Amazon to Let Shoppers Bargain for Lower Prices with New "Make an Offer" Option - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/09/amazon-to-let-shoppers-bargain-for-lower-prices-with-new-make-an-offer-option/ <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm weird, but I feel slightly offended if a vendor is not offering their lowest price to begin with. A lower price from a different vendor doesn't bother me, but knowing that someone else can pay a lower price for the same product from the same vendor just irks me a little. Especially in these times of fierce pricing competition. It just feels disingenuous.

Of course, this is just from _this_ consumer's point of view. I _can_ see the added value to the vendor, but since I'm only a consumer, it is only the consumers' perspective that affects me.

<comment><USER3> In many situations the actual cost to a vendor does fluctuate over time, but continuously updating prices has costs that outweigh the upside demand and perhaps brand loyalty that comes from transparency. Some example costs include (a) customer frustration from unpredictable prices and (b) consumers deterring purchasing decisions waiting for prices to reach some threshold they are hoping will arrive one day.

<comment><USER4> Try a holiday in India, Nepal or Morocco. Nothing has a set price. Its annoying at first, but after a while you may appreciate that you pay for what you value, not paying based on some price set by someone else.

<comment><USER5> Or if you're American and want to try it closer to home, buy some tickets from a scalper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh please no. I hate haggling. My time shouldn't be spent worryin if I left 10% on the table. This is the reason Amazon is killing eBay, and now they to introduce the same tired tactics.

<comment><USER7> Yeah. I really dislike the "not sold by Amazon" stuff, complete with seller ratings. I really don't want to have to comparison shop sellers and choose the one least likely to fuck up my order. I just want to order from Amazon, who I know won't give me hassle.

<comment><USER8> I love it. I buy a lot of used blu-ray discs for $0.01 or $0.99, with the $2.99 or $3.99 shipping fee of course to compensate for the overly low price. Ultimately I find incredible bargains versus paying $12-$20 for the same disc new. The ratings make it easy to find sellers that are reputable to buy used discs from. I also personally find this to be far less chaotic than digging through eBay.

<comment><USER9> I do the same with books and vidoegames.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Importantly, this gives also buyers somewhat more transparency on pricing

How? I'd try raising prices and allow offers, hoping that most customers don't even try to bargain for a lower price.

<comment><USER11> But then you competitor will show up higher in the list on sort by price.

<comment><USER10> Sure, that's something you would have to experiment with. But I still don't get the "transparency" argument.

How is it more transparent to have products in your store where one customer pays the full price, another one pays 5% less and someone else pays 10% less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's close to a feature I've been waiting for, which is "Buy When Price Drops To...". I want to enter a price and go ahead and let them ship the item to me when it hits that price.

There's a lot of items whose value tends to go down over time, or are virtually guaranteed to go on sale, and they can price-segment me to their hearts content on them if they'd just let me enter the price I'm willing to buy at. You'd think that this signal would have significant value to them. I mean, I get the counter arguments too, but it still seems like they could work some selling magic on this and win back the profit in the end.

Pieces of this are there; Subscribe and Save lets you save money if you pre- commit (sorta, it's easy to drop out of) to buying certain items, and now this "Make an Offer" option... they seem to be working their way up to this, why not go all the way...?

<comment><USER13> I doubt they would do this as it would reduce their already razor thin margins. And there is little incentive for them. I don't think many people would be willing to shop like that either, since the mindset of a purchase like that is sort of the anti-Prime - "just let it arrive whenever", as opposed guaranteed 2 day air. Long story short I just don't see that as a very Amazon-like move. That said, I would probably use it once or twice a year if such a feature existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It sounds like they're expecting this to mostly apply to items where there isn't much seller competition, which I'd agree with. If you're selling the same thing as a bunch of other people, you're already in a price game as far as an Amazon shopper is concerned, so it doesn't seem like it would make sense to use the make an offer option. People would just lowball all of the sellers and see who comes back with the best counter. That would be a hassle for all parties, but more for the sellers than buyers because they're now responding to n times more traffic in order to secure the same number of sales.

</comment><comment><USER15> This could get really interesting if they extend it to all of their products. It's not just about what margin should Amazon take on this product, it's what margin should Amazon take on the entire basket, and what margin should Amazon take on this customer right now, given the customer's shopping history with Amazon and the potential future purchases.

The nice people working the registers at Target or Walmart have no authority to haggle with me, even if I wanted to do so. If there was an algorithm behind the scenes, either online or flat-out at the register, maybe haggling could make a comeback with big merchants.

<comment><USER16> That's a future that sounds horrible to me. It's injecting yet another layer of uncertainty into the process of acquiring goods. I already feel like I'm being ripped off all the time. With this model unless I do the hard work of bargaining I _know_ I'm being ripped off.

Great.

No thanks.

<comment><USER8> If you agree to buy an item at an understood price, why do you feel like you're being ripped off?

Isn't fairness of price decided by the property owner that is offering their property up for sale? That is, they're deciding what it's worth to them, what is fair to them, such that they'd care to part with their property.

<comment><USER17> Because people have only so much cognitive load, adding to that to the list of things they would have to do on a daily basis is simply daunting.

This just seems like another way to rip off people who don't know better and are disadvantaged; imagine the haggling difference at the poor shops vs the rich shops. The rich person may be able to afford the extra cash and you may think the poor person would be incentive to haggle harder, but the rich can also afford to leave to go to another shop with the car they own instead of spend another hour on the bus to get to another place. They can also afford to be informed of the prices.

<comment><USER8> It's a fair point certainly, in regards to poor shoppers. Most American consumers aren't poor, have Internet access and can easily compare prices, and most of Amazon's customers also are not poor.

In fact today it's extraordinarily trivial for the average person in the US (Amazon's core demographic still) to price compare. It takes seconds via Google or directly via Amazon.com or Walmart.com etc.

I don't believe price comparison is daunting or overload, for the same people capable of consuming hundreds of status updates on social networks ever day. In fact, the history of the American consumer indicates price comparison is extremely easy and natural, said shopper has been price comparing and seeking out deals since the birth of modern shopping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a developer at a company called PriceWaiter[1] that provides a similar "Make an Offer" service to existing eCommerce stores. Our API allows retailers to add a button to any product on their site to get offers from customers.

We welcome Amazon into this space, and are really glad to see this idea catching on.

Check out our developer docs and integration plugins[2], or feel free to ask any questions you have here.

[1] [https://www.pricewaiter.com/](https://www.pricewaiter.com/)

[2] [https://docs.pricewaiter.com/](https://docs.pricewaiter.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Great. Prices going up for everybody. Did they hire Ron Johnson?

[http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/lessons-f...](http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/lessons- from-j-dot-c-dot-penney-dont-mess-with-coupons)

</comment><comment><USER20> They've also just started including external websites such as Dell.com to be listed right at their offers. Note, that this will take you to the external website and not go though Amzons checkout:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer- listing/B00I053ICY/sr=8-1/qid...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer- listing/B00I053ICY/sr=8-1/qid=1418136104/ref=olp_tab_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=1418136104&sr=8-1)

You can see that it sends you to Dell's website.

</comment><comment><USER21> All of the personal and my business purchases in the last year for me (running into 6 figures) have been thru' Amazon

Their system is simply much nicer to use and their support is great, even when buying from 3rd party merchants on their platform. There were cases where something wouldn't work (example a phone a month ago) and i was refunded first and then given several weeks to return the broken phone!

Best of all I no longer have to deal with Paypal and their whims or worry about being scammed on their Ebay site. Hell now that I think of it I have barely used paypal in the last year.

