Ask HN: Should I open source PropertyWebBuilder? - <AUTHOR> I've spent most of the last year working on an online website builder for real estate agents.  In the end I found it quite hard to market and I'm not making any money from it.
At this point I'm tempted to give up on it but I hate knowing that all my hard work will go to waste.  Right now I would need to spend another month or so cleaning up the code etc to be able to open source it.
Is there any way I can justify the extra effort and cost in open sourcing it?  Is there a chance I can get some organisation to sponsor it?  I would appreciate any advice about the open sourcing process, what risks I should watch out for etc. <comment><USER3> I've been building a startup for the last six months or so, and a big part of our research is understanding agents (US only, so far).

I'm not sure if the copy on your landing page reflects your overall marketing strategy, but in my experience, most agents are less interested in products that solve pain points (eg, complex website setup processes), and more interested in products that give them an edge, highlight their personal brand, etc. I've learned a lot about this topic from reading industry news, like 'Inman Select'

Of course I don't mean to suggest that a traction problem can be solved solely with adjustments to copy, but branding, etc, is the lingua franca of the agent community, so even slight miscalibrations could significantly affect adoption.

As to the open sourcing, I personally wouldn't, at least not in a fashion that requires lots of your effort to upkeep. The market is so competitive, I have trouble imagining adoption of an open source kit would be wide enough to justify your effort /sacrificing your IP.

What about other distribution channels? There are a number of sites that act as realtor back-end DBs/CMS. Is it feasible to partner with one of those and serve as the official Wysiwyg of such-and-such MLS/Database?

Would love to learn more about your experiences here, btw, if you're up for a email@example.com. It's a difficult and fickle market to serve, so I empathize.

<comment><AUTHOR> And another vote for not open sourcing ;)

Will be interested in hearing more about your experience so I'll drop you a line.

I started off with the Spanish market just because its where I live but it may not be the best for this product. I think what you are saying about being the official wysiwyg of some backend might be more applicable in the US. I know very little about the US market - I'm very open to collaborating on the tech side with someone who has the business knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Before you throw in the towel, let me give you some things to think about. So I am not directly answering your question of whether you should open source the product or not.

Real estate markets are very local. Are you targeting agents in the UK and Spain ? I am guessing based on the currency/language switcher on top.

In the US, I can tell you that the market is huge but quite competitive. Not sure about UK and Spain but it could be. Have you done some market research and validation before you started building this ? Have you not been able to get a single client yet ? Have you reached out to an agent personally just to get some perspective ?

If I was you, first thing I will do is to ask myself : Why am I building this product. Is there a potential market for this ? If yes, how big ? Are there existing competitors ? If yes, that is usually a good sign that there is some validation but you may have to compete. You also spend a lot of time doing marketing and primarily "inbound". Take this free course from hubspot

[https://certification.hubspot.com/inbound- certification](https://certification.hubspot.com/inbound-certification)

Learn from your competitors. Go to Google and type "real estate website templates" etc. See what comes up in your local google search. Study those companies and how they are doing business. Get inspired.

Now, some feedback on your landing page. It doesn't tell me anything on what I get as a real estate agent. Saying "build website" in 2016 is as good as saying nothing. So you need to be more specific on the landing page. For example, in the US, real estate agents use something like MLS for listings. It is some type of agreed upon database (pretty shitty though) they they all subscribe to. So do you provide integration with any MLS if there is an equivalent in UK/Spain ? Real estate agents are not necessarily looking for a website. If at all, they want solutions that can get them more leads and eventually clients. What does it take for real estate agents to get more leads/clients ? Figure that out and you can make tons of money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, this is the sort of detailed constructive feedback I love to get - <USER2> so much!

You make a good argument that I haven't really done a good job of selling my site and I have to agree with you. I hate the marketing side of things and for each day I spend marketing I feel like I need to code for a week to recoup my energy!!

If I do not get some motivation from others to go open source, I will take your advice and have another go at marketing. In the meantime I really hope I can find a good justification for going open source - or someone comes along who wants to work with me on the marketing side.

Thanks again for your feedback @codegeek - really appreciate it. I hadn't heard of hubspot before - the course looks great so I'll give it a go.

<comment><USER4> I hear you. Coding is easy for people like us. Getting someone to pay for it is a bitch. May be you should find someone to help you with marketing a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am actively looking for someone to work with but its hard to convince people without a budget. Ah and to your question about if I researched the market beforehand - someone in the industry convinced me there was a market and I guess I wanted to believe it was true so I didn't do that much research :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your copy is pretty bad. For starters, take away the multiple exclamation points concerning not needing to give payment info. Second, change this:

 _We would love to hear from you. If you have any comments or queries, please leave us a message._

Both of those things signal that you are desperate for attention. You need to hit a note of being available for the needs of your customers, but not sitting around twiddling your thumbs, hoping against hope for the phone to ring.

Perhaps something like "For your convenience, you can leave us a message via this form any time of the day or night. We will get back to you as soon as we can."

You also need to change how you talk to your customers. You want to describe the features of your product in a way that makes it clear what the tangible benefits are. This usually does not come from giving "specs." You need to make that info available too, but that cannot be your primary means for explaining your value position.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I'm not so good with copy :(

<comment><USER5> I am not so good at coding. I'm a copywriter. I should write better than you. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats on launching.

Agree with codegeek . . . I think you're just at the hard part of building a SaaS of getting people to pay.

Check out [http://restaurantengine.com/pricing/](http://restaurantengine.com/pricing/).

Google all the stuff Brian Cassel shared about growing it: [http://casjam.com/restaurant-engine-year-1-learning- things-t...](http://casjam.com/restaurant-engine-year-1-learning-things-the- hard-way/)

I think RestaurantEngine is similar to PropertyWebBuilder and you could learn a lot from what he had success with.

Go back in the archives and listen to his story on his podcast at [http://bootstrappedweb.com/](http://bootstrappedweb.com/).

From what I remember he discovered that Restaurants wouldn't take the time to even setup their sites in the awesome builder they took so much time creating. They found they had to setup the sites for them, then charge monthly for hosting/maint/etc.

You could probably follow a similar playbook.

With realtors you should probably look for realtor companies that have 50 or 100+ agents and try to get the company signed up on an agency/company plan where all their agents would use your system. So you'd want to raise your rates for those, and have a setup fee for each one to cover the time of hiring someone to set them up.

Maybe provide a subdomain pointed at your server.

properties.bigrealtorcompany.com

Ideally you would get connected with reality offices where you are adding properties, allowing them to mark them as sold, adjust price, text, swap out images, announce open houses, make featured in the listings and you adding new ones so you get in a nice revenue cycle of $XX per add, and have a nice agency monthly fee on top of that.

Also checkout everything by patio11 here and on the web.

StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com is a great source of good info.

Good luck . . . let us know how it's going.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback - so another vote for "don't open source" then ;)

I heard of restaurantengine a while back but just had another look at Brian Cassel's blog and realised he makes some interesting points - like not spending too much on the UI too soon. Having said that, I suspect I've made the opposite mistake by not having spent anything on getting a decent logo....

Anyway, thanks for your tips and encouragement. If you want me to keep you updated by email, drop me a line so I have your contact: africajam at hotmail....

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think you have to identify what problem you are trying to solve. Your site essentially charges by the number of properties which presumes there is value in them building a site with just their properties.

Do real estate agents have a problem listing their properties?

In the U.S., there are a number of property listing sites and, presumably, there is value in seeing listings from multiple realtors, not just one.

So...

Is your site really solving a problem that realtors are trying to solve?

If not, does open sourcing make this service more valuable?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points. In Spain there are certainly estate agents who could benefit from a decent website. This agency is just round the corner from where I live:

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

Its ran by a rather elderly (and very nice I have to say ) man. I am pretty sure some clients have been put off doing business with him because of his site but I couldn't for the life of me convince him to sign up. I know I'm not a natural salesman but it really pisses me off that I have been unable to sign him up :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents since I also explored the real estate market in Canada:

Competition is tough here and I had a chat with a few real estate agents. Many of them told me it's a local market and that they get found through local ads or referrals from clients. Their websites are also suffering from bad SEO - one agent told me that there are other websites taking his properties and are ranked higher on Google than his own website.

The #1 thing real estate agents cared about the most, according to my discussions, was leads. The only thing that they wanted to pay me for was leads.

And as many other people said, real estate agents are busy people and may not have the time to build their own website. Their job is to sell houses and will gladly pay to have someone else set everything up for them - you might want to think about other stakeholders you can partner with (i.e. marketing consultants) that can help you onboard real estate agents.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Good point about leads - I can see the value of offering a more comprehensive service that could include SEO optimisation and help with lead generation.

I am also open to partnering with other stakeholders. I thing I thought of earlier on was to offer a whitelabel service so a third party could offer the online web builder as a service in a market that they know well - I'm just not sure how to find people to partner with.

<comment><USER9> Leads are indeed the only sure way to build a successful (revenue generating) real estate agent/broker offering. It is possible to sell websites -- but the reality is most agents have no idea what to do with a website to generate traffic. And if a website isn't marketed, it's useless (aka giant waste of money).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Drew, thanks for the feedback!

