Statistic of the Year 2017: Winners announced - <AUTHOR> https://www.statslife.org.uk/news/3675-statistic-of-the-year-2017-winners-announced <comment><USER2> Oof. I hate this article.

Statistics have to be interpreted. Creating a "Statistic of the Year" is about as asinine and self-congratulatory as Blake Shelton being declared "Sexiest Man Alive".

What does it even mean?

Take Mrs. Kardashian West's post. Its sufficiently political to cause a controversy and sufficiently vacuous for readers to imprint their own thoughts and feelings on it.

What is an "Islamic", "Jihadist", "Immigrant"? If a terrorist travels to America, with an intent to kill but not an intent to obtain permanent residency, are they not included in the statistic? If a terrorist kills a group of people but a "Jihad" has not been formally declared by a group associated to the terrorist, is that terrorist not included in the statistic? If a terrorist is inspired by Wahhabis propaganda but is not himself a "true" Muslim (as defined by the researchers), is he included in the statistic?

The problem with these "award winning" statistics is that they are not, in fact, statistics. They are award winning implications which themselves are not born out of the data but are instead imprinted upon it.

The implication that toddlers are more dangerous than terrorists is absurd. Armed toddlers are the result of freak accidents and careless people. Terrorist attacks are the result of intentional policy choices. It's not hard to wonder why people focus so much time, effort, and attention on one rather than the other.

Consider the following scenario:

You are locked in a room with two other people. To your left, an armed toddler. To your right, an armed, islamic, jihadist, immigrant, terrorist. Your mission is to disarm both parties before you are allowed to leave the room. Who do you disarm first?

If you're the authors of this article, you disarm the toddler. If you're sane you disarm the terrorist.

<comment><USER3> That scenario is misleading as it assumes there are equal numbers of relevant toddlers and terrorists.

<comment><USER2> Firstly, the scenario is exact in its implication. All things held equal, an "Islamic", "jihadist", "immigrant" is treated with greater caution than an "armed" "toddler".

Secondly, you can not infer the population of "armed" "toddlers" or "Islamic", "jihadist", "immigrants" from this statistic. Terrorists could be incredibly common and safe or uncommon and dangerous. Increasing their commonality might not be desirable. Which directly contradicts the implication of the tweet.

Thirdly, proportion the population of toddlers and terrorists however you wish. Under any proportionment the terrorist would be addressed first. For the simple fact that terrorists have intent to harm, whereas toddlers are more likely to harm themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> #2 statistic here is also largely bullshit based on a very flawed understanding of risk. "...help us better understand the world around us", this stat does the complete opposite.

Further reading: [https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/942730083973951490](https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/942730083973951490)

</comment><comment><USER5> Number of deaths caused by Islamic extremist terror attacks is a fat-tailed distribution, while deaths caused by lawn mowers is not. There is no organized movement among lawnmowers to rise up and kill people - the deaths happen by accident, and the odds of deaths increasing 1000% one year are very, very low. The same logic does not hold for terrorist attacks. There is no reason to assume an attack on the scale of 9/11 or greater will never occur again. These low-probability but highly significant events are not being factored in by Kim Kardashian West, and a lot of people are not thoughtful enough to consider them on their own.

</comment><comment><USER6> The smugness is unbearable.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nassim Nicholas Taleb would absolutely tear those statistics apart.

</comment><comment><USER8> > "We are delighted to announce our first ever UK Statistic of the Year and > International Statistic of the Year, a new initiative that celebrates how > statistics can help us better understand the world around us"

TL;DR The winner is "This is the annual number of Americans killed, on average, by lawnmowers - compared to two Americans killed annually, on average, by immigrant Jihadist terrorists.", and this was shared by Kim Kardashian. [https://twitter.com/kimkardashian/status/825580660337283073?...](https://twitter.com/kimkardashian/status/825580660337283073?lang=en)</comment>


Ask HN: Best Documented Web APIs and Integrations? - <AUTHOR> Title contains the questions. There are so many documentations of various styles out there.
Which are the best API documentations you know? Comprehensiveness, Readability, Usability/UX, Look&Feel, extensive use of standards... whatever factor makes it special/favourable.
Looking for role models. <comment><USER2> Stripe, Parse, Twilio, SendBird.

This is a good overview of the different things that make up great docs: [https://zapier.com/engineering/great-documentation- examples/](https://zapier.com/engineering/great-documentation-examples/)

I think a great developer docs experience is a _really_ tough thing to do well. You need to have great design, great writing, and great tech. The existing docs platforms out there (like Readme.io) all suck (especially for anything beyond REST API docs), so you really need to roll your own.

I've done some consulting in this area for clients who wanted amazing docs experiences, so ping me if you want some more ideas / feedback.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stripe is probably the best I've used, though there are so many products and features these days you can get a bit lost sometimes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also enjoy Stripe. When we did our website, we generally took Slack & Stripe as examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Follow up question: Is there a framework for creating and maintaining these API docs, or is it hand-coded?

<comment><USER5> Maxime from Algolia here. There is a lot of things out there to build docs. (Sphinx, readme.io, jekyll, middleman, web frameworks, ...).

All those tools are good at what they do. When you want to do something very specific/custom, you will always end up needing something outside the scope of those products.

So far at Algolia, middleman is the one we're using for our main documentation. We had to tweak it a lot and reimplement some parts but it works and we should be able to keep it running for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Airtable has a pretty awesome api documentation.

Basically, when you create a table and see its api documentation, it is generated on the fly to show you the rest endpoints specific to that table only.

Pretty awesome actually, worth checking it out.

Stripe has good api docs too.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://docs.particle.io/reference/api/](https://docs.particle.io/reference/api/)

Amazing IoT startup and amazing documentation</comment>


Nokia Reverses Course - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonenews.com/nokia-selling-n9-united-states-20341/

<comment><USER2> I doubt the report. Can't see N9 on the Nokia US web site. It has also recently disappeared from the Finnish web site. [http://www.nokia.com/us- en/products/products/?intc=na-fw-ilc...](http://www.nokia.com/us- en/products/products/?intc=na-fw-ilc-na-all_phones-na-home-us-en-734384)

Is this really official or just some random vendor dumping the last batch of phones?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that Nokia moves to offer something else besides Windows Phone in the USA, as its Lumia 900 drops down to #10 on the Amazon wireless best sellers list ...

<http://wireless.amazon.com/b/684177011/>

Does this improve Nokia's chances of avoiding bankruptcy?

<comment><USER3> Generally speaking, when a company bets its continued existence on one strategy, and then a few months later starts backpedaling from that commitment, that is not a good sign for its continued existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's smart for Nokia to keep its options open. In fact it was reckless of them to do anything but that from the beginning. Betting the largest phone manufacturer (at the time) on an unproven OS was not a very wise strategy.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is completely bogus. Fry's has grey market imported these phones. They also sell GSM Galaxy Nexuses from (I believe) South America.

</comment><comment><USER6> That's pretty badly written article. Meego and iOS are real time OSes? Really?</comment>


PCLSR: An elegant feature of MIT's ITS that never got picked up by other OSes - <AUTHOR> http://fare.tunes.org/tmp/emergent/pclsr.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> If this sounds familiar, it's because it was at the center of the famous "Worse is Better" debate.

<http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html></comment>


Live From Facebook's Instagram Video Announcement - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/20/live-blog-facebook-announcement/

<comment><USER2> \- _" Today we want to talk about something a little different..."_

\- _"We've worked with the leading video scientists to create something great. We call it Cinema."_

\- _"We worked hard on all of this.. but we wanted to do more."_

There has to be someone in the Valley that has distilled every Steve Jobs presentation into a style guide that every other firm is now using in their presentations.

<comment><USER3> "a little different..."

Videos.. on the internet.. now, that's something new! ;)

<comment><USER4> > "a little different..."

Now we get cat _and_ food videos that are super-stylized to look like they've been made with a plastic filter over the lens. ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


The History of Labor Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm <comment><USER2> Note only does the DOL page not mention the stiff competition faced with the May 1st date, it doesn't even mention what is uncontroversially regarded as the main impetus for the federal labor holiday, namely, as a gesture of appeasement in the wake of the brutal suppression of the Pullman strike just 6 days before the enabling act was signed by Grover Cleveland:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike>

In that sense, the totality of the censorship on the government's page around a simple matter of noncontroversial public history is simply astonishing. The irony is that it seems to exemplify the very ethos of left-wing totalitarianism that it's desperately trying to "protect" us from. Or as Winston Smith said it best himself,

 _"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth"_ (Book One, Chapter VII).

