Swapbox (YC W13) Launches And Aims To Pick Up Where Bufferbox Left Off - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/y-combinator-company-swapbox-launches-and-aims-to-pick-up-where-bufferbox-left-off/

<comment><USER2> Some financial thoughts:

Machine operating at full capacity and efficiently. All the machine boxes are used in a single day. This will bring 11 x $1.99 => $21.89/day => $656.7/month

Now let's look at the expenses:

1\. The Machine itself. (Price, repair, damaged by kids...)

2\. Renting the place (or getting free rent from generous stores?)

3\. The surveillance camera.

4\. Stolen goods (this happens, and you write that you'll cover the loses)

5\. Customer support.

6\. Your operating costs (Employees, Office Rent, Accountant...)

To the founders: Are you sure this makes financial/economical sense?

<comment><USER3> You're totally right :) these prototype boxes don't make financial sense with the model you accurately described. These were the first generation of swapboxes, the ones currently in production have quite a few more compartments. We'll have a bigger update at demo day that should answer your questions, thanks for looking out though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always just had packages shipped to my place of employment or even a neighbor/friend if there was some problem with shipping them to my residence. Do services like Bufferbox or Swapbox have any advantages over these practices?

<comment><USER3> Some people have definitely figured out ways to fix this issue (sounds like you have), but for others the service that Swapbox provides means the difference between getting your package ontime and maybe never getting your package. I don't think that this solution is right for everyone, but I think that there are so many pain points in this space and Swapbox can solve some of them. Also, if there's ever anything perishable or you don't want to lug it home from work, check out Swapbox :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh, another question, what happens when the kiosk is at capacity, or something doesn't fit? Even if you reserve space in the kiosk at the time of order, packages can come in different sizes than you expect, and even then, the delivery men might collectively load the kiosk in a non-optimal way.

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment if we're over capacity we'll find a time that works for you and deliver the package to your door. Going forward our plan is to install higher capacity units in neighborhoods that require them. You're right though - non- optimal usage is definitely a concern and we're working on processes to help tackle it.

<comment><USER4> Cool...definitely a tough challenge...even computers have a tough time with it (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_packing_problem>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The reason I use Amazon is so I don't have to drive anywhere to pick stuff up. It's there when I get home. If I wanted to go somewhere to pick it up, I'd go to a B&M. Or tell UPS/FedEx to not deliver and I'll pick it up.

</comment><comment><USER6> So HN today is about Dropbox, Mailbox, Swapbox, and Bufferbox. Is box the new -ly?

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks pretty similar to Finnish Post Office's (nowadays Itella) SmartPOST: <http://www.itella.fi/english/smartpost/introduction/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Lots of references to filling the void Bufferbox left. It doesn't seem to be an acquihire, so they still exist. What's the difference between you two?

<comment><USER3> Hi, we never wanted to insinuate that BufferBox wasn't around, they are alive and well and we've spoken with them. However, we're not sure what Google's plans are and we know this solution is necessary in the US right now, so I think there is room for multiple players in this space. BufferBox also doesn't exist in the US.

<comment><USER9> What happened to the BufferBox installation on Pioneer Way?</comment></comment></comment>


Prewarming PostgreSQL I/O caches - <AUTHOR> https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/prewarming-postgresql-i-o-caches/ <comment><USER2> If you think about it, it's a bit tragic that the APIs operating systems offer for memory mapped files are not enough for databases. The operating system already has all the caching logic in place and can do so more efficiently with hardware support.

If you have data that rarely changes you can actually create an ad-hoc database system based on that and have performance like an in memory database without having to worry much about the memory of the system.

<comment><USER3> Actually Postgres is one of the few databases that does use the os disk caching. But then shared_buffers is another cache layer on top of the os cache.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't make any sense, any program accessing blocks on the disk via the OS gets the OS cache with no action required on its part. Which includes all databases except those like Oracle that can be set to bypass the OS. The reason most databases do their additional caching is that they can be smarter about access patterns since they have more information. The proportion of DB to OS cache in any individual system is a matter of tuning.

<comment><USER5> O_DIRECT allows you to bypass OS-level caching entirely, it's not that hard. Whether or not it's a good idea is another question, of course

<comment><USER6> Are you sure it leads to entirely bypassing the OS buffercache?

If I understand correctly O_DIRECT (the usual flag of open(2)) is one of the possible behavior of WAL updates, precisely the 'wal_sync_method' setting ( [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/runtime-config- wal.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/runtime-config-wal.html) ). Therefore it will indeed not let any data written by PG in the buffercache, but what about data _read_ (not written) by PG? The documentation lets me think that those data will, just after being read and without any specific disposition (posix_fadvise(2)...), be in the OS buffercache. (I didn't check PG's sourcecode).

<comment><USER7> Postgres does not use O_DIRECT for data (contrasting to the write ahead log / journal, where it can in some configurations), neither when reading, nor when writing. So data will definitely pass through the kernel page cache.

By default we force the kernel's hand about when to write data back to disk from the page cache for a lot of the writes (from the checkpointing process and the background writer, but not by backends themselves - it can be enabled for backends too, and is often beneficial), as disk performance otherwise is quite unpredictable (with long stalls when the OS decides to trigger writeback).

For some workloads, in particular large and high read/write volume databases, it'd be very beneficial to support O_DIRECT for data too, but there's some work on postgres' IO subsystem needed to make that doable without performance regressions in a lot of scenarios.

Even once we add it, it's unlikely to become the default, at least for reads, as using O_DIRECT would require somewhat accurate tuning of postgres. Even for databases without high throughput. Whereas also utilizing the OS page cache doesn't require accurate sizing of shared_buffers etc, and adapts to changing workloads and global resource availability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sounds interesting, I miss a benchmark to go with the article in my opinion.

"pg_prewarm makes most sense if your database and your RAM are really really large (XXX GB or more)"

A benchmark preferably with databases of sizes that make sense.

<comment><USER6> Pre-fetching may be interesting if the first SQL query using prefetched data picks a small set of data stored on a disk plate here, then another one stored far away (distant cylinder), then back, then again far away, and so on... On a mechanical HDD the implied head movements may considerably slow this first query down.

Is there another case justifying a pre-fetching?

If I'm right pg_prewarm if not adequate with a SSD storage device, moreover "makes most sense if your database and your RAM are really really large" is sound as the amount of head moves is (typically) proportional to the DB size.

IMHO the most significant overall performance indicator here is the ratio R/D, where R is the size of the RAM available to PostgreSQL (mainly shared_buffers and the kernel buffercache), and D stands for the size of often used database objects (data, indices...).

Multiple runs of a benchmark in contexts where this ratio is 1, then 0.5, then 0.01... often produces interesting results.

<comment><USER9> If you've got a database you can fit in memory that's got very sporadic access pattern it could be a nice boost even on SSDs. My biggest personal project has a 15GB database on disk, all of it a single table of 7.5M comments and a PGroonga full text search index. The queries are very disproportionately searching for low frequency terms so the index will largely cached, but most of the rows will require disk access. Since I can spare the ram to get the entire db in memory it's a clear win for me even if it's decent speed without. My users are basically a font of random accesses and being able to treat PostgreSQL as an in-memory db is convenient.</comment></comment></comment>


Avoiding Nulls with 'Tell, Don't Ask' Style (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://natpryce.com/articles/000777.html <comment><USER2> This essay happens to be specific case about "null" but the more generalized concept is the optimal design of _any_ public-vs-private _state_ and how it affects the balance of code at the _client site_ vs embedded _inside the class_. Unfortunately, the author's email example isn't a good case study of the principle he's trying to demonstrate.

If you expose unnecessary state, your class is acting like a "dumb data struct" and you make client code more complicated and it proliferates needless and error-prone code duplication. (I made a previous comment about this.[1])

On the hand, if you hide information that makes sense for client code to know about, you increasingly make fatter and heavier class code with extraneous class methods that's idiosyncratic to an isolated piece of client code rather than being of general utility for _many clients_. Arguably in this case of "missing email", it may make more sense for the _client code_ to handle an _" if (customer.email == null) SendPostalMail()"_.

You have to determine whether you can reasonably hide knowledge in a class such that client code (including all future client code) never needs it. E.g. if some future code needs to behave differently such as creating a different type of web login screen depending on the existence of email address, it probably doesn't make sense to fatten up Customer class _with another method_ such as "CreateWebLogin()" to generate HTML -- all to avoid exposing the null status of email address. This would be a code smell.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11481194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11481194)

<comment><USER3> I totally agree, it basically is one of the few instances in programming where you really can't get around needing experience. At the time of writing the majority of top level comments were arguing against the pattern, but it's useful to at least know about alternatives instead of just declaring them as bad.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, in my experience this is the real difference between mediocre/OK/excellent programmers; the ability to choose the "right" level of encapsulation and abstraction at design time. It's definitely not always correlated with experience, although finding someone relatively junior on the good+ side of the scale is a real find because as you said the school of hard knocks tends to be the best teacher in this realm. IMHO Most anyone can learn to program at a reasonable level, but not everyone can do design well; see bootcamp graduates(and also "ten years of the same 1year of experience)…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok, so a "Maybe" avoided, but instead we added a coupling, plus moved the decision logic to the inside of the Customer object?

I would consider this a very bad design. It's one of those solutions that you think of and tell yourself "look at how elegant it looks". Then one month (or more) when you revisit the code to do some additions / code reading, you realize how bad an idea it was.

