Google and Paint.NET need to stop misleading users (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/google-and-paint-net-need-to-stop-misleading-users/ <comment><USER2> I'm curious why these ads are even allowed to get through the network in the first place. Is there just NO content reviewing taking place? That's seems negligent on Google's part. There is no reason for an ad like that to exist on any webpage, period. It should have been blocked at the source.

Where is the 3-strikes policy in the ad space? Google is so eager to punish its Youtube streamers for running questionably offensive content, and yet it continues to let advertising scum like this run rampant across its ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if they ran an A/B test on customer spending depending on the time it takes from "uploading" an ad to the network and the ad showing positive metrics. My guess is the result of such a finding would impact the duration and thoroughness of the review process.

And my guess is youtubers make up such a small slice of revenue that the threat of lawsuits outweighs the convenience of the customer.

<comment><USER4> I highly doubt it has to do with the time it takes to have someone review the submission. Google does not like hiring people to do things it thinks algorithms can do adequately, because people cost a lot more than servers.

<comment><USER5> At least on adwords, you get a "quality score" for ads, which is essentially a clickthrough rate, which lowers your cost per impression. In this case, I assume those ads get a high clickthrough rate due to being terribly misleading, which leads the algorithm to believe these ads are the most appropriate for this ad slot (they are if the only metric you care about is money going into Google's pockets).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://ninite.com/](https://ninite.com/) Accept no substitutes when installing on Windows.

<comment><USER7> Looks nice, but I would always prefer Chocolatey ([https://chocolatey.org/packages](https://chocolatey.org/packages)). Reason: More (and easier to customize) packages / applications to get.

<comment><USER8> Ninite has the advantage of being self-contained in a single executable, though. Chocolatey looks like something you have to install, which makes it poorly suited for quickly installing something on a machine that's not yours.

<comment><USER9> Chocolatey is like apt for Windows. It is _worth_ the install.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Everyone seems to give Google the benefit of the doubt here. Is it possible they aren't doing anything because they are making lots of money from this ethical grey area?

The incentives seem perfectly aligned... the advertiser doubtlessly doesn't care about whether it's a scrupulous ad or not. Paint.NET authors make money, and Google makes money.

<comment><USER11> If the toolbars, as is typical, end up hijacking the search engine, or injecting their own ads on pages, then Google loses money.

<comment><USER12> And yet this happens. All the time. In adsense, on youtube, on Google+, on the Play store and basically in every other customer-facing Google business. I can see two reasons for that:

1\. A not-my-problem mentality at Google

2\. Google is trying to replace human intelligence with AI pseudo-intelligence which has turned out to be really _really_ easy to fool

I believe it's actually a combination of the two and it scares the crap out of me thinking these guys want to create self driving (and flying!) cars.

<comment><USER13> I think you should look at point 3., slightly different from 1: everytime Google acts on something like this, they show that they can act.

If the damage it causes them, both in profit and image, is not very large then it might very well not be worth it to risk setting a precedent than Google is responsible for policing their ads. It is exactly the scenario they were caught in with YouTube, and becoming the police there didn't help them at all compared to the previous status quo.

Of course that's the good scenario, the bad one would be that Google, being of a size and importance that can be called a monopoly in the Internet ad space, would be violating these "fraudsters" rights since technically what they do may not be breaking any laws, which would lead to this becoming a precedent and all the others who currently try to keep themselves mostly clean in their ads would be vindicated to go evil too.

I'm not saying these are the real reasons, but again if the damage and risk they represent is insignificantly small relative to the whole, why would Google risk opening that can of worms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find that article hilarious with this context: [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/02/googl...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/02/google-now-blocking-websites-that-show-fake-download- buttons/)

<comment><USER15> Yet, nothing of that sort has happened.

Screenshot taken 2 minutes ago: [http://i.imgur.com/FOcB46m.png](http://i.imgur.com/FOcB46m.png)

<comment><USER16> Here is a small sample of ads I have blocked from my sites: [https://imgur.com/a/5SD9b](https://imgur.com/a/5SD9b)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The terrible experience of pulling down an installer for Paint.net was one of the final straws that pushed me to move over to using chocolatey for windows workstation setup.

       > choco install paint.net

Unfortunately, while that allows me to never see fake download-button ads when pulling down software for my machine, one place it's still a nightmare in is the world of getting minecraft mods installed on a kid's computer. Picking out the real download link from among all the fake ads is sometimes a real challenge.

<comment><USER18> I was going to say - obviously the author of this post hasn't looked for Minecraft mods, because there the problem is far worse.

<comment><USER19> is it? 99% of the mods nowadays can be downloaded from Curse [1] without any ads and for easy mod management you can even install their launcher

those that can't, can be usually found on this site with their official download site linked [2]

[1] [https://minecraft.curseforge.com/](https://minecraft.curseforge.com/) [2] [https://bot.notenoughmods.com/](https://bot.notenoughmods.com/)

<comment><USER20> >and for easy mod management you can even install their launcher

Does that launcher ask for the username and password?

That's a pretty lousy message to be teaching mostly children about password security.

<comment><USER19> no it does not, it launches the vanilla client in which you enter your username and password so it goes directly to Mojang! the launcher (technically a wrapper around the normal launcher) was recently rebranded to Twitch Launcher since Amazon (Twitch) bought Curse

[https://mods.curse.com/client](https://mods.curse.com/client)

<comment><USER20> Ah, that's good. Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My question is why is it so easy to have advertisements that directly link to downloadable software? If I'm clicking on an advertisement I want to know more about a product, not be forced to run a binary of which I have no certainty of it's true purpose. Or am I thinking wrong? If you disallow download based advertising including linking to pages that only offer you a download, this could be a little more useful against malvertisements. More reason to run an adblocker.

<comment><USER22> I can't believe Google couldn't categoricatically add context to these type of ads if they really cared.

Google knows the ad link. Google can crawl the target page / file. If it's an installer, Google can run it in a VM and note what ends up being installed.

If you can't pull a clear "this is crapware" signal out of that, then their ML is a lot less advanced than it seems.

And if they can, then just automatically put a stronger visual border around it with something like "This is an advertisement" in bold. Then let advertisers sort it out. Google penalizes SEO they disagree with all the time, and people stop doing it because they don't want to take the hit.

And I'm pretty sure it is (image recognition) and they don't... so... advertising buys trump "don't be evil."

<comment><USER23> They _would_ care if thousands of organisations pulled their advertising over it.

<comment><USER21> I really wish this were the case. It would be nice if more organizations were more action oriented against malvertisement. I seem to recall there was one blog / news site that got rid of Google Adsense from their website here on HN not over a year ago, and I'm sure others have. It's really sad that Google doesn't put any effort (that we know, though we would see less of this) against these advertisements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> People must remember that Google is first and foremost an advertising company. 90% of its revenue comes directly from advertising. Anyone who thinks they will prioritize anything over ad revenue is either very naive or very stupid.

Google's CEO declared it's "AI first" and they developed TensorFlow. If they wanted to, they could have easily prevented those ads from entering their network.

<comment><USER25> Please explain how, since it's easy.

<comment><USER26> I'll take a crack at an explanation:

Google has machine learning technology that automatically reads street address numbers on houses, regardless of angle, color, size, focus, or typeface.

Using the same type of algorithm to answer "does this ad have anything that looks like a button in it?" is relatively simple by at least two orders of magnitude.

So rather than it being "easy" in some absolute sense, what's meant here is that it is easy compared to similar tasks that we already know Google does routinely and has largely automated.

<comment><USER27> Lots of things have button and aren't maliciously masquerading as download links. Furthermore, if they start doing that then ad producers will start changing their ad images to evade the algorithm. It's much harder to use ML for a problem when you have a malicious opponent actively working against it.

<comment><USER28> It should be as simple as:

\- Is this a download page?

\- Does this ad contain a button-like image with the word "Download" on it?

Presumably the people creating these ads are specifically targeting pages with the word "download" in to create this confusion, it doesn't seem like rocket science for Google to apply the exact same rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> To be fair, this is not just Paint.NET. I am a Adsense publishers and I had the chance to talk to "optimizers" from the Adsense team from time to time, and I told them how much I loath those "Download" ads... unfortunately, up to today, things haven't improved, and there is little an Adsense publisher could do, because you can ban those ads in your Adsense panel, but usually they just show up a few days later under a different account.

</comment><comment><USER30> And as unpopular as the idea is with geeks, I think this illustrates the need for a "walled gardened" for the majority of users where each app is sandboxxed. Something like this couldn't happen on iOS, ChromeOS or Windows 10s.

Most non developers would be served perfectly fine with a locked down OS.

