RethinkDB internals: Patching for fun and throughput - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rethinkdb.com/rethinkdb-internals-patching-for-fun-and-thro

<comment><USER2> This feels like one of those optimizations that makes sense now, but very quickly just becomes bloat. We've seen a lot of heroic optimizations that make sense at the time and improve performance, which only a few years later actually slow things down. Remove the "optimization" and go with the simpler code, and things become much faster.

Optimizing for spinning hard disks seems like one of those optimizations that will soon come back to bite you. Graph out the Iops improvement of SSD's. We're getting to the point where we can think of an SSD as secondary memory and treat hard disks as offline storage.</comment>


The #1 Sign a Founder Will Succeed, According to a Former Y Combinator Partner - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/this-is-number-1-sign-a-founder-will-succeed-according-to-a-former-y-combinator-partner.html <comment><USER2> To save you the 4 clicks on mobile to get to actual content: what they do on the weekend / hobbies / signs of "passion".

</comment><comment><USER3> So all the startup founders wanting to succeed will now to eclectic and interesting things on saturdays.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you ever sued someone you contracted out to do work for you? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious if anyone has contracted work out to another person and if that person has failed/broken the terms of the contract, have you sued them?
In in a nut shell, I have given a person a 30 hour project to create web site templates for a new site that I'm building. I have gotten nothing but the same screenshots of the same files for almost 2 months and it doesn't look anywhere near complete. I'm setup as a C Corp and he is setup as a LLC. I will be speaking with a lawyer Monday if he does not produce the final product by then.
Time frame of the contract specified that it would be 7 to 10 business days. The contract was signed on 9/13. <comment><USER2> not worth the time and if you have to get a lawyer...you'll end up paying more than what you can recover.

<comment><USER3> And even if the _threat_ of a suit gets you your templates, the dude won't be happy and it'll show in the work. Unfortunately, you need to move on, and fork the issue to 1) get someone else to do the work and 2) try to get your money back - realizing it's unlikely. And never pay more than 25% up front, always do a reference check and tie payments to performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lesson learned, he got 50% upfront. He would not budge on this and now I know why.

<comment><USER4> Sadly though, I have been on the other side of things, and also stick to 50% up front so that I don't get burnt either..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CRC Polynomial Zoo - <AUTHOR> https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/crc/crc32.html <comment><USER2> I wonder if you could make something that detects common CRC and checksum codes such as the checksum on credit card numbers, but that uses math efficiently. (e.g. if I had a column of numbers I'd like to know it if they all match an unknown checksum)

<comment><AUTHOR> Like a rainbow table? See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table)</comment></comment>


E.U. Agrees to Cross-Border Access to Streaming Services - <AUTHOR> http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/e-u-see-as-you-travel-online-cross-border-access-1201980748/ <comment><USER2> Note that while certainly a step in the right direction, this is unfortunately not what I expected from the headline.

Specifically, it still allows market segmentation by country, i. e. if your country of residence is Germany, a streaming service aimed at the Irish market may still refuse to do business with you.

The change is only that, if you have a subscription to the streaming service from Ireland, you will still be able to access it when you travel to Croatia (or any other EU country).

It reminds me of mobile phone & data roaming rules, which use the same pattern. There, I'm more understanding of the need for continued market segmentation: If you'd require Romanian telco operators to extend their offers to citizen of Luxembourg with its dramatically higher cost of living, the market would obviously become unstable rather rapidly.

With streaming, the same dynamic may be at play – possibly to the degree requiring this arrangement. But personally, I'm interested less in taking advantage of lower prices in other markets, but getting access to content that providers currently don't offer in my market. Not sure if the situation has improved, but last I checked streaming services often did not even have the english-language originals. I ain't going to go back to dubbed TV.

Let's hope more countries use their EU membership as mostly-wisely as the Irish did and quickly catch up economically. (That'll solve not my TV troubles, but should also greatly diminish those fears of EU immigrants. Note how silly it'd sound to warn against the poor Irish dragging down France today, even though it was a theme when Ireland joined the EU)

<comment><USER3> The author of the OP article notes this as well, but seems hopeful that this is just one more step in creating a single digital market in Europe as well:

> He added; "Agreements are now needed on our other proposals to modernise > E.U. copyright rules and ensure a wider access to creative content across > borders. I count on the European Parliament and Member States to make it > happen."

> That looks like a reference to the overhaul of copyright announced mid- > September which, at least in the European Commission proposal, would see the > "country of origin" principle currently in place for cable and satellite > programming extended to broadcasters' online services. In other words, _if a > broadcaster is licensed to serve one jurisdiction in the E.U. with an online > service, they would be authorized to serve that online service to all E.U. > member states._

Emphasis mine; that part looks interesting. If that happens, might that mean that Netflix can legally serve content licensed in Germany to customers in Belgium despite not having the redistribution rights for that country? That is, you can't license films or series for redistribution in just one EU country, you either license it for all or none. Makes sense given the scale of the EU.

<comment><USER4> Or it could mean that Netflix cannot cheaply licence a Portuguese show for Belgium, because they would have to effectively licence the whole regional block even though "everything except Portugal" would be orders of magnitude cheaper.

The same thing happens with sports all the time, very expensive to license in the home market, cheap as packaging peanuts in foreign markets (and used in pretty much the same way, for filling up inconvenient voids).

Previously, distributors had an incentive to popularize content across is home market boundary, with forced full region licensing this goes away.

(Edit: " _effectively_ licence the whole block". The whole "may refuse to do business, but must stream everywhere" thing seems awfully muddy, my take is that it would be entirely to the rights holder wether they would consider a licence for that "Irish residents only" an expensive EU wide license or a much cheaper Ireland only)

<comment><USER3> Certainly, there is that drawback, but on the whole Europeans (myself included) will benefit. In terms of content Netflix has very little that is desired exclusively in certain countries; most of its backlog is English films and series, and sports is not Netflix' expertise.

For the customers this should be a welcome change; nothing is more annoying than a global digital services provider deciding for you that you cannot watch content X because you live in country Y. Let me choose if I want to watch Portuguese sitcoms instead of unilaterally deciding that all Dutch don't like those.

While I do like Netflix' globally available original material, I also want a legal way to enjoy the long tail of film/television content. This kind of legislature helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reporting, investigating, coming up with a solution, creating the appropriate law, and enforcing it is a lengthy and costly process.

I hope non-contributors to the EU project are not going to leach on the effort and money the EU members are putting on this. The UK is taking with it, via "Great Repeal Bill", all these laws (with some to be ditched in the future, at their discretion). We need to ensure that:

* the UK has properly contributed to the costs of creating the legislation body: any pending bills must be claimed

* the UK is not leaching on the EU, by enjoying the benefits of these laws without contributing to the recurring enforcement costs.

It seems the UK is going for a a Hard Brexit, and they will (I assume) want to opt-in in several beneficial schemes. In this case, a "Cross-Border Access to Streaming Services" yearly bill, amount to be negotiated, must be levied on the UK.

It is not clear that the EU should have any interest in dealing on this kind of detail with one of our partners, when we are doing this in bulk within the EU. The more sensible outcome, from the EU point of view, is that the UK is excluded from this scheme, otherwise the administrative burden would blow out of proportion.

There is a reason the EU is a thing.

<comment><USER6> > There is a reason the EU is a thing.

The problem with the EU is that they now have the goal of becoming the United States of Europe and eliminating national soverignty in most senses of the word. [1] This isn't good or bad just many EU officials statements of their goals. [1] However, it is something relatively new and not what the EU started out to be when a lot of members joined up. [2]

If the EU had said from the beginning, "we want to create a United States of Europe" and the people in each new member country had democratically voted for that we wouldn't be having a lot of the problems we have right now.

But its an assault on freedom to try to accumulate central power while decimating local democratic processes, especially for all the member states who did not join under such pretences.

It makes the affronts even more egregious when you realize EU citizens have little democratic control over the the European Commission and European Council which accounts for 2/3 of the European legislative body.

Whether you're for a United States of Europe or not these are issues we need to address if we want to make real progress in the EU.

> the UK is not leaching on the EU, by enjoying the benefits of these laws > without contributing to the recurring enforcement costs.