Also I can buy giftcards at 3% discount on the likes of gyft.com (10% last black friday weekend) with bitcoin. Amazon sort of indirectly accept bitcoin via their giftcards which is fantastic + discount on top. And of course the Prime programme is great with free deliveries.

I hate the way on Ebay something is listed with a low price but by time you get to checkout mysterious high delivery fees appear, that in my opionin is sneaky. Neither is their 90s interface nice or user friendly to use.

edit: wow i sound like i got brainwashed by Amazon lol! Oh well one happy customer here :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Given that Amazon takes already ~15% off end-price of most items and the competition is pushing most margins to <5% territory, I wish them good luck having any sort of success on "Make an Offer". Probably good only for slow- sellers or used items...

</comment><comment><USER23> All the appeal of buying a car at a used car dealership brought to ecommerce.

</comment><comment><USER24> If they expanded this to general products (and in the UK) this could kill my usage of Flubit. I regularly get 10% or more off Amazon stuff through them, but their delivery is nowhere near as reliable.

</comment><comment><USER25> i'm imagining someday well into the future (about 9 months from now) i'll surf to Amazon.com and, click around until i find what i'm looking for--eg that Disney Frozen merchandise for my daughter's birthday--and add it to my cart, followed by a voice that reminds me of Lilith Sternin-Crane:

LSC: so how much do you want to pay for that

me: $49.99, like it says right next to the item on your Site

LSC: we'll let you have it for $85 and throw in free one week shipping

me: that's unethical

LSC: okay $80 and thanks for the compliment.

me: look, $55 is all i can afford to pay, that's all i have on me, i swear--so take it or leave it.

LSC: unlikely, in fact almost impossible--let's see, your median cumulative Amazon purchases by month for the past 24 months is just under $450; plus you have a cumulative balance of $216.34 on three Amazon gift cards in your name. You must be doing pretty well, sir.

me: i'm just a programmer--overworked and underpaid, etc.

LSC: yes we know. Now let's see...according to your shipping address and zip code, you live in...downtown Palo Alto!

me: well yes, but towards the dodgy end.

LSC: no you don't. So the median household income in your neighborhood is....

me: no idea where that figure came from, anyway, you can't tell my salary based on a neighborhood average.

LSC: well technically i could...but why should i in this case when i know your exactly how much you earn.

me: you're lying

LSC: you'll regret that. how's this for lying...remember about six months ago when you, persuaded by the 10% off the total in your shopping cart we promised, you clicked on our Amazon credit card offer and filled out the application right before you checked-out--giving us access to your entire credit history...

me: oh god

LSC: tell you what, i'll let you have it for $90, you pay for the one-day shiping and sign your family up for Amazon triple prime, and we'll say good night. Deal?

me: oh god

LSC: what's the problem? you soulnd depressed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does this apply only to amazon.com or amazon.in too??

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's going to roll out on amazon.in until they experiment with the model extensively in US.

<comment><USER27> That said, it's something that _may_ work better in some cultures rather than others. (Not to pigeonhole Indian culture; I mean completely in general.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I will make them an offer they can not refuse</comment>


$500 Lenovo Phab2 Pro Is the First Google Tango Phone - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/09/lenovo-phab2-project-tango/ <comment><USER2> Oy. This is how not to launch new tech - they're announcing hardware without any use cases to explain to consumers why it's valuable. This is a symptom of the lack of coordination between electronics manufacturers and the Android team, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be righting itself after all this time.

I love 3d mapping tech, and am eagerly awaiting it in devices. This tech could have been integrated into Google Maps, one of the most popular apps on mobile devices, but instead is launched with this weird message of hope that maybe one day it could be used for useful things potentially, you know, if developers come up with some ideas for that or something. This is Microsoft all over again.

Techies of course can speculate and hope and fill in some possible use cases, and it'll maybe move a few units for a short while as a lot of gimmick tech does, but to the general market this is one big 'huh?'

Use cases, folks. Use cases.

<comment><USER3> Well, for what it's worth we are actually doing the best use case of this (AR home furnishings design) with inside out 6DOF markerless tracking on iPhone and iPad without needing the Tango system.

Monocular visual odometry is becoming good enough that depth cameras aren't worth the overhead. Samsung even asked me about a year ago if it was worth doing and I told them no.

<comment><USER4> Can your system make out where the walls and other objects are in the room in real time, and thus make sure virtual objects do not overlap?

One striking demo of Tango, back when they unveiled their dev platform tablet, was that you could use the tablet to "throw" virtual balls into a random waste basket put on top of a chair. Everything computed in real time based on what the sensors picked up about the world around it.

So if you want to measure up your apartment, all you basically have to do is take a Tango device for a walk around it.

<comment><USER3> You are basically asking about a few different things - though they are related.

 _Can your system make out where the walls and other objects are in the room in real time,_

The first thing is plane detection and tracking. The answer is somewhat. We can detect and track some planes, but it's not yet up to par with native depth sensing systems in ideal environments. It performs better in high sunlight environments however.

 _thus make sure virtual objects do not overlap?_

This is called occlusion. The short answer is, no right now our system doesn't do occlusion. To do that right, you have to build a high probability real time polygon mesh which we aren't building into a live product yet.

 _So if you want to measure up your apartment, all you basically have to do is take a Tango device for a walk around it._

There is more than one way to do this. We can do this, but it's not real time - it takes a few minutes. However it's getting faster very quickly and this use case is in the pipeline.

<comment><USER5> Dedicated sensor hardware blows away laborious fancy math to overcome the limitations of a sensor. Look at the adoption of the Kinect and LIDAR in robotics hardware. No-one is seriously using monocular vision for any kind of serious environmental sensing. Stereo vision + pattern is pretty much the minimum to get satisfactory results.

<comment><USER3> _Dedicated sensor hardware blows away laborious fancy math to overcome the limitations of a sensor._

This doesn't work at consumer scale.

 _No-one is seriously using monocular vision for any kind of serious environmental sensing_

That's why we're different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honest question: given the nature of this device (communication), is anyone else nervous about Lenovo, given their recent shenanigans? (One only needs to google "lenovo privacy concerns" to see what I mean.)

<comment><USER7> Yep, wouldn't touch them with a bargepole

<comment><USER8> Came here to make the exact same statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Non-engadget link for those who have given up on them (I can't possibly be the only one):

[http://bgr.com/2016/06/09/lenovo-phab2-pro-release-date- pric...](http://bgr.com/2016/06/09/lenovo-phab2-pro-release-date-price/)

<comment><USER10> For the uninitiated? What did they do now?

<comment><USER9> What finally made me drop them was when they posted a cartoon of a dude with his pants around his ankles using a fleshlight (or similar) to their front page. IT pros might (legitimately) be reading Engadget at work, and they basically put a giant cartoon porn picture on their front page. The article itself was about the author's personal experience trying a few modern masturbation devices. Seemed inappropriate for the market they're in. Left permanently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article demonstrates better what this could be used for:

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/heres-an- actual-3d-indoor-m...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/heres-an- actual-3d-indoor-map-of-a-room-captured-with-googles-project-tango-phone/)

<comment><USER12> That's the 3D model that Google created in partnership with Matterport (Early 2014). However, I am not sure why Matterport has not been mentioned in any of the recent Lenovo Tango products. Neither have they mentioned this specific 3D indoor scanning feature with this phone.

I was curious to find out the quality of the 3D model this phone could scan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I found more interesting is that 652 looks a very nice chip and its priced at $500, 1440p, 64G with all the tagno stuff for a specialized product.

