Announcing the first release of batman.js - <AUTHOR> http://batmanjs.org/2011/08/23/i-am-the-batman.html

<comment><USER2> From the site: "It gives us great pleasure to finally announce the release of batman.js to the JavaScript community today. This release represents the first code dump of something we've been working hard on at Shopify for a long time, so we're very excited to get it into your hands and see what you do with it."

I got zero value out of this lead.

When you launch a product like this, please tell us why we'd want to use this. As developers, we don't have a bunch of time to parse your project notes. "It's like XXX, but offers these advantages..." At this moment, I don't know what batman.js is actually useful for!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I'll break it down: batman.js is a JavaScript framework for rich JavaScript applications. It's designed to make development as fast and as painless as possible for developers and designers while giving them lots of power.

We designed everything around a number of primary goals such as convention over configuration, HTML-based views, and the principle of least surprise. This is something we're using at Shopify in our future projects, so it's meeting those goals while coming out of real work.

If you want more info, the features page (<http://batmanjs.org/features.html>) has a list of everything we're trying to do, and the examples page (<http://batmanjs.org/examples.html>) has a few usage examples. There's still only a couple, but I'm working as quickly as possible to build out the gallery.

And of course, let me know if there's anything else I can answer about the framework. I hope that helped clear it up a bit, though!

<comment><USER3> "batman.js is a JavaScript framework for rich JavaScript applications. It's designed to make development as fast and as painless as possible for developers and designers while giving them lots of power."

That sounds like a pitch I would give a non-techie manager or client. Someone who's been around computers enough to know that javascript is the thingie that makes web pages do stuff.

Your target audience is developers, yes? We can take it. The first thing in your pitch should be how it helps, not "We'll save you lots of time, we promise. Trust us!"

<comment><USER4> Man, tough audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds more or less like Backbone.js. How does it compare to that?

The name is amusing, but a bit silly --

"What are you guys using for all of your cool AJAXy stuff?"

"Batman."

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to see some examples in JavaScript, instead of CoffeeScript. Since at this point only a smaller subset of developers use CoffeeScript, I think it might be overall useful to more people if the provided examples used plain JavaScript (that, and CoffeeScript developers tend to understand JavaScript already, and may already be used to converting one to the other).

<comment><USER7> The subtext is that you should learn CoffeeScript. It's an alternative syntax, not a new language.

They wrote you a nice library and are giving it away under an MIT license. You don't get to pick the style they use to write the examples. That's like going to a science lecture and walking up to the speaker afterwards to say, "Hey, I think you have some great theories, but you really should lose that Australian accent of yours. Most scientists aren't from Australia, you know."

<comment><USER8> _They wrote you a nice library and are giving it away under an MIT license. You don't get to pick the style they use to write the examples._

This is a response to something nobody's saying.

Obviously if they write it they get to choose pretty much everything about it. Nobody is disputing such a thing.

However, if one of the goals in releasing this is to be maximally useful, isn't the fact that raw Javascript is more readily understandable to more people a good thing to point out? Especially since it's highly likely that the team actually has the ability to do normal JS just as easily.

If they disagree with such a goal, though, they can feel free to do whatever they want.

<comment><USER7> Nobody who knows CoffeeScript needs to be informed that JavaScript is more mainstream.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps not, but that doesn't necessarily imply that the use of CoffeeScript- only examples was a calculated move to reach the audience they wanted instead of whatever came to mind first. It's worth at least reminding them that JS examples might be more useful to more people and letting them decide consciously whether they care.

<comment><USER9> They use coffeescript's class inheritance. Here's the JS that compiles down to:

<http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/#classes>

If they showed JS examples it would instantly turn everyone off. Trust me, you do NOT want to use this with JS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It says it's for JavaScript, but I don't even know what language the code example is in. What _is_ this?!

        # Create our application and namespace.
        class Alfred extends Batman.App
          @global yes
          @root 'todos#index'

        # Define the principle Todo model with `body` and `isDone` attributes, and tell it to persist itself using Local Storage.
        class Alfred.Todo extends Batman.Model
          @global yes # global exposes this class on the global object, so you can access `Todo` directly.

          @persist Batman.LocalStorage
          @encode 'body', 'isDone'

          body: ''
          isDone: false

<comment><USER11> CoffeeScript

<comment><USER10> Right, I just read the comments below. There's no mention of CoffeeScript anywhere.

CoffeeScript is _not_ JavaScript. If it's a JavaScript framework, please give code examples in JavaScript.

<comment><USER12> CoffeeScript compiles to Javascript. Batman.js can _most certainly_ be a Javascript framework and give examples in CoffeeScript. Many people prefer CoffeeScript for a variety of reasons, including readability.

Also, you aren't entitled to dictate instructions to other people who are giving you the benefit of their hard work. It's rude and obnoxious.

<comment><USER13> Maybe the guy you're replying to edited his post, but "If it's a JavaScript framework, please give code examples in JavaScript"--to me--reads as a rather polite request, rather than a dictum as you suggested.

<comment><USER14> But there are other problems with the comment.

 _There's no mention of CoffeeScript anywhere_

It's in the 2nd paragraph of the docs. Not prominent, but somewhere.

 _CoffeeScript is not JavaScript_

Technically true, I suppose, but they are beyond related.

 _If it's a JavaScript framework_

Maybe it's a CoffeeScript framework? My sense is that at the very least, the use of CoffeeScript is an important aspect of the project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, happy to take any questions you have about the framework, either here or in IRC. We're on freenode in #batmanjs

</comment><comment><USER15> PLEASE:

body{ color: #000000; }

Thankkk you!

Other than that, looks cool! Definitely will be trying it out in my projects and reporting back!

<comment><USER16> p { color:#222; } will do

<comment><USER17> Changed that, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> hey Nick,

Great to see it released! One thing I always find helpful is a comparison/discussion of where it fits with others in this realm.

congrats, Jack

<comment><USER19> I agree, especially how it compares to express.js which seems to currently dominate app design for node.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The templating layer looks eerily similar to Zope Page Templates / TAL (see <http://chameleon.repoze.org/>). Old-skool, baby! :-)

Anyway, it's like the love child of Backbone.js and jQuery Mobile, and perhaps more intuitive than both. I'll definitely play with it some tomorrow to see whether it holds up to its promise.

</comment><comment><USER21> This seems like a horrible way to do things. I really don't want to throw a ton of loop logic (data-foreach?) and other data attributes in my HTML.

I think all of the JS MVC frameworks will be short lived. Someone (hopefully) will develop with a real soup to nuts solution that will make writing a front end heavy app simple. In Rails, I can see it being as easy as "act_as_front_end" somewhere, and the app automatically serves up your JSON to a generated frontend that mirrors your Rails app. I know that would be a hard thing to make, but this is where things should converge.

</comment><comment><USER22> I suspect DC Comics and/or Warner Bros may be getting in touch soon.

</comment><comment><USER23> Although we had a great talk about it at JSConf, I don't remember if Shopify is using it in production yet ... Which bits of Shopify is it currently powering?

<comment><AUTHOR> A number of Shopify future products are being/have been built from the ground up using batman.js :)

<comment><USER24> Much like the description of the framework i think people are looking for a more specific answer to this question. I'm starting to think you are a super hero yourself. Captain Vague we'll call you.

<comment><USER25> I mostly try a framework to see what it can do. Looking at the documentation it seems like they are good enough to get me started.

Not sure what all these negative comments are doing here. Feels like half the people are asking for somebody to hold their penis and the other half is crying because they can't read Coffee-Script.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This looks fun. We (at BigDoor) have built some of these same pieces using Knockout (<http://knockoutjs.com/>) as a starting point. I'll be trying this out for comparison in some prototypes for sure.

<comment><USER25> I also use knockout.js for a project and batman.js looks like it has some similarities but it seems to be filling some holes that knockout.js leaves you to fill your self.