<comment><USER6> Where's the added coupling? Before you'd have two accessors returning their own type, one of them nullable. Now you have one method that doesn't return. That interface is also agnostic of how customers can be reached: If we add sendByPigeon() the Customer interface won't see change.

The customer object is in a good position to decide how the customer should be reached.

<comment><USER7> It's coupled the Customer to the service announcements without there being any need to. At least in the first refactoring.

The second refactoring is somewhat different. That would make more sense if the communication decision wasn't based solely on the existence of an email address. But all he's really done now is add a kind of bespoke Visitor pattern to work around a lack of double dispatch.

Personally, I'd be inclined to keep the naive version unless there were clear requirements for double dispatch (and probably more than one example). If there were multiple requirements, I'd build in an abstract Visitor framework so you're back to limited coupling at the expense of some complexity.

TBH I'd probably be using a language that had multiple dispatch but that's not always an option.

<comment><USER6> You're forgetting the calling code in your accounting: While the Customer objects learns about Announcements, the calling code (we don't see) forgets about EmailAddress and PostalAddress. That means less coupling overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That is a tremendous amount of indirection[1] to avoid a silly Maybe/Optional/null check...

[1] [https://zedshaw.com/archive/indirection-is-not- abstraction/](https://zedshaw.com/archive/indirection-is-not-abstraction/)

</comment><comment><USER9> 2010... There must be an engineer somewhere right now, who's trying to fix some bug in this guy's legacy code, muttering _" why"_ each time one of these "smart" patterns comes up in the codebase.

I know from experience, that the temptation is great to be smart in your code, but after all these years my rule of thumb is: whenever you feel that you're doing something particularly clever, it's probably a bad idea.

<comment><USER10> There's a good quote that I look at once in a while to remind myself to not be too smart.

> Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. > Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by > definition, not smart enough to debug it. — Brian Kernighan and P. J. > Plauger in The Elements of Programming Style.

<comment><USER11> Debugging isn't too bad if you can put in good trace code that can be switched in or switched out and left in with minimal overhead/risk.

Though it may add say 20% time to typing the code in, but it can also serve as a kind of commenting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think my life as a programmer would be on the whole much easier if people didn't feel the urge to complexify simple things like a struct with an optional field.

<comment><USER13> I 100% agree. I don't understand how is returning 'Maybe X' is more complex that returning 'X'. In a safe programming language, a well designed 'Maybe' class should be both comfortable and safe enough to use by the callee. This post solves a non-existent problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I belive that the last example is overcomplicated. The CommunicationMethod instance still has to check if the email address is present with a really weird accesss to the Customer object. Anyway, the purpose of Maybe in FP is to force the user to handle both cases, not only replace "!= null" with ".exists()".

</comment><comment><USER15> This is the original concept of object-oriented programming, i.e. don't ask for information, pass a message instead and let the destination object do its job.

Ultimately, this doesn't really work, because it increases coupling. In order to decrease coupling, the functionality that is hidden behind a message should be factored out into another class, and thus we end up with classes that are actually simple conditional functions with embedded arguments.

So, a better strategy would be to simply have functions that accept a number of parameters and do the job we want.

For example, a function that sends a package, like the one in the article, should accept a number of parameters, check upon those parameters and select the appropriate action to perform.

In this case, we wouldn't care about nulls, because they would be handled gracefully by our function, plus we get decoupling and increased reusability for free.

<comment><USER16> It worked in the early days of Smalltalk, because a Smalltalk environment is basically a blob of tightly coupled classes that all call and delegate to one another, up and down the abstraction chain, and when you want to load the application you just snarf all those classes into memory, all at once.

These days, if you're a good little do-bee, you will properly use the SOLID principles and introduce interfaces everywhere there's an identifiable joint between classes. Instead of having a class call into another class, you change the reference of the class's object to an interface reference and call through that. So now you've introduced more code, more concepts, and more complexity to do something like send a fucking email which is conceptually simple on paper (and you have a library to handle actually sending the email).

Congratulations. Welcome to software-architecture NASA.

<comment><USER17> > a Smalltalk environment is basically a blob of tightly coupled classes that > all call and delegate to one another, up and down the abstraction chain, and > when you want to load the application you just snarf all those classes into > memory, all at once.

I really like the idea of Smalltalk images (which can also be used by some Lisps, and Factor IIRC) since we can tweak and fix values directly, rather than trying to orchestrate a way for the fixed value to be used the next time we restart it.

On the other hand, I really like functional programming ideas like immutability (which naively would stop us fixing/tweaking things) and referential transparency (where an expression and its result are interchangable; if we switch out the result, it's no longer interchangable with the expression we wrote). I also like version control, reproducible builds, etc. which seem to be trickier with images.

An interesting research area, I suppose :)

> So now you've introduced more code, more concepts, and more complexity to do > something like send a fucking email which is conceptually simple on paper > (and you have a library to handle actually sending the email).

I completely agree w.r.t. the insanity of people decoupling all of their classes from each other (my old boss got infected by that idea, it was painful). Still, the particular example of sending an email is a legitimate case of external interaction: whilst it's fine to, for example, create as many Customer/Request/whatever objects as we like during unit tests (since they're internal implementation details) we _don 't_ want those tests to be sending actual emails.

So if I were writing this, I would have the email-sending-mechanism as a parameter, where we can pass a real email sender when running on production and a dummy argument-swallowing black hole during tests. Note that the interface for an email sender is simply a function (from EmailDetails or whatever, to void).

> Congratulations. Welcome to software-architecture NASA.

One thing I've found about architecture astronauts is that they obsess over "reusability", yet insist on creating all their own stuff from scratch, rather than reusing what's already provided by the language. For example, from this article:

        public interface CommunicationMethod {
            void send(CustomerServiceAnnouncement announcement);
        }

The author has just re-invented the idea of a function! Yet (as Rich Hickey famously said), by inventing a new class they've made themselves incompatible/unusable by all the existing code, infrastructure and tooling that works for functions(/closures/whatever).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Instead of using the Maybe monad, just hardcode the Maybe monad into every class /s. Their `tell` method is basically just the `>>=` method from the Maybe monad but with the second parameter already supplied making it less flexible.

</comment><comment><USER19> Or embrace them by using the null object pattern.

var listofNullandNotNullObjects = getSomeThings();

foreach(var oneThing in listofNullandNotNullObjects) {

        oneThing.doSomething();  // null objects would just return
    }

<comment><USER20> I wish your comment was closer to the top. I totally agree that if you're avoiding nulls this is the right way to do it. I wouldn't say it's right for everything, but when done correctly it makes for some really clean code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This seems like a terrible way to architect an application. No longer do we have a simple Customer data class, but a hybrid monstrosity that grows every time a new use case involving a nullable field is introduced.

I would much rather prefer to have a use-case specific class that takes care of notifying a Customer of something, and a @Nullable annotation on the Customer fields that can be null. Then:

\- Every use case can decide how it wants to handle those situations, and express it in a clear way

\- Every use case can be modified or deleted independently without having to do surgery in some huge object

\- The code is clearly readable without having to jump through levels of indirection and polymorphism to get to the actual logic

</comment><comment><USER22> I find the Null Object Pattern and hiding nulls to be dangerous. Why pretend or give the illusion that something exists when it doesn't?

I prefer explicit checks. I don't mind `Maybe` because that's still explicit and enables you to chain operations, avoiding repetitive null checking; the consumer must still handle the null case.

<comment><USER19> With the null object pattern, your logic still has to determine if it needs to create a null object or not. The difference is that code is down where it needs to be not further up where it can be duplicated or have more abstraction built around it that just complicates what should be really simple code at that point.

<comment><USER22> Interesting. I'd have to see some concrete examples to understand better. Where I've seen it used caused issues because it was masking data integrity issues.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple would make iPhone developers very happy with this change to the app store - <AUTHOR>

In the App store app, have it start up with an app selected at random.<p>Having more apps succeed means that users would benefit also, since they would be aware of more quality apps. <comment><USER2> It's a nice thought, but having a 1/50,000 chance of a user seeing my app when they load the App Store is the same as zero to me. You might make a few bucks here and there, but I doubt it will have any significant impact on your sales. Even if 1/10 users bought your app when they saw it randomly, you'd still need, on average, 500,000 of those random views to make one sale.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's better than what happens now. And there is a chance that your app will go viral.</comment></comment>


Moral Design - <AUTHOR> http://fadeyev.net/2012/06/19/moral-design/ <comment><USER2> Author of the post here. Thank you for your comments.

I'd like to address the main criticism that I see in the comments, which is that I did not specify what it is that I mean by morality, and what moral system I'm using to make my judgement.

The post is not meant to be a complete essay, rather it is a short outline of an idea, much like the rest of the stuff I publish on my blog, most of those posts building on each other like bricks rather than standing alone as a finished structure. That's absolutely my fault and it doesn't help with public consumption, and this is something I need to work on. I am, and will be, writing more thoughts on the subject as the post in this submission hardly covers much ground, but nevertheless, I do stand by the idea presented there.

To address the actual point: I do not prescribe a specific moral framework, only that there be one. Morals can come from religion or philosophy (or both), and they should be used to guide design decisions rather than those design decisions being made in isolation. Design decisions made without a moral foundation focus on effectiveness alone, which is not a useful indicator for the good's true worth (again, assuming your life is not amoral, in which case none of that would matter), and what I mean by "true worth" is how that good benefits society and man in light of your moral framework.

