What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bolt.io/what-hardware-startups-can-learn-from-pebble-3742e2819a45#.upowlcfyh <comment><USER2> Everybody is claiming that the focus on fitness is what drives smartwatches purchases, and pebble was just too late to it.

Is it just me that stopped looking into smartwatches because they became too fitness oriented?

I loved the focus on productivity and having a watch becoming slower because it had to track an increasing number of health metrics I couldn't care less of actually killed it for me.

<comment><USER3> What productivity thing would you use a smartwatch for?

I got a Pebble as a hackathon prize and tried to use it for a while, but I wasn't able to find a use for it that I didn't already do with my smartphone, which you must take with you anyways if you have a Pebble. So I'm really curious.

<comment><USER4> The benefit of the Pebble was that you could get basic information (notifications, notes, time, alarms, etc) without having to reach for your phone. I found it perfect for meetings where I didn't want the client to feel like I was tight on time or rushing things, even if I had to.

It seems silly, but the multiple timers were especially useful for cooking large dinners.

Overall, the Pebble was great because it had fantastic battery life and provided information silently without you having to interrupt a conversation by reaching for a larger device.

<comment><USER3> >I found it perfect for meetings where I didn't want the client to feel like I was tight on time or rushing things, even if I had to.

Ah, this seems good. Socially acceptable information-checking. I'll keep this in mind as a use for smartwatches, even though I don't need it (yet?).

>It seems silly, but the multiple timers were especially useful for cooking large dinners.

You could also set the phone on a surface somewhere and have multiple timers on it, but I see how carrying them on your wrist makes them more convenient.

Thanks for writing this :)

<comment><USER4> The vibration is the key for me.

I first got the Pebble because I wanted to know who was calling or texting me while I was on my bike around town. Over the next few years the other features became part of my daily habits. Simple things like responding to texts with canned messages (e.g. 'Ten minutes away' or 'I'll call you in five') allowed me to take a relaxing ride without stressing about missing an important call or message.

My experience is similar to the days before I got a smartphone -- that 'pfft... I don't need that. I can do that when I get back to my desk.'

<comment><USER5> A subtle point here for me was that I found the vibration of the Pebble v.1 to still be rather loud and to draw the attention of anyone near me to my wrist. It's rarely mentioned, but I think the biggest feature upgrade when I moved on to the Apple Watch was how subtle the "tap" vibration was. It means that I am unfailingly aware of a notification, timer, or alarm firing, and a person I am in conversation with is never aware that it happened. The ability for it to deliver different patterns of taps is also nice, for instance, turn left or turn right are recognizably different tap patterns when using the watch for navigation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Pebble's CEO simply screwed the moment of selling. He should have sold to Citizen for almost 10x the value a year before. He did not. He burned his cash in the process of making another product.

It was a textbook CEO mistake.

<comment><USER7> Hindsight is 20/20

<comment><USER6> He thought he could create more value from his product which he did not. You either can or cannot. A counter-example is that of Mark Zuckerberg. He stuck to his product.

A good CEO has to know the limits of his product/service and stick or sell at the right moment.

<comment><USER7> I think being a good CEO involves many traits. Obviously he had the wrong impression of where Pebble stood in the marketplace and where the company was headed (ie. he didn't foresee the fitness trend, or thought they could successfully pivot). But I assume he had good reasons for doing what he did. Having multiple $10M+ kickstarter launches is evidence that he understood product needs better than most of us could ever hope to.

I'm sure he regrets the decision to not sell more than ever now, and realizes he was wrong, but to say he was a bad CEO because he didn't sell at the right time is akin to being a "Monday Morning Quarterback Expert" where it's easy to criticize somebody for not acting correctly in the past because the right decision is so obvious now.

That's what I meant by the 20/20 statement.

<comment><USER6> I understood what you meant, that's why I disagreed. :)

> but to say he was a bad CEO because he didn't sell at the right time is akin > to...

My point is exactly this. This, in hardware startups at least, is probably the most important trait of all, at the end of the day. Everything is a wave. You need to take the photos and jump while you are on the top of it, otherwise you are swallowed by it further down the "road".

Knowing when the wave is at its max (before breaking) is as important in surfing as in business, apparently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's focus and there are killer apps.

For the Apple Watch, I use it for 3 main things: 1) fitness - it's a great motivator in addition to Strava (I don't record all my activity like walks in Strava). 2) Wunderground complication + timetravel is fantastic 3) Duologin for 2nd factor is much easier than the iPhone.

Pebble failed because Apple made the watch into a iPhone accessory and Apple Watch was better integrated than the Pebble.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, and once Apple decided to sell their own watch, the hope that anyone else would be able to successfully integrate their smartwatch with the iPhone went out the window, unfortunately.

I hate these stupid ecosystems. There are times I want to use Prime Video on an Apple TV and then stream from a PC or something odd like that. Maybe I want to use an Apple watch with an Android phone..

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really wonder if fitness is a big market. The size of Soda and fast food giants vs. "fitness food" indicates it's a niche industry.

Seems to me that the real issueay be the technology is not good enough/fast enough to provide a seamless substitute to watch/phone functions and the fitness people are really the early adopters who are willing to trade off quirky tech for their niche needs being met

<comment><USER11> A fitness/diet food that is as cheap as fast food would be amazing! Often my issue is getting sick of a small selection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> People might not remember that pebble didn't try to pivot from a smart watch to a fitness tracker but rather the opposite. They pivoted to a smart watch from a sort-of fitness tracking device (bicycling tracker.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Peeble certainly wasn't the first smartwatch company.

I have a few Casio and Timex that prove otherwise.

They were just a victim that smart watches aren't really that sustainable long term product.

There is a reason why Japan companies stop selling them in the 90's.

</comment><comment><USER14> What can regular people learn from Pebble? Don't put your money into crowd sourced products from companies that don't listen to the contributors.

</comment><comment><USER15> Uh, comparing Apple to Rolex is ridiculous. One is a mass produced piece of plastic retailing for a few hundred dollars, and the other is a status symbol of craftsmanship that, price point wise, is more equivalent to a used car. Smartwatches inherently occupy a niche like Google Glass. Real watches, timepieces, chronographs, are already so well established and up market that, uh, I don't think the conversation is really even comparable.

</comment><comment><USER16> I fear that the repercussions will be that 'hardware' means longer and more costlier life-cycles, and that the path to 'high flying' is just quicker/easier in software, and that it will make it more difficult to raise money for these kinds of things.</comment>


The Internet is killing storytelling - <AUTHOR> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article6903537.ece <comment><USER2> The Internet is killing storytelling? What?

<http://www.fanfiction.net/> <http://www.fictionpress.com/> <http://www.scribd.com/> (And lots of others...)

I rest my case.

<comment><USER3> Though, to be fair, fanfiction.net is its own argument against internet literacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's the 21st century. Just because the mainstream isn't actively engaged in your favorite form of it doesn't meant it's _dead_.

Heck, even if every native-born English speaker stopped writing and reading novels, there's a good chance that some community of Japanese Otaku would arise to lovingly curate it forever.

The 3 minute pop tune didn't kill the symphony. Just because it's not what the _mainstream_ is doing, doesn't mean it's _dead_. Note that classical music has found a new home, appreciated by the mainstream in movie soundtracks. Your community might be waning, but it won't die. Sometimes, a downturn can even be a blessing!

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't help but be reminded of when Merlin Mann said "little stories are the internet's native and ideal art form... little dumb stories that I never expected."

Read it all--it's worth it. Plus, that this was even written (not to mention well-received) poses a fine counterpoint to any argument stating that storytelling on the internet is dead: <http://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/169873399/clackity-noise>

<comment><USER6> That's an awesome counterpoint! Thanks for sharing! Also brings to mind <http://paulgraham.com/essay.html> \- writing as a way to discover just exactly what's rattling around in there at the current moment...

What I believe is a more appropriate angle to take is that the nature of reading itself is changing. Reading tends to be one-way, whereas human nature tends to crave communication more - hence the shorter stories / tweets / facebook popularity.

But this in itself tends to build a longer narrative - I've been reading HN now for well over a year (much longer than I've spent on a novel) and though the items themselves are short snippets, due to my interest they tend to form chapters of narratives in general directions: programming, hacking the body, start-up life and culture.

And one of the amazing things is that _I_ get to contribute and write part of the story as it is unfolding - often with unexpected results! That is something that you just can't get from a book - the interaction is of an entirely different nature, yet can still very much be 'consumed' in the same way _if you choose to_

[my two cents worth, and maybe a little rambling - but then it was kinda inspired by the parent link...]

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The author's point is lacking, despite his heavy-handed rhetorical flourish. The sales of books may be down, but the number of writers are up and climbing - and the downturn of the sales of books originated far before Twitter came to light. Arguably, even before the Blackberry. And I question as to how many "viral" narratives the author even knows about - maybe my online social net's unique in this, but when a good story is found, it's usually something with an extensive archive and requires a few hours to fully absorb.

Not to mention that, in the defense of Twitter and other short-burst mediums, treating them with the same standards as a long-form narrative Misses The Dang Point by a rather large margin. The rising popularity of burst mediums is because they're /dialogue enablers/, not because they offer an alternative to a good novel. Lamenting Twitter's effect on storytelling is like blaming cell phones for the decline of Broadway.

