Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You - <AUTHOR> http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/ <comment><USER2> All very good advice.

The bit about calmly but methodically collecting a paper trail and then reading it back to them is excellent advice for any out of control bureaucracy. Such entities can handle angry irate people all day long, but a calm and collected person that posses ample evidence of documented screw ups and potential illegalities is a bureaucracy's worst nightmare.

<comment><USER3> This puts things in perspective.

I used to get angry when the other party used to screw up, have stopped getting angry seeing how futile getting angry at a random (and ever changing) customer rep is.

This puts calmness in a new perspective

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I see the same thing with all my family and friends. Whenever they have to do something that involves bureaucracy, they give up and/or start shouting. Especially in Greece, where the public sector and the banks depend on you giving up.

Personally I always make sure to go fully prepared, with every legal paper ready before hand, and having ready answers/solution for every possible issue. And above all else I talk as polite as I possibly can, showing respect and making sure I am asking clear and direct questions. And I always double check their answers. As a result I always get my job done.

Funny story: I once needed a signature from the tax office director. While I was at her office and she was taking quite some time to check every thing, looking for something wrong to send me away, her phone rang. The house next to hers caught on fire. She started search for the fire departments phone number and she couldn't find it. Luckily I had my phone with me, googled it really fast and told her the number. Got the paper signed in a instant after that.

<comment><USER3> I feel sad every time I hear things like this. That we've to be happy that we got our job done even when all our documents are in the clear. Or that we've to hope get some favor from them by fawning (not alleging that you did that). It makes me feel like we're treated like dumb children by our governments.

<comment><USER5> > It makes me feel like we're treated like dumb children by our governments.

Bingo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The kalzumeus.com article is informative and accessible, especially if your identity has been stolen.

If your identity has not yet been stolen, the NYTimes has an article titled "Equifax's Instructions Are Confusing. Here's What to Do Now." [0]

tl;dr: Freeze requests for your credit data at the big 3: Equifax [1], Experian [2], and Transunion [3].

(Note: these services may require multiple attempts, some persistence, a service fee, or a phone call to an automated system. YMMV.)

      [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/your-money/identity-theft/equifaxs-instructions-are-confusing-heres-what-to-do-now.html
      [1] https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp
      [2] https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
      [3] https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze

EDIT: missing word

<comment><USER7> Very useful links. Thanks.

I'd like to know how I can determine what services have such a hold in place for me.

This is all pretty absurd. Why should we have to pay to not have our credit history disclosed? We should pay when we want to have it disclosed.

Then I would have to pay THREE different companies to not disclose it. Or keep track of which ones won't disclose it.

The European model of you owning your own information is making more and more sense.

<comment><USER8> It sounds like extortion to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the data leak was an intentional move to provide incentive to people to sign up for their credit monitoring services or unfreeze fees.

<comment><USER9> When a company "pulls" your credit they are not given the report for free. Equifax and the like sell a credit reporting service to banks and other companies who would want to see your credit history. When you freeze your report, reporting agencies are not allowed to sell your report to anyone, at your request, meaning they are losing revenue. The freeze fee makes sense when you realize your report is the product they are selling. "You're not allowing us to make money? Fine, then you need to help make up the difference with a fee." Just like stockbrokers, they are intent on making money both coming and going.

<comment><USER7> Maybe what we need is an open source blockchain application that keeps track of every event in your credit history, with YOU authorizing every view.

Every time you use credit, you'd be authorizing that creditor to add events to the records for that use, until they mark it paid off. Otherwise, nothing else gets into your history. And you'd be able to comment on any of those events, of course.

<comment><USER7> Of course, it would also need to support multi factor authentication and keep all data related to that secure. Might be hard to do that, but seems pretty hard in the existing industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _I am a shareholder in BigBank. I was therefore profoundly displeased when I learned..._

This is amazing. It is also trivially true for anyone who holds an S&P 500 index fund or similar when dealing with American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp, and Wells Fargo among a few others.

<comment><USER11> I didn't understand how smart it was until I read your comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The FTC has a site with a lot of helpful information on helping you resolve identity theft, and even will help generate the correct documentation and direct you through the maze. [https://www.identitytheft.gov](https://www.identitytheft.gov)

Note the it is literally the business of credit agencies to blithely ruin lives so they will be very unhelpful if they can.

<comment><USER13> Huge differences in quality between your first and second paragraphs. It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness. They prosper when more people are in the credit pool and are able to take out loans.

<comment><USER14> > It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit > worthiness.

Please, the dogma they preach they might as well be a religion. * Where you live affects your credit worthiness.

* How long you live there affects your credit worthiness.

* The title of your job affects your credit worthiness.

* Marital status affects your credit worthiness.

* The degree and school you attended affects your credit worthiness.

* How long you have a bank account affects your credit worthiness.

I haven't even touched on the credit part of credit worthiness, yet.

And I know this as these are the bullshit questions I had to answer while we're trying to purchase a home.

<comment><USER15> Do you live in the United States? In the United States:

 _Where you live affects your credit worthiness._

Illegal, and radioactively so. The practice was called redlining and a bank engaging in it would have hellfire rained upon it.

 _Marital status affects your credit worthiness._

Also illegal.

 _The degree and school you attended affects your credit worthiness._

Untrue; credit reports don't include this information. (It is available from specialized vendors for doing things like e.g. verifying resumes, but banks don't habitually employ them because your credit history is much, much more reliable.)

 _The title of your job affects your credit worthiness._

Untrue; titles are generally not reported to CRAs, difficult to get out of customers, and difficult to verify. If you wanted to use them in underwriting, for the same amount of effort you can just ask "What is your salary?" and verify it with the employer the same way you'd verify their title; this gets you everything you want in a more reliable fashion, since salary inflation is less common than title inflation.

<comment><USER14> > Do you live in the United States?

Yes, we moved here after 15 years of living abroad.

> Marital status affects your credit worthiness.

They asked for this information.

To paraphrase our mortgage broker, "having a 4 year degree makes you much more creditworthy." And I just confirmed it with a family member who works in Fannie Mae, says it's true.

Have you looked at a 1003/residentialloan application lately? You and I both agree they shouldn't be asking these questions but those questions are on the application.

<comment><USER16> What a credit agency retains on you and what a bank asks from you in a loan application are two different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If I saw a new account opened in my name I would be pretty concerned and would probably come back to this post for advice. However, is it necessary to get be this thorough (going to the police, etc) for things like incorrect tradelines in your report?

When I first requested my free reports a few years ago all three had multiple tradelines that were not mine and two had a similar situation as Patrick's - namely an account older than me. I used the CRAs' online forms to request they fix them and they did within a few weeks. Didn't seem like that big of a deal.

<comment> squeaky-clean It helps you in the worst case scenario. What would you have done had they never responded or taken any action? Or if they responded with incorrect information / misunderstanding the original claim like they did in the article thinking OP was talking about their child's birthdate, when OP was clearly talking about themselves?

It's a relatively small price and additional amount of effort to protect you in a situation that can be very important to you financially for a long time. What if 20 years from now those accounts are reopened in some credit report?

Also just anecdotally, but I bank with Chase and their customer service has always been so terrible, I'd expect all these to happen to me.

<comment><USER17> A paper trail is good, of course, but IIRC, I did receive amended reports from each of the CRAs with letters describing the actions taken.

I also suspect that I went through the process more recently than Patrick, I think it was about five years ago. In my case, I was able to select the problematic accounts, what the problems were, and the desired actions all via dropdown elements. There was an additional text box for any extra explanation. This is what made it seem routine and not a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is quite a useful write-up and I love the way it's written. Thank you.

If you are in the United States you also have an option to file a complaint with their government regulator. Consumer Financial protections bureau has a complaint form prominently featured on their website, as does the FTC for non- financial parts. Believe FDIC does for banks as well. Worth a shot and establishes a paper trail quickly!

<comment><USER19> Also, find your state financial regulator. Mine is the New York Department of Financial Services and they have teeth.

<comment><USER20> This is one of the undersold advantages of living in states that care about the decent behavior of corporations operating in their states. It's very _expensive_ to screw people over in them, and so you are more resistant--not immune, of course--to many types of nasty behavior on their part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I enjoyed reading this. Question for patio11 or others more knowledgeable about this - could a chatbot similar to the one being used to fight traffic tickets be useful in keeping a paper trail and putting the fear of god into banks/CRAs when this happens? Because why not automate this, especially for people who aren't as articulate/level-headed/organized, who might otherwise bungle it?

<comment><USER15> Decision trees for interpretation of the law are _fraught_ ; talk to a lawyer about where the line is.

The reason for not automating communications is in the post. The CRAs have carte blanche to straight-up ignore anything which they think comes from an automated process or a firm/organization specializing in helping people with their credit.

Could you potentially automate some of the record keeping? Possibly. Could you automate the sending of paper? Certainly. Automating the receipt of paper is tricky since, for all the predictable reasons, someone last living at 123 Maple St will have a lot of difficulty telling the bank or CRA to mail them at 1234 Commercial Parkway Suite 666 to discuss their credit. (You can do it, and I have done it, but expect to be put through some identity verification hoops.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The CFPB should definitely be added to the list of lawyer alternatives. I had a minor issue with a bank and filing a complaint with the CFPB got it quickly resolved whereas my state's consumer protection division didn't even bother writing back.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Do not sign up for credit monitoring; it is a great revenue source for credit reporting agencies but almost never a good purchase for consumers."