Why can't we have a $300-$350 phone with snapdragon 652, 1080p from most manufacturer even Lenovo? I guess they have this ZUK 2 now in the similar price/performance but a sub brand.

</comment><comment><USER14> This will be interesting when paired with a 3D printer. The tango technology does a really good job of scanning objects and if you export them to a slicer it should be possible to print them. That said, it could also make for a really interesting data "theft" system, being able to derive detailed models from something in a display case for example. [http://boingboing.net/2016/02/23/scanning-artists-de-loot- st...](http://boingboing.net/2016/02/23/scanning-artists-de-loot-stole.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand why Tango has to be an integrated built-in solution rather than an accessory that could be added to any Android phone.

<comment><USER16> > I don't understand why Tango has to be an integrated built-in solution > rather than an accessory that could be added to any Android phone.

Because hardware accessories still require standardized hardware to work with (or complex adaptors, etc.), and are more cumbersome, which limits their appeal. Tango requires specialized hardware, and it makes a lot more sense to integrate it than to make it an accessory.

<comment><USER17> Fair, though Flir[0] and Seek[1] both offer thermal cameras as accessories; conversely, there's the Caterpillar S60 phone with built-in (Flir) thermal camera[2]. But the accessory approach does mean more compatibility headaches, no doubt.

0: [http://www.flir.com/flirone/ios-android/](http://www.flir.com/flirone/ios- android/) 1: [http://www.thermal.com/products/compactxr](http://www.thermal.com/products/compactxr) 2: [http://gizmodo.com/caterpillars-new-s60-is-the-first- smartph...](http://gizmodo.com/caterpillars-new-s60-is-the-first-smartphone- with-flir-1759685817)</comment></comment></comment>


Crypto Fund II - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2020/04/30/crypto-fund-ii/ <comment><USER2> Andreessen Horowitz "excited to announce a new $515 million fund that will be used to invest in crypto networks and businesses."

Crypto as in cryptocurrency, not as in cryptography.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another fund picking crypto currencies that don't release their products or lose money? I'm surprised they were able to raise a second fund, after the first one has been doing so poorly</comment>


On Minimalism - <AUTHOR> http://chriseidhof.tumblr.com/post/9539831015/on-minimalism <comment><USER3> Anecdotal (read: personal) experience suggests that rich people are more likely to be minimalists. Case in point, my brother is extremely wealthy and even though he likes nice things, his houses are always very sparsely outfitted, his cars never have any personal stuff in them, everything is extremely clean and besides his laptop, he doesn't carry around any personal possessions.

Compared to that, I hardly scrape by in an absurdly small apartment, and until recently it was stuffed to the brim. My car is full of things. I'm a slob. And all the poor people I know are too. Recently, I have started to throw away or auction off a huge part of my stuff and it feels really liberating (how many computers does a person need, anyway).

I wonder if being poor triggers people to hoard and/or to prefer complicated items. For example, I observed that rich people tend to have really simple furniture that is reduced to its core function, whereas poor people tend to have complicated-looking things and a lot of them. Poor households are absolutely cluttered.

<comment><USER4> To some degree, to get ahead in business you must personally present as clean. This would carry over somewhat into your personal life - it's hard to be wearing thousand dollar suits to work while living in a rat's nest, I guess.

Personally, I like clutter. Random toys people give you, buildup of projects and jobs and whatnot. It personalises a place. I understand the appeal of not caring about items - I don't particularly care about most of my clutter - <USER2> minimalism is so... sterile. Walk into a minimalist's house and there's nothing really there of their personality, nothing particularly different from any other minimalist's house. I don't have a problem with other people living that way, but for me, it's just so sterile and sometimes even feels unwelcoming.

EDIT: I wonder if part of your rich/poor thing is that the rich have the opportunity to move around a lot for both business and pleasure and so can get a variety of memories and backdrops, whereas the poor see the same thing day in day out, and so personalisation of spaces (or making them more varied) is more important to them?

<comment><USER3>
      This would carry over somewhat into your personal life -
      it's hard to be wearing thousand dollar suits to work while
      living in a rat's nest, I guess

Yeah, maybe, though the rich people I know are generally not suit-wearers.

I like your backdrop/decoration thing though, it's an interesting theory. But I still believe that having a nice bank account makes people feel independent and free, in the end causing them to see a lot of superfluous things as they are: clutter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Marcus Aurelius is considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers, yet he was a Roman Emperor, probably the mightiest and richest man on earth at that time.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but he did spend a good portion of his life on the Danube fighting German tribes. Probably did not carry much with him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While the idea of minimalism really appeals to me, its practice does not. After moving at about once a year for the last 10 years, I have had many rounds of culling needless stuff (although I could do another round).

But there are so many things I would not throw away because I need and use them every day: books, cds, musical instruments, cooking gear, all kinds of tools, wires, parts, etc. for tinkering. This adds up to what I own, and yes, it is quite a lot (moving requires the biggest truck I can get with a normal license). For the books and cds I could go to a library, for the tools to a hackerspace, for my food to a restaurant... The instruments, well, that'd be hard.

It seems to me that such a life would be more expensive and require more organisation. In short, it would be far less enjoyable for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there is definitely a tension between pleasure and minimalism. I miss my guitar too. I miss cooking a little bit, but the restaurants in Berlin are very good and low prices. However, after this I might consider a furnished apartment, as long as I don't have to own the stuff myself.

The point I'm trying to make in my article is that minimalism makes me happier, but I'm not sure whether this will always be true. Too minimalistic and I will probably become less happy. Also, doing it for a long time might also get old. We'll see, so far I like it.

<comment><USER7> _Yes, there is definitely a tension between pleasure and minimalism._

However paradoxical, minimalism can be also an be attachment. As Buddhists would say, take the middle road.

Taking cooking as an example: food touches on the outer world (think of everything involved in a simple crop, from the farmer to the sun) and the inner world (physically and mentally). Preparing food is very good for exercising awareness and appreciating life, why would one sacrifice that?

Edit: sorry for accidentally downvoting you :(.

<comment> mkr-hn I balanced your accidental downvote with an intentional upvote. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a personal counterpoint (ish) to this, I've found that minimalism is fine, to a point, but _change_ is the huge thing that makes me feel better about myself. Even something as simple as a different clothing style or different haircut can improve your self-confidence and outlook on life, if you let it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure if this qualifies as minimalist, but 5 months ago I moved out of my apartment, put everything in storage, packed a week worth of clothes, a macbook air, ipad, ipod and set off around the world.

I used to have quite a bit of "stuff": home theater, nice car, video games, etc. But I don't find I miss it very much at all. If anything, the only thing I really miss is my dog. Right now I'm working on my iPad app at an amazing cafe in Budapest. There really is no other place I'd rather be.

<comment><USER10> If you don't mine me asking, how old are you and how are you currently making money? I'm assuming you saved some for a bit before you left wherever you used to live. I'd actually be interested in anything you have to say.

<comment><USER9> 28 and married. I'm own a mobile app business so I can work from anywhere in the world. I didn't need to save up any money as my earnings are enough to cover all of my expenses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Potentially offtopic but relevant for Minimalist fans who live in Berlin: we have a weekly meetup for people doing Four Hour Work Week related businesses, or doing any online business whatsoever. We've had Tim Ferriss and tons of other entrepreneurs come visit us. If you're around, check us out on Mondays at 5pm at Betahaus, Moritzplatz U8

<http://www.facebook.com/groups/146524318752855/>

</comment><comment><USER12> random single guy finds it great to be able to have no obligations, film at 11.

emphasis on single. no kids. no obligations, no responsibility.

oh how zen you are.

