Real-time updates directory from apps find their way online. - <AUTHOR> http://bizscrambler.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Obviously from multiple other sources too... but all apps (free) from AppsOverEasy.com have begun streaming data real-time to bizscrambler.</comment>


The Facebook Era Is Over - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/facebook-era-over-gina-bianchini <comment><USER2> Ironic seeing this on IMO one of the worst and falling-out-of-fashion 'social networking' sites around. It would be like Digg hosting a page about the sure decline of Reddit.

<comment><USER3> Facebook is not going anywhere anytime soon, now that when even every grandma is using it. Kids don't use facebook now but they'll eventually will when the only point of contact for so many is to message on fb.

<comment><USER4> Facebook is already kind of gone.

What used to be a place to hang out, share photos of last night's party, gossip, brag, etc.. is now a mind numbing scrolling experience.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to tell it apart from reddit.

<comment><USER5> If anything, FB Messenger will probably will still remain since a lot of people outside the US are still using it.

<comment><USER6> Hasn't WhatsApp largely taken over that role? (which is why Facebook acquired them)

<comment><USER7> Definetely not in France. FB Messenger is the primary way of messaging people here

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is shameless self promotion for the author's company.

<comment><USER9> LinkedIn is such a cesspool of self-promotion and noise. No surprises here.

<comment><USER10> She is not from LinkedIn :)

<comment><USER11> I think they were referring to

 _Gina Bianchini is the founder and CEO of Mighty Networks, a software-as-a- service company for brands and businesses that bring people together via classes, events, content, and community, all in one place. Before Mighty Networks, she founded Ning, a pioneering social platform for creating your own social networks, in 2004._

<comment><USER12> > Gina Bianchini

> Ning

This takes me back 10 years when I would read pmarca's blog religiously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wouldn't count out the company just yet: Zuck invested really smartly in Whatsapp, VR, and Instagram. Maybe they should rename the company to de- emphasize the relation to a product that will not be their golden goose for ever.

<comment><USER12> Maybe they could take two Greek letters and form a word out of it and do some kind of reverse acquisition, breaking apart the original company into just a unit of the new company, then Zuck can be the CEO of the new company and pass CEO of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Occulus, _et cetera_ down to some favored lieutenants.

Would definitely be a complicated legal maneuver, but hey, then we would have Muzeta.

<comment><USER14> AΩ would be a neat new dystopian megacorp to rule the world. ABCs are already taken. Bit of a name clash with the villains of the last Planet of the Apes though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> is the hating fb circle jerk coming to an end soon? I'm kinda sick of reading articles like this.

<comment><USER10> Same. Never used FB actually

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> it's almost like fb knows that there's an expiration date on classic social networks and is aggressively acquiring anything that looks like the future of social

</comment><comment><USER17> so funny seeing one social media site saying that another is out of fashion... i wonder what their game is :D ....</comment>


Tell HN: Have a look at Varnish - <AUTHOR>

Hey Everyone!
I just wanted to share with you the link to an incredible HTTP accelerator: http://varnish-cache.org/
We've been testing a lot of different stacks for our startup (Tyba) and using NGINX (behind) + Varnish (upfront) has allowed us to go from 9 reqs/sec (loading a Wordpress site) to 2500 reqs/sec.
I know it's not a novelty but I wanted to share it in the hope it helps the few people who don't know about it.
Kind regards,
Eiso <comment><USER2> Why would Varnish be required in that situation if you're already running nginx which is perfectly capable of caching a simple wordpress site in the same manner.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's required, but, really, why wouldn't you be running varnish? It's just amazing.

<comment><USER4> Because it doesn't add anything useful to the mix - nginx's cache works just fine.

<comment><USER5> Sure it does, it adds ESI (which is fantastic). It also keeps backend connections open rather can creating/destroying them for each request. Varnish does restarts nicely too, we have requests that get passed on to another group of servers if the backend returns errors. It's really a very nice way of brokering http requests.

<comment><USER2> I think the point is 'in this situation'. Of course there are places where Varnish's features are useful, just not here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> More context on why Varnish is superior to Squid: <http://varnish- cache.org/wiki/ArchitectNotes>

<comment><USER7> Varnish = reverse proxy Squid = forwarding proxy

<comment><USER8> Squid can also be used as a reverse proxy, so it is a reasonable competitor to Varnish. (As is Apache mod_proxy.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Agreed, varnish is awesome, we use it on a home-brew CDN and it has been a fantastic experience so far.

Also, the guy that wrote it (Poul Henning-Kamp) is very responsive when it comes to answering questions or fixing issues, they have an IRC channel at #varnish on irc.linpro.no.

Definitely a piece of software worth looking in to when your website gets bigger.

<comment><USER10> PHK has a history of smash hits; he is responsible for much of the work on FreeBSD's container-based virtualisation (jails), modular disk device framework (Geom), & disk encryption (gbde).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For people who want to use NGINX caching on top of Apache/Wordpress, I found out this tutorial : [http://www.myatus.co.uk/2010/06/28/a-simplified-nginx- apache...](http://www.myatus.co.uk/2010/06/28/a-simplified-nginx-apache-combo- with-wordpress-support/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for sharing! We've built a drupal powered site using Varnish as well. With a few tweaks, our initial tests showed ~3000 req/sec! Good stuff!

</comment><comment><USER13> Agreed, nginx+varnish (optionally on top of an existing apache setup) seems to be best practice right now for heavy traffic sites.

<comment><USER4> This might be most popular setup right now, but I wouldn't consider it the best practice. Why in the world would you use both nginx _and_ varnish?

<comment><USER2> Because until 0.7 nginx lacked a caching system, and so it made sense to use both. Now it doesn't.

<comment><USER14> And even now there's no way of manually expiring a cached page without using a third party unsupported plugin (IIRC)

I still love Nginx though :-)

<comment><USER4> I'm the author of ngx_cache_purge [1]. Would you mind explaining why do you think that it's "unsupported"? This module is fully maintained, it works with every recent nginx release and supports purging content from cache of every upstream supported by nginx (FastCGI, proxy, SCGI, uWSGI).

[1] <http://labs.frickle.com/nginx_ngx_cache_purge/></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In Picasso's Studio - <AUTHOR> https://lithub.com/in-pablo-picassos-studio-during-the-nazi-occupation-of-paris/ <comment><USER2> In any other setting this might sound stupid, but I wish that article came with pictures. Honestly, could they not at least have sprinkled in some Picasso works.</comment>


After publishers sued Sci-Hub, Russian ISPs are preventing access - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy7d7j/sci-hub-and-lib-gen-continue-to-get-attacked-around-the-world <comment><USER2> The same companies from whom this material is supposedly being 'stolen', also lobby against open access [0,1]. They corrupt laws to favour them and harm the public, then complain when the public doesn't respect those same laws.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2013/12/19...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2013/12/19/how-one-publisher-is-stopping-academics-from-sharing- their-research/)

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/science/political- science/2018/j...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/political- science/2018/jun/29/elsevier-are-corrupting-open-science-in-europe)

<comment><USER3> That's capitalism, baby!

<comment><USER4> What does it have to do with capitalism?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's really just time to shift the knob on the "for a limited time" part of the copyright/patent systems. It's obviously been extended too far, and applied too broadly.

<comment><USER6> I wholly agree, but suspect that this "begs the question" of the influence of money on politics, particularly in the U.S.A.

Copyright terms are a classic policy battleground where the organization that concerned citizens can muster pales against the focused interest of corporations, or oftentimes _even of just one corporation_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Scientists of HN: what do you make of the fact that a grad student with few resources is the only person courageous enough to make all of your research available to the public?

What do you tell your students when the subject of sci-hub comes up? Do you think they should be inspired by what Elbakyan is doing? If so, do you tell them that in public?

<comment><USER8> Surprised by the cynicism here. I'm a scientist, and I'm a fan of what she's done. I think most of us probably are, actually.

<comment><USER7> That's great to hear.

How much of a fan are you and the others to whom you refer? Have you/they praised her/sci-hub in publicly accessible articles/videos?

<comment><USER8> This is public and traceable to my real identity right now.

I've always had legal access to the content I need personally, so I've never had to actually use sci-hub -- but I appreciate that it's a huge equalizer for those less fortunate. It's generally considered a bad idea to publicly admit to copyright infringement, or else you might see sci-hub in paper acknowlegments [1].

In the first relevant survey I could find, however [2]

> 62.5% of participants affirmed that Sci-Hub contributes to scientific > investigation; only 2.2% reported that Sci-Hub does not contribute to > science.

More broadly, the open access movement has been around for years, and has made huge progress IMO considering that academia doesn't turn on a dime.

I should probably also point out that if sci-hub is napster, we've had a sneakernet for literally centuries. If you see a paper you like, just email one of the authors and they're very likely to send it to you. Prior to email, the same thing was done through regular mail -- to the point that many departments probably have a stack of "reprint request" postcards somewhere in the basement. They look like this [3]. See also the #ICanHazPDF hashtag for the social media version.

[1] [https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/115621/is-it- wi...](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/115621/is-it-wise-for- researchers-to-thank-alexandra-elbakyan-founder-of-sci-hub-in-t) [2] [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185673) [3] [http://blog.chembark.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/10/reprintc...](http://blog.chembark.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/10/reprintcards_big.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just an old kind of relevant article from Torrentfreak

[https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-monopoly-dead-buried- alre...](https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-monopoly-dead-buried- already-140803/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Mirroring Sci-Hub on IPFS can help solve the domain problem.