IMHO attempting to punish the UK by refusing to cooperate with them when its mutually beneficial to both parties is not a route I'd like to see us take. In general economic terms, it will almost always be in the EUs interest to work with the UK and not against them. The EU enjoys the benefits of many laws in the USA and elsewhere, for instance that a subscriber to a service in California can use that service in Georgia. Still, it would be absurd to assume the EU should pay a price to help enforce that law.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe)

2\. [http://www.aueb.gr/statistical-institute/european- citizens/h...](http://www.aueb.gr/statistical-institute/european- citizens/history_en.pdf)

<comment><USER7> > However, it is something relatively new and not what the EU started out to > be when a lot of members joined up. [2]

This is a lie. The Treaty of Rome of 1957(!) establishing the European Economic Community already contained the phrase "ever-closer union" in its preamble (though admittedly only in French, German, Dutch and Italian).

> If the EU had said from the beginning, "we want to create a United States of > Europe" and the people in each new member country had democratically voted > for that we wouldn't be having a lot of the problems we have right now.

This is _exactly_ what the British voted to join after de Gaulle died and couldn't keep up the resistance any longer.

> It makes the affronts even more egregious when you realize EU citizens have > little democratic control over the the European Commission and European > Council which accounts for 2/3 of the European legislative body.

This is another lie. The commission has to be accepted by the European Parliament, which directly represents the people and the council is made up of the governments of the member countries. If the people in your country have "little democratic control" over your government, there's your problem. Hint: blaming the EU won't help.

We really don't need the whole concept of 'alternative facts' over here now, too, do we?

<comment><USER6> You are calling my assertions lies, when you aren't citing anything to back up any of your assertions. That's not very civil debate and won't get us anywhere.

> This is a lie. The Treaty of Rome of 1957(!) ....

The treaty of Paris 1951 [1] was established on the basis of economic trade in coal and steel, which was followed by The Treaty of Rome 1957 which established the European Economic Community which aimed to to do just that create an economic community. [2] Now, you can argue about what the people who set this up wanted and I'd agree many (Churchhill, Jean Monnet, etc) [3,4] did want a United States of Europe with a centralized European Army [4]. You could possibly say people voted on this since some of their leaders believed in this idea, and some of those leaders were elected in a democratic process (notably not Churchhill or Monnet) [5], but its a pretty long stretch.

> This is exactly what the British voted to join after de Gaulle

If you mean the EEC membership referendum of 1975, this is the actual question the Brits voted on "Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?" [6].

That doesn't seem much like voting on being a member state of a United States of Europe to me. But maybe there are multiple ways of interpreting that, still newspapers referred to those in the yes camp as "pro-marketeers" or "Pro- Market" [8] which seems to suggest it was about economic trade and not so much political aspects of giving up national sovereignty.

I'd like to provide you with more facts about your other assertions but I don't have the time. Maybe someone else will.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1951)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_\(1951\))

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community)

3\. [http://www.churchill-society- london.org.uk/astonish.html](http://www.churchill-society- london.org.uk/astonish.html)

4\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet#Common_Market](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet#Common_Market)

5\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_United_K...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom)

6\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Commun...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975)

7\. [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/from-the-archive- blog/2...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/from-the-archive- blog/2015/jun/05/referendum-eec-europe-1975#img-2)

<comment><USER7> > You are calling my assertions lies, when you aren't citing anything to back > up any of your assertions. That's not very civil debate and won't get us > anywhere.

I also didn't cite sources for my assertion that de Gaulle died and that the UK joined the EEC, all of these things are well-known facts. But do allow me to cite my source, namely from the preamble of the 1957 treaty, here in its English translation:

        HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE BELGIANS, THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC, HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE GRAND DUCHESS OF LUXEMBOURG, HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF THE NETHERLANDS,

        DETERMINED to establish the foundations of an ever closer union among the European peoples,

for an (unofficial, of course) translation, see for example: [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_the_Europ...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_the_European_Economic_Community) or [http://www.hri.org/docs/Rome57/Preamble.html](http://www.hri.org/docs/Rome57/Preamble.html), the primary source at eur-lex.europa.eu seems to be down at the moment.

> If you mean the EEC membership referendum of 1975, this is the actual > question the Brits voted on "Do you think that the United Kingdom should > stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?" [6]. > That doesn't > seem much like voting on being a member state of a United States of Europe > to me. But maybe there are multiple ways of interpreting that, still > newspapers referred to those in the yes camp as "pro-marketeers" or "Pro- > Market" [8] which seems to suggest it was about economic trade and not so > much political aspects of giving up national sovereignty.

The EEC was founded by the Treaty of Rome and literally the first sentence of the preamble of that treaty contains the phrase "ever-closer union". Please do explain how any reasonable person could think it was _not_ about laying the foundation for a United States of Europe? You may argue that the UK-internal politics and media misrepresented the whole thing horribly, but you don't fix that by leaving the EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is huge. This is the reason why my wife and I ditched Netflix and other streaming services we've tried. I'm guessing a lot of Europeans are like us, spend significant time living and working in other countries or at least have family members in various other countries which you visit a couple times a year. And not being able to access content you're paying when you're on a vacation in France, or visiting Family in Poland over Christmas, and especially not in the all the languages you know are available on the platform is the most annoying pain point.

Of course we live on the German / French border now and previously on the German / Poland one, so maybe I'm just an outlier here and this isn't such a big deal...

<comment><USER8> I actually enjoyed the fact that with netflix I'd get different choices of movies and shows every time I'd cross a border... It kept their library a bit more interesting :)

That said I fully support this decision. It's a good move for the EU and I have no love for the MPAA and the Europe's movie and TV industry.

<comment><USER6> When did you have that? When we tried Netflix it simply wasnt accessible outside the country.

<comment><USER9> Netflix launched globally in January 2015. With the exception of a few countries (like China, North Korea, Syria, and a few others) Netflix is available world wide now. The catalog still varies by country though but nearly all of the Netflix Originals are available world wide.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, right now Netflix is available to you basically everywhere, but the regional licensing means you get to see only the content available in the country you are presently in, not where you are a subscriber.

Of course, to prevent customers from pretending to be somewhere else, VPN access is mostly blocked now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Steps like this are important for the EU to achieve the market scale that the US currently has. It's baby steps but then remember that not that long ago the US had roaming fees for mobile phones.

</comment><comment><USER11> Definitely a move in a good direction. I wonder how long until this actually "happens". Does anyone know? With these things it always seems like they are done until you realize some pushback from the industry stopped it in its tracks.

<comment><USER12> From the article:

> The online service providers will have nine months to adapt to the new > rules, which means will come into force by the beginning of 2018.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This and the cell phone roaming and the single currency really makes you think the EU is doing some outstanding things that benefit normal citizens.

<comment><USER14> The Euro is the single currency for 19 of 28 European Union members, the Eurozone. Not all of the EU uses the euro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anything that the music and video industries oppose to I'm always for. Happy to see them losing ground more and more.

<comment><USER15> ha, just realized it rhymes. Maybe I'll make a song about it, sell it to entrenched music industries :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also, does this apply to free streams, or in other words not subscription services?

It would be nice to travel around Europe and keep streaming for example the coverage of the olympics in my own language without the need for a VPN.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Your ad blocker is interfering with the operation of this site. Please disable it or whitelist this site. Thank you. " \---variety.com

"Your ads are security risk to my system. Please prove they are safe or allow my blocker." \--- me

<comment><USER17> No problems here with uBlock Origin and uMatrix.</comment></comment>


Teacher suspended for blocking students' cellphones - <AUTHOR> http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/local/2015/06/02/pasco-teacher-suspended-for-using-jamming-device/28391181/

<comment><USER2> Ignoring for the moment the active jamming, it's interesting to consider otherwise how perspectives on cell phones have changed over time. When I was in high school (circa 1998), the administration would suspend students caught in possession of cell phones, and their phones would be confiscated. This policy was explicitly in the official student handbook, if I recall correctly. The argument that students needed the cell phones for "emergency" purposes was also deemed by the administration not to be credible.

<comment><USER3> When I was in high school (circa 2008), the policy was essentially the same. It was generally known at that point though that most students were hiding phones, but the rule was they were to be kept in your lockers during school hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >... but the district says Verizon chose not to prosecute him.

The federal government does that. He is just lucky that no one reported him. He can hope that he stays lucky and that no one from the FCC notices the media report(s).</comment>


Ask HN: Help with counter offer for a stake in company - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, I have been approached by a friend with a startup idea. He has no technical skills but he has marketing skills and he has resources, both financial and potential customer wise. Project itself can be built in a few months with a ballpark of $30-40k.This is not the first time I have been approached by people with startup ideas. Actually, I have relatively good experience at finding teams overseas and managing / building technology with them as I am a developer as well. I delivered a few projects before with this approach. However, I have always quoted the cost of project to those who wanted to get it built and didn't pursue an ownership. I am considering taking a different route this time and considering  doing a counter offer and ask stake in the company for part of my services instead. This is the part where I am clueless. Is there some written or accepted formula for technical people like me, so we can at least calculate the percentage we should ask in these type of situations. There's definitely some hard cost for outsourcing parts of the project and things like servers etc as you can imagine. I will clearly won't pay any of it. ideally I would like to get paid to be able to feed my self and have some cushion too should things go sour and it fails. How should oneself approach to these kinds of situations? I would really appreciate any feedback. <comment><USER2> You should ask if he's open to that and see how much value he places in your contribution. I've been in his shoes to some extent, but in the end what matters is his perception of the cash trade off and to what extent he wants to get you committed to the company.

