Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought? - <AUTHOR>

I'm slowly hacking away at a niche B2B SaaS product after work and on weekends.
I'm looking forward to the prospect of some extra monthly cash. I get a kick out of thinking, "At $30/mo, I only need 200 users to bring in a cool $6000 a month!" (gross, of course)
...but wait. Will I get even 200 subscribers? Maybe I'll struggle to reach 10. What if I'm underestimating my market here - what if I get 2,000?
I bounce ideas around in my head: "Of course I'll get 200 subscribers. 1.3 million people live in New Hampshire alone, and we're just one small state in the USA!" Even though my product is for a niche market, my local Yellow Pages confirms there are a dozen likely candidates for my application. I sometimes think I could secure 200 subscribers from just New York City alone, never mind the rest of the country, world.
I'm genuinely interested in the product I'm working on and the experience developing and marketing it is invaluable. I'm excited to see how my projections line up with actual revenue, good or bad.
What revenue goals did you have when launching and did you hit them? Were your pre-launch market analysis/projections correct or way off?
(Patrick, writing about BingoCardCreator on his blog, said that his initial goal was $200/mo. His very next sentence? "The business has been successful beyond my wildest expectations and has made it possible to quit my day job at the end of this month." Makes me smile every time I read it!) <comment><USER2> A little off topic, but you should know there's a better way than the Yellow Pages to find customers. The ReferenceUSA database will give you all the companies in a given area that fall under the entered NAICS code. Here's a small sample of the information you'll get:

* Business Name

* Address

* Contact Information

* Number of Employees

* Number of PCs

* Location Sales Volume (in dollars)

* Credit Rating Score

* Names of Management and their Titles

* $ spent on accounting

* $ spent on contract labor

* $ spent on advertising

And this information is all free to you thanks to your local public library. It's pretty awesome if you ask me. Here's how to get access to it:

1) Get the NAICS code for the industry you're selling to. This code is used by the government to classify businesses. <http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/>

2) Go to your local library to access the ReferenceUSA online database. You may even be able to do that through the library's website (I can through mine).

3) Click on U.S. Businesses under Available Databases

4) Customer Search

5) Enter the NAICS code in one of the boxes at the bottom of Business Type -> Keyword/SIC/NAICS.

<comment><USER3> I'd upvote you twice if I could for pointing out this amazing resource. I'm amazed I never knew about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This morning I shopped our idea to 20 potential users. Cold-called them. They have been extremely nice and supportive, but it's been 4-5 hours since I sent them links and I am sitting on the edge of my chair staring at a blank tail -f /var/log/access :-|

\-- Edit:

They have come! it's been 50 minutes since I wrote the above and already got two beta users. My other startup went for 43 days before I got a 2nd client, and the first was my former employer.

I had to warm them up with a phone call but so far 8 of them have followed the links and 2 signed up. Twelve more to go.

This is my first B2C, I think it's gonna be a different experience.

<comment><USER5> B2C = business-to-consumer.

Contrast to B2B (business-to-business). Slightly confusing as he mentions his former employer as his first customer, I presume he means his boss in a personal capacity.

<comment><USER6> I read it different. Last start-up was b2b, and his former company was one of this first clients. This time (b2c) much easier to attract interest. I bit its an apples to oranges comparison though.

<comment><USER4> You understood well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Guy Kawasaki had an article where he mentions doing a bottom up approach to financial projections. "How many biz dev meetings can I attend, how many people can I reach out every single day and add in the conversion rates for each one of them". It's probably better than saying my company will get 1% of a 10 billion dollars market.

</comment><comment><USER8> I spent literally 35 minutes writing my first iPhone app and it's brought in over $4k in sales over the last two years. That works out to ~7k/hour.

Alternatively, I've spent weeks or months on projects for zero revenue.

The moral of the story is: there is only weak correlation (at best) between effort spent and revenue received. Entrepreneurs do not get paid by the hour.

<comment><USER9> What was that app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We had no goals–which is great because anything you get is gravy. Let me explain: 6 years ago I built something for a friend. "Hey, this is great. You should try and sell it," he said. "Meh, ok, whatever ... " I replied. Sent some emails. Got some good response. Fast-forward and we've got thousands of customers, 6 employees, and 7 figures in revenue.

Was the revenue easier than we thought? Well, yes ... because we never thought anything. I know that doesn't really help, but what I'm getting at is maybe it's a bad idea to waste energy "setting goals" to any degree beyond covering costs or being ramen profitable.

Just focus on finding a need, saving/making people money, doing customer development, and iterating/adapting. Most everything else is beyond your control.

And don't forget, when you're setting goals, there are a lot of numbers less than 1% (that came from an HN post/comment IIRC)

</comment><comment><USER11> People tend to overestimate short-term revenue, and underestimate long-term revenue.

It will probably take you much longer than you think to get 200 users, but if you stick with it and your idea is good, you'll end up with more than you ever expected.

</comment><comment><USER12> Do not be fooled by the field of dreams. It was a movie. You have to do much more than build it before they come.

</comment><comment><USER13> It has taken longer to get to where I am that I thought. I have a number of spreadsheets I've made of the time showing cash flow based on number of customers. The growth has been much slower than I wanted. Part of that is the software aspect is much easier to me than the marketing. I would say that software is absolutely critical, but it is only the first 10% of the business. The rest is sales/marketing etc. That is what is going to get you the 200 customers you want. Its not the software by itself.

Even for Patrick, he did't get there over night and he is very good at his marketing. But the good news is that you can get there. I'd focus on the first customer. Getting that first customer is one of the best feelings ever. And the good news about SaaS, is that they stay with you. I still have my first customer paying me every month.

My thoughts were similar to yours going into it. I only need 500 customers and I'm set. I'm a long, long way off. The problem is not that there are not enough customers, the issue is reaching them. I have a ton of competition in my market, some good, some bad. I'm somewhere in the middle product wise and somewhere near the bottom half marketing wise. At my current rate of customer acquisition, it will still be a few years until I get there. But I keep plugging away.

Good luck!

<comment><USER13> Just found this link on HN:

<http://blog.chrometa.com/you-launched-your-app-now-what>

Related and a good read.

</comment></comment><comment> Asa-Nisse Most everything I ever did has been totally random. Things that I thought was safe bets went out the window. Stuff I did when hacking on beer and booze over a weekend has netted me $100/yr.

Key is to not spend to much time thinking about it, just do it. The more you play the higher your chances of winning are.

<comment> Asa-Nisse Giggle @ self. $100k/yr :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've built 2 B2b products now, and I can say that it depends entirely on what _type_ of business is your target market. Case in point:

-RateMyStudentRental sells to colleges and universities. Schools are essentially large corporations, and the sales cycle is excruciatingly long (a year or more). To top it off, my absolute maximum market in the US is around 5500 possible clients if I garnered 100% of the market (probably actually less because some schools are commuter campuses which puts them outside my market). I've been doing it since 2007, and I'd tell you that you may get 3 customers in 3 years if you're incredibly lucky.

-LeadNuke on the other hand is a B2B product that can be useful to almost any type of company, startups to multi-national corporations, franchises, and freelancers. I haven't even really told anyone about it yet (except the occasional HN post), and it already has around 30 companies signed up and using it. In this case, I'd tell you, pshh that's easy.

My point: it depends. The only way to know is to try it. Any speculation before trying it is just that.

</comment><comment><USER15> I was surprised to receive $5k in donations this year, while working towards our premium featureset. It has created high hopes for some real recurring revenue in the next 1-2 months when those premium features are released. But yes, the donate button along with a simple paypal payment setup was very easy and the amount of donors continues to surprise me.

Then again, if you count up the hours spent with no revenue, the $$$ per hour is very small.

We were recently surprised to be approached randomly by a second company (first company approached out of the blue as well) asking if we would license our stuff. I guess this is a decent example of an unexpected revenue stream, requiring a slight pivot in revenue model.

</comment><comment><USER16> Making revenue projections is useful when you have something concrete to work with, but otherwise it gets in the way of actually making money.

The most important part is collecting your first few bucks. Something clicks the first time you get someone to take out their wallet. Like Jason Fried has been known to say "learning to make money is like learning to play the piano: the more you practice, the better you get at it."

Your product needs to be less perfect than you think. The hard part is getting your product under the noses of the right customers - and enough of them to actually make your first sale. After that, you can learn through trial and error - and start making reliable projections.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you've sold at full price to 5 customers at arms-length (people who aren't positively predisposed to you already), then sure, I wouldn't be surprised if you land 200 customers at $30/month. Dial up the marketing and repeat the process as prospects come in.

But until then, you have no idea what is going to happen.

(Plagiarized from Steve Blank...)

</comment><comment><USER18> One of my friend created a Desktop software for small business.He was giving free trial license and download for 30 days. Adwords gave him 50 daily propsects.It took him 6 months to get his first customer and 2 years to reach 200 total sales. But in the process he learnt a lot about that specific industry ,added lot of features to his product and also added an online offering. Now he is selling 60 a month.

</comment><comment><USER19> I continue to be amazed by 2 things:

1\. How difficult it is to get a raw prospect to understand how my offering will benefit him.

2\. How easy it is to get his money once he does.

<comment><USER20> I think that is the case for most good software. Many engineer-led companies think the engineering is the hard part, so get totally surprised by #1, to the point that their business fails.

Of course, there is a name for #1. It is a name mocked and derided by engineers world-side: _Marketing_

Learn it, love it, earn from it.

