Ask HN: most essential questions to be able to answer about your business? - <AUTHOR>

Say you're sitting down for coffee with a potential investor.
What questions should you absolutely be able to answer?
What should you cover when introducing your business/idea?
I think having a more formal list of topcis to answer will better help at least me, and likely others, communicate more effectively in this area.
Cheers <comment><USER2> Sequoia has a really good outline on their site of things that every entrepreneur should know or be able to explain about their company:

COMPANY PURPOSE -Define the company/business in a single declarative sentence.

PROBLEM -Describe the pain of the customer (or the customer's customer). -Outline how the customer addresses the issue today.

SOLUTION -Demonstrate your company's value proposition to make the customer's life better. -Show where your product physically sits. -Provide use cases.

WHY NOW -Set-up the historical evolution of your category. -Define recent trends that make your solution possible.

MARKET SIZE -Identify/profile the customer you cater to. -Calculate the TAM (top down), SAM (bottoms up) and SOM.

COMPETITION -List competitors -List competitive advantages

PRODUCT -Product line-up (form factor, functionality, features, architecture, intellectual property). -Development roadmap.

BUSINESS MODEL -Revenue model -Pricing -Average account size and/or lifetime value -Sales & distribution model -Customer/pipeline list

TEAM -Founders & Management -Board of Directors/Board of Advisors

FINANCIALS -P&L -Balance sheet -Cash flow -Cap table -The deal

</comment><comment><USER3> Shark Tank has a nice standard set of questions they ask nearly every pitch.

What is the product? Do you have sales? What would you do with my money? ... [http://liftdevelopment.com/2012/05/fifteen-valuable- question...](http://liftdevelopment.com/2012/05/fifteen-valuable-questions- from-the-tv-show-shark-tank/)</comment>


Microsoft ready to kill Windows RT as Larson-Green says three is too many - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/26/microsoft-kill-windows-rt-larson-green

<comment><USER2> According to this article, they were never trying to create Windows on ARM, just another locked-down walled garden a la the iPhone app store.</comment>


Google Bans Crypto-Currency Mining Extensions from Chrome Store - <AUTHOR> https://iconow.net/google-bans-crypto-currency-mining-extensions-from-chrome-store/ <comment><USER2> Mine got pulled off too. Few days ago my extension got pulled of without explanation. I freaked out, didn't know why, because it was only RSS reader. I had few ideas why it could be so I start fixing them. I mentioned in summary that it is replacement of google reader, which they might not like, so I removed that from description. It was also using google caja sanitizer, so I replaced it with something else. Then there was preset of feeds so I removed them all. I was about to resubmit it next day when they sent me an email that it was removed by accident. They didn't tell why exactly.

Now that I see they are removing cryptocurrency miners it all makes sense. I use SHA1 sum to make GUID of article if it is not present or if it is too long, so that must have triggered their system to mark my RSS reader as crypto miner.

<comment><USER3> Damn, there goes my favorite RSSGUIDCoin miner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I strongly believe that extensions stealing resources and power from unwitting users should be banned. However, that many legitimate extensions have also been pulled reinforces that this is a lot of power in one place with no observable external oversight, and it has strong resemblances to how companies such as CloudFlare can ban whoever they want[1].

"Just don't use the platform" is becoming more expensive and less practical for consumers every passing day. The same economies of scale that allow individual Internet companies to effectively dominate markets also confer the power to decide who has access and how, even if there's essentially only one game in town. Anti-trust regulation may experience some interesting evolution these next few years.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares- ceo-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-has-a- plan-to-never-censor-hate-speech-again/)

<comment><USER5> What if they tell the users and require user action to begin mining?

It seems pretty rich for a company whose business model revolves around building traps for user data and then using to that data to drive mostly unwanted targeted advertising. Of the three choices:

1\. paid services, 2\. privacy violation + ads or 3\. service uses X% of my CPU,

I'd choose 3 every time. The killer app of cryptocurrencies is monetizing PoW. Someone is going to build the new doubleclick on that and displace google.

<comment><USER6> I'll choose 4 every time: pay for services I find valuable with real money and use an ad blocker otherwise.

It seems that many of these mining extensions are obvious scams anyway, an other commenter in this thread gave this as an example: [https://getcryptotab.com/en/](https://getcryptotab.com/en/)

It's an obvious pyramid scheme. Even if you wanted to mine Monero in your web browser (not exactly the most efficient way I'd wager) why would you share the benefits with some random third party instead of directly joining an open pool?

If you want a laugh I suggest looking at their calculator that (with the default values) tells you that you're going to win $40k if you manage to enroll 10 million people underneath you. Good luck!

This particular extension is the first result when you search "bitcoin" in the Chrome Web Store, with close to 20k ratings (all absolutely genuine I'm sure).

Websites that actually use mining as an alternative to ads don't use extensions in my experience, they simply load a Javascript/wasm miner à la coinhive.

<comment><USER7> "Even if you wanted to mine Monero in your web browser (not exactly the most efficient way I'd wager) why would you share the benefits with some random third party instead of directly joining an open pool?"

I'd be cool with having a site mine at 35% cpu for the few minutes while I use their site in exchange for no ads and no tracking.

I think this is likely the only way that we can replace the Google/Facebook ad-driven business model that runs the consumer Internet.

<comment><USER8> Would it not be better for you (and the rest of the world) if you instead willingly paid them the equivalent portion of your power bill, without actively wasting the resources?

I really don't want the world to devolve into a future where armies of ignored pre-teens with ipads are rapidly accelerating global warming, just so that they can watch clickbait videos and share content in $social_network_vNext, on sites sponsored by "monitising PoW".

<comment><USER7> Yes, it definitely would. I just think that it's easier to mine as it basically does that without having a lot of billing in between.

What I think the crypto that sticks will basically be the unit of exchange where people are able to swap cpu, disk, memory without intermediaries. So it's not speculation, but a real market for unused resources.

In the olden days phone numbers (900-SEXX) could charge you through the phone bill. It was convenient but really high transaction fees. If you could do this with electricity without having a big transaction that would be cool.

Also environmentally friendly as places with high power costs (coal, oil) could easily switch to lower cost resources (hydro, nuke) with renewables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a larger publisher, we're getting crap like this every second day by now... thanks to everyone bringing this to a stop, for me the cryptopocalypse can't come soon enough:

\---

Good day to you!

Here is XXX, I am a business manager at Getcryptotab.com - is a bitcoin mining affiliate platform. And we're looking for publishers who are ready to help us to promote this project in exchange for high rates for you ;)

How it works - a user installs google chrome script and mines bitcoins, invites new users by a referral link and multiplies his earnings.

And we're looking for ad placements of a fixed banner with a direct link to our project.

We're ready to discuss the rates which will satisfy you and other different options for our convenient and profitable cooperation.

So please, add me on Skype and let's discuss.

Looking forward to hearing back from you and wish you have a great weekend!

\-- Regards,

XXX Business Manager

<comment><USER10> >in exchange for high rates for you ;)

Anyone using winky face in a cold email like that should be slapped.

<comment><USER11> Expand that to any usage ever and I'm on board with this policy

<comment><USER9> I agree ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> These people might be allowed to do what they do, if they were upfront about what they are doing, but in most cases they plug-in is fronting as something else and unbeknownst to most users, it's doing something else beside the stated purpose.

As they say, this is why we can't have good things, because someone will be unscrupulous and will take advantage of social norms.

I wonder if they will leave the door open for sites which "recoup" their costs/pay the bills via mining, if they are upfront about it.

From the statement, seems they might not, given "The company will however continue to permit extensions designed for blockchain-related purposes that do not involving _mining_ in the web store. " and "Google's decision reverses its policy so far of allowing crypto-currency mining extensions in its Web Store so long as that was the extension's sole purpose and users were adequately informed of the extension's purpose."

So mining of any kind appears to be out. So much for an alternative to other micropayments systems.

<comment><USER13> > These people might be allowed to do what they do, if they were upfront about > what they are doing, but in most cases they plug-in is fronting as something > else and unbeknownst to most users, it's doing something else beside the > stated purpose.

And where extensions were really just mining cryptocurrency, they were often clearly made to be deployed on systems the user wasn't authorized to use that way. For example, from the description of one Monero miner extension:

> The extension is anonymous and untraceable [ghost emoji] and you can use it > on any amount of computers [personal computer emoji] The more processing > power, the more money you get. Install the extension at home/work/school and > win Bitcoins [money bag emoji]"

\-- [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bitcoin-monero- min...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bitcoin-monero- miner/gakdkimihncjbegihabpiohfjpjabapb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's the official post from Google: [https://blog.chromium.org/2018/04/protecting-users-from- exte...](https://blog.chromium.org/2018/04/protecting-users-from-extension- cryptojacking.html)

Note that extensions that secretly mined cryptocurrency in the background were already banned from the Chrome store. The change here is that now Google's no longer going to try to discriminate between extensions that secretly mine cryptocurrency in the background from extensions that fully disclose that behavior. (Presumably because it's easier to automate enforcement of the rules this way.)

</comment><comment><USER15> I see the fact we can now easily trade cpu power for currency to have many more unexpected effects.

<comment><USER16> >"easily"

One of the many reasons this behaviour is so scummy is that for popular cryptocurrencies, one very quickly reaches the point where £1 of electricity spend CPU mining produces much less than £1 of "currency". Economically, it only makes sense if you're exploiting many unaware users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Isn't mining in a browser a direct threat to their ad-driven business? If you get rid of ads in exchange of some spare CPU/GPU cycles, their business model would no longer be relevant; no wonder they would love to ban it. I'd however gladly exchange it for ad-free websites.

