Depression link to processed food - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8334353.stm

<comment><USER2> As usual, it's important to point out that this was not an experimental study design (there was no random assignment to treatment and control groups). Peter Norvig's online article about what to look for in research studies

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

suggests other issues to examine here.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was going to mumble something about correlation != causation, but I decided to track down the paper first (<http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/195/5/408>). The authors didn't explicitly decide that diet caused depression, but they did note that the data seems to invalidate the idea that depression caused bad diets.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've done a lot of writing and analysis in health sciences. My very strong intuition is that there is a study flaw here of one form or another.

What this seems to say, to me, is that people who choose to eat healthy also tend to be less depressed than those who choose to not eat healthy.

Population bias may be a problem here - that eating unhealthy may not necessarily cause depression, but rather those who are eating unhealthy are also likely to be suffering from depression.

There is limited data on diet and its impact on health in general - except in obvious cases of frank deficiency.

This could be like saying "People who go jogging daily tend to be happier in general." You could say that jogging then causes happiness. Or you could say that people who tend to jog are demographically likely to also do happy inducing things.

</comment><comment><USER5> They're accounting for gender, age, education, and physical activity, but are they also taking into account things like free time and stress level and salary? If I need shove junk food into my face between my day job and my night job, of course I'll be more depressed than if my butler (or non-working spouse) makes me a parsnip soup after my 10-4 shift.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can argue about this study all you want but I dont think anyone wants to stand up for processed food in general. Eat fresh.

<comment><USER7> The shareholders of food processing companies like it. The reason we have so many processed foods is that traditional "whole food" businesses are not good businesses to invest in. The population is not growing and people do not need to eat more calories, so that means that your revenue is not going to grow year over year, because the US basically needs the same amount of food every year. This means that you have to make money by using less raw material and charging more for it; hence, processed foods.

(Sure, Store A may steal sales form Store B in the short term, but in the long term, the industry will not grow.)

<comment><USER8> Yea, I know. Dividends are a much better idea in this case than relying on stock price growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> causality always reminds me of this graph where it was proven ;-) that single women cause acid rain.

[http://www.demotivate.info/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/behang...](http://www.demotivate.info/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/behanger-acid-rain-vs-singles-by-gender.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is exactly the kind of study I think of when I read an article like this: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer)

I've started tuning out every study that purports to "link" two things, particularly if the claimed effect is cancer or the claimed cause is chic to hate on.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, but from November 2009.

<comment><USER12> Has human physiology completely changed in the last thirteen months? Does 2009 food have _absolutely nothing_ in common with 2011 food?

2009 is hardly ancient history.

<comment><USER13> You are right, but I think s/he just means that this is not "news".</comment></comment></comment>


How Entanglement-Generating Satellites Will Make the Quantum Internet Global - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/532216/how-entanglement-generating-satellites-will-make-the-quantum-internet-global/

<comment><USER3> >Entanglement is set to become a valuable resource that is likely to be bought and sold, much like oil and gas today

now i know what will supplant bitcoin. Quantum ASIC entanglement miners - <USER2> is the future! Like with wine, the older the entangled ensemble, the more pricier it will be.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious: what exactly makes a photon lose its entanglement? Is it an interaction with an atom (electron or nucleus)? If so, how can entangled photons even propagate through matter (fiber glass or the atmosphere) without becoming de-tangled? Or is this a special kind of interaction?

</comment><comment><USER5> Does this have any use besides encryption? Because strong encryption already exists without all this.

<comment><USER6> This has nothing to do with encryption. This is building an instantaneous global communication network using quantum entangled particles. One benefit, at least as far as we understand this phenomenon, is that the transfer of state between two entangled particles is untappable, making it the most secure communication medium we know of today without requiring any encryption at all.

That understanding could, of course, completely change at any time.

<comment><USER7> > instantaneous global communication network

Unfortunately that is not true. The transportation of information is still limited by the speed of light as you cannot transmit causal information via the collapse and subsequent measurement of the states of entangled particles.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No- communication_theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem)

<comment><USER8> The wording of the article does not appear to support such a strong conclusion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good, non-english software engineering related materials - <AUTHOR> Hi! I'm from Poland, I'm currently studying English and German. I want to communicate also in few other languages in the future, that's why I'm posting this as an open question. One of the best ways to study new language is by reading/listening to materials which you find most interesting. Show me/us please some non-english quality contents (forums, websites, blogs, youtube channels, podcasts, etc.) related to software engineering and other computer science topics :)
For people who wants to learn some Polish:
https://www.youtube.com/user/confiturapl/videos
https://4programmers.net/Forum
https://programistamag.pl/
https://www.nafrontendzie.pl/
https://pl.python.org/forum/
http://forum.php.pl/
https://zaufanatrzeciastrona.pl/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe6nK69Yc1zna7QSJEfA9pw/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/programistok/videos
(if you want materials about some specific topic, let me know)
For German I already found those:
https://entwickler.de/
https://www.dev-insider.de/
https://www.python-forum.de/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrTapoqqRfVKL7MxPaXt1qA/videos
Do you guys know more? Maybe some podcasts or blogs? <comment><AUTHOR> Another good resource, documentation of ReasonML has been translated in few languages, German version here: [https://reasonml.github.io/docs/de/what-and- why](https://reasonml.github.io/docs/de/what-and-why)</comment>


There's a Gap Between What the Public Thinks and What Scientists Know - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/theres-a-gap-between-what-the-public-thinks-and-what-scientists-know/ <comment><USER2> > Safe to eat foods grown with pesticides.

Good luck finding other food. There's a widespread belief that "Certified Organic" means "no pesticides" or "no chemical pesticides" or "just lady bugs and vinegar".

Sure, you can grow your own food without pesticides, but, no, that organic produce from your grocery store is not free from pesticide, herbicide, or fungicide--a few of which are actually more toxic to humans and non-pests than the conventional forms. (Consider Malathion v. Rotenone, for one.)</comment>


Defunctionalization: Everybody Does It, Nobody Talks About It - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sigplan.org/2019/12/30/defunctionalization-everybody-does-it-nobody-talks-about-it/ <comment><USER2> > _defunctionalization, a transformation that replaces higher-order functions > with equivalent first-order ones._

For anyone else who got nothing from the title.

<comment><USER3> I admit to fawning for functional languages like Haskell, Clojure and OCaml for fun, but it seems like they are not more popular because having many additional, higher-order constructs makes code "obsfucated" behind clever features rather than written as simply as possible (but no simpler). Maybe for a coding shop full of insane geniuses (i.e., quants, CalTech aerospace, physicists or Stanford research department) it's all good, but the learning curve of tight functional code is too steep in the vast majority of situations. Even if it's good, clean and small code, functional is too often a "white elephant" because of the dearth of its practitioners. Hence the pervasiveness of C++, Java, .NET, Python and especially JS.

One the fundamental UX, copy-writing, devops/sysadmin and programming axioms is:

 _Don't make me think_

e.g., reduce cognitive load by making knowledge works as easy to digest as possible using simple, familiar/conventional, intentional and clear patterns.

