Motivate HN: Featured in Giz & LifeHacker Tonight - <AUTHOR>

This is a motivational post, especially to those that are:
1. Starting the entrepreneurial path for the first time
or
2. Struggling with their own startup or project and need a pick-me-up
So my startup is called SayHi, and we make the SayHi Translate App for iOS. We've had a crazy week. Friday Lifehacker featured us and bumped us into the Top 200 paid apps. We were number 2 in Business.
We went on sale last night to $0.99 to drum up more momentum, and Lifehacker featured us again today as the App Deal of the Day, and simultaneously Gizmodo featured us as the App of the Day.
Currently we're around #60 top overall paid for iPhone.
Keep in mind a few things.
I don't have a Stanford degree (nor do I have any degree, nor do my cofounders). I didn't come from money. I started this startup in 2009... and after a long start, things have really finally begun picking up (a few months ago).
You can do it. Startups are really freaking hard, but it's definitely possible. Happy to answer any questions you may have, and give any advice I can to those in need.
I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without a supportive tech community... and while I still can't say where I'm going, I know that I have plenty to give back.
Will reply here, or you can email lee (at) sayhitranslate (dot) com <comment><USER2> This is definitely motivational! I literally just posted my first project to HN (www.intertechtion.com). While I posted to Facebook a few hours ago and not had many subscriptions, I am optimistic for HN!

P.S. I'm a first-year university student so this is pretty new experience to me!

<comment><AUTHOR> Congrats! Getting your first project out there is always really exciting. Even if it's hardly used... knowing you made something is an incredible feeling.</comment></comment>


Actual Details of Agreement to Limit Iran's Nuclear Program - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/02/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-agreement.html

<comment><USER2> I assume reprocessing is verboten because spent fuel could be turned into weapons grade plutonium, but I'm a bit sad.

We really need non-weaponizable nuclear power if we're ever going to break our dependency on fossil fuels and for interplanetary expansion.</comment>


Google Tunes Search Algorithm to Tune Out Content Farms - <AUTHOR> http://hothardware.com/News/Google-Tunes-Search-Algorithm-to-Tune-Out-Content-Farms/

<comment><USER2> Same story reported from several sources:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2260840>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2260848>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2260863>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2261231>

Further, you should link directly to the original source, except that in this blog post the URL is broken.

<comment><AUTHOR> Um no, the source is directly noted and link properly within text and in the source list of the article.

<comment><USER2> Maybe it's been fixed, maybe it was my browser, maybe it was a heisenbug, but when I wrote my comment I clicked on the "wrote in a blog post" several times, and each time got a "Bad URL" message. I've just tried again, and this time it's sent me here:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high- qua...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality- sites-in.html)

which I assume is what was intended.

Fairy Nuff.

My real point is that the blog post lunk to here offers nothing extra to the original from Google, and to quote <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

        In Submissions

        ...

        Please submit the original source. If a blog post
        reports on something they found on another site,
        submit the latter.

I could be wrong, but this submission just looks like blog spam. Can you elaborate on what you think the submission adds over the original from Google?</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook initiates blitzkrieg ad campaign for Free Basics in India - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2015/12/23/facebook-free-basics-net-neutrality-india/ <comment><USER2> From users accidentally supporting [1] Free Basics; to Facebook asking American and Canadian users to email India's telecom regulator in "error" [2]; to even dead people supporting Free Basics [3], it's all part of Facebook's philanthropic efforts in India.

[1] [https://twitter.com/singersuchi/status/677734574319767552](https://twitter.com/singersuchi/status/677734574319767552)

[2] [https://recode.net/2015/12/21/facebook-accidentally-asks- u-s...](https://recode.net/2015/12/21/facebook-accidentally-asks-u-s-users-to- support-free-basics-in-india/)

[3] [https://twitter.com/grondmaster/status/677797484781957120](https://twitter.com/grondmaster/status/677797484781957120)

Edited: added line spacing

</comment><comment><USER3> In Soviet Rus^H^H Most large corps have a dirty tricks dept, but in Capitalist USA, dirty tricks dept has FB #NetNeutrality #SaveTheInternet

FB is going all out to promote it's rebranded Internet.org initiative (now named Free Basics) to capture and lock in poor user on the platform. Since it's first attempt was thwarted, they have now brought out their dirty tricks department to "influence" or (rather misinform - a better word to describe the situation) Indian citizens. It has bought out front-page ads on popular newspapers, hoarding on trafficked roads and misleading ads on FB and youtube to do a sneaky campaign to mislead people to support the initiative.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow! How much money has FB spent so far on advertising this "philanthropic" service?

<comment><AUTHOR> One estimate said 50 crore rupees ($7.5m), another $20 million. We don't know for sure since neither Facebook nor the advertising industry association is willing to reveal actual figures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, Facebook says they "fixed" the issue of showing notifications to people outside India -- How exactly would they fix this? If an email is delivered to TRAI's mailbox, it stays delivered, doesn't it?</comment>


Review of Snaptalent - <AUTHOR> http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/03/15/snaptalent-compelling-job-ads

<comment><USER2> I think Snaptalent is an excellent implementation to target a message ("technical job window shopping")

Now, what if Snaptalent paid a bonus to the original referring blog (if one of the blog's readers was hired - using maybe cryptographically signed tracking codes)? Yes, it's kind of a crapshoot - more a lottery (but the store that sells the winning lottery ticket typically gets a sizeable bonus)

<comment><USER3> Jamie from Snaptalent here. Thanks for the kind words.

Interesting idea. We've played around with some referral hiring ideas. The primary issue with referral hiring tends to be the fact that it is really hard to enforce extra payment from a company when somebody is hired (since they are basically on the honor system). In fact, the only successful implementation of referral based hiring to date seems to be Jobvite, which is possible because it is running internal referral hiring for a company.

Since Jobvite is run by the company, and the company is liable to keep its own employees happy, the problem works itself out. It tends to be a lot harder to enforce payment externally which is probably why companies like zubka.com have struggled.

We would certainly love it if we could easily track and charge based on hires, but it is unfortunately not a pragmatic solution yet. If you have suggestions for how we can improve this we'd love to hear from you at firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER4> You could have a good-faith "how did you find out about this job?" field for ppl to type in a site, etc. But there are obvious limitations.</comment></comment></comment>


Design of a Distributed Stream Processing Engine - <AUTHOR> https://jet-start.sh/docs/architecture/distributed-computing <comment><USER2> I'm one of the core devs and happy to answer any questions as well.</comment>


Rejit: a work-in-progress JIT-powered regex engine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kirbyfan64/rejit <comment><USER2> FWIW PCRE also includes a JIT.

[http://sljit.sourceforge.net/pcre.html](http://sljit.sourceforge.net/pcre.html) [http://www.pcre.org/readme.tx](http://www.pcre.org/readme.tx)

</comment><comment><USER3> FYI: ReJit, as of now, can match only on null-terminated strings. Most regexp engine support matching arbitrary byte sequences.

What's the benefit of using ReJit over RE2? I can think of no C++ dependencies and the support for backward-references.

Benchmarks 2...3 years ago: [http://coreperf.com/update/rejit/2013/09/01/rejit_pcre_bench...](http://coreperf.com/update/rejit/2013/09/01/rejit_pcre_benchmarks.html) It looks like much faster than RE2 for various regexps.

The documentation doesn't say if it's worst-case matching time is exponential. RE2 is always polynomial.

<comment><USER4> These benchmarks point to the reason I don't like it when the "Regular Expression Matching Can Be Simple and Fast" article is linked to as though it's the last word on regex implementation. Unless you have pathological regexes, the re2 approach frequently loses to a simple recursive backtracking JIT.

<comment><USER5> Rust's very own regexes should be besting PCRE now, even when PCRE's JIT is enabled. There are some benchmarks on the PR: [https://github.com/rust-lang- nursery/regex/pull/164#issuecom...](https://github.com/rust-lang- nursery/regex/pull/164#issuecomment-184025147)

Also, FYI, but the rejit in the GP's benchmark link is not the same rejit in the OP. The rejit in the benchmark in the GP is actually based off of Russ Cox's articles. (It uses automata and doesn't support backreferences.)

The places where PCRE is still winning come down to these things (I think):

* Use of SIMD instructions with literal prefixes that have a small number of common leading bytes (greater than 1). I suspect this is what's going on with the "medium" benchmarks. I think the `jetscii` crate would help here, but it's only usable on the nightlies.

* PCRE appears to be detecting a literal prefix of `\n` when the regex starts with `^` in multi-line mode. (The sherlock::line_boundary_sherlock_holmes benchmark.) We could do this too---I just haven't yet.