<comment><USER18> Not at all. In-browser cryptomining is not even within an order of magnitude as lucrative as ads (probably not even two orders of magnitude), and users actively despise having the browser slow to a crawl because these are in the background. It's far worse for users than standard advertising.

<comment><USER7> Even though it's much less lucrative than ads, it can still disrupt google. It's work examining the equivalent of mining in CPM terms to compare.

But precisely why it's less lucrative is why it's a threat. Remember when Napster came out and the argument was "they'll never make as much money as the record industry?"

For new entrants making an order of magnitude less is perfectly fine because they are a new market. Why would they care if google loses $1B in ad revenue if they make $100M. Especially since you don't really need a market maker like Google matching ad buyers to content makers, the $100M can go directly to content creators running sites.

The payout for Adsense is super low for display. They don't reveal the payout ratio for clicks, but I expect it's 10-30%.

So for comparison for $1B in current AdSense payout to content sites, content creators only get $100-300M based on clicks.

If you replaced this with crypto miners then you only need 10-30% payout from browser miners in order for content creators to break even. But ad in all the readers who never click (like me, the ads are not relevant) this gets more attractive.

If google is smart, they do recognize this as a threat.

<comment><USER6> Given that every day more people browse the web on relatively weaker handheld devices running on batteries I have a hard time believing that most people will be fine with having websites drain their batteries and if it becomes commonplace I expect that many people will block them.

And remember that mining is effectively a zero-sum game, the more people mine the harder it becomes to mine. It effectively means that every new websites who switches to mining for monetization makes it less valuable for all the other websites already doing it since you're all sharing the same cake.

<comment><USER17> > is effectively a zero-sum game

That's only true for deflationary currencies. One can conjure up an ad- replacement currency, let's call it impre$$ion, that would be inflationary and perhaps linearly related to the time spent on the page regardless of computing performance of a viewer (though some viewers might be more valuable than others, e.g. those running iOS). Then there could be a separate market/stock- exchange for impre$$ions, replacing ad income. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was in the works already.

<comment><USER18> There'd be no reason whatsoever for such an imaginary currency to have any value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This reads like it was written by someone with very little understanding of what they are talking about, drawing connections where there are none, namely but not limited to email malware and chrome extensions.

<comment><USER20> I agree that the article is conflating a couple of things:

\- chrome extension that have the sole purpose of mining

\- chrome extension that covertly mine cryptocurrencies

\- malware that has nothing to do with chrome extensions and that mines cryptocurrencies

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted here, but I guess it's because your post comes off as a bit dismissing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I work on startup ideas while working in industry? - <AUTHOR>

Hello everyone,
I am about to graduate from college in about a month. I very fortunately got a job waiting for me on the other side. But thanks to my dumb brain, I have decided to start developing a few of the ideas I've had simmering in my brain for a while. I am writing you today to ask, is there some sort of way to allow me to develop my ideas while also working the job and maintaining full control of the code I create for the ideas? I plan to use the money I make to build the idea.
I have started repos on cloud servers, thinking that the timestamps would be like a "postmarked trademark" type of security. What else can I do to develop these ideas, maintain complete control of them, and still work in industry?
EDIT: I have not started my job yet. I start shortly after graduation, but I have worked for the company before during the summer.
Thanks and Cheers. <comment><USER2> Make sure you aren't violating any non-compete agreements with your new employer. Also make sure they don't have any clauses in your employment agreement where they claim ownership of your projects. Read the fine print. If you're really concerned, ask someone there. That should be easy if you've worked there before.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll look into this. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You just do it, and keep your mouth shut.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my current idea. How do I start marketing efforts though, once I have a MVP?</comment></comment>


PlayStation 4 jailbroken - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/CTurtE/status/673581693207502849 <comment><USER2> If this is true then it's a real bummer. Jailbreaking tends to pave the way for a lot of bad things. Rampant piracy and multiplayer cheating will totally bork the playstation ecosystem.

Edit: I dug into this a little bit and it doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that this is credible. A little more info (though no smoking gun) can be found at the tweeters GitHub page [http://cturt.github.io/articles.html](http://cturt.github.io/articles.html)</comment>


How Fog Creek learned to do sales part 3 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-very-most-basic-things-your-company-needs-to-know-about-sales-part-3-of-4/?fccmp=HNsls3 <comment><USER2> One thing Dan didn't mention (but perhaps alluded to), is that an objection does not immediately translate into a request to engineering to add feature X. For example, in Dan's discussion of priority and severity, he didn't go running to the development team telling them they needed to add severity to FogBugz in order to nail a big client. This allows developers to focus on good long-term design decisions that hopefully make the product better.

Granted, if you hear enough of the same objection, it may be something that you want to add to your product, but you want to keep that as part of an existing engineering workflow instead of treating every object as an urgent request to help get a sale.

</comment><comment><USER3> A crucial part about "closing"... don't allow them to give you an open ended "thanks we'll run this by our boss" type response. People usually just want to end the sales process, but do not want to reject you outright. You should always get concrete next steps. If they have to "ask their boss", then setup a call the next week to find out the bosses answer. It's much better to wiggle a firm "no" out of a prospect then to get a definite "maybe". "Maybe" ties up the sales funnel with junk leads.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a really good article for developers to transition into salesmen.

When I first started selling my software and services, I ran into the problem of: "What if they get mad because component X doesn't work like they thought it did and want a refund? What if they yell at me? What if something goes wrong!?"

Tons of different avenues you can convince yourself will happen. First, chill out, they haven't happened yet. Second, deal with them when they do.

I once worked for a company that trained it's salespeople to be hard sellers and gave tons of ways to try to do this (it was for a gym and I was a personal trainer; gyms are notorious for this sales tactic). Because I didn't feel comfortable with that (since I hate it when people do it to me), I did the exact opposite. I was the softest salesperson around, but would find other non-threatening hacks to try to get people to buy personal training. Within a month I was the number personal trainer (in sales) for Dallas/Ft. Worth using my tactics. My clients loved me.

We'd probably all be a lot better off using softer sales tactics.

<comment><USER5> > I did the exact opposite. ... My clients loved me.

Yes.

> We'd probably all be a lot better off using softer sales tactics.

That doesn't follow.

Suppose that 10% of the population responds best to soft sales tactics and that the other 100 sales folk are using hard tactics. You got that 10% to yourself while the other 100 folks are sharing 90% of the sales. Your numbers will be better despite using the "wrong" technique for the majority of the population.

The correct strategy is to find an underserved subpopulation. If enough "everyone else" is using a given strategy, the exact opposite is likely to work well. If a mix of strategies are being used, you need more information.</comment></comment>


Compression by shared resource - <AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News,
I would really like to get some input from the HN community on this topic I've been researching.
It's a bit of a legend/vague story, but I'm trying to find out whether there's any truth to it.
In short: Dutch electronics technician Jan Sloot (1945-1999) supposedly invented an incredible compression technique that could potentially change the digital landscape. Investors like Tom Perkins and Dutch billionaire Marcel Boekhoorn were interested in signing a deal.
There's a lot of mystery around the actual technology but what I could find was this:
Link: jansloot.telcomsoft.nl/Sources-1/More/CaptainCosmos/Not_Compression.htm
An article by a fan website that discusses the technology a little bit. Atleast, their interpretation of what the technolgy was.
What the article claims in summary is this: if there's a (e.g.) 4 GB shared 'magic dictionary' that exists on both clients and the only data that is transmitted is references to parts of this dictionary, massive file size reduction can be achieved  if the purpose is transmitting/distributing the data to many parties (e.g. video streaming services like YouTube).
An analogy given is this: a PDF document which references fonts instead of embedding them, hence reducing the file size of the file that's transmitted.
What I would like to know from you is whether there's any potential in the above system for file size reduction and/or whether something like this already exists today? Perhaps executed in a similar fashion by other companies?
Perhaps some of these concepts are used in modern compression libraries like .7z, I'm not too familiar with those so I can't tell.
Long story short, I'm not experienced enough to judge the technology described but I'm curious to know your thoughts on the matter.
Kind regards, Rick Lamers <comment><USER2> Shared information at each endpoint can be used to communicate efficiently but it doesn't qualify as "data compression" as that is currently defined. For example, if you have a library of books on your end then I can send you a few byte number (the ISBN) to identify a specific book instead of sending a normally compressed copy of the whole book. If you compare the few byte ISBN to the byte size of the book, of course the compression rate is phenomenal but this normally isn't considered data compression but it is related.

A real life example is Binary Delta Compression that Microsoft uses in their Windows Update protocol. If you make minor changes to a file in going from version 1.0 to 1.1 say, then instead of transmitting the whole file WU just sends a file identifier + the bits that need to be modified. This is a trade off between sending data and computation at the sending and receiving end.

Every so often I read about someone who has the idea to generalize this. The idea is to use/index the standard Windows installation (or something common on most computers) as a "library" to reference. Then to "compress" a file you send a sequence of pointers to the library necessary to recreate the file you want to send at the other end. The problem with this is twofold. First, it takes a lot of computer power to analyze a file and break it down into library references. Second, you are on the wrong side of 2^n and as the file size increases the probability that it or large pieces of it are contained in the library quickly goes to zero.

The only way that Sloot's idea would work is if he found a way to generalize this for random (i.e. already compressed or high entropy) data and a method to define an easily created library on the endpoints that is comprehensive and independent (i.e. a basis) for random data. That is a tall order.

</comment><comment><USER3> The idea of using compression dictionaries like this is not new. Common compression systems (e.g. zlib) allow you to do this. On the web there's a Google spec. called SDCH to do the same thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kind of what I expected, thank you for referencing SDCH. Directs me to more interesting reading material.