<comment><USER4> What are the ergonomics-first languages of the functional world?

<comment><USER5> I would say that rust and kotlin are good at providing _most_ of the useful concepts from functional programming (higher order functions, common functors (map, filter, etc), tail call, pattern matching, destructuring, expressions, lazy evaluation, immutable collections, actor model, algebraic data types) Sadly they lack some features at the type system level (higher kinded types, intersection and union types) TypeScript do a better job at it but lack some other features (pattern matching).

<comment><USER6> Looks like the language you wanted to mention is Scala. Pragmatic and has all the things you mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The authors work seems very interesting, and could maybe lead to the automatic generation of a language server with semantic query and refactoring capabilities, for any programming language. Or portable (in the 'language to language' sense) static analysis tools or interpreters or symbolic execution tools...

Just wondering (out loud) how you formalize language semantics so they can be consumed... I know about grammar formalisms (bnf/ebnf, antlr, peach/xsd/asn.1...) but what is the lingua franca of language semantics? Except for latex papers...

<comment><USER8> Most people formalize "kernel languages" that contain all the bare essentials of the language at hand. There are a variety of tools to do this; a lot of people just end up embedding their language semantics in Coq or something and writing proofs about the theories there. Alternatively, a lot of people will tend to just write literal interpreters for their kernel language in a language like Haskell or OCaml; interpreters can be seen as a lightweight machine-runnable definition. And they have the added bonus you can play with them!

Another popular tool I'm aware of for this is Ott[1], which lets you write a high-level semantics description, much like you'd write in a LaTeX paper. It can then compile it to Coq, LaTeX, etc for further work. Ott is probably a much better place to start without getting too far into the weeds, if you want to write real high-level sketches.

In general, I (unfortunately) don't think there's anything like a "library" of language semantics definitions that are easily reusable or anything like that. Modular definitions of semantics that can be reused like a library/API is basically a programming language abstraction problem, but I'm not sure what the current forefront of research on that is. In general, very few languages have fully specified machine-checked semantics, or even unproven ones.

[1]: [https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/ott/](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/ott/)

<comment><USER7> By the way I kept going down this rabbit-hole and found an example of what you described : [https://unsat.cs.washington.edu/projects/serval/](https://unsat.cs.washington.edu/projects/serval/)

IIUC Serval uses an interpreter built in Rosette (?) to build a Symbolic execution tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > For instance, I teach programmers to tune out the noise of refactoring > catalogs and learn how most familiar refactorings instead follow from a few > primordial algebraic laws

Why "instead?" Knowing more math is good, but I think the author is doing his students a disservice. You don't need to memorize refactoring catalogs, but if someone says "maybe you should use a visitor pattern here" it's helpful to look it up and know what it means. It's not deep, but this is the vocabulary of the programming profession, not noise, and we're not going to switch to speaking in abstract mathematics just because some people like math or see a deeper meaning in it.

Defunctionalization seems like it might be a useful addition to the catalog.

<comment><USER10> They can learn that stuff _after_ they've become familiar with the fundamentals. Visitor pattern is just a way to implement pattern matching starting from the primitives Java and the like provide.

<comment><USER11> That's like saying that people can learn arithmetic _after_ they learn group theory, which they can learn _after_ they learn category theory. No, learn the concrete first, then learn the abstractions, so that you have some concept of why the abstractions are relevant.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure we do kids a service by skipping over fundamental aspects of mathematics in order to stick to the 'more concrete' stuff. The staggeringly vast majority of kids will _never_ learn a lick of group theory or category theory, and I think that is unfortunate because the fundamentals aren't difficult or big. Most high school grads will hardly have touched even basic logic, and it is frighteningly common to run into people who don't understand that "A -> B; B; Therefore A" isn't valid.

<comment><USER11> We would do a worse disservice by skipping over more concrete stuff to teach group theory or, worse, category theory.

First, even if you can teach group theory or category theory to an 8-year-old, if you wind up with an 8-year-old who knows category theory but can't add, is that a win? No, it isn't. They _need_ to be able to add in a way that they don't need group theory.

But, second, you can't in any meaningful way teach category theory, or even group theory, to an 8-year-old. _But you can teach them to add._

So again, I say, concrete first, then abstractions. First because they can function better knowing one concrete form and no abstract than they can knowing the abstract and zero concrete forms. And second, they are able to learn the most-useful concrete form younger and with less background than they are able to learn the abstraction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I enjoyed this talk, and accompanying transcript on defunctionalization. Despite the verbose name, the concept is quite simple and does come up a lot. [http://www.pathsensitive.com/2019/07/the-best-refactoring- yo...](http://www.pathsensitive.com/2019/07/the-best-refactoring-youve-never- heard.html)</comment>


How to Create a Bestselling Novel (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/bestseller.html <comment><USER2> Hmm.

Misses out all of the business side of being, like, a working novelist -- understanding what publishers do and how the retail chain works, marketing and sales, contracts, agents and editors.

Misses out the key point that while the author is the prime creative mover, a manuscript is not a book and it takes a _lot_ of people to make a "bestselling novel", from the clerks in B&N who like it and order in extra copies and tell customers about it, to the editor who believes in it enough to push the P&L sheet as far as it will go and who then goes up in front of a marketing meeting and pitches it hard. And the cover design and the flap copywriter (and if you think that stuff doesn't matter in the age of Amazon you've got a rude awakening due).

None of Pickover's advice is _bad_ , but it's very much Programming 101, here's how we write "hello, world" in Python. (Congratulations! You're a programmer now! So for an encore, you can write an interrupt handler for an embedded controller in assembler ...)

<comment><USER3> Agreed.

Having the great product != bestselling novel.

<comment><USER4> Still, seems like a case of "necessary but not sufficient." (Although given some truly awful writing that becomes "bestseller" material, perhaps not)

And I like the focus on the "product" side of writing---we read so many articles on promotion/marketing here (though generally on the startup side of things) that we often lose sight of the power of good copy.

Not to say I disagree, I just found the post refreshing, even if only in a "hello world/writing" way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These are great heuristics, but having spent an awful lot of time writing, I find that---on occasion---there's reason to violate them. But I suppose every great rule is defined by its exceptions.

As an aside, glad to see this focus on the technical aspects of language and not some growth-hackery marketing spiel.

</comment><comment><USER5> If this was the secret recipe to making an Instant Bestselling Novel, then Paul Bussard's Stinger Stars

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19246309-stinger- stars](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19246309-stinger-stars)

would be an international hit. It hits every single one of his points exactly (C1&C2 falling in love / Nat Geo setting / Short sentences, Crisp Dialogue, etc.)

But the fact is that it's actually much harder than just writing it. The attention span of the world is short, and people are looking to read what other people are reading. It's a winner take all world, in books, music, movies and websites. It's hard for a single book to move the herd. Many people have to help.

(full disclosure - I PMd the title)

</comment><comment><USER6> I know nothing about writing novels so I can't attest to the legitimacy of any of this, but I do wholly believe that a lot of what's considered art can be be formulated for success, at least commercially.

