RISC-V's Open-Source Architecture Shakes Up Chip Design - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/riscvs-opensource-architecture-shakes-up-chip-design.html <comment><USER2> It's a little early to say that RISC-V has shaken anything up. There are very few RISC-V parts available, and they are a long way away from being viable replacements for other commercially available processors.

<comment><USER3> Not really, if you are making a SoC or IoT and you need some core there are RISC-V core that are competitive to many ARM cores. Look at the product lines of Andes, SiFive, Greenwave and others.

<comment><USER2> I can't speak to the other two, but SiFive's offering -- the FE310 -- is a toy. 16K of on-chip RAM and no support for external memory is incredibly limiting -- and the part doesn't appear to be available through commercial distributors, making it unusable outside the hobbyist market.

<comment><USER3> SiFive offers many chips other then the FE310 as well. Its a new company that has to bootstrap, Andes and others are existing companies that added lines of RISC-V processors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm very interested in RISC-V. But show me the hardware! I'll buy one (as long as it's not prohibitively expensive). I'm looking at FPGAs also, but they are not really very compelling unless you want to spend ~$3K. So QEMU for now I guess.

<comment><USER5> You can get simpler FPGAs on a board that you can easily connect to for under $100.

e.g. Numato Mimas w/Spartan 6 core [https://numato.com/product/mimas-v2-spartan-6-fpga- developme...](https://numato.com/product/mimas-v2-spartan-6-fpga-development- board-with-ddr-sdram) (with this plus the CPU softcore at j-core.org you can run Linux)

Adafruit $79.95 [https://www.adafruit.com/product/1553](https://www.adafruit.com/product/1553) (Spartan6) and $99.95 [https://www.adafruit.com/product/451](https://www.adafruit.com/product/451) (Altera Cyclone IV)

Many others on eBay etc. But this Reddit thread is likely useful: [https://www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comments/8kwz3q/fpga_boards_fo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comments/8kwz3q/fpga_boards_for_beginners/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the info -- but are these capable of running Linux on RISC-V in an FPGA, not just a bare-metal RISC-V?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know the state of Shakti, which once had an ETA of 2018 for "manufacturing"? I couldn't find useful information when I last looked.

</comment><comment><USER7> Until it gets popcount and count leading zeros, I can't use it.

<comment><USER8> Use it for what?</comment></comment>


Do Open Source Software Developers Listen to Their Users? - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.06893 <comment><USER2> They got responses to 5 questions from 72 OSS developers with projects on SourceForge. There is absolutely no way you can draw any sort of reasonable conclusion from that sample.

<comment><USER3> That is a good point. Projects that are on sourceforge are going to select for less recently created projects and projects less likely to migrate to a platform with better developer experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> One bit of nuance to this is how one defines "users". An existing open source project (or even perhaps an exiting proprietary product) is likely to think of its users as "those people who currently use the product", while a startup building a product to be sold to a future larger userbase is going to think of them more broadly. The problem with this is that the former is subject to selection bias. All the people who are currently using the product are by selection, those who have the patience to deal with its' usability warts.

Therefore, if an outsider to a project wants to make a change in favor of usability, they have a much harder time overcoming the objection that changing the code might break things.

The same is true on a second level: All of the existing developers of a project are those who are by selection already comfortable with both the development process and the resulting product. If someone wants to join, they have to already be familiar with how the project is structured and how it does things. They probably have to already be comfortable with this. Someone who hates working on projects without automated testing is very unlikely to join such a project and then convince the team to adopt automated testing.

Of course, you can't just let random new people come into a project without pushing back on them; Often their ideas are genuinely bad ideas which come from a lack of understanding & context.

<comment><USER4> You also can't just join a commercial software project. But you can fork an open source one.

For most open source software projects, the "user base" is developers who like open source software. That's a good thing really; otherwise, there would be nothing that works well for people like me, as all commercial software companies go after the much bigger markets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a FOSS developer, my aim is to grow the FOSS community _in the long term_. Number of users, and their real or perceived wants, is only sometimes helpful to this goal. Sometimes it is not, for example when "shiny" is prioritised over solid engineering or security, or when a short-term attention gain from temporary "hired guns" is prioritised over attracting reliable and skilled workers that will help to sustain the community.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think that this is a complicated question for two reasons.

1\. It probably greatly depends on the open source project. Some developers are probably in tune with their users while other barely realize that users exist.

2\. Some people have a different definition of "listening to their users" than others.

Users who want something but don't get it may regard the developer as not listening to them.

The developer, on the other hand, may be hearing everything users are asking for, but aren't implementing everything that's requested because it isn't practical or just doesn't fit in with the scope and future plans for the project.

A developer can't just throw in everything that users want because the result may be a horrible mess. So even if the developer listens to what users are saying and directs the project in a way that makes sense from a long-term perspective, many users may feel like the developer isn't listening to them.

That's really a communications issue. If the developer simply ignores requests because they don't make sense (or makes hostile responses), they're more likely to be regarded as not listening.

If their responses are respectful and they post information about their design decisions and how they are implementing certain requested features and why, then they're a lot more likely to be perceived as listening to their users.

</comment><comment><USER7> The only time I ever attempted to engage with the developers of an open source project, the answer was a resounding "NO".

<comment><USER8> "Contribute or shut up" seems to be a common response.

My experience, not extensive mind you, is mixed on the matter. The people who make the communication positive gets my attention, even if they so no. Otherwise, I'll still possibly use the project as needed but I don't feel the need to contribute even if I could.

<comment><USER9> I think it depends on the project. I get a ton of feature requests that are off the beaten trail. I basically give people the feed back of: We have limited bandwidth, but I'm happy to point you in the right direction.

"Contribute or shut up" worded differently may not be an ideal answer but it's an understandable one. Imagine if you were a resource constrained engineer having hundreds of queries and emails a day about certain things users want and then not only have that feature not be something of interest to anyone but that user but also have it be something that isn't even on your road map.

Technology that's general purpose enough (in our case machin e learning/scientific computing) will give you this.

There's a huge delta between say: a resource constrained but heavily used project and a javascript lib that only provides a slightly better basic widget.

It's no excuse for OSS devs to be rude but I hope you can understand what it looks like from our side a bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Right now the only example of big changes asked by users I can come with is Gnome 3 ... you can guess what would be my answer to the question in the title ;-)

<comment><USER11> >> Gnome 3

Hey, we think hot corners are cool because they're easy to hit with a mouse - never mind that we're moving to more of a touch friendly interface.

And speaking of touch interfaces, isn't it cool using swipe-to-unlock with a mouse? Users like that!

Oh, we abandoned the old HIG. I mean who needs UI guidelines? Why would users want an icon labeled "email" and not the name of the program?

===== They have some things really right and some just so wrong. And from what I've read they don't listen as if they have a coherent plan, but it's not really making sense to me what that plan is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > According to the results, majority of OSS developers neither consider > usability as their top priority nor do they consult usability experts.

A rigorous examination of thing's which most people consider to be obvious is still valuable.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm part of two open-source frameworks -- [http://deeplearning4j.org](http://deeplearning4j.org) and [http://nd4j.org](http://nd4j.org) \-- and I can tell you that we spend about half our time listening to users, fixing bugs they report, adding features they request and improving the docs. It really helps when other users kick in to help.

</comment><comment><USER13> Smart, interesting new functionality that is made inaccessible due to poor usability is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

</comment><comment><USER14> I try to (and I work in 5+ opensource projects/libraries).