</comment><comment><USER11> VPN time

</comment><comment><USER12> The person who's made the sci-hub is absolutely untolerable, sartre-like not- self-aware communist. But what she does is amazing. I never thought a commissar would teach me some tolerance.

(the wind bloweth where it listeth)</comment>


Does .biz domain extension hurt your business? - <AUTHOR>

I have some product ideas and about to register a  business domain. The .com extension of the name I have in mind is already taken. However, .biz is available. I read some speculation about how it may hurt the business. The extension .com is what every internet user is most used to. There's some blog about how Google puts .biz websites well below in their search results. Is .biz really a bad idea as part as search engines and ease of finding the business goes? Thanks. <comment><USER2> Yes. Go for a .com, even if it's a worse name.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you Rudiger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It just seems and sounds spammy/unprofessional to me. While I know that we all need to get over this as time goes on -- I don't think that having a .biz domain makes you look particularly savvy.

Personally, I try to think up domain names all the time and register them if they are remotely interesting and based on them I can think of a service based on that name that is unique.

I often look for derivatives of Latin words.

Can you give details about your idea? I'd be happy to try to come up with a name for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response phlux. It's a healthcare patient management related software. However, we do have product on a completely different area. May be looking for a generic catchy name for the company is better than product based domain name? I appreciate your help very much.</comment></comment>


GitHub Security - <AUTHOR> http://www.wolfe.id.au/2015/05/06/github-security/

<comment><USER2> It's also worth mentioning that GitHub supports TOTP 2FA, so you can set it up with Google Auth or another client like Authy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion, will add that as well</comment></comment>


Why a job in coding is absolute hell (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/programming-sucks-why-a-job-in-coding-is-absolute-hell-1570227192 <comment><USER2> The article is mostly true. But it missed the fact that most coding jobs are the 21st century equivalent to factory line work. There's a lot of mind- numbing repetition that needs to get done at the fastest rate possible. Coding pays well but there are better careers in tech that will be less punishing on your mental health.

<comment><USER3> What are the best ones?

<comment><USER2> I don't know what the best ones are but I would go into network engineering or security with an emphasis on the cloud. They are still stressful but the mind- numbing repetition is less. But if you want to be a coder then I would go the independent consultant route there you have control over what you decide to work on.</comment></comment></comment>


Btrfs Coming to Fedora 33 is in my opinion for the hackers in the world - <AUTHOR> In my opinion ext4 is more secure and it is boring but I have faith in it... btrfs opens A WHOLE SYSTEM IF COMPROMISED...easily hacked.
Fedora would have been better to go ZFS and root it...YES?
I was a convert to Fedora until 33 RAWHIDE for hackers......no faith in it now as REDHAT doesn't use btrfs as it is buggy and loses data. <comment><AUTHOR> Hackers use tigerVNC to hack Fedora....to get snapshots under a btrfs system.</comment>


Why inequality persists in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/16/richer-and-poorer <comment><USER2> Sorry, I know I have some remedial reading to do on this subject -- I'm trying to fill in the gaps. One thing I never see in these articles is why the movement people are seeing in this indicator necessarily means that something bad is happening.

Suppose I rake leaves for a living and only barely make enough to feed myself. Suppose technology allows someone else to succeed in ways that have not previously been possible, and they become billionaires. Didn't the range between poorest (me) and richest (them) become wider? Suppose they succeed even more and become trillionaires. Didn't the range just get wider again? Why is this bad?

<comment><USER3> Having exceptionally wealthy people in a market puts an upward pricing pressure on goods that have a limited supply. For example, if two very rich people want the same house they can bid for it and one will win. That person who sold the house now has more to spend on their next house, so they pay more in turn, and so on down through the market. In theory that means everyone wins - with the notable exception of a person who is buying their first house. They face higher prices with no external wage stimulus to give them the additional purchasing power to buy. Consequently they're shut out of the market.

Now extrapolate that to _all goods_. Poor people just can't buy things if there are people at the top end of the market with vastly more wealth than them. If that happens then people start to starve, get sick, or resort to crime more. Society is worse for it. There's little point in being hugely wealthy if you can't leave your lovely secure house without feeling the city you live in is a horrible place.

The concept is called 'private wealth versus common wealth'.

<comment> mycroft-holmes But most people are not exceptionally wealthy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The less representative the upper body of a national legislature, the greater the gap between the rich and the poor."

Interestingly enough, one of the failed amendments to the Constitution was have each member of the House of Representatives represent a max of 50,000 citizens. [1] I've wondered whether this would be a good change to our modern system where some representatives have 1m+ constituents.

I mean, how can one person accurately represent the views of so many people?

What a larger house would mean is an increase in the number of political parties as small groups of people could work to have their minority groups represented outside of a major political party.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Am...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment)

EDIT: Here's a site with some information about the idea of increasing the size of the house: [http://www.thirty-thousand.org/](http://www.thirty- thousand.org/)

<comment><USER5> If gerrymandering persists, the dysfunction of Congress will also persist, no matter how many members there are. Representatives have no incentives to behave responsibly under the current districting situation.

<comment><USER4> One of the intended consequences of increasing the number of members is that each one is more easily replaced if they do not accurately represent the views of the constituents.

My back of the envelope math gives the US 6400 member of the house at the current population which also has the effect of reducing each single member's importance.

<comment><USER5> By drawing district lines around politically homogenous populations, gerrymandering guarantees that representatives accurately represent the views of their constituents and enables hyper-partisan behavior without consequences. Adding representatives does nothing to change that. 6400 gerrymandered districts will give us the same results as 435.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Increasing inequality, and a decline of the wages of the middle class, are worldwide phenomena that are occurring in most first-world countries. The effects of trends are currently the most extreme in the United States, but I'd be willing to bet that the US just got here first, and others will follow.

I won't pretend that anyone really knows why this is happening (although a few causes seem fairly obvious), but it is clearly a worldwide phenomenon, and looking for causes only in the United States is a bit myopic.

</comment><comment><USER6> As Gini approaches .5 ---> Instability rises As Gini exceeds .5---> chance of 'revolution' increases exponentially

Gini of .333 is 'ideal'

<comment><USER7> How was that assessed?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I searched the article for "Federal Reserve" and saw no reference to it so I didn't read the rest. It just seems obvious to me that if you give easy credit to one segment of the population, the money will chase up the prices of assets and make those without access to credit more impoverished, relatively speaking.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article mentions the book talking about how we don't care about other peoples kids as being one of the problems. I think that is a symptom of realizing that the world at large doesn't care for us, and if we only have so much time and energy to give we give it to our own.

Also it seems like inequality is multifaceted. Everyone has more now then they have ever had, more stuff, more tech, more access to everything you need to survive. At the same time I see folks having a hard time making it, buying a house, saving for retirement, they are constantly drained.

Unless you have both spouses working, which is another conversation all together. I only see discretionary spending happening from dual income houses, or single youth not yet concerned with retirement.

<comment><USER10> >Everyone has more now then they have ever had, more stuff, more tech, more access to everything you need to survive.

more debt, more inequality, less security about the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yet another article about income inequality that does not talk about government corruption.

<comment><USER12> You actually read to the end?

The article concludes with the lack of representation in Congress which is certainly linked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I thought this was about the continent. What a pretentious title.</comment>


Ask HN: What's a reliable long-term personal storage medium? - <AUTHOR>

Having just moved from a big house to a small apartment, I realized how much crap I carry around with me. From hundreds of printed (slowly decaying) photos to boxes full of (scannable) paperwork.
I realized that I don't particularly trust digital storage because of a recent harddrive failure that was unrecoverable (I lost several months worth of photos).
So, HN, what's the best way to store photos, documents, scans, and anything else in terms of longevity (5-10 years+)? What's a good strategy in terms of backups and even file formats? <comment><USER2> Never trust a single piece of hardware. Never trust two either.

For me:

      - SANs/NASes make use of ZFS-Z2 or RAID 6. But, RAID is NOT a backup!
      - Have two or four separate backups in rotation (depending on how critical
      the data is). Half of which are located at a local bank's safety deposit box. Boxes
      typically run less than $75 per year. Work with the branch manager to get a
      top-level box for improved flood mitigation.
      - Each week, make a trip to the bank and switch them out.
      - These are awesome transports for this approach:
      http://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Forensics-Drive-Transporter-Classic/dp/B002IY6B9U
      - Careful of SSDs in RAID, they tend to all fail within a short period of time
      due to their reliable point of failure with writes.

If it is critical data, I get a little more crazy. ;) If the cloud is more your style, you might check out SpiderOak (but, again, unless treated as a backup it should not be used as such). I make use of this as well.

<comment><USER3> This seems way over the top. How muuch extra reliability does this get you when compared to RAID+1 locally and amazon glacier or s3? For the super paranoid, add a non-amazon based online backup as well. This seems to have made sense before these services were available, but just doesn't seem worthwhile anymore

<comment><USER2> Hmm... I should reframe this. I just noted it says personal. I didn't see the qualifier, ignore my previous post as it is for my actual business data (e.g. huge persisted data stores, logs, etc).

Personal looks like:

      - Two or more personal computers (e.g. iMac and MBA) with SpiderOak syncing between.
      - Once weekly I backup to disk (basic rsync), take said disk to safety deposit
      box (as mentioned above), trade it out with another with the previous weeks data.
      This makes sense for me (over AWS) for the amount of data I have,
      the fact I do this anyways for my business, and that I do not trust most services
      with my data.
      - More recently, I've been doing a year-end permanent archive to disk going back
      2 to 3 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How important is this stuff? How much time and money do you want to spend on it?

