FixYT - <AUTHOR> http://fixyt.com/ <comment><USER2> I think this is completely wrong approach. We as a community should stop giving G/YT our traffic if their stuff does not please us instead of making an effort to give them more traffic.

<comment><USER3> Sign me up, i want youtube to be killed dead!!!! Youtube is cool but google jumps in and just ruins your experience. They asked me 4 time before to adjust my name and i chose my current username....4 times. Now, for the last two weeks i have been getting this pop again but now i must apparently sign up for G+, when i try and comment, guess what that fu __ __popup again, i cannot comment unless i join G+.I have been just closing the window and saying, "O well that saves me some time wasting at least." Google is now as arrogant as Microsoft was and don't care about what the consumer wants but where they want to push you. I will never use G+, Google will save themselves the distraction by shutting down that crap, but they so blinded by facebook that they losing sight of the actual power they have.

They got this idea in their head that they need to create the complete identity for users to target ads better. This idea came about when the press and pundits where saying that facebook was so valuable because of realnames and user identity. The issue is that it's been proven that you can build a profile from a person's search history, even Target can predict if you are pregnant. So why waste time with this shit, anger your users and destroy your brands value?

<comment><USER4> So all you have to do is start a tech company that does this. When Google knock on your doors, with _literally_ one and half billion dollars of Google stock, you have to say "No".

Would you do that? Could you blame anyone else for doing that?

<comment><USER5> I couldn't do it, but Snapchat's CEO turned down a cool $3 billion.

It can be done.

<comment><USER6> >Snapchat's CEO turned down a cool $3 billion

Because word is he's getting offers for over $4 billion

<comment><USER7> And next week somebody will post that Apple offers $5 billion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's nice but if you ever even appear to cut into their ad model they'll shut ya down. Gotta pay the engineers, other employees, electric bill etc.... youtube ain't free ;)

EDIT: I really like the site & hope you flesh it out. Just not getting my hopes up too high. :)

<comment><USER9> Redisplaying YouTube content on other websites is explicitly allowed. Ads run in the embedded player, which they made easily available and usable on purpose.

What is NOT allowed, as far as I know, is using their API and player to make a website that does nothing but show YouTube content.

<comment><USER10> Last time I checked if all your are doing is repackaging their content but not adding any other content of substance to the page, it is against the TOS. This was a couple years ago but that was my understanding.

<comment><USER11> Yup, they can block your domain from embedding if they want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As I'm involved with an open source analysis and visualization tool named yt [1][2], this submission made my heart skip a beat.

[1] [http://yt-project.org](http://yt-project.org)

[2] Neal Stephenson reference.

<comment><USER13> yt-project looks interesting. thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love it. With all the horrible and bloated changes they have been making, I thought there would be an opportunity to create simpler version of or alternate of YouTube. I guess you are still using YouTube contents so they can block you if they wish.

I still think there is an opportunity to create an alternate video sharing site that's good enough.

Good job, though! I will be using your site instead of youtube as long as your site is live.

<comment><USER15> There's also Google's own version of trimmed down youtube: [http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta](http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta)

After enabling that I've never looked back. No comments and loads way faster.

<comment><USER16> This should be more well known. I just enabled it and don't plan on ever looking back.

<comment><USER17> Until you want to watch a playlist or a channel without choosing each video each time.

Feather Beta doesn't work with the "Play all" links or playlists in general.

<comment><USER18> I created a little thing for making and sharing playlists: [http://www.cueyoutube.com/](http://www.cueyoutube.com/)

I tweet my lists using the hashtag #cueyoutube which means I can always go back and find them later using [http://snapbird.org/](http://snapbird.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Both this and Youtube's own Feather beta seem to lack support for playlists. I like playlists for listening to music at work, for example Brad Neely's "America, Now" videos ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPQrXUpvkuc&list=PLD8217FD2EE...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPQrXUpvkuc&list=PLD8217FD2EE6CEB23)). Also useful for watching web series like Marble Hornets. I love a simpler experience, but I think content creators will want playlists.

<comment><USER20> Got you covered. [http://huzzaz.com/search](http://huzzaz.com/search)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> After getting fed up with the ongoing changes to subscriptions I created a barebones tool to act as a replacement. No Google/Youtube account needed, new videos are fetched using the API, setup is git clone and open in browser.

[https://github.com/adabei/tubeless/](https://github.com/adabei/tubeless/)

<comment><USER22> Pro Tip: Just use github pages to instantly give people a demo. All you need for that is to make a gh-pages branch and rename your main file to index.html.

<comment><USER21> Thanks, that's a good idea. This would eliminate the need to download anything and make it usable from mobile without any additional steps!

<comment><USER22> Indeed! Did the same for my own youtube thingie: [https://github.com/daviddeutsch/yt- sanegrid/](https://github.com/daviddeutsch/yt-sanegrid/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm a big fan of toogles and its chrome extension.

[http://toogl.es/#/browse](http://toogl.es/#/browse)

<comment><USER24> from [http://fixyt.com/about](http://fixyt.com/about) : "Thanks to toogl.es for the like/dislike concept. Toogl.es is an awesome YouTube alternative too."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thank you whoever you are. May the randomness of the Universe be in your favor.

\- It's blazing fast, much faster than the original.

\- Doesn't have that stupid loading bar at the top.

\- No more glitched video page loads.

\- Isn't going to be redesigned every 5 months like YT.

\- The video player is center aligned and not left aligned.

\- Drops all the unnecessary UI elements and doesn't bother me to start using my real name with G+.

I've become so pissed off at Google for the way it's been handling YT redesigns (and Analytics redesigns too). It's like they get the most amateur designers out of high school, and go on an a/b test spree by changing absolutely everything they can. YT's gone through 3+ redesigns now. Each one getting progressively more annoying than the last. And they just keep tinkering with things that aren't broken. Remember the slideshow playlist at the bottom of the screen a year back? And who in their right mind would left align the div holding a video player?!

It's annoying when a company treats one of its flagship products like a never ending science project experiment.

Good job on FixYT, my only suggestion: give me the option to turn the color scheme black.

<comment><USER26> I very much agree. I feel like every Google product is going straight downhill in similar ways.. even the ones unrelated to Google+. There must be some grand design to the whole thing but I don't see how it can all be money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> As always, I love sites that strip down YouTube. YouTube houses tons of great content; however, they seem to be making their consumers pretty unhappy. Check out [http://www.tubalr.com](http://www.tubalr.com) it's my app and focuses on YouTube's music content.

Grats on hitting the front page and I hope you can retain users, its the hardest part about websites like this.

<comment><USER28> I would use tubalr more often, but whenever I need it, I can't remember what it is called. I've liked you on Facebook, so my usual way of finding it is by going there and finding you amongst my likes.

In other words, you should try to come further up on google searches for "youtube music".

<comment><USER27> I've heard this far to many times :( Thanks for being a user when you can think of the name though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > "supports privacy and stores no information"

Interesting that there's still a Google Analytics tracking call on the page.

<comment><USER30> but hey, fixyt themselves don't store the info, so... i guess it's fine, right?

i'm getting a little tired of the 'privacy backlash' from many quarters, as I don't really get what people are after. piggybacking on youtube, which needs to generate revenue and does so by relevant ads... just strikes me as juvenile.

You want "privacy" but you also want the fruits of non-private endeavors? Too bad. Build an entire video hosting and streaming service, give it away for free, focus on 'privacy', and see how far you get. But leeching off YT feels wrong.

<comment><USER31> The big privacy concern with YT is that your viewing history will be displayed to your friends and acquaintances, attached to your real name.

People can say, "Don't be ridiculous! They would never!", but Google is so utterly tone-deaf to user concerns that people, myself included, just can't rule it out. And it makes us angry.

Think back to Buzz: suddenly, you could view all of your contacts' contacts!! That's the level of deafness Google has to how you might want your data displayed to people you know...and that's why this feature is so unacceptable to pretty much everyone.

<comment><USER30> Then that should be specifically highlighted as a concern and a fix.

I don't even know what people mean by 'privacy' anymore - it means so many things to different people. A friend of mine started a 'social network focused on privacy'. Except that when you signed up, your details were available to anyone else who'd signed up - they could browse all existing members. Was that 'private'? I complained and he's changed the behavior, but the point is _his_ notion of 'privacy' was apparently radically different than mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's shocking that only now I realize just how incredibly bad YouTube has become.

<comment><USER33> It's a consequence of google's empire-itis. If they view youtube in the mold of their major business they see they can spend most of their effort working on the technical problems, slap some ads on it, and then call it a day. Even though this might provide a good platform for many people to host videos and is probably revenue positive or at worst neutral for google, nevertheless it doesn't do much to advance an entire new industry.

In many ways youtube would be better without google. The technological problems would be more severe and a bigger challenge, but such a youtube would likely be smarter about finding ways to better monetize content and to pass on that monetization to creators (to create a virtual cycle of new content, and so forth). As it stands now youtube barely acknowledges creators as anything more than any other ordinary users of the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I use a browser plugin that strips down the actual site to a minimal version [http://www.clea.nr](http://www.clea.nr)

It's by far the best solution I've found since it stays out of the way, and when I click on a Youtube link the page is much nicer.