Edit:

Found this: [https://aprescott.com/posts/sdch](https://aprescott.com/posts/sdch)

Maybe SDCH isn't that useful after all? Looking to find some quantitative data on potential gains from SDCH now.

<comment><USER3> Of course, Sloot might have managed to come up with a nice dictionary of chunks of binary that are common across lots of videos which might have been useful.</comment></comment></comment>


Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/1905 <comment><USER2> Before anyone thinks this is a Eureka anti-ad-blocking technology: Clearly you still need client-side javascript, distributed by the mediator, to ensure that the impression is actually delivered and the click is actually registered.

Otherwise, obviously, the server could just maliciously record impressions/clicks.

Then, logically, if uBlock Origin doesn't remove the ad, but does successfully remove the mediator's script, the server can never book the impression. So why waste precious bandwidth (actually INCREASING the cost of ad delivery for the publisher) delivering an ad you can never be paid for? Boggles the mind.

Embedding the ad into the video is more akin to a native ad, which is generally understood by the advertiser to not have measurable conversion and to be strictly context (as opposed to user) targeted.

We are going full circle--that is, back to the beginning--of ad technology.

<comment><USER3> > Before anyone thinks this is a Eureka anti-ad-blocking technology: Clearly > you still need client-side javascript, distributed by the mediator, to > ensure that the impression is actually delivered and the click is actually > registered.

I don't suppose I understand why clientside JavaScript is needed here. The serverside code could simply generate a unique hash for every visitor, and include that in the campaign link. Then, server-side code on the receiving end can read this hash, record a unique hit, and monitor the user on the campaign landing page to see if a lead is generated.

This seems obvious to me, but I don't actually work in advertising. Where is the break in this system? What am I missing that allows this to be exploited, in a way that only clientside JavaScript can fix?

EDIT: In context, I've realized that my proposed solution might work for clicks, but would do nothing for tracking impressions. Hrm. I'm not really sure if that problem is solvable. Then again, I'm also not a fan of impression based ad tracking (it feels creepy) so maybe I don't mind if it remains broken.

<comment> ryan-c Threat models:

* The ad server outright telling lies to get paid for nothing.

* The ad server not being trusted to validate that views are legitimate.

Client-side JavaScript can probe the DOM and execution environment for abnormalities indicative of automation.

<comment> _-___________-_ But why can't a malicious server also serve up some JS that modifies the behaviour of the JS served by the ad network?

<comment><USER4> You don't need a malicious server.

You can use Google to do this and you'll get a google/branded domain name for your object-hijacking javascript. The number of times I've seen something like document.visibilityState='visible' in peoples ads (or ad wrappers) is astounding.

<comment><USER5> Isn't document.visibilityState a read-only property?

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Document/vi...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Document/visibilityState)

<comment><USER4> No.

It is not.

        Object.defineProperty(document, 'visibilityState', { value: "visible", writable: false })

demonstrates trivially that the documentation is clearly wrong.

Maybe it says it's "read-only" because Google _wants_ bad guys to do this sort of thing, since it makes advertisers buy more ads from them.

Or maybe it's an honest mistake that neither Mozilla, nor Google (nor Microsoft or anyone else it seems) has any idea what "read-only" means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I get the distinct impression, in the war of ads vs. consumer, that some people will not be satisfied until they've submarined advertising all the way down to sponsored content and we have to go way out of our way to notice that the Try Guys are always drinking Coca-Cola or something.

<comment><USER7> There will always be those fringe people who insist on content being valueless even though they consume hours of it.

The greater problem is that the ad industry is too unregulated and greedy which has led to a tragedy of the commons with malware and poor UX everywhere, leading to adblockers installed by many who otherwise wouldn't mind.

<comment><USER8> If someone puts content out there for free, it is by definition freely available, and I decide 100% which content I want my browser to accept and show, and which content to ignore.

If you want to make sure you get paid for your content, put it behind a paywall. Yes, the number of users will drop, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Otherwise, ask nicely for donations or Patreon support or do old-fashioned sponsored content, obviously with full disclaimers that the content is sponsored, so people can decide whether they want to watch it or not.

Specifically talking about video ads, look at what Glenn Fricker from Spectre Media Group does on his Youtube channel. He often gets demonitized because he tends to swear a lot. So he asks people to "spend a buck, give a fuck" on Patreon, and he does short sponsor midway interludes in his videos. It's always a short clip of himself talking about the product or service in question, and it's always something he uses himself, he won't advertise something he can't vouch for. So you don't get the jarring cuts to some random ad agency's standard BS video that runs on thousands of un-related videos.

That's how to do it. Part of and related to the channel's content, but also clearly demarcated and made fully clear that it is sponsorship/advertising. And most importantly: No tracking!

<comment><USER9> > I decide 100% which content I want my browser to accept and show, and which > content to ignore.

Devil's Advocate says the people who make your browser reduce 100% to maybe 60%. Browser extensions are the 10%.

<comment><USER8> Depends on which browser and which add-on loadout you use.

On Firefox, with appropriate small changes and with uBlock Origin, uMatrix and a few other add-ons, you bet I can adequately control the data accepted by my browser.

If you use Chrome, well that's another situation. Don't use Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The ML algo of Adblock Radio could be used to bypass those video ads. The case of radio ads is a typical example of server-side ad injection.

[https://www.adblockradio.com](https://www.adblockradio.com) [https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio](https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio)

(Disclaimer: I built this)

</comment><comment><USER11> In the end, websites will just be server-side generated images. :D

<comment><USER12> And then Adblockers will convert it back to html and strip ads from it.

<comment><USER11> Please let me know how to convert images to HTML & how adblockers know what part of it is an ad.

That cannot be done reliably without machine learning.

<comment><USER12> Then they will use ML.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For everyone saying this ruins impression tracking, couldn't an ad-network just act as a "CDN" (e.g. client <\-- Ad-CDN <\-- server). They'd basically man-in-the-middle the server response and inject the ads into wherever in the html the server put the ad-tags. To the client, it would still be SSAI, but the Ad-CDN could still record impressions.

Not that any server owner should do this (giving over control of your website ultimately to the ad-network? fuck that), but as ad-tech becomes more desperate, shouldn't these types of MITM setups get pushed more?

<comment><USER14> An "Ad-CDN" is exactly what AMP is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This has been talked about as an obvious evolution for the Ads Network for quite a while. Do anyone with knowledge in this area , know why is taking so long for Adsense/ Criteo come up with a solution like this?

<comment><USER16> The ad network needs to trust the website to not only deliver the ads reliably but also to report back correct data (impressions, clicks, etc). We are talking about quite a lot of money here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Slightly tangential, but does anyone have a good crash course intro guide to ad ops?

<comment><USER18> [https://wordpress.tv/2017/10/15/james-strang-introduction- to...](https://wordpress.tv/2017/10/15/james-strang-introduction-to-ad-ops/)</comment></comment>


How Ibuildings builds scalable web applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibuildings.com/blog/archives/751-How-we-build-scalable-web-applications.html <comment><USER2> I didn't really find any value in this article. I want my minute back.</comment>


Phono - JQuery plugin to create a phone in your browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.phono.com/ <comment><USER2> Does it work? I tried calling my landline and my mobile and it says "Answered, Hangup", though I don't see anything on the landline/mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you calling a US number? The site says that free calls are only supported to US numbers.

<comment><USER3> That explains why I also got "Answered, Hangup" with my UK landline even though the phone certainly didn't right.

Might be good if the in-page demo mentioned the limited (US-only) aspect as it wasn't obvious to me that it didn't work with my UK number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"If you're developing from a local file system (i.e. not a web server) you'll need to edit your Flash security settings. Select "Edit locations" > "Add location" > "Browse for folder" and select the the folder that contains your HTML files."_

'nuff said...

<comment><USER5> Nuff said about what? Yes, this has a dependency on Flash (soon to be on Java instead optionally) but so does EVERYTHING that interacts with video or audio devices on the host operating system. This is why Google Talk, Voice in Gmail, etc require the google a/v plugin to be installed, and it's the same reason that this requires Flash.

If you don't like it, go lobby the <device> in HTML5 committee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aside from the cool plugin, the site design is great.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, very slick. The only part that I think is confusing is the inclusion of a 1/4" jack in the logo. I think of guitars and headphones and not telephones when I see that, which moves me further away to the meaning of "phono" that the site needs to convey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worry that doing something like this entirely client-side may make it easily abused. =/

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't see any pricing info. Are you re-selling Voxeo's services or do I pay them directly? They don't seem to want to give out pricing either.

How about a ballpark estimate of what it might cost to actually use this in production?

<comment><AUTHOR> For now, Phono works with a Voxeo backend (either the enterprise stuff or Tropo, the cloud telephony API). The intent is to allow a developer to create their own backend platform that works with Phono. We'll release the spec for that once the API has settled in and we're sure there's no significant changes needed.

Tropo's pricing is at <http://tropo.com/pricing/> and start at 3 cents per minute. Voxeo's other products are based on amount and type of usage and you'd want to contact our sales guys to get a quote. email@example.com should work for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's up with the latest posts claiming JQuery plugins when they aren't. It's using Flash.

<comment><AUTHOR> Javascript can't capture the user's microphone directly. So Phono uses a tiny Flash or Java widget to do that part. The rest is all JS.

We're heading an HTML 5 working group on voice in the browser, and once HTML5 has mic support, Phono will use it.

