of interesting stories. Due to voting, populist stuff will surface, but HN still has an appreciation for heavy-weight, time-intensive articles.

Some truly great stories get few, if any, comments. If a post requires effort or specialized knowledge to even ask good questions, then there isn't much discussion. This happens a lot when academic papers are posted since reading a paper might require a multi-hour investment, but even when there is little discussion, it's good to have heavy articles submitted. They balance out the other stuff.

If you find something great-but-overlooked in the /newest queue, then send an email to email@example.com asking for a repost request to be sent to the original submitter. That's what I did with this article, but Dan (dang) asked me to repost it myself. Neither 'ingve' nor I care who gets the credit/karma, but a lot of people want great articles to get attention on HN.

HN is what we make it.

<comment><USER2> >HN is what we make it.

Exactly, and certainly there are other people who would like to see more of that in first page, but you just can't bash useful comments, so even with good intentions you can be part of the problem (talking for myself).

Thank you for this comment, and again for resubmitting this.

<comment><USER3> The best thing to do about this is to find such articles and submit them. As jcr pointed out, HN has both moderation and software to try to give these than one chance at the front page. (See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10705926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10705926) and the other links there.) That's what happened in the present case, for example. But for this to work, users need to find the stories and post them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Discover, Organize, and Share books with Bookhuddle (A social networking and book-reference site) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bookhuddle.com

<comment><USER2> I looked at it for 30 seconds, didn't figure out why I'd want to switch over from shelfari and left.

I think you should make it much easier for people who arrive at your website understand why they should stay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. In your opinion, what would convince you to want to switch over to Bookhuddle or any other service?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Explain your product in one 7/8 words sentence or less. Cut that blue text and paragraph below it.

2\. Give people an reason to upload photos. At your competitors site, I clicked on the pretty bookworm's pic.

3\. Sort the pictures with a female bias (I'm guessing they're the target), rather than by "new members". You'll get more women _and_ men.

4\. Sort books by popularity of discussion rather than "newness". Draw people into the discussion.

5\. The design doesn't feel friendly. Again, assuming women are your demographic make the site "warmer".

Goodreads is one competitor, how will you distinguish yourself?

Finding this problem was easy, implementing the solution the right way is much harder. Right on, with the FB integration.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a potential for your site, but your site does not seem like it gives me immediate value. I have simple needs:

1\. I want an easy way to add books I liked 2\. I want recommendations on new books based on those 3\. I want to be able to recommend books to my sister (and only my sister), and I want her to be able to recommend books to me

It's not clear if your site does this, and it looks too complicated anyways, so I decided not to sign-up. I'm looking for absolute simplicity that does just what I want, and all other features are hidden away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. On Bookhuddle, you can easily add books that you like to your list, simply search for the book and click "add to list" and select the list you wish to add it to. You can also tag the book and tagging with one of the predefined tags automatically adds the book to the related book list.

You can also recommend books to anyone within or outside Bookhuddle, simply click on the "Recommend to friends" link on the book detail page or any search result page.

The Activity Feed is also a great way to discover books through your friends. When they interact with a book (write a review, participate in discussion, add to a list, etc), you find out.

<comment><USER4> You don't get it, do you? I can do these things by using email and notepad. But it's not convenient. It's the same with your site. It does not fit my intended usage, but does this as a side effect, and so your site is not convenient either.

And please stop talking like a PR or salesletter and start talking like a person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> lapsed-cannibal I like to keep track of the books I've read, but up til now I've just been using flat files stored hither and yon in various dark and unfindable corners of my hard drive. The system on bookhuddle is much, _much_ nicer, themed lists integrated with the tagging system. I'm in the process of building up my lists. Tagging infrastructure makes this really easy, and in going through the process I've already come across (and tagged) several books that seem right up my alley. The ability to subscribe to other people's lists is key. Very cool app.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We thank everyone for the honest feedback, that is exactly what we are looking for. We understand that everyone has an opinion, a point of view, and a set of expectations and we appreciate you sharing yours with us.

Any company faces lots of challenges and constraints while pursuing its vision. Prioritizing and executing on the things that will get the company there are the hard part. We understand and accept that and are excited to try to create a great service to help readers discover, organize, and share book information.

<comment><USER4> Where do people learn to speak this way? Why can't you just be Bob and say things in english without using words like 'challenges', 'constraints', 'excited' and other such fluffy words?

Just tell me what I want to know and stop trying to market me a free product.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

Bookhuddle is a social network and book reference site created to help people discover, organize, and share book information. With Bookhuddle, members can:

* discover new books quickly and easily (new releases, top seller, most recommended, most listed, recommendations from friends, updates through activity feed, and more)

* organize and manage their reading lists and personal library

* share opinions through reviews, ratings, discussion, run or join a book club.