<comment><USER35> There's also YouTube's own Feather beta: [http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta](http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta)

<comment><USER36> And [https://youtube.com/tv](https://youtube.com/tv)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/youtube- cente...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/youtube-center/) is useful, especially fixing buffering and quality.

</comment><comment><USER38> [http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta](http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta)

</comment><comment><USER39> The overbloatiness of YouTube and the artsy-fartsy nature of Vimeo have left a vacuum for something that would be similar to the imgur of videos. I wouldn't be so surprised if someone applied to a venture capital firm with this sort of thing.

</comment><comment><USER40> Does this get around the issue of local ISPs caching the content and then causing the video download to be extremely slow?

I've heard there's a way get your browser to always connect directly to YouTube's servers, but I could never get it to work.

<comment><USER41> It is just youtube embedded plays. The whole thing will not work if a video has disabled embedding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I mentioned this in another thread but YouTube feather (beta) is pretty much this. It strips down everything but the video and the recommendations on the side. Also it is an official Google feature.

<comment><USER43> For those interested: [https://www.youtube.com/feather_beta](https://www.youtube.com/feather_beta)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I love how channels are presented. Now I can actually see the new videos.

Will use this instead of YouTube for a while!

PS Can you make "load more" optional? I just want stuff to be loaded as I scroll automagically. :)

</comment><comment><USER45> Finally, related videos that are related to the video!

For some reason google decided to show videos 'relevant' to me. But all I want is videos related to what i'm watching.

Thanks, I really like it.

</comment><comment><USER46> On my recent trip, I wanted to watch some YouTube videos in the air but there wasn't WiFi on my flight. I found an app called MxTube for iPad and it blew my mind how much cleaner, faster, and more intuitive it was than the REAL YouTube app. Added benefit - You can cache videos for offline playback. I happily paid the $1.99 pro upgrade to support the developer.

</comment><comment><USER47> If it could get around youtube's annoying DASH and buffer the entire video while paused I would use it!

<comment><USER48> Look for the Youtube Center addon or extension. Among the many options is disabling DASH.

<comment><USER22> Careful, though - Google is fighting back against this and in many cases, you don't get all resolutions when disabling dash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks like the YouTube specific autocomplete uses an undocumented Google API at suggestqueries.google.com

Someone documented it here:

[http://shreyaschand.com/blog/2013/01/03/google- autocomplete-...](http://shreyaschand.com/blog/2013/01/03/google-autocomplete- api/)

</comment><comment><USER49> Fantastic! There's so much wrong with Youtube these days. It's great that someone is trying to fix it! Now, a nitpick... Your about page has a typo. You've got the word recommendation with only one m. If it were my site, I'd want someone to tell me.

</comment><comment><USER50> I thought about doing something similar a few years ago but gave up after reading in their TOS that in order for embedding to be allowed, the page cannot be specifically about the video but instead must simply use the video to enhance the original content on the page.

</comment><comment><USER51> I've been using Toogles all this time. This seems even faster. Will switch between both as each have their points. Thanks.

And Googlers, you've run YouTube into the ground with clutter. Stop. Roll back. And get rid of tying of it to G+. We don't want that.

</comment><comment><USER52> Recommendations are actually nice, but the problem on YT is how they are based on the current video and my personal browsing history at the same time. I think in earlier days they were just based on the current video and this made much more sense to me.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is what YouTube should be like (or how it once was actually).

However, I agree with others that building a UI on top of it is not much of innovation. I'd rather see new and better apps instead of new and better props for the old and ugly services.

</comment><comment><USER24> All the videos that require sign in due to "rated content", seems to be not working since they require sign in. I dont even get a sign in option, just "error occurred".

</comment><comment><USER54> I don't have a youtube account so this site is a good way to watch youtube videos with content restrictions.

</comment><comment><USER55> Simply awesome, in an instant I remembered all of the reasons I used to like youtube.

</comment><comment><USER56> What's the real purpose behind this site? All I see is YouTube with Bootstrap.

<comment><USER57> Read about the purpose here: [http://fixyt.com/about](http://fixyt.com/about)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Thank you, now I can watch yt videos without any flash player!

</comment><comment><USER59> This is so good! Hoping YouTube takes a clue or two

</comment><comment><USER60> That Noah movie looks absolutely "epic".

</comment><comment><USER61> Seems so much faster than Youtube.

</comment><comment><USER62> Did they just fix the comment?

</comment><comment><USER63> Shameless plug for playr.me

</comment><comment><USER64> already watched and hide it would be great!

</comment><comment><USER65> where can I comment ?

just kidding, great job

</comment><comment><USER66> It's completely useless to me. All the important content discovery features are gone. The search is horrible, all the nice filtering options YT has aren't there.</comment>


Open/R: Open routing for modern networks - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/291641674683314/open-r-open-routing-for-modern-networks/ <comment><USER2> I love that projects like this (and this: [https://code.facebook.com/posts/717010588413497/introducing-...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/717010588413497/introducing-6-pack- the-first-open-hardware-modular-switch/)) exist and I love that they provide install instructions like this: [http://opennetlinux.org/wedge](http://opennetlinux.org/wedge) ... but I also wish they provided a hardware parts list that I could easily order.

Does anybody know of a site that provides that kind of hardware shopping list for these projects?

<comment><USER3> [http://www.opencompute.org/projects/networking/](http://www.opencompute.org/projects/networking/) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, and maybe it's just me, but what does it do? Can I use it in my regular engineering job?

<comment><USER5> It's a routing stack, runs on L2/L3 switches

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> good to see newer routing projects these days.</comment>


YC W18 Application status - <AUTHOR> I have not recieved an acceptance or rejection mail for W2018. <comment><USER2> It's not 10 PM yet. I thinking maybe that is why?

</comment><comment><USER3> Anybody get an invite or rejection email yet?

<comment><USER4> saw few tweets of people celebrating invites. No rejections yet. Few more minutes to 10 in Mountain View.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some people have got invites I think.

<comment><USER3> Did you get invited?

<comment><USER5> No email yet but I read on the other thread where someone got a invite.

<comment><USER5> Got rejection email

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> nothing here yet</comment>


Want That Post to Go Popular? Here are the Best and Worst Times to Post It - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_study_shows_best_and_worst.php

<comment><USER2> I commented on the blogger's post that I don't think this is really accurate. It doesn't take into account smaller volumes of submissions in the middle of the night, i.e. it looks at the absolute number of items being made popular rather than the probability of any particular link being made popular. This is not entirely clear because the aiderss ranking algorithm is opaque, but I still think its the case.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be interesting to see stats for HN regarding that. It seems like afternoons are quite dead around here.

Then again, I'd rather that data not be public, because it only leads to people trying to game the system for more karma, and I prefer this site the way it is.

<comment><USER4> I think curiosity should be satisfied over practical security-by-obscurity of not knowing... I think it would be interesting to make a graph of news.YC score based on the time during the week that it was posted... Maybe a circular kernel distribution of sorts?

PG! Could you release your server logs? Pretty please?

<comment><USER5> since the rank of a post is votes / hours since submission if you wanted to game the system you would probably wait until the morning to post something. More eyeballs means more potential votes, which leads to being higher on the home page, which leads to more attention, etc. That's just my guess though.

<comment><USER6> Things seem to stay on the front page for more than 24 hours on Hacker News, so I doubt there's any reason to try to game the system. If your article is good, people will see it.

<comment><USER7> Once they get to the front page. There is a relatively (depending on the time of day, and no I don't have stats) smaller window when stuff scrolls down the 'new' page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Now that this fact is known, it will be arbitraged away. :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe this thinking makes sense on the larger sites, but for here, it just sounds stupid.

I have often wondered how this "organism" call the Hacker News community works and have finally satisfied myself by not even thinking about it any more.

I often find what I think is the coolest article and wonder what others will think. So I submit it and it sits there with no comments or upvotes.

Did I submit it at a bad time? Or a bad day? Were all the people who would have liked it busy doing something else? What time was it in Europe? In California? In New York? Did I submit it while there was free beer and munchies at a Super Happy Dev House somewhere? Was pg speaking somewhere?

Or maybe people just don't care about the same things I do sometimes. (I suspect this is the most likely reason.) But that's cool too, because that's still a good answer.

So instead of trying to understand the unimportant and elusive, it's probably a better idea to submit what we think is interesting and see what happens. And comment when we have something to say and shut up when we don't. And vote, too. But mostly, use most of those cycles on our own startups and save hn for breaks.</comment>


Show HN: Take control of your time, increase your productivity - <AUTHOR> https://idealweek.net?ver=1.0 <comment><USER2> Very nice UI. It seems your product is already fairly complex and offers a decent set of features.

Usually I track items in the kanban boards, in the excel spreadsheets and in my notepad. For me as a visitor and potential client it's not clear what's the extra value your tool could provide me with compared to my old tools and habits.

BTW, if you'd like to get more free UX feedback, please feel free to visit our UX community platform at [https://usability.testing.exchange](https://usability.testing.exchange)</comment>


Teens Now Getting High Off 'Digital Drugs' - <AUTHOR> http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=12793977

<comment><USER2> When I was in grade school, the police passed out warnings about "blue star" rub on tattoos that contained heroin. That was total bullshit too.