</comment><comment><USER7> The wire telegraph and the rotary printing press killed storytelling some time in the 19th century with these newfangled "papers" that everybody is still moaning about. No, wait, that moaning now is about these papers disappearing again because a new, stronger narrative medium has come along.

<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=572887>

In other news, culture is in a process of steady decline at least since the invention of the written word.

</comment><comment><USER8> good stuff.

No seriously, the long narrative is dying. I just finished "Anna Karenina" and am seriously thinking about "War and Peace" for the holidays (perhaps all the holidays to come, based on it's length) and I can say it was more of a struggle for me to engage the long-form narrative now than it was 10 years ago. And being a techie, one of my key competitive advantages is being able to consume big, sometimes really boring, books.

After all, what's the first reply to any technical question on the web? Have you RTFM? Or on a aggregator like here? Have you RTFA?

Most of the time the answer is "no"

Too bad we Ashton Kutchner can't teach us physics via tweets. We've have a freaking nation of rocket scientists.

(Having said all of that, I understand we have a large contingent of people going through college. Hopefully since you're supposed to be working those reading muscles out a lot this won't apply as much to you guys as it does to the rest of us)

</comment><comment><USER9> This kind of article is just as annoying as the opposite extreme, the claim that the mainstream media is dead and good riddance.

There's such a culture clash right now between people raised in traditional media and publishing cultures and those who come from technology backgrounds, and neither side seems to appreciate the other.

</comment><comment><USER10> TIME FOR SOME STORIES: <http://www.storylog.com/time-for-some-stories- davesecretary/>

</comment><comment><USER11> Parables were short. Novels are the aberration.</comment>


Building a Secure Messenge - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/building-secure-messenger <comment><USER2> Whoever builds the Whatsapp for Tox would achieve legend status. It's a cool protocol but still a diamond in the rough.</comment>


Walking Through the Official Document on China' Social Credit System - <AUTHOR> https://paraditedc.com/2018/09/30/pdc-2-social-credit-system/ <comment><USER2> Here's a story of why China is a rather paradoxical state. It's not pure authoritarianism.

Many people who can't return loans have their name and id number shown on large digital billboards. The goal is to shame them into returning money.

Sounds dystopian right?

BUT the reason this is done is because these people can squat in their houses (which may bot belong to them) and the police and law can't do anything. The social backlash of kicking someone out of their sole living space would be huge.

Some lenders do things like send thugs to harrass them or get a court order to freeze their bank accounts.

Yet the "core" of the issues is that "the law is the law" is NOT followed. It has flexibility rooted in human understanding. Often lenders have to meet halfway per a judge's order b/c otherwise the lendee wouldn't be able to make a living.

<comment><USER3> I've spent a little bit of time and there and found that this is extremely true, but also equally true of America as well.

For instance, although China is absolutely totalitarian when it comes to political freedom, freedom of speech, and even freedom of thought (in fact, far more authoritarian than neoliberals will ever admit), you do feel a lot more "free" at the _street level_. There are basically no traffic laws, you can drink and smoke wherever you want, you can set up a shop on the side of a sidewalk, you can make and sell bootlegs of anything you want - you can even piss and shit in the middle of the street without so much as a second thought about it (this is disgustingly common there.)

On the flip side, in America I can (ostensibly) say whatever you want politically, but I can't legally drink a beer on the sidewalk. I can't open a certain type of shop in a certain area. I can't sell products which use such- and-such technology. I can't even cross the street at certain times and places. Land of the free!

<comment><USER4> Interestingly you can set up a microcosm of (many of) the Chinese freedoms you describe in the U.S., but not vice versa.

I can buy some unincorporated land, build a street, and let people piss and shit and sell food and knockoff purses.

However I can't buy land in China and set up an area with a free newspaper.

This is because the U.S. prohibitions you cite are _de facto_ prohibitions while the Chinese ones are actually human rights not granted by the state.

It's a somewhat academic distinction in terms of our day to day lives, but it's meaningful when talking about what social movement tactics are available to us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article smells. Like a bad code smell.

Especially since we have the Chinese government freely admitting [1] that they will restrict travel to regular citizens for "spreading false information about terrorism, causing problems on flights, using expired tickets, smoking on trains, failing to pay social insurance or failing to pay fines", according to the National Development and Reform Commission's website.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-credit/china-to- bar...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-credit/china-to-bar-people- with-bad-social-credit-from-planes-trains-idUSKCN1GS10S)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for pointing this out. I have updated it at the bottom of the article.

To clarify, I intended to write about this in this post initially, but somehow got carried away by the original document, so it ended up being just a walk through of the original document without the new additions and measures.

I think it does make sense to add additional information like this to the post to make it more complete and up-to-date.

Update:

found the original source (in Chinese) in case anyone is interested: [http://www.chinatax.gov.cn/n810341/n810755/c3359637/content....](http://www.chinatax.gov.cn/n810341/n810755/c3359637/content.html)

2nd Update:

It appears that Reuters made a mistake in their reporting, the ban is only for planes, not trains, according to the official document I linked above.

If anyone knows to get Reuters to correct its article, please let me know!

<comment><USER6> The Reuters journalist said:

\- there are multiple documents about the social credit system, not just from the tax bureau

\- people have definitely been banned from high speed rail

\- two official docs from NDRC confirm this

(I haven't received links to the docs yet, but will reply to this comment when I do)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you are right. There are 2 sources from NDRC on this. So Reuters is correct in their reporting. I've found the them on NDRC website:

[http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zcfb/zcfbtz/201803/t20180316_879618.h...](http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zcfb/zcfbtz/201803/t20180316_879618.html)

[http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html](http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html)

I've updated the links in my post as well.

It would have saved me and them the trouble if Reuters actually provided the sources.

<comment><USER6> "It would have saved me and them the trouble if Reuters actually provided the sources."

If we want them to do this, we need to start telling them. To anyone interested in seeing Reuters start including links to sources, a good first step is to email:

firstname.lastname@example.com

He handles enquiries about reporting standards.

EDIT: removed first paragraph, which I pasted in error from a chat message.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I read your first paragraph a few times and I am not still not sure what you mean. Can you explain a bit?

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I pasted the info from a chat message and, after adding some text, didn't fully remove the rest of the context.

I've edited my comment and removed that part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A government has no credit itself build up a credit system for its subjects. Before CCP grabs power in 1949, they promised a western democracy system. 30 years ago until 1 or two years ago they push for a one child policy and promised that the government will take care of old people. Both promises and many others not listed here they now just pretend never happens. This whole social credit system shit is just try to have a more strong control to the slaves who can not vote and take their organs etc easily when necessary.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is interesting, but kind of odd that the mandarin quotes weren't translated in an otherwise English article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I see. I overlooked the fact that it would be odd for people who can't read them.

Anyway, the reason I didn't translate them is partly because there's a lot of nuances in the language and any attempt to translate them would inherently require some level of interpretation and potentially cause misunderstanding. Also at the time, I was too tired from reading and summarizing the document already.

<comment><USER9> > Anyway, the reason I didn't translate them is partly because there's a lot > of nuances in the language and any attempt to translate them would > inherently require some level of interpretation and potentially cause > misunderstanding.

Welcome to translation?

<comment><USER10> Would you please stop being a jerk on HN? We've had to ask you way too many times.

I've held off banning you because you've posted good stories, but at some point it's not going to be worth it.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the west, the classic fictional story of dystopia seems to be the complete subjugation of the individual to the collective.

E.g. you become a cell enslaved to a body of "society" \- a sort of emergent A.I. that's not necessarily under anyone's control.

</comment><comment><USER12> It would be great if somebody could translate this article, since the commentary doesn't make a lot of sense if you can't read the source material.

</comment><comment><USER13> > For rewards, it mentions giving awards and publicity to model individuals > and companies. Various sectors will have "green lanes" given to "those with > integrity and credibility", for priority and simplified processes. Note that > this section does not mention scores, it merely says "诚实守信者", meaning people > with integrity and credibility.

Scary. I will say with all of the "vague context", "it appears", "I don't know", etc that this post is as speculative as the Western ones. I appreciate the impartial tone of the article. To the author, would you care to share your opinions on the system personally, i.e. whether it's a good thing? Also, do you have any anecdotal insight on how common citizens view it behind closed doors?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey. Sorry for the late reply. I'd be sure post new articles on this as follow-up once I have my personal experience with the system with my next trip to China.

<comment><USER13> Thanks. I was hoping for your opinions on the ideas rather than the implementation. Judgement based on experience/anecdote has less value due to the sheer size of the implementation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly speaking, I practice a lot of doubethink. So my opinions are quite worthless, and I'd rather just talk about facts and stats.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How much social credit do i lose by visiting a mosque or church?

</comment><comment><USER15> What is the meaning of "circulation" in the section Business Credibility?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, the exact translation for the word does seem a bit odd, but I searched online and there doesn't seem to be good equivalent term in English, the translations are generally either circulation, market or currency.

So I will translate the explanation I got from the Chinese wiki[1]:

 _The field where the medium of exchange of goods is currency_

[1] [https://baike.baidu.com/item/流通领域](https://baike.baidu.com/item/流通领域)

<comment><USER15> Then the English would be "currency exchange".