<comment><USER11> Any guess as to when the <device> element (or api - Berjon vs Hixie?) will be adopted by a shipping browser so we can have this all-js microphone (and camera) access without a flash shim?

My bet is Android webkit first (ericcson closed source webkit proof of concept already exists); a timeline would be nice though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any implementation right now would be pretty early. The live media capture parts of HTML5 aren't fully-speced out yet.

<http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/camera/>

With any luck, some browsers will form a defacto standard that solves the outstanding questions long before the HTML5 group finishes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I called myself and I could talk on my phone and hear it in the browser, but there was no audio picked up on my laptop mic to go back to the phone. I'm assuming it's still being worked on - interesting execution though!

<comment><AUTHOR> We fixed an issue this morning where sometimes the Flash microphone permission window wasn't showing up. Try it again and it should work for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Phono guys were great in helping me integrate this on <http://pitchpower.appspot.com>. There was a small bug on their side & they fixed it in a few hours.

I don't really have time to continue develop pitchpower right now, but I couldn't resist integrating Phono when I saw the announcement here. All in all took less than an hour, so worth it. Back to _real_ work now.

</comment><comment><USER14> I tested it with my GV US number and it is working very well. Great job. Too bad it doesn't work on iPad because of the flash applet. (Java wouldn'd help either) But that's nothing you can do something about.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does this have a flash dependency?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use a tiny Flash movie to capture the microphone, since Javascript can't do that part. We'll be adding an option for a Java applet later, and once HTML5 has microphone support, we'll get that in there, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The demo doesn't appear to work for international numbers (I'm assuming this is in the US, I'm in the UK (+44)). Not to say this isn't impressive.

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazingly cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Let us know if you use Phono for anything. Would love to see what you come up with.</comment></comment>


Do we really need null? - <AUTHOR> http://home.vmathew.in/writings/nonull

<comment><USER3> Another possible solution is to _require_ initialization of reference types upon declaration, instead of silently supplying a new default object if no initialization is given. A bit more verbose, but might be clearer (esp. in Java-land, where stuff happening behind the scenes without explicit code is frowned on).

Ocaml basically does that, though it feels sort of second-nature rather than a restriction, because syntactically, the only way to get a reference is to take a reference _of_ something. Eiffel "attached types" are similar (guaranteed to always be "attached" to a non-Void value), but have a somewhat more complex scheme of possibilities: [http://docs.eiffel.com/sites/docs.eiffel.com/files/void- safe...](http://docs.eiffel.com/sites/docs.eiffel.com/files/void-safe- eiffel.pdf)

A big potential problem, I think, would be whether people use null-setting patterns often enough that they would work around the proposed change, by using these default-constructed objects as glorified null values, maybe by having them set an "I'm a dummy object" flag internally or something.

</comment><comment><USER4> Conditional initialization? Suppose I have several objects of the same type and need to do manipulations on one of them, which one depends on something:

      Foo * pFoo = NULL;
      if(x) {
       // stuff
       pFoo = Foo::p1;
      } else {
       // stuff
       pFoo = Foo::p2;
      }
      if(pFoo) {
       pFoo->bar();
      }

I can't declare pFoo inside if(x) due to scoping, so I have to declare it before initializing it meaningfully. It has to be either a pointer to the object (references don't work without initialization) or an object copy, which would not modify the original object...

<comment><AUTHOR> In the first place, a language that exposes pointers may not be able to do away with null. But as for languages like Java, the problem can be solved with the help of an implicit, non-mutable default object:

        Foo foo; // initialized to default
        if (x) {
           // stuff
           foo = Foo.p1;
        } else {
          // stuff
          foo = Foo.p2;
        }
        // No need to check if this is a valid reference, it always will be.
        foo.bar();

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes, we really do need NULL. It's very useful in a number of data structures; for example:

      struct node {
        char * key;
        char * value;
        struct node * left;   // NULL if we have no left child
        struct node * right;  // NULL if we have no right child
      }

Sure, you could add a separate "int flags" field to record which children a node has, but that would just make the code slower and cause it to use more RAM.

<comment><AUTHOR> A systems programming language that expose pointers will not be able to shed NULL. But a higher-level language can and a "pure" OOP language should - because null make objects unable to respond to messages. Something that claims to belong to the type system and cannot respond to messages just don't fit in there.

<comment><USER5> Ok, I'll bite: In your idea of a perfect object-oriented language, how do you encode "we might or might not have a left child"?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one possible way of doing it:

        class Node {
            static const Node EMPTY_NODE = Node();
            String key;
            String value;
            Node left = EMPTY_NODE;
            Node right = EMPTY_NODE;

            Node(String key, String value) {
                this.key = key;
                this.value = value;
            }

            static void traverseInorder(Node n, Visitor v) {
                if (n.left != EMPTY_NODE) {
                   traverseInorder(left, v);
                }
                v.visit (n);
                if (n.right != EMPTY_NODE) {
                   traverseInorder(right, v);
                }
            }
        }

<comment><USER5> Ok, and how exactly is that different from using NULL, aside from being more complicated?

<comment><AUTHOR>
        class Node {
            // May not be a real situation for a Node class,
            // but makes a point.
            Node getLeft() {
                return left;
            }
        }

        // No more checks against NULL. In fact code becomes simpler for
        // the user of the library.
        node.getLeft().getLeft().getValue();

I don't think the class definition is much too complicated, except for the declaration of the EMPTY field. What we need is a non-mutable, class-wide, default object, not null. We don't need to explicitly declare this object, if the language does that for us and make it accessible through a keyword - <USER2> 'default':

        if (n.left != default) {
             traverse(n.left);
        }</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ICANN is dead. - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/news/peter-sunde-attempting-to-create-p2p-alternative-to-icann-20101129/

<comment><USER2> Sensational, non-accurate title.

Please stop it, a person merely suggested that he would like to create an alternative to ICANN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was being sarcastic. I hate all these "x is dead." titles. :)

<comment><USER3> 'X is dead' is dead.</comment></comment></comment>


Psd.js: A Photoshop Document Parser in CoffeeScript - <AUTHOR> http://badassjs.com/post/16822405598/psd-js-you-guessed-it-a-photoshop-document-parser-in

<comment><USER2> "No one likes Photoshop..."

I fucking love Photoshop

<comment><USER3> I think the coolness about hating Photoshop comes from Photoshop on Mac being a 2nd class citizen. The Windows version of Photoshop is better in every way. It is very stable and has an excellent UI (though a few of the older dialogs could use an update).

The Mac version on the other hand is a pain in the ass to use. I operate at about 70% efficiency when using the Mac over Windows version.

<comment><USER4> Do you have any specifics? The UIs are very similar. They don't use the OS widgets on either platform to keep things consistent and if you know one you know the other. So much so that I'm not a fan of the Mac UI too much because it feels like a Windows app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I tried out the demo, but it says "not a PSD file" for every PSD file I gave it.

If it works, I would really look forward to this.

<comment><USER6> Same problem. I'm using Safari on a Mac.

<comment><AUTHOR> Won't work in Safari because Safari lacks FileReader support. Try in Chrome or Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well that's weird. I tried giving the demo a Photoshop CS5 file and it doesn't like that. I thought maybe it was a parsing problem, since I remember there being something about the latest Photoshops doing something to PSD's. PSD's made in Photoshop 7 do not seem to work either.

I wonder what is going on? I've tried this on Chrome 16 and Firefox 10.

Well that's weird. I tried giving the demo a Photoshop CS5 file and it doesn't like that. I thought maybe it was a parsing problem, since I remember there being something about the latest Photoshops doing something to PSD's. PSD's made in Photoshop 7 do not seem to work either.

I wonder what is going on? I've tried this on Chrome 16 and Firefox 10.

\-- Edit:

Oh, it looks like browsers don't appear to be sending the MIME-type. In fact, there appears to be a lot of file types which I'm randomly throwing into filereader that don't appear to have any MIME-type attached to them. How very interesting indeed!

<comment><USER8> If I recall correctly, Adobe has not published PSD file-format specifications for anything past Photoshop 6, so supporting anything newer than that is likely to involve a lot of reverse-engineering and heartache.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Little known fact: Photoshop (and most other Adobe apps) comes with a JavaScript interpreter you can use to script it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Unrelated to topic; Devon - the z-index of your static nav is below the discus comments. Add a "z-index: 2" for the #navigation CSS and it fixes it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, it would appear that this is indeed "bad ass js". I can't for the life of me think of a way to use this, but it is very, very bad ass.

</comment><comment><USER12> Love the idea and want to use this, but crashed the browser when I tried a simple psd.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why CoffeeScript? Am I missing something or wouldn't have better performance with straight javascript?

<comment><USER14> Why do you think there would be a performance aspect? The JavaScript generated by the CoffeeScript compiler looks just like well written JavaScript. (But without the comments, grumble grumble.)

<comment><USER15> Try this:

      ###
      Your comment there
      ###</comment></comment></comment>


I went in for a Covid-19 test March 17 and I'm still waiting for my results - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-corona-or-is-it-schmutz-11585263666 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.is/nPynR](https://archive.is/nPynR)</comment>


US Administration Considers Far-Reaching Steps for 'Extreme Vetting' - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-considers-far-reaching-steps-for-extreme-vetting-1491303602 <comment><AUTHOR> _" could be forced to provide cellphone contacts and social-media passwords and answer questions about their ideology,... The changes being considered could apply to visitors from America's closest allies as well as other nations and include subjecting more visa applicants to intense security reviews. "_

and

 _" We want to say for instance, 'What sites do you visit? And give us your passwords,' so that we can see what they do on the internet," Mr. Kelly said at the February hearing. "If they don't want to give us that information then they don't come.'"_

So you leave your phone at home, ^they^ want to peer through your public Internet? The US is becoming a very difficult place to visit even for ^closest allies^. This viewpoint is going to be really interesting in the competitive, international VC/Startup scene.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is silly. In a tit for tat, other counties can enforcethe same. People will lose privacy, and will be subject to framing by governments, with little added security benefits</comment>


How IPython Notebook and Github have changed the way I teach Python - <AUTHOR> http://peak5390.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/how-ipython-notebook-and-github-have-changed-the-way-i-teach-python/

<comment><USER2> "If a student starts to outpace me, I can steer them into something more established such as Udacity or Coursera. These are the students who are likely to be successful in more independent learning settings."