I guess one thing to bear in mind is that I started this off with the European (particularly Spanish) market in mind. Leads are super important here too but many agents here also have a problem with websites that pretty much frighten clients away. These days a website might not be what generates leads but having a decent one is a good indicator of how seriously that agent can be taken.

Again it might be different in the US but remember that in Spain for example a lot of clients might be English speakers who will see a website with an English translation as a sign that the agent will at least make the effort to communicate with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is the site where I offer the service:

[http://propertywebbuilder.com/welcome](http://propertywebbuilder.com/welcome)

And here is an example of a site built with PropertyWebBuilder:

[http://re-renting.com/home](http://re-renting.com/home)

</comment><comment><USER10> Before you do consider if you can rather a different market. Chiropractors? Tree Surgeons?

Also what feedback did you get from your chosen market?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not exactly sure how I would determine if some other market is a better or worse opportunity than real estate.

The few customers I have had are happy but I would need 50x adoption to make it worthwhile.

<comment><USER8> Given that you have a few customers that are already happy is a good sign. You'll now have to continue pushing forward to getting more onboarded. Figure out who to go after based on the customers who are already with you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Drop me an email with some details - lets chat!

I've been in this industry (SaaS for agents) for 6+ years. I may even have customer #1 for you (was asked only last week).

<comment><AUTHOR> Great - just sent you an email now ;)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How should I attract people towards my launch page - <AUTHOR>

Launch Page: http://thecitybee.com
Me and couple other friends are working on a venture that fixes problems experienced in Daily deal websites by customers and the merchants.
We do this by: 1. Letting the customer simply login and download the deal, without paying for it. They simply pay for the deal directly to the merchant when they avail the deal 2. Letting the merchant be in the driving seat by not waiting on the website to provide a check when the deal runs out and by not taking a huge cut from every deal
We've done some market research on the topic and feel that there might be a market for this kind of a product from both Merchants and Customers point of view. Merchants not willing to try existing deal sites because of huge share from every transaction and depending on the site to provide them a check and Customers have nothing to lose by simply getting the deal and only paying for it when they avail it.
While we are 3ish weeks away from launching the site we decided to create a launch page to help spread the word, however, we are not sure as to what more should we be doing to make the page go "viral".  We've provided enough information to entice the targeted audience into putting their email address.
Should we be looking at something like google adwords? <comment><USER2> _Should we be looking at something like google adwords?_

You'd be competing against savvier people with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend and a much better monetization strategy. This does not historically suggest winning auctions.

I wouldn't describe yourself as fixing a problem experienced in daily deals websites, since neither typical merchants nor typical customers have a problem with daily deals websites. Merchants have a problem called "not enough customers", and customers have a problem "not enough money to buy what they want to buy" or "too much money, not enough amusing things to spend it on."

Talk about how you address _those_ problems. Ideally, right to the customer. Find a message which resonates, then put _that_ on the website.

Anecdotally, your problems are probably going to be a chicken & egg scenario with no good deal inventory to start with, so if you had to overwork one side or the other, I'd give excessive effort to getting the merchants on board in your target city. (Almost every local site starts somewhere. This is probably a good idea. Steal it.)

<comment><USER3> I disagree (slightly).

Merchants have two complaints with daily deal sites (let's be honest, we are talking about Groupon for the majority):

-Groupon takes a huge cut, 50%

-Groupon customers are typically drive-by customers. Most merchants complain that they get few or no returning customers from a Groupon deal

Many merchants have been burned by Groupon and have publicly stated they won't be doing it again.

<comment><USER4> Hi Polyfractal.

One of the cofounders of this site and this is exactly our thought process of today's Groups sites. For these 2 reasons if the merchants don't offer deals because they get burned from the huge cut, they won't have a reason to come back with other deals. Consumers won't have a reason to come back with out a deal (Unless they like the place that much).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > We've provided enough information to entice the targeted audience into > putting their email address.

It's probably not going to work like that. Customers won't sign up until you have deals. Merchants won't come to you until you have customers. You'll have to start by hustling together some good launch deals, and your pitch will probably need to include the line "we'll buy you traffic if you put a deal on our site". Until you launch (with real, awesome deals) your launch page is only there to avoid the total legitimacy fail of a potential merchant typing in your url and getting... nothing at all. Don't bother with adwords.

Hope that helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats a great idea. thanks. After having the launch page up for about two days I tend to agree with you. I think we were targeting this like a normal product launch so we had a launch page but what really matters here is hustling the initial merchants.

Also, since users will be able to just get the deal w/o paying, we're adding a 'tipping point' feature on initial deals. Meaning users will be able to "get" their deal but they'll only be able to see/print it once they influence 2 or 3 other people from a special link.</comment></comment>


How Can I Monetize This? (comic) - <AUTHOR> http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyimages/1072.gif

<comment><USER3> Please post the original link (<http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/index.html>), not a hijacked copy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, didn't realize (it was emailed to me). Thanks for the correction!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hilarious.

If you actually want to help monetize the joyoftech comic, submit this url to <http://tipjoy.com>

<http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1072.html>

<comment><USER5> CuteOverload is raking in the rewards. Somehow kittens can rake in the money.

Speaking of monetizing, tipjoy doesn't actually offer you a cash payout - <USER2> amazon gift certificates. A tipjar on tipit.to does, though.

<comment><USER4> Tipjoy will allow a cash payout once we go through the proper licensing as a money transfer agent. This involves complying with regulations in all 50 states and the US patriot act. Technically tipit.to could be held criminally liable for what they are doing.

We don't want that :)

The fastest way to get a legit cash payout is to spread the word about tipjoy, so that we can close a Series A funding & pay lawyers to solve this problem.

But you would be surprised how many people are interested in this _because_ it is all about charity.

<comment><USER5> Tipit.to is not based in the United States, so we don't have to comply with the US Patriot Act. There are some stringent financial requirements here in europe as well, but we've got those covered.

<comment><USER6> If you do business in the US, you do, according to the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's been done!

<http://icanhascheezburger.com/>

Hehe

<comment><USER4> Yes we can has

<comment><USER8> icanhas was the first thing that popped into my mind heh

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> SuperiorCat.com

Like SubservientChicken.com, except it ignores your commands, mostly sleeping, stretching, and occasionally pointing to AdSense ads at the right.

</comment><comment><USER10> That is actually the only funny "webcomic" I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER11> that is funny.</comment>


People of the Internet: we can fix the English language - <AUTHOR> http://avisweblog.tumblr.com/post/14259913698/people-of-the-internet-we-can-fix-the-english-language

<comment><USER3> 'They' is perfectly acceptable, and has been for hundreds of years.

From <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they> :

 _The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts. This gives you the option of using the plural pronouns where you think they sound best, and of using the singular pronouns (as he, she, he or she, and their inflected forms) where you think they sound best._

</comment><comment><USER4> In Latin based languages there are no gender neutral pronouns, traditionally the masculine pronoun should be used in gender neutral contexts. I've also noticed lately that there is a trend to use the feminine pronoun, specially in fields (like computer science) where the agent is likely to be a man.

</comment><comment><USER5> >If you spend a lot of time writing copy for the web or answering support emails, you know what I'm talking about. When you start a sentence, you can feel the nausea coming on from a mile away: there's no gender neutral third person singular pronoun.

Technically, there is such a thing. "it" is a gender neutral third person singular pronoun[1] and even more amusingly it is not part of the proposed "replacement" list. It does sound very weird in most cases - and would definitely look dehumanizing in a support reply, but technically speaking the language is not broken.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_%28pronoun%29> . Example given: " _Is it a boy or a girl?_ "

<comment><USER6> I like the Mandarin Chinese approach:

he, she and it: ta

his, hers, and its: ta de

they and their: ta men and ta men de

Clean, simple and consistent (although the ambiguity is another problem).

<comment><USER7> My college girlfriend's dad's first language was Chinese and he would often refer to either her or her brother as "it." "Tell it to come down for dinner!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just use "they". That has a better chance of adoption than any of the proposals listed.

<comment><USER9> I also don't understand the reluctance to use it. It's as versatile as "some" in logic/mathematics. And its already common usage: "If a person walks into a bar, and they order a drink..." - sounds fine to me. Maybe there are cases where it sounds strange?

<comment><USER10>
      I was talking to a group of friends about this and he thought it was weird too.

Is that confusing? That's about how it sounds to me when anyone uses a plural pronoun in place of a singular one. I know it's common usage but it's not a particularly good solution.

<comment><USER9> Well "he" is never plural but "they" is sometimes singular (like the logical "some").

Does the sentence: "I was talking to someone about this and they thought so and so." really sound weird to you? It doesn't to me. Also I wouldn't call it a "solution" because it wasn't just invented to solve this problem, it's just already common usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No we can't : English isn't the mother tongue of all the People of the Internet/World !. If you want your customers, the people who pays your salary, speak perfect English please stick with UK-Market and stop cry.

</comment><comment><USER12> The author claims using "they" is common, but grammatically incorrect - <USER2> recommends some arbitrary (and currently unknown and incorrect) set of replacement words to be adopted and thus become correct by weight of numbers.

Why not just continue using "they" until it is widely accepted enough to be correct? Frankly, I don't think we're too far off that. The supposedly erroneous example he quoted read fine to me.