<comment><AUTHOR> According to my experience with the phrase "currency exchange", it means exchanging currencies, not exchanging goods using one particular currency as the medium of exchange. So it would be a wrong translation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's a good thread I read recently dispelling a lot if the myths about the system:

[https://www.twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1043643948185468928](https://www.twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1043643948185468928)

It seems a lot of the news is driven by a strong anti-China, even McCarthyist bias.

</comment><comment><USER17> most posts on the site aim to "debunk" the myth of Chinese products being a security risk and that Westerners just overreacting

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I wrote all 5 articles and I think only the 5th one on Huawei fits your description?

Appreciate if you can provide some feedback on how to be less biased, if that's what you mean.

<comment><USER18> If you write about topics the mainstream media have reported on, it's easy to end up looking like an apologist. The media tend to focus on negative stories because negativity drives attention. Unless you deliberately put your stories through a similar filter (why I'm not suggesting you should do), they'll be more positive than the audience has come to expect.

You could somewhat avoid that by writing about lesser-known topics. Some suggestions: image-retouching apps like B612/Faceu (although I recall some outrage about their skin-whitening effect making it to Twitter) and Chinese- only games (I know there are some big ones, but I haven't even been interested enough so far to find out whether "吃鸡" means to lose or to win).</comment></comment></comment>


Where Are the Fins? (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.apogeerockets.com/education/downloads/Newsletter248.pdf <comment><USER3> There's another reason the Ares 1 doesn't have fins, which doesn't seem to be discussed in the OP, namely: big rockets have really thick boundary layers. The boundary layer is the layer of air that a vehicle (rocket, airplane, ship, etc) "pulls" along with it as it moves through a fluid, due to the friction between the skin of the vehicle and the fluid. Basically, you don't get free laminar flow right at the skin of the vehicle. If you want to use a control surface it has to be big enough to stick far enough out into the fluid to deflect enough air (or water) to be effective.

Boundary layer thickness doesn't scale linearly with size, which is why small scale model rockets can make effective use of fins, whereas the full-sized vehicle cannot.

Combine this with the fact that, as the OP discusses, a rocket is a really unstable system and fins don't really become effective until you get a high enough speed, and that explains why the Ares 1 needs a gimballed attitude control system in the first place.

Interestingly, really early rockets, like the V-2, had control surfaces that were directly beneath the rocket nozzle, in the exhaust stream. They were, effectively, gimballing the exhaust stream by deflecting it instead of pointing the nozzle. It needed them in part because at altitude the atmosphere was thin enough that the fins weren't effective. You can see them in the picture of the V2 in the Air and Space museum:

[http://airandspace.si.edu/webimages/collections/full/A196003...](http://airandspace.si.edu/webimages/collections/full/A19600342000d19.jpg)

The little red things close to the rocket nozzle are control surfaces.

Rumor has it that the Saturn V only had fins because Werner von Braun decided that a rocket without fins just didn't look right, and ordered the engineers to add them, even though they were so small with respect to the size of the rocket stack that they were very solidly inside the boundary layer and had no effect whatsoever.

You can see them clearly here: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/4858567248/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/4858567248/)

<comment> le-mark > Rumor has it that the Saturn V only had fins because Werner von Braun > decided that a rocket without fins just didn't look right, and ordered the > engineers to add them, even though they were so small with respect to the > size of the rocket stack that they were very solidly inside the boundary > layer and had no effect whatsoever.

Hah! Thanks for this tidbit, I had never stopped to think through their presence on the saturn 5, and absenece on other vehicles.

<comment><USER4> According to von Braun's Popular Science AMA it was a safety feature:

"It is in the area of crew safety that fins come in handy. In Saturn V the booster fins are not to provide perfect aerodynamic stability under all conditions - that would take fins of excessive size. But the fins reduce the aerodynamic instability enough to make sure that the astronauts can safely abort, no matter what technical trouble may afflict their space vehicle."

( [https://books.google.de/books?id=MiYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA184](https://books.google.de/books?id=MiYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA184) , continued from [https://books.google.de/books?id=MiYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68](https://books.google.de/books?id=MiYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68) )

Both could be true at once, just like when bicycle helmets are worn more as a fashion statement than out of confidence in their protective value. Or maybe he was just squelching rumors.

<comment><USER3> Answering this accurately would require a lot more information about the aerodynamics of the Saturn V than I have. But I suspect it was the latter - <USER2> was justifying a design decision after the fact.

I say that because for the fins to do any good at all, boundary layer or not, the launch vehicle has to be moving at speed. I don't think a successful crew capsule abort would be likely past a couple of hundred miles per hour. If that.

<comment><USER5> > I don't think a successful crew capsule abort would be likely past a couple > of hundred miles per hour. If that.

That's not true at all. Every manned space launcher has provisions for bringing the crew down safely on a suborbital trajectory if orbit can't be reached. You would hardly give up on your astronauts just because, say, some stage failed to light. It's not like with an unmanned satellite, where it either gets to orbit or crashes/burns up.

Apollo certainly had provisions for crew abort all the way to orbit, which are discussed here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_abort_modes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_abort_modes)

<comment><USER3> I agree that they had those provisions. I'm just skeptical about them working if the primary stack ACS went south. The crew capsule didn't have its own ACS, IIRC. It would have likely entered a high rate tumble shortly after an abort separation.

It would have been worth a shot, just like jumping out of a speeding car about to go over a cliff. But you probably die anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Launch of a small model rocket with active stabilization.[1] This is common now, since every quadrotor drone has similar control hardware.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTND_wot9zI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTND_wot9zI)

</comment><comment><USER7> My first thought: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_does_not_exist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_does_not_exist)

<comment><USER8> "The closest thing to a fish's ass."</comment></comment>


Strong consistency in S3 (data lake) - <AUTHOR> Hi all, I just started to build the big data pipeline that require strong consistency instead of eventual consistency. I'm searching for data storage or data lake that will be capable of serve strong consistency for OLTP that is scalable even for big data. Have a good idea?<p>Currently I'm using S3 but found out that it's only support eventual consistency even if it's durable and scalable <comment><USER2> You could look at tuning hdfs or Cassandra to be strongly consistent. By default though they both use eventual consistency for replication. The difference is you can set the required number of nodes to accept a write as a success. What I can't say for sure is if this is a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi mneil,

Thanks for the suggestion,

a.Cassandra I don't think Cassandra is good option in this as well since it's by natural is AP database (designed for high availability)

b. HDFS I wonder for keeping the strong consistency I should use other database on top of hadoop maybe like bigtable/Hbase since they are designed for CP database. Maybe you know the data consistency model in HBase or Bigtable?

c. Maybe GoogleCloud Spanner or CockcroachDB? I just read from this about possiblity of NoSQL to be ACID compliant, but I'm not sure about this option is suitable for big data or not for long term since our data growth is super fast. Did you ever know about this is being used in big data use case?

<comment><USER2> You can make Cassandra cp by making writes persist to 100% of nodes. Obviously you lose the availability.

Mongo, for example, can be acid but you lose write throughput again. Postgres, I believe, has better throughput for most workloads over mongo and is acid compliant. I do not have any experience with spanner our cockroach so I can't really comment there. I don't believe hbase offers strong consistency either.

Maybe postrges is a good choice? I didn't mention it because the "data lake" term made me immediately think hdfs and I wouldn't call postgres a lake.</comment></comment></comment>


Rust conversion of Pinterest C program results in roughly 2x speedup - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pinterest/mysql_utils/pull/7 <comment><AUTHOR> After checking out the blog post [https://engineering.pinterest.com/blog/tracker-ingesting- mys...](https://engineering.pinterest.com/blog/tracker-ingesting-mysql-data- scale-part-2) I thought it would be interesting to see what happens if I converted their NullEscape.c program to Rust. The results were encouraging so I submitted a PR :)</comment>


3d printing is the future of manufacturing. - <AUTHOR> http://doriandargan.com/post/33143111759/3d-printing-is-the-future-of-manufacturing

<comment><USER2> 3D printers are __part __of the future of manufacturing, but hardly all of it. I think it's more like computer inkjet printers once were. Sure, 20 years ago they were rare and novel, but now everyone can have one if they want. They never ended up being the future of the printing industry. They're for home users to do a few things with, but will never replace or play a serious part of production for commercial printers of books, magazines, photos, etc. Any serious office has a much more expensive laser model that a hobbyist couldn't afford. This is all fine-people are now able to print off a few photos, documents, flyers to post around and more. An inkjet doesn't replace a book printer and binder machine anymore than a small fused deposition modeler (3d printer) replaces a CNC lathe or casting furnace. They have different roles and that won't change.

Not be negative, but I see a lot of hype and I don't think all of it is warranted.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, they certainly don't represent the entirety of the future of manufacturing. (title written for dramatic purposes & the sake of simplicity).

However, I do believe that 3d printing will launch a paradigm shift in certain consumer behaviors, due to the creative possibilities it opens up. This, combined with the availability of diverse "open source" designs on the internet, will allow individuals and small businesses to provide customized solutions to a variety of problems they face.

Additionally, learnings from the technology will transform how manufacturing is done for select items/goods. For example, toys can be created cheaply and with greater customization - reaching niche markets at lower costs for smaller players.

There will always be hype when innovative technologies receive public praise. However, I think that discounting the new opportunities it unlocks would be unwise - especially for entrepreneurial types (like me).

