Show HN: Guilded – build and organize online gaming teams - <AUTHOR> https://www.guilded.gg/v2 <comment><AUTHOR> We just launched a redesign and ground-up rewrite of Guilded, which makes it easier for gamers to build and organize teams. There are also a bunch of of new features, like fully-featured forums, customizable team dashboards, team streams, and team rosters.

On the tech side, the frontend was all written in React 16 + MobX. Besides the redesign and new features, there were a lot of technical goals related to the frontend infra that we were trying to achieve, which are allowing us to move a lot faster now.

Anyways, hope you all think it's cool, would love to hear any questions/feedback.

<comment><USER2> This looks really cool! This is not super related to your business, but do you have any recommendations for how to get started with frontend dev as a beginner? I usually do backend/infra stuff, and the frontend world is overwhelming - particularly CSS.

Do you have any tips on the best way to learn CSS? And do you think using React + MobX allows faster dev compared to vanilla javascript?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I think the best way to get started right now is to grab the official Facebook create-react-app package, pick something you think would be fun to build, and just start trying to build it and googling/asking questions along the way. The first project might suck, but that's okay. You'll pick it up fast, and the next will be better.

React + MobX is my favorite way to build frontend apps now, and MobX does help a lot in terms of development speed, maintainability, and performance, in my experience. If you're brand new to frontend development, I wouldn't worry too much about it, though - it can be best to start with the basics initially.

<comment><USER3> iEchoic congrats on the new design! Very slick and smooth.

Just a quick question. Are you using CRA with SSR (ie with nextjs or other solution?) for the new site? Or is it just a large SPA served from static html,js,css bundled?

Thanks Matt

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! No SSR here, just an SPA (static html/js/css) served up via CDN. We do use code splitting to load bundles progressively to keep the bundle size down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've seen it before and I think it looks slick. I have one suggestion or maybe observation. Finding a team currently requires to manually apply by browsing through the list. Whenever I see a team with one member inside (and that's how many teams look loke), I don't feel like applying, because there's got to be something off about it, right? So I don't apply. And then, there's this thing where I would have to apply to several teams at once, which makes me kind of uncomfortable.

Do you have any plans for automating this process? Tinder for team finding, maybe? (:

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! This launch was focused on the foundational team tools, but making it easier for players to find teams is already in the works. I think we can have an experience where all the teams you see are active high-quality teams, are tailored to you, and the process is more automated and less manual. This is something that no gaming product has gotten right yet, in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks slick as hell and I love the dark color scheme. It's always surprising how many gamers just hate light color schemes. Good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely - our first version had a lot of white, and also a lot of feedback asking us to make it not-white.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like a decent opportunity to provide a user option for light or dark themes in their user settings? Maybe even a middle ground grey theme as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, agreed. I'd like to have more customization options in the future, including themes like that. To keep the scope small enough to make this launchable, it didn't make the cut, but we'll definitely be revisiting that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wrote about this Guilded update for the Initialized blog, because I'm so enamored with this product that probably would have saved me from needing to learn a lot of HTML two decades ago. It did serve me well, though... but I'd have rather been playing Q2CTF

[https://medium.com/initialized-capital/if-guilded-had- existe...](https://medium.com/initialized-capital/if-guilded-had- existed-20-years-ago-i-may-have-never-learned-to-code-d07a9b29ffa3)

<comment><AUTHOR> This post is especially awesome to me because Guilded was launched on reddit, and a majority of our continued feedback comes either directly from reddit or from users that found us initially through reddit.

The most fun thing about this project so far has been how all the things I spent tons of time on just for fun (reddit, gaming) ended up showing their worth later, like the superhero movies where the useless power ends up being useful in a really contrived way at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yet another gaming community; it's very interesting how these continue to crop up but never end up sticking around. Off the top of my head: Justgamed (oldschool), GotFrag (oldschool), Raptr, Gamurs, Gosu, etc. etc. etc. You probably won't tell me, but how did you get funding? I've done a few esports projects and I even played CS professionally so I have a lot of background in the industry (although I'm doing engineering/product nowadays). It seems that whenever investors hear esports, they slowly back away.

As far as guilded.gg is concerned, I think the social aspects just bog the idea down. It's cool to have a discord bot that sets up scrims, you really don't need a whole "social platform" behind it. But slick design and good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We're still exploring all of these thoughts as we iterate and learn, so I don't have absolute answers here. Some thoughts, though:

> Yet another gaming community; it's very interesting how these continue to > crop up but never end up sticking around.

We'll continue to see a lot of them crop up and die. I think we'll also see a lot of them crop up and succeed. Gaming is too big now for that _not_ to be the case. The fundamental belief that drives this is that gaming teams will continue to be core to online gaming well into the future, and the question of if there will be a ubiquitous platform for their identity and team organization is more of a "when" than an "if" question, for me. Someone will crack that eventually, even if it's not us.

> You probably won't tell me, but how did you get funding?

Happy to share, there wasn't really any magic to it. We just explained the vision I described above and worked really hard to make something that a lot of people loved, and had some data to show that. I think a lot of investors know esports are big now, will be even bigger in the future, and they see the gap that we're trying to fill.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the reply & good luck, I'm rooting for you guys! :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is super awesome! Cheers from the Discord team here! :)

EDIT: One bug, it lets you try to DM invites to other bots on the server. We don't let bots DM bots on an API level :O

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Our users (and our team, for that matter) love Discord as well.

About the bot DMing, that could explain some of the errors we've been seeing - thanks for the tip. Taking a look now.

<comment><USER9> Cheers, also check out our rich embeds stuff, which could make the bot's messages it posts into Discord look a lot more awesome: [https://discordapp.com/developers/docs/resources/channel#emb...](https://discordapp.com/developers/docs/resources/channel#embed- object)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed - we've actually just started on these recently. Forum posts and events now have the rich embeds; we're planning on bringing them to the rest of the content soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks absolutely beautiful, and I'm a huge React + MobX fan as well. If I were still in my gaming prime, I'd be all over this. Great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! That's great to hear :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Love the landing page. Just a heads up, navigating to the page breaks my browser's back button. Otherwise, looks fantastic!

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops, that was a last-minute change that didn't work out right - fixing that right now, thanks.

Edit: should be fixed now

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nitpick: Your LandingCTAShowcase-container is overflowing and allows the user to scroll right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on fixing this now, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would recommend you also support iRacing. It's probably the game where the largest percentage of players are in a team on some level, and actively race under that team.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, I haven't looked into iRacing yet. I'll definitely check this out, thank you for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds great on paper, but I am in 25+ discord servers, of which many used by official game communities on reddit, overwatch teams and league of legends - and none are using guilded or integrate with - why is that? They seem to fit the agenda pretty well, because of their members' needs:

\- They need organizing

\- They share a lot of media

\- They have community nights/events

\- They have tons of bots to do this or that (in a microservice fashion) that could be phased out by one "rule'em all" bot

<comment><AUTHOR> Official game communities are an interesting category that we haven't explored or reached out to much yet. That's a great idea though, and I think it makes a lot of sense to think about doing that more.

Our bot is in ~26k servers right now, and the vast majority are mid-sized teams, in the 6-250 person range. I think our tools would be great for larger communities, and I think the needs would be pretty similar - but we haven't explored that too much yet.

