AI and the Future of Civilization - <AUTHOR> https://www.edge.org/conversation/stephen_wolfram-ai-the-future-of-civilization <comment><USER2> Need to include the subtitle: "A Conversation With Stephen Wolfram"

</comment><comment><USER3> That was a huge wall of text by Steve Wolfram, but very little substance.

<comment><USER4> tl;dr?

My eyes glazed :(

<comment><USER5> That's enough of one for me, thanks! ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have this feeling about edge.org that they manage to invite remarkable people to have incredibly shallow content that is full of buzzword (maybe this is what happens if you try to pull off profound things for public). Just an experience.

</comment><comment><USER7> _" The realization from that is that the thing I've spent a large part of my life doing, which is building computer languages, is not such a bad idea. In a computer language, you do get to represent more sophisticated concepts in a clean way, which can be progressively built up in a way that isn't possible in natural language.

One of the things that I'm interested in is how we communicate goals to AIs. How do we talk to the AIs? My basic conclusion is that it's a mixture. Human natural language is good up to a point, and has evolved to describe what we typically encounter in the world. Things that exist from nature, things that we've chosen to build in the world—these are things which human natural language has evolved to describe. But there's a lot that exists out there in the world for which human natural language doesn't have descriptions yet. Even though our AI systems might effectively find those descriptions, we don't have ways to say those ourselves."_

I really try to understand Wolfram's point of view but always end up completely disagreeing with him. He is so blatantly biased to wanting everyone to use his baby Mathematica that his reasoning doesn't make any sense. My arguments:

1\. For starters, ZERO programming languages can represent a concept in a more sophisticated way than natural language, simply because we don't encode understanding in code: where a computer sees a loop condition, followed by an if and a return statement, we see the real meaning 'check if this item is in the list'. The meaning is so much more useful _because it tells us the WHAT not the HOW_. By know the _what_ , we can understand what is trying to be accomplished, and so be able to predict behaviour, see logic errors the compiler can't see, make modifications to add other features, change the entire algorithm if the data structures change (use hashtable perhaps) and so on. The fact that Wolfram doesn't grasp this point, makes me seriously consider he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

2\. The next most important thing about natural language is it _is not sequential, like code._ There is no structure for one precise all-important reason; you do not know what you are talking about! How many times have you had a conversation with someone, for them to then tell you that you are wrong, or perhaps add modifications to what you just said? Natural language facilitates a way for multiple nodes (humans) on a network (social groups) to share information that is not fully correct, and is expressed in such a way that another node on the network can pick it up, and express modifications, resulting in a final timeline that the group can agree on. Algorithms written in code on the other hand are BRITTLE, and expected to be correct every step of the way. The fact that no programming language can agree on a single way to handle exceptions/errors in production systems is simply a byproduct of them being unable to adapt like natural languages can. It really shows off the incredible power of our natural languages, and I hope I'm alive to see the day we crack natural language understanding!

</comment><comment><USER8> Ah, I hoped it's about the game.</comment>


Guarding Against Physical Attacks: The Xbox One Story [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/ <comment><USER3> > _This is the first time in history that game consoles have lasted this long > without being cracked to enable piracy._

> _In this talk, we will discuss how we achieved this for the Xbox One._

While Xbox' technical security measures are very interesting, I dare to say that most effective measure was allowing to install homebrew apps by end users[0]. The only use for cracking Xbox One would be to enable piracy and exploit creators are almost universally against that.

Also, PS4 has been jailbroken up to firmware 5.07 (patched in March 2018), and it is known that exploits for newer firmwares exist but are not (yet?) publicly available.

      [0] https://github.com/wiired24/ProjectPegasus/blob/master/binaries/Installing APPX Packages.pdf

<comment><USER4> _The only use for cracking Xbox One would be to enable piracy_

That's not strictly true, cracking could also allow alternative os loading.

<comment><USER5> As far as I know the Xbox One needs to dial home before you're allowed to run a game.

So when the DRM servers are shut down, these devices will become just useless paperweights (if nobody manages to crack them).

<comment><USER3> Xbox One connects to MS server only once, on initial setup and then it can run disc games offline. Not sure about digital downloads.

<comment><USER6> In the video he talks specifically about the following use case:

"User goes to Walmart, buys console and game. Drives to cabin with no internet. Sets up console and plays game".

Clearly the original design goal didn't require an initial phone home. That may have changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> First time this material was published outside of Microsoft.

Some points from the talk:

      - custom 28nm AMD CPU
      - off-die devices distrusted
      - encrypted memory
      - physical threat model: 10-game budget
      - pre-PSP "Secure Processor"
      - custom SP firmware by MS
      - minimal hypervisor
      - subset of Windows
      - secure boot & remote attestation
      - Azure Sphere Pluton = Xbox derivative

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't help but feel this is a little "Boring Dystopia": he's demonstrating "Hey, here's how we keep people fiddling with the thing that they own, because it's bad for business".

Decidedly unsettling.

<comment><USER8> I side on this issue with MS.

He even brings this up in the talk, mentioning Dreamcast.

How it died early on, because of piracy - developers didn't want to produce games for dreamcast - so no one bought console because no one made games for it.

Its a vicious cycle that cannot be stopped otherwise.

<comment><USER9> The Dreamcast did have a short life, and was subject to simple piracy. However, there may not be a causal relationship there.

Sega had a tricky financial situation and consumer trust issues because of their last 1.5 platforms (Saturn and 32X). EA did not support the platform because Sega wouldn't give them an exclusive license for sports games. The Playstation 2 had an unbelievably huge hype train before release. The cord for the controller came out of the wrong side. The economy was getting weird.

If piracy was a big issue, I think Sega would have sold more hardware, and the software sales would have been low, but Wikipedia says the hardware sales were low, and the software sold 8-1 with consoles.

<comment><USER10> Everything you said here is correct.

Sega with the previous generation consoles burn consumer and developers alike. People were reluctant to buy the Dreamcast, PS2 hyper machine was also making exaggerated claims about the PS2 when magazines interviewed random people at EB Games and baggage the all said the would wait for the PS2.

Someone did an in depth analysis of the Dreamcast sales as related to piracy. If piracy was such an issue then sales of the console itself should have increased because people were buying the console and not game but this was not the case. Console sales never increased.

People who claim the Dreamcast die due to piracy simply do not know SEGA's history

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're interested in this type of stuff, I recommend reading [https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-underground-videogame- hacke...](https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-underground-videogame-hackers/)

</comment><comment><USER12> How can I watch the video?

<comment><USER13>
        youtube-dl -f bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a] -o "XBox One Story by Tony Chen.mp4" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo
        start "" "XBox One Story by Tony Chen.mp4"

<comment><USER14> Just a friendly reminder to everyone, don't copy and paste commands into the terminal. There could be invisible characters that can execute unwanted operations.

Explanation/example: [https://thejh.net/misc/website-terminal-copy- paste](https://thejh.net/misc/website-terminal-copy-paste)

Previous HN discussions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10554679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10554679) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5508225](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5508225)

<comment><USER15> FWIW, that relies on hiding input via CSS, which -- outside of a separate exploit of HN's comment sanitiser -- is not an option in a HN comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I call all those posh sounding "platform security" types being much like "antivirus" makers, trying to sell a non-solution for a problem to technical illiterates.

What they claim sounds impressive to CEOs and such, but everybody in the industry knows that anybody with straight hands can probe a chip, and somebody with ion beam equipment can do pretty much anything he wants with it.

For example, chips from credit cards, said to be "physically impossible" to tamper with, are known to be copied by somebody in Eastern Europe.

If somebody becomes a victim of credit card cloning, proving the bank that it was not you who withdrew money on other side of the globe becomes nearly impossible without going to a court.

<comment><USER6> In the real world, security is not an absolute. Nothing is perfectly secure. What is important is the resources required to break the security - what that bar needs to be depends on your product and your business goals.

In the video he specifically talks about an economic threshold - it must cost more than 10 games ($600) to mod a console. Above that price it's not worth it, so direct chip beam attacks aren't relevant to their threat model. That is the direct 'resource requirement' as a result of their business goal - <USER2> piracy.

<comment><USER17> I agree with your general point but computers are weird.

Attacks and exploits can have scaling properties much like other software.

We can do something expensive (say $200k attack cost) to break the platform and sell 10k $100 mod chips.

The defender's threat model can't discount expensive attacks; the constraint is that an expensive one-off attack must not enable a cheap bypass. This is hard!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: jQuery Folder-Like Collapsible Lists - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sergiocampama/jquery-collapsible-list

<comment><AUTHOR> Added support for tree view</comment>


One-Shot Imitation from Watching Videos - <AUTHOR> http://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2018/06/28/daml/ <comment><USER2> This article seems to be vague about what 'one shot' means. The closest it gets is 'one video', but one video might contain many examples. In the first case - put the peach into the red bowl - one example is not enough to distinguish this from, for example, put it in the most distant container. If the demonstration contained only one example, then it is unclear to me how strongly, and how specifically, the meta-training needed to pre-condition the system in order for it to pick the 'correct' interpretation of the actions in the demonstration.