Point taken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have been evangelizing and engaging in hyperbole myself on this subject for the last 2 years..it seems media at-large is catching up.. but more and more these days I find myself wondering when the job postings for "experiened 3d modeler wanted" or "additive manufacturing engineer neede ASAP" show up...not that those are end-all be-all indicators or anything, but those are the kinds of things I would expect to see. Thoughts?

<comment><USER2> I feel like most, if not all mechanical engineering grads could 3D model something in a CAD system based on a few sketches or clearly written requirements. I had to do it as an undergrad (studied manufacturing). Running a proper CAD system (CATIA, NX, ProEngineer, Solidworks, AutoCAD, etc) is a basic requirement of many traditional engineering jobs.

As for 'additive manufacturing engineer', I don't see that title coming up soon. What are commonly known around here as "3D printers" are more often called "rapid prototypers" in industry. That's about all they're used for- prototyping, not production. Additive processes such as fused deposition modeling aren't able to reach (note even close for the most part) the throughput and detail abilities that other process using the same materials are, such as injection molding or rotomolding. If a company was using 3D printers to make a product they were selling to customers, they are best off selling it for a very high price and making relatively few of them. Otherwise, if they need low per unit costs or large throughputs, there are other ways to make what they need to sell.

<comment><USER3> Interesting - do you think that might change as 3d printers get more affordable...I.e. it would be viable to use the printer as the primary production method instead of just a prototyper?

<comment><USER2> Compared with capital investment costs of other machines for making plastic parts, 3D printers are already cheap, so I don't see price coming down as a huge player yet. Right now machine cost and part flexibility are the advantages that current 3D printers have in relation to other production methods. They will be, and are, used for production of one off custom pieces without precise tolerance and surface finish requirements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I cannot contain my excitement for how revolutionary this technology can be!</comment>


US Government re-defines "Militants" to reduce civilian deaths counts - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/singleton/

<comment><USER2> "We have always been at war with Eastasia."</comment>


Nvidia  Is Joining The Linux Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA2NzI <comment><USER2> I wonder if this is gonna be just like Broadcom joining the Linux Foundation...

(for those that didn't get it, I meant "nothing at all")

<comment> Tuna-Fish Huh? After joining up, broadcom produced the "brcmsmac" driver, which is now part of mainline, and modern broadcom devices typically work out of the box. Broadcom joining the Linux Foundation certainly had a lot of effect. It's just that these things take time. If nVidia makes the call that they are going to support OSS drivers today, it would likely take at least a year before anything percolated up to normal users.

<comment><USER2> I'm just saying that out of my own experience. I found a bug in their driver with kernel 2.6.37 and I wrote a patch and sent them. The answer I got was: "Our internal version works properly with 2.6.37 but we haven't had enough complaints to make releasing this patch necessary" (ok, those weren't the exact words but that was the meaning of it). So I learned not to expect much of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What the article doesn't fully answer is: "what are they gaining from joining the Linux Fundation ?". Any idea?

<comment><USER4> I think that more and more software is becoming a means to sell your hardware. I would assume that Nvidia wants to utilize as much of the community as possible to push the next wave of Linux based mobile devices. They aren't really making money off the software anyway, so I doubt it would hurt them to open-source that and it can help them to push their products on more linux based devices.

<comment><USER5> I imagine they will not open source their Linux drivers. While I wish they would, I am not certain that would make business sense for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, can I get my Optimus-enabled Linux drivers now?

Nah, probably just another empty statement.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was fooled into thinking this was something significant. Hopefully, they'll prove us all wrong and we'll start to see some meaningful contributions headed our way even though it's not what the past has shown. Or maybe I can accept this title as link bait and move along.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this good for open source?

<comment><USER9> I'd say its negligent. From the article:

"Among the many Linux Foundation members are VIA (their open-source strategy failed and really haven't been doing anything), AMD (they're still happy with their Catalyst binary blob while the open-source support is still lagging), Adobe (they abandoned Flash Player for Linux and most of their software is not available natively under Linux), Oracle (enough said with their share of controversies in various open-source communities), and a host of mobile- focused firms like ARM / Qualcomm / Samsung that don't ship full open-source graphics drivers for Linux (the best case to date for them has been open- source kernel drivers with closed-up user-space components, some of which are being reverse-engineered). "

<comment><USER10> You probably meant "negligible" ;) But I otherwise agree that nothing much will come of this.</comment></comment></comment>


Rebuilding Rails Build Your Own Ruby Web Framework - <AUTHOR> http://rebuilding-rails.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm willing to up vote anything that is being bootstrapped by one hard working person! Cheers!</comment>


Busting Egypt's web blackout - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2011/01/28/f-egypt-web-blackout.html

<comment><USER2> I found this interesting - "have gone so far as to establish an independent "mesh" of connections". Mesh networks were pretty big during the last .com boom (in principle anyway) maybe they'll make a comeback thanks to repressive governments?

I want my Paranoid Linux!

</comment><comment><USER3> I sense there is going to be a special desire for non internet based phone-to- phone laptop to laptop network protocol for Egypt in the future. I thought OLPC was working on that kind of computer-to-computer network technology.

Egypt looks like the right place to start completely decentralizing the internet away from ISP's, making it peer to peer so in order to shut down the internet, you have to power down every device.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some tips for getting into top Computer Science colleges? - <AUTHOR>

I am currently working on getting into a top school (Columbia University) to get a degree in Computer Science. I am an entrepreneur and web developer with  a startup I am about to launch. I also have created a website to help students memorize. Any tips on how to make myself look more wanted to the college? <comment><USER2> Do you want to appear more wanted by other colleges, or would you like Columbia to want you? Consider taking a professional writing course.

Also, if you're an entrepreneur, what do you expect to learn at university? If you have the inclination and drive to actually launch a startup then you may be better off with self directed learning. Just make sure you cover the boring(to the uninitiated!) bits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I would want Columbia to want me more. I have definitely considered self directed learning (and would much prefer to do that), but I think it is very important to have that piece of paper to get a job if I ever need to.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Lost your girlfriend because of your startup? - <AUTHOR>

Have any of lost a relationship due to the amount of insecurity, flexibility, work, and focus needed to put into your startup? <comment><USER2> Its more common than you think. Happens to many entrepreneurs I know.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect it happens quite often-- I understand it intimately.</comment></comment>


Newsweek Plans Makeover to Fit a Smaller Audience - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/business/media/09newsweek.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink <comment><USER2> The article says Newsweek is cutting back its guaranteed circulation from 2.6 million to 1.5 million, focusing more on big name personality writers and pulling way back on its coverage of major news....

...with the goal of "creating a new niche" for advertisers to target.

What aspect of the mentioned changes has anything to do with creating a new niche? It sounds like they're just cutting costs and hoping they've got a core audience that can become their niche. What problems will Newsweek solve? And for who? It doesn't sound like much is changing here.</comment>


NASA's Van Allen Probes Spot an Impenetrable Barrier in Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/van-allen-probes-spot-impenetrable-barrier-in-space/ <comment><USER2> It's amazing how much they look like electron orbitals. . . . Sometimes its seems like the reason we see nature reuse the same patterns is not from any physical mechanism but simply because math only has so many "shapes." I am perpetually in awe at this mysterious order to our universe.

Also: if these belts block high-energy electrons, can they teach us to build a force field that does the same? And can that solve the problem of fast-moving spacecraft being destroyed by the first spec of dust they encounter? Or of radiation killing the crew?

What if the only way to protect life against cosmic radiation is to build a planet-sized spacecraft?

Another question due to my weak grasp of modern physics: to a fast-moving spacecraft, are all electrons "high energy"?

<comment><USER3> You may already know this, but in your observation about "math having only so many shapes" has been explored in some depth. There is a wikipedia page:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature)

but I first learned about it from the book, "Patterns in Nature", by Peter S. Stevens ([http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Nature-Peter-S- Stevens/dp/031...](http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Nature-Peter-S- Stevens/dp/0316813311)), which was recommended to me by a noted poet.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad that page linked to this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesco_broccoli](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesco_broccoli)

The first time I saw it in a store here in Italy I got all excited and started staring at it up close.

<comment><USER3> My daughter loves that stuff. I was pleased.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The title is a bit hyperbolic. The article shows how the Van Allen belts constitute a "nearly impenetrable" barrier preventing "ultra-fast electrons" from approaching the earth.

<comment><USER5> Yeah -- from the sound of the title, you'd think they'd discovered this thing:

[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Galactic_barrier](http://en.memory- alpha.org/wiki/Galactic_barrier)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find that the more we know about this planet that keeps us safe, a large moon to keep asteroids away and tectonics hot, a mass just enough to keep an atmosphere around us and a spinning iron core to provide "impenetrable barriers", the more I learn of this the less I think Fermi found a paradox and just that it's hard for life to stay alive in this universe.

<comment><USER7> Life finds a way.

<comment><USER8> It's the day before turkey day, you don't deserve the negative links, even if it was a cheap comment, as you made me think of that ma's laugh: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS9D6w1GzGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS9D6w1GzGY)

Also, is laughter a conserved 'shape' in nature, and what is the shape space of nature anyways, is it restricted to the 4 dimensions we inhabit in a way?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is a related article that discusses removing the Van Allen belts:

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/hacking- the-...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/hacking-the-van- allen-belts)

</comment><comment><USER10> Moron here. So what are the ramifications of this? Does it inhibit our ability to observe the universe? Dare I ask, does this offer any protection from anything nasty the universe might send our way?