Most archiving software can create extra recovery data, which can help if some of it bit rots. You can supplement that with Par2 data. You then need to have multiple copies, in multiple locations.

If you really don't want to trust a hard drive (you should never trust one! But having multiple copies of data on multiple drives is pretty good) you can get good quality CDs and tyvek sleeves and archival storage boxes and some climate controlled rooms (again, mulitple rooms in different geographical locations).

Then, handle the discs correctly. ([http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.05/docs/disccare.html](http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.05/docs/disccare.html))

([http://www.archivalmethods.com/news/Binders%20and%20Albums/M...](http://www.archivalmethods.com/news/Binders%20and%20Albums/Musicians- will-benefit-from-safely-storing-backup-CDs-of-their- recordings$800729200.cfm))

</comment><comment><USER5> For longevity: make multiple copies.

Harddrives: fill them up with photos and leave them stored at your parents' place.

Cloud: back up to at least 1 cloud provider (Dropbox, Amazon, ...).

Local: local computer, of course.

That's 3 backups there, which is not a bad start. Next: burn some DVDs etc. and again, leave copies at your parents' house.

For photos, my final backup (additional to the above) are printed photo books of which I make multiple copies and hand out as presents to mother-in-law etc.

More copies in more formats = longer life. Think about how your kids are going to recover these.

</comment><comment><USER6> I know you said you don't trust digital storage, but discs remain the best way to backup files for me. I purchased a blu-ray burner a couple years back and I've hardly made it through my first stack of discs. The blu-ray discs should easily outlast any other storage medium if they're kept in proper conditions. It comes down to your ability to keep track of them, not whether they'll go bad on you.

</comment><comment><USER7> For a human lifetime, paper. For centuries to millenia, stone. For ten or thousands of millenia, perhaps even up to hundred of million years, live DNA. As for file formats, the letter is dead, the spirit is live.

<comment><USER8> >DNA

Someone tell me why this wouldn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For hardware: the ones you continue to upgrade to as technology progresses.</comment>


Essential Things to Do When Deciding On Your Business Idea - <AUTHOR> http://edufire.com/content/articles/228-5-essential-things-to-do-when-deciding-on-your-business-idea

<comment><USER2> GREAT piece. #1 is key:

#1 - Consider "Allowable Acquisition Costs" (AAC)

If you don't understand #1 thoroughly, you're going to want to do some research until you do. It's one of the most important parts of business. Here's the aspects of it:

1\. Lifetime Value of a Customer. What NET PROFIT does the average customer generate for your company after making their first purchase? If you run a monthly billing service, it's the average months subscribed multiplied by net profit/month.

2\. Conversion Rates: What percentage of people who find your offer purchase? For a fully optimized site, 1% is a surprisingly robust figure that keeps cropping up for semi-targeted traffic. Hyper-targeted and relevant can do much higher numbers, untargeted can get close to 0. Don't assume 1%, test it, but 1% isn't a bad baseline to start with.

3\. Net Present Value is Garbage, use Payback Period instead. So this is just my opinion, and reasonable minds can differ. But NPV is basically voodoo nonsense based on faulty sets of assumptions. Better than nothing, but NPV basically exists to make it look to bankers like you're not pulling numbers out of the air. The basic idea of NPV is that if you had a dollar today instead of a year from now, that's better because you could do something with that dollar right now, and thus have more later. The problem is, you have to choose a multiplier for NPV, and it's a largely arbitrary choice. People were using 11%/year for a while because that's what the stock market consistently did. Oops. And now you can get a whopping 2% interest on your money in a premium money market.

My advice? Use Payback Period instead - it's easy to calculate very fast and not particularly subjective. Payback Period goes like this: "If I spend this money now, how long until I get it back?" Everything after that is gravy.

So let's say your average customer makes you $100/month net profit for 20 months, then their lifetime value is $2000 on average. If your customer acquisition costs are $100, you get it back in one month. If it's $2000, you break even after 20 months. In a bootstrapped company, you NEED to get that payback period short. That's the key number. Long payback period = cashflow problems = need financing. NPV is voodoo. Payback period is easy to figure out. With a short payback period, you're less vulnerable to catastrophe.

If you're more statistically inclined, you can segment out different lifetime values and conversion rates from different sources. But most companies don't know what their LVOC numbers are, are vaguely aware of their conversion rates, don't know what payback period they need to keep the lights on, and don't spend intelligently to acquire customers. I was actually staggered in my last company at how much we could pay for customers compared to industry. The average in industry was around $10/customer, the top dog was spending between $20/customer and $40/customer, and we found it quite profitable to run in the $30/customer - $70/customer range and we grew pretty fast.

God, I love numbers when they work correctly. Seriously, getting intelligent customer acquisition going is one of the most important parts of a bootstrapped business. You get these numbers working for you, you're set and don't get blindsided. Great article here, read, re-read, compare, and learn everything you can about Lifetime Value, Conversion Rates, and do a little research so you can make your own call on NPV or Payback Period, but you should use one of them. Great piece, great insights, strongly recommend heavy focus on his point #1 since it'll make or break you if you're not funded.

<comment><USER3> Spoken like someone who's been there. My first business had fantastic NPVs and enjoyed great economics. Only problem was that it took 6-8 months payback period. That put some serious hurt in our growth. The business is doing nicely and makes money but I will never look at acquisition costs the same way again.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite pen/load/vulnerability testing service? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for some reputable companies that can test load, penetration, etc. Are there any reputable services that the HN crowd could recommend? <comment><USER2> @indie303 on Twitter. If he won't do it, he can point you to good outfits that will.

"Reputable" is a loaded term in the infosec world. There are a lot of "reputable" incompetents.</comment>


Parse vs. Heroku vs. AWS vs. GCP, what is your preference? - <AUTHOR> I heard some folks start with Parse/Heroku, then move to AWS later, is this popular? What is the reason for the migration? <comment><USER2> GCloud all the way, for the better DX, performance, GKE. Service names are understandable too!

Moving from Heroku to a IaaS is usually about cost and needing to go to the lower levels of infrastructure

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your suggestion. Haha I like how you point out service names are understandable.

What about AWS? I heard of AirBnb and Lyft these big companies are using AWS, is it good for startups? when should one use AWS?

<comment><USER2> It depends on the technical skills around, and the nature of your app / biz, as well ass your approach to the build-measure-learn loop. Personally I always start with GKE because I have the experience and tooling around already.

If you aren't good / familiar with infrastructure / devops, then stick with something like Heroku, Firebase, Low Code. If you are just trying to do early validation, then you probably don't need to code at all.</comment></comment></comment>


Random Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://datarig.com/2017/08/august-26-2017 <comment><USER2> A lot of people are remarking on particular ideas. Before you do this, make note of the following points:

1\. The author is posting one of these lists EVERY DAY(!)

2\. The author puts in the About: "Since ideas are useless if you don't share them with the world, I decided to post them here. If you like any of them, go for it, make them."

3\. Also in the About: "Sometimes interesting, sometimes thought provoking, and often enough pretty stupid. The point is to get the brain thinking, to exercise the brain muscle...All of them are original, as in I thought of them, but many may not be novel, as you know what they say, geniuses think alike :)"

</comment><comment><USER3> The strangest thing just happened to me. I was literally just writing in my notebook that "I should write in my notebook more, and I should do that by writing down 10 ideas a day". And _then_ I saw this article. I wonder, is this just Baader-Meinhof? Would I have seen but ignored this article had I not been thinking about it? Or would I have seen it anyway and ended up deciding to write down ideas daily, keeping my outcome the same but with an inverse causation?

</comment><comment><USER4> > First Steps: check if it exists and if it's patentable.

It's great to share your ideas!

But to anyone who posts patentable ideas, remember that posting an article like this potentially starts a 1 year clock on being able to patent your idea (US) or potentially makes it impossible to patent your idea (some other places).

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

</comment><comment><USER5> Coming up with these 3650/year will be an amazing accomplischment of endurance.

What's nice about it, even if you critique it, is that it refreshes your own brain, because of the different takes and spins on stuff. Kinda summarized.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a good example of how to generate and write down ten ideas per day. I like how many of them start with a pitch, then the idea, then first steps. I've tried to generate 10 ideas per day, but I find that I get overwhelmed with everything else I do - I'm going to try this format for two to three ideas per day to try to make the habit stick.

</comment><comment><USER7> 9 has been done as well.

Likely not in production owing to maint. in the case of chain, and heat (short belt, tight radius) failures.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have to say, I decided to give this a go. I sat for 20 minutes with one idea down. By the time I hit the third one it started rolling quickly.

There's a certain freedom in breaking down an idea, only to see that its not a very good idea --- but sticking with it until its dried up.

</comment><comment><USER9> #1 should be high-contrast fonts that are easy to read. I can barely read this post.

</comment><comment><USER10> I really wonder why there is nothing like 3 yet. I've had two friends, and myself, independently come up with the same basic idea. An e-ink calendar that can sync with you google (or other online) calendar.

</comment><comment><USER11> Idea 10: I have a "Temp" folder in my Bookmarks where I bookmark pages I want to come back to. I mainly use it for comparison shopping.

Idea 7 is close to that '90s series "Sliders".

<comment><USER12> Re #10: I want the same thing for tabs. Like I'll pull up some metrics at work, want to give it another 5-10, pop open an email tab, etc. then a week later finally like, "wow this is useless now".

(So maybe a "about to expire" warning too?)

I want the same thing for promotional emails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Idea 6 is firebase

<comment><USER14> CouchDB more or less also fits the bill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think number 10 is firefox's pocket.

any info on number 9? diagrams or something?

