2040: Diary of an interesting year - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/12/21/091221fi_fiction_simpson?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> God am I sick of tedious gloomy post-apocalyptic stories. I had them in school when they were about nukes. Now they're about the environment but they're the same boring gloomy defeatist stuff. Between those two dates, of course, we had tens of millions of Chinese and Indian people being lifted out of poverty, the fall of apartheid and the Soviet Union, democracy in Eastern Europe, the Internet...

The future is the Jetsons, baby, not this shit.

<comment><USER3> I am not sure an economic collapse (although we more or less dodged that bullet last year the shooting continues) would not drag a big part of mankind into abject poverty.

We are seriously looking into a billion people having to move because of lack of water, and a huge disruption on coastal communities - and a huge people displacement because of that. We also have to contemplate a diminishing energy budget per person. And all that in the next 90 years.

The future is a dangerous place, even if some pockets of it may look like The Jetsons.

<comment><USER4> Why would the world have a lower energy budget?

Solar cells are getting cheaper about as fast as Moore's law. Nuclear power (and if we're really lucky, fusion) can solve most problems.

As usual, the probably _real_ danger for people is... other people.

<comment><USER3> Solar cells are promising, but they cannot solve this problem - at the very least, they can't generate power at night - we would have to rely on either an integrated planetary grid or a huge amount of batteries.

Nuclear has only that much fuel to use. Uranium is non-renewable.

And fusion is yet to prove it can provide enough energy. We need better reactors.

<comment><USER4> I originally argued against the statement that we will have a "lower energy budget" in 90 years.

In short, I am arguing about developments that will come home to roost in less than a decade -- and disprove your statements. Even if these developments take five times as long, you are still vertigo-inducing wrong...

You are arguing like some sort of inverse Kurzweil. :-)

>>Solar cells are promising

They will never help much where I live. But not many live here.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8386460.stm>

People in the highly populated parts of Europe will literally need a reason to _not_ put them on the house -- in just a few years. Then add 80 more years of tech development...

Consider how much energy you'll get from solar cells in a city's total roof area. 1 square meter under the equator is 1 kW. If every person have 10 square meters of solar cells, it should be enough for all energy use (below the polar circle).

(The same goes for energy storage, developed over 90 years.)

>>Uranium is non-renewable.

Check up on Thorium reactors (and also on more modern versions of normal reactors, which burns a larger fraction of the fuel).

Then add 90 more years of development...

There is lots of Uranium in the ground. Raise the prices and it will come up.

>>And fusion is yet to prove it can provide enough energy.

We will know about e.g. General Fusion, Polywell and TriAlpha in just a few years.

Realistically, I'd not give that large chance for the individual projects (10%? 20%?). But I'd be surprised if _nothing_ like that comes along in 90 years. Just consider space based solar, with the next-next-next-next generation of super cheap launch systems.

<comment><USER3> _I originally argued against the statement that we will have a "lower energy budget" in 90 years._

Given increasing population, how much more energy do you expect to be able to use? While true we may be able to increase our energy usage, I doubt most of mankind will be able to use as much as we do.

Also, do you realize how much effort (and energy expenditure) would it be to manufacture 10 square meters for every human being alive? Count 10 billion people - that's 100 billion square meters, not counting replacing damaged solar cells.

Nuclear fission is also a point that could be much improved, but it is pretty much a dead end unless we discover some new laws of physics. Nuclear facilities are horrendously expensive to build and to safely manage. There are safer designs, but how much safe is safe in a world you have to guard nuclear fuel (and waste) and keep if from people who are willing to blow themselves up?

As for fusion, you could add the chances of success if they were completely different approaches, but they are not. Also, giving them even a 10% chance of success is very optimistic.

There is no reason to panic, but there is reason to proceed carefully and think through what we are doing and what we are going to do.

<comment><USER4> >>Also, do you realize how much effort (and energy expenditure) would it be to manufacture 10 square meters for every human being alive?

Please think before writing.

Even today, much less energy is used making solar cells than they create... For material, the latest thin film is _not_ a heavy weight per square meter... (also a hint, we're not running out of silicon for glass...).

In fact, this would take very little resources compared to what a person need to live.

If you want to make a coherent point, you'd note that my "energy budget" didn't include transportation or industry.

We can apply all the clean energy sources we will have in twenty years, for that.

Note that I'm just arguing known sources in one-two decades, assuming the remaining decades are without developments! And you can't answer even that.

Let us assume space based solar in twenty years... 90? I can't even guess.

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1215313...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121531373)

Did you have any counter arguments against Thorium reactors? Or you're silent because you lack arguments?

>>100 billion square meters [is a lot of area, sic]

You must be unique on this site to never have thought about how many square meters go into a square km. :-)

10 km X 10 km == 100 million square meters. Enough to give 10 square meter to 10 million people, a BIG city. Go check a map, that area is _less than the area of the roofs of such a city_...

(Most people will live in cities, it seems.)

Enough of the pre-high school math lesson...

>>As for fusion, you could add the chances of success if they were completely different approaches, but they are not.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

Please explain how a known success/failure of one of the three projects I mentioned would influence the likelihood of the others? I can honestly not see how you could argue that.

I am sorry, but I wonder if you're a troll. I can't be bothered with the rest.

<comment><USER3> Thorium produced in breeder reactors are object of research for many decades, but very few (if any) commercial examples exist. I remember something out of India, but I am not quite sure. There has been some movement around them in China lately, IIRC, but it must be something on a tech demonstration level or we would all be hearing a lot about it. I believe that when someone pull this off, they will brag about it all over the media.

The General Fusion, TriAlpha and Polywell are all a bit far-fetched. GF's thingie has a couple practical problems, like, for instance, extracting tritium from their liquid lead-lithium mix. There are a lot of problems with liquid-metal heat exchange itself, specially on a scale like the one they propose. Radioactive liquid alkali metal exchangers elevate the NIMBY complains to a whole new level. I would give them a 1%. The TriAlpha approach requires higher temperatures than Hydrogen-Deuterium fusion. I would give it about 0.5% chance of success in the next 100 years. If the conditions the GF machine are to operate can be called extreme, I lack superlatives to name what happens inside a Tri Alpha device. As for Polywell... I am an optimist. I would give them a 5% chance. There are some issues on the geometry of the fields (they had some leaks in the "corners") but I expect them to improve steadily enough for sustained operation.

But we are not aiming at technology demonstrators running sustainable reactions. We are aiming at commercial production on megawatt-scale generators. It's not just rescaling your AutoCAD model, even if you don't consider your whole supply chain.

As for solar, you seriously propose replacing the roofs of every home in the planet with solar panels. I live in an apartment, on a 50's building that's not very tall. There are 40 people living in the same building that has about 200 m2 of roof. That's 4 square meters per person on a not very dense arrangement. It's one of the least dense blocks in my region. Most of my friends live on 1 square-meter of roof per person or less zones (taller, newer buildings). This math will hardly work out. As it is, we have a pretty green energy matrix - mostly hydro. Even our cars run on sugarcane ethanol, but, still, ethanol production takes up a lot of land that could be used to grow food and that may be needed for that if the climate goes south and agriculture takes a hit.

You are more optimistic than I am. Things change, but they change slowly. Unless there is a huge political drive behind this, I don't believe we will see much of it before it's too late.

We need politicians who can focus on periods longer than their terms. I am not sure where to find them.

<comment><USER4> You claimed: " _As for fusion, you could add the chances of success if they were completely different approaches, but they are not_."

1\. I asked for support: " _Please explain how a known success/failure of one of the three projects I mentioned would influence the likelihood of the others? I can honestly not see how you could argue that._ "

A basic presentation about the projects is NOT supporting that...

You back away from that, now that you have read up on the basics. Is that your standard method when you have guessed about something you don't know anything about?

2\. The only "real" thing we know about TriAlpha is that they got large investments from people that presumably got more info. (They claim to publish more in 2010.) There is data on a previous project and IIRC, they talked about FRCs.

So on what do you base your claim about probabilites for TriAlpha?!

Note: AFAIK, to breed tritium is quite common for all fusion DT plans.

