Show HN: Cancel your Comcast in 5 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.airpaperinc.com/ <comment><USER3> The second-worst experience I had with cancelling a service was with Comcast. Briefly: called up, told operator I wanted to cancel, they put me through to a special sales team attempting to keep me, eventually I pushed it through.

The real magic happens during the conversation with the sales rep; he asks why I want to cancel, I explain that the cost is high relative to the quality. He offers me more cost effective package, I explained that I had that package in the past and that the slow incremental increases in cost had turned me off them as a company. He goes on to say: "well, that is your fault, I'd never set up auto pay for a service" and continues to make the case that the convenience function of auto pay is actually an agreement with Comcast to increment the cost of my service without my explicit agreement to paying more.

Wow. Just wow.

Still, that's nothing compared to the calls I had with BT after someone hijacked my landline and placed hundreds of GBP worth of calls to Nigeria... but that is another tale for another HN story.

<comment><USER4> When I called to cancel my account I told them I was moving out of the country. Total lie, but it made the cancelation process really easy.

<comment><USER5> Yup. That's how I cancelled Comcast.

Me: "I'm moving."

Clerk: "Oh, where to? We can set up your service ahead of time so it's ready when you---"

Me: "Ireland."

Clerk (disappointed): "Oh."

<comment><USER6> Same for me when I was moving to Germany.

The only question I got was: "Is there a roommate or somebody else that could take over the account?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nearly all of these contracts with Comcast or similar companies will have a postal address you can write to and cancel. Even if they provide no cancellation postal address, look up their 'Agent for service of process', this is always listed somewhere. I never call to cancel, this is a waste of time and not necessary.

I've done this repeatedly (use certified mail, or recorded delivery, the term varies by country) and it's dead easy. I have cancelled service with no early termination fees at both Sprint and Verizon, and kept my subsidized phone while continuing on month-to-month service when they raised fees - <USER2> 'materially averse' change - always read the fine print. Same thing with AT&T dial-up back in the day.

This service looks interesting but really there is no easier way than sending a proper business letter and keeping proof of delivery. Only once did a company dispute receiving my letter and I emailed a scanned copy of the proof of delivery and that was it.

It sometimes helps to remind the company that falsely reporting a bad debt onto your credit record carries huge fines and you will definitely be checking to make sure they don't 'accidentally' forget or lose your paperwork, and that you have complete documentation and are prepared to defend. Be polite but do be firm, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> You absolutely can send a letter, that's actually what we're doing behind the scenes for you! We're hoping to eventually integrate things like having a task rabbit pick up your equipment and drop it off at the local Comcast to make the experience even more seamless.

Cheers!

<comment><USER7> Haha beautiful, I was just typing this same idea in my other reply. Good luck, you are saving people lots of hassle for a low price and I hope you do well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

I was moving to Thailand ~6 months ago and I had to cancel my Comcast. Cancelling took way too long and was surprisingly frustrating. From talking with other people it seemed like the cancellation process was really frustrating for other people too, so we made this.

My partner Eli (HN username: EliPollak) and I really want your feedback more than anything. We're planning to expand into fixing other processes that are really more painful than they need to be. We're around to answer questions/chat and we're also available by email at firstname.lastname@example.com.

Thanks!

<comment><USER8> How about landlord negotiations? When your landlord tries to raise your rent to above-market rates, it's a pain to look up what the fair rate is and then draft a competent counteroffer letter.

<comment><USER9> Do those letters ever work? They are either hoping you will pay, or willing to kick you out for someone that will, no?

<comment><USER10> If you're a paying (every month, no soliciting, ahead-of-time) tenant and a landlord is raising rent at all: they run the risk of losing a known quantity for a piece of shit tenant.

Unless you're in a usurious, fucked up market (San Francisco), rental owners need to put a dollar amount on losing your tenancy.

If you're paying $2000 a month, raising the rent 5% means that, for an extra $1000 (potentially), you'll spend your time and money showing, placing ads, screening prospective tenants. Time is money. Either you're doing this yourself, as an owner, or paying someone to do it.

The other cost factor at work applies to the tenant: the "cost to move." It's hard to move in-town for less than $500, so this must be weighed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I didn't even have to call to cancel my service.

I ran my connection 24/7 for a month, pulled 33TB of data down, they dropped me as a customer. Most pain free process, and a nice fuck you to Comcast as well.

<comment><USER12> they don't have clauses for overages?

<comment><USER13> Everywhere but a few small markets have no cap at all. They suspended the 250GB soft cap years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I actually just cancelled my Comcast account yesterday. The process was pain- free and easy, just told them "I'm moving in X days and do not need service at the new address."

Granted, it was true, but if you are having trouble cancelling for low-quality service or any other issue, you may have better luck using that reasoning.

<comment><USER15> I'm really glad that that excuse made the process so painless for you, but I do have a cautionary tale about that.

Two years ago, I called them and tried cancelling my service because, like you, I was moving and my new landlord was providing Comcast to me as a part of my lease agreement. Despite my insistence that my landlord already had an account setup for me at my new house, I was kept on the phone for 30 minutes and the representative insisted that it would be beneficial for me to have my own account/service at my new house in addition to the line that's already there, and that I should just transfer my service. You can imagine how frustrated and furious that conversation made me.

I don't mean to deter people from using that excuse, because it still honestly seems like that should be the easiest way to cancel your account, but I do want people to bear in mind that it all depends on the representative you speak with.

<comment><USER16> I've canceled Comcast service several times now. I've got a pretty good routine down. Basically you just preference the call with "I'm canceling my contract with Comcast today. There is no discount, inventive, or conversation that you can give me that will convince me not to cancel. This cancelation needs to take less than 5 minutes and the phone call is being recorded".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cancelling my Comcast service for cable television and internet involved these steps.

1) Gathering up all of my Comcast owned equipment (cable boxes and remotes, but importantly, NOT my cable modem, which I owned outright) and going to the local Comcast office. There I waited in a long line in a crowded, un- airconditioned office (in the heat and humidity of a hot August day in Maryland) for almost 2 hours. Then handing over the equipment and marking my account as cancelled took 25 minutes.

2) Calling the Comcast support line after they tried to bill me at the end of the following month for not actually supplying service to a home I no longer lived in. I was placed on hold for almost an hour before finally speaking to a representative, who told me that she didn't understand what the problem was because Comcast had no record of actually sending me a bill for the month after I moved.

3) Receiving a call a week later demanding I return my "Comcast owned equipment" before I could receive a refund on my deposit. I countered that I owned the modem outright and had merely given Comcast the MAC address of the modem so that they could authorize it on their network. The representative demanded that I prove that I actually owned the modem. The receipt I emailed from when I purchased the modem was not enough for them, they demanded "more proof" but could not actually offer an example of what proof I could offer. I hung up on that representative and immediately filed a Better Business Bureau complaint (I know, the BBB is a bit of a racket, but sometimes it gets some results).

4) The following day I received a call from a senior customer service manager apologizing for the "mix-up" with marking my modem as being a Comcast-owned piece of equipment. I received a refund of my deposit a few days later.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's incredibly frustrating.

One piece of advice is to make FTC/FCC complaints instead of BBB complaints. Those agencies are actually pretty effective at suing companies into better business practices.

<comment><USER17> I have since learned the comparative uselessness of BBB complaints and the effectiveness of FTC complaints. This is the one instance where a BBB complaint worked for me. I've not had cause to make an FCC complaint since this happened, but I agree, the FTC has been very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The way I see it, they are rude to you by making you go through hoops, so I am rude to them. I repeatedly say "Please cancel" to every new rep I am transferred to and/or every time they ask me a question or go into a spiel.

The only time I will not say "please cancel" is when they ask me any information that needs to be verified in order to cancel. This has worked with Comcast as well as a handful of other service providers that I wished to cancel. I have never been on the phone more than 6 minutes. Try it out.

<comment><USER19> This is usually my strategy, but it failed hard with TWC. No matter what I did, they would redirect me to the automated "relocation" service and ask for my new zip code. They did this even when I told them I wasn't moving, they do it just to get rid of you. I even tried saying "I just no longer want internet, I feel like it is bad for my health." and sure enough " _click_ Please enter the zip code...."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You know you've pissed off your customers when people start building business models around cancelling your services so they don't have to deal with you.

<comment><USER21> You know you've pissed off your customers when people build a service of cancelling your service on Cloudflare and /it/ begins to fail under load.

<comment><USER22> Lol still not loading after 15 hours. Comcast is rekt

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How does this work legally, are you acting as an agent, proxy or other authorized representative of the customer, when interacting with the vendor?

On the topic of security: is the customer's identity information, e.g. authorization passcodes required by the vendor, deleted from your database after the transaction is complete? You may also want to add some details on encryption.

<comment><USER24> Great question! In this case, you should of us as a highly trained personal assistant who is helping you cancel your Comcast. We help manage all the crappy parts of the process behind the scenes, but you're still the person actually doing the cancellation.

<comment><USER23> How do you verify identity, e.g. could an attacker use this to cancel a target's service? When you call customer service, cable companies usually have a few security questions to confirm the customer's identity. A letter usually has a customer signature. How do you close the identity loop with the person keying data into your web form?