<comment><USER31> What it illustrates the need for is understanding why you're receiving things (which is a pretty vital outside of software, too). If you pay for your product then you won't see phishing on the download page. If it's a subscription fee, then they're going to make it difficult to abandon or switch away from. And if it's "free", then who knows what's going on - maybe the product will wantonly encourage spending money (advertising), or manipulate you towards a paid service. Or maybe the secret motives are innocuous, like the dev's resume or (very rarely) the common good, but you need to _understand_ that before you know what's coming.

<comment><USER30> Look at all of the open source software that is there for the common good, but is still hijacked with crapware by places like SourceForge and Download.com.

You can even search for Windows drivers and instead of getting drivers from the manufacturer, you end up with malware from a third party site.

<comment><USER31> .. and that's the profit model of sourceforge etc. You need to consider all parties involved, of course.

<comment><USER30> And you expect everyone to know this? Sourceforge caught a lot of tech savvy people by surprise when they first started doing this.

What do most non devs gain by an "open system" that a well functioning App Store that forces apps to be sandboxed where the user has to grant permissions individually to apps?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of the examples of why I consider Google a malware distributor. This sort of stuff just continues undealt with.

Companies should be held responsible for the ads they distribute, it's the only way to make them care enough to vet the ads they push.

</comment><comment><USER27> You can report these bad ads by clicking the small X in the corner. Please do that if you ever see any of those, and they'll be replaced by other kinds of ads (and hopefully over time they'll get enough reports to be removed.)

<comment><USER32> The better solution is installing a capable adblocker.

<comment><USER33> That works for me, but then leads to me telling a friend/relative to get the software and them managing to screw up their machines by doing what they think I told them to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Just curious, why single out Paint.NET exclusively? These types of ads have a long history all over the Internet, even on more popular sites than this - isn't this more of a Google issue than an individual website operator?

</comment><comment><USER35> Interesting, I've visited this website multiple times before and didn't know about this problem until today. Ad blocker browser add-on seems to be doing its job really well.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think this was the exact same downfall as SourceForge. It's great we don't live in the SoftPedia/SourceForge days anymore (or maybe it's just me, I'm on a Mac now).

</comment><comment><USER37> The Bing search engine is about as bad.

A close friend used IE to get Google Chrome. They clicked the first result and luckily I was able to stop them before starting the install on some crapware.

So I asked them to be careful to ensure the download site is correct and left them to it.

I came back to find they had downloaded some other crapware.

I checked the search results. The ENTIRE first one and a half page of results were advertisements for versions of crapware which may or may not have been Chromium or Chrome lookalikes with lots of malware.

</comment><comment><USER38> I hope the author of Paint.NET will see this submission and removes the ads. I'm a big fan Paint.NET and made a donation. But this practice is just shady and makes no honor to the author of otherwise great application.

<comment><USER39> Yes, I'm also very fond of Paint.Net, so it irks me to see this kind of article

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> So why do they allow banner ads to look like download buttons anyway? I mean, there's no real reason you should be able to pass an ad off as a download link, so wouldn't the obvious answer just be to ban ads that look like that?

Heck, you could probably even automate that process with Google's technology. If OCR technology can identify captchas, it can probably identify button shapes in images or text that looks like program information.

</comment><comment><USER39> If it is about the money for Google, can't they at least put a warning over the ad that says "Are you really sure you want to download [Some Malware]?" if you hover/click on the ad.

Nevermind, the right thing to do would be to ban these kinds of ads outright, but we can't count on them to do that now, can we?

</comment><comment><USER41> Wow, those ads convert well enough to be worth the clicks? Must be even shadier on the other side of the click.

</comment><comment><USER42> I always recommend against Paint.NET _precisely_ because of its adware-ridden website. There are enough free, open-source alternatives that you don't really need it. Hell, even IrfanView can do little image edits if you need something really damn quick.

</comment><comment><USER43> How about users, and especially corporate users, actually start paying for Paint.NET and other pieces of software they rely on so the developers don't have to resort to Ad Sense or e-begging to fund further development?

</comment><comment> angry-hacker And nothing has changed in 2017 from both sides, the ads are still there and show spyware download links.

I guess Google is too busy dealing with "fake news" and paint.net can't give up that sweet ad money.

</comment><comment><USER44> This article is from 2013. Google has banned these types of ads from its network (and started blocking sites that serve them) since then, as was discussed on HN at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11032270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11032270)

<comment><USER45> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336972)

And I just checked myself and confirmed the continuing existence of very similar ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I don't think 2013 article is still relevant today.

<comment><USER47> It's still relevant. I took this screenshot a few seconds ago: [https://i.imgur.com/6LoQ3TW.png](https://i.imgur.com/6LoQ3TW.png)

<comment><USER46> Today I visited the site again and now it started to show me the same download ads.

So it is still relevant. But how these ads are able to pass through AdWords review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Sounds like a personal problem to me...

This is a little shady, but all the units are clearly labeled as ads. I have a hard time getting as worked up over this as the author does. Paint.NET is a free product, what do you expect?

<comment><USER49> You could've at least visited the website. They are NOT clearly labeled as ads.

[https://www.getpaint.net/index.html](https://www.getpaint.net/index.html)

<comment><USER26> wcummings might mean the tiny grey-and-blue icons in the top right of each unit.

If so, I disagree. Those icons are not visible enough, and are hard for many users to click without accidentally clicking the ad instead.

<comment><USER48> At least one of them in the screenshots says "advertisement by", in addition to the tracking opt out icon. But yes that is what I was referring to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is trivially solved with an ad blocker. Frankly, I do not see the problem. Why should you rely on Google/Paint.NET/state legislation when the solution is literally a few button clicks away on both chrome and firefox? All browsers should come with ad blockers by default. Hell, the OS should come with blocking hosts.txt. That would make the digital world a whole lot safer. And before you say the internet will die, I'd be more than willing to pay a subscription fee for stuff like youtube and twitch.tv. Or there could still be ads like here on hackernews, relevant and embedded in the site.

<comment><USER51> As much as I agree that the problem is solved for those who know about ad blockers, many people (e.g. non-hacker news types!) do not know about them. In any case, whether users can solve this by installing an ad blocker is beside the point - this is really shitty behaviour that I wouldn't have expected Google to allow, or for Paint.NET to allow on their site.

<comment><USER4> I think a lot of the reason Google has been allowed to get away with this is because of ad blockers... the people in a position to most loudly condemn the practice and push for change... aren't using the same Internet as the rest of us, they don't see the problem.</comment></comment></comment>


Clojure 2013 Year in Review - <AUTHOR> http://stuartsierra.com/2014/01/01/clojure-2013-year-in-review <comment><USER2> I'm a Clojure newbie, but what impresses me about Clojure is the restraint and good taste in introducing new features to the language and core libraries. The language continues to be simple, extremely elegant and fun, but most of all, there is a strong sense of good design. APIs are considered carefully and not introduced into the core unless they solve a major problem, and solve it cleanly and well.

What is missing from Clojure, I think, is better support – either at the language level or as common practice – for large software composition, or programming-in-the-large. This is probably the opposite problem from to of Erlang, the other language that tackles the huge problem of state management well. Clojure is terrific when it comes to implementing computation, but how to best assemble various components into a large, maintainable program is not so clear.

<comment><USER3> You've obviously given this quite a bit of thought, given your work on the Pulsar library:

[https://github.com/puniverse/pulsar](https://github.com/puniverse/pulsar)

Your comment below this one focuses more on 'established practices' for large programs rather than 'is there a library that has this feature?'. I think that's just a reflection of both the state of functional programming and Clojure. They are growing and on there way to being commonly used in large systems, but not there yet (and so the practices don't exist).

For a completely different way of thinking about the problem of software composition that is more functional (although not for Newbies, not that you are) - there is lots of work going on with Monads in Clojure.

You can read about Monads in Clojure on Leonardo Borge's blog entry "Monads in Small Bites". This has some nice parallels by comparing Haskell and Clojure usage patterns.

[http://www.leonardoborges.com/writings/2012/11/30/monads- in-...](http://www.leonardoborges.com/writings/2012/11/30/monads-in-small- bites-part-i-functors/)

Jim Duey has put lots of work into explaining Monads in Clojure in his talk at Clojure West. The way he builds up the venn diagram is a great visual explanation (some say the addition of arrows wasn't helpful).

