Ask HN: How do you find freelance work? - <AUTHOR>

Can you suggest any websites (without cheap Indian development firms) to find freelance work? What techniques work best for you? <comment><USER2> The best way to find freelance work is to not use websites. My best clients have come from:

1) renting/sharing an office or coworking space with other freelancers. Spent a few thousand on this one year even though I could have just worked at home, but it resulted in connections to some great people and good projects. Has paid for itself many times over.

2) having drinks with new people. Just going to a lot of meet ups, being social, putting yourself out there and letting people know what you do over and over again. Lots of times nothing happens or something falls through, but sometimes you end up in the right place at the right time.

3) talking to former clients or coworkers from a previous job and letting them know I am available for freelance work.

4) referrals from clients gained from 1, 2, and 3

Others I have seen be successful just focus hard on a particular open source project. I've seen a group of guys go from not knowing PHP to focusing on Drupal, contributing source code, becoming recognized experts, then speaking at conferences and getting huge clients in only a few years.

</comment><comment><USER3> I often see this question asked and I often see the same answers; go to meet ups, partner with other local devs/designers, network etc. etc. Those are all good suggestions but I feel like most answers that come from this type of question are directed to those who live in a pretty heavily populated area. For example, if someone lives in a smaller town than there most likely will not be " tech related meet ups" or coworking spaces. For those people who live in a smaller area, finding freelance work will be quite a bit harder at the start. Because of this, I would suggest going directly to small/medium sized businesses and offering your services to them directly.

Do your homework first. Get online and find out what businesses don't have a website or have an old outdated website. Then put together a few pages of information that explains how a website can directly impact their business and how you are the person to get that done. You could also include additional services such as setting up social media accounts or getting Google Analytics set up etc. etc. Those wouldn't take too much time for you to do but they would add an increase in the value to what you can offer a business. Be sure to present your services as something that can help them sell more of their product.

After you finish a site ask the client to fill out a short customer satisfaction survey and ask if it's ok to use quotes from it on your personal website/portfolio. Also, ask your clients to refer you to other businesses if they think you did a good job. When you have several sites done and several clients taken care of then word of mouth will start helping you get some more clients.

</comment><comment><USER4> You should clarify cheap, you mean cheap as in price, not necessarily in quality. Indian developers are able to charge much less in USD because of the conversion rate, that doesn't necessarily mean that their work is cheap. I used to use Elance a lot several years ago, and found that's a good way to pickup good clients. Also going to local meetups is definitely valuable.

</comment><comment><USER5> So you want a low barrier of entry listing of freelance work that doesn't have any of the folks that are attracted to low barriers of entry listings? If that's the approach you want, you need to ask yourself if you're a value add over "cheap" developers, worth more for any reason other than the fact that you have a higher cost of living.

</comment><comment><USER6> As others have commented, when you're first starting out as a freelancer, it's helpful to start in your local community at in person events. Meetups, niche events, networking events, etc.

Of course, the frequency of such events depends on your local market size. There are a variety of sites out there, and a lot compete on price like you hint at.

I'm working on a new startup called matchist (<http://matchist.com/talent>) that finds you quality clients that pay on time, every time, without competing in a race to the bottom on price.

</comment><comment><USER7> This thread may be a good place to start:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992618></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any neatly formatted cmd/bash tool for reading web pages? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> "How are you retrieving the web page?" would be my first question. I usually do `lynx -dump [[http://optional.com/]some.html`](http://optional.com/\]some.html`) to get plain text. I know this works for links also.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the reply! lynx is good but sometimes the formatting of the web page throws me out of context and there are many parameters to play around. I am looking for a web browser(like firefox) like text structure displayed on the terminal.</comment></comment>


The Auto Industry's VHS-Or-Betamax Moment - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/vehicle-communications-standard.html <comment><AUTHOR> From the article: "General Motors has embraced DSRC [wi-fi], and it's already a standard safety feature on Cadillac CTS sedans. Toyota and Volkswagen have also committed to make DSRC systems standard equipment on new cars beginning next year. On the other side are brands, including Ford, BMW and Mercedes- Benz, that have joined the chip maker Qualcomm, cellular providers and others to form the 5G Automotive Association, which is pushing the C-V2X standard."

DSRC is pretty cool. It transmits your position, as well as velocity and acceleration vectors, 10 times per second to any receiver within about 1000 meters. Hopefully, some kind of differential GPS infrastructure could give position accuracy to 10cm or so. See "Basic Safety Message" [https://www.its.dot.gov/itspac/october2012/PDF/data_availabi...](https://www.its.dot.gov/itspac/october2012/PDF/data_availability.pdf)</comment>


Show HN: Thankuu – A Platform for Rewarding Referrals with Charity Donations - <AUTHOR> https://www.thankuu.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all, co-creator here.

We built Thankuu because lots of businesses aren't very good at asking for referrals, so we created a platform to make it easy :). Thankuu enables you to reward your customers for referrals by giving to good causes of their choice.

There is also a broader intention for Thankuu, which is to create a direct connection between businesses _donating to charity_ and them _gaining new customers_. Basically, so they can see an ROI from their donations. By making that connection, business-giving will rise along with business sales. A win:win for charity and business.

I'd be very grateful for feedback...

<comment><USER2> Hopefully this doesn't come across overly cynical, but (1) what sort of entity are you? A company? A non-for-profit? and (2) is there an end-game? You don't charge for this service, but is there any plan to monetize?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, not cynical at all. I think we all like to know how a service might be monetized.

We are a company. The charities will never be charged for Thankuu and neither are there intentions of charging users for the current service. i.e. 100% free. If we scale, I can see additional ways of users gaining more new customers (beyond referrals) via Thankuu in return for their donations, so at that point we would charge users a fee for these extra services.</comment></comment></comment>


From a list of possible projects, how do you choose? - <AUTHOR> I guess I am not the only one who has an ever growing list of ideas for possible projects (and a lot of half-finished ones).
So how do you decide which of your projects to actually work on?
I am a specialist for reaching a state of undecidability, as I try to weigh the differing aspects. And yet, the replies to my question from yesterday ("proving commitment") made me realize that I still don't know which project I am really in love with.
Possible aspects:
- earning potential vs effort
- friends reactions to the idea
- opportunity to employ interesting technology (could be more fun, career advancing)
- usefulness
- match to my skills
- decision matrix
- gut feeling
- already started (should I finish my unfinished projects first?)
- pure fun/enthusiasm (might not last)
- pendulum (if the purpose is to find my hearts desire, it might actually work?)
- throw darts (maybe best, if I recall the recent articles on long decision making processes lowering satisfaction)
- friends who would cooperate (I used this several times, thinking it's mandatory not to go it alone, but it didn't work out so well for me - difficult to find someone to share the same vision and enthusiasm)
- ? <comment><USER2> Learn more about how to select ideas. Not only is this a good thing to do, it will help you out once you get started on something. Seriously. You should be able to take a list of twelve ideas and take both sides of the do/don't do argument. What's the market size? What's market entry like? How close can you get to the customer? Are you selling information or entertainment? (It's all info, yes, but people buy some apps based on unique data, some on the way it makes them feel) What's your team-forming potential? Is this something that just sounds good on a napkin, or when it is implemented is there really core value for the consumer there? etc.

There are lots more questions. You don't have to score high on all of these to have a winner, but you DO need to intimately know the reasons why your idea might suck before you take it up. You can't overcome weaknesses you don't understand that you have. And BTW, I would rank "How close are you to the customer" and "how big is the market size" pretty close to the top of the list. This is why, for instance, we see college kids writing apps that other college kids pick up and play with -- a huge market that they are very close to.

I've found that enthusiasm/passion can come after you analyze the heck out of a project just as easily as it can come randomly speculating about good business ideas. In fact, an idea that you've tried and tried to kill but couldn't? Combine that with some good old hard work and a skeptical eye and you'll be a million times more enthusiastic than somebody with no skin in the game.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have to ask, I'd guess none of them. I'm being serious - I don't really think you have so many great ideas that you can't decide between them. You might have _good_ ideas but if you had even one great idea, you'd be so energized about it that you'd want to do nothing else.

<comment><USER4> Very few successes, in my opinion, were really about a _great_ idea. (Google, Microsoft, Apple, a few others I'm sure.) Cracking into that market is stupid hard.

You're better off taking a good idea that you can actually do, and doing it better than anyone else. Passion helps with that. It also helps to find a problem where the existing solutions are all similar and not very good. Flickr, del.icio.us, Viaweb, and Mozilla all seem to me to have done well playing this angle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had a teacher in high school who gave us some great advice for picking a career, and it applies to this question, too.

Make a list of your top 5 things that you'd really love to do, that would excite you and be fun. Then pick the one that makes the most money, and chase it relentlessly. If you don't have a list of 5 yet, dabble until you do.

If you try to look for your one magic idea that's going to make you happy and rich, you'll never find it. Happiness is fuzzy -- any of those top 5 ideas will probably do. So pick the one that makes the most money, because that's the one that's sustainable.

\--

Earning potential vs effort? Not quite. You'll spend 100% of your effort on it, or maybe a little more. The goal is to maximize the earning potential of the effort that you have to spend. An easy execution with a low earning potential is a great hobby, but not a business. An idea which earns nothing unless you spend double the effort that you have is doomed to failure.

Friends' reactions to the idea are worse than useless. Your friends' are incented to make you feel good; but what you need is a dose of pessimism about the challenges you'll face. Strangers would be better, since they don't care about you.