BTW, here's a good recap of the actual political maneuverings around the time of the federal holiday was enacted:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2004/09/why_do_we_get_labor_day_off.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This official history of Labor Day by the United States Department of Labor is described as a "sanitized" history of Labor Day in the United States by another webpage

<http://www.cs.uni.edu/~campbell/gened/labour.html>

(written by a professor of mathematics who definitely has a point of view on labor history) that I find more informative, even as it expresses a point of view, than the government webpage. Ever since I have lived in Taiwan, a country with a red flag (adopted during the worldwide socialist movement) and Labor Day on May 1st, I have wondered why the United States doesn't have Labor Day on May 1st. See also my submission from yesterday

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4468530>

of another website about this issue.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is very sanitised. 'labor day' comes from the international unionist struggle/demand for workers rights that stopped sweatshop conditions existing in all western countries, usually through 'illegal' strikes. You can also forget conflating it with Stalin and the cold war - that all came much later.</comment>


The Search for Local Investigative Reporting's Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/public-editor/margaret-sullivan-new-york-times-public-editor.html?ref=opinion <comment><USER2> Personally, I suspect a lot of future reporting (both news and investigative) is probably going to become the domain of amateurs now that the internet has cannibalised the rest of the business.

Doing it as part of an actual, professional business is probably just about impossible at this point. News, ads and gossip funded stuff like this in the days before the internet, and with the way the net is going now (aka people are getting said things from dedicated sites), that's not really a model that's ever going to be viable again.

But yeah, I think its just amateurs and volunteers from this point on. The kind of people who do stuff like scambaiting and online predator hunting/trapping, except focused on slightly more low key affairs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone serious tried the Kickstarter model for funding quality local news?

<comment><USER4> you mean patreon?

<comment><USER3> Not really, more we will start a level of local reporting once we get to a certain level of financial support, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do I say to a university class about "women-only" opportunities?  - <AUTHOR>

My school is being asked to participate in a Women in IT, all expenses paid event hosted by Microsoft. It includes mock interviews and general preparation for interviewing at big tech companies, and as such is a great experience for any student. The event is geared towards women and women get priority registration, men can fill the extra spaces that aren't taken by women if there are any. I feel like this is a great event to encourage more women to get involved in the largely male dominated field. But after this event was announced to one of our more introductory classes, it blew up on that class' forum, the men in the class felt that they were being "excluded" from this cool opportunity. We are going to go talk to the class again on monday, but I'm not sure what to say to them. On one hand, it does feel like it's widening the gender divide by being a "women only" event. But on the other hand, it is rather intimidating for women to get into Computer Science when they walk into a 95% male classroom, and if more women joined, the gender gap would become narrower. <comment><USER2> > felt that they were being "excluded" from this cool opportunity.

That's not opinion, it's fact, regardless of the motives for doing it.

> it is rather intimidating for women to get into Computer Science when they > walk into a 95% male classroom

Did you intuit that, or is that the result of a real, repeated study?

Are you offering something similar for the men? That's what would make this fair.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that it is exclusionary, And if this event was something that we had planned ourselves, I would try not to exclude anyone. (We put on club events every week that we regularly invite the student body to). The problem is that this event is Microsoft's thing, and we are kind-of at their whim. My comment about women being intimidated in a 95% male classroom comes from actually talking to different women in our program and hearing what they have to say. And we arent "offering" anything, like I said, this is a Microsoft sponsored event.

<comment><USER2> You quibble about the term 'offer', but surely you could 'find' or 'discover' something for the men.

And do you tell the women they are going to need to learn to interact with men as part of a professional programming job? Are they only ok with that if they are in the majority?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately, things like this are more damaging overall. i.e. Even if you succeed and get some more women involved, you will have also created resentment from men whom are not given equal opportunity, which then can lead to women not being given equal opportunity.

I suggest you don't perpetuate the problem / don't participate.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definetly agree... I was thinking of talking to the microsoft rep about it and about what we've run into. Its difficult to say "no" when your department is asking you to help plan and advertise this event from such an influential company.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't discuss with the Microsoft rep. This is a decision your school needs to make.

You could politely decline to participate and provide your reasons for doing so. If your department feels strongly enough about it then let one of them volunteer to do it. If no one volunteers, then obviously they don't feel strongly about it. Your declining to participate sends a strong message.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you already did a pretty good job of explaining it -- it would be better if these initiatives weren't necessary, but when you're at 95% you might need to do some bootstrapping work to start off a positive feedback loop, and to share positive role models.

<comment><AUTHOR> What types of bootstrapping would you suggest?</comment></comment>


A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-05/this-former-tesla-staffer-became-an-internet-millionaire-in-his-spare-time <comment><USER2> Why are we singing his praises here? He sells a hangover drink, and in order to not have to get FDA approval he calls it a dietary supplement. Chances are this does not work at all, and he's selling something with false promises and no regulation. Are we praising snake oil salesmen for their businesses acumen now?

The Tesla connection seems like nothing more than click bait since it's not related, except maybe gave him connections to be able to raise $450 000 from angel investors.

<comment><USER3> hn eats up get rich quick clickbait

<comment><USER3> (yes i realize i clicked the article too). but really this is on the front page?

ps: the cure for hangover is breakfast

<comment><USER4> Realistically speaking the correct hangover cure is n-acetylcysteine (NAC)[0], vitamin C, thiamine [1], water, and activated carbon to absorb toxins from alcohol breakdown.

NAC improves the performance of your liver enzymes, helping break down alcohol and lessening alcohol-related liver damage.

Vitamin C helps replenish lost vitamins through alcohol consumption.

Thiamine helps replenish vitamins necessary for energy production in your brain, lessening alcohol-related brain damage. And water. Cuz water.

This combo as you drink or after you've finished consumption will severely reduce any adverse hangover effects. Maybe I should make a hangover drink.

[0] [https://medium.com/@researchangover/n-acetyl-cysteine- hangov...](https://medium.com/@researchangover/n-acetyl-cysteine-hangover-nac- for-liver-4c2278ee4e86)

[1] [https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-2/134-142.htm](https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-2/134-142.htm)

<comment><USER5> Great, where can I fing a pill/drink/bar/... that contains a bit of NAC, vitC, thiamine and activated carbon that I can just consume before going to bed when I come home from the party ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. I know that seems like status quo for companies not to demand control over what employees create outside of work, but seems like that line can be blurred when there's enough money involved.

(edit: not just having a sidegig, but being able to launch and run his startup for ~1 year while employed at Tesla)

I also have a low bar after reading "Bad Blood", the book about Theranos. One of Theranos's chief engineers, on his own time, came up with a cool idea for bike lights and ran a successful KickStarter [0]. Elizabeth Holmes' response:

> _Kent told Elizabeth about his successful Kickstarter campaign, thinking she > wouldn't mind. But he badly miscalculated: she and Sunny were furious. They > viewed it as a major conflict of interest and asked him to transfer his > bike-lights patent to Theranos. The paperwork Kent had signed when he joined > the company entitled them to any intellectual property he produced while > employed there, they contended. Kent disagreed. He'd worked on his little > venture during his free time and felt he had done nothing wrong. He also > failed to see how a new type of bicycle light posed a threat to a maker of > blood-testing equipment. But Elizabeth and Sunny wouldn't let it go. In > meeting after meeting, they tried to get him to turn over the patent. They > ratcheted up the pressure by bringing Theranos's new senior counsel, David > Doyle, to some of the meetings._

Eventually Kent, the engineer, was allowed to go on leave of absence to work on his bike-light. I don't think he ever came back, and he was the guy who was the chief architect of the piece of crap that Holmes would later describe as "the most important thing humanity has ever built".

[0] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revolights/revolights-j...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revolights/revolights- join-the-revolution)

<comment><USER7> "Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig, but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. "

Please don't give them kudos. This has to be normal behavior. Being employed by a company doesn't mean being owned by them.

<comment><USER8> Sadly, I think the bad behavior is relatively common. Two of the last three SV companies I've worked for assert ownership over everything you do or invent, even on your own time and on your own equipment at home. I don't know if this is super common or not, or whether or not it's legal, and I'm certainly not going to spend $XXX,XXX on a lawyer to find out!

<comment><USER7> That's why this needs to be illegal. The regular guy doesn't have the money to fight stupid contracts.

<comment><USER9> It is illegal in Silicon Valley, which is governed by California law. (I'm making an assumption about the meaning of "SV".)