It's a two-way street here, the users need to also listen and engage with the developers. So don't forget that to, opensource people (especially if they are doing it in there spare/free-time) require working with, not being dictated to ;)

</comment><comment><USER15> Unless it is directly related to functionality, no.</comment>


What Happens If China Makes First Contact? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-atlantic/what-happens-if-china-makes-first-contact-472699c055c6 <comment><USER2> If aliens make first contact with China and when they ask what planet is this, the chinese would say this is 地球 which literally translates to 'Ground Ball'. From then on we would be know throughout the galaxy as planet Ground Ball.</comment>


Apple Music Is a Usability Nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://cezarywojcik.com/2015/06/30/apple-music-usability-nightmare <comment><USER2> The criticisms here are 100% fair… But it's worth remembering that Spotify's fundamental unit is the user playlist. It's what the social experience is built around, it's what the user's experience is built around, it's what the consumption experience is built around.

Apple Music, on the other hand, has a pretty strong bent towards curation and suggestion. It's clearly oriented to encourage you to use the curated playlists that Apple Music's folks are creating, and other suggestions based on your tastes. It's also pretty good IMO at providing suggestions based on the music you're currently looking at so you can keep investigating.

I get the feeling the playlist functionality in iTunes 12.2 and the latest iOS is mostly the exact same as it was in previous versions—I don't think it's been integrated into Apple Music at all (yet?). Right now it's just a way of organizing things that are part of your music, rather than a way of organizing things that are part of Apple Music.

So, while it's perfectly fair to be frustrated with the playlist creation experience, I think it's also worth appreciating the fact that Apple stayed true to what they've been saying and marketing around Apple Music. Those user experiences are, at least for me, very straightforward and have generally been quite good. So maybe generalizing and saying "Apple Music is a Usability Nightmare" is overstating a tad… Even though saying "Apple Music's Playlist Story is a Usability Nightmare" maybe isn't.

<comment><USER3> > But it's worth remembering that Spotify's fundamental unit is the user > playlist

I don't think that is true.

My interaction with Spotify is much more about listening to an artist or song and using 'more like this'. And the fundamental unit of sharing is 'friend x listened to this song'. If I know I like their tastes I tend to list to that song then, if I like it, listen to 'more like this'.

I spent about an hour earlier trying to use Apple Music via iTunes and left incredibly frustrated. I couldn't make it do anything I actually wanted it to do.

As a simple example, go to 'new' then, pick a genre from the incredibly awkwardly placed drop down, scroll down and you see 'top songs'. Cool, I thought, lets play the top songs from this genre! Except, as near as I can tell, there is actually no way to play those songs as a 'playlist'. You can click one at a time, and they play, but after each finishes it just stops.

<comment><USER4> Weird for me it seems exactly right. I tend to share and follow playlists not individual songs.

Also I have had no issue getting Apple Music to work the way I want including what you were trying to achieve. I just clicked on Top Songs and it opened as a playlist where after the first song finished it played the next one. Maybe you were clicking the indvidiual songs ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Played around with Apple Music a bit this morning. It has promise, but despite the hyperbolic title (wish people would stop that!!) I agree that it's a little bit of a mess. I think the problem comes with smooshing the iTunes Music Store and the Music app together. Suddenly, the interface I'm used to is relegated to just a single tab to the right of four others that I only have a passing interest in. Also, some of my favorite artists that I routinely listen to on Spotify have gaps in their catalogues (Tipper).

Say what you will about Spotify, but their native iOS app is really top-notch. I keep finding little details that make my user experience so much more delightful. For example, I recently learned that you could swipe left and right on the "now playing" bar on the bottom to move between songs. It feels really organic and I wish other players would adopt it. I also just found out that you can swipe right on songs to queue them up for playback, and now I use it all the time. Dunno WTF happened with their desktop client, though.

Oh, and now that I've learned that you can (secretly) search Spotify by genre ('genre:"progressive metal"') and see the top tracks, my life (and music discovery) have been much improved. I also routinely bulk-add the top tracks from artists I'm investigating to get a feel for their music. Don't see a way to do either in Apple Music.

</comment><comment><USER6> I used Apple Music a lot today - I didn't really find anything majorly off- putting about the UI. There were a few quirks which I'll let Apple off the hook for, seeing as they haven't dramatically changed their Music app in 9 years (unless you're counting the flattening that came with iOS 7.)

To say Apple Music is a "usability nightmare" is a HUGE stretch IMO. If I opened the app and was presented with 1000 different options along with every single interface guideline being ignored, sure, maybe _that_ would be a "nightmare".

I think what you mean to say is "Apple Music isn't close enough to perfect yet, from a usability standpoint."

<comment><USER7> Agreed. A nightmare would be if it were difficult for the typical person to figure out how to get it to work. For that, things like gdb or git would be fine examples.

"Apple Music's playlists have some bugs and usability issues" new title sadly less sensational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Frankly I hate that spotify is so built around playlists. I have never made a playlist in my entire life and don't plan to. It's a great tool for making a list of songs for a party or maybe a road trip. Maybe a parent wants to get a kids favorite songs for a car ride to school. Things like that are of great use.

But overall why do we need a playlist to add songs to a library. I have so many gigs of music on my desktop. When I pay for a music subscription I want to replicate that.

Trying to do that in spotify is a disaster. Not only does the interface both web and fat client become slow and cluttered but you don't get a hierarchical view.

I went back to just following artists on spotify. Then when I want to listen to an album I just go through the semi hierarchy. I tend to listen to full albums not songs.

The fact that you can't save an entire artist on spotify says everything.

I really like Google Play music but google doesn't give it the care spotify does. Google takes the stance that their algorithms can solve every problem and spotify knows humans need to be there to fix some issues. One common issue I saw on Google Play Music was albums belonging to artists of the same or very similar names being listed on each other pages. The worst part is google gives users no way to alert them.

I truly hope apple shakes things up.

</comment><comment><USER9> Spotify isn't much better. I think its designed so that I crash my car while navigating through a complex maze of menus with something that should only take a single click. (For example just try to "Star" a song. Its like 6 clicks)

<comment><USER10> At least with Apple Music you can tell Siri to play X song while driving. With Spotify indeed you had to navigate through a maze of menus and there are many of us doing or were doing this while driving.

Siri's success rate when asking her to play X song or artist is pretty solid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought he was exaggerating about iTunes, but I went to try to use the menus and they are horrific. They don't act like desktop menus at all. And you can't select and then drag and drop the songs, like you can in the normal iTunes screens. It's gratuitously different in every way.

The only small consolation is that I don't use playlists, so it doesn't really affect me. But, ooof—it's quite the bad UI.

</comment><comment><USER12> Rdio is the only one of these things doing it right and they seem to be doing it by accident.

The trick is to follow people you _don 't_ know on Rdio, find a weird album you like, see who listened to it and if they have good taste in music follow them. Then see who they're following, etc etc. Forget about playlists just focus on albums. Try not to follow people you know personally and be ruthless in unfollowing people because it only takes one Drake fan to pollute your Trending page.

But yes Apple Music is horrible. It's the first time I've gotten the sense that Apple really doesn't know what they're doing and that's a scary thought.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's truly bizarro world if you think the Spotify UI is good.

<comment><USER14> Exactly my thoughts and pretty much the only reason I use Rdio instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Apple Music sucks for creating playlists" doesn't mean "Apple Music is a usability nightmare."

The entire industry is aware of the fact that user-generated playlists don't actually work to achieve mega-scale consumption. If they did, Spotify would be at 200m global subscribers and we would all pay for enhanced playlist features. People don't actually know what they want to listen to, and they don't want to spend time on curation -- not even on time curating their curators.