Pursuing interesting technology is a fine hobby. But it's not a business.

Good ideas really are a dime a dozen. Don't wait for your One Original Idea. Pick a niche you can win, and win it. Winning adds to fun and enthusiasm.

If you really can't decide, you can always go work for someone else.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Your friends' are incented to make you feel good"

I guess that means if my friends reactions are not very enthusiastic, my idea is really crap :-( Then again, a certain amount of stubbornness is also an entrepreneurial trait, I think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would go for the earning potential. I see myself doing consistenly more interesting/complicated stuff, but I think I would be much better off if I would do more lucrative boring stuff!

</comment><comment><USER6> my answer: Enthusiasm/Passion.

suggestion: your question could be better answered through a poll.

<comment><USER7> I agree. Passion is the best force. And I think you are passionate for two or more ideas, then you picks one that makes some money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd probably go with my "gut feeling" on what I felt would be the most fun to work on, most rewarding at the end, and how much work is involved.

Ultimately, going with the gut feeling will always be a better determiner of success than thinking things through with your head.

</comment><comment><USER9> Marketability.

Choose the one for which you either: know particular people that will be very interested in it and will definitely use it, or have a very good strategy for getting lots of people to use it.

</comment><comment><USER10> solving a problem you have

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this suggestion a lot. Already I can throw out several ideas. Actually several projects evolve around things I need, but I think I can sort them by the hierarchy of needs. There is one I hope will help me fix my health issues, so that should probably have first priority.

<comment><USER10> solving a problem you have _and_ have a passion for (hat tip to yangyang)

<comment><USER11> solving a problem you have and have a passion for and is a problem that lots of other people have too

<comment><USER4> solving a problem you have and have a passion for and is a problem that lots of other people have too and are willing to pay (attention|$$) to solve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Gut feeling

</comment><comment><USER13> Money first and foremost.

Passion and motivation to love and accomplish what you do.

But money should be the force behind your motivation.

<comment><USER8> I can't agree with this.

First of all, there are other elements of building a successful project that can be just as rewarding and satisfying as making a buck. Perhaps, the project is some type of "resume builder" which helps you along your way to making the big payoff later on down in life.

Secondly, you can never know if a project is going to pay off in the end anyway. So I say work on the project that you would enjoy the most, and you never know, it could be the big payoff. Take Craigslist (to cite an overused example). He never knew his email list would turn into a website and make him phenomenally rich!

<comment><USER4> Resume builders are fine hobbies. But crappy businesses.

 _you can never know if a project is going to pay off in the end_

If we demanded perfection, we'd be left with math and The White Album. While you can't know, you can estimate well enough to decide. Do people with money have this problem? Are the existing solutions flawed? Can I build a better one? If you just got 3 yesses, it's got $ inside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> it depends upon whether or not you're expecting your livelihood from your ideas ... if you are making money from other sources then you must go with an idea that makes you passionate and has a huge market.

Passion will keep you going and huge market will make you some money (one day) if your product is good - and your product will be definitely good if you're passionate about it, it may take little longer though.</comment>


Firefox 12 will finally have a New Tab Page and Home Tab - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/115935-firefox-12-will-feature-long-awaited-new-tab-page-and-home-tab

<comment><USER2> It's funny how things come full circle. Circa 2004, Firefox was the browser that forced Microsoft to reinstate its browser team (which had been disbanded around 2001 after the release of IE6). It had a revolutionary interface, and did a lot of things right (although it did lack some important features that IE6 had). Firefox was pretty much static after that point, adding important features (such as contenteditable), but not pushing the envelope much in terms of interface.

Then Chrome came out. It was rough around the edges, but Google released a new version every few months, and it quickly improved to the point where it was better than everything else. It represented a generational change in user interface paradigms and development cycle time.

So now Firefox has been forced to play catch-up to Chrome, much as IE had to play catch-up to Firefox. To be fair, this happened when Firefox abandoned the monolithic development cycle, but the UI changes represent the full acknowledgement of this.

I wonder where the next revolutionary browser will come from. My intuition is that it will be on the mobile side...

<comment><USER3> _Firefox was pretty much static after that point, adding important features (such as contenteditable), but not pushing the envelope much in terms of interface._

Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users away or stops them from upgrading. I don't think the Firefox feature announced here will be much different.

People like things to stay the way the are used to. Unless there's a huge change and they can see how dropping their old habits all at once is somehow an advantage.

Gradually adopting improved versions of the most sensible Chrome features might sound like sound engineering, but due to these dynamics I really wonder if its a survivable strategy in the long run.

There were some UX mockups posted a while ago that looked far more ambitious. That's more like it.

<comment><USER4> > _Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. > Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users > away or stops them from upgrading._

It's true, yet I think it still needs to be done, even though I'm often among the complainers. The key is balance: advancing UI without forcing users that are looking for a solid consistent experience to beta test your UI ideas. Ubuntu is an example of a _lot_ of really bold UI decisions, and I think they're too eager to force things on users. Ubuntu is in the tricky situation of making a product for "the hard-core" (Linux geeks) and "the noobs" (non- tech-savvy users wanting a free OS).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eh... not such a big deal to me. I would like to use Firefox--I think Google's privacy changes demonstrate why it's still important to have a non-profit in this space--but these changes are not going to lure me back to Firefox. I moved to Chrome because Chrome is faster.

I know Firefox has worked on their speed, and it may be I only notice a difference because I'm on a netbook, or because the Firefox versions of my extensions are more poorly written than their Chrome counterparts. But for whatever reason, Chrome feels faster to me--both in general, and also due to other nice touches like its ability to open PDFs without launching Acrobat.

The window-dressing is nice, but just as search quality is the most important thing in search engines, and auto-complete, instant search, etc. are mostly secondary, speed to render the site appropriately is the primary indicator of browser quality; new-tab windows and the like are nice-to-haves. As far as I can tell, Chrome is still winning on speed, and I hope Mozilla is devoting appropriate resources (read: 90%) to changing that.

EDIT: as an aside, I know downvotes are somewhat amorphous on HN, and I shouldn't take them personally, but it bugs me that when I take some time to try to write a thoughtful (though admittedly critical) reaction to news, I get voted down to -1 (at least 5 downvotes) for my trouble. I've seen similar reactions frequently in other threads, and it saddens me that this is apparently now common HN behavior. This response is just not conducive to building a community. The responses here are great--if you think my comment is wrong, upvote those instead. Meanwhile, excuse me while I leave HN...

<comment><USER6> I agree it is painful and not right to be downvoted for things like this. You are just sharing your opinion, on topic to the post.

I work for Mozilla and I think that the only thing we are really losing on is the perception race. A frequent trend I hear on forums and comment threads is how slow Firefox is or how much it crashes. People seem to almost enjoy making the assessment that it is a universal constant. I know that it isn't a constant. Even though I have a profile that is many years old and has a dozen or so extensions installed, even though I have run prerelease versions for the last three years, I still generally have a stable and fast browsing experience. Even when compared to Chrome which I install clean and try out for a couple of weeks every few months. There have certainly been occasions that I have run into issues, but because I have been willing to give Firefox the benefit of doubt, I've dug into those issues and usually found something that was either a bad add-on, something bad I was doing, or a bad website to be the root cause.

We continue to strive to find ways to resolve these issues without having to rely on the user or the community to figure them out. That is just part of making a good product. But I know that the problems are not a universal constant that every user must deal with, or a reason to try to get everyone to move to a different browser.

One of the biggest projects my team (Metrics) has been working on lately is a way to enable people to easily measure the performance and stability of their own browser and compare it to the general population. If it turns up systemic problems, that is wonderful because with evidence, it is easier to fix those problems. If it turns out that a person with poor performance is obviously an extreme outlier to the typical performance, hopefully it will make it easier to change the conversation from "Firefox is slow for everyone and no one should use it" to "Firefox is slow for me and I would like help making that not be the case for both me and anyone else who ever ends up in my situation". This would be a paradigm shift that would obviously be great for Mozilla, but I think it would be great for Google or Microsoft or Apple if they chose to follow a similar strategy as well.

At the end of the day, many Mozillians do not hate Google Chrome because it is still pushing to make the web a better place. Maybe not in all the same ways we push, but every little bit is better than none of it.

<comment><USER7> "I've dug into those issues and usually found something that was either a bad add-on, something bad I was doing, or a bad website to be the root cause."

And therein lies the root-cause of Firefox's perception problem. The average user doesn't care who's fault it is - all they know is it's broken or slow, and as Firefox surfaces those issues, it must be Firefox's fault. Chrome does a better job of shielding users from perceived browser problems.

<comment><USER6> It is certainly the root-cause of Firefox's perception problem with users who are likely to run into these issues.

My question, which I hope we will be able to answer better soon, is whether this is something that actually does happen to the average user or if it only happens to certain types of power users. Either way, we need to strive to do everything we can reasonably do to fix it, but I would be much happier to know whether I was in the outlier group of people who rarely experience problems or if the "average user" does not see those problems but we continue to talk about the problems as if they were the typical case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish I could find the source for this, but I recall one of the Mozilla designers saying that the reason they were reticent to implement a speed-dial in the new tab page was because they envisioned the new tab page as a blank slate for when you're on-task, free from the distractions of your favorite websites. As someone with mild ADD, I agree with this assessment.

Don't get me wrong; it's nice that this feature exists. But, personally, I'll be disabling it immediately.