<comment><USER14> I see - so you're basically focusing on smaller "organizations" and "amateur teams" I guess? Kind of like, I find 5 friends to play Overwatch, I invite them to a new server and your bot handles all our stuff, like an assistant/office manager in a small office? Then I think some kind of integration with ESL/FaceIT/toornament and all these other online leagues/tourney platforms would be dope to have...I guess.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, exactly. An example of something the bot does that teams really like is that if you're an Overwatch team (for instance) it will post a daily SR news update, showing the SR leaderboard and who gained the most SR in the last 24 hours. A lot of our features would work for both, but I think that's an example of one that works better for actual teams.

And yeah - competitive integrations would be way cool, and are something we're working on doing more of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, I went in and tested it out, and it seems like certain games can't be added. Do you manually choose which games to support? If so, what do you do when a group/user wants to add a game that isn't in there? It seems like if someone sees one of their games isn't supported, if it's their primary game, they might just not use the service.

Are you looking into a way to let users add "Custom" games, or request support for a game?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we manually choose games to support right now. It was a goal from the beginning to make it feel like you're immersed into your game's environment as soon as you create a team, which requires us to have metadata and assets for the given games. We do get feedback from users requesting games, and we have analytics on what people type into the game suggestions box, so we tend to pick up games that we're missing pretty quickly. I can see adding "custom" games in the future (similar to how Twitch eventually opened up to IRL-style streams), but probably not soon.

It's a bit of a tradeoff: like you mentioned, this does cause some users to leave when they see that their game isn't available. On the other hand, it does allow us to focus on building a really good experience for the games we support.

<comment><USER16> Could you allow users to submit a game? If a user is interesting enough in using your system and having your game in the system, perhaps they would be willing to do the work to gather all the required information.

Obviously it would need review by your team, for various reasons, but it might be a viable way to get new games in the system faster, without being too much of a burden to the team.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do think there will be a lot of interesting cases where we can crowdsource information (particularly around information like popular team comps, hero names, list-type things like that), and will be exploring those more for sure. The toughest part of that work is the image assets since they need to be done in a particular way, but it might be interesting to see how possible it is with some human-based Scale-like API.

<comment><USER16> I wonder if there would be incentive for game development studios to use Guilded?

I can imagine studios like Riot, Blizzard, or Epic signing up for a 'Studio' account. Part of what comes with that role is the ability to add their own games. So now you have a trusted source that could reliably do the game addition work for you.

The incentive for them is a great opportunity to interact with their user base and help foster a tight-knit community. I haven't thought about the details too much but seems like an interesting idea.

Im interesting in what your thoughts would be around that idea?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool, seems like a nicer version of enjin.

Something I noticed, I use the middle mouse to scroll and the page let me scroll to the right into a giant empty space.

<comment><AUTHOR> Grrrr, I've had 1-2 other people mention this so far, but we can't seem to repro it. Mind posting or emailing me (in profile) the device/browser you're on or anything else that might help us track it down? That'd be really helpful. Thank you :)

<comment><USER17> Im using chrome 65 on windows 7 in a window of 1090x878

<comment><AUTHOR> Will try to repro there now, thanks a lot.

<comment><USER17> If I delete the LandingCTAShowcase-container LandingCTAShowcase-container- desktop element the problem is fixed. Looks like its the carousel of images that are very wide and dont seem to be clipped.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the kind of feedback we only get on HN :) thanks a lot, will fix this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> looks fantastic! I would love a version of this but for board game groups, but right now, I will organize my Civilization group with it

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been getting quite a few requests for board game groups lately. I hadn't considered that initially, but I think that's a pretty natural extension that I could see us adding soon. Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This strikes me as one of those ideas that seems so obvious in retrospect but I hadn't thought of. Looks gorgeous, nice work!

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate it, thank you :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't really want to look at this at work. Is it only strictly for video games? Teams are big in Magic: the Gathering (yes, Magic Online is technically a video game but for most it's a testing and preparation tool for paper Magic tournaments).

<comment><AUTHOR> I've played on a MtG team before, good times. It's only for video games now, but I think Magic is something we can/should definitely add.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This looks awesome! I'm looking forward to using Guilded to find teammates for AoE!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! AoE was my first online game ever, and still my favorite RTS of all time (sorry Starcraft, I love you too), so it was especially fun to add that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Only a tiny number of games represented. The idea is cool but to really shine it should not require official support of specific games, and the officially supported list should be a lot longer. Where's Day of Infamy? Rainbow Six? RTS games? I'm assuming this list will grow with time. If you add new games every day I think that would reflect positively on your product.

To be honest, a guild which is serious about itself would be much better served by their own custom website in my opinion. I'm just trying to gently say is there really a practical use for (yet another) of these websites?</comment>


Color Theory and Aesthetic Gibberish - <AUTHOR> http://doodles.danjoedesign.com/2010/04/22/color-theory-and-aesthetic-gibberish/

<comment><USER2> Wonder what the OP thinks about pink vs. blue prison walls and about striped vs. orange prisoner uniforms. I think there is some science to colors, and perhaps there is some truth behind the B.S. they were teaching.</comment>


What I learned by bringing down LinkedIn.com - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/13/what-i-learned-by-bringing-down-linkedin-com/ <comment><USER2> This is a solid read for anyone in any field. There's a time when you have no confidence, then false confidence, then real confidence with knowledge of your own limits.</comment>


Show HN: I invented a caffeinated toothpaste - <AUTHOR> https://www.powertoothpaste.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I invented the world's first caffeinated toothpaste - get a rush while you brush! I'm a serial entrepreneur, YCW16. Though it is a simple idea, I went through at least 60 formula iterations before I got the flavor chemistry right. This toothpaste seriously works. I actually had to _lower_ the caffeine content from the original version.

Our toothpaste gives you a quick caffeine boost that works as soon as you start brushing, even faster than coffee. (I still drink coffee, just later in the morning)

I made version 1 with a hammer in my kitchen. I smashed a caffeine pill into dust in my cast iron pan, mixed it with toothpaste from my bathroom, and I had the first-ever caffeinated toothpaste. It worked. It was a little buggy. Since that point we have raised over $40k on Indiegogo and we've shipped over 2,000 tubes of toothpaste so far, all made in the made in the USA. I would love to answer any questions you might have or share any knowledge I've gained about plastic/tube packaging, cosmetics regulations, logistics, fulfillment, domestic manufacturing, and shipping physical products in general. I'm not an expert, but I've learned a lot. If you want to try Power Toothpaste, I live in the Bay Area, and I'd be happy to meet up and give you a squeeze of my toothpaste.

Cheers, Ian

<comment><USER3> Your website does not contain a list of ingredients, nor do you show photos of your box with government required disclosures on it.

You admit that your toothpaste does not have fluoride, but does it contain SLS, propylene glycol, DEA, glycerin, hydrated silica, or artificial sweeteners? If so, please discontinue your product or change your formula. None of those ingredients are safe for use in toothpaste and help cause tooth damage and decay.

<comment><USER4> With the comments about "fighting plaque like leading brands", I'm actually curious whether this is legal. I believe the active ingredients disclosure box is mandatory, although possibly it's on the face of the box we can't see.