But that just means they can't enforce the contract as to work it can't legally apply to, not that they can be hit with penalties for drafting the contract that way. If they choose to fight over it, you'll still have to fight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like this guy hedged his bets every step of the way:

\- kept his day job while working on startup \- did fake campaign on FB to gauge demand \- got friends to try product \- croudfunded the first batch

This is a really risk averse guy who is making it big. Sort of the opposite of the bombastic risk-it-all founder we often see in SV hero stories.

<comment><USER11> One thing that Adam Grant writes about in his book, "Originals", is how it's a bit of a fallacy that founders often dive head first and risk it all when starting their companies. Could be somewhat of a confirmation bias but he gives some great examples of how risk averse many founders actually are when starting their companies (Warby Parker was the main example if I remember correctly).

[http://www.adamgrant.net/originals](http://www.adamgrant.net/originals)

<comment><USER12> I came to say just this! He goes on to say that the great startup risk takers are confused with great "risk mitigators" who often hedge these risky bets. One example he gave was Woz who was working with HP when focusing with the creation of Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is one of my most favourite "start up" stories ever. It almost feels like the "millennial" way of starting any business nowadays.

Quitting your day-job, sitting in a co-op space, risking thousands of personal funds, building, and building, and building, and building, and then finally releasing something with no real idea of it's potential is an almost sure-fire way of failing, and risking your well being at the same time.

This "prove-everything-at-each-step" side hustle method is how most businesses should be started.

Take notes, well done.

<comment><USER14> I don't get the obsession americans have with reducing huge demographics into single buckets. (I think part of it is historical, but another part of it might just be because the country is so big that you have to develop some way of reducing all that complexity.) I don't want to be overly negative in response to your largely optimistic post, but the behaviour of millenials lie in a hugely diverse spectrum which needn't be reduced to a single canonical element. Maybe a first good step is to dehabit yourself from always saying "demographic X always seems to behave in Y manner".

<comment><USER15> > I don't get the obsession americans have with reducing huge demographics > into single buckets.

The irony.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps the most fascinating part (to me at least) in the article was his second step - he knowingly and purposefully created a vaporware product and took orders for it. He refunded the money from the customers, but used this as a validation step.

I'm not sure if there's a moral judgement to be made here that's meaningful, but it's an interesting approach to product validation. I feel like we see this approach with Kickstarter style approaches, but without the refund step (and without ultimately delivering the product), but this idea of getting transactions and refunding them to validate interest is... well it feels a bit off-putting(?), but interesting none the less.

<comment><USER17> It's called "dry testing", and the FTC might come after you if you're not clear about what you're doing [https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business- center/guidance/adv...](https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business- center/guidance/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Headline is rather misleading as neither 1) hitting a $1M in sales or 2) raising $8M in venture funding necessarily means he actually became a millionaire.

<comment><USER19> Both of those things make a company worth more than $1 million. It's only wealth on paper, but it's legitimate to call a person a millionaire who owns a company who's done one of those.

<comment><USER20> I would disagree, and I believe that others would as well. A 'millionaire' in my mind is someone with liquid assets of at least one million dollars.

The company isn't worth more than $1 million until someone else exchanges shares or money for it for over a million dollars. VC funding does not make someone a millionaire, except in rare cases where founders are allowed to sell shares to 'take money off the table'. VC money is the hope that the company will be worth $X in the future.

<comment><USER19> That's pretty much the age old debate about wealth. But the actual definition of millionaire is "someone whose assets are worth more than $1 million".

A VC investment is literally the exchanging shares for money. No it doesn't make someone liquid. Yes it does set something sorta like a market value, though it's usually really high. In more meaningful terms, that company now has $8 million in cash. There's almost no scenario where it's worth less than $8 million now, because companies at that stage usually have very little debt.

<comment><USER21> There are many scenarios where the founder is less than $8 million though, even on paper. The article doesn't give details about what % of the company Lee still owns or what their balance sheet or margins look like.

Based on that article, we don't actually know if Lee has assets worth $1 million. This is all before even bringing up how liquid he is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This kind of side-hustle is much more exciting to me than the "quit the day job roll the dice" entrepreneur stories. It reminds me of the Shopify features where team members proved the product by creating dropshipping side-hustles.

[https://www.shopify.com/blog/75644165-how-i-imported- gaming-...](https://www.shopify.com/blog/75644165-how-i-imported-gaming- glasses-with-alibaba-and-made-2-416-51-in-5-weeks)

</comment><comment><USER23> Seriously?

For a hangover cure. The shit I can walk into half a dozen different convenience stores and whole foods and find half a dozen varieties by the front counter.

This person must have been a good PM.

</comment><comment><USER24> The step by step guide is a really great "how to become an entrepreneur"

</comment><comment><USER25> You can buy Hovenia Dulcis tea at any convenience store in Korea, or at most Korean markets in the States. The studies do seem to show that it works for hangovers.

[http://item2.gmarket.co.kr/English/detailview/item.aspx?good...](http://item2.gmarket.co.kr/English/detailview/item.aspx?goodscode=702630162)

[https://examine.com/supplements/hovenia- dulcis/](https://examine.com/supplements/hovenia-dulcis/)

</comment><comment><USER26> One factor that seems to have played in his favor is the unlikely pre-launch competitive threat. The fact that no beverage company has emerged in the US as a hangover cure till now gave him time to move deliberately, snake oil or not.

Many other startups (I'm looking at this week's LiDAR fundings) live in a headlong footrace as they try to get to market sooner with a better solution. No time to measure twice.

However, now that the cat's out of the bag....

</comment><comment><USER27> I've followed this company carefully since its start and also know the founder when he used to work at Facebook. He's a talented PM.

I'm always curious how this company will truly scale? Having this club at nightclub and bars is cool but what's next? How is it going to deal with multiple competitors coming out with "better" drinks?

<comment><USER28> Does it have to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is it me, or does this process sound just like the one outlined in the 4 Hour Work Week?

</comment><comment><USER30> The number one thing that kills a startup is lack of market demand. His real genius is in determining market demand ahead of time, and in a low-cost way. This separates true entrepreneurs from the wannabes.

</comment><comment><USER31> He should be distributing these in Ubers/Lyfts for late night on their way home riders. $10/bottle people would eat it up.

</comment><comment><USER32> Great way to build something in a very risk averse process. I wonder how effective this will be as a 'supplement'?

</comment><comment><USER33> Seems to me that 50% of the news lately has been business clickbait lately. What's happening to HN? :-(

</comment><comment><USER34> I hate that word "Staffer"</comment>


Flash, HTML5, Mobile Apps and the Open Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/02/flash-html5-and-mobile-apps.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting, quick read. I particularly liked the "an HTML5 (non-Flash) internet favors Google, as they can index it" (paraphrased) comparison with Apple liking a closed system, as they're the gatekeeper. And that this isn't really a winner-take-all battle, though it's clearly heated.

That said, of course Apple likes a closed system. They're the underdog right now. As to the somewhat implied claim that it'll ever become a "proprietary app centric universe" headed by Apple, I highly doubt it. If they ever get that big, they'll get nailed with the same kind of legislation that MS has had to deal with, because it _is_ preventing competition. While they're small they _are_ the competition, so it's allowed.</comment>


Setup Firebase on iOS and Android with multiple environments - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bam-tech/setup-firebase-on-ios-android-with-multiple-environments-ad4e7ef35607 <comment><AUTHOR> Hello! Hope this article can help you setup Firebase when you have multiple envs like production, staging... Glad to hear your feedback :)</comment>


New silicon valley in international waters near SF - <AUTHOR> http://blueseed.co

<comment><USER2> Why does this remind me of:

[http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mansion_Family](http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mansion_Family)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm getting Bad Gateway / Gateway Timeout.

</comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't work for me either

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> it should work now</comment>


John Wiswell on [Programmer] Burnout - <AUTHOR> http://johnwiswell.blogspot.com/2010/10/writers-exhaustion-or-writers-block-is.html

<comment><USER2> "At the same time, this is not an addiction. I cringe when writers compare their craft to addiction. A heroin addict shuffles out onto the street to satisfy dependency, perhaps with a glimmer of future pleasure, but he does not feel the obligation I do. "

Actually, you're both feeling compulsion, not obligation. You don't owe anyone else anything. It's all for yourself, just like the drug addict.

Lately, I've also started to jot down my ideas so I don't lose them. I also feel a bit of compulsion to get some 'work' done, instead of relaxing.

The difference is that I realized that I -need- downtime to function effectively. I don't feel guilty about playing video games because I know that if I just worked all the time, I'd burn out.