3\. I haven't looked into the subject about extracting hydrogen from the lead/litium -- why do you claim it to be hard?

>>But we are not aiming at technology demonstrators running sustainable reactions

AGAIN: You made a claim 90 years in the future. These will be built (if one works) inside 20. And deployed inside 30. So your comment was totally irrelevant for my thesis. But you knew that.

>>As for solar, you seriously propose replacing the roofs of every home in the planet with solar panels.

Sigh, do I _have_ to quote the BBC reference I gave:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8386460.stm>

 _A key goal for solar is what is known as grid parity. That is the point when it is as cheap for someone to generate power on their homes as it is to buy it from the grid.

It varies from country to country depending on electricity prices, but the institute estimates that Italy - which has a combination of sunny weather and relatively high electricity prices - should reach grid parity next year. Half of Europe should be enjoying grid parity by 2020, it estimates._

So in ONE decade, half of Europe are expected to start plastering everything with solar cells -- there would need to be a reason NOT to put solar cells on a roof (or south facing side of a house).

I already explained about pre-high scool math. But _AGAIN_ :

10 x 10 km of solar cells is enough for ten million people. That is _nothing_ , considering that you can take unwanted land 50-100 km from the city, if you _really_ need more.

Are you trolling?

That will happen in 10-20 years. Consider how much cheaper/better solar cells will be in 30 years...

<http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24240/>

Now go up to 90...

>>Unless there is a huge political drive behind this,

AGAIN: See BBC reference. Solar cells will generate energy _cheaper_ than today's normal price for many countries -- already in less than 1-2 decades. And they seem to keep falling in price.

Why would politicians be involved -- except wanting to tax solar cells?

>> [Thorium]

Active research subject today, India is building a prototype. Not totally trivial, but there is afaik no known show stoppers for deployment inside 90 years(!). Do you know of any?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently finished "Market Forces" by Richard Morgan, he's most famous for his SF works, but this one is a near-future thriller where capitalism has gone slightly too far, the roads are mostly abandoned since most people cannot afford to drive anymore du to oil scarcity, so the roads are mostly used by the executives of various corporations for car-duels about business contracts. Our protagonist works for a "Conflict Investment" division, that essentially funds small wars and revolutions around the world, and they win their contracts by killing the representatives of the competing corporations on the road.

Ironically, he's driving a SAAB, which due to market forces probably won't be around for much longer. :-)

<comment><USER6> I want to point out that the above plot seems really silly. When I read the synopsis on Amazon, I didn't want to read it. A friend, who is also into Richard Morgan, read it and highly recommended it. So, I gave it a shot. It was a very good book. I was pleasantly surprised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> ...and someone, far away in a remote part of the Rocky Mountains, puts his hand in the air and makes the sign of the dollar.

<comment><USER8> ...returns to the real world, and finds it's hard to find a welcome when you insist on looking at people like they're rodents.

Seriously, guys? We're still pretending like Rand wasn't batshit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't this just Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'?</comment>


3D WebGL Car Game Demo - <AUTHOR> http://helloracer.com/webgl/

<comment><USER2> Wow. Very nice example. Works well in Chrome 10 on Mac (about 30fps).

<comment><USER3> Yeah. Very impressive on FF4/Windows 7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very cool. I wish there was a way to make the camera stick to a position or follow the car, it's pretty hard to do anything with the angle changing constantly.

</comment><comment><USER5> F1 cars do not have a reverse gear...

<comment><USER6> Nor does infinite white planes exist..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not supported by Chromium 12?</comment>


Another Stupid iPhone app. Really? - <AUTHOR> http://apple.co/1KwfKne

<comment><AUTHOR> I meant to make my own comments about it, but HN was not allowing text for some reason.

My cousin called me a few months back and said she was trying to basically stalk a celebrity while in NY. She was demanding that I make an app to do that.

I LOL'ed. Then I got to thinking about software that uses crowds to do cool things (like Kickstarter, reddit users searching for the Boston Marathon bomber, etc). So I decided to build it.

4 months later, #spotted was born. I'm still kinda rolling my eyes a bit embarrassed that I used precious time to build this thing.

When a person is spotted, all of their twitter followers (that use the #spotted app) get a push notification. Hopefully something positive comes out of it after all.

</comment><comment><USER2> Ha. This concept was originally done 5 years ago by a YC-backed company called Just Spotted. They exited to Google and built G+.

</comment><comment><USER3> url shorteners are not allowed here. the fact that this submission wasn't immediately banned is no doubt due to the fact that the hn maintainers haven't heard of this one yet.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9600899](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9600899)</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, www.postacall.com - <AUTHOR>

While developing this we were quite sure it was a great, fun idea. People say and do the strangest things on facebook and twitter, but when it comes to put your voice out there it seems to be some resistant. Am I to late, to early or just wrong? <comment><USER2> Almost everything is from "anonymous" and there is zero descriptor as to what the content of the call might be. This makes the site very illegible (so to speak) and I have no idea where to start and also no reason to start. And what's the point anyway? What's the draw? If there is one, it doesn't seem to have been effectively communicated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points, the anonymous part is just to make it easier to try it, or if you just want to blow off some steam in frustration. If register you get a pin code to use and post will be posted with screen name. And the draw, yes, I was going for another welcome site explaining why and how, but was convinced by one of the co-developer that it would be nicer to get right in to "action". Now you need to look for /why or /help Rethink.. Do over...

<comment><USER3> Fair enough to wanting the 'why' and 'how' be self explanatory, but the site doesn't even convey 'what' it is. A line of text could do that in the least.

Having to listen to a audio message to get any idea of the content would perhaps be a bit like using twitter one tweet at a time, so you'd have to solve that somehow. If it's meant to be a sharing service, you'll have to show why it's better than using youtube. That won't be easy.

Maybe it would be better to use the tech you've built as an easy way of 'phoning in' content to youtube, facebook, twitter etc? not something I'd use myself, but I can imagine more use cases there, and it's instantly worthwhile to those users without needing a community of users first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you actually got the idea as it started. When registered you can use your RSS feed to post to facebook, twitter etc. Or log in and post your chosen recording. I think a first change is to switch the landing site to a more explaining. And then click through to the call stream.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Silicon Valley's biggest companies are investing billions in India - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/tech/google-facebook-india-investment-jio/index.html <comment><USER2> Ambani converted $21 billion loan/debt into equity with tacit support from Law makers [https://archive.is/SL3Nb](https://archive.is/SL3Nb)</comment>


Docker and Microsoft partner to bring container applications across platforms - <AUTHOR> http://news.microsoft.com/2014/10/15/DockerPR/

<comment><USER2> This is a dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458204)</comment>


Circumcision Reduces Rates of Two S.T.D.s - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/health/27std.html

<comment><USER2> Hmm, if we entirely remove the penis the infection rates will be 0, perhaps that should be considered. Cutting off body parts is a barbaric ritual and should not be encouraged. Spend the time and effort in distribution of condoms and education.

Not sure why this is hacker news, other than the obvious pun.

<comment><AUTHOR> _if we entirely remove the penis the infection rates will be 0_

I think that is a factually incorrect statement, although there would certainly be a risk reduction greater than that from circumcision. Public health decisions frequently involve trade-offs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What ethics board approved this study?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would appear that the ethics board was based in Uganda (although there was probably also ethical review by the United States university with which several of the researchers are affiliated). The study was conducted in that country.

<http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/360/13/1298>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not really hacker news. Need a bury function.</comment>


Astronomy Picture of the Day - <AUTHOR> http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ <comment><USER2> Not a picture. No flash here. No dice.</comment>


Southern California Edison IT workers 'beyond furious' over H-1B replacements - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/2879083/southern-california-edison-it-workers-beyond-furious-over-h-1b-replacements.html

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised that nobody has any comments. Are we just burned out discussing this?