* The sherlock::word_ending_n benchmark has a word boundary, which the lazy DFA in Rust's regex library doesn't support. (It will be hard to improve here unfortunately.)

* In general, I think PCRE probably has less overhead per match, which I haven't worked on too much. (For one, every search requires acquiring and quickly releasing a mutex in Rust's library. All I really need to do is push/pop from a stack, so I bet we could avoid the mutex.)

On the rest of the regexes, Rust's library is either competitive or completely smashes PCRE in throughput. There are even a few benchmarks that I had to omit because PCRE was too slow.

These are strong words, so my goodness, do I hope I'm benchmarking PCRE right! :P

And this was all work done based on what Russ Cox wrote.

Actual benchmark code is here: [https://github.com/rust-lang- nursery/regex/blob/master/bench...](https://github.com/rust-lang- nursery/regex/blob/master/benches/bench_pcre.rs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> re2c is probably just as fast in practice, i'd imagine. Also note that rejit has already been used as a name for this purpose :)

[https://github.com/coreperf/rejit](https://github.com/coreperf/rejit)

<comment><USER7> > re2c is probably just as fast in practice, i'd imagine.

Probably, but re2c requires every pattern to be run through a C compiler. Not useful if you want to use it as the embedded regex engine inside a language interpreter.

Also recent iterations of Intel processors contain specialized string-scanning instructions -- I would love to see engines that can take advantage of these. It would be hard for C compilers to recognize these patterns, I think, without explicit use of intrinsics: [http://blog.reverberate.org/2009/07/gazelle-is- going-to-love...](http://blog.reverberate.org/2009/07/gazelle-is-going-to- love-sse-42.html)

<comment><USER8> libtcc, [http://bellard.org/tcc/](http://bellard.org/tcc/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Was this submitted by the author?

If not, given that it's described as 'WIP', they might not be happy about it appearing here...

<comment><USER10> From the readme:

> Note that ReJit is NOT complete! See the issue tracker for a list of open > issues.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure why you post this..</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which company, if it goes under, would ruin you - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> pornhub</comment>


The Start-Something Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.mutuallyhuman.com/blog/2011/05/26/the-start-something-startups

<comment><USER2> This is one of the best - don't call it a defense - summaries of today's tech I've read in a long time. > "Some people might think that tech is a flash in the pan. It's true that the raging popularity of consumer software (like iPhone apps) might die down in a little while. But software is more than consumer products. Software is in the back-end of everything. Software runs public transportation. Software builds buildings. Software designs toilets. Software spreads the news. Software boxed that cereal. Software ran that hospital. It's not going away any time soon." I read that out loud to my wife, and she said, " _They_ always said that soon the world would be run by machines, but it already is." I replied, "And in a world of machines, engineers reign."

<comment><USER3> "And in a world of machines, engineers reign." -> Until the machines take over and start sucking the engineers' bodily fluids.

<comment><USER4> So as long as no one duct-tapes a wet-dry vac to an anybot, we're cool.

Trevor, you've got the safety reigns, sir.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "..Mutually Human is an _expert custom software strategy and design consultancy_ specializing in mobile and web based products and services."</comment>


Barack Obama's rant against technology: Don't shoot the messenger - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16109292

<comment><USER2> I think the problem Obama hints at (but not really explains) is very real. We're the first generation with all the world's information at our fingertips.

We could all be polymaths, we could all get sound understanding of Philosophy, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Politics and so forth... but largely, we don't.

Learning has never been easier, because you can get information in the format you want (audio, video, text, or interactive content) with a click of the mouse. You can pick between course material from dozens of universities and you can read papers written by academics all over the world. And yet, largely, we don't.

We read blog posts that have near zero information content, and the ever present discussion threads where only the least controversial and inane posts rise to the top. But why? Why do we do this, when we know that we'd get much, much more from the internet if we used it to read well written and thoughtful content instead?

Most likely it's just human nature. We're addicted to small bite-sized chunks of non-information. There are a lot of people who can read the internet all day, ever day, only to take breaks by watching TV shows and playing video games. Without ever getting bored. Day, after day, after day.

<comment><USER3> While I admit Obama has some points, the discussion is far too complex to address in a presidential speech and I don't think he struck the proper tone. _A man with one watch knows the time; a man with two watches is never quite sure._ His speech is a failure, because I think it was the effects of having so much information -- as the quote above mentions -- that he wanted to convey rather than the fact that we have this information in the first place. Presidential speeches are all about take-aways, and this was a miserable failure. The take-aways were "Xboxes, iPads, and technology are diversions" which I'm pretty sure was not his intention.

We live in a world where the uneducated and uninformed speak in terms of certainty and absolutes. Liberals have long believed that if only you can debate and reason with your counterparts, you can sway them to your side. Conservatives figured out that this wasn't how human nature worked and I think the Republicans were particularly good throughout the mid 90s and this past decade, at providing a more reassuring world view that is black and white. The more educated we get, the more uncertain we can be about our opinions. I think Obama wanted to point out that the educated might lose control of political power. There is a very real possibility of a reality similar to that of Idiocracy taking hold, and I think Obama wanted to challenge his audience to ward this off. In order to do this, they'll have to learn how to speak to people and be masters of the human psyche. So it's kind of ironic that Obama failed so miserably at delivering his message. I'm sure he's kicking himself because the whole debate is now being framed around "is technology good or bad?".

<comment><USER4> This happens often in Obama's speeches. If you watch them whole they're insightful, well thought out, and very meaningful. However, both the visual and printed press have no patience to actually deliver the full content, but rather will always take a soundbite, or quote out of context, thus leaving the rest of the speech meaningless. It's unfortunate that the majority of Americans don't actually read or watch the speeches in whole.

Personally, I think this is part of what he was getting at.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why didn't he mention TV when saying "information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment"?

Oh wait, he mentioned all media in the actual, in context quote:

      And meanwhile, you're coming of age in a 24/7 media
      environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and
      exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't
      always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and
      iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know
      how to work -- (laughter) -- information becomes a
      distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather
      than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of
      emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on
      you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our
      democracy.

Way to go Economist for taking his quote out of context.

<comment><USER6> Obama didn't even use the word "technology". How do you go from "gadgets" to "technology"? Actually, if you're The Economist, the same way you write most articles about things whose ideology and political affiliations don't agree with yours.

This is why I particularly dislike The Economist. They are shrewd. Fox News (or, say, The Guardian) poisons the minds of idiots; The Economist poisons my own unless I am extra careful.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the Economist is good for foreign reporting and business reporting but since Obama's been elected they've been so clearly biased and/or recycling silly 30-year-old Washington conventional wisdom that I actually didn't renew my subscription.

<comment><USER6> Actually, The Economist is particularly bad for foreign reporting, because it is here that their fairly intelligent readers are most willing to trust them. Almost all other Anglophone news outlets don't even make a pretense of providing serious foreign reporting, which gives The Economist a sort of monopoly. Also, BS is harder to recognize when it has no implications for you or anyone you know.

[http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story...](http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story_ID=1259408)

<comment><USER7> True, good points. In a lot of their foreign reporting you do see 2 sides to the story and it's less connected to any general ideological principles that the economist would be concerned with, so I guess I'm generally more impressed with it than the american/british/euro reporting. European stuff I just assume that they're biased and I don't know enough about the situation to pick up on it so I skim it and try not to draw conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Obama wasn't ranting against technology. He was making a nuanced argument about our new information society, and being prescriptive about how we should interact with the Internet.

To roughly paraphrase what Obama said, quit dicking around on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. and look for good articles. You also might think about writing some, or even reading a good book. That's not in any way technophobic. He was just doing what any public figure should do at a commencement address, which is tell the graduates to use their education to lead meaningful and productive lives.

<comment><USER9> >To roughly paraphrase what Obama said, quit dicking around on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. and look for good articles.

But sometimes I _want_ to dick around with enjoyable distractions.

<comment><USER10> He didn't say _never_ dick around with twitter, etc. In the context of this quote, he's saying that for many people, it's gotten to the point where the dicking around has become a _constant_ distraction from anything more real (or good).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _"WITH iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations—none of which I know how to work—information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment."_

Anyone got a pointer to the context of this quote? This piece relies heavily on it and it reads to me like it may well be innocuous.

<comment><USER2> It's absolutely ripped out of context.

Obama argues that when you're drinking from the information firehose you may lose track of more important things. A completely obvious and very dangerous trend.