<comment><AUTHOR> We charge their credit card. We don't think it's likely that people will use this to maliciously cancel people's Comcast, but we'll absolutely cooperate with authorities in the event of identity theft.

<comment><USER25> Malicious? Cancelling a random person's Comcast might be a random act of kindness!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is an online cancellation service in germany that will help you to cancel just about every contract: [https://www.aboalarm.de/](https://www.aboalarm.de/)

They have ready-made templates for many compaines (esp. ensurance and telco ones) where you just fill in your details, sign it via your touchpad and let them send it in a conforming way.

I /think/ the business model is focused on post-cancellation: they'll show you other options for the canceled contract.

I'm stunned that this does not exist for the US. It seems to work in Germany.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is fascinating. We didn't know this existed. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great idea and nice execution. Suggestion: add SSL / HTTPS to your website if you're collecting all this sensitive stuff about me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. I'm actually embarrassed we forgot to set this up before launching.

We should have it set up by Monday. Thanks for reminding us.

~Earl

<comment><USER28> Not to be "that guy" on HN, but if you can't do this _right now_ you need to shut your form down until you can. Collecting this info without encryption is irresponsible.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's done. Things have been a little crazy, as you might expect. I'm actually sorry that it took that long.

<comment><USER28> Awesome, thank you for taking care of that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Am I the only one who never had trouble canceling? The process was just this:

1\. Call, specify your account info, and say you're canceling.

2\. They confirm that it's canceled and tell you to return the cable box (and modem, if you're renting one) to the local office.

3\. You either put them in a big box out front, or if you're paranoid like me, you wait in line so that you get a receipt.

4\. In a couple weeks, you get a check in the mail refunding you for the rest of the current payment period.

<comment><USER30> Here's a related tip: you can skip step 1. Just show up at the local office with your equipment. They can take care of everything right there, and the office employee isn't trained to do customer retention so there's no hassle.

<comment><USER31> Yep. I periodically go in to the local office and say I'm looking to cut my costs and I'd hate to cancel but can they put me on one of their promo plans (which they say are only for new customers). They will normally do this with no fuss. The people who work there are local community citizens and it's just a job for them. They don't really care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Here's a recorded example of one person trying to cancel their service:

[https://soundcloud.com/ryan-block-10/comcastic- service](https://soundcloud.com/ryan-block-10/comcastic-service)

</comment><comment><USER33> I canceled comcast service at least twice so far. Not much trouble. But the key problem is after canceling, which other service you are gonna use...

<comment><USER34> Maybe none? It's television, not sewerage.

<comment><USER35> It's Internet and phone service too. Quite reasonable to think of that as an essential service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Cool idea! Your CSS/layout needs some love though, it's broken in FF (works better in Chrome).

<comment><AUTHOR> Shoot! I'll take a look right now! Thanks for letting us know.

<comment><USER37> it's wonky in IE11 as well. For example: [http://imgur.com/8HP761w](http://imgur.com/8HP761w)

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted. We're going to do substantial cross-browser testing.

Both Eli and I are both honestly not that great with CSS, so it may take us a second or two.

<comment><USER37> No worries - I appreciate you're probably slammed with many other things to do. I just wanted you to be aware of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think you might have accidentally cancelled your site's internet too.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're working on it. We didn't expect quite this response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Member retention at many companies is often closed before 8am, just call early and then you end up talking to a regular person in billing and they do an immediate cancel.

Alternately just pick a place the company doesn't have service and say you are moving there.

</comment><comment><USER40> I moved across the country to Comcast land. I had a decent job, so I signed up with all services (HD, phone and internet) After a few months, I realized I didn't need a phone and didn't care at all about HDTV. So I called and told them I'd be backing down my service to Internet and normal cable. I got a guy that informed me that I was under a 2 year contract and had no choice. He was absolutely terrible.... like so mean and insulting. I took it for a bit then I realized, I don't have to be yelled at by a CS rep! I told him that I felt very uncomfortable with the way he was talking to me. He got even more belligerent. It was surreal, I have never had someone speak to me like this. He told me I was stuck, and that his hands were tied. I hung up. I called back because I realized he might just have been full of "poo-poo". I got another CS rep. She was very pleasant. She said, "Mr Nobleach, it appears you're under contract." I said, "that's fair, can you send me a copy of the signed contract?" she replied, " well, your acceptance of equipment equates to a signed contact". I said, "ok, the contract I didn't sign will suffice. I do need my attorney to look over it". They agreed to knock me down to no contract and whatever service would work best. I can't say it's the right course of action. I really did have an attorney wanting to look at my "contract". I'm sure they'd stand no chance against Comcast. But it did get me out of some contract I never knew I was in.

</comment><comment><USER41> There should be a law (I know, too many laws!) that cancelation process should be the same as sign up, for example you can sign up online for many services but need to call for cancellation.

<comment><USER42> This. I was about to post the same message, including the same parenthetical disclaimer. It seems like this should be an obvious consumer protection, and yet nobody talks about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> While I'm a big fan of the idea of paying a small fee to let others deal with such hassles, this is one of the tasks I vastly enjoy. "You suck, you've always sucked, you overcharge, underdeliver, and have terrible customer service". Repeat with more emphasis the more they argue.

Mostly I don't enjoy being a jerk, but most of the time they demand it. (Occasionally, when moving, it's been painless, and I have no need to be rude, but that's been the exception)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always felt it's tragic. I'm talking to some person in a call center, whose job/pay depends on me not cancelling to some extent on getting me to not cancel, and I'm absolutely going to cancel.

But if you enjoy it, by all means continue to use the phone calls. I don't think we'll ever be able to replace the satisfaction of that phone call for you :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Toll free customer service numbers are free calls in Skype, but Verizon Wireless doesn't accept Skype calls anymore. For them I've switched to using Google Hangout. This wound up with the bonus of supporting including my parents in the conversation (adding the phone call into a normal audio group chat).

Sitting on hold isn't so bad when it's free and you can focus on reading Hacker News or whatever easily while you wait.

</comment><comment><USER45> Organizing customers against companies that try to exploit their customers is an awesome concept. I suspect it will be a battle, but I wish you success, and hope you earn enough to make the effort worthwhile.

What about expanding this?! Some companies frustrate me with their customer abuses, and you could organize customers against them.

\- Cell phone companies send bills that are confusing gibberish so we won't read them. So, provide a service that scans my bill and sends me a readable summary with red-lines on anything surprising or changed.

\- Banks and credit card companies send 'privacy statements' that are rambling non-sense. Provide me a service that scans my statements and gives me a nice summary of anything surprising.

\- Companies send endless offers for loans or useless services (paper 'spam') mixed in with bills. Filter this out for me.

\- Alert me to hidden fees.

\- Read the legalese and summarize it.

Basically provide me a service that I will try to accept my bills and statements from monopolistic companies and give me a short, readable, reasonable summary. When something is unreasonable, help me protest or fight it, or find an alternative.

Something like a consumers union, I suppose. I'd gladly pay well for this.

</comment><comment><USER46> I had to open a Comcast account after a roommate moved out. His checkout/my opening was very straightforward until the modem that worked for his account didn't work for mine. The "new system" that our account was directed through didn't accept the exact model for our modem, forcing us to get another one. And there is no way I would use their modem/router setup.

</comment><comment><USER47> Maybe I just had a good person, but when I cancelled my Comcast, I just called up, they asked why, I said, "That's not important, just cancel it." and they just did it.

That said, I think this might have been a few weeks after some high-profile example of someone recording them dicking someone around for a while, so maybe they had been told to dial it back.

</comment><comment><USER48> Their website seems to have some trouble loading right now. Cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JQPoiC4...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JQPoiC4Se5EJ:www.airpaperinc.com/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We didn't expect this to blow up quite this fast!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I like the idea a lot. This is one of the cases where most people try to fix something by calling even though they would be much better off sending in a form letter. Check your contract. It probably says something along the lines of "service will be terminated within 5 business days after written notification" but they sure don't guarantee anything good will come from calling customer service on the phone.

I would be a little worried about basing a business on this because someone else could start a site with a free collection of the letters to download. Until then this would be well worth the money.

</comment><comment><USER50> I had XM radio pretty early on... at one point I had three radios on the account (briefly), when I had called to cancel the third (as I no longer had that vehicle), I was then placed in a special queue for a different "cancellation department", not once but twice (after a 45 minute wait), the call was mysteriously (yeah right) dropped when they couldn't talk me out of it. After the third call and hold time, I cancelled the service outright...

That is the most horrible cancellation experience I've ever had... I imagine people have seen equally bad from Comcast, and back in the day, AOL.

</comment><comment><USER51> Really like the conversational approach. Nicely done!

It would be good to explain upfront how you actually do the cancelation, in this case sending a physical letter on my behalf. I had to fill out the form to get to that part.

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure. We've got a lot of feedback that we could be more clear on the mechanics of how it works. We're looking at adding something to the flow shortly.

Thanks for taking a look!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> _Visa to China_ sounds like a winner: Never had to do that myself, but it seems arcane, shady magic that some friends from Hong Kong know how to perform whenever we needed to go.