<comment><USER26> Which, I think, is not a huge deal with Knockout, just a difference. In our case we're using it for widgets included on other people's sites, so it's not a conventional web "application" with "pages" (I don't think we'd use the routing bits of batman.js at all, for instance).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> <http://xkcd.com/851/>

</comment><comment><USER28> What are your target supported browsers/versions?

<comment><USER17> We're targeting Chrome, Safari 4+, Firefox 3+, and IE 7+ for compatibility, although some of those require you to include es5shim.

More details in the readme here: <http://github.com/Shopify/batman/blob/master/README.md>

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Awesome, now to think of a small project to try it out.</comment>


BFD (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection) in OpenBSD [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan2016-bfd.pdf <comment><USER2> Fairly standard to use this in a core network to improve link failure detection, even "fast" routing protocols can take a few seconds to hit a dead timer for troublesome links.

The key with using this in some networks is there may be multiple networks or ISPs between your two routers, so links may look up but could actually be dropping traffic.

However not too clear why you'd want this on a server?

Most servers support bonding of NIC interfaces, quickly detect NIC and physical link issues, and don't use routing protocols which are what benefit from this quick detection.

<comment> X-Istence There is a new trend, especially with virtualisation, whereby you push Layer 3 all the way down to the host.

In my case, at $WORK, we use a product called Calico with OpenStack. Calico turns our standard Linux machine into a router with BGP to advertise the IP's of the VM's running on it to the rest of the network.

We use BFD on the edge to detect failures other than link down (for example, if for some odd reason the SFP is still inserted and link is still considered up, yet the ToR is deadlocked and no longer routing traffic).

Pushing layer 3 down further means we no longer have large VLAN's spanning multiple switches and having a huge broadcast domain, it provides us with more flexibility in where workloads live, and traffic can be sent to the end nodes using ECMP and other types of load balancing.

Our network guys love it, they already know how to traffic engineer using BGP, this makes it even simpler.

<comment><USER3> I'll echo that - although I won't call it new. Using routing protocols at server level, binding a service IP address to the loopback interface and announcing it through an IGP has long been a tool in the infrastructure arsenal. It is especially useful in multi-tenanted services and/or logically partitioned infrastructure, although I first came across it around fifteen years ago whilst building new-wave IP carriers in Europe.

This pattern avoids some of the use cases for overlay networks (especially tunnels, but anything that reduces MTU can still cause problems in this day and age), reduces layer 2 domain scale, aids in service mobility (especially great for anything in a logical partition whether it's a JVM, a jail/zone or a VM), adds multipath resilience for clustered services, gives infrastructure- level visibility on group membership, gives a cheap failover mechanism for intermediate devices like reverse proxies or load balancers, and is simple to extend e.g. more service addresses for new tenants. And yeah, the network guys love it.

If you are very clever it can also extend recursively into the virtual domain. A VM binding a service address to its loopback address, announcing that via an IGP over a virtual interface to the host, which is basically now just a router. This reduces L2 domain size issues for VM farms (albeit by moving them to L3), and solves IP configuration issues e.g. during VM migration to another host or during DR processes. However, the usual Knuth caveats about being very clever apply to this situation. If you do this with, say, a JVM running with docker inside a Xen domU inside a physical host then you get what's coming to you. Or, you could aggregate the announcements at the host if you didn't need the migration part.

The downside of all this is that ops people without ISP or MAN/WAN experience generally need this pattern explained a few times before they get it (some never do - try not to hire those ones though), and practically no *nix distribution or management/config tools support this out-of-the-box, so there's a build & maintenance tradeoff. You can also build things that make some applications get really, really confused. Inadvertently creating an anycasted service might be fun, might also be a recipe for inconsistent application data.</comment></comment></comment>


Zenefits Lost $200M Last Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/zenefits-is-losing-200-million-a-year?utm_term=.toKmzvVvn#.wbqzW1d1m <comment><USER2> Not sure how much of that is accounting shenanigans but it doesn't sound promising. Aren't web businesses supposed to be high margin?

</comment><comment><USER3> They seem to have insanely high expenses. I wonder what their expenses are.

<comment><USER4> The tl;dr is, it's to pay a lot of people for gruntwork.

This has been talked about here before. Basically, Zenefits is in an industry that requires huge amounts of manual work. Dealing with payrolls and insurance requires navigating multiple Byzantine bureaucracies both public and private, and it's often work that can't be duplicated or automated. That's what you're paying ADP for, for instance.

Zenefits claims that they use innovation and clever technology to solve these problems, but-- to put it charitably-- that's an exaggeration of the truth. Behind the scenes there's an army of people on the phone and sending email all day to keep it all running, fueled by VC money.

It's not unlike all these food delivery startups, where the VC dollars ultimately go to a bunch of poorly-paid manual laborers, while the business owners sell the product below cost and try to figure out a working business model before the clock runs out. To me it doesn't look like they'll make it.</comment></comment>


Apache to include a mod_lua by default in next stable release - <AUTHOR> http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2008-12/msg00119.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is very good news for Lua as a web development language. The avaialability of a high-quality deployment option for web applications will remove one of the primary obstacles to acceptance of Lua for web development. Lua's small size could make it an appealing environment for use on small, cheap VPS systems from providers such as Dreamhost. Its performance should make it attractive for larger systems too.

</comment><comment><USER2> With any luck I'll be able to backport it to 2.2 as well, once it is stable, itself. It would probably be backported as an external module though, as it was when we called it mod_wombat.

<comment><USER3> A good name would be mod_moon.

<comment><USER4> If you read further into that mailing list thread, you see that the decision was to use 'mod_lua'. The previous user of that name has abdicated the throne, so to speak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This could be huge...I mean, really huge, like so huge it puts some far- fetched project like: <http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/> into a codeable context. If this module gets the care and tenderness it deserves I think it's safe to assume that it will forever change how we use HTTP and what we use it for. I mean think about it, given the advent of JavaScript on the front-end plus something like Lua on the back-end. . .you might as well say good-night to our current client-server model for the web as we know it. This is so big that calling it something like Web3.0 is a misnomer, something this big could render our operating-systems into browsers, our desktops into plugins/extensions, and our applications into remote-services...ok ok, maybe those last few somethings were a bit of a stretch, but it's exciting to see someone as big as Apache introduce a scrpiting module that has been responsible for something as successful as the gaming industry that this could be that back-end interface that JavaScript has been so patiently waiting waiting for ever since it almost miscarried out of the womb of Netscape. Plus, it's reassuring to know that C isn't going out of style any time soon. :P

<comment><USER6> I fear you're in for a letdown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, awesome. Lua is much nicer than PHP.

I have a feeling that if Lua catches on, though, that it will become the same cut-n-paste quagmire that PHP did. If you are only using something because it is already installed, you are not going to bother with libraries. That makes me sad.

But, we will see how it goes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, any language that becomes popular is going to have its share of crappy code being written. I'd much rather see newbie programmers get their start with a cleaner language like Lua than PHP, maybe it might help them learn better from the beginning.

<comment><USER7> Yes, I agree completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Now we need Lua on Orbits. ;-)

<comment><USER4> Indeeeeeeeeeed.

<http://orbit.luaforge.net/>

<comment><USER8> Orbit is more like Camping or web.py than Rails, though. But I tried to make its deployment (along with the rest of Kepler) as easy as PHP's as possible. :-) Having a Lua embedded on Apache by default should make _fast_ deployment very easy, too (the easiest way to deploy on Apache right now is CGI, with FastCGI being a little more work).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is something like WSGI compatible with Lua, or is there something equivalent that can be used?

<comment><USER2> There is, the Kepler folks came up with it, they call it WSAPI.