<comment><USER13> Wife and kid don't necessarily have to change everything, as long as you find someone who thinks similarly to you.

<comment><USER14> > Wife and kid don't necessarily have to change everything, as long as you > find someone who thinks similarly to you.

Sorry, this is quite a naive statement. My wife before pregnancy and childbirth had a different outlook on life... people's personalities change, and having kids often makes this change (large cause of divorces and break- ups).

Also, your kid's personality you can't choose. Some kids are very colicky and stubborn and do much better with stable environment. Others are free spirits. If you have a special-needs or disabled child, forget about it. No choice there.

My wife's friend roams around with her husband (and their kid) - he does short-term contracts around the world. She had repeated complained about the churn and stress to my wife.

<comment><USER13> I agree with you and I have a wife and a son. I didn't say it doesn't change anything, but that it doesn't change everything. What I meant is that there will be things you cannot do anymore and there will be things for which you use the changed circumstances as an excuse not to do anymore. Extreme minimalism in particular gets harder but buying a house/car/TV/expensive furniture/100s of other things, just because that is what society excepts from a settled person is silly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I read posts like these, I can't help but wonder if minimalistic people go around feeling smug and superior all the time. If you think and talk a lot about how great your minimalistic life is, then you're probably suffering from what some call spiritual materialism.

<comment><USER16> reminiscent of: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly- mention...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mentioning- he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, nice :D. I watch TV shows though.

BTW, I don't even own a television!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've gone towards minimalism -- or at least as far as I feel is reasonable -- for the purpose of eliminating parts of my life that were pure maintenance, such as cleaning and commuting.

In 2008 I got rid of what I thought were "most of my possessions". The big thing was every piece of furniture I owned except for a desk, a small lamp and am Eames molded chair. I did, however, have a walk-in closet full of clothes and boxes. I also kept the computer, and the TV.

By having no furniture -- not even a mattress -- for months, it really changed my perspective on what I valued about furniture. Sleeping and sitting on the floor tends to do that to you. It really made me think about what I wanted in a bed, or in a couch, or whether I even wanted certain things at all. It also forced me to focus on the space. By most measures I lived in a very large apartment, but I started to notice how awful the floor plan was, how much room was wasted by an excessively large kitchen, oversized bathroom and tons of useless hallway... it was "big", but not in ways that were useful considering how you actually live in the space.

So 8 months later I downsized. Over that period of time I got rid of more things. Useless baubles and kitsch. Clothes I never wore. Books I never needed again. I had purchased a nice bed, nightstands and two lamps, but hadn't acquired anything else, so I brought far fewer things into a considerably smaller space.

However, that smaller space was MUCH nicer than the larger one, for a bit less money, and in a ridiculously good location (subway across the street, in the city instead of 10 miles out). My commute went from an hour a day to being able to stumble out of bed at the last minute and walk across the street. Cleaning was just getting easier and easier. With no junk around, you can just power steam, vacuum, or wipe down every surface very quickly. I also seemed to have to clean less often, in addition to reducing it to maybe 30 minutes a week. Insects? What are those? I think I've seen only a fruit fly and a spider in nearly 3 years. Despite losing 250sqft, I think I only lost 20sqft of usable living space.

But I wasn't done. If I spent an hour going through everything, I'd still finish with a 15-gallon garbage bag full of things to throw out. The former walk-in closet of boxes? It's down to just one box (as of this weekend). Two of the (three) reach-in closets are now empty, so I'm turning one into my office (which reclaims a lot of floor space). I could probably downsize again and still have tons of room, as even with a few more pieces of furniture (partial living room) the place is feeling a bit gargantuan, and I'm worried I might just buy furniture to eliminate the seemingly empty space.

<comment><USER18> What about wall decorations? I haven't seen anyone talk about those, and you know I hate to see an empty wall. What has been your take on that?

This has been a fascinating thread and I've really been influenced.

<comment><USER17> I don't really strive for the absolute reduction to large, basic forms. Without having built my space to control the lighting exactly as I intend, I think that'd be impossible. Mostly I'm just for removing things that aren't being useful to eliminate the costs of having to deal with said things.

However, do not underestimate proper use of color. My bedroom is backed by a Benjamin Moore Jack O' Lantern [1][2] that gives the desired effect (and similar in the bathroom with Shy Cherry). My living area needs something, and I'm considering finding photos (Monaco Grand Prix, Targa Florio) to enlarge and use as panoramic wallpaper.

\-----

One thing I have noticed is the opportunity cost of having useless things. Not just the space to store it, but not having the space to store useful things, and the lost opportunities by not having those useful things.

The most common example are having clothes you don't wear. Since they're taking up space in your closet, you end up running out of the clothes you _do_ wear, and not having enough of the preferred styles/articles you like to wear. So by keeping the articles of clothing around, you end up creating this ridiculous artificial problem for yourself which results in more frequent laundry.

I've noticed similar with pots and pans. The 3-quart pot is dirty and I want to make some pasta? I can't with a 2-quart or 1-quart, so I won't be having a shrimp scampi that night. If I simply got rid of the useless pots I almost never use, and bought more of the ones I did, I'd be eating what I want (and probably better overall).

Additionally if the pots are decent looking, and are well organized, it's free decor. I once went to someone's home and their bath towels were in an open reach-in closet, but meticulously folded and stacked. I was impressed, because someone had made some plain, boring, inexpensive bath towels part of their decorum rather effectively.

[1] <http://i.imgur.com/yyi62.jpg> [2] <http://i.imgur.com/D1DyH.jpg>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Try moving to another continent a couple of times, it does wonders for breaking your addictions to 'stuff'.

Even so, I find that after moving the 'stuff' creeps back in again and after a couple of years there is just too much of it.

It's just different stuff... especially tools, it's hard to get by without them.

I couldn't care less about clothes or furniture but tools matter.

</comment><comment><USER20> Although it certainly varies from person to person, very actively making your life 'simpler' seems like a stressful thing to do.

Changing my eating habits to reduce my sugar intake will definitely be more complicated than not doing so. The same holds for an information diet.

I understand why you're doing this and it'll most probably have a positive effect, but I don't see how this is necessarily simpler.

<comment><USER21> I changed my diet to avoid wheat and sugar (something like paleolithic). I just did it cold turkey and didn't find it that hard. Stop eating bread and other baked goods, candy, soda and you're 90% there. I lost close to 50 pounds in less than a year. I have not eliminated sugar in the sense that I still eat fruit, but mostly berries and I think eliminating nearly all the refined sugar is what's important.

My diet is now mostly meat, eggs, fish, and salad with some nuts and fruit. There's really nothing complicated about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very interesting article, I can see some of our discussions in there. I think it's indeed fair to say most people could use less stuff in their lives (minimalism). Furthermore, it's honorable to strive for a simpler life in this age of the Internet and globalization. However, I also agree with the comments that the audience for this article is probably individualistic, unbound, single young men.

Both minimalism and stoicism are about constraints. Therefore, I do not agree with replacing books with a Kindle. A Kindle - like most Internet-connected mobile devices - represents abundance: an abundance of information. Hence I find this point a bit at odds with an information diet. Having physical books puts a constraint on what you can carry around with you (especially important when traveling). Also, which is an argument not heard enough, reading from books - especially hardcovers - has aesthetic value, and it's easier to remember the contents of the book.

</comment><comment><USER23> I had a similar experience when I moved from the UK to the Netherlands in 2006. You gather a lot of hubris over the years and it feels nice to be able to dispatch a big load of it.

Also it's an interesting point you make about dutchies and their agenda's. No wonder people think I'm crazy. I've never had an agenda (or used calendars either for that matter).