<comment><USER9> Yep, FWIW there's a little 'X' in the top right that lets you hide the tiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Was this really that "long-awaited"? I for one quite like a clean New Tab and if I did want something like the envisioned, then I don't think 3 by 3 would quite cut it. Not to mention that if people were really that anxious for it, I would be pretty sure they could find an addon with that kind of function.

Good thing that like just about everything in Firefox, you can configure it to your needs when it lands. :)

Side note, for those interested of an overview of planned features in Firefox: <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Release_Tracking>

</comment><comment><USER11> I think it's time to switch back to Firefox, Chrome is freezing a lot for me lately (Aw, Snap!). The only thing I miss is the universal search/URL/autocomplete bar, is there an extension for this?

<comment><USER12> <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnibar/>

I can't speak to the quality of it, however. I use ctrl+l for URLs and ctrl+k for search, and am so used to it I don't even notice (especially since Firefox's AwesomeBar tends to have better results for me than Chrome's OmniBar).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> They had a design challenge related to this awhile back. I think I received the lowest score of the entrants for this desktop metaphor concept: <http://vimeo.com/9451028> (pardon my rookie screencasting skills). I think in the end though those favorite sites aren't much different than active windows, "top apps" is quite similar to a quick launch bar ... and the sidebar chat window looks like ... a sidebar chat window. That's the way things will go #IMHO. Firefox 12 looks like a great gateway toward this.

</comment><comment><USER14> BTW, this description is mostly up to date for current FF versions: [http://www.howtogeek.com/58035/how-to-make-firefox-4-look- li...](http://www.howtogeek.com/58035/how-to-make-firefox-4-look-like- firefox-3/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Am I the only one who's still waiting, version after version that they let users put the tabs on the left?

<comment><USER12> Try this:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style- ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is that WebRTC with GTalk contacts on the home page?

<comment><USER17> The title of the image is "firefox-home-tab-mockup" - I don't think it represents the current state of the art.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: FireFox extension donation - <AUTHOR>

I have been lately working on a FireFox extension (as a freelance), so I got a some background on developing FF extensions. I noticed lately, that FireFox added donations support to most of its' extensions.
So my question is: does this model really work? I'm interested in building something for FireFox, but will be more if I can monetize it.
Any HN user have experience or some numbers (like donations/download)? <comment><USER2> When the contributions program started, I enabled contributions for a number of my add-ons, with the suggested donation set at $1. Over the next two months, I averaged $1 in donations for every 5,000 downloads.

After Add-on Con, I raised my suggested donation amount to $5, and since then, I've averaged about $4 for every 5,000 downloads.

Note: Relevant add-ons include TwitterBar, Feed Sidebar, and FireFound, which was a grand prize winner of Extend Firefox 3.5.</comment>


750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars

<comment><USER2> Uhoh, someone actually paused to ask the right questions.

Stats, stats and damned lies.

As with everything, I want to be able to follow the source. If you don't know, don't quote :\ (that the media feeds on this stuff with out asking the questions Ars has in this article is even worse).

</comment><comment><USER3> _And we're making policy on the basis of our ignorance._

Isn't that what politics is all about?</comment>


How do you market a bookmarking service without attracting spammers? - <AUTHOR>

I am struggling to come up with a sound plan to market a key feature of my social search service without attracting the wrong kind of attention.
Basically users can syndicate bookmarks from our service to delicious, magnolia, and simpy at once. Or they can do the opposite, syndicate from these cool services.
The problem, this kind of feature is also highly sought after by spammer hordes. The wrong kind of attention could turn my little bootstrapped service into Squidoo overnight.
Any advice?
Thanks in advance!
Geoffrey <comment><USER2> its unavoidable. if you offer a good service, spammers will try and find a way to exploit it.

the best thing, imo, you can do is have a vocal, clear anti-spam policy. make it up-front so that people know you're on the watch. let them know you're working on things to stop spammers.

the second best thing is to actually try to be on the watch and to be developing checks and balances that make using it for spam harder to do.

getting the information and intent out there will do more for you than developing silently or quickly banning spammers. be clear and visible about an anti-spam policy so that good users will appreciate it and spammers will be wary.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've held them off until now, but agreed a good t&c goes a long way.

The issue is I would love to push it more, as I know a lot of people who use more than one service. I for one use my own service (grin) and magnolia.</comment>


Goodbye to Grommet - <AUTHOR> https://julespieri.com/2020/07/13/goodbye-to-grommet/ <comment><USER2> > No one had heard of brands like SodaStream, Fitbit, OtterBox, PopSockets, > S'well, Bombas, SimpliSafe and Mrs. Meyers when we embraced and launched > them.

I'm a little confused, it sounds like they're taking credit for SodaStream, a company that's more than 100 years old and has been in homes for decades [0]? And Fitbit was only a success because of these people?

Or am I just misunderstanding what they're trying to say here?

[0] Aside: SodaStream is surely ripe for disruption. Home fizzy water is great. Their margin on a tiny bit of CO2 gas must be enormous, surely they're laughing all the way to the bank. How have they maintained their virtual monopoly for so long?

<comment><USER3> Re: sodastream I do agree, and I don't particularly like their product. The profit margins of selling canned soda water are incredibly high. Sodastream has managed a virtual monopoly because they appear to have undercut that margin substantially (in that it is much cheaper to do yourself at home than buy soda) and have a very wide distribution network. There's a spot to swap canisters in the small hardware store down the block.

If you were to create a competitor, what would your differentiator be? Cheaper? Good luck, it's already pretty cheap. They're just not worth competing with, it seems.

<comment><USER4> There already is a competitor. It doesn't take a ton of expertise to attach a regulator and carbonation cap to a co2 tank. Doing it this way, it costs me $20 to get the tank filled, and I can use regular soda bottles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> 2020-07-17 I was involved in e-commerce when The Grommet came about and they have a lot to be proud of. That said, the reason for things ending with the founders losing control is that they took a lot of money and then didn't live up to expectations.

Put more directly, they never held their own against Kickstarter, IndieGogo, or Etsy.

Their investor/owners went from Rakuten (the Amazon of Japan) to Ace Hardware. The latter probably thinks of The Grommet as a way to use quirky products to get people into physical stores. At that point the founders probably want out more than they are letting on.

<comment><USER5> So they stuck some end-caps in Ace stores and put a section on its website and for that gave up a majority share?

[https://www.acehardware.com/grommet](https://www.acehardware.com/grommet)

What was Ace Hardware expecting out of this deal?

Aside: my local Ace is frustrating more often than not. I go there because it's a mile away, but the inventory is so small that at least half the time I can't find what I need and end up driving the extra 15 minutes to the big box hardware store.

This Ace also has a small section devoted to pet supplies, but there again, it's often too small to be useful. An example: we adopted a dog last year and I wanted to get a name tag right away. PetSmart has kiosks that print these on-demand. The Ace store does not.

Their employees are also no longer the experts that Ace stores were once staffed by. I'm lucky if they even know their inventory. Meanwhile at HD, I can usually find someone with plumbing experience in the plumbing section, electrician experience in electrical, etc. Not always, but so far I'm batting 0% at Ace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _No one had heard of brands like SodaStream, ..._

Huh? They've been around for decades.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An positive example of how passionate founders operated to serve both shareholders and the wider community comes to an unexpected end.

</comment><comment><USER7> I thought that was this "grommet"[1]

1 - [https://v2.grommet.io](https://v2.grommet.io)

<comment><USER8> All I could think of was Wallace and Gromit.</comment></comment>


Patent by US Post Office: Blockchain-based secure voting system - <AUTHOR> http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=20200258338.PGNR.&OS=&RS= <comment><USER2> didn't think the post office could own a patent?</comment>


Show HN: Typeflow – Type-ahead as a Service - <AUTHOR> https://typeflow.io <comment><USER2> Hmmm... interesting concept.. I would add some features personally. A lot of the time typeahead calls for more than just a string, there should be away to display rich data objects in a template. Also there needs to be an API post endpoint so that data insertion/updates can be automated through an ETL process of some kind.

my 2 cents...

<comment><AUTHOR> If you look at the Documentation section do you manage to find the API post you're looking for?

<comment><USER2> Hmm If I were to design this... I would make it so that you don't have to replace the entire data source each time... I think a "suggestion" entry in the data source should be represented as it's own entity in the API...

e.g

instead of PUT /api/datasource/<UUID> overriding the entire datasource each time..

allow an api user to insert lines of text or rich objects.

POST /api/datasource/<UUID>/suggestion

      {
       ...
      }

or support bulk insertion.

POST /api/datasource/<UUID>/suggestion

      [
          { ...
          },...
      ]

This works better for scaling when you can't just replace all suggestions in one request (like an ETL like operation for a very large dataset). Then you can also allow for updating single "suggestion" entities without replacing the whole dataset.

I also think you should support rich objects, allow for things like boosting rules, different templates for object types, spelling correction, synonyms. I think this type of service would be really useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great piece of advice. Thank you very much. I'll try and investigate this opportunity.

Anyway, if you're interested most of the code in the web-service relies on:

[http://github.com/alediaferia/prefixmap](http://github.com/alediaferia/prefixmap)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The demos aren't working, at least not in iOS Chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for letting me know. I don't have an iOS device handy to try but I'll investigate anyway to make it working on mobile as well. Should work on FF and Chrome desktop though. :)

<comment><USER4> Same for Android chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the difference between this and jQuery autocomplete (or similar things) ?