Further to this, UK customers can get free access to their Equifax credit report via Clearscore.com anyway. And the experian one via moneysavingexpert credit club.

</comment><comment><USER24> When I grow up, I want to be a Dangerous Professional.

<comment><USER25> Why wait? You can be a Dangerous Professional at any age. Being able to remain calm in emotional situations is a huge lever in many situations, not just when dealing with bureaucracies. It's almost like a super power. I recommend it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone know what I can do as an US citizen abroad to protect myself now? I tried to get a free copy of my credit report but it required a us address to process. I tried to set up an account to freeze my credit but those require a us address as well.

<comment><USER27> No idea, but I asked the same thing on the expats Stack Exchange site earlier today[0]. No responses yet, maybe we have to wait until Monday and call them? You might also contact the US Embassy in your country and ask.

I had a similar problem with signing up for an online "my Social Security" account, and learned that it is impossible. The US Embassy in London wrote back: _" You must have a U.S. mailing address in order to create a my Social Security account and cannot open an account without one."_

Having a credit record in the USA is no longer important as I do not plan to return, but you would think the credit reporting agencies should have some way of telling them "I'm long gone, if you see a credit application from the USA it's definitely fraudulent". Can't be done I guess.

[0][https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how- ca...](https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how-can-us- citizens-living-overseas-freeze-their-credit)

<comment><USER26> Thanks I'll keep my eye on that question. Like you I probably won't care about my credit back home for the next decade or so but I don't know if I'll move back in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Excellent post!

I've mailed and emailed CxOs and VPs in the past (not for bank/credit related matters), whenever company's support utterly failed me. Doing this gives a much needed kick in the pants to the bureaucratic machine, which gotten stuck in gear.

</comment><comment><USER29> Just a thank you to patio11 - I got a phone call from a debt collector yesterday, over something I thought I had finally persuaded the original owner was incorrect. (Mobile phone bill iymk)

I was going to call them Monday, but of course, now I will write :-)

</comment><comment><USER30> This is good advice I think in general working with most CS groups. I'm taking this to heart right now in a completely different setting. I'm close to becoming heated but I realize that's not going to help anything.

Unfortunately, I've recently had our business credit card blocked from Facebook Advertising after a year of use without warning. Potentially suspending on going campaigns. On Thursday it was removed without my knowledge and was unable to be readded. There is no call center or email at Facebook to reach out to. You're the mercy of their overloaded support inbox system. No matter how much you spend. It's now Saturday and I am receiving multiple calls a day from owner's asking if it's been resolved. I have no recourse aside from praying that I get a response and a correction done.

</comment><comment><USER31> "Angry people demand; professionals "require." "

YES YES YES--it's not enough to merely be aware of the connotations of your words. You must also be aware of any unintended information conveyed through their use.

For example, despite being synonyms, the use of the word "demand" in this context exposes one as an amateur. It doesn't matter if you think this is unfair. It matters that you know all information conveyed, directly or indirectly.

(This is incredibly good writing! Great business writing exhibits the characteristics of great code: as simple as possible but no simpler, and unambiguous. Reading this post is worth your time just for the chance to see an example of a relentlessly relevant post.)

<comment><USER32> Sorry, I know this is very minor and beside the point (ironic, given what you just said about relevance), but isn't that exactly what connotation means?

>a : the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly names or describes⁰

Or is this perhaps even more meta than that - the choice itself can convey something apart from the semantics of a word, and this isn't something that the word connotation covers?

My apologies for sidetracking, you just got me wondering. I'm neither a native speaker nor a linguist, so it's tricky for me to think about these things sometimes. I agree with what you're saying, by the way.

[0] [https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/connotation](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/connotation)

<comment><USER15> The word connotation is typically used to describe inferences that you'd make about a statement given the word used which are widely available to native speakers of that language. Thin, skinny, and gaunt all mean the same thing; only "gaunt" has the connotation that the person described necessarily has a problem.

The other poster is describing something a bit more meta than what the word connotation typically covers. They are describing something akin to a shibboleth, a great linguistics word. One's use of a shibboleth is an (often very quiet) signal of membership in an in-group. (c.f. usage #2 here: [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shibboleth](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/shibboleth) )

An example: if someone steals your credit card, and you call your bank to report that, you could describe your requested action as either "opening a dispute" or "filing a chargeback." These are functionally equivalent but saying "chargeback" suggests that you're likely rather sophisticated about the mechanics of credit cards relative to most well-educated people.

<comment><USER33> Isn't this what semiotics[1] is all about? The difference between connotations and denotations?

My parents were really into that sort of thing "Words have power" \- So during my 'bratty teenager' phase, I standardized on the word with the most negative denotation that had the correct connotation in my speech. I still do it sometimes, as a joke, but it's... funny, because while I have the feeling that the connotation is somehow less important than the denotation, and when I do the above, I'm attempting to point that out, nobody else seems to see it that way. To 'hire someone profitably' is a dramatically different thing, in most minds, than to 'exploit someone', even though the two words have an identical denotation.

I used to see my lack of understanding here as a sign of how most people cannot see past their own emotions; I now see my lack of understanding as a sign of how I am not in touch with emotions in a fully human sort of way.

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

<comment><USER34> Connotations are not meaningless. It's a question of redundancy when encoding information and should be treated like a checksum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "These days they have streamlined online applications for writing to them, but I suggest that you only send them paper letters. This is a really weird thing for a technologist to suggest, but when you send paper letters, you can establish and own a "paper trail." When you type words into their godawful web applications and hit submit, you will likely fail to retain a copy of those words and fail to retain records about what they told you (exactly) and when. This will complicate your resolution with them. Communicate with them only over postal mail. Keep a log of every mail you send (including what you said) and when it was sent; keep a copy of every letter they send to you and when it was sent. You don't need physical copies; digital is fine. I like organizing all of mine on a per-incident basis in Dropbox."

YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SEND LETTERS WITH 'USPS RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.' (It's the green card you get at the post office and once the recipient receives your letter, you will get a green card in the mail serving as proof of delivery and acceptance.) This is the lowest costing form of legal proof for a paper trail. Well worth it. I use it all the time and I learned this from my dad who has spent his life practicing law.

<comment><USER36> > _YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SEND LETTERS WITH 'USPS RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.' (It's > the green card you get at the post office and once the recipient receives > your letter, you will get a green card in the mail serving as proof of > delivery and acceptance.) _

Also: 1) Get the actual green-card form beforehand; 2) type the green-card serial number above the inside address of the letter; and 3) keep a photocopy. Otherwise the recipient could claim that the signed green card, confirming receipt of the mailing, was for some other letter, not the one you sent. As a baby lawyer filling in for a more-senior associate at a court hearing, I had an opposing counsel make just such a claim to a judge; the judge gave the opposing counsel the benefit of the doubt. (The opposing counsel was later disbarred for unrelated reasons.)

Example of such an inside address:

\--begin--

       VIA CERTIFIED MAIL NO. 123456789

       Evil Corporation
       9876 Main Street
       Anytown, Anystate  54321-9876

       Attention: Department of Fobbing People Off

       To whom it may concern:

       [etc.]

\--end--

<comment><USER37> Is the date that the green card was bought recorded by USPS? Basically, how exactly does writing the tracking number within the letter prove that the letter was mailed with that envelope?

<comment><USER38> Under civil law in the United States, the legal burden is not "irrefutable proof", but "preponderance of evidence".

If you produce copies of a letter with a given return receipt number indicated on it, the return receipt stub, and the received receipt, and the opposing party claims that "this could have been faked", then, unless your credibility is otherwise impeached, _you have established a preponderance of evidence for your claim._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > Mean words cannot hurt a bank. Threats cannot hurt a bank. Paper trails, > though, are terrifying to regulated institutions. Your bank's customer > support representatives are taught to evaluate whether someone looks like > they're competent and collecting a paper trail. If they are, the CS rep is > supposed to stop touching the case immediately and instead escalate them to > a supervisor or to the legal department.

This is why I record every single one of my phone calls. I've recorded lies over the phone (without knowing they were lying at the time) and then played them back to another customer service rep to prove how I was deceived. I was immediately escalated as the author says and could feel how the evidence gave me power in the situation.

Edit: I'm not suggesting anyone break the law. If you're going to record phone calls, know your laws and get consent if necessary. This document which was last updated 3/10/2017 may be of help [https://www.mwl-law.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/LAWS-ON-R...](https://www.mwl-law.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/LAWS-ON-RECORDING-CONVERSATIONS-CHART.pdf)

<comment><USER15> Important not-a-lawyer advice: recording phone calls without the other party's consent is illegal in wide swathes of the U.S., but keeping copies of letters is legal everywhere.

<comment><USER40> Question: When the party states that "this call may be recorded for quality or training purposes", does that give you reciprocal permission to record the call or do you have to explicitly ask for it?

Any lawyers with opinion on this?

<comment><USER40> Follow up question:

What if I said "I am recording this call" while I am in an Automatic Voice Response system waiting for an human to arrive on the line and talk to me?