Full transcript here: [http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-obama-hampton-address- transcri...](http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-obama-hampton-address- transcript,0,7478536.story)

<comment><USER12> His real problem is that the media is no longer centrally controlled.

 _And meanwhile, you're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter._

"Some" of which don't. And "some" of which do, which is the real problem. The fact that he is objecting to "all kinds of arguments" whatever their content might be, is a giveaway.

 _information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment_

Well, if you're old enough to remember when there were 3 channels and 1 local paper, you know that "information", such as it was, was a sedative at best. Sit in front of the TV, believe every sugary bit of crap on the 11 o clock news, go to bed. Nobody, and I mean _nobody_ , was ever "empowered" by the media configuration as it existed through the 20th century. But for a centralized government, it was ideal--very empowering.

<comment><USER13> "His real problem is that the media is no longer centrally controlled."

No longer centrally controlled? You know we are down to 5 distributors that control an overwhelming amount of the music and films that we listen to or watch. Add the fact that Comcast just bought NBC Universal and you can assume the media is more concentrated by a few more than ever. But as long as we have 1000 blogs carrying the exact same message than it doesn't appear that way.

Which is worse 10 independent newspapers or 1000 blogs, financed and controlled by 10 people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I will offer irrefutable proof that Obama is right. Try to visit a site like TvTropes without winding up wasting half your day :-)

<comment><USER15> <http://tvtropes.org/>

(Lowering the barriers to wasting your time.)

<comment><USER16> You should be downvoted for the horrendeous crime you just commited; but instead I upvoted and managed to avoid going to _that site_. I'm either growing up or growing old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not everyone who criticizes technology is a luddite. There are some valid criticisms of technology as a waste of time and a diversion. This article doesn't give enough context to the quote before diving in and passing judgment on Obama.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. I for one, and probably many others on this site, hate social networking. I really believe it dumbs down human interaction and that the South Park episode on it really summed up the issue. However, I do write code for a living so I am far from a luddite.

<comment><USER19> Social networks are not completely useless - Twitter, Facebook (and here in Brazil, Orkut) are useful tools to find old friends you lost contact with or to start conversations and point to interesting things you find. I get many tips from the hacker news popular feed.

But I really, really don't care for the farms people manage, the hearts people get and so on. I don't need a second job managing a farm.

<comment><USER18> I do think that Twitter is useful for self branding. Especially if you are famous. For me though, friends are old friends for a reason. If I still want to talk to someone I have their contact information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Emmm, Socrates was right

I know I remember things waaaay better when someone TELLS me something, versus when I read it in a book or online.

<comment><USER21> If I have an interesting conversation with a friend, and we're discussing something, I will remember it pretty well.

If I am listening to a professor read through a lecture, with little to no interaction from the students, I am not as likely to remember it as if I had read it from a book.

<comment><USER22> I have often found that most college lectures have a hard time with distance learning. There normal lecture style translates very badly on a TV screen and people tend to fall asleep in front of a boring TV. The best distance learning teachers I have found come from a community college background. They tend to have to be more interesting to their students and know how to work an audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find the fact the writer focused on the wrong thing - the devices being denounced as bad - and miss the message - that important information is drowning in a sea of distracting, enjoyable trivia - telling.

I too worry for this Facebook generation. I would be happier if they spent their time becoming smarter. We will need lots of smart people in the future.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm relieved to see that the most rated comments are on Obama's side. Even the "arranged" quote from the Economist sounds true to me.</comment>


Tell HN: Golang GitHub Color Indicator Changes to Gopher Blue - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Who will write the chrome plugin to undo this tragedy?

</comment><comment><USER2> Was there a community decision behind this? Go projects are now looking like Dockerfiles. This is unacceptable.

<comment><AUTHOR> No idea, I had just noticed it this morning.</comment></comment>


Mistakes in silicon chips could help boost computer power - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10134655.stm

<comment><USER2> So software (or another part of the CPU) will handle the errors so that the programmer doesn't have to check that every single operation worked correctly. This reminds me of how Hadoop handles failures such as a hard drive dying. If we're abstracted from the failures we really don't have to pay attention to them (except with a distributed filesystem you would need to replace dead hardware).

This is a very interesting concept. Although it mentions decreased power consumption, would this also entail more performance for chips? It mentions that Moore's Law is being hampered by our "need for perfection."

<comment><USER3> When you use a hard drive you are already using a "stable" CPU, you are sure that the checking operations(CRC...) you do are well done.

How are you going to check something is well done without doing it if you don't know the solution?.Whatever you do you are going to add a ton of new logic(more consumption, and complexity and HORRIBLE BUGS on hardware level).

I meet people that had to manage hardware bugs when CPUs where not as reliable as today(automatic testing in VHDL and Verilog has helped a lot), like the people that worked in the first Cray computers. It made their lives miserable, boring, repetitive and painfully slow work.

The worst bug in existence for a programmer is the one that appears and disappears randomly and when you had invested months of work trying to find it on your code, you find is a hardware bug!!

<comment><USER4> I always imagined that this would work by doubling up the hardware, requiring two logic units to agree, if they didn't then computation work would be redone, much like a branch prediction failing.

This would obviously not help power consumption at all, but freqeuncy could probably be scaled up quite a bit.

It also assumes that if an error happens it's unlikely to repeat in the same way in the second logic unit. But that may not be a reasonable assumption.

<comment><USER5> At the lowest level, you don't need to double-up, you can use an error correcting code. If the memories and registers on a chip use a multiple-error correcting code, then the underlying error rate could be quite high without making any difference in the user-visible error rate.

Similarly you could use noisy-network protocols for on-chip wires, so that each signal path doesn't need to be perfect. Again you don't need to double- up. Instead you lose a small percent to overhead, and a delay in order to encode / decode.

<comment><USER4> How would the error correcting code work for something like a floating point multiplication? Correcting errors in storage is simple, but correcting errors in computation seems like a significantly harder problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So now, not only do we have to worry about our own mistakes, we have to worry that 1 + 1 might be 3, while programming? Great.

</comment><comment><USER7> This probably applies best to specific needs. For instance, I can imagine that a lot of people would accept small errors in images rendered by their GPU in exchange for greater performance.

</comment><comment><USER3> oh, brilliant, so we need to make our software systems exponentially more complicated(when anything is possible, you need to add complexity) to gain a 30% power reduction in hardware?.

And add the possibility for the computer to fail at random(statistical atypicals that are not "filtered").

I think this is not a good idea.

<comment><USER8> Keep in mind that currently, about 100 bits of memory in your computer are flipped every year just because of cosmic rays.

<comment><USER9> [citation needed] (for real, I would love to know if this is true)

<comment><USER10> ECC really does help. For home use non ECC memory is probably acceptable as most errors are going to be in graphics data etc. But, for a few $ more you can significantly increase your computers stability.

"Recent tests give widely varying error rates with over 7 orders of magnitude difference, ranging from 10−10−10−17 error/bit•h, roughly one bit error, per hour, per gigabyte of memory to one bit error, per century, per gigabyte of memory.[7][11][12]" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_random_access_memory>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A 1% error rate in pointer writes would be ... interesting.</comment>


We should inspire game developers to create alternatives  - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/15/we-should-inspire-game-developers-to-create-alternatives-to-violent-entertainment/

<comment><USER2> Movies have a mature critical establishment that recognizes high art.

Violent movies still largely sell best.</comment>


Mark Cuban: Free is only good if someone else is paying for it - <AUTHOR> http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/07/10/free-is-only-good-if-someone-else-is-paying-for-it/

<comment><USER2> Side point about the title: When Mark Cuban has a good post, it doesn't need his name to push it along. And when he has a stinker, his name won't save him.</comment>


The Toxins That Threaten Our Brains - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/the-toxins-that-threaten-our-brains/284466/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> They use a _household paint can_ as an icon to represent lead?

Lead has been banned from paint in the USA for almost 40 years.</comment>


The building blocks of Lego - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/02/tech-lego.html?ref=rss <comment><USER2> Sounds like a startup process

* have an idea

      - LEGO: I want a coast guard helicopter

      - SW: It's a digg clone!

* design

      - LEGO: 3d modeling

      - SW: a whole bunch of whiteboarding (WIKI etc.)