</comment><comment><USER3> yes, it's true there can be overfitting going on here. Yes it's true the article isn't clear about what exactly is expected to be learned to imitate. But i believe it's very similar to how kids learn. Sometimes you get baffled to how kids interpret your actions and what you ask them.

For example, i remember an adult asked a kid to recite the alphabet backwards, and surprisingly to all, he turned his body away from us and recited the alphabet from A to Z instead of what we were expecting (ie Z to A)!!

Anyway, we cannot deny the fact that these experiments are steps toward progress. Great job!

</comment><comment><USER4> It was a real cringe here watching him drop the peach.

Peaches should never be dropped. They are easily bruised. We shouldn't teach our robots to drop them! Bad robot trainer!

The point is -- while I realize the peach thing may seem trivial -- if our AI trainers can't even get this right, how do we expect them to instill AIs with decent behaviors?

</comment><comment><USER5> I could not stop thinking on Overfitting..

<comment><USER6> Maybe that's why it's called "imitation", not "learning"

<comment><USER7> Imitation learning is both imitation and learning. The difference between it and reinforcement learning is that the latter learns a policy for decisions based on rewards and the former learns to approximate observations as ground truth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just wondering, what is a simpler (e.g. non-physical) experiment to study one- shot imitation? What type of experiment has been typically used in research? And how far is research in this area?

</comment><comment><USER9> Ok, what if there is only a red bowl but in three different sizes, say small, medium, large :/</comment>


Ask HN: Why you contribute or don't contribute to open source? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I contribute by dedicating each friday or saturday to open source projects (not mine). I do this because in CS all of our work depends on another's, and each time we import a module, visit a website, or use a phone, we KNOW that another person dedicated part of his life to do that. My contributions are my "thank you" to every person that gave part of his time to create something that helped me, creating something like an "open source cycle" where I help other because someone helped me

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll chime in from the other side as a maintainer of a mid size project at a foundation (eclipse foundation, 8k stars, 4k forks)

We get a ton of drive by contributions of people scratching their own itch. That's _most_ of the 3rd party open source contributions out there.

Beyond that, folks I've hired (we're an OSS company) have been grad student hobbyists that started (and stayed) remotely.

Those have also been my best hires.

I wouldn't feel "guilty" about not contributing to open source. These projects aren't built for altruistic reasons.

If you want to contribute, do it to learn something and get something out of it. Make interests align. That keeps it interesting for both parties.

I wouldn't feel "obligated" to do anything as a single developer.

There's only 24 hours in a day, people have kids etc..

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't really know where to start and I also haven't found a project that has motivated me enough to really figure out where to start. I know there are some sites and twitter accounts out there that help open source beginners find issues to start with, but what I'd really like is a really interesting project to dig into that _also_ has some good entry level issues I can help with. If it's not something I am very interested in I tend to just gravitate to working on my own non-open-source projects. OpenWorm is one that sounds really interesting. I've donated to the project a while ago and am considering seeing if it might be something I can contribute to.

</comment><comment><USER5> I contribute to open source a lot, but mostly to my own code bases.

I seldom fix other open source projects, because they are not well documented, digging other people's code is a pain.

Or some code bases are well documented, and their code is also structured nicely, but they have a quite complex or bureaucratic procedure to do code review and submission. I tend to give up in this case and simply file a bug and point out the problem to them.

I think I should contribute to open source, because I benefit from them a lot. Every single project I worked on uses open source libraries, frameworks. I should pay my open source tax to support them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Disclaimer: most of my contributions for OSS have been on a paid basis. I choose to contribute to open source because the projects may have people that think similarly in terms of approaching problems. It's also a good way to learn and apply knowledge that impacts other peoples' work instead of your own.

My contributions are responses to issues that are clearly laid out and have a clear target spec. Vague issues that have a large number of unknowns are ones I would be more reluctant in approaching.

</comment><comment><USER7> I only sporadically contribute because I can rarely block out the focused time to get myself ramped up in a new project in order to accomplish something unless it is part of an open source project my employer is maintaining or contributing to.

</comment><comment><USER8> I write code professionally for 8-10 hours a day. 5 days a week, sometimes more.

When I come home and have time for myself, I don't want to write code.

It's as simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER9> I only work on open source projects, mostly blockchain-related.

<comment><USER10> Why?</comment></comment>


CSS "px" is an Angular Measurement? - <AUTHOR> http://inamidst.com/stuff/notes/csspx

<comment><USER2> Here I found a post where it says the posted link is wrong: [http://omnicognate.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/in-css-px-is- not...](http://omnicognate.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/in-css-px-is-not-an- angular-measurement-and-it-is-not-non-linear/)

<comment><USER3> And that article is in #1 spot in HN and of course, OP article itself is linked in article!

<comment><USER4> It's #1 now.

<comment><USER3> Gah, FML and damn you Monday morning. I meant to say it IS IN #1. Corrected my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yep. It's in the spec.

[http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/syndata.html#length- units](http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/syndata.html#length-units)

"pt: points — the points used by CSS are equal to 1/72nd of 1in.

px: pixel units — 1px is equal to 0.75pt.

The reference pixel is the visual angle of one pixel on a device with a pixel density of 96dpi and a distance from the reader of an arm's length. For a nominal arm's length of 28 inches, the visual angle is therefore about 0.0213 degrees. For reading at arm's length, 1px thus corresponds to about 0.26 mm (1/96 inch)."

So pixel units are intrinsically tied to dpi. Nobody cared when most monitors were 72dpi/96dpi

<comment><USER6> People _did_ care. Monitors aren't everything. Printers are typically at least 300dpi, and printing that at 1:1 would result in minuscule text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While the headline is nominally true, I don't thing this discussion is complete without talking about how browsers map this concept to actual device pixels ... particularly since they don't know how far the user's eyes are from the screen :)

<comment><USER8> Yes, particularly given that the spec explicitly says that for "lower- resolution devices" (i.e., normal computer monitors) the px unit should "refer to the whole number of device pixels that best approximates the reference pixel." So it turns out the px unit has quite a lot to do with screen pixels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While an interesting bit of trivia... this is completely pedantic.

To say that it is "doesn't really have anything to do with screen pixels, despite the poorly chosen name" is just silly.

It's quite obvious that px means pixel, has everything to do with it, and that the non-linear angular measurement is just a kind of more "formal" definition, but which no browser has ever actually followed, or probably ever will.

<comment><USER10> A 91 ppi pixel is nothing like a 300 ppi pixel, so this "pedantic" definition matters. Particularly as retina-like displays become more and more common.

And whether they are doing it to the same accuracy as this article recommends or not, browsers are not simply rendering 1px as one pixel width regardless of the display resolution - My 2 year old iPad with a retina display demonstrates this well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _No matter how large a value you put in for px, you 'll not be able to reach > 180 degrees._

actually I only had to put in 10 9s to get 180...

</comment><comment><USER12> This article is approximately complete nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hasn't this been true for a while?

</comment><comment><USER14> Sure it does!

</comment><comment><USER15> Suffering from the HN effect.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you draft the usage terms and conditions for a side project? - <AUTHOR> I'm working a side project that would probably earn me some money. I've seen most of such "indie" projects having some sort of "terms and conditions" page. While I know that most companies would hire a lawyer to draft these, I'm not sure what's best for me. <comment><USER2> Automattic publishes their WordPress.com Terms of Service under a Creative Commons Sharealike license, meaning you can copy, redistribute and build upon the material for any (including commercial) purpose.

Might be a good start for a Saas: [https://en.wordpress.com/tos/](https://en.wordpress.com/tos/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Github exists for coders, people are massaging it for other projects. You can create a campaign for an open source T&C I am building a platform for anyone to contribute to projects. We are disrupting the future of work. PLease check out www.crowdraising.co/metacampaign and there is an explainer video that does the job [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3QT4lqco8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3QT4lqco8M)

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is my process:

1\. Search my competitors and collect 3-4 ToS pages

2\. Read each of them and copy their paragraphs into mine

3\. Re-word some to make sure my ToS is unique. If something is too confusing or too much, delete.

4\. Stop worry about it until my startup gets some traction.

The whole process should not take more than 2-3 hours. If you pay $$ or take days on ToS while your startup is not even getting traction, you're doing something seriously wrong (in term of time spent).

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm also interested in this. I also hope to start a side project, likely a saas business.

I'm worried in case of data loss, being hacked or site instability, I will get myself sued. I want to state the possibility of those unpredicted events in the terms and conditions.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wouldn't bother until I actually started making money.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have friend well versed in law /lawyer get them to help. For starting out legalzoom should help

</comment><comment><USER7> Google "terms of service template"</comment>


Can Students Be Paid to Excel? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/nyregion/05incentive.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

<comment><USER2> What about the psychological principle that giving someone an external motivation to something wipes out their internal motivation to do it?

What about dealing with the cultural problem in American schools that makes it "uncool" to be smart instead of being a jock?

<comment><AUTHOR> >What about dealing with the cultural problem in American schools that makes it "uncool" to be smart instead of being a jock?

This actually deals with that very well. Doing well on tests became much more socially acceptable when money was involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are some fairly strong reinforcement schedules which can create motivation, however they rely on one of two things.

1\. The desire for the reinforcer never wanes.

or

2\. The reward continually increases in value.

