Ask HN: 1000 signups a week, but how to gain long term engagement?  - <AUTHOR>

Hi, HN frequent reader, infrequent poster looking for advice.
After an embarrassing first release, and an awesome UX/UI redesign of our cloud-based iPhone app, we're pleased to be getting a steady 1000 signups a week on our free app. But we're stumped on how to turn this initial interest into long term engagement for our group productivity app.
The engagement funnel looks like this: we don't advertise much (ad words isn't working for us, banners perform better and in-app ads are ok but not for our target audience: professionals) so through self-driven discovery these new users are coming to us based on App Store searches: Group Messaging, Productivity, Real-time Messaging, Shared Contacts, Shared To-Do's seem to be what's drawing people in. Users have described it as a "peer-to-peer CRM," or an "Evernote for Contacts," or a "Basecamp/Highrise for those who don't know what Basecamp is!"
Next, after installing the app, the sign-up process is easy but we require an email + password based authentication because we support invitations and only want to send out trusted invites. We also give users the options to choose an avatar, and activate location & push notifications. The point is, it's time consuming. Which means the initial engagement, the expectation anyway, is high. About 75% of users are uploading custom avatars. About 80% of users confirm their email address (two-step process).
Last, we offer users an option to invite teammates from either their LinkedIn or Twitter social graph. Again, we're focused on professional users so we avoided Facebook integration. You can also invite teammates later, by email. Perhaps this is our first indication that something's wrong because very few people are using LinkedIn or Twitter invitations.
Finally, users enter the main features of the app. We measure engagement here and find roughly 60% of users create some form of content (Contacts, Status Update, To-Do Item, etc.) so they take the first step.
And then we lose them.
We have about a 35% retention rate the first week, higher in Asia, and then dropping from there. Very few respond to follow-on email prompts or push notifications. They just fade away. Leaving behind a ghost record of their effort & aspirations. Clearly, they were looking for something else. But they signed up, and shared very private info in the hopes of what?
And for those of  you who've read this far, I'm hoping that you've had similar experiences yourselves and overcome them. Whether for a web or mobile app, how have you driven engagement?
Thanks, --ff
PS: I don't think the discussion above is specific to an app, but for reference here's ours: http://fieldforceapp.com
PPS: Holding back on using real names 'cause I obviously can't quit my day job with these numbers! <comment><USER2> _Perhaps this is our first indication that something's wrong because very few people are using LinkedIn or Twitter invitations._

Are you saying that choosing and avatar (or not) and inviting people from LI & Twitter (or not) has to be done to sign up? If so, remove those steps. Signup should be as fast and easy as possible. Get people using the meat of the app ASAP, and worry about silly stuff like avatars later.

I'd ditch the LI/Twitter invite stuff, too, if it's supposed to be for "team members". Team members use email to communicate, not LI/Twitter/FB/Social Media.

EDIT: From your website, I can't tell what your app actually does, and why I should use it. I suspect people who install it don't know those things either, and that's why they abandon it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. The avatar is optional, as are LI/Twitter invites. The signup process is two screens, but I mention the Avatars because people are engaging to this degree at least. And it's 1000's of users doing this, so I'm pretty comfortable that the signup process is OK, but you're right: get people to us the meat quicker. Maybe some guided first steps, for example.

>Team members use email to communicate, not LI/Twitter/FB/Social Media. We agree, everything else is optional.

> From your website, I can't tell what your app actually does Good feedback, > thanks. I should say that the discovery is primarily from the App Store so > the landing page is more focused on describing features in detail, but I > agree with your point: get the primary use case front & prominent.

The problem I have is that there isn't just one use case. At a high-level we combine Twitter (or GroupMe?) with CRM-lite productivity tools. We're selling the tight integration as our primary use case. And so your point would be to tight integration more obvious, and get people using that feature ASAP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you calling your ex-customers and asking them why they left? What they were expecting and what they felt they got?

Looking at the app, you need everyone on the team on it or it doesn't really work? Or are there enough features that someone could use this Solo/with a partial set of team members?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. It's a good idea, try to do a sweep of users who've decided not to engage but the problem is getting them to respond. We send an automated email reminder 1 week after registering to prod people, and have offered online surveys but the response rate is terrible. Still, since we do have email addresses (and their avatars, names, geo location, etc.) we could do a better job of tailoring this query.

>you need everyone on the team on it or it doesn't really work? We tried to strike a balance, the app does work standalone but you're right: the experience is better with a team. I think several apps (Kik, What's App) have set the expectation that it's ok to automatically scan their phone book and identify which users already have the app installed. So far, we've decided not to do this. Feels slimey, but so easy to do.

But your second suggestion is to make it easier to invite others, easier to build a social graph? Yup, we should rethink the UX in that regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You could ask people what they hope to get out of your app before they quit using it. Maybe after their first return or a few page clicks?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We've tried blasting out email surveys, but the response rate has been terrible. I like your idea of in-app guided educational walk thru's.

There's a good UI design pattern website, here: <http://mobile- patterns.com/edu></comment></comment>


Calif. Gov. Newsom gives chief justice broad powers–including suspending laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-28/gov-gavin-newsom-issues-order-giving-californias-chief-justice-broad-powers-during-the-health-crisis <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.is/xGHJL#selection-1693.9-1693.104](https://archive.is/xGHJL#selection-1693.9-1693.104)</comment>


Ask HN: Need advice about my startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi. My name is Ashraful. I am a business student (about to graduate), but I do freelance website design work as well. Portfolio at madebyargon.com for those interested.
I always wanted to launch my own startup and I have managed to save up a few thousand dollars from my freelancing gigs. Nothing significant but enough to get a startup up and running. I planned on building a modern web browser and had convinced a programmer friend of mine (who is very talented) to team up with me. I was very excited about the whole thing, and really thought (and still think) that the idea had a lot of potential if we could execute it properly. I posted the idea for the browser on my blog (http://ashraful.org/introducing-browsr/ and http://ashraful.org/browser-features/), hoping to get some feedback.
While most seemed to be underwhelmed, the idea seemed to have resonated with some big co.s and several lucrative job offers came our way. All of the companies wanted us to join their browser team as programmers, so while my friend is deciding which to join, I am left without a programmer to build the product, and no job offer to mull over.
Being a designer, my coding knowledge is limited to HTML/CSS and some javascript, with zero knowledge of desktop programming. I cannot really move forward on my own and do not know anyone who is capable of building something like this and is interested. Now I am left with two options.
1. I can try to find people interested in building the browser online (if you are interested email me: email@example.com). The problem is I do not have enough money to pay someone to build this, and I know from experience that its difficult to find good programmers who will work for equity.
2. I can abandon the idea for the browser and move forward with a different kind of startup. Other than the browser I have a few ideas for some cool web apps. I am considering starting a company, similar to Kevin Rose's Milk Inc., that focuses on building a few good products. With my savings I can hire two or three good web developers locally (it costs $500/month to hire decent developers where I live). I can continue freelancing as a designer to make enough money to keep the company afloat (operating costs are low), until we have some profitable apps under our belt.
My third option is to go the traditional way of a business grad in my country and get a job at a bank or some FMCG company. Not something I'm interested in doing.
What do you guys think? I would be grateful for some advice or suggestion.
Thanks for reading. <comment><USER2> Of the two... #2 is best but I would avoid trying to balance your own product time and freelance. I did that for years and it got me absolutely no where other than experience. If I were you, I'd join a YC startup as the UX guy... Lots of people are looking for them and your portfolio is impressive enough.