<comment><USER21> Spot on. Don't club me for saying this, but once I got my MBA, I was able to see tech products from more than just a nerd's eye view (I did my undegrad in CS)

<comment><USER22> The same for me (Mechanical Engineering undergrad). I think part of the problem stems from thinking that marketing == advertising. In fact if you are going to create any part of a business plan, I think it should be your marketing plan. It will force you to really think about your product, what features will bring the most value to your customers, and how to reach those customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I love fantasizing about future revenues and FU money. But, I've worked like a dog for every dime thus far.

Regarding revenue projections based on New Hampshire state population, see <http://sivers.org/1pct>

</comment><comment><USER24> This is not an easy issue and this is why advertising exist. (and companies like Google with billions $$ of profit means that advertising is really a huge issue).

Unless your product is making people money, you need a strong argument so that people subscribe to your product. To show you the effect, offer two products: One free and the other cost as little as $9. Post the product (can be any crap) on a forum and watch the downloads/buy.

People are curious about products, but they are very unlikely to pay. They are serious about money. BUT for a _good reason_, they'll pay. Find that good reason, find the targeted audience, build the reason and they'll come and pay.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hey Paul,

I'm in NH too and run a very small niche app. I've got about 100 people using mine after 3 months. this is with very little marketing.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to get people to understand the benefits of my app, especially when it was for a very specific need. But once people understand they are more then willing to give it a try.

We are currently working on version 2.0 based on customer feedback and hope to finish/begin marketing the new version by the end of summer.

Let me know if you would ever want to meet up, its hard to find fellow web entrepreneurs in NH!

</comment><comment><USER26> How will you reach these customers? Will they find you, or you find them?

</comment><comment><USER27> Why don't you focus on providing value before you start worrying about how much money you'll make.

From your questions it seems you want someone to tell you it's going to be easy - a piece of cake. It's not.

Why not flip the equation and focus on how you can add enough value to 100,000 people a month. That though you're charging them $30 a month they've benefitting to the tune or $3,000 or even $30,000 a month. Plus do this without focusing on your own need for a side stream of income.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Expect the worst, but hope for the best" is the advice I can give you.

I have the exact same thoughts as you and I truly believe that if you work as hard as you work before product launch, you can make it. I'm not sure whether this is true or not, but I see a lot of people getting excited during product creation and launch and the whole energy and excitement kinda goes away with time. You gotta endure on the slow days, too.

Although I hate to give pessimistic advice, check this link: <http://goo.gl/MF7D> \- Rob Walling talks about that your focus shouldn't be to get rich on your first product, but to learn as much as you can.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER29> The power of traction always amazes me. There is nothing like watching your business gain a reputation and existence of its own outside of your idea of what your business is. Once you start getting traction you will always be surprised how easy it can be. But, getting to traction... that's the hard part.</comment>


Generating Images or Extracting Text from Documents? Docsplit. - <AUTHOR>

http://documentcloud.github.com/docsplit/
It's always been a pain to make documents (PDFs, Word, Excel, etc) displayable and searchable on the web by extracting images and plain text. Docsplit is a command-line utility and Ruby API to help make it a little easier. It wraps the excellent PDFBox, GraphicsMagick, and JODConverter libraries so that you can do things like this:

    docsplit images docs/*.pdf --size 700x,50x50 --format gif

    docsplit text expenses.doc

    docsplit title presentation.ppt
 <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links:

Documentation: <http://documentcloud.github.com/docsplit/>

Source Code: <http://github.dom/documentcloud/docsplit/>

Blog Announcement: [http://www.documentcloud.org/blog/2009/12/07/announcing- docs...](http://www.documentcloud.org/blog/2009/12/07/announcing-docsplit/)</comment>


Show HN: Remote Circle – Remote Jobs that are hiring in your timezone - <AUTHOR> http://www.remotecircle.com <comment><USER2> "remotetime.zone" is available for 4.99 on Name.com

[https://www.name.com/domain/search/remotetime.zone](https://www.name.com/domain/search/remotetime.zone)</comment>


HSTS Preload lists cause Chromium to think http://google/ is a valid domain - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=698660 <comment><USER2> I warned about this back when all those new TLDs were being considered. Single-word TLDs are not properly supported in browsers, in DNS, or even at the glibc level.

At the browser level, is it a keyword or a domain? Try "ai". "ai" is a real domain, and there's a web site at "[http://ai"](http://ai"), touting the advantages of starting an offshore company in Anguilla. Most browsers interpret "ai" as a search term by default. If you enter "ai.", though, you've specified a rooted domain name (a feature few people know about) and should get the "ai" web site. Firefox understands this, but Android doesn't. Try various browsers.

At the glibc level, there's an exploitable bug, which I reported in 2012.[1] It's still open. The bug was first seen in 2011 and reported on serverfault.[2] The problem is that glibc DNS lookup has a feature which is supposed to allow abbreviating domain names. The idea was that if you're on "something.harvard.edu" and you look up "law", it tries "law.harvard.edu". The exploit is that if you're on "foo.com", and you look up "baz.com, glibc tries "baz.com.com". There's a domain "com.com", and it has a wildcard DNS server, so it will resolve "baz.com.com". What's there? A scam. "You are selected by G00GLE to be among the first few persons to win an iPhone 7...".

This behavior is a problem for all single word domains. Whether it is active depends on the hostname of your local host. It's mostly a server problem, but some ISPs issue clients hostnames such as "12345678.comcast.net", which means that "google" gets tried as "google.comcast.net". Fortunately, "google.comcast.net" doesn't resolve in DNS. Neither does "com.comcast.net" ISPs need to be careful about this.

(It's a big problem if you're writing a web crawler, which is why I know about it.)

[1] [https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=13935](https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=13935) [2] [http://serverfault.com/questions/341383/possible-nxdomain- hi...](http://serverfault.com/questions/341383/possible-nxdomain-hijacking)

<comment><USER3> This is a general problem with DNS search lists. The 'search' directive in /etc/resolv.conf attempts to solve this, but is itself problematic.

This can also be set via DHCP.

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3397](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3397)

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6106#page-7](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6106#page-7)

<comment><USER2> It's a feature that should be off by default. It's only useful in corporate intranets, where the corporate DHCP and DNS servers could provide a search list for finding local servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A great case study in "The Web is hard."

I stumbled on this earlier this week: [https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/838504217731948544](https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/838504217731948544) and found it amusing but confusing in two ways:

1) The prompt is pointing to the "Secure" icon; I thought it was asking me if I wanted to downgrade my protocol to HTTP.

2) The domain "google" made me and several others wonder if there was a hosts file entry for "google", which turns out there isn't.

No, of course, the real problem is much more complicated; a strange twist of omnibar meets DNS meets HSTS. This is definitely an edge case, but might be a glimpse into the complicated future of gTLDs and the emergence of ever-more web standards...

<comment><USER5> > _A great case study in "The Web is hard."_

Or alternatively "the web is hard if you sacrifice any kind of structure to make a quick buck".

On the risk of sounding get-off-my-lawn-ish, but TLDs used to be assigned using some relatively simple, service-agnostic rules: A hierarchical system for ccTLDs, plus a small set of universal gTLDs plus some historic quirks. Nowadays assignment seems to be solely by who pays most.

<comment><USER6> > On the risk of sounding get-off-my-lawn-ish

You don't. At least not to me. The new gTLDs are clearly a money grab on the part of ICANN.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure brands and attorneys love it. Now they have to defend Coke and Disney and their hundreds of associated domains across hundreds of TLDs. Think of the permutations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One very bad idea meets another.

Now, let's make every program more user friendly by obscuring the meaning of our input fields and creating very complex rules for how they'll act... Oh, wait, our programmers aren't able to understand our rules anymore? Nah, we are an AI company, we can live with that.

</comment><comment><USER9> /Insert grumblings about insecurity of the omnibox (leaking internal corporate data) and my personal preference for firefox-style URL box and search box.

<comment><USER10> The FireFox URL box also acts as a search box, though

<comment><USER11> Also, I find the firefox awesome bar much more powerful than Chrome's it does (fuzzy?) word search on every url and title in the history, and here always seem to give me more pertinent results than Chrome's (which seems to forget I visited a website in just a few days).

<comment><USER12> I've found this exact same thing as well - the FF awesome bar always seems to give me the results I want, whereas I have to do a lot more specific and manual typing to find what I want in the Chrome bar. This could be an interesting blog post I'd think: comparing the implementations of the matching algorithms of Chrome vs. FF vs. possible others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This causes funny behavior like [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6L3IvsUsAABuyS.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6L3IvsUsAABuyS.jpg:large)

Chrom(e|ium) will suggest to navigate to [http://google](http://google) if you're opening google.com

<comment><USER13> nice find, you should add this to that bug report

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honestly, although I use the Omnibox/Awesome Bar/whatever a lot, I think it is ultimately a mistake: there are too many search terms which end up resolving to domains, esp. for a developer — and it was never a problem to just click in the search bar before I ruined my muscle memory and started clicking in the location bar instead.

One of these days I'll just disable it altogether.

</comment><comment><USER15> I understand why we have the omnibox, but worth pointing out that this problem was solved long ago when URL & search bars were separate.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is a TLD alone technically a valid host name?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would probably work, but it would break spec.

<comment><USER17> It definitely works [http://ai](http://ai).

The period needs to be part of the URL at least for Chrome but HN isn't rendering it as part of the link.