The first is brutal, the second unsustainable.

Highly internally motivated people can also be described as continually discontent. They fall into the first category.

Highly externally motivated people are often lazy in repose and obsessive/addictive in play.

-Ian

</comment><comment><USER4> Can employees?</comment>


Shutting down a product after acquihire is not something to celebrate with users - <AUTHOR> http://whoo.ps/2013/10/12/most-patronizing-way-to-announce-an-acquihire

<comment><USER2> If this keeps up potential customers will stay away from services offered by startups simply because they won't know how long they'll last. I certainly don't pitch my company on any of these sorts of products. The acqui-hire ecosystem is not one I'm interested in supporting. Find someone else to con.

</comment><comment><USER3> More related to the product than the startup: Looks like Dispatch was reinventing IRC. While IRC had its mass appeal heyday in the late 90s, nothing has fully replaced it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how many people see announcements like this and go from loving customers to people who won't look at the products of the acquiring company?</comment>


"Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model" - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8439495.stm <comment><USER2> Let's give these douchebags all the attention they're asking for! No way did they think this could cause a media storm that would land them on the front page of ABCNews.com! Let's make sure we put them there! That'll show 'em!

<comment><USER3> You are quite right - this is a carefully managed publicity stunt which presumably has tickled the BBC's fancy - perhaps it is otherwise a slow news day?

<comment><USER4> They seem to have studied at the Ryanair school of publicity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's rather hard to be mentionable without being very lucky or very controversial. I'm still working on a way to run an honest site and manage to get some media attention. I refuse to operate at their level.

Sorry that was more of a rant on the subject of self promotion through shady means than a commentary on the actual article.

</comment><comment><USER6> An Open Letter to Robert Hintze, founder of BeautifulPeople.com, and its Members from iChange.com [http://www.ichange.com/blog/2010/01/04/an-open- letter-to-rob...](http://www.ichange.com/blog/2010/01/04/an-open-letter-to- robert-hintze-founder-of-beautifulpeople-com-and-members/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Don't easier-to-access porn sites (with not-so-picky models) exist?

</comment><comment><USER8> "Shallow people have shallow standards" - what a surprise.

<comment><USER9> Shallow people are also a market.

<comment><USER10> Shallow people, deep wallets, mass market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems oddly relevant:

<http://img39.yfrog.com/img39/6247/h807.png>

On a more serious note, there are a lot of difficult problems in onlne dating that someone could make a lot of money by solving. The lack of attractive pictures is not one of them.

<comment><USER12> Online dating has two problems.

1\. Limited corpus. This is usually the result of sites going after very specific verticals (i.e. race, religious, <some-other-facet> specific).

2\. Terrible search. Granted, determining compatibility isn't easy, but you typically can at best search on dimensions to limit gender, sexual orientation, proximity and age. After that... then what? If you're using a site with a large corpus (Match, PoF, etc.) you end up subconsciously surrendering your standards and resort to "clicking on the hot ones".

I would liken search on dating sites to be similar to web searches before Google. Actually, before AltaVista. It really is that bad.

If compatibility could be determined quickly and reasonably accurately, on a large number of dimensions, one company could crush every other dating site like an ant. Especially if that score is used all over... for instance, your mail could be sorted by potential compatibility - so you don't waste your time looking at messages from individuals that aren't remotely relevant.

The problem is that sort of quantitative analysis is very computationally expensive in a high-dimensional space, especially for a large corpus (say, 5 to 10 million users).

<comment><USER11> Agree fully with point #2. Have you used OkCupid? I think it's better than most in that regard, but the people on the site tend to be a bit full of themselves. Also, compatibility has a lot more to do with what people do than with what they say, which is why surveys and "shared values" questionnaires fall flat.

<comment><USER12> >Have you used OkCupid? Yes. I'd consider it more of a machine-gun approach than a sawed-off shotgun. Potentially more accurate, but by and large you're still using more ammo than should be necessary.

>which is why surveys and "shared values" questionnaires fall flat Bingo.

Surveys actually provide a way of gaming the scoring system as well, since you can make a reasonable assumption of what _your_ ideal partner would want you to say.

That's the biggest flaw with dating sites, is that you can only trust so much user input - everything needs to be taken in context. Even simple things such as "interests" should be evaluated in their own context, because you can't rely on exact matches or even fuzzy matches - you have to infer what else their might be interested in. Granted, you also get the problem where you don't get enough user input, therefore being able to infer other information becomes ridiculously valuable.

I agree that you can't perform N^2 searches in real-time. A lazy match is fine until a more accurate index is generated. However we still lack a reasonably accurate index. We also have to do all the searching ourselves, instead of the system working harder to provide far greater relevancy than it does now. I think the best analogue is Netflix - I want recommendations based on my interests and behavior. Again, the issue is dating has far more dimensions than movie recommendations.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can't come up with a good startup idea, shall I just get a job? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I'm doing some consulting at the moment, it's a challenging gig, but doesn't fell fulfilling enough.
I'm actively trying to come up with an idea for my next venture, but can't seem to find anything I'm passionate about. I wonder if joining an established company would help with that problem. <comment><USER2> 1\. I think your problem is relatively detached from the "should I join a company" question. Good ideas take time and are brewed in your brain after you've seen a problem enough. SolarCity's founders (Elon Musks cousins) first were told about solar's potential 2 years before they came up with the idea for SolarCity and their innovative financing model -- they went out and did a ton of research on the market, interviewed experts, and went to conferences before they saw that "no one was owning the problem that people couldn't afford solar." So they chose that as their "idea".

Basically, if you want to come up with an idea, go find problems you think are injustices in the world and go off and learn as much as you can, both online and in the real world. Why do those problems exist? Is it a technical problem, social problem, etc? As you go for a root cause analysis, you'll naturally end up coming up with solutions.

2\. Sometimes it's simply hard to get a high-level view of the tech industry and the markets that interplay. There are tons of cool startups. I recently wrote a blog post that you might like, where my company lists 75 of the most exciting startups, segmented by problem space: [https://jobstart.com/guides/top-startup-picks-explore-the- ma...](https://jobstart.com/guides/top-startup-picks-explore-the-markets)

Hope this all helps, and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Most startups fail. The media only talks about the outliers that have amazing success. Most struggle for a couple of years and then disappear. The lucky ones get bought.

If you are feeling unfulfilled, then maybe you should be looking at bigger, real problems. Of course, big problems are typically too big for a solo founder to tackle.

I cannot fathom your thinking about joining an established company being an answer. Generally, such companies stifle innovative thinking.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking about joining a big company from a perspective of networking mostly. Like you said, big problems are too much for a solo founder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe try changing consultancy contracts and start brainstorming about the kinds of problems you're having to solve, things you have to keep doing manually and pain points you have. It can take months and years for an idea to develop so don't give up.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is your problem a lack of good ideas or a lack of ideas you are passionate about?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly the latter I would say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, step 1 is don't die. Step 2 is don't suck.

So you have to account for survival first. If you need to get a job, then get a job. You don't need to find a fulfilling passion until step 1 is taken care of.

Also, I think it's important to differentiate between work and passion. Most people never discover an alignment between what they do to earn money and what's most important to them. Instead, most people become passionate about something like their family and work is just something they do to support their passion. It's normal to not find a startup you're passionate about.

A pattern I've seen described, that might work in your case, is to ask your clients if they have any unsolved problems they would happily pay you money to solve. Use their responses as the basis of your search. Keep paying the bills, and in your "spare time" investigate these problems. If one of them grabs you, ask for payment up front, if you get it, then you've found alignment between a passion and work.

An alternative approach is to look for people who are a little bit ahead of you and going in the direction you want to go. People who have found an alignment between their passion and work, and who are a little ways into the journey. Shop among them for one that you want to join. Work on their passion and find out how it's going for them.

Another alternative is to dramatically alter the survival equation so that you can devote yourself to exploring potential passions without worrying about survival. Live super cheap; maybe move to Vietnam or something.

For context, I found an alignment between my passion and work. At least, I hope I did. One person's asked to pay for it already, I just have to get that part built. I never followed a pattern of trying to find a passion I could turn into an income, I just always chased down and tackled interesting challenges. A while ago realized that the solution I'd come up with had way too much potential to remain a hobby. Now I'm in a place where I'd rather fail at this new thing than succeed at my day job.

If that's the kind of feeling you're looking for then try to tackle problems that are standing in the way of things you believe should happen. I was trying to apply the principles of open source software projects to hardware projects and just couldn't personally accept that they weren't working. It started to infuriate me. I could picture all the great things that would come from open source hardware, but none of us could come up with a way to make the process work, so none of those great things could happen. It felt personal. I don't think you're going to find that kind of personal, emotional, passionate connection to run of the mill business problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely know that feeling you are talking about. Happened to my previous startup (project) which failed.

Survival is not an issue, as a developer I can always find a remote gig to pay the bills.

Joining a startup which does something somewhat interesting/relevant to my passions is a good idea, unfortunately those are a few, but it's a good place to start I reckon.

As to moving to Vietnam option, I've lived a digital nomad lifestyle for the last couple of year, and it didn't work out very well, so I moved back to SF. I'm not sure how "exploring passions" would work living in a complete isolation in a place where you don't even speak the language.