As far as I am concerned, human representative or the automated voice response system, both represent the company that I am interacting with. It's not my fault that the voice response system that the company used to talk to me (to answer my questions, or just make me wait) can't understand that I am going to record the call and act appropriately. The business is perfectly fine with using the automated system to take critical actions, then it should be fine with me telling it I will be recording the call, not my fault that their automated system failed to recognize that.

What do you think?

<comment><USER41> Intent and reasonable expectations will come in to play.

Unlike the movies, judges hate word games and attempts to skirt the laws. As in, they really frown on it.

This is not legal advice and I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified legal representative in the appropriate jurisdiction.

<comment><USER42> Truth. I once happened to be in a hearing where the judge got the idea that the plaintiff's attorney might be jerking him around. It was an impressive display of wrath. Along with crocodiles and bears, federal judges are now on my "definitely do not fuck with" list.

<comment><USER41> Playing semantics games is almost guaranteed to piss off the judge. Pissed off judges are not nice.

It's a very long-winded story, so I will try for the short version. Courts default to being open to the public. You can go down and watch them. Chances are, you can even make use of a law library.

Anyhow, this is sort of a hobby of mine. I know, I'm a strange person - but I love watching the court. Like I said, it's a long story.

I think my favorite was a guy who was in district court and argued with the judge about the definition of marijuana and the word possession. Now, the judge was pretty polite and told them that they were trying to give them a very small fine.

The kid persisted and had no idea about procedure. I mean, he could have argued those things but there's a procedure. Procedure is very, very important to judges. Seriously, they love proper procedure so much that they will even tell you what you need to do. She tried to explain this to the kid.

But no, he persisted and tried to fake his way into appearing to be a legal scholar. Again, this was district court.

Suffice to say, he kept going before finally admitting guilt and she gave him the maximum fine and just until the end of the day to pay that fine. At which point he decided it was time to double down and refuse to recognize the court - though not as one of those sovereign citizen things.

I'm not sure what the end result was, but he was taken into custody by the court officers. The rest of the day went quite smoothly.

The best part of this story? He had the chance to speak with the DA prior to this and the State provides an attorney of the day. He took advantage of neither one.

<comment><USER43> It boggles my mind when people think they can out-talk people trained to parse semantics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I love that this is both informative, seemingly complete, and genuinely useful, and I really hope it gets in front of the people who will need it the most.

<comment><USER15> It is, somewhat regrettably to me, not nearly complete. This is the Cliff Notes version -- it's biased towards the most useful particular bits for one particular use case and constrained by the fact that I was trying to write it in a few hours on a Saturday afternoon while still having time to play with my kids.

<comment><USER45> It gets the essential point across. Communication with a CRA is a battle of attrition. This is how to send specific early signals that you'll last longer than they will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is great advice for writing professional demand letters in general, beyond just identity theft-related.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's my understanding that FICO scores are all created using software from FICO. So I don't think the term has become generic as the article implies.

<comment><USER38> It depends on the context and strictness of the term.

Much of it is the reverse: "credit score" means "FICO score" when _you_ are being assessed, but not when you request a "free credit score".

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Great advice. Thank you for sharing this!

</comment><comment><USER48> Another good way to protect yourself is to save money, and avoid needing to rely on banks for a credit lifeline.

<comment><USER15> You might not care about your credit rating but your credit rating, unfortunately, cares about you.

Do you want to rent an apartment in the United States? You will, in many geographical markets, expect to have credit pulled as a matter of course. This is partly to determine ability to pay and partly to determine whether you are socially established; "I have mountains of money, why would I need _credit_?" is something which is often said by people who operate meth labs.

Do you want to work in a job which requires a background investigation? Expect a credit pull.

Do you want certain varieties of insurance policies?

Expect this list to get longer as time goes on, because "credit" encodes a lot of things which are stupefyingly useful in predicting outcomes in advance. Like any bit of code which is stupefyingly useful, get_fico_score() is going to find its way in all sorts of places you'd never naively expect to see it.

Additionally, if someone comes to the mistaken conclusion that you owe them money, the harassment which likely accompanies that is a nuisance even if the dings to your credit score are not.

<comment><USER49> This was a really excellent post, the best I've seen you write up this material, and among your top 5 posts ever.

Having said that, I'm tentatively going to disagree.

I made a conscious, somewhat coerced choice in my early 20s never to rely on revolving credit. A combination of random course-of-business (of course resolved) delinquencies and no history of revolving credit resulted in my having relatively poor credit. Compounding this, my disinvestment from my own credit score has led to a new dispute resolution strategy for e.g. medical billing mistakes, which is "ignore mistakes and disputes forever" \--- you can imagine the resulting impact on my credit score.

The net effect on my life has been minimal.

It _was_ comically difficult for me to obtain an actual bona fide credit card (which I wanted in order to broaden my choice of car rental agencies --- a problem that has become less important over time as more and more rental agencies accept debit cards). A few weeks after I got the first wire transfer from the sale of Matasano, calling Chase with a checking account balance that could fairly be called "moronic", I had to argue for about 30 minutes for them to issue me a credit card with an extremely minimal monthly balance.

That's about the extent of my problems.

Every landlord I've rented from has pulled my credit. My credit has always been bad. But my landlord references were spotless, and that's what landlords seemed to care about.

It's more than likely that if I was in a different career, and particularly if that career was in a lower-paying sector where workers have less leverage, my credit score would be a real concern in finding a job. But in this industry, my general response to being declined for a job as an adverse decision relating to my credit score would be to do to the reputation of the hiring firm on Twitter approximately what the lawyers at the Bank of Bigness believe their regulators will do over an FCRA violation.

I would almost certainly have a hard time getting a loan for a car. But then, see "revolving credit". _Don 't_ get a loan for a car. I had one once in my 20s and remember it being a pretty miserable experience. Until very recently, every other car I'd driven since was (a) worse than that car and (b) on balance a more pleasant experience for not coming with a Significant Monthly Bill. Obviously, in this industry, you will eventually reach a point in your career and your personal financial maturity where "obtaining what you believe to be a car commensurate with your status" will stop being an interesting problem.

Which, I think, leaves us with home ownership. I don't have a good answer here. I bought my house in 2005, weeks after starting Matasano, a company which for all the intents and purposes of my mortgage lender did not exist. Suffice it to say I was not able to push that lender around with the contents of my bank account, which were in 2005 also "moronic", but in the other direction. I probably got a worse rate. And it was 2005, so it's possible that my only effective qualification for buying a house was "50.0001% likelihood of currently having a pulse".

My tl;dr here though is, at least in my case: if you don't use credit cards ever, your credit score doesn't much matter, and as it turns out credit cards don't much matter either.

<comment><USER50> I mean, you're rich. The normal rules don't really apply. Your poor credit sounds like my poor credit, but it has a pretty big impact on my life.

You once mentioned you paid out of pocket to get your family member some kind of medical procedure. I think it was a CT scan? Anyone who can do that isn't really in the same class.

Here's one way it matters: every year, your entire well-being is determined solely by your landlord. You can be an excellent tenant and they'll decide not to renew your lease because reasons. Now you need to move your whole apartment in like three months, which means finding a new place. In some cases this requires a credit check. Not all, but that still limits your options in a tricky situation. Imagine if the place you lived was determined solely by that number you didn't pay attention to.

Want a nice car? Better have cash. Laptop? Cash. $3k to drop on a new laptop isn't feasible for the vast majority of people who aren't affluent.

I know you mean well, and I share your "fuck this broken system" feeling, but it can get you into trouble. Rebellion only works if you have the means.

Here's a concrete question: you need a laptop to do your job. How do you get one without credit? A second hand MacBook still costs >$1k. And yeah, we're talking sums of money that are tiny in comparison to what you're used to. It might be hard to believe that not everybody has $1k laying around. But paying $100/mo is far more pleasant, to say the least.

Here's another anecdote: new apartment in a new city. I was about 21 and had no credit history (bad or otherwise). I'm settling into my new apartment and call around to find out who the ISP is. It's AT&T. Call them up, ask for Internet. "No." "What do you mean 'no?'" "The system says 'unknown risk'. Our policy is to not do business in this situation."

I'm not exaggerating or making it up. There was no alternative, and I was completely screwed. There was no other ISP! We ended up using a family member to establish the account. But most people don't have anybody to fall back on. I don't know if AT&T still has that ridiculous policy, but there are other situations just like that.

<comment><USER49> Let me condense my last post down for you.

1\. You're right, in the sense that most people on HN with an established career in technology are, relatively speaking, "rich". That was my point: if you're stably employed in technology, your credit score might matter less than you think it does.

2\. You're wrong, in the sense that with the exception of the credit card anecdote, which I related as a way of demonstrating that I had in fact had some interaction with my credit score, all of that post concerned stuff that happened long before we sold Matasano. By the standards of HN in 2017, in the mid-00's, I was most assuredly not rich (the way you mean it; I'm just stipulating your term). I've had terrible credit the whole time.

A big part of my point is that "just use cash" worked out much better for me than attempting to rely on credit. Obviously, if I worked as a retail clerk, that would a very problematic strategy. But I don't. If I had been able to resolve "need a new laptop" with credit instead of cash, I'd have been worse off.

I get that the rules are different for tech workers. Part of the point of saying this is to remind people that the rules may be more different for us than we think, which should have moral implications for us as well.