Here's what Americans should be doing, but aren't:

       Americans should be outraged that most of
       our politicians have sat idly by while
       outsourcing firms have hijacked the guest
       worker programs."</comment>


Show HN: Webapp for gathering feedback about images etc (Rails Rumble)  - <AUTHOR> http://weevu.net/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey so I'm one of the team that built this app - we're super stoked to have pulled it off over the weekend. We focussed on trying to build the best UX for annotating and commenting on pictures/images/screenshots/wireframes as well as a super easy flow to signup and get started. Heavy reliance on raphael.js for the canvas work and rails obviously on the backend.

Would love to get comments/feedback from the HN community. Once judging is over we'd love to package it up - tidy up the loose ends and put it in a permanent home.</comment>


Hide all posts that mention the 'Gym' from Facebook (Satirical Chrome Plugin) - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/i-hate-the-gym-for-facebo/gpjodjgbejicohpphbjebgkakhmflhpn

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a lot of friends who are obsessed with going to the gym and posting about it on facebook. Going and being fit is one thing. A post about every set, leg day, and so on... is another. Some days it's 50% of my feed.

So as a joke between my friends, I made a 'I hate the gym' plugin for chrome that automatically hides all posts that mention the gym.

I wanted a reason to give making a chrome plugin a try, and this seemed like a fun way to learn, so this is what I made. Nothing serious here. Just a playful plugin.</comment>


SEO is fraud? Look at the size of these top SEO companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.topseos.com/rankings

<comment><USER2> "Tell a Lie That is Big Enough, and Repeat it Often Enough, and the Whole World Will Believe It"

The term 'genre' seems a more fitting for SEO than the word 'industry'. There are a number of people who have become very successful with it.

If anything I think these numbers indicate that the model of piggy backing off an established service can be profitable (rather than just attributing value to SEO).

I won't outright say the entire thing is a fraud...hell even Isaac Newton was an alchemist. He was just remembered for things other than trying to turn lead to gold.

</comment><comment><USER3> To be featured on TopSEOs.com, you pay between $5000.00-$10,000 to enter a competition with loosely defined metrics.

<http://www.topseos.com/seo-ppc-competition>

[http://www.topseos.com/seo-and-ppc- competition/index/evaluat...](http://www.topseos.com/seo-and-ppc- competition/index/evaluation-criteria)

A high buy-in fee for a competition removes any semblance of impartiality, as firms that do not want or cannot afford to participate are excluded.

The only conclusion I can draw is that even the SEO ranking sites are misleading.

<comment><USER4> I just browsed their competition, just look a little closer. It's actually 400/month per competition. So significantly cheaper than what you indicate. Frankly even if it was higher, it would just mean that the small agencies and one men show just get weeded out - often times they really do not have the capacity to compete with the big guns anyways.

I can conclude one of three things:

1\. You are not part of it, therefore you are not happy. 2\. You can't afford it, so why not point a finger at it instead. 3\. Cost of any competition, or even the free competitions, does not indicate any impartiality. Keep in mind all entrants pay or don't pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1.

SEO is not fraud. But a lot of people who do search engine optimization sure don't know what they're doing.

2\. Why isn't SEO fraud?

As a business, you create your promotional message. And then you decide where to run that promotional message. You determine where your right people hang out.

Say you determine that newspapers and radio ads are 2 good mediums for your message. But if you run the same message without any tweaks for the specific mediums, you won't do very well.

Your message has to be relevant for the medium.

If you determine that your business requires a website (or that your business is a website) - and that a lot of your right people will be using the search engines, you need to focus on SEO. You need to learn the tricks of SEO trade. And make your message fit the medium.

3\. 5 Minute SEO

Two parts of SEO:

i. Onpage SEO: Search engines look at your web page to determine _what_ it should rank for

\- The URL of the page has to be keyword rich

\- The title of the page has to be keyword rich

\- Use H1 and H2 tags well

\- Make sure the entire website is w3c validated

\- Use meta description for key pages (especially product pages)

\- Create an xml sitemap

ii. Offpage SEO: Search engines look at who is linking to you to determine how highly it should rank you

\- Get links from authority websites

\- Create good linkworthy content - linkbaiting is actually good

\- Get thousands of links from directories (blog / article / rss directories)

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand on-page optimization (for telling search engines what is important on your pages) and having good, relevant content to link to. But what is the point of having thousands of links from directories nobody would ever care to visit? Isn't that spamming the search engines in a way?

<comment><USER5> No humans will ever actually come across the directory links. But search engines still take them into consideration while ranking your websites.

It goes back to playing according to the medium rules.

Note: don't only do directory submissions. If all search engines can see is you're getting link backs from not so good pages, they won't rank you well.

And don't only rely on getting authority linkbacks. Because if search engines see that you have very few linkbacks, they won't rank you well.

So use them both: create good content and focus on getting authority linkbacks. And at the same time, submit your site to various directory submission services. Quality + quantity linkbacks = search engines ranking you well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this link because there had been lots of discussion lately that SEO is fraud and it isn't worth it. I stumbled across this link and the money that these companies are making really make me doubt that businesses don't value SEO.

What are your thoughts?

EDITED: corrected a typo

<comment><USER6> There are really two separate issues with SEO:

1\. The little legitimate stuff they do that would increase pagerank (better website design, alt text, metadata, etc.) is incredibly overpriced for the actual value, especially compared against SEO claims. But companies that don't shell out for a website designer that can do this in the first place deserve to be ripped off.

2\. The even shadier SEOs will use botnet linkspam and the like. This is actively destroying the web and companies that do this do not deserve to exist period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My opinion is that SEO doesn't add that much to the value of a website when the website is designed with good standards. Ex: robots.txt, sitemap.xml, meta tags, no frames, etc.

The fact is however, most companies wouldn't know if there website is build according to these standards. This makes it that SEO people can easily sell there product because which company wouldn't want to be higher on Google? I give you money, you make me first on Google, I get more money. That's the simple and sellable equation SEO companies give.

(It also relates to the common problem in web development. Most of the buyers don't know what quality they are getting because they will never look at the source code. They only see a pretty website.)

</comment><comment><USER8> No. it's not a fraud.

SEO is not a dubious thing in itself. It mostly isn't a scam the way snake-oil is. It's proven and established fact that a website can employ a host of legitimate techniques to climb their way to the top of a search engine result page: on-page optimization, terrific and viral content, string of PR activities, buzz marketing etc, among others.

However, the SEO market has no dearth of companies that promise unrealistic results and rip fortune off their clients. They aren't aware of, let alone be capable of, anything further than submitting a site to a bunch link farms and filling up a web page with unnatural keywords.

There was a time when the field of medicine was swarming with quacks. But that doesn't invalidates the veracity and effectiveness of medical science itself. A trained physician can do wonders to an ailing body.

</comment><comment><USER9> I created a couple of websites because I don't want others to go through what I went through....I documented what happened to me on one of my websites, and the seo company said that if I didn't take down the site, they were going to sue me. So I took down some information, but I still got comments from x-employees to the effect that what they did to me is what they do in general....They either were once a big player in so. cal, or they still are...i don't know.

The websites are: www.seoincscam.com and www.seoscaminc.com the latter has consumer protection info in it.

Thanks for posting this...it is helpful

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how much of it is from the long tail. I know small non-web savvy businesses that happily pay $1-2k a month to outsource their SEO, as business from yellow pages continues to decline.

<comment><USER11> I've seen businesses in yellow pages using questionable tactics as well, especially in the over-saturated areas such as Taxi's and moving businesses. A lot of the businesses advertised are actually one business, and they often have business names like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA Taxis" (this is usually found in small writing at the bottom of the advert). It's gaming the system but it obviously works. Same can be said for SEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am pretty sure that the Nigerian scammers and multilevel marketing fraudsters made more money.

SEO is not fraud per se, but it smells like one. SEO works for sure and it may take your website from 100 page to the first page, but it feels like they are gaming the system, not adding value.

<comment><USER13> The thing that makes it smell like a fraud is that they can only improve a client's score if few others use SEO as well, and if a client is moved to the front page for some keyword, someone else has to drop off the front page.

So imagine a world where everyone uses SEO, what then? How could you ever move to the front page, if everyone else on it is using SEO as well? Cheat? Use better SEO? Who would win on an SEO arms race? Certainly not users, and I would imagine the search companies becoming even more annoyed about it.