Everything about what you do should be commended, but I outright give you a standing ovation for this point.

<comment><USER3> Yes.

Smartest teacher I ever had made the students grade each other's papers. Ends up being tutoring. Hardest grade I ever earned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great stuff. When I taught intro programming to people with no programming background, I made a habit of doing live programming, in front of them. I let them see my mistakes, so they could see my debugging process, and of course, I tried to make it interactive, asking the class along the way how I should accomplish something.

I had to upload source code to a course webpage, which wasn't _that_ onerous, but it also meant that I was only really going to upload one source file per lesson. I see this method of using IPython Notebook and Github as a great way of using technology to reduce to reduce friction to the point that the amount that is likely to be shared is much, much larger than when it all had to be done manually.

<comment><USER5> Live coding is so important especially for beginners, I think it demystifies the whole process and shows them that there is nothing "magic" about programming, it's simply translating an idea about how to do something from your head into code.

I find that my students learn the most from interactive sessions where I live code in front of them and they ask questions, we change the code, re-run, etc.

Also debugging live in front of class is SO valuable for them. It not only shows them how to debug but it also shows them that everyone makes mistakes, and teaches them how to spot them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> IPython Notebook is an incredible platform for interactive learning, and I used it as the basis of all examples in Mining the Social Web, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly - to go "final" tomorrow!)

My one complaint is that it's still quite a pain to get all of the necessary dependencies installed so that both IPython Notebook and all of its 3rd party package dependencies that might be used within the notebook "just works" across all supported platforms. However, that's not so much an IPython Notebook problem, per se, as it is just some of the pains in the larger Python ecosystem.

My recommendation to overcome the hurdle is to use Vagrant to take care of packaging IPython Notebook and all required dependencies so that you can provide a virtual machine featuring an IPython Notebook UI that "just works" once it boots up and you point your browser to localhost:8888.

I wrote about this at length if anyone is interested in thinking about the Vagrant+IPython Notebook combination a little bit more - [http://miningthesocialweb.com/2013/08/24/reflections-on- auth...](http://miningthesocialweb.com/2013/08/24/reflections-on-authoring-a- minimum-viable-book/) \- and there's also a screencast illustrating how easy it can be to get it all running in the way I am describing.

In my opinion, there's no better way to reach the masses than with this combination of technologies. I hope to see more and more tech book writers jumping on board and treating the code as an OSS project with the book being the "premium support" for that OSS project. It's a win-win for everyone that way.

<comment><USER7> Installation sucks, we know. At present, we mostly point people towards Anaconda, or one of the other complete Python distros. That's not ideal if you already have a Python environment partly set up, because it gives you a whole new Python. But at the moment, it's the best of a bunch of bad options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the reasons I am hesitant (so far) to use IPython Notebook for teaching is that I worry about the longevity of the format. Maybe I'm a worrywart but my current preference is to use old (boring?) formats like html (via org- mode).

<comment><AUTHOR> From my understanding, all IPython Notebook viewer does is convert a notebook to html, and serve the html.

So I am comfortable investing in this format, with the notion that I can dump to html and be no worse off than I was making blog posts or writing up tutorials.

On the other hand, IPython is 5+ years old(?), and it has some pretty strong backing and momentum. I have a good deal of confidence that it will be around for a while.

Edit: If you miss the comment below, IPython is almost 12 years old!

<comment><USER8> You might also be pleased to know that the primary focus of the last release is a powerful format converter, nbconvert.

It can do some simple transformation: [http://ipython.org/ipython- doc/rel-1.1.0/interactive/nbconve...](http://ipython.org/ipython- doc/rel-1.1.0/interactive/nbconvert.html)

Or you can build a custom transformer: [http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/raw.github.com/Carreau/post...](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/raw.github.com/Carreau/posts/master/06-NBconvert- Doc-Draft.ipynb)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I had programming instructors like this in college, let alone high school, I would have been a CS major full out.

</comment><comment><USER10> Coincidentally, I'm currently working on a project to make IPython an (even) better tool for instruction and writing interactive 'textbooks', like what OP has done.

If anybody on here is an instructor who has a similar workflow, or is interested in trying something like this out, please drop me a line. We're in the middle of researching the most important areas for improvement, and we'd love to hear your feedback!

( __EDIT __: Email my username at Google 's email service.)

<comment><USER11> Please ping us on the ipython-dev mailing list; the core team is all made up of academics and we have a strong interest in educational uses (we're using it for our own courses), so it will be good to coordinate/share ideas on this front.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you are planning to use python 3 for teaching, you should keep away from IPython/this article. I just tried it with python 3.3. The readme says :

"Officially, IPython requires Python version 2.7, or 3.3 and above."

When you try to run IPython using python 3.3.0: File ".\IPython\config\application.py", line 288 print os.linesep.join(lines) ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone wants, I'm happy to post a more explicit recipe for how to get multiple versions of Python and IPython running. It's easy enough to post right here.

<comment><USER13> I would like to know. For Windows and Ubuntu. I was never able to properly ipython notebook under 3.3 either.

<comment><AUTHOR> This worked for me on Ubuntu 12.04:

First, add a ppa that has old and new versions of Python, and use that to install Python3.3:

        sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
        sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fkrull/deadsnakes
        sudo apt-get update
        sudo apt-get install python3.3

Now, install the correct versions of ipython, ipython-notebook, ipython3, and ipython3-notebook:

        sudo apt-get install ipython=0.13.2-1~ubuntu12.04.1
        sudo apt-get install ipython-notebook=0.13.2-1~ubuntu12.04.1
        sudo apt-get install ipython3=0.13.2-1~ubuntu12.04.1
        sudo apt-get install ipython3-notebook

Now, the command 'ipython notebook' should run your system's default version of Python. The command 'ipython3 notebook' should run Python3.3.

I test the current version of Python with:

        print(3/2)

If you're running Python 2, you'll see 1. If you're running Python 3, you'll see 1.5.

Hope that helps, and happy to help troubleshoot if it doesn't. I'll add this to the readme on the project page [1] when I get the chance.

[1] [https://github.com/ehmatthes/intro_programming](https://github.com/ehmatthes/intro_programming)

<comment><USER13> thanks. this worked for me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AVA 0.15 – Futuristic test runner - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/avajs/ava/releases/tag/v0.15.0 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I am part of the AVA team. For 0.15, we've added awesome features such as better test filename conventions (we run `__tests__` directories automatically), being able to submit tests that should fail, test macros, and experimental support for limited concurrency.

Hope you like it! Let us know in the issues or Gitter[1] if you have any problems.

[1] [https://gitter.im/avajs/ava](https://gitter.im/avajs/ava)</comment>


Man who got life for marijuana charge goes free in Missouri - <AUTHOR> http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150901/us--marijuana_life_sentence-bd7e585e25.html <comment><USER2> Drugs laws are too extreme and should be rolled back, but I do not like the way the OP uses the term "nonviolent drug crimes".

"Police said Mizanskey conspired to sell 6 pounds of marijuana to a dealer connected with Mexican drug cartels."

Taking that as true because we don't have anything else to go on, the Mexican drug trade is far from nonviolent. It is very easy to say that someone's actions were themselves nonviolent, but when they are aiding something that is very violent then it isn't so simple. I'd have much more sympathy if this guy had grown the pot in his closet and sold it to friends.</comment>


Nokia prepares offer to buy Juniper - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/nokia-prepares-offer-to-buy-juniper.html <comment><USER2> Original title: _Nokia prepares offer to buy Juniper; shares skyrocket nearly 20%_

Techmeme summary: _CNBC: Sources: Nokia is in talks to buy Juniper Networks; one source says the deal would value Juniper at ~$16B_

</comment><comment><USER3> That's not a bad investment at all. Not sure if still true but last I heard,some 85% of internet traffic at some point is processed by a juniper device.</comment>


German Professor Apologises for 'Rape Problem' Email to Indian Student - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/03/09/leipzig-university-apolog_n_6829270.html <comment><USER3> What I find unusual is that the professor told the student the exact reason she was rejecting him. I would have imagined that many people hold such biases in their minds but generally brush applicants off with "you don't meet our needs" or "we're currently full now". After her apology, she did change her statement to "currently full", but I'm surprised she didn't use that in the first place.

<comment><USER4> I guess the email was supposed to be a way of "raising awareness" about the issue.

<comment><USER5> Denying access to education to Indian males because they are rapists is a way to "raise awareness"? Maybe in the same sense that requiring jews to wear yellow stars in 1939 Germany because they were a dangerous subhuman race was a way to raise awareness?

I never really understood the banality of evil, but listening to people coming up with benign excuses for what I perceive as blatant abuse I'm beginning to get it.

<comment><USER6> Indian males aren't a dangerous subhuman race and everyone knows that.

It isn't abuse if he didn't make the cut.

<comment><USER5> Read the professor's emails in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And that's what you get when you place diversity above merit: incompetent people getting jobs they don't deserve - and are not prepared for - <USER2> because they are female.