</comment><comment><USER7> I honestly don't know how anyone could make a living by writing books these days? Besides the obvious; like publishers don't pay like they used too, your book will be traded on p2p? Oh and what to write? Let's see, If you have a child's mind you might be able to come up with the next Harry Potter, or some psycho babble self help book? I don't know, but am always saddened by what Americans do read. I didn't read the article, but stay away from vanity press(Bertram Capital--Author's solutions).

</comment><comment><USER8> There is a great book and audio series by Stephen King, called On Writing.

I was certainly aware, but never much a fan of his, until this, but for anyone interested in writing, I highly recommend having a read / listen.

[http://stephenking.com/library/nonfiction/on_writing:_a_memo...](http://stephenking.com/library/nonfiction/on_writing:_a_memoir_of_the_craft.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> And yet, Dan Brown ..

<comment><USER10> I'm curious, I know Dan Brown tends to be considered a hacky writer, but how many of these rules does he break?

<comment><USER4> I think he tends to follow them pretty well, but the trouble with Dan Brown isn't his technical writing; he breaks this unwritten rule: "don't make your story arc the same in every single book you publish."

I loved the first Dan Brown novel I read. I moderately enjoyed the second. Within 50 pages of the third, I knew exactly how the rest of the story would pan out and who was the hidden antagonist. Once you know the formula, the magic is gone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It forgets step 0. Write every day.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would have thought writing was the easy part and getting a publishing house to pick it up would be harder. I mean how do you approach someone to get your book looked at?

</comment><comment><USER13> "There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." \--W. Somerset Maugham

</comment><comment><USER14> Great !!! Great collection. English isn't my mother tongue, hence this helps me for sure.

</comment><comment><USER15> How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely

</comment><comment><USER16> Hyperbolic title

</comment><comment><USER17> I'll wait for the movie version.

</comment><comment><USER18> The title has so many oxymorons I couldn't even click it (straight to comments to post this).</comment>


InsArt – Highlights Cover for Instagram - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icandotech.insarthighlightcover <comment><AUTHOR> InsArt is a story covers editor app for insta highlight stories. An attractive Instagram profile is not only made with a few posts, videos and highlights. You need more decoration, unique decoration. If you're having an Instagram profile or business profile, We have each category of highlight stories cover, So use InsArt and make your profile look Beautiful, Amazing, Marvelous and stylish.</comment>


Adobe U-Turns, Decides to Support Flash for Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/09/adobe-announced-will-restart-support-flash-linux <comment><USER2> Just let it die.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't load Adobe on my computers if they rewrote the whole thing in Ada or Rust.

</comment><comment><USER4> HAHA

Sorry, we don't want it.

</comment><comment><USER5> so, we supposed to care?</comment>


Start up founder choking on raw garlic for Facebook fans - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NHLLHPq8-Q&feature=player_detailpage

<comment><AUTHOR> Regardless of the Facebook "likes", this is still worth it, because now my tech co-founder knows that I'm super committed: [http://blog.blackballsoftware.com/2011/06/01/how-far- would-y...](http://blog.blackballsoftware.com/2011/06/01/how-far-would-your- business-guy-go-to-promote-your-stuff/)

Thanks for the blog Ben!</comment>


Windows 10 2004 - <AUTHOR> https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-version-2004-is-coming---heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-it/ <comment><USER2> Just went through this. It refused to install until I removed VMWare Workstation Pro manually. I don't have Workstation Pro installed, I do use VMWare Player though, and I need it for work. Heart-stopping. Anyway I uninstalled it, installed the update and then reinstalled the exact same version of Player. Seems alright.</comment>


CSS Differences in Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/14/css-differences-in-internet-explorer-6-7-and-8/ <comment><USER2> Don't bother with this. The compatibility tables at quirksmode[1] are superior. They even include IE8 acting in IE7 compatibility mode.

[1] <http://www.quirksmode.org/compatibility.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Quick summary for you: IE6 no, IE7 yes, IE8 yes.

<comment><USER4> There are some really handy things that IE7 lacks and IE8 now supports. For example: pseudo-classes before/after/focus, inherit keyword support, and alternative display values.

The other things IE7 doesn't support are trivial in some respects (but not exactly trivial).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't think of any other software that is as hated as IE. Anyone?

If I could ask for 2 wishes to comes true:

1) Eliminate IE 2) World peace

<comment><USER6> I've used the web for too long to hate IE. Not after all it did.

IE4 introduced the UI control that allowed you to build full-blown applications in your browser using server-side processing. IE5 introduced the scripting that allowed you to build full-blown applications in your browser using client-side processing. They introduced browser plug-ins before anyone thought they would ever need them and could do AJAX years before that term that was invented. Since then, the other browsers have improved upon the things IE introduced, but haven't taken any considerable single steps forward.

For reasons beyond my understanding I still can't embed MathML and SVG in my HTML and there has been very little development towards more sophisticated browser-applications, despite a huge demand (Microsoft gave it a try with XAML, but by then it had lost its culture of innovative engineering).

Instead, browser developers spent 10 years coming up with the Canvas element. The state of browsers is so bad that if a serious developer wants to do anything slightly off-track today he has to resort to a proprietary plug-in called Flash.

Lets hope Chrome stirs things up a bit.

<comment><USER7> It's not IE that needs to be disparaged. [By the standards of ~2000 it was pretty good, no?]

It's those who declined upgrade it year after year.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Just re-launched my design company - <AUTHOR> Everyone,
I just wanted to take a minute to share with everyone my recently updated and expanded web design business. I started Masswerks in 2009 and since then it has grown tremendously. I've done work for Remax, Chitika, CrazyEgg, Spinback (acquired), Frid.ge (acquired) and more.
I recently re-designed the site and added some designers and developers to my team to handle the work load.
I wanted to share the launch with you all and also would love to hear your feedback on the current design and approach.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Congrats! Really nice site. You definitely get across the point that you know what you're doing where UI/UX is concerned. It's very well though thru, including the "Budget" field in your contact form. At first I wondered why you'd put that in as a required and a dropdown list, but later I realized it's an awesome thing for helping you get the right "price point" as well... (I like it, but I'm not sure how an actual customer would respond) The only thing I'd critique is that when I tried accessing your site via my mobile phone, some of the appeal was gone and UX obviously isn't the same. In today's mobile-web enabled world, it'd be nice to show you've got mobile web covered as well with a different (but just as cool) layout for mobile devices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback and glad you like the site. As for the contact page, that form is strictly for people with projects who are ready to move forward. That page also provides emails to get in touch if you don't have a project (rather a question, partnership etc).

Site is not mobile ready, but it is something I plan to make mobile very soon!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words. I agree and disagree with your comment on the about page. Some people probably don't care, but I think some others will find it interesting to learn more about products we use to get the job done.

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER3> I like it. Simple and clean with clear messaging. Nice work. The one nit I have is on the About Us page: I don't care what tools you use and I'm not sure anyone else will either.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable: <http://masswerks.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> What are your rates for something like the Re/Max or the Lose Belly Fat sites?

