Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/15/justin-kan-atrium-lts-funding/ <comment><USER3> Hello HN!

We are excited to be building in the legal space. Raising money is a necessary step, but Atrium LTS' biggest accomplishment so far is the great team of experts we have assembled here. My cofounders are Augie Rakow (former partner at Orrick, where he worked on over 100 financings and represented Cruise through their acquisition to GM), BeBe Chueh (lawyer turned founder who sold her last company to LegalZoom) and Chris Smoak (Amazon AWS, multiple time YC founder, founder of early FB payments platform Gambit). I think our early team is doing a great job of moving quickly and we are looking for more talented people to join that team.

Read more here: [http://www.atriumlts.com](http://www.atriumlts.com)

<comment> chrome-style I am wondering - why did you decide to raise outside money at all? I assume you would have been able to do the round yourself, save time / effort around the fundraising process and concentrate on product instead?

<comment><USER4> I have often wondered the same thing when similarly successful people raise money for startups. With $X00 million in the bank, it would be better to self- finance for $10.5MM that _if they truly believe in the business_. However, if they believe that the probability of success is very low, I suppose it would make sense for them to use their name to get others to take the financial risk for them. For this reason, as an investor, I would shy away from stratospherically wealthy entrepreneurs looking for money, but SV VC's seem quite willing to give money to people that don't need it.

<comment><USER3> This assumes you believe that investors can't help you succeed in your business. I believe our investors can help us a lot.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. I was speaking generally. In the case of this specific venture, you may very well turn out to be correct.

Good luck with your new business!

<comment><USER3> Thank you!

To expand on my point further: the same logic could be used to say entrepreneurs with the means to do so should only pay employees in cash and not equity (because you can afford to do so and believe the equity will have higher economic value ultimately). However, pretty much all seasoned founders I know want to compensate employees with some equity, under the theory that those employees will be more motivated to see the business be successful.

I think the same logic applies to your investor base (which is one of the selling points that crowd funding sources like Angel List or Funders Club maintain).

<comment><USER5> > However, pretty much all seasoned founders I know want to compensate > employees with some equity, under the theory that those employees will be > more motivated to see the business be successful.

AKA Golden Handcuffs of the lesser variety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most startups are pitched with a problem statement: our users want X, and here's how we're going to give it to them. This article talks about how lawyers don't do X and how Justin thinks they should — but not necessarily that they want to.

As someone who spent 7 years working in biglaw, I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make lawyers more efficient. For example, the large law firm I worked for ran Windows XP until 2011. This lag is due to (1) the fact that senior lawyers are generally very resistant to new technologies; and (2) the fact that law firms run custom/old software (to do things like format legal briefs to meet the standards of the relevant jurisdiction), which is mission-critical and may not be compatible with software updates.

I'm curious to see what Justin is building here, and hopefully some of the other news coverage with elucidate where the demand is going to come from for his new product/services.

Perhaps they're envisioning their "user" as corporate legal clients, who are going to pressure their law firm to use his project management software? An indirect model like this might make sense, but it sounds like a tough slog to me.

Anyone else know more?

<comment><USER7> > I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make > lawyers more efficient.

I think that's true, but I also think that these "technology-related things" are things that do not exist. Take your example: Windows has not improved in any way that is relevant to lawyers since Windows 2000. What is the point of upgrading?

I see many things in my practice where I could see technology making things more efficient. But almost never do I see legal technology that actually addresses that need. For example, the entire legal world runs on PDFs. Court opinions are in PDF form, documents are produced as PDFs, case filings are in PDFs, signed contracts are circulated as PDFs. But for some reason everyone wants to build web-based tools that cannot deal natively with PDFs, or by some miracle manages to be worse than Acrobat at handling them.

In another example, client confidentiality is a big deal in law firms. But everyone wants to build web-based tools that upload unencrypted documents god- only-knows where.

In a final example: web technology is built on getting good answers to questions everyone is asking. That's the premise underlying Google: if a website is popular as a link target, it's probably a good result. Law is often about exactly the opposite: how do I distinguish my case from all the other ones that go in a way that's bad for my client? In other words, what are the parameters that create the exception to the rule? The techniques used everywhere else on the web are awful for that.

<comment><USER8> I can vouch for the fact that legal technology as a category does not address the needs of lawyers. And which is obvious to most practicing attorneys. As an example:

> "spend less time [billing] on research"

is not, and never will be, an effective value proposition; and which would be obvious to anyone in anything but the most niche putt-putt fields of practice.

Rayiner is of course authority enough on this subject qua the intended market. But I'm here to confirm further that legal technology startups which ignore these central things -- PDFs are essential, confidentiality is maintained on in-house systems with their own vendors, and depth and specificity is critically more important than survey-like breadth -- will probably fail to address any real needs.

Source: I worked at a highly atypical IP litigation boutique (where drafts were written in LaTex and we scripted common ediscovery stuff), and later in relevance ranking at a legal tech startup.

<comment><USER7> > "spend less time [billing] on research" is not, and never will be, an > effective value proposition; and which would be obvious to anyone in > anything but the most niche putt-putt fields of practice.

I'll note that for many cases these days, there is an incentive to enhance efficiency. Alternative fee arrangements, _e.g._ fixed monthly fee irrespective of hours, are getting more and more common, particularly with regard to big corps that get sued regularly over the same sorts of cases. Not even commodity work even--these are complex cases for Fortune 100 companies handled by well-regarded firms.

<comment><USER8> Really?? The move away from standard billing had always felt like it would "always be in the future"; but I take that back if that's now A Thing in lit heavy on case research. Still assuming that ^ research is better facilitated by pagerank+semantic centrality, as opposed to the boolean features that the attorneys who do the most motion drafting work are already most well-versed in. The most valuable usage I'd heard of this type of product (the adoption of which I'd had reasons to keep asking extensively around about) was from my pal in international arbitration whose colleague wanted to do a search across courts in one screen. So maybe that was it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER7> Yes. Even in the context of billable-hour matters, it is typical for firms to write off hours that exceed certain targets per sub-unit of the matter. That is, in effect, a shift towards pricing based on unit of work ( _e.g._ a motion to dismiss) rather than pure hours.

I disagree about pagerank being appropriate for legal research. Pagerank-type algorithms will help you find the seminal, widely-cited cases in an area. But if you want background law, it is easier to just consult a relevant treatise or other reference book that has those pre-digisted and laid out for you. What really takes time when doing legal research is finding cases that have features in common with yours: similar procedural posture, similar factual wrinkles, etc. Usually, you're looking for a way to argue _the opposite_ of the general rule set forth in the seminal cases. Pagerank-type algorithms won't help you find that; boolean searches on specific phrases will.

<comment><USER8> I'll own that I could see why you might think that I think a certain way but consider that we do not disagree? I pointed out that - with a premium on billing efficiency - the linchpin the product's actually delivering value in such an environment would still rely on (what I note as) _the assumption that_ a semantic+graph -based product does in fact cut down research hours, compared to the boolean-based approach.

Your explanation about the value of exceptions to rules in research is correct and would occur to, say, pretty much anyone who has drafted a motion (worth clarifying: not a drag on you). Far from a disagreement, the truth of this premise is why - as I pointed out - the most experienced/valued appellate drafters effectively rely on boolean. (Except, I guess, the 'within' operator might count as a semantic operator. Although that's been in lexis and west for as long as I've seen them, and I suspect have found immense use for much longer than that...)

edit: Adding that of course only one of the two following premises need be incorrect (firms should use products which enable them to spend less time on research; the citation graph enables lawyers to spend less time on research while yielding identical quality; firms should use citation graph -based products). Depending on your circumstances, only one may in fact be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There actually is a lot of legal-industry-specific technology out there that most people have never heard of. It works well enough for what most lawyers and firms want, but it seems to have hit a local maxima for one major reason: nearly all the software and tools are written around Microsoft Word and the Office suite.

Anyone wanting to disrupt the legal industry (in the US) is going to have to deal with MS Word in one way or another. There are hundreds of thousands of attorneys who have worked with nothing but Word and Word-related tools for decades, so someone entering the space will likely need to build project management, collaboration, and communication systems around the Word ecosystem. That or build a product so compelling and easy to migrate to that people are willing to walk away from Word.

<comment><USER10> I think the "track changes" in Word is the killer feature that's used - <USER2> that could be replaced and the editor can read/write .docx you could pitch a wholesale replacement of MS Office.

<comment><USER9> If that's all it were, then someone would have repackaged Google Docs and sold that to the legal world. While "track changes" is absolutely essential to any product that aims to replace MS Word for legal docs, a replacement will need to have much more than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a good idea. I hope it gets traction (I'd love to work on this problem as well).

As for why some of this isn't done yet: The legal profession is old school. If you want to know where your work is, you can ask for a status memo, and you'll get billed for the time it takes to write it. Or the phone call. Either way. In industries where the product is the billable hour, you'll find things get done the way they've always been done.