[https://github.com/strangeloop/2011-slides/blob/master/Duey-...](https://github.com/strangeloop/2011-slides/blob/master/Duey- MonadsEasy.pdf)

In addition the Fluokitten library in Clojure has lots of building blocks for Monads in Clojure. You can read about it on this blog entry "Functors, Applicatives and Monads in Pictures - in Clojure". The great thing about this is the focus on boxing. [http://fluokitten.uncomplicate.org/articles/functors_applica...](http://fluokitten.uncomplicate.org/articles/functors_applicatives_monads_in_pictures.html)

I also saw my first Free Monad in Clojure in the wild this year:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20171057/is-it- possible-t...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20171057/is-it-possible-to- do-the-free-monad-in-clojure)

<comment><USER2> One of the things I like about Clojure is that it doesn't tout itself as a "functional language", even though in many senses it is. The reason is that outside the enthusiast circles, i.e. in pretty much every enterprise, the term "functional language" is considered almost toxic; the term "monad" is highly toxic. Because Clojure has always been careful to put a lot of emphasis on practice over theory, if any monad-based approach to program composition is to be taken, a different name must be found for it. I think monads (not that I understand exactly what they are - I used to, but I forgot :)) are mostly useful for language designers. It is a very high-level abstraction, and the developer does not need to understand it in order to use a particular application of monads. In any case, anything with that even mentions the word monad can forget about widespread adoption. You can use them to build a specific API and then give it a different name, just don't mention the word.

<comment><USER3> Yes - I recall Simon Peyton Jones (one of the Haskell designers) commented on this in a talk when he came to town. He said, "The biggest mistake we made was calling them Monads. That's a big scary word."

Re naming and specific APIs - there is a comment along these lines on this blog entry:

"As you may have noticed, I reused list concatenation as monoid addition, but this makes a lot of sense, as list concatenation satisfies all the monoid laws, and no other laws. A more accessible way of saying that a type is a monoid is to say that it is combinable, addable, appendable or summable."

[http://tailcalled.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/translation-of- mo...](http://tailcalled.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/translation-of-monads-are- just-monoids-in-the-category-of-endofunctors/)

I reckon 'addable' is what you were getting at with "build a specific API and then give it a different name."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started using Clojure in 2012. Here are the changes I've observed, though it is more subtle.

The tooling and the libraries are working much better right now. A strong indicator of this was the decision to nuke Noir, which I gather made a lot of sense when it came out. I've noticed that my code makes fewer calls to Java than it did a year ago. nRepl was a huge improvement over Slime. I'm looking forward to Leiningen 3.

Documentation across the board has improved quite a bit. Its still not perfect, but you can't deny the quality found in Elastich [1], Leinengen [2], ClojureScript [3], Luminus [4].

Many more useful libraries. I can't list them all here, but the library ecosystem has improved quite a bit, not only in quantity, but quality. Don't get me wrong, there are a few duds out there, but it is nice to see that many problems are being solved.

[1] [http://clojureelasticsearch.info/](http://clojureelasticsearch.info/)

[2] [https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/doc/TUT...](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/doc/TUTORIAL.md)

[3] [https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/wiki](https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/wiki)

[4] [http://www.luminusweb.net/docs](http://www.luminusweb.net/docs)

<comment><USER5> Stuart obviously has a Cognitect-centric view of what's gong on. It's interesting that you name three projects he didn't. This reflects the fact that, these days, there's way too much interesting stuff going on in Clojure. e.g. Cascalog 2

<comment><USER4> I am mentioning projects that have been around before 2013. I'm simply pointing out that one of the large complaints is being taken seriously. Documentation a year ago was basically "install and good luck." This is changing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=67jEUrLq...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=67jEUrLqNIfZoATMgYLADA&url=http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Datomic&cd=1&ved=0CCgQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNHXR0WgXw9RvAnqneyBY8d_kHBfuA)

great video outlining how datomic was implemented using clojure..I would say this is a large sized system....

I have built a larger system in clojure and do not have the same concerns..I feel for the first time in a while I have a powerful tool at my disposal and will be my tool of choice for now..

</comment><comment><USER7> seems like we are going around in circles. what is so new and great about Clojure? we have Lisp and various implementations of Scheme which are more functional,powerful and stable. Clojure runs on the JVM so what?? seems like we kind of reinvent the wheel when the wheel was not broken to begin with.....i have done some programming in Clojure and also scheme. scheme is the real deal simple but powerful and not restricted because the JVM will not allow it.

</comment><comment><USER8> After not using Clojure For about half a year (not a language my last customer uses) I have started using Clojure again for a new project. Clojure is like Ruby in the sense that I am simply happy working with both languages. I also use Java and JavaScript a lot, but I don't get the joy using those languages (not knocking them, but they are not as much fun to use).</comment>


Redditor tears apart the current JavaScript thick-client landscape - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1xplrc/how_many_of_you_support_users_with_no_js/cfdkxg6

<comment><USER2> It's not just that, it's that every couple of months some "new hipster trend" appears on HN/Reddit and everyone jumps the train and declares that "all new web apps must be using angular" (or similar, you know where I'm driving to!).

But hey, hasn't anyone ever noticed people still build their websites in PHP (and some of the most used Web software is written in PHP, too)? I'd say, better learn PHP and solid HTML and try not waste too much time with learning a new JS framework every other day.

Chances are that if you use Angular today, in six months $new_consultant will say "oh, framework FOOBAR is much faster/easier, lets waste everything done so far and rebuild".

</comment><comment><USER3> Not to be a contrarian; but I think this is kind of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

At one point YAML, or JSON were considered new, useless technology.. Why would you need it when you have XML? Look at noSQL databases, originally dismissed as a waste of time, but now they are proving to be important technology in the current day. Technology is only "trendy garbage" in hindsight; when its new we can't tell the difference between D and C#. JavaScript thick clients have some bad examples, but to call them flash websites is a little overstating it.

Successful JavaScript applications aren't a replacement for websites, they are a replacement for software application. Calling them bad websites is really missing the point.

</comment><comment><USER4> Andoird and IOS are a thick-client and they work fine.

Maybe you should be less .js centric and more DOM centric in your thick HTML client.

Minor point, thick client is faster can can use CDN for even more speed. (and using tools like PhoneGap Build, is cross platform, a fraction of native).</comment>


Kin launched its developer program and SDK for its blockchain network - <AUTHOR> http://www.kinecosystem.com/dev <comment><USER2> This is the future! Reward devs for integrating, reward users for their time, everybody wins. Good luck to all the devs submitting applications. And remember if, if you're not selected, don't get discouraged. It will STILL be super easy for you to integrate kin into your apps and you/your users will still reap the rewards from the KRE. Happy developing, everyone!

</comment><comment><USER3> Great news!! We just submitted our application. Very excited to see who gets selected! May the best devs win.

</comment><comment><USER4> As hesitant as I am with all the crypto and block chain out there considering all the scams and such, at least this one has a big company behind it. Nice!</comment>


Hackernews.ca – the experimental alternative that is selfishly setup for ME - <AUTHOR> http://hackernews.ca <comment><AUTHOR> backstory: I love hackernews! It's by far the best source for the latest in technology and intellectually stimulating articles. So much so that I find I share a lot of it on social media, however I had issues with the way the site shares links and I didn't want to use a 3rd party browser app. I included a few hotkeys (alt-1, alt-2, alt-3) for facebook, google+ plus and twitter. additionally, I added a hot key for searching (ALT-S) since I primarily share from my computer, and made the share buttons ridiculously large so it's great on my smartphone or tablet. I wasn't going to release it, but I figure it would bring some people some happiness. Hope you enjoy it. It's a work in progress (but really just a hobby) :)</comment>


Siri Says Nokia Lumia 900, Not Apple iPhone, Is The Best Smartphone Ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/255508/siri_says_nokia_lumia_900_not_apple_iphone_is_the_best_smartphone_ever.html <comment><USER2> Guess what the Lumia 900 has to say about what is the best smartphone ever: [http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/05/12/guess-what- happens-w...](http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/05/12/guess-what-happens-when- you-ask-the-nokia-lumia-what-the-best-smartphone-ever-is/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well it's not Siri but the Wolfram Alpha search engine that reaches that conclusion based of 5 reviews.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why is this notable? Should Apple capture all variations of "best smartphone" and say "latest iPhone"?</comment>


NRG CEO resigns amid transition to renewable energy - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/12/04/david-crane-nrg-energy/ <comment><USER2> This is a bit of a misleading headline. He resigned because his renewable energy bets weren't paying off and his company was losing money as a result.

</comment><comment><USER3> are there other companies now pursuing cleantech?

<comment><USER4> It's much harder with oil at 40ish/bbl.

<comment><USER5> Very little oil is used in electricity generation, except in Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

The problem is everyone is racing to deploy renewables, driving the price of electricity down. This is good for consumers, bad for utilities. Traditional returns are going right out the window (or rather, are being transferred away from utilities to renewables manufacturers).

<comment><USER6> Yes, NRG, SolarCity, and Sungevity all were looking to get panels on my house. Good time to be a consumer.