If you are a reader, Bookhuddle is for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> A while ago I tried out various facebook applications to list books, but none of them make it possible to organize reading lists and subsets of your collection, and so on. If you plan on making a bookhuddle Facebook app, I think that would be really useful to a lot of people.

Also, you may have added this already but RSS feeds for users' lists or for all activity from a user, would be a great addition to this site.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's in the plan. In the meantime, on Bookhuddle you can organize your books in lists such as read, reading, to read, favorite, and own, or create any number of lists to help you organize your books.

Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> make a way for users to avoid seeing books that they already read. For me at least Amazon recommendation is pretty useless now, since for Science Fiction I already read all of the books that they recommend.

Go deeper into the categories. Amazon for example stops at Space Opera. But that's still a very large genre. Let users tell you what kind of features the specific space opera has. i.e. Alternate Reality? Space Battles? Technical Technology descriptions? You know REALLY research the book genres so that you can improve your recommendation system. Someone who likes light sci-fi will probably HATE technical sci-fi that spends 4 pages describing how a certain thing works.

Spend a few books to have nicer images made. I mean those 3 images really make the site look cheap.

</comment><comment><USER7> Too much text on the home page.. most users will read only a few words if they don't know what the site is they'll leave.

p.s this niche has been done a few times I suggest letting users know right away why yours is better.

</comment><comment><USER8> This could be really useful in addition to the amazon reviews when book shopping. Looks clean, easy to use, and extremely responsive. Setting up an account to give it a test drive.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks very much like a plain amazon affiliate page for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> goodreads.com is doing something similar. it's worth checking them out.

</comment><comment><USER11> Spam?

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe you will not want my feedback.

I don't like the design on the front page. You need to redesign the front page by starting completely from scratch and thinking minimal. This site looks like it was a barge where you just kept piling on whatever would fit wherever until you had a full page to launch. Don't show 5 new member photos on the front page when members don't add photos. I really don't like the hyperlink blue color that is on text that isn't hyperlinked.

Look. I'm sorry. It looks like you worked hard on it. And I love reading. But, it's 2008. We're almost a decade into the 21st century. I want to be able to take a batch of picture of my books bar codes and upload them and have it generate the list of my books automatically. Then, I want to be able to rate my books, easily, like on netflix, and get new recommendations based on that, and a list of local friends that might have the same taste in books. I want to say what books I would loan out, and be able to trade and loan books locally with other people who like similar books. I want it to suggest people and reading for book clubs automatically and well. Like "There are 20 people in your area we think would like reading The Cat in the Hat. Would you be interested in joining with some of them to read this as a book club?" You just don't have anything that seems compelling to me.

This just seems like something out of the 20st century. It's the 21st century. Go eat some psychedelic mushrooms and lie back and absorb that we're a decade into the 21st century. Vision, people. Is this really the best you can bring to the 21st century? All human history happened so you could create the 20 things on that front page that distract each other for my divided attention? Where is the vision?

<comment><USER13> "I want to be able to take a batch of picture of my books bar codes and upload them and have it generate the list of my books automatically. Then, I want to be able to rate my books, easily, like on netflix, and get new recommendations based on that, and a list of local friends that might have the same taste in books. I want..."

Fair suggestions, but who's to say that's what these guys are trying to be? From what I gather they're a meeting place for those who like to read. I was able to quickly gather that from their homepage.

To be fair, it sounds like you're taking up a different discussion (Founders' Vision and the Web 2.0 Phenomenon) with these guys caught in your crosshairs. The fact is, we don't know what they're trying to become. Maybe they'll evolve into those features you mentioned... it's believable. But they're nascent, and it's their job today to release quick and iterate fast as per user suggestions.

They've done that (that's why they're here on HN). Why nitpick the details of their "vision" so early on?

<comment><USER12> Because they asked for feedback, and that's the big problem I see. It's not that I'm nitpicking at the details of their vision, it's that I think they don't have any vision.

If you want to build a 21st century place for people to meet around reading, those are the kind of features I think you need. If you ask me what I think of your website, I'm going to tell you. I like to think big picture and design, so I'm going to focus on that. In this case I noticed nothing compelling from a big picture perspective, so I focused on that.

Besides, on the post I came from, the person who owns the website said "Bookhuddle is a social network and book reference site created to help people discover, organize, and share book information." So it's quite relevant to say how a social network and reference site created to help people... should actually look like in the 21st century.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pancake.io, simple CMS in your Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://pancake.io

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to share some information with a friend. Google Docs felt too heavyweight for what I had in mind, since the document was basically a text file, and he only needed read access. I also wanted to be able to update the file, so emailing it was out of the question.

As a result, I built Pancake, which lets me turn text files in my Dropbox account into static webpages, processed using Markdown. It works wherever Dropbox does: I can edit the text file right on my desktop or on my phone (using Nebulous Notes), and the changes are instantly synced to the page.