<comment><USER3> I feel that much of the negative comments are a defensive reaction. Coming to Hacker News and pointing out, even if indirectly, that the tricks of the startup trade are of questionable morality is like showing up at an decadent dinner party and pulling out photos of starving third world children.

<comment><USER4> Which tricks?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You start by assuming you know what morality is and moral is and then launch into an examination of profitable designs that are immoral under your system. This discourse would be far more interesting if you abandoned your preconceptions and ask "What is morality?", "Does morality deeply influence design? how?", "What morality influences good, timeless design?", "Is there some morality at which all (good|bad) design aims?" - If you really want to start a moral design discourse you should start from square one.

<comment><USER3> I say that being a meth dealer is immoral, and your response is that I can't make such a statement without first dispensing a treatise on morality?

<comment><USER6> You should absolutely be able to give real, concrete reasons why being a meth dealer is harmful to people. Otherwise anyone can (and does) spew out things they think are immoral. In the case of meth, it's easy. With Farmville it's a bit more complicated.

<comment><USER3> If you play it, and get sucked in, or see your friends sucked in, or even worse, have children and see them sucked in... No, it's not complicated at all.

I've had friends who've gone the cocaine death spiral. One lived a life of lies. [An HN relevant anecdote: He was responsible for our source control, wasn't taking backups or checking disk space monitors. Full disk, corruption, 85 devs losing a week manually rebuilding central source from local copies (before Git). He was fired]

<comment><USER7> I've seen people sucked into tv dramas, tv dramas are evil.

I've seen people sucked into WoW, WoW is evil.

I've seen people sucked into Final Fantasy, heck... every RPG is probably evil.

Actually, it seems like any form of entertainment can be rather addictive, the world would be better if that whole industry went away.

You're right, this is easy.

<comment><USER3> Is the immorality of being a meth or crack dealer not easy for you to recognize? If not, there's no point in continuing to debate.

If it is AND if you actually played a game like FarmVille and got addicted despite being very intelligent, despite being aware of how inane the "game" is and how it cynically taps into some primitive part of your brain, you'd realize that your examples are to FarmVille what selling donuts are to dealing crack/meth/heroin.

An extremely important distinction that @saraid216 and perhaps you may have failed to make: The claim is not that X itself is immoral or using/playing X is immoral, but that the intentions and methods of the dealers/creators of X are.

<comment><USER5> Scads have been written on the problems around morality so it is certainly not an over and done with "couldn't be more obvious" issue. The problem is we deem it one of these issues with no further debate - it's a nearly universal modern prejudice to which most of us are blind. There is tons of literature dealing with questions like: Have there been different moralities throughout history? (Hint: There have. In reading Aristotle we see that lying was considering virtuous and pity a sickly and dangerous state of mind.) Is thinking for humans really otherwise than an instinctual act? If not then what does that say for personal responsibility? Is there perhaps something valuable to sustaining life in lying, selfishness, self-deception, etc? Of course you probably deem all of these easily answerable questions, but I assure you a little digging below the surface and they are remarkably difficult and fascinating questions most of which still do not have answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _All good design is moral design, and only moral design can ever be good._

Nonsense. Good design is effective; its quality is independent from its aims. There's been no shortage of good design used for vile aims, and there's tons of good causes with poor design.

<comment><USER9> Your disagreement with the author -- if it can really be called a disagreement -- completely vanishes if you categorize designs along separate good-evil and effective-ineffective axes.

<comment><USER10> Not using those exact terms, but the article discusses this explicitly as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I liked your post, and agree with it.

Instead of arguing about whether ethical statements are meaningful given the lack of an explicitly chosen ethical system, we could just try to think about what systems are compatible with the claims you made.

Utilitarianism seems to back up your argument just fine, since you suggest that you don't object to using powerful addiction techniques _in principle_ , which suggests you're not being deontological -- you care mainly about real- world results.

Presumably you'd be much more accepting of Zynga-style gamification when used to encourage things like Wikipedia editing, or to motivate successful weight loss. You suggest that what actually matters is the consequences on someone's life and time of using these techniques, which is a consequentialist argument.

So, while you haven't committed to using a utilitarian framework, I think that users posting here who want to talk about moral framework assumptions could start by assuming utilitarianism and asking whether your conclusion makes sense. Seems like it does to me; it's not easy to imagine Farmville (or anything with similarly cynical intent) as a net positive on the world.

</comment><comment><USER12> What if people enjoy farm managing games? What if they extract more enjoyment with paid add-ons? Does that mean the design decisions are still immoral?

<comment><USER13> Zynga's games have become a short-hand for immoral game design. I understand why some people don't like the games, but I'm sad to see this go into popular culture as a truism. It's cheap, it's sloppy, and it's ignorant.

The reality of any game design, Zynga's in particular, is far richer and more nuanced than this meme credits. Specifically, the author makes two sloppy errors:

1\. Gamification is used to make something addictive. -- It is a game, it is not gamification. And the goal is to make it fun. Sure, you can call fun addictive if you want to make it sound less... fun. (Now if you applied game mechanics to things that were not games, that would be gamification.)

2\. And in turn to part people with their money. Actually, most of any social game's "tricks" are intended to increase the popularity of the game. To spread that game to as many players as possible. Giving people a way to spend money on what is otherwise a completely free game is a separate enterprise entirely.

You can call any of these things immoral, I suppose, but it's not the easy conversation the author wants to have in support of "ennobling", "enriching", and "advancing."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Relevant: The Acceleration of Addictiveness -- <http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html>

</comment><comment><USER15> On Farmville:

> _The design of the game is inherently immoral, and it is immoral not because > it is badly made, deceptive, or ineffective, but because the ultimate aims > of the design are destructively selfish: one gains, the other loses._

What? How is people giving a company money for _having fun_ playing a game "destructively selfish" of said company?

<comment><USER14> > How is people giving a company money for having fun playing a game > "destructively selfish" of said company?

The same way that giving a company money for alcohol/tobacco/cocaine/etc might be destructive to the buyer and selfish for the seller.

<comment><USER16> Well, the "big" difference is, that those destructive "things" are substantially impacting the health of their users, while a game, no matter how sophisticated, rarely does (except for a few extreme examples). One might more draw the argument into the gambling direction.

But I personally think that the addiction argument is highly problematic construct. For example we all remember the studies demonstrating that people are addicted to "the internet" or "mobile telephones". When the first animal was domesticated one probably could also have done a study into how they are conditioning human behavior, by requesting food, affection, play, etc. A lot of this seems context based.

<comment><USER17> > Well, the "big" difference is, that those destructive "things" are > substantially impacting the health of their users, while a game, no matter > how sophisticated, rarely does (except for a few extreme examples). One > might more draw the argument into the gambling direction.

We could have fun and bring up spiritual health. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really like the opening statement of the post "all good design is moral design", but i find it completely baffling to see it dispensed like that, like simple statement of fact. I do agree with it, but i also think it does lead to very unintuitive consequences that most people and most designers would not accept easily, edge cases that the post does a neat job of hiding.

I'll try to find time to write a little more about that, but in the meantime, i dearly deeply heartfelt-ly recomend "The Shape of Things" by a guy named Flusser, and inside this particular book an essay by the name "War and the state of things". It will really bake your noodles later on.

[http://books.google.com.br/books?id=2vVGCdt0EAkC&pg=PA30...](http://books.google.com.br/books?id=2vVGCdt0EAkC&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER17> Claims like "design decisions need to be moral" often forget that there are an annoyingly large number of moral systems that can and do collide with each other.

<comment><USER3> You're sidestepping because morality is inconveniently annoying.

How would you feel if your 8 year old child spent hours playing FarmVille? She thinks it is more fun than playing outside or with her friends.

Now what do you think about a company that claps with glee upon hearing the above?

<comment><USER17> Not really. I fully agree that Zynga is evil. Their CEO says so; it's hard to get more authoritative than that. As someone who knows a fair bit about game design, pedagogy, programming, and philosophy, I generally find Zynga and its products to be a dirty stain slightly worse than the wide, wide gamut of bad porn.

That said, I don't stoop to emotion-driven fallacies when taking a look at these things. I actually bother with knowing what I'm talking about.

But to actually answer your question,

My children enjoy Farmville and their ilk, and also spends time playing outside and with their friends. It is not ruining their lives. I may find their tastes discouraging, but their tastes are not immoral according to the moral system I've personally adopted and hope to pass on.

I will say it's amusing to be lectured on morality by "eevilspock".

<comment><USER3> I do have an evil goatee. Actually it's extremely apt if you ever saw that Star Trek episode and understand Evil Spock's original Machiavellan attitude and his revelation at the end.

You labeling my statement and/or the article author's an "emotion-driven fallacy" is amazingly obnoxious rhetoric. The line that follows is even worse.

No one claimed that choosing to play FarmVille is immoral. Talk about logical fallacy. Discussions of morals and values are by definition emotion-driven. "I actually bother with knowing what I talk about." Yuch.

<comment><USER17> > Discussions of morals and values are by definition emotion-driven.

Pop quiz. What are the four main types of ethical systems? Explain how "clapping with glee" figures into each one.