<comment><USER5> If you don't mind me asking:

* Did you decide to move forward with an installation?

* If so, who did you select as the installer?

* If not, why not?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Honeybees and Investors - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizstone.com/2011/08/honeybees-and-financial-markets.html

<comment><USER2> Using nature as a model for the internet, the economy, or other large systems is not new. Much of the science and (more importantly?) mathematics of explaining both is similar.

Kevin Kelly (of Wired fame) is a great explainer of these ideas. He has lot of interesting writing on his website. <http://www.kk.org/>

I think Biz Stone is one of the most advanced thinkers of social media. I hope he keeps writing about this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kinda sounds like Biz is trying to sound intelligent in this post.

I know nothing of the guy, except that he was involved in the early days of Twitter (whether or not he 'really' was on the founding team is apparently up for debate).

But his writing here, has kinda jarred me.

Not sure why.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not what I expected. I'm pleasantly surprised. I was all prepared to act like a jerk, roll my eyes, and remark on how this is totally not new as honeybees have been proposed as basically a business/trade mental model for thousands of years by various cultures (Greek for sure, but I think also Indian and Persian). Kudos for having a new spin on this comparison.</comment>


How Teams Choose Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.yusufaytas.com/teams-choose-language/ <comment><USER2> In my experience, it's not just one language. A lot of products are built in a variety of languages, based on what the need is.

Python for testing, Haskell for static testing, C++ for high-performance low- level stuff, Lex & Yacc for, well, lexing, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Often there is legacy code around which forces the decision, at least partially.

</comment><comment><USER4> I partially agree with this because there are companies which chose the language after a critical evaluation. Jet Chose F#</comment>


Chrome Engineer: Firefox Is A Partner, Not A Competitor - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/chrome_engineer_firefox_is_a_partner_not_a_competi.php#.TvZmEeYkHTU.hackernews <comment><USER2> Firefox isn't quite on par with Chrome anymore. It still has a lot of benefits from its legacy advantage in the plugin area.

But I don't think this really matters to the consumer. Firefox has improved rapidly, mostly as a result of chromes competition. It stagnated for years until chrome came along.

It's like Android vs iPhone. Competition creates better products.

If there wasn't a good competitor to keep innovation going, it would be just like Windows in early 2000s.

<comment><USER3> I can't speak for the average user, but I would argue that until Chrome gets the ability to add a separate search bar, it will never be on par with Firefox. Albeit, Chrome is much faster than Firefox, but without that search bar I just can't use it fluidly.

<comment><USER4> I'm really surprised this is an issue for people.

For as long as I can remember, the first thing I've done when installing a new browser is remove the search bar and all of the toolbar buttons. Searching from the address bar is no more or less convenient than from the dedicated search field, and all of the other actions can be done faster using keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures or, in my case, extra mouse buttons.

What's the appeal of having a separate search bar taking up space?

<comment><USER5> > What's the appeal

Not having every url I type in sent to Google is the main appeal.

<comment><USER4> Only if you use Google as your main search.

And you can turn it off in any case.

<comment><USER5> The point is that the typical Chrome user is ending up sending all their URLs to Google, probably without even realizing it.

What fraction of them do you think would be OK with this if it were pointed out to them? My anecdotal sample suggests about 50% or so.

Violating the privacy of 50% of their users in a way they do not desire by default is not something Mozilla is likely to do. Google of course considers this perfectly ok, as expected. They don't believe in this antiquated "privacy" thing to start with.

As far as "turn it off", you can also switch to using a single combined search bar in Firefox if you want to mess with the settings. This discussion is about defaults.

<comment><USER6> Google isn't even Chrome's default browser, technically. They had a ballot selection box on the first use for awhile.

<comment><USER5> Interesting. That wasn't there last I checked!

But the point remains: they send what you type in the url bar to your default search engine. This is not behavior many users are OK with once they realize it's happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is this on the front page when the original Google+ post that this article summarizes is also on the front page?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389972>

</comment><comment><USER8> > the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly > as possible. That's it.

ok what does that even mean? they are trying to make the "web advance" because if they won't, the desktop will come back and advance instead? or do they mean advancing new web standards and features to replace older non-standard technologies (say like flash)? ( i am not trying to be sarcastic just wondering the meaning is ).

<comment><USER9> Google's business is built on the open web, so they need the open web to flourish. This requires new standards to compete with Flash and other proprietary technologies and platforms.

Pushing Chrome is a way for them to advance the state of the art. By building a genuinely better browser that has enough users it can't be ignored, it puts pressure on other browser vendors to catch up.

It's like a reverse IE strategy. You'll see Google (and Firefox) pushing for more technology built into the browser (e.g., BrowserID, canvas, etc.), but based on open standards.

Anyhow, I think that's what they mean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google guys are all with very high IQs, so they think the rest people with common sense are fools. Chrome vs Firefox, it's obvious the former eats the latter's lunch, which is fine to me, I use both.

</comment><comment><USER11> Firefox has become absolute bloatware. Opera is the only browser that is doing any kind of new innovation.

<comment> eric-hu I use Firefox for development because of Firebug

I use FF for casual browsing because of Adblock plus

The plugins make the browsing experience for me

<comment><USER12> Yes the same here, Firefox is my main development machine and chrome is secondary.

I wish a world where firefox+chrome+open source derivatives have >80% usage share globally.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Messenger: inside Mark Zuckerberg's app for everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2015/11/features/inside-facebook-messenger <comment><USER2> _Once you interact with a business [on Messenger], you open a thread that will stay forever. You never lose context of what you are talking about. And the business never loses context about who you are and your past purchases. It removes all the friction_ -Julien Codorniou, Facebook. Quoted from the article.

I think messaging based commerce seems really natural and human. Interested in hearing any experiences others have had building on FB Messenger Platform for business. It seems many of the showcased integrations tend toward digital content creation and curation such as Giphy and Dubsmash

[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger/showcase](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger/showcase)</comment>


Show HN: Have a skill? Use it to travel the world for free - <AUTHOR> Stay On Skill - Stay on Skill is a platform that helps people use their skills (e.g. coding, blogging, dancing, yoga, guitar, cooking, etc) to travel the world for free.
I am currently looking for people who would like to become alpha users, and help me build this product better. Any feedback is welcome.
Also, if you are veteran in Travel startups, I would love to get in touch with you.
http://stayonskill.com <comment><USER2> Great Initiative, you have obviously considered the VISA issues. Would love to hear how you plant to tackle those.

I would pay heavily for a service that takes care of my entire backoffice and gives me a check for work and has great customer service( the millennial in me i guess)

</comment><comment><USER3> If I register I see nothing that tells me how my contact details will be stored, used, distributed, or protected. As a result I won't be registering.

Having said that, I wish you all the best.

<comment><USER2> Nice reply.</comment></comment>


What's new in Perl 5.10.1  - <AUTHOR> http://perltraining.com.au/tips/2009-09-07.html

<comment><USER2> A couple of slides showing what was new in 5.10.0:

* [http://www.slideshare.net/rjbs/perl-510-for-people-who-arent...](http://www.slideshare.net/rjbs/perl-510-for-people-who-arent-totally-insane)

* <http://www.slideshare.net/acme/whats-new-in-perl-510>

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't believe perl 6 isn't even close to being out. I'm an old perl hacker from way back. It is nice to see new features in perl. Perl isn't as sexy as Python & Ruby these days but it still powers much of the web. The CPAN library is still far above than what any other language offers. If any of you have never hacked up some perl code, i can't recommend it enough.

<comment><USER4> Actually, Rakudo, the Perl 6 implementation on the Parrot VM is out and the development team has announced development release #21 for it.

Its probably not the best choice for production work right now, but the development and improvement is going on at a rapid pace. Be sure to check out <http://rakudo.org/>

<comment><USER5> Has there been any point in time at which Perl 6 was not developing "at a rapid pace"?

Promises that Perl 6 will be available Real Soon got worn out in about 2006. Wake me when something's production ready. The _entire_ Python 3 process has gone from idea, to preliminary implementation process, to release, and almost certainly a 3.1 release while Perl 6 has been "rapidly developing" and out at "Christmas" (yes, I know the nature of the "joke", except _I_ consider it a joke in the _pejorative_ sense; the _funny_ sense wore out in 2006 too).

And if I had to place money on which will be out first, Python 3.2 or Perl 6, it's Python in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER6> Python 3 is not very ambitious. It's not comparable.

<comment><USER5> But part of the reason Python 3 wasn't "very ambitious" is that the people building it actually accounted for what could be done, and made a distinction between "what would be nice" and "what we actually need". It's been a careful, controlled upgrade process that actually works in the real world. It really is everything that Perl 6 hasn't been.