<comment><USER13> so chrome needs a competitive feature! i might do this one

<comment><USER16> There's already a Pocket extension (and bookmarklet!) for Chrome.

<comment><USER17> In Chrome you can also allow it to save your tabs so when you restart Chrome they are still there. I've tried Pocket a number of times and I go back to doing this every time.

With Pocket I found myself saving pages and never going back to them.

Perhaps, elaborating on the idea, you could create something like pocket that encourages you to read the things you've saved in a certain timeframe and cleans them if you don't?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Re #4: the "analog signal" would be light here, right?

<comment><USER19> I think it's the video signal coming out of the camera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does no one else love idea #1? I would totally read that book

</comment><comment><USER21> 5\. Isn't that why people go to shoesmakers?

<comment><USER13> yeah but why go to a shoemaker if you can do it yourself? same reason people learn to tailor clothes. i think it has potential

<comment><USER22> If the tread is user-removable, I suspect it will come off in the course of normal usage.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Objection.js – Yet another ORM for Node.js hit 1.0.0 today - <AUTHOR> http://vincit.github.io/objection.js <comment> git-pull Hey check this out: [https://vincit.github.io/objection.js/#graph- inserts](https://vincit.github.io/objection.js/#graph-inserts). That's worth making a blog post about.

The upsert: [https://vincit.github.io/objection.js/#graph- upserts](https://vincit.github.io/objection.js/#graph-upserts)

Also it's built on Knex.js: [http://knexjs.org/](http://knexjs.org/)</comment>


Why do startup websites look like startups? - <AUTHOR>

I run into them all the time. Most startups seem to follow the herd mentality when it comes to designing launch pages, or landing pages etc. They all look somewhat customized cookie-cutter templates. Why not differentiate yourself? <comment><USER2> I wouldn't call it herd mentality. They're being practical. It's an implementation of best practices. You'll increase conversions if you put things where users expect them to be. If you build something that differentiates itself at the cost of usability and expectations, you'll most likely hurt your bottom line.

Think about cars for a minute. Don't they all look and function the same? Where's the steering wheel? Where's the radio? Where's the motor? Gas pedal? Brake pedal? Seat adjusters? Cup holders? A/C and heat controls? Doors?

Most cars are pretty much the same. The differentiation is in the paint colors offered, the design of the body, wheels, and rims. The visual aspects, per se.

You see, the same thing could be said for start up sites. Everything is where you expect it to be. What's different are the logos and color schemes used.

</comment><comment><USER3> They all look the same to us, but not necessarily to the startup's users. Startups of all types are brought to HN which is why we notice the similarities. From the user's perspective a startup is just another website in the sea of existing sites that cater to their niche. Because of that dilution I'd bet that "normal people" (aka non-startup people) don't even notice.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is being said without knowing exactly which web sites you're talking about. You'd have to give examples to get a more precise answer.

Don't equate using something that works with following herd mentality. The reason something like Bootstrap by Twitter is used so often is because it "just works". If you are a start up with limited keystrokes before you burn out of money, then you focus on other value-generation parts of the business. I would rather get a halfway decent Bootstrap looking site (with tweaks) than spend money on a designer or time creating something that is different but I have no idea if it will convert well. In the meantime, I'll spend my time and energy on building new features. If the idea proves out, we'll loop back on the launch pages and do some A/B testing after the fact.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe a better question is, why do long-established websites tend to look like long-established websites?

Maybe websites that have been around for a while tend to fall into certain design patterns, which may be a reflection of bureaucracy or other patterns that structured orgs fall into.

What looks like a startup website is merely the lack of that. Just a thought anyway.

</comment><comment><USER6> It takes time for a startup to develop and refine the message and brand that it wants to communicate.

While that unique brand and vision is unclear and unrefined, the closet substitute likely to be "right" is the average of what everyone else is doing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Weird, I've noticed the exact same thing. Many follow the site and logo design.

Do you have any examples of a startup that does not follow this standard format?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess my post was triggered by looking through some companies on the recently launched "Made In New York Digital Map" website that showcases New York's startup scene. After clicking through to some sites, I was greeted by the same boilter-plate templates with large image backgrounds with bold headlines and "signup with Facebook/Twitter/Email" call-to-action. I see this trend becoming ever more prevalent with everyone jumping on the twitter bootstrap bandwagon, but not taking the time to tailor their offering or adding a unique twist.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Newtrien – nutrition facts labels for recipe blogs - <AUTHOR> https://newtrien.com

<comment><AUTHOR> After years of working for various web agencies and software companies, and then more years working as a full-time freelancer, I finally took the plunge and launched my first SaaS, newtrien.com.

While developing the website was time-consuming (especially since I'm doing it solo - programming, "design", etc.), I feel the hard part has only just begun, because I have zero experience on how to promote a service. But it doesn't matter, because even just launching the service was a great personal success for me, since I have a huge history of starting personal projects and not actually finishing them (who doesn't, right?).

So anyway, newtrien.com is a website where people who own recipe blogs or websites can easily create nutrition facts labels for their recipes, and them embed those labels on their site. It currently has a database of about 800.000 nutritional facts for over 10.000 ingredients, but I plan to import more nutritional databases in the short future, as well as build a feature where users can add their own custom ingredients, on the off chance that some exotic new ingredient is missing from the database.

I am looking for feedback on pretty much everything: business idea, website usability, design, etc. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> This is excellent! It's well presented and clear, and I can imagine a huge market for this kind of service.

A few comments/suggestions:

The FDA's idea of carbohydrate as a 'dietary fiber' is decidedly odd; would it be possible to generate labels for other regulatory bodies (eg. for countries in the EU)?

When creating a physical label, displaying the dimensions would be very useful.

Instead of having to enter each ingredient with corresponding quantities, it would be much more convenient for the end user to simply feed in a complete recipe. It's not much fun parsing plain text, but perhaps you could accept various formats such as CookML, RecipeBook XML, REML, hrecipe, JSON...

yummly ([http://www.yummly.com/](http://www.yummly.com/)) might also be interested in what you've created...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for the reply!

 _would it be possible to generate labels for other regulatory bodies (eg. for countries in the EU)?_

Hmm, it appears I have to make this feature a little clearer, because I have already implemented two of the most common EU labels, the GDA pills ([http://i.imgur.com/ZROSP6l.png](http://i.imgur.com/ZROSP6l.png)) and the tabular format ([http://i.imgur.com/O5OnepQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/O5OnepQ.png)). The EU labels even take into account the fact that the daily recommended intake values are different in the EU than the US.

 _When creating a physical label, displaying the dimensions would be very useful._

Good point, people who package food will definitely be interested in the physical dimensions of the label, even though the exported PDFs are scalable.

 _It 's not much fun parsing plain text, but perhaps you could accept various formats such as CookML, RecipeBook XML, REML, hrecipe_

I had no idea these formats existed until now, to be honest. I will surely look into them.

 _yummly might also be interested in what you 've created..._

They already have nutritional information on each recipe page: [http://i.imgur.com/ZlIGUqi.png](http://i.imgur.com/ZlIGUqi.png). There are quite a few large websites that already provide nutrition labels, that's one of the reasons I came to this idea, I thought that small food bloggers would be interested in having them too.

Thanks again!

<comment><USER2> _it appears I have to make this feature a little clearer_

No, my mistake. The options were quite clear, I just wasn't paying attention. However, you could modify the text on the front page: "Label your products with FDA-compliant nutrition facts" to mention the other options.

Also, I just noticed the magnifying glass effect on the front page. It's a great way to combine a preview with an actual screenshot - very neat!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just wanted to point out, that even though I'm not in the target, the product looks excellent. I can see by the level of presentation and the way labels are created that you've put a lot of time and effort in developing this, there aren't many products these days that show so much accuracy from early stages. Great job!</comment>


Why online advertising sucks, and is a bubble - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2008/10/21/why-online-advertising-sucks-and-is-a-bubble/ <comment><USER2> Maybe its time for Google and others to step up and verify that the online advertising they are selling is being used for the correct purpose. ~ Which in turn will increase the price of the advertising which might have the effect of creating a even better solution ~ would "bait and switchers" be willing to pay "a lot" of money to run a bait and switch ad? Or maybe Google could add "Google Verified" to ad words to insure "clickers" that they were getting what expected to get...

<comment><USER3> What is needed is a paradigm shift in marketing thinking. As it stands companies are willing to throw banners on everything despite the poor return on investment because they are running with the "saturate user eyeballs" strategy. The web as it stands is the equivalent of watching a movie and every car looks like a nascar with logos all over it.

we need to get back to genuine sponsorships. where companies are "proud to sponsor" a site because the content is awesome and engaging. instead of 20 sponsors take 2 or 3 and work together to create a user experience that both pushes the content and drives the brand. instead of slapping huge banners and deceptive text ads get classy and work the branding into the navigation interface.

i feel that when really good sites start getting these unique and exclusive sponsorships and the companies stop paying for saturation, we'll start to see a more evolved experience. and i'm damn sure the users will have more respect for the companies that run like this.</comment></comment>


NSA denies knowing about Heartbleed bug before it was made public - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/NSA_PAO/status/454720059156754434 <comment><USER2> Quick denial. Interesting. Usually they say nothing.</comment>


What type is my JSON? Ask our Markov chain! - <AUTHOR> https://blog.quicktype.io/markov/ <comment><AUTHOR> In this blog post, we explain how we used a Markov chain to detect whether a JSON object represents a class (fixed properties) or a map (dynamic keys) to infer its type and generate the same code a human programmer would for representing that data.