There are plenty of these infrequent, but non-zero, official, lifestyle and corporate customer processes that are PITAs, for a variety of reasons. People would gladly pay to avoid the hassle themselves, where cost-efficient, eventually-expert, standardized "schlepping" can make a good business model or 10. Relieve pain for $; enough people will gladly hand you $ to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER53> I've cancelled Rogers up here in Canada in a painless, lie free, asshole way without resorting to swearing.

It's easy, just say you want to cancel, act like an imbecile, refuse to be transferred to their retentions department. When they offer you a better deal, or ask why, just repeat "I want to cancel" over and over, and if they still give you guff, ask to speak to their supervisor (all after getting their name and agent number).

I was able to cancel everything in under 5 minutes.

Remember, you don't have to be nice or polite to them when they're trying to upsell.

</comment><comment><USER54> This won't work for everyone, but if you live near a Comcast brick and mortar store (e.g. Sunnyvale, CA), just go there.

If you tell them you want to cancel in person, and bring all your equipment with you, the reps aren't going to argue with you much.

There is of course still the time cost to wait in line (15-20 minutes on a weekend IME) but at least it saves in frustration in them trying to get you to change your mind.

</comment><comment><USER55> The only problem I see is you are asking personal info (Credit Card etc) without encryption. You should fix that asap. other than than, great job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Https is on. The typeform was always served over https, but it would have been possible to MITM us briefly. It should be fixed now.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Chinese visa was painless for me. I think it's gotten a lot easier maybe with the advent of the 10 year American, I don't know when you last tried.

How do you handle Comcast's security questions and all that? Why is there no https for a site with sensitive info? Have you guys actually done this for others, or is this a see what happens, figure it out along the way kind of side project?

</comment><comment><USER57> Comcast's customer service can be spectacularly aggravating, but are that many people really struggling with canceling their primary ISP? I would think something like "Move your Comcast service in 5 minutes" would be more useful. Perhaps even "Get a Comcast service call in 5 minutes." Now that would get some downloads in the app store.

</comment><comment><USER58> Is there anything that prevents me from just sending an e-mail/snail-mail to Comcast with the statement "Please terminate my contract effective MM/DD/YYYY. You do not need to respond to this message. Thank you for your compliance." and just stop payment at the appropriate date as defined by the contract (likely the end of month MM)?

</comment><comment><USER59> I canceled my comcast last week and I was on the phone for maybe 5 minutes. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones?

<comment><AUTHOR> It really seems to range from 5 minutes to eternal. I'm glad it was painless for you.

Cheers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> My recent Verizon cancellation went very smoothly. No "retention" specialists. Just said, "I'm switching to a competitor."

I'm saving something like $50/mo with the change. Verizon sent me an email offering me a $40 statement credit to re-up. I laughed in their virtual faces.

</comment><comment><USER61> Cool idea but I don't think I'd want to send personal information on a website without HTTPS.

<comment><AUTHOR> It should be fixed! We had https enabled but I hadn't set up the redirection from http yet.

Cheers,

~Earl

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Even after allowing thirdparty javascript I still can't read the site (get a san francisco park-what?) and the "Cancel my Comcast" button doesn't work. Blah. I'll call Comcast myself, and for $5 I'll show you how "http aref" works

</comment><comment><USER63> Hi! Since I'm not from US I have no idea whether this idea is good or not, but here are a few points from your fix form. \- no email validation / phone number, zipcode, comcast client# mask: Your user could easily mistype something without noticing

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point! Right now we're manually following up with users if there's any problem, but I'll add better form validation to our roadmap. Thanks!

<comment><USER64> I'm not seeing any validation for empty email form submission responses. I clicked a button and got a success page redirect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Error 522 Ray ID: 22f336647a6e1e65 • 2015-10-02 20:38:57 UTC Connection timed out

Comcast is trying to DDoS? :P

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say that it's more likely that my poor little Vultr.com server didn't expect to be handling quite the traffic load that was pouring its way.

<comment><USER66> If you post on HN, you should expect a massive amount of traffic. This sounds rough, so don't take it the wrong way, but: if you couldn't anticipate the spike in traffic for your website, how will you handle a spike in (physical) traffic when people suddenly start using your service?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Took me about 5 minutes and no hassle to cancel Comcast. I simply took the equipment into the local Comcast office and turned it in, no dealing with phone representatives or anything. When asked why, I simply refused to answer and that was that.

<comment><USER68> When I attempted to do this a couple of years ago, the line to return equipment went out the door and around the corner. We decided to just drop our equipment in their return box (and call later), which turned out to be impossible because the box was outdoors and overflowing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Once upon a time I lived at an apartment and comcast did not bill me for an entire year of internet. It was awesome. And more reliable than the comcast my parents paid for.

Now I have Lumos, which is old Ntelos, which is even better than my free comcast.

</comment><comment><USER70> Really interesting idea! But I'm not sure how I feel about a company impersonating their customer cause that's what you would do right? I think people will be reticent to provide personal information...

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually just send a letter with the information that you provide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> This is perhaps the most glorious thing I've seen on here in a long time. I didn't find a Chinese visa all that difficult though so I'm surprised to see that on the list of next issues.

<comment><USER72> Really? You have to wait in a really long line for several hours at a bizarre location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I've never had a problem cancelling Comcast. I just tell them that I'm moving out of the country. There's no point in bothering to try to retain me.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey Everyone! We were a little surprised by the response but our servers should be back. Please let me know at email@example.com if you see any more outtages.

Cheers, ~Earl

<comment><USER74> Down again

<comment><AUTHOR> We haven't quite bridged the gap between "low downtime deploys" to "no downtime deploys."

We'll be working on that shortly. Things should be up again now. If they're not, please let me know at email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> All those legal services(wills, divorce, immigration, etc etc), of course, though I imagine they're already well picked over. Maybe you can partner?

</comment><comment><USER76> If you just call and tell them you're moving to an area that Comcast doesn't service, they don't give you any hassle at all.

</comment><comment><USER77> Someone is already offering to do it for $4 lol

[http://justcancelme.com/](http://justcancelme.com/)

</comment><comment><USER78> The concept here reminds me of GovWorks.com (in the movie Startup.com). Their aim was to fix government red-tape.

This reminds me of that documentary.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't seen it but will add it to my queue of movies to watch. Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Ha. I just got fiber installed yesterday and I've been meaningful to cancel my Comcast since then. Timely!

</comment><comment><USER80> Love the idea, although I wondering how user data will be protected across all of these different workflows?

</comment><comment><USER81> Tried to sign up for the SF parking permit thing, got a CloudFlare error 520.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Thanks for trying to sign up. We didn't expect nearly this demand!

Send me an email at email@example.com and I'll add you manually to the list. Thanks for understanding!

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Getting this error: Error 522 Ray ID: 22f2db80ca4a181c Connection timed out

Traffic overwhelm?

<comment><USER24> Uh oh! Should be fixed now. Thanks for letting us know :)

</comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf this is a great example of using typeform to bootstrap your way into providing a service. Really cool idea and i'm glad these guys are doing this — I can't wait to cancel comcast!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're thrilled that it's something you're looking forward to!

And typeform has been fantastic. We actually made a form for this ourselves, but the UI experience with typeform is so much better. They're really building a wonderful product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> I like this idea. Good job!! When will other services be added?

<comment><AUTHOR> As fast as we can work out the logistics. Some of these are relatively easy.

"Parking permits" is easier than "tax registration" which is easier than "Chinese visa," but it also super depends on demand.

<comment><USER83> Understood and thanks for answering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Just say you are leaving the country - no more rententions.

</comment><comment><USER84> why'd you have to lie to leave a service is inconceivable to me. such companies should be paying good money until this is rectified or simply banned.

</comment><comment><USER85> Great idea!

</comment><comment><USER86> i'd like to try this without fearing it will actually cancel my account

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't push the final button on the form after you enter credit card information, it won't cancel your account. You'll get to see almost everything.

If you want to see a sneak peek of the follow-up steps, send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll send you what our follow-up instructions/emails would look like.

Cheers, ~Earl

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Damn, this is genius

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


The death of Don Draper? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2018/07/death-don-draper <comment><USER2> Note that he talks about a fake ad exec, not the most famous real one of that era, David Ogilvy. Ogilvy worked for the Gallup Poll before he went into advertising. He was into data-driven advertising. "Advertisers who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore the signs of the enemy." The author is attacking a straw man. Ogilvy is still relevant. The author of the article here, not so much.

<comment><USER3> Just last week I was at an unusually good talk by an Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland mentioned in the article.

>Rory co-heads a team of psychology graduates who look for "butterfly effects" in consumer behaviour - these are the very small contextual changes which can have enormous effects on the decisions people make

The talk's on youtube. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWiB5H18aug&t=1187s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWiB5H18aug&t=1187s) Recommended if you are in to that stuff.

<comment><USER4> Also thought this podcast with Rory Sutherland by Farnam Street / The Knowledge Project was particularly good, especially in what the actual value of brand is:

[https://fs.blog/rory-sutherland/](https://fs.blog/rory-sutherland/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah it was good - similar stuff but more of it.