<comment><USER13> Yes. Treating 'they' as singular also has precedent in English with the replacement of 'thou' with 'you' as second person singular. Perhaps future Southerners will use 'they-all' as third person plural.</comment></comment>


Rock the Block - <AUTHOR> https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2019/02/rock-the-block/ <comment><USER2> Having only participated in a single cul-de-sac party, I can't imagine why anyone would be against these. This sounds exactly like something that should be encouraged to create community in our increasingly insular lives.</comment>


Steve Blank: Selling with Sports Scores - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2009/06/25/convergent-technologies-war-story-1-%e2%80%93-selling-with-sports-scores/

<comment><USER2> It seems like a lot of Steve Blank's articles don't get many comments here. I know that I usually read them and think "Wow, that's insightful" and I can't think of anything to add or refute. Maybe that's just me, but I'm glad they keep getting submitted here even if they don't generate discussion.

<comment><USER3> I would love to see more discussion of his ideas - especially from people who have really tried to follow his principles. Customer Development makes a lot of sense. But other than Steve's own companies, who has used his method and benefited from it? Who has tried and failed?

For what it's worth, I'm at the beginning stages of taking two stalled startups through the Customer Development process. I'll post my success or failure in 6-9 months. :)

<comment><USER4> There is a Google Group <http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-circle> that is devoted to discussing customer development and lean startup techniques. It's open to anyone to join.

<comment><USER2> Cool, thanks. Just joined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I get to him by his Silicon Valley histories, and read ALL of his blog in a couple of days. Besides him being a great storyteller, he has something valuable to tell, even if its not your field.</comment>


We now live in a driverless world - <AUTHOR> https://news.voyage.auto/we-now-live-in-a-driverless-world-cb07a01159c0 <comment><USER2> The author claims to have achieved autonomous driving at the moment of writing. It is sarcastic that he claims that only a few months after the first recorded case of a pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving (autonomous) car ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg) . And yes, that car was not driving fully autonomous, yet it displays the dramatic effects of research on autonomous driving, not even the outcome).

Obviously, "we" did not yet solve autonomous driving.</comment>


TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired By Apple - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/rumor-testflight-owner-burstly-is-being-acquired-by-apple/

<comment><USER2> Bummer...but also exciting, since Adhoc/Beta distributions and access could be massively improved by being handled first-party by Apple. Maybe now it will be!

I've long been using TF for adhoc beta distributions of my iOS apps. Looks like there are only two options left for that:

        * Hockeyapp, starting at $10/month
        * Host your own IPA on S3 or elsewhere.

The downside with the latter is where TF added value: per-build access settings, notifications, teams, and feedback. You'll have to approximate this now by mucking with which devices are listed in your provisioning profile.

I open-sourced my iOS build script recently. It'll take care of everything for you -- downloads your provisioning profile from Apple's dev center, builds, codesigns, archives, and uploads to S3. [https://github.com/splinesoft/SSBuild](https://github.com/splinesoft/SSBuild)

<comment><USER3> There's a third option: Continue to use TestFlight. There's no indication that they are going away.

<comment><USER2> They already have gone away for Android. On iOS, it looks like they won't allow new apps to be created but existing apps may continue to upload new builds.

<comment><USER3> I don't see how TF removing Android support has anything to do with them going away. I just this moment created a new TF app for iOS and got a new app token/etc. Where are you seeing this "won't allow new apps to be created"?

<comment><USER2> Hard to say. Sounds like you have until 2/26, at which point something(?) happens: [http://help.testflightapp.com/customer/portal/articles/14527...](http://help.testflightapp.com/customer/portal/articles/1452760)

<comment><USER3> It says on that page what happens; they'll stop accepting builds with old SDKs, or if you haven't used the SDK before. It doesn't say at all that they will be closing their service, or not accepting builds at all. Just looks like they are deprecating their SDK.

Incorporating the SDK has always been optional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady This could be great if Apple really improves distribution of adhoc builds but I wouldn't hold my breath. After 5 years iTunes Connect still sucks. The dropping of Android support is annoying as I use TestFlight to distribute iOS and Android apps and it made things so much smoother, especially when working with non-technical people.

</comment><comment><USER4> First time I've heard about it too...and I found Testflight invaluable for sending betas to customers, the experience for both developers and end users was second to none.

Damn, I really hope Apple doesn't screw it up. But if they can integrate it into their iTunes connect platform, I'll be a happy developer.

</comment><comment><USER5> So that explains why they dropped android support.

<comment><USER6> Android now has first party testing support via the Play Store. I'd imagine it's hard to compete with that.

<comment><USER7> It's great for distributing to wider group of external beta users but sucks for internal testing, especially if you want an API that can be used by a CI system.

At my workplace we use TestFlight integrated with Jenkins. We commit to the repo, Jenkins builds the APK, and submits to TestFlight. Then our QA team can pull the latest build onto their device and test, and we get crash reports if things go south. That tight loop is not as easy with the Play beta testing.

<comment><USER8> My workplace is __exactly__ the same.

Bummer about Android Support. But on the flip side, installing apks outside of PlayStore is actually very easy on Android. Compared to the provisioning- profile stuff involved with iOS.

I guess I'm about to write a small in-house nightly web-server that just has APK urls for download & install.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also resolves the FAQ question about how they expected to make any money when not charging anyone for such a useful service.

</comment><comment><USER10> If anyone happens to be interested, I have a PoC OTA deployment solution I built when I got tired of being asked for regular app builds. It's a Web service designed to run on a Mac and pull from a GitHub repository, run xcodebuild, package the IPA, and let you install it on your device.

I abandoded this because I longer have access to a Mac since I stopped iOS development a while ago, but ping me if you're interested and you want to try to get it to work. It doesn't come close to the features of something like TestFlight, but was designed for in-house use by a team who needs access to bleeding edge builds without developer intervention.

<comment><USER11> Can you email me. I can't find any info of yours online. Would love to use your solution.

<comment><USER10> Odd. I'm the only person with my name who comes up when I search on Google and my email address is on several of the links on the first page, including my GitHub profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> OK, my main question to Apple is still, please get rid of the 100 device limit, such a pain that Testflight or any other service didn't have a workaround for. Enterprise licenses is still an uncertain thing to do

<comment><USER4> Agreed, and you can't even revoke them, they need to be active for a year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, interesting news--hopefully for the better. Testflight really made adhoc distribution not completely insane. Excited to see if the partnership with Apple will make it even smoother.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, if these comments have taught me anything, it's that there are more OTA installer services than people who will miss TestFlight. Maybe I should even open source mine.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wrote my own simple set of shell and ruby scripts (based around xcodebuild) that have helped me automate deployment back since the iOS 3 or 4 days. With some upgrades, they still work perfectly well with iOS 7.

I remember trying TestFlight when they first launched, and going back to my own deploy script instead. Hopefully, this acquisition means an integrated "Deploy" Xcode Action (or maybe even a Bot now?) and easier device registration / removal.

</comment><comment><USER16> Funny that I tweeted @ the author this morning since they've written about TestFlight before, wondering if they knew what was up. One way to get an answer when the company isn't talking!

I hope Apple keeps the essentials here, and integrates it with iTunes Connect. They seem to be more interested lately in making it useful!

</comment><comment><USER17> Somehow I don't really see Apple integrating TestFlight into the iTunes Connect mess of an ecosystem.

<comment><USER18> maybe they'll integrate itc into testflight instead. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It could also be that apple wanted the other part of Burstly which did advertising, to help support their iAd platform.

</comment><comment><USER20> I sometimes wonder if all these acquisitions are done out of paranoia rather than business shrewdness.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ok fine. Just don't buy PhoneGap.

<comment><USER22> Non-native apps? I think that's about the last thing Apple would do right now. I'd bet they'd acquire Tesla and shut the company down only keeping their battery technology before they bought PhoneGap.</comment></comment>


Official NES controllers coming to Nintendo Switch alongside paid online service - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/09/official-nes-controllers-coming-to-nintendo-switch-alongside-paid-online-service/ <comment><USER2> Back to the past indeed. I mean, it's fun that the NES controller is coming but I'm perfectly fine with the current Switch controller. I love the NES but I'd rather spend a few bucks on new games rather than a new controller when I have a good one atm</comment>


Scientific American Makes First Presidential Endorsement in Its 175-Year History - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/15/scientific-american-makes-first-presidential-endorsement-in-its-175-year-history/#2a15df234f52 <comment><USER2> It's a pity politics is so polarizing in the US that this seems necessary. I guess it is a bit of an all hands on deck situation, but it makes me wonder what history has in store. Generally, all hands on deck situations precede disasters.

I think were witnessing FPTP democracy ripping itself apart by being stuck in a local maximum. The question is how much we are going to lose before we regain and hopefully surpass this local maximum.

<comment><USER3> US politics has always been _interesting_. There have been numerous energetic elections, contentious presidents, assassinations, and even a civil war. I suspect what we are seeing has nothing to do with politics, specifically, but rather is an artifact of global communications and modern information systems. Advances in technology give increasingly greater power to individuals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's ironic that during all the saber-rattling with China, we have pivoted away from vacuuming up the best scientific and engineering talent from around the planet. We should be stealing their best and brightest, not telling them to go away.