I see that the toothpaste is legal (white-labelled from an approved factory), so this is just a labelling question.

<comment><USER5> From a comment[1] elsewhere in thread, looks like they removed fluoride to avoid higher FDA scrutiny. Not sure what that means for labeling.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12507965](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12507965)

<comment><USER4> That may well be the only 'active' ingredient in some toothpastes, since the rest is mostly just a scrubbing aid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Power Toothpaste does not contain Fluoride. We know many of you don't want > fluoride in your toothpaste.

This seems bizarre to me. People don't want fluoride in their toothpaste? Why not? Dentists seem pretty unanimous that everyone should brush twice a day with fluoride toothpaste.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a longer comment about this below, but the essential reason is: if I made fluoride a product requirement, I wouldn't have gotten to a release. It would have added a huge expense.

Additionally, fluoride is much more important for children. As enamel is forming, fluoride interacts with it and strengthens it. Adults need far less (threshold dose effect) and for most people in the United States, they likely get enough in the water. I also figure this is a toothpaste you'll use in the morning, and another fluoridated one in the evening. You can also use a fluoridated mouthwash.

At some point, I would love to introduce a fluoridated version.

<comment><USER6> This is fair. I do think this should be a bit more prominent, though, because when I hear "toothpaste", I tend to _assume_ it is fluoridated. Unfluoridated toothpaste is unusual enough that it should probably be called out right on the front of the box/tube, whereas right now it's kind of buried in a FAQ.

Good job getting this off the ground, and best of luck with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Much appreciated! Based on this comment and others from HN, I think I'm going to add a whole section for Formulation/Ingredients, show the full label, talk about the process etc. Thank you again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >The world's first caffeinated toothpaste

I mean, it's not the first, is it?

Here's a kid who had the same idea last year: [http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-teen- entr...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-teen- entrepreneurs-in-school-bsi-20150826-story.html)

Here's one from 2008: [http://buzztoothpaste.blogspot.co.uk/](http://buzztoothpaste.blogspot.co.uk/)

<comment><USER8> I just tried to find a way to buy another caffeinated toothpaste. I see nothing, though i didn't dig too deep. Seems like it might be the first intended for mass marketing/consumption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It appears that there is a patent (filed 2002, published 2003) on "blended toothpaste formulas and method for manufacture", claiming in part "A toothpaste as defined in claim 1 wherein the stimulant is caffeine".

[https://www.google.com/patents/US20030147817](https://www.google.com/patents/US20030147817)

I don't know how to read patents, so I don't know if this is a relevant patent or not.

<comment><USER10> That's an application. Hasn't been granted yet-- and it's been a while.

IANAL.

<comment><USER9> Thanks. I'm guessing that "Publication type: Application" in the header is the clue I should have noticed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Caffeinated toothpaste is so 2016 Q2. I heard there's a stealth startup doing caffeinated toilet paper that will disrupt this market by hitting the customer with a dose of caffeine earlier on in the morning pipeline.

<comment><USER12> Sorry man, I'm old. I need the caffeine in order to need the toilet paper, not the other way around ;-)

<comment><USER13> Brush with the caffeinated toothpaste, get a boost with the caffeinated toilet paper.

<comment><USER14> Gotta re-up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this for real? I understand people want their caffeine hit but toothpaste seem a bit overboard.

If you can't live without it, why not just buy the pills and take a pill each day. [https://www.amazon.com/Natrol-Caffeine-200mg- Tablets-100-Cou...](https://www.amazon.com/Natrol-Caffeine-200mg- Tablets-100-Count/dp/B000OPV118/)

Careful, caffeine can be fatal. I'm surprised it's not regulated.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, this is bizarre to me. Kind of like adding an mp3 player to a word processor. Toothpaste has a purpose. If you want caffeine have coffee, tea, Red Bull, 5 hour energy, Monster, expresso beans, caffeine gum, or one of the million other ways to get caffeine.

<comment><USER14> Subtract one thing from your list.

"Why do you need caffeine gum? If you want caffeine have coffee, tea, Red Bull, 5 hour energy, Monster, expresso beans, or one of the million other ways to get caffeine."

"Why do you need Red Bull? If you want caffeine have coffee, tea, 5 hour energy, Monster, expresso beans, or one of the million other ways to get caffeine."

"Why do you need tea? If you want caffeine have coffee, 5 hour energy, Monster, expresso beans, or one of the million other ways to get caffeine."

"Why do you need coffee? If you want caffeine have 5 hour energy, Monster, expresso beans, or one of the million other ways to get caffeine."

So on and so forth. Why do you need one more way to get caffeine in your system? Why not?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What flavor is your toothpaste? Outside of "Wake up with minty fresh, mentholated breath" there's no flavor specifics mentioned that I could find.

So, is the flavor mint-menthol? Which kind of mint?

(I personally, somewhat dislike peppermint, really dislike spearmint, but really like fennel toothpaste.)

Also, what's the expected amount of caffeine per typical dispensing? How much of that are you figuring gets absorbed during brushing?

<comment><USER18> > Also, what's the expected amount of caffeine per typical dispensing? How > much of that are you figuring gets absorbed during brushing?

Wondering the same thing.

He said in another comment that an average-sized 'serving' of the toothpaste contains 80mg of caffeine (roughly half the amount of a small coffee from most chains), but there's no info on how much of that is absorbed when brushing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's no list of ingredients. Anyway, most toothpaste today has glycerin in it, which prevents tooth remineralization. Most toothpaste today also has carrageenan, which also is questionable - including by the WHO. SLS is not without issues either. Most non-natural toothpaste has aluminum. Most natural toothpaste is too abrasive. In general, I wasn't able to find a balanced product all these years - and it's a shame!

<comment><AUTHOR> Point very well taken! Thank you for this!! I'm going to update our page with a high quality image of the back of our label with full list of ingredients.

Apologies for this omission that in retrospect is so obvious!

<comment><USER19> People are too picky today, you know...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How about some alcohol or THC toothpaste to wind down at the end of the day, too? ;)

<comment><USER21> Yeah, brushing teeth at night, with some caffeine may not be a bright idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "... We made Power Toothpaste so that when you wake up, you can make your dreams a reality" \- This text is placed right next to a blurry photo of the founders.

It's very 90s... Cheesy. Our generation is far too cynical for that kind of message.

This toothpaste won't make your dreams come true. If anything, it will keep you up all night long and prevent you from dreaming altogether.

I do like the tagline "Get a rush while you brush." though.

</comment><comment><USER23> So, if I want to be able to sleep at night, I now need to buy two types of toothpaste?

Folks feeling groggy in the morning should try cutting caffeine _out_ of their diet, not applying it directly to their gums.

<comment><USER24> If I feel groggy in the morning, I'm also going to stick with the proven solution of going to bed at a more reasonable time the previous evening. But di and I are in the minority on this, I think. There is definitely a market for people who want to get higher, faster, when the double-shot of espresso doesn't quite do the trick any more, and when crushing up a caffeine pill in a coffee grinder before consuming the raw powder is still a bit too much.

So cheers to all you stimulant addicts out there for your new market option. You no longer need to ask a compounding pharmacist to do this sort of thing for you--unless, of course, there are other over-the-counter drugs you might want to take every morning, in imprecisely measured doses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not sure how you missed out on the opportunity to name it "ToothRush".