* what's custom and what's stock

      - LEGO: nice to have 1 day turn around on the custom

      - SW: using libraries vs. what's custom

* is it cost effective

      - LEGO: what's the price point of the set

      - SW: how many people do you have to hire

* usability

      - let the customers play with it

</comment><comment><USER3> I want their job pretty bad.</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with this freelance client? - <AUTHOR>

I'm new(er) to freelancing.
I just had a personal contact (known him about 1.5 years now - met at network event) he reached out to me about a really cool software project he needed done for this recruiting business.
So what I did is : 1) Spend 30-45 mins (2 times) talking on phone to him about it. (1-1.5 hrs total)
2) About 3-4 hours mocking up his proposed solution in a flow chart.
3) Another hour or two over the course of a few weeks about minor details.
4) It seemed like all was set.
I sent him this and then he tells me some silly response like "I need to have a new employee look this over and I'll get back to you"
Its been 10 days now and this guy just posted on quora : "How to do <x> subfunctionality of this project? (he is non-technical)
How should I take this? That the guy isn't interested in my work and is likely using the diagrams I made of the process with someone else?
Thoughts?
Additionally, any good reads on (software) freelancing books you may have could be helpful too.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Whether it is a consulting agency or freelancer, companies will often do a proposal process, sometimes with multiple providers at the same time, that enable them to harvest ideas and gain clarity in their own thinking about a project. They then either pick one of the providers or just turn around and do it in house and they got a bit of free consulting to get them started.

Is this ethical? Probably not, at least if the company is doing this deliberately, knowing all the while that they have no intention of hiring an outside firm.

I would reach out to him again with an email about getting started. You need to get a clear yes or no from him and put together a contract if the answer is yes. If the answer is no, chalk it up as a learning experience. Don't give away too many hours before the contract is signed.

It is not uncommon for a agency to put in 40 to 80 total working hours between sales calls, preparation, developing the proposal, and sometimes flying out to meet key executives at the client firm. Sometimes you still don't get the business, but other times you do. Now this kind of commitment of time and resources assumes that the minimum size project is something on the order of $50K and that once the client is on board there are possibilities for repeat projects of similar or larger size that don't require all the free prep and proposal development.

I guess what I am saying is that this kind of thing is not unusual and I wouldn't waste more time and energy trying to make it "right." Just move on.

</comment><comment><USER3> First, distinguish between clients and potential clients. Clients are people who are paying, potential clients are people who might or might not.

Work only for clients. Make this happen by requiring a retainer _to be applied against final invoice_. This also means that you have set a rate and terms and put it in writing...if you're going to work for free work for yourself at drafting a contract.

Requiring payment filters out people who weren't planning to pay and it filters out many people with unrealistic expectations in regard to your rates. These are the people you don't want as clients.

<comment><USER4> Retainer, not such a bad idea. After getting stiffed on a short project that went nowhere, I should start using that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Recently, I did a couple of hours of work for a client, WITH A WRITTEN AGREEMENT, and didn't get paid. It isn't worth the hassle to sue and collect for a couple hours of work. So, I wrote the experience off as a loss and moved on.

My rules now:

1\. If you want me to write a specification or project plan for you, I expect to get paid for it. If you want me to formally review your wireframes, I expect to get paid.

2\. I'm willing to risk a couple hours of work to find out if a client is a deadbeat or not. If it reaches a certain limit, no more work until I get paid.

Basically, you did the work of writing a specification for free (which can be harder than implementation), and now he's shopping around for someone cheaper to implement it. That's why I'll never write a formal specification for free.

If the client is too cheap to pay me for spending a day or two helping him write a specification, then there are going to be other problems later.

<comment><USER5> This is good advice. I've been freelancing for 7 years. When you're talking with potential clients, it's reasonable to spend an hour or so talking about the project requirements and the client's needs and expectations, not to mention discussing your own background experience, to see if it's a good fit. I might then spend another hour or two looking at the client's specs and putting together an estimate.

But I don't do unpaid work for them. If they don't yet have a spec and are still exploring options, I let them know that one service I provide is consulting on a strategy and helping write a spec, creating wireframes, etc. They can hire me hourly to do that, and then decide later if they want to hire me to build it out.

Now, when you start bidding on much larger projects, you may spend more time reviewing specs. And you'll have to decide whether you want to get involved in the RFP process that some clients require. I typically opt out of those because they do require lots of unpaid work upfront. (I saw one RFP recently that wanted design mockups; no thanks.) And sometimes it seems as if clients have already chosen their vendor but need to do the RFP paperwork to make their decision seem legit.

<comment><USER4> Another rule for a small freelancer: Bill hourly. Never accept a fixed-bid contract. These small clients will withhold payment until every last detail meets their desires. Plus, it's NEVER a good enough specification. Also, most clients will change their mind about they want when they start seeing results.

Suppose you take a fixed-bid contract that you expect to take a month. You do your month of work and deliver it to the client. Now the client asks for changes X, Y, and Z, and says they aren't paying you until it's done. Now your options are (1) Argue about whether that was covered by the original specification, which does no good even if you're right because they're refusing to pay. (2) Follow the sunk cost fallacy and do extra work for free, hoping to get paid for the work you already did. (3) Walk away, and don't get paid for the work you already did. Also, if there was a deposit, now the client may try to sue you! (4) Sue to collect, but they know that you, as a small freelancer, don't have the resources to lawyer up and sue. Even if you hire a lawyer to write a tight freelance contract, they may refuse to sign it or attempt to negotiate it, and the lawyer fees are more than your revenue.

For example, at my last job, my employer hired a freelancer (not me) to do a WordPress site. Even though the site was done, he refused to pay, because "his business was having cashflow problems". I pointed out "Hey! The guy did the work! Why aren't you paying him? It's not his fault that you're having financial problems!" He did, several months later, pay. Then, the guy put a logic bomb in the site that I had to remove. (Owner: "WAAH! My site was hacked! Fix it! I'll pay you extra if you fix it now!" [I was not there that day.] I fixed it, no bonus was paid.)

<comment><USER5> That's an interesting take on the reason to bill hourly, and I know a lot of developers who do that. Personally I've switched to mainly doing fixed-bid contracts.

Rather than selling my time, a fixed-bid contract allows me to sell my expertise -- and that often is more lucrative. For example, a client may need a solution to putting hundreds of documents online and making them searchable. That may only be 40 hours of work, but it's a problem that has been costing the client tens of thousands of dollars in lost productivity each year. As an expert, I can sell them a solution to their problem in a way that saves them money and is still profitable for me.

Beyond that, a _well-written_ fixed bid contract lets everyone know exactly what the costs and expectations are, and what the schedule is. No more having projects drag on and conflicting with other projects I need to be focusing on when we all know that there's a set deadline for the delivery of a specific solution.

Of course, doing this successfully requires knowing what questions to ask to get a detailed spec, understanding how long it'll take you to really do something, and anticipating the gray areas.

I also like to build in "flex time" into fixed-bid contracts. For instance, I might specify that the contract includes "20 hours of revisions" to the requirements once the client has had a chance to review the prototype. I'll price this into the estimate. This way the client knows they'll have a chance to make changes, but they also know there's a limit after which the project cost increases.

<comment><USER4> The problem with fixed-bid is that the client almost never has a decent specification. If I write the spec for free, I know he'll then just shop the spec around on freelance sites, and I wasted my time. They always get insulted when I say they should pay me for 1-3 days to help the write the specification. One guy expected me to give an estimate without telling me any of the details first.

I noticed that small businesses who want fixed-bid contracts tend to be cheapskates and they're the type of person who'll haggle every little detail and look for an excuse to refuse to pay.

I'd rather target the higher end of the market than the bottom of the barrel. Also, the work I prefer tends to have greater complexity than just churning out a simple site quickly, making fixed-bid less sensible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fsk - do you think this is what happened here to me? "If I write the spec for free, I know he'll then just shop the spec around on freelance sites, and I wasted my time"

<comment><USER4> Probably yes. You learned a valuable lesson.

I don't know the details, so I can't be 100% sure.

From your description, he handed your spec to another employee, and now that employee is trying to implement the spec YOU WROTE FOR FREE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Personally, I'd just suck it up and move on. And if the guy comes back later, I'd politely decline to do any more - the way he handled you clearly isn't how you (reasonably) expected to be treated, and those early interactions with clients are almost always an accurate forecast of how any working relationship would continue.

So, walk/move on and don't give yourself a hard time about it. Yep, you did some work for someone who seems to have stiffed you. It happens, but don't worry too much about it -- it's all part of the learning curve.

PS: For an admittedly biased book recommendation, [http://www.leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook](http://www.leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook)

<comment><USER7> I agree with the suck it up and move on. Your time lost isn't substantial. At least you learned about his character early on.

If you would still consider doing business with him on this project. A. Get paid up front for further work or at least make sure he pays for what you already did before you doing anything else. B. Quote him higher than you otherwise would quote.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you both for your response.