So what, China steals our tech. We should be pushing the bleeding edge aggressively enough that even when they do they're 5-years behind.

Circling the wagons is the quickest way to get left in the dust.

</comment><comment><USER5> So is this evidence that there is widespread disdain for the current president among academics, or evidence that many non political organizations and institutions are getting politicized? News like this could be taken either way. One person might say "these institutions have no credibility anymore" and another might say "things have gotten so bad with this guy that people are feeling the need to step in." So which is it?

<comment><USER6> I would say latter, this coming from a very non political person who in the past didn't care if the president had a R or D next to his name. For the first time in my life I feel compelled to step in and vote to get back to somewhat normalcy

<comment><USER5> That's a perspective, but bear in mind that this magazine has been around for 175 years and didn't weigh in on Hitler. That would lend credence to the people claiming it is the former.

<comment><USER6> i mean, this is an American magazine, things look more real the closer they are to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any idea why it is linking to a Forbes article? The original article is likely more informative:

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific- americ...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american- endorses-joe-biden/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Stakes are certainly high with this election

<comment><USER8> And, sorry to say, not just for the United States.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I doubt many of Trump's supporters subscribe to Scientific American but it's good that more publications speak out against the rampant anti-intellectualism he pushes. It will literally be the death of us all.

</comment><comment><USER10> Well, he was correct about Hydroxychloroquine. But most papers just kept on claiming that it was dangerous. Even after #Lancetgate happened.

<comment><USER11> No. No he was not.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-chloroquine- sar...](https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-chloroquine-sars- covid-19-idUSKCN2512A7)

[https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/aug/08/week-fact- che...](https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/aug/08/week-fact-checking- hydroxychloroquine-trumps-axios/)

[https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/fact-check-white-house- offi...](https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/fact-check-white-house-official- says-hydroxychloroquine-doesn-t-help-treat-covid-19/19230670/)

<comment><USER3> I don't think the mass media is a reliable or accurate source for learning about or promulgating scientific findings. Most medical research is fraught with ambiguity and mixed messages, simply because of the phenotypic variance found in humans (and other organisms). (See more about phenotypic variance here: [0]) Generally speaking, different organisms will respond differently to the same environmental stimuli. This is why drug trials require large sample sizes and extended periods of time to assess efficacy and safety.

With regard to hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), there is nothing that could be considered definitive about its efficacy or safety for all people when used as an off-label treatment for COVID-19. While there is evidence that (in some people) is does not reduce the viral load ("Neither HCQ nor the combination of HCQ and AZTH showed a significant effect on viral load in any of the analysed tissues." [1]), there is evidence that HCQ "... can significantly decrease the production of cytokines and, in particular, pro-inflammatory factors" [2] and HCQ has "... potential, but controversial, characteristics to combat pathological inflammation associated with COVID-19." [3]

Of course, raw research does not give a definitive answer about efficacy and safety for all people, but it does suggest that HCQ may be one possible treatment (perhaps preventative, perhaps in vitro) for inflammation, which is one of the serious complications of COVID-19. It will likely be years before the mechanisms of COVID-19 are well understood. In fact, it is likely that some other urgent calamity will come along and compete for research funds currently used for COVID-19 research, which could significantly extend the time it takes to understand the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

[0] [https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/adaptation-and- phe...](https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/adaptation-and-phenotypic- variance-1132/)

[1] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2558-4](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2558-4)

[2] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0156-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0156-0)

[3] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41419-020-2721-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41419-020-2721-8)

<comment><USER12> > Most medical research is fraught with ambiguity and mixed messages, simply > because of the phenotypic variance found in humans (and other organisms)

Even more general reason to be sure that Trump was not right in his overt belief in chloroquine efficacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please keep science apart from politics (and yes, it it also about you Scientific American). Thank you.

<comment><USER14> I understand the desire here but how do you think this can possibly work when politics has such key links with science? You can't meaningfully have a response to the current pandemic or climate change, the defining issue of our century, by treating those as unrelated parts of life. From the other direction, funding for scientific is similarly heavily dependent on political support.

These days, I only hear it from my Republican friends who are trying to carve a line between saying that they still follow science and not wanting to formally leave a party which has little room for them any more.</comment></comment>


MIDI visualizer in WebGL  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/qiao/euphony

<comment><USER2> Nice visualization. Looking at the keyboard from the side [1] reminds me of some youtube piano tutorials [2] where the keys drop from above (just like guitar hero).

I tried to drag & drop one of my MIDI files (as advised) but it didn't work.

A MIDI element is basically 3 values: height (pitch), length (duration), and velocity (intensity). The latter is the only one not implemented (the colors don't seem to mean anything in particular).

One interesting (but probably difficult to implement) feature would be to distinguish both left and right hands.

[1]: <http://imgur.com/lYhLpHW>

[2]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F7GNQAO4T4>

<comment><USER3> The reason why it's missing velocity is because the MIDI.js implementation used is a simple sample player - it converts Soundfonts into a subset format. Basic features like pitch bends and vibrato are not possible from this format.

(With the newest revisions of Web Audio API it should now be possible to make a performant, fully-featured Soundfont implementation.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Sorry, this demo only supports Google Chrome"

The joys of web portability.

<comment><USER5> Author here.

The demo actually works in all modern browsers that support WebGL. The reason why I only allowed Chrome to visit was that it was the only browser that could run it smoothly.(At least on my machine at the time I developed this demo).

I have just removed the detection. Sorry for the inconvenience and hope you enjoy it.

<comment><USER6> For future reference, if one does detection (which is probably alright for proof-of-concepts using new features) just make it a dismissable warning that pops up, preferably with a screenshot or animation or short video so that people can get some idea of what it looks like/what they're supposed to see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really, really great. Wow, kudos and hat-tip.

It just "stole" roundabout 15 minutes of my day - and if I were not working, I would just keep staring at the screen. Gladly my boss is not here right now, as he sits behind me - he would not like my, staring at a "piano -hero" screen.

Well done, great application.

Edit:

After using the scroll-wheel, I just realized, you could change the resolution. Having a whole song covering the screen is quite artsy. You could print every song this way, as an art project. Looks like DNA of every tune shown here. Especially the difference between the tunes is quite fascinating to me, if looked at in this way.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, this helped me to realize that Rachmaninoff clearly was not human!

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of Rondo

<http://www.fracturedsoftware.com/rondo/>

</comment><comment><USER10> This: <http://qiao.github.com/euphony/#49>

</comment><comment><USER11> A/B loop would make this a fantastic learning tool.

<comment><USER12> piano hero, on the web, here we come!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In fact, the author is just a student.

</comment><comment><USER14> nice! well done.</comment>


They were partners in fighting crime. The only problem: Neither was a cop - <AUTHOR> https://magazine.atavist.com/not-fuzz-police-impersonator-santa-monica-steve-farzam <comment><USER2> I don't have much of value to add, but I have met a number of these guys, and I always wonder/wish there was some way we could apply their enthusiasm without giving them the authority to cause real harm.

<comment><USER3> These guys are known as whackers [1]. They aren't suited for public service.

[1] [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whacker](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whacker)

<comment><USER4> A big parts of software development is like this. Cargo-culting the latest "scalability" and "big-data" practises even though there is zero need, just to feel like a superhero and add stickers to his MBP.

<comment><USER5> > A big parts of software development is like this.

I believe you, but all I can say is thank god I've never had exposure to someone like that. If anything, for me it's a bit of a red flag when someone is interested in the stack more than the problems to be solved. That just doesn't seem to align well with being adaptable and solving each problem in the best way.

<comment><USER4> Can I please come and live in your world? It sounds saner.

<comment><USER5> Haha yea, it's always nice to find out that you've been fortunate in some way that you didn't even really realize existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hm, just realized Batman is not a cop

<comment><USER7> _Au contraire_. The commissioner deputised Batman all the way back in _Batman #7,_ Nov. 1941.[0]

[0] [http://www.batman-online.com/features/2012/10/10/comic- influ...](http://www.batman-online.com/features/2012/10/10/comic-influences- on-batman-the-movie-1966/4)

<comment><USER8> Additionally, they go over this explicitly in the Adam West Batman movie. The press demands to know Batman's identity and credentials, and the commissioner backs him up by saying that Batman's anonymity was for his own safety, and that he had been duly deputized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Slightly off-topic, but popping a paid subscription modal when I'm barely more than a paragraph into a long-form article isn't exactly a good way to get me to stick around.

<comment><USER10> What I see is not a modal. It is a "hero" image, a sentence, and a button flowed into the normal text of the page. I just kept scrolling down, and it bothered me no more. I'm running uBO, but I doubt that has any effect?

<comment><USER9> Also running uBO, and this is what I was talking about: [http://i.imgur.com/IuiAcpA.png](http://i.imgur.com/IuiAcpA.png)

The thing that appeared in the normal flow also appeared for me lower down the article.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Twttrshot – Tweet to Screenshot - <AUTHOR> https://twttrshot.de <comment><AUTHOR> I built this little Tweet-to-Screenshot-service last weekend and thought that maybe some of you might find it interesting or helpful.

Basically it's fetching data from the Embed API/service, piping it to a headless chrome (gives the best render result IMHO) and optimizing the output with Imagemagick and optipng.