I thought the bit on economics was interesting - that motivating people by paying or fining them is limiting because there's a lot of other factors you can look at if you are creative. (48m)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Outright advertising in the old school sense is dead and has been for a long time. Marketing is not. I think this author is deeply confused. Now, more than ever, the perceived value of cheap products is being inflated by brand. Look how much people pay for a can of Red Bull, which offers less volume than a soda and less caffeine than a coffee. Look at how much people pay for Starbucks coffee and Hermès purses. It's all smoke and mirrors. In many cases, you're paying more for an inferior product because the brand gods took advantage of your cognitive bias.

The example of Tesla is particularly ridiculous to me and shows how little understanding of marketing the author has. Tesla isn't a no-marketing company that only relies on its good product. What about a Tesla is superior? Not the interior. Mercedes has them beat there. Not the technology - it's been proven unreliable at best. Not the range - many gasoline cars have better range. Not the price - their current offerings are far higher than an average person can afford. It's questionable whether they're even better for the environment than other cars. In fact, Tesla is so good at marketing that they've bamboozled the author and he doesn't even realize it. Elon Musk knows the way to manipulate perceptions, and he's very, very good at it.

<comment><USER6> It seems important to you to prove that certain products are objectively bad, and the people who like them are somehow wrong to do so. Why? Tastes differ.

<comment><USER5> Why? Because I'm backing up the opinion that I presented. Or would you rather everyone makes statements without saying how they came to those conclusions? That said, I never claimed anyone was wrong - just taken advantage of. Your comment has me wondering if you own or commonly purchase one of the products I mentioned. You seem hurt.

<comment><USER6> Okay, fair enough. But I think it's possible to show that the article isn't right without trying to also prove something else?

I agree that people don't pick products based on their objective goodness. However, this doesn't mean they're picking objectively bad products or being "taken advantage of" either. Or at least not in these examples.

Do you really want to say that one flavor or brand of beverage is objectively tastier than another, or that people shouldn't care about what it tastes like? Or maybe they just like the shape of the bottle. Is that wrong?

Or take cars. There are a lot of objective measurements you can make, but no objective way to decide on how much these features should matter or whether they are worth the cost. Some people care about having better-than-usual acceleration or a more luxurious interior, and others don't. Some people care about fuel efficiency only to save money, others want to do their part to help save the environment even if it costs more. Some people buy cars based on the image they want to project. None of these things are objectively wrong.

I'd reserve "being taken advantage of" for cases where people thought they were buying one thing and got another, not where they're making choices based on different goals.

(No, I don't drink Red Bull or drive a Tesla.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it me or does this article contradict itself throughout the piece? It tries so hard to sell it's headline, but every point and interview it does paints a completely different picture.

You want to sell a da Vinci? Well then you have to make private meetings with potential clients, and, you have to create ads that sell it as iconic.

You want to make people buy your brand of beer? Well you have to sell the story of it being generally accepted as a high quality brand.

You want to sell luxury? You have to sell timelessness and trust.

Aren't those things exactly what Don Draper would have done?

In general the article skimps over how ads are actually made, and talks mainly in how they are delivered, but that has very little to do with the death of Don Draper. Because even if you're not always shooting ads at everyone, you still have to tell stories that set you a part from everyone else.

It's only valid point in the subject seem to be that advertisers are no longer in the front of business magazines. Ironically, neither are car manufacturers, except for one, Musk. Who coincidentally put one of his cars in space in a very spectacular PR event that I personally doubt he decided upon because an algorithm told him it would be popular.

<comment><USER8> > You want to sell a da Vinci? Well then you have to make private meetings > with potential clients, and, you have to create ads that sell it as iconic.

That's sales, not marketing. You wouldn't bother to create ads for a Da Vinci, as the pool of people with the means to buy one is so small and the process of buying one is so convoluted. See also jet engines.

> You want to make people buy your brand of beer? Well you have to sell the > story of it being generally accepted as a high quality brand.

The article is contesting that what you actually need is to make people aware of your brand at the moment they are about to consume one. The brand associations matter in this on some level, but are tangential. Stella Artois has completely different brand connotations in the US to the UK and EU for instance.

<comment><USER9> As the article explains, they did make ads for the Da Vinci. Several, in fact. To make it "iconic", they built up the brand.

The ad that's just looking at people looking at it is brilliant, really a work of art on its own.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsEAJkTP0-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsEAJkTP0-M)

The effort that went into selling that painting is one of the more fascinating stories of the last year.

<comment><USER10> Specifically,

" _Before Christie's sold Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi in 2017, it staged high-profile public exhibitions of the painting around the world, and made an expensively produced video to showcase it – in effect, an ad. On the face of it, all this activity was a flagrant waste of money: almost nobody who consumes the marketing for a da Vinci is in the market for it. Christie's salespeople knew all the potential buyers personally. They can, and did, visit them in the privacy of their penthouses._

" _Yet Christie's realised that those buyers would pay an extra few million for the privilege of owning a painting that was "iconic". This isn't some quirk of billionaire art collectors; it's human nature. We value things more highly when we know that others value them._ "

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The brand getting the most buzz in the car industry is Tesla. `What's different about them? No advertising. Innovation in the car industry is not about putting Cindy Crawford in a TV ad. It's about building a better battery.`"

Advertising has changed. It's no longer on a billboard in your face, but now a virus and fabric of influence in your mind that permeates and multiplies subtly through every medium you consume. Each piece of information collectively assembles inside your brain to fashion and form an opinion. The new science of advertising is figuring out how to put these pieces of the puzzle together so that you organically assemble an opinion on matters favorable to product sellers.

<comment><USER12> You actually make a really interesting point here. Advertising has permeated nearly every segment of media consumption. An interesting example is articles like this, and "reviews" of products that are actually paid adverts where the "reviewers" get kickbacks for every referral that leads to a sale. [1]

[1] [https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fastcompany.com/3065928/sle...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis- casper-bloggers-lawsuits-underside-of-the-mattress-wars)

<comment><USER13> On the other hand, it's now easier than ever to avoid all marketing in media. In the analog world you couldn't install an adblocker to your newspaper, or purchase a tv subscription without ads, or choose a radio station without ads in between. Now it's all available, and at least my world is almost completely advertisement-free -- except for those paid reviews you mentioned.

<comment><USER14> what about product placement, PR in print media, "native" or content ads. to say nothing of social media "influencers"

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't follow an influencer, though I'm not very representative obviously. I'm quite OK with product placement. Content ads require that they are marked as advertisements, and can then be blocked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While I agree with the general/intended sentiment of "Advertising is has changed from a bunch of slick white guys in suits, to tech", it might be worth pointing out that Don Draper doesn't _exactly_ have anything to do with what the author is discussing. The author implies that ad tech is ruining _traditional_ advertising, which is true on the Sales side, but have you seen some of the high PPC/CPM ads on some Youtube videos? They still _heavily_ rely on great creative. And let's not forget that Don Draper was the Creative Director - not head of Sales (which would've been Pete I believe).

</comment><comment><USER16> >The brand getting the most buzz in the car industry is Tesla

Nope, It's nowhere near that. The fact that tech media writes a lot about a car manufacturer doesn't make it the most popular manufacturer in the world and brief google trends research shows that.

<comment><USER17> Tesla even managed to stand out in this very article when it is only briefly mentioned with multiple comments alluding to this brief mention. I'd say it's quite safely the car industry leader in buzz, if nothing else.

<comment><USER18> In this bubble. I think a lot of people here would probably be surprised how many automobile purchasers have never even heard of Tesla--or at least are only vaguely aware it's "that electric car company."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So there is 'discovery' which is knowing a solution exists to a solve a need I might have (that I might not even know about). Technology is reasonably good at this.

Then there is 'selection' which is picking the 'best' product in a competitive landscape. Here I'm not convinced even Tech has this captured. If I am shopping for cars, for example, I might get a Tesla Ad (they do have a few AdWords) but the technology showing me that AD isn't optimizing for me, it's optimizing for a click-through or maybe a conversion which are different things. Maybe you look at me, my income, my driving needs and say hey - look, maybe you want to go with like a Kia Crossover over a Model S. A Model S would be fairly financially irresponsible given your income. The money saved with a crossover would equal $XX,XXX by the time little Bobby is ready for college. And what about those camping trips? You occasionally drive further than the expected range anyway.

Right now if I want to compute the TOC of a Tesla vs a Kia given what I usually drive in a year minus the tax incentives or whatever I'd have to bust out excel and spend a few hours. This isn't sexy. This isn't what advertising used to be, but if they want to do the math for me I'd pay attention to that way more than that I do AdWords.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's scary how targeted google ads are now a days. I was talking about buying a bed to my mother and noticed ads for mattresses started popping up in my ad sidebars. I miss being anonymous.

<comment><USER21> "What's an ad sidebar?"

Ok, tongue-in-cheek remark. I left Facebook, block ads aggressively, use DuckDuckGo, and live in the weak sauce privacy of the Apple ecosystem.

Since I block ads, I also block a bunch of trackers. But given that I can't see most ads, I have no idea whether people are trying to sell me mattresses after I discuss beds.

For all I know, I don't live in a house with the shades drawn, maybe I live in a house with one-way shades such that the advertisers can watch me, but I can't see anything they're trying to show me.

——

If the above is the case, I will still be vulnerable to micro-targeted astroturf stuff. Like bots posing as Members of whatever social media I participate in, dropping brand names in their conversations.