Spotify was built on the false premise that people wanted a "social jukebox" and that this "social stickiness" would somehow create an experience that, when combined with licenses to every track possible, would create an experience superior to pirated channels. Look, they'd say -- you can now see what your friends are listening to, and enjoy unparalleled social discovery! Better still, you can simply subscribe to their playlists and ride off their cool vibes!

The vast majority of people just don't care about this stuff, and definitely not enough to pay for it. They want to press play and skip stuff. And that's about it. The Pandora UI is the UI to beat. Everyone in the business knows this -- hence why you see everyone pushing radio metaphors over playlists.

If you're judging Apple Music on the basis of its playlist UI, you're an edge- case user judging edge-case features. Time to reflect on the fact that you aren't the target audience.

<comment><USER16> Sources for these claims on what the vast majority of people want?

Either way this is a terrible excuse. It implies that you necessarily have to sacrifice good list support in order to promote discovery and other features. They are not mutually exclusive. As a consumer I don't think it's too much to expect a good playlist UI in a major product like this, especially coming from a company that prides itself in delivering good user interaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't use or care about Apple Music. But had to upvote for Opeth in the screenshots.

</comment><comment><USER10> Apple, please fix the horrid UI/UX for creating a playlist. It's not easy to figure out and heck I just want to tell Siri add this to X playlist. That would be the easiest and quickest way to create a playlist. As of now creating a playlist is so confusing and frustrating!!!

</comment><comment><USER18> Kind of a shame. I use itunes mac daily and I feel they've really did a great job with the UI. It has a little learning curve. I have a lot of songs and making/ adding to my current playlist is pretty easy and powerful.

music for ios is another story...

Hopefully this 1.0 and they'll improve.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't think the problem is the usability, the problem is that they don't propose anything new. I remember Steve Jobs saying something like we should not copy others but we have to do things different. With Apple Music, they just try to copy existing services. For example, iMap was a failure but at least they tried to propose something different from the competition. Not with Apple Music.

</comment><comment><USER20> Meh, this is a bit overly dramatic. I've played around with the interface briefly and really didn't find it that bad.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't think I'll ever be interested in radio or "music discovery" services, but I'm already a huge fan of the Apple Music app update, because it finally adds the "play next" and "up next" feature that has been conspicuously absent for so long.

</comment><comment><USER22> I hate to be the person who nitpicks, but

> I turned on the Beats1 station to see if it was any good, heard some rap > "music", and then very very quickly turned that station off.

It's OK not to personally like specific genres, but please don't go as far as to dismiss those you don't like as not being "music".

<comment><USER23> No, it is perfectly acceptable to use hyperbole. Anyone who says differently should be shot. If you like rap music, you are stupid, and your parents are stupid.

Criticizing music in a post about music preferences is not unreasonable. Thicken your skin.

<comment><USER24> Did you want a reply, or the catharsis of getting downvoted from "stupid" users who like rap?

<comment><USER23> I want an argument about how often I am seeing people being offended by having their preferences criticized. I can take somebody disagreeing with me (except on this issue, of course :) ), and civil society relies on criticism, and people accepting criticism. Berating people because they are dismissive of things they don't like is a path that lies madness. Feedback should not be purely positive, truncating the negative, because then effects that are polarizing or simply have costly disadvantages outcompete effects that do are more mildly positive, but without (or fewer) drawbacks.

<comment><USER7> Saying that rap is not music may be criticism. But it is certainly ignorant and unconstructive criticism. It is criticism in the same sense that "your mom" jokes are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was sort of hoping to read a usability analysis of the site from someone more experienced than me.

</comment><comment><USER26> Mac OS X at first had a music folder icon in the finder window sidebar, also all macs came with optical drives.

That icon was removed several years ago. You can enable it but its not there by default. Most macs dont have optical drives anymore.

My mac and my ipad are constantly griping that they cannot reach the itunes store. thats because i often have no internet connection. im more productive that way, see.

Enriching the corporation is not what music is for. I can earn some goodmoney as a coder but to be honest I find playing piano for tips to be a far mor satisfying experience.

</comment><comment><USER27> beta software is beta?

</comment><comment><USER28> Its fine, software development is not easy. I am sure they are going to fix the rough edges sooner than you think.

(also beats1 is great)

</comment><comment><USER29> "So I tried Apple Music for half a day and dismissed it out of hand" paraphrasing. Cool bro, glad you gave it chance. Glad you're making headlines.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is basically clickbait designed to capitalize on the new service.

With zero observation of what people want and how they experience it, he conducts a dry and pedantic assassination of the UI.

I've talked to 4 regular users today all of whom were having an enjoyable experience and expressing no concern about the UI - instead the conversation was all about what it was allowing people to discover and listen to.

The only person who had any discomfort with the service was a friend who hasn't used streaming before and was concerned about the ephemeral nature of what he listened to - I.e. Unlike with buying musing it's easy to listen to a lot of stuff and not make a connection with it to a particular place and time.

In any case unless you like pedantry, don't read this article - instead listen to some music.

<comment><USER16> Your comment would be more useful if you actually addressed the "pedantic" things. Have you even read the post?

\- Can't delete multiple items or move multiple items to another list

\- "three dots" AND right click shows different contextual menus

\- 4 clicks to delete items from the "My music" menu.

While I don't think the article is especially balanced, these items are far from pedantic.

<comment><USER30> They are pedantic if they don't affect usability significantly, and to determine that one needs to know whether users are impacted - not whether they conform to a principle.</comment></comment></comment>


Problems at Health Care Web Site Not From Online Attack, Experts Say - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/news/affordable-care-act/2013/10/02/problems-at-health-care-web-site-not-from-online-attack-experts-say/?_r=0

<comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone else read this and wonder whether anyone competent is handling this project? Even the commentators from this article don't seem to understand how to scale a website.</comment>


Show HN: Stripe Customer Info inside Gmail - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/InboxSDK/stripe-for-gmail

<comment><AUTHOR> We wrote this Gmail extension to use internally here at Streak. Super helpful for email customer support so we can see their billing history while emailing them as well as indicators in our inbox so we know which emails are with paid customers.

EDIT: direct download to extension here: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stripe-for- gmail/d...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stripe-for- gmail/dhnddbohjigcdbcfjdngilgkdcbjjhna)

<comment><USER2> How is InboxSDK coming along? I'd love to follow along with development if you guys have any sort of open source repo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its going well and we're pretty close to doing a show HN on it. Have a few companies using it production with hundreds of thousands of users and we're really close to opening it up to anyone.

<comment><USER3> This is very cool. Thanks for doing this. I looked through Streak's code several few months ago while noodling with my own Gmail extension idea and the crazy hacks required just to get the thread id is amazing. By "we're really close to opening it up to anyone" do you mean the info on the site I found ([http://www.inboxsdk.com/docs/](http://www.inboxsdk.com/docs/)) is going to be invalidated?

<comment><AUTHOR> not invalidated, but we'll start giving out API keys soon. If you don't have one yet, email me at aleem at streak and I'll hook you up with one that will work in production going forward...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome, really want to see more of gmail become a platform.

<comment><USER5> Only if its easy to migrate. Now that Elasticsearch has come a long way, I could see someone writing something similar to Graylog (which sits on top of ES, for app/ops logging data), but for email (frontend interface, ingester for mail through SMTP and new REST mail protocols).

<comment><USER6> What about something like this: [https://pistats.io/](https://pistats.io/)

This is my side project, basically I think that there is space for analytic tool on the top of email(GMail in this case). Because our emails contains much more useful data than we use. The stripe is one of examples.

<comment><USER7> Without the gmail API limiting inbox search access to a particular filter (eg, "any email from uber.com"), there's no way people should be building a business this way...

opening your inbox up to random third parties is a disaster.

and frankly, I expect google to cut this form of access off, or severely limit it in the future.