<comment><USER6> This is a backend service for hipsters who want their app to rely on 22 different saas vendors, so they can collect their "reinvented a LIKE clause with an external service" badge.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I use that as description for the service? :)

<comment><USER6> Sure, why not.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


BBC flouts cookie law with ironic cookie - <AUTHOR> http://www.meejahor.com/2011/05/27/bbc-worldwide-flouts-privacy-laws-with-radio-times-ironic-cookie-use/

<comment><USER2> Is it actually against the law? If the cookie only states that the notice has already been displayed, and is only used to avoid displaying that message again?</comment>


Brazil fines Facebook $1.6M for improper sharing of user data - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-brazil-fine/brazil-fines-facebook-1-6-million-for-improper-sharing-of-user-data-idUSKBN1YY0VK <comment><USER2> 1.6 million. Basically nothing.

<comment><USER3> At least it is something right? Also a deterrent to future actions by same/other companies.

Out of curiosity, how much do you think would an appropriate fine be?

<comment><USER4> > _At least it is something right?_

Sure, but that's like fining me $10 for doing something bad. You're really not deterring me.

> _how much do you think would an appropriate fine be?_

If we actually want to get serious about this, fines must be progressive like taxes, otherwise there is no way to inflict the same "punishment" on an individual or company that generates $10,000 a year and and individual or company that generates $100,000,000 per year.

So let's make the fine some percentage of Facebook's total revenue.

I'd be very happy if speeding fines, or drink driving fines, or any others were a percentage of my income.

<comment><USER5> I prefer to use the analogy of being fined for illegal parking for less than the value of the parking lot fee.

If no one fined you, you parked for free, if you got fined, you still paid less than what you would pay to the parking lot.

And I agree with you, fines should be progressive, if they aren't, they are a deterrent only to small players.

<comment><USER4> I heard a skit on the radio once where an American was driving around Sydney looking for a park and asked about parking in some place. A local said, "Oh no, the fine for parking there is $40 a day!".

The American immediately parked there, saying $40 is much cheaper than daily parking in NYC.

<comment><USER6> They're $114 and up these days.

[https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/documents/roads/safety- rules/deme...](https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/documents/roads/safety- rules/demerits-parking.pdf) [PDF]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, I wonder how many _seconds_ it'll take fb to recoup $1.6M.

</comment><comment><USER8> $1.6 million is a rounding error for a company making billions off of improper sharing of user data. Nothing will change.

</comment><comment><USER9> Alternative headline:

"Brazilian officials brandish corruption by signaling to Facebook their citizens are up for sale"

</comment><comment><USER10> Foreign nations are increasingly using US tech firms as piggy banks, they fine and levy arbitrary taxes from them, or just use the threat of such to demand some change in behavior, it's quite the racket.

<comment><USER11> If they try so hard to avoid taxes my government should damn well try very hard to fine them.

<comment><USER10> They follow the law, if they are targeted by special taxes then it's a violation worthy of retaliation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Moved fast. Broke things.</comment>


Intel Gen12/Xe Graphics Have AV1 Accelerated Decode – Linux Support Lands - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Gen12-Xe-AV1-Decode-Media <comment><USER2> Well the title would be more accurate as _GPGPU_ Accelerated Decode.

It gives the false assumption that AV1 is being Hardware Accelerated in Intel Xe GPU which often means dedicated decoding block to decode the video codec in lowest energy usage possible.

<comment><USER3> That's not GPGPU/compute though and Gen 12+ _does_ have hardware accelerated decoding for AV1:

[https://github.com/intel/media- driver/blob/master/README.md#...](https://github.com/intel/media- driver/blob/master/README.md#decodingencoding-features)

"AV1 hardware decoding is supported from Gen12+ platforms."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's going to be highly interesting whether Intel can compete in this market. GPUs are quite hard and, compared CPUs, haven't stagnated much.

<comment><USER5> If you factor out chip size and clock frequency, they do actually stagnate. They add new features, but legacy rendering performance is improved by single- digit percentage points, I believe.

If you look at A100 compared to V100 for e.g. FP32 FMA performance (not tensor). 14.1TFLOPS -> 19.5 = +38%, for 2x transistors (16->7nm), +35% SMs and 250W->400W is not that great. Note that NVIDIA uses boost clock for all A100 numbers and seems not have published any base clock so far. So their is a chance that actual sustained A100 performance is lower.

Turing GPUs have rather large dies. TU102 754nm vs GP102 471nm. So comparing them as is, isn't quite fair.

On the CPU front Intel used to use rather small dies for consumers (and even use die shrinks to just cram more chips onto a waver -> more $$$), but now that AMD forces their hand, they are giving in. But of course a lot this area goes into extra cores, not single threaded performance (diminishing returns there).

<comment><USER6> Well, from the user perspective, chip size and clock are crucial factors, as GPU workloads tend to be parallelizable. Besides, chip size and clock don't come for free, so I think they shouldn't be discarded regardless.

AFAIK, with each generation, Nvidia has increased raw performance by 20-30%, which is significant.

On the other hand, the wall of physical limits is getting closer (which may restrict the chip size), but until then, GPUs are faring very well.

GPUs functionalities also have a very different nature (as you point out), but this can play well for the user. Realism depends on many functionalities, which have plenty of headroom for improvement (in the sense of hardware support); see ray tracing, which supposedly, is going to be significantly faster on Ampere.</comment></comment></comment>


React-map-gl – React components for Mapbox GL JS - <AUTHOR> http://uber.github.io/react-map-gl/#/ <comment><USER2> Having used this, its not without its issues.

      * Adds a performance penalty over straight Mapbox-GL.
      * No support for animations / flyovers / etc.
      * You have to give width/height in pixels for map size.
      * Can't introspect map to get layer / point data w/o hacks.

The recent ver 3.0 was a big improvement.

<comment><USER3> These issues were big enough that I just recently removed this library on a new project in favor of straightforward Mapbox GL JS. The inability to use percentages for height/width is a major drawback. No sense in adding size to the bundle for fewer options.

<comment><USER2> Seconded, in our case we haven't yet but its on the roadmap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bit of a plug, but I recently built something using this and found it really easy to use with react [https://blog.georgejose.com/visualizing-transit- vehicle-loca...](https://blog.georgejose.com/visualizing-transit-vehicle- locations-on-a-map-in-real-time-67a97c77cbe3)

<comment><USER5> Great post, well written, thanks for sharing.

You want to fix: 359s => 359ms in your post.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for noticing that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> EDIT: Completely misread this as ReactNative instead of React for some reason. Ignore all of the below.

\---

This is being released on the back of the "official" Mapbox GL React Native library[0] just having new resources[1] committed to it after having been neglected for 1.5 years[2].

I haven't looked into it at all yet, but I wonder was it borne out of frustration (commits seems to have started shortly after the last MBRNGL release), and what the Mapbox guys' perspective on it in terms of differentiating the libraries.

[0] [https://github.com/mapbox/react-native-mapbox- gl/](https://github.com/mapbox/react-native-mapbox-gl/)

[1] [https://github.com/mapbox/react-native-mapbox- gl/issues/590#...](https://github.com/mapbox/react-native-mapbox- gl/issues/590#issuecomment-322901528)

[2] [https://github.com/mapbox/react-native-mapbox- gl/releases/ta...](https://github.com/mapbox/react-native-mapbox- gl/releases/tag/3.2.1)

<comment><USER7> I contacted Mapbox about their React Native library and they said it's defunct and they won't be supporting it. Been using AirBnBs mapping library for RN. It does the job but def has some rough edges.

<comment><USER6> How long ago did you contact them? The recent activity on the repo issues seems to indicate a change of heart on their part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> AFAIK Uber switched back to Google Maps... does anyone know why they are still working on Mapbox code?

<comment><USER9> I seem to recall from the last time I stumbled on this it's largely used for internal visualization and tools

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I prefer [https://github.com/alex3165/react-mapbox- gl](https://github.com/alex3165/react-mapbox-gl) over this library. It seems better maintained and documented.

<comment><USER11> I think it's way better than the Uber library. We tried both and ended up going with this version and it was much more flexible for our needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Somewhat related, anyone have a good list of drop-in React components organized in categories? I'm thinking of something like iOS Cookies for React Components.

<comment><USER13> There's a good list of React components at [https://github.com/brillout/awesome-react- components](https://github.com/brillout/awesome-react-components) , and [https://js.coach](https://js.coach) is an auto-generated search engine for React-related libraries on NPM with some category filtering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just as a heads up for people supporting Safari and all iOS users, there's some sort of a leak in Safari which causes Mapbox-gl type apps to crash with the famous "A problem occurred with this webpage so it was reloaded" problem on iOS

[https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=172790](https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=172790)</comment>


Ask HN: Building a blog engine - <AUTHOR> I recently joined a local organization that aims to raise awareness about UX among developers, designer, etc. and we could use a blog to share some info.
I know that there are already a lot of blog engines out there but I haven't found any that really got me exited and I'm a web developer so I'd like to build one and make it Open Source.
The question is, what features (beyond blog basics) would you like or do you think that would make a really good and useful blog?
A fellow member brought up that it'd be nice to provide it as a service for those non tech-savvy (journalists, small businesses, entrepreneurs and bloggers in general) at a much lower price than a hosting service and without the burden of setting up a server.
Before diving in I'd like to get a rough idea of whether we'll be able to cover our costs or not. Also keep in mind that I'd prefer to keep everything Open Source, no paid service with more features.
So, the following questions would be what's required for you to be willing to pay for it (features, design, etc.) and up to what price would it be a no-brainer for you to pay for a service with all those features.
Every opinion is welcomed and thanks to those who take the time to reply or upvote. <comment><USER2> Just thought that I'd throw this out there because I think Ghost is pretty cool. [https://ghost.org/](https://ghost.org/) It's open source and seems to be somewhere along the lines of what you are hoping to create. If you want to build your own, that's awesome, go for it.