Depending on the stage of the company (letsay recent YC grad). You should be able to score 3-6% plus living wage ($30K to $45K) as well as gain a ton of connections in the valley. That is, if you can pull off the visa stuff.

\---

Failing the visa shenanigans, I would try to form up a company with low tech focus/need. Letsay a mobile ad network, niche ad network, e-commerce, monthly packages (a la manpacks etc.)... I wouldn't go the Kevin Rose way as its hard for you to raise money not living in the US (and Milk doesn't make apps that make direct money) as well as web design not being sustainable as a business.

</comment><comment><USER3> Definitely #2.

Here's what you're advantage is: access to good, cheap developers.

Everybody and their mother is trying to find good, cheap developers.

You are the bridge.

Don't go the traditional consulting route though.

Here's your strategy: provide a one-stop shop for a biz dev founder 'looking for a co-founder'. You can't fart without finding 10 of them.

Only pick ideas that can be quickly monetized (no social, mobile BS...stick with B2B SaaS applications).

If you can float the cost of development (i.e. no out of pocket expenses for the biz dev founder), you take a nice chunk of equity.

You get IP rights (unlike a traditional consulting gig) and you hold the keys to the kingdom (i.e. you keep all source code on your servers under lock and key; biz dev person doesn't get access to source code unless he/she writes you a big check).

Think of it like a technical incubator, where all you're looking for are ideas.

This is a really powerful business model I think you could really knock out of the park!!

Let me know if you need any help on execution! And keeps us posted on your progress.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like #2. Infinite runway from freelancing gives you a lot of options.

As someone leaning toward design rather than programming, you might consider plugging into a platform ecosystem rather than building standalone. In particular I'm thinking Salesforce or 37signals, but I'm sure there are others. Both have big groups of happily paying customers doing real business, and a good framework for API or widget plugins.

Reduces the marketing risk and lets you focus on improving usability instead of starting from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER5> #2 appears to be the most enticing option. Although if you do decide to go with it you can also consider doing #1 with the "decent developers". I am not sure how you intended to create Browsr, but creating a javascript engine and other core browser features is no easy feat, I suggest you use the chromium project (Google Chrome) for the backend (core) and perhaps develop the UI from scratch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Desktop programmers in my country are more traditional minded, and they take jobs at larger companies. Few would be willing to join a startup. I could try nonetheless...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Building a browser sounds like a steep hill to climb. I like #2. I'm a business guy with a startup, and learning how to make money and pay for development myself was a valuable lesson to learn.</comment>


Show HN: CloudRail's New Advanced Request Feature to Extend Unified APIs - <AUTHOR> https://cloudrail.com/access-all-api-features-with-cloudrails-advanced-request/ <comment><AUTHOR> I guess most of you already know our Unified APIs for Cloud Storage, Social and more which let you quickly integrate these providers into your app. Nevertheless unified also means the lowest common denominator which can be a problem for special requirements. Today we launched a feature called Advanced Request which allows you to easily use all features of an API, even if they are not part of the unified API. Looking forward to hear your feedback.

</comment><comment><USER2> As a developer, the first thing I think when I see this is: am I going to be locked into a proprietary solution ? what happens when you suddenly increase your prices or your company goes down ?

What's the advantage of CloudRail vs something like Apache LibCloud ?</comment>


Algorithms for making more interesting mazes - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HermanTulleken/20161005/282629/Algorithms_for_making_more_interesting_mazes.php <comment><USER2> Another interesting aspect of the grid coloring approach is that one can pre- bake larger rooms within a maze, which is useful when adding a maze to a different style game, such as a first-person shooter or an RPG. Other features, which aren't provided by the standard Prim's Algorithm, such as 2.5D mazes (bridges and tunnels), or having more than one path to a given room, can be added after maze generation has been completed. A bridge, for instance, can be added by connecting two locations and adding a wall to block off one of the locations from the algorithmically defined path, if maze continuity is desired.

I played with using mazes as a way to find things that are quickly solved by machines but take some concentration from users, as a sort of anti-CAPTCHA test. Obviously, there are thousands of such potential tests, but mazes have an aesthetic appeal lacking, in say, "find the prime factors of this 128 bit number." A child can brute force a maze, as can any adult, given enough time. A machine breezes right through large mazes that could take hours for a human to solve by hand. When would such a test be useful? I'll leave that to the imagination of the reader.

<comment><USER3> > _A machine breezes right through large mazes that could take hours for a > human to solve by hand. When would such a test be useful? I 'll leave that > to the imagination of the reader._

You could imagine androids using that as a sort of reverse-CAPTCHA to distinguish people from machines and preventing the latter from entering their secret gathering place.

Which brings me to the last episode of Westworld... Boy, I have a theory about the Maze for you...

<comment><USER4> [http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/04/14/meanwhile-in-a- para...](http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/04/14/meanwhile-in-a-parallel- universe-3/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fun article! One thing I've found is that no matter how you tweak them, mazes are rarely fun for players. They are too dense and crowded for a game, and they don't have open space where interesting combat can occur.

They can be a good tool in your toolbox when generating levels, though, if you combine them with others. I wrote a post about one approach a while back:

[http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/12/21/rooms-and- mazes...](http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/12/21/rooms-and-mazes/)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I tend to agree. Pure mazes are great for Pacman and the like but perhaps not much else (and, of course, Bomberman _): as you say, just too dense to be very playable.

_ Even this is debatable because in many variants, destructible walls aside, the layout is substantially similar between levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The grid colorings approach is very cool! I don't think I've seen that one before, I bet you can somehow take that idea even further. You could also get similar effects by creating a regular uncolored (axis-aligned) grid maze and then rotate and re-rasterize it into another grid. But the grid coloring approach looks like it handles the boundary automatically.

One of these years I'll write it up, but I've played a lot with no-grid mazes, and once you get away from the 2d array, it opens up a lot of interesting possibilities. Prim's algorithm works equally well on a mesh where vertices have an arbitrary number of edges...

</comment><comment><USER8> I love maze algorithms. The visualisations by [https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/11357811](https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/11357811) are great for understanding the basic algorithm, and I like the twists in the article.

Never sure how much promotional content should be on here, but the company I work for (Redgate) has a coding challenge related to this. See [http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/entrypage/coding- challen...](http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/entrypage/coding-challenge) if you are interested.

<comment><USER9> I like Mike Bostock's demos of maze-generation algorithms: [https://bost.ocks.org/mike/algorithms/#maze- generation](https://bost.ocks.org/mike/algorithms/#maze-generation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://www.jamisbuck.org/mazes/](http://www.jamisbuck.org/mazes/) was a good resource when I was looking into maze algorithms.

He had (has?) a lot of interesting blog posts on mazes as well.

<comment><USER11> [http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/](http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/)

or if you click on the name of the algorithm in the url you posted it brings you to the blog post about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Completely irrelevant, but in vague hopes my old friend might see the shout out here...

One of my best friends growing up was an artist (whether he considered himself one or not) named Mark Yee who drew incredibly intricate mazes, typically nested inside a dragon as I recall. Wish I still had one of his sketches.

So, if you're out there somewhere Mark, John from Brownsburg says hi!

<comment><USER6> Not this guy, by any chance? [https://sites.google.com/site/markyeedesign/](https://sites.google.com/site/markyeedesign/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really cool. I find procedural generation invaluable for the games I'm working on. So far I'm just using it for background graphics but I'm planning to start working on a maze-based game fairly soon for which this article will provide a great jumping off point.