<comment><USER6> Well I can't other than agree with you. When I was doing research on this particular use case I was surprised that GMail APIs are open like this.

It was my priority to ensure that we are looking just for specific filter and I touch only emails from Uber and Lyft.

GMail API developers should definitely consider adding this kind of granularity to the system. I think it would allow to build much more sophisticated and trustworthy application.

<comment><USER7> Yep. I tried to write my comment in a way that wasn't calling you out at all -- but really google for allowing this kind of unfettered or controlled access. :-)

I've no doubt you would do great things and get much greater adoption in a better API-enabled inbox. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is super awesome</comment>


YC Office Hours in 11 Countries This Fall - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-office-hours-in-11-countries-this-fall <comment><USER2> Hi,

I'm helping organize the meetups in Lagos and Abuja. Hit me up if you have any questions or suggestions. I'd encourage people from neighbouring countries to take the trip down. So I hope to see people from Benin, Cameroon, Togo and of course Ghana

Thanks a lot Kat and team for making this happen! Hopefully it will be the first of many.

Here are the sign up links.

Lagos: [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/techcircle-presents- building-a-...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/techcircle-presents-building-a- startup-a-chat-with-y-combinator-partners-tickets-27008639568)

Abuja: [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/techcircle-presents-build-a- gre...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/techcircle-presents-build-a-great- startup-qa-in-abuja-with-y-combinator-tickets-27078547665)

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be useful if the post explained what YC Office Hours are. Is this a way to get into YC? A chance to have feedback on my startup? Or just an opportunity to meet a YC person?

<comment><USER4> If you click on the "Sign up for office hours" link, it goes into a bit more detail about what to expect at office hours.

Office hours are 25 minute meetings where you can ask for feedback on a particular challenge your company is facing, or you can use the time to ask questions about YC. They're fairly casual conversations, rather than formal pitch sessions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder why Nairobi, Kenya isn't in the list. Africa is a humongous continent to only have Nigeria in the list.

<comment><USER4> There are a lot of places we wanted to go (many that are listed on this thread). But for this trip, we only had two weeks in between Startup School and our application deadline. We'll get to other parts of Africa later. We started with Nigeria because we have a number of alumni who are based there now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wooot excited to have YC visit us at Wheelys Café in Sweden. If anyone's travelling to Stockhholm for this feel free to email me (email@example.com) for burger recommendations, directions to our office or if you'd like to come by for a cup of coffee.

</comment><comment><USER7> How were these countries chosen? This could just be a faux vacation for the YC people, but I feel there are some countries in Asia for which this would well received and be a huge success. (For example, Singapore)

</comment><comment><USER8> Remember when Sam tweeted this at DMC a while back? It sounds like he has revised his position.

@davemcclure way to help startups is not to be super busy with travel etc, but to sit around your office and be available to advise them :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder why they are skipping Brazil (and going for Argentina)

<comment><USER10> Zika?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Work culture around the world varies wildly. Always interesting to see Founders break through to success despite the differences in culture.

</comment><comment><USER12> Would it be possible to add Egypt to the list? :)

<comment> rafi-bz Tel Aviv is just 1 hour flight away. I can help make a visit here very interesting and productive for you :D

Hope to visit Egypt some day!

<comment><USER13> Tel Aviv is just one hour away if you can get into the country. I don't know about Egypt specifically, but I know some countries in that area aren't on the best of terms with Israel...

<comment><USER12> Let's hope it's not that hard :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Please add Sydney Australia

<comment><USER15> or Melboune ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would like to attend YC office hours for help with expanding the customer base for a specialized software development company. The application form asks "What stage is your company at currently? (Sketch, Prototype, Beta, Launched, Other)". Does this mean that services companies are not elligible?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not just for hardware and software companies. Service companies can be pre or post launch too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So much global demand. So difficult to scale. Might be time to consider a kind of YCx extension program, where independent local organizers, who are most keenly aware of their native flavor, can get the tools to self-organize their own startup community's office hours, seed funds, incubators, etc.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just to be clear (in Delhi), there are two different registrations. One for office hours and other for the general conference and fireside chat. I registered for office hours but conference is a waiting list.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hey YC, your core program has invested in 5 companies with at least 1 colombian founder, you have witnessed the talent here. Would you consider adding our country to the list?

</comment><comment><USER10> They should do this in flyover country too.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there any specific reason why YC left out China? China has a hug community and great success in startups.

<comment><USER4> We were there earlier this year. And we'll go again soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why isn't Kenya on the list? Considering the conference there last year.

</comment><comment><USER22> Canada?

</comment><comment><USER23> How come you're not swinging via London on your EU tour?

</comment><comment><USER24> Interesting choice of countries. What was the rationale?

</comment><comment><USER25> Please add Singapore

</comment><comment><USER26> I see Sweeden and Denmark, but not Norway

</comment><comment><USER27> Visiting to Asia on next round?

<comment><USER4> Yes</comment></comment>


Crowd-testing iOS app without putting app on marketplace - <AUTHOR>

I want to be able to send invite to bunch of my friends across the world to test out our iOS app, without actually going through marketplace. Is there a way?
Primary reason I want this app to be widely tested before it hit marketplace is to make sure that app is very well tested before we formally hit marketplace.
I am sure some guy have figured out a way...looking for suggestions. <comment><USER2> Pieceable is really neat, but it's just not gonna work for most apps that use any of the phone's hardware and it doesn't perform super well.

TestFlight is almost perfect. Lots of times people can't figure out how to register a device and then provisioning profiles get messed up and the app doesn't work for them. It's as seamless a process as you can get and still work within Apple's system. Once you get everything set up, it's quite amazing.

One last way that's super easy for users (but probably not supported/allowed by Apple) is to use the Enterprise distribution. This costs 300, instead of the normal 100 and it lets you sign your own apps for use inside of your "company." Once you get the Enterprise distribution building, you can put the app on a website and have anyone download and use it. Unfortunately, if Apple finds out about this they can ban you from the developer program. If you put it behind a password so only people you want to find it can, you'd probably be fine. I'm not sure what it takes for beta testers to count as part of your organization.

<comment><USER3> Apple doesn't allow just anybody into the "enterprise" program. Your company has to have at least 500 employees and a Dun and Bradstreet number. I found this out the hard way, when a company I was working with had their enterprise application rejected by Apple.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure about the 500 employees requirement. My startup definitely did it with 5 employees, though, I know we had to get a Dun and Bradstreet number.

<comment><USER3> maybe they relaxed that part recently! I'm pretty sure they told us about the 500 employee part at the time, but that was a couple of years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Check out Pieceable Viewer at <https://www.pieceable.com/> . It allows your friends to try the app out in their browser, which avoids the complexity with devices IDs and makes it manageable to get as many people as you want involved in the testing. Even folks without iOS devices!

TestFlight has already been mentioned and is great, but I find it's a pain when I've got a new test user that I have to re-generate provisioning profiles on Apple's Developer site and then rebuild the binary and push the new build back up to TestFlight. Every time. For every new tester that responds to your invite. It's a pain. Using Pieceable Viewer avoids this entire hassle.

</comment><comment><USER6> <https://testflightapp.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you used it? How would you rate it?

<comment><USER7> I rate it 10 of 10. It's pretty awesome, and the Testflight SDK has some additional functionality that's pretty useful (such as allowing testers to write comments in app).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One way I was thinking is to put this app on marketplace using different account/app name.</comment>


Clinton's Private Server Undermined Open Records Act - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/03/17/hillary-clinton-email-server-foia-benghazi-editorials-debates/81832576/ <comment><AUTHOR> "A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency." - President Obama: First Day of Office.