Is everyone on Swedespeed really a Volvo enthusiast? If one of them posts a picture of a Trek mountian bike on their roof rack, how do I know this is "organic," and not an ad campaign?

For how long will the above be a pleasant chuckle about a dystopian possible future, and not everyone's daily "reality?"

This is already happening with political discourse, it must be inevitable for commerce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Igor Beuker's speach at the Qt World Summit 2017 followed a similar premise. Traditional advertising has gone the way of the Dodo and the Math Men have taken over.

[https://youtu.be/y6gAUZW4DGE?t=4m23s](https://youtu.be/y6gAUZW4DGE?t=4m23s)

</comment><comment><USER3> >In 2016, Facebook in effect charged the Trump campaign lower rates than the Clinton campaign, because Trump's ads made people angrier and thus generated more clicks. Nobody took a decision to charge Trump less. It was the logical outcome of the ad business's core principle: the more attention you win, the more you get paid. Since negative emotions are more likely to win and hold attention than positive emotions, the system has an incentive to spread fear and loathing. Russia's entire propaganda campaign relies on an advertising model that rewards paranoia and spite.

That stuff seems to be quite a problem these days. I was just looking last night at how the Brexit vote was probably swung by a bunch of immigrant fear mongering on facebook in the 2 weeks before the referendum - graph of the polls [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjIQI7gXgAAAmbd?format=jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjIQI7gXgAAAmbd?format=jpg) and one of the ads [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjIM5XLU8AAuB7o?format=jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjIM5XLU8AAuB7o?format=jpg)

The details are only gradually coming out - facebook released the ads a couple of days ago and Dominic Cummings the campaign manager has refused a summons from parliament to come explain what happened.

I guess we have to wise up to it a bit and maybe change the algorithms to be less hate promoting.

<comment><USER10> Then there is this:

" _[In a recent article for the New York Times, the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci] found the same pattern on non-political topics: videos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism; videos about jogging led to videos about ultra-marathons. The stakes were always being upped. YouTube, she concluded, was a "radicalising instrument". That isn't, she says, because YouTube's engineers are zealots. It's because Google (YouTube's owner) is selling attention to advertisers, and its algorithms have learnt that the best way to keep people hooked is to push ever more extreme material on them._ "

It's pessimistic, since by design it can only get worse.

<comment><USER3> I think it would take some active design changes to improve that but it could be done.

<comment><USER10> You'd have to break the more extreme -≥ more views -> more money feedback loop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I disagree with a number of points in this article.

"Now, we live in an age in which the intangible haze of soft-sell is no longer necessary, and the battle for market share comes down to the raw strength of your product. "The sun has passed midday on brand," he says."

I don't think this is remotely true - as an example, take a look at the insurance industry (GEICO, AFLAC, AllState, etc). These guys are spending on massively on brand advertising. Now, obviously, the LTV of these customers is huge so they can afford the high CAC that comes with brand advertising. This advertising is pure Don Draper imho.

"The brand getting the most buzz in the car industry is Tesla. "What's different about them? No advertising. Innovation in the car industry is not about putting Cindy Crawford in a TV ad. It's about building a better battery.""

Yes they have a great product - and, at the moment, they have that differentiation and, most importantly, buzz. That will change as the market for electric cars matures - and then you'll see Tesla start to advertise. It doesn't make any sense for them to spend on advertising right now given that they are in the press literally every day (right now for some stuff that isn't necessarily positive). Maturity of market matters.

"Clients have even started to question the ad business's claim to efficiency. The model I described above is a simplified version of a dizzyingly complex system whose details few can fathom, involving multiple companies taking multiple fees. Unsurprisingly, fraud is rampant."

If this is true we'll likely see a pullback in digital advertising - or at least a movement to direct buys only on specific websites (vs. network buys).

My opinion: digital advertising is proving to be less and less efficacious, with costs going up and results going down. At the same time, we have less and less product differentiation. The result should be more spending on traditional brand advertising. Digital advertising is a channel - and spend to that channel will ebb and flow.

In my small world of advertising (B2B SaaS), I've seen digital advertising becoming largely ineffective. Too many companies marketing similar products and services. I would argue, in this world, brand advertising therefore becomes more important. That is, developing a brand is as or more important than product because all the products (in the eyes of prospects) are largely the same. Note that I am not saying product doesn't matter, or that a product cannot differentiate in a specific market (e.g. Slack), but that companies need a distribution advantage to succeed over every other company - and that either comes from the product or brand (e.g. Drift).

Now, having said all this, do I think the Ad Tech industry is a mess and that a major shakeout is needed? Yes. Do I think that digital advertising is largely too consolidated with a handful of players (Google, Facebook and now Amazon) - yes. Advertising can be still be great and useful - but Ad Tech needs some help.

</comment><comment><USER24> > Advertising, once a creative industry, is now a data-driven business reliant > on algorithms. The implications are deeply sinister – not only for the > consumer but for democracy itself.

When everything is labeled a "threat to democracy", nobody takes that actual threats to democracy seriously.

> These days, consumers are less likely to have favourite brands, since "their > favourite brand is going to be whatever Google tells them at that moment is > going to match their exact needs". The brand getting the most buzz in the > car industry is Tesla. "What's different about them? No advertising. > Innovation in the car industry is not about putting Cindy Crawford in a TV > ad. It's about building a better battery."

Really? I would use Tesla as an extreme example of effective marketing and cult of personality around Elon Musk. Elon Musk is Cindy Crawford.

> "When's the last time you saw an ad agency executive on the cover of > Business Week?"

Not sure Business Week is really a barometer of what's going on today, but that's fair. However you do regularly see the leaders of these companies, who are the face and effectively the advertising. Not sure if there is a person or team behind their image.

> Clients are spending less on the kind of entertaining, seductive, fame- > generating campaigns in which ad agencies specialise, and more on the ads > that flash and wink on your smartphone screen.

Really? I think sponsored content that's actually entertaining is a lot more common now.

> Clients only have to decide how many people they want to reach, and how much > they want to spend; algorithms do the rest.

Wasn't this automated before and the automation was just done by the ad agencies? Why bother hiring ad agencies in the first place

> The advertiser might create multiple ads and serve different executions to > different slices of its audience. Some companies, such as Cambridge > Analytica, claim to be able to target personality types using this method. > The more valuable your particular profile is to the advertiser, the higher > price its algorithm will pay the publisher to get an ad in front of your > eyes. In this way, every scintilla of attention is transformed into money.

In the past advertisers often had multiple ads that played in multiple mediums, targeting multiple audiences. And yes, more value mediums (e.g. target market with a more affluent readership) does cost more. Why wouldn't it?

This whole article is just a list of complaints and contradictory observations without a central theme or any coherent structure.

Marketing doesn't work but is extremely common. Its rampant with fraud but is incredibly convincing. It's a huge turn-off with consumers tuning out but it's dominating our lives

</comment><comment><USER25> I misread the title as 'The death of John Draper?'. This left me rather confused for at least several paragraphs into the article.

</comment><comment><USER26> Good news for Germans.

<comment><USER13> Please explain a bit what you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cry me a goddamned river. The evils of GoogleFaceTube are nothing but the logical conclusion of advertising. This is like someone being sad at a faster car than theirs being invented, only both cars annoy the shit out of everyone.

</comment><comment><USER28> Its interesting that if you watch Mad Men, this was actually discussed in a show set even in the 70s - that precise targeting and media would outpace any creative work.

</comment><comment><USER29> You guys should check out - lazyeight.design , we're essentially trying to build the world's first creative agency on the cloud and using a ton of data for project estimates and to calculate our monthly hourly pricing (which changes monthly).</comment>


Sarah Lacy: TED Conference Now More Elite? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/09/ted-now-with-more-elitism

<comment><USER2> Absolute junk journalism from a jealous and insecure author.</comment>


Soon We Won't Program Computers. We'll Train Them Like Dogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/05/the-end-of-code/?href <comment><USER2> Until code is written that automates its own evolution, there will still be humans programming computers that are trained like dogs.</comment>


All the Lies About the Origins of 'Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire' - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/liar-liar-pants-on-fire-origin-phrase-history <comment><USER2> _"Unfortunately, we didn't have Twitter back then," Popik says. "If we had Twitter, I'd be able to pin this down to the exact day and exact hour."_

Why, is Twitter search able to go back more than 2 weeks this Wednesday? Any wagers on what the look-behind horizon will be in a hundred years? No odds offered for "0".

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/08/can-t...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/08/can- twitter-fit-inside-the-library-of-congress/494339)

<comment><USER3> It goes back a few years. I've been able to find tweets from 2009.

How do you think people keep digging up old tweets to (try to) embarrass politicians?