But, perhaps consider contributing to this project for things you want to add that it doesn't already have.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ghost is actually really nice!

For the moment I still would like to give it a shot at building one to improve some skills with Meteor, but I'll certainly look into Ghost for inspiration.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently building a new CMS that is focused around an API. The idea is that data is stored in an agnostic way, for example, the CMS doesn't know nor care that you're storing a page of hats, nor would it know if you started selling hats and ties.

You model your data, create a document from said model, then you can place it into a collection of "hats", "ties", whatever.

<comment><AUTHOR> You mean that users (those who install the software) would create documents to model their own data, something in the line of Rails migrations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _but I haven 't found any that really got me exited_

I am reasonably content with BlogSpot. Others seem happy with WordPress. If you aren't excited, I suggest you start with listing what YOU want, code up an MVP and then maybe submit it to HN under Show instead of Ask.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see your point. I opted to ask early and get feedback from people outside the project to avoid focusing too much on my own opinions. Showing my own design can condition people to think only in terms of it (what to add, change or remove from it) instead of focusing on what they'd really love to have in a blog but i'll consider submitting it under "Show HN" in a later stage of development.

Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Markdown editing.

I would love a blog with an editor like Dillinger.io

<comment><USER2> have you tried Ghost? [https://ghost.org/](https://ghost.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> So apparently Ghost uses Dillinger... or at least they are really similar.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does social media influencer marketing work? - <AUTHOR> Has anyone on here used social media influencers to hawk an app to their users? What was your level of success? <comment><USER2> I haven't used social media influencers to promote an app specifically, but I know and have worked with different influencers in the past. You're greatest ROI will most likely come from influencers that reach the specific demographic you are targeting, or one that is very similar.

If you want to go this route, make sure to work with people who can show you clear metrics of their influence - I think it goes without saying, but many people with a massive amount of followers have purchased a lot of them to look more influential than than they are. A huge following with very low engagement is worthless. Anyone worth working with should be keeping track of metrics already.

I would also recommend working with influencers who are personally excited about your product. I think it comes through (unless they are crazy-good at copywriting) when influencers promote stuff just because they are being paid vs when they genuinely love the product.

</comment><comment><USER3> We haven't tried it, but I know it's really successful in the Middle East. For instance in Dubai it's really effective, especially to reach younger Emiratis. There's really no other way to reach that target demographic without going through the influencers they're paying attention to. I haven't seen the same necessity in the United States, so I think it depends who you're trying to target.

</comment><comment><USER4> Agreed. You want to have a very specific and highlighted approach. I'm running a micro-influencer targeting beta with a new software, if you want to dive into this a bit more. We've been testing with a few new apps and seeing success but like tcsf said you have to have really specific targets.

</comment><comment><USER5> Seen good and bad experiences. As a generalisation I would avoid the more commercial pay-to-play options and cultivate relationships where sharing information/swag benefits said social influencer audience. If you're going to do a straight purchase of eyeballs you may as well do this on open-ad market where rates tend to be at less of a premium.

</comment><comment><USER6> Anecdotal, but I regularly purchase apps and services that influencers post about. The influencers that come to mind for apps specifically (iOS even more specifically) are John Gruber / Daring Fireball, Loren Brichter, Louie Mantia, Marco Arment...

I think the secret to great success is knowing your own target audience really really well, so that you choose the right influencer for max ROI.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes. It works very well. But, its not for every product. Can also be expensive if done wrong.

For apps, its very important that you try a group of smaller influencers first. Cheaper and will provide good insights into what a bigger influencer might bring in. Start small.

</comment><comment><USER8> We're building an Influencer bidding platform at BrandFox.io just now. Happy to have a chat about it all if you want? Ping me an email at ruairidh[AT]brandfox[DOT]io.

:)</comment>


Ask HN: Why is EC2 more often down than Amazon? - <AUTHOR>

EC2 seems to have trouble sometimes, like recently, with one or more data centers or central infrastructure down. This leads to company websites and large parts of the startup world being down even for those one thinks are multi-data center and know their stuff like Foursquare.<p>Why is Amazon (never?) down? Do they use other hardware? Is Foursquare and like not as good in designing failsafe setups as one thinks? <comment><USER2> I had talked to someone inside Amazon once. I forgot the name and the position but his role had something to do with evangelizing AWS. According to him, Amazon runs only part of the infrastructure over AWS. That probably explains why Amazon remains mostly unaffected by EC2 outage.

</comment><comment><USER3> Individual servers are expected to go down from time to time. Even entire datacenters will drop offline for short periods from time to time.

Amazon knows this and builds their system to be tolerant of pieces dropping off.

Further, Amazon recommends that other sites do this, and have built EC2 and their other cloud stuff specifically so that you can do it without too much headache.

There are plenty of sites running off of EC2 (Amazon included) that don't drop off the internet every time a downtime happens. They're the ones who prepared for such an eventuality ahead of time (and paid for the extra infrastructure needed to do something about it).</comment>


Destroyed by Rockefellers, Diego Rivera Mural Trespassed on Political Vision - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2014/03/09/287745199/destroyed-by-rockefellers-mural-trespassed-on-political-vision <comment><USER2> The version of this mural in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City is spectacular and anyone interested should go see it. The Palacio itself is a gorgeous museum and theatre with a world famous folkloric dance company, too.

The 1999 movie Cradle Will Rock contains a retelling of the story of the mural and delicious visuals.

Of course Lenin was nasty and evil and Rivera's politics were awful. Wise people don't judge art by its creators' politics and personal lives. Rivera's sense of progress, science, and respect for both the past and the joys of the machine age shine through the bad politics of the day to make this a brilliant piece in spite of its flaws.

(One of the flaws is that the Palacio isn't designed for a mural and therefore has giant gorgeous marble columns impeding any view of the whole work at once; just step up close and enjoy it in pieces.)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but life and politics sometimes are bigger than art. What about all those statues of Stalin in the soviet repulics that got taken down. Do we condemn those acts too? Or not, because they were actions of the people, and, you know, the art just wasn't as good? (I don't disagree with you, by the say, but it is not so simple)

<comment><USER2> It really matters whether the art is good or not. Without wise judgement about the quality and value of different works, we can't have a beautiful world or live in beautiful cities.

Of course, getting your leaders to have good judgement is hard. But everything about organizing a happy human community is hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could a [2014] be added to the title, since the article is explicitly about an exhibition at the Mexican Cultural Institute that took place last year?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised they weren't explicit in their commission - "We'd like a picture of a boot, stamping down on a human face, forever, please."

Rivera's future died in the second world war.

<comment><USER6> Downvotes not warranted. madaxe's comment is historically accurate.

The end of WWII ushered in the heyday of "internationalism", or "globalism", characterized by the formation of the UN on land in NYC donated by John D. Rockefeller Jr, certainly apropos to this article.

Clearly, the Rockefeller-style "world federalism" has won out over other modern -ism movements. Most world leaders in most sectors are aligned with this movement and it is pretty apparent that at the moment the trend is towards more globalism, not less. David Rockefeller himself self identified with this agenda in his memoirs:

"For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure--one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

<comment><USER7> > _Downvotes not warranted._

Thankfully everyone gets to decide that on their own.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you fuel your brain on a sugar-free diet? - <AUTHOR> I have been trying out a sugar-free diet, but I feel that this leaves me less able to sustain long programming sessions.<p>What is the appropriate nutrition for sustained mental activity? <comment><USER2> When you say "sugar free", do you mean just no added sucrose or corn syrup, or do you mean a true ketogenic diet?

And "less able" in what way?

Early on, you're just experiencing "sugar cravings" or "withdrawl" (not literally accurate, but that's how it feels).

If you stick with it, your blood sugar becomes much more stable hour to hour and day to day.

If you are deficient in aminos like taurine or theanine or whatever, supplements can help. But there is an adaptation process to ketogenic dieting while your brain adapts to using ketone bodies for fuel instead of glucose.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sustained over tonight, with little regard to the future? Plenty of Red Bull.

Over a long life? No added sugar (it hides everywhere, even in bread), little to no processed grain (e.g. bread and all related), the right amount of exercise and sleep, and a recognition that consuming "food" to help you get less than the right amount of sleep to work longer and make someone else rich is something you should think twice about.

</comment><comment><USER4> Fat.

But not just any kind of fat, read here: [https://www.bulletproofexec.com/the- complete-illustrated-one...](https://www.bulletproofexec.com/the-complete- illustrated-one-page-bulletproof-diet/)

I tried it and had very interesting observations - nothing I have tried before gave me the same results.

</comment><comment><USER5> Who said you need sugar to code more? LOL You need more fruits and vegetables, both give a lot of energy and they are healthy. I'm on a sugar free diet from the beginning of the year and I'm just fine.

<comment><USER6> > Who said you need sugar to code more? LOL You need more fruits and > vegetables, both give a lot of energy and they are healthy.