<comment><USER6> "I definitely know that feeling you are talking about. Happened to my previous startup (project) which failed."

> Do you still feel that way, or did the feeling change when it didn't work > out?

"Survival is not an issue, as a developer I can always find a remote gig to pay the bills."

> That's a good position to be in. I've got several siblings and at this point > all of us have migrated over to software engineering of some kind because > it's so powerful and flexible.

"Joining a startup which does something somewhat interesting/relevant to my passions is a good idea, unfortunately those are a few, but it's a good place to start I reckon."

> Yeah, it seems like even if the startup itself isn't doing anything you're > passionate about, at least you'll be surrounded by people who grok it.

What kind of stuff are you passionate about?

"I've lived a digital nomad lifestyle for the last couple of year, and it didn't work out very well, so I moved back to SF."

> Did it just not agree with you? I've been wondering whether or not I should > try it.

"I'm not sure how "exploring passions" would work living in a complete isolation in a place where you don't even speak the language."

> From what I hear there are large expat communities. I've found that a lot of > my exploration is limited by my own ability to learn and apply, rather than > direct access to other people. I got on my current track because I was > searching youtube for robot engineering. But other people are an important > part of it. It seems like SV is probably the best place in the world to find > like-minded people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the feeling definitely changed after the project didn't work out.

It's just that the throughput of in-person communication is much higher than that of digital. Here in SV you have access to some of the smartest people in the world, and having this opportunity to speak to them and exchange ideas is invaluable for me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Amazon Cloud Drive - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore <comment><USER2> I think tonight is one of those nights where all cellphones/pagers/beepers/inboxes are going crazy at Dropbox.

Should be interesting to see how they respond in the coming days - if at all.

I hope Dropbox realizes that they can't compete with their supplier on price - so they need to differentiate themselves on value.

These prices are seriously ridiculous. 50% lower across the board. Kinda messed up - but I am in no hurry to leave dropbox any time soon.

Keep doing what you do dropbox. I am rooting for you.

<comment><USER3> Considering Dropbox is probably one of the biggest users of S3, it's not entirely impossible that they were in the know.

<comment><USER4> Is Dropbox bigger than Netflix in terms of traffic/storage?

<comment><USER5> I believe so <http://pycon.blip.tv/file/4878722/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is nice but doesn't strike me as competition for Dropbox in any way. The strength of Dropbox is in the deceptively dead simple client interface that lets it work without you having to think about it.

Amazon isn't addressing that here.

<comment><USER7> Correct. There's no Mac/PC client that emulates a local drive/folder (yet). Just an Air MP3 uploadeder app and a web based file upload for other types of files.

I wonder if you could isolate the S3 bucket used and use existing S3 clients. Of course then you might as well use raw S3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Take a look at point 5.2 of the Term of Use. Link: <http://amzn.to/eeSaB3> Quote: " 5.2 Our Right to Access Your Files. You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files: to provide you with technical support and address technical issues; to investigate compliance with the terms of this Agreement, enforce the terms of this Agreement and protect the Service and its users from fraud or security threats; or as we determine is necessary to provide the Service or comply with applicable law." ... not that encouraging imho.

<comment><USER9> They can't guarantee not accessing the files you store on their servers. That makes sense, though it's a bit creepy.

If you store encrypted files with them (and not store the encryption key in the same place) I guess it's not really an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't think Amazon is looking to compete with Dropbox but really iTunes in the cloud. For them, competing with Dropbox would be like shooting themselves in the foot. As long as Dropbox remains on S3, Amazon makes more money the more successful Dropbox gets. If they start to compete directly Dropbox will surely move to a cheaper solution and Amazon will loose a pretty large contract. They would also loose some trust with developers who feel Amazon might smash them at any moment. If Dropbox ever moved as they probably will, I think Amazon may consider competing, but even then don't seem to be in the business of creating client software (exception kindle).

<comment><USER11> You have made a really insightful comment, but I struggle to read it without wincing because of the misspellings.

 _lose_ , v. to part with something

 _loose_ , adj. not tight.

So yeah, Amazon might lose a large contract and might lose trust with developers. Sorry if it's a bit off-topic but I just wanted to mention how off-putting it is.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, I was half asleep and typing on my iPad

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm curious what they mean by "secure", since they seem to be trumpeting it as a major selling point. They say that all communication goes through HTTPS, which is nice, but they don't say if the information is encrypted on their servers as well. Can someone who gets a VM running on the same machine use clever side-channel trickery to peek at my files? Can a government get Amazon to quietly reveal all my data?

What would be really nice is something where files get stored fully encrypted, with the key derived client-side from your username and password, _and_ the connections all use HTTPS. (Or something similar. I'm not a security expert, so take this with a grain of salt.)

<comment><USER13> You could always use a truecrypt volume if you're paranoid.

<comment><USER14> If you are paranoid^, you wouldn't use TrueCrypt. [http://brianpuccio.net/excerpts/is_truecrypt_really_safe_to_...](http://brianpuccio.net/excerpts/is_truecrypt_really_safe_to_use)

^ good sense of the word

<comment><USER15> If you toss out the GUI stuff and the boilerplate encryption algorithms, the amount of important code in TrueCrypt is fairly small. It has, naturally enough, been subjected to attempts to break it:

[http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security- management/2008/07/17/s...](http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security- management/2008/07/17/schneier-research-team-cracks-truecrypt-39448526/)

Writing a sentence like "Some folks claim it has a backdoor" is painfully dishonest, manipulative, and scummy.

<comment><USER16> > If you toss out the GUI stuff and the boilerplate encryption algorithms, the > amount of important code in TrueCrypt is fairly small.

First of all, even if you use "boilerplate" encryption algorithms, crypto is ridiculously easy to get wrong, especially in a very demanding setting of disk encryption. Second, TrueCrypt's ability to present its volumes as virtual drives/mountable images is no small feat (both in Linux and NT).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Amazon is going to be one of the biggest tech companies of the decade for growth and innovation. I'm going to invest tomorrow.

<comment><USER18> Amazon is the opposite of eBay. Seriously, I can not think of two companies farther apart on the innovation spectrum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm kinda bemused at the idea that 5GB is enough for my music collection or even some reasonable portion of it. I mean think about it: who here really gets by with a 4GB (or even 8GB) MP3 player?

I'd probably need 200GB ($200/year). A more reasonable person would probably be fine with 20 or 50GB ($20/50 per year).

I'm not sure I understand the business model and the hype behind cloud syncing of music though. What is the point? If you're going to copy onto an MP3 player you'll need a local copy. So the use cases are:

1\. On the Web;

2\. On networked mobiles; and

3\. As a form of backup.

Well (1) is covered quite well with Grooveshark. I can find most things I want there and it's an awful lot cheaper (up to free).

(2) I don't think makes a lot of sense given the high cost of mobile data. Maybe in the future mobile data will be an awful lot cheaper but there are fundamental limitations with wireless bandwidth that I think will make that very difficult.

There are many solutions for (3). In terms of raw storage, Amazon's prices are pretty cheap. But backup misses the point entirely I think.

When I buy digital content of any sort I don't want to back it up. I want to be able to recover it easily and simply. iTunes for example only allows downloading movies once (is that right?). If so, I'm just never going to buy movies that way. If I pay for it and can watch what I download any number of times, why can't I download it again if I accidentally lose it?

So iTunes and Amazon MP3s need this feature: log onto my account and click a link that says "download all purchased tracks".

At that point I don't _need_ backup of any kind (for my digital content).

I think the only business model that makes sense is flat-rate subscriptions. You don't store your own music. The provider simply has all the music. This solves a lot of storage problems for the provider (meaning 1000 people share the same copy of the song rather than each uploading and storing it individually).

I can see how they'll get some scale here by having duplicates of some songs (particularly iTunes and Amazon bought MP3s). It'd be interesting to know how much saved space they have from deduplication.

Anyway, am I missing something here?

<comment><USER20> If you have 200GB of music, you have 195GB of crap.

<comment><USER21> Or you have really diverse music tastes and prefer lossless formats?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Storage price still 12x more then traditional harddrive backup(1TB=1000$). That 12x is what you are paying for cloud value added service. Prices should be at least half in order for consumer market to take off.It will come.

In the mean time, still waiting for revamped MobileMe. An O/S integrated cloud service seems to me much way better than any others. Airdrop might be the interface for all filesharing solutions in MAC devices.

<comment><USER23> Dropbox will transparently sync a folder on your computer which makes it as integrated with the OS as your local file system. How much more integration do you need? Are there some system calls that the Darwin kernel could implement to make the integration tighter?

<comment><USER22> Why shall i need an app while its given a system feature?

BTW who knows what new OSX features will bring, new file system for better sync for air, a new pure friendly UI? Who knows...

And i don't like apps that depended some other major competitors than my environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Oops, Adobe Flash Player is required to upload files"

Bye.

<comment><USER25> I didn't really notice it till I read this comment, but considering their long-available AWS Console is also a flash app, it makes sense, and it sure doesn't seem like that this is all the surprise to dropbox that people elsewhere on this thread are talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Half the price of dropbox, this is just begging for a kick ass desktop/mobile app.