</comment><comment><USER26> > We know many of you don't want fluoride in your toothpaste.

what? is this some new anti-vac kind of thing? In Denmark dentists are strongly advising against using toothpaste without fluoride.

Lena Bay of the Danish dentist school says about toothpaste without fluoride: "... if you insist on using it, then you should only use it once a day and use normal toothpaste with fluoride the rest of the time" and Ole Marker, vice president of the Danish Dental Association says that "There is a large risk of ruining your teeth [if you only use toothpaste without fluoride]"

source [in danish] [http://politiken.dk/forbrugogliv/livsstil/familieliv/ECE8329...](http://politiken.dk/forbrugogliv/livsstil/familieliv/ECE832967/oekologisk- tandpasta-kan-give-huller/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm having a tough time figuring out whether this is a joke. Who's the target audience? What need are you filling? How are people meeting this need now?

<comment><USER28> I was pretty sure it was real until I saw the Pied Piper logo. Now I'm not sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Do you have warnings on the tube to tell people that the toothpaste is toxic to children?

80 mg of caffeine at 90 "servings" per tube is 7200mg.

The LD50 for caffeine is 150mg/kg, so each tube is enough to potentially kill two 20kb toddlers.

<comment><USER30> _" two 20kb toddlers."_

Is that a mistype or do you really measure babies in kilobits?

<comment><USER29> That's kilobabies

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Brushing before breakfast seems like a weird idea to me. The mint flavor of the toothpaste would ruin the flavor of what I'd eat and I would need to brush again after.

Did all of HN stop eating breakfast after this post? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11753668](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11753668)

<comment><USER32> I believe it's generally the soapy toothpaste ingredients (sodium lauryl sulfate) that mess with your mouth chemistry and make things taste weird for a while afterwards, not mainly the mint flavour. Other kinds of toothpaste (e.g. I sometimes use an aloe vera based one) don't have this problem.

And my understanding of the before vs after breakfast teeth-brushing debate is that it doesn't that much matter which you do: do it before, and you clear off the bacteria that have accumulated overnight before handing them a load of food to work on; do it after, and your teeth are cleaner for the next few hours instead.

<comment><USER33> So before and after?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Too bad that there isn't option bigger than the family pack. I'd have honestly loved to give my entire city the _power_, but looks like I need to wait.

\--

Nice site. You have only 7 trackers at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can't you see? You're not making toothpaste better. You're making coffee worse.

</comment><comment><USER36> > Beats plaque and tartar buildup like the leading brands

It's important to note that it's the actual brushing of teeth that does the heavy lifting. Toothpaste is pretty inconsequential.

</comment><comment><USER37> As an avid tooth brusher and caffeine addict I'm struggling to understand why I would want this? Can you elaborate

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's a book on caffeine. Interesting light read, if you have any interest on the subject. [https://www.amazon.com/Caffeinated-Daily-Habit-Helps- Hurts/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Caffeinated-Daily-Habit-Helps- Hurts/dp/1594631387)

</comment><comment><USER38> How many milligrams of caffeine per pea-sized serving is there? People who really like caffeine also really want to know how much they're getting. "Medium" cup of coffee could be anywhere from like 30mg to 80mg.

</comment><comment><USER39> The price comparison is a bit disingenuous IMHO: coffee is $3 only if you buy a latte at Starbucks. Homemade coffee is probably less than a tenth of that even if you use capsules, and a filter coffee can be as cheap as $1.

You can also buy 20 g of caffeine in pills on amazon for around $8 compared to your 7.2 g for $15.

Why would you compare with something that is effectively the cost of sitting down for half an hour in a clean warm place with toilets and internet? (I'm assuming the cost of actual coffee at starbucks is negligible)

<comment><USER40> > I'm assuming the cost of actual coffee at starbucks is negligible

And yet takeaway coffee costs me the same price whether its at Starbucks or just a hole-in-the-wall that only do take-away.

<comment><USER39> Let's disrupt holes in the wall! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I can't help thinking of Fry's first morning in the year 3000.

Fry: I'm never gonna get used to the 31st century. Caffeinated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? _Admiral_ Crunch?

But I'll probably try it.

<comment><USER42> I've always wondered what Bachelor Chow tastes like.

Probably chicken.

And disappointment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sorry to be negative: Introducing a vasoconstrictor to be used everyday topically in the mouth around the gingiva is probably an irresponsible idea. I think you need to do longitudinal animal studies before you can sell this in good conscience.

<comment><AUTHOR> The U.S. military has studied the use of caffeinated gum (which has a higher concentration of caffeine and stays in your mouth much longer) and has not seen negative health impacts. I'll upload the studies I have collected to dropbox and post a link later today! Otherwise, I've spoken to a ton of dentists about this and they weren't concerned about caffeine's impact on the gingae.

<comment><USER44> My first thought was, why this vs. caffeinated gum? I've used the gum for years (look up "military energy gum") and it's perfect. But I don't want it every time I brush. Brushing teeth and wanting a pick-me-up seem like totally orthogonal needs.

Pro tip: keep a pack of caffeinated gum in your car. Great for road trips or late nights!

<comment><USER18> > Brushing teeth and wanting a pick-me-up seem like totally orthogonal needs.

You don't brush your teeth shortly after waking up every morning?

<comment><USER45> I also brush before I go to bed. I would need 2 pastes and be careful not to mix them up. I've accidentally put hand soap and moisturiser on my toothbrush before because I was so sleepy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I have to be honest, this is a cool idea but after reading some of the comments, it makes sense that more information and health topics/concerns need to be addressed. Although overall, I would much rather just have a cup of coffee (I'm a coffee lover).

Maybe market to an industry where it is necessary for someone to be caffeinated right away after waking up (think time sensitive, life / death) and health concerns are more gray area (ie. maybe soldiers can use this during war time). edit, spacing...

<comment><AUTHOR> I love coffee too. Most of the people who have been buying Power Toothpaste and who enjoy coffee have been reporting that they still have their coffee, but tend to do so later in the morning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Since drinking coffee is also a main cause of teeth-yellowing; if this substitutes coffee, then it could also be seen as another way of helping to keep teeth whiter?

</comment><comment><USER48> People insist of ingesting caffeine in wildly fluctuating dosages.If you're going to use caffeine, treat it like any other drug and take exacts doses.

</comment><comment><USER49> Hi Ian, cool product! What was it like dealing with cosmetic regulations? And why is toothpaste under cosmetic regulations, rather than healthcare?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! The FDA was created under the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics Act. According to the law, everything they regulate falls into one of these categories. Sort of an animal/vegetable/mineral thing. Interestingly, toothpaste with fluoride is regulated as a drug, and without fluoride as a cosmetic. Not necessarily a big deal to be regulated as a drug... But as I dug into the regulations, I found it is actually still quite difficult to go through all the hurdles to bring a new fluoridated toothpaste to market. Comparatively, a new fluoridated mouthwash is really easy, just basic stability testing. I actually had to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to get a copy of the testing procedures. They were really something. The document I got back was a scanned pdf of a copy of a mimeograph of a typewriter carbon copy. And the testing quite onerous. They actually required animal testing for any new formulation! Pretty crazy given the well understood process of fluoridating toothpaste. So to get a product release, I'm forgoing fluoride in this version that lets me be a cosmetic. The regulations here are much simpler. There's testing, clean room requirements, ingredient safety stuff, but comparatively much easier, and I partnered with a manufacturer with lots of experience that's here in the United States.