Fruits are full of sugars.

> I'm on a sugar free diet from the beginning of the year and I'm just fine.

If you are eating fruit, you aren't on a sugar-free diet. You might be on an "added sugar" free diet, or a "refined sugar" free diet, but either of those are very different than a "sugar free" diet. (And either of them are consistent with a very unhealthy diet getting 100% of its calories from sugars.)</comment></comment>


Fun challenge: build a bot to find insights in arbitrary datasets - <AUTHOR> https://www.kaggle.com/general/62760#latest-366957 <comment><AUTHOR> This is our (pretty naive) bot: [https://www.kaggle.com/product- feedback/62759](https://www.kaggle.com/product-feedback/62759)</comment>


Show HN: Hodor - a simple solution to localize your iOS App quickly - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Aufree/Hodor <comment><USER2> In portuguese we don't pronounce the "h" in some occasions, "hodor" is one of them.

"Odor" means "smell" in portuguese.

</comment><comment><USER3> We use something like this, and some of the issues we've had is that 3rd party libraries or such will kind of break as they will still read the device language - creating a mismatched experience for the user.</comment>


Geekli.st gets $600k to build a place for geeks to get noticed. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/26/geekli-st-gets-600k-to-give-geeks-a-place-to-brag/

<comment><USER2> If this company can pull it off, it'll have something far more substantive than a resume or profile on LinkedIn. As an art, software engineering lends itself to opinions and kudos from the community. As a science, software engineering lends itself to measurable outcomes and approximations of difficulty and impact. I'd much rather look for talent through Geekli.st than through Monster, Craigslist, or LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: I know the founders and am crossing my fingers for their success.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds similar to Honestpage.com, where you can share things you want to be remembered for in life.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well deserved! Good to see a solid idea get funded..

</comment><comment><USER5> Geekli.st is awesome! Congratz!

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like a win!

</comment><comment><USER7> Very nice :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Great news!

</comment><comment><USER9> Word!</comment>


How many page views does a website need to produce a month before it can get advertisers? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Depends on how lucrative your users are to advertisers.

If your newsletter was read by 100 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, I doubt you would have a hard time finding advertisers.

Social network "junk traffic" is not particularly valuable. You would need millions of page views just to get in the door of major media buyers.

Adsense is a different story - you don't need page views to get started.

</comment><comment><USER3> So you've got 2500 unique visitors this month doing 50k page views. general, social network traffic might generate $1-2 cpm so that's $100/month in revenue.

if you have a high value niche with targeted, quantifiable traffic you can get that maybe as high as $50/cpm on a well marketed site (read: you have ad sales people or you're cramming the site with ad channels.)

This guy <http://www.johnchow.com/make-money-on-the-internet-april-2007/> has grown his blog to 250,000 page views, crammed it with every kind of contextual ad you can think of, is a compelling writer with great content. He's at $50/cpm. Of that, 40% comes from a pay-per-post ReviewMe ad thing, so his ads are generating about $30cpm.

So you can put adsense on the page, but you won't make any money. and you're a ways off from doing banner ads.

<comment><USER4> Great point. I wrote up a whole post about this "John Chow CPM anomaly" over at: <http://onwebapps.com/how-to-profit-from-alexa-arbitrage/>

Basic summary: if you can start a blog/site geared towards users who probably have the Alexa toolbar / Firefox SearchStatus Plugin installed, you can reap much higher CPMs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Shouldn't you ask your advertisers that question? Sorry, not meaning to be snarky, but you do see where I'm getting at here right?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Last month when my startup signed up our first groups we did about 25,000 page views, and this month we're on track to do about 50,000. My current average pages viewed per visitor ranges between 20 and 30, but what I don't know is how many page views does a website need to produce a month before it can get advertisers?

<comment><USER6> My short-handed response would be that you need about 200,000 or more uniques per month before it becomes meaningful to advertisers. There are sites with less traffic that get targeted ads, but if you're talking about doing something other than AdSense, you really need to be at 200k+ to get meaningful traction in my opinion. Meaingful in my mind is getting more than $5,000 p/month in revenue, btw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The larger questions are:

1) How targeted is my audience? 2) How well can I describe my audience? 3) How many ads do I need to sell to justify the costs associated with selling ads (ad server, cost/time of setting up the ad server, salesperson, etc)?

"Getting" advertisers is an active process (i.e. sales) for most publications (online and offline).

</comment><comment><USER8> 50k pageviews a month will not draw too much attention unless you are in a specific niche and someone notices you.

You can always throw up some google ads in the meantime. If you have good cpm/ctr numbers from google it will help.

</comment><comment><USER9> I know some are based off unique visitors such as tribal fusion (min 2k visitors)

<comment><USER9> thats per day

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> depends on how you're selling the ads, who you're selling them to, and (especially) visitor demographics.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd go with AdSense to start -- and/or maybe some others.

Does anyone know if Google cares if you run other networks' ads on the same page as AdSense ads? I think I've seen people do this.

<comment><USER12> try out adsense or yahoo publishing network. G cares if you mix adsense with other contextual text advertising. banners, text link ads, display ads are all fair game.

<comment><USER13> You are actually welcome to use other contextual advertising networks as long as you clearly distinguish Google Ads from Other Networks Ads. This is easier than it sounds, as the standard AdSense unit has an "ads by google" image

<comment><USER12> i said contextual 'text' ads. what i mean is that you can't have adsense and YPN text ads on the same page, and if you have YPN on the same website, it needs to have a different color scheme than the adsense box.

<http://www.johnchow.com/google-updates-adsense-tos/> <http://www.johnchow.com/adsense-intellitxt-together-at-last/></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My last day at PivotDesk - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141017123941-8116754-my-last-day-at-pivotdesk

<comment><AUTHOR> Tough story of the challenge of being both VP of Product and co-founder at a startup.</comment>


The celebrity guide to never getting hacked - <AUTHOR> http://sriramk.com/celebrityhack

<comment><USER2> All well said and done. But there will be another celeb who gets hacked and God knows what will be released.

</comment><comment><USER3> For #10, "delete" is insufficient. Make sure you use a secure delete. Standard deletes mark the file as "deleted", but leave the data on the file system where it can potentially be recovered by an "undelete" utility.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair but I was trying to come up with a list that wouldn't require too much tech knowhow. I'd worry much more about deleting all copies from the cloud than someone retrieving data of an old HDD/SSD. Fair point though.</comment></comment>


How to negociate (with a big corp) to be allowed to keep a side-project? - <AUTHOR> I have a sizeable project I have been working on and off for the last 2 years. It might be commercially viable but it won't make a lot of money.
A few weeks ago, a big corp approached me with an interesting job offer but AFAIK, they are not very tolerant for side-projects. I am wondering how to negociate with them on this.
A few things: - My side project has no connection at all with the corp's market.
- the position is in R&D, but the tech has nothing to do with my project. - I have no problem stopping my other consulting activities. <comment><USER2> I'd recommend listening to this podcast: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast- episod...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast- episode-12-salary-negotiation-with-josh- doody/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kalzumeus-podcast- episode-12-salary-negotiation-with-josh-doody)

It's on negotiation in general, not just salary.

</comment><comment><USER3> > they are not very tolerant for side-projects.

So... they have control over your _personal_ life/time? And you agree with this? Hopefully they pay you a LOT of money...

If your project doesn't compete with E-corp in any way, probably is not even worth mentioning it?</comment>


Microsoft launches an HTML5 version of Cut the Rope - <AUTHOR> http://www.cuttherope.ie/

<comment><USER2> EDIT: Try this if it's not working for you: <http://www.cuttherope.ie/?html5audio=true> (read below for more info)

Runs great in Chrome for me. I have the android app and this html5 version runs really well... after playing the first couple of levels, it runs just a well as the android game.

Tried loading the game in android browser, no go... also tried loading it in the dophin browser within android... no go (both just site at 00%).

Was curious what they were using for playing audio so I had a look at the code. They are using SoundManager2 (<http://schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/>) which will play audio using either html5 or flash (it's great, have used it on a few projects in the past)... I believe it dynamically detects what's available. Looking at the code though, I see they (MS/Zepto Lab) are only using html5 audio on IE9 or greater, and flash for everything else... if you want to force html5 audio, use this link:

<http://www.cuttherope.ie/?html5audio=true>

This might fix issues people are having for browsers that don't support (or block) flash. Haven't tried in an iOS browser, but that link might increases your chances of it working there :)

Using that link I was able to get it to load in browser on Android and started the game, but couldn't cut the rope, likely cause it's not built to handle touch events. Too bad.

<comment><USER2> Ya, wont work on touch interfaces... all the js calls are bound to mousedown, mouseup and mousemove, would be pretty simple to bind to touchstart, touchend and touchmove as well... that might be all it would take.

<comment><USER3> Oh man really? Kudos to them for getting this really slick game out in HTML5, but I think they missed a trick by not giving touch support. I was playing with the mouse but the game is _made for_ touch; it's much harder to play with the mouse. I wonder if this is a "don't compete with yourself" thing? I'd imagine the full game offers quite a bit more than the browser version.

<comment><USER4> > I wonder if this is a "don't compete with yourself" thing?

Nope. At least on iOS devices, they have a free edition which includes the same levels (except for the IE-only ones.) You get many more levels if you buy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Both Angry Birds and Cut the Rope are now on HTML5 (<http://chrome.angrybirds.com/>)

This is starting to become a trend, but it needs a strong driver. The Windows 8 App Store may provide the push needed to get HTML5 adoption up for applications. It's a different ball game in the web, but I think we'll start to see the web playing a bigger role in the marketplace.