I'd love to have the time to do everything in my head. But since I can't have it, I just keep doing what I can, when I can, and don't feel like I'm going wrong when I relax.</comment>


Runestone Wisp - a game that teaches logic - <AUTHOR> https://runestonewisp.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> I found the UI to be extremely complex and non-intuitive. You need to engage me with something fun before you ask me to build a spell with runes I don't understand - using a UI that's completely foreign.</comment>


Google soft launches collaborative Jupyter-like notebook - <AUTHOR> https://colab.research.google.com/notebook#fileId=/v2/external/notebooks/welcome.ipynb&recent=true&forceEdit=true&sandboxMode=true&scrollTo=9J7p406abzgl <comment><USER2> > This site may not work in your browser. Please use Chrome for Desktop.

Thanks, but no.

<comment><USER3> You don't actually need Chrome for Desktop, just a browser with WebComponents support. In fact, it will partially work in Firefox if you go into about:config and enable `dom.webcomponents.enabled` and `dom.webcomponents.customelements.enabled` - the banner is just a warning.

<comment><USER3> Not quite sure why I'm getting downvoted on this one, I said 'partially working' and it really does. Here it is in Firefox Developer Edition with those two config items changed and nothing else:

[https://i.imgur.com/MFXE6uA.png](https://i.imgur.com/MFXE6uA.png)

Of course, the CSS is broken, but Firefox isn't really done with WebComponents support, so that's probably not surprising.

<comment><USER4> I didn't downvote you, but upvoted the "thanks no" and flagged the post.

1) A website that doesn't work in browsers (without configuration) is crap

2) Google again shoving that unwanted browser in my face (on top of afs all over the place and the "Upgrade to Chrome" bullshit) is getting out of hand

You might present a workaround to read the website. Downvoters might feel like me and don't give a damn about this content if it doesn't display in a normal, modern browser..

<comment><USER5> I don't complain when I try to charge my Pixel with an iPhone cable (without a dongle) and it doesn't work. Do you not give a damn about their cable because it doesn't charge a normal, modern phone?

It's almost like companies have a right to push their own products by building things into that ecosystem. Does it also bother you that Apple doesn't develop iMessage for Android?

The web isn't a magical universal standard anymore. Every browser is different and supports different things. If you want to use something that's not supported by your browser but you're not willing to switch, that's not the developer's problem.

>Google again shoving that unwanted browser in my face.

It's almost like companies are allowed to advertise their products. I don't complain about Coca-Cola again shoving that unwanted drink in my face because their vending machines only sell Coke, and because their ads are everywhere.

At some point you're just arguing against Google, and not against the specific product in the post.

<comment><USER4> I guess we cannot agree here.

The charging cable comparison seems silly. If I click on a link on this site I expect it to work in my (standard, modern, no snowflake configuration) browser. If it doesn't, it's not part of the web for me. You can discuss Apple and Android, cables and connectors all you want.

The comparison with a vending machine was equally flawed, but at least it wasn't a car analogy..

I cannot argue against the product in the post, because the link is inaccessible. The "web components" explanation makes some sense (that explains the why, although I still think that a fallback message should explain that. Say "your browser doesn't support web components" instead of "you need our browser". I still flag it, but would kinda get it).

Companies are allowed to advertise their products. I'm allowed to label their practices as shitty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Collaboration over jupyter notebooks has been available in CoCalc [ [https://cocalc.com/](https://cocalc.com/) ], formerly the SageMathCloud online notebook, for several years now. I wonder what prompted Google to introduce this.

<comment><USER7> Googler here, no relation to the colab team. What probably prompted us to introduce this is that it was an internal project that many of us really really like and use quite often, and we thought it would be nice if you guys could use it too. That's it. It was probably somebody's 20% project at first, I don't think there was any great ambition for an actual product when they started it.

Googlers tend to reinvent the wheel a lot because somebody here likes some tool or library or application, wants to use it, but wants to avoid licensing restrictions, incompatibilities with our internal tools, wants total control over its development so they can change and add things as they see fit, etc. Then it grows up and gets a team with a PM and everything, and if it does really well we might share it and let it out of its cage into the wild. You can take it or leave it.

Also did I mention that I really really like colab? I've been evangelizing it to my team at Google Cloud support for all kinds of things like playbooks, reproductions, easily modifiable tools and scripts, etc. It's like Google docs for jupyter notebooks, it's pretty great.

<comment><USER8> Any timeline for Python3 support?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wants me to use Chrome to open the site.

<comment><USER10> Someone in Google really has jumped the shark at this point. How we (geeks) knashed our teeth in the 90's when sites were IE only - it's been over a decade since I've seen this - and now GOOGLE is pushing their browser to the exclusion of others. Seriously do I have to start playing with my browser string again!

<comment><USER11> > it's been over a decade since I've seen this

Apple does this every year in order to stream WWDC. It's the one time a year I open up safari :)

<comment><USER2> Edge can also understand the video format.

It is a different situation, because FF and Chrome would also able to show the stream if their developers used the macOS and Windows media APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What an earth is on that web app that it can't work on an up-to-date Firefox?

<comment><USER13> It's basically a demo of their native code sandbox technology: (P)NaCL

[https://developer.chrome.com/native- client](https://developer.chrome.com/native-client)

This new online notebook system is probably the successor of:

[http://colaboratory.jupyter.org/welcome/](http://colaboratory.jupyter.org/welcome/)

<comment><USER3> Is this really a demo of PNaCl? While I can find references to a previous project also called Colaboratory, which appears to have a Chrome app and probably indeed used NaCl/PNaCl, this actually appears to connect to a backend of some sort, as evidenced by the "Registration required" whenever you try to run any code in Google Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks promising, and I remember them announcing this sometime ago. I was curious as to how they would handle CSVs or other datasources, and the only example I see is bigtable. I thought I'd be able to type open and hit tab a few times but no luck. It wouldn't let me run any code until I "connected a runtime", but I had to wait for that to become available. That took me to a wait list page.

I guess it will be a few more months before there is something meaningful to try.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does it support version control? Since that is one of the main challenges while using Jupyter notebooks.

<comment><USER16> appears so - was just playing with it and similar to google docs/sheets there is 'Revision History'. It allows you to 'restore' to a previous save, or download that version.</comment></comment>


6-Month-Old Babies Are Now Using Tablets and Smartphones - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/3834978/babies-use-devices/ <comment><USER2> Hyperboles aside, tablets are vastly easier and more intuitive for small children to use than keyboards and mice. Undoubtedly, a very different generation is growing up now, for which a "computer" means a screen you can touch, and actual laptops and PCs are something esoteric you sometimes use for schoolwork to input large amounts of text. If there ever was a strong case for "mobile is eating the world", this is it.

<comment><USER3> _tablets are vastly easier and more intuitive for small children_

They sure are, and I don't really think there is a minimum age at which newborns and beyond should be allowed access to them. Yet it is of utter importance they also get access to actual non-flat toys/tools/... in order to develop dexterity, the feeling to handle objects and even creativity. Also not to forget about getting enough movement/excercise and not getting used to a sedentary lifestyle: most tablet apps unfortunately don't require the user to move around, on the contrary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are babies poised to steal our jobs?

<comment><USER5> In the long term, certainly.

<comment><USER4> That's what we get for thinking of the children all the time. Ingrates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was speaking to an older women.

She asked me what I was studying.

I replied "Computer Science".

she said "Oh! My daughter uses the tablet all the time ! She could study Computers too !"

I have read about ppl like her on the internet, but it was so interesting to have that experience.

Bottom line for programmers :

You are guaranteed a very well paying job for a really long time.

<comment> vezzy-fnord _Bottom line for programmers :

You are guaranteed a very well paying job for a really long time._

That may certainly be the case, but the conclusion doesn't follow from your anecdotal premise. Otherwise auto mechanic would be a prestigious and very well paying job, as well. Now you might respond that modern vehicles have ever more complex computer technology and mechanics' requirements are changing in that direction. That much is true, but it mostly involves employing and inspecting black boxes. If anything, it should be a cautionary tale for vendor lockdown.

<comment><USER7> Former mechanic here. The field works like a lot of other fields where you have your general mechanics struggling to make ends meet. Then you have your dealership specialized mechanics who can often net in the six figures. This happened before vendor lockdown but that will certainly exacerbate the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sorry for killing the hype, but I hope this is not going to read in a few years as «6-Month-Old Babies are now using the TV», a clear example of parents negligence, with study upon study showing the negative effects of such practice.