[https://twitter.com/search-advanced?lang=en](https://twitter.com/search- advanced?lang=en)</comment></comment>


Show HN: GitHub repo for my book examples - <AUTHOR> I opened the git repo for my new book yesterday: https://github.com/mark-watson/power-java
Mostly machine learning, NLP, linked data, knowlege management, etc.
If you enjoy the code examples then please consider buying the eBook https://leanpub.com/powerjava/ <comment><USER2> Posts without URLs get penalized, so you'd be better off submitting the link and then adding your text as a comment to the thread.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I didn't know that. I usually update my eBooks a month after I release them, incorporating suggestions from readers, so I will repost in a month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://github.com/mark-watson/power-java](https://github.com/mark- watson/power-java) [https://leanpub.com/powerjava/](https://leanpub.com/powerjava/)</comment>


File Compression in the Multi-Core Era - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001231.html <comment><USER2> This is interesting, but not for the reasons Jeff suggests. bzip uses all 8 cores for 21 minutes to produce a 986M file (or 2 minutes for 1092M), while 7zip doesn't use all 8 cores, and produces a file smaller than anything bzip can produce, in 5 minutes.

So it looks like 7zip is not just slightly better than bzip; it's _much_ better. Ideally you can utilize all your cores by piping data from the DB directly into the compressor -- the compressor will use 2 cores (or whatever), and your database will use the rest.

<comment><USER3> Bzip2 is a very slow compression algorithm, mostly due, from what I recall, to the Burrows-Wheeler transform that lies at its core. LZMA is pretty much superior in every respect; it is (though quite slowly) on the road to replacing the aging Bzip2.

And as usual the comments on CodingHorror (at least the initial dozen or two) show a relative ignorance about the topic. 7zip (as can any compressor) can be trivially parallelized just by running it simultaneously on each solid block. The compression cost of a smaller solid block size is generally near-zero for the case where dictionary size << input data size.

The included Windows interface doesn't allow this kind of threading AFAIK, but it would be relatively simple to implement in an app using the LZMA libraries.

<comment><USER4> This is the exact approach taken by pigz (Parallel GZIP) - <http://www.zlib.net/pigz/>

<comment><USER5> > and uses the zlib and pthread libraries

Er, no, thanks. What about a good STL C++ implementation with OpenMP (automagic on STL.)

That's great for us, developers. We'll never run out of things to do :)

<comment><USER4> Whats the problem? pigz works as advertised for me. Almost a 4x speed increase on a 4 core system, assuming your storage I/O can keep up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Poor guy discovered multi-threading on SMP too late! I would fire such system administrator who does not undestand system in essence. Also the one who does not respect the history and does not understand the fact that old unix utilities are not (and in most cases cannot be!) multi-threaded.

</comment><comment><USER7> Note that the bzip2 implementation he uses is 7zip's; the classic unix implementation does not make use of multiple cores. But, there is also pbzip2, which supposedly uses all available cores:

<http://compression.ca/pbzip2/></comment>


The 4,000 Lines of Code Harvard Hopes Will Change Translation (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://slator.com/academia/4000-lines-code-harvard-hopes-will-change-translation/ <comment><USER2> For quality translation of complex, non repetitive ideas, a human is, and will always be required.

I have been in the translation business field for about 20 years now, so I have seen the rise of desktop tools, then server-based solutions, and lastly, of course, cloud-based tools. While each generation is better than the previous, the increments are decreasing.

We are based in Canada, where we receive around 300,000 new immigrants per year. That's 6 million over those 20 years. Guess what? Those people are hitting the job market, and now, their children too.

Consequence: the overall quality of English texts is noticably decreasing, from ALL of our customers. I notice the names, and they are not your typical English, French, German, Italian or Ukrainian names (traditional settler groups in Canada). We do more and more of what is called "transcreation", a fancy way to say complete re-interpretation of a text. We basically extract the main ideas, and re-write the whole thing, because basing the translation on the provided source text always yield disappointing results.

I really don't see how machines could distill the ideas out of a text and reinterpret them in a nice way.

I can see AI work for short, simple, well-written texts. Heck, even long manuals with repetitive blocks of text from manual to manual. But with creative, complex text: still a looooong way baby!

<comment><USER3> Technical solutions are only a workaround, not a proper solution. A solution to a problem that have little benefit of existing anyway.

I think it's about time humanity decides to stop the ego trip and declare english as the earth official language.

No need to kill other languages, every people are free to use them as much as they want.

But really, all __new__ documents, medias, displays, pieces of information, should be translated to english as well. And it should be mandatory at school, as well as to get any administrative position.

I'm french. My country has a VERY strong view on the local language protection. But promoting your culture doesn't have to be in contradiction with reuniting humanity.

Peace, democracy, exchange, cooperation, archiving, education: they are too hard to do in hundreds of languages. It's a waste of resources, and a hindrance to the most important challenges of humanity.

Esperanto never won, written chinese is way too complicated and english is already everywhere.

Before trying to share the same money, or abolish borders, live in harmony or reach any ideal at all, we gotta take the big rocks off the road. Not being able to understand your neighbor is a terrible curse for our specie, and easier to solve than war or famine. Actually it could be part of the solution to them.

And since those things take a long time, we better start now.

<comment><USER4> Ironically the only thing complicated about Chinese is its tonal pronunciations and writing system. It's grammar and vocabulary are markedly easier than English.

Additionally, English has some horrific consonant/vowel clusters and minimum pairs.

<comment><USER5> The alphabet is a phenomenal invention. I mean the alphabet in the large sense, be it the Latin, Greek, Russian alphabet or any alphabet, abjad, abudiga or syllabary. The Chinese writing system is a notable exception (along with Japanese Kanji and some others). The only complicated thing about Chinese is pronunciation and writing system. So half of it is complicated. If a language can be characterized at least by phonology, writing system, grammar and vocabulary. Then Chinese is difficult. Not that any language is easy. There will never be an agreement for the whole world to speak Chinese.

<comment><USER3> The alphabet, and punctuation.

Omitting punctuation, or using some meta language for it (e.g: in thai, repeatiting a word can mean "!") makes reading some text extra difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi everyone, I'm a creator of OpenNMT and run the NLP group at Harvard ([http://nlp.seas.harvard.edu](http://nlp.seas.harvard.edu)). A lot has changed in both translation and deep learning over the last couple years. Happy to answer any questions about the area.

(BTW, the title of this article is crazy hyperbole, almost all this work is just research implementations of ideas originally from Google/MILA)

<comment><USER7> Good to see you here! I have a few questions if you're still about.

Have you worked with professional translators much along the way? Most of us use and keep our own translation memories stretching into the millions of segments.

What would be the ideal training material for these models to work from?

Do you think NMT could ever recognise the type of text to be translated and apply style and context accordingly? Displaying an element of creativity, for example, drawing from relevant contextual themes. I suspect it might do this automatically if trained widely enough?

<comment><USER6> Sure, happy to respond.

> Have you worked with professional translators much along the way? Most of us > use and keep our own translation memories stretching into the millions of > segments.

I personally haven't worked too much with translators in my research, but we built OpenNMT with Systran who employ a group of translators and linguists. We also host a yearly workshop ([http://workshop- paris-2018.opennmt.net/](http://workshop-paris-2018.opennmt.net/)) where many professional translator came to talk. There is a lot of interesting work on integrating translation memories and automatic systems.

> What would be the ideal training material for these models to work from?

So the curt answer is "the best type of training is more training". In practice though the best type of training is in-domain data for whatever type of problem is currently of interest.

> Do you think NMT could ever recognise the type of text to be translated and > apply style and context accordingly? Displaying an element of creativity, > for example, drawing from relevant contextual themes. I suspect it might do > this automatically if trained widely enough?

Creativity is a slippery term, so I will avoid that (personally the models don't seem too "clever" to me). There is a lot of interest though in models that can mimic a certain style, whether that be politeness, tone, genre, or technical material. Often that means learning "knobs" to tune for these properties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The entire OpenNMT system (with pre-processing, the authors note) has around > 4,000 lines of code. The Moses SMT framework comes in at over 100,000 lines > of code, according to the paper's authors.

Although it probably _is_ more compact/understandable, that's not quite a fair comparison since actively developed systems tend to accrue a lot of cruft for dealing with edge-cases and experiments and rewrites etc. Running `cloc .` on the current master of [https://github.com/moses- smt/mosesdecoder](https://github.com/moses-smt/mosesdecoder) gives 450963 total lines of code (153741 in the top language, C++), while the commit for the initial sourceforge(!) checkin 12 years ago, 32edb3d66, had 12200 total lines of code (2942 in C++, 5702 in sh). If OpenNMT has success, it too will grow in size :-/

<comment><USER6> This is probably true in general, but in the last year with the switch from Torch => PyTorch the core code has actually dropped in size. There is still progress being made in improving the frameworks for specifying deep learning models.

</comment></comment><comment> white-flame Communication is me taking an idea in my head, considering you the listener and our shared context, and deciding which outward signals will invoke that same idea in your head. The full meaning of a statement is NEVER completely contained in the words themselves; they are selected in empathetic prediction merely as triggers of hidden assumed shared state unique to various speaker/listener pairings.

As children, we blindly associate phrases to situations in which those phrases were heard, and attempt to map them in our outward communication, often to comical effect. It's a cargo cult model of communication, since at that stage we don't understand _how_ those phrases were originally constructed under specific intention & purpose.

The meaning of words and phrases will change over time and location, as we have new experiences which text associates. Certainly as humans we can understand and continually update multiple simultaneous contexts in which things are said, and from which version an utterance is invoking its meaning.