For example, given this Bitcoin API data:

        {

            "0000000000000000000e222e4e7afc29c49f6398783a94c846dee2e13c6408f5": {
                "size": 969709,
                "height": 510599,
                "difficulty": 3007383866429.732,
                "previous": "000000000000000000552a7783efd39eaa1c5ff6789e21a0bbe7547bc454fced"
            },
            "000000000000000000552a7783efd39eaa1c5ff6789e21a0bbe7547bc454fced": {
                "size": 991394,
                "height": 510598,
                "difficulty": 3007383866429.732,
                "previous": "00000000000000000043aba4c065d4d92aec529566287ebec5fe9010246c9589"
            },
            "00000000000000000043aba4c065d4d92aec529566287ebec5fe9010246c9589": {
                "size": 990527,
                "height": 510597,
                "difficulty": 3007383866429.732,
                "previous": "00000000000000000009025b9e95911a4dc050de129ea4eb5e40ef280751a0cb"
            }
        }

You'd expect the corresponding Swift code:

        typealias Blocks = [String: Block] // a.k.a. Dictionary<String, Block>

        struct Block {
            let size, height: Int
            let difficulty: Double
            let previous: String
        }

Rather than:

        struct Blocks {
            let _0000000000000000000e222e4e7afc29c49f6398783a94c846dee2e13c6408f5: Block
            let _00000000000000000043aba4c065d4d92aec529566287ebec5fe9010246c9589: Block
            let _00000000000000000009025b9e95911a4dc050de129ea4eb5e40ef280751a0cb: Block
        }

        struct Block {
            let size, height: Int
            let difficulty: Double
            let previous: String
        }

We taught quicktype to make the same decision by evaluating the JSON property names with a Markov chain trained on simulated class property names. Our blog article goes into detail and lets you play with our Markov chain!

<comment><USER2> Replied on twitter, but you've got a small mistake in the tacos/sushi graph vs. the text (tacos->tacos are labeled with 60% in the image, should be 40 according to the text).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Will correct it.</comment></comment></comment>


Philadelphia passes a law banning "cashless" retail stores - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/sorry-amazon-philadelphia-bans-cashless-stores/ <comment><USER2> Yesterday's discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19328547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19328547)</comment>


Deep Learning for Siri's Voice - <AUTHOR> https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/08/06/siri-voices.html <comment><USER2> The iOS 11 Siri sounds like it's a real person talking, it's amazing. Does anyone know if there's an open-source TTS library available with such quality (or if anyone is working on one, from this paper)?

I would love to have my home speakers announce things in this voice.

<comment><USER3> She sounds younger to me, but very natural sounding.

Will be interesting to see how Siri on Home Pod works out.

<comment><USER4> Yes. And the way it answers some questions, it also seems to be going for a more casual, enthusiastic sort of vibe. It wasn't clear to me to what degree the changes apply outside of the female American voice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A research paper published by Apple? About Siri?! Unheard of! Last time I was at an NLP conference wth Apple employees they wouldn't say anything about how Siri speech worked, despite being very inquisitive about everyone else's publications. Good to see some change.

<comment><USER6> It's probably safe to assume a lot of that was due to some/most of Siri being licensed from Nuance initially. I mean, who wants to talk about a new product, which most people think is brand new and entirely innovative, just to say "Oh yeah, we paid someone else to work with us to create it."

Not that there's anything wrong with that and it certainly seems like Apple has been investing in-house pretty heavily in recent years for Siri improvement.

<comment><USER7> I think it has more to do with the fact that they are finally starting to allow their researchers to publish. They were platinum sponsors at INTERSPEECH 2017 this week, and actually published a paper there. I'm pretty sure that was the first time _ever_ despite their recruiters showing up every year.

<comment><USER8> 3 papers at Interspeech 2017, actually :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My favorite part is that the runtime runs on device. I moved back to Android, but persistently one thing Apple does that I like is they don't move things to the internet as often as Google does. On Android, you get degraded TTS if the internet is shoddy.

<comment><USER10> It's two different philosophies. With Apple it's about providing sufficient value such that the consumer will pay a premium for the product. With Google it's about providing the minimum viable value such that the user will provide as much of their data as possible.

<comment><USER11> Apple also cares strongly about privacy, so there's a lot of stuff they refuse to do in the cloud.

Google also cares about privacy, but only in reverse. They don't want you to have any ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I couldn't read the paper yet, and also I know very little about this, but listening to the audio samples it seems that one of the most notable changes was the intonation in changing phrases. Did anyone else catch something like that? I'm not sure I'm doing a good job at explaining. If you listen to all iOS11 samples it'll stand out.

Anyway, it's the only way I can still identify this as a fake voice. The intonation always follows the same cadence (not sure if that's the word?). We really shouldn't have overused the word awesome before this kind of thing came along.

There's also a kind of dread too, tbh, this kind of seamless TTS has the potential to change a lot of things. First of all criminals are going to love this, youtube pranksters too. Eventually this will shake up the voice acting industry in a possibly not healthy way for the voice actors, while at the same time allowing projects with a shorter budget to have incredible voice work (also dubbing).

What I think is really important, tho, is that as we move away from the uncanny valley we change our relationships with those voices, our brains don't have the capacity to listen to a voice this real and not imagine it as a person, even for adults.

Ironically at this moment I'm using an old threadless sweatshirt that says "this was supposed to be the future" but nowadays I can honestly say we're getting there.

<comment><USER13> Regarding voice acting, I think there is something to be said about human expression/ad-lib. Sure, you could generate a natural-sounding voice computer voice, but in the context of arts we're still a ways to go before a computer can go off script and add just the perfect amount of intonation on a certain word that turns a phrase into an iconic quote.

Similarly, we don't see CGI motion capture replacing Andy Serkis any time soon.

<comment><USER14> I think this is less likely to hit major films or TV shows, but it will hit the audiobook and video game markets pretty hard.

I'm pretty excited about the video game side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The difference between the Siri voices from iOS 9-11 is startling. I can still here some issues especially at the ends of phrases, but it's extremely good.

<comment><USER16> 11 sounds almost as good as the wavenet demo. Considering it runs in real-time that's very impressive.

</comment></comment><comment> default-kramer This just made me realize that every time you see a strong AI in fiction, it still has a computer-sounding voice. If we ever develop strong AI, we will probably already have perfectly natural speech synthesis. And if not, the AI could develop it for us.

But I suppose an AI might choose to use a computer-sounding voice to remind us that it is a computer. Kind of like those inaccurate sound effects in movies - they have become so common that it seems more wrong to omit them. (TV Tropes calls this "The Coconut Effect".)

<comment><USER17> I recommend watching the scifi film "Her", it has a different take on this.

<comment><USER18> That was a great movie.

There is always the chance that as we get better at this stuff we'll start to find it creepy that it's so realistic (either due to the uncanny valley or because we _crossed_ the valley) and we'll start to prefer devices that act robotic even though we know we could make the indistinguishable.

I'm trying to think of another example. I know I've heard a good one with Roombas but I can't remember it.

Basically we may try to avoid a Bladerunner situation where we're not sure when we are or aren't talking to a real person and prefer the 'computery' voices.

<comment><USER19> Well there is always Data, and how he was made to be less human after the researchers found Lore to be unsettling.

<comment><USER18> Excellent example. I'd forgotten about Lore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The prosody and and continuity of the speech is dramatically improved. This is hard to do and very impressive (especially given that it is being done on- device).

Personally, I'm less pleased with the actual new voice itself, although that is more a subjective judgment. After listening to many hundreds of voice talent auditions for Alexa, it's hard to step back from that level of pickiness.

<comment><USER4> As I indicated in another comment, the visual that the voice (together with other tweaks in some of Siri's responses) suggests to me is a perky twenty- something.

I actually tend to generally prefer some of the female British accents in several current TTS systems. (Amy is probably my favorite Polly voice.) Perhaps as an American, the robotic-ness doesn't seem quite as obvious or grating.

<comment><USER21> I also prefer the female British accents but that's exactly what excites me and is so awesome about this. These aren't just samples that are being stitched together anymore. This "learning" that is being done can be applied later to any of the voices in Apple's catalog. Once they get the data of the synthesis out there, they'll more than likely update all the languages and intonations to match. I would imagine that the biggest hurdle with this is that different languages and accents have different nuances. As with most things, they're just starting with English and then will move everything over to all the other options, including the British accents. I don't think we're too far off from a future where you'll be able to pick the age, gender, and voice of your assistant in the same way that characters selection is done in most modern video games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Kinda sad to see that the names of the authors are omitted, although you can infer some of them from the quote:

> For more details on the new Siri text-to-speech system, see our published > paper "Siri On-Device Deep Learning-Guided Unit Selection Text-to-Speech > System"

 _[9] T. Capes, P. Coles, A. Conkie, L. Golipour, A. Hadjitarkhani, Q. Hu, N. Huddleston, M. Hunt, J. Li, M. Neeracher, K. Prahallad, T. Raitio, R. Rasipuram, G. Townsend, B. Williamson, D. Winarsky, Z. Wu, H. Zhang. Siri On- Device Deep Learning-Guided Unit Selection Text-to-Speech System, Interspeech, 2017._

Why not just add the names by default?

<comment><USER23> Because then it wouldn't be an Apple™ iNovation™.

<comment><USER23> Let's be honest, these people's names aren't displayed prominently for precisely the same reason as early Atari game developers names weren't.

<comment><USER24> I'm not familiar with this example. Could you elaborate on the Atari thing, please?

<comment><USER18> Atari wanted people to want Atari games, not Frank Jones games. They considered their programmers replaceable cogs and refused to give them credit.