<comment><USER9> At least this is interactive, and children will develop bit more.</comment></comment>


Wireframe.cc - minimal wireframing tool - <AUTHOR> http://wireframe.cc/ <comment><USER2> Very nice. Would be great if you could specify a common default grid, e.g. bootstrap or 960.gs. While aligning objects with objects is useful, often its the initial grid that is the most important thing to align to. Maybe allow the user to specify column width and column gap and automatically add some guides...

Definitely bookmarking.

</comment><comment><USER3> can someone make an open source version of this</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an API to get what is trending at this time? - <AUTHOR> Google Trends does a good job and there is a roundabout way of programmatically getting that data. Twitter has trends but needs location to work. I was wondering if there are any APIs that can surface this information? Ideally looking at a 24 hour day, useful to have trends based on keywords, facebook trends and twitter hashtags <comment><USER2> I only know topsy.com, never used their api but they're twitter's only valid partner on trends and stats etc. [http://about.topsy.com/support/api/](http://about.topsy.com/support/api/) i hope it helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Trendspottr. They were the first major player in this space I could remember. Their API can be found here [https://trendspottr.com/api/](https://trendspottr.com/api/)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I second TrendSpottr. They not only have an API for surfacing trends for any topic or keyword but also an API for trending alerts. [http://trendspottr.com/api](http://trendspottr.com/api). I also use their trends dashboard Signal [http://trendspottr.com/signal](http://trendspottr.com/signal).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps [http://buzzsumo.com](http://buzzsumo.com) might do what you're after? Their plan that includes the API is expensive if you just want to play around with it.

</comment><comment><USER6> +1</comment>


The Signs of Developer Burn-out - <AUTHOR> http://www.sam-solutions.us/blog/recognizing-the-signs-of-developer-burn-out

<comment><USER2> I see this more as lack of direction rather than burn-out.

Burn-out, in my mind, is something very different.</comment>


Google Is Building A Same-Day Amazon Prime Competitor, "Google Shopping Express" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/04/google-is-building-a-same-day-amazon-prime-competitor-google-shopping-express/

<comment><USER2> It's going to take a lot of money, time, hardware and infrastructure to beat Amazon. We're talking about a company that failed to deliver the Nexus 4 to customers resulting in a lot of anger, now multiply that by tens of thousands of different products and you've got a scary situation. It would be in the best interests of Google to acquire a company already innovating in this space, I am not really up-to-date as to what startups actually are that Google could buy though.

Amazon has the space well and truly dominated for now, but I would love to see some competition. Who knows, maybe Google can nail this and give Amazon a run for its money. I think Google has spread themselves far too thin, they've got their fingers in too many pies and I think it's why most of their non- advertising and search efforts end up failing because no matter how big you are it's almost impossible to truly be good at 1000 things as opposed to one or maybe even 3 or so (like Amazon is).

<comment><USER3> The most important thing to mention is that Amazon are squeezing their margins to approaching zero. If you want to compete you will have to play for a very long term win.

That said, i welcome more options. I now default to Amazon for most purchases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> KIVA Systems' robots (<http://www.kivasystems.com>) revolutionized warehouse automation. Zappos was using KIVA when Amazon acquired Zappos, and then Amazon acquired KIVA for $775 million.

See "Autonomous Robots Invade Retail Warehouses" (<http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/retailrobots/>)

KIVA @ Zappos: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0>

I doubt Amazon is going to permit a contract between KIVA and Google so it will be interesting to see Google's innovations in this space.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Google Shopping Horror Express" ;)

Well, I hope not. Actually Google Checkout worked fine for me more than once. Not as smooth as Amazon, but it feels much, much better than PayPal, that sneaks up on you and tries to make you pay with your bank account every time.

Still, considering disaster with Nexus 4 delivery dates...</comment>


CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents - <AUTHOR> https://www.cia.gov/news-information/blog/2016/take-a-peek-into-our-x-files.html <comment><USER3> I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead.

But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed they were very interested) in knowing about US military planes and their capabilities. There's an anecdote I recall reading - I apologize for not having the link handy - about how, at Area 51 (their airfield for testing experimental aircraft), they would leave big airplane-shaped objects on the tarmac to create cold spots for Soviets' spy satellites to photograph in infrared, corresponding to planes that didn't exist.

The reason I'm unable to find that anecdote is because the search term "Area 51", combined with any other search terms, brings up an enormous a flood of incoherent crackpot ramblings. I'm pretty sure this is the result of a deliberate strategy: create a bunch of fake information, so that real information about US military capabilities will be harder to find. A few hints and a few taunts, and voila, every discussion about unidentified aircraft is guaranteed to have a schizophrenic walk in and start rambling about aliens!

<comment><USER4> There's probably a lot of this going. Comes to mind right now the way the Navy had about two seal teams in the beginning, and then decided to name the next one 'Team 6', to make it look like they had more. I've read about other examples, but can't remember right now.

<comment><USER4> Not the same thing but similar, a programmer wrote once how he made his software delay the answer to some user action to make it look like the program was hard at work. The process was actually very fast, almost instantaneous, so he added some message like " working - x seconds left ". Maybe it was on HN some years ago...

<comment><USER5> I did this myself just a few weeks ago. The complaints was that search results would often come back fast enough that the user may not understand anything was done if the results happen to be the same.

<comment><USER6> Saw a form recently with search-as-you-type that included a fake button that when pressed would write "Search Complete" to the screen, but had no other function, for users who didn't comprehend search as you type.

<comment><USER5> I would have to link that up to analytics just to see how many people clicked on it.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I'm not sure.

It was pretty hilarious.

I got a bug-fix from the form developer that his button wasn't working, and I kept trying to explain to him that it couldn't possibly work, it didn't do anything.

Finally he explained that if the user had clicked the fake button already, and then changed their search to a search that reported the same results, it wasn't pretending to search again, and this was causing a lot of bug reports from his client.

I helped him rewrite the fake button to make a bigger deal about (fake) searching again, and apparently the bug reports went away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really enjoyed those. I particularly like some of the descriptions.

In the early 80's I worked in the Image Processing Institute at USC where one of hte UFO shows had us analyze some of the "best" photographs (at that time) of UFO sitings. We pulled all sorts of fun stuff out of the pictures, like the letters "9 oz" on the bottom of a pie plate type UFO, "old skool" photo doctoring where someone had taken the picture of a "ufo" and literally placed it on top of a picture of the sky, and then re-photographed the composite. As I recall there was only one picture we could not definitively rule out as a fake. But my best memory of that project was when the producer asked the camera man to get some footage of the "computer" and when he pointed it at the 11/55t front panel the producer said, "No, the computer!" and pointed at the tape drives. I knew we had top shelf folks on the team at that point :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> You have to hand it to the CIA for taking advantage of the XFiles reboot to boost their social media a bit. Especially on 37 year old documents!

<comment><USER9> It's fun and maybe slightly disconcerting to see the CIA handle its job with humour.

<comment><USER10> This was likely the work of the web master or a PR person; I doubt a CIA agent wrote it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They declassified them in 1978. So these documents have been publicly available for a mere 37 years. Figures - what else are they hiding that they aren't hiding?

<comment><USER12> Correct me if I am wrong.

I don't think all declassified documents are publicly available. They sure will be produced if requested upon but I doubt all of them are just available to download as soon as they get declassified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good to see that the CIA has a little bit of a sense of humor about this kind of thing.

What a PR coup by the X-files reboot, as well.

<comment><USER14> The CIA twitter feed [1] is pretty cool. This isn't them just taking advantage of X-files, their social media was already pretty good.

[1] [https://twitter.com/CIA](https://twitter.com/CIA)

<comment><USER15> From this perennial-on-HN article ([http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was- cia-w...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia- weapon-1578808.html)):

> At this time [the CIA], staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many > of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of > liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or > with J Edgar Hoover's FBI. If any official institution was in a position to > celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that > made up the New York School, it was the CIA.

If that culture has persisted to any degree, then the CIA is probably the most "geeky" government department we've got, second only to perhaps NASA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I found the documentary "I know what I saw"[0][1] rather interesting.

In this Mercury 7 astronaut, former pilots, retired air force officers, Major Generals etc give account of UFO sightings.

Although produced by History Channel, it features only accounts of these distinguished people and recollect no spin (if my memory serves me right).

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTEZeY- fNCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTEZeY-fNCU) [1] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1579236/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1579236/)

<comment><USER17> Human brains are really poor at interpreting new brief visual stimulus "correctly". Furthermore, our first impression can affect the perception of the stimulus even if it lasts several seconds.