</comment><comment><USER11> This certainly seems like something we need to duplicate for spaceships, to more safely travel to mars and beyond.

I don't know much about the dangers of these particles on the human body. I'm going to assume any environment different to the one on earth poses great risk.

</comment><comment><USER12> Electromagnetic aspects of the "Gaia" hypothesis?

</comment><comment><USER13> glass sky theory anyone?

</comment><comment> drew-r Space ship passes through it = not impenetrable

<comment><USER14> Clearly it's possible to escape Earth orbit, but would point out that the Van Allen belts have been used by conspiracy theorists to 'prove' that the moon landings were faked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Impenetrable Barrier in Spac

Gee, then, how'd various spacecraft get through it?

Ah, now that I read the details, it's a "nearly impenetrable barrier" to electrons. Okay, now not so amazing! No need to call Captain Kirk!

Such titles are called "click bait" or some such, right?</comment>


Interactive Beginner's Guide to ROP - <AUTHOR> https://bordplate.no/blog/en/post/interactive-rop-tutorial/index.html <comment><USER2> Really cool! If you enjoy this sort of thing then I'd recommend looking at [https://microcorruption.com](https://microcorruption.com).

<comment><USER3> For a more classic x86(-64) wargame, [https://io.netgarage.org/](https://io.netgarage.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This excellent,can't have enough articles like this. Reminds me of all the corelan.be articles that cover similar topics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Most of my time with this was spent making the emulator, and making it easy to embed. With what I have now I'm planning to cover more advanced topics in the same style as this.

This is an invaluable way for me to really learn these things as well.

<comment><USER5> Just want to express my thanks as well. The final little challenge was my first successful foray into crafting a ROP payload. I found it thoroughly enjoyable and look forward to more of your stuff in the future!

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, I love to hear that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The step emulator is really nice and presented well!</comment>


Surviving in-flight breakup of an SR-71 Blackbird at Mach 3.18 - <AUTHOR> http://books.google.com/books?id=rvT4HJkpfM4C&lpg=PA43&ots=c4VsxDU5z1&dq=Jim%20Zwayer%2C%20a%20Lockheed%20flight-test%20specialist%2C%20and%20I%20were%20evaluating%20systems&pg=PA43#v=onepage&q=Jim%20Zwayer,%20a%20Lockheed%20flight-test%20specialist,%20and%20I%20were%20evaluating%20systems&f=false <comment><USER3> Non-Google-Books versions:

Test pilot Bill Weaver's personal account _(exact same text)_ \-- <http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm>

Very similar 3rd-person account -- [http://www.thexhunters.com/xpeditions/sr-71a_952_accident.ht...](http://www.thexhunters.com/xpeditions/sr-71a_952_accident.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> A little more mundane and uplifting SR-71 story about a ground speed check.

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/rec.avia...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/rec.aviation.stories/ueI6JKeEomo)

<comment><USER5> Here's a similar story, but about "What was the slowest you ever flew in the Blackbird?"

<http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/speed-is-life.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "As an outgrowth of Bill Weaver's inability to see out of his faceplate from the ice buildup, futre SR-71 ejection seats incorporated a battery pack that continued to keep the glass faceplate heated during the frigid descent."

The amount of engineering and refinement that goes into these safety systems really amazes me. They learn from everything in aviation and put it to good use.

<comment><USER7> Then again, they had a brilliantly working "don't panic" mechanism built in :-)

<comment><USER8> I think the technical term would be "super-chromatic peril sensitive faceplate."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some other interesting moments of aeronautical derring-do:

Imagine piloting an unpowered aircraft with no wings which could best be described as a "flying bathtub" and by "flying" what is meant is "falling". This is the M2-F{1,2,3}, designed to test lifting body aerodynamics and unpowered landings, much of this research helped in the design of the shuttle orbiter. But in 1967 pilot Bruce Peterson was involved in a spectacular crash that was later used in the opening of the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man, he survived: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jvGJhJINlc>

Also consider the X-15. Unlike the SR-71 the X-15 didn't cruise around at high speeds it just accelerated to very high speeds using a rocket engine and then glided. These aircraft, dropped off the wing of a B-52, these aircraft would eventually travel up to nearly mach 7 and over 100 km altitude. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15>

Also it's worth considering that the Space Ship One rocket powered sub-orbital space plane gets up to around mach 3 on ascent: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne>

Or, consider the Apollo 10 spacecraft, which reentered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of nearly 40,000 kph after returning from the moon (over ten times the highest recorded speed of the SR-71).

</comment><comment><USER10> Amazing reading this. Especially his thought process. After he comes out of "blackout", he goes right to work running a checklist and taking inventory of his assets. The part about the seatbelts, in this context, is a priceless example of how to keep your cool. Sometimes you don't want to know or need to know everything.

</comment><comment><USER11> I own a print copy of this book, it's good stuff.

I picked it up soon after reading Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed [1], an incredible book which recounts development of the U2, SR-71 and F-117A.

1: <http://amzn.com/0316743003>

<comment><USER12> Skunk Works is a great read. It's enlightening how advanced these guys were in the 60's, I tend to think of the 80s and 90s as being the time when we raced forward technically but it was probably the 60s and 70s were the fastest pace.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely, I found it incredibly inspirational to read about those guys riding the bleeding edge of technology - inventing and adapting as they went along.

They basically built something from the future.

<comment><USER13> With a native grasp of aero / astro, can't imagine they had a lot of CAD or simulation horsepower. I have to think its a great story of fundament mastery.

<comment><USER14> As Ben Rich describes in Skunk Works, the SR-71 was designed using slide rules and drafting instruments and tested in a wind tunnel that could only run at night because of how much energy it used. IIRC it was the early stealth stuff (an SR-71 launched drone and then the F-117) that ushered in the use of computers.

<comment><USER10> Also amazing, was the materials engineering. SR71 ushered in the use of widespread Titanium in the airframe, which was needed to stand up to the heat (friction) at Mach 3+. Because of the severe heat-cycling, the engineers ultimately figured out an unorthodox solution to manage thermal expansion:

 _The fuselage panels were manufactured to fit only loosely on the ground. Proper alignment was only achieved when the airframe heated up and expanded several inches. Because of this, and the lack of a fuel sealing system that could handle the thermal expansion of the airframe at extreme temperatures, the aircraft would leak JP-7 jet fuel on the runway. At the beginning of each mission, the aircraft would make a short sprint after takeoff to warm up the airframe, then refuel before heading off to its destination._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Airfra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Airframe)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> He mentions that it was his "first ever parachute landing", but I can't imagine a SR-71 test pilot wouldn't have been trained in parachute landings. Any idea why?

<comment><USER16> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTvB5AE6HlE> describes "Aircraft Ejection & Parachute Training, ADC Life Support Training School, 1968, US Air Force" - <USER2> we can infer that since ejection and parachute training did happen in times contemporary to this account, and since test pilot is a high risk activity (especially back in the time when test pilots were actually pushing the flight envelope instead of just validating numerical models), the author did receive that training.

But even for test pilots, ejection is a rare and traumatic event : finding oneself landing with no injury at all after a high speed ejection is very lucky - the design of the B-58, XB-70, F-111, Space Shuttle and some of the B-1A prototypes with an escape crew capsule is a consequence of that, though it seems that the weight and space tradeoff has fallen out of favor. Apart from speed, the mere impact of the charge that propels the seat is enough to cause spinal injury, even if the pilot managed to get his spine in perfectly upright position before ejecting.

<comment><USER17> Actually, I think today's procedure is that a pilot is retired after two ejections because of the induced trauma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone who has flown in a SR-71 is certified to have brass balls.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is interesting for so many reasons, very good book (both in stories and writing). The most useful bit probably when he explained why the suit inflated, exactly like the way Baumgartner's balloon inflated earlier today when it reached the upper atmosphere.

</comment><comment><USER20> Here's a video of another high speed Blackbird breakup, from a D-21 drone release:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyC2urCl_4>

The debris just keeps on going because of the huge momentum and thin air at those speeds and altitudes.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you like this sort of books, don't forget to check "X-15; extending the frontier of flight": <http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/aero_x15_detail.html>

</comment><comment><USER22> This appears to be the best book ever written. oO;

</comment><comment><USER23> The "skunkworks" is one of my favorite concepts. Look at what they were able to achieve. Truly amazing.

</comment><comment><USER24> An amazing story.</comment>


Things I, as a designer, wish more tech startups knew - <AUTHOR> http://the-pastry-box-project.net/stephen-anderson/2012-september-7/ <comment><USER2> One thing I, as an entrepreneur, wish more designers knew: I can't do everything, and I have to make tradeoffs based on cost-benefit analyses, and you will influence me more if you speak in that language. All but one of these 29 things (in fact, there are 32) are additional things this guy thinks I should spend my limited resources on.

<comment><USER3> All too often, UI people end up being marginalized because management doesn't support them. Unless you just want "a new coat of paint" a good UX design will _require_ some hard changes and product realignments. If the CEO is not interested in taking part in that conversation then you'll never be able to build a good product.

<comment><USER4> All too often, "UX Designers" end up marginalized because they're _wankers_ \- people who don't code and don't design, but want to get right in the middle of things and fling around opinions. Especially dangerous are the representatives of this breed who want to "manage process" as a way of "designing the product". Hiring that kind of person is a great way to get a useless bureaucrat on your team.