If he is open to it, ask what he thinks it would be worth as a % and what form it would take (options, restricted stock, ...).

If you do reach an agreement for equity in lieu of pay, be sure to get good contracts in place. It's impossible to know all the twists and turns that can come along when you are doing a start up and you'll want to ensure your contribution and sacrifice are rewarded.</comment>


Genomics - The new biological science, a decade after human-genome project - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/16349358?story_id=16349358

<comment><USER2> The Broad is an amazing place, and I'm very grateful for my time there. The folks there simply do remarkable work.

Nevertheless, I'm ambivalent about the size of the grants doled out to the senior faculty there. I've heard post-docs and junior faculty express concerns that it's a poor allocation of resources. For one $25m grant issued to a senior faculty member, you could fund 50 junior faculty for years. If diversification is the only free lunch in finance, why should science be any different?

<comment><USER3> I think the idea is that different categories of science might occur at different scales of funding.

50 junior faculty will likely do 50 safe-ish projects which will lead to tenure. 1 senior faculty with 25 million dollars might do something qualitatively different: ambitious, risky, long-term. Or might not, no guarantee. But I think it's a valid exploration of parameter space.

The goal is to make great science happen, not fund the maximum number of scientists.

<comment><USER2> The particular example I had in mind had an 18-month time line -- not exactly long term.

I agree with your point about goals. Throw fifty-projects worth of money at George Church and you'll get one hundred and five ambitious, high risk/reward projects.

(Hey fellow alum! Class of '08 here.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> this technology is very cool, and has a lot of future promise for treating illness and detecting disorders before they manifest themselves.

One thing i an extremely concerned about is what other uses this kind of data will be put to, is your genetic data one National Security Letter away from being put in a government DNA database? I'm also certain that insurance companies would really like to get their hands on this kind of data/analysis. What about certain kinds of jobs, will you be required to submit a genetic profile to prove you can preform your duties?

I think a situation like Gattaca[1] is not too far off if we dont tightly control who is allowed access to this kind of information.

[1]<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gattaca>

e: corrected "gattica" typo

<comment><USER5> We've started to address some of these issues with GINA (the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act) which prevents insurers and employers from discriminating on the basis of genetic information.

Time will tell if it's enough; we'll probably have some more legislation once the technology becomes more widespread.</comment></comment>


EPA Assesses that Neonicotinoids Kill Bees - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2016/01/epa-finds-major-pesticide-toxic-bees <comment><USER2> Shocking, I read about colony collapse syndrome and I got scared that the bees were dying and would not pollinate the food anymore. Nobody seemed to know why the bees were dying in massive numbers. Now we know why.

<comment><USER3> Colony collapse syndrome is not a threat to the food supply, and does not appear to be on the path to becoming one.[1] It has increased the cost of pollination, especially for crops which flower early in the year (before beekeepers have had time to create new hives), but is not an imminent threat. For the reference of the uninitiated, CCD/CCS has increased overwinter mortality from ~15% to 20%-30%.

[1] [http://www.perc.org/sites/default/files/ps50.pdf](http://www.perc.org/sites/default/files/ps50.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Overall mortality in some states exceeds 60%. There is a threat with multiple causes - one of these is the use of pesticides on nearby crops. There were massive reported losses in some states due to neonicitoid laced dust from automatic planters.

Also, beware politicized science on both ends - you're better off looking at the raw data.

2014-2015 loss data: [https://beeinformed.org/results/colony- loss-2014-2015-prelim...](https://beeinformed.org/results/colony- loss-2014-2015-preliminary-results/)

2013-2014 loss data: [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0356-z](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0356-z)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do they pesticides affect the honey we eat?</comment>


How Wolves Change Rivers [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/86466357 <comment><USER2> I always wonder how much weight should be given to the accuracy of "irrelevant" details. I tend to believe that spotting small errors that seem obvious to me mean that there are likely other larger errors that I would recognize if I were more knowledgeable about the subject. I presume that if the author isn't concerned or knowledgeable enough to strive for accuracy in the minor details, they are more likely (intentionally or not) to make errors in the major details.

In the case of this video, Monbiot speaks of 'deer' and then shows pictures of American Elk (Cervus canadensis). This is defensible, as he's British, and the European Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) is very closely related and likely more familiar to his anticipated viewers. But midway through, the video cuts to pictures of a Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus), which an expert is unlikely to conflate with an elk.

This could be considered an "irrelevant" detail, but one of the major differences is that the American Elk primarily graze as they have a digestive system that allows them to efficiently digest grasses, but the Mule Deer do not: they eat some grass, but primarily "browse" on woody vegetation. So while they will both have an effect on streamside vegetation, it's going to be a very different effect.

In a piece that purports to explain the science behind the cascading effects of wolves on the ecosystem, this feels like a disconcerting blunder. Should it cause me to doubt the credibility of the piece as a whole? I don't know. But it makes it more difficult for me to treat Monbiot as an authority on the topic.

<comment><USER3> It's pretty clear from the audio that he's lecturing somewhere, so it seems likely the filmmakers selected images to go along with his pre-existing speech.

<comment><USER2> You are right, the audio is from Monbiot's 2013 Ted talk: [http://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world)

That wasn't clear to me. Rather, I presumed (I think reasonably) from the tag "Sustainable Man Original" that it was something that that Monbiot had participated in the creation of. I've now read the comments on the Sustainable Man page ([http://sustainableman.org/blog/2014/02/17/how-wolves- change-...](http://sustainableman.org/blog/2014/02/17/how-wolves-change- rivers/)), and see that other have pointed out that the video also uses uncredited video of English badgers and Slovenian bears.

The creator of the video responds "Hi, we "steal" footage from lots of sources all in a non-commercial effort to raise awareness about sustainability.". The removes most of the criticism I'd have toward Monbiot, and retargets it toward Sustainable Man. The video is clearly more concerned with rhetoric rather than accuracy. Regardless of the goodness of the cause, I think in the end this sloppiness with facts will do more harm than good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wonderful and enjoyable video. It's sad that the accuracy of it is debatable: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/opinion/is-the-wolf-a- real...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/opinion/is-the-wolf-a-real- american-hero.html)

<comment><USER5> That opinion piece says the impacts affecting the park are more nuanced and complicated than the popular narrative of the reintroduction of wolves would lead one to believe, it doesn't say it's entirely wrong.

<comment><USER6> Um, quoting exactly:

 _" [The aforementioned] study, which focused on willows, showed that the decades without wolves changed Yellowstone too much to undo. After humans exterminated wolves nearly a century ago, elk grew so abundant that they all but eliminated willow shrubs. Without willows to eat, beavers declined. Without beaver dams, fast-flowing streams cut deeper into the terrain. The water table dropped below the reach of willow roots. Now it's too late for even high levels of wolf predation to restore the willows."_

and:

 _" When we tell the wolf story, we get the Yellowstone story wrong. Perhaps the greatest risk of this story is a loss of credibility for the scientists and environmental groups who tell it."_

<comment><USER6> Why -1? I'm quoting exactly from the article mentioned above in the thread. Am I wrong in anything? Am I disrespectful? Please care to explain.

<comment><USER5> I didn't downvote you, I can't since you replied to me, but you are selectively quoting the article, which may have been the reason. The article also said the Elk population was reduced by the wolves, and that this impacted plant regrowth but not as much as widely believed, and yes some areas haven't been improved at all. It also said bear populations increased. It's a nuanced piece.

<comment><USER3> I've read a few papers on this in the past, after having originally seen the video. The ongoing research is indeed nuanced and complex, and as with a lot of ongoing scientific research, there's disagreements among scientists.

Different papers use different methods to estimate predation risk in various locations, for instance. Some base it on actual predation incidents, some on landscape factors (which may model risk perception as opposed to actual risk).

There's also discussion about the way active predators such as wolves impact an area, which is different from lie-in-wait predators. And there's an idea that a constant background threat comes to be ignored, as opposed to a sort of pulsing threat, where there are surges of predation.