</comment><comment> g-garron One question: Is there a way to continue with that way of life once you have kids? And start to need some more stuff?

(Another point this may be off topic)

Something about your 30-day-no-candy experiment.

If you continue trying to about complex sugars, you'll see that you will not miss carbs at all.

For a different reason (I'm a body builder -hobby-) I tried 3 months with no carbs at all, and I really felt good!

<comment><USER24> Kids, at least for the first couple of years, don't really require that much stuff, certainly much less than most people buy. Beyond clothes, bottles and consumables (like diapers), all you really need is a carriage and/or carrying device (I highly recommend getting both) to transport the kid, some sort of crib like thing for the kid to sleep in and some simple toys.

Ask me again in a couple of years time and I'll let you know if you need more stuff for older kids.

<comment> g-garron I've a nine years old girl, and a three years old boy. They own some 60% of the stuff in the house. I would like to get rid of 80% of that 60% :)

<comment><USER21> And its not just a matter of what you get them. Birthdays, Christmas, random gifts from grandparents and other relatives and friends, and before you know it you can't walk across their bedroom for all the crap that's accumulated.

Good plan is to say "ok now that you have this new thing we need to get rid of one of your old things" but good luck getting them to accept that happily.

<comment><USER25> One suggestion I'd make (that I haven't seen implemented, so it's only an idea) is a regular cull. Every few months or a year, depending on your preference / tolerance, just sit them down and ask them to choose what they're willing to throw away or give away. You could explain it in terms of your philosophy, or frame it as giving their lovely things to other kids who would also like to play with wonderful toys, or so on.

Kids can be a lot more reasonable than people give them credit for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn The best thing I've done recently was move aggregators like Techmeme and Sphinn out of Reader and into a bookmark folder. I later realized most of the stuff in the aggregators was not only useless, but even skimming took so much time and energy away from the post-a-day/week blogs where I drew most of my inspiration from.

I also did this with all the news sites I read. Most of it was filler anyway. I end up not reading much news, but somehow I still hear about the important stuff.

</comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me of <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLoge6QzcGY>

</comment><comment><USER27> How much software do you have, including regularly visited websites and other ephemeral software?

</comment><comment><USER28> 'Less is more' is a thousand years old general maxim. And of course, there is nothing from Buddhism or stoicism in cutting some costs and undoing some bad habits. One also should watch the Fight Club movie. ^_^

</comment><comment><USER29> Minimalism is not about "less", its about "just enough"

</comment><comment><USER30> Good for him but i find this kind of free-wheeling and 'zen' lifestyle very selfish at its core. Go minimalism to what end? Why don't you do something that contributes to tree of human knowledge or something makes humanity more efficient?

<comment><AUTHOR> I try to add value to the world as well. I don't see how those things are exclusive?

And yes, it is very selfish. I try to optimize for my own happiness. Which includes helping others, being nice, adding value, doing things that make life less fun in the short term but better in the long term.</comment></comment>


40 years ago today... - <AUTHOR>

somewhere in the wilds of Canada was born the baby we now know as Trevor Blackwell.  Happy birthday Trevor! <comment><AUTHOR> One of his many innovations, the fresnel workout:

<http://ycombinator.com/images/fresnelworkout.jpg>

Instant results. Makes your head big though.

<comment> daniel-cussen >Makes your head big though.

It's a workout, not a yoga session. It's supposed to make you proud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Thanks guys!

<comment><USER3> Happy birthday from a fellow Canadian. Since everyone should smile on their birthday, here is a Canadian joke for you.

 _Canada had the opportunity to have American know how, British politics and French cooking.

Instead it got American cooking, British know how, and French politics!_

And here is an American joke that is particularly appropriate given where you're from.

 _Many years ago two Americans were riding a train across Canada. It stopped at a station, and one asked the other to lean out the window and as where they were. He did, and got the answer, "Saskatoon, Saskatchewan". He leaned back in and said, "How cute. They don't speak English!"_

<comment><USER4> <http://qdb.us/114349>

      We are the canadian borg
      please wait to be assimilated
      resistance would be impolite
      pour l'assimilation en francais, presse sur "2"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if I was the only one who saw "40 years ago today..." and thought of Sesame Street (thanks to the Google logo of the day).

<comment><USER6> I thought of the Beatles.

 _"It was forty years ago today

that Sgt. Pepper taught a band to play..."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_C...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Happy Birthday Trevor!

Fun fact, you share a birthday with Matthew McConaughey and Puff Daddy - <http://www.celebrity-link.com/birthday_day-4_month-11.html>

<comment><USER8> …which clearly explains the results of the aforementioned fresnel workout (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=921930>): McConaughey's chest with Puff Daddy's inflated ego.

<comment><USER9> Genius.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Before opening this link, I thought that this is about the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street (<http://www.sesamestreet.org/home>) which I came to know a few mins back courtesy Google (<http://www.google.com/logos/boombah_chamki- hp.gif>), even when I had my doubts whether pg is interested in Sesame Street :)

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure who is correct but Wikipedia lists the anniversary on November 10th (in a couple of places) - I wonder if Google is a little bit ahead on this one.

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

<comment><USER7> According to Marissa Mayer's tweet, Google is doing a week worth of doodles (which would end on Nov. 10th).

<http://twitter.com/marissamayer/status/5427907816>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Luckily for Trevor, when Canadians reach 40 they start aging _backwards_ , at least until they reach 80. Then they turn into robots. :-)

HBD, tlb!

</comment><comment><USER12> I think I've just earned a FAIL badge.. I had no idea who Trevor was. Oops. This error has been corrected by <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Blackwell> \- Happy birthday Trev ;-)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious: what exactly are birthdays celebrating?

Perhaps what is being celebrated depends on age and/or other factors?

For example, one celebration might be about reaching driving age while another might be about longevity.

<comment><USER14> Celebration of continued existence; an opportunity to reflect on one's own personal growth and achievements in the past year. Secondly, it's a unique opportunity for each of us to be recognized individually. New Years' provides reflection time too, but it isn't individualized.

<comment><USER13> What if you had a bad year and the future looks bleak?

What if people are not surprised that you did not die?

As for individual recognition, wouldn't a recent achievement worthy of recognition be better?

<comment><USER14> Then my advice would be to avoid celebration.

Consider it a catalyst for change, even if only in mindset.

That said, birthdays are also unique: If you don't tell anyone about it, you could just as well ignore it yourself. You won't see reminders about your birthday in the local store, as you do for halloween, Christmas, etc.

In that sense, if one doesn't want to celebrate their birthday, they don't have to. It's an optional holiday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Happy Birthday! Take a few seconds off plowing through applications and enjoy it ;-)

</comment><comment><USER16> And happy birthday to Ross from 280 North too :-D

</comment><comment><USER17> Happy Birthday Trevor - it's my birthday too!

<comment><USER18> Next year you two should have a party together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> __busts out the par-tay hats and #include <beer.h> beer glasses!! __

Happy Birthday!! :)

</comment><comment><USER20> What the other guys said. (Happy 40th!)

There should be a special black sombrero for this occasion.

</comment><comment><USER21> Happy, Happy, Happy birthday! Hope you have a blast of a day!

</comment><comment><USER22> Happy Birthday Trevor!

</comment><comment><USER23> Feliz Cumpleaños

</comment><comment><USER24> Happy Birthday Trevor!

</comment><comment><USER25> Happy Birthday Trevor!

</comment><comment><USER26> Congratulations!!!!