For the record, India has approx. 2 rapes reported per 100000 people, while the US has 28.6 and Germany 9.

<comment><USER7> You can't believe the reporting rate is the same.

<comment><USER3> Its not the same, but how much more do you think it is? 5x? 10x? Even if it is 20x, its still comparable to Germany and the US (40 vs 30). Certainly not to an extent that you can indict 600 million people as rapists, as this professor did.</comment></comment></comment>


How to validate the best market before launching a product? - <AUTHOR> How to study or even be prepared to launch a product (software specifically) to another's market?<p>Just like, I'm from Angola but I want to create SaaS products, softwares to sell to another's countries but I know there is a risk to fail without knowing the market needs. How I can validate before a product launch? <comment><USER2> From my personal experience, I would advise against wasting time building something you haven't validated with companies/people that are in the targeted market. Always validate, create MVP and then actually invest a lot more into building it - because if you aren't adding value your chances for success are slim to none.

I know it's hard in practice, but this will save you a lot of time, resources and energy for other important things.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I would advise against wasting time building something you haven't validated > with companies/people that are in the targeted market.

* You are right. This is why I'm looking for options/opinions about the best option to analyze a market (where I'm not in physically).

> create MVP and then actually invest a lot more into building it

* Thanks for your tips. I'm always developing an MVP so I can make a test with real users and understand how to improve or even if I'm the right market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Look up business model canvas. Identify all the core components. See which parts are riskiest. Very often the risk lies in marketing channels, value proposition, and partners.

Validation is testing those risks. If your risk is in finding partners, find those partners first and talk to them, validate that this is something they want. You don't need a product for this; sometimes slides are good enough.

If you're testing marketing channels, you can create a dummy page, market that through your channels, then shut it down. Don't do a landing page. Nobody trusts landing pages.

If you want to test value proposition, build your product against that, no more. If the demand is strong enough, nobody cares how hacky it looks, which is often why enterprise software is so ugly.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really appreciate your tips. Thank you so much.

I will practice that. Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Instead of minimum viable product think minimum viable audience. Whose your first customer? Sell them. Reach out or start a relationship with just one person and go from there.

Scale down, not up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your tips. I will search more about Minimun Viable product

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You have a few options:

A paid pre-order system

A pre-signup landing page

A much smaller MVP version launched for free on product hunt

Personally, I now pre pre validate before any of the above methods by only working on SaaS I need and would pay for myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your contributions dear.

Just help me to understand. What you mean for example when you say:

> Personally, I now pre pre validate before any of the above methods by only > working on SaaS I need and would pay for myself</comment></comment>


Five years with Rust - <AUTHOR> http://words.steveklabnik.com/five-years-with-rust <comment><USER2> I don't know Rust very well, but hope to learn it better soon. steveklabnik is the only person from the Rust team I recognize by name. He's always leaving detailed and positive replies in Rust related forums across the Internet. Thanks for all your hard work Steve.

<comment><USER3> I'm also always positively surprised by the people in the #rust-beginners IRC channel. No matter how dumb my question is, someone will _always_ helpfully point me to the relevant documentation. They're so helpful that sometimes I worry that I'm inconveniencing them with my incessant questions.

<comment><USER4> It's no inconvenience! That's why we're there :)

<comment><USER5> Wow! I will join the IRC channel right away. I always wanted to learn and explore Rust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Rust project would be very different without Steve's efforts. One of the greatest things about the project is the coherence, clarity, rigor, and ease- of-use of the documentation system. The Rust Book has also been a massive aid in attracting new users. I only hope that Steve continues to lend his talent to the project in the future.

<comment> aaron-lebo Every great language needs a Steve.

If you don't read anything else programming related next year, read the Rust book. Even if you don't need Rust, there's a lot you can learn from it.

[https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/](https://doc.rust- lang.org/book/second-edition/)

<comment><USER7> While it is great that Rust has Steve, sadly this is at the cost of Ruby Rails. I wonder if he will ever comes back to the Ruby communities.

<comment><USER4> I still really love Ruby! I come to conferences sometimes. There's just not enough hours in the day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Five years in, I think my journey has been successful so far. I'm proud of > how far Rust has come. That said, there's a lot more work to do. I'm still > committed as ever to getting that work done, (...)

It's good to hear that people behind Rust intent to continue working on Rust. One thing I'm missing, however, is what exactly is considered important to be solved. There are many things how Rust could be made more viable or attractive for a variety of scenarios.

For example, I don't consider it important to be able to compile Rust to JavaScript, because I don't think JavaScript is a good thing.

On the other hand, downstream packaging of Rust and libraries is important. There are scenarios where rustup and cargo are not acceptable. Is this on the radar?

Another issue is target/host support and independent implementations. Rusts only Tier 1 platforms are of the backdoored x86-family. Is this not considered an issue to be solved to make the world a better place?

I don't intent to blame, shame or finger-point anybody, but just point out critical remarks that come to mind.

<comment><USER9> > For example, I don't consider it important to be able to compile Rust to > JavaScript, because I don't think JavaScript is a good thing.

Seems to be confusion here between "I'm not interested in using that technology" and "Nobody should use that technology".

If you're saying the first, fine. I often feel that way too, it's not that important a statement since you can just not use it and move on.

Someone has to do Javascript though: targeting the web browser client is important and here to stay although it is evolving, and wasm is part of that evolution.

If you're saying the second then that's not in line with existing reality. The ship has sailed on whether we're going to have apps running in the browser or not.

<comment><USER3> > Someone has to do Javascript though: targeting the web browser client is > important and here to stay although it is evolving, and wasm is part of that > evolution.

WebAssembly has nothing to do with Javascript, though. I don't think that's what the GP means.

<comment><USER9> > WebAssembly has nothing to do with Javascript

They are different VMs in the browser alongside each other, I was wrong about that (1)

However, this comment says more about the ways that they are and aren't equivalent (2)

Both are for "targeting the web browser client" so they have that in common, and a lot of the logic about their place in the world is therefore the same for both of them.

1) [https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/219](https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/219)

2) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15982036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15982036)

<comment><USER4> > They are different VMs in the browser alongside each other

My understanding is that this is not true; wasm is more of a particular mode or API of interacting with the existing JS VM rather than having its own. You want to re-use the JIT, etc, for wasm. Note that that issue is from 2015.

That said I don't work on these implementations so maybe I'm wrong as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm studying Rust as we speak, took 3 weeks off for it. The documentation is absolutely top notch, thank you Steve & team!

It won't be easy to find a project in Rust or to get a customer to start a project in it, but I sure would like to.

<comment><USER11> There are no Rust jobs apparently?: [https://rustjobs.rs/](https://rustjobs.rs/)

<comment><USER4> That requires someone to actually post a job; I'm not sure how well people know of that site. I forgot it existed until you mentioned it.

Most of what we're seeing in the "Rust jobs" space is companies hiring people to do Rust work, but also other work, and so they're not pure "Rust jobs". For example, take Dropbox, one of our oldest production users. They have a job opening for a Senior Software Engineer right now: [https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/listing/735139](https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/listing/735139)

Nowhere in this listing do they mention any specific technology. Will you get to use Rust in this job? Maybe! Maybe not. They tend to hire good programmers, and expect them to be flexible, in my understanding.

Another genre is stuff like Amazon, who used to have a job posting up here, that now 404s: [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/559813/sr-software- developme...](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/559813/sr-software-development- engineer)

This posting said that knowing Rust was a plus for the job. Does that mean you get to write Rust? I can't say, as I don't know the details of what that job entails, but it might be a good way to differentiate yourself from the crowd.

Anyway, I think jobs using Rust are extremely important, and want to see more of them. It takes time though :)

<comment><USER10> Btw Steve, do you see a role for Rust in web development?

<comment><USER4> I was going to answer your first question, but you edited it out. The short answer is "yes but it's very fiddly".

I do, but with some caveats. Rust is pretty great at spitting out JSON, so I think it fits in best as either the backend for an SPA, "middle end" style services, and/or background jobs that need to do intense processing.

One area that's under-appreciated about Rust in the web space is its low memory footprint: crates.io is written in Rust, and uses about 30MB of RAM, resident, all the time. Lower memory usage means saving $$$ on servers. At least one production user has reported being very happy with this.

Second, npm has stated that they enjoy Rust for their middle end stuff because it's "operationally boring". The Rust service (and soon to be services) is never what triggers pager duty. It just does its job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey all,

I don't wanna spam comments with just "<3", so please consider this a collective reply.

I can see how some may have read some of this as me leaving, but I can assure you, I'm not. I'm more committed than ever.

</comment><comment><USER12> No offense, but I'm not sure I understand the point of this post or why it's relevant / upvoted.

<comment><USER4> My personal stuff tends to end up here, as I've been a part of Hacker News for quite a while now. My account is almost nine years old!

That said, I understand this sentiment, and it's why I didn't submit it myself. I think it's fine, as people do seem to be interested, but can also understand the opposite view.

<comment><USER13> I can't help but laugh at the commenter below who made a new account just to troll you. Part and parcel of being a prominent part of a community, I guess.

<comment><USER4> They come in waves. dang and crew are generally pretty responsive in taking care of it. 4chan/8chan on the other hand... It's just a part of my life at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Although I can't speak for the rest of the software industry, Steve's hard work and talent have certainly made a huge impact on the Rust language and community. If you read this, thanks for everything you do to make Rust great!

</comment><comment><USER15> I didn't really understand ownership until I started working in c++, now I think I understand it a lot better.