Also worth noting that various studies take place in different areas of the park, and in different seasons. Not to mention there's three main varieties of trees under discussion (aspens, cottonwoods, willows), which have all seen different recovery rates in different areas.

It's not a simple question, and from what I've seen in my sort of casual reading on the topic, it's not at all settled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For those that can't watch the video, aka tldr, the deers in Yellowstone National Park were apparently very destructive, and the harm caused by them was lessened when wolves arrived. The wolves also reduced the coyote population. Forests recovered which lead to increases in population of other species including eagles, beavers and bears, and there was less soil erosion affecting the rivers themselves.

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me about this TED talk [http://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI](http://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI) where Allan Savory speaks about the behavior of herbivores with/without predators and the impact on flora.

Fascinating, really.

I hope the day will come when we understand the biosphere of this wonderful planet we live on.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, Savory is a con artist. [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/au...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/aug/04/eat- more-meat-and-save-the-world-the-latest-implausible-farming-miracle)

<comment><USER7> Thank you. It looks like a well documented article. Makes me sad to find this out.

<comment><USER9> Also interesting is that the Guardian article is by the same person (George Monbiot) as the OP video. Not saying that's good or bad, just worth noting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can see something similar in economies too.

Amazon introducing AWS has radically changed Silicon Valley.

Other IaaS services and PaaS services also entered the market.

The huge variety of different SaaS businesses around now is probably directly related to the ease of leasing/running cloud servers.

Because start-ups need so little capital to get started these days, those start-ups engage with VCs and Angels not at the powerpoint stage of their business, but perhaps after the launch of their MVP ... or even after they have a solid running business.

That has changed the nature of the relationship between start-ups and investors, and the kinds of services the investors are expected to provide.

It has also made large-scale incubators like YC possible.

</comment><comment><USER11> This concept of "rewilding" is very intriguing. I first heard about it through NPR's TED Radio Hour with a segment on George Monbiot. The show touches on interesting connections within nature.

Here is a link to the show - Everything Is Connected - [http://www.npr.org/2013/09/27/216098121/everything-is- connec...](http://www.npr.org/2013/09/27/216098121/everything-is-connected)

Also, link to The Rewilding Institute - [http://rewilding.org/rewildit/](http://rewilding.org/rewildit/)

<comment><USER12> Happens to be part of the plot of Kim Stanley Robinson's Nebula Award winning "2312" as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Should I take away from the video that wolves are good for the environment or that rapid and substantial change in the relative populations of important species can have substantial impact throughout an ecosystem?

The idea that I take away from the video is less one of trophic cascade and more of the connectedness of things in biology.

<comment><USER14> The trophic cascade _is_ a manifestation of the connectedness of all things biological.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this is just one example of how little we understand nature's systems. The food chain effect is well-documented in terms of numbers. For example, we already know that if you decrease the number of predators in an ecosystem, the species they normally prey on grow out of control. But the video shows that there's a massive amount of complexity under the surface of this model. For example, the wolves in Yellowstone changed not just the number of deer (their prey) but also their _behaviors_ , which is one of the factors responsible for the cascade effect. Similarly, the increase in beaver numbers resulted in the creation of more niche ecosystems for other species.

<comment><USER15> > I think this is just one example of how little we understand nature's > systems.

Oh, definitely. And it applies at a very broad sense of the word "nature." For instance, weight-loss. As a physics guy I have a minor aneurysm whenever someone, referencing the obesity epidemic, says something like "a calorie is not a calorie". What they're trying to say is very important, but I dislike the way that it's expressed, and it may be the reason why it's hard to get those views more accepted.

What I'd say is: the _physics_ of weight loss is extremely well understood, but the _psychology_ of weight loss is not at all. I can tell you about thermodynamics but that doesn't really tell you, at the level you want, _why_ everyone and everything is becoming obese. For a personal example, once I came from the Netherlands to the US Midwest, I rapidly gained a lot of weight, going from "skinny for my height" to having trouble with some Men's X-Large T-shirts. Is it because the portion sizes are in general much larger? Or is it because there's more fat or sugar or chemical additives here? Or is it because I'm not bicycling to work every day because distances are greater here? Or is it because in the Netherlands I was expected to "have a sport" (in my case ultimate frisbee) and I'm no longer able to maintain that time commitment in my new phase of life? Or is it because of a shift in my religious and personal priorities which made it harder to fast once or twice a week? Hey, maybe it's none of these! Maybe it's just that I'm now in a relationship with a teacher and her late-night grading causes me to get less sleep, but because I work a programming job and solve cognitively-complex problems, I have to spike my blood sugar constantly to maintain the same functioning. But maybe it's something else, like the fact that satiety signals only get sent from the stomach to the brain after 20 minutes, and here I just tend to eat more in that 20 minutes than there.

All I can really tell you as a physicist is that my body will naturally find some equilibrium where energy in = energy out, at which point weight will become mostly stationary -- and I can in theory point to the idea that I can change this by changing the situations that I'm in. In addition with a little bit of knowledge about hormones like leptin & ghrelin, I can tell you that when my fat cells eventually start to die, their equilibrium will signal hunger to my brain, making it hard to work off this weight without a lot of discipline about my food urges. (Another potential cause! I now have a refrigerator so food is "always around".) But even the littlest things, perhaps even getting an hour more sleep every night, could throw that whole psychological set of triggers completely in a different direction.

Some things, especially seen in the outside world, just have ridiculously complicated causal graphs. It's true of weather, ecosystems, biologies -- and even when those graphs are generated by some really simple rules like energy- exchange, their interactions can easily spiral out of control for how we see them.

Software is the same way. If each line has a chance of interacting with one other, that's going to be an O(n^2) causal complexity created by O(n) lines; good modules and interfaces only reduce the multiplicative constants but don't change the scaling. When you get to the 50+ million lines of Windows it's hardly remarkable that it has some bugs in it.

<comment><USER16> On "a calorie is a calorie", a suspicion is that there can be two diets equal in calories per day but very different in how they make the person feel, say, in _energy level_ , and, thus, how many calories they burn or how much weight they gain or lose.

In my own efforts at dieting and weight loss, I'm not sure I've seen any such effect for the range of diet variations I've tried. Still, there are suspicions that some such effect might be true, somewhat common in reality, and significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This reminded me of a NATURE episode I saw, where it was all about one Fig Tree, and all of the species that live on it, nurture it, depend on it. It was fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER18> What attributes make a species eligible for this type of ecosystem redefining introduction? Do they have to have been there before (i.e. _re_ introduction)? Because I just spent four months in Florida and I can tell you down there the populace pretty much holds the exact opposite excitement level for the introduction of pythons to their native habitats.

</comment><comment><USER19> While getting my advanced open diver licence, I did a dive with grey nurse sharks. There I learn't how important sharks were. Where there are sharks, there are more reefs, more other species. When the sharks are killed, the over-feeding begins and over time the reef is depleted.

</comment><comment><USER20> Must watch anime: Wolf Children (Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki)

It's about a man that is also a wolf who meets a woman and they have kids, and about their struggle to grow up and live with their human and wolf personalities.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ah, the amazing possibilities of a multi-variable predator-prey model, say, a system of several ordinary differential equations!

</comment><comment><USER21> Hmm - how well controlled is this as an experiment?

<comment><USER22> It's ecology in a really large national park. You don't get to do much controlling there.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure he meant his comment with a little tongue and cheek. I believe the point is, don't assume that the conclusions drawn in this article are accurate. Do a little cursory "googling" and you'll find quite a few articles warning caution or full rebuttals of the thesis in this video. Here's one link [http://elyfieldnaturalists.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/do- wolve...](http://elyfieldnaturalists.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/do-wolves- change-rivers/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> great video ever...never saw anything like this

</comment><comment><USER25> I never would have guessed the Imp knows so much about wildlife :)</comment>


Ask HN: Best books or videos to get better at sales? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The one piece of advice I was given years ago:

There is no such thing as "sales", and you aren't a "salesman". You provide a solution to a problem. Listen, understand, and then offer a solution.

I forgot who told me that but it's fantastic advice. As far as understanding people, the de facto book to read is "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I'd highly recommend that.

<comment><USER3> > You provide a solution to a problem. Listen, understand, and then offer a > solution.

This becomes clear in the classic "sell me this pen" exercise. First find out about the client, what they do, how they would use the pen. Once you know where their focus is, discussing your solution becomes easy and natural.

<comment><USER4> Best ... line ... ever

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Y Combinator Sales Summer School: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-K2DHi99oI&list=PLb1c0oEEXW...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-K2DHi99oI&list=PLb1c0oEEXWIZiWzdtUOUhlirJr2fXfbxX)

This is basically Sales 101. Lecture by Steli Efti, YC founder of the close.io CRM. Insanely valuable.