My main use for mod_lua, right now, is actually not content handlers (regular apps), but things like auth modules, ripping out mod_rewrite, etc. A large news company in atlanta used it for mobile browser sniffing and redirects at the first point in apache's handler chain (the quick_handler), as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> will ruby and python get the same treatment? if not, why not?

edit: ty.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.modpython.org/>

<http://www.modruby.net/>

<http://www.modrails.com/>

Lua is easy to add "by default" because its interpreter is tiny and was designed for embedding. The others are too big.</comment></comment>


Resurrecting the 8088 Micoprocessor - <AUTHOR> http://zixg.com/resurrecting-the-8088-micoprocessor <comment><USER2> I guess he's aiming for something like this:

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Breadboard_complex.jp...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Breadboard_complex.jpg)

The 8088/8086 were probably the first - and last - "breadboardable" x86 CPUs as everything after that came in square, non-DIP packages. However, there have been hobbyists making their own electronics for x86-based computers up to the 486: [http://dubel.org/computer/](http://dubel.org/computer/)

Starting with the Pentium, however, things got really hairy...

<comment><USER3> FWIW...The 80286 came in a 40-pin DIP, and of course lots of non-x86 processors came (still come) in DIP as well.

From a hobbyist perspective, PGA packages aren't really alot more difficult to deal with than DIP. Even LCC & PLCC packages have easy through-hole sockets.

QFP & PGA are, of course, nightmares. :-)

The real problem is it becomes increasingly difficult to breadboard a machine as processor clock goes above 10-20MHz. I've actually been puzzling how _slow_ a PCI bus can run, since prototyping something at 33MHz is really hard.

<comment><USER4> 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ CPUs are available in DIPs:

28-pin: [http://www.nxp.com/products/microcontrollers/cortex_m0_m0/lp...](http://www.nxp.com/products/microcontrollers/cortex_m0_m0/lpc1100/LPC1114FN28.html)

4-pin!: [http://www.nxp.com/products/microcontrollers/cortex_m0_m0/lp...](http://www.nxp.com/products/microcontrollers/cortex_m0_m0/lpc800/LPC810M021FN8.html)

<comment><USER5> 4? I think you meant 8!

<comment><USER4> Oops, yes. I've been considering an lpc812 16-pin device for a project but it would need a bunch of '595s for extra output bits. Instead I'm using a 64-pin stm32f030.. the overall price is the same, but the stm32f030 has more flash and RAM. Even so, NXPs development system seems more coherent (even though I'm not an eclipse fan).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Have to mention _Code_ by Charles Petzold which was recommended somewhere around here. It builds up from basic logic gates (with loads of diagrams) to a rough approximation of the 8080 series processors. A great book if you want to know the principles and history of this technology.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is awesome. I've been wanting to get into 8-bit computing and do a "ground up" build of something using an 8088, Z80, or something of that ilk for a while.

Since we're on the subject... can anybody recommend any good books / websites / magazine articles / etc., that cover this kind of ground? That is, starting from a raw chip (a simple one, like one of these old 8 bit ones, not a 80386 or something) and building a simple computer from scratch? I'd really like to get my hands dirty doing something like this, to get a better feel for the nuts and volts level stuff.

<comment><USER8> [http://www.amazon.com/8088-Project-Book-Robert- Grossblatt/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/8088-Project-Book-Robert- Grossblatt/dp/0830631712)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Author went for USB oscilloscope. Do not follow his recommendation if you like good quality usable tools. Sainsmart dds120:

[http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/sainsmart- dds120-usb-o...](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/sainsmart-dds120-usb- oscilloscope-\(buudai-bm102\)/)

"scope is advertised as 50Ms/s while the ADC runs at 40MHz"

40MHz sampling means its usable for signals up to ~10MHz. Its ok'ish for arduino level of tinkering.

If you like this type of old school hardcore hardware hacking check those links:

[http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com](http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com)

[http://www.s100computers.com](http://www.s100computers.com)

Those guys are actively building 20-30 year old computers from scratch. Most modern (and probably the fastest) is 386DX/486DLC board

[http://www.s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/80386%20Boa...](http://www.s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/80386%20Board/80386%20CPU%20Board.htm)

On the other end of the spectrum is virtual hardware hacking. MAME project has a less known offshoot branch called MESS. It emulates old computers on a logic level with single clock cycle precision (not instruction, its clock accurate!). To get you idea of what that means imagine sound card emulation. Sane person would map buffers and pump samples to your host sound API. MESS people on the other hand desolder chips from old Sound Blaster 2.0, DECAPSULATE Intel microcontroller responsible for DMA, read its rom content. Emulated sound card runs this rom dump on virtual Intel 8048. Same with Keyboards - they emulate 8048 with its rom content inside keyboard, and 8051 sitting on the motherboard with its individual rom content! :)

This is pretty crazy and inefficient (C++), but extremely accurate. Emulated hardware ranges from 6502 (and all of its individual sub models like 6510, 6509 etc) to 486/586 processors and 3DFX cards (again emulating low level functions, no opengl mapping there).

[http://www.mess.org](http://www.mess.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> I edited the post to add "I would not recommend buying this if you can afford otherwise." Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The other news in this article: Jameco is still in business?! Wow.

They used to supply geeks throughout the US with their mail order biz; For me, it was late 70s/early 80s.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jameco is very much alive! However, My bank recently called to verify some purchases with them. They claimed that my regular transactions with such a company were flagged as suspicious. I suppose the everyday household is not impulse buying this stuff as I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Where can one still buy an 8088? Are they still being produced?

<comment><USER12> I think the Z-80 is the main antique 8-bit that is still around. The 8088 supposedly shows up a lot as an IP core, but not as its own chip.

<comment><USER13> 6502s are also still being made and used in all kinds of stuff.</comment></comment></comment>


Startup idea: Biggest Bitcoin Online Shop - <AUTHOR> http://www.ideaswatch.com/startup-idea/biggest-bitcoin-online-shop

<comment><USER2> I just don't think this is possible at the moment. A t-shirt a few months ago would've cost 3 BTC ($5 each.) Now that same T-Shirt, with the same BTC price would cost $200.

The solution here looks like you need to make a store that automatically adjusts the prices based on the current exchange rate. But then why not just use USD instead?</comment>


Questions you should ask before adopting a DevOps solution - <AUTHOR> http://karmanebula.com/stop-the-madness/2013/12/13/four-questions-you-should-ask-about-devops

<comment><USER2> "What are you going to do if nothing on the list works, and you don't actually understand the system? I'll bet you're going to try to restart the system, or reinstall it, or rebuild it, or some other blunt action that equates to a last, desperate attempt to get the thing working."

I've done this so many times. My own trivial projects, but still. I always took it as another sign of "jesus, there's so much more to learn".

Speaking of learning: any devops resources anyone would point out to people? Even if they are just to know what you don't know you don't know types of things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think there is always so much more to learn, but it's important to take those uncomfortable feelings of, "Hm...maybe I'm just doing this because I'm out of ideas," and do the hard thing of reading up about it and becoming more expert.

Of course, that's not always possible in an emergency, but it pays huge dividends down the line.

As for resources, I like to start with looking at the hosted devops solutions to see if they actually solve a specific problem I'm having, and then play around with them in basic apps, and just kind of go from there.</comment></comment>


DropBox CDN - <AUTHOR> http://cdnpoint.com/2011/07/dropbox-cdn/

<comment><USER2> You can actually make your public folder available through CloudFront by creating a distribution and pointing it at the Dropbox web servers. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a risky business, since all the other Dropbox users will be able to use your distribution as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Considering that DropBox is designed/developed for a end user backup service..._

No, no, no. Dropbox is NOT a backup service.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just a user friendly backup service...