That's why the Easter egg in Adventure with the programmer's name exists. It was the only way to get his name out there.

What happened was the developers didn't like this and left to start their own company, Activision, which made some of the best remembered games on the 2600.

Apple already 'compromised' by letting their researchers publish _at all_. Maybe names will be allowed in the future but it's kind of surprising we're even getting this.

<comment><USER24> Oh I see! I didn't know about that. Thanks for the explanation!

I totally agree that this was an unprecedented move by Apple, considering their past stance on such things. I'm hopeful for the future, though! They seem to have realized (at least a little bit) that community cooperation is valuable.

<comment><USER18> The reports from a few months ago word that they basically had to do this because no one was willing to work for them if they weren't able to publish because their career basically stalled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It might seem silly, but I'm looking forward to the first AI talk therapist. Most of the benefit of therapy is the talking, so it's not as crazy as it sounds.

<comment><USER25> > _It might seem silly, but I 'm looking forward to the first AI talk > therapist. Most of the benefit of therapy is the talking, so it's not as > crazy as it sounds._

Not crazy at all. At least some therapies provide benefits even with simple non-AI processes: "A meta-analyses of 15 studies, published in this month's volume of Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, found no significant difference in the treatment outcomes for patients who saw a therapist and those who followed a self-help book or online program."[0]

[0] [https://qz.com/1057345/researchers-say-you-might-as-well- be-...](https://qz.com/1057345/researchers-say-you-might-as-well-be-your-own- therapist/)

<comment><USER26> The one grey area though is that when the patient actually does the self-help program. Adherence is a big problem. Meaning a "self-helper" needs to be more disciplined because they don't have the same pressure/accountability they might have with an actual therapist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Good blog post and audio samples notwithstanding, annoying that they don't put the paper on Arxiv. As they themselves point to in the blog post, the learning architecture was introduced in 2014's "Deep mixture density networks for acoustic modeling in statistical parametric speech synthesis" so it's not clear how much of this is just good engineering vs novel research.

<comment><USER21> The paper was more than likely embargoed until the talk they gave about it was over. They're introducing some new things that they probably didn't want to release details on before they publicly made a statement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The obvious question would be a head-to-head qualitative comparison vs. WaveNet. It seems that they have advanced siri vs. siri prior, but does this work advance the field?

<comment><USER29> in terms of being feasible to actually use in production? Yes. It runs realtime locally on a mobile device at 48khz 16bit. WaveNet doesn't run realtime even on a desktop GPU at 16khz 8bit.

The WaveNet method of predicting the output sample by sample yields great results but at a very high computational cost

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> There's no question the diction of iOS 11 is much improved. But I liked the voice & timbre of the old speaker better - it sounds more authoritative.

<comment><USER31> Yes, it's a shame they didn't hire her to do the iOS 11 voice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Now if only it didn't feel like when I'm asking Siri to do a task it has a very small pool of pre-set options I get to choose from. It still feels rather restricted, but I'm excited they're really investing into it.

</comment><comment><USER33> The new voice sounds a lot like Google's current TTS voice.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't like the higher pitch/sharp tone from iOS 11. I like a warmer and deeper tone in iOS 10. I feel like having a more mature/experience assistant.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's also interesting how they made the pitch higher for the new voice, like Google has had all along.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is amazing, and also how beautifully it is written and presented!

</comment><comment><USER37> Siri's voice update and not allowing apps to use location always were two of my favorites in iOS 11!</comment>


The People Who Risk Jail to Maintain the Tor Network - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-operators <comment><USER2> Every paragraph of this piece has me yelling "NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE" at my monitor. Had they wanted to, it would have been incredibly easy for the FBI to spin any of the many quotes in this article into a "false statement" and an insta-felony, just out of spite.

If you're going to run an exit node, find an attorney _beforehand_. You don't necessarily need to put them on retainer, but figure out who you're going to call instead of walking into an FBI field office like, frankly, an idiot.

<comment><USER3> It reminds me of the astounding naivete of Aaron Swartz's girlfriend (or whatever she was at the time) in talking to the FBI and then being surprised that they were just looking for shit to pile on him and nothing else.

Don't talk to the cops: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik)

<comment><USER4> This meme bugs me because it is possible to heed the advice while still speaking to the police. I find that the only people who parrot it are those who have never been on the other end of the table. I've seen random people run over and advise a witness to "not talk to the police" while they were describing what happened to an officer at the scene of an accident. You can't package deeper context with something simple like "don't talk to the cops" and expect people to understand it. I think this general advice does more harm than good because of the way it's delivered.

The correct conclusion to come away with from the advice is to be vigilant when interacting with those who have the power to prosecute you, and often that means invoking your right to remain silent -- but not always. You should also know when you need a lawyer -- again, not always. If the cops knock on your door because they're looking for a lost kid, calm down and get over yourself, they're not looking for you.

Sadly, you and me get that, but others take the advice to the extreme and I've seen both of my examples firsthand.

<comment><USER5> As a guy that had his name run for bench warrants while being a witness to a traffic accident, you can speak for yourself. In some cases nothing good comes about speaking to police, especially in minority/poor communities.

<comment><USER4> As a guy who spent four months in county pretrial detention on three felonies and a misdemeanor and no bail, I _do_ speak for myself. I didn't speak to the police and lawyered up and I spent 119 days in jail. The next time, the FBI came; this time, I was suspicious but not actually involved, and I carefully spoke to the FBI without a lawyer and remained a free man. It's almost as if there's more to it than the Fifth Amendment.

And yeah, if you're riding a warrant, you probably shouldn't give your name to a law enforcement officer. That's called being stupid, and if you think it's shady to have your name run when a peace officer interacts with you and knows your name, you have some case law to read. That's their _job_. Witness details go in the same exact system.

I get the gist of the advice but I'm tired of seeing knobs on YouTube with their phone out recording an officer while shouting "I invoke my rights!" over and over again, and I think part of it is the way this advice is interpreted.

<comment><USER6> >As a guy who spent four months...

Holy shit! What exactly _are_ you doing in your spare time? ;)

<comment><USER7> You don't necessarily have to do anything, refusing to talk (not necessarily help) makes keeping people in jail so much easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's worth noting that if you want to support Tor exit nodes but do not want to run your own, you can donate to the Noisetor project. Noisebridge, a 501c3 nonprofit, has sponsored an exit node for several years now: [http://www.noisetor.net](http://www.noisetor.net)

<comment><USER9> And the French equivalent: [https://nos-oignons.net](https://nos-oignons.net)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is actually a good piece. It sticks to the facts without an evident attempt to push an agenda either for or against Tor.

The operator ("Richard") seems relatable to a fellow tech like myself, and by the end of reading this I found myself thinking, "Maybe I should run an exit node too, since I have used Tor quite a bit".

All in all, a good piece.

</comment><comment><USER11> I thought Tor originated with the U.S. navy?

<comment><USER2> It did. And the State Department & CIA use it to promote subversion activities in other countries. And the FBI and NSA try to crack it & discourage its use to monitor everyone's traffic.

"The government" isn't a monolith; it's made of quasi-independent agencies often operating at cross purposes.

<comment><USER12> > "The government" isn't a monolith;

And somehow individual is expected to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands So what are options besides Tor right now? Is anybody working on anything more secure?

<comment><USER13> It depends on what you're looking for. Tor is still the best at what it does. Alternatives like Freenet solve completely different problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > For this reason, and others listed on the Tor Project website, operators > are strongly advised to only run their exits remotely, by renting out server > space.

Better yet, do that anonymously. Always work via Tor. Use a false identity. Pay with well-mixed Bitcoins. Observe good OPSEC.

<comment><USER15> That doesn't sound like a good idea. When law enforcement come knocking, your position is less defensible if you seem to be trying to hide your tracks.

<comment><USER14> If your OPSEC is adequate, they won't know where to come knocking.

<comment><USER16> I get your point, but it's more of an ideological battle here. Those people want to be legally allowed to run an exit node, not to use a compromised box & hide their tracks.

<comment><USER14> That's a great ideal, and I wish them success. I'm more pragmatic. Raids are life-changing experiences, even if nobody gets killed, or ends up in prison. And where I live, freedom to legally run Tor exit nodes is limited, with poor prospects of increasing.

I am not recommending the use of compromised servers. I'm recommending anonymous leasing from legitimate providers, which are located in jurisdictions that are unlikely to freely cooperate with your home jurisdiction. Ideally you run Tor-ramdisk, and store the node's credentials in another anonymous server, so there are no logs.

This is rather like preemptively not talking to police except through your attorney.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think Tor is great, but I just can't trust the people operating the exit nodes.

<comment><USER18> You are wise not to. Not everyone who is an exit is on your side. It is better to assume that they are going to do everything nasty possible to you and your data.

<comment><USER19> Also, you should probably assume that the FBI is monitoring the exit node you are using.

<comment><USER20> Or running it.

<comment><USER21> And the Internet connection you are using.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's a moral responsibility to cooperate with law enforcement when they are trying to track criminals like pedophiles, terrorists or similarly malicious persons. I don't think there should be any argument there, Tor operator or not.

However, we have every right to anonymity and to encrypt our communications and data such that only those we want to see it can. So what to do?

Perhaps Tor operators can perform some act of vigilantism and expose criminals like the above without incriminating themselves through booting out and releasing the data of the pedophiles, terrorists and what have you.

Being a revolutionary and a lover of freedom is not a crime, and the criminals who give us a bad name are making it one.

<comment><USER23> >I don't think there should be any argument there

I'll argue against that point. I don't live in a system where I can trust that helping the police won't be turned around on me because they're just looking for somebody to pin charges on or because of bullshit laws that shouldn't be a law to begin with.