<comment><USER50> Wow, just wow. This seems like one of those regulations that could be changed. Obviously the caffeine isn't a flagged substance: It would seem that a simple chemical composition test would be good enough to qualify a toothpaste - <USER2> we've done a lot of research on fluoride itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I go back and forth on the whole fluoridation issue. I personally think that a proper diet negates any reason to us fluoride, and ingesting it intuitively seems like a bad idea. Not sure if that's rational. But that's why I buy toothpaste containing Novamin rather than fluoride. (strangely, you can only buy it from overseas and they pulled it off the shelves in the US)

</comment><comment><USER52> Sorry, immediately after waking up is not the best time to take caffeine: [http://b-i.forbesimg.com/anthonykosner/files/2014/01/besttim...](http://b-i.forbesimg.com/anthonykosner/files/2014/01/besttime4coffee2-i3coffee- jp.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER53> So at night before bed, I need to use a non-caffeinated version? Now I have different tubes, depending on the time of day.

<comment><USER54> Is that a problem?

<comment><USER53> Yes, I don't need time sensitive toothpaste.

<comment><USER55> Then this isn't the toothpaste for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please please please do a nicotine toothpaste! I want to get my ciggy in as soon as I step out of bed.

<comment><USER56> How about an MDMA one too?

<comment><USER11> There are just so many directions in which to pivot!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I also brush my teeth before I go to bed, so this would just be a huge mistake waiting to happen...

</comment><comment><USER58> Interesting, internationally available by any chance? As in, do you ship to Europe?

<comment><AUTHOR> could you send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com ?We're working out international shipping. If you give me your details, I'm trying to get (most of) it figured out in the next few days.

<comment><USER58> Hi, thanks, I will send out an email shortly!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I thought the last tech bubble also brought us caffeinated toothpaste.

</comment><comment><USER60> I like to snort lines of caffeine off my vanity in the morning; can anyone else with this habit who has tried Power Toothpaste comment on whether it's worth the switch?

</comment><comment><USER61> Caffeinated gum is also a big thing. Same idea I think: passive caffeine consumption with the implication that you'll be saving tons of money that would've been spent in coffee shops. But don't most people want to limit their caffeine consumption?

I feel like caffeine has an identical mindshare as cigarettes in the '60s: Haha we know it's not great for you but everybody does it, especially business people!'.

Not trying to nock your product, it's just whatever I think of when people try to push more caffeine on me. I need more sleep, not more caffeine.

<comment><USER62> I don't think caffeine has many negative health implications. Although it has certainly wasted my time by leaving me too jittery to work.

There is a great cgp grey video on caffeine:

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVE5iPMKLg](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVE5iPMKLg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> LD50 is 75–100 cups of coffee for a 70 kilogram adult... so eating a tube of this can be fatal for adults.

Don't leave this where children can find it.

<comment><USER64> If you are afraid of your children eating dangerous amounts of something from a tube, look no further than normal toothpaste.

<comment><USER63> I believe this statement is short-sighted, and I would strongly recommend child-proof packaging for this product.

If a child eats a tube of toothpaste, it's not great for them[1], but eating a significant amount of caffeinated toothpaste would most likely kill them.

This is a problem because people don't normally store and secure toothpaste the way they do bleach or pesticides, and also because this product is formulated to have an interesting and attractive taste - i.e, it presents a kind of "attractive nuisance".

Ref [1] [http://www.poison.org/articles/2015-dec/toothpaste](http://www.poison.org/articles/2015-dec/toothpaste)

"It is unlikely for a child to have anything beyond short-term stomach upset from eating toothpaste. In rare cases, if an excessive amount of fluorinated toothpaste is swallowed, there can be more serious problems. Fluoride can lower the amount of calcium and magnesium in the body. Toothpaste formulated to help with sensitivity contains a second ingredient – a nitrate – that can also cause more serious problems if large amounts are ingested. This is unlikely to occur from unintentional ingestions by children, especially of over-the-counter toothpaste."

<comment><USER64> >I believe this statement is short-sighted

I'm not saying this caffeine toothpaste is safer than fluoride containing toothpaste just that toothpaste can still cause harm. From what I've read of caffeine overdoses your suggestion of a child-proof packaging is a very good one.

A tube of toothpaste might have enough fluoride to kill 30-50 mice, but not necessarily a child. Eating a whole tube of toothpaste is excessive and you should probably seek medical attention if your child does so. The adults who took part in this study[1] should be able to replicate the experiments by eating two tubes of toothpaste.

[1] [https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi- bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@te...](https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi- bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+1766)

<comment><USER63> I hear you, toothpaste is not zero harm.

I'm just saying it's not an airy-fairy concern that this would be lethal, partly because of the sociology of toothpaste, and also because eating a tube surpasses the documented LD50 for adults.

Think of the warnings on acetominophen and then think this one through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Soap, peanut butter, now toothpaste. 1 and 2 actually make similar sense in regards to a morning routine without coffee. But PB, no idea.

</comment><comment><USER66> Hm, that's a steal of my invention of cocainated toothpaste, which I decided not to push on market for ethical reasons.

</comment><comment><USER67> How do I get in touch with you? Can't find an email in your profile.

</comment><comment><USER68> What's the equivalent pure caffeine dosage per 2 minutes of brushing?

</comment><comment><USER69> I'll wait for a competing product that has flour in it.

</comment><comment><USER54> Nappy, will you ship to Canada in the foreseeable future?

</comment><comment><USER70> Missed a trick with 'Power Paste' I think.

</comment><comment><USER71> Erm... what was there to actually _invent_?

<comment><USER72> putting two things together to create a new thing is an invention believe it or not

<comment><USER73> You got toothpaste in my coffee! You got coffee in my toothpaste! What!? _barf_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Will this be available in Europe??

</comment><comment><USER75> Why?

</comment><comment><USER76> I like the idea, and the logo (not the video, though).

The problem with your product IMHO is that you need two toothpaste, because besides in the morning you also brush your teeth before going to bed, but you definitely don't want caffeine before you go to bed.

</comment><comment><USER77> Didn't Futurama already do this, or something close to it?

<comment><USER9> Futurama had caffeinated bacon and baconated grapefruit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Only available in the US.

95% of people do not live in the US. I do not live in the US. No-one I know lives in the US.

<comment><USER79> I can imagine plenty of valid reasons for not being able to ship a brand new product outside of the US. The author didn't promise anyone that at least 6% or more of the global population could immediately order this product or anything.

In any case, most of HN probably lives in the US.

<comment><USER80>
        > In any case, most of HN probably lives in the US.

I agree with your main point, it's not up to us where someone sells their product, but I'm not at all sure that most HN users live in the US; I don't have any more evidence than you, I would just assume most are outside.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who's firing? - <AUTHOR> I feel that the previous iteration of this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851987) was interesting. A group of people looking together might also be very appealing to some companies. <comment><USER4> I think it'd be interesting to do this on the 15th of every month. Have the 1st of the month be the "Who's Hiring", and the 15th the "Who's Firing".