Every time I read "proper" journalism I am reminded of how decadent, formulaic, and protocol-bound it is. I could almost predict what the next paragraph was going to say:

New term & scare words: "i-drugs" "download drugs"

Warning from officials

Concerned parents

Short, bullshit scientific-sounding claim of effects

Another official warning

New stupid policies: "stop using that cell phone on campus, druggie!"

"Be aware", "take action"

Be aware of what? Take action against what? Let's defrag the actual facts:

1) There is some software that claims to get you high. There is also software that claims to find you love, money, fame, etc. All bullshit.

2) The _Oklahoma_ department of narcotics issues a "warning" about this. No claim, research, or proof of actual effects. No case studies, nothing.

3) The reporter took this and asked a bunch of people about it, who then reported being scared.

4) Article ensues, proper protocol is followed, no actual facts conveyed, "journalist" goes home.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this might be a variation of something I heard about in the mid-1980s, related to a book called The Far Journeys. <http://www.intuitive- connections.net/2007/book-monroe.htm>

EDIT: A better explanation, via Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemi- Sync>

</comment><comment><USER3> Hard hitting journalism:

> "I heard it was like some weird demons and stuff through an iPod and he was > like freaking out," said Mustang High School student Meghan Edwards.</comment>


PHP class to query the web by an SQL like language - <AUTHOR> http://www.jonasjohn.de/lab/htmlsql.htm

<comment><USER2> If only there was some way to address XML/HTML elements by their location in the DOM tree. The "path", if you will. We could call it... XPath.

<comment><USER3> I'll bet you a nickle that most of the pages you'd use this on are not properly formed XML.

<comment><USER4> Not as big a problem as you might think. Just feed them to a parser designed to deal with broken HMTL, and _then_ use XPath. I'm using lxml in Python for this, and it's working very well for me.

<comment><USER5> Likewise on .NET, the HTML Agility Pack: <http://htmlagilitypack.codeplex.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> More like querying HTML, not "the web". I initally thought this was Google search on steroids (which would be awesome) but it wasn't.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've used this library in the past, but it is really too bad it hasn't been updated since 2006. I've since moved on to PHP's DOMDocument::loadHTML function.

</comment><comment><USER8> another powerful alternative is <http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/> this allows jquery selector syntax to be used, which is more likely to be in the skill set of most web developers, and sql might not be.

<comment><USER9> i've used this and i like it. but it leaks like a sinking ship.</comment></comment>


You're now free to make Gmail as ugly as you want - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/19/youre-now-free-to-make-gmail-as-ugly-as-you-want/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone have the hex values for Hot Dog Stand?</comment>


Working on Wine – Introduction to Developing for the Wine Project - <AUTHOR> https://www.codeweavers.com/about/blogs/aeikum/2019/1/3/working-on-wine-part-1-the-wine-ecosystem <comment><USER2> It's it just happenstance this reaches the front page along with the Oracle v Google blog post?</comment>


A pattern for prime numbers may have been found by a japanese - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/abc-conjecture-shinichi-mochizuki-prime-numbers_n_1877692.html

<comment><USER2> Previous extensive Hacker News discussion of the better source mentioned in the first comment here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4502856>

</comment><comment><USER3> I found this Nature article easier to comprehend (it also contains a concise list of references):

[http://www.nature.com/news/proof-claimed-for-deep- connection...](http://www.nature.com/news/proof-claimed-for-deep-connection- between-primes-1.11378)</comment>


Political Donations From the Motion Picture Industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?ind=C2400

<comment><AUTHOR> This correlates extremely well with the fact that 11 Republican senators and only 2 Democratic senators changed stances yesterday. Not trying to make a partisan point here, as I would expect the opposite if the numbers were opposite. But I think it provides some helpful context for what we're up against.

</comment><comment><USER2> 2008 is when Pro IP Act passed, which now allows ICE to take down all those domains. The spike in donations is probably related to that.

<comment><USER3> > 2008 is when Pro IP Act passed, which now allows ICE to take down all those > domains.

And note the pattern. They got the DMCA under the Clinton admin. in order to "fight piracy". But it was not enough. So again in 2008 they get the Pro IP act, in order to "fight piracy". But that was not enough. Now they are back with SOPA/PIPA, in order to "fight piracy". And in 2 years, that won't be enough either and they will be back with something else even worse than SOPA/PIPA today, in order to "fight piracy".</comment></comment>


Wild Apples (1862) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1862/11/wild-apples/411517/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> A case of euro-centric vision blinding the writer, understandable because nobody knew the truth in those years.

Cultured apples and wild apples didn't mixed so much as we previously thought. The men that really created this huge gift for the rest of the humanity weren't from Greece, Germany, Swiss or the Roman empire; they lived and worked probably in the mountain forests of the humble Azerbaijan.

</comment><comment><USER3> Michael Pollan's less known book, The Botany of Desire, is an excellent read and examines four crops -- one of them the Apple -- that have shaped human history.</comment>


St. Louis Fed official: No evidence QE boosted economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18/st-louis-fed-official-no-evidence-qe-boosted-economy.html

<comment><USER2> But it sure helped out banks, who get to borrow from the Fed at near zero rates and lend at much higher rates.

The US tends to inject Government money into the economy through banks. In comparison, Japan tends to inject Government money through infrastructure projects. Some of the infrastructure projects are expensive for what they accomplish, but at least they're real things.

<comment><USER3> Open market operations can't really be characterized as lending to banks. Instead, the Fed buys various kinds of debt, especially US govt bonds, thus injecting money into the economy. The fed funds rate is really the rate at which banks lend to each other. Banks are privileged in that they have a special legal mandate to act as banks, but they are not privileged in terms of access to credit (they can borrow at the "discount window" but this is less important than the Fed's open market operations).

But more importantly, QE is more like injecting money into "real things" since it is buying corporate debt that presumably funds real projects. So the (alleged) failure of QE is not very good evidence for your claim that standard monetary policy is bad.

EDIT: and they main reason I and most economists prefer US style monetary policy is that it's very neutral: you have a lever, and that lever is how much bonds you buy. You can choose various flavors of bonds, and various maturities, but they are all fundamentally the same. In contrast, the government directly funding real projects lends itself to corruption and favoritism.

<comment><USER4> > You can choose various flavors of bonds, and various maturities, but they > are all fundamentally the same.

It appears to me that you've just equated a US Treasury bond with a private label subprime RMBS. Is that a fair assessment? If so, how strongly do you feel about that equivalence? I see the private label RMBS's as less of a 'real thing'.

<comment><USER3> In the context of that sentence, I was referring to the bonds bought by open market operations, which are primarily US government bonds and would not include private label subprime RMBSs.

The kind of close-to-risk-free bonds bought in open market operations are all fundamentally the same because they simply move money from one point in time to another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To paraphrase Mark Blyth (Prof. Econ. at Brown), QE is the absolute worst way to deal with our banking mess, _except doing nothing_. It kept the US from crashing into the mess that Europe is in. That was probably good, but it was effectively a class-specific put option.

"Not crashing" does not necessarily mean "positive boost".

</comment><comment><USER6> This sounds like it leads into an argument for trying to find ways to broadly increase wages in order to deliberately spur inflation.

<comment><USER3> One of the main mechanisms by which inflation stimulates the economy, is that it lowers wages (because of sticky wages) hence decreasing unemployment. So intentionally raising wages as a form of stimulus seems counterproductive. Could you explain your argument more?

<comment><USER7> One of the ideas floating around is that the economy is currently limited on the demand side, and that increased wages will result in more disposable income and higher consumption.

<comment><USER3> Increasing _wages_ will make employers less inclined to hire people, and thus potentially less total disposable income. Giving ordinary people more money directly seems like a more reasonable sort of stimulus. Where are these ideas floating around? The idea of sticky wages dates back to Keynes.

<comment><USER7> I tend to side with the argument that employers ultimately hire not because people are cheap, but because they need them to meet demand. If there's no demand, there's no wage low enough to justify a hire. I don't want to speak for Thomas Piketty, but my reading of his data is that generally economic growth is the product of higher wages, not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hard to judge what would have happened had the policy _not_ been in effect. Only 1 sample in the experiment.

</comment><comment><USER9> Banks are broken, they will only issue mortgages, high interest credit cards and charge fees.

<comment><AUTHOR> They're not issuing nearly as many mortgages.

Non bank mortgage lending is nearly 40% of the market at present, up from 13% in 2012.

[http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/01/guess-whos-issuing-slews- of-m...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/01/guess-whos-issuing-slews-of-mortgages- not-your-bank.html)</comment></comment>


How 1% of your traffic can bring in 90% of your business - <AUTHOR> http://www.sowhatmedia.co.uk/small-traffic-big-business/

<comment><USER3> On the subject of buying ads against those "long-tail" search terms, I see a lot of times when I'm in the research-phase of a purchase cases where it looks like a company has bought the right search term, but they've completely failed to provide the information I was looking for. I scroll past the Google Ads _not_ because I'm not interested in the bought-and-paid-for results, but because they _suck_.

If you're buying "best golf clubs for beginners" and you dumped me to golf clubs category page, I'm just going to close the tab and go back to the next result. Get me information specifically about the beginner golf clubs you offer. Put up a nice article describing what a beginner should look for and which of your products fit the bill best. If I walked into a store and asked "which set is best for beginners" and your salesman silently pointed me to the golf clubs aisle, I'd probably look around for a minute and then just walk out since I don't want to make a purchase flying blind.