</comment><comment><USER27> Happy Birthday!</comment>


Finally a Privacy Policy widget and template that people can understand - <AUTHOR> https://www.legalmonster.com/features/privacy-policy-widget <comment><USER2> "At Legal Monster we believe that privacy policies should be easy to read and understand." Mobile chrome gave me something that definitely looked different than those screenshots, any reason you're not using that?

The one you are using is fine by the way, one click option to reject all the optional stuff no sane user will ever willingly agree to. I don't want to understand privacy policies, I want a clear and prominent button that tells sites "no and now give me the content I'm here for, do whatever you legally get away with and stop bothering me as if this button click had any impact". Everything else just feels like an all too common dark pattern.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment :-) This is a privacy policy widget and not a cookie notification, which I believe is what you are describing and saw on the website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > By continuing, I agree to receive email marketing from Legal Monster ApS > about webinars, product updates and latest news.

When offering privacy compliance solutions the least you should do is be GDPR- compliant yourself.</comment>


Ask HN: Any international F1 kids got internships in the US? - <AUTHOR>

So I've been here for over a year, studying in one of the best CS programs in the country, working on a LOT of projects, with research experience. My resume [1] has been able to fetch me interviews with a ton of companies - both big and small - for summer SDE positions.
I know this for a fact that I have nailed all my interviews. They have all gone as well as I expected, with great feedback from the interviewers afterwards. But for some reason, I have been unable to get an offer.
This has made me really, really demotivated. Is it because I'm international, and it's hard for companies to get H1 visas in case they want to extend a full time offer?
I just want to know what to make of all this? What id going wrong? What should I fix? What do others think of this?
[1] http://www.goel.im/Karan.Goel.Resume.pdf <comment><USER2> Wait, did you come here via some sort of transfer program? How do you graduate so soon? If so, I'd suggest you list it in your resume. I'm Indian and did my Bachelors here as well. H1-B shouldn't be a problem at all, not at least for the big ones (MSFT, AMZN, GOOG, FB et al). I've been on recruiting teams for a couple of them. They just look for talent. Often times, it's easy to get an illusion that you did really well in interviews. Interviewers are trained to not show any visible signs of not being satisfied with the candidate. Even if you did well, there are a lot of other factors (For example, if we've been told to recruit 5 students from your uni, and we see 6 good guys, we still choose the top 5). Interviews are very far from a perfect system and companies usually be on the safe side and favor false negatives rather than the other way around. So don't get disappointed. Just have fun coding. Apply for masters programs on the side and try again. I wasn't able to score one after my freshman year (in my defense, i hadn't taken a data structures course yet :). However, did two subsequent ones at AMZN and MSFT.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm an international student at University of Waterloo (Canada). I don't think being international makes you or labels you any different than what you can be otherwise. In fact, most of my employers (direct team members) hardly ever know this fact, which makes sense as your nationality has nothing to do with how you will do the job.

Not sure how H1 works but in my case I've been given offers to work as an intern in the US on the basis of a J1 visa.

I'd say keep trying and working on side projects in the mean time. Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out this thread for the many, many reasons how this can happened. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7040382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7040382)

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure how this is relevant to me.q</comment></comment>


The nicest math book I own - <AUTHOR> http://math-blog.com/2008/12/22/the-nicest-math-book-i-own/ <comment><USER2> I used to read Tim's expository writings religiously. The old ones can be found at:

<http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/mathsindex.html>

and the newer stuff is on his blog:

<http://gowers.wordpress.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I never by a first-edition math book. The second-edition will have tons of changes due to valuable feedback, along with typically the biggest wave of corrections of any increment in edition.

<comment><USER4> But if everyone employs the same strategy, there probably won't be a second edition.

If it's truly a good book, I don't mind buying an updated 2nd edition.

<comment><USER5> It's a collective action problem. I'm just giving the my Ayn Rand-esque solution to the problem, whereby I look out for myself and end up unintentionally screwing everyone else. =(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another beautiful math book is Visual Complex Analysis, [http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Complex-Analysis-Tristan- Needha...](http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Complex-Analysis-Tristan- Needham/dp/0198534469/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229989589&sr=8-1) Too many modern math texts are utterly alegebraic. VCA embraces geometry to great effect.

</comment><comment><USER7> Threads like these are the reason I adore hacker news sometimes.

<comment><USER8> Comments like these add nothing to said threads.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps they give users the motivation to submit other interesting links like this one.

<comment><USER10> Thats why you have karma points. The original comment does not add any value.

<comment><USER11> I prefer real attention and praise to a number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally, knowing that Tim Gowers had something to do with it is recommendation enough. A gifted expositor and brilliant mathematician, I'm ordering this today.

<comment><USER13> I have on briefly heard of him, but love reading well-done explanations. This is going on the wish list.

<comment><USER12> Recommend you also read his on-line stuff as listed above. Tim is one of the clearest and most insightful writers I know, as well as being thoroughly nice to and tolerant of lesser mortals such as myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A somewhat related book I recommend is The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose.

<comment><USER7> It's staring at me from my book shelf, laughing that I won't get around to starting it.

<comment><USER15> start reading it tonight. it is an amazing book.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure. I read 'emperor's new mind' and loved it for the most part. I have quite a bit of a backlog of books that are earlier in the queue before I get to it.

Which reminds me, we should consider the semantics of starting a science/math/etc book club dedicated to important books and concepts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you want to see some sample articles first, you can login to <http://pcm.tandtproductions.com/> with U/P : guest/PCM - he put this information up on his blog a year ago perhaps. Look under 'Resources/Sample Articles'.

</comment><comment><USER17> As well as Timothy Gowers (who is, yes, an absolutely first-rate mathematician and a very good expositor too), the PCM has a bunch of contributions from Terry Tao (blog at <http://terrytao.wordpress.com/>; [http://terrytao.wordpress.com/?s=princeton+companion+to+math...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/?s=princeton+companion+to+mathematics) to find pre-production versions of several of his PCM articles) who is also a Fields Medallist, a very good expositor, and a blogger.

</comment><comment><USER18> This book looks awesome. Mathematics is so vast that as a student its hard to know what classes you should take, or even what the map of the territory looks like. That is one of the reasons I got frustrated with my pure math BS.

The Russian school put out some pretty massive volumes, like

[http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Its-Content-Methods- Meanin...](http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Its-Content-Methods- Meaning/dp/0486409163/)

but I found those to be a little too caught up in the proposition/proof cycle to be useful as a guide to the uninitiated.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not a math guru by any means. I got as far business cal in college. However, I have always been fascinated with math (and intensely wished it would come easier for me.)

That being said, if I wanted to slowly build up a mathematical foundation (maybe half hour a day), would buying a book like this be right place to start? Or should I be looking elsewhere?

<comment><USER20> It certainly depends on what you're interested in. This is more of an encyclopedia of mathematics than a textbook. If you want an broad idea of many different fields of mathematics and the history behind them, presented in a well-written and relatively elementary style, this is the book for you. However, the problem with being relatively elementary is that most of the articles merely skim the surface of whatever subject they are describing.

If you want to actually be able to solve problems using math (the fun part, for most amateur mathematicians), a textbook would be a better bet. If you stopped math at business calculus and want a great introduction to the calculus that mathematicians use, I wholeheartedly recommend Michael Spivak's _Calculus_ as a next step.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you want to boggle your mind this Christmas I suggest you read GEB. It's not just Math, but Philosophy, AI, programming, logic, human mind, etc. I started reading it last year, and I'm still reading it this year, probably will be next year, year...