<comment><USER50> Well, you mention that you sold Matasano, but that kind of sidesteps that you'd be screwed if it didn't happen. It's not tech workers vs retail clerks so much as financial windfall vs having a regular 9-5.

The credit system just sucks. It's a historical accident. But it's also not really realistic to say "In some cases you can get away with not worrying about your credit score if you're a tech worker."

<comment><USER49> I'm not arguing that the credit system doesn't suck. It sucks so much that I haven't had any meaningful contact with it for 20 years. For most of that time, the overwhelming majority of which I spent financially insecure (and a parent, to boot), my disengagement from credit has ended up feeling like a blessing. I genuinely do not understand why people get credit cards.

As for "windfall vs. 9-5", I spent ~20 years in the latter category, a category which I'm not unlikely to end up in again, and I simply don't agree with you.

Maybe another way to put it is this: for all the problems you've had with personal finances, I assert that acquiring revolving credit is a good solution to _none of them_.

Finally: since litigating this further is inevitably going to involve getting into pretty squicky financial details and debates over personal financial decision-making, I'm going to stop here. Since I think you'll probably disagree with me, I want to be clear that I expect and will read any rebuttal to this that you write, but I'm not going to continue the debate.

<comment><USER50> It solves getting your kids through college. That's one of the other pain points. The quality of life difference is massive if you have to work full time and also go to college full time.

It would be delightful to find an answer to some of the problems of bad credit. But it kind of matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Finally a breath of fresh air and reason amidst all of the fear mongering and anti-CRA FUD. The system isn't perfect, and consumers are definitely at risk...but it's far more important to really understand the relationship and interplay between CRAs and businesses in order to get a handle on the problems and work towards meaningful reform.

<comment><USER52> No, I think we need more FUD given what has just occurred. SSN and sensitive financial data of over half of U.S. adults obtained by criminals. Nice.

<comment><USER51> What "sensitive financial data"?

<comment><USER53> Card numbers.

<comment><USER51> > In addition, credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 consumers and > certain dispute documents, which included personal identifying information, > for approximately 182,000 consumers were accessed.

That's not "half of U.S. adults" as the OP stated.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Learn Prolog Now - <AUTHOR> http://cs.union.edu/~striegnk/learn-prolog-now/lpnpage.php?pageid=online <comment><USER2> An interesting aspect is that some of Prolog's ideas, such as the signature one of backwards-chaining, unification-based queries, are starting to resurface in other languages, so it might be worth learning even if you don't plan to use Prolog itself.

I wrote an opinion piece a while ago about why Prolog had fallen out of favor (<http://www.kmjn.org/notes/prolog_lost_steam.html>), and one of the reasons was that other declarative programming approaches, like forward-chaining, SQL w/ recursive queries, and LINQ-style dataflow variables, have bitten off a simpler but useful subset of what it bought you. In response, Mark Proctor from Drools argued that they're well on their way to importing nearly _everything_ important from Prolog, rather than only a useful subset, including backwards chaining with unification: [http://blog.athico.com/2011/04/backward-chaining-emerges- in-...](http://blog.athico.com/2011/04/backward-chaining-emerges-in- drools.html)

This includes a very interesting mashup of the two ideas, "reactive derivation", which does Prolog-style queries, but where the results, like with truth-maintenance systems or SQL "views", update in real time when the underlying data changes: [http://blog.athico.com/2011/06/truth-maintenance- over-direct...](http://blog.athico.com/2011/06/truth-maintenance-over- directed-graphs.html)

Imo, the simultaneous use of Prolog-style derivation and real-time forward- chaining style truth maintenance is both really interesting and a bit mind- bending, so learning Prolog first might be a good foundation.

<comment><USER3> can you point me to something that discusses dataflow style variables in linq? (i don't use ms software and had missed this). thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I took two Prolog classes at University, and it was one of those great experiences for me as a programmer. Highly recommended for everyone, don't get stuck on _just_ functional languages!

<comment><USER5> Sadly the only thing i can remember now are all the biblical examples of The Art Of Prolog, but prolog it's anyway something well worth a try (especially if you develop rule engines in other languages).

<comment><USER6> There is a much better example where the witch sketch from Monty Python is subtitled in prolog, but I can't seem to find it for the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Long ago and far away there was only one PC implementation for Prolog and like a good little programmer I gave it a shot. It was an 'interesting' ride (interesting in the Chinese sense) but I stuck with it long enough to understand that I was better off building my projects in the languages that Prolog seemed to have been built from. Never looked back; finished the project without further confusion or delay, took that as a sign. Similar to how many on HN seem to feel about Lisp :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I tend to think that prolog is better as a language library, such as with Racklog:

<http://docs.racket-lang.org/racklog/index.html>

<comment><USER8> Peter Norvig also has two implementations of Prolog in Paradigms of AI Programming (first one is interpreted, second is complied) in Common Lisp. The book is highly recommended because Norvig's code is very elegant and his exposition is wonderful.

Allegro Prolog [1] is based on Norvig's implementation, although I'm sure they've done a fair bit of optimizing.

[1]: <http://www.franz.com/products/prolog/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I've heard. I really need to acquire and work through that book.

<comment><USER8> You should totally do it... it's fantastic. Norvig makes it quite clear in the beginning that he expects you to know atleast some lisp beforehand (the "intro" chapter is a bit sparse), so you might want to brush you on your CL skills before you dive in.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I will. I'm fairly novice at CL, and it would be good to learn it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks like a good beginning text.

I have over a half a dozen Prolog books, my favorite being "The Art of Prolog." Bratko's books, "Prolog and Natural Language Analysis," and "Natural Language Processing in Prolog" are also favorites. I started decades ago with C&M - also a great start.

It has been over 5 years since anyone has hired me to do any Prolog development. I am not sure how widely used it is now.</comment>


JumpChat: a secure video conferencing and more witho accounts using WebRTC - <AUTHOR> https://jumpch.at/

<comment><USER2> like.</comment>


Google's Material Design is a political choice - <AUTHOR> https://www.imaginarycloud.com/blog/material-design-is-a-political-choice/amp/ <comment> King-Aaron I cannot take this author seriously. By adapting your product to fit a current design trend, you are not necessarily "supporting Google" \- rather you're supporting your users who are familiar with certain patterns.

However, to applaud "Web Brutalism" (It's nice that they put "web" there, since the term 'brutalism' in digital work is so misappropriated it's not funny) as an alternative goes to show that this author is not necessarily against Material/Bootstrap as a design choice, but more against it because they feel that form is more important than function.

This is not a good position to take if you want to develop intuitive software in my opinion.

They go on to contradict themselves as well, saying that you should disregard form and recognizable patterns ("If for modernists form should follow functions, for post-modernists, form is the function."), then immediately makes the comment "Legibility-communication must never be impaired by an a priori aesthetics."

This whole article screams "First year academic" to me.

</comment><comment><USER2> Eh, seems like a stretch to me. At the end of the day making usable UIs is hard, and any decent guideline that a non-visual person like me can follow is a good thing. My thanks goes out to all the designers and UI engineers that have put the time into producing high quality documentation.</comment>


Solving the Mystery of Link Imbalance: A Metastable Failure State at Scale - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/1499322996995183/solving-the-mystery-of-link-imbalance-a-metastable-failure-state-at-scale/ <comment><USER2> _The most literal conclusion to draw from this story is that MRU connection pools shouldn't be used for connections that traverse aggregated links._

Not just connections which traverse aggregated links. If you're load-balancing between multiple database replicas -- or between several S3 endpoints -- this sort of MRU connection pool will cause metastable load imbalances on the targets.

What I don't understand is why Facebook didn't simply fix their MRU pool: Switching from "most recent _response received_ " to "most recent _request sent_ " (out of the links which don't have a request already in progress, of course) would have flipped the effect from preferring overloaded links to avoiding them.

<comment><USER3> I coded the fix. We considered some options that had a bias away from the slow links, but we thought it was safer to avoid bias completely. It was fine in my tests, but I couldn't prove that biasing toward the faster link in a 2 link setup wouldn't set up an oscillation.

<comment><USER2> I wondered if that was it, but a 1/RTT loading behaviour seems safe enough to me -- after all, that's exactly what TCP does, and you're presumably not seeing any uncontrolled oscillations from that.

I guess it depends how much minimizing the size of your connection pool matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The breakthrough came when we started thinking about the components in the system as malicious actors colluding via covert channels."

That's probably the piece of that article that I'm going to remember for a long time.

<comment><USER2> That's exactly the thinking which led me to the first published cryptographic side channel attack against hyperthreading: Intel's optimization manual had a comment about being careful with stack alignment to avoid poor cache performance, and I thought "what if _slow_ could instead be _maliciously slow_?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was a great investigation of what must surely have been a complicated, frustrating, and expensive problem. Awesome writeup.

I love reading about post-mortems like this, even if they're unlikely to happen at my startup, because the problem-solving techniques that get displayed tend to generalize to things of almost any size.

</comment><comment><USER6> Many years ago I did programmeing on a telephony application which communicated using the old SS7 network. In here you, as a layer 4 protocol entity, can send a "link selection" key in the protocol messages. It's just a 4 bit number (or 8 if it's ANSI SS7 instead of ITU , iirc) per message, and the switches maps this number to a physical downstream link, often in a configurable fashion.