Look how much google loves About.com. Everybody knows that site sucks - <USER2> information is half-assed and spammy, but they know how to create content that matches the search terms perfectly. If I ask Google a question, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get an About.com article that will provide a surface-level discussion _directly_ pertaining to my issue. The fact that the article _sucks_ is irrelevant, because most people are Googling these questions _because_ they're too deep in the dark to know the article sucks.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for this comment - I think it's really valuable.

If I dare mention my SEO work for a minute - I've seen on so many occasions my "informational" content outrank my "product/conversion" content - so in that respect Google looks as though it follows the user interest just as you described.

So I definitely agree that we should create pages for the term in question and make the user happy. For instance, label 10 drivers that are great for beginner golfers, why they are great for golfers, maybe a YouTube video of a store pro using it and then just a small ad indicating you have said driver in stock, or you can get 15% off etc.

Much better than just planting a big BUY NOW product page, category page or equivalent. If you're targeting these keywords, either for PPC or SEO, meet the searcher's intent.

<comment><USER5> > So I definitely agree that we should ... make the user happy.

How could I disagree?

<comment><USER4> Ha, very good point. That made me sound a bit daft, didn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >>"What's more: they are infinitely scalable. You could rank, ten, twenty, fifty of these kind of keywords just as easily."

Making a page rank for a keyword involves having some local domain inbound links and some inbound links from external domains, inaddition to the usual in-page optimisation. It seems like getting those links to 50 pages is not easy and is not scalable. What am I missing?

</comment><comment><USER4> Hey there

Thanks very much for sharing this :) Hope it's some worth to some people

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought it was a useful post highlighting a common problem with HiPPOs!!</comment></comment>


Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/08/machinarium-suffers-95-piracy-rate-offers-5-amnesty-sale.ars <comment><USER2> " the game doesn't bother players serial codes or online authentication, but it's also very easy to copy it "

Somewhat misleading. It's also very easy to copy all the super-DRMed games. In fact, the process is identical. Load up a torrent site, search, download.

At any rate, claiming 90% piracy (regardless of truth) to run a sale is probably a good marketing move. It's a beautiful game.

<comment><USER3> It _is_ a good move. I didn't pirate it, but I'll buy it to support them (plus it's just three quid). I only wish it were on Steam...

<comment><USER4> I think it is on Steam: <http://store.steampowered.com/app/40700/>

<comment><USER3> It is, but no sale :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What seems to be missing, as usual from these piracy posts is that the 90% who pirated the game most likely wouldn't have bought it. Sure, pirating games is a bad thing. But, it doesn't hurt to have a little perspective on it. There was a post on HN a few months ago doing some analysis on this subject.

<comment><USER6> "What seems to be missing, as usual from these piracy posts is that the 90% who pirated the game most likely wouldn't have bought it."

We will never know this. When I used to pirate software in my younger years, I would buy software that I needed if I couldn't find it anywhere. I suspect that the number of pirates that would never buy are a lot lower than you claim.

The problem now is that piracy has muddied the waters. We will never know either way.

<comment><USER7> Some companies have done the unthinkable and actually run some numbers... Eliminating 1,000 pirated copies tended to result in 1 additional sale. You turn 10,000 copies into 1,009.

<http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350>

<comment><USER8> They put out new versions of their games that fix existing pirating methods and then measure how that affects downloads and sales. How do they know what portion of the pirates are downloading the demo and then applying the crack rather than just downloaded a previous cracked version from somewhere else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This game is really really good. It's got beautiful artwork, awesome music and endearing characters. It's like everything that was good about the Lucasarts point&clicks without the insane puzzles (the puzzles get hard, but they still make some kind of sense).

A bought this game at the full price despite having the pirated version available. I really want to encourage them to make more! For what it's worth, I probably wouldn't have bought it if it had any sort of crazy DRM scheme.

There's a wallpaper sized version of the of the pirate robot image and a new song on the official blog post here: [http://machinarium.net/blog/2010/08/05/machinarium-pirate- am...](http://machinarium.net/blog/2010/08/05/machinarium-pirate-amnesty/)

<comment><USER3> I bought the game because of your comment, but I really really want to add it to Steam, otherwise I'll lose the files and I'll have to download it from piratebay or something... I emailed them twice so far, I wish I had a key I could add...

<comment><USER9> I've lost the game files once so far and emailed them, they let me download them again which was nice. I wonder if it's possible for them to let you add it to your steam account after you've bought it through there website, I think steam has its own payment processing things from which Valve must take a cut.

<comment><USER3> I think you should be able to add a game to Steam if you have a key, they do let you do that... If I lose the files (which I will), I'll just get them off TPB, I guess...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If that 90% figure is accurate, that's really fucking depressing.

That's a beautiful looking game. I sure hope they're getting enough sales to make some decent money.

<comment><USER11> > If that 90% figure is accurate, that's really fucking depressing.

I think the focus needs to shift from, "This sucks," to, "This is what it is, how can we deal with it?" Like a lot of other industries, games are going to need to evolve.

Server-side data and good online connecting is a way. Platforms like Steam that take the hassle out of online buying is a way. Alternative monetizing might be a way. Tasteful sponsorship and in-game advertising? At this point, piracy is what it is, and it's not going away. Time to start thinking about ways to monetize those pirates.

<comment><USER12> Machinarium is actually available on Steam. I guess I'd like to think that for a lot of people piracy is simply easier than the legal alternatives - this is true for a lot of people outside the US for movies, for example. If I want to watch movies at home I either have to buy them or walk 15 mins to a video store to get a scratched DVD from a lousy selection. I'm pretty staunch about not pirating but it tests my patience when with bittorrent I'd be watching anything I like in far less time.

However due to being on Steam buying this game can't get much easier and people still pirate it. I agree the focus has to change but it is still a shame, this game is beautiful. I think the amnesty sale is a great way to draw attention to the issue (and the game too).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> At the bottom there might be a choice. 100,000 copies in the wild with 90,000 of them pirated or 100 copies, all legit.

If fact, its probably a continuum. Choose your point anywhere along that line. (Of course, you never heard about the one where only 100 sold, the developers decided they'd failed and gave up).

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. So 90% of the people pirate the game (which has no serial number or protection). I thought the reason people pirated apps was because of draconian protection systems like DRM?!

<comment><USER14> Hardcore pirates will always find a new excuse. Most of them just don't want to pay. They can't be counted as lost sales if they never had any intent to buy.

<comment><USER15> Hardcore pirates will always find a new excuse, but well-implemented DRM is really helpful at encouraging mostly honest people to be as honest as they believe themselves to be. A huge segment of the population will be every bit as honest as you require them to be.

<comment><USER16> Within many game companies, the goal of DRM is to prevent people from pirating the game for the first week or two. They know better than anyone it'll be cracked eventually. But DRM definitely has an effect on sales if the pirates have to wait a few days to get the game for free. At least some of them will pay, if they have to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Machinarium is amazing. I purchased it last December when they had a sale going. I would've gladly paid the full price for it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Even if you don't wish to play the game (often), the soundtrack is pretty awesome to have as background coding music. $5 is a steal.

<comment><USER19> agreed; soundtrack alone is well worth the money

<comment><USER20> I just paid my $5 site-unseen for the game and soundtrack. Haven't played the game yet, but the soundtrack alone is worth more than $5.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> World of Goo, another excellent indie game, also reported a 90% piracy rate two years ago. The developers calculated that percentage from the number of users on their high score board, which were much more than the number of actual online sales. They were very gracious about it, deliberately choosing not to put any DRM on their software.

Sad as it may be, putting DRM might not increase sales numbers significantly. It just makes crackers more determined. Such was World of Goo's reasoning against DRM.

[http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/11/acrying-shame- wor...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/11/acrying-shame-world-of-goo- piracy-rate-near-90.ars)

</comment><comment><USER22> So those who are honest pay the full price, and those who don't only have to pay 1/4?

Yeah that is going to cut down on piracy.

<comment><USER23> It's $5 for everyone. The piracy thing is a marketing gimmick because you don't get written up in gadget blogs just because you have a sale.

<comment><USER24> Is it $5 for those who already paid ?

<comment><USER25> Again, I think it's better to simply look at it as a sale price that comes after the product has become successful plus a little bit of guilting those that haven't paid for it to buy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Developer, if you read this, please offer the sale on Steam! I will gladly buy it

<comment><USER4> What about <http://store.steampowered.com/app/40700/> ?

<comment><USER27> _"please offer the sale on Steam!"_

As in the sale price. It's still $19.99 on steam.

<comment><USER4> When I made my comment, I believe it said "please offer the app on Steam", or something similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I pirated this game to see if it would work on my N900 as a standalone (since the demo did not). The game was still too slow, so i didn't purchase it.

</comment><comment><USER29> My wife purchased this game last year and we had a lot of fun working through some of the puzzles together. The art and music are great.