Yeah, I mentioned 25% would need to be paid upfront before I begin coding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been freelancing off and on for about 5 years, and had a horrible time with this sort of thing early on. What I eventually learned was to manage expectations right at the outset. Establish that if you want to get paid for research, phone consults, whatever, that your client is on the clock. Often your first freelance clients won't have worked with a freelancer before, and may never again, so they are as unversed in this, probably more so, than you are.

With a recent client, I knew I was going to need an hour or so just to get caught up with their modifications to the platform (ecommerce ish) so I stated that up front, and actually asked for that hour no questions asked and then would provide a quote after I understood everything. They were more than happy to provide that and it gave me the room I needed to provide a very accurate quote for the whole project.

For your current situation? What I have done with a non-paying customer in the past is to walk away, but shoot a message regarding the work I'd completed, stating explicitly that I would not be licensing any of it to them without payment. To be honest? I had no idea how to even follow up on that, or if it had any legal weight whatsoever. I just made something up in my frustration, but in the end I got about 50% of what I had been promised and wrote a reasonable sounding granting of license to my work. Your mileage will obviously vary, but hopefully this will at least provide another idea.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's nothing you can do about it, or even if you could, it wouldn't be worth the time and money.

You've learned a valuable lesson here. If you're going to spend time performing research and drafting up a specification in the detail you have done make it clear to the client you will charge them for this work. Also, take an upfront payment in order to mitigate any risks such as your client defaulting on the final payment, at least you cut your losses to a minimum this way.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would do this, but I knew this guy for a few years prior. Its not like a random person off elance or something

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently had a problem with a client as well, and to assuage the headache of dealing with them, I took a half hour to re-watch Mike Monteiro's brilliant talk on the subject:

[http://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro-- 2/1](http://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1)

</comment><comment><USER11> Get used to it! Potential clients are often no-shows and fail to return calls because they found someone else ... even when their business seemed like a sure thing.

I use this as a barometer -- if a prospective client does not respect my time/work, then he will likely be problematic as a client.

</comment><comment><USER12> Jpd750- I have a startup I would really like to talk to you about. Please shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com.

I'm the founder and looking for some help in building out this product

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Solution: stop freelancing and build a product.</comment>


Show HN: TopLevel – A New Way to JavaScript Your HTML - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kristopolous/TopLevel

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of an example I gave in my book about how you can write valid HTML that executes as JS:

        /*

For example here, we have multiple examples of code that execute

        */

I saw this once upon a time while debugging some nasty code some publishers used - the whole site was in this style. It was one of the most ingenious things I've seen - the same file, parsed twice, once as HTML and once as JS.

<comment><USER4> I fail to see why anyone would use that instead of inline


Ask HN: What are you doing to improve yourself personally and professionally - <AUTHOR>

What habits are you changing? What skills are you learning/improving? Etc. <comment><USER2> 1\. Reading SICP. Doing all the exercises.

2\. Doing my bed on a daily basis.</comment>


Smarter saved cards - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/blog/smarter-saved-cards <comment><USER3> I don't want this feature enabled for me as a customer. Most of the time I go on my bank's website and generate online credit card numbers with a ceiling amount. Those come with a fixed expiry date (usually very soon, one month after card is created). I use this to be sure that I don't get trapped into a recurrent payment that I would have missed in the fine print.

How can I make sure that an online shop will _not_ be able to draw money off my card after the expiry date? If I understood the technical magic here, that would help.

<comment><USER4> What bank does that?

<comment><USER5> Bank of America has it. They call it Shop-Safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So why can't anyone else do this? Having to go through a large number of services to change my card details because I once used it Target was annoying. And then not too much later _again_ because I used the new one at Home Depot was annoying.

(For people outside the US, both Target and later Home Depot got hacked. Many banks proactively replaced their customer cards if they had transactions at those stores, which meant new numbers, expiry and CVC even if no fraud occurred on the card.)

<comment><USER7> Does this mean that those who hacked Target could have just added the card details to their own Stripe account and waited for Stripe to update the data once the banks got around to replacing the customer cards?

At least with my banks, when they send me updated cards, only a handful of the digits actually change and most of those changes have tended to be in the last 4 digits — which Stripe lets you see, along with the updated expiry month/year.

At this point, it's just a matter of brute forcing the remaining permutations. Am I misunderstanding something or are there countermeasures to protect against such attacks?

<comment><USER8> Well the brute forcing of it would be mighty suspicious: the number on the back has a 1,000 or 10,000 combinations. So that will be noticed, even if you got the first 12 numbers right on the first try. Also, _theoretically_ , of the remaining 12 numbers, 6 should change with each new card, which is another 1,000,000 possibilities (and bigger banks may change more numbers than that)!

<comment><USER9> The number on the back is generated by an algorithm with secrets that are not very secret (though apparently "secret enough").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not so sure I like this feature. One of the best parts about getting a new card is having all those things you forgot about that were still charging you $5 a month slip away by getting a fresh number. I think of it as financial spring cleaning. Later, you re-enter the new one for the things you really need.

I realize it costs stripe money to have that happen but from a security standpoint and for purely cleaning up rouge charges every once in a while some people like being able to start over.

</comment><comment><USER11> How does this work from a security standpoint? Assuming my card information is stolen and used via a Stripe form, or a merchant I used previously decides to bill me fraudulently, and I change my card details, what prevents them from just getting the new info?

Does whatever mechanism the bank<->Stripe communication uses know not to notify Stripe of the new details if the card is being replaced for fraud rather than natural expiration?

I expect somebody on Stripe's end has thought of this and figured out how to handle it, I just don't know enough about how this kind of information-sharing works to know how they solved it.

<comment><USER8> I think your may questions may be best answered by better explaining the role of stripe and where the layers of processing are here.

Stripe handles the entirety of the card processing infrastructure, the website (user of their API) can only talk about cards in an abstract sense, they can't get details from it. So businesses using stripe _can 't_ leak those sort of card details because they never had them (although a form of java-script "skimming" of the card details might be possible, like skimming an ATM).

If a business using stripe is accused of fraud (because improper charges show up on a customer's card) then stripe removes/limits the API access from that business (until they fix their infrastructure, business practices, or pony up the money, etc). This has _nothing_ to do with having your card details stolen, this is them lying to you and stripe (and they can be sued; unless it was criminal/hacking). This is Stripe's API being misused.

If your card details have been stolen you merely change the card's details. They have only stolen the information required to impersonate you (this is, of course, because cards are poorly designed: they are non-active and don't do any sort of active cryptography, no way to verify physical ownership). Because Stripe has relations with these processors and banks they can be trusted with (limited) access to the information behind the card. Think of the card as a time limited API token. Just because the token was stolen doesn't mean all the actions taken by that user token were fraudulent, and if properly setup, those actions can continue. Of course the user must still be vigilant with fraudulent actions taken on behalf of the card (but at this point they are easier to notice, and the bank will be more vigilant), and those relationships Stripe has will allow it to cancel, pause, or verify any transactions that may have been initiated during the period after the card was stolen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is pretty huge. Anyone who bills on a regular basis will know how frustrating it can be chasing customers whose credit cards have expired.

Having the cards automatically update is a game changer.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is awesome. I just had a message from Google the other day about an expiring card that they "automatically" updated, and was wondering how they did that!

Can the next thing on the list be a way to present Stripe Checkout with a customer ID, and have Stripe handle the rest (ie. cards stored, which card to use, updating expired cards)?

Currently, the "remember me" function causes extra friction and doesn't allow for services that already have the customers phone number registered - <USER2> Checkout is meant to be straight forward.

Appreciate this isn't a feature request thread, but as you're looking to make the process simpler for end users, helping sites handle repeat customers in a clean, simple way seems like a big win!

<comment><USER14> Hi Daz, We're working on something related to your request over at AccountDock ([https://accountdock.com](https://accountdock.com)). Email me at email@example.com I'd love to chat with you to get a better understanding of your needs and how we might be able to help :)

<comment><USER13> Sure - sounds interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The business can watch for this "customer.card.updated" event, but am I understanding correctly that it doesn't actually need to do so, and next month's payment will complete without any action on the part of the business?

<comment><USER16> That's right. We only fire the webhook in case you want to, say, update the expiry or last four digits you're rendering to your user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome and should help reduce friction for SaaS business AND customers.

Is this feature pretty unique to Stripe or do competitors also have it?

</comment><comment><USER18> This is an amazing feature. I just had to go through half a dozen websites and update my company credit card details for this exact reason. Each and every time I do that, I get to evaluate whether or not I actually need the product or not - possibly leading to cancellation. This way retention is kept with no effort on the business or customer side.