<comment><AUTHOR> Send me an email at email@example.com and we can talk in depth</comment></comment>


Our Odd Startup: 3½ Guys, No VC, Profitability, and Patience - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/@thefln/our-odd-startup-3-guys-no-vc-profitability-and-patience-8f3ae206de <comment><USER2> _Sure, there are now dozens of e-commerce solutions similar to Snipcart. Yet there is 0 business like ours._

It sounds like Snipcart are doing something very similar to Moltin ([https://moltin.com](https://moltin.com)), which is a YC company.

<comment><USER3> My implementation of this was rejected in 2013.

I should have put more work into my YC app + video!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd agree that the fascination with VC money is not helpful. There are certainly verticals where you can only survive with outside investments (biotech comes to mind) or where scaling quickly is important, but no amount of money will save you if you don't have product-market fit.

<comment><USER5> Well, a good half of the ecosystem is tailored to eat away investor money and nothing else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Headline might be over the top but the essence here is a nice vibe.

</comment><comment><USER7> Being a solopreneur, I am a one man startup.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the takeaways, but the no VC seems to be quite an exaggeration.

 _They invested temporary resources (design, frontend) and a full-time salary (mine) into Snipcart, our developer-first e-commerce platform._

<comment><USER9> That's not venture capital, that's a bit of boost at the front, and most of it not in money. They didn't say they self-financed all of it, just that they did not take on any venture capital.

<comment><USER10> OK so it's not VC in the narrowest of definitions, but there was capital investment by a third party so there are some language gymnastics involved to overstate the independent nature of the company.

<comment><USER9> There is nothing narrow about that definition, rather, you are trying to stretch what it means to take on venture capital to things it was never intended to cover.

The language gymnastics are entirely on your part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So it is 4 guys not 3 1/2 just because you don't work full time doesnt me youre 1/2 a person?

<comment><USER12> Right, but then why would you click on that headline?

<comment><USER11> I clicked to figure out why a person was described as a half person but I didn't spend much time on the page and didn't figure it out, do you want to know what I ate for lunch too?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My Odd Startup!

One guy, no VC, patience, problem identified, for solution, crucial secret sauce found and scalable, production quality code written, alpha test in progress, meager burn rate, no users or revenue yet.

Problem? One where the first good solution should be a "must have" for nearly everyone on the Internet.

Solution? An excellent solution now with a high technological barrier to entry and later with some strong network effects.

Solution appears to the users as just a simple Web site that looks good on everything with a Web browser up to date as of maybe 10 years ago and from just 24,000 programming language statements.

Platform? Microsoft's .NET Framework 4.0 with ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Visual Basic .NET, and a little use of C via _platform invoke_.

Potential? If people like the solution, then in line to be the first company worth $1T.

<comment><USER14> Why on earth would you use VB.Net for something new?

<comment><USER15> I didn't know it was even a thing; haven't heard anything about it in around ten years.

<comment><USER13> Visual Basic .NET is not much like the Visual Basic of 10 years ago.

As far as I can tell, Visual Basic .NET is now essentially as powerful as C# or any other Microsoft language on Windows.

Supposedly C# has lambda expressions. Okay. If I need those, maybe I'll write some C#. But have VB.NET call or be called by C# is relatively easy. So, I could have a function in C# called by my main code in VB.NET.

I wrote enough C to understand it fairly well, at least at the level in K&R. I've looked at some C# code, and it seems to read easily enough. Maybe I could be writing C# in a few days. If I want to convert to C#, I understand that there is a translator to do that for me.

I do like the more traditional syntax of VB.NET instead of the deliberately "idiosyncratic" syntax of C borrowed by C#. So, I see no biggie reason not to use the syntax I prefer in VB.NET.

I learned programming long before C++ or even C. I skipped C++ -- never wrote a line of it. My first code with objects was essentially VB.NET. The objects are easy enough, close enough to what I did with structures in PL/I. Now with .NET, VB.NET, and C#, there's reduced reason to write C++ on Windows. There are plenty of serious criticisms of C++ for important production software. Yup, it's possible to write good code for big projects in C++, but just from memory management I'll let VB.NET handle that for me.

<comment><USER16> Good luck with your project! This was a fun read. Don't let the haters keep you down, just remember Zuckerberg shipped Facebook in PHP.

<comment><USER13> Actually, my code is solid. Visual Basic .NET is a fully solid language for high end production software. It's not the old Visual Basic 6.0 which supposedly was mostly a toy.

I never used the 6.0 thing but learned VB.NET right away for my present project.

On Windows, there's nothing more solid for high end software. E.g., my Web page programming is the ASP.NET part of .NET. The SQL Server programming is via the ADO.NET part.

There's nothing in my production code like PHP, Python, Lisp, etc.

<comment><USER16> My philosophy is always choose the right tool for the right job.

If you're productive in VB.NET and can ship your MVP with it, it doesn't matter what people think about your choice of framework/language.

I got it a lot when I decided to write my backend in Go. The meme is "Go is for shitty programmers, no generics, etc" but my system doesn't bottom out at 1K QPS. I feel like the people who get into heated debates about language choice should spend more time _coding_ then arguing about which language is the best.

<comment><USER13> My code is much better than an MVP. Instead what I have does essentially all I have in mind for the users now; other features I have in mind stand to be minor and only for the future. And the code I have now should be about as solid as code nearly any production code is. It's good code; nothing wrong with it. On the way to $1T the code should have some additional features for system monitoring and management, but such features would be useless now. And there should be some redesign efforts for scaling to 1000s of times more Web pages per second, that is, a lot of parallelism and graceful handling of parallel components currently not working (can't expect that all parts of a server farm with 1 million square feet of space and full of racks will all be working all the time). But such parallel considerations are for the future. Besides, Microsoft runs some really big server farms, so I'm sure that when I'm a customer for several thousand licenses for Windows Server and SQL Server, their system monitoring, automated deployment, etc., I'll be able to get some high end Microsoft consulting on how to use their products for such computing.

Yes, there have been language wars for decades. They never made much sense and still don't.

Here is a resolution for my work now: The first choice is between Microsoft and Linux. Clearly it's possible to be successful with either of them. Like a lot of large sites, I picked Microsoft.

On Microsoft the main language choices were between VB.NET (the newer one, not the old Visual Basic 6.0) and C#. Between those two, for production code, about the only difference is just syntactic sugar. I just happen to prefer the flavor of that sugar in VB.NET. Then, for writing production code, VB.NET is essentially as good as C# or anything else on Windows. For the current state of computing, there's NOTHING wrong with the choice of VB.NET for high end production software.