I've only been at it for about a week and a half, and would love to hear your feedback!

Sample page: <http://pancake.io/tp/sus2011> (my (very incomplete) startup school notes from last Saturday)

ps. This is a bit of a repost, since I posted it earlier without having my Dropbox developer account approved for production (but deleted the post as soon as I realized it)

</comment><comment><USER2> I signed up last week, and I am looking forward to seeing it work.

It's kind of what I've been looking for, the ability to directly edit simple web pages in emacs and push them out with very little cognitive overhead.

<comment><USER2> So I logged in using my name/passwd from hawk.

The various pages you have, files, settings, ... don't give much indication I am logged in, they do offer me the logout, but they don't identify the account name, ja2038, so it's hard to know if I am logged in or not

It's not clear what the url to my pages is. I tried: <http://pancake.io/$name> but it would just redirect to <http://pancake.io/dropbox>. I would suggest each page (file, settings, etc.) should include my account name, and the basic url to my files.

Is the folder to be created in dropbox called pancake, or pancake.io? It's not clear from the files page, and no folders were created.

Have you played with the chrome extension SourceKit? It seems like a natural complement to Pancake.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you about indicating logged-in status. I'll try to put it in by the end of today.

I'm sure you've seen it by now, but generally it takes a moment for the folder to be created, in ~/Dropbox/Apps/Pancake.io

Once you add a file to that folder, it will appear in the Files page (instead of the welcome message). Click on it to view it, and there'll be a link for you to copy too.

SourceKit looks pretty awesome, especially the javascript-based text editor they're using. I had a basic text field set up for small amendments, but this looks like it could be a nice replacement for that.</comment></comment></comment>


Career Choice Tip: Cybercrime Is Mostly Boring - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/05/career-choice-tip-cybercrime-is-mostly-boring/ <comment><USER2> the biggest and most profitable criminals are not breaking into banks, stealing passwords, or stuff like that. they rather just abuse the features that already exist on sites, such as posting thousands of spam pill or porn links to Facebook or twitter using thousands of accounts or using paid shills on amazon,. very repetitious but it scales well and profitable and very hard to stop because it is not exploiting or hacking anything. You cannot really patch features in the same way you can patch bugs.

</comment><comment><USER3> All of the "cybercrime" stock photos now just look like regular white-hats working in a post-COVID environment :)

<comment><USER4> I've noticed it before but never thought too deeply about it. Where did this 'stereotypical hacker' image stem from anyway? Computer 'nerds' are often cast with pressed button-up shirts, pocket protectors, and thick glasses. But if they are a 'bad nerd', they suddenly don a mysterious hoodie that covers their face as they work in a cave-like room like some kind of new-age techno- troglodyte?

<comment><USER5> I think it comes from recent popular media, like the _Watch_Dogs_ games and the TV show _Mr. Robot_. Hoodies are a way to prevent people from seeing or identifying you, so media people use it as a visual shorthand for "this person wishes to conceal their identity". Back in the 90s, hackers were all cybergoth ravers; this image is more in line with the $CURRENT_YEAR zeitgeist in which pervasive surveillance is a top issue.

<comment><USER6> It's definitely a lot older than Mr. Robot. They were only playing into the established trope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, cybercrime is boring, just like security is boring, or app development. The article is focusing on the mundane parts of the business side of certain enterprises (cybercrime-as-a-service), not the individual thrill of discovering something new & exploiting it or selling it to be exploited. Obviously being an article literally written by the opposition would mean it is going to paint their adversaries' life choice as one of a bored drone...

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't the vast majority of "cyber crime" just normal white collar crime (eg fraud) done over the internet?

Do people really think it's exciting?

<comment><USER9> You don't think crime is more exciting than a desk job?

<comment><USER10> Cyber crime is a desk job, that's the point of the comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am really glad that I took the cyber security 101 course in college and the professor beat the idea of it being interesting or exciting right out of me. Steered me clear of a less engaging path (for me at least).

<comment><USER12> Most corporate security is about compliance, audits, regulation and balancing the need for security with the needs of the (often stupid) users. Very little of it is actually tech. There is pentesting and malware analysis for the actual "tech" stuff but it is quite a small market to be honest.

<comment><USER13> >but it is quite a small market to be honest.

I get that impression too. I do some cybersecurity type stuff as a hobby and was hoping to make a business out of it somehow but it doesn't seem to be a easy market to crack.

<comment><USER14> What's military cyber security like and how does it compare with consumer or enterprise security? I'd wager the appeal of cyber security is mostly in the domain of military. Think stuxnet or NSA

<comment><USER15> Nah, having been on active duty being involved in cyber warfare and later joining the corporate world, the latter is so much more advanced and interesting, with generally a lot better people.