There are good designers who specialize in user experience, but those people are _also_ good at marketable skills like _graphic design_ , _coding_ or _statistics_. Everyone on the team is responsible for good user experience. The existence of a person who does nothing more than "UX" is a process smell.

<comment><USER5> Clearly, you've had interactions with fakers who call themselves "UX Designers".

Real UX Designers are not process managers - they are folks who are vital to any product development because it's their responsibility to think about and WORRY about user needs, user goals, and user objectives and then design a product/site/app that meets and exceed these user objectives.

This thinking and worrying results in design documents as high-level as application architecture or as layout specific as UI sketches and fully baked UI mockups. Within the UI mockups, they're in charge of naming conventions, layout, structure, content hierarchy, and so forth.

This thinking and worrying also results in clickable prototypes (usually in the form of HTML only prototypes or InvisionApp prototypes) that brings together the user flows, architecture, and user goals into something the entire team can wrap their heads around.

Finally, the UX designer is instrumental in testing and validating design decisions and product design decisions in a live app. This involves knowing what to test, how to test it, and then iterating on the designs to make sure the feedback from users is reflected in an updated UI or a revamped flow.

<comment><USER6> This stuff sounds like a complete antipattern to me. Who _shouldn't_ be thinking about users? That's not a specialty.

Prototypes and architectures divorced from working code are the kinds of thing that bog a project down and get in the way of people doing the real work, i.e. making the actual product.

I know what programmers do and I know (more or less) what visual designers do and I know what the decision-maker for a product does. I don't know what a "UX Designer" does, other than claim to do all the product thinking. In my experience, they mostly talk vaguely about how important they are.

<comment><USER7> _This stuff sounds like a complete antipattern to me. Who shouldn't be thinking about users? That's not a specialty._

I agree that everybody should be doing it. However - there are elements of it that are skilled and tricky to pick up. Having experts around is handy. They can do stuff better, help facilitate and teach the rest of the team, and get things moving more quickly.

I'm about half dev and half UX in my skill set. I can train anybody to do some basic usability testing in an afternoon. But that person is going to miss some stuff that I see because I've been doing it for fifteen odd years and am bloody good at it. Ditto for user interviewing. Ditto for interaction design.

You get exactly the same thing on the dev side. Everybody should have some basics about operations, database design, system architecture, etc. But in any team more than two or three people you'll usually find some folk who are experts. They'll be the DBA gal or the devops guy.

That's doesn't mean having a DBA or a devops person requires the rest of the team suddenly forget about all their database/operations knowledge, or that the rest of the team shouldn't be involved in DBA/operations work. But having an expert around is useful. They can help you solve problems that you may not have come across before. They can help teach you new and better ways of doing things.

The great DBA and devops folk get the rest of the team up to speed with database/operations work as much as possible so they can focus on the _really_ hard problems that are going to get in the way of the rest of the team's work.

That's what good UX folk do too (in my experience). They help get the whole team focused on thinking about users, and focus on helping solve the hard UX issues that are going to get in the team's way.

 _Prototypes and architectures divorced from working code are the kinds of thing that bog a project down and get in the way of people doing the real work, i.e. making the actual product._

No argument from me. No argument from most UX folk I know either :-)

 _I don't know what a "UX Designer" does, other than claim to do all the product thinking. In my experience, they mostly talk vaguely about how important they are._

Yup. Those people suck. As do some developers with "software architecture" type titles :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 3\. So a designer who uses lorem ipsum is not a designer? What? So if he's hired to work on a project he sits around waiting for copy before comping design ideas? As someone who's been in this position it is quite wonderful to start with finished or semi-finished copy but that doesn't always happen.

4\. A designer who sweats every detail is a designer that never finishes. Sometimes the designer just has to let loose those details that only that designer realizes are a potential issue in the design, not functionality. If during review enough comment on it then fix it, otherwise let it go.

10\. I cannot agree with this more. Although I'm a front-end developer so I may be biased just a tad bit.

14\. I don't necessarily agree with this. It depends on the project and established goals. As someone else pointed out, if you do this you may give the desktop user a less than ideal experience. If you're willing to put some of that cut stuff back in for the desktop people at some point then sure. But to give a mobile experience to desktop people cannot be a good thing.

15\. Almost contradicts rule #4. Some people would say sweating the details is close to over design.

26\. This is excellent advice. The hard part is knowing the difference between an app with a good design versus bad. This is a hugely subjective thing. Popular apps don't necessarily have good UI. Also, be careful, because in today's environment if you get an idea from an app you may get sued for it.

29\. Not necessarily true. Depends on the people. Your best bud may refuse to document his code in a useful way (or he may just suck at it) and the best coder in your group may be a total jerk outside the professional environment.

I'm a glass half empty kind of guy so that's the focus of my comments. The rest can be assumed I agree with or neutral on.

Also, I kept getting confused over which designer he means as he explains his points. There are three examples in the article; Visual, UX, and UI. But then he just uses "designer" too often for all three.

<comment><USER9> totally annoyed with his #3 as well. Been working with a folks who want everything to be decided by the "designer" first and make copy-perfect photoshop templates first - even if they're not that happy with the design.

This introduces an annoying 'waterfall' process where I can't test whether the designer's ideas actually work in-browser and practice until they're officially 'done'.

CN to managers: don't make a designer your product todo list. use a system for that and accept some quirks and broken-ness at first.

Read quora's photoshop-less design process for an alternative (and arguably better) approach: [http://www.quora.com/Joel-Lewenstein/Joels-Posts/Life- Withou...](http://www.quora.com/Joel-Lewenstein/Joels-Posts/Life-Without- Photoshop)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> While I think a lot of this is good, did anyone else get the feeling the _real_ gist of it was: "shower me with $$$"?

<comment><USER11> I finished reading it and I still don't know his name. If it was an attempt to get hired, it was a bad UX.

<comment><USER12> Have you tried looking at the top of the page? It even has a photo of him.

<comment><USER11> Well, the point was that I wasn't _interested_ in who he was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Some great points here.

>> "29. Please, please, please spend time hanging out in the latest and greatest apps, regardless of their personal relevance or interest to you. If you do, your expectations of a "good experience" will be raised. Archaic team communication tools are often a good indication of what the decision makers believe qualifies as "good." (Hint: it's often a very low bar relative to what's possible!)"

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to use well designed tools, they _will_ influence your product.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good points, but I dont agree with this:

>> 14\. Design for mobile first (even if a mobile app is not in your roadmap). The constraints of a mobile context will force you to focus on what's essential, and help you cut what's not needed. The question "How would I design this as a mobile app?" always clears my head and helps me find the simpler, elegant solution.

Unless you are primarily designing a mobile app, this ends up shortchanging the web user. A full web interface can always do more and the challenge should be converting those features to mobile as opposed to dumbing down the design for the lowest denominator.

<comment><USER15> If you agree with point 27 (questing for Minimum Viable Product/Experience), then rule 14 makes a lot of sense to me. He isn't saying not to design a full web interface (which as you point out, can do more). He is merely saying by doing mobile dev first, you are essentially _forced_ into discovering your MVP more lucidly. You can then add features to the full web interface from there.

 _> A full web interface can always do more and the challenge should be converting those features to mobile as opposed to dumbing down the design for the lowest denominator._

I think that this sentence gets to the crux of his point. Terms like 'dumbing down' and 'lowest common denominator' to describe the mobile experience seem a little loaded to me, and imho, this is exactly the type of situation where deving movile first could provide surprising insight into your MVP. I'm talking honest to goodness slap in the face reveals.

I think it's safe to say we have different opinions on this point, but man...I simply can't count the number of "Hey check out my startup" websites that I've clicked on and just kind of had my jaw drop at what was going on. I'd honestly say the majority of the ones I've seen could have benefited from this approach. That's completely anecdotal, I know, but it's the impression I have.

<comment><USER14> I agree with MVP and your anecdotes - less bloat, all the better, but from a UI/UX perspective, let me give you a few examples of what usually gets thrown out in a mobile first design:

Dropdown menus - Mobile first almost always means multiple clicks to get to the same place, which is more annoying on a slower browser.

Commenting system - still yet to see a decent one that I would one on a mobile interface

Flash/animations - like it or not, moving images grabs attention but does not translate well to mobile.

Page width - 1440 pixels on my shiny screen, but text is stuck in a 200px box that forces me to scroll down. Flexible width usually gets thrown out when you add sidebars and ads.

Large Buttons - Great for mobile but I'd rather see context that a sign up button taking half the page

Related content links - Especially for blogs/news websites.

Inline images - My primary annoyance with this article which is ALL TEXT. Mobile design says dont take up an entire screen view with an image. Web first design says even if the current text is boring, people will scroll down if they see an interesting image.

I honestly believe that having separate approaches will allow for better UX, time and cost permitting.

<comment><USER15> _> let me give you a few examples of what usually gets thrown out in a mobile first design:_

Ah, but you aren't throwing them out. You're using a constrained UI to identify your MVP, then _adding those very features in_ to the full web site where it makes sense. We're looking at the exact same behavior and using almost opposite language to describe it :)

 _> I honestly believe that having separate approaches will allow for better UX, time and cost permitting._

Fair enough.