More generally, so far there's no big magic in programming language deign; essentially all the ideas are 20+ years old, sometimes 40+ years old, e.g., for capabilities and access control lists, security rings, software handling of interrupts, back to Multics and PL/I in the 1960s. Heck for HN, IIRC Lisp goes back to 1959 or so. Concurrency? Dijkstra semaphores are not much used. What does get used is still simple. Sure, buried in SQL Server might be some really nice and tricky concurrency work, but only programmers specializing in SQL internals see that stuff. For algorithms and data structures, still AVL trees or red-black remain about the most advanced used. For just k-D trees, they are obscure enough that they get used only in rare special situations. For concurrency versions of some of the common algorithms, those, too, are rarely used and for narrow special situations. Sure, there's a version of the heap data structure that gives better locality of reference when using virtual memory, but, again, that need is rare.

The good news is how powerful the usual stuff, e.g., just VB.NET, actually is. We shouldn't neglect the good stuff right in front of us when, as usual, it is plenty powerful enough for the work to be done.

The main control structures remain if-then-else, do-while, and call-return. Co-routines? Not much used. Even scope of names as in PL/I has been cut back to the simplistic approach of just C. The super nice structure addressing in PL/I (we're talking 1960s here) has been replaced with the too heavy use of pointers (by the compiler) required by objects. The PL/I structures were nearly as useful as objects and much faster in the addressing. Net, in programming language design for production code, there's isn't a lot that's new and really important. So, really, in practice, just VB.NET is about as good as it gets.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


BrainPort allows people to "see" via their tongues - <AUTHOR> http://vision.wicab.com/technology/

<comment><USER2> Looks like they want to make more people blind with that awfully small font and a lot of cluttered text. A bit sarcastic that a product for the blind has a pretty universally inaccessible site.

Anyway, really cool and useful gadget. I hope most or all people who need it get access to these devices in the future.

<comment><USER3> Do screen readers read small text in a really soft voice? If not, I'm not sure how text size matters to the blind.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also presented in an article from SciAm: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=device- lets...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=device-lets-blind- see-with-tongues)

I wonder if eating something with a strong taste later on causes any "visual" effects.

<comment><USER4> Do flavors correspond to colors like timbres do?

<comment><USER5> I speculate, since I haven't got access to any more information than anybody else, but probably not. Remember, the tongue's ability to "taste" is actually quite limited; most "flavor" actually occurs in the nose, which this won't affect at all.

It's faintly possible that some hypothetical future device could do something with flavor, but it is another scale of engineering difficulty since it would almost require that you are physically releasing molecules, as in, "fuel". It's at least conceivable, since it's a myth that certain flavors are isolated to certain parts of the tongue, but I'd expect that by the time we had the nanotechnology chops to pull that off, we'd have real artificial eyes, and quite possibly real artificial optic nerves, leaving the number of people who would want such a device quite low.

<comment><USER4> I only meant in the context of eating something after using the device. I'm assuming seeing with the tongue would put one in a state of mind more ready to accept sight on the tongue, so I wonder what colors would do right after that. I guess it's also worth wondering if fizzy drinks would feel like tv snow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=780543></comment>


Tutorial: Deep Learning for Blood Cell Morphology - <AUTHOR> https://blog.athelas.com/classifying-white-blood-cells-with-convolutional-neural-networks-2ca6da239331 <comment><USER2> Hi!

Author here - I'd love to hear your feedback on how we can improve and answer any questions you have.

Thanks HN!

Dhruv

<comment><USER3> Stop deleting-and-resubmitting posts on Hacker News if they don't get upvotes. I had seen you submit this post 2-3 times today.

Instance of previous submission which was not deleted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13988921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13988921)</comment></comment>


Crowd rank community photos, a different way to enjoy user generated content - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pixide.app <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Pixide is the app that we worked on in the last year. It's an app about photo contests, we're currently in beta testing and we'd love to have your feedbacks. We're a team of 7 people from Italy, we hope you'll like it :)

If you have an iPhone please send me your email at email@example.com or submit your email on www.pixide.org so I can invite you on TestFlight.

Any comment/suggestion is really appreciated!</comment>


Ask HN: Shouldn't there be a better way to buy a car? - <AUTHOR>

I was sitting in Finance class today and my professor was explaining how he decided on buying a new Mazda Miata. But instead of paying the asking price or going to our local dealer and negotiating, he called and submitted the price he'd be willing to pay to every Mazda dealership in our area, even some up to 500 miles away. He figured even with flying out somewhere and driving it back he still ends up saving money.
This got me thinking. Why isn't there a disruptive startup that helps prospective buyers submit bids to dealerships? A buyer would determine what type of car/features he would want and submit it to the service. Then the startup would automatically send the information/bid to however many dealerships of that brand was in the selected mileage he was willing to travel to. This would make car dealerships of the same brand compete with each other which would result in a lower price for the consumer.
This startup could monetize from either angle. I'm guessing car buyers would be willing to spend a small fee ($25-$50) if it meant saving them hundreds or thousands. Meanwhile, dealers might even pay for the "leads."
Is there already something like this? Is this viable? <comment><USER2> That's exactly what we do (<http://carwoo.com>) and it's free to shop one car.

Acting as a buyer's agent is tough as you are considered an autobroker and there is a ton of state level laws around this kind of business. Some of them are extremely archaic, but are kept in places by an extremely powerful lobby organization.

If you are interested look up the battle TrueCar became embroiled in recently because of some decisions they made in their business model. The end result was they lost over half their paying dealer network and half their revenue in a matter of a couple of weeks. They were disallowed from operating in a dozen or more states over night.

They have recently had to completely change their product to come into compliance. Their aint no lobby like an auto industry lobby! :)

It's a very complicated industry to move into successfully. We have done a good job (IMO) of navigating the mine field while offering a compelling service to Consumers and Dealers.

<comment><USER2> Also, we used to charge consumers for their first 'deal' (as we call it). This allowed us to create the nation's largest New Car Dealer Network, but most consumers are unwilling to pay for this kind of service. It did allow us to build a huge network quickly (by auto industry standards) which allows us to avoid most of the 'no coverage' issues that all other automotive sites have.

<comment><USER3> So if you're no longer charging consumers for their first deal, are you charging dealerships?

<comment><USER2> yes. It's a freemium model for dealerships ATM, but we reserve the right to change it whenever we feel like it! :)

The pay service allows dealerships to see data and have access to tools that help them be more competitive and make better decisions.

NO one ever gets to pay for placement or for access to our customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was thinking along the same lines after just reading the headline. Have the dealership come to you and compete on price. I would guess that dealerships would rather not work this way. But they may see it as a good way to get buyers in the door. I would want to know there wouldn't be any bait-and-switch trickery going on.

Here is an interesting take on the use of Game Theory with the technique you describe:

[http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/04/26/the-best-way- to...](http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/04/26/the-best-way-to-buy-a-new- car-2/)

AND

<http://bigthink.com/ideas/41819>

Perhaps this idea can be packaged into an app.

</comment><comment><USER5> I used carcostcanada.com to buy my Ford Edge 5 years ago - it works in the way you describe. Our local dealer wouldn't even match the lowest quote I got from the site. Even with a bunch of haggling, his best price was $1k more than the no-haggle price I got from the internet!

The point is: these sites already exist, and you really should use them to buy your next car. Haggling is so inefficient.