Screenshots will be saved after their first generation to improve delivery speed, but will, right now, not be updated after that, so "like count" and more will not be updated. Might look into this as an improvement for v1.1.

Once a Tweet is deleted, the screenshot will also be deleted on the next call. While I find this unfortunate from the point of archiving tweets, I think it's necessary so people don't misuse this to mirror content which is considered to be harmful or illegal.

Next to using the website to generate an image, you can also directly call it. Take the link of a tweet and replace twitter.com with twttrshot.de. The result will be an image you could hotlink or save.

Feel free to play with and use it and drop me a line (mail address is at the bottom of the site) if you find a bug or something else.

</comment><comment><USER2> You'll probably want a full blown privacy section, and self-host the fonts instead of using Google to serve it.

Small improvments a) loading indicator while you're generating the image, and b) a quick way to copy the image URL (maybe with buttons for bb-code, HTML or just URL).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback!

You're totally right about the fonts, I will fix this in the evening. Also will have a look at outputting image URL and BB code, that's a great idea.

Not sure about the privacy section. I really dislike the full blown law text when there are really only access logs on the Apache and nothing else. :-/

<comment><USER3> I've been using Firefoxes screenshot function for this until now, but just editing the url seems less work considering I only want the shot of the specific tweet nothing else. Great job. I'll certainly use it!

> Not sure about the privacy section. I really dislike the full blown law text

You're doing a really good job with privacy already, but IMO you are underselling the fact that your site is privacy conscious. It might be refreshing to read something like this (example from one of my blogs):

 _You may notice I don't use cookies to track you, or provide share buttons, or ask you for your email. You can subscribe to new articles via RSS feed from the comfort of a browser. In accordance with strict Samizdat principles I encourage you to copy /paste anything you see here and publish however you see fit. There is no need to give credit either._

... it doesn't 100% fit your use-case but I'm sure you can adapt it to something similar and point to the fact that you do care about your users privacy more than the average site that displays the GDPR wall. If you consider the many ways tracking happens a minimalist attitude might be really appealing (at least to those who bother to read it). Pointing to your philosophy on this explicitly can't hurt.</comment></comment></comment>


Disney Blocks Winnie the Pooh Page in Hong Kong - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/maryhui/status/1182154322143875072 <comment><USER2> Appears to have pre-dated current events by around a year or so. Potentially a mistake, but who knows.

[https://twitter.com/alanwongw/status/1182159143248883712](https://twitter.com/alanwongw/status/1182159143248883712)</comment>


Make Your Daughter Practice Math. She'll Thank You Later - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/opinion/stem-girls-math-practice.html <comment><USER2> Is the average reader of NYTimes really so well-versed with Latin that they'd know phrases such as "sine qua non"? I've typically seen such phrases used when the context makes the meaning clear, but this was a real stumper, and my guess is it was for others too. Why is it considered good UX to make your readers switch context to do a google search and then return to reading the article? I'm not a native English speaker, and perhaps this speaks more about my non-elite education.

<comment><USER3> It's not really something that comes from knowing Latin per se, (see what I did there) but just the sort of Latin phrases that were typically used in English writing of the 20th century.

Due to the explosion of the Internet, I think there are a lot more people who speak and write fluent English without much experience reading books in English. It used to be that the average reader of the NY Times did read books, I would think, but maybe not so much any more.

<comment><USER4> Also due to the internet I don't think using a latin phrase like this is an issue. If the reader doesn't recognize it, the definition is only a couple of clicks away.

<comment><USER2> Hence the question: Why is it considered good UX to make your readers switch context to do a google search and then return to reading the article?

<comment><USER3> It's a matter of the expected audience. The NY Times is known for a supplement called the New York Times Book Review. Although it may be anachronistic today, it points to how readers of the newspaper and readers of books traditionally overlapped. Books tend to use language not commonly found in speech or informal internet communications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On the subject of drilling math, I would like to hear if any of you other readers have had experience with Kumon. I've been taking my kid to it, but I'm getting increasing resistance from his side, while also not seeing quite why I'm doing it.

Kumon is basically a daily set of very similar questions (1+3=, 2+3=, 8+3=) with a weekly workshop where you do the same. The goal is to have all the arithmetic drilled into memory, so the workbooks are very repetitive.

On paper it sounds great to be drilling math questions, and I used to do it myself. But his Kumon stuff is very slow at changing, and my son is complaining that he already knows the stuff and is doing more interesting things in school. School happens to be doing Singapore Maths, which is yet another philosophy of math teaching.

The problem is the kid is understanding what I understand, which is that endless drilling isn't math. I'm a bit more ambivalent having done a load of math beyond his level, and knowing that it's useful to memorize a few things. But I can't but feel he's right and even I am bored doing the workbooks over his shoulder.

There must be some alternative way I can regularly show him interesting stuff in math.

<comment><USER6> My mum made me do kumon for a while when I was a kid.

Not exactly sure if it's because of kumon, but I know the value of number combinations eg 5+8 I know is 13, so something like 45+78=40+70+13

Also I still know the times table off by heart (mum forced me to learn that as well) so I can calculate most things in my head, something I was surprised to learn most people can't do.

<comment><USER7> I can only recall certain number combinations and I never bothered to do the drills to learn my multiplication tables. I can multiply very basic things (fives, tens, elevens) but aside from that I gotta use a calculator.

Takes me awhile to calculate things in my head and i'm often off by around 5-9 from the actual answer when I do work it out.

I know a bunch of methods of solving things though so if I have a calculator handy I can calculate the stuff I want but mental arithmetics was never something I valued as a kid.

<comment><USER6> I actually have a bit of trouble recalling the numbers sometimes, so I tend to rely on what feels right. Like numbers up to a certain point (eg 1-44, 2^(0 to 12)) all feel different to me and some numbers feel related (eg 5,9,45).

I have a bunch of methods too though they aren't very good compared to the ones I've seen other people use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm torn. On one hand, I want to invoke Ricardo's comparative advantage and say "let them write". I am for people pursuing what they enjoy. On the other hand, the math skills of most people could be better and math is incredibly important.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, your son might thank you, too.

<comment><USER10> I agree, but I think the headline for sons wouldn't need the math bit, as boys apparently don't gravitate away from math because they are better at something else.

But sons surely need to practice, in general, because right now women are doing a lot better at higher education. At least in my country, women are increasingly getting into academia while more and more young men don't even finish the Danish equivalent of high-school.

I'm not a supporter of equality of outcome, but I think we need to get better at making sure everyone has a better opportunity for fulfilling their potential. Regardless of what they want to do.

If that's making girls practice math, then that's a good idea.

<comment><USER11> Suggesting that boys might be better at something would be politically incorrect, of course. One is allowed to talk about gender differences only if they are in favor of women.

Well, one could simply write an article about "helping your kids practice math", without mentioning gender, but I guess that would generate less clicks.

Whatever; my kids are all girls, so I am going to do math with them... exactly the same way I would with boys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> type-2 i heard that common core style is used to teach kids to make the concepts behind the maths are understood by kids. Does anyone have any experience with it?. But I think agree with the article on the idea that what you think about your abilities changes you.

<comment><USER12> I taught my daughter, when she was 4, to multiply m*n by drawing m parallel lines intersecting n parallel lines, then counting the intersections as the result. Etc., as I am a nerd, we discussed fun problems from time to time. Seven years later she won a trophy at the national level.</comment></comment>


HTC Sues Apple Using Patents Obtained From Google Last Week - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-07/htc-sues-apple-alleging-infringement-of-four-u-s-patents.html

<comment><USER2> I think what they should do is just mutually agree to make a big bonfire, burn a couple billion in cash each, and then get back to business as usual.

<comment><USER3> I think that's how Burning Man started.

<comment><USER4> Makes sense. The heads of these companies are on psychedelics!

<comment><USER4> Ouch. Why are we so humourless today?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there anyone _not_ simultaneously suing and getting sued over patents? It's like a war zone where each company tries hard to screw over every other company in their space. Then they go collaborate on Web standards. If these were people instead of businesses you'd have to assume they had mental illnesses.

<comment><USER6> > Is there anyone not simultaneously suing and getting sued over patents?

Yes. Google is getting sued lots but they are not suing anybody. I suppose selling (or giving??) a patent to HTC who then sues using it is sort of indirectly suing though.

<comment><USER7> I thought only Oracle was suing Google Is someone else suing Google?

<comment><USER8> Well according to a search for "sues google" there's also at least Skyhook, Paypal, Ebay, Zynga and Paul Allen's Trollco. I'd say the lawsuits from Apple and Microsoft count even though they are indirectly suing Google.

<comment><USER7> Umm... I think you read my question wrong. Who's not suing Google? :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's difficult to consider this an attack while, previously, Apple sued HTC.

Honestly, I don't know who started it, but this doesn't benefit anyone. Well, maybe some lawyers...

<comment><USER10> Agree that it's not an attack per se, it would appear to be a more aggressive form of defence though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It'd be nice to see the end of commoditized patent holding. E.g. Only the creators of a technology can benefit from the patent process. The "proxied from a third party to sue a second party" without any original innovation is a pathetic puppet show.

Create or die.

<comment><USER12> I agree with the spirit of your post but realize that selling patents is one way inventors can realize value. If companies couldn't use them as commodities, their value might be diminished.