<comment><USER14> Summary: rankings are zero-sum games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> well it is too much to ask for a search engine to be able to actually judge the qualilty of services provided by the enterprise. The current system has its merits and demerits and like any other system, it will be exploited by some

</comment><comment><USER16> this seems a specious argument. bernie madoff made a lot of money, too. does that mean what he did wasn't illegal?</comment>


Kik launches Bot Builder - <AUTHOR> https://dev.kik.com/#/home <comment><USER2> Guessing they will have a little more trouble pushing this npm publisher around:

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/botbuilder](https://www.npmjs.com/package/botbuilder)</comment>


Guerrilla Marketing: How Twitter Changed The Way We Will Approach Tradeshows - <AUTHOR> I've been a long-time HN lurker, but we recently returned from a trade show experiment I thought I'd share with the rest of the small startups here: what happens when you drop the $20k booth, and pick up Twitter as the main marketing tool instead?
As startups, we're often forced to be ultra-conservative about where we spend our money. Last October my co-founder, Rian Gauvreau, and I launched Clio, a web-based practice management tool designed specifically for solos and small firm lawyers. We've been building buzz about it using word-of-mouth marketing, but wanted to step things up at a tradeshow and try to get the word out in the mainstream legal press and blogs.
The legal industry's biggest tradeshow, LegalTech New York, was the obvious place to do this - it just wrapped up yesterday. We wanted to attend the show and raise the visibility of Clio, which traditionally would be done by buying a booth, flying out 2-3 people to staff it up, buying some giveaways, etc. Renting the space for the booth alone would be $10k (just for a 10x10 booth), while buying a booth can easily be another $5-10k.
Looking at a $20k+ tab to have a booth at this show, we decided we should look at an alternative: just showing up at the conference with a laptop for demos, setting up meetings beforehand with e-mail, and leveraging Twitter to connect with existing and potential clients at the meeting (lawyers have a surprisingly vibrant presence on twitter - http://www.lextweet.com/).
The response? We spent 2 solid days answering DM's to set up meetings, even connected with giants in the field like Bob Ambrogi (@bobambrogi) via Twitter. It was easily the most positive and exciting tradeshow experience I've had, and we didn't spend a penny on the traditional booth, shwag and rental expenses. For any other HN startups out there: think twice before shelling out for an expensive booth to get the message out: you might be surprised at how effective Twitter can be as a marketing tool.
We blogged about this recently at http://www.goclio.com/blog/2009/02/05/ltny-wrap-up-how-twitter-changed-how-we-will-approach-tradeshows/. We're at http://twitter.com/goclio.
Would be interesting in hearing other experiences/opinions around tradeshows. <comment><USER2> This is just awesome. Can you tell us more about how you engaged people on Twitter? Did you spend a lot of time building a Twitter following before you did this?

We've been doing guerilla stuff at conferences for a couple years now; clearly, it's better to book a room somewhere and pay for a bar than it is to buy a booth. But doing direct outreach with Twitter sounds even more effective. And my target market is very much on Twitter.

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually hadn't spent much time on Twitter prior to the show. Went in with about 60 follows, and left with roughly double.

We found what worked best was making some informative posts on the hashtag for the conference. In our case the conference hashtag was #LTNY.

We just requested that people DM us for a demo, etc., and the response was phenominal!

You can see the amount of traffic, as well as some of our posts at: <http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23LTNY></comment></comment>


Tricks to Monetize Your Side Projects - <AUTHOR> http://jeremyaboyd.com/tricks-to-monetize-your-side-projects/ <comment><USER2> Along with all the others here, I also immediately unsubscribe and get rid of products that feel like they're a bit too close for comfort. My side project is now making a lot of money, and people value tremendously not getting newsletters, or messages from John, the customer superhero. There is value in email, tremendous value, but I strongly believe that it's timing, wording and situation that will get you the most mileage here. I send one single email after about a week of no user pulse, all it says is: we still have your data, looks like you may haven't had a chance to try this yet, here's a coupon that expires today and it'll get you some extra credits (or whatever your product offers). If not interested, simply remove your account by clicking here.

No point in storing dead accounts. I don't care about a falsely inflated user base. People love that.

Also, I end the email by saying, "click reply to talk to our CEO directly and ask any questions you may have."

The last one gets a lot of conversions, and helps tremendously in figuring out what their concerns are.

This system is doing the magic for me.

<comment><USER3> In the spirit of forthrightness, wouldn't it be consistent to call yourself the owner or proprietor rather than "our Chief Executive Officer"?

<comment><USER4> This all depends on the audience. Our tests have shown if you are a B2E company or you have a higher priced good, CEO/President/Some Official Sounding Title makes more sense. But if you are aiming toward the consumer market or small businesses, Owner typically sells better.

We tested this out on the "Agency" vs "Basic" and "Pro" plans for Linklicious.

<comment><USER2> Very good point as I personally hate, hate, hate the term CEO in business smaller than 20 employees. Founder is also a bit pretentious, owner sounds like "I own this, you can use it, but I own it!" In the U.K. we use Managing Director, which is very uptight. I don't know. It's almost never beneficial (above a certain package price) to be overly open about something being a side-project, or small operation (one man especially)—but I also believe it's very wrong (and usually very telling) to act like there's six offices around the world.

Tough line, I have a proper company, and under this entity, all side projects are run, so that keeps it mostly okay to say CEO. I happily open up a bit if people get curious though, usually in the many emails people send over the months.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps "High Heid Yin"?

[http://www.thedialectdictionary.com/view/letter/General+Scot...](http://www.thedialectdictionary.com/view/letter/General+Scotish/5348/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > First and foremost, always, always, always, split test EVERYTHING.

That's a lot of work and as a developer I couldn't care less, since it's just a side project. Just ask people about your core message and if it doesn't resonate, change things.

> On-boarding

This is the hardest thing to get right. Too much instruction will be counter productive, too little will be unpredictable. Black magic.

> 1 Hour later

I'd instantly unsubsribe. Leave me the ____alone please with your followup mails. I can instantly tell if your personal touch email is sent 60 min later that it 's a bot. Product hunt follow up mails on my submissions are bots. I find it lame.

It also probably converts more :)

> Price Anchoring

Do, test, ask. This is the most crucial part of any business. I'd personally push a lot of focus here.

> QA the SHIT out of your product

Well said, any product start should have this as #1 priority.

> While I know this is probably only a side project, there is no reason you > couldn't turn this into a viable small startup with an additional 1-2 > developers

What you listed above already takes a fulltime job of 1-2 people.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for you comments.

I agree with you on unsubscribing from the emails, but it works. 86% of the users open, 54% click, 23% replied to the email and only 2% unsubscribed.

At my job with HKSEO/Humankind, this is what I spent my days doing, but I would do 4-5 prototypes at a time, pitch them to the owner, build the 1-2, launch and repeat constantly. Once the product was making a decent amount of money, we would spend more time doing the split testing and on-boarding (which was also split tested).

So I know a single developer can do this on 20% time if they aren't expecting a 1 week turnaround.

<comment><USER7> > _86% of the users open_

How did you measure this if there's literally no email clients left out there that load remote content by default?

<comment><USER8> Probably wrong numbers because of gmail. Gmail will cache the image automatically, regardless of wether or not you open the mail. This is done specifically to prevent people to know that you open their mail. So you must have a shitload of false positives in there.

<comment><USER4> As far as I'm aware, google doesn't load the image unless you open the email. That said, these numbers are from 3 years ago prior to that change.

It is the last information I have from my job with Humankind before I left for a corporate gig.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Speaking as someone who turned their 5 year side project into a full time startup, I whole heartedly disagree with point 1 - split testing is likely to be a waste of your time.

Unless you have a tonne of traffic, and let's face it, side projects tend not to, A/B testing simply doesn't work. I've tried it a few times with BugMuncher, but the results take 3 - 4months, and are usually inconclusive. I've spoken to other people in similar situations and they've found the same thing. For reference, BugMuncher is lucky to see 3,000 uniques a month :)

I believe A/B testing is a good idea when you have the traffic for it, and I'd love to be able to make use of it, but unless your side project is getting 10s of thousands of unique views each month, there's much better things to spend your limited time on.