 _> Commenting system - still yet to see a decent one that I would one on a mobile interface_

On a side note, I passionately agree with this. I think there is a tremendous opportunity out there for anybody that can solve this problem elegantly. Group communication is a fundamental human behavior, and so much of it is happening via our mobile devices. There's a much better mousetrap to be built here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the best UX/UI designer articles I've seen!

>> "15. Don't over design. Less is better in the early stages. Launch with too much going on and you won't know which pieces are broken and which are working."

That's my favorite. I feel like I always see new products trying to hard on their first few product design rounds. In my experience, it's a great thing if you start small (with fast iterations) and fail X times rather than spending 5 years on a single attempt, that still fails miserable. Testing product design at a quantum level goes such a long way in the long haul. That goes with A/B testing as well.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is absolutely ridiculous.

What, there's a "UX designer" AND a "visual designer?"

I do both. They're completely connected. How could you do "design" and not include the user experience?

Sounds like another one of those things where people "specialize" in certain areas but really don't have a clue what they're doing, and charge a hefty price tag for a whole lot of nothin'.

And it's worth nothing the design of that blog makes me sick to my stomach.

<comment><USER18> If the visual design is like Google or many other web apps, then it's possible that a UX designer can set you on the right path. If you want a very pretty, original look, that could require the services of a visual (graphic) designer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Question for other designers:

Do you feel that while UX is at one end of the spectrum, visual designers at the other - UI Designers sit squarely in between them?

I ask cause I love visual design, making elements pleasant to look at, enticing user to push buttons or guide their eye to areas I want them to look at. But I also spend huge amounts of time time thinking about user flows, scenarios and tasks, how one page flows to another, how it all connects and constantly going around asking/testing with people if the flow is confusing or interfaces aren't clear on what they should do.

I guess UI Designers are half UX and half Visual?

<comment><USER20> To paraphrase from Yves Behar, "there are two kinds of designers. Good ones and bad ones. Good ones can do all kinds of designs. Bad ones invent new subsets of design to excuse their failings."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> After this section below I stopped reading. He probably is a good UXer. But also an arrogant one. The best ones understand that they always need to learn.

"You get what you pay for. I charge a lot. But, I guarantee you'll save money in the long run. Most visual designers at 1/4 my rate will take much longer and still not get you where a seasoned veteran will. Note: veteran doesn't necessarily mean years experience—2 years at a dot com startup taught me more than most people learn in 5–7 years at a big company."

</comment><comment><USER22> This really stood out to me:

"good designers start with the data"

Only when you deeply understand the structure of information can you present that information in a meaningful way. In other words, a good designer turns data into knowledge. And to my mind, the key point of good _software_ design is starting with good data structures. In general, the model shouldn't need to change—a changing model is an ill-defined domain. Once you understand the domain well enough, features are just algorithms.

<comment><USER23> _In other words, a good designer turns data into knowledge._

I think I agree with you, but I'd probably phrase it rather differently. To me, data is already knowledge, but often we are limited by having too much raw, low-level knowedge and not knowing what to do with it.

A good UX can help us to _understand_ the data and/or to _make actionable decisions_ based on it, and so to me, a good designer (in the sense we're talking about) is someone who helps to build such a UX.

<comment><USER22> How about this: good design lets you see the forest in spite of the trees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The first bit seems very much "Hire a UX guy, not a graphic designer" but it does got better. Still, the "sell, sell, sell" feeling of the piece leaves me cold.

<comment><USER25> Yes, and it's still fairly revolutionary for a designer to even think of UX or usability, contrary to what the article claims.

This feels a bit like if a programmer went round and said 'everybody uses node.js these days, are you getting a programmer who uses PHP or Node.js' completely ignoring the fact that the proportion of php to node code written is like 99.999 : 0.001.

Most of the designs I see still give little thought to the UX of the entire experience.

He even mentions it himself without realising the irony:

 _I spend a lot of my time just getting everyone on the team—designers included—to see the problem in a different way, not the way it has been implemented)._

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I guess effectively using contrast isn't one of them...

<comment><USER27> Yeah, he embraced the idea to never use black:

<http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/>

EDIT

It looks awful in Chrome(Windows) but in Explorer it's OK...

<http://imgur.com/a/CA7Ow>

<comment><USER28> Looks like he embraced and extended it. Not using #000 is one thing, having almost no contrast is another.

<comment><USER29> Hello. Just to make things clear. I made the design. I run the Pastry Box Project. Stephen Anderson is a guest.

:)

<comment><USER30> In the vein of constructive criticism: there is a set of W3C-suggested accessibility guidelines that include tests for things like the contrast between text and its background (<http://www.w3.org/TR/AERT#color-contrast>).

This page fails that contrast guideline algorithm (258 out of a minimum suggested 500) and is a little annoying to read even for someone without a sight/color deficit.

<comment><USER29> Thanks a lot. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. A redesign is on its way. This issue will definitely be taken into account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am so sick of job titles like "UX designer," "UI designer," and "visual designer." All visual design on the web is related to UI/UX. You can't do UI design without affecting UX and vice-versa.

Let's just go back "web designer." Please.

<comment><USER32> You can put Graphic, UI, and UX all under the umbrella of "Design" if you like. They are specialties in the way that front-end, back-end, or database engineering are all specialties.

You can also have one person doing all of them, the same way you can have a single engineer at your company, but very very very few people can do all three well, and on many projects there is too much work for any one person to do.

Also, much of UX design doesn't necessariy fall under the category of web design. A UX designer is looking at the entire product experience, which would potentially include things advertising, customer service, advertising, etc.

You can use the shorthand "designer"... that's fine. But you can't just wish away entire professions. There are pairs of Graphic and Experience Designers who have almost nothing in common in terms of responsibilities and skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Starting with the data is sage advice. Reminds me of a Robert Bringhurst quote that smacked me in the face when I read it:

"Typography exists to honor content."

</comment><comment><USER34> "1. Learn the difference between a UX Designer and a Visual Designer. They are not the same. And while there is (and should be) a lot of overlap in skills—it's good to know what the designer you're hiring thinks is priority."

This is very important. On the flip side, I have seen too many designer profiles online where they don't clearly identify whether they are UX designer or visual designer.

</comment><comment><USER35> Minimal Viable Experience is what I took away. I think it serves better than MVP in the early days of the product.

</comment><comment><USER36> I really like the general theme of pointing the designer into the core of the startup, and think a lot of this is very good, accurate advice.

As a long time designer turned developer, supported. I would have made the tone a little less preachy (and added a dash of "relatively speaking"), but hey, I didn't write it.

</comment><comment><USER37> The color scheme on that page is so washed out that my eyes did a double take. That's one thing I wish a designer knew about users - not everyone is using a crisp iMac to view a website. I'm on my already washed out PC and their color scheme makes it even worse.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that modern design == hard to read websites. Incidentally, they are also usually slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Nevermind 20pxs, I think 1px makes a huge difference.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm going to work on a post in response, "29 things I wish designers knew about fashion."

<comment><USER41> UX designers are web designers with no sense of style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I agree that UX design is important. But it is basically applying common sense. See common solutions to UI problems and apply them. Actually its the fun part of creating an application.

Also i hate it when they say: Programmers cannot do UX. They are too technical. Well i do it all myself. I dont call myself an UXer. Because its just a small part of creating a product.

</comment><comment><USER42> Design isn't just "Front End" or "Interface"; Design is everything -- most importantly functionality, process, and model.

"What works is better than what looks good. The looks good can change, but what works, works."

</comment><comment><USER43> The first thing I noticed is that you cant scroll horizontally or zoom from an iPhone. The text overflows on the right and theres no way to display it. oh the irony.

<comment><USER44> As others said. That's not from his own site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm no expert, but wouldn't a startup want a designer who wasn't so picky? Instead wanting a "full stack" designer; who could solve all their visual worries?

<comment><USER40> Can you define full stack designer?

<comment><USER45> I just made it up, but I guess it would be a designer that can do the whole song and dance. In the article he specifically mentioned that UX and Visual Design is not the same thing; fair enough but startups want to do more with less...

Again, I'm no expert and I'm just a technical nerd who "doesn't get" designers. Probably should keep my mouth shut, in retrospect ;)

<comment><USER7> In the design world these are known as "unicorn designers" - since you're about as likely to find one :-)

It's the design equivalent of asking for a developer who is an _expert_ in front-end, back-end, databases, operations, scaling, etc. etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is some really great advice, 'The best UIs often start as written conversations between the user and the system.'

</comment><comment><USER47> 30\. pick a domain that people actually remember. 3 hyphens on a .net wtf, bro?

</comment><comment><USER48> Very good writeup.

</comment><comment><USER49> the tl;dr;

pay attention to ux!</comment>


Show HN: Get the real best price for your hotel or get a superior hotel - <AUTHOR> https://www.triprebel.com/favourite-list <comment><USER3> Cool idea, but the UX is very unintuitive. For example, when trying to search for a hotel in LA, every time I zoom (the mousewheel doesn't work?) it begins searching. Slowly. When it finally updates (I have clicked zoom several times by now), it zooms out again to the first zoom level. This really needs to be fixed so that it behaves more like Google Maps' search, where I can continue to zoom in until I have reached my intended geographical area, and _then_ the search could finalize. It's fine if it searches as I zoom, but it's not fine if it refreshes the map. It's almost unusable unless you uncheck the box to disable searching when the map is moved.