<comment> V-2 I've always played with the thought (too lazy to ever get down to it) about multi-dimensional mazes. They could be very small, but still make for mind- boggling puzzles.

Even a 4D maze; let's call it a 3D maze with time-travelling. Could be just 3 "squares" deep in the 4th dimension for a start: "yesterday", "today" and "tomorrow".

<comment><USER13> > Even a 4D maze; let's call it a 3D maze with time-travelling. Could be just > 3 "squares" deep in the 4th dimension for a start: "yesterday", "today" and > "tomorrow".

Have you seen this?

"Miegakure [Hide & Reveal] is a game where you navigate a four-dimensional world to perform miraculous feats and solve puzzles."

[http://miegakure.com/](http://miegakure.com/)

Mind-boggling is a good word for it!

<comment> V-2 This looks super interesting, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's a-maze-ing.</comment>


Show HN: Uppy.io – The next file uploader for web browsers - <AUTHOR> https://uppy.io/examples/dashboard/ <comment><AUTHOR> Please play around with the demo. Uppy is open source, modular, supports importing from Dropbox, Instagram, tagging metadata, resumable file uploads via tus.io, React, etc. We want to launch 1.0 soon, but would first like your feedback so we can still get possibly breaking features in.

</comment><comment><USER2> Whoa, this is awesome. It's a work of millions of people and lines of code, and it's MIT licensed.

Although [http://www.dropzonejs.com/](http://www.dropzonejs.com/) is still great, this looks much better, it supports many plugins. I'm very impressed.

<comment><USER2> The company behind it ([https://transloadit.com/](https://transloadit.com/)) is also impressive.

> We handle file uploads, resize, crop and watermark your images, make GIFs, > transcode your videos, extract thumbnails, generate audio waveforms, and so > much more.

All that with a generous free tier.

(Obs.: I'm not related to these people, had never heard of them until now.)</comment></comment>


Kickstarter Bans Bulk Reward Tiers - <AUTHOR> http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/23564.html

<comment><USER2> I'd like to know the rationale behind the policy change.

Is there some form of abuse or nonpayment going on? Some law or regulation that's being violated? Some way they're circumventing fees?</comment>


Facebook Down? - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/sorry.php?msg=account

<comment><USER2> <http://www.facebook.com/sorry.php?msg=account>

Is the link to the "facebook is currently down" page, it will always show that exact message.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/facebook.com>

tl;dr? It's up.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yep, but keep getting that message each time surf to <http://www.facebook.com/> this AM?

<comment><USER2> Its up for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> yep - back up now - down for about 45 minutes for me. cheers.</comment></comment></comment>


Flipkart acquires Myntra in India's largest e-commerce deal, takes on Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/22/flipkart-myntra-acqusition/

<comment><USER2> Both are loss making companies</comment>


Researchers create tattoo that tracks sodium and glucose via iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://bostinnovation.com/2011/07/22/northeastern-creates-tattoo-that-tracks-sodium-and-glucose-via-an-iphone/

<comment><USER2> _> All diabetics could now measure their glucose levels without having to take a finger-prick_

All of my investment dollars. Take them.

<comment><USER3> If this works, and scales, then it will be fantastic. It will also be disruptive to the ~$450B diabetes industry.

<comment><USER4> How much of that is type 1?

Because I doubt type 2 diabetics would have much benefit from this.

<comment><USER5> Many Type II diabetics need to test their blood sugar levels as well.

<comment><USER3> Right and most hate doing it because it hurts, so they don't. This will make it painless (after getting the tattoo) to continuously monitor your blood sugar level. Sweet (pun intended).

<comment><USER6> Does anybody know why they prick in the part of the finger used for touching? This seems like one of the most sensitive parts of the human body.

<comment><USER7> According to Dr. Bernstein, the fingertips show an immediate response to changes in blood sugar. I lent the book out or I'd provide the full explanation he gave.

<comment><USER8> As a type I diabetic, I use both my forearm and my finger tip for testing. While I find both to be almost painless (admittedly I may have built up a tolerance) arm does hurt slightly less, and more importantly, does not callus like the finger tip. However, in times of rapid blood sugar fluctuation, arms are delayed by about 10-20 minutes, where as fingers are not.

<comment><USER4> Interesting, I assumed the delay would be more like a few seconds or half a minute at most.

Still, why not do it on the side of the finger? It has to be as updated as the tip, but it has a lot less nerve endings.

<comment><USER8> Sides hurt (me) more. Don't ask why, no idea. I know some doctors suggest the sides, for that exact reason however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's a lot of major things here.

1) Tattoo is invisible. No stigma attached. 2) No blood drawn for testing for various materials 3) If processing and power get consolidated onto the phone, this will be massively portable and accessible to the masses, assuming they manufacture large quantities of the case.

Currently, the iPhone is basically just a camera chassis. You could achieve the same effect by building a case for your cheap little Canon Powershot, which has the benefit of including a removeable SD card.

<comment><USER10> Yes, the iPhone is currently just a camera chassis, but it's a network-enabled camera chassis. As the article said, they want to write an iPhone application to do the analysis immediately instead of offloading it to a desktop computer. If the processing is too heavy, the iPhone still has the advantage of being able to zap the image off to a server that can munge it and return the results. Easier than schlepping an SD card back to your PC.

<comment><USER11> Using an iPhone still feels like a clumsy solution. I think the real application will use some ASIC in your insulin pump to do the processing, and immediately adjust the dosage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _The specialized solution is made up of 120-nanometer-wide polymer droplets. The droplets consist of a fluorescent dye, sensor molecules designed specifically bind to certain target molecules (in this case, sodium or glucose) and neutralizing ions._

Hmm.... could this turn into a more generic approach of antibody based tattoos which could detect a large range of things, including bacterial and viral infections?

And the exam would consist of you snapping a picture of your arm every morning which is automatically sent to a Watson like computer for analysis. (Well it wouldn't have to be Watson level AI, it's either positive for something or not.)

<comment><USER13> Yep. Also in this class of ideas are little chips floating around in your blood that automatically release drugs when they recognize a pathogen, and stuff that makes your poop change color when it notices bad things happening (seriously, this exists).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is pretty fantastic. So very many applications for such a technology. Obviously the primary indication for the technology in its current stage of development, quantifying blood sugar levels, is in and of itself, a large enough market to make this attractive. But this is early stage.

Consider the possibilities for the next stages of development:

\- Advancing the formulation to obviate the need for a "tattoo." The next generation could be a solution simply applied to the skin that would penetrate deeply enough over a short period of time to test blood glucose without the need for a tattoo. The real time, point-of-care diagnostic frontiers, cost reduction, and other factors implied here are phenomenal.

\- The article mentions glucose, sodium, and oxygen levels in the blood. The "sensor molecules" simply bind to the target molecule or ion and change the fluorescence, providing a reading. Think about the applications for other ions, lipids, amino acids, and even proteins and cytokines using antibodies. Molecular binding assays are prevalent across many, if not most, diagnostic assays. This could have application in such a wide range of indications it boggles the mind.

\- Combining the testing to assess for multiple diagnoses in the same test. Think of a kind-of multiplex assay (such as an ELISA) in a single unit. iPhone aside (which is an awesome way to do it), think of a single unit that applies 50-100 small droplets of solution on the skin and sends a focused LED for testing each droplet individually (think of a bunch of small capillary straws, instead of the hundreds of needle pricks such as in an allergy test).

Glucose for diabetes: check.

Sodium for evaluation of electrolyte levels, kidney and adrenal function, cystic fibrosis disease state: check.