<comment> gm-conspiracy What is your startup?

<comment><USER9> BugMuncher - [https://www.bugmuncher.com](https://www.bugmuncher.com) I've been transparently blogging about my experiences going full time and trying to get profitable without outside funding - it's been a pretty crazy year but I'm still on target :)

<comment><USER10> I read you blog post tilte "My Timeline of Failed Business Ideas" [0] It was a interesting reading, I can relate to that. I think everyone here have a similar timeline after a few years in the business.

[0][https://www.bugmuncher.com/blog/timeline-of- failures/](https://www.bugmuncher.com/blog/timeline-of-failures/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In response to the email spam thing (5 emails after the first week of a signup. Wow):

I have some projects that fit the use case very well, but I personally hate receiving them. I know that I am not the target audience of my app and that familiarity with a product and just having the name show up over and over makes the product easier to recognize. Of course, the data shows it converts better.

It just seems like one of those dark patterns.

Is it really about choosing ethics or money? Is there a third option?

<comment><USER12> I don't like them either, but when I implemented them with our latest SaaS app, it really proved to be extremely useful to engage with users, and bring them back to the fold if they were thinking of letting their trial lapse.

The beauty is that we run it all using Intercom.io, and if someone really doesn't want to hear from us, they can unsubscribe and never hear from us again. If they stay on, we can really tailor the drip onboarding emails and tailor it to suit their situation (e.g. logged on less that 'x' times, only entered < 5 transactions, never visited a particular page etc.)

Speaking of 'dark patterns', I absolutely abhor, and insist on never using pop up email request dialogs on the main landing page of our site. My philosophy is never badger a potential customer before they sign up, but rather entice them to engage with me and my product after they have expressed an interest and signed up for a trial. We don't want to 'punish' people for just looking but we don't want them to feel alone if they are looking to become a user.

Even then, if they choose to walk away, we stop pestering them after one last attempt to entice them back.

<comment><USER4> So I quit doing all of this right as intercom.io big (3 years ago now), so I'm jealous you are getting to work with them because I have only heard amazing things from the few industry people I still speak with. Maybe one day I will make my way back into the product world, and I will look to implement them instead of having to roll my own!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author here. I'm happy to answer any questions or comments. A little about this post:

I was recently commenting on an excellent Show HN for a product called Duet and it was the most karma I have ever received on HN (17 votes in 4 hours), and another respondent said I should write it up as a blog post. So here it is.

<comment><USER13> Hey, thanks for writing this.

What do you think of MNMN.io? That's one of my side projects.

<comment><USER14> I'd like to see some examples of the summaries. If you've performed a few already, it's literally no additional work to post them.

You might want the units you charge by the word summarized. A possible issue might be highly technical texts that require specialized knowledge. You could charge more for those.

Your business model is basically what I call 1:1 - One person pays for a summary and you perform one summary.

It might be more profitable to do a N:1 - A bunch of people pay for the same summary and you perform one summary.

This is how SparkNotes and CliffNotes work. Imagine selling "The top ten daily Hacker News posts/comment threads summarized daily."

Even better would be to offer summaries of things many people want that are relevant for longer periods of time (so you can sell to more people). A site that summarizes famous speeches would be one such example.

<comment><USER13> Sure, you can see some summary examples here: [https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN](https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >always, always, always, split test EVERYTHING

Side projects tend to not have the traffic for this. If in doubt, use a calculator to calculate how long it would take to statistically detect a given uplift.

Instead, user-test everything. User-tests give feedback that's rich, nuanced, instant, qualitative and granular. And each one needn't take more than five minutes.

</comment><comment><USER16> _Annual Licensing - Don 't give updates away unless it is a bug fix._

I strongly disagree with this point. Patching in bug/security fixes to different versions of a product is several orders of magnitude more work than just having everyone on the latest, most secure and most patched version. For a _side project_ to be successful you want to spend as as little energy on admin as possible and much energy on the project as you can.

Have one version. Differentiate between tiers by using feature flags so everyone is on the same codebase. Make development _easy_ and design things so there's as little admin work as you possibly can.

</comment><comment><USER17> _Immediately: email

1 Hour: email

Day 2: email

Day 6: email

Day 10: email_

Maybe it works but that kind of crap is super annoying and for me is going to turn me off your product. IF I ask you a question, quick and helpful followup is often the key between my staying with your product or moving on. Annoying unsolicited spam is not.

<comment><USER18> If I downloaded the software I have no problem with that frequency. But you can take it too far. A week ago I downloaded a white paper. Now the guy is sending me six emails a day to get me to subscribe to his for pay course.

I liked the white paper. I'd gladly let him check back with me 4-5 times a year and I might even buy one of his courses. But the guy has lost me forever with this rabid emailing. You'd think a marketing expert would know that wouldn't you?

<comment><USER19> Being extremely annoying to lots of people most likely converts for them.

This sort of marketing is pretty sociopathic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Beyond split testing, it's a good idea to collect usage metrics for everything your users do on the site. At a bare minimum, you can send event data to something like Google Analytics and sift through it by hand to look for patterns.

Ideally though, you should be associating that data back to userids and bucketing it by whether or not that particular user converted to paid or let his trial expire. That way you can collect statistics on what things make your users happy so that you can know what sort of features to add in the future, and so that you can gently steer wayward users toward doing things that you know will tend to bump their chances of converting.

I've been writing a bit about this lately. Here's a better thought out explanation of the above:

[http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/maximizing-saas- trial-...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/maximizing-saas-trial- conversions.html)

<comment><USER4> In Google Analtyics we use the user id attribute and custom variables to track back their email address in reporting.

I always wanted to use kissmetrics, but the owner would never pay for it so we made due with our GA and custom rolled everything (which honestly cost more to maintain than the 200/mo kissmetrics).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My side projects are arcane libraries and infrastructure for developers so......not gonna happen.

<comment><USER4> Developers don't usually pay, but you don't have to make money off of that project directly.

In internet/affiliate marketing this is what we called a "lead in" to the back-end offer (typically training or a consulting gig).

We would typically write an ebook and give it away for an email address, then over the coming weeks send tips and tricks leading into a soft sale of a product or training that would completely automate everything they just learned in the ebook.

<comment><USER21> That's true. And I'm sort of going into that line of work. Good trick!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So the irony isn't lost on me that I should have probably had my blog monetized! I am writing a book on how to properly hire for, build out and project manage your development team. Would have been nice to have that on the blog BEFORE I got 5000 visitors!

<comment><USER22> I was thinking about that as I read through these comments and you kept saying how you should get back into the industry. Monetize your knowledge of it in other words. Your idea about the how was better, though. No surprise. :)

<comment><USER4> I definitely didn't expect this response. No way to collect email addresses or anything! My personal blog got 100 visits per month on average, it is now getting that every 5 minutes.

Oh well. I'm just glad I can help a lot of people with this post.

<comment><USER23> Add a note to the end of the post to say you're available for consulting.

<comment><USER4> Done and done! Thanks for that suggestion. I'm not a big fan of self promotion, so it takes a lot for me to "sell" myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow, If I get spammed an hour after trying something, and then again after a day or two that would be it. No chance I'd EVER use their product even if it was free.

<comment><USER25> Agreed. Whenever a service does this to me I immediately turn off any further messages and seriously re-evaluate using it. I strongly dislike this kind of messaging, which is exacerbated as a lot of services follow the exact same pattern!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > "Day 2 (if they haven't used the product): Have you had a chance to use > {ProductName}? - Body of the email went over a few benefits left out of the > second email..."

When I get this email, I unsubscribe/ignore/tell them I'm not interested. If it's too high-pressure, I'm out.

</comment><comment><USER27> Regarding onboarding I think one thing you can do is be smarter about the trial period. I will often signup for things and not get around to properly trailing before the trial period runs out.