<comment><USER3> No, it's not. If you're connected to the internet and have sync turned on, and accidentally/mistakenly delete a file, that change is synced to your account. You can recover it for some period of time, but not indefinitely. Same thing with a virus/malware/etc. - changes are synced very quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> DropBox (and other file sharing sites) are blocked at my work, so I hope if this takes off, people use some sort of proxy.</comment>


Gitlab Enterprise – New Research on How Developers Work - <AUTHOR> https://page.gitlab.com/2016-Developer-Survey_2016-Developer-Survey.html <comment><USER2> Would anybody like to post a separate link to the full report, for those who don't want to divulge their PII in the form?</comment>


Too Big to Fail Is Failure Guaranteed - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@EdanYago/too-big-to-fail-is-failure-guaranteed-9b00a50faef1 <comment><USER2> If we ever wanted to see how DAOs and the law interact, let alot of people get screwed out of 50M-80M dollars and do nothing about it. I agree with the article in principle but in practice I doubt it works out that way.</comment>


IncludeOS: C++ unikernel now free and open source - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hioa-cs/IncludeOS <comment><USER2> > A minimal bootable image, including bootloader, operating system components > and a complete C++ standard library is currently 693K when optimized for > size.

WOW. That's just nuts! I mean I know linux can be slim, but thats less than a meg!

Really very exciting stuff. I don't know if I should play JC3 or tinker with this.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure you can find MIPS Linux images with Busybox et. all. that weigh less than that. A lot of routers run Linux on 2M eproms including user space.

<comment> david-given I have a port of Alan Cox's Fuzix for the MSP430 where the entire bootable ROM image is 27kB.

(That's actually quite big for a tiny-computer OS, although it's the smallest Unix I know of.)

<comment><USER4> I seem to recall the QNX kernel is pretty slim as well.

<comment> david-given That's just the microkernel, though --- it didn't contain any functionality other than sending messages (and a few other things, microkernels very).

Fuzix' 27kB contains the scheduler, drivers, tty, file system and Posix subsystem!

<comment><USER4> Fuzix definitely was end to end. On the other hand, the QNX kernel is a more capable foundation to build on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh, wow, this is exactly what I've been working on with a project called "fleet", though they've gotten a lot further than I did. I guess I'll have to consider ditching my code and using theirs instead.

</comment><comment><USER6> So anyone know how small the L4 kernel is compared to this?

<comment><USER7> 5-10 times smaller for regular ones with it closer to 50 for separation kernels. That's not a fair comparison, though, as you need extra components to support the unikernel or just components on the kernel. A more fair comparison might be L4Re, a stripped GenodeOS, OKL4 w/ necessary software, or NOVA with necessary software.

L4Re was the first attempt I believe at an environment for apps on L4:

[https://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/L4Re/overview.html](https://os.inf.tu- dresden.de/L4Re/overview.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any chance it will support Xen, too, in the future? Also, unikernels should preferably be written in memory safe languages like Rust.

<comment><USER9> > unikernels should preferably be written in memory safe languages like Rust

There is a rust project. How is that relevant to this?

<comment><USER10> When using a unikernel design there is no isolation between a single node software components like an OS can provide. All the code share the same memory space.

Isolation can be useful. For example the Postfix email server (running on a Unix, not unikernel) is decomposed into several processes with different privileges. That allows running the most sensitive parts with limited access rights, to protect against attacks, while still running those parts on the same server for efficiency. This process isolation is typically not provided with unikernels.

A lot of unikernels compensate for this by providing language level protection, by using safe high level language (see MirageOS using OCaml, other based on Erlang, haskell or rust). Then it's not process isolation but the language and its implementation that guarantee that provides protection / isolation between components. My understanding is that is what GP refers too.

A unikernel based on C or C++ will have no process isolation, and no language level isolation either. So sensitive components would have to be split into different nodes, isolated by using either separate VMs or machines. That's doable, but adds complexity to the orchestration and possibly some overhead.

<comment><USER4> > That allows running the most sensitive parts with limited access rights, to > protect against attacks, while still running those parts on the same server > for efficiency. This process isolation is typically not provided with > unikernels.

Unikernels also don't have notions of access rights. To make that model work, more than memory safety, you need declarative ways of asserting constraints, which... C++ arguably can pull off pretty well.

> A unikernel based on C or C++ will have no process isolation, and no > language level isolation either.

C++ has lots of support for language level isolation. Yes, due to C compatibility, if you diddle with memory you can find ways to violate those contracts, but it is entirely possible, particularly in a unikernel context, to prove that you aren't doing that.

> That's doable, but adds complexity to the orchestration and possibly some > overhead.

That'd add way more complexity and likely bugs to the code than just keeping the codebase clean.

<comment><USER11> Possible, but not necessarily easy; what tools do you use to sweep C++ code for 'unsafe' constructs?

<comment><USER7> I'm interested in the answer to that, too. A member of the Chrome team asked what static analysis or advanced verification tools I thought they could use in a significant C++ project. Digging around, I think I just found one, limited one plus two ways of doing Design-by-Contract (asserts & OOP). That was it. Not inspiring lol.

Now, there has been work on type-safe or memory-safe version of C++. They're non-standard. They also get smashed when a memory error occurs and _that will happen_. So, suggesting to rely on language-based isolation in C++ is a more a joke than something worth trying.

Good example of work on C++ safety:

[https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~eir/papers/2013/ironclad/paper.pd...](https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~eir/papers/2013/ironclad/paper.pdf)

<comment><USER4> > they could use in a significant C++ project.

The difference with Chromium is you've got all that integration with standard C runtimes that are inherently dicey. Unikernels are a different story.

<comment><USER7> C runtimes do add extra issues but that's not relevant to my comment. I said I largely came up dry on methods to prove correctness of _C++ code_. Quite important if one is considering C++ vs other language for a robust application and/or unikernel. C++ would be a bad choice if language itself was supposed to contribute to robustness.

<comment><USER4> > C runtimes do add extra issues but that's not relevant to my comment.

I really don't see how it is. If you're running on a desktop platform, you've got a huge exposed surface that is working with raw pointers to proprietary logic. That makes provable correctness a far, far more complex problem.

> I said I largely came up dry on methods to prove correctness of C++ code.

It is easy to implement a smart pointer that the compiler can _prove_ will always do bounds checking before dereferencing. The hard part is proving that all the code that uses raw pointers is doing the same thing.

<comment><USER7> "I really don't see how it is. If you're running on a desktop platform, you've got a huge exposed surface that is working with raw pointers to proprietary logic. That makes provable correctness a far, far more complex problem."

The point is that C++ itself is damn-near impossible to analyze on the cheap and without much false positives. That's before I even considered the C interface. Then there's C level problems that have been the reason I've opposed it forever. At least there's tons of stuff to draw on in analysing, transforming, etc that code. I'd go with a C subset or Java/Ada subset with high-integrity runtime any day over C++.

"It is easy to implement a smart pointer that the compiler can prove will always do bounds checking before dereferencing. The hard part is proving that all the code that uses raw pointers is doing the same thing."

I'll take your word on the smart pointers doing bounds-checks as I'm not up- to-date on all the techniques of C++ developers. Academics need to do a fresh take on that with assessments vs particular risks & compared to current languages. Meanwhile, most in safety-critical development that I know of don't use C++ because it's too complex and unsafe per them. I know there's MISRA subset and some other stuff. There are people who use it with thorough testing and source-to-object validation. Mostly not in use, though.

So, do you have any resources showing that C++ code is safe and analysable if one just uses smart pointers? And what tools and subset you use to do that? If you have that and proof it works, then that could help a lot of developers using C that aren't aware of it. I'm being serious as much as I am challenging your claim. If you have it, I'll consider it.

<comment><USER4> > I'll take your word on the smart pointers doing bounds-checks as I'm not up- > to-date on all the techniques of C++ developers. Academics need to do a > fresh take on that with assessments vs particular risks & compared to > current languages.

That's kind of already happened. Stroustrup has done a whole ton of work in that area with Concepts.

> Meanwhile, most in safety-critical development that I know of don't use C++ > because it's too complex and unsafe per them.