<comment><USER3> Pop quiz. What is a douchebag?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you actually sit properly? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone have tips on how to actually sit properly and abide by some best practices? I'm noticing my posture is really not up to standard lately.. <comment><USER2> Tuck your lower back in. Don't rest your weight on your arms. Try not to let your back muscles fall into disuse by leaning on the chair back. Whatever chair setup helps you achieve these is probably fine.

For me what works well is backless chairs that allow me to angle my thighs downward slightly and tuck my feet underneath me and to the side. Right now I'm on a yoga-ball-chair (basically a yoga ball that does not roll). Previously I sat on a large round ottoman.

<comment><AUTHOR> backless chair? that seems rather counterintuitive.. wouldn't you want a chair with a lot of lumbar support?

i can definitely relate with thighs angling slightly downward though.

<comment><USER3> Ideally you sit board-straight with your spine stacked on itself, constantly micro-adjusting to keep you centered. Slouching actually came about as a young person trend (I think in the '20s?) that made sitting up straight seem stiff and uncool.

<comment><AUTHOR> woah, interesting

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> on a similar topic, I recently watched this great video by WSJ where an ergonomics expert explains how to sit and how to setup the desk - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8_ME4VwTiw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8_ME4VwTiw)

</comment><comment><USER5> Raise your monitor to eye height instead of curving your back to peer at a laptop screen that's near your hands. Once you do that your spine will fall into its natural position.

</comment><comment><USER6> I work out rigorously and regularly, focusing on core and upper body strength. I take brisk 6+ mile walks several times a week. I have a super ergonomic chair with little levers and gauges to configure it in minute detail. I still get massive neck and shoulder pain if I don't sit in a way that gives me the posture of a cheeto.

I have long since opted for painless over imposing, but if you're one of those lucky persons who can stand up and work, that's probably your best bet.

<comment><USER7> Could you link to the chair you're using? I've been eyeing [https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs/ergonomic- chair](https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs/ergonomic-chair) myself

<comment><USER6> Alas, I haven't the foggiest what it's called and it's probably close to ten years old by now. That ErgoChair 2 looks like a dream though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I stand half the time (my desk is adjustable). When sitting I lean far back and slide in to avoid putting too much pressure on my lower back. Sitting up straight for long periods is unhealthy. The ideal angle is between 120 and 135 degrees. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6187080.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6187080.stm)

</comment><comment><USER9> I just picked up a kneeling chair and it's been an adjustment. It's nice though -- it sort of forces you to keep your spine and neck in a good position. This is the one I got: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W99RSZK/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W99RSZK/)

<comment><USER2> I like the position of kneeling chairs, but when I tried one (a very long time ago), I found the pressure on my shins uncomfortable.

These days I use a fixed yoga ball chair [1] which promotes generally the same posture, but keeps most of the support under your butt.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Gaiam-Classic-Balance-Ball- Chair/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Gaiam-Classic-Balance-Ball- Chair/dp/B0007VB4NE/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is important to have your core engaged. This doesn't mean applying a maximal level of force, but you should maintain control of your spine.

It is OK to lean towards your computer, lean back, do all sorts of weird things -- if you do the work to maintain your spine and neck position. In fact, you should vary your position as you work, take breaks, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> Your body weight should be supported by your hamstrings, not your lower back. You should feel a little strain in your thighs.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's one article providing ideas but note the page date! [https://backintelligence.com/proper-sitting-posture-at-a- des...](https://backintelligence.com/proper-sitting-posture-at-a-desk/)

BTW it's important to regularly get out of your chair too.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I agree with what everyone is saying.. it makes complete sense and I'm fully aware I should be doing these things.

The problem is I don't remember to, or it slips my mind throughout the day. Any quick hacks you know of to help? I heard of one where you just keep a post-it on your computer to remind you..

<comment><USER2> Making a habit of periodically mentally visiting your limbs and back can help. I don't regularly practice meditation but I believe it relates to this.

But I think best is to set yourself up for success. Make proper posture the easiest option your unconscious brain has. If there's something you're slouching on, remove it.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I have no chair back or arms, since I would always slouch on them. They're gone, no more slouching on them; I spent more time by default just sitting upright. Now I slouch on my desk though; I should figure out how to remove it from the equation.</comment></comment>


No, that is not a competitive advantage - <AUTHOR> http://blog.asmartbear.com/not-competitive-advantage.html <comment><USER2> This reminds me of my favorite quote from my favorite business book, Differentiate or Die by Jack Trout, with emphasis on "Anything that others could claim just as well as you can, eliminate.":

 _The best way to really enter minds that hate complexity and confusion is to oversimplify your message. The lesson here is not to try to tell your entire story. Just focus on one powerful differentiating idea and drive it into the mind. That sudden hunch, that creative leap of the mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence. If there's any trick to finding that simple set of words, it's one of being ruthless about how you edit the story you want to tell. Anything that others could claim just as well as you can, eliminate. Anything that requires a complex analysis to prove, forget. Anything that doesn't fit with your customers' perceptions, avoid._

[http://www.amazon.com/Differentiate-Die-Survival-Killer- Comp...](http://www.amazon.com/Differentiate-Die-Survival-Killer- Competition/dp/0470223391/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278949159&sr=8-2)

</comment><comment><USER3> Although I agree that adding a new feature is not enough to make a product stand out, there is one case where a new feature can mean everything: When the product is designed entirely around it.

Case in point: Posterous. As discussed more extensively by Dustin Curtis (link below), their novel feature was to allow blog posts by email. Any existing blogging platform could have added this feature. But Posterous is different; the product _is_ posting-by-email.

I think something similar can be said about Twitter. Again, any social networking site could have added the option to send short text messages to their _already_ large user base. Facebook in a sense encompassed Twitter with its News Feed.

But again, Twitter is different; short text messages _are_ the product.

[http://blog.dustincurtis.com/i-dont-laugh-at-startup- ideas-a...](http://blog.dustincurtis.com/i-dont-laugh-at-startup-ideas- anymore)

<comment><USER4> Feature X isn't a competitive advantage if it's easily copied. Competitive advantages are things that others cannot attain or cannot attain without great difficulty.

<comment><USER3> I guess you didn't get my point.

If the feature _is_ the product, then the only way someone else can copy your feature is by redesigning their entire product. That's a huge barrier of (re)entry for existing competitors, and hence a competitive advantage.

If you're worried about newcomers, there isn't much you can do to argue for competitive advantage anyway. Most software ideas can easily be copied no matter what.

Except perhaps when the idea targets highly specialized markets and your team already has experts in the topic, and only a few such experts exist in the world. E.g. high-frequency trading platforms, etc.

But in most software startups, that's hardly the case.

<comment><USER4> > If the feature is the product, then the only way someone else can copy your > feature is by redesigning their entire product. That's a huge barrier of > (re)entry for existing competitors...

And my point is this isn't the definition of competitive advantage.

> Most software ideas can easily be copied no matter what.

Which is why most software doesn't have any inherent competitive advantage :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've always thought this was a great quote:

"Here is what the success of everything depends...on seeing things in a way which afterwards proves to be true, even though it cannot be established at the moment..." Joseph A. Schumpeter, Economist

With everyone having access to mostly the same information and the same tools, it is the person who sees possibilities where others do not who is able to start something successful.

<comment><USER6> Isn't there a bit of a chicken-or-egg problem there?

Perhaps your forward-thinking vision turns out to be true precisely because you were successful in implementing it.

If I'm trying to scale what works in the immediate here-and-now into something that is sustainable in the long term, I'd prefer to be able to adapt my vision to changing circumstances, rather than stick with a single, consistent viewpoint in the hope that it later proves to be "true".

<comment><USER7> I'd say less of a chicken-or-egg, and more about making yourself available for luck. Founders and investors all have their opinions of what will or will not work. Nobody really knows though. And if the founders can get what it takes to build and push a product, the beauty is that everyone gets to find out. You might get lucky and have a hit, and you might not. But without building anything, you don't get the chance to be lucky.

I'm not saying that success is solely due to luck. A smart startup will continually make itself available to luck by iterating the product and not giving up. If it's willing to do this indefinitely, success is almost a guarantee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Innovative design and intellectual property are no longer long-term > competitive advantages.

Really? Google and Apple don't get advantage from their great design and engineering talent?

> You live in the era where the most powerful programming frameworks and tools > are free, local broadband and high-availability servers are cheap, and > world-class people are willing to work 60 hours/week in exchange for Ramen > noodles and the chance to be a part of a cool new startup.

Yes, but tools are tools. Most people still make shit with them.

<comment><USER9> Apple's unfair advantage is a massive base of loyal fans who will follow every move Apple makes, track the SteveNote live and buy the products on pre-order (and pay a high price for them).

Other companies release products of a similar quality to Apple and don't get anywhere near the press coverage or sales.

<comment><USER10> do you remember the 90s?

man, everyone thought apple was stupid. something you'd only use if you got it for free.

I mean, the same complaints were voiced then as now (e.g. it's essentially a closed hardware platform) but unlike now, they didn't have the upside. They weren't "cool"

At the time, most people had used apples because apple gave computers away to schools. Really, I think it was a bad strategy, because we all came away with the idea that apples were slow, outdated, broken garbage which couldn't run anything more interesting than 'Oregon trail'

so, uh, yeah. I'm personally still not a fan of apple. but I can certainly say they didn't always have the masses of loyal fans they have now. (I mean, they had fans, but they were few, and generally looked upon with the pity one has for BeOS or Ameiga fans.) This large and "cool" apple fandom is actually a pretty recent development. Now, i'm way out of touch, and most of the people I meet are *NIX users, so I wouldn't really know, but as far as I can tell, it really started with the advent of OS-x.

edit: as others point out, my point of view is probably a little different... as I'm a technical person, and apple did not really start appealing to the technical crowd until os-X.