</comment><comment><USER30> Just bought it, awesome game.</comment>


Show HN: Dating Ring (YC W14) – We do the work, you do the dating - <AUTHOR> https://www.datingring.com <comment><USER3> Please tell your employees to stop creating fake profiles on OkCupid and spamming our users. Behaving like that doesn't inspire much confidence in your service.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, to clarify, while I did personally message a ton of people during our early days (CEO in her pajamas at 3am doing anything to get a site off the ground) - this is not at all what we do now. Our Premium Matchmakers will contact someone if they have someone they want to set them up on a date with. You're on OkCupid for dates, right? So we're trying to help :)

<comment><USER4> "Our Premium Matchmakers will contact someone if they have someone they want to set them up on a date with."

This is unsolicited spam. And likely against OkCupid's terms of use.

<comment><USER5> Spam is in the eye of the receiver. Someone with an empty OkCupid inbox would probably be glad to get a "I know someone you'd be perfect for!" message. Maybe that's still against OkCupid's ToS, I don't know, but if I was the recipient I wouldn't really care.

If it was just generic "come sign up for our new dating service!" messages, I'd agree with you, but that's not what they were doing.

<comment><USER6> The problem with this is that every dating site out there looking to grow their user base might see that as a viable strategy.

If it were to become more common (not sure how common it is actually...probably very), that could result in an overall poor experience for OKCupid users who would associate using the service with receiving spam that never netted out to anything.

There is nothing wrong with OKCupid drawing the line on another service trying to get "free" marketing on its dime and at the expense of its user experience.

<comment><USER5> I agree with your last paragraph. If I were OkCupid, I would try to prevent people from doing this. If I were Dating Ring, I would try to do this. And if I were an OkCupid user, I would feel gratitude towards anyone who arranged a date for me, Terms of Service be damned.

That said, if it never amounted to anything -- as in, I got Dating Ring spam promising dates that never materialized, I would be pretty pissed.

<comment><USER6> If it did amount to something, sure, users would be happy.

However my point was that it is not exclusively Dating Ring doing this. It is important to consider the overall signal to noise ratio when you factor in the messages from Dating Ring and any other company out there trying to use OKCupid's platform to promote themselves.

OkCupid, barring the creation of a program/partnership specific to this case, has decided that overall, it is worth filtering out. If they thought it added value based on the data they had, they would try to partner with Dating Ring. Heck, it would likely have been fine if Dating Ring purchased ad inventory on their site. As it stands, it seems they view this approach as spam per the OP. If it is against their terms, Dating Ring doesn't have much leg to stand on as that would make it a pretty black and white situation.

Part of me wonders if a Cease & Desist is en route to Dating Ring's office.

<comment><USER7> > _However my point was that it is not exclusively Dating Ring doing this. It > is important to consider the overall signal to noise ratio when you factor > in the messages from Dating Ring and any other company out there trying to > use OKCupid 's platform to promote themselves._

Such situations are exactly the kind where Kant's categorical imperative applies. If something is clearly wrong when everyone does it, it should not be OK for a particular company to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I see some pessimism in these comments, but IMO one needs to consider the problem from both genders (assuming we're talking about straight dating exclusively for a sec).

The problem with OkCupid is that the experience is _horrendous_ for women. While the men would love to have choice, and "unlimited" matches, in reality this only means one thing:

Spam. Spam spam spam spam spam spam. More spam.

The success of Tinder should be in large part attributed to the fact that the basic interaction model removes spam. Men will swipe right on the majority of "matches", making women the actual gatekeepers of conversation - and this model works, though you obviously lose a lot of nuance and depth along the way.

<comment><USER9>
        Spam. Spam spam spam spam spam spam. More spam.

Could you please elaborate? Do women get spammed a lot? Do men have to spam to be spoken to?

<comment><USER10> Women receive more messages from men then men receive from women. From complains that women leave in their OKCupid profiles I would say that a lot of these messages are not from people trying to intelligently converse with the women that they are trying to connect with. Seemingly common things:

\- Messages that are too short. E.g. "hey babe" doesn't mean much, when a women gets 10 - 20 "hey babe" messages in a day.

\- There are men that get frustrated at the lack of response from women, and start turning their messages into "form letters" which don't show any level of having read the woman's profile.

\- Initiating conversation with sexual propositions.

\- Depending on the platform, sending unsolicited pictures of genitalia.

While some of these might not qualify as "spam" compared to a 419 scammers emails, I would say that wading through all of that seems akin to wading through one's spam folder...

<comment><USER11> If OKCupid has all of these messages, couldn't they algorithmically rate your message (based on sender patterns, receiver patterns, and/or site wide patterns) before you send it. While it wouldn't be perfect, it would act like the minimum reading level from most grammar checks. (This feels like something that must have been tried, or dismissed, before.)

<comment><USER12> I believe it will increase message quality but maybe not in a good way: now it's easier to train oneself in sending message that score well but are still a bad conversation starter. What gets measured, gets improved. Unfortunately, measuring real success is quite hard because successful stop using the dating site.

<comment><USER13> > Unfortunately, measuring real success is quite hard because successful stop > using the dating site.

IIRC, when the user disables/deletes his/hers OkC account, they can specify the reason: "met someone on OkC (they can type the other person username)", "met someone elsewhere", "not interested anymore", etc. So they probably have lots of good data on success.

<comment><USER8> Assuming the self-reporting is truthful. How many people are selecting the "this sucks I give up" box?

Self-reporting in general is fraught with problems, doubly (quadruply) so when it's something as close to the ego as dating.

Also assuming the account is shut off at all as opposed to simply idled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> UX suggestion from someone who decided to give you a try and fill out your application form:

If you're only open for business currently in NYC and SF, maybe _mention that before you have me fill out the long form_ rather than waiting until after I've submitted it, OK? Because otherwise the user who doesn't live in one of those places feels like you just wasted a bunch of their time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that - great suggestion. Will add that to the form.

shkkmo is right that the reason we have you fill it out is so that we have the ability to launch new cities faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So here is a perspective from one of your users.

I signed up for Dating Ring in NYC in like March, and have generally had a good experience. Probably been to a dozen dates/events. Of that I've only been on two "bad" dates. I define that as dates where I felt we just didn't have anything in common and/or they were completely not my type. Most were mediocre, but we had fun, mostly because I know how to be entertaining over drinks. A couple I was interested in but never really had a good relationship develop from it. In general, I had fun so it was money well spent.

I'm new to the city and the site was a great way to meet totally new people frequently without having to jump through all the hoops of stuff like OkCupid.

I have to say I am curious about this "pivot" in how you are approaching matchmaking. It is nice to have an "out" and not waste my time if it is clear that I won't find the person attractive mentally or physically.

Honestly I think I've stuck with the site out of curiosity, and not really the expectation of having a good date. Over the past year I've had much better success finding relationships using OkCupid in NYC than your service. Mostly because I can better select dates that are attractive and interesting. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment><comment><USER16> What makes your matchmakers any better than a random stranger? Or a computer algorithm? Or a pile of bricks? I searched through your whole website trying to figure out why your matchmakers are worth my time and money but it doesn't seem like you've made any attempt to address those concerns, which is extremely odd since their matchmaking skills are the core of your business.

Am I missing something? Based on the (lack of) info on your website, your matchmakers really could be random people you pulled off the street.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have a page about our matchmakers that we'll be adding back this week, and you also get more info about your matchmaker after signing up.

You're completely right that we should have more info on the matchmakers featured prominently on the site. Appreciate that feedback and will be changing that soon!

(In short - they've been with us for the past year and matched thousands of people.)

<comment><USER17> You didn't answer the question. He asked you why you think your matchmakers are better. Not for a page about them.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have 5 full-time matchmakers with varied backgrounds, mostly in psychology, theater, and working at other matchmaking agencies. We often get questioned more on what makes our matchmakers good, than another company would get questioned on what makes their engineers, or other employees good. This is both because matchmaking isn't a common profession, and because matchmaking is a majority female profession that tends to get undervalued and not viewed as a 'real' profession.

Our matchmakers stay up to date on trends, have exceptionally high EQs, have experience matching thousands of people, and we accept under 1% of people who apply for the job.

<comment><USER18> Do you have any data or evidence that says matchmakers outperform random chance (random chance within certain parameters, basically age and sexual orientation)?

I'd be interested in the odds of two people selected at random forming a relationship vs the odds of two people selected by a matchmaker forming a relationship. As well as two people selected by a computer algorithm vs two people selected by a matchmaker. And two people selected by some random asshole off the street vs two people selected by a matchmaker.

I'm guessing not.

You need to demonstrate with data your "service" is useful to convince people to use it.

<comment><USER7> > _You need to demonstrate with data your "service" is useful to convince > people to use it._

The thing is, you don't.

All you need to do is to market the living shit out of this idea, and since no one can reliably answer whether it beats random chance people will use it. You get to earn the benefits for as long as it takes for someone else to actually do the studies that debunk you _and then_ one-up you at marketing.

<comment><USER18> You're right! I was more talking about the people here asking questions that weren't being answered with a straight answer. Surely people do use unproven (or even disproven) products all the time. I was just frustrated with the non answer marketing talk.

I've been doing a little googling (and I do mean a little) and it seems as these matchmakers will offer dubious value for predicting long term relationship satisfaction.