<comment><USER27> "Half the price of dropbox, this is just begging for a kick ass desktop/mobile app."

And I want a pony.

No client sync software, no sharing. I think the Dropbox folks will sleep well at night.

Smooth client software is half the value of paying for Dropbox and I don't see an Amazon side project challenging Dropbox in client usability anytime soon.

This looks more like a middle finger to any eventual iTunes cloud strategy.

<comment><USER2> I think one thing everybody should have learnt about Amazon is that they have perfected the MVP strategy. This is JUST ground-zero.

In the coming weeks/months, expect to see rapid iterations...i.e. I wouldn't be surprised if they announce a desktop-side client in relatively short order.

How on earth does a large company like Amazon manage to keep pushing out so many innovative products so frequently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They are giving away 20gb for a $2 purchase

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000667531>

<comment><USER29> Just have to remember this tidbit: "Unless you set your account to auto-renew to a paid plan, the 20 GB plan will revert to a free plan one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase." I'm pretty certain that Amazon will make sure to let you know well ahead of time. But I'm only "pretty certain", not "completely certain".

<comment><USER30> Hopefully they'll gracefully degrade like Dropbox does. They leave all your existing data there for you to access, but you can't add/change any files until you either renew or reduce your usage back down the free tier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Also, another comment... Cloud Drive needs an API or client side mount support to really take off.

<comment><USER31> Yeah I was expecting that. Something that was more or less a drop-in replacement for Dropbox. Plus the bonus of streaming with Cloud Player. No doubt Amazon wanted to get it out there in the hands of customers and beat Apple and the WWDC. As long as they keep improving it in the next few months I don't think anyone will remember that they launched with a MVC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think it is still more expensive than Google to store photos and documents.

Google storage plans are almost a quarter of what Amazon is charging for! For 20GB you pay $20/yr and with Google it's just $5 (for 20GB). Have a look - <https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage>

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER33> Out of curiosity, do you know of a local client or tool that can mount my Google storage locally? I/O to it is a serious PIA through the web interface compared to my smaller but easier to use Dropbox.

<comment><USER32> Actually I used one way back when Google didn't give an option to upload any type of file. I used Gmail drive (<http://www.filehippo.com/download_gmail_drive/>) which creates an actual drive on your computer where you can just put your files and it'll upload to Gmail as an attachment.

It's good for files upto 25MB (Gmail attachment size) and if you have inbox issues like me then it's not that a good option.

Then there's Gladinet Desktop app (paid) which I have no experience using, here's the link - [http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?pro...](http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=1927+12624351498939350646)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Interesting, especially since Dropbox stores its files on Amazon's servers (S3).

<comment><USER35> Not for long I would bet.

S3 is a great service don't get me wrong. But for relatively low transaction data like backup and sync not only is the pricing high but Dropbox also have a vested interest that as they grow they do not depend on a 3rd party for what is no doubt the largest single cost of providing their service.

<comment><USER11> I guess it depends on whether Dropbox think they could implement the same storage service cheaper themselves. S3 actually offers _a lot_. They have at least four nines availability (and I think you can pay for more), a ridiculously high durability figure, plus geographic distribution and replication.

Developing that for yourself would be very expensive, I imagine. I'd actually be quite surprised if Dropbox went through the hassle of setting this all up. It would have to be a significant difference in cost to justify the effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Currently limited to a web interface and requiring the use of flash. No option for a basic uploader like Dropbox? I assume desktop clients will eventually arrive along with smartphone apps.

No doubt Amazon has the resources to compete with Dropbox. Can Dropbox fight back against such a Behemoth? Customer loyalty aside, what can Dropbox do to stay ahead of Amazon?

Can't wait to see how far this evolves.

</comment><comment><USER37> As the cloud becomes increasingly more relevant as a reliable and scalable storage solution, this trend conjures memories of Sun's Net PC back in the 90s: [http://news.cnet.com/DEMO-96-Net-PC-from-Sun-shines-at- show/...](http://news.cnet.com/DEMO-96-Net-PC-from-Sun-shines-at- show/2100-1001_3-203291.html)

</comment><comment><USER38> If they let me upload and download files using an API instead of browser and all that CAPTCHA nonsense I would actually invest time and maybe some money to develop a native client for this service.

But considering the current experience of 'storing a file' I'm better off sending myself an email, let alone using Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER39> It would be very surprising to me if PaulG or anybody else at YC approved Dropbox's application without receiving what they believed to be a satisfactory answer to a question along the lines of "What happens when Amazon becomes your competition?"

</comment><comment><USER40> If this product urges Dropbox to release the web api version 1, I'm happy.

 _That_ alone will put Dropbox in the top of the game if it's not already there, as tons of devs will rush to develop 3rd party apps for it.

The same doesn't apply to ACD, _yet_.

</comment><comment><USER41> Until end-to-end bandwidth improves and per-terabyte prices drop significantly, I'll wait to move to the cloud. The value isn't yet there for me.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone know of a drive that I can stream videos from?

</comment><comment><USER43> Do not support files > 2GB in size. No go.

</comment><comment><USER44> I am a happy Dropbox user and not planning to move away anytime soon. Amazon's expansion strategy is commendable though.

</comment><comment><USER45> Being that dropbox uses amazon S3, I can't say I would expect them to be surprised at this.

</comment><comment><USER46> How is this compared to SkyDrive?

<comment><USER47> CloudDrive is more overcast.

<comment><USER48> Superlative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Awesome. I'll park my (encrypted) backups of docs there.

</comment><comment><USER50> I feel like back in 1999 with this Amazon Cloud Storage/Player. Any case, Amazon is like a giant grocery store which is always selling something. It feel creepy to house my files at their store.</comment>


Reputation.com Loses User Passwords, Emails, and Addresses - <AUTHOR> https://www.stormpath.com/blog/reputationcom-loses-user-passwords-emails-and-addresses

<comment><USER2> Its absolutely flabbergasting when a company, which has the sole purpose of protecting customer information, allows this to occur. They've raised 4 major institutional rounds (their last $42 million), its discomforting that neither their team nor investors thought to secure their systems better than this.

<comment><USER3> mumble mumble invisible hand mumble

<comment><USER4> I didn't get it.

<comment><USER5> I think his point is that in an efficient market (invisible hand - an Adam Smith reference) incompetent companies should loose all of their customers to better companies and die.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! I didn't know it was an Adam Smith reference. It makes sense now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really bad for their reputation.

</comment><comment><USER7> Reputation.com has always been smarmy. It wouldn't surprise me if they sold the passwords and then claimed they lost them. (Really)

For the things Reputation.com does you have to ask why they used encrypted rather than hashed passwords. Not that hashed passwords would make me super excited to be lost, but why did Reputation.com need to keep the password around? They don't really interact with accounts, and if they do those should be stored separately from the access to the site. So the message should have been "we lost users bank account passwords" or something along those lines.

Because I know that Reputation.com is practically in the extortion business this password storing rather than hashing issue makes me think even less of them, which is difficult to do.

<comment><USER8> The passwords _were_ salted and hashed (the article and e-mail screenshot both mention this).

It's no s/b/...crypt but they don't seem to have been 'kept around'.

<comment><USER8> Aaand having posted this, he reads the first comment on the page which states the opposite... in contradiction to the posted screenshot of the supposed e-mail.

o_O

<comment><AUTHOR> I received and posted the email, and many others on twitter have also received it.

Also, not sure we should take blog comments for the gospel before all the facts are out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article sort of glosses over the exact user data lost in the data breach: names, email and physical addresses. For users some, phone numbers, date of birth and occupational info.

That is a lot of personal data to lose given Reputation.com's supposed to be opening a data privacy vault this year.[1] The founder gave interview to Fox March 1st describing Reputation.com's move into vendor relationship management.[2]

Advocates for personal data vaults / VRM business model[3][4] like Reputation.com and Personal.com stress that personal data is mishandled today, especially by data brokers. Thus it must be particularly frustrating for Reputation.com to be directly involved in a data breach.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/business/company- envisions...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/business/company-envisions- vaults-for-personal-data.html?pagewanted=all)

[2] [http://www.reputation.com/reputationwatch/multimedia/michael...](http://www.reputation.com/reputationwatch/multimedia/michael- fertik-fox-markets-now-data-vault)

[3] <https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page>

[4] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/technology/start-ups- aim-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/technology/start-ups-aim-to-help- users-put-a-price-on-their-personal-data.html/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a reason why in all of these compromises that they never state the type of encryption used on passwords?

<comment><USER11> Because somewhere between 97% and 100% of the recipients of the message would only be confused by that information.

<comment><USER12> Confusion, when followed by positive words, can make people happier sometimes. (Wow, I sure am glad they are so smart!)

I don't really see a big drawback to inserting a few extra words, if those words might get reputable people to say that the bad thing that just happened wasn't really so bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Losing information on the scale these guys have is no doubt going to be bad for their reputation.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm always nervous when people say they've lost "encrypted" passwords. We need a "plain english" version of <https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Password_Storage_Cheat_Sheet> or at least issue a warning when you create a "password" VARCHAR in MySQL ;-)

<comment><USER15> I really hate that OWASP page (it's not as bad as it used to be --- that is, godawful --- and now it's just incoherent) and think we shouldn't be directing developers to it. If there's something "OWASP" (whatever that is) is truly bad at, it's cryptography.