\---

Y Combinator "How To Start A Startup" Sales: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHAh6WKBgiE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHAh6WKBgiE)

This is held by one of the founder of YC startup Clever, with an emphasis on the earliest stages of sales in a startup.

\---

Tons of specific sales advice on [http://blog.close.io](http://blog.close.io) , you can find the best by googling "site:blog.close.io" and follow through the links. There is _a ton_ of things I learned from Steli Efti (the guy behind www.close.io CRM and the Sales Summer School), be sure to attend their webinars as well if you're curious.

<comment><USER6> Steli is great, love all of his podcasts but I have to admit it's a little lacking in depth, the sort you would find when discussing larger sales requiring multiple stakeholders and decision makers.

What I'd love is if close.io took another direction and dove deeper instead of the cliche 'hustle hard'.

<comment><USER7> :) I'm working with Steli on the content. Just sent you an email - would super appreciate if you find the time to answer. It's the critical feedback like yours that helps us improve and create more valuable content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would recommend the following

Thinking Fast and Slow [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow)

Predictably Irrational: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational)

Influence: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Theory_of_infl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Theory_of_influence)

</comment><comment><USER9> Books

[http://www.amazon.ca/To-Sell-Is-Human- Surprising/dp/15946319...](http://www.amazon.ca/To-Sell-Is-Human- Surprising/dp/1594631905)

Best insight: The biggest misconception is that extraverts are better salesmen cause they're slick talkers. Actually, it's the exact opposite. It's better to let your prospect to most the talking while you listen. Ask them open-ended questions. The more you learn about your prospect, the more effectively you can explain your product solves their specific problems.

Articles

[http://nlp-mentor.com/nlp-techniques/](http://nlp-mentor.com/nlp-techniques/)

Neurolinguistic programming techniques - can be manipulative if used the wrong way but in sales, they really help you gain an advantage or maintain control. Includes how to build rapport quickly, how to maintain your frame regardless of how the other person acts, etc.

[http://www.artofemails.com/sales-follow-up](http://www.artofemails.com/sales- follow-up)

Money is the follow-up - creative ways to keep the convo alive without annoying your prospects

</comment><comment><USER10> There have been several worthy recommendations in this string. Keep in mind, the more you read-- the more data you compile and master the subject. Here are a couple not already mentioned--

The best book I've read in ages on prospecting and business development, New Sales, Simplified by Mike Weinberg. If you read nothing else, Chapter 14: Planning & Executing the Attack is pure protein! [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales- simpli...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales-simplified)

Here's a video presentation by Matt Dixon on The Challenger Sale. It's a bit long, just over an hour. But give it 15 minutes-- you'll see it's solid material. Good insights on how marketing supports & equips sales. Read the book!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSfE8zZUoMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSfE8zZUoMc)

</comment><comment><USER11> These are great books for starting off with the why and how of sales:

Daniel Pink - To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others [http://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving- Others/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving- Others/dp/1594631905/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

Dale Carnegie - How to Win Friends & Influence People [http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence- People/dp/06...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence- People/dp/0671027034/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442499882&sr=1-1)

As you understand the macro details of sales, the more micro things (tactics, strategies, best practices) are probably best served by specific industry or specific aspects of sales. For example:

[http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Cloud-Salesforce-com-Billion- Do...](http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Cloud-Salesforce-com-Billion-Dollar- Company-/dp/0470521163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442500049&sr=8-1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration-Formula- Technology-...](http://www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration-Formula-Technology- Inbound/dp/1119047072/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442500089&sr=8-2)

[http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business- Practices...](http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices- Salesforce- com/dp/0984380213/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=08BC3RAFN4RSZDNWQJ9Q&dpID=51mYrIgNB6L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_)

I also really like Jason Lemkin and his SaaStr blog: [http://www.saastr.com/](http://www.saastr.com/) Loads of SaaS sales practices on there.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Sales" is very broad.

My favorite book about the act of selling (i.e. pitching) is "Pitch Anything" \- [http://www.amazon.com/Pitch-Anything-Innovative- Presenting-P...](http://www.amazon.com/Pitch-Anything-Innovative-Presenting- Persuading/dp/0071752854/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442499872&sr=8-1&keywords=pitch+anything)

If you're looking for an overall sales primer/bible, your best bet is probably The Sales Acceleration Formula [http://www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration- Formula-Technology-...](http://www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration-Formula- Technology- Inbound/dp/1119047072/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442499928&sr=1-1&keywords=sales+acceleration+formula)

</comment><comment><USER13> "Sales" is a very broad topic. What aspect of sales are you looking to get better at? The initial prospecting and sourcing of qualified leads? Turning leads into opportunities and proposals? Closing opportunities? Or something else such as preventing churn?

<comment><USER14> I picked up many great tips from Nathan Powell's "The Creative Professional's Guide to Better Proposals". Highly recommended.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Professionals-Guide- Better-...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Professionals-Guide-Better- Proposals-ebook/dp/B013ESTNDY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hope you see this.

I'm not going to recommend a book. Pick any book recommended here.(They all give similar advice). And go a step further.

Learn how to use Anki.

Use Anki while reading the book and I guarantee you this - you'll master sales at least 10x faster because..

Because you'll remember to use them instead of jumping from book to book and from course to course.

Hope you heed this advice - you'll be glad you did.

<comment><USER16> I did not know what Anki was, so I googled it. For anybody else who is wondering: [http://ankisrs.net/](http://ankisrs.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can't recommend "The Little Red Book Of Selling" by Jeffrey Gitomer enough. I have a copy in my desk right now.

[http://www.amazon.com/Little-Red-Book-Selling- Principles/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Little-Red-Book-Selling- Principles/dp/1885167601)

</comment><comment><USER18> Check out anything by Zig Ziglar -> Napoleon Hill -> Andrew Carnegie and Tony Robbins.

People miss that sales is not just technique or what you say but state of mind, belief and confidence.

Stay away from sales only focus books.

If you really want to learn something check "Mastery" by Robert Greene.

<comment><USER19> Just to add to this list, amything by W. Clement Stone - specifically The Success System That Never Fails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Definitely check out the Enterprise Sales Guide created by Mickey at Work- Bench. A ton of insight into the art of enterprise selling.

[http://www.enterprisesales.nyc/](http://www.enterprisesales.nyc/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I just finished New Sales Simplified:

[http://www.amazon.com/New-Sales-Simplified-Prospecting- Devel...](http://www.amazon.com/New-Sales-Simplified-Prospecting- Development/dp/0814431771/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442501569&sr=8-1&keywords=new+sales+simplified)

If you are responsible for getting new business, it is probably the best sales book I have read. Walks through defining your target customers, creating appropriate messaging to reach out to those customers and how to structure discovery and presentation calls.

</comment><comment><USER22> Allow me to recommend you a piece of advice rarely followed by others - practice the act of selling every day. _That_ helps enormously to get good at sales (and better than any book).

</comment><comment><USER23> There are 3 books you should read: SPIN Selling. The Challenger Sale. The Charisma Myth. In that order. You will learn so many jedi mind tricks.

Yes, there is such a thing as sales. But do yourself a favor and don't sell shitty products. There's a wide range of incomes among people selling the best products, and the difference is stuff you can at least read about in those books.

<comment><USER24> Do you really think it's ethical to give "the jedi mind trick" on someone to make a sale. Really?

I agree with "thinkdevcode" a few messages up. The better solution is find the best solution to the underlying problem. View yourself as a problem solver, rather than a salesman.

<comment><USER23> I think the phrase "jedi mind tricks" might mean something different to you than me. To me it's basically a sarcastic way of saying "sales training", which is actually not about trickery but does have a bit to do with psychology. To you, it means lying I think?

Read the books and tell me that what they teach is pure trickery. But if you take some of the lessons to heart, magically people might start buying more (maybe a lot more) of what you're selling. It's not because you're being unethical though, you just "know how to sell" aka "know how to structure the delivery of information in a way that increases the odds of an interaction resulting in a monetary transaction".

Sure, think of yourself as a "problem solver" vs a "salesperson" if you prefer ("sales" does have a negative old-timey connotation at this point, which is why it's now often called business development). But that's semantics and it doesn't help the OP get any better at his job if it is indeed in sales (or biz dev, or problem solving, or whatever they're calling trying to generate revenue for a company these days).

<comment><USER24> "Jedi Mind Trick" strongly implies trickery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Winning Through Intimidation by Robert Ringer is by far the best sales book I ever read.