My thoughts about the landing page - It's pretty, but again, the UX is bad. While the screen is loading, I see the slogan drop in (pieces at a time), a second tagline drop in, and then a how it works button. By the time the search has dropped in (this is really your call to action, right? You want people to begin searching, and see it right away), I have already scrolled passed it down the page looking for the search. When I come back up and finally see "Oh, there it is", I've wasted a ton of time looking for it. I recommend that you make this static. The slogan can drop in if you'd like, but this needs to have a permanent place on the landing page.

Upon searching, it took as long as it did to write this paragraph to find any hotels. It returned 11 results, and I'm searching near USC in Los Angeles. Zoomed in a bit further to only encompass 2 hotels, and it took roughly 11 seconds to find them. Anything you can do to speed this up?

It's a neat concept, just hoping to give some constructive criticism.

<comment><AUTHOR> First of all thanks for the feedback, I always love when critics are useful. I try to go point by point. We took a conscious decision disabling the scrolling wheel as zoom in/out because otherwise it would have triggered too many "refine searches". In addition today the search is even slower due to the huge traffic we're getting and it's definitely something we should work on. But I agree, the map is definitely something we should work on.

Regarding the landing page I think it's still a speed problem, but I'll take a closer look to this.

Thanks again.

<comment><USER4> > We took a conscious decision disabling the scrolling wheel as zoom in/out > because otherwise it would have triggered too many "refine searches".

Tip: Any operation that's reliant on mouse events should be throttled or debounced -- they are just too noisy. For mapping, I have done debounces as long as two seconds without the delay being obvious. I suspect due to the style of user interaction in combination with the loading animations from the map itself.

<comment><USER5> really appreciated - it's somewhat debounced already, but it seems to be not quite right... I'd be curious to hear about how you went about debouncing (what time delays on which specific actions, zoom, moving the map)

<comment><USER4> Option one: Use the built-in `idle` event on the top-level map object. This basically does all the debouncing for you, though I don't remember off the top of my head whether this event happens before or after the `tilesloaded` event. The distinction would only be important if you want to wait for the map to visually update before displaying the results.

Option two: I think for your use case just listening on the single `bounds_changed` event will do what you want. That should trigger for all types of map movement or zooming. For the callback, use a closure which clears and sets a timeout event with the desired debounce time; no need to overcomplicate it. Then it's just tuning the delay until it hits that sweet spot between firing too often and obvious visual delays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great product idea. I was quite taken aback by how similar the UI and UX is to Airbnb's though [1]. Of course that's not necessarily a bad thing - it's a much nicer interface than most hotel comparison sites - but it's extreme to the point of brand confusion. My first instinct was to check if this was a spin-off business!

[1] Triprebel vs Airbnb UI: [http://imgur.com/a/FALP0](http://imgur.com/a/FALP0)

<comment><USER7> Landing page: ubiquitous design. Search page: nearly a pixel-for-pixel copy of Airbnb's unique design.

I would advise changing that...

<comment><USER8> Err, this is a pretty common bootstrap style theme. It's nearly identical to Vitality, a $10 theme on wrapbootstrap. The maps page is actually google powered in both cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wanna try it, can't zoom out on map, only in, wich makes it unusable (also can't zoom out with mousewheel)

[http://puu.sh/kdmXo/47f8988ac6.png](http://puu.sh/kdmXo/47f8988ac6.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man. Something went wrong in the last update. We're on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Your product targets other type of customer, but I want to share my chores I experienced. Supposedly I plan a trip across USA, by car, for example NY->LA. I don't have exact places at what date I will be at which city. I can approximate 600km-900km drive a day. If there would be application that showed the best hotel on path with driving instructions+reservation it would be godsent.

<comment><USER11> There's apps like Roadtrippers and Furkot that will show you lodging along your route (along with dining, attractions, etc), but I don't know any that actually handles booking/price comparison as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great. I just booked a hotel for my next stay in Lisbon. Let's see what you can do. If it works it'll be game-changing. (Y)

<comment><USER12> Oh and by the way it looks that they are on product hunt as well [http://www.producthunt.com/tech/triprebel-s-favourite- list](http://www.producthunt.com/tech/triprebel-s-favourite-list).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. We're launching today our brand new Favourite List so you can upgrade on a superior hotel with just one click.

Up-votes on ProductHunt are appreciated ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Get the real best price for your hotel or get a superior hotel

If you are allowed to share, is this the best price among online booking agencies or best price including direct from hotel?

I see/hear many comments that going direct to the hotel is best chance of lowest price and asking "what can you do"

<comment><AUTHOR> Our way we get the best deal is checking daily if the price of your hotel decreased and getting that for you. In this way you'll have the best rate available on the market from now to the day you check in.

If you book directly on the hotel today it doesn't mean than tomorrow the hotel won't drop the price, so there's no absolute truth in saying that the best deals are available just dealing with the hotel. Sometimes is true, that's why we're negotiating pilots with some hotel chains (i cannot tell more, sorry)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Hello Product Hunters! Get €50 off at the checkout"

As a Hacker Newser, somehow this message confuses me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Something was wrong with the trigger. Thanks man.

<comment><USER15> I will try to give this advice in the gentlest way possible both because it isn't a big deal, and to avoid a thread-destroying argument: Might I suggest you adopt a different phrase (which I see you've used a few times just in this conversation) other than "thanks man"? I'm not offended by it, and most other people probably wouldn't be either, but it _does_ strike me as making the unfortunate assumption that everyone on this forum is a man. (I know that many people who use the word "man" in this way don't really mean to be referring to literal males. I'm one of them, in fact. I have been known to call my wife 'man.' But the impression will remain, for some--especially among people who don't know you.)

I'm sure you don't mean to offend, and you're just trying to be friendly and appreciative--and I would not blame you for bristling a bit at an off-topic scolding by the PC police. But it would cost you nothing to just say "thanks," and it could save you some grief in the future.

Just a thought from a friend.

Edit - I should have said this first: the service seems really cool. I'll try it next time I travel.

<comment><USER16> The PC police, in my opinion, are a bit too visible on HN these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great Job. From my experience the best deal is often from the hotel itself (no fees to Booking, Expedia ...), are you including hotels' prices directly in your listing or are you using some OTA's APIs ?

<comment><USER18> Of the hotels I've viewed, it appears the images are hosted on TravelNow, which (I believe) is owned by Expedia. If that is the case, they are probably using EAN's API for part or all of it.

[http://developer.ean.com/](http://developer.ean.com/)

<comment><USER5> dev here; yea, we're using EAN for sourcing the hotels that people initially book - but we have many more other OTAs integrated for tracking prices the way you could look at it is that we try and capture peoples traveling intent with an API which is relatively easy and fast-performing, then we try in our own time to find something better

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand the hype... this is destroying the market and will cut margins of hotels, potentially affecting quality in the long run. How can travellers profit from it longterm?

<comment><AUTHOR> Seriously? We're talking about bringing transparency to a really blurred market and you think this will not help customers in the long term?

<comment><USER19> Not sure, since this is driving prices down in a market already plagued by high booking fees from travel providers. In which way do you see people benefiting from that beyond saving a buck here and there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe its just me, but it appears to be ios only? I can't seem to find a link to use it anywhere on the landing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean? Can you articulate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Could be interesting if follows through on the promise. I prefer to see daily rates which is much easier for comparisons.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our algorithm is based on daily rates from different providers as Kayak or Trivago does. What we do on the top of it is to keep checking day by day looking for better rates and getting that for you. It's beyond price comparison websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The idea seems pretty awesome. But how often can you find better prices?

<comment><USER5> there's some pretty interesting statistics to do with price changes - <USER2> of finding something better are biggest when you book somewhat further in advance (say, 60 days) & travel to big cities - then we do find better prices in about 50% of the cases what makes me happiest is crazy stuff, like a $600 better rate for a $1300 hotels somewhere on the strip in LA (happened a few weeks ago)</comment></comment>


Guaranteed Basic Income – A Crazy Idea? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cabot.net/issues/cwa/archives/2015/11/guaranteed-basic-income <comment><USER2> This is an idea that needs more traction. It would solve so many problems that our society is struggling to solve such as poverty and equality (to some degree at least)

There should be more debate about this and at least one country should approve it, it is encouraging to know that the swiss are seriously considering it...

One can only hope...

<comment><AUTHOR> It might be selective perception, but I get the clear impression that this idea is currently enjoying ever increasing traction.

Google Trends seems to confirm this (although I don't know what caused the initial spike back in 2005 or 2006)

[https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=basic%20income](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=basic%20income)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if Google Trends is confusing 'basic income' with people searching for 'basic income tax'. There tend to be mini-spikes always in February and March; when most people file their taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> guaranteed basic income is a tautology.

"A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement."

<comment><USER5> Basic income, guaranteed basic income, basic income guarantee, unconditional basic income, guaranteed minimum income, minimum income guarantee, and a few other things are different names different people have used for the same thing. The definition you provide is what all those terms often name, but the terminology "basic income" alone is not universally accepted as the standard label for it. Additionally, some of those terms have, in some contexts, been used for things which don't meet that definition.</comment></comment>


Italy Seizes Bank of America's Assets Amid Probe - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWJC2mYeMKqg&pos=5 <comment><USER2> This one seems really unrelated to HN. If you want Italian news, this is a good site:

<http://www.corriere.it/>

They have an English section too:

<http://www.corriere.it/english/></comment>