Just curious: Why the down vote?

<comment><USER6> Microsoft surprised me that they didn't block out other browsers. Google didn't surprise me at all and the game is blocked in Opera. It works when user-agent is changed.

It's sad when company acting as someone for open and standard web is doing this. And Google is doing this user-agent sniffing across all their products.

<comment><USER7> I very much agree with you. Although this week all the Google+ stuff first unavailable in Opera is now visible.

Maybe Google is just playing safe and only launches when they are 100% sure the browser supports the app.

<comment><USER6> That's probably it for some features but it still sounds like "You have to use IE5 or higher to see this site" to me.

Also, some features have been blocked for a long time for no apparent reason, for example background image on search. It worked from the day one (when you changed the user-agent), there is nothing scientific about it, yet it is still blocked years later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The behind the scenes writeup is good: <http://www.cuttherope.ie/dev/>

Although the senior developer says in the video: _"Objective C is object oriented, has classes and structs. And those things just don't exist in JavaScript."_ .. Well, except object orientation, of course ;-)

<comment><USER9> A good writeup. A pity more of the source wasn't released (say, excluding the game physics and logic); I'd be keen to see how they structured their code and it'd be a great "cookbook" reference for somebody new to building HTML5 games. (At least the minified source is there.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're curious about some of the developer issues they ran into porting to HTML5, check-out <http://cuttherope.ie/dev>.

<comment><USER11> Looks like the url needs the "www" to work: <http://www.cuttherope.ie/dev>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm confused why Microsoft would sponsor something like this. Google going after game developers and getting them to port their apps to HTML5 makes sense, as it supports the Web as a platform as well as promotes the Chrome Web Store.

Is the plan that the Windows8 App Store feature Chrome Store-style URLs-as- applications?

<comment><USER13> The whole "behind the scenes" reads like an advertisement.

Striking excerpts:

*

> cuttherope._ie_

> Canvas is an amazingly fast rendering surface, especially in a browser where > that API is hardware accelerated (like Internet Explorer 9).

> Internet Explorer 9's Chakra JavaScript engine pre-compiles the code on a > background thread [...] The result is near-native execution speeds. > Amazingly, this is something that you just get for free.

> while we can say Internet Explorer 9 users get a great plug-in free > experience, Chrome and some Firefox users could have run into an audio > problem

> Much of our development was done in Visual Web Developer 2010 (the "express" > version is available for free here). This is a really robust web editor with > autocompletion for JavaScript and CSS. It's great that the express version > is free.

> in most cases, anything we tested in Internet Explorer 9 "just worked" > everywhere else.

> With some guidance from Microsoft, we decided to replace the recursive > function with an "unpacked" iterative version of the same code.

> Frankly, we would have never found that without the profiling tools in > Internet Explorer 9.

*

The whole performance part is worded to sound like porting from Obj-C to JS is a breeze, JS code is actually cleaner and more straightforward than Obj-C, Canvas offers more features and performs better than OpenGL ES, and so on.

This is not so much an ad for IE9 as an ad targeting developers, showcasing the (present and future) Microsoft development ecosystem as best class.

<comment><USER14> What did you expect?

<comment><USER15> He expected them to fail in some way, and when they instead succeeded by using MS tools, he made up some fault to complain about.

Microsoft bashing is getting old.

My suggestion for the like-minded is to either try MS tools for yourself, pick a new target, or modify own identity to not require for self to be the victim oppressed by an evil giant.

<comment><USER13> You are reading my post too far: I was not bashing anyone. If anything, I was complaining about the _writing_ , not the stack itself (which I have used daily and still use from time to time since I moved to a mostly Ruby shop). I was hoping the "behind the scenes" to be a bit more technical and a bit less ad so the article, while an interesting story, was a let down.

<comment><USER15> My apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You have to see the cute picture they put if you try to view it on IE8 <http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/1417/cuttheropeie.png>

<comment><USER17> Yeah, and tough luck if you're on XP I guess, you're forced to switch browser!

<comment><USER18> XP is about a decade old now. I think its completely reasonable for a web app showcasing modern technologies to not even acknowledge it's existence, let alone support it.

<comment><USER19> Modern technologies you are talking about? What I consider modern technologies are modern FPS games, like Crysis, Metro, Dirt or Rage. Cut the Rope uses techniques that are dated at least 10 years. It's a shame that people think of it as anything modern. XP can run a lot of games that are orders of magnitude more complex than any HTML5 game.

<comment><USER20> Those who downvoted you won't be happy until we've devolved into playing Zork- like text adventures and using Lynx. HTML5 will become like Flash/Silverlight ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sorry for the dumb question, but when it says "HTML5" version, what is the underlying technology they are using, if it's not flash?

<comment><USER22> JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. The HTML includes the canvas, video, and audio elements. There's some "behind the scenes" info at <http://www.cuttherope.ie/dev/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm no game dev, but wouldn't porting from OpenGL to WebGL be much simpler than porting to 2D Canvas? I know IE doesn't support WebGL, so I'm just wondering how much extra work they created for themselves.

<comment><USER24> Safari doesn't support WebGL either because of security issues (AFAIK only Firefox does) so while it might be easier it wouldn't work.

<comment><USER25> Safari does support WebGL, but it's off by default. You have to enable it in the Develop menu.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It stuck on 00% on biggest balloon and nothing happens. Is it only IE10 compatible? (running Ubuntu so can not see what it looks like in IE)

<comment><USER27> you have to turn flashblock off.

<comment><USER28> Thanks! Now it loads and works great on FF for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I found their framerate numbers quite staggering, with OS X lagging far behind Windows. Is this a surprise to anyone else?

<http://www.cuttherope.ie/dev/notes-framerates.jpg>

<comment><USER30> I was surprised too, I'd expect those numbers to be roughly equal. The only thing I can think of is that they're using Flash for audio. The Flash runtime has run better on Windows than other platforms for a while. Would be curious to see those numbers with the HTML-5 audio forced to true to see if they stay the same.

<comment><USER31> note also the specs of each of those tests; the windows tests have i5/i7 chips with at least 4gb of ram. The Lion test is a dual core with 2gb. That's not a fair test, so the whole table is bogus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> To be honest, this game is made for multi touch screens. Simultaneously cutting the rope and pressing the airbag doesn't work very well on Chrome (or IE).

<comment> wes-exp Indeed. There are levels in cut the rope that _require_ multiple simultaneous touches.

<comment><USER33> And are those levels in this one? It's easy for them to select web friendly levels or create a couple more or omit them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Love this. Guess I missed the game when it initially debuted. But this is hella fun!

</comment><comment><USER35> the level of smoothness and playability amazes me. better run into the salt mines to brush up on html5 :)

</comment><comment><USER36> This really does show the power and potential of HTML5. Personally, I'm really looking forward to the day where I can easily make notes and draw on any given webpage, and be able to save and share them.

<comment><USER37> Sounds like <http://markup.io>

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> My mouse does not show up, chrome 17 + mac

<comment><USER39> Chrome 17 is a beta release. It seems to work fine in Chrome 16 on OS X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Anyone know why they are using a .ie (Ireland) domain? Just curious.

<comment><USER41> Maybe because "ie" also stands for Internet Explorer? I'm just guessing, I was wondering the same thing.

<comment><USER42> IEDR requires a "real and substantive connection to Ireland" although I'd guess Microsoft could get any domain they want. I'm no fan of the IEDR but it's a shame to Microsoft polluting the domain space.

<comment><USER40> According to the Whois info it is registered to ZeptoLab UK Limited as a Registered Trademark. Not much of a link to Ireland there!

<comment><USER43> Wait are you being sarcastic?

UK = Great Britain + Northern Ireland

Great Britain = England + Scotland + Wales

So technically if they're registered in the UK they're a part of Ireland I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Third level in proper browsers: 1\. Open a JS debug console (Cmd+Option+J) 2\. Set a breakpoint on window load (Event Listener Breakpoints - Load - load). 3\. Reload the page 4\. After the breakpoint is hit, type localStorage.setItem('msIsSiteModeActivated', 'true'); navigator = {appName: 'Microsoft Internet Explorer', userAgent: 'MSIE 9.0'}; 5\. Disable the breakpoint, level 3 should now work..

</comment><comment><USER45> I absolutely love how they show it being developed on an iMac. Keep in mind IE hasn't been developed for the Mac since 2003.

<comment><USER46> From what I understood on the dev page it was developed by a non-MS team, PixelLab, who likely use OS X machines for most of their day to day work. Microsoft gets their Windows license either way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Works fine for me on Firefox 9.0.1/Mac!

</comment><comment><USER48> The development article makes a reference to the resource loader they built for this, PxLoader (<http://thinkpixellab.com/pxloader/>). Are there other JavaScript libraries around that have similar functionality?

<comment><USER49> If you watch the Super Browser 2 Turbo HD Remix talk from Google IO '11 there is a bit in there about developing something very similar, though less robust, to pre-load the assets. The core concept is the same as pre-loading image rollovers in JavaScript. Not a library, but the talk and slides give a decent overview of the code.

[http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/sessions/super- browser-...](http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/sessions/super- browser-2-turbo-hd-remix-introduction-to-html5-game-development.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Very cool, runs flawlessly in Safari.