The trading may pose some downsides, but it's not all bad.

<comment><USER13> I thought so at first, but that just begs the question: _So what_ if they're less valuable that way? The purpose of the patent system is not to maximize the monetary value of patents. I mean, the status quo makes patents less valuable than they would be if the government offered a pile of gold to patent-holders every five years, but that doesn't mean the government _should_ offer them gold.

The question is, would patents still serve their purpose well enough under such a system? Would inventors be unduly discouraged from getting patents? That doesn't seem likely. Solo inventors would just sell a license to the patent rather than the patent itself. And the biggest deterrent for lone inventors has always been the expense of getting a patent in the first place. That wouldn't change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> After all, it seems Google bought Motorola for patents and attacking Apple and co'. I know, Google is not directly suing Apple, but the act of giving those patents to HTC constitutes to suing Apple.

<comment><USER15> Microsoft and Nokia are doing the same thing as Google with a company called Mosaid.

This lets Google and Microsoft sue other companies over patent issues without actually doing it themselves.

it seems to be the new style of patent warfare.

<comment><USER16> The Cold War proxy-war model applied to patent suits.

<comment><USER17> how does proxy war help? the one who is sued knows that the company who's suing them is just a proxy for XYZ

<comment><USER16> Interesting response. Are you suggesting that the Soviet Union was unaware that the Mujahadeen was getting weapons and training from the U.S., or that the United States didn't know where North Korea got their MiG-15s and who was flying them? I suppose that may have been true for a time, but it's not like the jig was up as soon as intelligence reports revealed the truth.

The real benefit of the proxy wars was that the level of indirection was believed to make an all-out nuclear conflict less likely, and that large chunks of the general population could be kept in the dark, unable to wrap their heads around "why we're over there".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you're interested in these patent issues, you should add FOSS Patents (<http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/>) to your RSS reader.

Florian has the list of patents being asserted by HTC and some analysis of them at [http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/09/these-are-patents- go...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/09/these-are-patents-google-gave- to-htc-to.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Anyone have a brief description of the patents that are being thrown around here. It would be nice to see how "legit" they are.

It might make an interesting little website. PatentShootout.com (take it and run with it)

</comment><comment><USER20> Wonder what was the price that was paid. Don't think they were given away free (as in beer), otherwise Google executives themselves would face lawsuits. Breach of fiduciary duty and all that.

</comment><comment><USER21> Now, if Apple and HTC reach a cross-licensing agreement that includes these patents, could apple later sue another android manufacturer using them?

<comment><USER10> Depends what the agreement says but in theory yes.

Certainly once Apple have a license to these patents they lose any defensive/offensive capability they have in relation to Apple.

Possibly one of the terms of the sale of the patents (or licensing or whatever it is - a straight sale seems wrong to me, why would Google, who have a notoriously weak patent portfolio, sell part of it when they could protect HTC without actually losing the patent) is that any agreement has to relate to all devices running Android, not just HTC devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Do we know how much HTC bought these patents for?

</comment><comment><USER23> Awesome. This obvious patent crap has to go. Unless real blood is shed the government will do nothing...

</comment><comment><USER24> It's either 5 decades of patent of cold war or a few years of all out patent war, after which the major players will beg US authorities to change the law.

This is insane. So much money and time wasted over legal monopolies such as "multi function buttons", "dropdowns on a webpage", "rounded corners", etc, etc, etc.

Now even Google is dragged into this crap hole by moronic companies such as Oracle and Apple.

<comment><USER24> Oh no. I said something against Apple. (Unless there was something else objectionable)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It will be amusing to see how this is justified from people who have previously claimed Google has played no role in offensive patent warfare. I don't blame them for doing it. The system is what it is. Google has to arm their client-states with weapons at this point. Until the laws change they would be stupid not to.

<comment><USER26> Is this offensive patent warfare since HTC is merely countersuing? (serious question, I'd like to know the answer)</comment></comment>


Hixie: HTML5 DRM, unethical... does not provide robust content protection... - <AUTHOR> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2012Feb/0274.html

<comment><AUTHOR> In the draft[1], it seems the content decryption module (CDM) is where the action takes place but naturally the keys would be requested from some other key server and passed to the CDM, but according to this draft they keys will be passed via the client media stack.

I'm a bit bemused by this because:

a) CDM's are apparently just proprietary plugins by another name, defeating & poisoning the purpose of the <video> tag.

b) How can you protect anything if you hand over the safe and the keys at the same time?

[1] [http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- medi...](http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- media/encrypted-media.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for someone to collaborate on side project with - <AUTHOR> Ideally you're an experienced UI/UX designer, product designer, or business development type, with something you want to build in mind. You might just have an idea, or maybe you already have a rough first draft. SaaS is strongly preferred.
I want to help you develop this idea as a partner or as a contractor, whichever works best for the both of us.
I'm a software engineer with several years of experience. You can check out my blog at https://ponyfoo.com to learn more about me, read some of my articles, find out about my open-source work, conference talks I gave, or to check out the books I wrote (O'Reilly, Manning). I'm remote and my time zone is UTC -3.
You can leave a reply here or write me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> I'm trying to build a personal information manager that applies CBT and DBT based psychological techniques to everyday life via a GDT/wiki based system. I want to build a personal assistant that assists with _all_ aspects of personal cognition, helping people make better decisions for themselves on an ongoing basis, however technology can help.

The MVP is a task manager with optimized views for capture of information, and executing one's list of current tasks. You can read more (at a page that is currently entirely unready for publication :) ), here:

Https://catchthinkdo.com

I'm afraid I can't guarantee the stability of the demo right now. This isn't finished software :)

I'd appreciate any feed you have, in any case. Thanks!</comment>


Show HN: My First Commercial Game Is Now Online - <AUTHOR> http://www.cardinalquest.com/ <comment><USER2> I find it a little strange that you say I should buy "at my own risk" the experimental linux version. Just a little demo, so I can check it at least works, would add some confidence.

<comment><USER3> A "Send me a mail as soon as the Linux version is stable" would be nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that I'm not sure it's even possible to get it running properly (e.g. with hardware acceleration) on every flavor of linux out there.

It's a real can of worms that one...

<comment><USER4> It is valid to target certain Linux distributions, so you can limit your scope to the ones with most exposure to desktop users. Ubuntu comes to mind...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hrm, might do that. It already works in wine as well, just a bit buggy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cute, I like it. My feedback:

* I love the streamlined nature - auto-sell duplicate items, auto-equip. There's a couple of little niggles that go against this when moving, such as having to let go of <left> and press it again to collect an item from a chest (wouldn't a short delay also be ok?) and moving around corners feels a little awkward; I think I expect holding <left> and <up> to walk up until the next left is free, then go left, but it doesn't seem to work quite like that.

* No save / resume? Really? I get the old-skool thing, but resuming where the last game left off (without save/load, death is still death) would be a nice courtesy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's on my todo list- there is just so much stuff to do!

Thanks for the input!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do a version in Flash! Flash games can spread all over the internet and do _insane_ traffic which you can use to promote the full/paid version.

<comment><AUTHOR> Way ahead of you ;)

Currently in negotiations with a large portal.

<comment><USER6> Awesome. You should ping me - ben at playtomic.com - cause I know _all_ the major portals and can drop you some intros. Negotiations will be a lot better when you can say "X offered me more.".

<comment><AUTHOR> Pinged!

That is very generous of you, much obliged!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know how feasible this is, but a demo would be totally awesome. I am guilty of just having a demo video myself, and I think that it really cuts into my sales in a ton of cases.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I will add one in the coming weeks.

Didn't think a 5 euros game needed a demo, but apparently it does.

<comment><USER8> Any game or app for that matter can benefit from a demo, trial or similar. Even though 5 euro is not a lot, it's still money. As there is so much low- quality stuff out there, customers are sceptical about buying something they haven't tried out to some degree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just spent one hour playing your game, love it ! (will play again) The casual fast-paced rogue-like style is very neat ! I've never seen something quite similar

Not having to care about picking items up and choosing the best one to equip is very clever. It weirded me out at the begining but it really helps to build a spirit to the game.

The magic system, while not being the most intuitive thing in the game, also participate to the ambience. Bravo !

The major caveheat is really the absence of auto-saving and resuming a game. I already lost 3 characters beacause the game crashed, I've read here that it's in your TODO list, and I really think it should be your top priority, it will very fast get on players nerves.

Superb game anyways, shall I hint you contact the people behing TIGDB (The independant Game Database) ? I would love to leave a kind review here :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Congrats!

I don't know exactly how it works, but maybe you might want to contact the Humble Bundle people and see if you could get in on that somehow?

</comment><comment><USER11> Why do I have to horizontal scroll on a 1024px wide browser window? Need some _margin: 0 auto;_ somewhere. (webpage is based on 1300px width??)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right! Will fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for making this, it's awesome to play! :-)

One major thing, though: it sucks that there is no way to save or at least resume a game.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great website. You have a one pager with all the information required including a video and screenshots and two BUY NOW links. Nothing more is needed, and nothing less would do. I think you nailed it there.

Oh yeah, the game looks pretty good too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :)

I think there is still room for improvement, but you gotta release 1.0 at some point!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks pretty good to me! The only thing I would say is that whatever font you're using on the front page (Times New Roman?) looks a little tacky.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

What do you suggest I use instead?