I'm 36, and visually quite acute. I've seen my visual system doing the craziest interpretations in various situation, and observed my interpretation of a visual field completely changed by a sudden re-interpretation of some small detail.

Given proper conditions I could have interpreted these as apparitions, ghosts, materializations or whatnot. The difference is, all of these situations happened in calm mundane situations where I had the luxury to pause and look at the thing for a long while and figure it out.

The craziest was a low-lit room where I saw the patterns of a carpet as my son, walking. I had woken at night and presumed it was because my kid was awake. When I came closer I realized it was the carpet.

If I can mistake a rug for a human being I do not find it unlikely that a pilot trained to be aware of bogeys to interpret unexpected stimulus first as a vehicle (this interpretation is very hard to shake off).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love UFOs because UFOs tell us a lot about how we deal with non-reproducible observations. Walk outside and see a green, glowing light that hovers then disappears? You can walk outside again for the rest of your life and never see it again. Does that mean you didn't see anything? Of course not.

This really messes with people's heads. The rationalists will say that since we can't independently observe it, it might as well not exist. Folks who have a deep mythology as part of their worldview will simply incorporate their observation into their mythology.

Even cooler is the fact that _something_ is obviously going on that we can't categorize or figure out. (See thunderstorm sprites and jets as a recent example). Is it one phenomenon? Highly unlikely. But beats me how many different and really cool things there are out there to discover. I'm sure some of these may take hundreds of years to nail down, if ever.

And then the government gets involved and -- get this -- starts deliberately fucking with people about it. Hey, that wasn't a new stealth bomber, that was probably aliens. While it may have confused the Soviets, it was also a deliberate attempt to mislead the voters. I'm not a constitutional expert but seems to me the one thing that ought to carry the severest penalty is government officials in a democracy deliberately trying to mislead the public about critical issues.

And then we have them pawning their B.S. off on mentally ill people. Nice. Very classy.

UFOs tell us a lot more about ourselves than they do anything from another planet. Unfortunately, much of what they tell us is rather unpleasant.

<comment><USER19> Our American government was never based on the idea that the people would have direct input on all issues.

We elect leaders (not followers) to run the country. They probably shouldn't keep fundamental facts about government from us. But lying about our first strike nuclear capabilities to get an edge is understandable.

That's why it's important to vote not just for a platform but for the candidate. Because they'll be dealing with issues that aren't known, be them hidden or just yet to surface. Especially for president. Our president is modeled after a limited monarch, just with an limited term.

<comment><USER18> Hope I didn't sound like I was arguing for a totally open government. That would obviously never work. I'm arguing for a "well-enough" informed electorate. Informed enough to strategically make choices about choosing representatives.

Abusing mentally ill citizens, performing experiments on the poor and destitute, gathering records on citizenry forever -- these are things that an informed electorate would shut down if given the chance. These are things that the constitution would forbid if it were foreseen.

Nobody's arguing that secrets can't be had. The argument is that those employed by the voters are actively acting _long-term_ in ways neither the voters nor the constitution would approve of. Short term bend any kind of rules you think the system will allow. Long-term? This has got to stop. (Perhaps you do that by a constitutional amendment sunsetting any secrecy classification after 20 years or some such)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My first UFO story:

I was ~13 years old in The Civil Ait Patrol, this occurred in Truckee, Ca at the Truckee Airport.

We were doing standard marching exercises and our troop leader was a former SR-71 mechanic/maint person...

It was a full moon - and as our gatherings typically started after 5PM - <USER2> got dark fairly quickly.

We were marching and then looking to the mountain line in the horizon, we saw a light come up over the mountain line and fly vertically up at a steady clip as it was near the moon which had also just risen over the ridge.

We all watched, speculating what type of plane this was (Civil Air Patrol was like the cub scouts for the air force)

As we watched and guessed, this craft flew straight up from the mountain - then directly toward us.

I came to a complete hover just above us by about 300 feet. The craft was the classic triangular shape with large round whit lights at each corner.

As it hovered - the troop leader said "OK KIDS - EVERYONE INSIDE NOW!!!" and he ushered us into the end of the hangar building that had our CAP office.

Ever since then.... I've had an interesting relationship with believing UFOs...

<comment><USER21> Kinda sounds like the long rumored TR-3B ( [http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/tr-3b/](http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/tr-3b/) ). I love UFO mythology, and that around the TR-3B is wild, to say the least.

<comment><USER22> During a summer break jaunt to see the American Flag Art Exhibit in 1996 (found it! [http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/08/us/art-or-trash-arizona- ex...](http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/08/us/art-or-trash-arizona-exhibit-on- american-flag-unleashes-a-controversy.html)), I was coming back down the 10 just past Wiley's Rest Stop, in California and pulled off the road into the desert about 500 yards from the highway. It was me with my best friend (from kindergarten) and 2 sisters we were mutually involved with. No drugs, no alcohol, no cell phones, and some remaining film in a disposable did nothing in a pitch black night. Playing truth or dare around a makeshift fire, one sister saw 3 lights moving toward us. It took awhile to wrap our heads around what it was, till it was blocking out stars. I have been on aircraft carriers and cruise ships prior. This thing blocked out a lot of the sky, as it passed silently overhead. It was either equivalent (but larger in surface area) to an aircraft carrier or larger than a couple city blocks if it was higher (impossible to tell how high it was in the pitch black desert). We killed the fire pretty quick, but it just passed silently overhead without further incident. It flew on toward the southeast over a the mountains in the distance. Unlike a lot of other videos and reports, there was no center light (red or otherwise).

<comment><USER23> Could it have been a thick stray cloud combined with some light reflection/refraction effects from the ground or maybe stars/planets in the background ?

<comment><USER21> I respect the skepticism. I do not subscribe to the 'UFOs are aliens' idea myself. Though in this case I believe the OP did see what he claims. There's a longstanding rumor that some branch of the armed forces is in possession of a 'stealth blimp'. Exactly what a 'stealth blimp' is, I don't know. But there have been numerous sightings over the previous 20 years that match very closely with that OP saw.

I think most "credible" UFO sightings (especially those in the western US) are Government owned aircraft. For the most part, Humans are just bad at interpreting what they have seen. One of my favorite examples is the rumored "flying artichoke" that was likely just a sighting of an F-117A Stealth Fighter ( [http://i.imgur.com/D22OrQ1.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/D22OrQ1.jpg) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How much money does it take to get a US agency to issue a blog post in support of a TV series?

Granted, those in charge of the CIA blog are probably the right age to be die hard Xfiles fans, but after the StarWars promotion at the white house I'm seeing lobbyists everywhere.

<comment><USER25> CIA is there to support the country overseas. To actively promote a major TV Series which will lead to jobs, money coming into the company, potentially increased goodwill to the country is exactly their mission.

One thing to remember with spying these days is that the nation spy agencies these day spy for corporations, because if the companies do well then the country does well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Honestly even if you don't believe in aliens visiting earth (and I do not), these documents are still an interesting read.

Just seeing how they investigated and the investigators opinions/thoughts/methods was quite interesting to me. Some more than others, some are very short and only contain a witness statement.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you're interested in the CIA's involvement with the UFO phenomena check out this article on the Robertson Panel.

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

"(t)he "debunking" aim would result in reduction in public interest in "flying saucers" which today evokes a strong psychological reaction. This education could be accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles. Basis of such education would be actual case histories which had been puzzling at first but later explained. As in the case of conjuring tricks, there is much less stimulation if the "secret" is known. Such a program should tend to reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda. The Panel noted that the general absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible Russian official policy….The Panel took cognizance of the existence of such groups as the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" (Los Angeles) and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (Wisconsin). It was believed that such organizations should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur. The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind."

</comment><comment><USER28> Title is misleading, text starts with "The CIA declassified hundreds of documents in 1978"

</comment><comment><USER29> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout)

</comment><comment><USER30> "Below you will find five documents we think X-Files character Agent Fox Mulder would love to use to try and persuade others of the existence of extraterrestrial activity. We also pulled five documents we think his skeptical partner, Agent Dana Scully, could use to prove there is a scientific explanation for UFO sightings."

The most interesting thing about this is the lack of seriousness that the CIA puts into UFO.

</comment><comment><USER31> At this point we're pretty settled that alien life probably exists in some form out there. Whether that alien life could evolve to create technology and build spacecraft is another thing. But the even bigger thing is when you take into account just how vast the distances involved are. It's just so unlikely that alien life could exist, develop technology, and then be in the same neighborhood as us.