In my considered opinion, the way that Perl 5 is partially evolving into Perl 6 even before Perl 6 is out is further evidence that a big bang was neither necessary nor desirable. There would be at least one discontinuity point, just like there is for Python 3, but that's manageable.

I'm sure Perl 6 will eventually be released, which is not something I'd say about most projects in this state, but I don't think the perl community is doing itself any favors if it fools itself into thinking this went well. It didn't. Perl 6's _process_ has been a disaster. This point needs to be made.

I'm a professional perl programmer and don't want to see the language die, and it's been frustrating watching Perl 6 try so hard to kill it. As an open source project, they have every right to take as long as they like, I'm not trying to infringe any freedoms, but I have every right to say what I see, and what I see is not flattering at all.

<comment><USER7> > In my considered opinion, the way that Perl 5 is partially evolving into > Perl 6 even before Perl 6 is out is further evidence that a big bang was > neither necessary nor desirable.

I disagree strongly.

If you look at what I've called the milestones in the Perl renaissance, you can trace at least half of them (if not more) back to Perl 6.

If you like modern Perl, you owe Perl 6 a huge debt of gratitude.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google, Twitter and Publishers Seek Faster Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/technology/google-twitter-and-publishers-seek-faster-web.html <comment><USER3> Can someone who works on web development for a major publisher please try and explain why such sites take so long to load?

Just by opening devtools in Chrome I can tell that a lot of sites aren't bothering to minify HTML, aren't bothering to asynchronously load JavaScript, include more frameworks and widgets than anyone could possibly use and don't bother to cache anything (or cache very little). And with all the pointless junk they include, they still can't use proper HTML tags and attributes nor include some basic accessibility features.

I really hate having to reload pages because something didn't load properly or having to turn off JavaScript and/or images just because a site is loading a huge file that is blocking the display of a paragraphs of text. I know some people like to use something like Lynx or only allow HTML to be loaded - <USER2> my web browsing shouldn't have to become sadistic.

Making Google, Twitter or Facebook load news articles is a terrible alternative. Given the wide array of compression tools, caching (including service workers on >40% of browsers, appcache on >90% and pretty much everyone having HTTP caching) and the sheer amount of information on improving website performance that's out there, making news websites load fast really should be a solved problem that doesn't need Google to solve it.

<comment><USER4> > Can someone who works on web development for a major publisher please try > and explain why such sites take so long to load?

1\. The ad/tracking industry seems to be incapable of writing JavaScript that is not awful. I don't have insight why that happens, but all the scripts I had to deal with were layers upon layers of document.write, iframes, redirects and copy&pasted JS from the Netscape 4 era. Even when somebody tries to fix it, the best they can do is to add one more layer of scripts on top of the rotting pile.

2\. Business deals are made with no consideration of 3rd party's code quality and performance impact. Once the deal is signed the developers are just tasked with integrating all of the crap the 3rd party vendor wants. It's impossible to object: the vendor is not going to rewrite all of their shitty scripts, especially after the deal is already in place. Even when it's really bad, arguing about it just results in endless meetings, conference calls and at best the 3rd party vendor saying they'll think about putting some little tweak in the backlog for some future release.

<comment><USER3> Gee, sounds like maintains these sites is hell. It also sounds like a huge opportunity if a startup could convince sites they need the fastest ads.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I didn't mean to paint such a bleak picture. There are good and smart people working on these sites, and some newspapers have technically very good code (apart from ads :)

There are also lots of very hard constraints. The publishing process is complex and on strict schedules, especially if it's connected to printing of a daily newspaper. There are hundreds of people involved, so upgrading CMS for a newspaper is like changing wheels of a car while it's moving.

And on top of that monetization on the web is hard. Users hate paywalls. Nobody wants a mobile app, especially not for overpriced in-app payments. But something needs to bring money, and even getting ad inventory that's higher class than "doctors hate this!!!" is also a very hard work.

<comment><USER3> Well, I didn't mean to make it so bleak either, because some sites like the New York Times have quite talented developers!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "People often favor mobile apps because they are faster, cleanly formatted and are constantly updated to take advantage of the evolving features of new smartphones."

That's all conjecture. The truth is that the reasons people will use an App over a website is subjective. Whatever reasons people have should be gathered from research and studies and not just theories based off of a narrative from site owners.

I still use the YouTube app but not the Twitter app. I prefer to use Google's site over the widget/app but will sometimes on the spur of the moment.

</comment><comment><USER6> My lament with Facebook has always been the corraling of the web into a private network instead of the privacy that has stayed in the news. Apps for different things has made things worse. Today rarely a new business open a website they just post their details on Facebook or an app specific to the industry. And we have to install an app or login to Facebook to access the data. Google and twitter helping publishers might be good for publishers and the open web but I dont think its enough to save it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe they are talking about using the HTML AppCache/manifest and a script or something that downloads all of the resources in the manifest and background- preloads them in the Google/Facebook/Twitter etc. page/app. Maybe you don't need a script, just a frame. Maybe a special 'article.html' resource or something that is not allowed to have ads/popups/JS etc.

As long as they don't limit that to certain favored organizations.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I'm not sure I trust Google so much anymore and I trust Facebook even less. It'd have to be a W3 group somehow with all the players involved. Definitely some of them would play spoiler like Microsoft did back in the day. Apple would probably play spoiler with this, they like their App Store it makes them money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kick the ads, analytics, visitor spy scripts out and you have a fast website...

<comment><USER10> And no revenue or analytics.

<comment><USER11> You are not entitled to ad revenue or client-side analytics. The fact they work at all is just an odd combination of historical missteps that will be corrected in time.

That is, if we can ever get people to stop using Chrome. Chrome is Google's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Release open browser, add features, then restrict features like adding a default embedded "YouTube App" inside Chrome to get around ad blockers. Add default "Google Apps" apps to make Google services better than any other service you can use, because Chrome secretly loaded native pre-cached client-side, not web, apps on your computer.

It turns out your default content consumption applications _shouldn 't_ be written by corporations intertwined with advertising revenue.

It'll take the US government another 40 years to re-define monopoly scenarios capable of handling current abuses of power. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the land grabs, rising stock prices, and shuttered startups who can't compete with bundled platforms.

<comment><USER12> We have to learn clever tricks to avoid these land mines. Get ourselves anti- parasite injections etc...wise guys like you can help?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I assume this is the (counter) reaction to Facebook's instant articles. The lack of details doesn't help though.</comment>


Show HN: O'Doyle Rules – a new rules engine for Clojure - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/oakes/odoyle-rules <comment><USER2> I like it so much when a project tells you its limitations in the front page, and compares itself with (and points to) possible alternatives in a useful fashion; it should be standard! But is always awesome! THANK YOU!!

</comment><comment><USER3> Best video to see how this rules engine work would be to watch the following video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_mDiH5_hSc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_mDiH5_hSc)

Zach shows how a simple RPG game is implemented with play-cljc and odoyle- rules

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing, I'm ashamed to admit that I never really "got" these rule engines, but seeing this example finally made things click for me.

Am I correct that there's a very large overlap between rule engines and workflow engines, and one could use a rule engine like this to implement workflows?

<comment><USER5> I have been playing with the idea that a rule engine would work well with a state machine.

State machine manages the workflow, rule engine determines which transitions to execute?

Maybe that is overkill, but I've been trying to build a model in my head on how to model complex business processes.

<comment><USER6> Have you looked into something like BPMN + DMN? BPMN provides workflow modeling and basic decisions, and DMN provides decision tables which can implement more complex rules. There are a couple frameworks which can work on top of that to provide a system implementation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope I'm not the only one here old enough to get the reference in the engine's name.

<comment><USER8> I must be too old because I didn't get it.

<comment><USER9> It's from the movie Billy Madison. There was a family of bullies with the last name of O'Doyle, and everytime they picked on someone afterwards they would say "O'Doyle Rules". They eventually had an incident with a banana peel, but you'll have to watch the movie for that one ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This author is really talented and creates a lot of interesting projects. I spent some time reviewing nightcoders.net and the code quality is really impressive.

<comment><USER11> That link is broken. I think you meant this: [https://github.com/oakes/Nightcoders](https://github.com/oakes/Nightcoders)

And that is now a read only project. So, I guess it's defunct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The author also has a Nim version, [https://github.com/paranim/pararules](https://github.com/paranim/pararules)</comment>


Taxing robots: SF supervisor wants California to talk about it - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/08/25/taxing-robots-sf-supervisor-wants-california-talk/ <comment><USER2> Taxing "robots" is silly, mostly because it's impossible to define what a "robot" is in a remotely non-distortionary way or that doesn't require a horde of accountants to argue out.