<comment><USER16> I usually rely on OWASP for general guidelines, but if that page isn't enough for you, what is? (not a rhetorical question)

What should one look into in order to fill in OWASP's gaps?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ironic. More over, this is exactly why AirBnB should not become an identity store (asking their customers to become verified by scanning and sending their passport info). I do not trust them with my identity.

</comment><comment><USER18> Seems like a good letter to send for a fishing scam. Call this number that has nothing to do with our company and give them more personal info to "watch your credit".

</comment><comment><USER19> It's gonna need some reputation defense now.

</comment><comment><USER20> So their reputation is lost?

<comment><USER21> When I first read the title, I thought they litteraly LOST their database contents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bad reputation</comment>


In-house vs. outsourcing product teams: What is the best choice? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/pixelmatters/in-house-vs-outsourcing-what-is-the-best-choice-a59a8f8a5896 <comment><AUTHOR> Do you ever face yourself in a position of deciding to create an in-house team or to outsource? Which parameters did you evaluate? Let me know and I might edit the post to include more :)</comment>


Seeking feedback on health startup concept - <AUTHOR>

A friend and I are developing an online tool to help patients better access and understand their medical records. We're looking for ideas from potential users (ie all of us, since we're all patients, or know patients!)
I'm sure many of us have been through the experience of having a loved one with a chronic disease. Frequently one of the most frustrating parts of the process is not having access to the medical records that document the details of their care, especially when we can't accompany them to appointments (as the case often is these days). Moreover, whenever we do manage to get a hold of these records, understanding them frequently is challenging given the terminology used by doctors in their documentation.
Our basic goal is to make medical records more accessible and understandable for patients and their loved ones.
-Would you use a tool like this to better understand and engage with the care of a loved one? Would you be willing to pay for it? If so, how much?
-What about your own medical care---would you use this tool to better understand your own records?
-What sorts of features would you want to see in either case?
Thanks in advance for your help guys! <comment><AUTHOR> Bump</comment>


London Is Still Paying Rent to the Queen on a Property Leased in 1211 - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/london-is-still-paying-rent-to-the-queen-on-a-property-leased-in-1211 <comment><USER2> This sort of thing happens in the US, too, at least in the Northeast corner of it. The land that my house sits on is owned by the Unitarian Universalist church down the street, and each year I owe them $4 or the equivalent in livestock or firewood. To date I've always found it easiest to mail them a check but someday if I'm feeling grumpy maybe I'll give them a duckling.

<comment><USER3> How did you come to own a house that's built on land you don't own? And aren't you worried about what may happen in the future?

<comment><USER4> Nobody really owns the land their house is built on in the USA... stop paying your property taxes (rent) and you'll see who owns it.

<comment><USER5> This is such a tired claim. Every civilization ever has been built under the aegis of, if no one else, each other.

Of course you own it. The question is what "ownership" means. Ownership of a property is best defined by delineating the specific rights that you can exercise with respect to it. You may bar people from entering it. You might not be able to bar the government from entering it or making certain uses of it. There's a good chance you can't keep people from being underneath your house and extracting valuable minerals, if they're far enough down. Your rights don't extend very far above the earth.

But you knew all that when you made the purchase.

<comment><USER4> > But you knew all that when you made the purchase.

and you didn't have any other options.

<comment><USER5> There's this underlying assumption that people seem to have that they have an absolute right to have absolute control over some piece of land. I'm really confused where that comes from. Was it that way in the past? I suppose, in various places and eras. But far more common was that you had enough power to deter the powerful around you, and you were for all intents and purposes a state. I can understand wanting to be a state, but you don't have a right to be one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Likewise France's oldest debt: [https://modeledbehavior.com/2010/01/31/the- worlds-oldest-exi...](https://modeledbehavior.com/2010/01/31/the-worlds- oldest-existing-government-debt/)

The UK has never been through a "year zero" forcible reconstitution, so its constitutional and administrative arrangements are full of little adhoc anomalies (the various islands like Sark and Man, the City, "County" Durham, chancel repair liability, and so on). Mostly these are a fine and picturesque addition to the texture of the nation. There's certainly no real appetite to "fix" things, although Scotland managed to abolish the feudal system ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc._\(Scotland\)_Act_2000))

However, this means that the sort of internal tensions which in the US get nailed to the mast of the constitution instead float around, un-crystallized. Until now, when the "brexit" vote has triggered a cascade of constitutional crises: is parliamentary consent required to leave the EU? How does this affect the Good Friday Agreement? What about Scotland? What exactly is the constitutional status of the Human Rights Act and why do the conservatives keep trying to abolish it? And so on.

<comment><USER7> There also a bond from a Dutch water board ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_(Netherlands)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_\(Netherlands\))) issued in 1648 that still pays interest: [http://news.yale.edu/2015/09/22/living-artifact-dutch- golden...](http://news.yale.edu/2015/09/22/living-artifact-dutch-golden-age- yale-s-367-year-old-water-bond-still-pays-interest)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article refers to "London", but likely that means what is now the City of London, just one of 32 boroughs of Greater London. Few live in the City of London ("the City") these days, it's mostly business and finance.

<comment><USER9> The City is fascinating in the UK context, it really is more like a different country. It's strangely archaic being more of the 1200s than the 21st century. It can alter its own constitution, still permits business voting long abolished in the rest of the UK, and avoided much of the modernisation and reform elsewhere.

There's now only about 10,000 residents - most of whom are in a single estate - the Barbican. Business votes now far exceed individuals.

That doesn't touch on freemen, livery companies, and all the other archaic complexity.

Secret City covers a lot of it, but the film is as much about the financial crisis.

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

<comment><USER10> In what elections do businesses vote? Local or national? Could one set up a thousand shell companies and get a thousand votes?

<comment><USER11> Elections for the Common Council of the City of London Corporation. So local only.

Votes are provided based on corporation size, so just setting up shell companies won't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing I wasn't sure of after reading the article, are the objects then given back to the city after the ceremony or do they need to provide more objects the next year.

The former seems implied from the age of the items, but that doesn't seem like rent to me.

<comment><USER13> They are indeed returned after the ceremony. I suppose it helps keep the tradition without the tedium of trying to source another six oversized horseshoes every year. And the building of a pointless stock of blunt agricultural tools somewhere in Buckingham Palace too, I guess.

<comment><USER14> I was wondering about it as I read, too. I pictured a long hallway lined with 800-odd sets of items, maybe with a plaque here and there to provide context of what was happening in the country at that time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> All these weird antiquated ceremonies and traditions remind me of Doug Stanhope's take on the UK still having a monarchy @ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctOHo4RzZEc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctOHo4RzZEc) \- tiny quote: "for gods sake is this a country or a renaissance festival, what kind of Dungeons and Dragons bullshit is that?"

<comment><USER16> And yet, while we're getting ready to votes for the lesser evil of Kang and Kodos, the Queen is well into her seventh decade on the throne, still enjoying approval ratings that democratic politicians can only dream about.

[https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/09/08/monarchy-here- stay/](https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/09/08/monarchy-here-stay/)

<comment><USER11> It's rather easier to enjoy a high approval rating when what you need to do to maintain it is to not express any opinions and avoid taking any decisions and give sufficiently magnanimous answers to a few unimportant questions here and there, and not being caught doing anything offensive.

<comment><USER17> delegation done right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Stratfield Saye House is rented from the Queen too, for the price of one silk flag per year. Although this has only been going on for a mere 200 years. [http://royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/insight/annual-waterloo- cere...](http://royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/insight/annual-waterloo-ceremony- duke-of-wellington-pays-his-rent-2-32295)

</comment><comment><USER19> There is a urban fantasy novel by Mike Sheldon based on the two oldest quit rents mentioned in this article.

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6673065-sixty-one- nails](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6673065-sixty-one-nails)

<comment><USER20> Ha! This was my first thought too! An enjoyable read, the protagonist becomes progressively less sympathetic through the series

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm torn between finding these kinds of things completely ridiculous and appreciating keeping old traditions alive. There's just something neat about these kinds of things. Hilariously pointless, but neat.

<comment><USER22> It's also symbolic, representing the abstract notion of a stable government in a real and tangible way. Such symbols can be useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "But each fall, usually in October, the city and the crown perform the same exchange, for no particular reason other than that they always have."

It's tempting to laugh at this silliness, but 1000 years from now coders will still be putting the open curly brace in C code on a separate line for no particular reason other than that they always have.

<comment><USER24> Reminds me of that bit in The Last Continent -

They'd never stopped, or even thought of stopping. You couldn't stop Tradition. You could only add to it. The three men reached the shadows by the main gate, almost blotted out in the whirling snow. The bledlow on duty was waiting for them. 'Halt! Who Goes There?' he shouted. McAbre saluted. 'The Archchancellor's Keys!'

'Pass, The Archchancellor's Keys!'