<comment><USER32> Not really unlikely if you consider the vast scale of time as well. A few million years is enough to reach the end of the galaxy even at very very low percent of the speed of light. That's a long time in our terms, but a very short time given the age of the universe, or even our own planet.

Self replicating Von Neumann probes could handle the issue of exploring such a large number of solar systems by increasing their numbers exponentially. They could leave behind machines that could continuously monitor and survey planets for millions of years.

If aliens exist, then I would expect for them to have observed us like that. Unless they have no interest in the outside world at all, which seems unlikely.

<comment><USER33> i think the main issue with people having trouble believing in visitations from extraterrestrial species (or at least their technology), is that they have absolutely no sense for the age of the universe.

and the fact that so many people believe it to be utterly ridiculous that alien life forms could be exploring the galaxy, yet here we humans are, doing exactly that, is just completely mind-boggling to me.

<comment><USER34> I think the main issue that most people have with aliens is that we kinda expect that if they exist (which scientifically and religiously they should) and they have the technology to have found us and interact with us (possible) they would have subjugated us or annihilated us by now.

The fact that they haven't suggests that either they don't exist or that they haven't found us.

<comment><USER32> That's just anthropic bias/survivor bias. There have probably been a lot of Earth like planets that have been annihilated. Perhaps the only reason we exist is because we are lucky enough to have friendly neighbors, or perhaps no neighbors.

Well I do wonder how friendly they are, given that they haven't intervened at all in Earth's history. I find that very unlikely. Moral aliens would probably want to help us, amoral ones kill us like you said. But the probability of aliens existing yet being indifferent seems unlikely.

<comment><USER35> Given a pride of lions in Africa having severe domestic turmoil over leadership selection issues, what are the odds anyone in, for example, Wisconsin, either knows, cares, and is capable of sending an effective peacekeeping force?

You can even abstract out distance. I'm pretty sure there's some hierarchical struggle going on with the squirrels in my front yard, but I'm also pretty sure I don't care. And we're fellow mammals competing for the same nut trees and fruit bushes. If there are Star Trek Hortas tunneling under my backyard, I really don't care as long as they stay out of my basement.

Even within our own species there's a pretty strong taboo against colonialism that seems to automagically form right after (inevitable?) failed early experiments with colonialism. The odds of white people running Africa again are pretty low, even though we obviously did a better job than they are doing. Despite being incredibly easy to reach and staggering power imbalance, the colonies in Africa didn't last long and even a fairly irrational space alien would see the futility in trying to take over Earth.

There are many reasons to invade Canada. Stealing their resources of spar and mast grade timber for 1800s era sailing ships would be a pretty stupid idea in the current year. Its possible there's a natural magic filter such that being able to travel interstellar and having enough power to turn earth into a colony naturally means there are no material resources on earth worth the taking... What would a galaxy wide empire do with titanium, silicon based semiconductor electronics, or rocket engines, only miserable savages a million levels beneath them use stuff like that. It would be like handing a modern american a flint spear tip, what good is that other than in a museum?

<comment><USER36> While I agree with some of your points, I must take issue with your implication that white people ran Africa better.

[http://diglib1.amnh.org/articles/kls/](http://diglib1.amnh.org/articles/kls/)

Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain did a good job illuminating how people tended to think this way, all the while forgetting that the people under a heavy thumb might not agree! Some things may have been better organized when white people were in power, but the German concentration camps of World War II were also "better run" by some definitions than a bickering gaggle of democratically elected disagreeing men in nearby European countries, and I don't think we'd really use them as an example of better run. I grew up partially in Nigeria, the target of many jokes, and no matter what issues they have there I know that many Nigerians who would never wish for a return to British rule.

<comment><USER35> Sounds like both of us rephrase the same priority list, or at least nothing either of us wrote breaks the priority list:

1st) Freedom or self determination or at least less control over their lives by people far away

2nd) Racism (people want their leaders the same color as they are)

A distant 3rd) Measurable statistical demographic numbers for quality of life, like disease rates, death rates, crime rates, economic activity, education levels, etc.

I would propose this priority list is human, cross cultural, doesn't matter if its Rhodesia, Haiti, India, Korea, people naturally seem to come up with this sort order no matter the culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> All the documents that appear startling are actually just recounts of stories that appeared in a daily newspaper, marked as completely unsubstantiated.

</comment><comment><USER38> Come on guys, stop conflating UFOs with alien spacecraft. UFOs are real, alien spacecraft are probably not.

</comment><comment><USER39> Reports of strange new energies & crafts also made science seem magical and helped fire the imagination of the next generation of scientists and engineers for the ongoing cold war. The UFO phenomenon was handy on a few fronts.

</comment><comment><USER40> Odd thing. I just watched the new X-Files last night and this kind of news is on HN frontpage the next morning.

</comment><comment><USER41> They had to have timed this with the X-Files premier on purpose

</comment><comment><USER42> At last the truth can be told.

</comment><comment><USER43> Just in time for the x files reboot.

</comment><comment><USER44> If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self- admitted UFO disinformation agent-

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14)

The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and they did run a psychological operation against Paul Bennewitz, destroying his life and forever obsfucating whatever truth there is about UFOs. (None in my opinion.)

Here's a good summary:

[http://www.openminds.tv/open-letter-u-s-air-force- allegation...](http://www.openminds.tv/open-letter-u-s-air-force-allegations- ufo-disinformation/27071)

*Fixed link

<comment><USER45> When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Russians wouldn't know what to think of it. We had a good laugh and I never told this to anyone. I don't think it's even a big secret anymore.

Since then, I always laughed at all these UFO reports and reports of abductions etc. It's become a national meme that's ingrained into the minds of so many... yet it's a complete fabrication.

<comment><USER46> Like carrots.

The British promulgated the belief that carrots improve eyesight to explain the effective of their aircraft spotters, instead of radar.

<comment><USER47> You mean to tell me they are not?!! I remember reading that carrots have some nutrient necessary for good eye sight, beta-catorene I believe. I don't think it improves your current eye sight so much as it keeps it from going bad from a lack of it.

<comment><USER48> Yup, actually carrots are good source of beta-carotene / Vitamin A which is necessary for good eye health and vision. Obviously carrots aren't the only source though.

"Vitamin A has multiple functions: it is important for growth and development, for the maintenance of the immune system and good vision.[2] Vitamin A is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of retinal, which combines with protein opsin to form rhodopsin, the light-absorbing molecule[3] necessary for both low-light (scotopic vision) and color vision."

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> the silence is deafening

</comment><comment><USER50> The truth is… still out there.

</comment><comment><USER51> Couldn't they have coordinated with this the lunch of the new X-Files? Fox marketing sucks!

</comment><comment><USER52> Obligatory xkcd link: [https://m.xkcd.com/1235/](https://m.xkcd.com/1235/)

 _" In the past few years, with very little fanfare, we've conclusively settled the questions of flying saucers, lake monsters, ghosts, and bigfoot._"

</comment><comment><USER53> Is that really real?? [1]

Who on Earth would have such aircrafts in 1962 other than aliens??

[https://www.cia.gov/news- information/blog/2016/images/UFO2.j...](https://www.cia.gov/news- information/blog/2016/images/UFO2.jpg/image.jpg)

<comment><USER54> The second picture looks very much like a reflection from a lamp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I wonder why those numbers don't add up :></comment>


Diditz - Done something cool? Create a did-it.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.diditz.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the site is awesome! may be the Pandora of stories, interests and "Did-its". Its fast too.</comment>


Can't We Have Anti JavaScript-Only-Sites Search Engine? - <AUTHOR> Am I the only one who wants a search engine that will prioritize sites that with with Javascript Off?
And also can be filtered for pages size say under 1mb
Won't this be a better solution than AMP? <comment><USER2> I use ublock origin with scripts and large media blocked by default (which makes sites load faster, like AMP is supposed to as well).

For some sites, depending on their purpose, it would be unreasonable to expect them to not use JavaScript. For example [https://www.openstreetmap.org](https://www.openstreetmap.org) (where the scripts are even free/libre).

In such a case, it is easy to (permanently) unblock scripts and large media in ublock origin, but it would not be fair for a search engine to deprioritise a map site for that reason, would it?

Also, most news sites pull in massive pile of JS, but they still work when it's blocked. Yet, even some blogs can fail to show any text when JS is blocked. So I feel the issue is not so much about JS alone, more about graceful degradation.

Because surely it's fine to have add a bunch of non-existential JS? Salon has a Monero miner on their site[0], but works fine without it being loaded.