<comment><USER14> Hm interesting

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Like anything, it's usually the payoff that is exciting and glamorous. I know the old hacker mantra: 'boredom and drudgery are evil' hence why we automate everything, but I don't think the mantra holds true for most hackers. The best hackers know that programming essentially works _against_ you when you do it, because there's no instant gratification. You have to constantly bang your head against the wall (even because of simple syntax mistakes that make you feel like a n00b all over again).

The payoff is always fantastic though. Whitehat or blackhat, knowing that all that hard work and grunt pays off is a wonderful feeling. I tend to veer towards whitehat stuff though because of the old saying: 'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime'.

</comment><comment><USER17> This article missed a great opportunity to post that hacking scene from Swordfish as a counterexample of what hacking does NOT look like: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Ds9CeG- VY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Ds9CeG-VY)

<comment><USER18> The day to day is one thing but the hiring interviews are another: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRkvEJqsagU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRkvEJqsagU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The thing that sealed the deal for me to never go back was meeting all the old mafia dumbasses that actually went to jail for so-called 'cybercrime'. These guys could hardly read. Before computers they were shaking down hot dog vendors and smuggling drug money through hair salons. They drove expensive cars, wore lots of jewelry, and had a bunch of drug addict women falling all over them.

No thanks. I met a girl from Harvard and discovered that I actually liked talking to a smart human about real things. There was no comparison.

</comment><comment><USER20> > But new research suggests that as cybercrime has become dominated by pay- > for-service offerings, the vast majority of day-to-day activity needed to > support these enterprises is in fact mind-numbingly boring and tedious

 _Fighting_ cybercrime must also be mostly boring then, as it is also done through pay-for-service offerings.

</comment><comment><USER21> Earning money is doing boring stuff that other people don't want to do. Nothing really special about it then?

<comment><USER22> Or are not able to. That's where you find money AND fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Uh, funnily enough, the "boring" stuff they've mentioned in the article doesn't seem THAT bad to me. But maybe that's because I haven't been forced to do that sort of administrative work often enough for the novelty to wear off.

<comment><USER24> Customer service work is unquestionably boring. The burnout rates for that kind of work is pretty high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "You'll do shit work -- scan, crack copyrights, whatever I want."

</comment><comment><USER25> Just wondering, is cyber crime career and pentester the same thing?

<comment><USER26> No. By cybercrime he means a literal career as a criminal. Pentesting is done with permission from the target.

<comment><USER27> Pencil testers consider it a crime though.

<comment><USER28> *otherwise?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I cannot find the original paper anywhere, if anyone finds it please post a link here. Thank you!

<comment><USER30> Keep reading; the link is there.

<comment><USER31> [https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~bjc63/Crime_is_boring.pdf](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~bjc63/Crime_is_boring.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's not, if you on the other side.

<comment><USER33> On the defending side? I hear it's pretty boring there, too.

<comment><USER34> Hey you're the guy that figured out how to toggle the private data flag on MacOS logs. Rad work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The main problem with cyber crime for profit is you have to get the money at some point. So no matter what at some point you have to either trust someone (bad idea) or have the cahones to walk into a bank and withdraw the cash. Even then you to explain how you got the money if it's over like $10,000 or people start asking questions.

Yeah dumb people will focus on hacking but once you think it through you see there isn't a good exit strategy.

<comment><USER36> If your bank questions you for withdrawing $10,000 or more, I would use a different bank.

I withdrew about $13,000 a few months ago, and my (national) credit union didn't hesitate or ask me anything (except for an additional piece of identification).

<comment><USER37> Yes, they don't ask you any thing. However, banks/car dealerships/etc have to file CTRs(Currency Transaction reports). It is good that you withdrew $13K in one shot. Structured withdrawals (4k, one day, 5k three days later, another 4k ten days later) will be flagged by AML software of any financial institution. And folks in the compliance team will file SAR(Suspicious activity report).

Lesson: when you legitimately need $30K cash, just withdraw it in one transaction. Never ever withdraw $5K every week for six weeks. For every SAR, there are 100 CTRs filed.

<comment><USER36> Thank you, it sounds like you have some insight about the process.

I'm aware of structuring, but I don't think most people are. I've heard about it only once in the news where a store owner had his money seized because he was trying to avoid depositing more than $10,000 at a time, over a long time period.

IIRC, this was the case: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2015/05/05/...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2015/05/05/irs- seizes-over-100000-from-innocent-small-business-owner-despite-promise-to-end- raids/)

<comment><USER38> Re: structuring, the most famous example I know of is Dennis Hastert[1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert#Indictment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert#Indictment)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Disney pulled off the technical feats in Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway - <AUTHOR> https://www.ocregister.com/2020/03/06/how-disney-pulled-off-the-technical-feats-in-mickey-and-minnies-runaway-railway/ <comment><USER2> This is a blatant submarine[0]. There is precious little discussion of any technical feats (the most I got out of it was that they used projection mapping in places).