</comment><comment><USER16> Your contributions have helped me gain and appreciate much of the rust eco system. You have helped build a strong community with an even stronger open- source mentality.

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER17> Can't wait to see Rust for embedded development become more mature over then next few years!

</comment><comment><USER18> Wait, are you leaving Mozilla or your day-to-day responsibilities with Rust? I'm confused about the message here.

Either way, your help in providing documentation and mentorship to me personally on IRC and thousands of other aspiring rust devs is something I'm profoundly grateful for. Thank you, Steve!!

<comment><USER19> Nothing in the article seems to indicate him leaving Mozilla or rust. It ends with "here's to 5 more years".</comment></comment>


IISc Bangalore scientists are doing seed bombing with drones to plant a forest - <AUTHOR> https://factordaily.com/iisc-bangalore-drones-seeds-forests-karnataka/ <comment><USER2> Just a small anecdote: in southern Brazil there are a bunch of protected tree species and there used to be people collectives which dropped mud seed bombs around city gardens (I don't know if they were the same kind of manure/soil India is using, but I am pretty sure they were actually semi dry mud balls to resist winters). The trick here is that protected trees cannot be cut down, never, no matter where they grow. The fee you pay if you chop one down is abdurdly high. Wherever the bombs germinate you will have permanent reforestation. I wish/hope there is something similar in India :-)

<comment><USER3> _I wish /hope there is something similar in India :-)_

Be careful what you wish for. If you can do something sneaky with biological tech for justice, others can do bad things with it too. When I saw the headline with "drone" in it, I immediately imagined an evil plot where some organization genetically engineers a plant to produce pollen with a tailored allergenic effect on one particular ethnic group, then seeds a particular area with it. What's more, they slowly ramp up the level of allergenic effect over the space of a decade, so that the effect looks natural. This will probably be within the reach of billionaires and smaller governments in a decade.

<comment><USER4> Wow... I am amazed that this is where you "immediately" thought to go...

What I thought about was drone-bombing marijuana on all private residences and public buildings of government.

Imagine seeding the whitehouse lawn with pot!

<comment><USER5> Back in my carefree days of youth, I would save the seeds from all the pot I smoked, sprout them in wet paper towels, and plant the sprouts in poorly- maintained landscaping around government buildings. It grows quickly, so it was always amusing to see a couple of obvious marijuana plants springing up by the shrubs and juniper bushes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just a little anecdote for the US. Obviously for other countries, like India, this is more of an issue. But it looks like we've made it sustainable here for a long time.

[https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness- resources/stori...](https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness- resources/stories/more-trees-than-there-were-100-years-ago-its-true)

In the United States, which contains 8 percent of the world's forests, there are more trees than there were 100 years ago. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. By 1997, forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920." The greatest gains have been seen on the East Coast (with average volumes of wood per acre almost doubling since the '50s) which was the area most heavily logged by European settlers beginning in the 1600s, soon after their arrival.

<comment><USER7> It's awesome that there are so many trees, but don't discount the part about old growth forests. Many replanted 'forests' (at least in Australia) are monocultures of fast growing softwoods, and not remotely comparable with old growth forest.

<comment><USER8> It isn't necessarily awesome that the US has so many trees. Forests can get overcrowded which is bad for the forest overall even though there are a lot of trees. It isn't just quantity that is important it is the whole ecosystem, those trees that are overcrowded shade out helpful plants on the lower forest floor.

Forests in the US generally depend on regular forest fires for health. The US has mostly been putting out those fires and the result is we have a lot more trees than is ideal.

<comment><USER9> Here in Florida, those forest fires are required for some of the tree species in the endangered Florida scrub[1] and sandhill[2] ecosystems to germinate, in addition to clearing out space for smaller plants to thrive. Florida has a pretty regular controlled burn system though, developed over the years of trying to protect these habitats.

I've never lived on the west coast, but I wonder sometimes if the out-of- control wildfires that happen out there so often would be better if there were more controlled burns happening? Or is it just too dry out there for even that?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_scrub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_scrub) [http://myfwc.com/conservation/special- initiatives/fwli/archi...](http://myfwc.com/conservation/special- initiatives/fwli/archive/taking-action/scrub/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_longleaf_pine_sandhill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_longleaf_pine_sandhill) [http://myfwc.com/conservation/special- initiatives/fwli/archi...](http://myfwc.com/conservation/special- initiatives/fwli/archive/taking-action/sandhill/)

<comment><USER10> The situation in California is quite complex. John McFee's excellent "Control of Nature" has a long essay on the interactions between forest fires, geology, and landslides. I'll probably do a shitty job of paraphrasing, but I'll try.

As the population of California has increased, people have increasingly settled farther and farther up the neighboring mountains. The mountain ranges in the area like the San Gabriels are very young geologically. They haven't had the chance to erode down much and are composed of brittle rock just waiting for a chance to break off.

So you have a growing population in an area prone to devastating landslides and debris flow[1].

Meanwhile, the mountains are covered in chapparal. These small scrubby bushes have evolved to endure (and in fact in some species _require_ ) periodic wildfires every decade or so. When the chapparal burns, it leaves a coating of ashy dust on the ground. That prevents rain water from soaking into the earth. So when a summer storm comes around later, the water starts sheeting down the mountain, taking dirt, rocks, and boulders with it.

This is a devastating event. It's very hard to build defenses against it, and hard to predict precisely when it's going to occur. You're talking going from "everything is fine" to "thousands of tons of rock crashing through homes" in a matter of minutes.

Ironically, debris flow would be easier to predict with controlled burns, but it's pretty hard sell to say, "Yeah, you're house is going to get flattened next month and we're going to make it happen." So, because of the much greater threat to life (people die in big debris flows all the time) and property, California ends up very hesitant to do controlled burns of the chapparal.

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

<comment><USER4> Wouldnt, also, in certain cases, the ash mix with the soil and make a more hardened clay-like mix which would harden and prevent a certain amount of erosion?

<comment><USER8> Not in California where the mountains are growing at a fast rate (for a geological process fast). The roots hold the mountain up while the trees grow, but when the trees burn those roots no longer have life and the next rainstorm lets the mountain side fall as the mountain has grown.

Read the book, it is described much better than I can summarize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky According to the wiki at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_ball), _the earliest records of aerial reforestation date back from 1930. In this period, planes were used to distribute seeds over certain inaccessible mountains in Honolulu after forest fires._

This article quotes the lead professor as saying _doing it with big aircraft is expensive_ and poses logistic problems. _So the only way to do it is through drones._ I respect people trying to achieve maximum output with minimal resources.

> Dropping seeds instead of bombs seems like a plan that John Lennon would > approve of.

That sounds like a bold statement, but I'm certainly willing to approve of it :)

Good job.

</comment><comment><USER11> New England made a dramatic recovery in forest. I saw pics of old New England (Vermont) and it was basically barren. That shocked me as if you visit now, it's basically covered with trees.

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/31/new-england- see...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/31/new-england-sees-return- forests-and-wildlife/lJRxacvGcHeQDmtZt09WvN/story.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://www.droneseed.co/](https://www.droneseed.co/) based out of Seattle is building drones and seed cartridges specifically for reforestation.

<comment><USER13> Seems like a cool idea! The article mentioned the drones were flying in hard- to-reach areas. These trees will be safe against harvesters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We do the same in Holland ( illegal) with weed seeds.

<comment><USER15> I thought it is legal to trade weed in Holland? How is it useful to plant weed at this scale if authorities going to root it out?

<comment><USER16> It breaks down like this: it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it, and if you're the proprietor of a hash bar, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, but that doesn't really matter 'cause get a load of this, all right? If you get stopped by the cops in Amsterdam, it's illegal for them to search you. I mean, that's a right the cops in Amsterdam don't have.

<comment><USER17> For those out of the loop, this is a line from the famous "royale with cheese" scene in Pulp Fiction: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYSt8K8VP6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYSt8K8VP6k)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> During long train journeys in our childhood, we had people telling us to drop seeds along railway tracks after eating fruits and other stuff.

Guess we have gone hi-tech now.

Seems like a good way to automatically forest large swathes of un-populated land.

</comment><comment><USER19> _It's a dry area, so our interest is to bring back the rains._

[http://permaculture-and-sanity.com/pcarticles/trees-and- the-...](http://permaculture-and-sanity.com/pcarticles/trees-and-the-water- cycle.php)

It isn't inevitable that more people equals more destruction. We can act as stewards responsible for the environment.

</comment><comment><USER20> Just a small anecdote: Coming from generations of farmer family and gardener myself, this experiment feels like a "Cloudy with a chance of seeds" for rodents and squirrels.

<comment><USER21> The picture of the seed bags in the article is captioned > The drone-dropped seeds wrapped in balls of manure and soil which I imagine would mitigate against rodents etc.?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm kind of surprised, actually. I mean, if there's one country with access to cheap labour, it's India.

<comment><USER23> Hiring a small army of people to march out into the woods to plant seeds seems potentially counterproductive.

<comment><USER24> Why? People all over the world plant trees, it's not a demeaning or unproductive activity.

<comment><USER23> I was thinking the foot traffic would be a problem but your brother post had a pretty good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The goat herders are going to have a field day if they sprout.

<comment><USER26> Yep, unmanaged goat herds are a big part of the desertification problem. They can range on heavily degraded land (which is otherwise an economic signal to allow it to lie fallow). They'll eat even the remaining hardy plants down to nothing, finalizing the land's transition from forest to desert.

Pretty tragic how traditional (and sustainable) herd management practices were abolished via privatization in the name of "progress." The mechanisms they used to prevent the Tragedy of the Commons were dismantled, with predictable results.