This is pretty neat, as the application can default to a round robin distribution and dynamically weigth the link selection key based on detected congestion/overload to shift the load to other links - since then I've often wished the TCP/IP world offered something similar.

</comment><comment><USER7> _This keeps all the packets of a TCP stream on the same link, avoiding out-of- order delivery._

Not a network engineer, but I had thought that _TCP_ handles ordering itself? Packets can travel completely different routes from origin to destination, so one can't expect them to arrive in order. Destination's TCP stack can deal with it.

Again, IANANE, but ISTM that those who first designed the network introduced an untested complication with their LIFO setup. Nearly anything would have worked, including not pooling at all. They just chose something weird for the hell of it. Later FB needed more performance out of the system, and this harmful complication was hidden from sight.

<comment><USER8> TCP reorders segments just fine but it treats disordering as a congestion signal and slows down. That's why link aggregation frequently uses the technique of pinning flows to a single link- to minimize disordering so as to avoid triggering TCP congestion control.

In Linux, you can change the sensitivity to disordering by writing to /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_reordering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> " At a meta-level, the next time you are debugging emergent behavior, you might try thinking of the components as agents colluding via covert channels."

An insightful way of looking at a problem when the cause is not obvious.

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh man, this reminds me of troubleshooting a host behind a router that didn't support window scaling.

It took a week or two to figure out why we couldn't transfer data but could connect, ssh, ping, etc.

<comment><USER11> Broken TCP window scaling? The connection should still work, with the sender backing off right? If you mean busted PMTUD yeah thats awesome when the handshake and GET works, but you cant get data back.

<comment><USER12> We saw busted PMTUD on a customer's network trying to get to us via a misconfigured network link. It's a bad problem to debug. None of us knew what PMTUD was, or that TCP can require ICMP to work, until that day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It took two years to figure this out? When I read the first couple of paragraphs my first thought was "the low-latency links are getting dropped from the eligibility pool somehow" and it turns out that was the problem.

I think my intuition there stems from having a lot of full-stack responsibility (so the idea that it's someone else's problem was never a luxury I could afford, since it was always my problem) and having cleaned up a number of other people's very large spaghetti-code disasters.

The other possibility is that I have no special intuition into the problem (this is far more likely) but did have a fresh set of eyes, while all the people who were working on the problem were so intimately familiar with it that they couldn't see the forest for the trees.

<comment><USER3> One of the reasons this took a long time to figure out is that it was a failure amplifier, so there was always a more typical network problem preceding it. Network failures in a data center cause lots of changes to the packets, because of retries, failover, and automatic load balancing, so there were a lot of trees to look at.

<comment><USER13> That makes a lot more sense. It would have been nice to include some of the troubleshooting process so people can learn from that too. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is one of the best engineering write-ups I've ever read. It's also a principle I'll remember, since I work a lot with distributed systems and p2p networks: when debugging, imagine systems as adversaries and frame it as a security problem.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER11> Color me confused. Just a week ago they posted "We also have server-side means to "hash away" and route around trouble spots, if they occur."

[https://code.facebook.com/posts/360346274145943/introducing-...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/360346274145943/introducing- data-center-fabric-the-next-generation-facebook-data-center-network/)

Does the server side flow hash manipulation dependent on ip tuple manipulation? Only enabled for some hosts/devices? A bit disappointed, was hoping for clever dscp or mpls tag manipulation. If they rely on new streams with specific src ports its a lot less interesting, and less useful for long lived connections.

<comment><USER15> This problem has been ongoing for two years: the post you linked described their new data center design, which may not even be online yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is one of the reasons why I like to include debugging a problem with a couple of levels of indirection for in-depth technical interviews.

</comment><comment><USER17> FYI: The page layout is broken in the latest firefox 34 beta on mac. It appears to be the image that is breaking it.</comment>


Pocketbook Color e-reader hands on review - <AUTHOR> https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/pocketbook-color-e-reader-hands-on-review <comment><AUTHOR> > The Pocketbook Color has a 6 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a > resolution of 1072 × 1448 with 300 PPI. It is able to display 4,096 > different colors and the maximum resolution for color content is 100 PPI. > The way the screen technology works, is say you are reading an ebook that is > black and white. You the text will be viewable at 300 PPI. If you are > reading a combination of color and B&W text, say on the internet browser, > the text will be at the normal PPI, and color at 100.</comment>


Are all the good domains taken? - <AUTHOR> Are there any good desirable domain names left? Or are they all taken?<p>AFAIK, 3 and 4 letter domains are all gone, but are there any good 5 or 6 letter domains left? Have you found them? <comment><USER2> A great option is to look at expiring names for domains being dropped because domainers couldn't monetize them.

A good tool is this, look at the tdnam expiring list: <http://www.freshdrop.net/expiring_names.php>

Just filter out everything except .com, and have a scan through. Hundreds of names drop each day. Minimum cost is $10 + reg fee, which is another $10 per year.

Right now I can see these dropping today, with no takers yet:

waffly.com zanze.com upbreak.com tibbu.com serific.com foxtrots.com frankable.com measurably.com

It's a gold mine!

Rich

<comment><USER3> Excellent tip, Rich; thanks very much for posting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not all the good ones are gone, but it's certainly getting increasingly hard to find a sensible domain name. What worked for me recently is although I couldn't find a domain name that wasn't taken, I found a good one that was registered but isn't in use, then used the coarse expedient of offering the owner a few hundred quid for it.

My main concern is that most of the domains are ending up owned by a very few individuals concerned only with slapping cheap advertising on them. I refuse to attempt to buy domains from these bottom feeders, and I would suggest that everyone else do likewise. However, it's an increasing problem that's going to require either the advertising industry or ICANN to crack down on one of these days.

</comment><comment><USER5> A 5 or 6 letter domain name isn't necessarily significantly better than a, say, 7 or 8 letter domain name. twitter.com is much better than twtr.com or similar.

The trick nowadays, unless you want some unpronounceable nonsense, is to conjoin two words in some way. Let's assume your site's main topic / product / quality is "widgets." You could go with things like: gowidgets, widgetstoday, hotwidgets, redwidgets, widgetman, widgetway, widgetinside, widgetwise.. you'll find a significant amount of domains with this technique that are free to register. It does take a lot of thinking and testing to find something that's good though! You can't just join anything.

<comment><USER6> That kind tend to be more forgettable precisely because there are so many combinations of words. For example, it's been a decade or so and I still don't remember if a given office supply store is Office Max or Office Depot. But I do know if it's a Staples or not.

<comment><USER5> That's the job of branding. Microsoft, Slashdot, Burger King, Coca Cola, TechCrunch, General Motors, Morgan Stanley and Mercedes Benz aren't particularly forgettable (even though Microsoft is about as generic as it gets!)

I'm not sure there are significantly more successful single word brands than longer named brands, although it certainly seems to be true online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 5-letter doesn't necessarily mean good. For instance, the 5-letter domains mentioned by kleevr in another post (kleevr.com, kratr.com, rabyt.com, exphi.com, excyt.com, xcytr.com, zroone.com, onezro.com, grabyt.com) might be nice and geeky, but good luck trying to get someone to remember them.

There's plenty of good stuff in 6/7-letters. I recently registered flails.org for an open-source project, and my latest business runs on Woobius.com. Both are clear and easy to remember (and, we reckon, not lame).

Daniel

<comment><USER8> I think domains themselves will be old news before too long anyways. I think OpenDNS is working on some cool ideas in the area.

I bought a domain like CarTrust.com for about $400, wanted to build a site to fix the 'how to find a good mechanic' problem, but recently realized car care wasn't a core passion of mine, so I passed the domain on to someone else. I'd spend at least two weeks playing on registrars before checking out the auctions, because if you work at it long enough I'm positive you'll find something you like that's unregistered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find this one handy: <http://www.bustaname.com/>

<comment><USER5> Seconded. BustAName has proven very useful for me, especially in terms of coming up with word combos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pretty much all of the generic, single/double words and three character domains are gone (and the people who own them are making $$$), but I've still found some good ones by adding two words together and being creative. It's just a little harder today than it was in 1999.

</comment><comment><USER11> I know that marketing types tell us to ignore everything except .com, but is that still valid in 2008? There are a kajillion of TLDs available for global registration now, and many have lots of English-word domains available.

<comment><USER12> I had one domain name I wanted for my personal site, and the .com was taken (and not even available for an extortionate amount despite that there was only advertising on there), so I got that name .org and .net.

Unless people knew/looked up my address from an email or business card, people kept going to the .com address..and sent email to the .com address as well and got "no such address" replies back. Then they'd call me up or something and bother me about it. Even my mom sent emails to the .com address.