You'll find small and mid size firms using more technology, but you'll also find that the more highly a company thinks of itself, the more it thinks it needs a large firm (which will bring its legacy processes, because they do work, even if not entirely efficient). Nobody gets fired for hiring Skadden, but then you also don't get to bitch when they do things the way they have for the last 50 years either. They didn't bring in $2.5B last year by accident - they're effective, and are going to be averse to process change if it risks outcomes.

If you're working on tech in this space, you also need to be aware of that. It's a tough sell to larger firms. They won't sacrifice outcomes or billables because it's all working really well for them, and they always have a glut of un/underemployed contract attorneys if they just need to throw highly educated bodies at a problem.

<comment><USER12> Isn't this just evidence that the old school is ripe for disruption?

If a startup like Atrium can streamline legal workflows, then new school firms don't need to bill for writing that status memo.

That should lower prices and attract more customers. Seems like a win/win.

<comment><USER13> Lowering prices on mid-top tier legal work won't attract more customers, demand is largely inelastic. And their customers, who are fortune X00 types, don't really care about the cost. Oh, sure, they bitch and moan about bills and write op eds about how law firms are terrible and the billable hour is bad. But, in the end, like OP says, companies routinely go back to the same crop of biglaw firms. There is no such thing as 'disruption' in this industry, it never has been disrupted.

<comment><USER11> The only disruption that occurred was 2008-2011 or so, when the economy tanked and demand for legal services took a fall. Except most biglaw partners realized their labor model could change without consequence - they laid off tons of associates and when the demand came back, they replaced them with contract attorneys, paralegals, some offshore, some software and a small number of actual associate attorneys. It turns out what their 1st and 2nd year associates were doing was largely replaceable at a much lower cost.

That's the opportunity - but it's really hard when instead of software they can go get an actual living, breathing attorney to work on contract for $25-35 an hour. More in California because of their OT laws, so maybe that's where the opportunity exists initially for disruption.

Critically, though, I don't think anyone's figured out how to charge billable hours for what your software does. Since you can still bill contract attorneys out at 3x what you pay them, it's tough going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For any legal startup to work, Lawyers either A) have to really want what he's building or, B) have to have it to be competitive against other firms.

I think both of these are pretty high bars, especially since Lawyers bill by the hour.

Finding a good efficient lawyer is much more about the Lawyers personality, knowledge, and ability and much less about the technology. A good lawyer can solve things very quickly at little cost. A bad lawyer can take the same matter, spend a ton of money researching it, working it, discussing it, etc, and still come out with a poor result.

I'm interested to see what he's building, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't upend the legal world.

<comment><USER15> "A good lawyer can solve things very quickly at little cost. A bad lawyer can take the same matter, spend a ton of money researching it, working it, discussing it, etc, and still come out with a poor result."

Not to be too cynical but given those two options of good and bad lawyers - who is going to be able to charge more fees to an unsuspecting client?

Edit: I can't believe that I said "Not to be too cynical" about lawyers....

<comment><USER14> "who is going to be able to charge more fees to an unsuspecting client?"

That's my point, finding a great lawyer isn't easy, and I don't think it's related the underlying technology. The tech can make a great lawyer even better.

<comment><USER15> I'd love to have some kind of portal where you can actually track activity on your legal work and see billing as it happens.

Of course, I can see why lawyers generally resist that kind of transparency...

<comment><USER16> reading between the lines, it looks like that's what's being attempted

I'm guessing getting it adopted, you need to acquire large corporate clients who want to demand this sort of accountability from law firms they hire, more than acquiring the law firms as clients

<comment><USER17> Do lawyers usually send very detailed itemized bills?

<comment><USER13> Yes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I built a legal app years ago. One problem I had getting investors is that the legal market is so small. Microsoft dropped it as a vertical years ago. Corporate law is even a smaller segment of the legal industry. VC law is an even smaller segment of corporate law. How big is the market for this product?

Edit: I see from their website they claim it is a "$96 billion industry". There are only 1.3 million active lawyers in the U.S. (ABA), so I am curious what this number represents.

<comment><USER19> If each of the lawyers makes 100k per year you already have a $100 billion industry.

<comment><USER17> It is a lawyer's fees industry's size, not a legal software industry's size..

<comment><USER19> Fair enough. I have no idea how industry sizes are calculated. I always think they are made up numbers anyway.

In any case, an industry where 1.3 million highly paid people work should be a worthwhile market to pursue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > And while Kan is still loathe to go into all the details...

> Kan promises more to come — including more details about the tech the > company is building and how it will begin offering that technology to > customers...

I like how the only specific details about the company is an alphabetical listing of every single person who invested in it, and then another couple paragraphs explaining to us why that list is somehow meaningful.

I wonder where people get the idea that "funding isn't a goal"...

</comment><comment><USER21> As a startup founder who dealt with numerous legal things on the ops side, there's clearly room for a lot of improvement. While Clerky seems to focus on the startup's side of the problem, it seems like Justin is tackling the firm's side of the problem (that allows company's like Clerky to take their business). This is really interesting to me and I would definitely bet on anything Justin leads. Really excited to see where this goes.

</comment><comment><USER22> What happened to Justin's Snapchat? Still kicking? Kinda stopped following when Insta-Stories launched. Miss Klaus though <3

<comment><USER3> Still snapping some. It's actually much harder to remember to make social media now that I'm out of YC.

When I was at YC, there was a defined schedule, so I had lots of free time to mess around on snapchat. Now that I'm back in the startup world, I spend most of my time thinking about and working on my company, and forget to snapchat.

Klaus says hi.

<comment><USER23> >Now that I'm back in the startup world, I spend most of my time thinking about and working on my company, and forget to snapchat.

Shouldn't you have been thinking about and working on YC when you were there?

<comment><USER3> YC is structured by-design to have time you spend as a partner working with companies, and time to do whatever you want. I liken it to being a university professor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is awesome and I'm really happy to see venture dollars being spent on the legal industry. One of my gripes has always been that quality legal is traditionally expensive to obtain because the "quality" part in legal work tends to come from literally practicing law for a long time and knowledge about many things quite deeply. Over time law firms obviously grow in standing and therefore size, increasing costs. This can easily leave a huge part of society under-served. In theory, much of the cost is research by humans, and I presume research by humans garnering key insights could be done somewhat algorithmically by scanning case law for key points. I hope we see more and more automation and ML services applied to the industry of providing council around aspects of the law.

<comment><USER13> I don't think much legal cost is in research, industry-wide. Most lawyers specialize in one niche and already know all the relevant big cases in their field. More nuanced research isn't all that time consuming really. And a whole big swath of legal work has absolutely nothing to do with researching law, there's a lot more to it. And a huge part of society doesn't need super- experienced lawyers. The under served market needs warm bodies who are qualified to represent clients at some state bar who are willing to work for peanuts. Like, just someone to sit there in a suit and look menacing would help out most of the 'under served.' Large student loans require law school grads to seek the highest paying work possible, thought, so lawyers can't represent poor people.

<comment><USER24> Then why does Cooley or WSGR employe near 1,000 lawyers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is there a story behind the team photo on the home page where everyone is wearing white tops?

<comment><USER26> It looks like someone (Mr. Kan?) stole the shirts right off everyone's backs.

I believe it's a subtle message to people who work in the law industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Will this be aimed at bootstrapped startups who are trying to get to ramen cash flow positive without the overhead of legal paperwork that still seems somewhat risky for folks who want to test ideas?

</comment><comment><USER28> Hi Justin,

Welcome back to the game. What happens to the other products in your incubator?

</comment><comment><USER29> I have no idea about the existing legal tech space, but this sounds like a really good idea if it doesn't already exist. I hope it works out</comment>


College dropout makes  $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801434_pf.html <comment><USER2> This is a somewhat old article.

It's also very, very long.

It's also one of the greatest newspaper feature stories I've ever read. It was passed around the writers' circles I was part of when the Post ran it years ago.

Here's the gist (from memory):

1\. Guy has a gift for connecting with little kids.

2\. Guy has good sense of humor.

3\. Guy decides to do magic shows at pre-school birthday parties for a living.

4\. Guy targets the richest community of clients for his service.

5\. Guy figures out what people are charging for pre-school birthday party magic shows and charges DOUBLE their price.

6\. Guy markets his shows by hanging out around shopping malls where parents and kids wandered by, having fake conversations on his cell phone about non- existent work.

7\. Guy works 10 birthday parties a weekend, charging $200 for a 30-minute magic show.

8\. Parents feel guilty about dropping $200 on a 30-minute preschool magic show, but the kids ADORE the guy's funny act and tricks that blow up in his face. He's got a gift.

There's a great subplot about the magicians deep, dark secret, in fact it's what prompted the Washington Post reporter to shadow the guy for a few months. Parents were wondering why the magician kept showing up unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes, and why his gear was so beat up if he was making so much money.

I'll leave the surprises to those curious enough to read the whole thing.

<comment><USER3> The author of the article also won the Pulitzer for writing this brilliant piece about skill, art, and modern life:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)

<comment><USER4> _... their son had strung rubber bands across his dresser drawers and was replicating classical tunes by ear, moving drawers in and out to vary the pitch._

Damn, I guess that answers the question: Would he still play music if he had been born to an illiterate family in a desolate rural part of a third world country? Yep, he still would.