<comment><USER5> The problem is, "Who's firing?" is not some useful dual of "Who's hiring". While not 'gratifying intellectual curiosity', the who's hiring threads are a useful monthly exception since people do actually look for hires and for jobs.

"Who's firing" would just be a way to have a monthly rumors and gossip thread. There are already sites upon sites for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would be a useful dual? "Who's shutting down"? I want to know:

1) A high-level overview of companies I've kind of heard about that didn't work out for whatever reason, or are have hit big roadblocks. That's useful information.

2) Where to find people to actively reach out to, if there's a big group of people leaving there are good people looking for jobs. A lot of teams get formed from the ashes of other teams.

<comment><USER5> For 1, postmortems of various kinds are linked here regularly. So that's covered

As to 2, I don't think that's what the site is really for. Who's hiring is already a sanctioned exception (there's also one for YC company job posts). Either way, though, such threads are much more likely to generate rumors and gossip than actionable information and you're likely to keep seeing it flagged off the front page. Might be worth emailing the mods if you feel it's that important but I'd be surprised if you can talk them into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the first, the occasional postmortem isn't that useful. I hoped to know when things go away as easily as I can find out when they're coming out. There's a massive push on creation that takes care of the first one, but after only occasional breathless praise slowly turning into dead silence for almost everyone. Maybe 1/100 writes a postmortem and that goes too deep too narrowly. Or they are silently successful. "Gets to front page of HN" is not a great filter.

Second would have to be "Who's Looking" or something, I guess it's done the other way around so candidates don't get hammered with 10k recruiter emails.

There haven't been great responses on this Ask HN, and looking back on the previous one it was also worse than I remembered. I've accepted that this isn't going to work out in practice.

<comment><USER5> "Who's looking" variants already exist. The postmortem thing, I suppose if you want more of them you're probably better off finding some like-minded people and setting up a forum of some sort - fb page, twitter tag, subreddit, whatever. That way you don't have to rely on the broader topic range and limited frontpage space of HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apparently Rackspace is firing today:

[http://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/sources-confirm- layoff...](http://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/sources-confirm-layoffs-at- rackspace)

<comment><USER7> Quite the researched article by the weekend meteorologist.

<comment><USER8> sorry to be dense, could you be explicit about why you call them the "weekend meteorologist". (I read the article and their about page - [http://news4sanantonio.com/station/contact](http://news4sanantonio.com/station/contact) and Googled for "weekend meteorologist" in case it's some idiom - <USER2> it's a normal job title? [http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Weekend_Meteorologis...](http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Weekend_Meteorologist/Salary) \- anyway I'm more confused than before I Googled that phrase. Why are you calling them that, or what's the joke I missed?)

<comment><USER7> Weekend meteorologist reporting the news about a cloud provider. Seemed amusing to me. However, I won't pretend I have a particularly good sense of humor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd be curious to hear from those who posted in the last thread. Are you still working for a failing company? What happened in between then and now?

<comment><USER10> I posted about the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the last "Who's Firing" thread - which was my employer. All of the 100+ of us affected by the outsourcing have been let go as of January 31st, with some already having lined up full time employment, others taking some time off, or some like myself who are actively exploring potential jobs.

If you're curious about the company, it won't fail - having $170B in investment assets means you can pay people to fix whatever is broken - but the Tata Consultancy folks who were hired to replace us are definitely having some problems taking over all of the responsibilities we have left behind. I forsee a great deal of pain in their near future, but I'm sure they'll be fine in a few years - and I honestly wish them well.

As for me - if anyone out there is looking for a remote (or Toronto based) 17+ year IT veteran, with a sys admin / web development / DevOps skillset - <USER3> free to send me an e-mail at debunn at yahoo dot com.

<comment><USER11> The current rumour is that there's going to be another round of outsourcing toward the end of the year.

Also as expected the transition from ETS to TCS is not going well. Everyone I've spoken to that has direct contact with them is not pleased.

Our union (OPSEU) is meeting regularly to find out how to prevent this type of action in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That URL does not work. Here's the working link --> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851987)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I fixed it

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Rubicon project just laid off a bunch of staff and closed the Toronto office.

<comment><USER13> That sucks. I wonder if someone crossed them.

If they can just hold out until March 15...

(ducks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If this was the first dot com cycle we could just go to fuckedcompany.com to keep instant tabs on this. It was extremely useful when everything started going south.

<comment><USER15> Similar idea, CB Insights has a tracker for companies doing downrounds: [https://www.cbinsights.com/research-downround- tracker](https://www.cbinsights.com/research-downround-tracker)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Both Mozilla and Pandora are firing in early 2017.

<comment><USER17> But why are they hiring at the same time?

<comment><USER18> Once there is more than a single product being produced by an organization, hiring and firing is not generally correlated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Canonical / Ubuntu recently let go a few of their Juju team.

<comment><USER20> Any more details from Canonical on this or which part of the team?

<comment><USER19> IIUC Juju networking and a couple of managers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oracle is laying off a decent chunk of its hardware teams

</comment><comment><USER22> Rumor has Intel will be letting a few folks from Europe go. They were supposed to be a part of the larger actions taken last year but due to European labor policy had been delayed.

</comment><comment><USER23> In today's news, Zenefits laid off half their staff:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608376)

</comment><comment><USER24> Telerik/Progress fired ~110 people from their Sofia offices not long ago

</comment><comment><USER25> Rackspace just laid off a bunch of people at their HQ in San Antonio.

</comment><comment><USER26> Akamai is laying off a decent chunk of people.

</comment><comment><USER27> dashbid

</comment><comment><USER28> This is vindictive and silly. Keep in mind some of us here are aware the employee can be as involved in the firing as the company laying off staff.

<comment><USER29> I think you're missing the point. A significant proportion of the mentions in here and the last one were about major laying offs. When you have to lose >10% of your staff, you probably shouldn't blame the employees.

This is just an interesting counter-post to the "Who's Hiring", allowing people to see both sides of the coin.</comment></comment>


Show HN: "What it is like to be a bat." (WebVR piece) - <AUTHOR> https://newchickens.com/bat/ <comment><USER2> Cool! I especially like the little villages in the valleys.</comment>


Ask HN: obfuscated link vs. username/password? - <AUTHOR>

In building a couple simple web apps, I'm considering using an obfuscated link: http://domain.com/8498j9f43498j9f43o8jeo8je9jfe that members can bookmark, rather than require a username and password every time.<p>Terrible idea? What are the risks if the url is long and random enough? <comment><USER2> _What are the risks if the url is long and random enough?_

Users wouldn't be able to use public/shared computers without the risk that this URL would be left behind.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't sync bookmarks and rarely use them; so take multiple computers/devices and I wouldn't be using your service very easily</comment>


Proposal: "{" and "}" to be known as openstache, closestache - <AUTHOR> http://fold.sigusr2.net/2010/03/mustache.html <comment><USER2> With apologies for dampening the mood of the original post...