</comment><comment><USER3> Carwoo <http://carwoo.com> does something similar where the buyer submits what kind of car they're looking for, and local dealerships will submit bids, after which you can send them a counteroffer. The last time I used it was 2 years ago so wouldn't know if they've changed features since then.

<comment><AUTHOR> Carwoo sounds interesting and it is similar to what I was thinking. But I think I might be imagining something more aggressive, where the startup sends an e-mail/fax/phone call to dealerships on the customers behalf. Acting as their "agent" almost. Also, it seems CarWoo only includes partnered dealerships. With the method I described a buyer would be able to contact every dealership of their interest. The only issue with this is that since the startup would be more "customer oriented" rather than dealer, it would probably have to charge customers (unlike Carwoo) instead of charging dealers like CarWoo.

<comment><USER3> I think I paid ~$60 for the service that they're offering for free now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://carwoo.com/> ?

</comment><comment><USER7> Isnt this what carsdirect.com does?</comment>


A Burned-Out Husk of a House Is Selling for $800,000 in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/a-burned-out-husk-of-a-house-is-selling-for-800-000-in-1825172674 <comment><USER2> No, a "5,800 square foot" block of _land_ is selling for $800k.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Guardian did a report a few years ago about some of the multi-million pound properties in London which have been left empty and derelict for years:

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/31/inside- londo...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/31/inside-london- billionaires-row-derelict-mansions-hampstead)</comment>


Ask HN: Curebit for Non E-commerce Application? - <AUTHOR>

I work in the health care industry where a lot of our business is done through referrals and recommendations. We offer kickbacks (which are legal in our field) like dinners, limo service, or cash to those that offer us quality leads. I guess what I'm asking is this: Is there a cure bit for kickbacks that are not just based on opt-in online registration.
Here's the scenario:
1. A referral source we typically use has someone that needs our services, that person's choice of who they use depends on our referrers (doctor, nurse, lawyer, receptionist)  recommendation. 2. A referrer then submits a lead via phone call, web, or txt (name,phone number, email). 3. Lead is verified (by our team) as a likely candidate (after phone or email contact is made).
4. Once a certain number of verified leads is reached by that user, a monetary reward is presented. (2 leads = $50) 5. Milestones are reached once a certain number of leads are reached. (3 leads equals a $100, 10 leads equals 2 night resort stay).
System would still allow referrers (insert curebit style social reach) to recommend to others via social avenues like Facebook or twitter for example "Anyone want to make $100? I just did by referring people that need "insert service here" to http://t.co/qwerty
Would have a site through Facebook or client hosted where referrers could check in/set up on their status and payouts.
Is there a startup out there already that anyone knows of (If there is please let me know because they're not asking for my cash for some reason) or is this just my bad idea that I should have kept to myself when applying to ycombinator's new incubator for non-technical kiddies with big ideas? <comment><USER2> Hi, yes there is. We've been actively developing a system that does much of what you've mentioned (flexible referral structures, multi-level capable, link or code based, full transparency for users, analytics), and more. The tool is called Sticky Reverb. We're probably a month away from being in Beta...You can find us at www.JustSticky.com . Feel free to contact me through the site.

Best, Andrew</comment>


Venmo alternative Zelle moved $75B last year, says 100,000 people enroll daily - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/29/u-s-banks-venmo-alternative-zelle-moved-75b-last-year-says-100000-people-enroll-daily/ <comment><AUTHOR> Anyone else find these numbers ridiculous?

\- Google Play Zelle app has ~500k downloads and a 1.7 rating

\- ZellePay.com U.S. Alexa rank = 6,505; Venmo.com = 757

\- $75B/247M payments = $304 avg transaction??

<comment><USER2> Zelle is built into most major bank apps. It has its own app, but most people will use it through their bank's app.

The numbers are sane.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16240947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16240947)

<comment><AUTHOR> So they're calling "finding Zelle already on your phone" a "signup"?

<comment><USER2> Not sure. I'd assume it's intiating a signup in app immediately prior to a transaction commencing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


USPTO rolls back Apple's pinch-to-zoom and snap patents - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/12/19/uspto_rolls_back_apple_s_pinch_to_zoom_and_snap_patents.html <comment><USER2> The USPTO should pay Apple back the millions it spent on litigation.

<comment><USER3> I think you mean they should make Apple pay back a bunch of the money it got from the Samsung case.

<comment><USER4> Except that's a procedural action and is being mis-reported, and that Samsung has yet to pay Apple anything.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook's Privacy Changes Leave Developers Steaming - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/technology/facebook-privacy-developers.html <comment><USER2> good for them</comment>


Yes, Virginia, There Are Black Holes - <AUTHOR> https://briankoberlein.com/2014/09/25/yes-virginia-black-holes/

<comment><USER2> Thank you for posting this.

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I'm involved in a project that involves classifying certain time-varying sources. I therefore thought it was pretty rock-solid that black holes DO exist because my collaborators (astronomers at Caltech) refer casually to blazars ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazar)) and AGNs as black holes. They have never qualified these statements.

Thus, yesterday's article (with its very strong claim, literally, "there is no such thing as a black hole") puzzled me, and I didn't believe it. And, there was no pushback in the HN comment thread, which was a double surprise.

The article you've linked mentions the difference between stellar-mass black holes that result from gravitational collapse, and larger black holes that, in the best-known cases, are at the core of galaxies and form differently. This caveat helps give some context to the question.

I note that the article you link, and the earlier article, are clearly still in conflict, because yesterday's article flatly denies these super-massive objects are black holes.

<comment><USER3> Note that there is just a consensus that a supermassive blackhole is at the center of galaxies --it's a "maybe, presumed, likely", as it is with just any other black hole.

If you check the wikipedia page you link, it says:

> A blazar is a very compact quasar (quasi-stellar radio source) associated > with a _presumed_ supermassive black hole at the center of an active, giant > elliptical galaxy

All we can say with confidence is that there is something massive and dense --doesn't mean the only explanation is a black hole.

<comment><USER4> Once something is massive and dense enough that light is unable to escape, isn't that the definition of a black hole?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm posting this as a follow-up to yesterday's submission ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8363527](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8363527)). As I am not an astrophysicist, I am unable to evaluate the actual physics, but I wanted to point out the conversation going on among the actual physicists.

A point that was raised in yesterday's discussion was that if true, this theoretical work shows that black holes can't form from stellar collapse, not that they can't exist. Others contended, well, no, if it can't form, it can't exist; otherwise it would have to have had "always" existed.

Brian Koberlein points out in this submission that there are potentially alternative means of forming black holes, other than stellar collapse:

 _" This is interesting theoretical work, and it raises questions about the formation of stellar-mass black holes. But it doesn't prove that stellar-mass black holes don't exist, nor does it say anything about intermediate mass or supermassive black holes, which would form by processes other than stellar collapse. And of course the work depends upon Hawking's take on firewalls to be correct, which hasn't been proven. To say that this work proves black holes don't exist is disingenuous at best."_

Although I don't know what these processes might be.