Taxing "capital", by its monetary value, is much easier, and has a similar effect of promoting labor substitution. It's also universally despised by economists for the obvious reason that accumulating capital increases the return to labor under most models and makes everyone wealthier.

Of course California state politics are notoriously dumb, so who knows what'll happen.

<comment><USER3> Piketty and his collaborators being a notable and significant exception. [https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty- saezNBER12optKtax.pdf](https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty- saezNBER12optKtax.pdf)

Taxing capital is hard, because it's mobile. Governments are afraid that if they tax wealth at a high rate, the wealth will just move elsewhere. Thus, most businesses get some sort of property tax abatement as part of an incentive to locate in a particular city or state.

<comment><USER4> But taxing capital would still be easier than taxing robot work, yes? Since taxing robots is effectively a tax on a difficult to define subset of capital

<comment><USER3> Not arguing with you there -- taxing robot work sounds almost nonsensical. If anything it would be a great jobs program for tax lawyers who will tie themselves in knots figuring out how to circumvent this ill-defined tax.

Taxing capital is very straightforward from a regulations standpoint. It's only hard in that the capital will tend to flee the tax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr: A SF supervisor 'launched the "Jobs of the Future Fund", a crowdfunding effort to raise money to nudge the state to study the issue of what will happen to human workers in the age of automation.'

Related article: [http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/05/04/tax-robots-sf- supervis...](http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/05/04/tax-robots-sf-supervisor- exploring-idea/)

The fundamental problem: what's a "robot"?

We've been developing labor-saving devices and technologies since the dawn of civilization. Where's the line where a device becomes taxable?

Roomba? Teslas? A tractor? Looms? Machine tools? Drones? Printing presses? Teleprompters? Automated tomato sorting machines?

I'm all for figuring out the future where there are many unemployed workers because there are no longer enough labor jobs. But if we're taxing labor replacement, we might as well just raise the sales tax.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I understand your sales tax suggestion.

Wouldn't a sales tax increase punish the consumers losing their jobs?

Doesn't the increase in taxation have to come from business revenues in some way as a means to offset the reduction in consumer job income?

update: I may be looking at the problem as too much as a closed system (ie. things are made where they're sold). The implications of relocating production to areas with different taxation rules make an ideal solution very tricky.</comment></comment>


Shelling Out -- The Origins of Money - <AUTHOR> http://szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html

<comment><USER2> Evolutionary psychology strikes me as myth-making, not in the pejorative sense but in that it forms an understandable, cohesive, and easily retold story around a bunch of observations. It's ironic that the article labels the rationale primitive societies give for the importance of their media of exchange as "mythologies that served more as proximate motivators of behavior than as theories of ultimate purpose or origin."

Couldn't we say the same thing about what people think of money today? From "money is the root of evil" to our various economic theories, we are just telling ourselves stories that, as time passes, become more comprehensive (explains earlier theories and more). If our economic theories are myths, which I believe they are, then how should we mold the narrative to inspire us toward more cooperation and less starvation and violence?

<comment><USER3> "Evolutionary psychology strikes me as myth-making, not in the pejorative sense but in that it forms an understandable, cohesive, and easily retold story around a bunch of observations."

Perhaps it may serve that purpose, but a major difference is that evolutionary psychology aims to be falsifiable, not based on what an authority says, subject to peer review, etc.

Money didn't exist and now it does. Personally, I find a scientific basis to understanding what happened the most useful foundation to understanding it today.

Sure, I have my shorthand mental models that aren't scientific that serve me sometimes -- I do like old quotes like "money is the root of evil" and Pink Floyd songs -- but I value honing in on one story and trying for accuracy with it.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of accuracy in stories, I just looked up "money is the root of evil" and it turns out it's a popular misquotation.

According do <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/List_of_misquotations>, it's a biblical misquote. The original states it's the love of money that is a problem:

In context: "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (1 Timothy 6:10) KJV (The King James Bible)

Interesting irony on accuracy and change of meaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> fun fact: Szabo is partially responsible for the idea behind bitcoin. <http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/12/bit-gold.html>

<comment><USER5> The first thing I did upon opening this article was to search for "bitcoin" to find out whether it was going to be a shaggy dog story that ends by exhorting me to buy bitcoin. Turns out it wasn't, so I skimmed it. Quite interesting.

<comment><USER4> he blogs about all sorts of stuff but his website is academic papers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is really a huge amount wrong with this article.

For instance, fiat currency has been around for hundreds of years, it is not a 20th-century occurrence.

The French used assignats which were similar to our Federal Reserve Notes, the Chinese used small silk sheets the Empereor imprinted his seal onto, etc.

Even during the time of Thomas Jefferson there was the Continental currency, which crashed (as did all other fiat enterprises) rather spectacularly:

"The annihilation was so complete that barber-shops were papered in jest with the bills; and the sailors, on returning from their cruise, being paid off in bundles of this worthless money, had suits of clothes made of it, and with characteristic light-heartedness turned their loss into a frolic by parading through the streets in decayed finery which in its better days had passed for thousands of dollars."

Secondly, he claims that eBay's main purpose is to allow for trade in collectible items. While I am sure there are many sales of Beanie Babies online, he quotes no sources to lend support to that argument. Myself, I have only ever bought computer equipment from eBay...

</comment><comment><USER7> I love the "money is a formal token of delayed reciprocal altruism" bit, attributed to Richard Dawkins.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm taking the time to read through the article thoroughly. So far about 50% through.

I take issue with some assumptions like our Neolithic ancestors were always on the edge of starvation. Hunter gatherer tribes in many parts of the world in pre-Columbian times and even today got along quite well and in many instances had as much or more free time than we do today.

That aside, the general direction of the paper seems to be that some concept of money or "collectibles" has been endemic with our species since very close to the beginning about 100k years ago. The author equates this as a process manifested from underlying genetic survival mechanisms.

It's very interested and I recommend others to read it.

<comment><USER2> I always wonder about the debate of whether hunter-foragers worked 11 hours a week for food and shelter or were always on the brink of starvation and warfare. I wonder if we'll ever know, since there's so much earth left to dig up and so many stories we can tell with the few arrowheads and bones we find. I do know that whatever you believe in about scarcity has a profound impact on how you work, buy, and vote, and that by controlling the narratives surrounding scarcity in human evolution, you control the policies that the society creates and enforces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a really excellent piece.

I was very much informed/inspired by this when I made my humble attempt at a 'understanding money from a game theory / social network perspective' video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQX3tNuC_TY></comment>


Tristan O'Tierney, cofounder of Square, died last weekend - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Square-co-founder-who-created-company-s-first-13655221.php <comment><USER2> So sad! Looking for his name in HN stories, one gets the feeling of watching the tragedy unfold, step by step:

* 6 years ago: "Square co-founder Tristan OTierney exits the company"

* 5 years ago: "Tristan O'Tierney – Co-founder of Square Talking about Programmer Burnout"

* Now: "Tristan O'Tierney, cofounder of Square, died last weekend"

And for all his work, his death barely gets commemorated here.</comment>


Work for Pie is Shutting Down - <AUTHOR> http://blog.workforpie.com/2013/08/02/work-for-pie-is-shutting-down/ <comment><USER2> Yet another company I've only heard of because they're shutting down. This seems to be a recurring theme on HN and I think such companies should be a kind of cautionary tale to the rest of us. If people are only hearing of you because you're closing up shop, there was something wrong with your marketing plan. At least on HN, nobody was talking about them with sufficient frequency.[-1] [0]

In my humble opinion, this shouldn't be the last month for them. They should correct what's deficient in their marketing and business plans, and keep the show going even as a side project until it can sustain them and their families. To quote Tim Gunn: make it work.

Second point, it's really hard to get to their main site from their blog. There's no clear link and this is going to almost certainly profoundly negatively impact conversions. Visitors are lazy; don't make them work.

Lastly, to the founders of Work For Pie, I'm terribly sorry you're closing down and I truly wish you well. If this is Work For Pie's final month, I genuinely hope you go on to found new, vastly more successful businesses in the future and can look back on this as an amazing learning experience.

[-1] [http://i.imgur.com/UDPouuM.png](http://i.imgur.com/UDPouuM.png)

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/UHaEGRu.png](http://i.imgur.com/UHaEGRu.png)

<comment><USER3> You can click the logo, but in this case that doesn't make sense as the "header" is much larger then the logo. But it's still standard practice for a logo to get you to the homepage.

<comment><USER4> I didn't realize the logo until I went back and looked for a link (the first time I gave up after mousing over a few of the links above the blog header).

The logo looks like a header for the sidebar; having never been to "Work for Pie" I'm not familiar with their logo.