<comment><USER11> Um, Apple' has _always_ concentrated on well-designed, top-end products. They have _always_ charged huge margins. The drum beat of their marketing throughout the '90s was "our products are better designed". And they were. Even the "boring" beige pizza-box Macs from 1995 were amazingly well put together, both hardware and software.

What's changed is that the good design has moved from the heart of their products out to the skin. Today an iPhone looks great (really, great) but you can't even change the battery! How far have Apple come from the days when they cared so much about their users that they even thought to put little pull-out feet on the inside, so that when you opened it up to change the hard-drive everything unfolded with an easy grace?

<comment><USER12> Far enough to be far more successful, it would seem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The basic premise behind the first point, "We have feature X", seems to be that someone could do the same thing better than you. Well, of course they could.

But the thing is, you've _already done it_. While some hypothetical competitor is trying to catch up to you by copying your existing feature and perhaps making incremental improvements with the advantage of hindsight, you don't need to stand still. You can already be building the next generation of newer and better things. You have exactly the same "public" hindsight to draw on in doing so, and you also have whatever beneficial experience your team accumulated from having done it once already. For any software project or anything with a significant user interface component, that experience can be worth a fortune.

So while "We have feature X" may not be a competitive advantage, "We have feature X _NOW_ " certainly is, assuming feature X is something the market wants and you've done it well enough for the market to buy your product.

It's surprising to me that the author of the blog post, who sounds like someone involved in funding start-ups, doesn't seem to have got the memo about ideas being cheap and good executions being the valuable thing, nor to acknowledge any possible first-mover advantage if you have an important feature before anyone else.

<comment><USER14> I agree with you that having a feature is useful now, which is why I specifically wrote in the article that it "isn't a long-term advantage."

Typically the "first-mover" advantage is one of marketing, not features. That is, you get a bunch of attention and hooked users so others have to compare with you and steal customers instead of having a green field.

Just having a "Feature" first can still be an advantage too, e.g. Apple's retinal display, but I still feel this isn't enough.

Also agreed that if you CONTINUALLY produce amazing unique features -- like Apple -- THAT is a competitive advantage, but just having one isn't.

<comment><USER15> Whether and how features matter is a pretty fuzzy field.

One thing is certain though, features and success is not by any metrics in a one to one relationship with each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "We have a gigantic amount of funding"

and

"We have a gigantic amount of domain knowledge"

are two "true" competitive advantages.

one allows you to out-market the competition, the other allows you to out- think them.

<comment><USER17> Knowledge doesn't allow anyone to out-think anyone. Who has more domain knowledge in mobile 3 years ago-- Motorola or Apple? Most of the successful founders I can think of didn't know much about their space before they jumped into it.

<comment><USER16> good point, but then I could counter-argue that Apple had more domain knowledge in the area of building and marketing consumer electronics that people love :)

depends where you see the domain as being.

<comment><USER17> Bah, that's not a domain-- but I agree with you. The best "domain" is being awesome and making stuff that people absolutely love. That often trumps domain knowledge, funding, etc.

Might be challenging selling that idea to investors, though! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In anything other than tech many of these can be considered a competitive advantage. That's where the lines get blurred. I wonder how many applicants were recent grads without fully understanding the industry.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there any particular reason he is doing this in a teaser trailer kind of approach? "Next week's episode is the real episode you want to watch?"

<comment><USER20> Maybe ability to make you commit now to reading his next blog post _is_ a competetive advantage?

<comment><USER19> Well his approach annoyed me so I'm gonna stay away and not worry about what he has to say. Whatever he says will permeate through the internet quickly enough so keeping people waiting till next week is not really a competitive advantage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The really good, grand ideas tend to be copied quickly because ideas are cheap to copy but expensive to come up with.

In software companies, I also think that a competitive advangage can only be hard, actual, time-consuming work.

Like customer service. Or making things easy for the user by doing all the smart work yourself and not leaving all the decisions to him, thus making your software "just do the right thing".

If you can afford to do such hard work then other's can't copy it except by doing the same amount of work to provide equally excellent service, and this only benefits everyone. And if they don't, it only benefits you and your customers.

<comment><USER22> I'm very with you on that one, but how you gonna pitch such advantages to seed investors early on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> real competitive advantages:

(1). New technology that you have developed secretly and roadmapped into the future (so that as your previous release is copied, you are ready to release the next one). Of course, those developments must also be needed by customers (eg. enhance an attribute that they care about; meaning that the initial release was lacking in this aspect, yet it still had some core value that made it worth buying). It's a bit like having your own private giant upon whose shoulders to stand. Because you've done the experiments, you've seen more. You do more experiments, and see more again. This is keeping ahead of the engineering curve, and so it's a supply-side advantage.

(2). Customers that have developed a habit of using your product, especially if they have changed their behaviour in order to adopt it (they might have done so because you were the only one to offer the technology, and then being the one with the best technology - due to point 1). This is related to switching costs. Demand side.

(3). Related to point 2 is when you not just have customers, but you are recognized as the leader, because you have dominant market share (here's where it's an advantage to focus on a niche: it's easier to dominate a small pond that a big one). Psychologically, people like winners. It also means that you win all sorts of races, where people have to make a choice: third-parties choose to support you; big companies choose to standardize on you; users choose to train for your product. Demand side.

(4). Network effects! Again with the customers, but here, because of interaction between customers, the value of the product is proportional to the square of the number of customers. This makes it harder to stop you, but you first need to be ahead - so it's more of a multiplier than a CA in itself. Demand side.

(5). Feedback. Once you have customers, you get feedback from them, and you can improve. If you can get this feedback before your competitors (eg. by launching before them), it can help you keep ahead. It's a kind of secret information, as you learn about what the market really wants; and it's also specialized to your product. In these senses, it is proprietary (owned by you). Another private giant. Supply side.

(6). Revenue. Once you have money coming in, it's a kind of magic, because you can reinvest and grow. Smaller competitors can't match this (assuming you can spend the money in ways that make a difference - like advertising - but it can be surprisingly difficult to find such ways...) And even large companies don't want to bother competing with you, once you really get going (they might buy you though). Supply side.

(7). Although particular skills can help, there's always someone smarter, more experienced etc. However, I like to think that a particular combination of skills can approach a hard-to-replicate advantage (though of course it has to make a difference to the start up. It's no good being an art-expert + TCL programmer unless that's somehow needed).

(8). There are also milder ones like good PR (a kind of advertising), being attractive to talented workers (which in turn increase your success), being inspirational (more advertising).

I agree about patents. They're a good piece of paper as a bargaining chip in acquisitions.

Now, the difficult thing for me is to apply these abstract ideas to my own actual startup (it's easier to be wise when you're not involved). They all seem to point to agility and getting your product out there _now_. Scary.

<comment><USER24> This is nice but almost all of these depend on an already existing product with a significant userbase. My presumption is that most people applying for YC or similar seed-stage groups don't have an existing product. So that makes addicted customers, revenue, etc. irrelevant in this context.

I am looking forward to seeing what the author considers "competitive advantages". The only one I can think of is the team behind it. That's all you have when you're starting out anyway.

<comment><USER23> reality can be inconvenient. Why not accept the challenge of guessing what the author will say (eg. by researching on wikipedia or Porter's _competitive advantage_ )? It's one of the most effective learning strategies - get it right or wrong, you won't forget.

One approach is to not expect to have customer-based competitive advantage at the start, but have a _plan_ of how to get there. Eg. a product that has network effects + a plan for how to get there.

I think the idea of enduring or sustainable competitive advantage is a bit misleading, because things always change, so competitive advantage is dynamic. It can be more helpful to in terms of the duration of a competitive advantage. For example, when you start off with an easy-to-copy product that is in demand, you do have a competitive advantage - it's just that it doesn't last long. But you can use that brief period to build the next competitive advantage. (in rock climbing, a _dynamic move_ is when you are not statically supported, but rely on your momentum to reach a stable point).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm curious to see how his view of things fits in with the 37 signals "just do less" view. What is _their_ unfair competitive advantage? Or do they think you don't need one?

<comment><USER17> Their competitive advantage was that they had a pretty huge and passionate following (between SvN and DHH being the face of RoR) before they ever launched their first product. Not dissimilar to Joel Spolsky and the Coding Horror guy launching StackOverflow to instant success (but largely fail to see great success with non-geek-oriented StackOverflow sites).

If you can be charismatic enough to collect a bunch of evangelists (among the people who talk and link most on the web) and then build a pretty good product that is designed for that audience, you'll succeed. I think 37s stuff and StackOverflow are pretty good, by the way.

Doing less is NOT a competitive advantage (as evidenced by the army of 37s copycats who realize that not many companies can get away with zero sales/marketing).

<comment><USER26> With respect to Stack Overflow, I think they were an instant success largely because they are infinitely less douchey than their competitors, who put up barriers and paywalls to see answers.

<comment><USER17> Less douchey doesn't = win. Compare Evite to any of its competitors (notably, the YC company AnyVite) in terms of traffic. Or check out eBay's competitors.