Flash Forward 7 Years Later and the Democrats are About to Nominate the Least Transparent and Unaccountable Person since Nixon, while the Republican Party is trying to figure out a way to prevent the person with the most votes from becoming the party's Nominee.

The Illusion of Democracy, has proven to be nothing more than a veil to appease the masses.

<comment><USER2> You are so right. Hillary Clinton is wholly unfit for _any_ office let alone the highest in the land.

Trump has been public so long, everyone knows everything about him and he could care less. The establishment fears him because they have nothing on him. The man has his own money, he cannot be bribed, he has allegiance to no one, they cannot take away his campaign finance dollars, they cannot bar him this or that committee. He is, in my opinion, the perfect candidate at this time. I don't agree with everything he says, but he's better than the alternative, which is Hillary. I'd rather see Josef Stalin elected were he alive than Hillary.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2016? - <AUTHOR> Similar to the previous years. Let's predict what will happen next year. Please use lists instead of paragraphs. This is open for any kind of predictions (tech, politics, finance...)
2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8822723
2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6994370
2013: none?
2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3395201
2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1970023
2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025681 <comment><USER2> Very large numbers of people will be dis-satisfied with the results of the US presidential election. (That one's a no-brainer.)

ISIS will succeed in two or three more semi-large-scale attacks in the west (ten to hundreds dead, but not 1000+).

Optimism about deep learning will continue, but it will not revolutionize the world within 2016.

The economy will continue to muddle through, neither exploding in growth nor crashing through the floor.

Syria will continue to be a war zone. The peace process will not make significant progress. However, NATO and Russia will not wind up in a nuclear war.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hillary will win despite anemic turnout.

In accordance with the $3Million in donations she's received from Tata and Infosys she will immediately move to increase the H-1B visa intake by 5x to "allow American business to be more competitive"

An IT grass roots org will start a petition that draws 5 Million signatures to oppose the move and it will be ignored.

20,000 newly unemployed US IT workers will vow never to back Hillary in 2020 and vote for Carly Fiorina instead.

</comment><comment><USER4> Block chain is the new Big Data

Record high temperatures

Increased investment in VR

Majority of new businesses to be subscription based

Techno-conglomerates will invest in emerging countries to get them online

</comment><comment><USER5> There was a thread already a few days ago if you want to see other predictions about tech [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10795296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10795296)

</comment><comment><USER6> Google will become first company to reach $1 trillions valuation

<comment><USER7> Google or alphabet?</comment></comment>


What the ad blocker debate reveals - <AUTHOR> http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/08/03/what-the-ad-blocker-debate-reveals/ <comment><USER2> It's rather simple in my mind.

Putting your content up for free is the same as standing by my fence, waiting for me to ask you to throw your magazine over so I could read it.

You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience.

Don't want me to cut out the ads? tough luck, my reading experience, my choice.

Want to make money? try a subscription model.

Why can't you have both? Welcome to the real world.

[EDIT]:

This was the previous opening sentence: _" Putting your content up for free is the same as throwing your magazine over my fence for free."_

I changed it to a better analogy offered by AndrewKemendo in hope people would stop picking the analogy apart and focus on the message it's trying to deliver.

<comment><USER3> This comment rubs me in the wrong way.

Content creators aren't "putting it up for free" \- they're putting it up with ads attached. They're certainly not "throwing it over your fence." They're not injecting their articles into your browser, you're going to a URL to request them. _You_ seek the content out.

So, you go to a site, and download all of the content. That is what the company offered. Some of that is what allowed the company to create the content. You elect to not display that part using your client. I suppose that's your prerogative, but don't pretend like you're the victim in this.

And also don't pretend like it's the company's fault for not choosing your preferred business model. You don't get to choose other companies' business models for them - you can either accept or reject what they offer. The reason they're not on a subscription business model is probably because that wouldn't be sustainable for 99% of the sites you use.

<comment><USER4> > _The reason they 're not on a subscription business model is probably > because that wouldn't be sustainable for 99% of the sites you use._

I say, let them die then. It's not that we need those sites but don't want to pay. It's that various "enterprising" folks figure that they can make some "content", fill them with ads and get passive income. If those 99% of sites disappeared overnight, everyone would likely be better off. You'd have a choice between quality paid sites which people would support, or free sites paid by people who think their content is important enough to put their time _and_ money to keep it accessible. Yes, the second group exists and is usually the source of the most valuable and trustworthy content on-line.

<comment><USER3> I think that's a false dichotomy.

Certainly, there are sites that we could do without; there's clickbait-filled garbage that does nothing but pollute the Internet.

But there's also a lot of _really_ good stuff out there that is supported by ads. Stuff that people put their heart and soul and a lot of effort into, and stuff that I (and probably you) love to read, that wouldn't make it without ads.

I can count the number of sites I've ever heard of that are paid for by their users on one hand.

<comment><USER4> There is, but I think all they'd have to do to get money is _ask nicely_. I have high hopes for Patreon as a platform for that. They could also ask nicely to whitelist the site in ad blocker, promising they won't abuse it. I've seen a site that does that and happily complied because hey, I get it, they need the money and I do get some value from their services.

The reason people block ads is not because they don't want publishers to get paid. It's because most ads are actively user-hostile, ranging from merely fucking annoying to malware vectors which can cost you a lot of money. Quoting 'jacquesm from other subthread, "Browsing the web without an adblocker is like sex with multiple partners every day without a condom.". [0].

[0] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9995396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9995396)

<comment><USER3> > I think all they'd have to do to get money is ask nicely.

Having been a part of a lot of media sites in the past, I can safely say that wouldn't have been true for any of them.

<comment><USER5> Maybe there were not actually valuable to the visitors?

<comment><USER6> If you open the discussion section of any article on HN that is behind a paywall you'll find a link that bypasses the paywall and a discussion about how paywalled content shouldn't even be allowed on HN.

So even though they created something of value (otherwise it wouldn't be on the front page) but most people still won't pay for the content.

<comment><USER7> Why doesn't that seem reasonable? On Twitch.tv people stream for free and ask for donations or subscriptions. Most people just watch, and the few people that donate or subscribe so vastly overfund the stream that they can afford to never run ads.

Patreon works the same way. You make money when you produce content that people want to pay for even if they don't have to. If you can't do that, ads are a fine plan B, but you have to go into that knowing that many people will be ad blocking (and even more if you're producing any kind of technical content).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Publishers have done this to themselves with obstrusive intersitals; slow, over-the-content pop-ups; autoplaying video and audio ads; and other extremely annoying and degrading ad implementations. They have destroyed the browsing experience. If publishers were more ethical with their implementations of advertising technologies, fewer people would be driven to use ad-blocking.

<comment><USER9> It's a Tragedy of the Commons situation: When we block ads, we do it relatively aggressively, so those that implement advertising in an acceptable way get crushed anyway. You are either using ads people don't see, or doing terrible things like many Minecraft mods, often downloaded by kids, and hosted at a particularly nasty site where the obvious download link gives you malware. To block horrible things like that, we also sink anyone trying to use sensible advertisements. Behaving like a good citizen just gives a website less revenue, and gains them pretty much nothing.

At least one ad blocker tried to avoid this by marking some advertisements as legitimate/unobtrusive, and not blocking them. That didn't fly very well, as the rest of us just claimed that they were in league with advertisers, and just using this unblocking as a different source of revenue.

That's why the good actors are moving towards mixing advertisements and other content to be so similar as to be impossible to filter. Sponsored stories, content modified to add a few links to advertisers and such. Pay people not to post advertisements on their page, but to actively talk about you in the same way they talk about other things on their site.