Some googling has also turned up some astrophysicists who have snidely dismissed the work, but I am unable to evaluate their claims, or Laura Mersini-Houghton and Harald P. Pfeiffer's work in the original article.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the article. I think the main point to be taken from this is in the excerpt you provided. While she raises some questions, she is not disproving the existence of black holes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This almost sounds like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The author speaks with confidence that black holes do exist, but he is actually referring to inconclusive data open to interpretation as proof.

Blacks holes are yet to be observed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Observational_evide...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Observational_evidence)

</comment><comment><USER6> Does it even matter what is inside the event horizon?

How does time dilation in a gravitational field affect the "speed" of the collapse of whatever material makes the black hole? Is there a sort of Zeno's paradox where the matter can't actually reach the singularity? While this doesn't change the nature of the event horizon - matter gets pulled toward the horizon strongly, and if an atom goes in, it ain't coming back out - it would seem that what you really have in a black hole is just a "dead pixel" in the universe where nothing is happening.

It would be interesting to see some research on minimum possible singularity mass and radius, and observe, or not, Hawking radiation on a generated singularity. Just so long as the singularity is generated in a vacuum somewhere at least as far away as a Lagrange point, with a solar escape velocity trajectory :-)

<comment><USER7>
      "What actually transpires beneath the veil of an event horizon?
      Decent people shouldn't think too much about that."
          — Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

Apologies for being a little off topic but your comment brought back some good memories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title strikes me as sexist, given the paper the author is discussing was first-authored by a woman.

</comment><comment><USER9> If our math says black holes do not exist, maybe the system of math itself is wrong.</comment>


Show HN: Authian – Open Source 2-Factor Authentication Using Instant Messengers - <AUTHOR> https://www.authian.org/ <comment><USER2> One of the key features of something like Signal is not just security, but authentication: if I'm talking to my girlfriend over Signal and it tells me that her key suddenly changed, I stop talking to her, call her, and ask her what's up (and, to be fair, it's happened twice so far due to changing phones). It's supposed to stop a MITM attack, so that someone cannot pretend to be her and continue the conversation.

What will your authian bot do, however, if the key changes? Will it happily continue communicating with the new, possibly malevolent recipient?

<comment><USER3> Does signal even allow bots? They have pretty draconian terms on allowing 3rd party clients to connect to their service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where is said source? The Github & Gitlab orgs are empty. Seems like this post is a bit premature.

<comment><USER5> I came to ask just this question. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What about ethical messengers like XMPP, Matrix, Signal, Wire?

<comment><AUTHOR> What vesak has said is partly correct. We are integrating IMs that have the most reach firstly.

We also investigated IMs where users are not registered to a particular number and we deduced that most companies would not want clients to authenticate themselves with accounts that are not attached to a number (when they already have such numbers available).

We stand to be corrected and would gladly integrate with other IMs where demand/interest exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So this basically is OTP over encrypted IM instead of OTP over SMS.

Im not sure why you'd use this over TOTP?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question!

My answers (in point form) are:

1) We plan on integrating TOTP into the Authian server so that TOTP can be used as an alternate option where no other IMs are supported by the end-user

2) Using OTP over encrypted IM has less friction. Many other options require people to install "yet another app". TOTP is also not that well understood by the average person, whereas most people are already familiar with SMS-based authentication (which also has low friction, but is comparatively expensive)

3) TOTP can't do notifications of successful login attempts to the TOTP app. Whereas OTP over IM offers this, as well as baking in other security enhancements as required by vendors (eg. account recovery options)

With that said though, I would consider TOTP and OTP over IM to be complementary products.

<comment><USER8> Not sure if this is relevant, but TOTP via phone app doesn't work when a phone is experiencing NTP sync issues. At least, this is a problem which I experienced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > It will be released when the code is a bit more stable (and provides better > performance)

Can you provide more details? I am not ready to use this until there is something on github/gitlab to look at.

I can understand needing another month or two, but I would like some assurance this isn't going to be another minecraft.

<comment><AUTHOR> Part of our assurance that the product is good/reliable/secure is releasing the source code for people to determine that themselves.

We have no plans to rescind on this, although we would like people to join our newsletter so that we can reach them. By having a point of contact, we hope to build a product and form a community based on the needs of end-users (eg. how the product is being used and how we can improve upon it)

If you joined the newsletter, we will be reaching you shortly.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best way to sell unused domains without paying fees? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Take the amount you want, add in the fee, and use that as your listing price.

Registrars are the way people search for domains -- unless you know a way to reach buyers more efficiently for your specific domains, it's hard to imagine a better broker.</comment>


Chicago Yoga Studio: "Why I won't do a Groupon" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tulayoga.net/2011/08/why-i-wont-do-groupon.html <comment><USER3> Didn't take long for a Groupon sockpuppet to show up in the comments:

 _Rachel Baker said...

I think Groupon is a guaranteed and low effort marketing platform for businesses. Every new customer has a cost of acquisition. The smarter and more efficient your marketing efforts the lower that cost. Groupon can be the best thing in the world..._

Rachel Baker User Stats

On Blogger Since August 2011

Profile Views (approximate) 7

<comment><AUTHOR> Rachel is not a Groupon employee. I share of office with her in Chicago. She's a wordpress developer, founder of PluggedIn consulting (<http://pluggedinconsulting.com>) and a great person.

<comment><USER4> great persons can be sockpuppets, but I think said qualification is quite unreasonable.

<comment><USER5> Is it really up for discussion when someone says "I actually share an office with this person and know they aren't a shill"? I don't think it is up for discussion anymore.

<comment><USER6> > someone

It's a grouponspiracy all the way down, man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And this comes from Groupon's hometown. Ouch!

My impression is that Groupon works better for brining in incremental revenue. A prior HN post on skydiving captured this very well. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2654788> What I mean by incremental is customers who would never use your business to begin with. It also helps if the business is high margin. These businesses tend to have high fixed costs too.

We recently used Groupon for a midweek booking of a fantastic bed and breakfast. Great for them - we'd have never heard of it, and the revenue was largely incremental, while the costs were fixed. Great for us - a B&B when we wanted. Also great for a bespoke suit. ($3000 - a little crazy. But $600 - <USER2> so bad)

Yoga seems much more variable cost. A big part of the cost is the teacher. Some back of the napkin (streetfighting?) math suggests a class of 15 people pays $8 per a hour class. Counting prep, set up, and tear down, it takes the teacher an hour and a half. So let's say they make 60. Then it's 60 to pay for the space, AC, etc. Very low margin business. Cutting the revenue by 75% doesn't make sense unless you're selling a lot of add-ons or expecting to convert for long term customers. Both are risky propositions at best.

<comment><USER8> The post you refer to was a good example of a business that had intelligently thought through whether Groupon was _good for them_.

Some other special aspects of that case: Due to the nature of the business, the Groupon'ers had to sign in to a slot in the schedule, eliminating the "rush of customers" problem. And, the business had upsell options like souvenir t-shirts to extract some non-discount money from customers.