<comment><USER5> Except many people in those parts are so malnourished that their minds don't develop properly.

<comment><USER6> Or they die before reaching 5 years old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I actually enjoy many of the posts about the creative (or at least somewhat non-traditional) things people do as solo entrepreneurs. After reading the entire article though, I do find it funny how this tagline was used to position the article for the HN community. The article is actually much more of a character study than a discussion of a business, and it takes a significant change in content after the first thousand words.

<comment><USER8> Brilliant article, brilliant HN positioning, brilliant _page partitioning_. Best thing I've read on HN this year.

<comment><USER9> The way the article totally changes course on the last page is brilliant. This might be the only news article I've seen that used the hypertext format that well.

<comment><USER10> I always click 'print this article', then click my Readability bookmarklet ( <http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/> ). Works 9/10 times and gives a nice speed boost to reading articles. The page partitioning sounds well-done though. I guess writers put a lot of thought into that. (Edit: ... and then I read brandnewlow's comment above mine which refutes that theory. 'Print this article' links rock.)

<comment><USER8> who says editors have no outlet for creative genius...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And of course, this is the same writer who just got the "leaving babies to die in the car" story published, which just made the rounds:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/02...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html)

There's definitely a rhythm and a way of developing characters in common with all the stuff I've read from him so far.

Or how about this:

 _THE BEST-INFORMED PERSON I EVER KNEW was a friend of my grandfather's back in the Bronx, where I grew up. Every morning of every day of his life, this elderly man -- his name, as I recall, was Boris -- would dress impeccably in a suit and waistcoat and shuffle to the public library, where more than a dozen of the day's local and out-of-town newspapers were threaded through bamboo poles and hung from racks. One by one, Boris would read them all, front to back; at dusk, he would walk home alone. This daily pilgrimage was conducted with ecclesiastic solemnity, a quiet, dignified homage to the majesty of knowledge. Even as a little boy, in that intuitive if primitive way that children comprehend important things, I understood the fundamental truth that Boris was, in some clear but compelling way, a douche bag._

This guy is a genius.

</comment><comment><USER12> "You could just have a party where you all played pin the tail on the donkey or musical chairs or something. But that is just not done in this part of D.C. If you did that, you would be talked about."

That's a microcosm of what I didn't like about DC. The culture is very status oriented and judgmental.

<comment><USER13> I think that humans in general are very status oriented and judgmental. Hacker culture is the same, we just focus on a different set of status indicators and pass judgment on a different set of criteria. Other cultures' values and judgments look unpleasant and silly to us, just as ours look unpleasant and silly to them.

<comment><USER12> You have a point. Maybe I just didn't like the city because it didn't share my values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like how careful he is with the tone he's writing. For instance, the story about the people across the hall; he doesn't let it blow up in your face, and he doesn't just let the air out of it either; he reels it in like a fisherman, letting a key detail out early, but still landing it with a climax.

Thanks for posting this. I had no idea about this guy, now I'm trying to track down everything he's written.

</comment><comment><USER14> Brilliant article. Prob one of the best things I have read all year long.

WOW! Should make a movie about it.

<comment><USER15> I'm already visualising Tom Hanks in the feature role. What a vivid story. We just need a happy ending, no? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The title was misleading in the sense that the article in itself is much more than about creativity. I thought it had more to do with emotions, psychology and effects. After reading the whole article, I am in awe of how he knows kids so well! I feel sorry that creative professor mother + phd math father did only so much for their son, putting their own pursuits first instead. But I guess that is how today's world is and will be.

<comment><USER11> You can read it like that, or you can read it as a story about a guy who could be leading a completely charmed life, except for the fact that the personality traits that give him instantaneous connections with 4 year olds also make it hard for him to lead a normal life --- the same way genetic mutations can make us more attractive and more susceptible to specific diseases, or the same way that David Foster Wallace's brain could ricochet through a thousand ideas in a couple pages, but also get so tangled up and hopeless that he was compelled to kill himself. As in, a story about how things that seem simple --- let's write an ebook, how to make $100,000 a year with a 2 hour work week! --- are actually really complex, because we're humans and not 300 word business model posts on Hacker News.

Is what I think you could think of it, is all.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> here's the Great Zucchini in action: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVjB4f_nBvQ&fmt=18](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVjB4f_nBvQ&fmt=18)

<comment><USER17> That is amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm curious where this guy is now after three years. Is he still doing this gig or have his flaws caught up with him?

<comment><USER18> Answered my own question. He's still in business:

<http://www.thegreatzucchini.com/index.html>

<comment><USER2> What's interesting about his page is that it doesn't even show his face on the front, just dozens of happy, delighted pre-schoolers.

The man knows what he's really selling to parents.

<comment><USER19> He does show his face on the "More Info" page, though.

<http://www.thegreatzucchini.com/about.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/02...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549_pf.html)

another article by the same writer. A very sad one this time, but great writing.

</comment><comment><USER21> One of the best written stories I have ever read. Intriguing, funny and sad!

</comment><comment><USER22> We rarely see a case of attention deficit disorder as obvious as this.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great article. He did his homework, targeted his audience and finally sees a payoff. But it took him 10 years of working in a nursery school and babysitting and party hosting at DZ for him to manage to get there. But good on him for recognizing that he had a gift and that he could make a living doing it.

</comment><comment><USER24> is "college dropout" really anything special these days?

<comment><USER25> society tells me that if I want to make anything out of my life, college is the place to go. One poster in my High School flaunts that I will make one million dollars more in my lifetime if I go to college.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Pretty moving story wonderfully written!!

</comment><comment><USER27> He and Seinfeld :-)

</comment><comment><USER28> Excellent article and excellent writing. Anyone complaining about this being too long has some ADD issues of their own; they should especially make the effort to read this as a warning what happens when such tendencies are allowed to take over their life.

</comment><comment><USER29> I remember when this came out in the Post mag a couple years ago here. I still don't get why they had to take a nice light-hearted story and dig up all of that dirt about the guy's gambling problem...it seemed sensationalist and completely irrelevant.

<comment><USER13> It makes the person three-dimensional, as opposed to a light hearted human- interest story. A story about a clown that 4-year-olds love, I will forget in an hour. A story about a clown who gave up adulthood because of his past, that I will remember for many years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Flagged. Come on, really?

<comment><USER31> The fact that you were downmodded tells me that the bozos are now the majority of HN. Time for a new digg clone?

<comment><USER32> Ok - it's a story about a clown. But does that mean it only satisfies the intellectual curiosity of bozos?

I'll take this article over another tawdry analysis of the financial crisis any day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> 3 years ago suburbanites were swimming in money and had nothing better to do with it. I doubt this guy is still pulling in a full weekend of @$300 shows.

<comment><USER34> Some DC suburbs are still under 3% unemployment. Government consulting in one form or another is vary stable work when you can get it.

EX: I work for a multi-billion dollar company that grew over 10% last year while being vary profitable. Many people I work with have a combined family income over 250k/year, young children, and little free time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> When I read this article all I could think about was Raffi singing 'Banana Phone.' Now I can't get it out of my head.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-LbvFPLpeo&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-LbvFPLpeo&feature=player_embedded)

</comment><comment><USER36> I really dislike these posts, which are all the same "Person who skips college retires at 24" or "College really needed? This man makes 400,000 a year!"

Of course college doesn't guarantee that you'll come out making $100k a year or more, but also NOT going to college is the same.

As happy as I am for this person, I hope no one gets the wrong idea from these posts and just drops out. Having an idea is one thing, putting it together and having it be a success is another. If anything, I would say the YouTube and Facebook guys had it right, they made the product during college, released it during college, succeeded during college, and subsequently left college. Thats the way to do it IF ANY.

And for some people, school just isn't there thing. Anyways I'm rambling, I think my point has been made.

<comment><USER11> Wow are you ever missing the point of this story.

<comment><USER32> You're assuming he read it</comment></comment></comment>


How do colors affect purchases? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kissmetrics.com/color-psychology/?wide=1

<comment><USER2> I don't know, how do infographics affect information retention?</comment>


Adobe Donating Flex to Open Source Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/11/flex-adandoned <comment><USER2> "I've invested years developing significant proficiency in Flex. It now feels like a waste of time."

That may sound like valid criticism, superficially, but I think it's very fair to say that the impending death of Flash has been apparent for quite a while now and this always cast a shadow on Flex. Maybe not in the few niches that it still does survive (thrive even, in some cases), but the market that Flex aimed at was very limited early on and in the past couple of years, with Flash being predominantly a delivery mechanism for online video, still betting on Flex as "Internet Technology" seems ludicrous.

"I would have much preferred to see a transition where Flex and HTML 5 could peacefully co-exist"

If you think that, you simply don't understand the technology. In fact, many of the criticisms that are quoted seem to be this: People who are disgruntled that their bet on a proprietary piece of technology didn't pan out. Welcome to the Internet.

<comment><USER3> I simply don't understand the whole doom and gloom talk around Silverlight and Flash. AIR is still alive and uses all your Flash/ActionScript skills. Same with Windows 8 using XAML and C#. Your .NET knowledge isn't suddenly obsolete.