It certainly helped, I'm sure. But it's a tiny slice of the pie when compared to their initial burst of free leadgen due to fame/audience. It would have had a serious cold-start problem if they'd launched it anonymously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Building a Better Mousetrap has been considered a business plan for a century. So its not a competitive advantage? How about timing, marketing, message? Those sunk Beta.

</comment><comment> bsnss-mn-cdr While I do believe there are genuine cases where a new company does have a 'competitive advantage' most do not. At the end of the day the only advantage a company should strive for is how to use their skill, resources and relationships to make more money than their competitors. MySpace was on a great growth path before a lot of people even knew what Facebook even was. They had more financial resources sooner than Facebook and had a lot of 'cool' corporate sponsors to provide brand equity before Facebook. At the end of the day what they did just felt better to more and more users and what MySpace didn't do made it an easy case to switch. It is not that MySpace could not replicate the features of Facebook it was the fact MySpace didn't.

</comment><comment><USER28> Well, it's fine that the author gives many examples of what he feels are not advantages. But he doesn't give a single example of what he feels are solid competitive advantages. Left me feeling disappointed.

<comment><USER29> _P.S. Next week I'll talk about what_ are _real competitive advantages._

Which I suppose makes sense, as it's supposed to be part of a series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The real question is what successful startups would fall into this guy's criteria. Then the follow-up, which successful startups wouldn't fall into this guy's criteria.

</comment><comment><USER31> Depending of the feature, copying it takes time. And while your competitor is copying it, you're working on the next version of your product with others new innovative features. So, I disagree with a fact that a feature is not a competitive advantage. I.e. google with their first smart way to crawl the web was a huge advantage. This advantage may not be there forever, however, it IS an advantage.

</comment><comment><USER32> Advantages is determined by the existing competition.

If they aren't innovative, and you are, it's a competitive advantage.

Same goes for anything in your business model that you can do better than the existing competition.

Worrying about newcomers is a good idea, but pretending that your magical zord of power will give you a permanent advantage over people and companies that don't exist yet is largely pointless.

</comment><comment><USER33> We have three PhDs / MBAs. Can certainly be an advantage. People who come from the best school's will probably have a much easier time raising money than a company of college grads from run of the mill universities.

<comment><USER34> >best school's

Maybe.

<comment><USER33> Were you making a snarky comment about my grammatical error or where you agreeing with me? ... maybe

<comment><USER33> *were

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> We should all really be thinking in terms of sustainable competitive advantages. Serious question: How can a startup software company create a sustainable competitive advantage?

</comment><comment><USER36> "I am very lucky"

Might not look like a great competitive advantage, but looking back, is a major advantage of many a successful startup. Might as well put it in...

</comment><comment><USER37> For a hosted service in a mature market would an open source core be considered an advantage, disadvantage or irrelevant?

</comment><comment><USER38> I thought the real meaning of "competitive advantage" was simply having profits greater than the average in your sector.

<comment><USER38> <http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/competitive-advantage/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "80% of Americans believe they are better-than-average drivers. Can't be true, right?"

No, not "right".

For any finite (> 1) set of people on nearly any measure, it is easy for all but one to be "better than average".

E.g., for any positive integer n > 1, everyone gets a 1 except the one person with a 0 so that the average is (n - 1)/n < 1.

Done.

<comment><USER40> Yes, abstractly, of course. On the other hand, this sort of distribution is usually gaussian (a whole bunch of average drivers, and a few specially good and bad ones), and it is true that 80% of the people can't be above average if they are samples from a well-behaved distribution (with controlled skewness, and in the correct scale, etc)

<comment><USER39> "this sort of distribution is usually gaussian".

No. That distributions are commonly Gaussian is some quasi-mystical nonsense left over from 'psychometrics' about 100 years ago.

The most common way to get a Gaussian distribution is from the central limit theorem, and it's much worse than clumsy to argue its assumptions here.

Gaussian needs MUCH more than your "a whole bunch of average drivers, and a few specially good and bad ones".

Your "well-behaved" is asking far too much for practice or reality. Gaussian isn't "well-behaved"; from Melon in 'Back to School', it's "fantasy land". E.g., there's no reason to believe that can have your "controlled skewness".

On your "scale", sure, if know the distribution and if it is absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure, then can pick a scale that maintains order and yields Gaussian. The educational testing people love to do this. It's quasi-religion. And we collect taxes to pay them for that?

Yes, for stock market data can argue that changes in price each 15 seconds are independent and identically distributed with finite mean and variance so that the central limit theorem applies so that the change in price from noon today to noon next week will be Gaussian. Of course there are traders driving Ferraris laughing at that.

Do yourself a favor: For real data, assume mean and variance exist and are finite, but without a really careful appeal the the central limit theorem dumpster Gaussian. For multivariate data, don't even think about Gaussian.

Uh, some diffusion processes in physics might give you 3D Gaussian quite accurately.

<comment><USER40> To be pedantic, most people usually mean "median" (or a robust estimation of the mean without considering outliers) by average, and in samples from a continuous distribution it is necessarily true that ~50% are above/below the median.

<comment><USER39> You are not being "pedantic". You are being wrong.

There's no reason to assume that commonly mean means median or that there are enough properties to make them equal.

Besides a claim about "most people" without some solid data is poor support for anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> " If you've lived in the software world for a few years you know the stuff they teach you in school is irrelevant"

Knowing how this is wildly false can be the source of an enormously valuable competitive advantage. But, keep believing such nonsense stuff, guys! I'll let you know when to change your mind!

</comment><comment><USER39> Look, guys, this thread and its article are making a big, gigantic, HUGE mistake.

Why? Heavily because the 'culture' here is limited almost entirely just to computer programming. Also, the business examples are limited almost entirely to Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

For software, here call that hardly more than load-store, calculate, if-then- else, do-while, allocate-free, read-write, and call-return. Okay, we are all now on the same page for 'software'.

Uh, let's get in a little info helicopter and rise up to about 10,000 feet and get a wider view. So, the view we want is of 'information technology' and its entrepreneurship.

So, for the entrepreneurship, as in Web 2.0, we want to please the users and paying customers, e.g., the advertisers. The advertisers are mostly on a monotonous diet: They want clicks. But they are cheap: They want the most clicks per ad dollar.

So, we need to please the users and get lots of clicks per ad dollar.

One way to please the users is to give them 'information' they will like.

So, in both cases, we have some data, process it with software, and get out more data that we regard as the information we want to please the users and get lots of clicks per ad dollar.

A big question is how to process that data. Or how to convert data into information. We want powerful means for doing that.

So, where do we find out how to process input data to give desired output data? I.e., where do we go for such recipes for such 'secret sauce'?

Sure, so far in computing, the processing has mostly been just intuitive heuristics or automation of what people understood well how to do in principle just manually.

Can there be more? Actually, not much from computer science: E.g., lists, queues, trees, parsing, etc., in a cooking analogy, just grind grain into flour but don't say how to make, say, a Sacher Torte.

Here is a hint from the word information: Or, as we know from Shannon, there is information theory which is really just some applied math. So, really, it's math that is the academic source of knowledge and techniques for processing input data to give desirable output data. Uh, it ain't high school math, and college calculus doesn't go very far.

What can be done with that material is far beyond what can be done intuitively or manually.

Can use this material to construct 'secret sauce' for the processing.

This secret sauce need not be at all easy to duplicate: Sure, the US National Academy of Sciences could put together a team, but nearly no one in business would or could.

So, if the secret sauce is powerful and its application valuable and is sufficiently obscure not to be easily duplicated, then it can be a "competitive advantage".

"But everyone has access to the same math". Not in any important practical sense! Might need a well designed undergrad major in pure math. What fraction of the computer programming community has that? Getting it takes ballpark four years. Then might need a few years of carefully selected graduate mathematics. Now what fraction? Some of the most important material may be rarely taught. Now what fraction? We're getting down to a convention in a phone booth, guys. Then do some original derivations. Now we can be down to one guy and the guy he sees in his mirror.

Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, etc., write all the checks you want, but you will have a tough time finding anyone who can make sense out of this, find the right rack in the right section of a research library, read the right books and papers, and redo the original derivations, in less than years. You'll be "digging in the wrong place". The commonly claimed "deep domain knowledge" will leave you walking randomly in the stacks and getting exhausted. There can be little more discouraging than an unguided tour without prerequisites of some of the more important books and papers.

Are there lots of examples now? In business, no. Thankfully for US national security, yes: For decades, the US DoD has seen these things very clearly.

Can it work in business? Hmm ....

"But it's not the mainstream; that is, it's at most just tiny, niche stuff."

Uh, a movie starts out, "The early history of America is a tale of great first times." Well, we're still trying to have "great first times". So, don't try to copy Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, etc.

Or, to see farther than others, stand on the shoulders of giants.

Fortunately, on selected shelves of the research libraries, actually can find such shoulders and no one standing on them, in that library or any others. Then can do some original derivations, translate that work to if-then-else, do-while, etc., have at low costs lots of great infrastructure software, processor cores, main memory and disk bytes, and Internet bandwidth.

What a country! What a time!

But it ain't just routine computer programming, guys.