It turns out that provable correctness invariably involves a fair bit of complexity (you are basically compiling a mathematical proof). People use Haskell and Coq to really do it right, and --surprise-- those turn out to be hard for programmers to learn.

A lot of other, more popular, high level languages are actually terrible for provable correctness, even if they are better for proving memory safety. C++ isn't as effective for the job, but it has the advantage of being great for integrating in with the platform. It is a trade off, but one that is well worth while.

> So, do you have any resources showing that C++ code is safe and analysable > if one just uses smart pointers?

This stuff goes back a way, but stemmed from Modern C++ Design. There is a whole world of policy based design where you use the type system (much as with Haskell and Coq) to enforce declarative policies.

The quick thought experiment would be something like this:

        template <class T>
        struct SafeRef {
            void check() { ... }
            operator T&() { check(); return *x; }
            operator const T&() const { check(); return *x; }
        private:
            T* x;
        };

You can override operator-> to make it behave more like a proper pointer. CRTP gives you some pretty powerful ways of getting the job done too.

<comment><USER7> "That's kind of already happened. Stroustrup has done a whole ton of work in that area with Concepts."

Wasn't aware of that. It was an interesting read. Thanks for mentioning it.

"It turns out that provable correctness invariably involves a fair bit of complexity"

I wasn't even talking about that. I just looked for static analysis tools that could reliably find common implementation flaws or interface issues with little to no false positives. These already exist for C, Java, Ada, C#, and academic languages. Similarly, some verification or foundation of standard library like Modula-3's or the one for C. I found little to nothing of any of this for C++. So, the C++ verifications would all be visual and manual unless you pay big $$$ for one of few commercial tools.

Unacceptable. Formal methods would make C++ unacceptable for even more reasons.

"This stuff goes back a way, but stemmed from Modern C++ Design."

Same book pjmp recommended. Guess the study should start with it.

"You can override operator-> to make it behave more like a proper pointer. CRTP gives you some pretty powerful ways of getting the job done too."

Interesting example. I think one test of C++'s safety would be whether such methods can provide same protections that Ada provides where applicable to both languages:

[http://www.adacore.com/knowledge/technical-papers/safe- secur...](http://www.adacore.com/knowledge/technical-papers/safe-secure/)

It would need to catch the problems, do it during compile phase, and do it fast enough to be productive. I heard bad things about C++ compile phase in the past, esp for template heavy code. Plus, needs design-by-contract as Eiffel and SPARK have shown. I've seen it done with asserts and object constructors/destructors so that's probably not a problem. The other stuff, esp static analysis for memory & concurrency safety, is where C++ will be judged most.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Obama Exploits the Ignorance of Young People to Seize Control of the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/02/24/obama_exploits_the_ignorance_of_young_people_to_seize_control_of_the_internet <comment><USER2> Interesting that Rush concedes the youth demographic, including millennials, to the democratics. He also it appears is conceding the tech-savvy demographic.

I suppose that flyover country is not aware of what real broadband is capable of, and why they should demand it from monopoly ISPs that serve the rural areas.

As I write this in Austin, down the street Google is laying the fiber that will provide me with symmetric 1 GB internet service for my business. I can put my servers on the web at that speed for $130 per month.

<comment><AUTHOR> will google be regulated into this license buying aspect of net neutrality through the FCC?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ask him why you don't need a license to use a phone even though title two was used on phone companys? Also the difference is that radio and TV have a limited spectrum which limits the amount of content that can be broadcast. The internet does not have the same issue since each user can get different content unlike TV and Radio.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> tell me how wrong Rush is, so I can help my father understand.</comment>


Siblings Share Genes, But Rarely Personalities - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2010/11/18/131424595/siblings-share-genes-but-rarely-personalities <comment><USER2> Identical twins separated at birth tend to have more similar personalities than identical twins who grew up together. The hypothesis is that, due to the presence of each other when growing up, they actively (though subconsciously) differentiate themselves. It's reasonable to assume the same effect would happen to some extent with other siblings. The fact that twins (or siblings) are more similar when raised in different environments would seem to contradict the idea that subtly different environments are responsible for the majority of sibling discrepancy.

I'm working on finding the citation. The phenomenon is known as "twinning" but that apparently refers to a bunch of other junk that makes it hard to find what I'm referring to. I may have to dig out my bioethics book when I get home.

<comment><USER3> I'd heard of this effect, and I'd always wondered how it affected more homogenous populations. I wonder how much of the "freakyness" in Japanese culture (I mean from an American perspective!) can be explained by individuals trying to distinguish themselves from the thousands of very similar people they live with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As one of three boys born within four years of each other, I support Theory Three: Exaggeration. Yeah, we had differences, which were wildly exaggerated and reinforced, and which pushed us into different universities and it all goes to sh!te from there.

As the father of two now teen boys born within 12 months, they're freaking aliens compared to each other -- except other people can't tell them apart.

It's not my fault.

</comment><comment><USER5> My two kids had a completely different personality when they were each 2 months old. Their personalities have hardly changed in 4 years. So, none of these 3 theories account for this - I think genetics is a much bigger deal.

</comment><comment><USER6> My sister and I are completely opposites. I am an introvert, she is a crazy extrovert. She is a crazy risk taker, while I am risk adverse.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone interested in this stuff should read Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate"...</comment>


Ask HN: User Satisfaction Services - <AUTHOR>

uservoice.com + getsatisfaction.com = happy website customers. Is there a third part to this trifecta HN needs to know about? <comment><USER2> I don't understand how those two sites = happy website customers. Oh I know what those sites are and do but I don't see how it makes for a better experience for users. No need to try to make me understand either; I just don't happen to believe that those sites make my site better.</comment>


Texts between Levandowski and Kalanick - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/texts-between-travis-kalanick-anthony-levandowski-uber-waymo-lawsuit-2017-8 <comment><AUTHOR> Levandowski: Yo! I'm back at 80%, super pumped... we've got to start calling Elon on his shit. I'm not on social media but let's start "faketesla" and start give physics lessons about stupid shit Elon says like this

Levandowski might not have too many friends in Silicon valley after this ordeal</comment>


James Frey's Fiction Factory - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/print/?/arts/books/features/69474/

<comment><USER2> I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can't wait for Frey to get some competition. On the other, he's actually a pretty good commercial writer (competing with him will be pretty tough on that front) and I almost hope he branches out into the kind of formulaic, Oprah-bait adult fiction that mostly fills bookstore shelves - the stuff that's actually insufficiently pretentious (yes, that is possible). It's practically genre fiction already; why not have somebody drive the point home?

</comment><comment><USER3> This practice has been alive in various forms of art (ghostwriters on songs, apprentice painters, writers-for-hire, etc.) for the last several decades (at least).

As others have mentioned, the work often provides little creative value, but builds huge cult followings and massive profits for the artists. Koons' art regularly sells for $10-25mm and one of Hirst's auctions generated $198mm in 2008. Likewise, musical artists who employ ghostwriters often make it to the top of the charts, and authors like Frey can reap millions from their hired "co-writers."

Using "assistants" has been around for many years, and it's not going away anytime soon - there's still money to be made. One of the best examples of the absurdity occurring in the creative world is Banksy's Mr. Brainwash character in 'Exit Through the Gift Shop.' Highly recommended to all.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "He was looking for young writers to join him on a new publishing endeavor—a company that would produce mostly young-adult novels. Frey believed that Harry Potter and the Twilight series had awakened a ravenous market of readers and were leaving a substantial gap in their wake. He wanted to be the one to fill it."

"In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project"

<comment><USER4> ...without proof he can deliver sales yet only a $500 advance? Wow that's... ballsy. I know he's known for his books on writing but still, this seems an odd play and without prior proof hard to buy into.

<comment><AUTHOR> He did sell "I Am Number Four" to Spielberg.