As for me, I will be coding in Flash for a long time in the foreseeable future. Flash is huge in the UX research space and I don't see HTML 5 replacing it any time soon unless the tools reach the sophistication and speed of the Flash IDE. There isn't even a standard graphics library yet for Canvas. How long did it take for the industry to standardise around jquery?

<comment><USER4> Ultimately Adobe gets its money from Flash licensing. Adobe knows that serving as a video distribution vector is a fragile business and that "marketshare" could disappear overnight quite easily. What matters most for the viability of Flash is not the fact that it's ubiquitous, nor the fact that it "does more" than the competition. What matters is the popularity among developers.

And Adobe has clued in to the fact that Flash development is well past the inflection point on the way to decline. They could ride Flash into the ground or they could change horses when they're still doing well. If Adobe lets another player dominate marketshare in the new ecosystem while they are distracted with squeezing the last drops of blood out of the Flash turnip then they would miss out on a huge opportunity and suddenly be in the worst strategic position imaginable.

Right now, before Flash is well and truly dead, is the smart time for Adobe to transition and try to plant their feet firmly in the territory where it appears web development is heading (html5).

<comment><USER5> Their best move would be to create an IDE just like Flash but for HTML5; and with an embedded Javascript library with a syntax very similar to AS3.

<comment><USER6> <http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I invested a lot of time in learning and deploying Flex. It's been a lifesaver when I had to code quick visualizations, dashboards, analytic tools, db interfaces, etc.

Now I would like to transition over HTML5, but it seems that all the tools and frameworks are incomplete, not easy to integrate, etc. and now I need to know javascript, html, css, etc. and the language to code the backend (In my case usually very CPU intensive). With Flex I only needed to know as3 and my backend language.

What would be best framework similar to Flex that would abstract the ugliness of javascript, html and css? It's not my idea of a fun time to fight layout bugs and different javascript/css/html implementations.

<comment><USER8> jQuery abstracts DOM weirdness across browsers. Learning plain JavaScript will give you a deeper understanding of why jQuery does certain things. Using node.js on the backend will allow you to transfer your JS skills over.

Regarding HTML and CSS, your best best when starting is to use a quick framework to get you up and running. I'd suggest Twitter's Bootstrap: <http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/> . End of the day you're going to have to learn them yourself though. You can make things much easier for yourself by restricting your browser compatibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's what Jeremy Allison said in the following article: <http://tuxdeluxe.org/node/122>

_Proprietary environments are a trap

I used to be a Microsoft Windows programmer, as well as a UNIX/POSIX programmer. The knowledge I've gained about programming POSIX is still useful, even though I learned a lot of it over twenty years ago. My Windows knowledge is now rather out of date, and getting more so over the years. It isn't worth my time anymore to keep up with each increasingly baroque change to the Windows environment. Just as an example, over this time the latest "hot" communication paradigm that Microsoft recommended developers use in Windows changed from NetBEUI, to NetDDE, then OLE, followed by OLE2, then COM, DCE/RPC, DCOM, and now currently seems to be Web Services (SOAP and the like). Meanwhile, in the UNIX world the Berkeley socket API was useful in the 1980's and is still the core of all communications frameworks in the open standards world. All the UNIX RPC, object and Web Service environments are built on that stable base._

</comment><comment><USER10> "In order for large enterprises to invest heavily into a technology, they need some assurances that the technology is viable and the viability often comes in the form of the backing of corporate stewards. "

That, or you could bet on open standards instead, which probably has corporate backing as well. Seems to me that the backing of corporations on proprietary technology doesn't always work out - corporations do go down the drain sometimes, or withdraw support.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder whether IT is the only industry where sophisticated products get thrown away after years of development simply due to fashion-like trends. In mechanical engineering for example, do they throw away a new engine design just because a competitor, that builds a nice looking car, says that it sucks? I believe th IT industry is crippled because it is filled with intangible assets that can easily be made incompatible to each other. Why cant we have international standards that prohibit this sort of anti-competitive crippling.

<comment><USER12> If you throw your product away just because some competitor said that is sucked, you probably don't belong in this business anyway.

What you call anti-competititve crippling I call enabling and it has nothing to do with anti-competitivines.

Do you say, that carburetor is better than injection? Vacuum tubes and relays are for building computers than IC?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> this is not what we want adobe. Open the flash player.

<comment><USER14> I completely agree and have been saying this for years. When Apple defended their decision by saying it's a closed platform, that would have been a good time (although that didn't save Java, either).

When OS X Safari users were complaining of crashes, that also would have been a good time. I stopped Flex development when Flash started crashing Firefox on Windows. If they can't get it stable on #1 developer platform, I figure there's no hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just to note: This is a licensing change (I think). Because flex developers have had access to ALL the flex code for years now. (And all the embarrassing comments as well ;) )

<comment><USER16> It is signalling. Enterprises are meant to understand that this is the end of the road as far as new improvements to Flex is concerned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> the comparisons of flash and html5 are nonsensical.

flash can do all sorts of things. i can remember when it was mainly for animations. playing video is just one of the many things flash can do.

there _may_ have been a need for something to replace mime and plugins, and for whatever reason macromedia's shockwave flash (swf) emerged as an interim solution. but adobe just abused its position. they are not an honest company when it comes to web users. they cannot be trusted.

html5 solves the problem(?) that flash was being used for, namely, playing media files through the browser. but we will have open source and we don't have to deal with a shady company like adobe.

html5 is not a flash replacement. you don't "transition" from flash to html5. html5 just keeps adobe and their sneaky tactics away from web video. and that's good for web users.

still, the fact remains, plugins (open source code not part of mozilla or another other browser, e.g., vlc or ffmpeg) are better media players than browsers. so i'm left to wonder if all this was really necessary.

stream this, stream that, but youtube is still using progressive download. so go figure.

last i checked mime still works. yet it was pretty much abandoned by the browser teams.

i'll bet there is really no good reason either.

just as there was no good reason we should be letting adobe control web video. adios adobe.

<comment><USER18> I'm curious if you have specific examples of where Adobe was "not an honest company"?

<comment><USER6> Selling software at inflated prices in other territories is pretty dishonest. For instance the cost of the design suite in the US is $1,299 while in the UK it is £1,032 ($1,638) before taxes are applied. While I accept that prices can be variable depending on exchange rates, this is downright dishonest.

<comment><USER19> >For instance the cost of the design suite in the US is $1,299 while in the UK it is £1,032 ($1,638) before taxes are applied.

Tell me for what software that isn't true. For some reason every publisher charges more for software (and games) in Europe and Australia, when compared to Canada and US.

<comment><USER6> That's absolutely true and Adobe are not the worst. Autodesk are really bad at this; $3995 for AutoCAD in the US vs $7,635 in the UK. This doesn't make Adobe any less dishonest though. Software piracy is a complete anathema, but with gouging and disparity like this it's quite clear why it goes on and begs the question as to who is the thief and who is the victim.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tips? Toastr, All events nearby - <AUTHOR> https://www.toastr.co/city/new%20york <comment><AUTHOR> Toastr is a side project I started and I want to ask you guys for some tips. Ps: Don't know if this is the right place to ask, if not let me know and I will delete it.</comment>


Unpatched routers being used to build vast proxy army, spy on networks - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/09/unpatched-routers-being-used-to-build-vast-proxy-army-spy-on-networks/ <comment><USER2> I finally convinced myself of building an opnsense wifi router after years of procrastination. I want to take back control of my network, or at least monitor it properly.

What are the most interesting network analysis tools I should look into? I'm talking more about high-level visualisations. For example, I'd be interested in keeping a list of every device that's ever connected to my network, and maybe get alerts upon detecting it. Or map requests/connections in real- time/historically on a globe in HTML5. Just some fun stuff to actually get a sense of what's going on in my network.

Any recommendations?

<comment><USER3> mitmproxy is what you need. I've installed it on a Raspberry Pi that then acts as a hotspot. mitmproxy allows me to see every bit of data that is being put on the wire. All telemetry, pings, contacts, and more being transmitted home (respective of encryption). A transparent proxy is essential if you want to deep drive into what the apps on your network are actually doing.

<comment><USER4> Do you happen to know what added latency one can expect from using one of those? (Apologies if my brief googling was off-point and this is a well answered question)

<comment><USER5> Did a little googling and couldn't find any benchmarks but the new v4 release claims a 4x improvement in speed.

[https://mitmproxy.org/posts/releases/mitmproxy4/](https://mitmproxy.org/posts/releases/mitmproxy4/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So for people like myself who don't know much about this stuff, I was wondering what we can learn to figure out if the routers we are using are compromised in any way. On a similar tangent, is there any way we can detect any editing being done by an ISP? Like how and where they might be inserting headers into our traffic for example.

Just curious where to start in this exercise.

<comment><USER7> I guess the preferred way to discover if your router is compromised would be by network analysis... And you would need to plug it into some other computer for that, what just shifts the problem to the other computer.

I guess you can gain some confidence that it isn't compromised, but can never be sure.

About edit being done by the ISP, once you fix on a not all powerful adversary (not the NSA), it's easy to get some machine it couldn't have tainted.