His basic premise is that the outcome of any negotiation(especially sales) is inversely proportionate to how intimidated you are by the other person.

His solution is to invest in creating a strong image before selling and using takeaway selling, which is basically taking away the opportunity to do business with you so that they stop thinking about whether they want to buy and start thinking about how to get you to sell to them.

On a side note, Dan Kennedy says,"if you lose a sale because of price, you lose that sale long beforehand." your job is to differentiate yourself and craft a powerful image so they can never even start to compare you to others.

[http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Through-Intimidation-Robert- Ri...](http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Through-Intimidation-Robert- Ringer/dp/0449207862)

<comment><USER19> My runner up sales books are:

Be My Guest by Conrad Hilton The Success System That Never Fails by W. clement stone The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Watch all of Brene Browns TED talks about vulnerability. Sales requires trust and trust is built on connection and connection is built by being vulnerable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm surprised that Jordan Belfort hasn't appeared here already. You might know him more appropriately as The Wolf of Wall Street, and its doesn't matter what your opinion of the guy is - he has a natural talent for sales.

As you will note from his material, that there are 3 types of people, those that don't want the product, those that are unsure if they want it, and those that want the product. Sales is about converting those "unsures'" to sure wants.

I would recommend giving the book "The Wolf of Wall Street" a read. His course "Straight Line System" is pretty pricey, but if you have the money or the means, I would recommend this course over any other: [http://jordanbelfort.com/sales-order/](http://jordanbelfort.com/sales-order/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm a fan of _The Challenger Sale_ , _The New Solution Selling_ and all three books by Jeff Thull: _Mastering The Complex Sale_ , _Exceptional Selling_ and _The Prime Solution_. I really like Thull's approach, especially his "always be leaving" mindset, as opposed to the old "always be closing" idea. Thull's thinking is much more focused on providing an authentic and honest experience, and genuinely trying to help the customer - as opposed to stuff about how to "trick" the customer into saying yes.

I also like a lot of what I've read from Jeffrey Gittomer and Grant Cardone.

Oh, and _The Ultimate Sales Machine_ by Chet Holmes as well. He (Chet H.) did a series of videos with Anthony Robbins that is really good. I really recommend watching those.

</comment><comment><USER26> For books: realize there are multiple kinds of selling.

1) There's things like used cars. Single, moderate sized transactions, one- time. You want to extract the last dollar, force the close, and generally be like...a used car dealer. I know nothing about this.

2) There's consumer products -- worry about the "funnel", advertising, etc.

3) There's the stuff I like -- high dollar, high-complexity, repeated/ongoing transaction. The best books, hands down, are Neal Rackham's SPIN Selling series: [http://www.amazon.com/Neil- Rackham/e/B000APLFJK](http://www.amazon.com/Neil-Rackham/e/B000APLFJK)

</comment><comment><USER27> Our selections from The 100 Best Business Books of All Time were:

-Selling The Invisible by Harry Beckwith (great look at selling services) -Secrets of Closing The Sale by Zig Ziglar (gets you prepared for objections) -How to Become A Rainmaker by Jeffrey Fox (shortcuts to better sales techniques) -The Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer (best first book for first time salespeople)

As mentioned in other posts, I would also add SPIN Selling, Mastering the Complex Sale and The Referral Engine.

"Smart" books in the sales space include Influence, Made To Stick, To Sell Is Human.

For motivation, read more Zig, Tony Robbins, and Dale Carnegie.

</comment><comment><USER28> You might find books on social psychology helpful.

At one point in his career, my ex was a military recruiter. They get world class sales training. He borrowed my textbook from the social psych class I had taken and I didn't see it again until his tour of duty as a recruiter was over.

I will also recommend "Getting to yes" which is research based and a quick read and "The mind and heart of the negotiator", which is also research based but meatier. I believe there is a free version of the latter available online. These were both required texts for my class on conflict management and negotiation.

</comment><comment><USER29> Read and listen to everything Steli Efti says -

[https://twitter.com/steli](https://twitter.com/steli)

His book - [http://www.startupsalesguide.com/](http://www.startupsalesguide.com/)

"The Predictable Revenue Guide To Tripling Your Sales" by Aaron Ross and Jason M. Lemkin - [http://www.saastr.com/the-predictable-revenue-guide-to- tripl...](http://www.saastr.com/the-predictable-revenue-guide-to-tripling- your-sales-by-aaron-ross-and-jason-m-lemkin-download-part-1-now/)

<comment><USER16> +1 on _Predictable Revenue_. My only concern is that so much of the focus there seems to be on his one "cold emailing 2.0" technique, which is already starting to become more common, and will probably eventually lose its effectiveness due to over-exposure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> 1\. The best book I've read on sales is:

"How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling"(1952) by Frank Bettger

2\. Everything at Heavybit is excellent,

their sales videos are very nice:

[http://www.heavybit.com/library/developer- sales](http://www.heavybit.com/library/developer-sales)

And an must see video for me was:

[http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/2015-05-12-jason- lemki...](http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/2015-05-12-jason-lemkin)

<comment><USER6> holy crap that website is like a gift from the gods

<comment><USER30> I thought the same when I've stumbled on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A couple ones I've read and found quite useful:

Make your contacts count

[http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Contacts-Count- Networking/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Contacts-Count- Networking/dp/0814474020/)

The science of influence

[http://www.amazon.com/Science-Influence-Anyone-Minutes- Less-...](http://www.amazon.com/Science-Influence-Anyone-Minutes-Less- ebook/dp/B000VIIE9A/)

</comment><comment><USER32> Grant Cardone's The Closer's Survival Guide.

Get it on Audible: [http://www.amazon.com/Closers-Survival-Guide- Third/dp/B00K1O...](http://www.amazon.com/Closers-Survival-Guide- Third/dp/B00K1O4TPW/)

I've read a ton of sales books and this is by far the best one. Actionable stuff - no fluff. Great for founders who have trouble getting the deal closed and the cash in the bank.

</comment><comment><USER33> This podcast isn't active anymore, but I rate it as one of the absolute best resources on B2B sales: [http://www.salesroundup.com](http://www.salesroundup.com)

Start listening the archives from the beginning or pick your episodes, either way it's one killer virtual coaching program on B2B complex sales, applying many of the mentioned books to practice on strategic and operational level.

</comment><comment><USER34> Pitch Anything goes in to detail on the psychology of the pitch. It talks about the concept of framing and how you must control the frame to close the deal. Highly recommended. Just read it (well, listened to it) and I feel like reading it again just to catch up on any missing details.

Book homepage is [http://pitchanything.com](http://pitchanything.com)

</comment><comment><USER35> Big fan of the [http://www.salescoach.com/](http://www.salescoach.com/) methodology. I've done their in-person trainings and online materials.

After reading lots of sales books this is the technique that works best for me. Companies should do themselves a favor and pay for their teams to level up with better sales skills.

</comment><comment><USER36> Secrets of Questions Based Selling: [http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Question- Based-Selling-Powerfu...](http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Question-Based- Selling-Powerful-Business/dp/1402287526/)

Great book that helped me learn the psychology behind sales.

</comment><comment><USER37> I found a lot of value in taking a class on the Sandler system. Some of the concepts are packaged up here:

[http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Teach-Ride-Bike- Seminar/dp/096717...](http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Teach-Ride-Bike- Seminar/dp/0967179904)

</comment><comment><USER38> Ymmv but I got a good grip on gimmicks from The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard

Also I can't emphasize this enough

INSIDE SECRETS OF SELLING (FIND A NEED AND FILL IT)

[https://archive.org/details/insidesecretsofs00ward](https://archive.org/details/insidesecretsofs00ward)

</comment><comment><USER39> Zero Resistance Selling: [http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Resistance-Selling- Maxwell-Maltz/...](http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Resistance-Selling-Maxwell- Maltz/dp/0735200394)

on the mindset of sales.

</comment><comment><USER40> One of the best reads on this : [http://www.amazon.com/How-Sell-Lobster-Bill- Bishop/dp/097310...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Sell-Lobster-Bill- Bishop/dp/0973107316)

</comment><comment><USER41> "Glengarry Glen Ross" [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348/)

</comment><comment><USER42> "To Sell is Human" by Dan Pink. It doesn't so much teach you how to sell as to take the perspective of people whom you may want/need to convince or persuade.

</comment><comment><USER43> Here is the book you want:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006124189X](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006124189X)

</comment><comment><USER44> Mike Bosworth - Solution Selling - it talks all about consultative selling, listening and walking prospects through a 9 steps process from introduction to close

</comment><comment><USER45> The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes is fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think anything by Zig Ziglar is really good.