      () == paranetheses
      [] == brackets
      {} == braces

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

<comment><USER3> In Italian, we qualify them by their shape:

        () == parentesi tonde (round)
        [] == parentesi quadre (squared)
        {} == parentesi graffe (claws)

<comment><USER4> In British English it's much the same:

      () == "round brackets" or usually just "brackets"
      [] == "square brackets"
      {} == "curly brackets" or "braces"

<comment><USER5> I grew up in India and am familiar with this, used to always wonder if I was wrong and why i often get confused when people say parentheses instead of brackets.(I have been in the US since the last 10 years)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I vote yes. I already say upscalator and downscalator to distinguish between the two types of escalators. This is equally quirky and useful. I like it.

<comment><USER7> Do you refer to the long flat ones at airports as lateralscalators, forwardscalators, or orthangonalscalators?

<comment><USER8> I think we can both agree that frontscalator makes more sense.

<comment><USER9> I think transcalator fits together more nicely.

(Edit: or maybe flatscalator)

<comment><USER10> I think parallelscalator has a nice ring to it.

<comment><USER11> Some are concurrent, but hardly all of them!

<comment><USER9> Since you must go on one then the next: serialscalators?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> No no no! For the love of $(DIETY), don't call them openstache and closestache, but rather leftstache and rightstache.

While there isn't a difference in left-to-right language, those of us unfortunate enough to have to support right-to-left languages need a nontrivial algorithm to decide whether openstache is actually a leftstache or a rightstache (because the grpahic form of the character is that of a leftstache, independent of directionality, rather than openstache, which mirrors based on directionality)

<comment><USER13> I'm curious... do people who read right to left languages code that way as well?

} (y = x)fi ;("!dlrow olleH")nltirp.tuo.metsyS {

How about top to bottom languages? (Not doing that one out).

<comment><USER12> There is (AFAIK) one programming language that is RTL -- a variation on Basic which has been dead for about 15 years now.

The open-paren / left-paren problem is there even in e.g. Word, explictly _because_ it's considered open-paren rather than left-paren; When you type 'alif' (arabic 'a' equiv) 'ba' (arabic 'b' equiv) shift-9 (left paren), you get ')' 'ba' 'alif' . but if you type 'a' 'b' shift-9, you get 'ab('. if you insert a different directionality character immediately in fromt of the open- paren, the paren will be flip.

The rules for flipping parens are specified in the Unicode standard, and are extremely nontrivial and nonintuitive (both for implementing and for using -- it's often hard to get the kind of character you want!).

And it all exists because some idiot thinking "abstraction! It is an open-or- close that the person means, not the left-or-right!" was sitting in the committees making the decisions; There _was_ dissenting opinion, giving exactly the example I gave above, but abstraction was deemed way more important than usability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Strange names for characters can help when they significantly shorten, such as "bang" versus "exclamation" (though in context I'd prefer "not" when it has that meaning).

However, "stache" doesn't shorten "brace"; both of them have one syllable, and the latter even has fewer letters if you have to type it. So, this seems unhelpful except as a joke.

On the other hand, we could use a good joke name for {}, to go along with "octothorpe" (#), "twiddle" (~), and "ampersand" (&). :)

"brace", "bracket", "paren": {} [] ()

Or, if you really feel like disambiguating, "curly brace", "square bracket", "parenthesis": {} [] ()

<comment><USER15> How is ampersand a joke name?

<comment><USER16> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand>

<comment><USER17> The etymology [1] does not suggest a joke origination.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#Etymology>

<comment><USER18> Through folk etymology, it has been claimed that André-Marie Ampère used the symbol in his widely read publications, and that people began calling the new shape "Ampere's and". [3]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I use open-curly/close-curly and never had a problem being understood. Add bracket if someone really isn't getting it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not Danish, but on their behalf I'd like to note that these are called Tuborgs after the beer company. Apparently their delivery trucks had a profile that looked like the braces.

<comment><USER21> You're on to something: in my math classes they would often be referred too as a "væltet Turborg". Which means a "fallen down Tuborg" ie. it's turned on the side. The profile can be seen on the roof of this truck: <http://www.mc- barskk.dk/images/Tuborg_Julebryg.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Surely, this should be known as "}": handlebars and "{ pornstar".

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks like openstache.com was registered today: [http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIsVerify.aspx?domain=openstache.co...](http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIsVerify.aspx?domain=openstache.com&prog_id=godaddy)

</comment><comment><USER24> Let's do some quantum mechanics with the bra ket notation: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bra-ket_notation>

</comment><comment><USER25> LTACHE and RTACHE is a lot less to type, and has some consistency with LPAREN and RPAREN which I recall from "back in the day" when I was at university and learning about lexers and parsers (go dragon book!).

<comment><USER26> LBRACE and RBRACE take the same amount of time to type and are standard nomenclature in lexers/parsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What's wrong with 'open brace'/'close brace'? Same amount of effort to say.

</comment><comment><USER9> Drop the s'es; Opentache and closetache is more pronounceable.

<comment><USER14> One problem "stache" already has, which "tache" exacerbates: they sound too much like "dash". While "open dash" and "close dash" don't really make sense, that doesn't prevent them from adding to the confusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In Latin:

      () == arcus
      [] == quadrum
      {} == torquendum

However, this terminology hasn't been used since the Romans first programmed "SalveMundus.for"...

</comment><comment><USER29> I made a field guide to brackets a while back:

<http://carlos.bueno.org/brackets-of-the-world.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER30> In Portuguese they are called "keys", so you just use open-key and close-key, but I understand that that in English would be confusing.

<comment><USER31> That's a bad, literal translation of how it's called in Portuguese. "Keys" can be translated to "chaves" or "teclas".

Anyway, I don't get this, just as a joke. "Parenthesis", "Brackets" and "Braces" do just fine, thank you very much.

() Parenthesis => Parêntesis [] Brackets => Colchetes {} Braces => Chaves

<comment><USER30> Hardly bad, literal yes, almost. 'Chaves' (keys, braces, staches in the post's joke) really come from the mathematical term 'chaveta', a punctuation, symbol that serves as a opening and closure in mathematical terms, hence the term as a key and not as brace (what would be better translated as braçadeira).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32>
      { = "woo woo"
      } = "nyuk nyuk"

</comment><comment><USER33> opstache

clostache

Shorter this way.

</comment><comment><USER34> ostache, clostache sounds funnier</comment>


Show HN: Craft: a CLI tool to share files over HTTP easily - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ashisha/craft <comment><USER2> Good, very good. It is incredible that such a simple and useful tool hasn't been built before (I've searched for it).</comment>


Technical Debt is Johnny Cash's Caddy of Software - <AUTHOR> http://mentalpandiculation.com/2011/03/technical-debt-is-johnny-cashs-cadillac-of-software/

<comment><USER2> Uncle bob put it very eloquently as well in his _A Mess is not a Technical Debt_ [1]

[1] [http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2009/09/22/a-mess- is-n...](http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2009/09/22/a-mess-is-not-a- technical-debt)

<comment><USER3> Interesting... but I note from the article:

 _"In short, the business has decided that it can afford to delay release 2 in order to accelerate release 1. Is this wise?"_

This isn't actually what happens. Yes, release 1 gets pushed out the door asap, but then 'the business' expects release 2 to be done exactly as fast as release 1 was. So 'the business' never consciously makes that choice. All they hear is "do you want release 1 now or later?" and of course, they pick now (who wouldn't?).