<comment><USER8> That doesn't sound like a way that would be preferred by any home user. How about starting with a list of affected routers?

<comment><USER7> Well, you are going with a completely different question than the one I got. And rereading the GP, I don't know which is correct, so, well maybe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised that neither here, nor in the article 2 days ago, I can find a _list of affected routers_. Or even a tip on how should I check if my Mikrotik is affected / has been pwnd by either of those attacks.

In hopefully unrelated story, my Mikrotik and/or my ISP has been acting up in the past hour; I've lost the ability to resolve many .com domains for ~30 minutes, even though I have Google's NS configured set up as the first two on the router. Manual queries (Mikrotik: resolve somedomain.com server 188.8.131.52 / Local: nslookup - 184.108.40.206) resolved correctly; it's just defaults that couldn't. Sad to admit this, but I have no clue what's going on -.-

<comment><USER10> Most models can be affected. Check if your first firewall rule sends to the built in proxy. See [https://www.google.ca/amp/blog.netlab.360.com/7500-mikrotik-...](https://www.google.ca/amp/blog.netlab.360.com/7500-mikrotik- routers-are-forwarding-owners-traffic-to-the-attackers-how-is-yours-en/amp/) in particular check if the webproxy and/or socks service are enabled.

<comment><USER9> Seems I'm fine with that, for now. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Related, from 2 days ago - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17908028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17908028)

</comment><comment><USER12> After the last one of these articles, I finally flashed my router with OpenWRT, and it's been pretty nice so far. Best feature: Installed `adblock` package, and now I get DNS-level ad blocking, which is simply fantastic. Works on all clients (including mobile) and significantly faster than blocking in browser.

<comment><USER13> A nice alternative which allows you to keep using your router's own software or routers not compatible with open source software is PI-HOLE ([https://pi- hole.net](https://pi-hole.net)). Provides the same DNS level blocking with a lot more information and features.

<comment><USER14> I've been thinking of getting a Pi-Hole for a while, but also have a router running OpenWRT. Are there any advantages/disadvantages to using a Pi-Hole vs. using an AdBlock package on the router?

<comment><USER15> I used an adblock package in pfSense but not OpenWRT. The issues I had with pfSense's package was it wasn't nearly as configurable as pi-hole and it used up a bit too many resources on the Soekris 5505 box. I had to uninstall it because it took too many resources.

I ended up installing Docker on my laptop, grabbing the Pi-Hole container, and configuring my laptop to use the docker container as the DNS server.

So far this has worked very well. Wherever I go, I have pihole running in the background. I can access the web interface and do everything I could do on the rasp pi-hole, without the extra hardware. It does take a minute or two to start up in the background after logging in though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone here used Plume[0]? A friend of mine recently suggested it, and it sounds interesting but also... a bit scary. I suspect it has a centralized attack point (get into the Plume infrastructure, and you can probably automatically roll a virus out to all Plume routers in the world).

[0] [https://www.plume.com/](https://www.plume.com/)

<comment><USER17> Plume got a pretty icy reception here when they launched their subscription- based pricing model: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17293078](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17293078)

If you really need a mesh (you probably don't), there are other solutions. If you know at least a little about home networking and WiFi, just setup a Unifi system and be done with it.

<comment><USER18> Let me first say that I am not a super network dude. I know enough to be dangerous.

The newer story @ Ars has some updated stats and thoughts: [https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/06/exclusive-plumes- ne...](https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/06/exclusive-plumes-new-superpod- hardware-is-here-and-its-fast/)

Part of the improvement is the hardware. The latency improvement is awesome, for example. But part of it seems to legitimately be the optimization that their software is doing re: signal strength, which backhaul to use, auto updates, the level of customer support, and other stuff.

I don't know how it compares, but it seems it may be better than people were initially thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought that Linux is secure against viruses, because it has a sane security model, unlike Windows which is insecure no matter what.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Linux, the kernel, and NT, the kernel, are mostly secure. People manage to build insecure things on top of each.

<comment><USER20> Well, that's perhaps reductionist a bit too far to be a useful statement. There are other things outside the kernel that are important too, and design decisions that matter to user space.

Things like OLE can be said in retrospect wasn't a good idea security wise. Autorun kept delivering for more than a decade. Perhaps GDI could do with a security model. That sort of things makes it unnecessarily difficult to secure the system.

The reason we don't hear about Windows router botnets is because nobody bothers building those boxes in the first place. You put your Windows box behind a small Linux box in order to connect it to the Internet, not the other way around.

<comment><USER21> Quite a few are placed behind small BSD boxes rather than Linux. But yeah, internet facing Windows routers aren't exactly common. Certainly not without spending a good bit of time in group policy editor turning off almost everything.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Company claimed open source software - <AUTHOR> The company I work for was given grant money by the Canadian government to invest in research and development.  I was told by my boss that because xx% of my wage was paid by the goverment that I was required to do community work that supported Universities (this was a lie).  I wrote a substantial piece of software that required me to pay for the development tools.  More than half of the work was done at my home unpaid.  The software was open sourced with my bosses approval.  During a routine IT audit at our facility corporate IT found out about the project and demanded it be taken down immediately and that there was no agreement with the government whatsoever.
I never kept track of the amount of time that I worked on the project since it was open source work and so couldn't accurately say how may hours were involved but it was over the course of a couple of years and was in the thousands of hours researching and writing / testing code.  Needless to say the company refused to pay me for anything because I couldn't prove exactly how many hours I worked on the software.  The story gets even more crazy but it's too long to go into.
Any thoughts on how you would handle something like this? <comment><USER2> Best thing to do is talk to a lawyer and remember any and all work for the government has to be tracked and logged. If it was not an official government contract that was funded and awarded, no work should have been done by anyone unless the government agreed to pay for the work or the company agreed to pay you with the risk that they would not have been paid by the government to compensate you work. Either way, you should not have been doing any free work for the company and any tools or hardware you used should have been purchased by the company unless you are a contractor.

If you are a contractor then all hours you worked should have been paid for and tracked by you. Just make sure you talk with a lawyer to help fix things up for you as it sounds like something shady may have occurred.

</comment><comment><USER3> Learn from it and move on.

Next time, get it in writing, and keep great records.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have it in writing.

<comment><USER4> It depends on how much you care about your job.

If you have it in writing (and it's clear) you can fork the software at the last commit. Be aware that you risk being fired. OTOH they are risking a wrongful termination claim / lawsuit. Option 3 is to negotiate back pay for the work you did based on your best estimate of the cost.

<comment><USER3> There's also some risk to your boss -if he's given you permission in writing to release the code under an open source license, but he did not have the internal authority to do that - it's not impossible that'd risk him getting fired (instead of or as well as you).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Punishment Driven Development? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/mattwarren/punishment-driven-development-33e <comment><USER2> I always find it good to make developers feel the pain of customer support. Feeling this pain usually improves your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I guess that's another way of achieving the same result. I'd think I would've preferred regular Customer Support to working in a factory!</comment></comment>


Embracing Piracy - <AUTHOR> https://flancia.org/mine/embracing-piracy/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is one in a series of quick thought experiments I plan to write up and post -- I hope someone finds them interesting. Let me know if you have any questions or comments, they'd be very much appreciated!</comment>


Ask HN: How do the London Riots reflect on CCTV Camera culture? - <AUTHOR>

One would think that with so many cameras in and around London, that many would not take to rioting for fear of being caught.
I am generally against the idea of a CCTV network, although do events like these make a case for CCTV?
Likewise, could it be said that Londoners have grown too accustom to CCTV life that they have simply ignored its existence? <comment><USER3> I have very mixed feelings about CCTV, but generally I don't mind it (note that this is different to being 'for' it). I worked for a company writing software for CCTV operators, recording/playback etc and I heard of various crimes being solved and our images being used to convict a murderer, people who caused damage to property, thieves and so on. Very good feeling.

I don't mind the fact that I'm recorded when I walk down the street - <USER2> because of the flawed 'I have nothing to hide' argument, but simply because I can't think of a reason that I would mind. Most cameras aren't actively watched unless there is a specific reason to, and the recordings are deleted usually after 30 days. On the one hand you may dislike the camera watching you - but you'd be thrilled if it recorded the guy who mugs you on your way home and leads to his arrest and subsequent conviction. I do feel safer knowing this on the occasion that I'm on my own in an area that I don't feel safe. Maybe this is due to working with CCTV in the past, I'm more acutely aware of its presence then I might be otherwise.

London's CCTV will lead to literally hundreds of arrests of these scumbags (I live near an area that was involved, and have family even closer) that would otherwise have gone completely unpunished. Many more of the people involved in the riots are having a hard time sleeping tonight then if there were no CCTV.

@hcho - ig1 is correct. Most of the imagery you're seeing on TV is at the scene of the riot. Images of CCTV in the surrounding areas will be scoured over the coming weeks, many covered faces will have been uncovered a few streets away. Also watching where people came from can help to find associations - for example they arrest somebody who was seen on CCTV to have arrived with somebody who is not yet identified.