<comment><USER10> Except the Tragedy of the Common requires a depletable resource of some kind, and unfettered access to it for people who have a vested interest in protecting their own supply but not the supply of others.

That is not online content one whit. My use of the WaPo does not in any way impact another users use, certainly not to the degree that WaPo is loading down my bandwidth with extra code and content above and beyond what I'm there to read. Seriously, by the time I'm done reading this article ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2015/08/03...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2015/08/03/hitchhiking-robots-cross-country-journey-comes-to-tragic- end-in-philadelphia)), they've used up 5MB of my bandwidth, for 5KB of text. Literally 1/1000th. It gzips down to half of that. In the time it took me to write the last three sentences, it's now up to 25MB. I'm not the one choosing to use up their server resources. They're doing it to themselves.

My hosting fees for all the sites I run combined come up to around $50/mo. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be for 1000 times more traffic. I assume it's not linear, but lord help me if it is.

There is no end in site for online content. When I can get a perfectly good substitute to the NY Times just by scanning the plethora of free blogs and social media posts from people who are doing it because they like it, because it's important to them, because they are living it, then there is no end in site to online content.

People will pay for valuable things. The problem is that this age of "you have to play the blogging/social media game to find any relevance in the public conscience" thing has created a functionally infinite supply of articles all saying basically the same thing. But turn on the TV, flip to CNN, and what are they talking about? "What are people saying on Twitter?" Why put up with ads to pay for secondary sources when I can go to the primary, where their advertising is nowhere near as intrusive?

An artist I really like releases a new album and I buy it right away because I want to listen to it on repeat. If I really liked a movie I saw in a theater, I preorder it right away (at current theater ticket prices, plus going with my wife, plus typical Blu-ray prices, I'm spending around $60 a movie, if I really like it).

Oh jeez. The WaPo article is 35MB now, and they just played a little "dink" sound, I'm guessing to try to catch my attention and get me to come back to... what? To an article I've now long disengaged with. These tactics works? This gets people to buy? This is worth all this infrastructure to try to leech out that one converted sale out of every 10,000 people?

<comment><USER4> > _Except the Tragedy of the Common requires a depletable resource of some > kind, and unfettered access to it for people who have a vested interest in > protecting their own supply but not the supply of others._

The depletable resource is user patience, i.e. how much shit they're willing to take before they start blanket-blocking ads. If every publisher stuck to simple, unobtrusive and relevant ads then readers wouldn't block them. But some publishers/ad creators/ad networks decide that they want more money so they make their ads more attention-grabbing, and then the others do the same, and then users get tired and start blocking, and everyone is worse off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let me start off by saying I have clicked (on purpose) on less than 10 ads in my whole life. It's to the point that I have what can best be described as "Ad Blindness", I don't even see them anymore. So much so that sometimes I think I've reached the end of an article because my eyes have determined that below is only ads only to find it's an ad in the middle of the content or actually part of the article (Just to reiterate I sometimes gloss over real content that fits my mental model of an "ad").

I have used blockers a lot before (If I'm not going to click I'd rather not be tracked and deal with the bloat) but recently turned them all off to see what it's like again. It's still the same shit that I don't care about and have no intention of clicking on. 9 times out of 10 its for something I ALREADY PAY FOR (Looking at you DO, AWS, etc) which is annoying because not only do I have to look at it but it just highlights the gross inefficiencies in advertisements.

I do not religiously ready many sites and the ones I do don't offer subscription models. I'd much rather PAY some monthly fee that is divvied up between the sites I actually visit over the course of a month. There are a number of service that have attempted this (Flattr being on the top of my head) but none have made it seamless.

Mobile is the big sticking point. On the desktop I could use an extension that reads some meta data out of a site's head to identify that site and mark it down for receiving a portion of "subscription fee" but on mobile this becomes much more of a challenge as I'm not willing to switch to a single-purpose browser (not that iOS would make it easy even if I did) and there are no browser extensions on mobile and no, I'm not going to do some gross "share" hack to record the sites I visit.

I don't have an answer to all of this, it all sucks. I want to compensate content creators but other than pay-per-view ads (which I mentally block out if not with an ad blocker) I'm never going really help them as it stands currently.

<comment><USER12> _Let me start off by saying I have clicked (on purpose) on less than 10 ads in my whole life._

I've clicked on hundreds. Thousands probably. For me clicking an ad is a win- win - the site I want to support gets a little money, and the advertiser gets to find out that online ads don't convert to sales so eventually they'll stop buying them. You can support the things you love _and_ drive the ad model off the internet at the same time.

I realise this isn't a workable long term strategy. :)

<comment><USER11> It isn't me being spiteful on purpose or anything like that I've just honestly never seen anything interests me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A secondary effect:

ad blockers not only improve the web experience for users (making everything load faster, by blocking unwanted spurious crap), _ad blockers are good for the cellcos as long as net neutrality holds true_.

Absent net-neut cellcos could in principle charge advertisers for access, but in a net-neut environment there's no money to be gained by carrying the traffic. Traffic which impairs the UX for the paying customers (the smartphone and tablet users).

This is going to be an interesting dilemma for that strong proponent of network neutrality, Google, uh, DoubleClick, right? (Unless they go the third- order route and roll out their own LTE data network, where of course they'll be the advertising gatekeeper and maybe folks who DPI indicates are using ad blockers will get a reduced speed of service ...)

</comment><comment><USER14> > We also have no ability to screen ad exchange ads ahead of time; we get what > they give us. We can and have set policies, for example, to disallow > autoplay video or audio ads. But we get them anyway, even from Google. > Whether advertisers make mistakes or try to sneak around the restrictions > and don't get caught, we can't tell. It happens, though, all the time."

Something's fishy here. Is there any googler here that can respond to these claims ?

> "Print-based organisations were told they needed to evolve, and stop being > such dinosaurs, because the web was where it was at…Why should web > advertisers be immune from evolutionary or revolutionary change in user > habits? …[A]ny argument that tries to put a moral dam in front of a > technological river is doomed. Napster; Bittorrent; now adblocking."

my thoughts exactly. "People" told the same things to the music industry. "You can't adapt, you should die", well let's see how ad networks and content producers survive the adblock revolution.

</comment><comment><USER15> Lost in this debate, for me, is whether online ads actually work and are worth the money. My technical experience with online ads is that it's very difficult to equate the ads with increased sales unless you have a very small sample size.

I've long suspected that online ads are actually more of a scam than anything else. Because you can't easily tie the expenditure to a benefit that ad sellers and hosters (Facebook, I'm looking at you) can promote them without having to back it up with quantifiable results. And that has led to a weird "ad ecosystem" which exists for its own purpose, not for actually trying to sell products (cause it doesn't actually work for that). I think the people most worried about the ad blockers are those that make their money from that ecosystem.

<comment><USER4> I have a similar impression. Moreover, I think people are actually seriously fooling themselves and each other. There's lot of tracking being done, lots of people looking at "metrics", but when I think about the statistics education of majority of people (including some professional "social media marketers" I know) I come to the conclusion that they don't understand what they're doing and can prove any conclusion they want with the numbers. All those metrics only help people to bullshit themselves and each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I want the advertising industry to die.

And I honestly don't care what it takes down with it. If it hurts, we'll find ways around it, Patreon being a good example.

<comment> yoz-y In the current world of abundance, advertising is crucial to content and product producers. Let's say you make an application, how do you sell it if nobody knows about it? You make a nifty product, how do you make people know it exists? Advertising, in principle, is good, the way it is done currently on the Web is awful.