</comment><comment><USER47> "Let's get real or let's not play" by Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig

</comment><comment><USER48> Sandler sales - its the book I give to all my new sales reps. Highly recommend!

</comment><comment><USER49> Im partial to spin selling.

</comment><comment><USER50> Zig Ziglar

</comment><comment><USER51> watch "wolf of wall street" and call it a day

</comment><comment><USER6> I've read SPIN selling and now reading Challenger Sales.

SPIN is much easier to read, know and understand while I found Challenger Sales a lot difficult to follow and put into practice.

Challenger Sale's major premise is the assumption that SPIN selling doesn't work anymore for some reason because of the 2008 recession. I'm not sure how true this assumption is but I'll leave this up for the real sales people.

I'm interested in hacking enterprise sales. ANother HN user's blog on the subject here is excellent as well: [http://doanhdo.blogspot.ca/](http://doanhdo.blogspot.ca/)

<comment><USER26> SPIN is still great. I've heard about Challenger Sales, I'll read it and should have an opinion in a few weeks.

<comment><USER6> would love ot hear what you think drop me a line at my email if yo ufinish it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Free books and videos[1]. He looks like a guru... and in a sense he is. The difference is that he doesn't sling cheesy ebooks and mastermind sessions. He doesn't even have a mailing list. The only product that he sells is custom made corporate programs.

[http://www.sellingergroup.com/free-books-- videos.html](http://www.sellingergroup.com/free-books--videos.html)

</comment><comment><USER53> Check out this playlist: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkVbIsAWN2lvMDgewjAld...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkVbIsAWN2lvMDgewjAldPf3svd- cdEnL)

Louis Rossmann knows his shit

</comment><comment><USER54> As a side note - I've started a side project called 3 Good Books - a few people have recommended good sales books on there...

[http://www.3goodbooks.com](http://www.3goodbooks.com)</comment>


Experiments in Constraint-Based Graphic Design - <AUTHOR> https://www.anishathalye.com/2019/12/12/constraint-based-graphic-design/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I've been frustrated with standard GUI-based design tools, because they don't match the way I think: like a programmer, in terms of relationships and abstractions. (Does this resonate with the community here?)

So I've been hacking on this new DSL for design that allows the designer to specify figures in terms of relationships, which are compiled down to constraints and solved using an SMT solver. This also leads to good support for abstraction, because constraints compose nicely.

The system is still a WIP, but it's usable enough that I made all the figures and diagrams in my latest paper and presentation with it, so I thought I'd write up a blog post about it and share some results.

This post is about how I think about design and how the programming language implements this philosophy. It also contains a number of case studies of designing real figures with the tool.

There are also some (probably useless?) but really amusing results, like what happens if you solve figures via gradient descent: [https://www.anishathalye.com/#gradient- descent](https://www.anishathalye.com/#gradient-descent) (the result is oddly satisfying).

I'd love to hear what you all think about the ideas in the post. Do you share any of my frustrations with existing design tools? How do you think when doing design -- does your model match mine, or is it something different? Do you currently use any design tools that you're really happy with, that I should know about?

<comment><USER2> I remember wishing for something like this when I started working in Illustrator after using things like rainmeter and hand-writing SVG code for ages. Of course, I don't have the patience or dedication to implement that sort of thing.

I'll definitely give it a go if I find the time. I love the idea.

If you could make it work with LaTex you could probably find some happy users in IEEE / ACM type communities that would use it for drawing figures in research publications. However, it probably won't take on unless it's made open-source (most researchers are on tight budgets already!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Basalt as it exists today already integrates pretty well with LaTeX -- I have papers written in LaTeX that have Basalt figures. The figures are rendered into SVGs, converted to EPS using Inkscape's CLI, and placed in the paper with \includegraphics.

The integration works pretty well, and it's even possible to make the fonts and sizes match (e.g. see Figure 1 in [https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/papers/notary:sosp19.pdf](https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/papers/notary:sosp19.pdf)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool, and looks appropriate for the hacker crowd.

I'll confess that one of my biggest wishes is for a universal standardized system and visual language+tool for graphic design with constraints -- so that graphic designers can learn a _single_ system and simply _export_ to HTML+CSS, to iOS layout, to whatever it is.

Implementing designs in front-end requires so much back-and-forth with designers -- "what should happen when this text overflows, what should happen if the viewport width doesn't fit this", etc etc etc. I wish this stuff would just be _built in_ to visual design tools, zero code required, and _map perfectly_ to software implementation. It's silly that it's almost 2020 and we still have to manually map this stuff to code.

<comment><USER4> I'm working on that right now, actually. Though it will be a while before it's ready to see the light of day. There are a couple of challenges.

The first obvious challenge is consistent rendering and performance. The sheer number of targets is overwhelming - browser/ios/android/tv/etc.

The second less obvious challenge is to clearly distinguish what designers are responsible for, vs what developers are responsible for. Some things are easy - "what should the text color be", for example. Other things, like determining accessibility roles, are less obvious.

There needs to be a tool that allows designers and developers to collaborate while maintaining control over their own domain. Not an easy thing to pull off.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for the pointers to related projects and research papers!

To address a couple common questions:

Q: Is Basalt open source? A: Not yet, but it will be. The language is still under heavy development, and it's currently being completely rewritten in Racket. I'm waiting until it's a bit more stable to release the code.

Q: Are there plans for a GUI tool? A: Yes, I think it would be awesome to have a GUI tool! It seems like a hard problem to implement this, so it might take some time. The live preview is the best that I have currently.

<comment><USER5> I love this. I really hope to see the Python version.

I'd love to explore what's possible with Basalt in a language I'm comfortable in, and integrate it with my favorite tooling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I once took a course on AutoDesk Inventor and was blown away by its parametric sketching tools, which allow you to define constraints on points, lines, and angles. It was very easy to draw a rough sketch of what I wanted and then add the necessary constraints to "clean up" the design—I want these objects horizontally aligned, with identical dimensions, arranged equidistantly from this point, etc.

I've been longing for a 2D diagramming tool with just this feature. Unfortunately there are not many options. Solvespace seemed the most promising last I looked: [http://solvespace.com/index.pl](http://solvespace.com/index.pl)

I hope in the future there are GUI tools that can help with designing Basalt documents.

<comment><USER7> _I once took a course on Autodesk Inventor and was blown away by its parametric sketching tools, which allow you to define constraints on points, lines, and angles. It was very easy to draw a rough sketch of what I wanted and then add the necessary constraints to "clean up" the design—I want these objects horizontally aligned, with identical dimensions, arranged equidistantly from this point, etc._

Exactly. That's the right way to do layout, with a constraint-based GUI. The high-end CAD products have had this for well over a decade. The CAD people can even do constraints on curves, like having a line be tangent to a circle or an arc and line meet with equal tangents. This is far beyond what the HTML crowd even aspires to.

The Basalt people, though, have a textural interface for graphic design, which is pounding a screw. Ask any graphic designer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is very cool! I hope this gets released--even if it's a rough prototype, I would still use it in its current state.

Like others (apparently), I started writing a system remarkably similar to this earlier this year. I just wanted to generate some simple diagrams programmatically, and went down the rabbit hole of creating a Python library to combine Z3 with SVG generation. For whatever reason, I was getting awful performance from Z3, so I started writing my own constraint solver. That ended up being a lot more of a pain than I had the patience to deal with, so I abandoned it.

</comment><comment><USER9> > What if the figure design were changed slightly, for example the circle was > to be inscribed in the rectangle? With Illustrator, it requires recomputing > all the positions by hand; with Basalt, the change is one line of code:

Hi. I've been using Illustrator as my main art tool for most of twenty years.

1\. Draw a circle. Give it a stroke in some color.

2\. Open the Appearance palette.

3\. Using the button at the bottom of the Appearance palette, add a new stroke. Make it another color.

4\. Select this stroke and add effect>convert to shape>rectangle, relative sizing, add 0pt in X and Y.

5\. Add effect>distort and transform>transform to the stroke. 70% in X and Y.

6\. Open the Graphic Style palette and make a new style. Give it a name.

7\. Visit the Appearance palette's menu and turn off "new objects have basic appearance".

8\. Select the Graphic Style you made, draw some circles using it.

9\. Turn off the Transform effect in the Appearance palette; hit 'redefine Graphic Style' and watch every circle change.

While your later examples like "make a little graph constrained to a shield" are more complex to make, there's still ways AI could help you do this stuff - you could maybe make a pattern brush with a circle for the end and corner pieces, and empty space for the main body, pile that on top of a plain stroke, and quickly drag some points around until you had a shape you like.