</comment><comment><USER4> Did you notice the looters wearing a hoodie and a scarf? They are not identifiable by CCTV by doing that. No fear of being caught what so ever.

I guess the only incidents CCTVs are useful are the £spur of the moment" crimes.

<comment><USER5> Most of the looters only pulled scarves over their faces when they got close to the scene of the crime, if you look at the images they police have released a lot of them are from other places in the city and from on public transport where they've identified groups based upon the clothes they were wearing before they covered their faces.

Examples: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What are your thoughts behind being against a CCTV network?</comment>


A Friend Needs Help - <AUTHOR> https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-kalavati <comment><AUTHOR> I know that its not the platform for thins like this. It's just the desperation that is making me do this. I apologies for it in advance. But if anyone sees this and can help a little, it can save a life.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure about what the guidelines say, but I personally consider that it's fine to make exceptions for regular users from time to time when it is needed. Your account has almost 8 years, so I think this is fine. (This is not an official opinion, I'm just someone that read the newest page too much.)

But the submission has 4 (dead) comments by accounts created just now, probably just to comment here. And the comments are very short onliners. It is fine if someone creates a new account to provide more details and information, but it's not fine if the comments are not sustancial.

(For example if one of the _regular_ users my ask for more details or info, it if fine that the doctor or some familiar with more knowledge may create an account to answer. But the answer must have more details, let's say three paragraphs.)

(It's not fine if a new account ask for more info and then a new account answer it. It looks like a fake Q&A.)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right. And I apologized in my comment. It is simply the desperation to help the friend that's all. For me it was worth a shot for even tiny help to get closer to the goal.

I also like the hacker news community, who help not to let spamming go around. I would have asked the same question which you have if I were you.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Share-link – expiring links for file sharing - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tzahola/share-link <comment><AUTHOR> After getting fed up with my Synology NAS, I've moved to a custom build running Debian. The only thing missing was a convenient way for one-off file/folder sharing.

This was my weekend project, maybe others will find it useful too.</comment>


Let me Duck Duck Go that for you - <AUTHOR> http://lmddgtfy.com <comment><USER2> Using DDG as a replacement for Google in the latest two months. I'm impressed. If it's better or not than google for certain types of usage, I'll let other users to decide (but it _is_ better, for my usage). But what is truly impressive is how this guy build a search engine that works in a way that is comparable to Google for the end user, with limited resources.

<comment><USER3> I find that Google gives me better results when it matters. So although DDG has been my primary search engine, there are times when I'll enter my query into Google and get something that better satisfies my information need as either the first or second result, whereas I might have to look further down the list on DDG.

 _That said_ , I do love DDG, and it's still my primary search engine after 2 months as well. I switched based on the privacy policy (no personally identifiable information retained), ability to use HTTPS, and the nice infinite scrolling implementation, and unless these things change I'll certainly continue to use it. The combination of these, plus the generally impressive quality of the search results, make it really great.

Kinda solidifies the notion that you can compete on more than just the content of the search results list.

<comment><USER4> It's easy to double check on Google with DDG, if you search for: !google hacker news

It'll take you to Google's results on Hacker News.

<comment><USER5> It's even easier now. You can use the !g shortcut, and there are shortcuts for most google services, e.g. !gf !gn etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stuff like this keeps me super-motivated. Thx Mike for making it!

<comment><USER6> I think ddg is a great initiative and like how you are going about it. I have been following ddg quite a bit and also on the reddit ads/postings. With a slightly long term view and clear focus I think it has a decent chance to compete with the big guys.

Having said that, there are two things I noticed which I don't completely agree with.

1\. The interface - the fonts, layout on the first page somehow is very unreadable. I am not sure what the motivation behind this is, but imho even a copy of hte exact google serp fonts/layout should have been good enough. The only way ddg will stand out from Google is the quality of data on your serp. There is very little incremental innovation possible from the layout that Google already has for listing a list of links and text, and it also doesnt seem to be your focus anyways.

2\. I think the auto extension of search results is a bad interface choice. A pagination interface provides a clear anchoring and also for most people the first 10 results are more than enough - anything more and the information becomes too overwhelming. Again I dont think this provides any more value from the Google interface and is bad from a cognitive overload viewpoint.

Just my two cents. Best of luck on ddg.

<comment><USER5> Thx for the detailed constructive criticism. On 1, I disagree with the premise that you can't improve UI. It's a subjective thing but I strongly believe a non-negligible % of people would prefer a different UI.

That being said, wrt to fonts and sizes, I wonder if you like any arrangement after tweaking the settings? <http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html>

On 2, I get way more positive feedback on this than negative, perhaps 10/1, though I do agree there are issues around the edges.

<comment><USER7> I know I've said this before, but the infinite scroll always catches me out.

I often brush on the trackpad to get to the bottom of the page. If there isn't a bottom of the page, it just freaks me out. It makes me think something's broken. Maybe I'm just an outlier though ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Or they could just change their name to something people would take seriously. Just a thought.

<comment><USER9> ... because the search engine market has so long been dominated by serious- sounding firms?

<comment><USER10> My first reaction was to agree with your point.

But I wonder if there are varying levels of non-seriousness.

Names like Google and Yahoo definitely aren't serious, but they also have a sort of generic quality. Not in a bad sense, I just mean they don't evoke a specific silly image in my head - at least not by themselves (when I think Yahoo, I see a big purple !, but that's by marketing design).

Duck Duck Go, though, doesn't have that same nebulous quality. There's something more concrete there, and more specific imagery that comes to mind. And I think that's why someone might react that way to the name and not to the names Google or Yahoo or Bing. It's less vague, and decidedly more Saturday morning cartoon.

Is that bad? I don't know, it doesn't necessarily bother me. But I understand why some people view it differently than the search engine names already out there.

<comment><USER8> That's my exact thought. Google and Yahoo! come off as genuinely irreverent and fun (but, importantly, not childish). It's like something you'd expect a couple 20-something hackers to name their product.

Duck Duck Go comes off as the 50 yr old guy who yells "'Fo Shizzle!" and holds his hand out for a fist bump. It's something you'd expect from an older guy trying to pretend to be a 20something hacker. It thus comes off as insincere.

<comment><USER5> Empirically, people seem to love or hate the name, i.e. it generates an emotional response. When I talk to "normals" this love/hate ratio is very high. I understand though that you've taken issue with the name right from the beginning. This is not the first time you've shared this viewpoint :)

<comment><USER8> Ha, yeah wouldn't surprise me. I don't remember it but definitely believe you.

I think what New Coke proved though is that haters have an unduly large influence. New Coke kicked both original Coke and Pepsi's asses in blind taste tests. It's possibly bad to have something that has a love to hate ratio, even if a large one, rather than something people respect but don't care much about one way or the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is DDG engaging in some sort of grassroots campaign to make sure they get a link on HN at least a few times a month? I get it. DDG is out there. They're an alternative to Google. Great. How about some articles with merit rather than yet-another-link to the search engine front page and a bunch of people gushing about it?

<comment><USER5> Nope. I didn't make this and I didn't know the person who did. Nor did I submit it.

<comment><USER11> Take pride in the fact that people love your work so much that they will spam their friends to share it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=let+me+google+this+for+you&v=](http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=let+me+google+this+for+you&v=)

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://duckduckgo.com/?q=lmddgtfy&v=](http://duckduckgo.com/?q=lmddgtfy&v=)

</comment><comment><USER13> Quick question: what types of searches are better done through DDG than Google? I've tried a few searches, but haven't found DDG better than Google...is DDG superior only for certain types of searches?

<comment><USER5> <http://duckduckgo.com/about.html>

Of course it is subjective, but it really should be better across a wide swatch of searches. I think it is most clear though on what is X searches. The information view (from the home page) goes even further on these type of searches and grabs topic summaries in real time.

Other areas where I think we do noticeably better on average are with names and long un-quoted searches (5+ words). Of course you can find counter- examples everywhere...

What I always suggest to people is to give it a week as your primary search engine. If you (or anyone) do/does, I'd really appreciate you getting back to me with your feedback.

<comment><USER13> Very initial impression:

* I like the zero-click info.

* Is disambiguation redundant? Can't you just infer from history and location? Or is this against your privacy policy?

The single most frustrating thing I find about search engines is iterating a non-trivial search. It doesn't seem like DDG has an edge against Google here. I long to see a search engine that makes it easy to send a question off to Quora, Vark etc.

<comment><USER5> How would that work exactly in your mind? We already have a feature to send your search to hundreds of other sites, <http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html>

Is it as simple as redirecting you to those sites, or do you mean manage the workflow, email you the results, etc.?

<comment><USER13> (I like the bang feature: many of my searches are of the form "wiki william henry harrison". By the way, I think the search results for <http://duckduckgo.com/?q=william+henry+harrison> are out of order)

My _ideal_ search-engine would be a cross between a traditional search-engine (machine) and a Q&A site (humans). If you were taking a lot of iterations to find your answer, you could simply expand the text-area to allow you to write out a human question.

So, short of DDG becoming also a Q&A site....yeah, dunno :P.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the early days of Google, back while it was still beta, I remember having to go to my backup search engine—remember Altavista? :)—for queries where I just needed a boatload of sites, or where I had a complex boolean thing, or where I needed to search for a whole phrase.