[0][http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This article doesn't really have much technical information, unlike what is promised in the title, but I just wanted to hijack this thread and mention how much I love the recent Mickey Mouse shorts that this ride is based on. They're like Mickey Mouse by way of Ren and Stimpy—delightfully weird and clever and _experimental_ in a way that I never expected Disney to be with their most valuable IP. Plus there's a bunch that take place in other countries—and so they're all spoken in foreign languages, completely untranslated, trusting that kids can follow along anyway. They're all on Disney+, and lots of them are on YouTube, and get a lot done in 4 minutes. (My personal favorite is Feliz Cumpleaños)

</comment><comment><USER4> The video does a better job of showing what they did

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mG7tiv_Dto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mG7tiv_Dto)</comment>


Ars Technica Reviews Intel's Clear Linux OS - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/linux-distro-review-intels-own-clear-linux-os/ <comment><USER2> I really appreciated the walkthrough of solving the installation of ZFS on the OS. It was so thorough and realistic, I almost got the headache as if it were I debugging the issue! I applaud the author's determination in getting it working.</comment>


NetNeutralityTest.com – test if your ISP is throttling your speed - <AUTHOR> http://netneutralitytest.com

<comment><USER2> I'm (currently lol) a Verizon FiOS user from Orchard Park, NY (just South of Buffalo) and I thought you might like to see my results so far:

Feb 6 2014

06:30 AM ET: AWS East 31.52 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 26.92 Mb/s

15:30 PM ET: AWS East 41.37 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 27.13 Mb/s

19:30 PM ET: AWS East 3.97 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 26.74 Mb/s

19:40 PM ET: AWS East 8.26 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 26.21 Mb/s

20:15 PM ET: AWS East 1.70 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 25.55 Mb/s

21:00 PM ET: AWS East 4.62 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 27.18 Mb/s

Feb 7 2014

06:00 AM ET: AWS East 31.56 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 27.33 Mb/s

12:45 PM ET: AWS East 31.11 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 26.60 Mb/s

17:15 PM ET: AWS East 30.50 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 26.13 Mb/s

20:00 PM ET: AWS East 2.44 Mb/s; Linode, Newark, NJ 29.54 Mb/s

I plan on running it a few more times tonight as well as throughout the next week or so until they admit this isn't just a "coincidence" :-)

Reply on here if you'd like me to contact you with all my data in the future. Thanks!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> After seeing possible evidence of Verizon slowing down AWS traffic we have put up a simple page that utilizes our company technology to test the speed to different servers hosted by different cloud technologies. Please test as much as you like. All your speed test results are saved and we will publish the results on the same page after some statistically relevant sample is gathered.

</comment><comment><USER3> May well be related to the perennial verizon / cogent peering flap- we got bit by this over the summer:

[http://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/verizon-that-peering-flap- about...](http://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/verizon-that-peering-flap-about- netflix-is-cogents-fault/)

</comment><comment><USER4> FYI, Linode will throttle your instances to 50Mbps, so if this gets too popular, people may erroneously think that they're being throttled because the server won't send them data as fast as I could.

<comment><USER5> actually, it's 250mbps now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your interface seems to fail with my minimum font setting; I need to copy out the speed results to be able to read them, which isn't that fun.

</comment><comment><USER7> Also see [http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/](http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/)</comment>


Host a static website on S3 using AWS CDK - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/host-a-static-website-on-s3-using-aws-cdk-b9151213aad4 <comment><AUTHOR> An introduction to the basics of AWS CDK usage to host a static website on AWS S3

<comment><USER2> Can't see your page without logging into Medium. Perhaps you can just host your blog on S3?</comment></comment>


Database expert on why NoSQL mattered – and SQL still matters - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s-c-a-l-e/database-guru-on-why-nosql-matters-and-sql-still-matters-c64239fe84fd <comment><USER2> It's pretty clear that SQL won, although ideas from "NoSQL" have been assimilated, i.e., storing and querying semi-structured or unstructured data in an otherwise relational data model.

<comment><USER3> SQL did win. _Sorta._

NoSQL brought a lot of new ideas. Redis might seem superficially like NDB (MySQL Cluster), but underneath, it's extremely different. What kind of sane person could design a single-threaded, single process database? @antirez built something radical that delivers _unbelievable performance._

More innovation and invention has happened in data in the last decade than in the previous thirty, and it's because people experimented and _weren 't afraid to fail._

Most NoSQL datastores swap limitations in one area for advances in another. Riak, Redis, DynamoDB.. S3 is probably one of the most successful examples of NoSQL, and its very limitations are crucial to its success. Each has clearly defined use cases.

Some people say "Big Data" or "NoSQL" when they really just mean Hadoop or MapReduce, but NoSQL just literally means "everything that's not SQL."