<comment><USER18> In Chrome, the link (without the period) in your comment worked for me

<comment><USER17> It turns out it was my DNS settings. It was trying to lookup ai.company- name.com without the period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To whoever edited my title: The bug report title is inaccurate. It's specifically about HSTS preloads, which is why my original title stated that instead of "gTLDs".

<comment> mike-cardwell The title as it appears on Hacker News isn't supposed to be "useful". It is supposed to be the same as the source page. Idiotic, I know.

<comment><USER19> That's not what I understood of reading the posting guidelines [0] and especially "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."

If OP thought it was misleading, then he was right to adjust it?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER20> Indeed the "title" of the original page is misleading (because the original bug submitter thought it was one issue, but was really another).

And that has had the effect that most of the conversation in this thread is about gTLDs instead of HSTS redirects, when the bug has nothing to do with the former (as noted by the comments where they specifically say that this does not happen to other gTLDs)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple Plans Service That Lets Users Pay With Their IPhone & IPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-25/apple-plans-service-that-lets-iphone-users-pay-with-handsets.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe they'll do to the credit card companies what they're did to the music labels and doing to the cell phone cos. There's plenty of cash in that 3%.

<comment><USER3> Not a chance in hell, unless Apple are opening a bank and manage to switch everyone to it.

Visa, Mastercard... these are more like trade associations for the banks. They are effectively owned and operated by the banks, and the only reason Mastercard exists is to ensure Visa do not have a monopoly and vice versa.

Discovery, Amex... these have their place, but they are members clubs, which is to say that they have little to no penetration within the marketspace that is banking customers.

Apple are simply doing the equivalent of a PayPal using a mobile. They aren't replacing the existing payment systems, they are becoming one more intermediary in the chain. The actual billing is likely to be done by the mobile subscription service... AT&T and the like rather than Apple. All phones are getting this, not just Apple mobile devices.

This stuff also isn't new, in Japan near-field payments have existed for a long time and are taken for granted in many types of services (vending machines for example). It's just that finally this is moving westwards (eastwards if your perspective is different).

[edit]I notice the down votes, but this isn't spam or trolling it's just a different opinion. It's not even an uneducated opinion as my ex-girlfriend worked for Visa for 6 years and my current girl lived in Japan for 8 years and used near field payments there.

Downvoting just because you disagree isn't going to change the argument that Apple are inserting themselves into the payments process only superficially and that contrary to the parent post they aren't, and couldn't, move into replacing the credit card companies as the card companies _are_ the banks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a bit excited about the advertising possibilities - I know it is a bit creepy, but if an ad company knew what I spent money on (generally), my shopping habits, and where I am, then I'd expect extremely relevant ads that would be interesting & useful.

(This is coming from someone who actually likes advertising when it's targeted)

Obviously security would be a massive thing for this - I'd see it useful for things like Starbucks, but I wouldn't really want to have it authorized for anything over say $50

</comment><comment><USER5> Different tech (2D barcode scanned at register) and an indirect form of payment (pre-loaded card potentially linked to a CC), but Starbucks did just add national support for payment via iPhone (<http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20029001-233.html>). I'm curious, has anyone had experience (good or bad) with payment via mobile in Japan?

</comment><comment><USER6> "Apple also could use NFC to improve how it delivers mobile ads to customers' handsets and charge higher fees for those ads, Crone said. NFC would let Apple's iAd advertising network personalize ads to the places where a customer is spending money."

Minority-report-like world, here we come... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBaiKsYUdvg>

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks exciting, but at the same time, I am not sure if Apple is the company I want to have as the pioneer of this type of service. I would certainly not welcome payment terminals that accept ONLY iOS devices, and from the article, it looks like they are doing exactly that.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't read the article, because the Bloomberg site, in its infinite wisdom, shows me the mobile homepage. By the headline alone, it sounds like bad news for Square.

<comment><USER9> The article mostly talks about a supposed confirmation by some analyst person that Apple will add NFC support to the next batch of iOS devices. The payment service seems to be basically conjecture. If the part about NFC is true, and especially if it is a 3rd party accessible, programmable NFC system, it could actually be very, very good news for Square - that would make things like phone to phone payments possible, it would make it possible to read those new Visa and Mastercard contactless credit cards, and so on.

<comment><USER10> _..that would make things like phone to phone payments possible.._

Maybe I'm missing something, but, why couldn't Square do something like this on their own already?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> is it safe to declare Square dead?

<comment><USER12> Square is doing the opposite thing, letting you _receive_ payments from a credit card to an iPhone. This would be letting you _send_ payments from an iPhone to some other device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I remember this once being attempted 15 years ago or more in Norway, except with Nokia phones and the biggest (former state-owned) telco. Ignoring for the moment the obvious vendor lockin, it was a disaster anyway.

It suffered the same problem this one will: No added benefit over cash or credit-cards which people already have. Not to mention shops had to replace their payment-equipment and opt-in for this for little perceived extra value and there was really, really no market demand what so ever.

So as a consumer you had two choices:

1\. Take up your bank-card, enter-security code and be done.

2\. Or ask if you could pay with your "phone", and if you could then pick up your phone, see that it said the same as the display on the counter, enter a security code and then get your _bank-card_ charged. If not, see step 1.

Can anyone see why this wasn't successful? Can anyone see why this would ever be successful? What does adding the phone into the mix add of value?

I'm not saying that this can't possibly work or will never happen, just that it's been tried before and the main reasons it didn't work back then haven't fundamentally changed in any significant way, except more people now have bank-cards and credit-cards further undermining whatever reason it should have to gain traction.

If this thing takes off just because it's an Apple-thing/iThing, I will be amazed by people's gullibility.

<comment><USER14> What if it takes off just because it's well-designed and customer focused, like most things Apple?

Are people really gullible, or are you bad at understanding what makes technology take off? I mean, just consider the options here; either millions of people are gullible and will jump on to anything called "iSomething" -- or, _you're_ not that good at understanding what makes technology approachable and useful for most people.

For reference: the lower-case i in the name of the iPad is not what made it take off. It's that for the first time, someone made a _well-designed_ purpose built tablet.

<comment><USER13> _What if it takes off just because it's well-designed and customer focused, like most things Apple?_

I've had both an iPod and an iPhone. I'm not scoffing at Apple's ability to deliver.

However a very real thing is some people's attitude towards Apple being some kind of tech-God which cannot do anything wrong. They will praise anything they do (since Apple is now a status-symbol and they want to promote the status of their owned Apple devices) and apologize for any shortcomings or try to hide them under the carpet. That was what my remark was aimed at.

Now back to the point. If you read the article and see what is being envisioned/promoted you will see that it's the same thing all over again: Mobile device set to replace credit/debit-cards.

And ask yourself: If you need to make a payment, regardless of shiny UI and polished product finish, what will be simplest and most practical? A tiny card + PIN code or _a freaking iPad_ with a soft keyboard and an complex, alpha- numerical iTunes-password?

Just trying to picture the iPad-payment scenario in my mind turns into comedy- sketches about the tech-stupidity and hype running wild. Actually I'm seeing this very vividly as a SNL skit.

It will not be elegant, it will not be practical and it will not be better than what we have already. And in the end, it will charge the same credit-card you could have paid with in the first place.

Tell me again, what value can this possibly add?

<comment><USER14> If it won't be elegant and simple to use, it will never see the light of day.

<comment><USER15> Like Ping! Oh wait...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Last European: Romanian Driver Navigates the Soul of the EU - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/traveling-from-romania-to-portugal-in-an-illicit-van-a-1043797.html <comment><USER2> These vans are the most dangerous cars on long car trips to and from Romania. I've done quite a few of them and I don't think there was a single year when I wasn't either nearly pushed off the road by one who misjudged how much time it would take to overtake or where I've seen one of them upended in the ditch or in some other curious location (the one that I remember most clearly was one that had overtaken me about an hour previous that had somehow managed to cartwheel and land with the rear wheels over a pretty steep drop _on top of the guardrail_ ).

These guys should really drive at least with two drivers on those long trips if they are going to do it nearly non-stop, 3 hours of sleep really isn't enough to maintain your driving abilities, that's just playing the lottery.

The corruption (both the Hungarian and the Romanian variety) described in the article is very real, I've seen this many times up close and it is a source of much frustration with me. If not for that element Romania would have a much better chance to keep its talent and to move ahead.

<comment><USER3> two drivers with what money to pay them?

<comment><USER2> Cheaper than a bunch of funerals.

100 hours of solo driving in 4 days should be simply classed as 'reckless' and should result in your license being taken away before you kill a bunch of people. Especially when also transporting passengers.

<comment><USER4> "100 hours of solo driving in 4 days"

uh... its more than 4 days, right?

<comment><USER2> Sorry, tired, it's been a long day, the exact quote was:

> 100 hours at the wheel in a bit more than five days. Is this crazy, suicidal > or just business as usual?

It's murderous.

<comment><USER4> That is so far past what the current rules for truck drivers are in the US that its horrifying. I couldn't imagine people trying it without drugs.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure they have rules for truck drivers in Germany (at least those 18 wheelers). I recall a documentary about that topic on a German TV channel. However, I think these rules don't apply to him because he is not an official driver (his business does not sound very official at least).

I strongly think that there should be very strict regulations on how much they may drive. He may not have been in an accident but the cars behind his might due to his irresponsible behavior.

<comment><USER6> > I strongly think that there should be very strict regulations on how much > they may drive.

And how will that be enforced ... how, exactly? Short of proactive electronic monitoring in every single vehicle on the road in Europe as a prerequisite for driving anywhere at all, that is.