<comment><USER19> It will be interesting to see how many people are unhappily surprised with the automatic renewal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is awesome as a saas owner, but maybe more so as a consumer. I HATE updating my credit card after getting a new number or new expiration date. It's seriously a major pain and I hope everyone I pay ends up using stripe by 2016.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, this is awesome. It's a shame that quite a few startups will be put out of business by this though, eg. [https://expiry.io/](https://expiry.io/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Braintree's version, FYI [https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/account- updater](https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/account-updater)

</comment><comment><USER23> When your credit card expires, the CVC code is re-generated and changes. I assume that does not matter for Stripe, as CVC is only checked at the initial tokenization not re-charges.

<comment><USER24> Yup, after you tokenize the card CVC (CVV2, CID, etc) is no longer needed. So even though it will change it won't affect the validity of the card since this sounds like a deal with the networks. Also, you're not allowed to store CVC any way so the system has to work without it. In some cases where fraud is suspected some processors can / may ask you to provide your current CVC before letting the charge go through.</comment></comment>


Show HN - My Weekend Project: Twitter Secret Santa - <AUTHOR> http://thegreattwittersecretsanta.com/

<comment><USER2> From the terms:

 _IF YOU CHOOSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE GIFT EXCHANGE AND YOU DO NOT SEND A GIFT, YOUR TWITTER.COM USERNAME WILL BE POSTED PUBLICLY._

I didn't go any further, but didn't see this anywhere else but in the terms page. Are you going to run a list of users who do not follow through?

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably far too strong choice of language. It's not something I plan on doing and I'm going to edit the terms to reflect.

Sort of a line to encourage social responsibility :)</comment></comment>


Google Answers Microsoft :Chrome Frame is safe. - <AUTHOR> http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/google-answers-microsoft-chrome-frame-security-criticisms---1915

<comment><USER2> So I looked at the NSS Labs methodology and how they define a successfully blocked connection:

The resulting response is recorded as either "Allowed" or "Blocked and Warned."

• Success: NSS Labs defines "success" based upon a web browser successfully preventing malware from being downloaded, and correctly issuing a warning.

• Failure: NSS Labs defines a "failure" based upon a web browser failing to prevent the malware from being downloaded and failing to issue a warning.

So if malware was blocked, and the user not notified, this would imply that the test failed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tip to invoke Chrome Frame in IE (for eg)

        cf:http://www.google.com

</comment><comment><USER4> Any bets on when the patch arrives that "accidentally" makes the Chrome plugin 4 times slower?

<comment><USER5> It'll still be faster than IE8 though, even _with_ the "patch" :D</comment></comment>


The average millennial has an average net worth of $8k - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/31/millennials-have-an-average-net-worth-thats-significantly-less-than-previous-generations/ <comment><USER2> I thought 'millenial' referred to someone who entered adulthood and started participating in the economy at around 2000. Now it refers to people born 20 years later? Is every child going to be a millennial in perpetuity now?

<comment><USER3> Baby boomers: 1946-1964 Gen X: early-to-mid 1960s to the early 1980s Millennials / Gen Y: early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years Gen Z: mid-1990s to mid-2000s as starting birth years

I find both the names for these demographics as well as their loose temporal boundaries frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still don't understand using average for a metric like networth. Median and percentiles make so much more sense.

</comment><comment><USER5> I doubt even this number. Said nothing about student loan debt. My guess is many are squarely in the red for "net worth"</comment>


Microsoft: We'll No Longer Search Your Personal Email - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-reverses-email-policy-2014-3

<comment><USER2> The announcement that this post is summarizing was submitted a few minutes ago separately: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489371)</comment>


An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archive-fugitive-slave-ads-could-shed-new-light-lost-histories-180959194/?no-ist <comment><USER2> I find these pretty disturbing. I like to think I'd never have stood by while someone enslaved someone else. But the banality of these ads makes it all seem quite commonplace and acceptable. Wicked times.

<comment><USER3> Taxes are involuntary and people are locked in prison for not paying them, that is resembling a slavery. Some rationalization for slavery was similar too, e.g. people thought that it's not possible to have prosperity without enslavement.

Probably in the future present times will be seen as wicked too.

<comment><USER4> Something being involuntary does not make it 'resemble' chattel slavery. It takes a fair bit more than simply not paying your taxes to end up in prison. Your children don't go to prison if you don't pay your taxes.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it's more similar to a forced labor slavery, than chattel slavery. The forced labor convention (which for some reason wasn't ratified by US) specifically makes exception for civic obligations and compulsory military service because they are fitting the definition.

Children in this analogy forced to go to prison too, when they reach 18 years and refuse their taxes.

<comment><USER4> It's still not much of an analogy unless you believe that, say, driving on the wrong side of the road, uninsured and without a license is somehow comparable to any form of slavery.

<comment><USER3> Am I correct that you invoke a social contract as a justification for involuntary actions?

1) You are forced into this contract without your consent.

2) You can't quit this contract with your property intact.

This conditions wouldn't be enforceable if they were between ordinary parties, especially when there is inequality of bargaining power, why do they hold between a state and a person?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some of the ads have a little icon that shows a slave running away. Like it's a particular category of classified ad.</comment>


Real Hitchhiker's Guide to the Solar System on the Way - <AUTHOR> http://www.universetoday.com/2008/08/21/real-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-solar-system-on-the-way/ <comment><USER2> Gotta get all this new data streaming back integrated into Celestia ( <http://www.shatters.net/celestia/> )</comment>


The end of Academia.edu: How business takes over - <AUTHOR> https://www.diggitmagazine.com/column/end-academiaedu-how-business-takes-over-again <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm Ben, CTO of Academia.

Everyone who works at Academia would love it if we were able to make advanced search free.

When we first decided to build a premium account, we also made the decision to not take anything out of the free account. Strange as it may seem, the free account never had full-text search because we couldn't justify the cost of building it (full-text search of 20MM PDFs at our traffic levels is expensive to operate). We built it for the premium account because people asked for it in our initial research - and we would love to be able to eventually move it into the free account.

On the team we all agree that we want to keep building premium features in order to make the platform sustainable. The author of this article takes the view that advanced search is not a feature that should be paid-for. My view is that we intend keep building features until we have something that is worthy of his support. The support of the academics who use and enjoy the platform, both in free and paid accounts, is what will keep it around and growing for the long term.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it would be a little easier to accept (and probably easy to implement) if, in addition to title search, authors and keywords were also searchable. A search for my PhD advisor's last name results in 0 papers, though I uploaded a few papers that he and I coauthored.

<comment><USER3> > he and I coauthored

…which means that you wrote them and he, ah, "co-authored" them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I did write most of the text, but without his guidance on the research and on what to write about more in depth, there would have been no article. He's been the best advisor. Don't you dare say bad things about him! :-)

<comment><USER3> Nice to hear!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have never liked academia.edu. I always found it pointless. If I want to share my academic work I'll put it on my own web site.

I also found it weird that they had a .edu address (apparently they bought it before the rules were put in place and so they are grandfathered in)

Whenever I searched for a paper and google found an academia.edu link my process was, click on the link, oh crap it wants me to log in, what's my password again? fuck it, I'll just go to scihub.

<comment><USER5> > If I want to share my academic work I'll put it on my own web site.

The academic world is suffering from the same tendency to keep within a walled garden as the rest of society. It's hard these days for anyone to get people to regularly visit their blog even if the quality of the posts is high, instead people only click on links shown to them on Facebook. Similarly, my colleagues in my field generally don't visit my own website even though they are aware it's there and has links to my papers and other relevant content, but if I post a new paper on Academia.edu, I immediately get a number of views from there. It's sad.

<comment><USER4> That's really interesting. I never check academia.edu. Few of my peers have ever mentioned its existence. Whenever I find a paper to read it is either from google scholar or a works cited of something I've read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi, I'm the founder of Academia.edu.

The author of the article objects to the introduction of a freemium model on Academia.edu, and specifically to the idea of advanced search being in the premium set of features.

Academia's mission is to get every academic paper ever written on the internet, available for free, and to develop a more rigorous and efficient peer review system. Free access to academic research makes the world a more equitable place, and rigorous and efficient peer review accelerates the pace of scientific and scholarly research.

Academia launched in 2008, and now around 35 million people use the site a month. Around 19 million papers have been uploaded, and are freely available on the platform. Forty percent of Academia's users are from developing countries and would otherwise have limited access to academic research.

In order to achieve Academia's goals, Academia is working to become a sustainable operation. In order to do that, we introduced Academia Premium, which includes extra features such as Readers, Mentions, Expanded Analytics and Advanced Search.