<comment><USER15> Georgia or if you feel adventures (phun intended) you could try and use some of the fonts at typekit.com to get a more dungeony feel.

<comment><USER16> maybe just a smaller font size would suffice ... it looks tacky because it's the same size as the headings

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks pretty.What tools you used to develop it?

<comment><USER18> I like the fact that the visual and musical aesthetic forced on early game designers by hardware limitations is now a desirable attribute in a new game. From the video the game looks and sounds great... In fact, I just bought it! Will report on my experience with the Linux version.

I don't know anyone under that age of 30, do the kids like the "8-bit" thing as well? :)

 _edit_ The Linux version is an Adobe Air package. Will try it out later.

<comment><AUTHOR> My nephews (9, 12 & 13) love it, but maybe they're just being nice :)

<comment><USER19> Are 9, 12 and 13 year olds capable of being nice when they aren't genuinely feeling it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love games like this, brings back fond memories. Congratulations on your launch! I just purchased a copy :) I'm looking forward to playing it!

</comment><comment><USER21> Congrats.

On Chrome, when I click to the right in the screenshots, eventually all screenshots get shifted over to the right by half a screen.

</comment><comment><USER5> Paypal payments just aren't working, I tried twice. Might want to look into that.

Do you deliberately hide the price on the front page?

<comment><AUTHOR> No I'm not - kinda had to throw the website together quickly & I recently changed the prices a bit.

The paypal bit is handled by FastSpring and is sadly beyond my control :(

<comment><USER22> FastSpring here. What's the problem?

<comment><USER5> Couldn't purchase with paypal - first time the paypal site showed a generic "we don't know" error (didn't note it, sorry), the next time after signing in to paypal I got further, but was told that the payment had been rejected and the error message didn't know why either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You need a web designer asap. I actually had to read around to find out how to buy the game, that is terrible.

</comment><comment><USER24> Looks nice, looking forward to a Linux demo.

But that hideous image scroller on the bottom hurts my eyes :[</comment>


NM woman comes forward with illegal probing claims  - <AUTHOR> http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3212603.shtml#.Un5D-0OP_qj <comment><AUTHOR> Another incident like one previously discussed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6680266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6680266)</comment>


Air Algerie plane crashes in Mali - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/07/24/algerian-plane-disappears/13084329/ <comment><USER2> Here are some of the previous submissions of this story.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078780)

        Algeria 'loses contact with plane'
        (bbc.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078899](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078899)

        Algeria lost contact with Air Algerie aircraft
        (independent.ie)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078976)

        Contact lost with Air Algerie plane carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso
        (reuters.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079069](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079069)

        Algeria airliner missing on Sahara route from Burkina Faso
        (bbc.co.uk)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079109](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079109)

        Air Algerie loses contact with flight from Burkina Faso to Algeria
        (theguardian.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079401](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079401)

        AH5017 crashes in Nigeria
        (rt.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079655)

        Missing Air Algerie plane from Burkina Faso has crashed
        (reuters.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079790)

        Air Controllers Lose Contact With Air Algerie Plane
        (nytimes.com)</comment>


Behind League of Legends, E-Sports's Main Attraction - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/technology/riot-games-league-of-legends-main-attraction-esports.html <comment><USER2> While LoL is by far the more popular game, I find what Valve is doing with Dota to be more interesting. They're heavily investing in the spectator portion of the sport, and it's paying off in spades. They've added in the ability to watch replays, see instant-replays during live games (especially useful when the casters miss a battle off screen), see post-battle stats, and view player analytics all in-client.

The article mentions that Riot lost money in hosting The World Championship, but during The International (the Dota 2 equivalent), Valve made over $30 million from selling interactive playbills for the tournament. Twitch has become a huge part of the events as well, but I think it's telling that Valve is strategically moving forward with trying to make viewing the game just as important as playing the game. Esports as a spectator sport is definitely going to become much bigger moving forward (LoL's World Championship already has more viewers than baseball's World Series, and in Dota 2 to win more money than a superbowl winner you'd only have to take third place in The International). I suspect that we'll see Esports taking over physical sports in terms of numbers in the next decade or so.

<comment><USER3> I agree that Riot could do more with the spectator experience, but you should be careful comparing Valve's International profits with Riot's Championship Series. For one, the cost of Riot's esports push encompasses the entire scene, around the world. Riot pays player salaries for the players on every professional team in their sponsored series, which have tournaments and matches pretty much every week throughout the year. They have these series in North America, Europe, South America, SE Asia, Korea, China, and Australia, each with many teams of five players each. So, with an armchair estimation, it's easy to see how just the cost of those salaries without any benefits could be in the tens of millions. Then you have to factor in the support staff, facilities, equipment, travel, and much more. Valve sponsors one single tournament a year, and offsets the cost by selling interactive features. Ultimately, they are just different models and I think both could learn from each other.

<comment><USER4> On the other hand, Riot's tournaments account for most of the LoL pro scene. There are tournament games of DotA 2 going on almost constantly, but they're being run by independent sponsors, not by Valve.

<comment><USER5> This used to be the case in League too back in Season 2 (so a bit over two years ago), that it is no longer the case is very much by design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been to LoL HQ and talked to the founders. The offices were fairly dungeon-esque (to be fair I mostly saw the lower levels), but all the employees seemed to be having a blast. I asked one of the founders about LoL being considered a sport, and he argued fairly aggressively in favor of it. He asked me if I considered NASCAR a sport. I said no, and the conversation ended there.

<comment><USER7> I never considered car racing much of a sport until I drove an indy style car with Mario Andretti Racing Experience. 8 minutes on the track driving 160mph with about 6-7 other cars was mentally and physically exhausting. Had an absolute blast and afterwards a much greater respect for car racing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> E-sports betting is where the real money making opportunity is.

Of course, finding the way to do it legally (in the US at least) is the big challenge.

<comment><USER9> It's already started (csgolounge) to get big to mixed results- very popular but also very controversial.

<comment><USER10> There actually is kind of a history with betting and CS; the meme "bet t all" and a picture of a swat policeman petting a cat references this.

Basically pre-round or mid round you could bet some of your in game currency on a side winning. This let you recoup lost money which you could use to buy guns etc. the next round.

I always thought it was just a fun addition to the game but if you did it real time, round by round, with real money it could be cool too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I like about LoL is that it combines the right amout of knowledge, skill, tactics and teamwork to be successful. You can get into the game quite quickly and have fun on a lower level but also play it intensivly without reaching any kind of horizon because the game constantly changes. And riot also provides you with an api [https://developer.riotgames.com/](https://developer.riotgames.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Their commitment to community is what really kept me hooked in the early years. Nikita (Nikasaur) interacting with the fan-made material was really cool. Having staff interact with players (ex Shurelia) in a way that isn't constrained (like CCP Games and EVE) also kept me playing unlike any other sort of marketing technique.

It all ultimately inspired me to enter into their first community contest (LoL Logo Lookout photo), and it is the only public contest I've ever entered online. Last I heard those entries are still hanging in the office somewhere.

I no longer play, as I got sensible about my time. But really, their commitment to their community is something I still respect from the opposite coast.

</comment><comment><USER13> Funny how LoL is what got me into programming (Lua).

<comment><USER14> SC:BW got me into programming. Rigging UMS maps with triggers that only I knew of...ahh good times.

<comment><USER15> When I was in middle school, I thought SC's trigger-based map editor was the most amazing thing ever. I even built a four-mission mini campaign that I showed my friends, who promptly told me that it sucked. (It was actually pretty terrible, although fun to make.) That, and collecting UMS maps and putting them on my GeoCities page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I no longer play, but I still watch the pro teams from time to time. One of the things that has impressed me the most about Riot's approach has been their willingness to make dramatic modifications to core game mechanics in an effort to keep games exciting for both players and spectators.

An example that indicates the difference between last year's world championship games and this year's is the ward system. Wards are items that a player can place near their current location, invisible to the enemy team, to gain vision into the fog of war, which is vital for decreasing risk in map- wide coordinated team strategies. Under the old system, pro teams often bogged down during the mid- and late-game phases as they vied for map vision superiority, and the only viable strategy was to purchase as many of the superior ward type (pink, with green being inferior) as possible and equip at least one player with a long-term ability to see invisible elements. Under the new system, both green and pink wards are valuable — the former are invisible to enemies and time-limited, the latter are visible to enemies but can detect invisible elements and are not time-limited — and all players have access to a periodic ability to place an extra ward or shut down enemy wards. As a result, the action in this year's matches has been much more consistent, as teams can still angle for vision control without losing momentum.

Just today, I saw some rough notes ([http://boards.pbe.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/champions- gamepla...](http://boards.pbe.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/champions-gameplay- feedback/9dG0ndq0-rough-notes-pbe)) on changes being tested in public beta. The scope of changes is massive! Starting stats, behavior of towers, and the range of temporary buffs are all on the table for a major revamp. It would be really easy for Riot to resist improving their game under the excuse of "this is the way we've always done it", but they continue to push and innovate from within. A great example of keeping a startup mentality alive within an established company!