It would help if:

\- their logo on the sidebar had a solid background

\- their logo was on the tab for the blog instead of the generic WP logo (I don't know how hard this is to do, but frankly this looks sloppy)

\- they had a small "Work for Pie" \+ logo link above the blog header

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> (This comment is going to have a lot of HR and Marketing bullshit terms-- I'd like to apologize for these in advance.)

It's rarely a good thing to read about a company closing its doors, and I hope that you guys have more luck in your next venture, whatever it may be.

I suspect that you had a really, really tough time getting companies to pay you for placement (that is where you make your revenue, right? I don't see any other way). You've created some strange hybrid of, essentially, a gamified resume', and while the little graph is a neat trick, you probably figured out pretty quickly that companies with the money to throw at recruiting services simply do not care one whit about how many internet points a potential new hire has on some random site.

As a hiring manager, I can tell you what I'm interested in when seeing a potential new hire: a well-written, concise resume, links to code samples (whether on Github or elsewhere), and how well they're going to work with the rest of the team. Work for Pie appears to take the long route around coming up with an executive summary (of sorts) for just one of these three attributes. It seems highly impersonal and I'm surprised that you got any developers to sign up for it even with the promise of free internet points.

Also, I'm sure you found out the hard way about how intensely competitive the whole third-party-recruiting game is. It is not a market for the weak of stomach; I cannot tell you the number of phone calls I get as soon as I post an opening, and nearly all of these calls are extremely, extremely aggressive. Here's the average phone call: "Hi Mr. M242, I'm Recruiter from ColdCallCorp, and I saw you had an opening for a developer, I have a person coming out of JustShutteredStartup and she did X, Y, and Z, which I noticed on your listing, she has N years of experience and is extremely excited about coming to work for you, when can I tell her you're free to interview?" (This is without me saying any words past "Hello".)

<comment><USER6> > As a hiring manager, I can tell you what I'm interested in when seeing a > potential new hire: a well-written, concise resume, links to code samples > (whether on Github or elsewhere), and how well they're going to work with > the rest of the team. Work for Pie appears to take the long route around > coming up with an executive summary (of sorts) for just one of these three > attributes. It seems highly impersonal and I'm surprised that you got any > developers to sign up for it even with the promise of free internet points.

Work For Pie actually compiles a score based on StackOverflow scores and Hacker News karma, in addition to Github and Bitbucket contributions. I would argue that actually touches on two of those points mentioned, because you could get a sense of a candidates coding ability, in addition to their personality from their HN and SO accounts (to be fair, assessing a candidate's personality and cultural fit is really outside the scope of a third-party recruiting platform). As a developer who was signed up for WFP and logged in regularly to see how my score was coming along, I thought it was a fun, arguably gamified approach to measuring my growth as a developer. It doesn't cost anything (for developers) so I'm surprised that you're surprised developers would sign up for it. Logging in for my first time was actually a huge wakeup call because I realized how disassociated from the development community I was, as well as how little I had to show besides a CS degree. I didn't ultimately get a job through WFP (possibly because I stubbornly chose to move to Portland, and it appears that most of their connections are in Memphis or SV). But I think their WFP 'score' is a useful and fun metric for budding developers such as myself (and theoretically it should be for hiring companies as well)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >To both our users and our clients, we'd like to recommend that you give Coderwall and Pitchbox a try if you haven't already done so. Despite being a competitor, Matthew Deiters (founder of both companies) has always been supportive of and open to us, and we consider him a friend and, more importantly, someone who shares a similar vision. Coderwall/Pitchbox has a high degree of respect for developers and puts them first, and they also happen to be building something that's pretty close to what we'd hoped Work for Pie might become.

This is a very classy nod on the way out.

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit I've never understood the idea of ranking a developer based on activity on Github, Bitbucket, HN etc. I've been writing code for more than 15 years and don't have a single line of code on an public repo. "Why?", you may ask. Because everything I have done (besides a couple side projects that were never meant for release) has been paid work for an employer/client. Nothing to put in a public repo. And my activity on HN or other boards really has nothing to do with my coding. I'm sure I would score very poorly if I signed up for something like this. So I never would. And that now limits your dev pool to only a certain type of dev... and not necessarily the best ones. So knowing that and looking at it from that angle, if I was looking to hire a dev, I also would not use a site like this. "Why?", you may ask. Because I'd be looking for good devs... not just good devs that happen to release a lot of public code and/or post a lot on HN.

<comment><USER8> Nor will you understand it if you keep being a developer that doesn't contribute anything. The idea that you only did paid work for an employer being the reason for why you have no activity on GitHub is a false dichotomy.

Seriously, you never wrote any helpers, or maybe a library that you wanted to reuse across projects?

And in regards to IP, any sane employer would agree that open-sourcing pieces of code that aren't central to the business logic is OK, since if others find it useful, you'll get bug fixes for free.

<comment> jack-r-abbit > _a developer that doesn 't contribute anything_

Excuse me? That is rather rude.

<comment><USER9> He means that you don't contribute anything to open source, which is what you said. I don't think the guy was trying to be rude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sorry for the news.

Maybe I'm just not into competition, but I don't feel easy with a badge with a number that's supposed to tell much I've contributed to git repos, HN threads and StackOverflow questions, just like I'm uninterested and slightly annoyed by Klout.

>Work for Pie isn't generating enough revenue to allow us to continue working on it full time.

>We failed to secure additional funding to support the company as we built the business.

I looked around and couldn't find anywhere to, well, put any money. You weren't charging any money. For instance, there was no way for a company to pay for privileged access to developers using Work for Pie.

<comment><USER11> We made money from matching our job seeking users to companies. We contracted with companies to do this. If you go to the hiring? link at the top you can see some of that. Most of our sales outreach was direct though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is unfortunate but hopefully their experience helps them as they get back into the working world.

In the past 3 months, I signed up and canceled an account. The issue I have with internet points is that whatever the algorithm is that powers the score is ultimately arbitrary. A few days ago I noticed my score dropped by ~10 points and I couldn't figure out why so I canceled. Similar situations have happened on StackOverflow in the past.

This used to upset me until I realized that there's no counter stocked full of silly putty and plastic frogs where I could redeem my points. In hiring instances, I definitely see value in SO and Github because they can expose you to how someone communicates (in both English and code). But I imagine it's a hard sell to market an aggregated score from unaccredited sources.

</comment><comment><USER13> What was the thinking behind the name? The only association I can make here is a cardboard sign "Will Work for Food".

<comment><USER14> The original intent of the company was to link startup founders with technical co-founders. In essence, developers could work for 'a slice of the pie'. This model did not get much traction, so they pivoted into a more traditional job matching / recruitment service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The metrics used to rank the coders seem a little odd. The top leaders, who have cumulative scores of 95, have decent github participation (however that's measured) scores in the 80-range, but have Hacker News scores of 97...which means HN karma was weighted considerably more than repo participation.

It's a nice looking site but I think ranking coders will require more granular metrics...and in the end, the coders likely to dominate such metrics will already have no problem finding suitors.

<comment><USER11> HN contributions only amounted to about 5% of the total score. Mostly it was Github contributions (measured by number of forks and watchers and a couple other things) and Stack Overflow participation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> what the heck is/was Work For Pie? I can't figure it out from the blog. Or is that what it was, just a blog?

</comment><comment><USER11> Cofounder here. Since you guys are speculating, I thought I'd jump in and try to answer a few questions and help where I can.

tl:dr it's a really hard business because matching developers to companies who are willing to pay for your services to find those developers is extremely hard work. Mostly the companies have some issue that makes it hard for them to find people, which is why they hire you in the first place.

First off: mark242, you're right about some of what you say, but not all of it. The truth is that the "talent war" isn't really as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. The real problem is that there's a huge disconnect between what developers want and what companies want. To give one example, a lot of our really highly talented developers really only want to work remotely. For some, there are family obligations, and for others it's just preference. But most SV startups don't really want to hire remote workers. And the ones that do, well they honestly don't have nearly as hard a time finding people who want to work for them. And as such you're right, they don't really care to pay any company 20% of first year salary to do their recruiting for them.

What we'd hoped to accomplish, and fell short on in the end, was a way for developers with non-traditional backgrounds find gainful employment. In Silicon Valley, where I suspect you are, this really isn't that big of a deal. Every company out there is looking at Github before they're looking at, for instance, college degrees. But here in the middle of the country, this is still a huge problem. If I'm a developer without a CS degree or significant experience, it doesn't matter that I've been writing code since I was 8 years old. So, Open Source contributions were the first logical place for us to look for a more objective measure of ability. The system was far from perfect, but it was a start.

So who's paying 20%? Non-sexy companies, or large companies that can't really handle all of the recruiting work and would rather pay money than spend time, and companies that have something they're up against--maybe a bad location, or a specific need, or whatever. This isn't the case always, but it is often enough to make it a damn hard business.