\- Readers tells you who is reading your papers

\- Mentions alerts you when papers are uploaded mentioning your name

\- Expanded Analytics provides a more detailed look at what kinds of people visit your profile and how people find your papers

\- Advanced Search allows you to find exact keyword matches in the full text of every paper on Academia

In considering what features to offer in the Premium account, we decided that features related to the mission of the company should be free. This means that features related to open access (free access to uploading and downloading papers), and features related to peer review (sessions, recommendations) are free. As we add new features to Premium, we will continue to ensure that features related to the mission (open access, sessions, recommendations) are free.

We are grateful to all the academics who have contributed to Academia, and we will continue to serve academics from around the world.

<comment><USER7> > Academia's mission is to get every academic paper ever written on the > internet, available for free

> In considering what features to offer in the Premium account, we decided > that features related to the mission of the company should be free

That's absurd. Open access to an ocean of articles without the ability to search through them is meaningless.

While you do allow search in titles, thus providing _some_ ability to locate relevant material, presenting content search as some premium feature in 2017 is ridiculous.

<comment><USER8> > Open access to an ocean of articles without the ability to search through > them is meaningless.

As an academic mathematician, I disagree. The ability to search through articles' content is great, but being able to access an article given its authors and title would already be quite valuable.

I hope that academic researchers eventually converge on a completely open- access model, involving commercial enterprises to the minimum extent possible.

But researchers are too preoccupied with other things to make this a priority. For the moment, I am happy to see anyone taking on entrenched interests (e.g. Elsevier), from whatever angle. The status quo is bad enough that I welcome "creative disruption" of essentially any sort.

<comment><USER9> There are network effects this search limitation creates over time. We can probably even predict some of them. Here are a couple of superficial guesses:

\- less creative titles

\- longer titles to cram keywords in (ie. an academic form of clickbait)

The point is artificial limitations will produce unknown effects on the system being limited. Offering premium search is an uninspired approach that will have an unpredictable impact should Academia.edu become the status quo.

I'm neither condemning nor condoning premium search. Merely warning against accepting arbitrary limitations simply because it's better than what you've currently got.

<comment><USER8> I believe that you're overestimating Academia.edu's potential influence.

The whole reason that Elsevier et al. can make so much money is that _researchers can keep doing exactly what they have always been doing_. Researchers themselves don't see the publishers' invoices, let alone pay them, and they are under essentially no pressure to cut costs. In particular, Elsevier has no influence whatsoever in academia -- they just make shitloads of money.

Managing academics is often compared to "herding cats"; it is uncommon for academics to be very willing to realign themselves according to external factors. (Exception: grant funding agencies.) Anyone trying to make money in this industry should keep this in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I stumbled across academia.edu trying to grab a syllabus from some university to find books to supplement my learning.

It was so spammy.

I didn't get why the professor website point all his research towards academia.edu.

He could have posted it on his website or github.

The website demand from the get go your info and you have to create account to even get stuff. It's similar to quora.

Quora survived with its quality like posts/answers but I still disagree with this type of model.

<comment><USER11> Pardon my ignorance, but is Quora still a thing? I thought it was largely made obsolete by the various StackExchange sites and networks.

<comment><USER12> You are not wrong. Of course, this is personal perspective, but in 2014-15 there was still a fairly academic tone to many questions, as in, you could ask actual science and math questions and get a knowledgable academic to answer them.

Today, if I open my feed, most of it is questions on personal experiences (from just now): 'What is the craziest thing you ever did when you were a teenager?', 'What surprised you most about attending graduate school in the US?, 'What is the most brutal death?'. I never specified interest in any of these topics.

What is worse to me is that I do not see any way to disable topics quickly so I have to perpetually mute high-impact posters who have attracted a large enough audience to be asked about their personal lives and seemingly enjoy answering the same things about themselves over and over. Like any web forum, the majority of replies comes from a relatively small amount of posters who keep retelling their personal story about their admission to MIT/their high IQ.

I suppose Quora is paying the price of growth and I realise my interests are not aligned with Quora's in attracting a large audience. It just means I am not personally interested in writing any content for it any more and I think many early users feel the same.

<comment><USER13> That's exactly the reason why I left Quora. It used to be such an amazing place to read interesting stuff now it's only about meaningful questions.

<comment><USER12> Upon further consideration, I suspect this was a very intentional move and not just a growth effect, because they could just as well have kept moderation strict.

People do like to answer questions and be acknowledged for their know-how, but what people love is to talk about themselves and have their experiences validated.

Sure, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook give a way to have your social existence acknowledged, but Quora offers anyone to have their individual life experiences validated, no matter if they have the lifestyle or looks typically associated with social media fame. That is a very powerful attractor but unfortunately brings out the result described above - users beginning to talk incessantly about themselves as a topic, the more one answers, the more one has the chance to convert to a topic oneself and have even more explicit opportunity to tell one's story.

Combine this with low traffic in topics of maybe more serious interest and Quora will suggest any popular content ('topics you might like). This is how one ends up having these stories in your feed without ever expressing interest in them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Academia.edu have the right idea, but their execution sucks.

\- Signing up is an exercise is spam. Most of the people who are willing to endure the whole thing are the least desirable customers (i.e., folks with more style than substance).

\- Their onboarding process sucks. Most popular researchers will not jump through the hoops necessary to get their stuff on board. There is no compelling reason to be on there at this point. Within the first 30-60 secs, there is no "hell yeah!" moment.

\- The issues of what constitutes "previously published" for elite journals is potentially probelmatic (although it shouldn't be in this case).

\- The obvious gift of a research "family tree" has not been offered. Being able to identify distant relatives on this tree has ridiculously high value that has not been manifested.

\- The recommendation engine sucks. For someone writing a paper on a certain topic, a.e should be able to crank out a fairly accurate list of papers you will want to read or cite before you write. This would be very high value add if done well. A.e whiffed on this one, too.

There is a huge need for what a.e is offering or could offer, but their execution has been pretty terrible. It seems like they are optimizing metrics for their funders rather than their customers.

If that site does die, I will gladly take it off of their hands, give them 10% equity to leave, and turn it into a ubiquitous resource for academics and researchers.

They really need to stop drinking the Bay Area kool aid and figure out what their core customers want... and then deliver that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How to reproduce:

1) log in 2) search your favorite author 3) verify there are zero results in normal search and n>0 in advanced search (as the normal search is on paper titles only) 4) proceed to advanced search, find monthly subscription offer.

It doesn't feel too good having uploaded some of my articles there, and I hope other similar services (ResearchGate) won't do the same.

</comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps public internet services should really be created in, well, academia and government organizations, like in the old days (think email). At least then we'll see some federation, openness of data where useful, and as a bonus, everything will be devoid of ads and user-tracking.

<comment><USER16> I'd take it a step further. After the dot com crash, craigslist basically destroyed the entire classified ad industry by being free and good enough.

I want that for social (without ads/tracking/vc money/invasive monetization, and with strong privacy, author's rights and archival properties).

The cost per user of operating these social network sites must be plummeting with hardware costs. Clearly diaspora didn't quite get the formula right. Soon someone will, I hope.

<comment><USER17> I agree that this is a good goal, but Craigslist had some unusual advantages against classifieds: they undercut the cost and were national; newspapers were in denial about the internet, lacked technical knowhow, and fragmented into many local markets. I think if you made a good, free Facebook killer, Facebook wouldn't just let itself be taken by surprise to the same degree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> While I fully agree that the academic journal industry is a money extraction racket that needs to be put out of business, I don't see how academia.edu was contributing towards that end. The simple solution is for governments to require that the research that they fund be published under a free license of some sort.

<comment><USER19> Can we start this at the ballot iniative level? I imagine that if the change was worded like "An inatiative that requires free, public access to all government funded research" would be a relatively non-partisan issue.

<comment><USER20> >a relatively non-partisan issue.

Were it were so. I think you'll find some rather strenuous objections to your moderate proposal, though that's not so much partisanship as a very loud minority of a minority of the population stridently pursuing their ideology.

<comment><USER19> What "strenous" arguments would occur against this?

<comment><USER21> The for-profit publishing industry (and politicians they donate to) have argued time and again that their business model needs to be defended in order for science to function and that things like open repositories are bad. The (defeated) 2012 Research Works Act would have essentially destroyed the largest repository PubMed Central by eliminating the open access provisions of the NIH Public Access Policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Considering how much institutes pay for journal licenses or the $20 - $50 I pay for a single article, I don't have much of an issue with $8 a month to find the right article.