SQL is still great. Awesomeness like Postgresql's supporting every data type imaginable, Redshift and Aurora, file-based db's like SQLite...

So, yes, SQL won. _But so did NoSQL._ And all of the rest of us too.

<comment><USER4> SQL, as a language, will always win. There is no more elegant way to work with sets, and you can't work with data without thinking about sets.

I really like his point about the original breakthrough of SQL being the ability to abstract the way the data is stored from the application, and the language was just a natural outgrowth.

<comment><USER5> SQL is actually a pretty terrible syntax, though. Relational algebra is beautiful and elegant, but SQL is a dated, '70s-y syntax on top of that.

<comment><USER6> how/why?

To the person who only knows SQL from feeding and care of servers, this seems like complaining about the color of a car that gets 1000 miles per gallon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why are the concepts of a query language different than SQL, loose typing, flexible schemas, horizontal scalability, and a lack of joins all conflated as being the same thing- "nosql".

<comment><USER8> To me, a major important thing about NoSql is the predictable behavior (because all queries are simple and there is no "query optimizer").

If I could ensure SQL never using index/table scans and make it fail without proper indexes it would be a major help.

<comment><USER9> How not having a query optimizer makes queries more predictable? It makes them slower for sure, but not more predictable.

Indeed, I find NoSQL very unpredictable. When your query hits and index, the query goes well. When not, you usually end up doing a whole database scan. Plus you usually cannot use more than one index for a given query, and some NoSQL require an index just for ordering....

<comment><USER8> I want my queries to always behave the same and fail without an index.

(you can't have a reliable system with random behavior where system drops to table scans when statistics are incomplete or something)

And yes, ordering requires an index.

<comment><USER10> > I want my queries to always behave the same and fail without an index.

So I take it you are not using any kind of cache in your memory hierarchy?

<comment><USER8> This exactly where I observe MSSQL dropping to table scans too soon. If indexes are cached (or when using a ssd), they will be much faster for many many records than a table scan (which will always require disk access in a realistic scenario).

I agree that table scan will be faster if I need a large percentage of the table (more than can be cached).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I do think it matters where and how you store your data, but I really like how he puts it simple, is not a battle between to opposing sides, simply there is a need for a data store that is not that structured, it is much simplier to prototype and achieve an mvp with a NoSQL Storage, but once you are in the real world you need to provide some type of guarantee to your users, in terms of data integrity.

In my opinion everybody needs to understand the differences and use each when it is the most convenient, use the best tool for the right job.

But maybe we will start to see some type of mixup between this two systems, because as he mentions in the article, OpenSource is driving the future of the databases, and due to this, the databases of the future would be more dynamic and more synchronized to the needs of the developer.

</comment><comment><USER12> It doesn't matter where you store your data, as long as you always remember that the data you store is the value of your enterprise.</comment>


Groupon Readies for An I.P.O. - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/groupon-readies-for-an-i-p-o/ <comment><USER2> I've come to the conclusion that Groupon is going to win.

The coupon business is an initial (albeit profitable) component of their long(er) term strategy. They will use a massive part of their recents rounds of financing + the organic revenue they get from their day-day business to create an increasingly larger direct sales force, that lets them step in and become the Online version of the Yellow Pages.

For whatever reason, Google never really became the "Trusted Local Directory" of businesses - Don't get me wrong, I use them 10-15 times a week to look up businesses - but lots of local companies have figured out how to game Google's local Business lookup - and, when I'm looking for a reliable Locksmith, Plumber, Flower Delivery, Etc... Google doesn't deliver like the yellow pages always did.

Part of that is inherent to the mechanism - Google does algorithmic analysis, which isn't completely effective when trying to determine whether you are dealing with a up-and-up storefront.

But most of that is feet on the ground.

The yellow pages had a Massive Direct Salesforce + a filter - Typically only "real" companies would bother to invest in a Yellow Pages Ad, because they were the only ones who could justify the cost. A company in the Yellow pages was a real organization, that had been visited by a local salesperson. You couldn't SEO a placement into the Yellow Pages.

Groupon is going to become the new Yellow Pages. For a while, I thought it was going to be Yelp, but (A) their business model, publishing criticisms of businesses, was always at odds with their customers interests (and they took a lot of heat when people got sensitive to that conflict of interest) and (B) they didn't raise enough money, or hire enough people, quickly enough.

Groupon is aligned with the businesses (their customers), and is growing quickly enough to win the market. They will have a direct sales force that will reach into every major metropolitan area - and, within six months, there will be a Groupon index of local businesses.

That's why Groupon is worth $15B.

<comment><USER3> If I was looking for a reliable locksmith/plumber/flower delivery the first resource I would consult would be local friends/acquaintances I trust. Picking a random company from 50 yellow pages listings is crazy, and so -- currently -- is depending on Google to pick out the right one. Social seems to intuitively be the obvious direction to go.