[0]: [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/02/salon...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/02/salon-to-ad-blockers-can-we-use-your-browser-to-mine- cryptocurrency/)

<comment><USER2> s/non-existential/non-essential/

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I partially agree. What I want is for stuff that is only available with JavaScript to not be indexed; if it contains some text that is always available and some that is added due to JavaScripts, only the text that is part of the downloaded HTML file should be indexed. (Pages that are empty except for the JavaScript code would not be indexed at all, although if there is a page that describes and then links to it, and the description does not require JavaScripts, that page would still be indexed, so you could still find it.)

For some webpages it is useful to have some JavaScripts, but most ones with just text or whatever, you should not need it. Even ones that use it just to access its internal data, should still have descriptions that do not need JavaScripts (whether you want to access the data in a different way or just read the description only, or whatever other purpose you might want to do).

</comment><comment><USER4> As hjek has mentioned below, sites that clearly need JavaScript (e.g. interactive street map) shouldn't be de-prioritised.

However I definitely agree that it would be nice to be able to filter out sites that you would expect to just contain plain text and images (e.g. blogs, news, product pages), yet show a white screen or infinite loading animation when viewed with JS off.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes, Javascript can be annoying. But what matters is the quality of the content that is being searched, not if a website has annoying Javascript or not.

Would you rather read a really bad article that has no JS or a very well written one with JS enabled?

<comment><USER2> > Would you rather read a really bad article that has no JS or a very well > written one with JS enabled?

That's not always the choice though. There are lots of good articles, so you could ask: Would you read one good article that requires you run a (non-free) program in your web browser, or would you rather read another good article that doesn't require that? (or simply read the article elsewhere, if possible)

Presumably OP doesn't have an issue with sites that have "JS enabled", but sites that _don 't work at all without JS_. For example Wiki Wiki Web[0] fails to display anything but a spinning loader animation when JS is disabled.

[0]: [http://wiki.c2.com/](http://wiki.c2.com/)

<comment><USER3> In the case of the c2 wiki, you can still download the raw text and write your own parser, at least.

Although I agree with the issue being sites that don't work at all without JS enabled. (That is why I suggested ignoring JavaScript when indexing.) (The c2 wiki should be made to work without, or at least, to add a  which links to the raw text, perhaps.)

<comment><USER2> > at least, to add a  which links to the raw text, perhaps.

Yes, even just that would make all the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am not an expert, but maybe free search engine YaCy[0] could be modified for that purpose.

[0] [https://yacy.net](https://yacy.net)

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh man my buttons use JS just to log in. But what is a way around this? Making logins with <form></form>?

<comment><USER2> Exactly. Just like the site you're logged into now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The term you're looking for is 'progressive enhancement'</comment>


Ask HN: What is my market size? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to put together a Pitch Deck, but stumbled upon one of the slides.
What would my market cap be?
We're a platform where we connect people who don't have enough time to complete their daily errands, and people who want to make a quick buck and complete tasks in their area.
From where I see it, anyone who has a full-time job, and doesn't have time to run errands fits in our market cap.
139.206 million people are employed. 47% working full time meaning:
65.43 Million Americans are Full time workers
Is this a reasonable market cap? <comment><USER2> > _"From where I see it, anyone who has a full-time job, and doesn't have time > to run errands fits in our market"_

All that shows is that you didn't do any research and pulled something out of your "back pocket." It's completely bullshit from a market analysis standpoint. You need to look at segmentation, and existing alternatives.

The relevant segments have disposable income - i.e. "good jobs" and they have to live in areas where it makes sense to provide the service, i.e. where there are people who can perform the errand reliably and are suitable to interact with the target demographic - "people who want to make a quick buck" often don't fit those requirements.

Mechanical Turk doesn't really scale to the meat world - in general it's not worth $3.00 to pick up someone's dry cleaning and deliver it to their door - never mind going through all kinds of rigamarole online to land the project and get paid.

Even if there is a meaningful target market segment which is not being served, the infrastructure to provide reliable services and maintain the concierge employees is a huge problem - the key to the success of Dabbawala is the people not the internet.

[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala>]

</comment><comment><USER3> Market Capitalization (market cap) is a term from finance which refers to the number of shares of your company outstanding multiplied by the average dollar value of each share - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_capitalization> . I think what you are after is potential market size, not market cap.

Anyways, one issue with your calculation is that you assume that 100% of people have the ability to use your service - I assume they need a computer, Internet access + a credit card of some type to use your service, and 100% of US full time works do not have all three those things.

<comment><USER4> Yes, thanks.

He means TAM, total addressable market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> IMHO: If you have space in your pitch deck for a slide about market cap, it's probably too long.

Try focusing on the product and your user exclusively. Your pitch deck's most important role is to explain to who ever is reading that there _is_ a problem, how you _think_ you can solve it and _why you_ can do it and not somebody else.

Most people who read a lot of pitch decks would never read the part about market cap because usually the people making the decks overestimate it and don't usually have a clue about the actual MC.

The biggest problem in growth will probably be how you will get distribution, how you will join two separate markets or target audience and that's a really hard problem to solve.

The distribution and chicken'n'egg problem are a much bigger limiting factor than the market cap ever will be in your product, so don't worry about it.

Good luck!

<comment><USER6> This is a really helpful comment. Just want to give another vote for brevity and focusing on product and user details in the PD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You don't have a market cap. At least not one that matters. Don't use that term in your deck; it means something completely different than what you think it means. Namely, it is the total value of your business based on what people have paid for a portion of its equity.

A better title for the slide you describe would be simply "Market" or "Market Size".

<comment><AUTHOR> What would I put in the Market Size slide then? Would it be what I listed above?

<comment><USER7> It should be the maximum number of people that you can convincingly argue are potential customers. It sounds like you need to do more research.

If you say 65 million people in the US, you should be prepared to answer a question like: "Out of those 65 million people, how many have a spouse that doesn't work full time who fills this role?"

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Should definitely be more niche - also need to take into account internet usage and demographics such as disposable income. If someone works full time and makes less than $20K, they're probably not in your target market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rather than focus on TAM, focus on what your service brings to a potentially unlimited amount of users. I would never open a deck or conversation with 'we will max out at xxx'. That's like starting a job interview out with an apology for being late.</comment>


Facebook Lawyer Says Users 'Have No Expectation of Privacy' - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-lawyer-no-expectation-of-privacy/ <comment><USER2> I understand his argument - in many cases, leakage of information Facebook is simply the web working as designed.

That is, people use Facebook as a web publishing platform and anyone in the world can access it. The same argument applies to Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, whatever.

The problem is that when users _do_ want to control how their information on Facebook is shared (which Facebook tricks you into thinking is possible) they have to fight against Facebook's labyrinth of anti-privacy settings.

Facebook also doesn't work as expected since nominally "private" information is routinely leaked to advertisers and users of Facebook's social graph API.

Facebook also systematically misuses private information, for example requesting mobile numbers for 2-factor authentication and account recovery, but then using those same mobile numbers for a unrelated purpose: linking you with businesses that you had to give a phone number to for a credit card purchase.

</comment><comment><USER3> In reality, I don't think he's _that_ wrong here. The majority of FB users really don't care overly much about their privacy or expect FB to take it seriously - they just want a free social platform for posting their stuff and interacting with people. What could be argued here is _degree_. A lot of users probably expect that there is some privacy line FB and other social platforms shouldn't cross, but where that line actually lies is up for debate.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is precedent because fb switched to https everywhere. That's just an example of users wanting privacy once they learned people could spy on them via firesheep because fb allowed it. Unfortunately, there isn't a straight forward technology that can keep things private, that would require fb to make something that keeps privacy protected.</comment>


Alice in UNIX Land - <AUTHOR> http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Audience/Alice%20in%20UNIX%20Land.html

<comment><USER2> How could you possibly miss the opportunity for a README or FIXME reference?</comment>


From Doom and Gloom to BOOM and Bloom (2016) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voQKPymcCfA <comment><USER2> This is actually a much older talk from 2011.</comment>


Hacking Victim Becomes Attacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/news/bitcoin-jesus-turns-the-tables-on-hacker-offers-20000-bounty-for-his-identity-1595094/

<comment><USER2> Good for him. I'd like to see more stories like this.</comment>


Yahoo Plans to Disclose All New Bugs It Finds Within 90 Days - <AUTHOR> http://threatpost.com/yahoo-plans-to-disclose-all-new-bugs-it-finds-within-90-days/109798

<comment><USER2> Yahoo is becoming relevant again. If there is a field which is relatively new and not overtaken by big names/companies it is crypto/security.</comment>