Bacterial infection (nosocomial infections especially, like MRSA), viral infections, toxin screening, hepatitis, rheumatic disorders, cancer, the list goes on and on...

Again, fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER15> This sounds awesome, and the potential to monitor other chemical levels is even more exciting. My concerns:

Do the polymers wear out? Presumably they are binding to the target chemical. Can they rebind afterward? Does the body clear out the polymers at all?

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know if this could be used to detect alcohol levels?

<comment><USER14> I would think it certainly could. Whether it SHOULD, depends on the reason for testing blood alcohol levels:

Blood alcohol vis-a-vis alcohol intoxication: With widespread use of breathalyzers, I don't know if this technology would be an improvement. Having to get a tattoo to test for blood alcohol levels seems overkill (at least the tattoo would be necessary in the current stage of the technology's development). While not perfect, available technology (IMO) seems to be doing a sufficient job.

Liver disorders, cirrhosis, hepatitis, other liver disease: There are other diagnostics more appropriate than testing for blood alcohol content (BAC)for these. Ethanol is metabolized by the liver relatively quickly.

There may be applications for testing blood alcohol, but I don't think this technology is enough of an improvement to make it viable. A doctor may disagree. That is just my opinion.

<comment><USER16> Oh I was thinking the ink would be worth $$$ for tattoos that only show up when you're drinking - like little details like flames that appear around an otherwise unadorned area, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We're getting so close to that tricorder I can taste it. Keep it up guys!

</comment><comment><USER18> This is huge for diabetics. Not only will this alleviate some of their suffering, but it will make it easy to compare how the bodies of both diabetics and non-diabetics react to sugar. That will help optimize medication and help prevent overdosing on insulin.

My dad actually lost his vision to diabetes, which began a downward spiral of inactivity and isolation and eventually life in a nursing home. If he had been tightly monitored, that could have been prevented.</comment>


How to block email trackers and read reciepts - <AUTHOR> https://blog.leavemealone.app/how-to-block-email-trackers-and-read-reciepts/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, author here. To help with this we've also created an Adblock/uBlock list that will block tracking pixels.

[https://github.com/leavemealone-app/email- trackers](https://github.com/leavemealone-app/email-trackers)</comment>


Daily Mail aviation prizes - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail_aviation_prizes

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted in response to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=770268> as an alternative model for making progress in space.</comment>


Cashbadge.io – Verify your income, get recognized for your hard work - <AUTHOR> hmm, this would make a really cool decentralized app if you asked me, i'm kinda imagining like a suite of validated client smart contracts for who you work with, could extend that to online virtual service providers like upwork and even course making for the amount of hours you have provided ;)<p>Link https://www.cashbadge.io/ <comment><USER2> I think that I'm missing something here -- what is the connection between what a person's income is and how trustworthy they are?</comment>


As DevOps takes off, site reliability engineers are flying high - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/25/as-devops-takes-off-site-reliability-engineers-are-flying-high/ <comment><AUTHOR> "What we are seeing now and predicting into the future is the rise of site reliability engineer as a title relating to the practice of DevOps and better describing the work to be done. At the time of our writing, there are more than 9,000 open roles for SREs on LinkedIn, a number that is only growing."</comment>


I'm an Idiot - <AUTHOR> https://www.raywenderlich.com/165042/rwdevcon-2017-inspiration-talk-im-idiot-richard-turton <comment> d--b Starting reading this I thought that I wasn't an idiot, and then I realized that I internalized most of what's there.

For instance, I've given up trying to avoid off-by-one issues in complex loops, I'm just writing the loop, testing it, and then see if it's off-by-one or not.

Another example is that I know that I get really confused by not-even-complex logic expressions. It takes me ages to get what !(a || !b) means, and then I am not sure at all I'm right.

I totally relate to the author's problem with max(0,min(1,x)), I've screwed that one so many times.

</comment><comment><USER2> Seems to basically be about overcoming perfectionism and getting over your big ego, both of which are common problems. It is better than I expected it to be:

 _Yes, you can do things like this. You can use custom operators, you can wrap things in things that process things and give you a thing all in one line of code. But are you actually helping anyone, or are you just masturbating in public about how clever you are?_

</comment><comment><USER3> Well. It's one thing when we think that about ourselves, another thing when we think or say that about others.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think he's wrong with Step 2, but the beginning of the talk is fine.

<comment><USER5> let me guess, you didn't actually watch the talk...

because everyone _is_ an idiot by his definition. nobody knows a new programming language before they actually learned to work with it, and making notes does help everyone to remember things. and yes, writing unintuitive code to save a few lines is always a bad idea, unless you're the sole developer and aren't planning on actually maintaining the product.

you could argue that his definition is wrong though. not sure what you'd want to achieve by that though, considering that its clearly meant for people with imposter syndrome.

<comment><USER4> I was making a joke...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> AN not A

<comment><USER7> well you were warned of the idiocy...

<comment><USER8> Not at that point in the sentence!</comment></comment></comment>


Picture Perfect: AI-Powered Photo Enhancement Coming to a Smartphone Near You - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/09/21/gpu-powered-picsart-magic-effects/ <comment><USER2> Sounds (and looks) very similar to what the Prisma app does: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neuralpris...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neuralprisma&hl=en)

In fact, the "Dystopia" filter in PicsArt Magic Effects appears to be based on the same artwork as the "Transverse Line" artwork in Prisma.

<comment> semi-extrinsic "Prisma is over capacity. There are too many people using Prisma now, please try again later."

First time I've seen an app get slashdotted. (HNed doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?)

<comment><USER3> I don't think that's the HN effect: Prisma is pretty popular and has been prominently featured on news sites over the past few months. I've run into this message a few times (it's a really cool app)

<comment><USER4> I can't imagine how Prisma is still alive. It must be ridiculously expensive to run. All the neural style transfer algorithm calculations multiplied by 10-50 million installs is quite insane.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I've wondered that too - unless I'm mistaken it's all done server-side, and they're not able to offload compute to the phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, they are doing some sort of picture processing (probably a CNN) in the cloud and based on it apply a variety of filters locally, on the phone. That means they don't have to run the processing again for every adjustment.

It's a nice idea, but isn't it already becoming crowded in this app segment?

</comment><comment><USER4> All of the examples look like someone just installed Photoshop and applied random filters, totally destroying the original, and making it look like cr@p.

Enhancement it is not.</comment>


Ginzametrics (YC S10) 2 Day Special - Part of YC Week - <AUTHOR> http://appsumo.com/yc-week-ginzametrics-seo

<comment><USER2> I use it on okdork and appsumo. Personally it helps me find the keywords that convert the best.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe I'm being dense, but can someone explain what I'm getting and how exactly I'm supposed to be saving?

It says I get Starter plan, value $228, that is $19/month. I cannot see a plan with such name nor price: <http://www.ginzametrics.com/pricing.html>

What are this service's unique selling points? Its "Feature Tour" shows:

SEO Dashboard Overview - I cannot read what is on X nor Y axis of this graph, description doesn't say either and I cannot zoom in.

Monitor Search Engine Rankings - I'm not very much into SEO, but... am I supposed to pay for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> The Starter Plan is only being through the duration of this deal, and is available once you log in.

There are quite a few features in the menu on the left hand side in addition to the page you mention (though I do need to make the screenshots zoomable - thanks for the reminder).

> I'm not very much into SEO, but... am I supposed to pay for this?

There is an assumption that signing up for an SEO service would be proceeded by some interest in SEO. ;-)

EDIT: changed the first sentence for clarification.