[http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2871076/overg...](http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2871076/overgrazing_and_desertification_in_the_syrian_steppe_are_the_root_causes_of_war.html)

<comment><USER25> In South Africa, untethered goats are illegal, but it doesn't really help. You can see how in rural communities on the Wild Coast, the few existing forest thickets are hollowed out. There are no saplings, as soon as one emerges it is eaten. So when the current trees die the forest is gone. The effect is that you can walk through a beautiful coastal thicket knowing it's only there on borrowed time.

<comment><USER26> >In South Africa, untethered goats are illegal, but it doesn't really help.

There's no contradiction. Proper grazing management (of all animals) is necessary, but not sufficient. There are plenty of other ways to destroy the land.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is probably the thread where you mention the beaver re-introduction program in Idaho:

[http://time.com/4084997/-/](http://time.com/4084997/-/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Very surprising, I just got my drone delivered from hobbyking today and was planning to develop the exact same idea but on more dryland where the drone can water the plants until they mature.

<comment><USER26> > the drone can water the plants

If you're in drylands you might look at land imprinting. Making shallow depressions pools all water and organic matter right next to the seeds, and allows infiltration in parched soils that otherwise run off all of the occasional rains.

[https://permaculturenews.org/2012/09/19/imprinting-soils- cre...](https://permaculturenews.org/2012/09/19/imprinting-soils-creating- instant-edge-for-large-scale-revegetation-of-barren-lands/)

[http://imprinting.org/](http://imprinting.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > "It's a dry area, so our interest is to bring back the rains.

That seems... _very_ optimistic.

<comment><USER8> Maybe, maybe not. Trees release moisture into the air (their roots gather this moisture from deep in the ground) which condenses into rain. So long as you get enough water from outside trees will increase the recycling of that water in the local area resulting in more rainfall than no trees.

This only works in specific situations though. I don't know if applies to the climate in India.

<comment><USER30> This interaction supposedly exists around Kilamanjaro. Seems reasonable to expect the same from the Himilayas.

But Bangalore? Sounds iffy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> where do birds fail to drop seeds?

Does it need to be a denser patch of spreoutlings?

<comment><USER31> ~sproutlings

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What's with the fake Apple-style message talking about allowing notifications? Seems sketchy.

<comment><USER33> It is a dark pattern, you hit allow twice so that you can't hit block and they can't pester you any more. It is like the similar dark pattern for phone ratings. "How do you like this app?" you get some stars, if you vote anything less than 4 or 5 it doesn't redirect to the phones market for review.

</comment></comment><comment> type-2 But flying drones is illegal in India.

<comment><AUTHOR> Afaik, you can take permission from local and central authorities to do experiments. It's usually private use of high grade drones that's banned.

<comment><USER34> Thanks for this info. How do they define "high-grade"?

BTW, there is a "drone festival" in Lucknow on June 19, I guess akin to the kite festivals around Sankranti. I plan to attend.

[http://www.hindustantimes.com/education/lucknow-to-host- firs...](http://www.hindustantimes.com/education/lucknow-to-host-first- national-drone-competition-this-month/story-qB5gi514jGXWTn23bhHUvK.html)

<comment><USER35> This article has some info:

[https://factordaily.com/buying-a-drone-in- india/](https://factordaily.com/buying-a-drone-in-india/)

<comment><USER36> I think the worst part of the empire for india was transplanting our civil service :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> @dang why was the post title edited?

It said 'IISc Bangalore Scientists experimenting with drone seed-bombing to plant a forest'. I see no problem with it, other than IISc not being as well known as say MIT. But it is still a very good institution and I think they deserve to be known. The name of the institution should be celebrated for their research, not just put behind a large banner of 'Indian Scientists' which gives no recognition to the institution.

Just like MIT/Stanford scientists aren't called American scientists every time some article about research comes out from that University. If someone doesn't know what IISc is, we know they can just google it.

<comment><USER38> World ranking is about 200

<comment><USER37> Overall ranking is 190 (I assume you're looking at this[1]). Ranking by subject, it is at 51 in many subjects. That's because Indian Institutions tend to neglect fields other than mainstream Tech/Science because that's all they can get funding for.

Still, if their ranking is at 190, why shouldn't they be called by their name?

[1]: [https://www.topuniversities.com/universities/indian- institut...](https://www.topuniversities.com/universities/indian-institute- science-iisc-bangalore)

<comment><USER38> I hate to be mean but there is a reason why the school isn't named, and it was a rational decision by the editor.

Internationally, nobody has heard of them outside of India because unlike Stanford and MIT they have yet produce any technologies of value. While American universities live on patents, Indian schools are know for suppling large US software companies with cheap labour - often below market value. Importantly you'd be hard pressed to find somebody that can tell them apart.

Indian "scientists" has a better connotations than the specific school, whose reputations are unknown or second rate - this immediately questions the rigour and relevance of their work.

<comment><USER37> I acknowledged that the school isn't well known. There is also something called Google where you can search for things you don't know about.

Sorry about talking down but you have seemed to miss the entire point of my argument. Even though the school isn't well known, I said they can search for the name if they don't know about it.

>Indian schools are know for suppling large US software companies with cheap labour - often below market value

I don't know how this suddenly came into the argument. If this was some remote university in Russia, my point would still stand. You seem to have a very prejudiced view of Indian universities. Please educate yourself. You aren't being mean, just ignorant. Indian schools are also known for producing world- class engineers.

Not just software. Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Pepsico, Mastercard. Do you know what they have in common? A CEO educated in an Indian University.

>Indian "scientists" has a better connotations than the specific school, whose reputations are unknown or second rate

We shouldn't do that has better connotations but what's right. And acknowledging the achievements of a university is what is right.

>this immediately questions the rigour and relevance of their work.

That's your problem. Any scientific work must stand independent of whoever publishes it. Yes, screening process gets easier, but the questioning the accuracy must be accompanied by proper arguments, not bias.

Do you really think a country with three times the population of the US doesn't have any scientific achievements? Just recently there was a huge rocket launched with a fraction of the budget of the science department of a US university.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is there anything drones can't do? All mine seems to do is get stuck in trees.</comment>


Apply HN: SimplyGuest – Furnished and Managed Houses for Singles in India - <AUTHOR> SimplyGuest offers fully-furnished shared accommodation for working professionals. These accommodation are completely managed. SimplyGuest will pay all the house-bills and provide maid services. In short, SimplyGuest will manage the house for its tenants. Tenant sourcing, verification, house-repairs, maid services are taken care by us. We provide a high-speed WiFi connection, a DTH subscription and a cooking gas connection (with unlimited gas supply).
This has been a hairy problem from both sides of the business, house owners and tenants. But we are on the right track to solve the problem. We have found early success in key problem areas.
We are a bootstrapped, profitable startup. We are in business for 11 months now.
__This is an India-centric submission.__ <comment><USER2> Interesting, definitely taps into a very large market.

Some Questions: 0\. Website/app ? url ? 1\. How many rooms/houses have you managed so far? 2\. How many tenants? How many owners? 3\. Whats your take (assuming you're renting on behalf of house owners) 4\. How big is your team? track record of building products/businesses (not that it matters but good to highlight if you have done relevant stuff in the past) 5\. What have you learned about the marketplace in the last 11 months?

meta-comment: I think Apply HN is a great idea. I (and I'm sure many others) might consider partnering/investing with promising ventures even if they actually don't get into HN)

<comment><AUTHOR> 0\. [http://simplyguest.com](http://simplyguest.com)

1\. we have 22 houses, 58 rooms, 80 beds

2\. we have 76 tenants and 14 owners

3\. Owners don't like revenue sharing. They prefer fixed rent; they don't mind lower rent if we can give them a hassle-free experience and promise long-term rental income.

4\. Team is just me, and my co-founder. I am a software eng (past apigee, pramati). I take care of tech, sales/marketing, cust dev. My co-founder is a civil contractor and takes care of operations. We have one part-time person helping us with digital marketing.

5\. Operations in general is a challenge. Every house has 10s of keys, sometimes much more; managing them is a problem. There are 20 other such smaller issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really neat. It sounds like you're learning quickly. 22 houses in 11 months sounds like enough to learn from. Are all 22 houses rented out currently?

I've never been to India and don't understand the market too well. What would motivate someone to use your service instead of something like Airbnb? Is Airbnb the most popular service in India? Is this about short-term rentals (by the week or day) or longer term rentals (by the month)?

<comment><AUTHOR> 76 out of 80 beds are rented out currently. I might close 2 more tomorrow.

We only provide for mid to long-term stays. We ask for a minimum stay of 6 months and bill them monthly. Airbnb becomes too expensive for anything longer than a few days. We have learned short-term stays need a different setup and doesn't suit the way we are currently setup. People who stay for longer periods care for the house and it aligns well with the owner's interests.

I haven't seen too many people using Airbnb; OYO Rooms seems to be the dominant player in this segment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you own or rent the houses? Also which cities are you currently present?

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't own any of the houses. All of them are rented just the normal way. We are present only in a few localities within Bangalore.</comment></comment>


Free Vector Words. Twice a Week - <AUTHOR> https://wrds.one/ <comment><AUTHOR> Handmade and in a broad variety of styles :)</comment>


A Technology Preview of Nginx Support for QUIC and HTTP/3 – Nginx - <AUTHOR> https://www.nginx.com/blog/introducing-technology-preview-nginx-support-for-quic-http-3/ <comment><USER2> FYI for those wanting to test in Chrome Canary, it only supports draft 27 and up so you need these command flags when you run Canary: "\--enable-quic --quic-version=h3-27"</comment>