(I don't know how social Groupon is. I stayed away so far because I have no interest in deals of the day.)

<comment><USER4> Groupon's sociability level anecdote: I have ~100 facebook friends; one of them posts a groupon deal she considers interesting once every few weeks.

Reliable local service anecdote: I'm looking to rent a house, and after finding the first page of Google results for "rent house" to be spam, have restricted my search to Craigslist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's going to be a very interesting couple of years in the startup world, simply because of the potential IPO's in the pipeline: Groupon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, Twitter, Zynga...

As those companies have huge exits, there's going to be a lot of young, early employees that are able to cash out and become angels or work on their next huge startup.

Some people say it's a bubble. I'm thinking/hoping it's more on the lines of a Renaissance.

<comment><USER6> _Some people say it's a bubble. I'm thinking/hoping it's more on the lines of a Renaissance._

At least some of those companies have actually turned a profit and stand a chance of maintaining one. I have my doubts about Groupon's and Zynga's medium-to-long-term chances, but I've been wrong before.

 _there's going to be a lot of young, early employees that are able to cash out_

Early employees will probably not be able to cash out for at least six months; that's the standard waiting period after an IPO. Ironically, people who get friends-and-family deals pre-IPO are the most likely to get rich quickly (if they sell on an early uptick).

<comment><USER7> I have every confidence that Zynga will succeed. Don't get me wrong, I hate them with a passion, but they are incredibly smart and have a very successful model. Their games are built to be addictive, not fun. They've taken everything that made people lose months of their lives to WoW and condensed it, according to recognized psychological principles. They're cynical, but they'll manage to succeed regardless of what gets thrown their way.

<comment><USER8> The problem Zynga has right now is that they're building a reputation as a 'not fun place to work' for engineers. This probably won't kill them, since their power comes from psychology more than technology, but it might hurt them.

<comment><USER7> To be honest, they don't really need engineers. All of their products could be easily outsourced.

<comment><USER9> I disagree, their datawarehousing efforts are enormous and key to their success. I seriously doubt they would trust another company with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> to me that sounds like a major case of a company cashing out before the bubble bursts. They don't need the money, and they definitely don't need the regulatory oversight that the IPO brings. They just raised close to a billion for a supposedly massively profitable business. They have plenty of cash on hand.

It's a massive ponzi scheme where the businesses have been convinced to take massive losses with the hopes of making them up later. Very few actually get the results they are promised by the sales people.

On the buyer side...it's just lame...it's the same type of deals over and over again, and I wouldn't be surprised if their customers only last a few months before they internally label Groupon as spam.

don't get me wrong, Groupon is a massively profitable business, but I think they want to cash out while everyone thinks they are worth 20-30 times more than they actually are.

</comment><comment><USER11> Updated story suggests $15-20 billion. I must admit to being astonished by both the valuation and th size of the company (3100 staff). I thought they were foolish to spurn Google, but if these rumors prove accurate that'd make me the foolish one.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why would you prepare for an IPO so quickly after closing a $950 million funding round? Is their burn rate that high?

<comment><USER13> They didn't raise $950m to extend their runway. No one raises this sort of money for that. They're already highly profitable. They raised that money to hire a metric ton of salespeople to expand the business even faster.

<comment><USER14> Not to mention buy out every Groupon clone in a market that they're not already in.

<comment><USER13> Surely that would fall foul of antitrust laws...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The problem is Silicon Valley venture capitalism might be in a bubble right now, but the broader stock market is not (yet). I'd be surprised if the open market doesn't see straight through these valuations.

<comment><USER16> it depends on how liquid the shares are. If 80% are controlled by insiders,and institutions loyal to insider, they can run up the stock, despite the incongruity with fundamentals.

case study: Open Table

<http://www.google.ca/finance?q=open+table>

It has a P/E of 157!!!!! And it's still going strong. Likely because it's getting pumped by thin trading.

It's the classic pump n dump. Run up the stock, and try to unload it to dumb money like mutual funds, and pension funds aka (your money).

Groupon's P/E can run just as high. It depends on how high they have to push it to entice dumb money, which is likely why they are pushing out a pre-IPO PR blitz to frame the story beforehand.

This was all done in Web 1.0. Same bag of tricks. Let's see if the average American has learned anything.

<comment><USER17> You seem confident. Are you taking a short position on Open Table? I doubt it. Put your money where your mouth is.

<comment><USER16> I'm not stupid.

If the shares are illiquid, I'll wait for the dumb money, and short like the big players, if/when P/E gets above 200.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You can always tell there is a bubble when people are trying to convince themselves and each other that their isn't.

I predict Groupon will be a 'venture math' win and an epic failure as a sustainable business. (Especially once that anyone who would give a damn has cash)

</comment><comment><USER19> So when is facebook going to start with 'Facebook Local Deals' or something?