Eventually your examples get out of the territory of things I'd consider sane to do automatically in the tools AI has. But it can do more than you think.

okay enough procrastinating back to drawing my crazy comic in AI :)

<comment><USER10> I don't understand neither the author's nor yours approach to doing this in Illustrator.

If you want to have a square inset into a circle in Affinity Designer, you:

\- Draw a circle.

\- Create a square from the middle of the circle outwards. The square will _constraint_ perfectly to the circle.

If you want to do the reverse (circle inside square), it's even easier since the bounding box of the 2 objects is one and the same ...

I have the feeling that the author is simply unfamiliar with current design programs. Those haven't stagnated like one might think from the article.

<comment><USER9> It's more about drawing _multiple_ squared circles without hassling with cut- and-paste.

<comment><USER11> Cut-and-paste isn't a hassle, it's a very ergonomic tool.

I've seen some drawing software once that was particularly nice in that it pasted under your mouse (instead of next to the copied object, or in the middle of your viewport, etc.). Unfortunately, I can't remember which software was that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is super cool and definitely fits my mental model of how I think about diagrams and designs! Would love to take a look at the code if its available. I'm not a front-end engineer but it seems to me like a more expressive version of CSS parent/child tags and width/height percentages.

</comment><comment><USER13> Eh hem... One of those developers of constrained "CAD programs, not practical graphic design tools" chiming in: This is cool! Very nice work and beautiful presentation. It makes me pine to build an actual nice website explaining what I did for B-splines/could do for subdivision (so I assert). Or you know, a Rhino plugin, etc. Combining trains of thought, wouldn't constraint programming for B-spline design be applicable to fonts? I do not know anything about fonts really; I just had this belief that font design was often done with splines of some sort.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is eerily similar to a thing I've been working on for a few years as well. Very cool! I love seeing other people who are asking the same questions as I am, and arriving at similar conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Basalt doesn't place many restrictions over these equations, which gives > great flexibility to the user, but it makes the underlying implementation > more challenging because it has to solve these equations automatically.

Given you seem to focus on diagram layout, is the added complexity in defining and solving arbitrary constraints worth the power you get out of having them? Or, can you give an example use of arbitrarily powerful constraints?

</comment><comment><USER15> This idea is also closely related to Jen Simmons's "Intrinsic Web Design" concept. There is already some automation that can be done on web layouts at the moment.

More about it: [http://www.zeldman.com/2018/05/02/transcript-intrinsic- web-d...](http://www.zeldman.com/2018/05/02/transcript-intrinsic-web-design- with-jen-simmons-the-big-web-show/)

</comment><comment><USER16> You may be interested in Penrose ([https://penrose.ink](https://penrose.ink)) which generates graphics of math figures from equation. I don't know if they have as much in the way of a constraint language, but it's certainly in a similar vein of work, and I know they use some force directed layout.

</comment><comment><USER17> You had my curiosity but seeing it implemented in Python and so Pythonic now you have my attention.

</comment><comment><USER18> Figma's recently released Autolayout is somewhat analogous: [https://www.figma.com/blog/announcing-auto- layout/](https://www.figma.com/blog/announcing-auto-layout/)

You can deeply nest Autolayout frames.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very cool. How does it differ from Cassowary?

[https://cassowary.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://cassowary.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cassowary is an incremental solver for linear systems of equations and inequalities, while Basalt's constraints are more expressive (which is why it needs an SMT solver). One example of something that's not expressible in a linear system is computing bounds of a group of objects, which has been a common pattern in my Basalt figure, e.g. to position a group of objects next to another. The Group element in Basalt computes its bounds by computing min/max of its elements' bounds, but Cassowary constraints can't contain min/max.

<comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure you can implement min/max with a Cassowary-style constraint solver using multiple constraints with priorities.

For example to get the max between v0 and v1 you can use those 3 constraints:

[v0 > limit @ priority1, v1 > limit @ priority1, limit == -infinity @ priority0]

|limit| contains the max, which you can use in other constraints.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very smart and original approach. I'd love to see a instructional video on how you implemented it in Racket or the sorce code when it goes open source. Will be keeping an eye on it for sure

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting you find these problems a lot on CAD design, in 2D you can look at tools like AutoCAD that do similar things in a different setting.

</comment><comment><USER22> Could this also result in a better latex? The layout engine leaves something to be desired.

</comment><comment><USER23> Isn't CSS something that most definitely deserves mention as prior art here?

</comment><comment><USER24> Stuff like this makes me feel so dumb and grateful that I have a job. lol</comment>


Shipping giant Hanjin files for bankruptcy protection - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hanjin-bankruptcy-20160831-snap-story.html <comment><USER2> I wonder what the crews on the ships do. You're a crew, you know that you aren't going to get paid by the company, and you've got thousands of metric tons of cargo on board. The terminal where you are supposed to take it won't unload it. The people who shipped it can't get to it, and eventually you are going to run out of food on board.

Do you go privateer? Sell the cargo to pay off your goods and then sell the boat and by tickets back to your home port? Do you just load up into a life boat and drive into shore and leave the abandoned ship for someone to salvage?

If you're reading this and have some knowledge of how maritime law handles this, I'm really curious!

Some interesting thoughts from the BBC here [http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37241727](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37241727)

<comment><USER3> Very interesting: [https://gcaptain.com/hanjin-captains-ordered-slow-steam- drif...](https://gcaptain.com/hanjin-captains-ordered-slow-steam-drift-avoid- arrest/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Commodify Internet Information Trust with PKI Certificates - <AUTHOR> https://blog.certisfy.com/2020/08/certisfy-wants-to-make-internet.html <comment><AUTHOR> Discussions around how to build an information trust solution that can operate at internet scale and is usable appear regularly on HN.

This is an attempt at such a solution. Happy to answer questions.</comment>


Show HN: Clockies - <AUTHOR> http://www.clockies.com

<comment><USER2> I don't know what it does.

Landing screen without any information whatsoever, asking me to 'log in with Facebook'.

What is this about? Ignoring my FB dislike, why should I log in to something that I know zilch about? "Show HN" works only if you actually show something.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've got something mindblowing to tell you about your app. But I must first have your phone number and social security number. My email's in my profile. Go for it!

</comment><comment><USER4> Your landing page sucks. I have no idea what the website is about. "Discover & Share Future Happenings" is extremely vague.</comment>


BSA.org offering rewards for reporting "pirates" - <AUTHOR> https://reporting.bsa.org/r/report/add.aspx

<comment><USER2> Don't copy that floppy!</comment>


How I built an agency from my freelance business (and how much I earned) - <AUTHOR> http://hanno.co/logbook/six-ages-agency

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Can you clarify the math on your compensation? For example, you're working 18-hour days, 6 days/week during at $30/hour in Step 2, yet this results in $17k income.

<comment><USER3> I had this problem before too. Most are not "billable" hours because you have to do lots of POC, estimate, hiring, selling...

<comment><USER4> Hey - I'm the author.

And this is exactly right - it's all the work that goes 'around' the billable time, which is the real time suck. Also factoring in that this was my first full-time experience and so, since I was determined to get really good at what I was doing, I was also trying to learn as much as possible end expose myself to as much new stuff as I could.

You get major economy of scale by the time you reach Step 5, in terms of admin time costs (accounting, invoicing, legal fees) but at Step 2, you're doing it all yourself, and learning as you go along. A real killer.

It's £30, rather than $30, btw. Minor clarification, doesn't change the relative calculation, of course.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What options do I have for providing crypto in a webapp? - <AUTHOR>

As in another discussion, people essentially battered the idea of JavaScript crypto into the ground. Now, my application essentially allows people send messages to each other with an encryption key. I started off doing the encryption server-side using PyCrypto. Then I realised that that meant that people would have to trust my server with both their passphrase and their plaintext. So I (before reading the aforementioned discussion), changed everything over to using SJCL so that the encryption could be done within the browser.
I'm now realising why that's a bad idea, and despite being in control of my server, and in control of the JavaScript that is sent to the user (aside from the GApps API), and that a malicious JS attack is incredibly unlikely, that it may not be the best solution.
The ideal solution would be cross platform and seamless (IE user types in key. Hits encrypt button. It is done) without requiring things to be installed, etc, so what exactly are my options? <comment><USER2> <https://privatesky.me>

We built it. It's an IE add on. I JUST asked HN to rate my start-up, as a matter of fact.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell I think this can only really be done safely with an addon/plugin.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are none. You'll have to install a program on the user's computer somehow (browser plugins are one possible solution).

</comment><comment><USER4> (signed) java applet</comment>