<comment><USER41> Interesting problem space, but not the only valid one, nor the only one likely to give one a sustainable advantage in the commercial space. In fact, there's probably more to be made in developing a heart-friendly Sachertorte-style dessert (trademark would keep one from calling it by that name) with an icing that is as good as or better than the original and marketing it (and a cookbook full of recipes that don't include your magical icing) via a twenty- minute PHP "project".

HNe is not about the outer reaches of computing possibilities (although the subject tends to interest most of us, and if you pay attention you'll find that Shannon is familiar to at least a significant subset of the population here), it is about creating and capitalizing on value. It is about marketable innovation. Nobody is likely to win a Fields or an Abel for finding a way to make $9.95/mo from a few tens of millions of people, but whoever does it is likely to drive a much nicer car than the guy whose life's work is able to pluck useful security intelligence from a billion digitized telephone conversations a day (but, since it is classified as top secret ordnance, can never be marketed). And if you want to be realistic about it at all, anything that approaches the limits of the IR noise floor with precision, even limiting the problem space to text, _is_ going to be so classified. The work may be the source of great personal pride, but little else. (And when the fifty-year window opens, you'll be too old for a Fields.) So much for entrepreneurship.</comment></comment>


PyTorch vs. TensorFlow for Your Python Deep Learning Project - <AUTHOR> https://realpython.com/pytorch-vs-tensorflow/ <comment><USER2> In order of preference:

1\. pyTorch

2\. Abacus

3\. Teaching a monkey calculus

4\. Tensorflow

Yes, I understand 2 & 3 are very clearly there for emphasis. This is satire. The ordering of 1 & 4 is my preference, not a claim of some global truth.

<comment><USER3> PyTorch was a revelation after spending time with Tensorflow tutorials.</comment></comment>


Wait... People don't love location based apps? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.urbantag.com/post/5249446002/wait-people-dont-love-location-based-services a teaser of whats to come from @urbantag <comment><USER2> Most people don't have ongoing location discovery needs that would cause them to consistently engage with location based apps and services. People find the things that are compelling to them and then they tend to move on. People who live in cities, often the prime target for LBS, are often well aware of lots of great things to do around them.

Prime candidates for ongoing engagement with LBS are: people who travel a lot, people who are hungry for new and interesting stuff but don't know where it is , and people who are new to city (even here engagement will be limited).

<comment><USER3> I was just involved in a conversation about location-based advertising and maps, which kind of revolved around the issue that an interest in (or presence at) a location isn't necessarily tied to purchase intent (or other behaviors.)

For instance, hotels are famous for spending big $ for pay-per-click advertising. On the other hand, the fact that I'm looking at a map of an area or even if I'm roaming around in an area doesn't mean I'm necessarily interested in booking a hotel (perhaps I already did or I'm staying with a friend.)

If you think about a really busy urban area, there are thousands of things that I ==might== take an interest in within a half-mile radius. Winnowing all through that is a meaningful way is a difficult problem, and it might all be for naught if there's something ==really== cool that's 2 mile away and that's outside the radius the system is scanning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The glass is half-full ;-) but here's the thing, location is just a feature that enabled more interesting apps. Building your app/business around location alone is not enough to keep people using your app.

<comment><USER5> Good call. Mirrors my behaviour, after thinking about it.

It's early days with location awareness. We're still at the, "Ooh shiny" stage.

Location awareness _is_ something to build on. But not the fact that I'm 823m from something, somewhere. To be useful, there needs to be much to it than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been wanting some way to figure out what things people LIKE ME are doing that are trending right now. If there were people checking into bars all around NYC tonight with tags like "crowded" or "the hipsters are out" or "popped collars" or "quiet" or "divey vibe", I would be paying a lot more attention.

</comment><comment><USER7> I want to be able to find the best deals near me for lunch or activity but I do not want to constantly use location based services.

</comment><comment><USER8> They're still too inconvenient and specialized. Waiting for GPS signal = fail.

</comment><comment><USER9> Tagging?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep highly sensitive information off-site for a long time? - <AUTHOR> How do you keep highly sensitive information off-site for a long time?
To be more specific, and to ask about some case (while general answers are welcome too): Imagine I'm running private certification authority. I have my root certificate and private key. For everyday use I generated some intermediate certificates to sign other certificates by intermediate ones. So if server is compromised, it's more or less OK, since I do not have root certificate private key on server (just do not need it), and I can generate a few new intermediate certificates, revoke old ones, regenerate issued certificates, conduct some transition and keep root certificate as is. So, I want to keep root certificate private key for 10 years, to be able to generate new intermediate certificates, just in case.
To be more generic, and to ask broader question: I want to save in safe place some data I need rarely (once a few years), but really do not want to loose under any circumstances, including natural disasters and human errors.
Of course, I do not ask about general backup best practices. I mean, I backup databases encrypted off-site, but I think that is different, because:
1) I do not have master copy. For database there is database and backup of database. For root CA certificate private key there is only backup.
2) Databases are generally not that sensitive, information outdates quickly. Minute resolution log of CPU load is no match to root certificate private key. Such information can be used years after it leaked.
3) Databases backup usually should not be kept for more than a few months. So, if my off-site storage provider goes out of business, it is not a big deal.
4) Restore checks are often (once a month at least), while I ask more about "backup and forget for 10 years" case. So I may not even be aware I lost my data until I need it. <comment><USER2> You might consider using a cryptographic protocol for secret sharing [1], such as the one of Shamir [2]. These protocols divide a secret into shares, so that the secret can be recovered, even in part, only by assembling a specified number _M_ of the total _N_ shares, _M_ < _N_. You could give one or more shares to each of several custodians, as numerous and diverse as your budget and requirements dictate.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing) [2] [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359176](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359176)

</comment><comment><USER3> Find a good reliable long-term physical storage option (I don't know one to suggest maybe someone else can).

If it's a small amount of data you could use a QR code printed on paper then put the paper in a safety box?

</comment><comment><USER4> Go physical. PK and certificate data can be recorded physically and stored in non-tech place the only relies on physical access.

Digital == hackable</comment>


Researchers at UCL Set a New World Record for Fastest Internet - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/researchers-at-university-college-london-set-a-new-worl-1844789699 <comment><USER2> Funded by Pornhub, the only people that could reach 178Tb in traffic.</comment>


Cern lab goes 'colder than space'  - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7512586.stm

<comment><USER2> Point one: the temperature of deep space isn't really all that well-defined.

Point two: this isn't all that cold -- temperatures in the microkelvin range are routinely obtained in the lab. Admittedly, this is a pretty big thing to be cooling down that low.</comment>


The Super Supercapacitor [video] - <AUTHOR> http://focusforwardfilms.com/contest/84/the-super-supercapacitor-brian-golden-davis <comment><USER2> Very cool tech, and the manufacturing process looks doable as well. :-) Except for us poor mac-heads, how is iTunes going to make me some Graphene??

I was a bit disappointed that there weren't any numbers in the film, so I looked them up: [http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122763-graphene- supercapa...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122763-graphene- supercapacitors-are-20-times-as-powerful-can-be-made-with-a-dvd-burner)

Energy density (storage capacity) does seem to be in range of Lithium Ion batteries, better than some, but still around a factor 7 or so worse than the highest density there (but slowest to discharge). Considering the extra effort managing the batteries (Boeing, Tesla,...) you might just come out ahead already.

On the other hand, Graphene apparently also makes Lithium-Ion batteries significantly better: [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105343-graphene- improve...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105343-graphene-improves- lithium-ion-battery-capacity-and-recharge-rate-by-10x)

<comment><USER3> There also exist hybrid supercapacitors, which use a chemical reaction but act like capacitors. The best use of high-power capacitors is not as a replacement, its as a supplement. Current technology is not quite sufficient, but ideally it would mean that anything under a 20 minute drive could run off just the capacitor, which could(with sufficient infrastructure) charge in under a minute. It's not quite filling up on gas, but its closer.

I would like to see more investigation into turbine powered cars again, it may be more feasible now to build a car like we build trains (A prime mover generates energy for locomotive motors). I think the best way to transition from gasoline to electric would be to take advantage of existing infrastructure and make hot-swappable battery units. For medium drives you use batteries, which can be switched in a garage with a capacitor bank for short drives, or a unit with a small battery, a helicopter turbojet and a gas tank (Which, ideally, would run at a higher efficiency than an ICE).

The reason we haven't used turbines in the past as far as I know is mostly the start-up times and inability to idle. They don't really slow down, so sitting in stop and go traffic you engine is basically still on full blast. Ameliorate that with a battery and you're good to go, hopefully.

<comment><USER4> Chrysler made a turbine powered car in the Sixties. It would run on nearly anything. Unfortunately, Chrysler never pushed it to mass production, then the oil embargo put paid to that idea. But it was one of those beautiful futures of the Sixties.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car>

<comment><USER5> Turbines are not fuel efficient for vehicles that are stationary as they idle at 20k rpm. Also the exhaust is highly polluting.

<comment><USER6> Well, maybe not if you try to directly couple them to the tires. You might have better luck if you try powering a generator to charge batteries. What do you mean by "highly polluting"? Highly polluting compared to what?

<comment><USER7> They run extremely lean, consequently they produce nitrogen oxides like you wouldn't believe.

<comment><USER6> If you'd quote a source I might believe.