The Head Bledlow took a step forward, extended both arms in front of him with his palms bent back towards him, and patted his chest at the place where some bledlow long buried had once had two breast pockets. Pat, pat. Then he extended his arms by his sides and stiffly patted the sides of his jacket. Pat, pat. 'Damn! Could Have Sworn I Had Them A Moment Ago!' he bellowed, enunciating each word with a sort of bulldog carefulness. The gatekeeper saluted. McAbre saluted. 'Have You Looked In All Your Pockets?' McAbre saluted. The gatekeeper saluted. A small pyramid of snow was building up on his bowler hat. 'I Think I Must Have Left Them On The Dresser. It's Always The Same, Isn't It?'

'You Should Remember Where You Put Them Down.!'

'Hang On, Perhaps They're In My Other Jacket!' The young bledlow who was this week's Keeper of the Other Jacket stepped forward. Each man saluted the other two. The youngest cleared his throat and managed to say: 'No, I Looked In . . . There This . . . Morning!' McAbre gave him a slight nod to acknowledge a difficult job done well, and patted his pockets again. 'Hold On, Stone The Crows, They Were In This Pocket After All! What A Muggins I Am!'

'Don't Worry, I Do The Same Myself!'

'Is My Face Red! Forget My Own Head Next!' Somewhere in the darkness a window creaked up. 'Er, excuse me, gentlemen—'

'Here's The Keys, Then!' said McAbre, raising his voice. 'Much Obliged!'

'I wonder if you could—' the querulous voice went on, apologizing for even thinking of complaining. 'All Safe And Secure!' shouted the gatekeeper, handing the keys back. '—perhaps keep it down a little—'

'Gods Bless All Present!' screamed McAbre, veins standing out on his thick crimson neck. 'Careful Where You Put Them This Time. Ha! Ha! Ha!'

'Ho! Ho! Ho!' yelled McAbre, beside himself with fury.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Isn't 1211 four hundred years before the King James bible?

<comment><USER26> Odd thing to recognize but you are right King James Bible is from 1611.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > a knife, an axe, six oversized horseshoes, and 61 nails

It looks like, based on the photo, that the horseshoes take 10 nails each, so that could why they are accompanied by 60 nails.

So why 61? A spare?

<comment><USER28> "For want of a nail the shoe was lost..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> More impressive to me is the fact that Britain is still paying interest on a debt from 1720 (due to South Sea Bubble krach)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/world/that-debt- from-1720-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/world/that-debt- from-1720-britains-payment-is-coming.html)

<comment><USER30> In Germany there is still payments going on which date back to the German mediatization because of compensations for exproriated property or liabilities on the propriety which switched the owner to some other princes and in turn now the state.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Considering that since then some three or four kings/dynasties have been rather unceremoniously disposed of ... looks like a bit of a formality, to rub it in.

I mean, you execute/exile/etc the person you owe the debt to, and keep paying it to the one you pick to replace him in the job of president - er, I mean, king?

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm just waiting for someone to make use of an obscure provision to settle a dispute through Trial by Combat.

<comment><USER33> trial by combat was formerly abolished by Parliament in 1819

<comment><USER34> Formally?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The US is still paying for Gitmo, they also might still be paying for Alaska :P

</comment><comment> premium-concern That's what "rent" means.</comment>


Can we make reactionary protests safe? - <AUTHOR> It seems an almost certainty that people will want to take to the streets in the future in reaction to an injustice.<p>Can we have a plan on how to organize those safely so they don't degrade into looting and burning down our neighborhoods? <comment><USER2> FYI, the term "reactionary" usually communicates a _conservative_ reaction towards progressivism or liberalism. Though, in the purest sense of the etymology, you aren't wrong to use it; just be aware of how people here will interpret you.

</comment><comment><USER3> 99% of all demonstrations do not lead to riots. But you'll never hear about them because non-violent protests aren't interesting enough to the media.

</comment><comment><USER4> > they

> our

hmmm....

In all seriousness, a string of three viral police injustices where a black person was a victim happened in a span of less than 3 months. You have 40 million now unemployed, who have possibly lost loved ones, sitting at home. I'm not sure how you thought this _wasn 't_ going to happen.

</comment><comment><USER5> are you for real? look at how people respond to sports teams winning. people have been murdered by police officers and you can't ignore it anymore.</comment>


The story of every free, commercial social web service ever. - <AUTHOR> http://sloblog.io/0GE5USGsskE

<comment><USER2> Commercialize up front. Have your pro version ready as soon as the service is out of beta. Otherwise you are just asking for trouble.</comment>


Ask HN: 5G Connectivity for IoT - <AUTHOR> With 5G networks rolling out when, if ever, will inexpensive connectivity be made available at scale?  Looking at the major wireless carriers, it looks like they are currently selling 5G as just a faster 4G with the same pricing.
How far away are we from inexpensive wireless broadband connectivity?
Are there any competing technologies that could be viable? <comment><USER2> 5G is about faster connectivity not cheaper. Wireless mobile broadband requires massive capital outlays, so it is unlikely that prices will be coming down anytime soon. The carrier's only concern is ROI. Contrary to what their marketing spiels may claim.

LoRaWAN technology, if meshed, can cover a wide area, but it is relatively slow. There has been some chatter about carriers including that standard with their existing towers for IoT applications. Even if that comes about it will probably be years away and be priced to be profitable not cheap.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want cheap you want optic fiber to the last 250ft, then ethernet, then wifi. The phone company says the fiber is expensive, but it lasts for decades, they can't depreciate it as fast as 5G base stations that will be trashed when 6G gets here, if not before.

The elephant in the room is that cell phone coverage is a joke in the us. They say they support 300 m pops but I find that very hard to believe based on going to one.</comment>


Blackboard Patent Struck Down - <AUTHOR> http://techdirt.com/articles/20090728/0233445678.shtml

<comment><USER2> I'm not really a huge proponent of e-learning since I'm very much a fan of sitting in a classroom and actually listening to a professor or teaching assistant give a lecture or lesson, but sometimes, I'm forced to interact with my university's Blackboard installation. It's mediocre at best and a waste of time at worst; it really does nothing to help the whole learning process aside from acting like a clumsy file locker that is best provided by something else like, maybe, a directory listing.

That said, given that Blackboard has also had control of WebCT for some time now, they run pretty much a straight-up monopoly in this market, and it's actually nice to see them get yanked of at least one of their toys even if they were allowed to cause severe damage to another company in the process. It's a shame, but this company really needs to get with the program and understand that this abuse of intellectual property law won't be tolerated.

Nevertheless, yes, why was this patent awarded in the first place? I'm curious since my tax payment somehow went into making this whole mess happen, and that fact alone is making me somewhat angry.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's a terrible site. They've also been known to sue other companies that have tried to improve the online learning experience.</comment>


State of Startups, 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://stateofstartups2019.firstround.com/ <comment><USER2> > Only 1 in 10 employees said cash or equity compensation was a primary reason > they joined their company, and only 1 in 20 founders said equity played a > starring role in their pitches to candidates.

Sounds like a self fulfilling prophecy and also why I don't really consider joining any startups.

<comment><USER3> What I took from this was that, if you're willing to pay a competitive rate and you're worth a competitive market rate, no one is getting high offers. If you can get the same compensation offer at 5 places in the next 2 months, the cash/equity compensation probably isn't the reason you're going to take a job. Basically, the market has found some salary/equity equilibrium, and it's things external to compensation that are being played around with to attract talent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thorentis has a good point. Wondering how folks know they weren't hired because they are female. I am a woman. I have learned that we actually do not speak up for ourselves, are less likely to ask for mentorship - from a universe that tends to be male - and we position differently. IE: I learned (and have observed in myself) that (generally speaking) we need to check off all job requirements in our background before we will apply for a role, whereas men in general do not do this. (again, in general). I have learned as a senior staff member to open up job descriptions to be able to open the funnel, and proactively reach out to diverse candidates. I think there is a ways to go to understand the true benefits of diversity in order to proactively apply and leverage for good, for progress. It is nicer, nonetheless, to see more diverse teams at the senior level though (speaking as an investor).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This certainly rings true from my experience working in a startup:

* Much higher on the employee wish list? Their ability to make an impact (55%), the problems they'd be solving (42%), the mission (40%), the team (39%) and the culture (30%).

* When employees lack faith in their CEO, they are 3x less confident that their company will see a $1B+ exit, 5x more likely to leave within a year, 6x more likely not to exercise their options, and 2x more likely to think the company will fail due to culture or team.

</comment><comment><USER5> > 40% of female employees reported that their gender hurt their chances of > getting hired or landing senior roles in tech.

How could the people who answered this possibly know that? Were they told to their face that "I won't hire you because you're a female"? Just because the person who _was_ hired was male, doesn't mean the employer _didn 't want_ a female, they just chose somebody who happened to be male instead. I find it hard to believe that 40% of female employees had their chances hurt due to their gender.

> 80% of founders believe having a more diverse team will have a direct > positive impact on the value of their startup.

> And for employees it's becoming non-optional. Those who believe their > leadership isn't prioritizing diversity and inclusion are 3x as likely to > anticipate leaving their company within the next year (34% vs. 11%).

Becoming non-optional? So 80% of founders are prioritizing "diversity" (whatever that means) ... but only 34% of employees actually care? This is hardly non-optional. Once again shows the disconnect between the employers and employees in-terms of what they perceive as being important.