=====

On another note more closely related to the posted article: for anyone that doesn't already watch pro-level League of Legends and is interested based on this article, you can follow the remainder of the current world championship matches through [http://na.lolesports.com](http://na.lolesports.com) — the next best-of-five between two Samsung-sponsored teams should be very exciting. Past matches are available via [http://na.lolesports.com/vods/league/worlds](http://na.lolesports.com/vods/league/worlds) and I would highly recommend the Fnatic vs. OMG game from the group stages (direct link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O345c46mFqY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O345c46mFqY)).

<comment><USER17> I don't know if you are familiar with DoTA, but can you comment on why DoTA doesn't seem to have the problem with games stalling as players fight for vision control? I believe the DoTA ward model is very similar to the original LoL ward model.

<comment><USER18> Vision choices are more limited, access to team stealth is just an item away.

However, I would say that Dota still has a problem with stalling, maybe even more than League of Legends. There are often one-sided games that drag on for quite a long time before the winning team has a decisive enough advantage to actually finish the game. This comes from a few features, foremost 'buyback' which lets players come back from the dead before their timer expires for a fee, which means that even if you kill their entire team inside their base, unless you have the force to kill them all again, you usually cannot take any ground.

<comment><USER19> Which is what I like about Dota, with LoL it's usually blatantly obvious who will win by the 10 minute mark but it's not so much so with Dota. Obviously stomps happen and the team that leads at 10 more often than not wins but it doesn't feel as loop sided as LoL does.

<comment><USER20> I have heard this view, but is it actually supported by the data? That is, do comebacks happen with any significant frequency in high-level DotA?

For example, in all of the finals of the recent International, there was a leader at 10m who won the game. I'm not going to go through all the games and check, but I'd guess we'd find this to be true the vast majority of the time in professional DotA games, as it is in League games.

Not to make too sweeping of a generalization, but I expect it is inherent in games with an economy and relatively low random factors. On top of the normal expectation that who gains a lead is likely to be more skilled, economies that allow you to build additional strength via the dominance conferred by your current strength reinforce existing leads.

<comment><USER21> AFAIK the "deathball" strategy recently became really dominant leading up to The International. The most recent balance patch after The International included a lot of measures to swing it back the other direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I played long hours of counter strike, warcraft 3, wow, quake, starcraft 2, and I never liked the original dota map nor LoL.

I just think it's a bad mix of several games. The level format doesn't make a lot of sense. It has the disadvantages of a RTS while being some sort of a RPG (little or no persistence), doesn't have a solo mode, and doesn't even allow to control more than 1 unit. It's slow and boring. The content is quite ugly and the gameplay comes straight out of wc3.

The creep system is weird, unusual and just irrational.

LoL is a frank success because other games failed to capitalize on esport. But LoL is not a game I like to play at all.

I wish that in the future companies like id, valve and blizzard will be able to better orient their quality game towards more esport while satisfying gamers from all spectrums: the casual gamers like the one who like to spend time doing matches. Blizzard found a great balance between the two, but to me there's so much more to be done.

<comment><USER23> One of the reasons people find DOTA-likes so unlikeable is the incredibly steep learning curve. It is often said that you know nothing about LoL or DOTA until you've played 1000 games. At around 45 minutes a pop, that means you've got to commit way more time than most people have available in order to get good.

The games are more like basketball than Quake. 5 on 5, and if 1 player on a team is bad, that team will probably lose. It's why the communities in MOBAs can be so toxic.

<comment><USER24> It's steep if you can consider a tall cliff _steep_.

Warcraft 3 has a steep learning curve, like RTS games do in general. One mistake can cost you your hero, which can cost you your hero if the death is untimely. (I guess DotA derivatives are more forgiving in that sense.) But there aren't that many units and heroes to learn, so at least after some time you won't be taken completely aback when your hero gets ensnared, critical striked (struck?) hexed and then critical striked again. I mean, it _will_ happen, but the possibility would have already crossed your mind.

There is a ton of finesse and micro to playing a game like WC3, but learning to play the game isn't _that_ hard; there isn't terribly much that you need to memorize, and then you can concentrate on strategy and mechanics. DotA (derivatives), on the other hand, is built in such a way as to be absolutely relentless towards anyone who isn't already experienced.

WC3 is hard to learn, but not unreasonably so for an RTS. It also has a high skill ceiling. DotA (derivatives) are really hard to learn (I won't comment on the skill ceiling, since I don't know). Yet, people - casual players included - have embraced DotA over the humble original game. I just don't understand the attraction, particularly when it comes to the more casual players.

<comment><USER25> To be any good at WC3, you need major micromanagement skills: Blizzard games are what brought us concepts like actions per second after all. It's a bit easier in that respect than Starcraft, but still, it's really about multitasking and micromanagement.

You need a lot of knowledge to play Dota well, but you do not need that micromanagement: Pick a simple hero, like Wraith King, and you control a single character with a single active ability. Even top pros take less actions per second than an average warcraft player.

This difference in skills means that it's much easier to notice your own progress in DotA than in WC3. I watch a top DotA player, and I can see how I can get to be that good. If I look at a top RTS player, I realize I could not get that good if I spent a hundred years training.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> LoL and DotA seem to be the same game except that you can't deny in LoL, making it more casual. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER27> That is not a very substantive comment. Seems like you're just baiting for a flame war.</comment></comment>


Idealab's Bill Gross Launches TweetUp, a Marketplace for Tweets - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/04/11/bill-gross-launches-marketplace-for-tweets/

<comment><USER2> This sounds like it boils down to paying people to spam their followers. Or am I missing something?</comment>


Ask HN: How is grooveshark built? - <AUTHOR>

I plan to start my new project that is kinda similar to Grooveshark, I have the idea in my head but I don't know where to start. For example, what languages do they use? (Javascript/Php?) Is it possible for me to build it using rails? (I am more comfortable with Rails)? Help is very much appreciated. <comment><USER2> [http://blog.jerodsanto.net/2010/12/the-tech-behind-the- new-g...](http://blog.jerodsanto.net/2010/12/the-tech-behind-the-new- grooveshark/)

<http://wanderr.com/jay/technology-stack/2010/05/06/>

<comment><USER3> Great links!! I have my own music app that I'm building for personal use. Here is a jQuery plugin you might want to check out for the player: <http://www.jplayer.org/></comment></comment>


WWDC Together – watch and discuss WWDC together - <AUTHOR> https://wwdctogether.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm excited to launch twitter.com/wwdctogether as a free place to watch and hangout during WWDC. We can now view upcoming and previous sessions via modern playback, with a chatroom for each session. Hope this provides a similar WWDC vibe during this hard time

There is also a convenient clock timezones and WWDC 2020 countdown</comment>


How to Lose Your Dream Job in 3 Easy Steps - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/lessons-learned/a2177eee9b59

<comment><USER2> This is timely; I just wrote a post title "Three ways to impress your boss." I hit on some of the points you made, especially the one about being smart does not mean being credible.

[http://dalethoughts.com/2013/09/three-ways-to-impress- your-b...](http://dalethoughts.com/2013/09/three-ways-to-impress-your-boss/)

</comment><comment> __--__ This is something that has been bothering me for some time. The decision- making process on display here appears to be an appeal to authority by the CEO, wherein the author is a trusted authority. A suggestion to use an external product appears to have compromised the CEO's view that the author as an authority in his field, something the author never recovered from.

Am I the only one who thinks it's odd that a CEO is making decisions based on blind trust instead of an informed logical argument? Keep in mind I'm not talking about the mixpanel decision, I'm talking about all the decisions made thereafter.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not so sure you were in the wrong. There is such a thing as management making bad decisions.

That being said, the lesson is very important to anyone trying to influence his or her organization.

<comment><USER4> Totally.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the candid post, Dan. Very introspective and honest.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very valuable to be this self aware.

<comment><USER4> I hope so!

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands In most companies, even small ones, you're only as good as your last successful project. Once you get hung up on your success, you'll lose your credibility and eventually the support of your management team.

It's a tough lesson to learn. Now that you've experienced it, it will serve you better in the long run and future run-ins with upper management.

Good post btw.

<comment><USER4> It was a tough lesson, indeed.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Library to add a dark-mode to your website in a few seconds - <AUTHOR> https://darkmodejs.learn.uno/ <comment><USER2> Just as browsers are getting native/integrated CSS support for dark mode... I can't imagine why you'd use this instead of actual css?

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool! Just started using it for two of my websites, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER4> It'd be cool if it used the system's dark mode setting by for the default.</comment>


The Passing of Ucbvax - <AUTHOR> http://ucbvax.berkeley.edu/passing-of-ucbvax.txt <comment><USER2> (1994) I thought at first that that famous machine was still running now, decades later.</comment>


Restaurants to eaters: Please, for the love of god, stop using Seamless - <AUTHOR> http://newfoodeconomy.com/restaurants-eaters-please-love-god-stop-using-seamless <comment><USER2> Blah blah. He's not getting his legs broken by an enforcer; he's dealing with a service that has contractual rules. Don't use them if you don't want to pay their cut.

Same argument would go for Amazon or Apple's store.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think people realize how expensive it is to deliver food. I blame Domino's.

Domino's:

first free delivery,

next $2 per delivery now,

$7.95 if you pick it up, $14.95 if you get it delivered.</comment>