<comment><USER4> Was that someone else's work? I know he can sell his own stuff, at least to publishing houses.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, the series was conceived and written by a Columbia mfa

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Though not sure I'd call selling to one person (Spielberg) the same as publishing (selling to the masses). But it's a lot better credential than only selling your own stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds really close to what Mark Kostabi did (does?) with his art: He hires fresh or recent art-school students for basically teenage McJob wages and "collaborates" with them (basically affixes his signature on their work) and sells the canvas for US$10000-50000 each.

There is a market for this teen/young adult genre-crossing stuff, and it will _certainly_ get saturated at some point. Whether that some point is when Frey starts his Warhol/Kostabi factory or not is the key question.

</comment><comment><USER6> He strikes me as being, for the printed word, what Jeff Koons is for sculpture and portraiture, all buzz and little value.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this the Y-Combinator of books?

<comment><USER8> Only if Y Combinator took total control of your idea, how it was sold, put only their name on it, and dealt with all the money coming into your business. So no, not really.

<comment><USER7> What is up with all the terms around pseudonym's and substituting the author's name and such? I get having terms that move a lot of the risk to the young writer, but I don't get why you'd be so malicious as to demand that they can't be associated with a book they've written.

<comment><USER9> It's pretty simple. If a book succeeds, the author's name acquires "brand equity." Frey wants to retain total ownership of all the equity. The real author knows it's a fraud; but with a confidentiality clause, they can't tell the world. It's an extremely nasty clause, designed to keep the author beholden to Frey. Sadly, this type of control freakism and greed are common in the murkier echelons of both the music and film business. To be fair, Frey is not alone. Any big shot who suddenly "writes" a memoir most likely had help; and a standard part of such ghostwriting arrangements is that the real author remain exactly that: a ghost.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Suggestions to improve fullscreen jquery plugin - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/thecodejack/jquery-html5-fullscreen I am making a fullscreen plugin for jquery and want to add some features...Some suggestions would be great<p>https://github.com/thecodejack/jquery-html5-fullscreen <comment><USER2> Does what it says.

What are some use cases?</comment>


Dick Smith Is the Greatest Private Equity Heist of All Time - <AUTHOR> https://foragerfunds.com/bristlemouth/dick-smith-is-the-greatest-private-equity-heist-of-all-time/ <comment><USER2> The private equity playbook for buying a public company:

1\. Find company with lots of cash on the books but trading very cheaply

2\. Acquire company and use cash on books to fund it

3\. Cut costs as deeply as you can and still have a company

4\. (Optional) Combine it with anther firm to create "synergy"

5\. Spin it back out for a profit

Corel was a company that got eaten and spit out in this fashion by Vector Capital.

It was purchased for about $120 million but it had $90 million of cash on its books, meaning the deal didn't require putting up alot of capital.

After the deal was done, there was a large head count reduction, which for a technical company is the equivalent of a retailing dumping inventory and not restocking it.

It was then merged with WinZip, WinDVD and a few other companies and then spun back out as a new company under the Corel name again.

It turns out that this didn't work so well for Corel and Vector reacquired them in 2009 to try this all again.

see: [http://247wallst.com/banking-finance/2009/10/29/corel- strang...](http://247wallst.com/banking-finance/2009/10/29/corel-strangest-go- private-ma-ipo-story-of-the-decade-crel-msft-adbe/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to work at Dick Smith at the time they still carried the suffix Electronics, from 2003 - 2007. I loved it there, grew up going there and playing with the gadgets and electronics. They're a shell of their former selves now, just a cheap consumer electronics store that tried to compete with other Australian retailers selling house branded and lower-end branded products.

They could probably significantly revitalise by moving back to tools & parts, I doubt many former customers would be loyal now though given how they were treated at the point all the PRZ range was dumped (parts, resistors, capacitors & semiconductors).

Be interested to see how this all plays out.

</comment><comment><USER4> How could Woolworths be so stupid?

Net assets of Dick Smith before acquisition were $370MM and that's not even accounting for intangible assets such as value of Dick Smith brand.

Why would Woolworths think selling for $115MM was ever good idea? Who was in charge back then?</comment>


Does anyone track "best of" on HN? - <AUTHOR>

The Microsoft thread has to be up there.<p>At this moment, 1696 points, 652 comments. <comment><USER2> There is one tracking recent stories: [https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best). Check the lists link at the bottom of the page.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder what "best of all time" would be. Anyone have an idea?

<comment><USER3> Define it and we'll try to make a list for you.

<comment><USER4> It'd be important to add a correction dew to the increase of the user numbers. I remembered a old popular story about Homer in CSS and when I searched it, it has only 39 points. In that time it was a lot of points.

<comment><USER3> Revision: Define it in a way I can code in 10 minutes or less and I'll try to make a list. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I'm not thinking "best of". Instead a better way to describe would probably be "most of". Such as: Thread with most points. Thread with most comments. Etc.

Although, come to think of it, this could cause competition, so perhaps instead "density" of comments, or "number of comments within 'X' units of time". Same with Points.

<comment><USER5> At the bottom of the page there is a "lists" link which contains:

        leaders	Users with most karma.
        best	Highest voted recent links.
        active	Most active current discussions.
        bestcomments	Highest voted recent comments.
        noobstories	Submissions from new accounts.
        noobcomments	Comments from new accounts.

I'd be interested in something like "links with most classic votes" where a classic voter is someone who has a six year old account. Like classic[1] but for votes not submissions.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/classic](https://news.ycombinator.com/classic)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=607271](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=607271)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to be Creative - <AUTHOR> http://howtobecreative.co/

<comment><USER3> The copy at the top of the page threw me for a loop. I read it as "You don't have to be artistic to be creative", but then it's followed by "Whoever told you that, lied to you". This negates the first statement making me think that I _do_ need to be artistic to be creative. Maybe I need some sleep. Let me know what you meant by the copy.

<comment><USER4> I'd wager "Whoever told you that, lied to you" was meant to say "Whoever told you 'you have to be artistic to be creative' lied to you."

<comment><AUTHOR> "Whoever told you that you need talent to be creative, lied to you."-- any better?

<comment><USER5> How about:

"Whoever told you creativity is something you're born with, lied to you."

<comment><AUTHOR> Even better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Creativity is not art, skill, or luck. Creativity is a problem solving skill"

Either it's a skill, or it isn't.

<comment><AUTHOR> I over thought the sh*t out of that. Thank you for pointing out this obvious confusion.

I'm trying to simplify a extremely complex idea, and because writing is not my strong point, I'm bound to mess up. Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm excited for the next ebook "How to be handsome"

<comment><AUTHOR> You callin' me pretty, boy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> At quick glance, spotted a few typos. Suggest running it through a spell checker. Paragraphs jumps from left justification to full justification - <USER2> just 1 (left is my suggestion). And you can afford to turn off hyphenation with so much sentence space.

Stick to letter/A4 document size - easier to read/scroll through and print for those that want a physical copy.

Those blue lines (in all caps), they seem so random. Sometimes they are of their own paragraph. Sometimes they appear at the start, sometimes at the end and sometimes they're in quotation marks. Avoid using all caps if the sentence is long, it really reduces readability.

Either you're pressing enter twice to break the paragraphs or the spacing is too much. Try decreasing it.

Good typography really help. So thought I'd throw those suggestions at ya.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for pointing these out. All things I am going to use to modify the .PDF-- I want it to be as optimal as it can.

<comment><USER9> Forgive my pedantry, but things are either optimal or they are not. There are not degrees of optimality, though things can be nearer or farther from optimal. Like uniqueness.

I know some people hate this kind of comment, but since you are writing and we like to offer constructive advice around here, please take this as a friendly bug report.

<comment><AUTHOR> I forgive your pedantry, and I consider what said to be very constructive, thank you.

I respect your opinion; but I really disagree, I believe "optimal" is a word that is only defined by relativity.

One person can be more optimal at doing a job than another, one tool can optimize your website better than another. You can be really far from optimal, or really close.. Or somewhere in between?