<comment><USER6> The job hoppers were not asked why they would move on... exactly so the tea leaves could be arranged into "needs more woke".

Could it not just be that employees want their bosses (who will read the results) to consider paying market rates sooner and don't mind signaling their virtue when excessively prompted to do so on an internet form that can be traced back to them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN Teachers and Edu Hackers :  How do you prepare educational materials? - <AUTHOR>

Do you copy and paste text books? or Do you have any system where people can share educational materials in schools? I'll really appreciate if you  share your way to do it! <comment><USER2> I am curious why you are asking this. Are you a teacher wondering what others do, or are you a hacker looking to build something in the education field?

Education is one field where tech solutions have a long way to go. I believe copyright and cost are two issues that need to be thought about carefully in any ed-related technology venture.

For example, I am pretty sure most teachers still do all their lesson planning using word processing software, which is like architects working in MS Paint. Teachers need a well-designed lesson planning tool. That tool needs to be open-source to see widespread use, for a number of reasons.

I am excited to see where ed tech goes in the next 10 or 20 years. Tell us a little more about what you are thinking, and I'd love to share some more specific thoughts.

<comment><USER3> When I was teaching, having a detailed lesson plan was the least of my work. Just a handful of bullet points was fine.

What takes the most time when you're teaching is _grading_.

Also time-consuming: documenting discipline issues and parent contact. And, when you're new: creating worksheets/problem-sets, lab handouts, quizzes, tests, and exams.

<comment><USER4> Might I ask how do you go about creating those worksheets/problem-sets, etc?

I've noticed in Staples that they have paper templates for those but I'm wondering if anyone actually uses them at all.

<comment><USER3> You mean what tools did I use? LaTeX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> United States copyright law matters where I teach. (Most countries these days have somewhat similar laws about what the United States calls "fair use" and the somewhat different concept of what teachers are licensed by law to do for preparing classroom materials, but that can vary a bit from country to country.) Because United States law is reasonably generous to teachers,

<http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf>

<http://www.teachingcopyright.org/curriculum/hs>

I do make use of copyrighted materials to prepare class handouts (especially), but because there are restrictions of reproductions of materials even for teachers, I generally prefer to use materials that have been put on the Web specifically for use by other teachers. That's because then I know there is a license from the copyright holder for the use I intend.

There are at least two organizations now for sharing classroom materials, one a commercial service that charges fees,

<http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/>

and one coordinated as a nonprofit organization, for sharing free materials,

<http://www.sharemylesson.com/>

but when I visit those sites, I rarely find anything suitable for my classes, so I usually do direct searches by subject on Google, sometimes site- restricting to sites of educational institutions, to find suitable materials for my classes.

<comment><USER6> "I rarely find anything suitable for my classes, so I usually do direct searches by subject on Google, sometimes site-restricting to sites of educational institutions, to find suitable materials for my classes."

Can you clarify why they're not suitable? Or are there any patterns in your unmet needs?

Which issues are most frustrating for you, or take up annoyingly large chunks of your time?

There are lots of people here who are interested in working on educational problems, either in a commercial or non-commercial context.

<comment><USER2> _Can you clarify why they're not suitable? Or are there any patterns in your unmet needs?_

Most lesson-plan sites I have seen are poorly executed. Organizing educational materials is a difficult problem:

\- For example, consider Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a simple rule that there can only be one article per topic. This focuses people's thoughts around building one high-quality article for their favorite topics. You can't do that for education. There are a number of different ways to teach most skills and concepts, and we need that variety if we want to offer high-quality education to everyone.

\- Once you accept that there are a number of ways to teach any one topic, you can see how hard it might be to collect "unit plans", or whatever you'd like to call them. A good approach would probably involve defining "pathways" through a series of topics.

\- Many lesson plan sites are just plain incomplete as well. People see the need for improvement, build a site, and expect teachers to magically fill in all the content.

\- Every lesson plan site I've seen has been poorly organized, incomplete, over-commercialized, or some combination of these.

If anyone thinks there is a site that addresses these issues effectively, I'd love to hear about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do your students have textbooks?

Regarding worksheets/quizzes/etc., you usually either write your own, or else --- to get you started --- borrow from other teachers in your school who are teaching the same subject.</comment>


HN-Books goes live with Version 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://hn-books.com/v1.htm

<comment><USER2> You need a spinner (or if there already is one, you need a much more obvious one) so I can tell the app is doing something when I click one of the "Filter by" buttons on the right sidebar. Just go to ajaxload.info, get an animated GIF, load it in the template display:none, and then $("#spinner").show() when you make your call back to the server.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am interested in the content of your site, but the performance is not tolerable. The load time for the first page will cause some people to go away and never come back, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that once it loads, it's not usable. I have no idea what you are doing in the JavaScript, but it churns my CPU for about a minute as it consumes more and more memory, eventually topping out at about 300 meg. Scrolling through the list of books is too slow and jerky to tolerate.

I would suggest avoiding JavaScript altogether until you get to the root of the problem. Also, test your site on a run of the mill platform like a five year old Dell PC running Windows XP and IE7. You can probably find one of these at your office or your parents' house. If the site isn't quick on that platform, then half the world isn't going come back after the first visit.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's a great resource, thanks for putting that list together.

Some ideas for the next version:

\- Paginate the book listings. Most people probably aren't going to be looking way down in the list anyways, no need to give them results they won't see.

\- Add a small blurb to the main page telling visitors what the site is about. It doesn't need to be as detailed as the FAQ just something like: "Find great books recommended by hackers!"

\- Give users some indication of how the books are sorted. It doesn't matter that the ranking is opaque and subjective, even a small label that said "Sort by: best" would be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting idea, instead of a free for all forum format, Q&A takes the form of book lists. Look forward to seeing how it works out.

</comment><comment><USER6> I just searched in that page about Lisp and there are only two books, On Lisp and Lisp in small pieces. The most recommended book is Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel, this book is not on that page, so version 1.0 is very weak, there is not land of lisp (new book), nothing about clojure, etc.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like there is a useful set of books that you'd like to suggest -- suggest it on the (HN Books) site!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Improvements to the site since the beta a few weeks ago.

\- Added JQuery UI

\- Each book now has its own detail page

\- On the book detail page, you can see where other hackers all over the web are talking about the book. Good for those who want to research books more before buying

\- There's an "Ask Question" where you can ask a question. I tried to include the standard questions we get over on HN, but if I missed one, here's the place to add it

\- There's an "Answer Question" page. Don't like my list of books? Make your own using drag and drop. Site creates an url with your lists of books to answer a particular startup question. You can reuse the url in other places (like HN)

\- Added a bunch of noscript text so folks without Javascript can still browse the books

\- Spent way too long on load and response times (Always seems that way, eh?) First hit on an empty cache still sucks, but return hits aren't so bad.

Also added several books based on HNers suggestions.

<comment><USER9> This looks great!

One suggestion I would have is to tell the users upfront about the affiliate links. I don't have a problem with them but the amazon links are minified.

For example this is the link the user is shown: <http://amzn.to/bkB3gr> This is what it expands to: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0688014291?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0688014291?ie=UTF8&tag=whtofi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0688014291)

By not mentioning the affiliate link and only showing an obfuscated link it gives the appearance that you are trying to pull something over on the user.

I think a statement on the front page saying that links are affiliate links, or just putting the actual links on the pages would help with gaining the user's trust.

Great site:)

 _edit_ I know see this on the site: external links to amazon are through their affiliate program

Great:) Back to reviewing books to buy!

<comment><USER8> Fixed.

No deception was intended -- I just like being able to track links with Bit.ly real-time instead of waiting overnight for Amazon reporting -- but I can see your point. Hopefully the new text will clear that up.

Glad you liked it.

<comment><USER9> > No deception was intended

I didn't mean to imply that there was. Your reputation here earned you the benefit of the doubt:)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would be great if the site was even a little useful without javascript enabled.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure what you mean.

I just turned javascript off and loaded the site -- and it's a big list of books where you can read the descriptions and click for more information. The book detail page suggests other books and provides you with a consensus and a list of formats available. Is this what you see as well? Were you expecting something else?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Burn the Boats – A free goal-setting platform based on research - <AUTHOR> https://burntheboats.org <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, I'm the founder of BurnTheBoats.org.

Burn The Boats is a free service that lets you create irrevocable social pre- commitments. After committing to a goal on the site and providing your friends' email addresses, Burn The Boats will email them on your deadline. The only way to stop that email is to pay a cancellation fee, whose amount you choose when you set your goal.

Unlike other goal-setting platforms, Burn The Boats doesn't email your friends right away and encourages you to keep your goal to yourself. This is because research shows that sharing your goal can make you less likely to achieve it (which was the topic of one of Derek Sivers' Ted Talks [1]). By only divulging your goal to your friends on the due date, Burn The Boats gives you the benefits of social accountability without the motivation-sapping effects of sharing your goal immediately.

I'd appreciate your feedback on any aspect of the site (concept, design, copy, etc...). Thanks for reading!

Cheers! Bevan

ps. I've vlogged the process of building the app, which you can see here: [https://burntheboats.org/story](https://burntheboats.org/story)

[1] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4)]</comment>