The entire premise of this operation is that you throw caution to the wind and save money because it's an extra ~$200 and you're making around $3/hr, _if_ you're lucky enough to be employed.

<comment><USER5> As far as I know big trucks have meters that monitor how long you have been driving (at what speed).

While I have no idea what that costs, you should be responsible for what you are doing on the road. And if commercial driver think it is a good idea to drive 100h in just 5 days, such reckless behavior has to be stopped. If you want to save money and sacrifice your on health, that's your decision but endangering others is a no-go.

I'd also be reckless (and forbidden) to drive without working breaks even if they have worked well enough for you so far. If you don't sleep enough, your reflexes will be pretty bad and that is just as bad as not having functioning breaks.

And how much would that cost him? Maybe 200€ per trip more. The cost would not only be split among the passengers but also among his legally smuggled goods. And I think he is making enough money if he gives each passenger tobacco that he sells for a lot of money and even has someone's paycheck for half a year with him.

<comment><USER6> > As far as I know big trucks have meters that monitor how long you have been > driving (at what speed).

Most freight companies have an existence and operations _outside the grey market_. They can be subjected to this sort of regulation. An independent guy with a van? Enforcing that will be a whole lot harder. He won't install it. Or he'll install it and disable it, or otherwise thwart its well-functioning. If you set up checkpoints to verify that the device is installed and functioning he'll detour around them, over rural highways.

And if the lawless independent guys with a van can undercut the lawful one, they'll get the business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The essence can be reduced to this quote:

"He sees it as a sport. He would like his daughter in Romania to grow up well, so that she can go to college later and live in a nice house. If he obeyed the German rules that wouldn't be possible. So he does what he must. And Germany does what it must. And Europe too. "

This article is too dramatic and generalizing too much. Of course fewer and fewer Romanians are like this, things have changed there. And it's one of the most beautiful countries in Europe.

Romanians I know are programmers, start startups or work at Microsoft or Google, are quite hip, go to music festivals, take acid and travel around the world.

It's all a matter of perspective (and selection bias :).

<comment><USER8> "Romanians I know...take acid... It's all a matter of perspective."

 _It 's all a matter of selection bias._

<comment><USER9> A similarly biased selection of Romanians I've met in western Europe include an architect (UK) and a bank manager (Loire region of France). However, I actually spent a month cycling around Romania in 2010 and never saw any crazy vans. It was really pleasant, never had any problems, lots of educated people with perfect English, great food, wine and beer. Highlights were cycling up this - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transf%C4%83g%C4%83r%C4%83%C8%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transf%C4%83g%C4%83r%C4%83%C8%99an) \- Brasov and Rasnov, plus the old tumble-down mansions on the backstreets of Bucharest, once known as the Paris of the East. Great country!

<comment><USER2> Those vans typically drive on the Bucharest-Pitesti-Catiulata-Sibiu-Deva-Arad- Nadlac route, outside of that you won't be seeing them but on that road they're impossible to ignore.

That's also a road on which you simply should not cycle.

Now that the M1 is open on a large part of those stretches it has gotten a lot better, there are still three dangerous segments left (along the river, up the black mountain and near Lugoj).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> With regards to corruption in Romania, contrary to the implication of the article, there has been a big push to eliminate it. Some articles:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/opinion/romanias-anti- corr...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/opinion/romanias-anti-corruption- mania.html)

Romania anti-sleaze drive reaches elite:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-eu-31537338](http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs- eu-31537338)

</comment><comment><USER11> Romanians are to EU what Latinos are to US: running and fighting for a chance to improve their lot in life, whichever way they know how.

<comment><USER12> You know enough to make that generalization? Romania pop. 22m. came 13th in the 2015 Int. Math Olympiad while the UK pop. 60m. came 22nd. I mention this because there's a more interesting story among others which follows from that.

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty tired, as a romanian myself, of always pointing out how good _we_ are at math and that NO, we're not gypsies. Something like, you know, gypsies are to Romanians what latinos are to US. F __k that! Like any nation on this earth, we have it all. From math semi-geniues, to a vast number of drunk-wife- beating-jerks.

OP was pointing out that Romanians are treated as brute work force, although there is a part of romanian imigrants that work in hospitals and IT and what not. It was not to say to Romanians are stupid or something, "like latinos".

<comment><USER2> The Romanians that try to make a spot for themselves abroad are quite frequently unfairly disadvantaged because of these perceptions, which annoys me greatly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > that makes for 8,000 kilometers of driving, 100 hours at the wheel in a bit > more than five days.

And the article calls him a hero?

</comment><comment><USER15> Move clock 25 years back and you can replace Romanians with Poles.

<comment><USER16> Ten.

<comment><USER15> Flood of cheap grey labour from Poland started right after 1989. 10 years go Poles used ryanair or easyjet, not sweaty mini buses. Jobs also moved from legendary dishwasher to engineers and managers.

<comment><USER16> Ten years ago Poland joined the EU. The majority of people did not fly to the UK, they drove or took the bus. How many of these buses crash every year? The last major crash was around Easter in Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone know if original german version is available online?

</comment><comment><USER18> _Others were back in Romania only briefly because they needed to take care of paperwork in Budapest._

Hilarious that the author thinks Budapest (this is the capital of Hungary) is in Romania :). Maybe he thought of Bucharest.

<comment><USER12> No, hilarious is your not bothering to read the article properly. Budapest and Bucharest are each mentioned exactly once and appropriately in context.

"A Hungarian police car stops the bus shortly before Budapest, and once again demands €200" and " Others were back in Romania only briefly because they needed to take care of paperwork in Bucharest."

<comment><USER19> Looks like this may have been changed, since the GP quotes the same line about Bucharest, but it says Budapest.

<comment><USER12> OK - fair enough! That's obviously what's happened. Not so hilarious after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't understand why would anyone pay 120€ for a small van with only one sleep-deprived driver when for 115€ they can get on a regular bus with 3 drivers that rotate and respect European regulations for the number of driving hours in a day: [http://www.booking.atlassib.ro/csp/onlinecardpayu/infocursep...](http://www.booking.atlassib.ro/csp/onlinecardpayu/infocursepayu.csp?lang=1&taraplecare=6&plecare=422&taradestinatie=18&destinatie=650&affid=)

Just for the opportunity to transport forbidden items and the convenience of being dropped exactly at their destination?

<comment><USER21> The last mile can be surprisingly expensive in countries like Germany or Spain.</comment></comment>


Optimizing a laptop purchase? - <AUTHOR>

Last night my laptop's wireless card appeared to have died.  After some diagnosis, it turns out to be the entire PC card infrastructure.  Not a good sign for my primary development machine.
So now I am in the market for a new machine.
While pondering my purchase, I realized I had strong opinions of what mattered and what didn't, of where it made sense to spend my very limited startup budget.
I will list my criteria below and am interested in how others optimize their decisions. <comment><AUTHOR> Let me start by saying I use Macs, which shortens my set of options.

I write web server-side code. This means I run a web server, db and multiple browsers. I don't use an IDE. I need raw processing horsepower.

Paying for incremental processor speed is a waste of money. Get the slowest current generation processor you can. Paying for an extra 10-20 percent is a mistake.

RAM is king as modern OSs use it efficiently. Mysql can suck its datafiles into memory. Never forget RAM is 1000000x faster than disk.

Max it. 2G is a minimum. 4G is good. A soon as I can cram 16G into a machine, I'll try.

I could care less about the graphics subsystem. If I could buy a low power version of last years card, I would.

A fast drive is nice, but the money is better spent on more RAM. I don't think 5400 vs 7200 is enough. And you lose battery life.

Many of my criteria are designed to maximize my battery life. I love working untethered.

If I could, I would buy a machine that could use multiple batteries, like the old wallstreets and pismos. As is, a removeable battery is critical for long flights. Sorry Air.

The air travel point may be moot becauae the TSA does't want us carrying extra batteries.

Bus speed matters when it impacts RAM usage. I don't understand this well enough and so cargo cult myself into buying the Pro machines. If someone can convince me otherwise, I would love to save $1000 and get a consumer MacBook.

It had to be able to plug into a gigantic monitor when I am deskbound.

I used to want a PC card slot. I would jam in big memory card and use that as a external drive for DB files. Voila! Cheap SSD!

I with removeable media drives were themselves removeable. I use writeable DVDs for long term backups, but do not need the drive 95 percent of the time.

Finally, the most pixels I can carry and fit on my lap. I am a little guy. The 17" is too big to carry or fit. The weight of just over 5 lbs is what I have gotten used to and can tolerate.

<comment><USER2> I dont have any problems when flying and carrying an extra battery for my Macbook Pro. I keep it in my bag, the TSA hasn't said anything yet. Though if i carried 12 extra batteries, they might say something.

The 5400rpm vs 7200rpm makes a difference. Not as much as working in the ram instead of swapping, but there is a difference in performance. Whether you need it or not is another story. Though maxing your ram out is always a good thing to do regardless.

There isn't much of a difference from 2.4 to 2.5 or 2.6GHz, though there is a huge one from 2.1GHz (Base Macbook) to 2.6GHz (BTO Macbook Pro). That makes a huge difference. Even 'only' 10% more is huge when it comes down to rendering or compiling things. The less time you have to sit around waiting for it to render/load/compile, the more time you can spend doing work or the quicker you can get your work done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it the jump from 2.1GHz to 2.6GHz that makes the difference? Or something else?