"There are not degrees of optimality, though things can be nearer or farther from optimal. "-- Well they can be degrees of near or far.. To me that is "degrees of optimality".

I'd love to continue talking with you about this outside of HN, if you want to. Coeyman at gmail.com

<comment><USER9> The OED definition is "Best, most favourable, esp. under a particular set of circumstances".

So it really is not the degree of goodness or bestness, but the absolute best. Again, like uniqueness, a boolean property.

This is only important to me because I'm a scientist/engineer. If I claim my system performs optimally, this is a big claim and needs proof, since I'm claiming it could not possibly be better. Since I have to be so careful in technical writing, my spider-sense tingles when I see technical terms used with an almost-but-not-exactly correct meaning. YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting. Reminds me of Hugh MacLeod's book Ignore Creativity: [http://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Everybody-Other-Keys- Creativity...](http://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Everybody-Other-Keys- Creativity/dp/159184259X)

<comment><AUTHOR> I took a different approach to creativity than Hugh did in his eBook "How to be Creative". One of things he says is that creative type people have 2 "jobs", one to pay bills and one to be creative. I think he is dead wrong.

Creativity is a problem solving technique. It's not art.

Me mentions religion, and some scientific ideas, where I try to take a new angle on the subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd definitely like to work somewhere where 'Imagination Specialist' is a real job title :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope to eventually work for myself, and be able to take whatever title I see fit.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Got unexpected feedback - where do I go from here? - <AUTHOR>

TL;DR - Had overwhelmingly positive feedback on an idea, not sure how to take it to the next step!
Hey HN,
I usually build small projects that tick along nicely. The feedback I usually get is that they're useful, neat or fun ideas.I recently scoped out, wireframed, sketched and planned a new web & mobile app. It's something that distributed teams & startups might like to use.
It would be of use in my day job and I usually start at that jumping off point for my ideas.
I've spent a bit of time & money working with a designer to go through each screen and mocking it up properly. I figure getting it to that point makes it easier to share. I usually put the ideas into a working file then as my technical skills improve or if I have a bit extra cash I can hire a developer for the bits I can't do myself.
However with this project, the feedback has been like never before!
I've had 5 offers of pre-order (even without me asking "would you buy it") I've had several business cards with people saying "let me know when I can sign up" or "get in touch when your prototype is ready".
I've even had people tell me it's a "fundable idea" - which is something I had never even considered, I've always just bootstrapped my projects.
There would be a very steep learning curve for me to build a prototype for this, probably would take me months. While I'm eager and willing it defeats the object of a quick prototype that gets thrown away.
I'm building a mailing list of those who have registered their interest & I'm still gathering as much feedback as I can.
What kind of numbers are convincing enough to push this forward? What matters most in this situation? Quickness or proof of concept, showing the full potential?
Or do I take it all with a pinch of salt and let it rest in my project folder?
Thanks! <comment><USER3> Take a pinch of salt - you've crossed the first barrier - you're looking at something people want.

Ask the magic question - 'Will you pay $X for this per month?' That differentiates ppl who find it 'nice' vs people who are desperate for it. This will also give you baseline pricing. Pitch it high and come low. If you think it's worth $100/m, start asking at $250/m.

What's an interesting revenue number for you from this? Say it's $10000. Say your price is $50/m [Are your customers ready to pay this much?]. Then you need 200 customers. Is the market big enough to support that? Can you reach this many customers?

Meanwhile, do the pipeline research. What do people look for when they want this product? What search terms do they use? Use Adwords Explorer to find out how many people in which region are searching for this - <https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer> . See how many competitors exist in this space, are they easy to find, are they targeting the right keywords [semrush.com]

If everything is positive, create a landing page, start doing some basic SEO or even SEM [if the price is low enough], to get signups, and if you're up to it, pre-orders.

Then build the product :)

P.S. I've done bits and pieces of this before - not done all the way. If you want to chat abt this, I'm prasanna 79 at google's email service.

P.P.S. I'm surprised this is not on the front page. I'd have thought this is clearly the most pertinent of HN material.

<comment><USER4> Excellent advice. But I don't like the question, "Will you pay X?" People spend imaginary money differently than real money.

Instead, ask for them to write a letter saying that when the product is released, they intend to sign up and pay X. Wikipedia has more: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_intent>

This does not legally commit them to paying; if you deliver junk, they can pass. But it's serious enough that people behave much more like a real purchase.

Or, given that there are good mockups, the initial website could test prices. If they select a plan and click "sign up" you can capture their email address and plan selection.

<comment><USER3> I very much like the 'Will you pay $X question' since it pushes them into whether they will really buy this. This question may be less useful in a B2C context where it's more of an impulse and less well thought out. But makes a LOT of sense in B2B, where the budgeting and RoI processes are much better thought through.

P.S. LoI's make more sense in a very big business context. But I doubt they'd mean much for a small SaaS offering. Also, not many potential customers will be so needy that they'd go to the trouble of a formal LoI. An email should be sufficient at this stage.

<comment><USER4> I'm not suggesting a formal paper LOI; if they're email people, email is fine. But I think there's a big psychological difference between somebody saying, "Oh, we'd pay X" in response to an interview question and them saying in writing that they will pay X when the product is available if it meets their needs.

I agree that not many potential customers will be so needy that they'll do that. But not many potential customers will be so needed that they'll actually sign up and pay, so I think that's fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Start building it now.

That's the only answer. Get off your butt, stop taking in more feedback and other excuses for you to actually do something, and start building the prototype now. There are always reasons for you to wait, gather more data and feedback, etc, but all that will do is stall you and make you lose momentum. Start coding now, and don't worry about what you do or do not know, just do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish I had the skills to make a good attempt at it! I'd be on it.:) I'd be taking unpaid leave from my day job and getting it done! That would be awesome.

I totally agree I should be doing what I can, even if that is just finding out where I get stuck and then outsourcing the bits where I fall short.

I just want to make a good job of it.

<comment><USER6> > I'd be taking unpaid leave from my day job and getting it done!

If you take the risk, there is an x% chance of success with your new venture. (You fill in x.)

If you continue to work your day job, there is a 100% chance you will continue to work your day job.

I suspect you already know which path you want to take.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha this is so true. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Before you let it rest in your project folder, you can try to pitch your idea at a startup weekend or similar event (basically, hackers, designers and business people spend a weekend trying to "create" a startup, usually building a MVP and doing some customer validation).

If your pitch includes "I have a mailing list of X persons who are very interested in this and would love to spend money on it", then it is going to stand out. It is usually possible to build a really rough proof-of-concept in that time, and you can use that to validate your idea, to a certain extent. If you are lucky, you might even find some developers who find this project interesting enough to continue working on it after the weekend.

But you'll need some luck for this to work perfectly, so if you are super- serious about it, try the paths outlined by others here.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have actually been to Startup Weekends before. They're awesome!

They always say you can't work on things you've already started on - so I'm a bit dubious about it sounding like "hey build this for me guys".

They are a great way to build stuff no doubt.

<comment><USER7> I don't know the exact definition of an idea being started on, so yeah... I'd say it's fine. If you had build a prototype, that would have definitely crossed the line. But you don't even have a landing page up, right?

I have only been to one (in Berlin) before, and there have been a couple of pitches where people did spend time previously researching. It's fine with me, if you are willing to leave some creative freedom and not force everything pixel-specific onto people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Check your day job's rules on who owns things you work on before anything else happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, good point. A lot of people I work with are open about their other side projects, books, businesses etc and the management are supportive of it.

I know all of that goodwill can go out of the window easily so I will certainly check.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> First of all, congrats! That's awesome :)

I would follow startup framework and try to think about what an MVP would be just to test and make sure people would really, actually pay for this instead of just taking their word for it. I had a similar situation with my project (matchist) where freelance developers were really excited about the idea, so my partner and I put our heads down, built it and then realized we spent way too much time building and not enough time getting feedback all along the way and making something much much more basic.