</comment><comment><USER51> On one hand, it's fairly impressive. On the other hand it has pretty frequent hitches which for a game as simple as Cut the Rope is pretty unacceptable.

I don't get all the hype for the HTML5 bandwagon. I would never actually play a game this way "for real" because perf is too poor.

<comment><USER52> I believe the hype is for what it is shaping up to be, not what it is at this moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Very well made. This year will be strong for the canvas tag and web gaming. And of course don't be surprised if it doesn't run well on your tablet or phone. Mobile browsers aren't that strong yet.

</comment><comment><USER54> Loaded great on my iPad 2, music started playing, tutorial came up, but CAN'T CUT THE ROPE. Ugh. How hard would it have been for them to add some touch event captures?

Really impressed otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER55> Microsoft using Ogg Theora? That's a breakthrough.

<comment><USER56> 2012 Microsoft isn't the 1995 Microsoft that you think you know.

<comment><USER55> They were rather chilled off about WebM, so I wouldn't expect them to be interested in Ogg Theora either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Didn't work for me in Firefox 11/Linux until I turned off my Flash blocker, then it crashed after hitting 99%.

Seems to work OK in Chrome 16, though.

<comment><USER2> Try this:

<http://www.cuttherope.ie/?html5audio=true>

(see my other longer comment for why)

<comment><USER57> Unfortunately, that didn't help - but thanks for trying!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This game runs more smoothly on Chrome than on IE 10. (I have Windows 8 Developer Preview)

[In IE, balloon presses are laggy - not so in Chrome.]

<comment><USER59> Yeah you said it, it is a preview ( including IE 10)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Works for me on W7 64-bit with Firefox 9.0.1

</comment><comment><USER61> This is what I end up seeing, chrome 16:

<http://imgur.com/oNgoZ>

</comment><comment><USER62> It's great on Chrome and better on IE (that's why and how it was built for :)) Very addictive!

</comment><comment><USER63> Does not support touch controls. Therefore probably can't be used for Windows 8 demos.

</comment><comment><USER64> It's even smoother than the iOS version in Chrome 16 for Mac. Amazing implementation.

</comment><comment><USER65> When i saw the movie i feel sorry for this guys "using" IE

</comment><comment><USER66> Works on the Playbook, playable but at a low frame rate.

</comment><comment><USER67> How is Firefox 7.01 an old browser, huh ?

</comment><comment><USER68> Works flawlessly in Opera 11.60/Windows.

<comment><USER59> Really? It was so sluggish on mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Sadly does not work on my iPad 1.

</comment><comment><USER70> On my iPad it just stops at 73%

</comment><comment><USER71> Very cool work pixelLab!

</comment><comment><USER72> Make sure you enable Flash. Not sure why it's necessary, maybe cross site loading?

Works really well (Chrome 17.0.963.26 dev, Linux), I got sucked in and played several levels.

Kind of sad that at the end of the "trial", you're prompted to buy the game on iOS or Android.

<comment><USER2> it's cause they are using flash for audio if not IE9 or greater (as in IE10). you can force html5 audio instead of flash audio using this link:

<http://www.cuttherope.ie/?html5audio=true>

Let me know if that works.

<comment><USER27> no it doesn't. with flashblock it's 00% all the time (ff)

<comment><USER73> Yeah, the html5audio option doesn't seem to work in Firefox with Flash disabled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Haha, IE TLD. Funny! :)</comment>


Crowdsourced Wikileaks content - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Leakspin

<comment><USER2> I was surprised this hadn't happened sooner (or maybe it did?). What will _they_ do to stop this I wonder...?

<comment><USER3> Who's "they"? There is nothing anyone can do; the cat is out of the bag.</comment></comment>


Some Advice for Celebrities and Startups Seeking Their Endorsements - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2012/11/23/some-advice-for-celebrities-and-startups-seeking-their-services/ <comment><USER2> Odd post given that this is a problem that some minuscule % of startups (consumer oriented, LA-based, clueless founder) even ever have to think about.

Or perhaps it's a subtle dig at the new #DominateFund started by Ben parr and a few YC alums. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/11/20/ben- parr-t...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/11/20/ben-parr-tracks- by-cofounders-aim-to-dominate-venture-capital-with-celebrity-ties/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure I agree. There are new models of pairing celebrities with startups that doesn't require 10% equity, or pairing them as your personal spokes person. Atom Factory's investment arm seems to be pioneering a new model here (www.AFSquare.com)</comment>


Let's remake the Internet - <AUTHOR>

One of the best things about writing software is that you constantly get to make things that didn't exist before. Internet was originally created so scientists could share information almost instantaneously. The Internet has evolved into something most people could not have conceived back then. Now that we know it's capabilities, if we could remake the Internet from the ground up, how would you do it, what would you include? Even with web 2.0 there's a lot of legacy involved if we were completely unshackled from the past to make it in HN's image, how would it look?<p>I know this is a radical idea, but just imagine making something completely new to compete with the entire Internet! Forget just targeting individual sites or services, what could be awesome enough to change the entire face of online computing? <comment><USER3> I would replace the server - I mean, do we really need servers? In short, the internet and networks in general were not designed with security in mind. (I would like to apologize in advance for the lengthy response but I want to make myself clear)

The Client-Server model is the most widely adopted model of networking. As the basis of the internet, it is also most difficult to depose. Even in its most basic form, it precludes security and rejects attempts to secure interacting systems for the following reasons: 1) The server is just that - a slave that serves its masters, the clients. Despite security measures to limit and control client access, the server must at least: a) Listen for client requests - clients must be able to locate, and thus can target servers. b) Attempt to interpret, then determine whether to grant or deny the request - <USER2> redundant (permissions are decided a-priori) and risky work in its own environment. 2) Clients need servers throughout their entire presence on the network, so servers remain open to attack throughout a client's session. 3) Servers have access to all resources and to other clients' data during any session with an individual client. 4) Exploiting a server confers the ability to exploit all of its clients and all resources.

The mode of implementation of networks introduces even more insecurities: 1) The system relies on explicit security-related information - such information can be falsified, thus the system cannot support non-repudiation. 2) The system transports clients to any destination they specify - it is up to the destination to defend itself against unwanted guests. 3 )Any client or server on the network can be discovered by any other client or server - the network can be searched systematically to find and exploit vulnerable targets.

In short, the server is and will continue to be a target for hackers. However, if the target (server) was removed, would we have security breaches? Probably not, but more importantly for all users, we would not have an internet as we know it. Therefore, we need a medium that accomplishes both - a hardware element that allows for network communications (but without the insecure handles that make up a server) as well as allowing us to make up the network we now call the internet. Pure fantasy or are we just too engrained with what we have to be able to 'think outside the box'?

Let's look at why? There have been admirable strides towards making today's systems more secure. There is also significant and proactive efforts focused on finding vulnerabilities and developing patches to fix them before they can be exploited. Although security measures exist, none are truly pre-emptive. In my view, everyone is just making variations of the same thing and, more importantly, we're just 'barking up the wrong tree'! Current defense strategies follow three common underlying themes: 1) most tend to focus on particular attackers, attacks, or attack methodologies; 2) many aim to defend particular targets or groups of targets; 3) all are confined and subverted by the existing framework for computing and networks. In its entirety and more importantly, current defensive strategies cannot 1) prevent most unknown attacks; 2) make targets unavailable for exploitation, nor 3) compensate for design flaws in the system being defended. Therefore, would it not be more instructive to examine what enables the initiation of attacks? i.e., what are the handles that allow the system to be breached?

As I eluded to above, the interaction between client and server software/systems, on which (often flawed) software is based, presents too many handles for misuse and abuse. Therefore, this argument points to one and only one common denominator - the network is inherently insecure by design, i.e., this is the problem that security people should be addressing, not a new variant-kind-of patch. So, if I could travel back to the 1990's to design the networks/internet (as you have suggested) and knowing what I know now, what and how would I design it? More importantly, can it be redesigned today? Or should security product developers stay content and conform to the present hardware and software platforms and just develop 'patches'? Even if software could be made flawless in logic, it may not be feasible to prevent the misuse of software. Don't forget the human element - that in itself is the weakest 'link' in network security.

We are therefore left with redesigning the computer and network environments to allow flawed software (and people) to operate securely and render such software (and people) inoffensive should their flaws (and actions) be targeted (be used) for exploitation. This implies that the network (and elements of the network) be fault-tolerant or, more to the point, secure by design. So, we can have the benefits of a network and the protection from network security into one all encompassing computer-network infrastructure.

My suggestion: It should be conceivable and possible to map and mete out resources to clients/users as they are accepted onto the network. This is the basis of client completion; for each user/client, a host environment is created in which all allowable services and resources are locally available and locally supported. We already pre-determine the "stuff" the user needs/requires to have access to on the server - so why not bypass the server? Since access to and management of these resources is local, there is no need, or means by which, to interact with the server or the network; the client is thus complete - a discrete entity on the network. The containment of this discrete component must be as complete as possible to ensure that there is no "leakage" to other client or server environments if the user exploits any vulnerability in the client.

I can see a distinct and separate internet from the current one and more businesses and services coming out from this model.

OK, I've said enough...hopefully that will spur more discussions on this subject =)

</comment><comment><USER4> Make it even more decentralized and more P2P based. Eliminate as many points of failure as possible. Use something like the Phantom Protocol for increased freedom and security as well:

<http://code.google.com/p/phantom/></comment>