These issues are why I don't see the direct text-to-text model of machine translation getting beyond a certain ceiling of usefulness. Text fundamentally refers to out-of-band human experiences, in very inconsistent associations.

<comment><USER9> People do still write books targeted at a general audience, though. This generic shared context (what distant strangers can reasonably be expected to know) can plausibly be inferred from training data.

So it's not going to get people's in-jokes or local slang, but it still seems like the ceiling could be pretty darn high?

<comment> white-flame The general audience verbiage still changes over the time axis, though. Are you going to have different training sets for different time periods, and were would you cut the threshold between different corpuses? There's a lot of continuous flux, as well as discrete moments when a phrase turns sour when it was positive or neutral in the past. However, these are still classification issues which NNs could potentially resolve, but are still issues.

But it's certainly true that texts written to be specifically & clearly informative will always be easier to translate than fiction, opinion pieces, or informal conversations. It all depends on what you consider to be "high" on the result spectrum.

The successes already achieved leave the focus on the existing shortcomings as the ceiling, not necessarily on adding refinement to what it already does respectably well.</comment></comment></comment>


Open Source Is Free as in Baby - <AUTHOR> https://danielcompton.net/2014/11/19/dependencies <comment><USER2> That's a great checklist of things to look for when using an OSS. Thanks for sharing!</comment>


SPECTRE: A Fast and Scalable Cryptocurrency Protocol [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1159.pdf <comment><USER2> So, let me get this right: you're proposing a new cryptocurrency, which the media and masses often unfairly associate with nefarious use cases, and the name you chose for it coincides with the nefarious criminal organization from the James Bond universe?

... ok then.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting thread at [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5jbsny/spectre_a_f...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5jbsny/spectre_a_fast_and_scalable_distributed_ledger/)

<comment><USER3> Remember that /r/Bitcoin is censored to the extreme. For an uncensored bitcoin and cryptocurrency forum, try /r/btc.

<comment><USER4> IIRC censorship that happens there is usually regarding submissions moreso than comments?

I guess we don't know what's been censored in this thread but the back-and- forth between Taek42 and avivz78/MeniRosenfeld is interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome! Reminds me of this: [http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~uffe/HighResolutionSparseVoxelDA...](http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~uffe/HighResolutionSparseVoxelDAGs.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: What have you recently been enamoured by? - <AUTHOR> Are there any books, ideas, frameworks/technologies, etc. that you feel have a great impact and are worth sharing? <comment><USER2> Abductive Inference, and more specifically "Parsimonious Covering Theory" (PCT)[1] which is one approach to automating abduction. It's a not a new idea by any means, but I think there's still some meat on that bone (so to speak). I've been working on re-implementing PCT using in a more modern environment, with an eye towards exploring ways to extend the idea and/or integrate it with some more recent approaches.

[1]: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2244953/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2244953/)

</comment><comment><USER3> _Kingdom of the Wicked_ , a novel set in a world in which the ancient Romans experience an Industrial Revolution and have approximately contemporary levels of technology when Jesus shows up: [https://jakeseliger.com/2017/12/28/kingdom-of-the-wicked- boo...](https://jakeseliger.com/2017/12/28/kingdom-of-the-wicked-book-one- rules-helen-dale) . It sounded gimmicky to me but is shockingly well done.

</comment><comment><USER4> Directed Acyclic Graphs / block lattices in Cryptocurrency, like those used in IOTA and RaiBlocks: [https://raiblocks.net/media/RaiBlocks_Whitepaper__English.pd...](https://raiblocks.net/media/RaiBlocks_Whitepaper__English.pdf)</comment>


Question To Ask When You Meet Fellow Bootstrappers - <AUTHOR> http://www.it-engelhardt.de/the-1-question-to-ask-when-you-meet-fellow-bootstrappers/

<comment><USER2> Great advice, but not a new idea:

      "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more
      significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests,
      but also to the interests of others" - Philippians 2:3-4

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, the post pointed the obvious, which is not an easy thing to do. Networking meetings are actually a good place to know investors more than other entrepreneurs.

I have been to some of them and I honestly can't remember more than 5 names that interested me. On the other hand, talking to the people who was there to put their money on random projects is a much more meaningful chat.

Personally, whenever someone asks me recommendations to fill a vacant position on a company I don't bet on 99% of the people I know. The other 1%, those who I know are genuinely good, I tend to keep in contact, even if its to drink a beer after work, just to know what's up with them and what's on their minds lately. That's called making friends.

</comment><comment><USER4> Funny, when I saw the title, that was my first thought.

But the deeper, better first question is "What are you working on?" Give them a chance to make their elevator pitch, then start asking questions. There's a good chance the "How can I help you?" can turn into "I think I could help you with ${PROBLEM}..."

But to get there, you need to figure out what their pain points are, and what you can actually do about them. This is no different than figuring out your own customers, really.

And the step beyond this is to actually _do something that really helps them_. Because if you can truly help someone, you'll make a lasting impression, something that they will want to pay back, with interest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi beat. You are probably right and this is NOT a good FIRST question. BUT... it is a great question (that is seldomly asked) for later in the conversation. And of course you should be able/willing to follow through. (also see my other answer here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6224784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6224784))

<comment><USER4> It's certainly a useful question. But a more focused offer of help on a specific issue seems to be a more useful approach, one that moves the conversation forward rather than stopping it in its tracks.

If someone asked me that question cold when I first met them, I'd probably blink, and then ask if they have about $500,000 they'd like to invest for a seed round. Then I'd go right into my elevator pitch and see if I could get a genuinely useful level of interest and potential help.

Here's what's bugging me about this approach, I think... it's about initiative (in the gaming sense, not the motivation sense) and control over the conversation. A straight-up "How can I help you?" from a stranger, without context, throws the conversational balance off severely. My first thought would be either "Yeah, right", or "What's the catch?" I certainly don't give open-ended help to people, and I don't expect them to do it for me. Heck, I don't give my wife or children open-ended help! Generosity and paying forward are virtues, but failure to establish boundaries is not.

Keep the end goal in mind - a mutually beneficial business exchange, and the groundwork for future exchanges. Questions are just a means to this end. Laying groundwork is a matter of learning trust, boundaries, and capabilities. When seeking help, we should try to understand what someone _can_ do for us, what they _will_ do for us, how likely they are to do it, and what their expectations are in return. So the conversation should be about groundwork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have anyone tried asking this cold? i.e. as an opener?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Jon. Thanks for reading the article & posting a comment. Interesting question.

I haven't and I feel that it could get a bit more akward, if you haven't established some sort of connection first.

Another reason against it might be that if the other person blanks out, you don't know enough about him to fill the void. In the example I've given with Matthew, when he blanked I knew enough about him and his endeavour (writing a book) to come up with a few ideas how he could do research for his book.

On the other hand, asking this upfront sets the tone for the entire meeting. That is also a great benefit.

tl;dr: I might have to A/B test this - right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For some reason, this made me think of George Washington who proscribed to "110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation." Probably made him a pretty decent networker (and politician). [http://www.foundationsmag.com/civility.html](http://www.foundationsmag.com/civility.html)</comment>


"Don't be a duck" and other good advice to grow your business - <AUTHOR> http://www.collaborati.org/kevins/weblog/16.html <comment><USER2> "A duck can swim, walk and fly. But an eagle flies faster and more skillfully, fish are better swimmers and just about anything on legs can outrun a duck." In other words, ducks can do a lot of things but they are not experts in any of them. So, in your business, don't be a duck! "

Great analogy! I've gotten similar advice from a number of people. Must be worth something :-)</comment>


Tell HN: Thank you for the feedback - <AUTHOR>

I really appreciate the feedback on the naming of jQUery Combinators and the cultural issues around obscure CS topics. Thank you.<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1449777 <comment><USER2> in link form:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1449777>

</comment><comment><USER3> Conversely, I find your submissions immensely interesting. Thank you.</comment>


Verizon patenting DVR that monitors for cuddling - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/verizon-patenting-dvr-monitors-cuddling-1C7446180

<comment><USER2> Where's the patent for fornication detection, which allows "targeted" ads by AstroGlide and K-Y, and PSAs about abstinence?

PS This device also allows the cable company to make "best of" compilation videos for the amusement and education of CxOs.

</comment><comment><USER3> I swear I saw a story about Microsoft trying to patent the same idea a few months ago...

</comment><comment><USER4> Where's the "Parent mode" which stops the movie and turns on the room's lights when cuddling is detected? For the nervous parent...</comment>


Spreadsheet formulas that build interactive Web Applications - <AUTHOR> http://emailapp.cellmaster.com.au//SpreadsheetWebAppBuilder.html

<comment><AUTHOR> is getting so many hits, it is overloading the google spreadsheet. Try again tomorrow when less people are looking.</comment>


Private Posts on Facebook Revealed - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/private-posts-on-facebook-revealed/

<comment><USER2> That's like complaining when someone redistributes something you gave them under the condition than they promise not to.

I can theoretically repost any "private" content shared by my Facebook friends. Is that a breach of the TOS? Is that illegal? Is that Facebook's fault?