Even if you try to explain to them about the concept of technical debt and how this will delay release 2, all they will hear is "blah blah blah option (a) release 1 faster, option (b) release 1 slower".

There is an element of delayed gratification to not accumulating technical debt, and large organizations tend to have amazingly short term view points.

\----

But personally, I don't believe incurring technical debt makes you faster in the short term. I don't see technical debt as 'getting a loan' e.g. it gives you more resources now but you have to pay it back later on... I see technical debt as pouring a bucket of tar over yourself.

Technical debt, and bad designs start slowing you down immediately.

Moreover, it is almost never the programmers who decide to incur technical debt, my experience is that it is some team of architects or managers who decide to incur the debt (e.g. by picking Vendor X's product that is a pain in the butt to integrate with your existing systems), and they are never the people who have to pay the debt back.

It is the programmers who have to pay the debt back, usually by way of unpaid overtime ... as the same managers who incurred the debt in the first place stand over them screaming about missed deadlines.

An example of technical debt handed down by the architects might be a particular toolset that doesn't _quite_ work together, or some bondage and discipline around the methodology, or some arbitrary restriction to increase the difficulty (e.g. slapping everything with patterns whether they need them or not, or desgnating a particular database for persistence, but then telling the develoeprs they're not allowed to use SQL (yes, it's a silly and arbitrary example)). Another example is that architects love complex abstractions, so if you give them half a chance they'll spend their time adding layers of indirection to your design. This makes it much harder for the developers.

Hence my bucket of tar analogy. It's bad enough when you pour it over yourself, but if you're already in a tar pit and the people on the sidelines are throwing it onto you... it's infuriating.

<comment><USER4> Good points, though I disagree with this: "Moreover, it is almost never the programmers who decide to incur technical debt"

In my experience this is sadly not true. There are an awful lot of programmers out there that don't even understand that technical debt exists. I see it a lot amongst inexperienced programmers.

The worst thing about technical debt type issues is that it is very difficult to explain to someone why there is a problem. You have a young programmer, fresh out of uni, and you ask them to build a small subsystem, which they do with much enthusiasm. Then in the code review you see a bunch of practices that are going to make life difficult down the track: naming conventions haven't been followed, huge 500 line functions, tests are brittle if they exist at all, the code is full of handlers for special cases, instead of finding a single algorithm that elegantly handles all nominal cases, things like that.

The trouble is, the code works, kind of, so it is hard to explain to someone why code in that state is not acceptable. Furthermore, I can happily accept code that doesn't meet one of those criteria that I listed above, but when you start to have multiple infringements, code just becomes unmaintainable. It's not a clear cut case of something that you can point to and say "that's wrong", but more of a overall cumulative effect. I eventually had to let one guy go because I just could not get him to understand that this stuff was important when you're building a big system.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I meant "if there are sufficiently stroppy senior developers who can knock some sense into the other developers, it is almost never the programmers who decide to incur technical debt".

But, sadly, even that isn't true.

It really comes down to the complexifers vs the simplifiers. The complexifers generate technical debt simply by existing. They can't _not_ generate technical debt, because they love complexity and create it to the full extent that they are capable. Thus getting rapidly out of their depth† and hence the tar pit analogy.

NB: architects are usually, but not always complexifers.

†since there is that old saw about debugging being twice as hard as writing the code, therefore if you write code to your limits you by definition aren't smart enough to debug it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great analogy. Also a good point: "One thing to keep in mind, technical debt is a sign of success. Without the continual driver of success, systems don't evolve to the point of having technical debt. But it's important to always be aware of the debt, of its force and effect on the flexibility and maintainability of the system."

</comment><comment><USER6> > _"One thing to keep in mind, technical debt is a sign of success."_

Absolutely. Or as the song goes: "...she opened the door and said, 'Honey, take me for a spin'"</comment>


Ask HN: Would you vaccinate against SARS-CoV-2? - <AUTHOR> To achieve the goal of creating possible vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 asap, the procedure of testing given vaccine needs to be done in a much smaller time-frame. This could lead to possible side effects (especially long-term) of the drug not being discovered. Even Bill Gates acknowledged in his Interview with the BBC that there may be compromises in the safety measures.
As a reminder, the vaccine Pandemrix, which was developed as a treatment for the swine flu, caused narcolepsy in over 1000 patients.
Would you be willing to put up with possible side effects or would you rather take the risk of possibly getting infected with SARS-CoV-2? Also, what would be your stance regarding a mandatory vaccination against SARS-CoV-2? <comment><USER2> Not until the risks are understood, I foresee people really trying to jump the gun in getting this to market. Also I probably have antibodies to covid due to riding the light rail in Seattle for most of Dec/Jan/Feb.

Also we know the gov is not the most truthful or correct right now[0]. I'd trust UW and other large research universities medical guidance on Covid much more than the feds.

[0] [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus- facemask...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus- facemask-60-minutes-2020-03-08/#)

</comment><comment><USER3> No thank you. I'd like to see Bill Gates test it on his children first.

</comment><comment><USER4> I refuse to be vaccinated with anything not throughly tested. You cannot test for longterm side effects during an active pandemic. I would rather get covid19 than be vaccinated for it.

</comment><comment><USER5> > As a reminder, the vaccine Pandemrix, which was developed as a treatment for > the swine flu, caused narcolepsy in over 1000 patients.

Another comment expanded on this that it's 3.6 additional cases per 100,000 vaccinated. For people like me lacking context and knowledge in this area, what's the 'gold standard'? Is the expectation that a vaccine has no long lasting impacts beyond the immunity it gives, and any increase at all in anything would be considered unacceptable? Or is there some complexity in that calculation?

</comment><comment><USER6> >As a reminder, the vaccine Pandemrix, which was developed as a treatment for the swine flu, caused narcolepsy in over 1000 patients.

That number without a % is meaningless

<comment><USER7> > That number without a % is meaningless

Unless you were one of the 1000.

<comment><USER8> It matters to the 28 million people who were vaccinated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would rather take the risk of infection. Naturally, opposed to mandatory.

</comment><comment><USER10> Are you asking who's willing to be part of the clinical trials? Who's willing to be vaccinated without a trial? Who's willing to be vaccinated after appropriate trials?

Personally I fall into the third set. I fear, tho, that this may be a disease for which (as is common with other coronaviruses like the common cold) exposure grants immunity for only a few months.

</comment><comment><USER11> > To achieve the goal of creating possible vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 asap, > the procedure of testing given vaccine needs to be done in a much smaller > time-frame.

Why?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, you can't test a treatment for 5 years if you release it within 18 months.

<comment><USER12> My personal take, no expertise, just reading articles I don't think we will have a vaccine in 5 years much less 18 months. It sounds really hard to vaccinate against this one, even without it mutating, which is sounds like it mutates pretty quickly.

Recently lots of articles and chatter that the core of the issues is that it is causing are mostly blood clotting related. Sounds like existing blood thinners aren't working, so it sounds promising that they could develop new blood thinners as possible treatments.

I agree, I'm not signing up for a rushed vaccine that might not be effective and could have negative long term side affects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It depends on what we know about covid-19 by the time the vaccine is available.

</comment><comment><USER14> absolutely, it'd be incredibly dumb not to</comment>