Not to mention, you can still find articles for free if the keyword is in the title or keyword abstract so the $8 a month isn't necessary.

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a rev-share model (like old platforms like Squidoo) for popular article authors who are sharing their work for free. With a growing amount of works coming from poorly paid adjuncts, while journals, publishers and institutions continue to rake in huge money, it'd be good to see some of this flowing back to the researchers who work to support the open access of knowledge.

<comment><USER23> But, you still have to pay to buy the article, and usually you can find the article with Google -- so basically I find you are paying for an inferior google.

<comment><USER24> Surely if you can find the article on google, you don't need their advanced content search; you know the title and can use the simple search

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The author should ask his librarian how much the school pays for access to journals, preferably while seated and not eating anything lest he choke.

<comment><USER26> But academia.edu does not replace the broken system of those journals, it just adds an additional broken layer at an extra cost.

Oh well. I logged in, verified that it shows the same broken behavior, then deleted my account. I wasn't really using it anyway. There are both better search engines and better ways of self-hosting my publications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Google scholar solves the same problem, for free.

HTTPS://Scholar.Google.com

</comment><comment><USER28> If I go to google now and type in "site:academia.edu Potterheads" I get the 26 papers alluded to in the linked article.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think 8 euro a month is not a huge price to pay.

Open access systems have a hard time getting ongoing funding; arxiv did not have the beginning of a sustainable plan before it was 20 yrs old, and it had near death experiences in the meantime.

<comment><USER30> > I think 8 euro a month is not a huge price to pay.

It's a price that readers (people who wish to access scientific articles) have to pay: this is unacceptable no matter the amount.

> [arXiv] had near death experiences in the meantime

I have never heard about this before, do you have any specific reference?

<comment><USER31> The problem is that starting free, promising the world, locking "customers" into your ecosystems, and then forcing them to pay for a service you used to provide for free is bad.

It's really, really bad. Potentially suicidally bad.

In this case the nominal price is reasonable - but the cost in lost trust and goodwill certainly isn't, and may turn out to be more than a.e can afford to pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The general point is a good one. However, the specific issue the author raises (paid advanced search) is easily avoided with google's "site" operator, e.g. "potterheads site:academia.edu"

</comment><comment><USER33> I refuse to sign up to Academia and ResearchGate, for-profit companies that are littering indexes with pay-wall accessible PDFs that should be available through institutional login, or the author's website. And now, through sci- hub.

Google scholar paired with sci-hub has become the fastest way to access papers given that institutional subscriptions are scatter gun.

1\. Find paper on scholar.google.com 2\. Find PDF or pay-wall 3\. Click the sci-hub bookmarklet

If I want to discover papers from my field, I talk to my colleagues. Another wall-garden I do not need.

</comment><comment><USER34> Looks like the startup is trying different approaches to increase their revenue.

Paid monthly subscription and analytics charges to the end user. I guess the author thinks it is the end of the platform, which is possible. I'm just hesitate to immediately conclude the business is done because of this choice. If the paid upgrades don't provide enough value the people won't sign up and maybe they will focus on another way. Research Gate is very similar site that sells ad space and for job postings so maybe they will head in that direction.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does a commercial enterprise even get a .EDU domain? I tried to obtain one for the local private high school, and was told it's available only to institutes of higher learning.

</comment><comment><USER35> Ihave both Academia.edu and Researchgate accounts. For themost part, everyone I know uses it as a kind of cv and repository for preprints of articles published in the usual suspect journals, and not as a replacement for journals.

</comment><comment><USER36> academia.edu always smelled weird to me. I guess i was right!</comment>


24 Year Old Hacks Way Into Harvard, Then Caught - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/17/student-conned-harvard-sorry

<comment><USER2> This isn't "hacking". He just lied on his application.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh I don't know, I tend to disagree. I think he found a way to get into a college that he'd otherwise be unable to attend.

Did he go too far robbing other kids of scholarships because he lied? Perhaps, but I don't think it's as black and white as "he lied."

Had he gone on to graduate, he'd be lauded as a hero.

<comment><USER3> > I think he found a way to get into a college that he'd otherwise be unable > to attend.

So, theft is technically "hacking" if you are unable to make a given amount of money?

<comment><AUTHOR> Title says hacked way into Harvard, not hacked way to scholarships. Then again, it's not theft, it's fraud.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you implying that lying to get into Harvard is the same as stealing a car?

<comment><USER4> Yes, in the context that both are crimes, with demonstrable harm done to others. Fraudlently filing an application devalues the degree for other people that went to Harvard, and stealing a car deprives the rightful owner of his property.

Incidentally, both crimes also hurt the perpetrator - had he graduated from Harvard, he'd always have the fear of being discovered as a fraud. Someone who steals a car has the same fear of being caught, and the same web of lies to friends and acquaintances to explain how they got the (stolen) goods.

Obviously they are not the exact same crime; there are many particulars that differ. So it is appropriate to punish each case with different sentences. But the essentials outlined above are the same, and from that we may conclude that neither is less criminal in nature than the other - they only differ (perhaps) in severity.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are in your ToLearn list? - <AUTHOR> If not everybody, many dev maintain a ToLearn list which contains just a possible points of what he/she will learn. I am curious what possible thing may it include other than language/framework/software (e.g. non-technical)? <comment><USER2> I want to learn to improve my soft skills to do a cold approach as the first part of a Customer Development interviewing.

Learning systemd scripting as I ran into all my scripts breaking when I upgraded my ubuntu server.

At some point I also want to work through the basic machine learning concepts in the book Collective Intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've spent the last few years reading/learning everything I can get my hands on involving artificial intelligence and CRISPR. Along with VR/AR and robotics, I consider them to be among the most important areas of extraordinary potential for the next several decades at a minimum.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nanotech textbook

Some Freud books

"Logistics" (catch-all) research

Brain-computer interfaces

Haskell..

Quantum mechanics & computing

More information theory

Maybe some more critical theory / philosophy

</comment><comment><USER5> Docker

AWS/GCE

Machine Learning

More AI

Front End Web Development

</comment><comment><USER6> ai

Robotics

Web assembly

<comment><AUTHOR> any other than technical?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kaldi [http://kaldi-asr.org/](http://kaldi-asr.org/)

OpenCV</comment>


Google Openly Profiles SEOs As Criminals - <AUTHOR> http://outspokenmedia.com/seo/google-profiles-seo-as-criminals/ <comment><USER2> Why shouldn't google treat SEOs as criminals? A SEO's _entire_ _job_ is to prevent google's main product from functioning as intended. SEO is hardly better than spam as far as I'm concerned.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see what the big fuss is about. Statistically, someone who knows how to commit mischief has a higher probability of doing it than someone who couldn't even grasp how to do it without great effort. It seems Google values playing the odds over protecting innocent false-positives.

Sure, I wouldn't enjoy being more scrutinized just because of my technical knowledge, but that's life for you and given the rationale I'm willing to be understanding . And on the internet, it takes a relatively minor group of people going misdeeds to fuck up the sauce for everyone.

It's a bit like how you pay more expensive car insurance if you're young because that age group tends to be more reckless even if you're a very careful person.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. The guy lost it for me when he started talking about Michael Gray. That dude is rabidly anti-google and religiously hates them. I feel sorry for Matt Cutts sometimes with the rough rides Gray gives him on Twitter....

I happen to agree with Google anyway: SEO is "high risk". It disguises the content: so bad content might get a boost.

Yes following good practices is a good move - but a lot of SEO experts are making a ton of cash selling their services to bump the score of shoddy content. And that affects Googles ability to server me good content.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Reason for Apple Mac Discounts? - <AUTHOR> For the first time ever, Apple is offering significant discounts on Macbook Pros and Airs. For instance, you could pickup a 2019 Macbook Air with Retina display for $799 at Costco ($200 discount). Can anyone shed light on these significant discounts? Are Apple sales way down or did they over produce and are trying to clear inventory? <comment><USER2> A laptop that has so many issues with something so basic as a keyboard that they require a replacement program is a hard sell to me. I can only imagine how much this hurts resale value of used ones. I wonder if Apple has picked up on this sentiment, and is trying to get rid of as much stock as they can to people who either are too rich to care or are not informed well enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could it be they're trying to boost sales figures just in time before the end of the quarter in order to appease shareholders and make their stock more attractive?</comment>


JxLib, a library for creating graphical user interaces based on MooTools - <AUTHOR> http://jxlib.org/

<comment><USER2> jxlib.org breaks my back button. Not good.

(Chrome 5.0.375.127 on Mac 10.6.4 (10F569))</comment>