Eventually I gave up and got another name that ended in .com, and I haven't had problems yet. Plus, it's something fairly memorable (if you know me) and also the first few google results for the name :D

I suppose the big problem is that even with the big name sites (del.icio.us comes to mind), some people have a hard time remembering "delicious" as being del.icio.us and instead go to delicious.com (I think I even heard something about them changing the main site address to .com...edit: it was from a TC article about the new preview.). It's been too ingrained into people's heads. It's probably not going to change anytime soon.

edit the second because it just popped up in my head: I might note this probably depends on where you live (or more specifically, where your visitors live). .com seems to be the default TLD people think of (sometimes the only one) in the US. Meanwhile it's not necessarily the case e.g. in South Korea, where .co.kr is just as well known as .com, et cetera.

edit the third because I haven't fully woken up yet (although it's 1pm PDT): I'm the general computer person for a small nonprofit in Southern California. We have a .org address, and you'd imagine it would be appropriate to use a .org address and that people would remember it. Nope. We're now considering buying the .com and redirecting to the .org because people have trouble associating a .org with an organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are still good domains out there. I just bought nect.us, for example (so I can do con.nect.us)

<comment><USER14> The problem I have with those del.icio.us type urls is that I have a really hard time remembering where the dots go.

Way back when del.icio.us was just getting popular, someone told me about it. When I got home, I tried "delicio.us", "delicious.com", "de.licio.us", etc. Had to resort to googling to find the place.

Also, you have "con.nect.us", but who has "connect.us"? I think they'll be getting a lot of your traffic...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This one is good for brainstorming ideas with immediate feedback: <http://instantdomainsearch.com/>

</comment><comment><USER16> Take a look of this one, a little bit of old but still helpful: [http://www.yafla.com/dennisforbes/Interesting-Facts-About- Do...](http://www.yafla.com/dennisforbes/Interesting-Facts-About-Domain- Names/Interesting-Facts-About-Domain-Names.html)

I registered a 5 letter domain (xruby.com) in 2006. I think there are still 5 letter domains available, but good names are extremely hard to find.

</comment><comment><USER17> We bought OFF2.com from snapnames about 1 1/2 years ago, $60 as was expiring, we are a travel website so its a great name for us

</comment><comment><USER18> It's not always about size. Sometimes it's about memorability. I think we're way past the point of "web 2.0"-y names being memorable (though some will still make it out of obfuscation).

Take a word or two that work well with your idea. There are millions of these small combinations out there.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've used <http://pickydomains.com> a few times. You pay $50 and provide information on what you're looking for (names you like, etc.). They brainstorm names. If they find one you like, they keep the money. Otherwise, they refund it. We used them when brainstorming Tumblon (<http://tumblon.com>) and Zencoder (<http://zencoder.tv>). In both cases, they didn't come up with the final name we used, but they came close and gave us some inspiration for our final name. Most of the suggestions aren't any good, but when you get 100+ suggestions, a few are usually worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER20> There are places like Namejet you can use to know when "good" names are expiring also.

Personally, I think that people give too much merit to the short domain names. There is some value to a 4-6 letter domain name, but it's not the be-all/end- all.

</comment><comment><USER21> Names are out there, but you just have to be a bit more creative about picking them. You also need to be a bit more flexible about what you're willing to accept in having a domain that 'has bad spelling' or other quirks.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you're willing to part with a little cash, you can find some decent ones for not very much. I didn't pay over $40 last year for vjot.com

</comment><comment><USER8> I think there are a fair amount of 5 letter domains out there yet. (here are the few 5-6 I've registered: kleevr.com, kratr.com, rabyt.com, exphi.com, excyt.com, xcytr.com, zroone.com, onezro.com, grabyt.com)

Whether these qualify as 'good domains' might be in the eye of the beholder, but I like them and have pretty good ideas sketched up for most of them.

</comment><comment><USER23> There are probably still 4 letter domain names in .us (and friends). I got jrock.us a few years ago -- nice-n-short :)

<comment><USER24> "Just" and a "few years ago" don't really mesh :) And jrock is 5 letters! Sorry if this is coming off differently than I mean it--I just think this comment is funny.

<comment><USER23> Well, a "few years ago" is wayyy past 1994 when there were still usable domains left.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A lot of them are gone, which is what you get when you make the cost of registering a domain pretty much free. IMHO it'd be far better to make the cost of registering a domain a few hundred dollars a year.

As it is you can just register domains, slap advertising on them, and you make a slow profit.

</comment><comment><USER26> Nothing left. It's the end of the internet. In a few years every person and machine on earth will have a couple of web pages. A public one for professional use and a private one for friends and family only.

We'll have to address by content, not by name. Search engines are the future, baby!

</comment><comment><USER27> I recently (Feb 2008?) got a 4 letter domain, but it does include numbers.

</comment><comment><USER28> There may be no 4 letter, but there are still lots of 4 digit [a-z0-9-] .com domain names. Maybe not ones that you want, but they're there.

example: i48u.com, o440.com, u0-0.com, etc...

<comment><USER29> I got fu2o.com and dr2o.com a few months ago - I'm not using either and have too many projects so if you want them email me

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I often wonder ho this will scare over the next 10, 20, 30 years. It's hard enough now... by 2037 will there be any domain left?

<comment><USER31> No, but you'll definitely be able to get _what you need, when you need it_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Heaps of domains left.

Your ideal domain \+ an extra short common word at the end of it: tip, now, it, ify, zone, space, net, repeat word \+ .com

<comment><USER6> That's what 37signals does: basecamphq.com, backpackit.com, highrisehq.com, campfirenow.com

<comment><USER25> and it always means I go to basecamp.com or campfire.com and _then_ remember...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> www.nameboy.com is useful.

Also, searchyc.com can yield lots of threads re: how to find more domains.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think when the net goes to the IPv6 there will be many more domain options

</comment><comment><USER34> <http://you-need-to-read-borges-labyrinth.com></comment>


5800sq km iceberg breaks off Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant-antarctic-iceberg-breaks-free-of-larsen-c-ice-shelf <comment><USER2> Good images from ESA's Sentinel-1 and CryoSat here: [https://phys.org/news/2017-07-sentinel-satellite-captures- bi...](https://phys.org/news/2017-07-sentinel-satellite-captures-birth- behemoth.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently watched a Carl Sagan keynote from 1990 on climate change. You can skip the old guy introducing him, but I found Carl's parables and discussion of the options interesting given how little we ended up doing.

[https://youtu.be/9Xz3ZjOSMRU](https://youtu.be/9Xz3ZjOSMRU)

The scientific community was so wrong. Begging the government to solve it wasn't going to happen.

I'm still at a loss for what to do.

<comment><USER4> > The scientific community was so wrong. Begging the government to solve it > wasn't going to happen.

Which government?

Rewind to 1990. Suppose the U.S. government takes the hard-line position that climate change risks being a civilization-ending nightmare and has to be stopped ASAP. Other countries are going to know that going into negotiations. What exactly is the proposition to other countries to get them to dramatically decrease emissions? If we even got them to agree to it, they'd stripmine the U.S. economy in return, and wouldn't even leave us with our shirts. That's on top of the severe short-term self-imposed economic hardship of cutting hydrocarbon usage.

Granted, I don't believe for a moment that most conservative politicians have the appropriate level of concern for global warming, or the broader environment, or the wide variety of failure modes of capitalism in the realms of non-excludable and "club" (excludable but non-rival) goods in general. But assume for the sake of argument that they did have sufficient concern, or better yet, let's say the Green Party controls the House, Senate, and Executive. I don't understand what strategy the environmental left would have the U.S. use in international relations 10, 20, 30 years ago to try to mitigate environmental damage.

<comment><USER5> The US government obviously. I suppose as the biggest polluter by far you are bound to lose out most but how is that everyone else's problem? And what an argument - 'oh yeah I would have but I knew nobody else would so I just did even worse'. Plenty of other governments signed up for Kyoto in 1990 and pushed for higher levels. Anyways, what sort of economy were you planning to have without a habitable planet? The strategy, and potentially a highly lucrative one given US lead in required green tech, would have been less denying the uncomfortable truth, less pandering to big oil lobby and more educating the willfully ignorant and more investment in renewables and a bit of using your market influence to push the agenda. Hardly ever going to be likely though with GWB et al in charge although he did correctly say that there needed to be a technological solution. Trump omgwtf - they should call that thing the Bigly Berg in his dishonour.

I have 100ha trees btw. Used to be veggie but as that means GM and worse soya i.e. bad and very, very bad, eat and fly fewer miles now.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure if these are the best data to use but can we go with this?

1990: [http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?in...](http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Excluding%20Land- Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Including%20Land- Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&year\[\]=2015&sortIdx=NaN&chartType=geo)

        (Mt CO2 emissions  direct / with land-use)
        U.S.: 5,866 / 5,550
        China: 3,154 / 2,833
        India: 1,188 / 1,142
        Brazil: 556 / 1,447
        World: 23,541 / 33,823

2013: [http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?in...](http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Excluding%20Land- Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Including%20Land- Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&year\[\]=2013&sortIdx=NaN&chartType=geo)

        U.S.: 6,279 / 6,213
        China: 11,735 / 11,422
        India: 2,909 / 3,031
        Brazil: 1,017 / 1,317
        World: 48,257 / 46,445

Of course the U.S. is worst per capita, both then and now, but the U.S. could have cut emissions to zero in 1990 and CO2 emissions would be higher now than they were then.

How could a 1990s U.S. put substantially more pressure on other countries to curb hydrocarbon use when their economies were (and many still are) "developing"?

<comment><USER3> If the US cut emissions by investing in new technology that technology would be available to purchase to everyone in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A bit larger than the US state of Delaware.