Of course, back in the 90s Google knocked out my reasons to backoff to Altavista, one by one, adding boolean queries, and phrases, and of course adding a boondle of data. So I was eventually able to stop using Altavista.

For the last few months, DDG is my primary and I love it. I still use Google for:

* a few queries that DDG can't find anything for

* to find out what _other_ people will see when they "google it"

* YouTube and maps.

YouTube will be hard to ditch because that's where the content is, although I suspect I can wean from maps if I actually try.

</comment><comment><USER15> I tried <http://lmddgtfy.com/foo> and I got this message:

      Unhandled Exception
      An unhandled exception was thrown by the application.

<comment><USER16> It looks like the URL should be [http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=foo&v=](http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=foo&v=)

Although, yes a lot easier to remember your way.

<comment><USER15> True. Still an unhandled exception does not sound good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sharing the link is really hard (at least for me, maybe I'm doing it wrong?). When I type something and click search, it takes me straight to the page I'd want to send someone, and I can't really select the url (because of whatever's moving the pointer?). So, do I just have to figure out the url scheme and write it out myself? lmgtfy just gives you the url to send someone.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't actually move your cursor, just an image of a cursor. You should be able to copy & paste the URL out of your address bar as it is animating; you're right that just showing the URL after the user clicks 'Search' might be more user friendly, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> [http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%D0%B0%D0%B6+%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%B0+%D1%8...](http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%D0%B0%D0%B6+%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%B0+%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0&v=i) and [http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD+&v=i](http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD+&v=i)

throw an unhandled exception.

Seems like non-Latin character sets give it bad vibe.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think of DuckDuckGo as a "budget airline" sort of search engine. It seems to be best at handling the "low hanging fruit" or the common case, but it does so with better presentation, more convenience, and no bells and whistles.

By contrast, Wolfram Alpha is more like an arctic bush pilot. Or maybe that's Cuil?

<comment><USER20> > Or maybe that's Cuil?

I think you mean 'cpedia'.

<comment><USER19> You are correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oh, great, one more condescending way to answer people when you are too lazy to provide a real answer but want to be """funny""".

Yay.

Seriously, if you are concerned that someone didn't make an appropriate search on Internet before asking for information, there are nicer ways to suggest that than that kind of sites.

<comment><USER22> LMGTFY is just a tool -- it can be used in good humor or malice. This site, likewise, but it has the added benefit of promoting DuckDuckGo and producing brand exposure, and is therefore less likely to be taken as a slight; with LMGTFY, everyone knows what Google is, so they don't take that as an informative thing; with LMDDGTFY, few people know what DDG is, so they may just assume that the linker is humorously and conveniently promoting a new search engine out of personal preference.

<comment><USER21> I see the interest in promoting DDG, but the "let me take your hand and do that for you" is and will always be a bit condescending.

You can tell about a great search engine without that kind of approach, in my opinion. Because if your intention is good, this way is hardly the best, I think. Most will use it like others used lmgtfy, or a more strict "RTFM", years ago: as a "search yourself noob" end of discussion.

<comment><USER23> I kinda disagree. There's a difference between saying "search yourself" and "search for yourself using these keywords"

And depending on context, some people really do need to be shown that they can type keywords into the search box like so in order to get results like these.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Returns a server error when the DuckDuckGo page loads:

\----

Server Error

The following error occurred:

[code=CACHE_FILL_OPEN_FILE] An internal error prevented the object from being sent to the client and cached. Try again later.

Please contact the administrator. \

\----

[http://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&v=](http://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&v=)

</comment><comment><USER25> Someone should make one of those blind experiments where you pull in the search results from yahoo, bing, google and DDG, so people can do a blind test to see which search engine is better

<comment><USER26> Already happened. People seemed to have preferred the bing search results, and the Google-looking page. Perhaps somebody can even find the reference for this?

<comment><USER27> Nope, they preferred the Google results:

[http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/08/which-search-engine-do- you-...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/08/which-search-engine-do-you-choose- in-the-blind-test/)

<comment><USER26> I probably saw an earlier tally: [http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090607/bing-vs-google- vs-...](http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090607/bing-vs-google-vs-yahoo- blind-search-engine-test/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Crashes on non-ascii input. Example (query is "rašić" in utf-8): [http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=ra%C5%A1i%C4%87&v=](http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=ra%C5%A1i%C4%87&v=)

</comment><comment><USER29> Linkedin profiles with 500+ connections are still not at the top when searching for people names, some junk pages somehow get higher rank

<comment><USER5> This isn't true across the board, e.g. <http://duckduckgo.com/?q=gabriel+weinberg>

In any case though, I'm happy to fix if you give me some specific examples to work with.

<comment><USER29> try "geva perry" for example, he has like 5 thousand connections and on google his linkedin profile is #3 from the top

<comment><USER5> Thx.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am curious. Is DDG running their own web crawlers or are they a front-end to search results from some other engine?

<comment><USER5> Both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I Duck Duck Went a couple of months ago, and have been going ever since.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder how they plan to monetize this...

<comment><USER5> It's fun. Why does everything have to be monetized?

<comment><USER32> If you're not really devoted to monetizing it , you might be able to compete with google on ad quality. google's really into getting maximum money , so many times the ads suck.

You, on the other hand , could offer the most helpfull ads.i'm thinking of something like showing the disruptive companies for a service your looking for.

for example , let's say you're looking for a divorce lawyer. one option to save a lot of money is using an expert system software to generate the required papers. most people don't know about this option, probably because real lawyers outbid them in the ad market.

So knowing about the expert system option is very useful.

Of course , you don't have to show only disruptive ads , but an ad combination that offer the best knowledge for the user.

Now , if there's a way to make this scalable across many product types, you have a very powerful feature, one that the big search engines would find very hard to imitate, because it would hurt their profits.</comment></comment></comment>


How You Can Exploit Cryptocurrency Correlation - <AUTHOR> https://blog.alpaca.markets/blog/2018/6/7/so-you-want-to-trade-crypto-exploiting-cryptocurrency-correlation-part-5 <comment><AUTHOR> There is correlation within any sector or asset class, however there are particularly interesting patterns in Cryptocurrency due to the new and speculative nature of the market, along with its historical pairs structure.</comment>


Can Honest Tea Say No to Coke, Its Biggest Investor? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/business/smallbusiness/08sbiz.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> Here's how I would sell it to Coke.

"You guys have a large financial incentive to believe that HFCS is no different than sugar. Maybe it isn't. I'm obviously skeptical, but that doesn't matter.

What does matter is that a large and growing segment of the population does believe HFCS is bad for you and doesn't want to drink it. Chains like Whole Foods won't even carry your products because of it.

You invested in Honest Tea because we were eating your lunch in the iced tea and kids juice markets. We have competitors who are doing the same. You have your own iced tea and juice brands, and part of the reason some people choose ours over your older ones is the belief that HFCS is bad for you.

So even if HFCS is no different than sugar, as long as people think it is, that's going to remain a key reason why people buy products. Studies keep coming out and getting highly publicized saying it's bad for you. You can refute it all you want, but to the believers you just look like cigarette companies who say that smoking doesn't cause cancer.

So you have two choices. You can tilt against windmills and keep arguing HFCS is no different than sugar, which might even be true, but it won't matter because people will buy products that don't have it more and more over the coming years while our competitors eat our lunch. Or you can eat your own lunch.

What did Apple do when they realized that one day iPods would be obsolete because phones would play mp3s? They built a phone that played mp3s better than the rest. That's what you need to do.

And note that Apple is still selling more mp3 players than anyone too. So keep making your Hi-C with HFCS for the people who don't care, and let us monetize the people who do care for you. Someone's going to eat that portion of your lunch, it might as well be you."

<comment><USER3> I think this misses the issue I think Coke has on this subject. People believe HFCS is bad in part because companies like Honest are pushing against it. There's a real argument that public perception can be swayed one way or the other. You're assuming that the perception of people is preordained.

<comment><USER4> My opinions regarding HFCS is based on my limited review of the science, and I promote that view to friends and family. Coke stands no chance of winning by throwing advertising against word of mouth. Word of mouth takes awhile, but it's stronger. I think Coke will offer a sugar version of their main products in the USA soon.

<comment><USER5> Forget the limited science, the HFCS version of coke just tastes worse than proper coke.

I suppose if you grew up on the HFCS version you might be accustomed to it, though.

<comment><USER6> I grew up on the HCFS version and I still think the cane sugar version tastes best. And is more satiating.

<comment><USER7> Same goes for the sugar version of Dr. Pepper.

The sugar versions are smoother.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What somebody really needs to do is to take the fight to the US Government, to eradicate the sugar tariff system which keeps the US stuck eating liquefied corn (bleech) while the rest of the world munches down on delicious sugar from real sugar cane.

Alternatively, wait for global warming to convert Texas into a prime sugarcane-growing region.

<comment><USER8> I hope your Texas remark is a joke I'm just not getting because of the textual medium. The US is the 10th largest producer of sugar and Texas is one of four US states known for growing sugar cane.