<comment><USER22> I second this recommendation, though I suspect most people at HN have already read it. I can also recommend two other books by Hofstadter: _Metamagical Themas_ , and _Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies_

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> A very good physics book is 'Visual Quantum Mechanics' and its sequel, 'Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics'. Don't let the name fool you, this is not a picture book, it's a real mathematical physics books, but with the clearest exposition of QM I'm aware of. It's called "Visual" because of the accompanying Mathematica visualizations.

</comment><comment><USER23> Another highly aesthetic, mostly fun book is Stephen Wolfram's New Kind of Science.

<comment><USER24> I enjoyed reading most of ANKoS, but it is a very different book from the book under review. I trust a collection of articles edited by Timothy Gowers as a guide to the latest carefully considered ideas in mathematics much more than I trust Wolfram's interesting but idiosyncratic personal account of the foundations of mathematics.

Here is a link to links to multiple reviews of A New Kind of Science. Some of the reviews are by quite eminent mathematicians.

<http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~eclark/ANKOS_reviews.html>

<comment><USER17> Cosma Shalizi's review is particularly good because (1) Shalizi knows a lot about the stuff Wolfram is writing about and (2) it is called "A rare blend of monster raving egomania and utter batshit insanity".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Too bad the shell on the cover doesn't show a fibonacci spiral.

<http://www.shallowsky.com/blog/science/fibonautilus.html>

</comment><comment><USER26> I've ordered it (GBP 60!) but it'll have to go a long way to beat _Engineering Mathematics_ by K. A. Stroud.

</comment><comment><USER27> My favorite maths book is "little rudin" - Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Walter Rudin - you can just spend hours reading the same page over and over ...

</comment><comment><USER28> The comments in the original blogpost are moderated. At present no comment is published. Could it be a paid advt?

<comment><AUTHOR> Last night I went to sleep early, so I approved the comments during my morning break. I moderate comments in order to prevent spam and idiots. For example, the only comment on this post that was rejected was along the lines of "You are gay because you read math". I refuse to publish stuff like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Highly recommend Martin Gardner's books. One of my favorite childhood authors.

</comment><comment><USER30> This book is a rarity: a comprehensive survey, with rigor, yet gentle and welcoming to the amateur. The writing is _wonderful_.

One oddity: I keep looking for a mention of Paul Erdos in the book, and haven't found one.

<comment><USER4> Timothy Gowers has an Erdos number of 4.

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

[http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/William-Timothy- Gow...](http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/William-Timothy-Gowers)

<comment><USER12> I didn't believe you, but I've been and checked. Even though he was supervised by Bollobas (Erdos Number 1) he appears never to have co-authored with him, an unusual situation. So it seems that my Erdos Number is smaller than his - perhaps I should offer to co-author a paper with him. I'd get the kudos of co- authoring with a Fields Medal winner ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal> ) and he'd lower his Erdos Number to 3.</comment></comment></comment>


A Russian Poetry Scandal That Ended in a Duel - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/russian-literary-hoax-apollo <comment><USER2> Does anyone know good poetry accounts to follow on Twitter? I follow quite a few accounts that just post quotations or snippets from famous writings. I think this would work well for poetry.

<comment><USER3> Discovery & distribution is a totally unsolved problem for poetry right now. My main project is trying to fix that. We're still pretty early, but you can follow along at [https://verse.press/](https://verse.press/) or [https://twitter.com/versedotpress](https://twitter.com/versedotpress).

If you sign up, you'll get new poetry in your inbox, and personalized recommendations are coming soon. You can also make and share poetry playlists, and it's a beautiful place to link to poems as well.

The short pitch is "Spotify for Poetry". There's a lot in the works! I'd love any feedback or suggestions you may have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Amusing tidbit, possibly ironic: There is a Wikipedia entry for Cherubina de Gabriak, but not one for Elizaveta Dmitrieva - it redirects to the Cherubina entry.</comment>


British Rail Corporate Identity from 1965–1994 - <AUTHOR> http://www.doublearrow.co.uk/home.htm <comment><USER2> I recently purchased the British Rail corporate identity manual [1]. It is such a pleasure to browse through but it is basically the same pages that are posted on the doublearrow website.

There is a resurgence in reviving is these so-called "corporate design manuals" and thanks to hard work from people who have contacts, it has made possible to reproduce them.

Does anyone think today's corporate identities just don't have the same rigor and discipline that was given back in the 1960's and 70's? I've gathered stuff from the 1972 Munich Olympics, IBM design manual, CBC identity, NASA, EPA, most things published by Lars Muller publications, etc. The Swiss design has just eroded away and today's identities feel like they are soulless plastic shells compared to stone-line qualities of old stuff.

I've been reading BrandNew blog for more than 10 years[2]. I've noticed that today's design is about chasing trends which trade away the abstract aspect of "Timelessness".

Perhaps the design noise has always existed but the internet has allowed it to breed and spread?

[1] [https://britishrailmanual.com/](https://britishrailmanual.com/) [2] [https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/](https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/)

<comment><USER3> I believe the text on the spine is upside down. :) vs (: [https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1539/1721/products/British...](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1539/1721/products/British_Rail_Manual_10_1024x1024.jpg)

<comment><USER4> It's peculiar for an English language book to have the text on the spine bottom to top, but it's normal for French and German books.

There was a discussion on HN about this last year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14448636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14448636)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Margaret Calvert, who along with Jock Kinneir, made the defining typeface for the face of British Transport in the era of motorways, air travel and rail somewhat recently collaborated on a modern cut called 'New Rail Alphabet'.

It's possibly my single favourite 'font', not least because it's imprinted into the very core of my being as a standard means of representing information publicly.

[http://www.newrailalphabet.co.uk/](http://www.newrailalphabet.co.uk/)

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, it is extremely expensive. It feels very similar to Helvetica with a pinch of Univers, Neue Haas Grostesk and Proxima Nova.</comment></comment>


More than half of surveyed crypto sites would take money for stories - <AUTHOR> https://breakermag.com/we-asked-crypto-news-outlets-if-theyd-take-money-to-cover-a-project-more-than-half-said-yes/ <comment><USER2> Not surprising.</comment>


Connected TV Backlash? Canada's CRTC to Allow ISPs to Meter Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.appmarket.tv/opinion/804-connected-tv-backlash-more-monopolisation-canadas-crtc-to-allow-isps-to-meter-internet.html <comment><USER2> I doubt it will "crush innovation" - we've been metered since the dawn of broadband in the UK but I don't think we've done too badly in terms of fresh ideas.

<comment><USER3> I was just coming to say the same thing. here in there UK (land of bbc iplayer and now youview.com) metered broadband packages are the norm. all that has happened is that customers have become more aware and he pushed for better deals, and switched isps.

on a side note, so were all Canadian broadband packages unmetered / unlimited use until now? wow, nice, what sort of speeds can most people get?</comment></comment>


Dropship — successor to torrents? - <AUTHOR> http://forwardfeed.pl/index.php/2011/04/24/dropship-successor-to-torrents-eng/ <comment><USER2> This isn't even remotely similar to bittorrent, it's more akin to rapidshare et al. You're completely at the whim of a 3rd party, Dropbox. And I'm pretty sure something like this would violate whatever contract you agree to when signing up.

So no, not a successor to torrents.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure I've seen stuff suggesting that Dropbox occasionally purges copyrighted files from its system (which is made super-easy by the hash fingerprinting system that it uses to deduplicate storage) so I agree that this is not likely to meet most people's use case for torrents; i.e. stealing copyrighted music and films.

I wonder why the github repo has been taken down.

<comment><USER4> Arash (the CTO) asked me to, in a really civil way. So I decided to respect his wish and take down the repository.