(5800 sq km is 2239 sq mi. The land area of Delaware is 1949 sq mi per Wikipedia)

<comment><USER7> But how big it is in football fields?

<comment><USER8> About a million.

                1 sq mi     =      2,787,400 sq ft
            2,239 sq mi     = 62,419,737,600 sq ft
                1 fb field  =         57,600 sq ft
        1,083,676 fb fields = 62,419,737,600 sq ft

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What will be the most likely scenario now? will we see this piece drift away and melt? stay relatively close to the current area? and if it will start drifting, how far can it go with such an impressive amount of ice?

<comment><USER2> On wiki there's this good illustration of what happened over time to iceberg B-15, which calved in 2002 and it is the largest recorded iceberg: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15#/media/File:B15a_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15#/media/File:B15a_a4.jpg)

<comment><USER10> Non-media-viewer link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B15a_a4.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B15a_a4.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable- business/2017/jul/10...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable- business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors- responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change)

</comment><comment><USER12> > _There is enough ice in Antarctica that if it all melted, or even just > flowed into the ocean, sea levels [would] rise by 60 metres_

Is this true? Wikipedia says "About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km in thickness". But is all of that above sea level?

<comment><USER13> Above sea level is poor phrasing. The ice is land based which is what's important. Sea ice doesn't increase sea levels.

I wouldn't worry about Antarctica melting. It's ice is growing at the moment.

<comment><USER14> This year, sea ice extension in the Antarctica has reached a low record > [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/sea-ice-extent- sin...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/sea-ice-extent-sinks-to- record-lows-at-both-poles/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > And while climate change is accepted to have played a role in the wholesale > disintegration of the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves, Luckman emphasised > that there is no evidence that the calving of the giant iceberg is linked to > such processes.

> Twila Moon, a glacier expert at the US National Ice and Snow Data Center > agrees but, she said, climate change could have made the situation more > likely.

And yet will a single person who reads about yet more evidence that humans are contributing to global warming change his or her behavior significantly to reduce his or her contribution?

Will you, reading these words, actually do something you wouldn't have as a result of learning about this?

Most people will blame someone else, maybe the president or the system, or say solar power is growing or population growth isn't as fast as it used to be or ask what difference does my contribution make...

and then go back to what they would have done otherwise, without meaningful change.

Which is how we got here.

<comment><USER16> I'm someone who did a few things after reading a research paper attempting to quantify the detrimental effects of climate change.

I no longer own a car, I bike everywhere.

I work remote 100%.

I do not eat beef if I can help it anymore.

I use the train for long distance personal travel. I still fly when it is for my company, though.

I take transit when biking would be too slow.

I signed up for my city's green energy program. I pay more to receive 30% of my energy use from wind farms.

I cancelled Amazon Prime.

I buy items locally as much as possible.

I avoid online shopping if possible.

All of my food comes from local, small producers.

Cutting consumption behavior down has, unsurprisingly, saved me a lot of money and these behaviors are reducing the amount of carbon I emit.

<comment><USER17> This explains late summer in european part of Russia this year. Another couple of persons like you will freeze us to death. Can you at least ride a bike more frequently? :)

<comment><USER5> Apparently bikes are really bad for the environment being slow, low occupancy road vehicles? I think if are taking upon yourself to advise people you should advocate greener forms of transport such as existing public transit links, walking.

<comment><USER18> A bike consumes much less pavement space then a car, increasing corridor capacity.

<comment><USER5> No it is the same. They cannot occupy the same space unless there are dedicated lanes. I guess even then it is single occupancy. A bicycle is a single space same as a car with only a driver. I wish I had the link now, sorry.

<comment><USER18> You don't have the link because it is wrong. More bicycles can pass a given plane in a certain width than cars can over a length of time. As for dedicated lanes we hand over lanes to parking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I see this thread is already filling with people who just know better than the experts that this event was some ominous sign of climate change. That is something totally made up by the media and internet:

>"Although this is a natural event, and we're not aware of any link to human- induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position. This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history. We're going to be watching very carefully for signs that the rest of the shelf is becoming unstable." [http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/](http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/)

<comment><USER20> Scientists will ALWAYS say this about single events. It's impossible to tie a single event to a long term process like climate change. Although I'm not surprised to see this kind of defense from the party that brought a snowball into Congress as proof that climate change isn't occurring.

<comment><USER19> This seems to be a talking point that people are mindlessly repeating that is wrong in multiple ways. I won't bother with all, but here is the _exact same person_ making a link to a single event regarding the _exact same ice shelf_ :

>"And while climate change is accepted to have played a role in the wholesale disintegration of the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves, Luckman emphasised that there is no evidence that the calving of the giant iceberg is linked to such processes." [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant- antarcti...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant-antarctic- iceberg-breaks-free-of-larsen-c-ice-shelf)

This story is somewhat interesting on its own, but it is clear the media and ignorant people on the internet have blown it up into fake news.

<comment><USER14> The whole disintegration of Larsen A and B are not a single event like the calving of an iceberg

<comment><USER19> The calving of the iceberg was not a single event either. First the rift formed, then it started branching, etc.

Anyway, this event is bringing out the worst arguments I have ever seen.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Talk Obama to Me (video speech synthesizer) - <AUTHOR> http://talkobamato.me <comment><AUTHOR> A video speech synthesizer that automatically chops up video of Barack Obama and puts it in order so that he says whatever you want him to.

<comment><USER2> Amazing

<comment><USER3> Amazing. I remember hearing somewhere years ago about military ability to synthesise speech and use it to do stuff like manipulate radar operator instructions to fighter aircraft. Humorous to see something even a tiny bit like that in public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://talkobamato.me/synthesize.py?speech_key=a9d0ebbb657c7...](http://talkobamato.me/synthesize.py?speech_key=a9d0ebbb657c7572f3db91f065633fe3)</comment>


101 Ways To Know Your Software Project Is Doomed - <AUTHOR> http://www.codesqueeze.com/101-ways-to-know-your-software-project-is-doomed/ <comment><USER2> A cool little app would let us list "problem signs" and we could vote on their seriousness and then assign a weight to each one. Then you could answer it like a survey and get a "Failure Prediction Score".

I'm busy. Someone send me a link when it's done, please.

<comment><USER3> I do recall there being a study about how internal prediction markets were really good at forecasting software release dates...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wait a minute, I was hired as a consultant... and I did take the blame! Yup, pretty sure that project failed.

</comment><comment><USER4> We have 15 of these. Is that bad?

<comment><USER5> I would say that the second sentence in your comment was probably more significant than the first.</comment></comment>


A man kept one of the 'world's most dangerous' birds on his farm. It killed him - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/04/14/florida-cassowary-attack-man-dies-after-encounter-with-worlds-deadliest-bird/ <comment><USER2> Darwin award.</comment>


Ask HN: Send a resume in PDF or Doc or? - <AUTHOR>

Say I wanted to send my resume and not get on the nerves of the person who reads it, what's the best format? PDF, doc, html(???), google doc, cpp, or some other clever idea? <comment><USER2> Depends. Generally PDF or Word format is how I get them.

Recruiters will want it in Word format, but be careful. They want to be able to remove your identifying data (not so bad) and but also sometimes decide to "improve" your resumes by adding or changing keywords. Have had some times where things were changed making for an "interesting" interview.

I'd take Markdown in a heartbeat but it would probably scare off HR before it got to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> You need a couple of different copies of your resume in each format really.

I wrote my resume in Pages and NO ONE accepts that as a format. So I export it to PDF.

But recruiters want it in .doc(x) so I had to export it to Word then clean up the formatting.

I'd love to be able to keep a resume in markdown but I don't know anyone that takes it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Most of the developers I know prefer a resume in txt or markdown format. Something that can be easily read in plaintext editor like vim or sublime.

</comment><comment><USER5> I convert my LinkedIn page to PDF and give that to people.</comment>


The Complete Guide to Treadmill Desk Walking While Working - <AUTHOR> http://simpleprogrammer.com/2014/10/07/treadmill-desk-walking/

<comment><USER2> how the hell does a 10% incline drastically increase the calorie burn?</comment>


Palm Eos: The Successor to Palm Pre? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/04/palm-eos-the-successor-to-palm-pre/

<comment><USER2> Palm have long been candid that Pre was only the first WebOS model in their lineup, so this is almost certainly a Centro or Treo successor. Engadget ([http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/30/palm-eos-super- thin-3g-an...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/30/palm-eos-super-thin-3g-and- headed-to-atandt/)) have what may be a render

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks nice, but the best way to go into competition with Apple is to release their phone for a different service provider, like Sprint or Verizon. We know Pre is for Sprint, so why is this one likely to be for AT&T? This would be a bad idea. I do not care how good these phones are, I am not subjecting myself to AT&T service.</comment>


Leap Smear - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/time/smear <comment><USER2> The title should actually be "Google Public NTP: Leap Smear".</comment>


Ask HN: Startupschool "Speed Networking" anyone? - <AUTHOR>

I love YC #startupschool. One of the things I'd like to do more is meet and connect with interesting people.
I'm thinking of organizing a "Speed Networking" event during lunch hour at Flint Center at StartupSchool SiliconValley this weekend Oct 11.
Basically 2 lines of people - one side with people looking for gigs/co-founders and other side with people who have gigs looking for people/founders/partners. Chat for a minute or two and keep moving sort of like musical chairs
Looking for a couple of volunteers who can can help. You can reach me at paymentsguysv {at} gmail <comment><USER2> awesome idea! going to email you now

</comment><comment><USER3> Ditto.</comment>


Rent the Runway Wants to Lend You Your Look - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runway-wants-to-lend-you-your-look <comment><USER2> The suit is back!