I have assisted the police exactly one time, when I witnessed a kidnapping, but I had to be extremely cautious because my roommate was a marijuana smoker before the state I lived in at the time had legalized it, and he had his stupid paraphernalia all over the apartment. The cops wanted to come in to ask me questions but I couldn't let them in the house because I didn't know what shit was lying around, so I had to make up a ridiculous excuse to do the entire questioning outside on flimsy lawnchairs in the yard. I was put into the position of trying to decide if I should risk fucking over my friend or not report a kidnapping.

<comment><USER24> You just admitted to lying to law enforcement which is most likely a crime in your jurisdiction.

Just to reiterate, yes the police are not on your side. My dad had his arm broken by police purely for not obeying a voluntary evacuation order (forest fire).

<comment><USER25> That's why it is important to always refuse to talk, refuse to let enter, refuse consent to searches. Do it as a matter of habit so that you don't end up lying.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Conway's game of death - making an IOCCC winner - <AUTHOR> http://blog.circleci.com/conways-game-of-death/

<comment><USER2> That reminds me of something that has nothing to do with C or obfuscation. There was a coding puzzle (read: hiring tool) posted here exactly a year ago. You were supposed to take a simple cellular automata, figure out what the code was doing, and add something interesting. I created a vertical shooter where the enemies (and your bullets) were subject to conway's game of life: <http://jere.in/snow/>

By the way, it turned out to be for shelby.tv

<comment><USER3> Very cool.

Could use a little something to prevent it from rapidly turning in bunch of oscillators and still life though.

<comment><USER2> Hmmm... I didn't give the controls: arrows move and space shoots. Shooting will mix it up.

Either way though, you're right. It's too easy to get into a safe spot and let everything reach steady state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat. Although I find myself slightly disappointed it wasn't some inverted version of the rules where tiny little pockets of unlife rend their way through teaming colonies of automata.

<comment><USER5> Invert the colors, and there you have it ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The philosophical ramifications! I just think this is a wonderfully creative use of Conway's algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER7> it also compiles fine under cygwin, so you can run it under windows :)

interesting gameplay!</comment>


Play framework 2.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.typesafe.com/introducing-play-20

<comment><USER2> I have been waiting for this update for a while. Has anyone gone through the process of updating from 1.2.x to 2.0 yet? Was the process painful? Did you run into any "gotchas"?</comment>


Mugshots.com's alleged co-owners arrested on extortion charges - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/05/all-of-mugshots-coms-alleged-co-owners-arrested-on-extortion-charges/ <comment><USER2> here's what I don't get: why are mug shots public at any point prior to conviction?

Should these people go to jail? Yes, it's extortion plain and simple. But they should never have had these images for anyone who was not found guilty - or in this case even charged.

<comment><USER3> The claim for publication is that the public has a right to know about potential criminal activity and so on. Of course, the reality is that publication of the mugshot is accepted by many as proof of criminal liability notwithstanding disclaimers to the contrary.

It's less clear why police departments publish them, but I think it has a lot to do with sheriffs and prosecutors being elected offices in the US. I've never agreed with this process since the potential for abuse is so obvious, and also since it makes it that much more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to assemble a neutral jury when a case does go to trial.</comment></comment>


Measure typing speed (ignores spelling mistakes) - <AUTHOR> http://penguinspuzzle.appspot.com/typingspeed.html?

<comment><USER2> Hmm.

        80WPM.
        You have typed 318 characters
        in 47.109 seconds.

And no errors. Interesting - faster than I thought.</comment>


Google spending $30M on housing for Silicon Valley employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/14/google-spending-30-million-on-housing-for-silicon-valley-employees.html <comment><USER2> Could someone explain the pricing? $30 million for 300 "modular homes" that appear to be very similar to trailer homes seems a bit much. That's $100,000 a unit; you can build a much larger and fancier house for that kind of money. From the WSJ article linked in the CNBC article, it sounds like the deal is for the houses only, not any land.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this might be a boost for modular housing and also including rent as part of salary, something similar like healthcare offered by employers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Housing has become a plaything for the ultra-rich.</comment>


SaaS Acquisition Nightmare: Lawsuits, Hookers, Drugs, and Churn - <AUTHOR> https://blog.getlatka.com/saas-acquisition-mailtag/ <comment><USER2> An absurd lesson in acquisition due diligence.</comment>


James Randi: debunking the king of the debunkers - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11270453/James-Randi-debunking-the-king-of-the-debunkers.html <comment><USER2> The author is simply continuing the thesis he sets forth in his book _.

_[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9823893...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9823893/The- Heretics-by-Will-Storr-review.html)

His basic point is many people who claim to dislike things is that they themselves have no evidence. e.g. you may dismiss homoeopathy but you have done no research nor read any research nor can cite it so what do you really know?

Whilst there is something in that, I think he has missed the point of peer reviewed science. Society doesn't work because we all know the same things. We have hierarchy and referencing and reputation. A weakness is that sometimes it can be subverted, but it will always get back on track. There is no one moment of perfect understanding</comment>


Special Promotion for Developers: Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor 31S1P - <AUTHOR> https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/special-promotion-intel-xeon-phi-coprocessor-31s1p

<comment><AUTHOR> I found out about it from [http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTgzNjY](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTgzNjY)</comment>


YouTube Bans Sexual Humor, Profanity, Political Conflict, etc in Partner Content - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/blog/2016/09/01/youtube-bans-sex-drugs-and-politics <comment><USER2> If anyone wants a succinct example of how misguided this is, [https://www.youtube.com/user/Kurzgesagt](https://www.youtube.com/user/Kurzgesagt) is an _amazing_ channel filled with thoughtful and well researched videos, but their Twitter account reported last night that their second video _discussing_ nuclear power ran afoul of the "content guidelines" and was de-monetized.

I can't imagine an educational channel deserving this treatment - it makes me so sad for everyone involved.

<comment><USER3> "Nuclear power, Syrian refugees, clear cutting the Amazon--those are a lot to think about and we don't want to offend someone. We'll just double up on cat videos instead. Everybody likes cat videos, right?"

<comment><USER4> Nothing controversial about cats... Unless they are the feral kind in which case you can find many arguments online that are in favor of their eradication.

<comment><USER5> These are house cats :P ERADICATION IS NEEDED :)

"The results were certainly surprising, if not startling," said Kerrie Anne Loyd of the University of Georgia, who was the lead author of the study. "In Athens-Clarke County, we found that about 30 percent of the sampled cats were successful in capturing and killing prey, and that those cats averaged about one kill for every 17 hours outdoors or 2.1 kills per week. It was also surprising to learn that cats only brought 23 percent of their kills back to a residence. We found that house cats will kill a wide variety of animals, including: lizards, voles, chipmunks, birds, frogs, and small snakes."

[http://www.wildlifemanagementinstitute.org/index.php?option=...](http://www.wildlifemanagementinstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&id=610:new- research-suggests-outdoor-cats-kill-more-wildlife-than- thought&catid=34:ONB+Articles&Itemid=54)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> YouTube renamed to Google SafeSpaces

As a real comment though, maybe this is Google's way of trying to put the pillow over YouTube's face? It's been costing them money for a long time, maybe this is their way to kill it without just going "yeah iz ded"

<comment><USER7> Profitable or not, YouTube is the uncontested king of web video right at the moment when cord cutting is starting to get significant. They'd be insane to let that go.

Besides, they're only removing monetization, not banning the videos. It's just a way to avoid offending their advertisers by getting them mixed up with uncomfortable content.

<comment><USER8> They're not even trying to be flexible.

Advertisers could be given a choice, if they are fine with controversial content. Maybe use a handful of tags, like politics and swearing are fine, but no sex, violence or cat videos, please! All the pussy companies can then choose to only advertise on reaction videos, for all I care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Prohibiting the open discussion of "controversial or sensitive subjects" is unbelievable. Partners are no longer allowed to have political opinions or discuss major world events. What the fuck, YouTube?

<comment><USER10> Youtube isn't prohibiting the discussion of these subjects, they're just not allowing those videos to be monetized.

Partners exist to make money for Google, on Google's terms, and in Google's best interests. Monetizing videos is a service Google provides for their advertisers and licensed content owners first, content creators last.

<comment><USER11> Youtube's rules doesn't apply to CNN and other corp accounts. They can continue monetizing while breaking the new rules.

That's the real story here.

<comment> angry-hacker There is no story. Welcome to life.

While I don't support it, most of the youtubers are spoiled with ad money for no good reason. Same policies apply to adsense and every other ad network too.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, large corporation favoring other large corporations and not giving the small guys even a fighting chance. I wish I could act surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related > to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if > graphic imagery is not shown

Evolution is (for some bizarre reason) both controversial and political.

Will videos explaining evolution be de-monetised?

EDIT: YT seem to be doing a boneheaded "search for problem words in titles, and demonetise that video". Hence this channel (which is full of stuff that is possibly against the new terms is mostly monetised apart from one video about preventing veteran suicide. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRo1KI1JC3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRo1KI1JC3A) )

(Not sure if it counts as political conflict, or if that means more along the lines of Basque Seperatism?)

</comment><comment><USER14> What I do find odd is that Youtube is not auctioning advertisement space based on content of the video + user profile.

Why not allow small advertisers a discount on "controversial" videos?

I'm also surprised how much advertisers considers themselves linked to the content they advertise next to. I consider FB and Youtube ads completely user profile based, but maybe I live in my own little tech bubble.