<comment><USER2> Kinda. They're both Santa Rosa platform with an 800MHz bus and take the same speed ram (667MHz DDR2 SODIMM). They've got different amounts of L2 cache though, 3MB on the Macbook vs 4MB on the Macbook Pro which helps a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Stop agonizing--Get the MacBook. I love mine.

Add 4gb ram and firewire raid: developers dream.

It's got everything you want.

It's more durable than the MBP, but the number one reason the MB beats out the MBP? It won't toast your lap.

<comment><USER4> The only thing that would stop me from getting a MB over a MBP is the screen. The "new" MBP LED-backlit screens are _amazing_!. So clear and bright. The MB glossy screens definitely leave something to be desired. They aren't terrible by any means, but in comparison they just suck. If they fix the MB screens then its basically a no brainer. Put 4GB of ram in the thing and be done with it.

I'm running an old 1stgen alu-Powerbook. It works well enough that I can't possibly justify buying a new one. I'll probably get the Macbook as its pretty cheap when you get the entry level one (especially with the student discount, which I am). I'll surely put 4GB of ram in it though. With that $1000 I save on the macbook pro, I can get 2 months rent, 2 months groceries, a track bike + 1 month rent, a nearly complete climbing kit, a new surfboard _and_ a track bike. I guess you should look at what You'd spend that $1000 on. If you'd spend it on really great things, get the macbook. If not, get the macbook pro for its wonderful screen and fasterness.

<comment><USER5> You are so right.

The missing LED screen is the only thing that keeps me from buying a new macbook today. I am sure apple is going to streamline its production and sooner or later also the macbooks will come with a LED backlit screen. The air already has the 13 inch screen. So its only a tiny step until also the macbooks get it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see a lot of comments from those preferring Macs.

As much as I respect that, a lot of people reading this site are bootstrapping startups and I'd never be able to recommend going that route unless you need to use Mac-forte apps (or are developing for it).

If you're strapped for cash, you can get some solid, powerful equipment by looking through sites like NewEgg for "recertified" laptops with stellar ratings.

They won't have the style and the fashion of the Macs, nor do they often come with a 'nix by default, but they're dirt cheap (like ~$520 for a full modern laptop).

Get the job done and avoid the splurging.

<comment><USER5> No one can deny that there is a lot of truth in what you write. If battery life is not among the critical requirements, any laptop will do the job.

According to my experience the power management of linux is one of the severe shortcomings of that os (although I have tried only suse, scientific linux and fedora).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not so much optimise as prioritise. I don't think I have ever found an optimal solution.

My most recent laptop purchase had to allow me to carry it as part of my single item of hand baggage on Europe's low cost airlines - together with enough clothing and other personal stuff to last me a week - a tall order.

Thus weight was a severe limiting factor - but there was no point in having a machine that could not run my development tools and their supporting databases, internet servers etc.

So (as I said) weight was a fixed limit, I then prioritised screen resolution, RAM and finally processing power.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have one more idea to put in.

As a developer I always liked to have a slow machine. That makes sure you optimize your software and the user experience will be great.

This also means that you can live with the cheaper consumer lines. While my first mac was a iBook (blueberry), I bought powerbooks ever since. But I was never as happy with the powerbooks as I was with the iBook (except the Pismo perhaps - that was indeed the greatest machine ever). Currently I use a Titanium Powerbook with 1 GHz.

My next purchase will be a Macbook, no doubt. Battery life is critical and also durability and finally weight. If you are on a budget, the macbooks also give you more security: if one breaks down, you can buy a second one (apples repair times are longer thana busy deveolper can afford to wait). Two macbooks are cheaper than one pro.

<comment><USER8> I agree. I had an iBook and then a PowerBook which I still use. I have never been as happy the PB as I was with the iBook. Weight, battery, heat.

<comment><USER5> ... fan noise

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am happy with my Dell + Ubuntu. Be sure to get one of the discount codes floating around the net if you go that route - they're worth something like $200.

<comment><USER10> <http://www.notebookreview.com/dellCoupon.asp>

You'll find a good deal of Dell coupons there. They change regularly too, so if what you're looking for isn't there now, it might be soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a hard core web developer (who likes to visit local coffeeshops and travel), I had similar needs: loads of RAM, lots of pixels, big battery, etc.

I ended up getting a 17" MBP. Love it. The super high resolution variation, 1920x1200. The resolution is great for coding/development. The battery is good enough that I normally head out for coffeeshops without the charger.

The weight made my really nervous, my first "real" laptop was heavy and I swore never to get a big laptop again. This laptop isn't bad, I slide it into my laptop backpack and hop around town without a problem.

Spend some time down at a local Apple store. That helped me finally seal the deal.

</comment><comment><USER12> For a PC laptop its simple: Get 1 GB or more of memory and a dual core processor. Everything else is up to your personal preference/needs.</comment>


Getting Started with Graph Databases - <AUTHOR> https://academy.datastax.com/demos/getting-started-graph-databases <comment><USER2> FYI: There are two "Graph Databases 101" posts on the front page now. This one and the older one here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257280) (4 hours ago, 15 comments)

<comment><USER3> It seems he did it to gain votes.

<comment><USER4> Except they're two different articles posted by two different people. This seems like an amusing coincidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As I had zero experience with graph databases, this was generally a good intro, but the article could do with some polishing to save newbies like me from the underlying suspicion that they're missing something obvious. I tried just reading the tutorial without watching the video, and suffered some cognitive dissonance.

At the end of the article, there's two diagrams that show the behaviour of jcvd.out() and jcvd.outE(). The little gremlins are pointing at two vertices and two edges respectively, but from the 15 lines of code earlier, they're the wrong connections, right? jcvd only has edges to kickboxer and bloodsport, but the diagrams show connections to kickboxer and timecop.

So I looked at the code again, and realized the timecop vertex was never created, which seems kinda odd if you're going to use it in the diagram.

I eventually watched the video and saw animations where the little gremlins go to all three vertices/edges, so it's probably just a badly timed screencap for the article. Not that that explains why timecop is not in the code example, but _whatever_.

<comment><USER6> You're right, there's some inconsistencies in the code vs the slides. Must have missed that. I'll fix that going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ahah you put the same title as [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257280)

</comment><comment><USER7> I was very interested in the subject, but hated this video.

Very superficial, started off with a complicated relational schema to criticize relational databases, but never ended up explaining how a graph database would simplify the problem. I thought that the graph database concepts + language was way more complex than SQL schema + language.

Very fast talking and moving of slides, is this supposed to sound or look smart? On top of that, 50% of the time the video was a close up to the presenter's face moving left and right in an awkward fashion.

<comment><USER8> Good feedback. I might need similar feedback for my upcoming talk. I am about to give a talk about Cayley (open source graph db written in Go) and I am working on my slides [http://oren.github.io/adventure- graphs](http://oren.github.io/adventure-graphs)

Let me know what you think and also join us on IRC (#cayley on freenode) if you find it interesting.

<comment><USER9> TL;DR: graphs are everywhere in the real world, so using a graph DB will be simpler and more efficient; examples of graph queries follow.

Thank you but may I ask who this presentation is for? Because from a quick glance, it's not very deep in technical details. I mean I'm curious about graph databases, but comparing them to vanilla SQL schemas isn't very informative. What I really want to know is what makes them different from denormalized schemas (which is what I expect most people would use).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kudos for providing both a video walkthrough AND an identical text version. Made me really happy!

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe I still just don't "get it", but this explanation didn't really show me how a graph database is any better than an RDBMS, apart from a somewhat simpler interface (which in my opinion is still no better than many ORMs).

For good performance, it sounds like you _still_ need to make good decisions about what to index, as well as putting hard limits on your data - even if not strictly enforced by the data model. And if those kinds of things affect performance, then surely changes to the schema (or whatever you'd call it here) will result in a need for migration/reoptimization. The trouble is, when that needs to happen, I personally would rather have tight control over when and how it happens (with a migration), rather that rely on a black box that supposedly makes everything simple. I'm assuming graph databases have ways to control that process, but that kind of proves my point - you don't get greater performance, simplicity, _and_ flexibility for free, especially when you compare it to something as mature as the current RDBMS's. So what problem is it really solving?

Also, the comparison is a little unfair to RDBMS's - this makes it sound like you'd need separate join tables for every kind of person-media relationship, when you could certainly just use one join table with a column for various relationship types. And the complexity of TV shows with seasons and episodes? I'm pretty sure those distinctions would still need to be modeled in a thoughtful way with a graph database, but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER12> Index-free-adjacency.

There are myriad pros/cons between graph/relational/nosql, but to me, a "real" graph db will have index free adjacency, allowing it to do deep traversals (friend of a friend-of a friend-oaf-oaf....) in constant time. It finds it's value in traversal of deeply connected datasets.

Any article or comparison that doesn't at least try to explain index free adjacency isn't going to make a compelling case for a graphdb, let along a native graph db. One reason for that may be that many "graph" databases don't have index free adjacency, so have worst than expected deep traversal characteristics.

<comment><USER11> That makes sense. I'm seeing index-free adjacency mentioned in some other comparisons. Sounds pretty cool.

So if each node has pointers directly to related nodes (without needing an index lookup), does that also mean that inserts and updates are slower? From what I understand, if you're bypassing the need for an index lookup at query time, you have to pay for that at some other point in time - specifically by looking up the appropriate pointers at the time of insert/update. Is that accurate?