<comment><USER4> AppSumo should be careful with deals like this, I don't know what the case is in the US, but under UK law if you make a sales offer you have to have sold the product at the claimed full price previously (or otherwise make it very clear that the product hasn't been sold before).

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know. FWIW, the starter plan was available before the AppSumo deal (though not for long - it began as an experiment) and is also available to any other existing user. I just plan to turn it off after the deal ends to move things over to my new pricing plans, but decided to keep it alive long enough for this deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just realized that you need to enter CC details in order to activate the 12 month offer. Should probably mention it on the offer page (or it just skipped my eye)

<comment><USER2> Good call Paras. Updated.

<comment><USER5> Ginzametrics guys are helping me on Live chat regarding this. Their support looks great!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> PS- Ginzametrics rules! In case my upvote wasn't enough of an endorsement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What about sites and keywords in other languages? This would be useful to us if it somehow didnt put a lot of english keywords together with the italian ones

<comment><AUTHOR> That is supported. Usually people target one major market with each site, so you could segment sites based on country, which defaults to the main language in that country. If you have multiple languages in the same country, all on the same site, you'll be interested in some upcoming features. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am already registered for the free ginzametrics plan. I just plonked down $17 and got my code, but it says to use the code when I registered. How do I use the code to Upgrade my existing plan?

 _[edit: After discussion with Ray, click on the Starter Plan on the Accounts screen. Enter your code on the checkout form. The price will change from $17/mo to $0. Enter your CC info (not charged), and submit.]_

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm online now to walk through any questions.

In order to use the upgrade, you can click on your plan name, choose the starter plan and then enter the discount code on the order form. It will show $0 for 12 months before you finalize the upgrade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice work Ray, glad to see more mentions of your service.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How many websites can you track with this package?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is for 1 site.

<comment><USER11> Should it be one site for the whole year or can I swap for another every few months?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the site that you set up the plan with. I haven't created the feature yet that lets you swap plans like that but I probably will at some point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Miniflux is a minimalist and opinionated feed reader - <AUTHOR> https://miniflux.app/ <comment><USER2> There's something terribly wrong when the first feature listed is "optimized for readability" and it's written in light-gray on white font so that I can barely make it out.

Higher contrast is a necessity.

Also, "No dependencies" and "Depends on PostgreSQL" are contradictory.</comment>


Facebook's Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/technology/facebook-data-subpoenas.html <comment><USER2> IANAL. But this:

"reports last June and December that Facebook had given business partners — including makers of smartphones, tablets and other devices — deep access to users' personal information, letting some companies effectively override users' privacy settings."

suggests breach-of-contract. Just by creating those privacy settings, the company is 'saying' to (promising) the customer who elects to use them that it will protect that information. That's an (implied) contract. Subsequently allowing anyone else to access that information is a breach.

It'd be interesting to see FB argue in court that breaking promises was okay as a form of restitution for the services they provide.

<comment><USER3> If it's for one user then it's a breach of contract, if you do that for 10 million, that's a deliberate act of breaching all contracts and that is usually criminal.

scale matters on these issues as well.

and if you are doing it as a big utility company (e.g. banks) then you are free to go :)

<comment><USER2> The bank I've long used is constantly reminding me that it shares data with its 'affiliates'. So I give it very little data to share.

<comment><USER4> This sounds like an absurdity, hiding your information from your bank?

<comment><USER5> Fake address is a good start... Like a PO box you own. Banks are the worst offenders in sharing data with... Data brokers.

<comment><USER6> Get a better bank. And better banking regulation. I'm pretty sure Dutch (and probably European) banks aren't allowed to share their customers' data around like that, and I'm horrified that there are banks that do this.

<comment><USER7> Well, the largest Dutch payment provider did intend to sell payment data: [https://nos.nl/artikel/510009-banken-verkopen-pingedrag- klan...](https://nos.nl/artikel/510009-banken-verkopen-pingedrag-klanten.html)

(They've since retracted that plan after the plan was met with widespread disapproval. I don't think they've tried again since.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did anybody else catch this?

> Apple was able to hide from Facebook users all indicators that its devices > were even asking for data.

I've seen a lot of discourse here seem to favor Apple over the big "G" but... this seems pretty shady. Anyone else know anything about this practice or what specifically they might've been referring to?

<comment><USER9> Apple fights the privacy battles on its users behalf only where it sees a PR benefit, like the high publicity FBI's iPhone encryption dispute a few years ago.

<comment><USER10> wprq: So which phone does a concerned person buy?

<comment><USER11> iOS device with iOS 11 or newer (current devices are on iOS 12)... or don't log into Facebook on an older device.

This isn't Apple cynically hiding selling your data behind your back. Back when they had Facebook integrated it was so that you could share stuff easier with your friends. Yes it was a security risk because of how Facebook used the information. That is part of the reason Apple removed the integration.

<comment><USER12> > This isn't Apple cynically hiding selling your data behind your back.

It's just both a grave security mistake and a breach of trust to treat Facebook preferentially without letting the user know.

To me, it's indistinguishable from cynically handing over the user to Facebook.

<comment><USER13> > It's just both a grave security mistake and a breach of trust to treat > Facebook preferentially without letting the user know.

The user knew. The user _asked_ for it. People were howling for Facebook integrations. This was back before Facebook's privacy transgressions were as widely known.

It's also worth noting that the integration was designed to allow posting to Facebook from iOS. Facebook then took advantage of that opening to get additional data from the device. That's why Apple slammed the door shut.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ok, so those partnerships were basically allowing Samsung and others to build Facebook app on their phones (i.e. allowing alternative client).

Would this means that it will be criminal to allow companies to create alternative clients? That is really interesting development.

<comment><USER15> Samsung devices shipped with the same Facebook client app as on the Google Play store, it wasn't an alternative. The back end data access was through other means.

<comment><USER14> Not all samsung devices had android at that time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was personally involved in a leadership role in one of these key strategic deals while at a major handset maker.

To be clear, we built the 'Facebook experience' for our device because only we really could. During this era, APIs were a disaster of a mess, moreover, the special API that made the device so special was not available to the public. Ironically it was _our_ internal APIs that were making the special sauce!

For this purpose, Facebook provided users of the app we designed access to their own profiles. Obviously, this is a fairly wide API and it had to be made available specially for users of our app.

At no time did we ever have access to FB users private information. At no time did anyone even remotely suggest anything inappropriate or nefarious. There were simply no moral or legal discussions on this front because it was moot.

The situation, net, was akin to Facebook having hired a 3rd party to design an app for them, giving that app the internal FB API necessary to function, and then distributing the app.

This isn't an issue of 'times have changed' or 'looking back we'd have done something different' rather - I can affirm that there was simply no bad acting, no breach of individuals accounts, and no undue risk to individuals accounts.

Obviously this situation is very specific, and that conditions will have varied.

If FB was truly giving Bing special access without people's consent - this is a big problem.

The Cambridge issue - well - this is a tricky one because Cambridge merely took advantage of the API's the entire world had access to. There was little if any discussion of the inherent problems with those APIs, and when it looked like maybe they were being abused, Facebook did the right thing and closed them. They even went ahead and investigated Cambridge to ensure the data was gone, and Cambridge presented them with evidence that it had been deleted. I think in this case Facebook was a responsible actor.

Clearly there are more situations to consider, but we should be thoughtful in terms of how we approach newly released information and not get caught up with the mob.