[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/online-d...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/online- dating-sites-dont-match-hype.html?_r=0)

>Because they gather data from singles who have never met, the sites have no way of knowing how two people will interact once they have been matched. Yet our review of the literature reveals that aspects of relationships that emerge only after two people meet and get to know each other — things like communication patterns, problem-solving tendencies and sexual compatibility — are crucial for predicting the success or failure of relationships. For example, study after study has shown that the way that couples discuss and attempt to resolve disagreements predicts their future satisfaction and whether or not the relationship is likely to dissolve.

>the information that they do collect — about individual characteristics — accounts for only a tiny slice of what makes two people suited for a long-term relationship.

>According to a 2008 meta-analysis of 313 studies, similarity on personality traits and attitudes had no effect on relationship well-being in established relationships. In addition, a 2010 study of more than 23,000 married couples showed that similarity on the major dimensions of personality (e.g., neuroticism, impulsivity, extroversion) accounted for a mere 0.5 percent of how satisfied spouses were with their marriages — leaving the other 99.5 percent to other factors.

Sure it will get you to meet singles, but there probably isn't anything special about it other than that. Adding someone who majored in theater arts is unlikely to add value for the cost involved.

<comment><USER7> I feel your frustration about the non-answer marketing talk.

To be honest, were I not in a relationship at the moment (and if I lived in SF/NYC), I'd probably sign up for this. For me, the primary value is not however their Premium Matchmakers beat random chance; it's taking away the work required to find a date.

After you finish high school, or graduate from university, finding a potential date gets incredibly more difficult. You no longer spend majority of your day with hundreds of people, many of whom could be your potential partners - <USER2> have to work to expand your social circle and meet people (most of whom are already in stable relationships anyway). I'd gladly pay Dating Ring for the sole reason of helping me meet people who are also looking for a date.

<comment><USER18> Oh, I agree it has value for just that reason. Just I didn't like the supposed magic sauce that got throw around to justify the value without proof. I dont believe the value is in the matchmakers (who might as well be a computer algorithm) but access to singles also looking for a date or relationship with little work. It is overpriced for what it is though. If I were single I might be interested in a service that did similar at a lower price point that didn't emphasize on "how great our matchmakers are. Trust us."

I know how hard it is to meet new people to date. Especially when you get older and all your friends all are busy with families and what not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really like this idea ... but:

Give use access to your facebook and $20 a month. In return, you get ONE match a month. If they don't want to meet you, that's too bad. You paid $20 to be rejected.

The two things you would need to do to sell me are:

1) Allow access without facebook. I'd be fine scanning a driver's license for you that matches the name on the credit card I pay with.

2) If you don't provide a good match (i.e.) one that wants to meet me, you should provide another match.

<comment><USER20> I think the key on the rejection thing is to remember that the other person is also on the hook for $20, and won't get another match if they reject you. So if the service is even basically working from a matching perspective [1], you should get a date. Rejecting you is basically saying, "this person is so bad that I'd rather give up my $20 than trust them that this might be a match". I also think it's interesting that you focussed on the possibility of you being rejected as opposed to you rejecting the match.

[1] A big if. I'm skeptical about the whole thing, specifically about the "we match people, not profiles" claim, which makes little sense to me, since your profile is all they know about you. But my point is that the economics of it seem OK.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, correct. I meant to say also that we used to send people on dates for $20, and the few times people had bad times, they said they would have rather paid $20 not to go. So it's better to spend $20 and not waste time, than it is to spend $20 and go on a date that you know instantly isn't a good fit.

[1] We should explain this better, but when you sign up, you'll see you can tell your matchmaker a lot more about yourself, and we use feedback from each match / date to improve matches. Plus, of course, we're using all of the research we've collected on what makes people compatible. So it's definitely off of more than just a profile, but I get what you're saying.

<comment><AUTHOR> @genericuser A big value add to what we do is that we will offer advice to people who keep getting rejected. If it's that their expectations are too high, we have it on our list to guide some people toward Premium. Not so we can make more money from them (our margins on Premium are lower) but because some people need coaching more than they need matches.

<comment><USER21> That doesn't really answer the question of the reject pool.

To me it just kinda says you will fault the user if their matches don't result in a date, but try to keep 'helping' them while you are getting paid.

As a further question how do you even out demand for the different matches. Assuming the number of matches contracted by men for women is not the same as the number of matches women for men? Do some people not get matches do some people get surprise double matches(in which case if they were only expecting one date a month won't they generally reject the lesser of)?

I mean honestly I would rather not be matched and not be charged than matched with someone who got extra matches all the same day they weren't expecting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Sign up with Facebook"

No thanks. I'll stick with OKCupid.

edit: since this is a YC company, I'll add some content to my criticism (even though most of this should be obvious).

1\. This is a new service, and people don't know you yet. Asking them to sign up with their Facebook account is asking for too much, because there is no trust element established. Consider having a stand-alone sign-up mechanism that enables some bare-bone features with the option to hook up to Facebook for additional benefits (i.e. 5 matches per week vs. 2 matches, promise for more accurate matching, etc.). Users need to see _some_ value out of the service before they volunteer their Facebook info.

2\. Lots of people don't use Facebook, and even more of them are leaving Facebook. There are also lots of people who are cynical towards it and use it as little as possible. You are certainly alienating them by requiring a Facebook account.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, we definitely get that that's a dealbreaker for a lot of people. Most top dating sites are populated by a ton of fake profiles, so while logging in with Facebook isn't ideal, it helps us as a small startup to prevent spammers. We don't post to members' walls / we basically just ask for birthdate and photos.

<comment><USER22> I totally understand where you're coming from. However, consider that there are more fake Facebook profiles on the Internet than fake online dating profiles. Facebook itself does not to any sort of identity verification, so the benefits of relying on it to filter spam are dubious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Additionally, our matchmakers review each profile before approving a member. So Facebook definitely isn't perfect, but it helps to prevent some spam, as well as multiple signups from the same person. It also makes the signup flow a lot faster for members.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised to see all the negativity towards this. If I was single, I'd be signing up right now.

The biggest objection seems to be that OkCupid is like a buffet, and now they're being asked to eat at a restaurant where the chef interviews you and brings you what he thinks you'll like. If the buffet was working great for them, I can see why they'd object to the change.

OkCupid wasn't so great back when I used it though. I'd send out many messages (personal, customized ones -- not spam) and get next-to-no replies. It felt like I was spinning my wheels and going nowhere. Were my opening messages poorly written? Did my profile need work? Maybe. But that's why I think I'd benefit from having a professional matchmaker, who's a better writer than I am and can present me in the best possible light.

</comment><comment><USER23> Not to hate on a startup, but I've dated on OkCupid before, and while it's not foolproof, you can meet someone who seems perfect online and then you don't hit it off in person. Having limited matches is just a dealbreaker. Sure there's the idea of too many possibilities leading to the 'paradox of choice' or 'fear of missing out', but let's be honest, you really need to have a lot of options to meet someone who's right for you (unless you're really lucky). "Your matchmaker will send you a new match each week" \-- a match, singular, is just not going to work for the majority of the population.

<comment><USER24> > Having limited matches is just a dealbreaker.

I guess your mileage may vary.

I don't consider wide options to be a positive for me in online dating, as the total number of potentials is particularly deceiving. OkCupid for me had the most results for people I could message but had the poorest ratio of time invested in messaging to time spent dating. eHarmony had significantly fewer results for me but had a much better outcome.

Personally, I'd rather have one potential match a week with a higher chance of actually going on a date, than messaging many people a week with little to no response. Granted, I realize I'm making the assumption that this service will actually provide a higher probability.

<comment><AUTHOR> Predicting who people will be attracted to is not actually that hard, and if you get a match and aren't attracted, you tell us why and we're able to improve future matches. Heck, some people email us pictures of their exes and we use that to send them better matches. You're right that similarity / interests / and whether you're attracted are all important. This is something that we can predict really well. A big part of this though is that people (especially women) are so inundated with 'matches' and messages on other sites that they never meet. OkCupid had a great recent blog post that showed that the power of suggestion is just as important as the matching algorithm. So what's nice about our service is that people are much more likely to meet, since they only get 1 match and because of the matchmaker suggestion. This is not to say that it's not worth using OkCupid or going to bars or picking up hobbies but I'd say to do them all. What's $20 if it means a 1% higher chance of meeting your next partner? I know people hate putting a value on love, but the happiness I get from my partner is worth at least a million bucks (he cooks and cleans..). I was single for 3 years before meeting him, and if someone had told me there was a 1% chance of meeting him, that would be equal to $10,000. So even if you don't agree with my math, $20 is still a far cry from 10k, and I would have paid a lot of money to have spent less time single. Of course, tons of people are fine being single or dating around, so it definitely depends on your priorities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I glanced through it but it's unclear to me why your service is better than any other. Basically you say you make the match but that requires that I give up my agency over something that is at least somewhat important to me. I might be willing to go along with it but maybe a little clearer or obvious explanation of how your magic works would make it an easier sell? I might be an outlier though.

Ask, the Facebook thing is uncomfortable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is great feedback for us. We explain more in our FAQ: datingring.com/faq . We're going to work on improving the explanation and building in a free match, because the easiest way to explain why what we do is better is just to experience it. (Since most of how we match is private.)

We definitely realize that Facebook is problematic. The pros are that it helps some with security, we don't post to your wall, and it makes the signup flow much faster. But we're considering adding a way to sign up without Facebook since it's definitely the top complaint we've heard since the relaunch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 1) How about this:

Instead of you both pay $20 and either one can reject the date and you're both out $20- whoever rejects the date is out the $20, and the person who didn't reject the date gets a refund. That would REALLY put the onus on the matchmakers to do a good job making matches.