<comment><USER12> That's right. However, there are still indexes, even if they aren't necessary for traversal. Ideally you'll use an index to find a start node and traverse on from there (or in the case of your question, update from there).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is Titan going to survive even though datastax bought out the team? Their github repo hasn't been very active recently.

My issue with graph dbs is that as requirements change you usually have to add more granularity to the edges and nodes. Eventually the schema becomes much more complicated than a RDB.

<comment><USER14> FWIW AWS recently added DynamoDB integration support for it.

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-store-and-process- graph...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-store-and-process-graph-data- using-the-dynamodb-storage-backend-for-titan/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very cool. What are some of the issues to look out for switching from an old SQL model?

<comment><USER16> I don't have any experience with this particular product, but done work with a bunch of semantic web software (which is graph based). The most difficult part of migration is related to ontology, the edges. Feature creep is very easy and if you don't set hard limits you can easily find yourself graphing metadata about graph metadata :) You can do this with relational databases as well - recursive logging tables and the like, but it is easier to catch because of the exploding table count. Authorization isn't as easy either, so you'll want to give that some thought before you jump in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article overly inflates the complexity of graphs and databases in order to sound fancy. I've written a response that is very direct and shows how simple a graph database can be: [https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/Graph- Databases-101](https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/Graph-Databases-101) .

<comment><USER6> Hi. Presenter here. Honestly the goal wasn't to sound fancy. If you're going to work in the GraphDB world, you're going to come across this terminology.

If your concern around my intro is the complexity described of the relational world, well, that's kind of the point. Anyone with at least a few years experience in the RDBMS world has probably come across a project that's spiraled completely out of control with a outrageous number of many to many relationships that are almost impossible to work with. The role of the DBA just to manage your queries and tables is a reflection of that difficulty.

GUN looks like a cool project. Good intro, & thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER17> Sorry for the abrasiveness, I actually liked your overview of table outrage (I should have been positive and mentioned this). What I didn't like is that the article starts right away with mentioning Gremlin - which is very popular within the academic community but difficult for most developers. Honestly anything outside of SQL and MongoDB's query spec can be frightening for devs. Because you are genuinely talking about another language you have to learn. This complexity makes graphs themselves look like they are hard and difficult and for serious people, like machine learning. So I think it is dangerous to introduce people to complicated new query languages in a 101 article because people will feel discouraged that if they can't get past Gremlin then they'll never be able to use graphs at all (despite the fact that they use them all the time, especially on the frontend, without even realizing it). Elsewise I thought you did a good job explaining the problem and even talking about the basics of semantics. Just going down the Gremlin route either scares people off or appeals to the more academic elite.

<comment><USER18> Gremlin is a practical query language designed for developers and has very little (maybe zero) usage in academia. SparQL is the more established option which does get some academic (and production) usage, particularly as a lot of research on graph databases has a cross over with semantic web research.

This isn't the first time I've seen you criticise the "academic elite". You seem to use it as a crutch, an excuse for sloppy thinking and poor quality software.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ransomware gangs now outing victim businesses that don't pay - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/ransomware-gangs-now-outing-victim-businesses-that-dont-pay-up/ <comment><USER3> They're not just outing them, they're dumping their data. That changes the risk dynamic significantly. Before, if you didn't pay, you didn't get your data back. Now, you don't pay, they expose all your data to the world. For some companies, that will be a significantly more compelling reason to pay the ransom.

<comment><USER4> Looks like they're doing our job.

First, the message was "backup your data". Now, they also added "encrypt your data"!

<comment><USER5> Does encryption really help? If they've compromised your system well enough to lock you out of it, aren't they likely to have nabbed your passwords in the process? Even if you were incredibly careful, there's not much you can do about a keylogger. If you could prevent a keylogger, you could lock them out entirely.

<comment><USER4> Maybe? AFAIK having more walls will result in less intrusions... Like, I imagine that you can delete/encrypt all the files simply by having a local username / network filesystem accesss. Doesn't necessarily mean you also managed to hack usernames/passwords/databases/source code... Each wall is another barrier to pass/hack!

<comment><USER6> You can have 25 walls if you want but all it takes is Sally in accounts who thinks it's a good idea to open this one email attachment...If went rogue I'd probably be able to hack my company left and right and I'm not even remotely someone with those skills.

<comment><USER4> Relying on every employee to not do something "stupid" (i.e. stupid to _us_ but how would a non-programmer know without extensive training) is a fundamentally flawed approach... Companies need to think about this, need to adapt processes to account for failure at as many levels as possible. "bus factor" and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> loup-vaillant > _Less than 48 hours ago, the cybercriminals behind the Maze Ransomware_

I'd rather just call them "criminals".

The "cyber" prefix is generally unnecessary, and sometimes even misleading.

<comment><USER7> Add to your favorite text substitution add-on the mapping "cyber" -> "spider" and you'll be less annoyed at its pervasive use.

<comment><USER8> So, what'd you think of Elon's spidertruck?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you had good backups, you didn't had to pay until now.

But to make the data public, they have to download all the data first. This might be detected.

I know from several companys who did set up the complete network again.

The most prominent company I know at moment is Pilz (pilz.com). There website was almost down for a month. Now after 2 months it possible to download datasheets and manuals again.

<comment><USER10> To be fair, if you are taken over by ransomware, it's probably the best decision to start from scratch and redesign your network so that this sort of thing is mitigated in the future.

<comment><USER11> Who said these things come from "your" network?

<comment><USER10> Because if it's an insider threat then you should have protections in place to identify bad actors so that they know they will be caught if they even try. If you don't then what are you even doing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I thought the big advantage of ransomware (for "the gangs") was that it didnt actually require them to be able to extract the data. To impact a company you only needed to be able to get your malware on their device; extracting the data was not necessarily for you to acquire a ransom.

If my company is beset by ransomware, and they claim they will release it I can either assume:

1\. They have extracted the data and therefor have to assume they arent just going to delete it because I sent them a check.

2\. They are bluffing and have only encrypted my data.

I dont think I can count on #2.

</comment><comment><USER13> If the US had a thing like the UK's CBE/knighting Krebs would be worthy of one for his constant public service exposing this stuff.

<comment><USER14> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some of those comments below the article are just scary.

People demanding death sentences and that Iran/China/Russia/North Korea be nuked, over private business data leaks?

It's like the problem of attribution never has existed, nowadays the "smoking cyber guns" are apparently everywhere.

<comment><USER16> Krebs has a better measured reply to the "Nuke 'em all!" comments.

[https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/ransomware-gangs-now- out...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/ransomware-gangs-now-outing- victim-businesses-that-dont-pay-up/#comment-501971)

 _What needs to become the norm for the US Govt response to these gangsters is for them to get in the habit of doing what they did in the Evil Corp case: Once the offenders are positively identified, get the Treasury to issue financial sanctions on them that prevent the crooks from transacting with people and businesses outside their home country.

[https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/inside-evil- corp-a-100m-...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/inside-evil- corp-a-100m-cybercrime-menace/)

This is perhaps the most effective tool in law enforcement's hands to combat cybercrime — short of apprehending the bad guys. None of these dudes want to be stuck in Russia, and they sure as hell don't want all their money kept their either. Rather, they tend to launder it by investing in properties and other businesses outside their own country. Making it a crime for others to accept their money is an extremely effective way of frustrating these criminals._

<comment><USER17> On the other hand, many nations are making a concerted effort to undermine America's position as the global financial hegemon (e.g. Europe's INSTEX). What would America's recourse be were she to lose her control over global financial markets?

<comment><USER18> As long as oil is traded in USD that won't happen.

<comment><USER19> That makes as much sense as thinking it matters whether the volume of a barrel of oil is measured in US or metric measurements.

You can, like, exchange one currency for another. How do you think people buy oil with every currency other than the dollar?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe this will convince businesses to encrypt user data end-to-end.

Either lose the pennies you would've made from data mining or lose real millions from getting ransomed. Your choice.

<comment><USER21> I would bet most of this users clicking things they should not. recently my company put out a phishing email and people clicked on it and then started a thread on the internal forums about how mad they were the company would do this (they had to take extra training if the fell for it). Another co worker was telling me about his old position where he put the thumb drives in parking lots and people would pick them up and plug them into their work computer, and the would get mad that their security team did this exercise and caught them.

Yes a lot can still be done with security on machines and traffic, etc.... But the human factor is hard to control and fix. If someone sent out a phishing email with a link that said "click here to see magical unicorns jumping over a rainbow", someone would click it, i know poeple i work with who would click it. It gets, frustrating at least for me, since i have a lot to do with security where i am at.

<comment><USER22> What's frustrating is that we're still dealing with systems where these kinds of simple and obvious actions are not safe.

What reasonable person thinks that clicking on a link is a potentially dangerous act? That's how everything is done these days, and we're not supposed to trust that it is a safe operation?

We're not supposed to plug in a USB drive to see what's on it? That's pretty much all they're for!

<comment><USER23> People expect to plug in USB and all to magically work. In this case hardware/firmware get full access and can fry your port.

0-day bugs and lacking updates make promiscuous internet use hazardous, yet people expect browser to do everything a PC can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is this not a confession, anyone connected to the domain and the hosting asn and the ISP is going to have good opsec or not ever travel outside certain countries.

<comment><USER25> >anyone connected to the domain and the hosting asn and the ISP is going to have good opsec

Why would the hosting company/ISP be at risk? Just run it from a non-US extradition friendly country, and say that you won't take any action unless there's a court order from your local court.