Personally, I loathe the koolaid mob that built Facebook up, but I'm equally loathe the hate mob wanting to take them down.

<comment><USER17> I'm so glad you wrote this. It's mind-bogglingly stupid what people are saying about the nefarious purposes this stuff was put to when that's obviously so far from the case and EVERYBODY involved in working on this stuff 10 years ago understands it.

<comment><USER16> I should add that it's possible there were some loose ends in some other scenarios. I don't think we deeply considered our situation, to the point wherein there might have been some loopholes with caches etc..

At the time, nobody considered the issue to be hugely problematic, it was 'info on a site' and we treated it responsibly, but not like top secret data.

Also, we had no reason to want user data. Today, companies may or may not be able to use such data, but they all seem to be in the game of collecting user information as a systematic impetus. I think this will evolve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "It is not clear when the grand jury inquiry, overseen by prosecutors with the United States attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York, began or exactly what it is focusing on."

What is NYT source for this story?

A leak about the existence of an investigation?

NYT journalist saw entries for grand jury subpoenas on PACER?

How do they know the crime has to do with data deals?

We must wait until complaint is filed before anyone can disclose the statute allegedly violated, correct?

<comment><USER19> "according to two people who were familiar with the requests and who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential legal matters."

Yes, there is a lot (more) we would like to know.

But this is as good a time as ever to do a little experiment regarding the practice of anonymous sources: at some point, we are likely to learn more about this investigation. Then, you can check if the information we have now was correct. Or, as the common accusation goes, it was a wholesale fabrication by the Times.

<comment><USER18> Thank you. Sadly, I missed that line.

It sounds like a leak from within Facebook or another tech company on the receiving end of one of these requests.

I always thought grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret. Maybe this explains the anonymity. I guess it is not unusual for the fact of the existence of proceedings to leak and for media to speculate? Does this have potential to negatively affect the outcome?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> At this point it is just an investigation. Nobody has been charged with anything. They have to find a law Facebook has broken first, and presumably establish enough evidence that they expect to succeed at a trial.

<comment><USER21> Do you have any idea what charges these may be? IFAIU, there're no laws which make it criminal to share information.

<comment><USER22> If even a single byte leaked, I guess the charges can include being accessory to identity fraud?

<comment><USER21> Criminal charges assume intent, and it's very hard to think that facebook as a company had intent of committing identity fraud.

<comment><USER23> Crimes do not always require intent. It depends on what the statute says specifically.

<comment><USER21> Yes, there're such crimes, but there aren't so many of them.

<comment><USER24> There are _lots_ of crimes that require a mental state less than intent (either recklessness or criminal negligence, mostly, though there are some strict liability crimes, and the weird case of "malice aforethought" for common law murder which is narrower than recklessness but just slightly broader than only intent.)

<comment><USER21> Recklessness and negligence require some understanding of what you are doing and that it's wrong. So, it's really hard to commit them by mistake.

<comment><USER24> > Recklessness and negligence require some understanding of what you are doing > and that it's wrong.

Negligence specifically does not, it only requires the existence of a duty of care (except not in specialized cases, that of reasonable care, which doesn't mean _you_ are aware of risk, but that a reasonable person in your place would be.) Recklessness requires conscious awareness and disregard of _risk_ , but not awareness of _wrongness_.

Harms from recklessness are mistakes, while recklessness itself is not, but negligence is quite normally a mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > F.T.C. officials, who spent the past year investigating whether Facebook > violated the 2011 agreement, are now weighing the sharing deals as they > negotiate a possible multibillion-dollar fine. That would be the largest > such penalty ever imposed by the trade regulator.

A multibillion dollar fine? That's great, but even greater would be to put Facebook's exces behind bars. A CEO shouldn't walk away with a stuffed bank account after years of criminal offences, violating the privacy of millions of people all around the world and then not take any personal responsibility for it in front of our jurisdiction. The fine is attributed to Facebook, but there also needs to be a heft penalty for the people who ran Facebook and that is the executive team. Jail terms must be given. In the long term this will set an important precedent and detract possible future offenders!

<comment><USER26> > _but even greater would be to put Facebook 's exces behind bars._

What is with this place wanting to throw everyone in prison? Is there some thrill you get from seeing executives in an orange jumper?

Fines can be _far_ more beneficial to society. Make them pay in a way that actually helps other people.

<comment><USER27> Moral indignation is the new chic

<comment><USER28> Better to just let people get away with whatever they want, right?

I mean, as long as the crime made a lot of money, it can't really be a crime, surely?

<comment><USER27> It's better to be rational about creating the right incentives to prevent socially damaging behavior rather than stoking moral indignation disconnected from any semblance of benefit to society. How the left became the torch- bearers for unreflective moral indignation and retributivism is beyond me.

<comment><USER29> > It's better to be rational about creating the right incentives to prevent > socially damaging behavior rather than stoking moral indignation > disconnected from any semblance of benefit to society.

I hope you apply the same rubric to shoplifting, drug posession, and the dozens of other non-violent crimes that get people put in jail regularly. Otherwise this is just a justification for keeping power unaccountable.

<comment><USER27> Absolutely. I think free will is a terrible concept that only serves to justify our retributive tendencies. Our entire approach to criminal justice needs an overhaul.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No indication of what the charges are? The closest thing in the article is:

> _the partnerships seemed to violate a 2011 consent agreement between > Facebook and the F.T.C_

which doesn't seem like it would be criminal?

Does the US actually have criminal laws regarding selling data? Any educated guesses on what's actually going on?

<comment><USER31> Attorney here!

Violation of a consent decree can result in criminal contempt-of-court charges. See 18 U.S.C. section 401 ([https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/401](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/401)). See also United States v. Schine, 125 F. Supp. 734 (W.D.N.Y. 1954).

<comment><USER30> Interesting, thanks! Who at the company could reasonably be jailed for such a thing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Facebook isn't doing anything worse than what Acxiom and other data brokers have been doing for decades. None of it is criminal without any general purpose data protection laws. This is just pitchfork populism.

<comment><USER33> _Facebook isn 't doing anything worse than what Acxiom and other data brokers have been doing for decades_

Because other people are doing bad things, it's OK for Facebook to do bad things.

I'm not sure that's how the law works.

<comment><USER34> What?

That's literally how the law works. What "bad things" we prohibit people from doing is determined by law.

We don't have laws regulating the gathering and trade of data on populations or individuals.

<comment><USER35> Did you read the article?

> Privacy advocates said the partnerships seemed to violate a 2011 consent > agreement between Facebook and the F.T.C., stemming from allegations that > the company had shared data in ways that deceived consumers.

That (among other things) is what's landing Facebook in legal trouble.

The 2011 FTC consent agreement itself does carry the force of law, which means that if Facebook breaks the terms, it's breaking the law and penalties can be assessed.

<comment><USER34> I failed to add a qualifier (as in "good" laws, "robust" laws, etc.), but the comment I was responding to was a broad generalization and not specific to this case.

I was aiming at the notion that "this isn't how the law works".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There has been a tremendous amount of grassroots lobbying, fundraising, and private investigation in New York over the past two years with respect to Facebook. It's a serious area I feel Silicon Valley has abdicated its moral obligation to stand up to its own. Hoping we can develop the evidence that comes out of this case into criminal charges for individual engineers and senior officers.

<comment><USER37> So let's incriminate engineers for building a faulty airplane too.