</comment><comment><USER20> Does Groupon own any patents?</comment>


Ask HN: Instead of deleting Facebook why not just sabotage them instead? - <AUTHOR> In light of Cambridge Analytica and all the constant Facebook fuckups many alpha geeks are talking about deleting their Facebook.
However I'm very very cynical that this would even have an effect.
Once we're no longer using their platform there will be no more dissent there and the rest of the users will just continue on as if nothing happened.
Additionally, we would only impact a VERY small percentage of Facebook.
Because of the fact that Facebook is so viral and controls so much of the market - they're not going away anytime soon.
What if we did this.
What if we sabotaged them - legally of course.
I think their achilles heel is data - and specifically their monopoly of that data.
They have a walled garden.
They charge companies for access to this walled garden because they have petabytes of user data that Google, Apple, etc don't have.
... and what is important here is that this data is PUBLIC.
So what if people were to start running a browser extension that exported their data into the public web.  Into a shared queue that anyone from Google to Apple, etc could access.
The bad guys ALREADY have this data... and I'm only talking about PUBLIC user data - not private data.
So if someone posts something public on Facebook this extension would then break the walled garden and post it on the Internet.
It would have an massive amplification effect.  The small percentage of us that would run the extension would now be able to export 100x more content because we're not just exporting OUR content but THEIR public content too.
Facebook would no longer have a monopoly on this data... <comment><USER2> > many alpha geeks are talking about deleting their Facebook

What the fuck is an alpha geek?

> However I'm very very cynical that this would even have an effect

It has a very definite effect on you (i.e. the person who stops using it). That's the whole point.

> the rest of the users will just continue on as if nothing happened.

And that's their choice. Yes, it's a scummy company run by a guy with less human qualities than Data from star trek, but it's their choice to make stupid decisions.

> because they have petabytes of user data that Google don't have.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

It's hilarious and sad that you think Google doesn't have a ridiculous amount of personal information about people.

> Into a shared queue that anyone from Google to Apple, etc could access.

Apple expressly take steps to not rely on user data for their business model, even releasing less-featured products and services if necessary (e.g. early versions of Photos.app didn't sync recognised face data via iCloud, newer versions do this peer to peer, to some extent).

The sort of Data Google makes money from, isn't the sort of thing anyone would willingly share with them if it was made clear what they're sharing.

</comment><comment><USER3> If there were any value to data posted on Facebook, and it was possible to scrape the site at some arbitrary scale without getting caught, then no advertisers or third parties would be paying Facebook for anything. Everyone would already be doing that.

Also, data which requires a login to view is not necessarily "public" in a legal sense.

Also, this wouldn't actually "sabotage" Facebook. This is a site with billions of user accounts making who knows how many posts filtered with varying levels of privacy - not every user has access to all data posted on Facebook. A few hackers with browser plugins and fake accounts aren't going to accomplish anything but getting themselves banned. People aren't going to not join Facebook because someone is dumping data from it, you would also have to replicate the functionality of the site, entirely, and in real time (because remember Facebook also has messaging, chat, private groups, etc.) to work against the network effects.

And again, if that were feasible, some startup would already have done it.

</comment><comment><USER4> What users are posting on FB is just a peak of an iceberg, probably it's the least valuable subset of data.

However, the sabotaging approach would be very efficient weapon in fighting many other privacy intrusive companies. If an adblock would fake data instead of just blocking any tracking it would have a huge impact.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the bigger thing would be those Facebook pixels which are invisible to the user but lets FB track wherever you go on the web and ties it back to your account, as you're still signed in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thats an interesting idea, but not sure if that would be 100% legal.</comment>


Startups for Grownups - <AUTHOR> http://academicvc.com/2013/07/05/startups-for-grownups/

<comment><AUTHOR> My thoughts on the post: [http://notonlyluck.com/2013/07/05/no-valley-and- startups-for...](http://notonlyluck.com/2013/07/05/no-valley-and-startups-for- grownups/)</comment>


Chaos Theory and generative art - ezis-wheezy http://chaos-stud.io/#/explore <comment><AUTHOR> I really enjoyed Clifford Pickovers' Computers, Pattern, Chaos and Beauty. I read it in highschool and experimented with all the strange attractor techniques given in the book to render cool images on my old 486. Great fun, and the math (and implications) of SA systems stuck with me.

<comment><USER2> The site includes a Clifford map that you can generate attractors from, you can find it when you click on the settings button (gear icon) and the '...' under 'Map', enjoy :)

</comment></comment><comment> ezis-wheezy Hey y'all, I was sitting across from my colleague and he showed me a project he had just starting working on again.

Here's the link to the description: [http://chaos- stud.io/#/home](http://chaos-stud.io/#/home)</comment>