<comment><USER8> Probably not 100% convincing, but <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car>:

 _"Nevertheless, the turbine generated nitrogen oxides and the challenge of limiting them proved an ongoing problem throughout development."_

If the amount produced were low, I doubt it _"proved an ongoing problem"_

Also: [https://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/rlang/RenewElec/CEIC_White_Pap...](https://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/rlang/RenewElec/CEIC_White_Paper_on_Gas_Turbine_Research_for_Wind_Integration_3.pdf):

 _"Gas turbines operate best at full-power steady state conditions where they are at their highest fuel and emissions efficiencies. Deviations away from this tuned set point result in significant inefficiencies (particularly with NOx emissions)"_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Combine the graphene supercapacitor with Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology OLEV and we would soon have clean transportation in the cities. Imagine what that would do for air quality!

Say that you build inductive charging points in the lanes before stop lights. The car/bus stops and charges the supercapitor. EV battery problem solved with little extra weight needed by the car.

Sure a range extending hybrid car with a engine would be needed in the start until more charging points would be available on the country side.

OLEV [http://txchnologist.com/post/43160353907/wireless- electricit...](http://txchnologist.com/post/43160353907/wireless-electricity- transmission-being-deployed-to) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsEYped_gZc>

<comment><USER10> How about catapults, like an aircraft carrier, instead of inductive chargers? You get all your kinetic energy to road speed plus you can regeneratively charge to the limits of tire/road traction. You get the energy for at least two stops and all you need is a little someplace on the bottom of the car for the hook to engage. I'll bet intersections are more efficient too when the intersection can fire off the waiting traffic in short order.

You'll need a little faith that the intersection software won't launch you into cross traffic or pedestrians. And I'll bet you don't need red light cameras anymore once there is the threat of having a Prius launched into your driver's side door at 30mph.

<comment><USER11> With some cheap ramps, you could get rid of the stops altogether. Have the catapult run cross traffic up to the proper speed, and then jump over the other street and land safely(?) on the other side.

I've long thought that the third dimension was woefully underused in smoothing the flow of traffic through intersections.

<comment><USER12> > I've long thought that the third dimension was woefully underused in > smoothing the flow of traffic through intersections.

It's a simple matter of available space:

[http://atomictoasters.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/04/cloverl...](http://atomictoasters.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/04/cloverleaf.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Previous discussion (same video, on hackaday): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4958875>

Another: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3723943>

And another: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3710054>

All 3 are linked to different articles.

</comment><comment><USER14> I got my dad an ultracapacitor flashlight ([http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/11/10/ultracapacitor- flashlight-...](http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/11/10/ultracapacitor-flashlight- recharges-in-90-seconds/)) a few years back and he loved it till it got stolen. Really quick recharge time, decent "battery" life.

Interestingly this flashlight was discontinued, and I don't see any new ones on 5.11 tactical's website. I wonder why?

I'm really interested in any increases in these types of technology, love to see what comes of this.

</comment><comment><USER15> At some point this will be pretty killer tech. One of my favorite applications is to put large capacitors into the foundation of a house with solar panels. Back when Maxell was showing of 4.2F car battery sized capacitors we did the math and figured that a house with a 1500 sq ft base foot print could support enough charge to carry it overnight, assuming that you were in a moderate climate (California worked, Minnesota didn't). Once you can go 'off grid' without battery maintenance worries it will become a lot more common I suspect.

</comment><comment><USER16> In the video they show that graphene can be thrown away in compost bin safely, how is it related to all the warnings we have about nanomaterials being dangerous?

<comment><USER12> The warnings about nanomaterials are about their applications, not their mere existence. (The rational warnings, anyway.) Graphene is just a form of carbon, like graphite or diamond, neither of which is thought to be particularly hazardous.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene>

<comment><USER17> Not necessarily true. As [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbon- nano...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbon-nanotube- danger) explains, the impact that asbestos has on our lungs is a mechanical process, and will be caused by any kind of hard object about the same size.

A lot of nanomaterials have the potential for creating dust in this size, including ones made of pure carbon.

<comment><USER12> Yes, but this isn't a property unique to nanomaterials -- it's a generic risk common to all materials that can produce fine, abrasive dust. My point is this doesn't represent a nanomaterial risk, it's an ordinary risk in which the source happens to be a nanomaterial. Otherwise asbestos could be classed as a nanomaterial risk after the fact.

Is lunar surface material a nanomaterial? It's certainly nasty stuff and it gets everywhere. It's regarded as one of the primary risks in lunar colonization. Does that make it a nanomaterial?

<comment><USER17> True, it isn't unique to nanomaterials. However nanomaterials and nanomanufacturing have the prospect of creating a lot of long lasting dust on this scale.

Also it has been the case with every round of technology that there are unexpected risks that turn out to be important. It would be a surprise if nanomaterials failed to bear as yet unknown risks. Particularly once you start doping them with a variety of trace elements to get the properties that you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Having a better conducting, higher surface area electrode is a huge step. BUT it doesn't really change the fact that a carbon based supercapacitor requires an electrolyte to form the double layer, and all existing electrolytes have a breakdown voltage below 5V. What we need is a better electrolyte. In calculating energy storage in a capacitor, the energy increases exponentially with voltage, while linearly with capacitance.

</comment><comment><USER19> Very cool and batteries 2.0 would definitely change the world. But this vid is a bit one sided. To charge something in an instance means a lot of electricity has to run through the wire in a very short time.

Also, being able to quickly discharge might just be as much of a problem as it is a blessing. Imagine all stored power inside a electric cars capacitor system to discharge all at once..

<comment><USER20> >Imagine all stored power inside a electric cars capacitor system to discharge all at once..

True, but right now we drive cars sitting on top gallons of gasoline that's much more energy dense than supercapacitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I haven't seen any mention of the efficiency. Does anyone have any numbers comparing a regular battery to a graphene supercapacitor?

<comment><USER12> They won't know until they process this first step into a working device with conductors and all the essential elements of a real storage device. But in principle, a capacitor is a much better storage device than a battery -- no chemical conversions, no limit to charge-discharge cycles, many similar advantages.

<comment><USER22> They aren't magic. They have a relatively high self-discharge (or leakage depending on how you measure it) compared to say Li-ion/NiMh cells which means basically they piss capacity away slowly.

Don't expect your wonderful supercap car to actually be charged if you leave it sitting there for a few hours.

<comment><USER12> > They have a relatively high self-discharge (or leakage depending on how you > measure it) compared to say Li-ion/NiMh cells which means basically they > piss capacity away slowly.

Your claim is premature -- they haven't chosen an insulator yet. The graphene sheets are the conducting surfaces, not the insulating layer. Your claims are about the properties of the insulating layer between graphene sheets, which hasn't been selected yet. It looks like this:

        Graphene (+) </comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---
        Insulator </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>
        Graphene (-) </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

<comment><USER22> Charge leaks through the conductors as well into the connecting circuits, through the packaging and the adhesives. No insulator doesn't leak.

<comment><USER12> Your remark applies to any storage device, including batteries. So it's not an issue that sets supercapacitors apart.

<comment><USER22> That is correct and is my point.

<comment><USER12> >> Your remark applies to any storage device, including batteries. So it's not an issue that sets supercapacitors apart.

> That is correct and is my point.

No, your point was that supercapacitors discharge faster than batteries because of leakage. But that's not true -- it depends on which insulating material is selected, and that hasn't been decided yet.

Here is what you said: "They aren't magic. They have a relatively high self- discharge (or leakage depending on how you measure it) compared to say Li- ion/NiMh cells which means basically they piss capacity away slowly."

It's false. So I said so. Any questions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is on a page about Films, Festivals and Directors. Is this fact or fiction? Is this a film about a fictive discovery, or real?

</comment><comment><USER24> Shiny movie and very easy to understand but forgive me if I'm skeptic about something without any supporting numbers or scientific background

</comment><comment><USER25> Sounds like Cheap and Powerful, So what is stopping this from mass production? My Phone could help with a charging time of less then a minutes!.

<comment><USER26> From what I understand, it's fairly expensive. It's tough to make a profit on a phone when the battery costs $500. Costs are surely coming down but I think we'll have to wait before it hits the mass markets. From the wikipedia page on graphene [1]: "On the other hand, the price of epitaxial graphene on SiC is dominated by the substrate price, which is approximately $100/cm2 as of 2009."

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene#Occurrence_and_product...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene#Occurrence_and_production)

<comment><USER27> I would pay $500 extra if I could charge my phone in 1 minute. I would pay $2000 extra if my laptop could do the same.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you find more clients as an independent contractor? - <AUTHOR> I have recently left a full time position and am having trouble staying afloat during the job search. I have experience working with clients as I've done this for a few years successfully but since leaving my day job my previous clients have found new developers or I've exhausted my list of current clients. I have full-stack experience with Node.js and PHP and use frameworks such as React, React Native, and AngularJS. I really also enjoy designing beautiful UIs and have Photoshop and some Sketch experience. I've considered trying upwork and freelancer but it seems very hard to score a project with even my lowest rates because I am in the US.<p>How do you find your clients or what services do you use that is actually worth your time? <comment><USER2> I would still recommend Upwork. Start very small, try to score some low budget fixed-priced projects. It's not that hard even for beginners in the site. Then do a good job and make the clients happy so that they write amazing reviews about you. Then keep biding on bigger projects. It worked for me.

If you have done something a million times, so that you can partial or fully automate, like say 'integrate google analytics into your website', then you might consider selling as a low price gig at fiverr.

Hope it helps.</comment>