No doubt if I email you you will give extra trial period, this could be done automatically though with an accompanying follow up email to reengage. As you would be tracking usage metrics anyway there would be plenty of data to decide if I have properly trialed the full capability of the software or not.

</comment><comment><USER28> > First and foremost, always, always, always, split test EVERYTHING. Well most > side projects I think have very little traffic / customers, due to most side > projects being done by developers (not marketers) and these developers > having little time to work on them. It's a bit of a waste of time to AB test > a project when you don't have enough traffic / user activity to generate > meaningful results.

</comment><comment><USER29> Any suggestions for [http://www.pincalendar.com](http://www.pincalendar.com) ? my side project written with django

<comment><USER30> Write an [https://eager.io/](https://eager.io/) plugin that basically creates an account and a calendar automatically, then embeds it in the target page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Include your own payment processor by default (I would use Stripe, > personally)

In my opinion this decision (not only which payment provider to use, but whether to do it yourself at all!) depends highly on the kind of project. Fraud detection, international tax compliance, etc. can quickly become very expensive. Choose carefully.

<comment><USER4> The good news with Stripe is it handles all of the fraud and tax compliance. All you need to do is on the off chance your client does more than 200 transactions AND $20k in billing to send them a form 1099-k

<comment><USER31> Is that new? See my other comment on this page for a story about some poor fellow who used Stripe and was getting charged £22 for every reversed £6 charge...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Would love some feedback on monetizing my side project..

[https://simplerm.co](https://simplerm.co)

Paywall isn't implemented yet so feel free to sign up and try it out.

A lot of feedback I've gotten so far has been on the pricing and finding it hard to get the right mix.

<comment><USER33> If I'd ever feel the need to sit down and manage my contacts/relationships, the 100 contacts from the cheapest plan would be nothing. Maybe unlimited contacts but fewer features (which someone could discover and want as they go along)?

<comment><USER32> Thanks for the feedback. I'm thinking a freemium model might be useful for exactly this sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > from $0 to $80 CLTV on a $15 product.

What is CLTV?

<comment><USER35> Customer Life Time Value. It's the average amount of revenue he can expect from a particular type of customer (trial users) over some time window (X months from signup, typically 12-36)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> You need help? __University Grades Changing __Bank Account Hacks __Twitter Hacks __Email Account Hacks __Grade Changes Hacks __Whatsapp Hacks __URL removal __Database Access. Contact at :email@example.com. or forward a text to +16473894170. You are guaranteed to get an immediate response and Job done in the shortest of time frame.

</comment><comment><USER37> > you could always know the date and time you pushed a new version of the page > and track visits/conversions from then until you replaced it with the next > test.

While this is true, it's worth acknowledging that this comes with some risk. If the current version is doing reasonably well, you could potentially miss out on a lot of conversions by replacing it with an untested version.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'd also say get community involved early in your project. Use something like Baqqer to put it up, embed newsletters, open up a shop, get feedback/help and give it some distribution.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice blog post. I can attest to the fact that I have tried most of the suggestions on there with fairly good results.

<comment><USER4> Thank you!

Yeah, these aren't a secret if you live and work in products. For most people creating a side project, though, marketing and product management is some sort of dark voodoo magic.

I like lifting the veil on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Harassment.

</comment><comment><USER40> Sounds more like a job than a side project.

<comment><USER4> Monetizing your 20% project can turn it into a job!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> How about Yout.com?

<comment><USER42> The shitty German translations are a big turn off for me, to be honest. Looks like a bot translated phishing mail...

It might be tolerable for a free as in beer service, but if anybody wanted me to pay for it, do the translation properly (e.g. hire somebody for a few bucks), or focus on languages you mastered first. I am more likely to pay for a "proper" English-language service than a crappy "German"-language one, but that does not necessarily translate well to other Germans.

<comment><USER43> Yeah, badly done translations are a big turnoff.

In Czech version they call their "Premium" plan button as "Insurance".

This is good point for monetising side projects: if you are going to create international version, spent 20 USD on people who actually speak that language or keep it in English.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> These "tricks" are so awful I can't comment. This guy just tells you to do everything you already wanted to, but don't have time to it (it's an article about side projects, so this is totally unexpected), and it doesn't tell you what to prioritize or anything like that.

Also, many of the "tricks" are bullshit, or, if they're not, at least they're not proved in any way.

</comment><comment><USER44> So the core idea is: When doing a job for a customer, use that time to resell other people's stuff with an increased price and don't tell the customer about you taking a cut. Sounds shady!

Why not make money on the side by providing additional values? E.g. if you write a plugin that enables the customer to deliver his service, don't charge a fixed price but a yearly license fee, including updates to the software and the ability to write you an email if a question occurs.

In the end being honest is always paying off more in the long run. If you do shady stuff like that it will work in the short run, but will cost you customers who just find other developers.

<comment><USER4> > When doing a job for a customer, use that time to resell other people's > stuff with an increased price and don't tell the customer about you taking a > cut. Sounds shady!

What is this in regard to? I was always a product builder (I haven't done client work in nearly a decade) and if I could utilize someone else's product inside mine to not only save me development time but provide a better experience and charge more, I will do that ever time. There is nothing dishonest about that.

When you get a cab from point a to point b, you are paying more than just the gas/depreciation, you are paying for the fact that someone is doing something for you. Same with every product.

<comment><USER44> Yes, but if you write an app that helps me get a cab, you get a share from that one business with the cab and me. You don't get a share of the next 100 cabs I use or the next 100 customers the cab gets without your app.

The service you provide should be paid well. But recurring income without telling any side of the business may even be illegal.

<comment><USER4> >But recurring income without telling any side of the business may even be illegal.

I am still very confused by your meaning. If you could expand it further, that would help me possibly better get my point across. I think there may be a miscommunication.

<comment><USER44> Look, you have a payment processor A and implement it in website of business B. You take a share of all the trades, have I understood that correctly? And you didn't tell either company A or B about it? I think that is probably stealing money. Don't wonder if one side figures that out that they sue you.

<comment><USER4> Oh, I understand now.

If your small business goes to Stripe/Square/etc you will be quoted a 3% + 30cents transaction fee. By pushing volume through them, they lower your transaction fee. As far down as 2% + 0cents. This would allow you to add value while profiting from the spread.

And to your stealing money comment, all business is stealing money. You take a service that is less than you sell it for. If you were doing it any other way, you wouldn't be in business for long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> One month of phone support... for a _side-project_? Ouch.

You can make that high-tier throwaway suggestion when the app is an invoicing app for freelancers who will never buy that tier, but it's bad general advice. For the general product, you better hope you _don 't_ get a few enterprise customers who don't see a difference between $100 and $500 when it comes to pricing, and who can drain your phone with demand...

</comment><comment><USER46> this seems less like side-projects and more like major projects?

<comment><USER4> Not really. I used all of this on my 20% projects. Granted my entire job was 20% projects, just 5 of them at a time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> For once a top voted HN article is up there to be 100% criticized and fix the bad advice. Quite different from the usual norm of supportive discussion.</comment>


YouTubers at War Over Those 'React' Videos - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/following/2016/01/youtubers-at-war-over-those-react-videos.html <comment><AUTHOR> Announcement: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2UqT6SZ7CU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2UqT6SZ7CU)

Update after the controversy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t-vuI9vKfg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t-vuI9vKfg)

</comment><comment><USER2> Didn't Candid Camera do this way back in the day? How do they think they can just grab control like this?</comment>


Antibiotics in Meat Could Be Damaging Our Guts - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/opinion/sunday/meat-antibiotics-organic-farming.html <comment><USER2> Some FUD, but farmers definitely abuse antibiotics. But of course they do, since they buy them in bulk at the store.

I have a lot of veterinarian friends, and the fact of the matter is farmers purchase antibiotics like any other supplies. Farmers get to skirt the process most other animal owners go through, and in most states and jurisdictions don't need to go through a licensed veterinarian to obtain antibiotics.

Most veterinarians I know think it's ridiculous, and causes more harm than good. But farmers have lobbied for these freedoms. Many veterinarian friends complain that many farmers are entitled, and feel that they should be able to do whatever they want with their herd.