<comment><USER17> If it's a good product, it will spread by word of mouth. Advertising can help sales, but it's by no means the only way to do sales.

<comment><USER16> It will also spread by Amazon reviews, Google search rank, positive press, and a great many other means of communication. This is not the 20th century when it was voice, TV, print, or nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I understand why it's a genius strategy from Apple to make mobile browsing free from ads (Googles lifeblood), but I don't see why it's such a huge deal to Google; they already have a mobile platform of their own where ad blocking was always possible and widespread. You could see this step from Apple as an aggressive one towards Google, or just as reaching feature parity with Android on ad-blocking. What will be interesting is whether ad blocking will be widespread on iOS or if it will be like on desktop where it is a power user thing. If it's the former then it will change the web in a big way.

If Apple _really_ wanted to spread ad blocking and disrupt things they should make it an optional install when users first open the browser, "do you want to see ads when browsing", where answering no installs an ad-blocker which blocks all apps not on apples whitelist (which ad networks then pay a sizable sum to be on of course).

<comment><USER19> > where ad blocking was always possible and widespread.

Majority of people don't root.

<comment><USER20> Hmm? Firefox and ublock origin don't require root. It won't block in-app ads, but that's not what is being discussed here.

<comment><USER19> What if I want to use Chrome or default Browser ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> well, let's look at someplace where ads truly work well.

fashion print magazines. buy a vogue and look at the ads. hard to tell apart from the content, glossy, relevant, beautiful. they make up at least 70% of the whole magazine.

i like gruber's ad system on DF, one of the few sites that seem to follow a user/reader centric approach. first you ensure the eyeballs, THEN you show the ads, always paranoid to piss off your readership.

mobile safari adblock in ios9 will hopefully bring movement into this ad game.

<comment><USER22> Ads can be content. The best ones usually are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> From another thread (still relevant I think):

uBlock, NoScript and RequestPolicy are my tools to control the content my web browser displays. My general rule is that I'll only disable ad blocking on a few trusted sites and never on a site that uses a third-party advertising network.

Most advertising networks have intrusive or annoying ads that actually block my ability to read a site by using pop-overs if my mouse cursor accidentally touches a keyword, divs that obscure content until I've paid sufficient attention to locate and click the "X", auto-playing sounds/videos, etc. If the UX wasn't bad enough, these third-party networks also present a security risk and have been used in the past as delivery vehicles for malware.

In the end if a web site relies solely on intrusive advertising for support and they plead with me to disable adblocking, I'll most likely choose to stop reading/participating on the website rather than make an exception for them.

I really wish the ability to make micropayments to publishers was a thing.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's a mistake with the bloat diagram, the 8 KB : 6 MB pie chart. Bloat and article slices should be reversed in the diagram.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's funny how people saying ads should be replaced with a subscription model in different threads are going completely bananas about paywalled articles.

Couple of web newspapers in my country switched recently to 10 articles a month for free and then asking for a subscription. It's awful, it makes me read less and I would prefer to see some ads I'm used to ignoring anyway. Usually I don't know if I like the content before I'm half-way through it. I also don't want to have 20 subscriptions pending every month just to have access to a reasonable portion of the internet.

The web has already killed most of review and proofreading process in press. Lets not kill content quality by taking even more money out of it.

<comment><USER4> Let me show you a model of a decent web news paper that could get by with ads and no paywall:

         |</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----|
         | MY AWESOME NEWSPAPER             |
         |</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----|
         | category | links | cool | topics |
         |</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----|
         | Article Title         | Ads      |
         |                       |          |
         | Article content arti  | A bunch  |
         | cle content article   | of static|
         | content.              | not      |
         |                       | annoying |
         |  |</comment><comment></comment><comment>---|    | ads      |
         |  | A cat picture |    |          |
         |  |</comment><comment></comment><comment>---|    |          |
         |                       |          |
         | Article content arti  |          |
         | cle content article   |          |
         | content.              |          |
         |                       |          |
         |</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----|
         | footer links & copyright notices |
         |</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----|

Simple as that. Just don't shit on your users. If they have ad blockers, kindly ask them to whitelist your site.

> _Lets not kill content quality by taking even more money out of it._

What content quality?

<comment> norea-armozel This is the basic format that I wish web designers would follow. Also, I wish ad networks wouldn't be sleazy and allow anyone to use their services (scammers, malware producers, and the like should be categorically banned from an ad network). If the latter was fixed then the former would be possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Could the push functionality of HTTP/2 worsen the problem ? Ad block could limit the downloaded data by selecting it. With the push capability it won't be possible anymore. Network bandwidth could be wasted with the ads. Thebrowser could still filter its display though.</comment>


Share bugs in closed source software - <AUTHOR> http://sharebug.org/ <comment><USER2> An interesting and perhaps much needed idea.

Because the source domain is so broad, I feel it would be improved by adding "product" and "version" fields to the database.</comment>


The Distinctly American Ethos of the Grifter - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/t-magazine/the-distinctly-american-ethos-of-the-grifter.html <comment><USER2> Grifting is obsolete. Mass data and AI are pushing time to identify to zero. Risk vs Reward is now upside down.

The Internet is written in ink. Integrity is your most valuable asset. Reputation is your brand. "Guard it with your life."

"Law 5: So Much Depends On Reputation Guard It With Your Life. - _The 48 Laws of Power_ , by [https://twitter.com/RobertGreene](https://twitter.com/RobertGreene)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's nothing particularly American about grifting. Cult leaders worldwide engage in massive scams. Pyramid schemes operate around the globe. Heck, you may find yourself eating fake eggs in China or that your grandmother has sent thousands of dollars to Nigerian scammers.</comment>


Should Fines be Wealth-dependent? - <AUTHOR> http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2010/01/optimal-fines-as-pigovian-taxes.html

<comment><USER2> I think wealth dependent fines are a good idea in some cases, but not for the same reason as the author. To me, it has nothing to do with tempering fines or accounting for error. It has to do with the simple fact that $100 means vastly different things to different people. For someone living in real poverty, $100 could change their life. For the average American, it's a nice chunk of change but certainly nothing life-altering. For the rich, it's pocket change. $100 to someone with a net worth of $20m is like 50 cents to someone with a net worth of $100k. If you got a traffic ticket and it was for 50 cents, would that constitute any deterrent at all? It certainly wouldn't for me. If I knew the fine was only going to be 50 cents, I would probably drive _at least_ 35 mph over the limit in some places. A constant amount of money does not mean a constant fine. Charging a sufficiently rich person with a $100 fine is as good as not charging any fine at all. A constant percent of net worth comes much closer to being a real constant fine.</comment>


Tech Reporters Every Startup Should Meet - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-reporters-at-techcrunch-sai-inc-wsj-ny-times-and-more-2012-6?op=1 <comment><USER2> This is a really useful list. Now how to score a warm intro from my unbuddy Elon...</comment>


Among Trillions of Microbes in the Gut, a Few Are Special - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/among-trillions-of-microbes-in-the-gut-a-few-are-special/

<comment><USER2> I notice that quite a few of IBS/Gastro problem related articles pop up on HN.

As a UC sufferer I'm interested to know if these types of diseases are more prevalent in our community or simply a statistical average.

Do our work environments and habits affect our prevalence to such diseases? Do we have bad diets? Too much caffeine or stress? More prevalence to colds and other ailments that result in antibiotic treatments?

Any thoughts?

<comment><USER3> I've encountered a high number of IBS sufferers who've been exceptional academically. I think that there may be something about the syndrome that encourages academic & similar study, although attempting to speculate what that might be from the outside is beyond me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm tempted to believe in this, I have had GERD for years only diagnosed about three years ago I have heartburn every day unless I eat bland food and small amounts of it.