<comment><USER24> Conspiracy, computer misuse laws for one and if you targeted CNI sites - <USER2> stronger laws -)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can see this being a catastrophic outcome for hospitals. If the health and privacy of your patients is at stake, wouldn't you pay up?

</comment><comment><USER27> Just today, in Canada, LifeLabs released that they paid the ransom after info for 15 million people was stolen.

[https://customernotice.lifelabs.com/](https://customernotice.lifelabs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Thanks to the bitcoin without it Ransomware gangs can't do that

</comment><comment><USER29> Let's hope this idea catches on with patent trolls too. It's about time they outed all the businesses that don't agree immediately to settle.

</comment><comment><USER30> Just imagine how much Facebook would pay up if a hacker had exfiltrated the database of all private Facebook messages, and was threatening to release them.

<comment><USER31> What incentive would the hackers have for actually deleting their copy after receiving payment?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > KrebsOnSecurity was able to verify that at least one of the companies listed > on the site indeed recently suffered from a Maze ransomware infestation that > has not yet been reported in the news media. I'd bet 90% of companies never > publicly acknowledge they paid.

Another checkmark in the category of not making paying ransoms illegal. This whole new data-dump threat vector just doubles down the threat to keep it quiet and pay it out.

Law enforcement will rarely catch enough of these companies who do pay to make it meaningful. Most of these are small time private businesses who are more than capable of keeping it quiet, without information release obligations to investors.

We need public education campaigns for backing up company data offsite and encouraging more companies investing in security firms to up the bar for these attacks. It's the only way they'll slow down.

</comment><comment><USER32> Recent and related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21806821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21806821)

</comment><comment><USER33> Anyone have a link to Maze's website?

<comment><USER18> Obviously even if someone did have that link they should not post it here. Giving wider visibility to this makes the problem worse, though I'm all for releasing the names of those companies.

<comment><USER34> > Giving wider visibility to this makes the problem worse, though I'm all for > releasing the names of those companies.

Aren't these mutually exclusive positions?

<comment><USER18> No, because the data affects the data subjects but the names of the companies just affect the companies and gives their customers a fighting chance at limiting the damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> this could be a two fold disaster. correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't NOT reporting a breach a pretty heavy fine in some countries today? Worst, if they are dumping the data, people in the EU could be hit by GDPR fines as well if the exposed data shows they weren't keeping up with guidelines.

<comment><USER18> Absolutely, and this is problematic because now we end up with a set of incentives that works against the public interest. This will make it more likely for the companies affected to pay up. The one bit of light here is that it will show up in their accounting and auditors tend to have reporting obligations if they come across evidence of a crime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If I understand correctly you are already required to report the data loss according to GDPR and you'll be fined accordingly, whether the data is then leaked or not.

Isn't the clear course of action then to report, pay the fine and tell the criminals to get lost?

</comment><comment><USER37> Some of us mentioned that this would happen once GDPR came out. Not disclosing breaches is now a punishable offense, and this becomes a weapon in the hands of malicious hackers.

<comment><USER38> From article 4:

(12) 'personal data breach' means a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful _destruction, loss_ , alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or _access to_ , personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed;

So it seems that a ransomware attack is considered a breach - as it should be - and neither exfiltration nor disclosure is necessary for that to be the case.

Any sort of access is a weapon in the hands of a malicious hacker. Penalties for allowing it to happen are weapons in the hands of those trying to do something about it.

<comment><USER37> security is notoriously asymmetric and a continuous arms race, so it's rarely a case of "allowing it to happen". There is a case to be made for making it unprofitable for hackers to run such operations. The law here does the opposite by making it more lucrative.

i think the best thing to do is to minimize sensitive data completely, no logs no nothing. But then you move the burden of security to the end user (e.g. they 'll have to re-enter their credit card every time), which is probably higher risk.

<comment><USER38> If everyone adopted your solution, the issue that you originally posted about would no longer be an issue, so the best way to get everyone to your solution would be increase the penalties until nothing else is viable!

The reality is that you are creating a false dichotomy / straw man here. While reducing the amount of personal information that is gathered and stored should be the first response, that which remains can be handled appropriately with encryption and defense-in-depth.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CarrierIQ is on iOS, sans keylogger - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chpwn.com/post/13572216737

<comment><USER3> In Apple's defense: in the iPhone settings where you can turn the sending of data on and off (General > About > Diagnostics and Usage), it also gives you access to all the data it has sent, which mostly seems to be related to cellular communication.

Other data is about location services accuracy which contains the bundle ID of the application that requested the location.

Most messages contain a device ID, but it's not the devices UDID, but some other ID, so this might actually be anonymous.

I might keep this feature turned on as cellular reception and location data might be very helpful for them to improve the antenna design.

<comment><USER4> Having reviewed this and the data logged in General > About > Diagnostics and Usage I have to say that this pretty much what I expected when I allowed it to 'Send diagnostics'.

I'm a bit of a privacy nerd, but I'm happy to keep supplying this - <USER2> because they asked explictly for permission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Funny googling the binary names and seeing posts from jailbreakers as far back as June 2010 saying "delete this app, it's ruining performance".

</comment><comment><USER6> One thing that just occurred to me - Wouldn't NOT having a keylogger that records every thing you put into the device also give you an edge in terms of performance?

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this present only on carrier subsidized iPhones or is it included in factory unlocked iPhones direct from Apple as well?

<comment><USER8> It's on all iPhones on all carriers running all versions. However, it is not the same version, and this version of CarrierIQ covers far, far less. It is not keystroke logging, not watching web activity, not watching texts.

This version also ONLY RUNS when the iPhone is in diagnostic mode. It is set to never run while the phone is operating normally.

<comment><USER9> Can diagnostic mode be turned on automatically/surreptitiously in iOS?</comment></comment></comment>


IPv4 Technical solution to resolve the IPv4 Exhaustion problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2020-April/003676.html <comment><USER2> This idea basically proposes to add one bit to the 32 bit addresses, i.e. use 33 bits. The notation is irrelevant, the money quote is

> We need to have a mark, a flag, in the ip packet header

You needed to end this bit also everywhere else -- in routing tables, etc. It is quite obvious that this "minor change" is actually quite a major change, in a world where a 33bit address requires 5 bytes to store, not only 4 bytes.

<comment><USER3> It is actually more complicated than that. It proposes the use of one of the reserved IP flag bits to indicated whether the packet includes "IPv4+" addresses and then re-use of the already used DF and MF flag bits to indicated whether the source or destination addresses are "IPv4+" Since these flags are already used for packet fragmentation IPv4+ packets could not be fragmented so it also requires implementing a path mtu discovery protocol for udp since current path mtu discovery using ICMP is broken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I read this and thought it was a joke. IPv4+ is more work than just moving to IPv6.</comment>


Best service providers for renting dedicated servers (not VMs)? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for a new service providers who can rent physical servers (high end cpu intensive config) and manage them for us and wonder what are the options out there.<p>I see that rackspace have them, but I have recently heard that their service is degrading. <comment><AUTHOR> Anyone used liquidweb?</comment>


Hidden Safari Mobile feature reveals augmented reality capability - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/12/21/hidden-safari-mobile-feature-reveals-augmented-reality-capability/ <comment><USER2> This is amazing! Thanks Zee. How is this not so well-known?</comment>


Ask HN: Contract dispute, do I shut em' down? - <AUTHOR>

I am in a software development contract that's gone south. The client is refusing to pay my final invoice in full. The client ended the contract prematurely stating that they needed to find a cheaper contractor and to stop billing them for my time. When the client served notice they said they would specify out work for which I would be invited to provide a fixed cost bid for the work.
A couple weeks after they served notice, their site went offline and the client asked for my assistance to bring it back online. I provided minimal assistance, which is now their reason for refusing to pay my final invoice in full--that I didn't help and they had to figure everything out on their own which took extra effort.
I'm meeting with a lawyer on Monday to discuss how to proceed, so I'm not asking for legal advice. But, I have the keys to their web application, and really want to use this power to shut their site down and force payment in full.
I've heard of developers getting screwed on contracts, but the details rarely come out. So, really what I'm asking for is what members of this community have done in similar circumstances and how that has worked out for them. <comment><USER2> If you already have a lawyer involved to discuss your options, I would not do anything until after that meeting. Taking any action now could end up costing you instead of helping you. I can understand that you want "revenge" but that reaction can end up hurting more than helping. I hope this is isn't the case, and I don't think it is, but your post comes across as "This will teach them to screw with me!"

IANAL, but what I would recommend is talking with your client (calmly) to come to a mutually agreeable resolution. This may mean you compromise on the remaining balance to some extent. What you spend on legal costs to pursue not just financially, but in time spent fighting with it, will far exceed any reward.

Also, if you have a signed contract with them in the first place you can use that as leverage to negotiate the terms of a settlement. Most well-written contracts should have a clause in there regarding non-payment and the process for handling that. If that your case you can use that as leverage to negotiate with them. Nobody wants to go to court so they have an incentive to get it resolved as much as you do.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not getting paid sucks. Sorry to hear you're dealing with it.

My advice, for what it's worth, is if you have more productive things to do with your time than pursuing a lawsuit, then do those things instead of pursuing a lawsuit. And on future contracts:

      :require a retainer to be applied against *final* invoice.
      :require payment to be due on receipt of invoice.
      :have the right to stop work immediately on nonpayment.
      :follow through on all those terms.