<comment><USER38> When you hold yourself to the same legal and social standards as actual accredited engineers, of the type who build things like airplanes, you'll be in a better position. Right now the software works wants the benefits of the unregulated Wild West, without the consequences. Such a scenario simply cannot last, and in the absence of self regulation and setting of standards, the legal system will step in. It's slow, it's clumsy, and it's inevitable.

<comment><USER39> Quality software exists and is written by talented engineers. Its written in specific languages and is tested on specific hardware configurations and verifiable. These things cost a bit more. I'm sure if the mass market were willing to bear an enormous cost this would already be solved. Unfortunately I doubt you or your cohorts are willing to pony up $2,999,999 USD a seat (Minimum order 500).

<comment><USER38> In your fantasy, why does a "seat" cost orders of magnitude more than a first class round trip to Australia in an actual seat? On that note, in the same way that I prefer a more expensive seat on a plane that was designed in accordance with professional and legal standards, yes I'd do the same for software.

Maybe there would even be less cruft and bloatware when externalities were accounted for.

<comment><USER39> The seat is a reference to a software license. Airlines are economies of scale, this is a small run of software that would meet your expectations to run and be verified to do so. Are you aware how much it costs to develop an airplane? It's more than the cost of a single ticket.

<comment><USER38> Make your software to the same fine degree as one makes an airplane and maybe you'd even deserve the prices you quoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> FB Response: [https://twitter.com/fbnewsroom/status/1105993038671691776?s=...](https://twitter.com/fbnewsroom/status/1105993038671691776?s=21)

> It's already been reported that there are ongoing federal investigations, > incl. by the Dept of Justice. As we've said, we're cooperating w/ > investigators and take those probes seriously. We've provided public > testimony, answered questions, and pledged that we'll continue to do so

<comment><USER41> Does anyone ever say they're not cooperating with investigators?

<comment><USER42> Roger Stone?

<comment><USER41> Okay let me amend that, does anyone except Roger Stone do that? :-) Like I obviously don't mean this 100% literally (obviously someone does this somewhere), but I'm trying to ask whether the statement really carries any weight not.

<comment><USER42> Nah, snark aside, you're right. "We're cooperating with the investigation" is largely PR speak for "we're doing the absolute minimum that's legally required of us, and we're doing _that_ as slowly as possible".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> When are all the revelations going to end? It's been every few months for the past five years.

<comment><USER44> They're a regular Wells Fargo.

<comment><USER45> Then they'll be perfectly fine in the long run. Maybe Warren Buffett can even get in on some shares at a discount.

<comment><USER44> Seems likely. Probably a large, meaningless fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Facebook is a criminal corp. And indeed when you are selling data to clients that resell or do with the data as they please (including mining them) they should be under criminal investigation. Thank God the FBI exists and counting for the day that criminal charges are brought against executives who broke the law.

<comment><USER47> Considering they are accused of broad criminal activity, your statement should be considered a valid expression of public opinion on the matter, and should not be downvoted.

<comment><USER48> First, the post is sensationalist populism that only serves to pull the conversation down and cause shouting matches.

Second, Facebook is not currently "accused of broad criminal activity". They are being investigated for breach of a consent decree, which _may_ lead to criminal charges, which in turn _may_ be broad.

<comment><USER47> Excuse me for being short, but common sense analysis by a technically inclined person results in the nearly undeniable conclusion that fb exceeded reasonable monopolistic boundaries long ago, and presumed itself to be, under Zuck's leadership, to be so important as to be responsible, e.g. for "maintaining integrity of elections". It's no exaggeration that he fancies himself the leader of a sovereign nation, backed by an army of lawyers and special interest connections private and government.

In public testimony, imo Zuck came across as a smug mob boss intent on accumulating power without bound. The recent pivoting, conspiracy theory rumors that shall remain nameless accusing Zuck of rogue cia cooperation, news releases about criminal shenanigans surrounding data sharing coinciding with the excessive global downtime yesterday, and now his consligere departing, all look suspicious.

At the least, it's an obvious monopoly controlling a significant cultural aspect of a global social graph. Now they are moving to undo the messaging unification. Last week they wanted gossipers to have more privacy so they can gossip and get away with it better.

I admit to being biased, but given my direct research on how data moves around the Facebook world whether a member or not, whether you have blacklisted any fb domains using little snitch etc, disable all remote js, doesn't matter, they keep tabs on you somehow. they are essentially their own intelligence community with unchecked power and reach

The accusation from Voldemort is they had or have secret deals with telcom etc which if true is beyond insidious. Ianal but common sense wise if that's true, they should be broken up and not simply by undoing messaging unification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The fact that FB and all of its services were down at the same time can't really be a coincidence, can it?

Is Facebook trying to delete incriminating evidence? It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did that. I hope the prosecutors are smart enough to look for evidence of this, even though I'm sure FB's experts will try to leave as few traces as possible.

</comment><comment><USER50> OT: While I like how FB is recently struggling, I have to say that their open source contributions and the teams working on those are by far the best in this industry. I hope they keep up doing this great work despite all their problems.

<comment><USER51> by far?

redhat, ibm, (linux, java, etc) for starters...

<comment><USER52> Intel (Linux, Mesa), Microsoft (VS Code, .Net core, Python, Language Server Protocol)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> See also, for the next likely criminal investigation:

[http://www.plainsite.org/realitycheck/facebook.html](http://www.plainsite.org/realitycheck/facebook.html)

<comment><USER54> That page reads like a mishmash. Fake sites is it? "Plainsite not so plain," it would be helpful to provide some kind of flashlight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I suppose we'll someday hear that many of the companies who got people's data have themselves been hacked, and that privacy is ended for many people. Surely Facebook must have some responsibility in such cases. It can never be too late to benefit from proactive protection of one's own data; isn't that why people have been leaving Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER56> It's going to be great seeing all the years of HN commenters complaining that no bankers went to jail, insist that it's bad policy for software engineers to be held criminally liable.

<comment><USER57> Meanwhile I hope this thread stays at the top of HN for the day to see how the thread summary reads over at n-gate

<comment> Trill-I-Am n-gate?

<comment><USER58> [http://n-gate.com/hackernews/](http://n-gate.com/hackernews/)

Enjoy!

<comment><USER38> That's quite the hate-on someone has at that site. There's some funny to be had, but it's mostly _very_ tryhard. The "coverage" of the Vitamin D thing was great, but when there isn't low hanging fruit it just sort of defaults to generic noise. Without the anger and repetition it could be worth reading, but as it is there's a lot of predictable 4channery.

<comment><USER57> Have you considered the possibility that you might not be the target demographic?

<comment><USER38> What's the target demographic, and what demographic do I represent?

<comment><USER59> I'm pretty sure I'm at least partially it. I like to check the site out every now and then to get a point of view from the other side. HN, although having a lot of high quality discussions, can sometimes be a deafeningly loud echo chamber, and getting a different perspective helps to, well, put things into perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Wholesale surveillance of individuals by internet companies has to stop. And that includes Google.

<comment><USER61> It has always been the advertisers that are asking for the sort of tooling that can be taken advantage of during the election cycle. If you don't think Russia should be able to manipulate the black voting populace then maybe it's worth thinking about whether Unilever should be able to specifically target and market axe body spray in the same fashion. The tools only exist because advertisers are paying for them. Blaming Facebook is akin to being mad at a Martin Shkreli, both are playing within the rules of a bad system.

<comment><USER15> Martin Shkreli didn't play within the rules, which is why he's in prison today.