<comment><USER5> It may be top ten, but it's only got 5% of the number one producer (Brazil) and less than half of relatively tiny countries like Thailand. A small part of Texas/Louisiana is suitable for sugar cane production, but basically the US climate is pretty sucky for sugar -- it's one of very few major crops that the US just can't produce in quantities that satisfy its needs. (At least, not without resorting to using corn for sweetening purposes.)

I just chose Texas because it's big, and likely to be on the front lines of an expanded subtropical climate in the US. The image of vast canefields stretching from Lubbock to Corpus Christi amuses me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The fact that Coke have taken on an ethically-conscious company isn't going to directly impact on the way the public views Coke. I think, these days, the majority of people are too sophisticated for that kind of simple brand- arithmetic.

A battle with a larger corporation over marketing just makes Honest Tea seem more honest, and as the concept of 'honesty' is one its main marketing pillars, the spat could possibly lead to more profit (for both companies) as a result.

Even if this story doesn't involve a strategic decision, there could be a positive pay-off for both.

<comment><USER10> I don't think The Coca-Cola Company cares what brand of sugar water they sell. So long as it's them it's being bought from.

<comment><USER11> I don't agree. I think they want to sell the brand of sugar water with the highest profit margins.

<comment><USER9> I think they want a diverse range of branded sugar waters. Allowing them to profit from multiple independent markets.

It's not one or the other - it's the whole spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This story was absolutely planted in the NYT by the Honest Tea people terrified that Coke would make this change - among others - when they complete the acquisition next year when Coke can do anything it wants with the company.

<comment><USER13> Or planted by the Honest Tea/Coke people as a bit of awesome PR for a brand they've invested in.

<comment><USER12> I have friends who are brand managers at Coke. There's absolutely no way this came from them. They're neither organizationally smart enough nor culturally astute enough to pull this off. Everything at KO is looked at through the lens of "how does this affect the Coca-Cola brand?"

<comment><USER14> I think it's safe to call them "ex friends" if they read this ;-)

<comment><USER15> :D That's how I read it first, but the second and third sentences likely refer to Coke as an organization, not his friends at Coke. (Or, at least that's how I would spin it if I'm wrong.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Part 2:

[http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/how-honest-tea- stoo...](http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/how-honest-tea-stood-up-to- coke/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Makes you wonder how ActiveState got characterised as "an antispam software development company" when antispam is only one part of Sophos's product line, and nothing at all to do with ActiveState.

</comment><comment><USER18> In the age of the Internet and Google, is it really still an issue? Unfortunately yes, but do we really have to passively take it any more? Do we really want to feel angst because a particular _brand name_ might be corrupted?

Following brand names is much like following characters in comic books. Big Comic Company will pony up to get Mr. HighlyVisionary to do a revamp of NeatoMan to critical acclaim. There's hype floating about and there's true magic going on between the covers. (That's quotable, no?) Readers fall in love with NeatoMan again. After 9 issues, Mr. HighlyVisionary is off doing another project, but the soap-opera plot-line has the NeatoMan fans hooked and they go along with the decreased level of quality.

Following brand names is a similar mug's game. Is there any way we could follow passionate _creators_ instead in the retail world? Maybe this is a startup idea in itself?

Disclosure: I am a long-time comics fan.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sugar is sugar. Honest Tea is no healthier than Coke, at least not because they use sucrose instead of HFCS (maybe it is because they use less of it, but that's not at issue here). At least when people drink Coke, they know they're doing something unhealthy.

Fuck Honest Tea and all of those other natural beverage peddlers that try to trick people into thinking that their bottled diabetes is somehow healthy because it's natural. There's nothing natural about drinking megadoses of disaccharides.

<comment><USER20> Erm, I think that Honest Tea was the only _completely_ unsweetened tea in my local supermarket. "Was" because the glass-bottled, unsweetened teas are no longer being stocked there; only the apparently more sweetened plastic bottled teas remain.

<comment><USER21> I've also noticed that's becoming harder and harder to find unsweetened iced tea anywhere. Is it really that unpopular?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I drink Diet Coke.

</comment><comment><USER23> If Coke had simply let Honest Tea be Honest Tea, there's a strong likelihood that no one would have ever even made an issue of their differing stances on corn syrup. By attempting to impose its will, however, Coke all but guaranteed that it would become a public matter and that the company would look bad in the process. And along comes the New York Times to stir the drink.

<comment><USER24> Coke is acting out of fear of future liability. Coke is fearing that someday HFCS will be proven to be materially more damaging than sugar, and when that day arrives the US Surgeon General will be pointing at the Honest Kids label as proof that Coke knew something was bad about HFCS but still continues using it in its other products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I won't buy Honest Tea because of this: [http://anerroroccurredwhileprocessingthisdirective.com/2009/...](http://anerroroccurredwhileprocessingthisdirective.com/2009/09/15/honest- tea-not-so-honest/)

<comment><USER26> The new bottle is designed to use less plastic. The design of the bottom of the bottle is necessary to the bottle's structure.

"Have your plastic bottles changed size?

Unlike other companies that are reducing the size of their products, ours still remains 16.9 ounces. We redesigned the bottle to use 22% less plastic and therefore lower our carbon footprint and utilize fewer natural resources. You're still getting the exact same volume as before, just with a new design to help with stability and strength while having less plastic."

<http://www.honesttea.com/mission/faqs/info/#15>

<comment><USER27> An even more thorough explanation comes from Barry Nalebuff (Cofounder and Chairman) in the comments ([http://anerroroccurredwhileprocessingthisdirective.com/2009/...](http://anerroroccurredwhileprocessingthisdirective.com/2009/09/15/honest- tea-not-so-honest/#comment-567)):

 _When you pick the name Honest, you have to live up to the name. We recently switched to a thinner bottle, one which is 22% lighter. This saves us money and saves the world resources. The only problem is that the thinner bottle was getting dented. In fact, this was a big problem that forced us to redesign the bottle. To help keep its shape, the inside must be under pressure. When the bottle is filled with hot tea, the liquid expands and the plug on the bottom pops out. (If you squeeze real hard, you can make this happen.) Then as the tea cools, the plug pops back in and creates the pressure on the inside that prevents the bottles from being damaged. The thinner plastic means we needed much more pressure and hence a much bigger plug. There really is 16.9 oz. inside and we aren't trying to pull a fast one. But I can see how you could get confused or could think that we are trying to be deceptive. Taller and thinner still means lots less material. That said, we clearly need to do a better job explaining why the bottle has this design. In the next label run we will definitely say something to explain this to our customers. I hope that makes you feel that you can still trust us and will stick with us. And thanks for helping keep us honest._</comment></comment></comment>


Are you going to support your neighbor restaurant? - <AUTHOR> According to this article:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/20/buy-restaurant-gift-certificates/ We all would like to support our coffee shops and restaurants, and the best way is to buy digital gift cards. What do you think? <comment><USER2> I have been buying both gift cards as well as ordering for pickup. Many of our local restaurants have programs in place to funnel tips to temp staff who are not getting hours. If they do have that program in place, I tip 100%.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, You are doing a great job. I just bought a few gift cards too.</comment></comment>


QuickJS JavaScript Engine - <AUTHOR> https://bellard.org/quickjs/ <comment><USER2> This is a beautiful work: compact, readable, no dependencies, completely passes the ECMAScript test suite, compiles JavaScript sources to stand-alone executables, and even includes a BigInt implementation. The more I study it, the more I love it.

Then I realized this is by the same author who wrote a full x86 emulator running Linux in the browser. Much respect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20411154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20411154)

</comment><comment><USER4> This guy never ceases to amaze me.</comment>


Dungeon Decorator - <AUTHOR> http://lorenschmidt.itch.io/dungeon-decorator <comment><USER2> Tile selection does not seem to work on Firefox on Linux, so I cannot use the software. Also the graphics appear blurry instead of aliased.</comment>


GoDaddy says they will stop injecting tracking code into websites - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/godaddy-javascript-injection-tracks-website-performance-but-might-break-it-too/ <comment><AUTHOR>
        We will reintroduce this program in the future,
        so that it is on an opt-in only basis.

If think they should not have a way to tamper with websites at all. The sheer existance of such technology is a reason I would not trust them. It shows an attitude I am not compatible with.

Just like when Ubuntu started to send local searches across the net and to other companies. I never used them since.</comment>


Tomasz Tunguz's Favorite Books of 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://tomtunguz.com/10-best-books-of-2018/ <comment><USER2> How is this on the frontpage of HN with only 4 votes? VC bias?</comment>


Porsche boss Matthias Müller will take over as CEO of VW - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/09/vws-bloodletting-gets-going-porsche-boss-take/ <comment><USER2> So Porsche eventually _did_ take over VW.

> As Porsche's buying pushes up VW's stock price, Porsche purchases options to > buy more shares, and those options zoom in value as the stock price > continues to climb. Profits from these financial manipulations soon exceed > Porsche's profits from carmaking, an unprecedented event in German business > history.

[http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/0911_porsche_and_...](http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/0911_porsche_and_volkswagen_what_happened/)</comment>