<comment><USER7> Exactly! Groupon is good for some but not all. Same with Network TV advertising. Same with newspaper coupons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing no one has mentioned is Yelp. Yelp is _huge_ for yoga. If your yoga studio doesn't have any reviews on Yelp, a lot of people are going to be hesitant to pony up $15 just to try one class. (Many studios offer a discount for new students, but this one doesn't.)

There's a big overlap between Groupon users and Yelp users, so it's a great way to get a batch of reviews up fast. But that's a double-edged sword, especially if Groupon buyers are going to be packed in like sardines in the studio's first weeks.

Here's what I'd suggest: This studio needs to get a Yelp page up right away, and at least post a message there about when they're opening. They may even want to offer a deal right there: "Mention Yelp, and get $5 off your first class!" That way they'll attract more customers (but not _too_ many), get reviews early, and cut out the discount middleman.

</comment><comment><USER10> 500 groupon customers is a lot to bear considering her calculations, but would it not make sense to offer, say, 50 groupon codes and write these off as marketing costs? Or is there a minimum limit to what groupon will work with you on.

Having said that, I have friends who won't do sushi or yoga without a groupon, which I find fascinating. When I asked would they not return somewhere that they enjoyed without a groupon they replied that there are sufficient groupons in their city to not have to do that. I must be old-school as I believe in supporting your local businesses and nurturing your community rather than saving a few dollars.

<comment><USER11> Your second paragraph (sort of) contradicts the first: it says that (some) groupon users will never return unless presented with another groupon. No repeat/loyal customers.

That might be the problem with groupon: the people most likely to use groupons are the ones least likely to become loyal customers and the least likely to effectively recommend your business to their friends because all their friends know they only went there due to the groupon.

<comment><USER12> Even if they don't come back, it's still better to have the Groupon chasers in your studio. You get paid at least a little bit if they buy a Groupon, compared to nothing if they don't. The marginal cost to a Yoga studio of adding another student is zero.

Of course this doesn't apply if you're running close enough to capacity that the addition of more students will degrade the experience for everyone else, but a lot of yoga studios don't have that problem, especially not at off-peak hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of the most recent conclusion I had come to regarding Groupon: it appeals to broken businesses. If you can't get new customers by simply lowering prices (instead of offering a Groupon), then your business is on very weak ground. Leveraging Groupon's email marketing distribution for a one time boost is not going to fix this fundamental problem.

<comment><USER14> Forget lowering prices, if you cannot get customers into your business than you really need to take a step back and review your current marketing efforts.

What can be done to get more of your target customers in the door - and to keep that up on an ongoing basis?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't think of a worse application for Groupon than yoga. It's a long-term, continuous process. You want a reliable teacher and a relaxing, focused experience you can count on. Having the studio jam-packed with new faces isn't the way to accomplish that.

That said, if they're charging $130 per month, I wouldn't do it without a Groupon, either. That's a fortune for some group exercise.

<comment><USER16> $130 is a lot of money, but investing in your health is probably the best investment you can make. Some people spend $130 just on coffee every month.

<comment><USER15> I'm guess I'm spoiled. I'm used to Mission Cliffs in San Francisco, where a ~$65/month membership got you climbing, cardio, weights, along with spin, kickboxing, and yoga classes.

Honestly, though, I do think the fairly standard $15 per session is way, way too much for yoga. $15 per head with a class size of around 20 is $300 for a one hour session. I visited Yoga Tree (I think) in the Castro once, at an even higher price. The 'advantage' was that the studio was fancier, and they had a couple of really poorly trained lackeys running around making 'corrections'. Honestly, the yoga instruction I got at Mission Cliffs was better, and the instructor bothered to get to know me and my personal limitations.

I agree entirely about investing in health, though, particularly for people in sedentary careers.

<comment><USER17> I practiced at Yoga Tree Castro for a long time, and found the instruction to be excellent and worth every penny.

Have never been to Mission Cliffs, so I won't claim it's not better still. But my perspective is that any yoga class which is worth my time, my sweat, my hard work, and the trouble of going there, is worth my $15.

And, if you buy the 20-class passes, it comes out at $11 a pop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Her business aside, anyone who joins an organized religion because it's on sale is probably a moron.

<comment><USER16> Yoga isn't a religion. It is basically just a group stretching class. Some people put various "new age" elements into it, but I don't see how it could be considered a religion. I could be wrong though. I've never been to place where people considered it to be much more than a fitness class. Maybe I've been to the wrong places.

<comment><USER18> The word yoga literally means 'yoke', in other words basically a connection to god. That's what those stretches are designed to do. It's a form of mysticism, like Kabbalah.

<comment><USER19> You made my day!!

Alex3917 you are now permanently listed under the birfer/truther/tin-foil- hatter category in my book!

You, Sir, are simply HILARIOUS!

<comment><USER20> I really object to that. Alex3917 is one of the most well-informed commenters on here. That he takes unpopular and unconventional positions is cause for admiration, not rude ridicule.

As for the point about yoga, it hardly seems odd to suggest that a system that's been around for thousands of years might retain some connection to its origins.

<comment><USER5> Hm.

I agree with you about the comment you replied to. That comment is so bad I flagged it. So the idea that anyone would downmod you for calling it out is dispiriting.

But, much as I like 'Alex3917, I downmodded his yoga comment. I thought it was so reductionist that it sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

<comment><USER20> Well now I feel guilty for communicating in abrasive shortcuts myself.

"Reductionist" is probably fair. Alex can be a bit of a bombthrower, and not always in a helpful way. For me the line is drawn somewhere between <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932298> (unhelpful because indiscriminate and judgmental - and yes, reductionist. Nobody _is_ a moron.) and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932421> (provocative but informed). I'm guessing the line draws itself a little differently for you.

Sadly, the interesting question (what if anything is the religious significance of yoga in the modern West?) probably falls in the large category of stuff that is impossible to discuss online. It always _appears_ possible, but immediately degenerates into binary twiddling where everyone takes their own pre-existing bitmask, ANDs it with what they perceive the competing bitmasks to be, and emits signals of "yes/like" and "no/dislike" that vary only in intensity. The informational content of this process is low. It's like addictive food that lacks nutrition.

I have a theory as to why this is. High-value discourse -- in which people experience their overlapping divergences as something other than a binary opposition and come away from the encounter slightly transformed, which is a deeply human and satisfying experience -- requires _rapport_ , and rapport is a somatic phenomenon. It mostly occurs when people are both personally acquainted and physically nearby. Online discussions, which have neither, are therefore inhospitable. We end up with a lot of verbiage that is cognitively sophisticated but emotionally/limbically primitive. I wonder if auxiliary in- person meetups of online communities will continue to grow as a way to mitigate this. In any case we should look for a way to increase the likelihood of rapport. I don't mean to try to bring it about (that would be awful) but to ask what conditions increase the probability of it occurring spontaneously.

(Normally I'd edit this down but I'm late for brunch at my sister's house, so you get the overwrought version!)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>