<comment><USER48> What he is in prison for is not related to what most people are mad at him for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> prediction: record fines coming

</comment><comment><USER63> Create a culture that is so fixated on wealth above all else and this is what happens. When everyone around you is judging you based on what you have and on the successes you've achieved, what motivation does one have to behave morally? God died and the dollar took its place. I know we will one day look back on this in complete confusion as to how we just watched things so clearly destructive destabilize the country. It's always hard to understand how these things happen when looking at history without being in the contemporary madness of the times.

<comment><USER64> > destructive destabilize the country

I don't think Facebook is destabilizing the country. In fact I don't think anything bad at all is happening. Like please explain to me your negative repercussions from Facebook sharing some of their data with Amazon. How did that undermine the country? People have gotten so hysterical about this topic, it's a madness, and that is what's destabilizing the country IMHO.

Like OP is calling to put some of the most brilliant minds in Silicon Valley in jail, which is ridiculous! But if anything like this should happen, I think you gonna see FAANG & Co seriously consider rebasing outside U.S. (well maybe not G)

<comment><USER51> > I don't think Facebook is destabilizing the country.

umm.. massive and hugely polarizing public influence campaigns, if extant, aren't destabilizing?

> Like OP is calling to put some of the most brilliant minds in Silicon Valley > in jail, which is ridiculous!

plenty of brilliant sociopaths out there.. brilliant != good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Oh wow, this is going to be huge.</comment>


Why Credibility Matters - <AUTHOR> http://dshipper.posterous.com/45460668

<comment><USER2> I strongly disagree with this.

I've been reading HN for years, and often don't pay much attention to who has written or posted the articles. I just scan down, click on whatever catches my attention, and read.

I'd hesitate to say that social factors _never_ come into play, but generally I don't think I pre-judge material based on the credentials of the author. If an author makes a good point, then I will recognise that, whether it's a celebrated blogger or somebody I've never heard of.

My own, rather limited, blogging experience backs this up. I've had a number of my own blog posts rank highly on HN and Reddit, but I don't doubt that 99% of the people who read and up-voted them had never heard of me.

A couple of things which could have affected it:

* the title was much snappier 2nd time around

* sometimes just simple timing/luck plays a big part, e.g. getting those 4-5 early votes which gets an article on the front page

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for your thoughts. I definitely agree that I don't necessarily look at the author's name to decide whether I like the article enough to upvote it - that's not really the point I was trying to make (I guess I didn't make it clear enough.)

What I was trying to say is that when you come from a position of credibility which is not necessarily based upon the fact that people recognize your name, it makes people more likely to listen to what you have to say. While that point may seem obvious, I think the subtle part is that you can position what you write or what you produce to highlight the fact that you are a credible source. In essence, what I'm trying to get at is that beyond a snappy title, and blind luck, there are small changes that you can make to how you position what you produce to make it more likely to succeed. Enhancing your visibility and credibility is one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Agreed that credibility / name recognition is important, but not sure this particular example shows that - I've had a couple of popular articles on HN and absolutely no credibility :) Think it's more a question of finding the right audience - there's stuff I've put on HN that has sunk with FB friends and vice versa.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely marketing and finding an audience plays a part in it, but I don't think that you can find that market without some degree of credibility. In looking at your posts it's clear that you have a high degree of experience in this field just from the first couple paragraphs of your post. You don't necessarily have to build credibility by name recognition - demonstrating an expansive knowledgebase works too.</comment></comment>


My 11-inch iPad Pro Experiment - <AUTHOR> https://www.macstories.net/stories/my-11-inch-ipad-pro-experiment/ <comment><USER2> Skimmed the article. "Notes' three-column layout is exclusive to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro." You still can't change resolution on ipad then ? IE. 1024 -> 1368 -> 1920 ? Honest question. Had the first ipad, but become movie/ebook device over time. Never went back for productivity.</comment>


Offer HN: Free Proofreading and/or Editing - <AUTHOR>

I can proof/edit up to 1,000 words for you, for free, and with no strings or expectations attached.
For the curious, here's why:
1. I'm between jobs and need to do a little work in an area of strength to fend off lethargy
2. This also tests a potential market that suits my skills and which may be worth pursuing
3. I enjoy HNers, helping people, and helping HNers
Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if this is of any interest to you. Thanks! <comment><USER2> No offense to the OP, but I am wary about any such offers now on HN.

After a similar offer - I took the chance and after submitting materials to the HN offerer - was told "Oh, I cant give you feedback on your document because I am working on a project doing the same thing."

They were some dev in India. I am wary that these could be efforts to harvest info from other HN'ers

</comment><comment><USER3> It's pathetic that you need to offer this for free.

The net is swamped with illiterate postings so your service should be in hot demand.

<comment><USER4> 1) He said he is testing a market.

2) I think you do not get the concept of Offer HN.</comment></comment>


The Decision Maker's Comparison of Java Build Tools: Maven, Gradle and Ant + Ivy - <AUTHOR> http://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/java-build-tools-part-2-a-decision-makers-comparison-of-maven-gradle-and-ant-ivy/

<comment><USER2> The good old build tools war! Was interesting to see the massive drop in Ant/Ivy as part of the modern Java build set. I wonder if Maven will be able to hold on - it's polyglot POM version needs to come out quickly methinks.</comment>


ASK HN: Now Play Us Feedback - <AUTHOR>

A few people I work with at MadGlory went to the Startup Weekend in Saratoga, NY and treated it more like a hackathon, to build an idea we'd been thinking about.
Now Play Us is a scheduling app for video gamers. http://www.nowplay.us
We're video gamers and had been having a hard time scheduling games with our friends, so came up with the idea of scheduling games with a simple app.
The app is built with Rails, uses Postgres and Redis and hosted on Heroku.
Would love to get your feedback on the idea and the execution. <comment><AUTHOR> Link: <http://www.nowplay.us></comment>


Use Frequent Branches to Tell a Story and Simplify Code Reviews - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/use-frequent-branches-to-tell-a-story-an/240166895

<comment><USER2> My team was discussing branching today, and how doing all development in feature branches makes sense when you have a decent version control system.

We had 4 different tasks going on at once, on different parts of the system, yet all of them in the same repo. While my task was branched, the other three were being edited in place in a develop branch. After the code is put into a serious test environment (cloud app and all that), we see instability. But can we tell exactly what caused it? Not really, because we can't easily take out each task.

Had everyone else been working on a branch, we could easily have tested feature by feature, and see what actually introduced the instability with a few simple commands. Instead, we have a bunch of little commits that are mingled with each other, and the best we can do is try to imagine how the branches should have looked like by username.</comment>


Show HN: Stay focused on your top 1-year goal (web app and browser extension) - <AUTHOR> https://focal.pt <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone,

I made this site to keep me focused and productive towards my top goal. Maybe you'll benefit from it too.

What it does: Focal Point helps you pick your top 1-year goal and shows it to you in every new browser tab (showing # of days left). It also reminds you to record your progress towards that goal daily, and to track your goal-related habits. You can see a graph of your progress, along with a regression line showing whether your progress is speeding up or slowing down.

There's also a suite of productivity tools that I use daily. Here is the full list:

-Pomodoro Timer (Provide a session goal, rate your sessions, and track your stats.)

-Habit Maker (Check off your habit each day.)

-Progress Journal (Review each day and brainstorm ways to improve.)

-Browser extension with reminders and daily quotes

-Brainstorm tool

-Reminders (Emails and browser prompts)

To see what it looks like in action, go here: [https://focal.pt/demo](https://focal.pt/demo)

Feedback much appreciated.

Want to use it but can't afford the ten bucks per month? Let me know.

Cheers, Bevan</comment>