If you ask me, Farming is one profession that needs to have stronger regulations that are actually enforced e.g. antibiotics, humane treatment, etc.

It's a grey area for sure -- do I let my sick animals suffer so I can sell them? Or do I give them medicine that makes them ineligible for certain consumption categories.

<comment><USER3> > do I let my sick animals suffer so I can sell them?

This isn't what the antibiotics are for. They increase growth. We don't know why.

It is also a giant source of antibiotic resistance, which is why it should be illegal, much less the disruption of your gut microbiota from consuming antibiotics.

<comment><USER4> > This isn't what the antibiotics are for. They increase growth. We don't know > why.

Do you have a source for this? Sounds very interesting if true

<comment><USER5> Seriously this trend on HN to knee jerk react with "do you have sources for xyz" needs to stop. Googling it in 5 seconds will give you plenty of sources. Do your own research.

<comment><USER6> Aviv isn't just telling you not to be lazy. The observations that someone includes when they are trying to confirm their hypothesis are scientifically meaningless. Observations are only valid when they are made with good faith effort to discredit the hypothesis. This includes the meta-observations of going out and finding studies on the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We give antibiotics to cattle to get them to absorb more energy from grain and get fat.

We eat those antibiotics.

We eat grain and get fat.

</comment><comment><USER7> One of the reasons why I'm trying to cut down meat consumption. Evidence seems to be mounting that it's not the greatest plan...

<comment><USER8> I don't think regular plants with all kinds of pesticides, or GMO plants with all kinds of non-long-term-tested gene modifications to improve sale-ability and profit margins, would be much better...

<comment><USER9> So buy organic. And I'm guessing any GMO plants will be much safer than antibiotic-laced alternatives.

<comment><USER10> Given the strong congressional lobby against labeling, organic doesn't mean much in and of itself. The problem with genetically engineered foodstuffs is not necessarily the foodstuff itself but that in practice it's mostly synonymous with herbicide resistance. And that herbicide is mostly synonymous with glyphosate which is looking to also be really screwing with our gut biome on top of being a probable carcinogen. On the topic of glyphosate there was an interesting submission here [1].

[1] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17043629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17043629)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> open-source-ux This 2011 chart shows antibiotic use in livestock in countries around the world, including New Zealand, the US and the EU. The use of antibiotics varies hugely between countries. If anyone has more recent figures, please post:

[https://amr-review.org/sites/default/files/Info%204%20bar%20...](https://amr- review.org/sites/default/files/Info%204%20bar%20chart%20white.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER11> And what about antibiotic résistance for human induced by that ?

We ask out doctors to try to avoid giving antibiotics if it can be avoided, but there are sole cases where animals are massively dosed with it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what the perfect diet ends up being once you consider things like antibiotics, heavy metals, pesticides, and other contaminants and not just macro/micro nutrition.

<comment><USER13> The answer is most definitely a whole food plant-based diet.

See the book How Not to Die for more here: [https://www.amazon.com/How-Not- Die-Discover-Scientifically/d...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Die-Discover- Scientifically/dp/1250066115)

<comment><USER14> I would reword plant-based to be plant-centric. Vegan/Vegetarian diets have many many issues (xenoestrogen, B12 deficiency, reduced sex hormone levels just to name a few) and are not a normal consumption pattern for genetic omnivores like us humans.

<comment><USER15> And most of those are actually misinformation. B12 being the only real one, but that isn't an issue because you can just supplement it. The B12 from meat comes from supplements anyways, so there is no difference. Just cutting out the middleman.

<comment><USER16> Exactly this. It's mind-blowing what kind of questions my well-educated ask about being a vegetarian. "Where do you get proteins from?" or "What about iron?". Really?!

The only real thing missing is B12 and of that the body needs so tiny amounts that every idiot can supplement it easily.

<comment><USER17> Not a vegan but B12 is easy to get (I have Crohns and B12 deficiency is fairly common), 1 energy drink is ~250% of RDA (They are stuffed with it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We use unnatural tricks to lower the cost of production, the production of a luxury (read: not a necessity at the levels being consumed) that is very natural resources intensive to produce; to say nothing of the pollution produced by production.

The lower cost increases consumption; using more resources, producing more pollution. That is contributing to health issues in those who consume it. The lower peoduction coat is eaten up by medical coats.

It sounds like a terrorist plot.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'll say it, although this isn't popular.

The world has too many people. We had to engineer our food supply to keep up with what is needed to feed everyone.

<comment><USER20> > We had to engineer our food supply to keep up with what is _needed_ to feed > everyone.

Nah, not _needed_. It's only because people eat so much meat.

<comment><USER21> However, meat is a complement to vegetables because it restores what they take out of the soil, so it's not as inefficient as it seems.

[https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/993309884711129088](https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/993309884711129088)

<comment><USER22> Where do cows get their nutrients from?

<comment><USER21> I guess what she's saying must only apply to grass fed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What do you mean "our?"

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm more worried about the Disease Resistant Bacteria than a blanket claim from a grass-fed organic beef producer that it's causing obesity, etc.

Perhaps he figures that "causes obesity" would get more people concerned that about the risks of resistant infections.</comment>


Jeff Dean interview: Machine learning trends in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/13/google-ai-chief-jeff-dean-interview-machine-learning-trends-in-2020/ <comment><USER2> The 2020 trends question is right at the end. Summary:

\- much more multitask learning and multimodal learning

\- more interesting on-device models — or sort of consumer devices, like phones or whatever — to work more effectively.

\- AI-related principles-related work is going to be important.

\- ML for chip design

\- ML in robots

</comment><comment><USER3> This the first nonsense talk by Jeff Dean. AI doesn't help at all it battling climate change, only politics do help. The models are accurate enough for centuries, AI would only help in hard forecasting in the usual 2 weeks window on local events. Long term on global scale there's no AI needed at all. So it looks like he ran out of topics to entertain himself. Or he went politician. Which would be a welcoming change.

<comment><USER2> I'd agree that Jeff there is a man with only a hammer walking around telling us that Climate Change is a nail. Engineers can't fix everything.

Of course the engineering is important, but politics is 1000% the road block on climate action and that is where efforts should be focused,

<comment><USER4> > that is where efforts should be focused

Are all humans fungible? You don't think it's valuable to have some errant geniuses trying to think of weird and creative ways to solve climate change through unconvential engineering? It's not as though they'd be good politicians.

<comment><USER2> Of course yes, that's valuable. But the political focus shouldn't be lost in the messaging. Google needs to take a political stand on Climate Change, first and foremost. The engineering investment is secondary. We already have the technology to solve our climate problems. We don't _need_ the fancy AI solutions. We just need to implement what we have already _right now_.

That needs to be made abundantly clear to everybody.

If Google is asked "what are you doing to address Climate Change?" and we hear predominantly engineering talk, then they're being disingenuous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have tips on how a European based developer with machine learning expertise can get involved with projects battling climate change like Jeff is talking about here?

<comment> kot-behemoth My current client is a sophisticated AI/ML startup/consultancy, Faculty ([https://faculty.ai](https://faculty.ai)). They have extensive experience in a variety of areas, and do some cutting-edge stuff. If you're intested, either ping me (email in the profile) and I can connect, or use the website.

<comment><USER6> +1 for Faculty - very smart team

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> [https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433)

This paper seems relevant to the climate change part. This is more about what to do rather than technologies.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hope one of those trends will be fixing (or abandoning) TensorFlow, because it's really disorganized, full of legacy and mysterious behaviors, and in some places just plain badly engineered.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this entire talk up on YouTube somewhere?

</comment><comment><USER10> Somebody tell Jeff about Jevon's Paradox, or actually don't bother.

<comment><USER11> Is Jevons paradox really a problem when your carbon footprint is zero?

> VentureBeat: One of the things that's come up a lot lately, you know, in the > question of climate change — I was talking with Intel AI general manager > Naveen Rao recently and he mentioned this idea [that] compute-per-watt > should become a standard benchmark, for example, and some of the organizers > here are talking about the notion of people being required to share the > carbon footprint of the model that they trained for submissions here.