My heuristic is that complaints about fees before and during a project are a tell that people who dont intend to pay provide as a way of rationalizing nonpayment. Context of course matters, e.g. a person whose role is just negotiating and not paying is just doing their job and some people just like to wheel and deal. But generally, anyone who expresses a problem with writing me a check never owes me money...instead, I owe them work.

The tl;dr is manage the issue of payments during the honeymoon don't wait for the divorce.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great advice. With smaller companies I've used an advance to start work, but I like the retainer against final invoice better.

<comment><USER3> Just to extend it a bit, when later invoices are very likely to be smaller than earlier invoices, I will partially apply the retainer to intermediate invoices to reduce the amount I am holding.

The initial retainer is at least the maximum amount that I will bill in a cycle - e.g. for a two week billing cycle at least 80 hours when the project takes "full time" effort. More if there is a delay between handing over the invoice and getting a check.

There are clients for which it is not appropriate - those where the managers are beholden to public shareholders or with substantial well-financed income producing ongoing operations. It's a risk mitigation strategy. And I am willing to walk away where my gut tells me there is enough risk to justify it and the client balks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Emotions are the enemy of negotiations. There's attitude aspect here you must be careful about. If you think you're in a for a legal battle, you'll get one. You'll lose time, money, & energy-- the attorney still gets his fee. You must talk with (not email) these folks to get paid. Preferably, go see them in person. Turn this conflict into an instance of advisement. Find out what they want.

Stuart Diamond has some excellent advice on negotiating> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love Stuart's examples, it's refreshing to hear his perspective—it is a nice counter to how this client has behaved over the last few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Talk to the attorney, do not shut them off, ever, and work through the process. Sometimes it just takes a third party to get involved to bring about a reality check for everyone. Sadly people will let their emotions get in the way of better judgement, more sad, people will spends tens of thousands of dollars on attorney's over a contract worth less. It happens.

If you haven't seen this: [http://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro-- 2/1](http://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1) it is worth the watch. Basically, people will try all the time to downplay what you are worth, or decide what you delivered should be worth less etc. But it isn't all people, and generally you can start seeing the patterns after being burned a few times.

Also, anytime a client ends the agreement and there is any turmoil, don't work for them without payment up front (or demand they bring past due invoices current). As sad as this sounds, its your leverage and frankly their issue is not your emergency. EMT's are trained when they respond to 911 calls to remain calm because its not your emergency, kinda seems harsh, but its reality and the same applies to things like that in consulting.

<comment><AUTHOR> 2 minutes into the video I'm already feeling better. Thank you.

<comment><USER5> Your welcome. I go back and watch it from time to time. A Reminder never hurts.

Good luck

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shutting them down could be seen as Vandalism or trying to disrupt their business.

Either way it's antagonistic and you won't get anything positive from it.

Talk to your lawyer and deal with this carefully as you don't want them to turn around and sue you for damages.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've never had to do that myself, but I'd strongly warn against turning off _anything_ without first chatting to your lawyer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm not going to do anything until speaking with a lawyer. But, when you've been wronged it feels good to think about _getting even_. Which I know won't actually make things feel better, and likely won't help with getting paid.

Writing it out at least was somewhat cathartic.

<comment><USER7> If you're enjoying getting-even fantasies - and I stress, don't actually do this - just imagine what sort of fun you could have by putting a bit of 'extra content' on their site.

* 500% late-payment penalty notices

* 15% surcharge for minority customers

* Amazon affiliate links to books by infamous Holocaust deniers

I'm sure you can add to the list :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> OT, but since this is such a common problem all over the world, I'm wondering: Are there any escrow services to ensure payment to contractors, and any arbitration services to mediate such problems between the parties before they are forced to lawyer up?

<comment><USER3> Yes in both cases, at least in the US. Any attorney can handle escrow. The American Arbitration Association offers mediation services.

I've never used escrow in part because it is uncommon and in part because it would be a lot of ceremony compared with a retainer and anyway dealing with escrow is already lawyering up and I don't have much interest in taking clients where that's the honeymoon.

On the other hand I have pursued mediation three times when someone wouldn't pay. The two times it was contractually required it was a waste of energy, in one case the deadbeat declared bankruptcy and in the other the deadbeat correctly guessed it wasn't worth dragging them to court and didn't mediate in good faith. The time mediation was successful it was part of the pretrial after I had filed in small claims court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is something they don't teach you in consultant school. There is such a thing as a bad client; one where they will never be satisfied no matter how well you deliver, even over deliver.

Instead of looking at what you can do for their company (boost profits, ROI), they will try and haggle over penny. Take ages to pay, if pay you at all.. Find excuses to get money off of invoices.

Just as bad employees are more likely to me looking for jobs. Bad companies will be more likely to be looking for staff/ contractors. Beware, know the signs for next time!

<comment><AUTHOR> The honest truth is that I knew this was a bad client going in. I knew when things were starting to go south. In hindsight I should have been more aggressive leaving, I think my personal sense of loyalty to completing the contract interfered with _accepting_ the warning signs that were being presented. Lesson learned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think that A. shutting someone's business down is going to be viewed poorly by just about anyone and B. If you are trying to recover payment then it's in your interest to be able to show they are/have been receiving benefit from your work.

</comment><comment><USER11> I took the hard angry road once, ended up costing a LOT in laywers - got zero out of it besides loosing the money.

Today I will just walk away from the burning remains of a project gone bad never looking back!

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please share more about your cautionary tale?

<comment><USER11> In general terms yes ;)

I build a website for a customer and did seo/sem/content creation/affiliate management and whatnot. The customer only shipped the actual product.

The relationship had a lot of mistrust and bad vipes throughout the entire project, and when revenue skyrocketed the customer witheld the last couple of months of payment (fixed + revenue share) and jumped to another system.

I sued and neither lost nor won but something in between - paid the laywer+judges 50.000 USD and got nothing from the customer.

Spent countless hours being angry, nervous, sad, in court, talking to lawyer, bitching about the customer where I could have been working for new customers, building new projects etc.

These days whenever a project starts to smell I quickly walk away from it, only concentrating on those that makes sense.

The return from working with happy customers is much higher than spending time in court - also it is more fun!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >>>>>> But, I have the keys to their web application, and really want to use this power to shut their site down and force payment in full.

This is called coercion.

Please don't.

</comment><comment><USER13> a</comment>


Xcode Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> http://www.git-tower.com/blog/xcode-cheat-sheet/ <comment><USER2> Don't forget that just about everything in OSX and Linux supports readline navigation:

      C-n - next line
      C-p - previous line
      C-f - next char
      C-b - previous char
      C-a - beginning of line
      C-e - end of line

I assume there are others as well, but that's pretty much what I use.

<comment><USER3> There's a load of this that can be quite heavily customised as well.

Changing the contents of '~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict' modifies text editing behaviour system wide - though not all applications will honour it. I assume it's due to developers implementing their own text engine type stuff.

With DefaultKeyBinding.dict you can implement things like 'delete current line', 'move current line up/down', 'duplicate line' etc. and have these as keybindings almost system wide. It's very nice, but really grates when I work in an application that doesn't support it.

Mine is here: [https://gist.github.com/ryecroft/7433433](https://gist.github.com/ryecroft/7433433) (a bit messy, but has loads of examples I've found).

<comment><USER4> Brett Terpstra [1] has a good series of posts RE: DefaultKeyBinding.dict. I always refer back to this one when I want to start playing with it again:

[1]: [http://brettterpstra.com/2011/08/13/keybinding- madness/](http://brettterpstra.com/2011/08/13/keybinding-madness/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My new favourite: Cmd-option-ctrl-[ and Cmd-option-ctrl-] to switch between devices (iPhone, iPad, simulator, device, etc.)</comment>


Is VR porn going to disrupt VR technology as it did with VCD,DVD and the internet? - <AUTHOR> Is VR porn going to disrupt VR technology as it did with VCD, DVD and the internet? <comment><USER2> Porn did not "disrupt" those media. Porn pushed those media into the marketplace. Porn seekers have been early adopters of all of these media. It remains to be seen if this will happen again with VR. [https://goo.gl/ac4n9g](https://goo.gl/ac4n9g)

Many have deemed VR porn as the "killer app" that will drive the entire virtual reality industry and push the technology to the mainstream. It is still early, and difficult to confirm, whether or not this has happened, is happening, or about to happen.

But, it is safe to say that two major changes need to happen in order for VR porn to truly reach its full potential. First and foremost, the VR headset technology needs to improve. Secondly, the content needs to be more diverse in order to appeal to a wider audience.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have one of those $15-$25 headsets and don't know the answer, here's a youtube video that should provide a close approximation to the answer for you.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ5jHZ_CS2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ5jHZ_CS2g)

<comment><USER4> (video link is not NSFW)</comment></comment>


Pirate Party Activist Raymond Johansen to Be Publicly Flogged Sunday - <AUTHOR> http://thecryptosphere.com/2015/08/15/pirate-party-activist-raymond-johansen-to-be-publicly-flogged-sunday/

<comment><USER2> He went through with it. There's video and a post-flogging podcast interview from Anon UK Radio: [http://thecryptosphere.com/2015/08/17/raymond-johansen- of-pp...](http://thecryptosphere.com/2015/08/17/raymond-johansen-of-ppi-and- anonymous-flogged-in-solidarity-with-raif-badawi-video/)</comment>


Disruptive elevator pitches for your agile startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupelevatorpitch.com/

<comment><USER2> Hahaha! Very refreshing view on how trivial elevator pitches are sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER3> hilarious</comment>