Myself, I really regarded dropship as a nice feature. As Dropbox had implemented the great idea of putting all humanity's data in one big hash- addressable vat, sharing is a logical extension. If you would cache the popular blocks locally (dropbox already does this in a way with LAN P2P), global data distribution would be pretty much a solved problem.

Obviously, this affects legal and illegal files in the same way. It's really a shame that people are still so obsessed with the illegal applications, that they become blinded to how useful this is for legal ones.

<comment><USER5> I think that's a very poor business choice by Arash. Third party developers need freedom.

<comment><USER6> They don't want their brand associated with piracy. According to the developer, they have resolved the issue in a civil way. I don't see a problem here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the README, in case it wasn't obvious:

 _"These utilities make use of the deduplication scheme of Dropbox__ to allow for "teleporting" files into your Dropbox account given only a list of hashes, provided of course that the files already exist on their servers. This enables arbitrary, anonymous transfers of files between Dropbox accounts."_

Between this and the minor information leakage issue I suspect Dropbox will be making changes to their deduplication scheme.

A simple way to fix both of these issues is to require each user to upload the complete file once, regardless of whether Dropbox already has it stored. Deduplication in storage and per-user uploading is still possible.

Also interesting to note is the Github repo for this has been deleted. Tarball of the source is still available.

<comment><USER8> Napkin-cryptographic way how Dropbox could fix this while still getting full deduplication: currently, when the client discovers that a file has been added locally, it sends hashes of 4MB blocks, and the server considers the file added.

Additional measure at that point: the server could challenge the client to provide the values of bytes at a couple of arbitrarily chosen byte offsets of the original file. (Could precompute that, provided the queries don't repeat often).

<comment><USER9> What would stop pirates from querying each other (maybe on some P2P network) for those random bytes?

Client A wants the file that Client B has so when Dropbox asks Client A for some random offset, Client A asks Client B in the background and relays the result to Dropbox.

It really depends on how far pirates would be willing to go.

<comment><USER8> Of course, Dropbox can't prevent people from sharing content out of band. But if Client A and Client B are offering arbitrary byte ranges to complete strangers, they are effectively playing BitTorrent again.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but they are only exchanging a constant amount of information to fool the server challenge, whereas we could hope to do better if the server builds challenges which use information that he knows the client has.

For some reason, this inspired me to write a blog post: <http://a3nm.net/blog/deduplication_attacks.html> and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2489594>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From "How does it work?" in the Readme:

        Dropbox its deduplication scheme works by breaking files into blocks.
        Each of these blocks is hashed with the SHA256__
        algorithm and represented by the digest. Only blocks that are not yet
        known are uploaded to the server when syncing.

        By using the same API as the native client, Dropship pretends to sync a
        file to the dropbox folder without actually having the contents. This bluff
        succeeds because the only proof needed server-side is the hash of each 4MB block
        of the file, which is known. The server then adds the file metadata to the folder,
        which is, as usual, propagated to all clients. These will then start downloading
        the file.

It looks like the Github repo was deleted a few hours ago, but the direct download link still works.

<comment><USER12> I still don't get it. Anyone willing to explain?

<comment><USER13> Dropbox avoids having to store multiple copies of huge files by detecting duplicated files, storing only one copy, and letting every user that stores the file download from that one copy. Dropship exploits this system for filesharing by lying to the Dropbox servers and saying that it already owns a copy of the file.

For example, Person A wants to distribute a copy of a CD or something. They upload the file to Dropbox normally. They then use Dropship to create something describing that file, which they then publish. Persons B and C download that descriptor and feed it to Dropship, which tricks Dropbox into thinking that they also own copies of the file. Dropbox then lets Person B and Person C download the file that Person A wanted to distribute, and mission accomplished.

It's all very clever. I like it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's a mirror: <https://github.com/steipete/dropship>

<comment><USER15> And here's a tar mirror on Dropbox: [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7562426/laanwj- dropship-464e1c4.tar....](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7562426/laanwj- dropship-464e1c4.tar.gz)

<comment><USER16> > Restricted Content

> This file is no longer available. For additional information contact Dropbox > Support.

So, Dropbox has censorship? Ni-i-ice.

<comment><USER15> Dear Dropbox User:

We have received a notification under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") from Dropbox that the following material is claimed to be infringing.

/Public/laanwj-dropship-464e1c4.tar.gz

Accordingly, pursuant to Section 512(c)(1)(C) of DMCA, we have removed or disabled access to the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

This is BULLSHIT! Dropbox is censoring this because they don't want it to get out there. What will they censor next?

<comment><USER16> Wow. Either Dropbox have some copyright issues with Dropship's code, or this is just a blatant misuse of DMCA to take down the content. Won't speculate, but I personally suspect the latter.

Wladimir did release the software under FOSS Expat ("MIT") license so he can't really take it back. It's now up to good will of others.

While I understand that this may put Dropbox in unfortunate situation, such methods to take down the problematic piece of software somehow feel wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> forgive what is possibly a very ignorant question, but are there security concerns here? I understand that the key space is immensely huge and that for any file over 4MB in size it would be virtually impossible to guess, but what is to stop someone from just trying hashes for fun to see if they get interesting files?

Like I said for file over 4MB it seems fine, guessing sequential hashes would be all but impossible. I assume the realistic solution is just to encrypt my files (preferably in a truecrypt volume over 4MB in size) if I'm truly concerned.

On a side note, it would be interesting to see if this could be modified to tell me how unique my overall file set is.

<comment><USER18> I see your point here. I hope non-public files are protected from Dropbox's deduplication

<comment><USER19> They aren't. A colleague copied a whole bunch of documentation from his private Dropbox onto my computer; when I then copied it into my Dropbox it took around half a minute to sync and it was a couple hundred MB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think the real successor to torrents was actually its predecessor, and that's binary usenet files. Download speeds are bottleknecked at your own downstream, most providers have SSL support for encryption of everything you download, and there's a plethora of content. People don't really know about it though

<comment><USER21> absolutely. instead of leaving a movie download overnight i leave it for a shower. i hope it never hits mainstream, especially since it's subscription based

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's centralized, not distributed. You are at the whim of dropbox. This is not a successor to torrents at all.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a novel exploit of deduplication, but I don't see how it's practically any better than moving a file into the /Public directory and handing them a URL.

<comment><USER24> Dropbox has bandwidth limits on /Public URLs, particularly low for free accounts. This wholly circumvents that, and I suspect that's the real reason Arash asked for a takedown, not so much the loose association with piracy.

<comment><USER25> Dropbox could do the same for hashes. For example internet cannot download more than 400MB from a hash (4MB) per day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> At last. I'm surprised nobody thought of implementing this earlier. I thought about it, but this being a direct attack on Dropbox, I don't see much value in it. Apart from being unethical, it will only force Dropbox to either remove this very useful feature, or implement a challenge-like system which will render this useless. This will be short-lived code if it spreads.

In fact, I think this "feature" is one of the (many) reasons why Dropbox doesn't have an opensource client. And it isn't exposed it in its so-called "API".

Edit: I just saw that they killed the feature: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2483053>

</comment><comment><USER27> Indeed, great idea/hack but the only issue I can foresee is Dropship becoming very popular for illegal file duplication, bringing forth the attention of the RIAA/publishers etc.. causing legal headaches for our beloved Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER28> A lot to do about this posting: [http://razorfast.com/2011/04/25/dropbox- attempts-to-kill-ope...](http://razorfast.com/2011/04/25/dropbox-attempts-to- kill-open-source-project/)

</comment><comment><USER18> So who is game for setting up a repository site of json hash files?

</comment><comment><USER29> Does anybody have another mirror?</comment>