I've tried ppi medication but it made me feel bad and never did anything to prevent it coming up my throat acidic or not and seems to have caused more problems than it solved I feel worse after having taken the ppi meds even a year after stopping them.

But for about the last week I've had a head cold and my heartburn disappeared completely. I didn't take any cold medication during my cold only one single regular Aspirin when I was at my worst (not good on my GERD ravaged guts).

I have no clue what fixed my GERD either it was just drainage from my cold (gross!) keeping my throat coated but I don't think so, maybe some part of my immune system revved up or overworked, microbes in my gut killed or good one flourished.

Although sadly my heartburn is coming back bit by bit each day, coughing, and a bit at night. I really would like to know if GERD is simply some immune response or microbe imbalance and why a cold caused the changes to it.

<comment><USER5> Have you tried drinking kefi daily? I find it helps.

<comment><USER4> Do you mean Kefir the fermented yogurt drink?

I have had some, it's like sour cake batter or egg nog, it's OK but it didn't do anything for me but I didn't drink it for that purpose I was just curious what it was like.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Rails vs. Java? - <AUTHOR>

My go-to framework for the past 5 years has been Rails, but I keep hearing about how - in terms of scalability and speed - you can't beat "Java" (but never any mention of the framework being used, and there are quite a few[1]). I'd like to see if the syntactical hassel is really worth the speed boost.
Is there an equivalent "Rails" for the Java community?
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks#Java_2 <comment><USER2> Play is the closest - but it's nowhere near the maturity of Rails. One good strategy that I see a lot of companies adopt is to write a services layer in Java/Scala and then keep the front-end Rails app part light weight. This way, you get the benefits of a robust, type-checked backend and the flexibility of Rails for the strictly web related stuff like asset pipelines etc.

Of course, the downside is that you need to switch context between two languages. However, this has not bothered me in the past too much.

<comment><USER3> For this approach, how do you tie the two pieces together (e.g. the Java and Rails parts)? Do you have recommendations for where to start learning about building one system with multiple languages?

<comment><USER4> I believe OP is referring to a service-based architecture.

Basically you have a front-end, written in rails, and a back-end, written in java. The two communicate using REST service calls.

Personally I think for a lot of apps this approac has a lot more cons than pros.

\- everyone that wants to work on the app needs to know both ruby/rails and java/whatever else

\- multiple ways to handle deployment, continous integration, testing (different tools for java vs ruby).

\- have to run multiple apps constantly to be able to do end-to-end testing

\- harder to create full-stack integration tests

\- deployments between the apps are often coupled and thus require more planning

\- more up front API design work for the team. much harder to add new features that require API changes than ones that dont.

\- Automated end to end integration testing can be much harder to do with an app made up of multiple services than simply living inside on process and being able to have test code access both databases to seed data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want a serious discussion about Java, watch this video from an Engineer at Urban Airship: <http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Java-next>

The short summary is: Yes, it's worth the syntactical hassel because your tooling takes care of it for you. No, you won't be writing code with Notepad anymore... but would/should you trust a carpenter that insisted nailing every nail in your house with a hammar instead of pneumatic air nailer?

Java is not just a language, it's a tool suite. So Java "sucks" until you learn the tooling. After your learn the tooling, it's fast, simple, productive, and out-scales anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> An excellent defense of the Java language Mr. exabrial, but any recommendations for Java web frameworks? :D

<comment><USER5> ...that's a bit harder to answer. It really depends on YOU, your ability to learn, and your project requirements :)

First, there is trusty JSP and EL. They're blazingly fast. But they aren't a framework, there just libraries.

If you want full-stack Rails, but Java, Play isn't bad. I've used it once, but I felt constrained (much like I do in Rails). I probably needed to give it more time because it does do a lot of things.

The newest version of Tapestry isn't bad. They've had the same lead developer on this project for years, so they've really refined this project over time. You might take a look at the programming model and see what you think, it's can be a little different.

I personally like PrimeFaces/JSF2.0. It's good for large applications since the framework handles all the javascript and Ajax in a very elegant way. If There is also a rabid fanbase (check Twitter). There is tooling involved here, so expect a learning curve.

There's others I haven't used, but my IRL friends have told me they like:

GWT - Building single page, javascript applications ThymeLeaf - The sucessor for JSP that uses Spring Framework ZK JSP - A bunch of cool prebuilt widgets for JSP pages

There are many others, but I've only read about them. With Java, you have tons of choice. There is no "one single killer framework" for Java, so take a look around, and find one that suits your style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Play! is meant to be a Rails-like framework for the JVM. I use it at Mapquest (version 1.2), and I like it so far. It contains its own compiler and server, so you don't need to rebuild or redeploy when you're developing like you might in other frameworks.

I've used Play! 2 for a freelance gig, and didn't like it as much. It tries to compile EVERYTHING (HTML templates, your routes file, etc), and for the simple app I was trying to accomplish, that simply wasn't necessary and led to a lot of unnecessary fighting.

I'd recommend giving Play! a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it. I'll take a look - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you try to write rails and ruby in Java you will leave angry and disappointed. I would suggest you look for a Java-oriented framework that leverages Java's strengths (I love wicket for the way it uses java's strong typing to enforce properly reusable components, and make upgrades easy); that way even if you return to ruby you'll have learned something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, fair enough. I'll add Wicket to the list!

For the record, I'm trying to find if there is one dominant framework in Java that everybody's using as there is in Ruby, not necessarily looking for an easy way out ;)

<comment><USER7> It's not about looking for an easy way out, you really have to be prepared to embrace not just new tools but a whole new way of thinking. As a former python diehard it took me a long, long time to understand why anyone would choose to use java - but it does have its advantages, and wicket is the best demonstration I've found of what it makes possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Have you tried JRuby? You get all your Ruby on top of the JVM. By a number of anecdotal accounts, it's quite fast once you get past the JIT warm-up period. You also get the ability to use native Java libraries from your Ruby code, which gives you a really nice transition mechanism if you decide to move towards a pure Java solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh wow, Rails runs in JRuby. Interesting...

<comment><USER8> Yup. The prime caveat is that any gems that use C extensions have to be replaced with Java equivalents (mysql2, for example), but it runs just dandy.

The boot time is atrocious, but you can run your Rails app multi-threaded in a single process, and once the JIT warms up, it's pretty danged speedy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Several people have mentioned Play. There's also Grails, designed as an familiar clone of Rails. There's also Spring Roo, and JBoss's SEAM. Scala also has Lift and Clojure has Compojure (if Lisp style languages are your thing) So plenty of choice!

I'd highly recommend using Matt Raible's JVM web framework evaluation technique and then following up with a prototype in the top two. Time spent up front deciding on the framework that fits you will be time well spent.

</comment><comment><USER10> For reference, if nothing else, look at the open-source derivatives of WebObjects. Per Wikipedia: "Apache Tapestry has a design and philosophy similar to that of WebObjects. Tapestry is frequently combined with Apache Cayenne, a persistence framework inspired by EOF." The WebObject 5.x series was built around Java.

</comment><comment><USER11> Apache Cocoon, MVC framework designed for RAD</comment>


Ask HN: Where are the compelling examples of Big-Data Analytics? - Cu-chulainn Big-Data Analytics seem to be the buzzwords du jour. However, when someone mentions Big-Data Analytics and I try to dig deeper by asking "what data and to what end?" they usually don't have a clue. So I'd welcome pointers to some compelling examples of what has been achieved. <comment><AUTHOR> Google should be a compelling enough example for you, I hope.</comment>