People who are open to going on the date don't lose anything if there's no date, or end up going on a date. And if people continue getting bad matches that they reject, they won't pay the $20 for very long before leaving.

Otherwise, why would people stay on the site if they keep getting hit for $20 AND don't go on any dates?

2) [https://www.datingring.com/premium[1]](https://www.datingring.com/premium\[1\])

[https://datingring.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/203302640-W...](https://datingring.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/203302640-What-happens-if-none-of-my-matches-want-to-meet-\[2\])

>You can also sign up for Premium Membership to get further date coaching and feedback, as well as two guaranteed dates per month.

How do you guarantee a date (or two)?

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit That thing they did where they shipped hot single ladies from NYC to meet rich single techies in SF[1] left a bad taste in my mouth. I know lots of people thought it was a great idea and lots of other people didn't. So, we'll just have to agree to disagree about it.

And then there is this allegation of spamming OkCupid users[2] (which didn't really get denied). This also leave another bad taste in my mouth.

Add to that the general tone of the founder's comments in this thread.

Each of those things are some what subjective. But, I would have a hard time recommending this site to any of my single friends. In fact, if any of them told me they were looking in to Dating Ring, I would actively try to convince them not to.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/04/the-dating-ring-is- raising-...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/04/the-dating-ring-is-raising- money-to-fly-women-from-nyc-to-sf-because-dating/) [2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8455138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8455138)

<comment><USER27> _That thing they did where they shipped hot single ladies from NYC to meet rich single techies in SF_

Couldn't find any mentions of looks or wealth in the TechCrunch article. Did you see it mentioned somewhere else?

I think you'd find that the dating industry is filled with companies that are ethically-challenged (or have been at some point in their history).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Seems a little weird to me, honestly. I mean, we started curating our own dating on the web to get away from this type of haphazard matchmaking, didn't we? This seems a bit like reinventing the horse and carriage. And anyway, since when was flirting with people online work?!

It's also a little insulting to not even be the one selecting your date. I know we get set up by our friends now and then, but they are our _friends_ , not some random service on the Internet. This service has not built trust, and its results seem to me fundamentally dubious.

<comment><USER29> I thank whatever powers are out there that I'm married, because when I see the time and effort my single friends sink into meeting people online, it certainly _looks_ like work.

<comment><USER7> From both observation and personal experience I believe that for typical person from a western city finding a partner gets orders of magnitude more difficult the moment you finish college. In high school and at university, you're constantly exposed to hundreds of possible dates, but after that your social circle tends to shrink to your family, friends and coworkers. Expanding the circle and eventually finding someone starts to require effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Lots of feedback here seems to be very critical and for the purpose of pointing out everything you've done wrong. That's totally fine, and exactly why posting to HN can result in useful feedback. I just wanted to say that I think you have a great idea here, and if in the future, I find myself single again, I'll take another look at your service.

</comment><comment><USER12> I tried signing up but it was really unfriendly to us non-American folks:

\- Height in feet and inches

\- Pretty limited locations

\- I'm neither Democrat nor Republican

\- It's called American Football and Football, not what you have (OK, I let that one slide)

\- ...

I get that the non-English speaking world is harder to reach but on the other hand: English is not a problem for the higher educated in most of Europe and I see no real reason to limit this service to just the US. A profile is a profile.

<comment><USER12> Ah, from the e-mail after signing up:

        Thanks so much for submitting your info! Right now, we're unfortunately only
        located in NYC and the Bay Area. But we really appreciate your reaching out,
        and we will let you know as soon as we expand to your city!

I think it would be nice to display this more prominently. You get a nice 'conversion' out of this but I'm not sure this counts.

<comment><AUTHOR> We added that to staging based on a previous comment, and the change will be live by tomorrow. And getting signups in other cities doesn't help our stats or conversion rates (it actually lowers them). We have it available since we plan to launch in other cities, but when we do launch in Europe that is great feedback for us to have, and we'll be changing quite a bit before then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1\. How will the matchmaking site with real live matchmakers scale?

2\. Why do you think the matchmaker will know who I'm seeking for, better than myself?

<comment><USER5> I think it could scale the same way that, say, a massage parlor scales: by hiring and training more people. Except in this case you don't run into space limitations since everything is done online. If folks are willing to pay their premium rates [1], it could work! $350/mo is pretty steep, but I'd rather pay that and get results than $0/mo and no dates.

[1] [https://www.datingring.com/premium](https://www.datingring.com/premium)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Meerko, right on point.

The more people using your service, the less work for each matchmaker. Most premium matchmakers spend most of their time recruiting. We don't need to do that since we have so many users. We also have a lot of technology that automates the non-personal stuff, like sorting through age, height, etc.

In terms of knowing what people are looking for - we met our first few thousand users and arranged a few thousand dates by hand. We learned a lot about what matters, and what doesn't - for instance, how active people are tends to matter a lot more than their political preferences. I hate to pull the whole 'proprietary' card, but we're not very public about how we match beyond that .. will try to add more info to the site soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Holy crap YC needs a PR cheat sheet.

Some tiny web page with a bullet point list of things to do or not do.

</comment><comment><USER32> With fewer dates you are more invested in the individual relationships. This is the opposite of something like OK Cupid where you may message 100 people and only get a few replies.

<comment><USER33> Well it's about efficiency too, Coffee Meets Bagel does the 1 day a match thing and after 4 weeks of non matches (either I wasn't attracted to them or they to me) I just quit the site. Compared to a minute spent swiping 30 people on Tinder, or a minute or two reading someone's profile on OKC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm going to provide my ideas/feedback.

Unlike a lot of the other people on here, I like the Facebook integration, provided of course nobody else on my Facebook can see that I've added this app. It saves the hassle of having to upload pictures and lowers the proportion of fake accounts.

As a male (23 years old), I've completely written off online dating. Sites like OkCupid make total sense if you're a female because you don't actually have to do any work, but they absolutely suck for men. Women are inundated with messages and rarely respond, and thus as a male you have to spend hours and hours sifting through profiles and sending tons of messages. On top of that, very few of the women on dating sites are even attractive.

That's why I prefer Tinder, although it'd be nice to have a middle ground between the shallowness of Tinder and a dating site.

It's great that this site saves time on the user's part (mainly the male). The problem is that it doesn't seem like I can see what my potential match looks like. Being a male, looks are pretty important. That's why I stopped going on Groupers - my last one hooked us up with 3 unattractive women. It sounds shallow and fucked up, but that's just the reality of it.

Until a service comes along that hooks me up with women that I know will be physically attractive enough from the get-go, I'm not going to pay money for it. And since most hot women are already inundated with guys trying to ask them out in real life, I'm not sure if a site like that could ever exist.

</comment><comment><USER21> In the account creation settings you don't necessarily cover all options with your drop downs.

For instance the "It is very important that my partner: " you have 4 options: No Preference, Wants kids now, Wants kids in the future, and Doesn't ever want kids

As someone who absolutely does not does not want kids 'now' but is indifferent to them in the future I really wish there was a an option called. 'Doesn't want kids now'

</comment><comment><USER35> Whatever happened to the group dating model that you guys were going with previously? A blog post about it would be really interesting in my opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - I definitely need to update our blog since we made so many major changes. (We've explained in our newsletters but I should make those public.)

Here is our newsletter explaining the changes: [http://us4.campaign- archive1.com/?u=7bc3b2bd2f03996c6dbee867...](http://us4.campaign- archive1.com/?u=7bc3b2bd2f03996c6dbee867c&id=c1db8fed38)

The group dating piece: A lot of you wrote about missing group dates. Ah, we do too! While we are big fans of the magic of groups, we realized that we could either focus on compatible matches, or keep group dates -- but we couldn't do both well at the same time. Since you expressed that compatibility with one person is more important than meeting three singles at once, we decided to focus on 1-on-1 dates. Scheduling 6 compatible people in cities like NYC and SF was just not as feasible as scheduling 2 compatible people.

<comment><USER27> Have you considered scheduling dating events for your members? I imagine you could charge more than a club night for such events. You would allow members to exchange contact details, but you could also play matchmaker after the event ("remember that guy in a suede jacket, david, didn't get a chance to say hello but would have liked to ...") and charge for the convenience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, yes, we have been doing this since we launched. The $20/month gets you access to free, exclusive Dating Ring parties (lotsss of people find dates through those) as well as that one match a month. We should definitely surface that better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Judging from your landing page 4 out of 8 users of your service are gingers... is this a service for people blessed with red hair?

</comment><comment><USER37> Worst service ever. I paid for $40 for 3 dates back in May, didn't hear from them until after 2 months in and was matched with 1 date. I still haven't gotten any additional "dates".

I don't recommend this site to anyone, you would just be wasting your time. There are other sites that are a lot better when it comes to online dating.

</comment><comment><USER38> Why do all the new dating things (also as an example Tinder) require Facebook these days? I know quite a number of people staying away from that social network (including myself). Aren't you making it yourself too easy to rely on one thing to authenticate/verify people?