[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

This time it's rentable.

<comment><USER3> Literally every fucking time there's an article in the press someone posts this stupid Paul Graham article as if it's an original or clever contribution to the discussion.

Yes, that last sentence was a bit harsh, but stay with me. Constantly saying "Hey guys, PR exists" except in code is one of those weird HN tics that drives me crazy. Allow me to elaborate.

1) The concept of public relations is not novel or unheard of. Like at all. PR companies have thousands of employees, are traded on public stock markets, and so on. It's an often sophisticated and well established professional discipline. I personally am aware of it because I spent 10 years as an executive at a PR firm, so I feel some ability to speak on the subject.

Pointing out that PR exists is like noticing there's a bright shining light in the sky half of the time, it's completely devoid of insight. Of course when companies are mentioned favorably in the press it's likely that PR was involved. That's literally intrinsic to the concept of companies being in the press. The details of how that works might be interesting, but...

2) Even within that context the linked article is facile at best. It's pretty long but it's clearly written by someone who doesn't really have all that much exposure to or understanding of how journalism or PR works on a day to day basis. Or didn't at the time at least. He's a great writer, I loved his book, and this works just fine as a personal anecdote, but not as a canonical comment for decades on dozens of business stories.

3) And lastly, literally nobody on the planet calls a pitched press profile story a "submarine" ever, like it's thirteen years later, it didn't catch on.

Stop trying to make submarine happen. It's not going to happen.

I'll show myself out.

<comment><USER4> > _The concept of public relations is not novel or unheard of. Like at all. > ... Pointing out that PR exists is like noticing there 's a bright shining > light in the sky half of the time, it's completely devoid of insight._

Many, many people have heard of PR but still believe that articles like this are written by independent, unbiased investigative journalists. The piece starts off with "At the back of my New York closet", giving you the idea that the whole thing is by Alexandra, from Alexandra's point of view, all the way to "For now, I'm happy to pretend that they're mine."

If the public could see the degree to which this experience and the words and research in this piece was spoon-fed to the author by Rent The Runway Inc, (what does that email chain actually look like?) it would be like telling them that the bright shining light in the sky the other half of the time was not a moon but a space station - absolutely mind-blowing.

> _I personally am aware of it because I spent 10 years as an executive at a > PR firm, so I feel some ability to speak on the subject._

While I appreciate your insight and would value further information on the PR industry, this disqualifies your opinion that the business you were in is not surprising.

<comment><USER3> I mean, it's not like that take is wrong. Articles like this actually are written by (relatively) unbiased journalists. It's not an investigative piece so that word wouldn't apply.

It's the New Yorker, it's a very credible source that practices real journalism. Some outlets don't as much. But these guys have very strict ethics and fact checking requirements.

True, a publicist almost certainly emailed the writers and editors a million times asking for a profile but _so did literally every other company_ in the world, so it's not really all that dispositive.

But either way, the point is _every_ story that involves access to a person or company is to some extent managed by that person or company. Sometimes the outlet comes up with the idea, often it's pitched. But it doesn't really matter all that much which. It's up to the outlet to decide how much work they do, how oppositional they are, and what their voice is in the story. It's up to the person/company to decide if they want to participate and how.

Yes, in the abstract that process is sort of interesting. But its mere existence is not news.

Imagine if a fellow HN poster came along in every thread and was like "HEY GUYS DID YOU KNOW RENT THE RUNWAY PROBABLY DOESN'T EVEN OWN THE COMPUTERS THE WEBSITE IS ON, THERE'S A THING CALLED CLOUD COMPUTING!! HERE'S A LINK TO A BLOG POST BY A POETRY PROFESSOR WHO WAS SURPRISED TO LEARN THIS FACT" for thirteen years, you might say, well sure, while this particular example could be an exception as you are offering up no knowledge of this actual website's server setup, in general for a company like this that's often true, and sure, actually yes, this concept of cloud computing is certainly interesting.

But...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's $159 a month. It says that in the middle of the article, but you can decide how much you want to read once you know that.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't know about the subscriptions, but my significant other uses RTR one- offs for company parties and is a pretty satisfied customer.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd love to see a similar service aimed at men. I've found myself trying to purchase fewer, more expensive (and hopefully more durable) items. Similarly to the anecdote from the article, I find myself buying stuff that's fine in store but ultimately isn't something I'd like to keep and the return policy makes it just difficult enough that I just keep or donate it.

<comment><USER8> > I'd love to see a similar service aimed at men.

Me too! I've looked and not found anything comparable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does someone know something similar for men in London? I'd be interested in this too! In the article, it sounds like it exists, but then Im not aware of it.

<comment><USER8> To my knowledge, nothing equivalent exists for men anywhere. Wish it did!

<comment><USER10> There are broadly similar services for men, e.g., The Mr. Collection [0]

[0] [https://www.themrcollection.com/collections](https://www.themrcollection.com/collections)

<comment><USER8> From their site:

> When You sign up for our service, You agree that each pack will be a > surprise.

The big difference is they pick what you are sent, rather than you deciding. Going through their signup questionnaire on their site, they literally do not have enough information to know what I will or won't like. It's hard to even see what exactly is in their inventory to know if what they have is even in the right ballpark. Furthermore, they also don't have stores in major cities so going and swapping on demand isn't an option. As I am not a customer, I can't say for sure, but it sounds (from reading their site) like it is roughly a week between you shipping something back and getting your next shipment, especially for someone on the East coast (they seem to be LA based), so it's purely a way to augment your clothing once in a while, not what RtR is trying to accomplish for women.

End result, broadly speaking I guess somewhat similar, but not what I'm looking for personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a 9 year old company (that's raised close to a half billion dollars), and this is just a PR article.

Why is an account that hasn't posted in 7 years posting this?

<comment><USER12> > Why is an account that hasn't posted in 7 years posting this?

This breaks the HN guideline against insinuating astroturfing without evidence. Please don't do that here—it poisons the well.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I found this headline to be strongly garden path. Didn't we used to quote proper nouns when they didn't appear to be nouns? "Rent the Runway"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden- path_sentence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence)

<comment><USER14> It's a title and initial caps is a style used for titles. Most people are too lazy to do it nowadays given the amount of titling we need to do for our electronic communications but there is assuredly still some crusty style manual out there advocating it. The New Yorker notably clings to its traditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of idocracy. Just wait till the subsidized free version launches. Seems so odd to value vanity over familiarty personally. Do people not have a 'favorite pair of jeans' anymore? Does breaking-in a garmet not still have the same joy and personal touch? Color me skeptical of widespread adoption. Seems more like a new york kinda thing.

<comment><USER16> It's possible to have a favorite pair of jeans and also rent clothes from this place.</comment></comment>


Fellow Geeks of Santa Barbara: We're Creating a Hackerspace - <AUTHOR>

So far there's 2 of us. I'm a software guy (web and mobile app dev, Linux sysadmin, infosec) and he's a hardware guy (self-taught embedded electronics, builds robots, etc).  We're looking for others.<p>Who else around here would be interested in co-founding a hackerspace? <comment><AUTHOR> Contact info:

1\. Email: <my_user_name>@gmail.com

2\. Twitter: @sbhackerspace

3\. IRC: #sbhackerspace on FreeNode (PM me, I'm 'fraktil')

4\. Facebook: <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=132002656842113>

5\. Website, blog, mailing list, etc: coming soon

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Updated Contact Info:

0\. Website: <http://sbhackerspace.com>

1\. Email: email@example.com

2\. Google Group: <http://groups.google.com/group/sbhackerspace>

3\. IRC Channel: #sbhackerspace on FreeNode

</comment><comment><USER2> I would be. I have joined the facebook group.</comment>


Argentina arrests teen hacker who netted $50,000 a month - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24089050

<comment><USER2> All hackers out there! Now you know.. if youre a hacker, make sure you have power backup with an alarm... so you can delete the evidence before the feds come ;)

<comment><USER3> or a fireplace near</comment></comment>


YourExtraLife: An iOS app. to complete real-life challenges - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/07/04/yourextralife-this-ios-game-lets-you-progress-by-completing-real-life-challenges/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=share%2Bbutton&utm_content=YourExtraLife%3A%20This%20iOS%20game%20lets%20you%20progress%20by%20completing%20real-life%20challenges&utm_campaign=social%2Bmedia <comment><USER2> Congrats to the team that made this. It's a very interesting space to be in, I think they've got a huge challenge ahead of them, but I commend them on the way they have gone about doing this.

Years ago I started working on a similar app which I called "Quest-a-day" which tried to get people to do something interesting and memorable every day.

I wonder if their initial challenges are enough to really engage users at the early stages. I suspect somebody isn't going to feel really good about liking a charity page, or taking photos of the ingredients of their favorite dish. It's easy enough, but is it really a big enough trigger to get you to want to come back?

Either way, best of luck to them, hopefully they'll let the community add the tasks and the app will become more self-directed.</comment>