And who among developers are looking for jobs? Folks with specific needs, or who are in weird locations, or who have something working against them, like a lack of experience or a desire to switch technologies or whatever.

So those two things don't link up too well. Developer Auction and other similar sites will probably figure that out soon enough. So if you're going to do recruiting for a company you're going to have to reach out to developers who fit, unsolicited, because those are the ones who match the positions you're hiring for. Only rarely will your existing pool of mostly misfits match up with your existing pool of misfit companies. And keep in mind I don't mean misfit in a derogatory fashion. I mean, literally, that they don't fit very well.

So that's what's hard, and we just didn't have enough time or traction for those two things to match up often enough for the business to be sustainable. Some others, like the ones I recommended, probably do, though I do wonder how long they'll keep it up. Some, I'm sure, will be making the same announcement we did very soon.

<comment><USER17> Hey Clifton,

Matt here, co-founder of DeveloperAuction.

Great insights in your comments above.

I generally agree that the "Talent War" is largely self-imposed: unwillingness to interview candidates outside of a 25 mile radius or relocate Engineers, being slow, disorganized or indecisive in the hiring process, trying to get Engineers to take massive paycuts from what they are earning at LinkedIn/SalesForce/Google/VmWare/Facebook, or simply requiring Engineers to work 80-hour weeks...

Some of the biggest & most successful companies also achieve major talent lock-in by compensating people really well, making it difficult for cash- strapped seed stage start-ups to compete with a lower budget.

Interestingly enough, RE: GitHub, we've seen zero positive correlation that having a GitHub account increases the number of interview requests that Engineers get on our marketplace when we analyzed our data.

<comment><USER18> Github helps technical managers get a feel for an unknown candidate. This helps when capturing arbitrage opportunities in the talent market. Your business is built on selling known candidates at a premium, or at least using the social signals of big name degrees and employers. Someone like daeken has enough of a track record to not even need those.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> between workforpie and path.to [0] shutting down within 2 weeks of eachother, there is something to be said about new attempts to try to crack the old recruiting regime turning out to be more difficult than one might think.

[0] [http://blog.path.to/post/six-lessons-that-might-have- saved-o...](http://blog.path.to/post/six-lessons-that-might-have-saved-our- business-had-we)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Big shame - had had a few chats with them, seemed like honest decent guys.

</comment><comment><USER20> LinkedIn is the future of this space, available already today.

</comment><comment><USER21> Where is the obligatory link to download all my data in CSV, JSON and text format?

<comment><USER22> wfp doesn't store any user data</comment></comment>


Math is a human construct - <AUTHOR> http://exolymph.com/2016/03/15/imaginary-numerical-encroachment/ <comment><USER2> Pretty interesting but I imagine that any other civilization of complex organisms that have intelligence relatable to humans would devise a system similar to mathematics based on the same principles, doesn't have to look like our math but at the end of the day it uses the same concepts and proofs that ours does.

I suppose the concept of something being "real" is just a way to help understand positive and negative numbers.</comment>


What every physicist should know about string theory - <AUTHOR> https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2980?journalCode=pto <comment><USER2> What I find most interesting about these articles showing up on Hacker News is how discussion of abstruse details irrelevant to the bulk of progress in physics or mathematics gets almost all the air time.

Compare the number of articles on string theory and physics beyond the standard model to those on exotic materials, advances in turbulence, orbital mechanics, modern elasticity, solar system formation, or foundations of quantum mechanics. Is it that there is no tradition of popular writing that makes people think that they have any insight beyond the wall of knowledge necessary to understand these fields?

<comment><USER3> Seems to me one solution would be for you and others who think like you to regularly post links on HN to articles on these topics you believe are being unjustly neglected.

<comment><USER4> ... and see them being completely ignored. (That was the whole point, I think.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Peter Woit's critique of this article: [http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8068](http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8068).

<comment><USER6> I've never found that Peter Woit's critiques of string theory match up very well to the reality of what string theorists are doing.

Woit's critiques are of string theory as an extension of the Standard Model. But most string theorists are not working on string theory trying to get predictions about current energy frontiers. Rather, they are working on understanding the mathematical structure of string theory and seeing what it can teach us about analogous mathematical structures in quantum field theory. (A now classic example: The first calculable models of 4-dimensional confinement came out of string theory.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Should be called string hypothesis.

<comment><USER2> I would accept theory as the right word. A mathematical structure that has been assembled for testing is generally referred by practitioners to as a model or, if there is a collection of models and mathematics linking them, a theory.

Unfortunately, a fully fleshed out theory with centuries of matching experimental data is still called a theory.

<comment><USER8> I think that is more of a namespace collision than anything else.

Even in mathematics, there are different definitions of "theory". One is that a theory is a body of knowledge, like set theory or automata theory. This is where I would group string theory as well.

Another definition from mathematical logic is that a theory is a set of axioms and deduction rules. Fascinatingly, those have in common with scientific theories that they can (if sufficiently complex) only ever be falsified, not verified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Did any physics enthusiasts read this paper? [https://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785](https://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785)

</comment><comment><USER10> "Every" is a bit rich, considering we're likely 100s of years from testing it directly.

<comment><USER11> It isn't clear that any amount of time would lead to it being falsifiable.

<comment><USER12> It has to agree with every prior measurement in Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. That, in itself, is impressive.

<comment><USER11> It also has developed some interesting mathematical tools and perspectives, but as a TOE I think the growing skepticism is warranted. The worst outcome of course being that M-Theory is accurate, but untestable. It would be a bitter irony for humanity if our best theory required a galactic-scale collider to test it!

<comment><USER13> _It would be a bitter irony for humanity if our best theory required a galactic-scale collider to test it!_

Doesn't that also mean that (in such a hypothetical situation) our best theory says that our previously best theories will give accurate predictions up until the point at which we observe something equivalent to a galactic-scale collider? If so, that doesn't sound so bad to me.

<comment><USER14> The trouble is that strings is more of a framework for physics to fit in to (like quantum mechanics) than it is a physical theory. There isn't a specific list of string particles, just like there isn't a list of Schrodinger equation particles. You have to add in whatever particles you discover, and then the theory tells you how they move.

On the bright side, if there was a single particle that didn't move like a string, string theory would be falsified. On the dim side, it's difficult for anything to not move like a string, because string theory is so powerful as a framework that you can get it to make just about anything consistent. What you really want in physics is a brittle framework that only allows you to slot in a few different behaviors.

It's kind of funny because programmers want the opposite thing that physicists do. When your client asks for a behavior that you have painted yourself into a corner against ever implementing your software has been "falsified," an expensive disaster that you work very hard in advance to _prevent_! If you made universes for a living, strings would be an ideal framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think most PhD physicists know what a diffeomorphism is.

<comment><USER14> Ok, let me guess without looking it up... A diffeomorphism is a smooth map that lets you switch coordinate systems.

(I sure hope that's not wrong.)

<comment><USER6> Pretty close. It's a smooth map with smooth inverse. If you've chosen chosen coordinates, it will transform them for you.

I think most physicists probably have a reasonable intuitive idea what a diffeomorphism is, since most have probably learned something about relativity.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are all "evil" companies big, or is that just a coincidence? - <AUTHOR>

I have never heard of a small company being called "evil". Is simply seems that the bigger the company, the more evil it gets. Do you need to become evil to keep up with growth? <comment><USER2> There's plenty of evil little small companies... a lot of venal recruitment firms, terrible family lawyers, exploitative pyramid sales, sloppy builders... there's a million bad businesses.

NB: These are examples of individual companies I've come across, not generic derision of these industries.

It's the just that for smaller companies the evil comes off as hapless, petty or driven by an individual powerful in that small organization. And the impact is generally small to individual clients/customers and so the noise is confined.

Think the big company 'evil' is driven from a different place than your standard 'small minded egotist' boss in a small company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Start here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points></comment>


Coffee Is Wall Street's Original Cocaine - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/coffee-is-wall-streets-original-cocaine-2015-8

<comment><USER2> Interesting

</comment><comment><USER3> Great read!</comment>


Show HN: Pokester. A tool to extract Twitter list data - <AUTHOR> https://www.chloematt.com/products/pokester/ <comment><USER2> Odd name. I thought it was an alternate taking of "dexter" so instead of "Pokedex" this was "Pokester". So I was confused this wasn't related to Pokedexes at all.

I think any name beginning with "Poke-" of 3 syllables or more is going to get people thinking of Pokemon.</comment>


Setting up a free multi channel contact system using KooKoo and Issueburner - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kookoo.in/2011/01/setting-up-free-multi-channel-help-desk.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The calling feature works only in India as KooKoo is currently present only in India.</comment>