<comment><USER39> It's because a Facebook connected user is just a much more valuable user to your service. You have access to their friend list, photos, likes, etc. And it's easy.

Sure, they could do the work to let non-FB connected users in as well, but given the scale of FB and the value of FB data, it's really hard to justify that work until you've hit product market fit.

When you only have one path to sign up and register it's really easy to focus and make that path as high quality as possible. Later you can add support for the people that want to use your product but don't have FB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This reminds me of Slavoj Zizak's quips: "You want coffee without the caffeine, you want beer without the alcohol and you want to fall in love without the fall." or words to that effect. [1] So, as he says, we want the Other deprived of its Otherness.

[1][http://www.lacan.com/zizekdecaf.htm](http://www.lacan.com/zizekdecaf.htm)

</comment><comment><USER33> Signed up and got put on waiting list. Used OkC and Tinder before, let's see how different this is. Also will be interesting to see if this follows a lot of the online dating trends that was outlined in Christian Rudder's Dataclysm book.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you in SF or NYC? Those are the two cities we're live in. Will be launching LA / Boston next. If you are NYC or SF and are on the waitlist, we're able to get most people off within a week. Email me - email@example.com if you're still waiting.

<comment><USER33> Awaiting the Boston launch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Since I rarely see any dating-related topics appear on HN I thought it would be reasonable to share a quick link to where the dating site I'm working on will eventually live.

Right now there's just a simple Wufoo form so I can gather input from users I can use to build the first version of my site...I have my own personal experiences with a lot of the free/paid services out there and ran into issues with fake profiles or being asked for credit card information so I'm working on an initial design right now, that should be nice and simple, won't require a credit card at all, and will have a healthy dash of security thrown in...but I'd love your input as well so if you have a few quick moments to share it that would be great :-): [http://serradate.com/](http://serradate.com/)

</comment><comment><USER42> I will never try this service because it requires a facebook login.

</comment><comment><USER43> I thought this service already existed? Isn't Show HN kinda meant to show new products?

<comment><AUTHOR> We were in beta for a year (and never did a Show HN). We just relaunched as a pretty different service.

<comment><USER44> I signed up during your beta, why do I have to resubmit all my information to sign up again? Don't you still have it somewhere?</comment></comment></comment>


The complete guide to Microsoft Office 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/13/the-complete-guide-to-microsofts-office-2010/

<comment><USER2> What does "anyway" mean?

<comment><USER3> Seriously. Can the editors please fix this headline?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's up with the headline? Did anyone seriously expect Microsoft not to come with an updated version of Office just because Google has some (currently) vague plans about a Netbook OS?

I think some people overestimate people's general willingness to run crucial applications in a browser.

<comment><USER5> Seriously people, You can disagree with me if you'd like, but Office has been solid software that has become the industry standard. It's done an admirable job in recent years.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure who would disagree with this. Love it or hate it, Office is a behemoth.</comment></comment></comment>


What edtech tools can we use for flipped classroom? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.phuaxueyong.com/post/2020-08-01-benefits-challenges-of-flipped-classroom/ <comment><AUTHOR> Ive put together a single cost benefit get-started guide to flipped classroom. I've also wondered what tools can we use to better leverage on Flipped classroom pedagogy. Do you know of any?</comment>


META II: A Syntax-Oriented Compiler Writing Language (1964) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibm-1401.info/Meta-II-schorre.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the papers referenced by Alan Kay in the talk posted to HN one day ago:

Joe Armstrong Interviews Alan Kay [video] ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOHn9TClXY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOHn9TClXY))

Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13033299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13033299)

</comment><comment><USER2> This seems very similar to OMeta [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMeta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMeta) that has been ported to a lot of languages [http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa/](http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa/)

OMeta really changed my view on how to prototype languages. TL;DR, OMeta let's you map patterns in your language to patterns in another language (say python) and thereby, you can implement a whole language roughly as easily as defining a BNF.

<comment><USER3> I looked into OMeta awhile back, which sounded cool although somewhat overblown, and wrote my own toy backtracking PEG implementation (somewhat based on LPeg), which isn't too difficult. I read most of the VPRI papers because I'm interested in compact software and DSLs.

But then I had occasion to implement a "real" language, and I just went with a hand-coded parser instead, despite a desire to avoid that.

I think these kinds of tools are good for prototyping toy languages, as you say, but unfortunately they're still TWO steps away from production quality implementations of real language. They're not good for even prototyping "real" languages (think shell, C++, Perl, Make), or production-quality implementations of "toy" languages.

Possible reasons for this:

1) Developer experience... you end up having to reason about control flow and performance for "real" languages, breaking out of the declarative abstraction.

2) Most parsing tools are frameworks rather than libraries -- they kind of force you into a single lexer -> parser -> tree architecture (ANTLR being a prime example, re2c being a great counterexample for lexing). But this architecture doesn't work for many languages.

3) They make other unwarranted assumptions, e.g. about whitespace, which Bourne shell violates.

There are a bunch of other reasons I can list if anyone is interested. A a good research topic is to bridge this gap.

I wrote a very complete parser for shell in Python and sort of "discovered" what the language is... I would love to now port it to a meta-language and generate C/C++ code, rather than port it to C++ by hand.

[http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2016/11/17.html](http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2016/11/17.html)

But I think it's impossible. I was thinking of putting out a "meta-language bounty" to help me solve this problem.

I think what's more likely is that I will end up writing a custom code generator to port my subset of Python to C++. But I would love to be proven wrong. The Python parser is 3500 lines and the AST is 2000 lines. I would like to describe this with 200-500 lines of code in a meta-language (factor of 10 reduction). Although I think some things like good error messages are sort of "irreducible" so maybe that's impossible.

Basically the goal is: describe bash with a meta-language. I have described it in ~5K lines of Python, which is a pretty good compression over the actual bash source code, where the parser is between 10K and 20K lines, spread out over many files and many stages.

I wonder what Alan Kay would say about bash. I think he would probably say "don't use such a complex tool". But I think that's just an indication of the gap between research and practice. More people have used bash than any of his languages, and it consumes more CPU cycles worldwide as well. Although his ideas were influential, they had to be modified to actually work in practice.

<comment><USER4> Very interesting blog. Trying not to go too much off-topic here, I read in one of your posts that "Awk and shell are similar in an interesting way: they lack garbage collection. This leads to arrays that can neither be nested nor returned from functions." Would you be willing to explain why that is the case? I'm a CS enthusiast without any formal CS education.

<comment><USER3> Another way to say it is the bash and awk have no references, and hence no aliasing (and no possiblity of cycles). Consider:

        d = [1,2,3]
        e = {key1: d}

Now you have an two names for the array [1,2,3] -- d and e['key1']. They are aliases.

Now consider something like this:

        f() {
          d = [1,2,3]
          g(d)       # The interpreter has no idea what this does, without runtime inspection
          e = {key1: d}
          return e
        }

How do you figure out how to free memory? There's no way to do it without garbage collection, which is an algorithm that runs concurrently with your program. For contrast, Rust eliminates the runtime bookkeeping with compile time annotations like borrowing.

So basically if you have references and aliasing, and you can move them across function boundaries, then you must have garbage collection if you want to free memory automatically. (Function boundaries are important, because they use the idea of a stack. A stack is a (limited) way to automatically manage memory.)

But bash and awk both get around this by not having references. This eliminates the possiblity of nested compound data structures, or returning values by reference. But in return you don't have to implement a garbage collector. Compound data structures are flat and confined within a stack frame.

(You could still copy the whole array to another function's stack frame if you wanted, but they don't do that.)

So you can't express that program in either bash or awk. They have "flat" hash tables and arrays, where you can only COPY primitive values like ints and strings into them. You can't reference other arrays like {key1: d}.

Hopefully that helps. I hacked on awk a bit here [1] and that is when I noticed the limitations in the language. I thought it was sort of like JavaScript -- regexes and hash tables. But it's actually much more limited, due to its lack of garbage collection.

[1] [https://github.com/andychu/bwk](https://github.com/andychu/bwk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Work is still being done in that direction see:

[https://github.com/harc/ohm](https://github.com/harc/ohm)

<comment><USER6> That's very cool. Are you aware of similar tools written in languages other than JavaScript?

<comment><USER7> Hi Andrea -- [https://github.com/darius/parson](https://github.com/darius/parson) is in Python. It's probably not very similar because I haven't got around to studying Ohm, but it shares the basic goal of not writing semantic actions inline in some particular language. (I wrote it in my first Recurse Center stint back in 2012.)

<comment><USER6> Hi Darius (it's a small world).

That looks really good, I'll have a look at it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Previous threads on meta-compilers, including a Javascript-based workshop/demo of techniques:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8297996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8297996)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8441041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8441041)</comment>


Shoes of Prey with specs to match [submarine] - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/shoes-of-prey-with-specs-to-match-20111010-1lgzq.html

<comment><AUTHOR> some of the interesting bits:

 _"turned two years old on Saturday and in that period customers had designed tens of millions of shoes, which involved more than 20 million minutes spent in the site's shoe design software... Fox said the next logical step for her company (Shoes of Prey)would be to start selling belts and handbags. She said she was not yet planning to sell men's shoes on Shoes of Prey because research had shown men don't love shopping and may consider designing their own shoes a hassle. ..."_

interesting to read alongside <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html></comment>