</comment><comment><USER15> The tables are in favor of those with money i.e. Advertisers. The new rules seem to stem from normal TV advertising rules.

Leaving or boycotting while in some situations is good, I don't think is not a solution in this case - the dynamics of the web / content content creation means there will be someone to replace a creator quickly if they no longer provide (users will just look elsewhere for their needs).

No doubt these policies were pushed anticipating a backlash. This move is a thought-out strategy - it will be interesting to see how this will turn out, or if it follows YouTube's expectations.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and > abuse of such items

Regulated by whom? Alcohol is banned in some countries, so does that mean a video on wine tasting is eligible for monetization if uploaded in the UK but not eligible if uploaded in Saudi Arabia?

It seems like a reactive and overbearing policy change, but I'll admit to being ignorant of their motivations. This kind of soft censorship is a loss to the end user, regardless.

<comment><USER16> Also, does that mean I can't promote Gruyère cheese because the EU regulates that it can only be produced in Switzerland?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't get the accusations of censorship here. They aren't stopping people from publishing of these videos, they're just telling the creators they won't pay for them anymore (beyond hosting costs, distribution, etc).

</comment><comment><USER18> YouTube has been dying for years now

<comment><USER19> > YouTube has been dying for years now

If by "dying" you mean "growing up into mass-market, big-money commercial media" then, sure, its been dying.

<comment><USER20> Nobody goes there anymore -- it's too crowded.

<comment><USER21> Too crowded for what, though?

The comments threads have always been an internet Mos Eisley cess-pit, so I'm unconvinced the social aspect have ever been particularly prevalent, and the competition amongst content creators is obviously intense, but to say _nobody goes there_ is just plain wrong.

Heck, the content glut means the likely hood of hitting relevant content quickly is higher than ever, quality notwithstanding.

<comment><USER22> "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" is a classic joke.

<comment><USER21> Oh christ... That moment when you realise a joke has sailed clean over your head? Yep. Exactly that.

Too late to edit and spare my blushes sadly. Still, it got a sheepish chuckle out of me when I finally twigged, so it's not all bad news!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't think this is particularly surprising. Advertisers often won't run their ad on a particular show on TV because of its content. Youtube is most likely bowing to advertiser pressure on this.

</comment><comment><USER22> Time for content creators to start banding together. Force youtube to deal with their lousy policies.</comment>


Real-time Snowball Fights on a Canvas in Node.js (see comment) - <AUTHOR> http://holiday2010.ogilvy.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Mario Gonzalez wrote in with a game his team have built using Node and WebSockets: Ogilvy & Mather Holiday Snowball Fight. It's a multiplayer game that uses a lot of interesting libraries, like CAAT and BiSON. The developers even say they based the multiplayer design on Valve's Source Multiplayer Networking papers.

>>> The game-engine, collision and logic run on the server in JavaScript running on Node.js. The clients are simply rendering information sent from the server, and sending off keyboard input.

Source: <http://dailyjs.com/2011/01/05/node-roundup/></comment>


What are the questions entrepreneurs should be asking VCs? - <AUTHOR> http://informationarbitrage.com/post/2875663928/what-are-the-questions-entrepreneurs-should-be-asking <comment><USER2> I like most of these questions but am not sure about #1:

"Is this a core investment or something in which you have interest but would walk away from if things get difficult?"

Isn't this something you would know based on who the firm has invested in before? How can you get more specific than that?</comment>


Programming Books You Wish You Read Earlier - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/programming-books-you-wish-you-read-earlier-1066ce29cd9d <comment><USER2> >There are so many programming books out there, sometimes it's hard to know what books are best

Writing an intro on auto-pilot, I see. It's quite funny how these intro lines have become such a formality that the author doesn't even notice what they wrote was nonsensical. And the audience doesn't notice that the article starts off with something as silly as this, either.

Just to make my point clear:

• It's obviously hard to know which book is best, that's why that whole "book reviews" thing exists.

• It's not just "sometimes". That would imply that in other cases the list of best books is glaringly obvious.

But my point is not to nitpick about it, but rather to point out how funny the custom of these pointless, blank opening statements has become.

<comment><USER3> How is that nonsensical? Its stating the obvious, but it makes sense.

<comment><USER2> It says sometimes it's hard to know what books are the best.

When is it not as hard as any other time?

<comment><USER4> For the trivial case: when there is only one book in the category, it is definitionally "the best." And also the worst! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is essentially a list of textbooks for undergraduate coursework in computer science. I'd guess is the important parts are the amazon affiliate links...

<comment><USER6> I agree. It should really be titled:

"Programming books I hope you'll buy via my affiliate links".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Many of us have come across them at uni I guess - but there are so many books around. This one always made me smile a bit :

Introduction to Algorithms : Hardcover 1312 pages

 _Introduction_ ? :-)

<comment><USER8> That book is no Introduction. Trust me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A related question: Are there any programming books you wish were written?

My long term side project has been to bootstrap an independent publishing house focused on technical topics. I'm always looking to hear what programming books people think are missing in the market.

Some recurring topics I keep seeing are more books on the soft skills / career development side of things, and more project based books that help you learn how certain technologies work internally by building a database, queue system, web framework, etc. from scratch.

<comment><USER10> _Beautiful Code_ is a book that actually exists but I found disappointing in that the title describes a book that I'd like to see but I found most of the examples disappointing and not very beautiful. I'd love to see a book that lived up to the title better.

I'd like to see a good book on error handling. I feel this is still one of the great unsolved problems of software engineering (alongside naming) and most programming books just don't do it and say something like "obviously this is not production code but error handling would clutter up the examples too much". That to me is indicative of the problem.

I like the project based book idea. _Physically Based Rendering_ is a rather nice example of this but I don't know of too many other similar books in other domains.

<comment><USER11> Maybe Programming Pearls achieves what Beautiful Code did not? Or Hackers Delight?

I think it's hard for code to be beautiful when it's mostly glue (calling libraries) rather than implementing a basic task (like sorting). As such, most modern (glue) languages are less likely to evoke aesthetic wonder in the reader than might a simpler, low level language like C or Pascal.

<comment><USER10> _Programming Pearls_ is great (I haven't read _Hacker 's Delight_) but it's mostly "programming in the small". I think it would be interesting to see a book that took real world projects and looked at some core piece of them that is particularly elegant or clever. The core of how git manages its data structure for example, or the Quake BSP. In practice most such real code is probably too tangled up with the rest of the project to be very suitable for this approach unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think book lists evolve over time. I would probably never had considered the Mythical Man-Month in my early career but found it helpful later on.

Also, some books don't make sense until experience happens. The classic AWK book (gray cover one) came in handy only after I was having trouble organizing some data files. Then it was a must read/keep :)

</comment><comment><USER13> The list is missing Clean Code, Clean Architecture, The Clean Coder, and Domain Driven Design. Also, while the books on the list look great a bunch of them are for very specific topics that don't have much to do with the majority of programming.

<comment><USER14> I know this can be a little controversial, but I do wish I had read TAOCP earlier, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> See this thread from a few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19225964](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19225964)

I think it's the same article, just under a different url.

<comment><USER3> Yep. Same author and same text. I'm assuming it was reposted on hackernoon so it could be seen by their existing audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> yeah well -- I read parts of the Dragon Book on Compilers, and Operating Systems Concepts, at a formative time in life, and ran, not walked, away from both.. The kind of 'algorithm ninja' specialization these days, and the style of programming that fits ever-so-tightly to some external OS requirements, is not at all the breadth of what is possible with software.

On the other hand, books like AI in Games, that's entering into a whole new modern realm.. cant make it up, gotta find it somewhere.

last, I cant help but feel a bit abused for the click here, since it is clearly linked to some volume-ads or buy-referral system or both, for the author, and the amount of effort to put that page together is clearly minimal. Oh HN .. .

</comment><comment><USER17> I can't stand the presumptuous tone of this article. The author really has no idea which books his audience has read, or when they may have read them, so why is he talking down to us?

I happen to agree that some of those books are really good, but the tone of the article is so annoying I won't do more than skim through the list.

</comment><comment><USER18> missing: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

</comment><comment><USER19> Solid list.

Although I think the Dragon Book is not just a bit long in the tooth now. It's importance is more one of historical relevance.

There is a plethora of modern books that cover more relevant material in a more pedagogical way.

<comment><USER20> Any you can recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's easy to say that every programmer should read CLRS, but I think it would be a lot more interesting for the author to explain why they think CLRS is better (and, in particular, better for straight-through reading?) than "The Algorithm Design Manual", "The Art of Computer Programming", or "Algorithms in Java".

</comment><comment><USER22> There's SICP. The rest, meh, not so much

</comment><comment><USER23> A book I actually enjoyed reading large amounts of in school was Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective. It really helped me have a picture of the low level parts of a computer.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've read parts of most of those books. Some I've read from cover to cover.

But none of them are books with info that you couldn't read in other books. Some definitely better written or more up to date.

</comment><comment><USER25> All book links are Amazon affiliate links (zeroequalsfals-20). This same submitter has submitted this same list of affiliate links 7 times this week alone.

</comment><comment><USER26> BTW title is missing the word "had": "Programming Books You Wish You _had_ Read Earlier"

</comment><comment><USER27> This is a legit list. I'm ashamed to say I have read none of these books.

<comment><USER28> I also think the list is OK, not quite the list I would have picked, but close. But I'm puzzled how you would know it's a legit list if you have read none of the books?

<comment><USER27> Most lists include books that I would avoid because they are actually bad or controversial. Design patterns is a good example. This list doesn't contain any of those.</comment></comment></comment>