</comment><comment><USER3> So technically, one person of the group makes the post public by clicking on the Storify button? Not sure if it's a FB problem, people just need to be careful about what they post</comment>


Google Will Collapse - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/forwardtick/how-google-collapsed-b6ffa82198ee <comment><USER3> Should have put the disclaimer first. This is just a guy betting on Brave trying to write up some imaginary future where Brave causes google to collapse.

<comment><USER4> I wrote the first version before I had even heard of Brave. I recommend reading that one first and see if you still think that. (It's linked at the bottom of the article.)

I only added that part in the updated version a couple months ago because after learning everything I have about Brave since writing the article, I would feel remiss not mentioning it. What Brave is building truly feels to me like the best antidote to the adtech monstrosity Google and Facebook have created, and Brave is the only company I see with a clear vision on how to solve the problems for all parties (users, publishers, and advertisers).

If Brave was just another startup tackling a big problem, I wouldn't even think of mentioning it. But Brendan Eich is the one running this company, and he is undeniably one of the most influential people in the history of the web. He created the protocol that moved the web from 1.0 and 2.0, and then cofounded the company that took down the biggest browser of the time controlled by the monopolistic tech company of its day.

Who better to take down the biggest browser of today and create the protocol to move the web from 2.0 to 3.0?

—a guy betting on Brave

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I went to medium.com to read this article about the forthcoming collapse of Google, and I noticed that medium.com wanted me to log in using my Google account. I find this ... unconvincing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Medium sucks without premium. I don't know why they went with that route

<comment><USER6> It sucks _with_ premium. I don't understand why people still bother with the platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > For all its efforts, the money Google earned from its nonadvertising > ventures only ever accounted for a mere 15% of their revenue.

15% of Google's revenue is still a quite large business. Having online advertising badly weaken isn't enough to kill the firm, unless they sell the profitable parts to try to bail out the unprofitable core business.

The assumption that Google will collapse is probably still true, but only because most companies don't last long term. The bigger firms often take quite a while to fade though.

</comment><comment><USER8> This seems unlikely. It's more likely it will continue to grow, but probably not as much as Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon.

<comment><USER9> I agree with that. They'll slow considerably, not collapse. The stagnation of their growth is basically inevitable, considering they'll be hitting $200 billion in annual sales soon (two more fiscal years). Right now there are seven companies in the US over $200b in sales. Globally there are 17 total over that line (seven of them are essentially state-backed energy companies). None of them are growing at a consequential real rate other than Amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It was an okay article with multiple sources until it became a sales pitch for Brave and "will collapse" became "did collapse".

</comment><comment><USER11> The article makes big swooping statements like _" treating people as people turned out to be a winning strategy"_ but fails to adequately explain what that means here.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you are going to continuously edit a soothsaying prediction about Google's doomsday date since 2017 and place a bet on Brave succeeding while they keep using Google's technology (Chromium now maintained by Googlers), it very well appears that the authors crystal ball is a faulty one.

<comment><USER13> > (Chromium now maintained by Googlers)

"now" sort of implies there was a time when Chromium existed but was maintained by someone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well that was an underwhelming argument.. _google is shit_ random links* - DOWNLOAD BRAVE!"

My (and please feel free to take a pop at me) riposte is that Google is the single large Internet company that keeps encroaching into my privacy/life - but gives me enough carrot with each stick for me to forgive them. Yes, I'm being data-raped, but they're actually pretty open with it and provide me some use from this data. e.g. Years ago I was shocked at seeing that I was being tracked on the maps timeline. But, it meant I could identify that great restaurant I was trying to remember.

I had the option to turn off the tracking.. but well it's really useful. Then you see your last holiday came with free-tracking and your free-pixel photos inserted into a lovely timeline.. _grinds teeth at the intrusion, but loves the nostalgic montage_

They also have been successful in opening my wallet - no more youtube adverts for me (and yes, you can block them in the browser, but then that doesn't pay the creator). Also paid for Drive - originally that, drop-box or Onedrive _flips coin_ \- but best client, API for my NAS, could add backup for my Mum's PC.. It was better so I bit, but kept finding more useful stuff being added.

As a counterargument - "Facebook". I used to think it was magic, but every interaction annoys me. "Why don't you connect to these people???! - <USER2> I've no idea who any of them are.

Ebay - Doesn't seem to offer me anything more, except more shite each time I try to use it. Expensive AliExpress at best.

Amazon - actually great for shopping, nice integration of third party stuff. Easily winner in cloud hosting - and great example of horizontal gubbins.

MS - Under Satya actually interesting once more - and as I was convinced they were going insane, proof that I've no idea what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER15> > data-raped

Please don't dilute the meaning of words like this. As your post acknowledges the use of your data is entirely consensual and sprinkling rape in their is just for shock value only bros could consider ok

<comment><USER14> Now stop that - Do you _honestly_ (imagine I'm sat across the table from you, giving you a hard look) think I was trying in any sense to "devalue/mitigate/desensitize rape"?

And don't you even try arguing that your problem isn't directly with me, but your concern is that others reading my post might get the wrong end of it.

<comment><USER15> > Do you honestly think I was trying

No, I think it's an inappropriate superfluous shock-value word in this context.

> don't you even try arguing that your problem isn't directly with me

I wasn't going to!

<comment><USER14> It was just a bit of hyperbole.

Do you feel equally outraged to condemn "murder" if anybody uses the verb "kill"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd imagine it's much more likely that Brave will collapse.

</comment><comment><USER17> A bit dated and sensationalist, but still has some good points.

Maybe Google won't collapse outright, but they are facing challenges on a lot of fronts. Everything from employees unionising, antitrust legislation both at home and abroad, massive loss-leaders like YouTube, and advertising market challenges.

Worst of all is probably the reputational damage. They used to be the darling of technologists everywhere, but countless privacy- and monopolist scandals have taken their toll. There's a growing anti-Google sentiment, and once lost, reputation is hard to recover.

<comment><USER18> > _A bit dated_

It does seem dated, but the author has continued to edit it since it was originally written. He's got stuff from 2018 and 2019 in there.

> _massive loss-leaders like YouTube_

Citation needed.

<comment><USER17> Citations are a bit tricky, since Google keeps YouTube's financials secret, but from what I hear, it's been in the red ever since the adpocalypse, and the new COPPA-rules will not help, since all content targeting children will now also be demonetised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> And this is the year of the linux desktop...:p

<comment><USER20> ...on the X12 window system!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of this Dilbert: [https://dilbert.com/strip/2002-08-26](https://dilbert.com/strip/2002-08-26)

<comment><USER20> Please don't remind me of Scott Adams, who makes sock puppets to pose as his own biggest fan on message boards to defend and flatter himself.

[https://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos- sockpupp...](https://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppet/)

"And he's a certified genius. Just sayin'." -Scott Adam's Sock Puppet plannedchaos, on Scott Adams.

Women are "treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It's just easier this way for everyone." -Scott Adams

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yeah, said a dude who posts on medium in 2020

<comment><USER23> To be fair, this was posted in 2017

<comment><USER18> First posted in 2017, continually edited since then.</comment></comment></comment>


What is Skeuomorphism? - <AUTHOR> http://vooza.com/videos/what-is-skeuomorphism/

<comment><USER2> Hilarious. "Its a disease" was the best one!

<comment><USER3> it's funny because it's true

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think the video explained it very well, but I am sure there is a type class for it in Haskell.. somewhere..

</comment><comment><USER2> It is something poor Apple users will only dream for in future.

</comment><comment><USER5> Videos should be so marked so that they can be easily skipped.</comment>


Average Appstore visit to Download rates? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone have any idea for average app store visit to download conversion rates?<p>What's a good rate, what's a bad rate? <comment><USER2> On the Apple Appstore, I've seen an average of around 30% App Store Views to App Units (i.e. downloads) being typical.

Note that those figures are historically limited because before the launch of iTunes Connect's App Analytics there was no way of knowing your number of views.

Hope this helps!</comment>


Uber's 'Dirty Little Secret': Shared Driver Accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubers-dirty-little-secret-shared-driver-accounts-11574883278?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> I like the end of the article where Uber suggests it's going to implement advanced face recognition where you have to blink or turn your head.

Then a driver suggests just checking for excessive hours clocked against the vehicle instead :)

</comment><comment><USER3> In Lithuania, people from Ukraine are brought this way. There are 4 of them per car: two drive in shifts, two stay in Ukraine with their families (because their visa free entry is 90 days out of 180). Obviously work is completely illegal.

Their boss is Ukrainian himself AND he works for the Lithuanian company that owns the car! So there are 3 intermediaries between rider and (actual) driver, counting Uber itself.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is almost the default in India. The person driving me is almost never the person whose name is shown on the app.

<comment><USER5> In Warsaw, Poland there are many Uber drivers from India. If you have a collision with one of them you (and the police) have to wait for his handler to arrive on the scene as the driver speaks almost no English, have no papers etc..

As far as I know the drivers are brought here, live in squalid conditions out in some suburbs, and probably earn next to nothing as the money goes to their handlers.

Uber is facilitating slave work managed by organized crime groups on a large scale.

<comment><USER6> I've had a few Indians drive me here, but it's mostly people from Ukraine, Georgia, and some of the other *stans.

The one thing that I've encountered is that multiple drivers sharing the same car.</comment></comment></comment>