> Dean: Yeah, we'd be thrilled with that because all the stuff we trained in > our Google Data Center — the carbon footprint is zero.

<comment><USER12> >> all the stuff we trained in our Google Data Center — the carbon footprint is zero

That is a lie unless Jeff Dean lives under different physics laws.

<comment> joatmon-snoo It's a mix of (1) great work around sustainable processes and (2) nuances in defining carbon footprint.

(disclaimer: work at G)

[https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb- sustainability.appspot.c...](https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb- sustainability.appspot.com/pdf/Google_2018-Environmental-Report.pdf)

[https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/renewable/](https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/renewable/)

<comment><USER12> Buying renewable energy does not make your footprint zero. You can twist the definition until it suits your needs but if you properly count footprint of the chain, it cannot be zero.

<comment><USER13> Google buys high quality carbon offsets, not just renewable energy. It's not clear whether that makes the footprint zero. It surely depends on how you count. But their approach is less naive than "just buy RECs."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is there never a Google talk entitled "Building profiles on people with Machine Learning?"

<comment><USER15> Because you don't disclose your core business practices at conferences

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Unrelated, but for those who have never seen the Jeff Dean facts, behold: [https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean- facts](https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts)

Some highlights include:

-Jeff Dean's PIN is the last 4 digits of pi.

-He once shifted a bit so hard it ended up on another computer.

-He wrote an O(n^2) algorithm once. It was for the Traveling Salesman Problem.

-Jeff Dean once implemented a web server in a single printf() call. Other engineers added thousands of lines of explanatory comments but still don't understand exactly how it works. Today that program is known as GWS.

-There is no 'Ctrl' key on Jeff Dean's keyboard. Jeff Dean is always in control.

-Jeff Dean's watch displays seconds since January 1st, 1970. He is never late.

-Jeff's code is so fast the assembly code needs three HALT opcodes to stop it.

<comment><USER17> \- After Graham Bell invented the phone he had a missed call from Jeff Dean

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't like the idea of a computer that can think for itself, I don't like the idea of computers will replace humans jobs, I don't like the way we are heading.

<comment><USER19> I wouldn't like the way it was heading either if Netflix could manage to recommend a movie that I might actually like. As is, I'm not that worried.

<comment><USER20> Hype does not care about whether it works as advertised on the tin. As long as it generates money you will be served _buzzword_ whether you like it or not and you will pay for it. If lucky, the setback will only be financial.</comment></comment></comment>


We're Being Bombarded by Ads for Drugs (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201910/were-being-bombarded-ads-drugs <comment><AUTHOR> I leave the TV on during the day, mostly for the noise, but I like to hear some news too.

It's been driving me crazy that they are CONSTANTLY advertising all sorts of drugs, constantly filling my ears with unimaginable signs and symptoms.

Is it just me? Is there anything that can be done about this?

Most of these drugs you wouldn't need to know about unless you had a very serious and specific condition. In which case, your doctor should be the one to tell you about it, or at least a google search. But why do I have to hear about horrible diseases while I'm trying to de-stress? It's insidious.</comment>


Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf, decreasing oxygen levels by 30% - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

<comment><USER2> interesting how the whole Repub Party message of "free market is good, regulation is bad" sounds in the context of this giant oil spill disaster. hopefully this classic example of Tragedy of the Commons wakes some more people up.

<comment><USER3> I heard the BP gave a lot of money to Obama.

Maybe it have something to do with Obama wants to stop drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, this is like the first oil spill in the gulf of Mexico?

Beside, isn't a whole lot of stuff got tested by Underwriter laboratory and lot of regulations and standard were simply copied from Underwriter Laboratory guidelines? This company been around for more than 200 years. Maybe private regulations have some merit. (coupled with consumer lawsuits to hold private regulatory agencies accountable)

P.S. I think one of the argument has been proposed against government regulations is that when the regulators failed, they get more money so they can do their "job" better. Another argument is that people trust government too much, so it should be left to private institutions because private institutions are trusted less thus get more scrutiny.

<comment><USER3> I guess spreading rumors about politicians isn't exactly socially approved around here, neither do deflecting the questions.

But on the other hand, I still think the whole issue is that fisheries are not exactly owned by fishermen, thus the whole lack of lawsuit threats against oilmen for polluting their properties. This mean we have a tragedy of the common in the ocean. (Overfishing issues could properly get resolved too, but how do you own schools of fish?)

Regardless, BP will have to pay a big cleanup bill when this is all over. It's a disincentive in itself.

Also, isn't there's a danger of regulators being brought off? Fishermen don't have much of incentive to ruin their livelhood by accepting bride from oilmen. So maybe they'll be able to agree on inspectors agreed upon by oilmen and fishermen. It won't eliminate the whole issue of bridling probably, must probably raise the price of corruption higher?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as I am upset at BP, I think the American consumer needs to pay too. We need to tax gas to incentivize people to buy more efficient vehicles and fund alternate energy. Yes, windmills are expensive.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. And I like the jokes going around about alternative energy, the ones like, "You heard about the huge wind farm disaster? Yeah apparently it's caused a gentle breeze." and "You heard about the big disaster at the solar panel farm? Yeah apparently it's caused an annoying glare." Etc.

<comment><USER5> How about: "You hear the one about the people who thought they could maintain a first world standard of living while replacing cheap means of energy production with happy thoughts and butterfly power"?

<comment><USER6> False dilemma, most of the first world actually has a great standard of living without ubiquitous gas guzzlers, AC, tumble-dryers and whatnot. Some even argue that energy efficiency can be improved by a factor of five: [http://ernst.weizsaecker.de/?p=889&language=en](http://ernst.weizsaecker.de/?p=889&language=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand what makes fixing the leak so difficult. Could someone explain it to me? I genuinely want to know this.

<comment><USER8> There's also the issue of the leak being under 5000 feet of water. The deepest-diving military submarines can only go down to about 2000 feet; any more than that, and you need specialized deep submergence vehicles. Very few of these can dive to 5000 feet; those that can are usually oceanographic research vessels that can't carry the payloads needed to repair things. And you can forget about sending a human out in a diving suit; the pressure (or more specifically, the decompression process) would kill them.

<comment><USER9> "those that can are usually oceanographic research vessels that can't carry the payloads needed to repair things"

I don't see why they'd need to carry the payload in/on the vessels. Couldn't the payload be dropped or lowered from above?

<comment><USER8> Depends how much finessing it needs. Say they went with the "drop a big dome over it" idea that's been suggested. The sea floor is uneven; if they want the solution to last they need a tight seal that can withstand significant pressure. I don't know the dynamics of underwater concrete jobs, but I'd imagine you can't just pump concrete down the sides of the dome and hope that it ends up in the right place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I want to start or join an effort to come up with solutions and processes to help ensure this kind of spill never happens again. Or at least, is never again allowed to get this bad. Perfection may be impossible, but I'm confident we collectively have the brainpower, creativity, money and engineering/science knowledge to make a dramatic improvement. Does anyone know of any existing projects, grassroots or otherwise? I did some Googling but no luck so far. Ideally we'd take the best ideas from a variety of sources, draw on smart folks from various fields, and the ultimate deliverable is a recommendation of a set of tested processes and gadgets and a plan for fighting this. Ideally any money required is drawn from the oil industry, directly or indirectly, but if instead it comes from non-profit organizations or philanthropists, so be it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Glad I don't own BP stock

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, we all own stock in the US.

(speaking for HN readers who are US citizens)

<comment><USER11> You don't _have_ to be a US citizen to have a vested interest in the US economy. America is an elephant. When an elephant collapses and dies, the whole jungle feels the impact and smells the rotting stench.

<comment><USER3> Ditto. We're too interconnected to just not have a rotting stench. More like a keystone specie die, everybody else die.

<comment><USER12> No, not die. Simply regress from developing to 3rd or 4th world status.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Guest Posts and link-building for B2B SaaS - <AUTHOR> http://www.synergy4saas.com <comment><AUTHOR> Comments or feedback? We're accepting beta users</comment>