<comment><USER4> Yes, yes, yes!

The number of possible products one can make from an initial idea is very large. Some of those products will be great; some ok; most will fail. (Look, for example, at the ocean of to-do lists in your favorite app store.)

Most of the information needed do build a great product resides in the world and in the heads of future customers. Releasing early and often is the best way to test the many hypotheses that are generated while creating a product.

It also lets you probe the equally important market space. What are people willing to pay for? How much will they pay? Who are those people? How do you present your product? How can you help them engage their friends?

As a developer, I'd rather just go build the thing in my head. But that would be the product that satisfies me, not my future customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another idea - have you heard of a concierge MVP? If you can pull it off, you can validate that your idea really solves a pain of the customer (right now you have probably validated that your customers have a pain).

I'll also recommend the book Running Lean by Ash Maurya, he gives very concrete instructions on what to do and it is a very guide with a lot of practical tips (vs. a high level description).

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, I've not heard of that before. That's really interesting.

I'm looking into it now. I need to scale back from current polished design to the root of the offer.

I know that in my day job we manage these tasks with whiteboards, flip charts & paper and it's rubbish! Everyone hates it & it takes too long!

I might ask those that are interested how they currently manage it and how my solution will improve it. (faster, more fun, distributed responsibility) That would really be valuable information!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You need a partner, or funding to hire a team, or both.

Without the technical abilities, all you have is an idea that you're unable to execute on. Valuation of ideas can vary, but no one here will argue that execution matters less.

It might be possible that your idea is adequately novel that it can wait six months or a year for you to develop the technical skills yourself. Actually, I've found that ideas from people who lack the technical skills to build them often _need_ to wait because the underlying tech/infrastructure/market doesn't exist yet. This is especially true for ideas that generate big enthusiasm.

Also, you will want to be in California, if you continue to work at your day job while thinking about this project. Someone please correct me if there are any other US states with clear company-time delineators.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do have SOME technical skills and I know I can learn anything I need it's just in what timeframe.

I don't think it's that novel, just presented simply which would make using it each day and improvement on the current method.

I'm not even in the US, so being in California is even less likely. Though I do plan to spend some time there next year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bear in mind that far more people will tell you its a good idea than will buy it (usually) so adjust any projections accordingly.

If the time to code the prototype yourself, or the money to outsource the coding, is too much of a risk to take in your personal circumstances, consider finding a technical co-founder to work with to do it. You'll have to give up part of your potential gains, but remember that 50% of something is (usually) better than 100% of nothing.

Edit: also remember that the longer you leave it to do _something_ , the more chance someone else will come along with a similar idea and steal your thunder. Though that may be useful for someone else to test your market for you..!

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally! I pretty much ignored the first couple of people that voluntarily said they'd like to try it out. I thought "I'll come back to you when it's time to put your money out there"

After more and more people say the same thing, it gets hard to ignore. I've never had that before with other projects!

I've realised if I do it myself or if I save up & outsource it then it will take the same time. The outsourced one would probably be more effective and I could use my time on building a list. Yet part of me is stuck on at least building a part of it!

There is already a big player in this market but they offer a much more complicated solution & miss out on a tool that I think is fundamental. So mine is more aimed at small teams. The competition out there already has tested the market which is good! I calculated that 1% of their sales is like $4mm per year and I don't expect anything near that. It just proves that the market is big.

As good as it would be, I don't understand why a technical co-founder would work on my idea. Though having expertise on the team would bring me technically up to speed so I could pull my weight. I don't even think I'd deserve 50% in that scenario as they'd have to be the lead.

I wouldn't mind if someone came in with a similar idea, so long as it got built properly. First to build it owns the idea, I don't have anything yet.

<comment><USER4> Your last couple of paragraphs really bother me. I see a lot of very smart people talking the same way. Ask yourself if this rings any bells:

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

The reason a technical co-founder would work on your idea is that you have a great idea, solid feedback, and the drive to figure out what that idea really means. Plus the skills necessary to deal with all the mushy, human side of product development, producing a clean stream of things to build.

The last time I started something, my co-founder did all of that, plus all the fundraising. I got a lot less than 50%, and thought it was a fair deal. As the founder and visionary, you should avoid giving up more than 49% for as long as possible, hopefully ever, because then you give up control.

At startup events I see plenty of arrogant idiots who have done no more than you (and often less) looking for co-founders and investment. Your natural humility is an asset when it comes to building products, because it means you will listen to your users and serve them well. But in the realm of entrepreneurship, it will hurt you, because you will reflexively defer to people who act more confident.

This is your idea. Nobody will ever love it as much as you. Take it and run. As hard as you can. It may work and it may not, but don't let it be because you didn't believe in yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's very kind of you to say. I appreciate it.

I like to be super-realistic, which may come across as lack of self belief. I'm happy to celebrate my successes, however with this project - I'm keenly aware that little has been achieved yet. From my point of view, I would be reluctant to join someone elses idea, so I presume there's a limited number of people that would be willing to take that kind of risk.

I do feel that I have a lot to bring to the table in a partnership,in lots of areas, including technical thinking & ability. Right now what's needed is everything I don't have and I'm respectful of that. A few months & a self built prototype down the line it would be a much more equal partnership.

I've been to those events and I'd hate to ever be pigeon-holed as someone who wants someone else to do the work for them based on little proof.

They are often oblivious to the learning, planning, effort that goes into building something. I only know because I've tried and will continue to try.

I've been careful to outline what I've done so far, as I welcome the advice given by the HN community.

I agree that instead of being quietly confident I should push myself forward more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As it happens, I'm currently in a slow period and looking around for side projects that might lead to money. The other posters have some reasonable general ideas, but if you're willing to provide more detail, I can see whether it's the sort of thing that I'd be able to either help with or find someone else for—right now I can't determine enough from your post to say anything useful that hasn't already been said. You can send me email at my HN username at mailforce.net, if you wish. :-)

</comment><comment><USER13> Explore and investigate this further before committing.

Specifically make sure you can deliver _exactly_ what these eager beavers are willing to sign up for, and that you can do it on time and within budget. They might've got the wrong idea, your mockups might've been too optimistic in their feature set, etc. Just make sure to re-validate your idea and confirm you are on the same page with these people.

Cheap - fast - good, pick two.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I've tried to keep the feature set simple so maybe they are imagining it having things it doesn't.

I need to start taking more detailed feedback from people but I don't want to sway them by asking leading questions.

Even though it only has a primarly and secondary features, it's certainly still beyond what I've ever built before.

I'm considering all angles really. Even if it means selling the idea on, I'd rather it get built properly.

<comment><USER14> I'm assuming the grandparent comment is sarcasm (if it's not, it should be).

Leverage this enthusiasm to build the MVP. If you don't know how or it's beyond your capabilities, there's plenty of resources available now to learn how. Get something in the hands of these early adopters and move on from there.

<comment><USER13> No, it's not sarcasm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> All those people who have expressed interest, ask them if they think others might be interested; demo it to them and start building your list. Hire a developer. Watch this video interview of Dane Maxwell on Mixergy for many more ideas -- <http://mixergy.com/dane-maxwell-zannee-interview/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers for the link, I will take a look at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Find a co-founder, build an MVP (if technically possible) in a month or two, keep it secret from your employer. keep your day job until you get seed money or you have lot's of savings. Be very nice and buy a lot of nice things to your spouse, as spouses are the biggest partner that can make / break your startup. Especially if you have kids.

<comment><AUTHOR> No kids but my partner has his own side-project that I help with, so I know he'd be really supportive of anything I wanted to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Outsource the initial prototype, then develop onwards from there if showing signs of success.

Also people saying they are willing to buy and actually handing over their credit card details are 2 different things.

It looks like you are on to something good, get the MVP asap, and see what the real response is.

<comment><USER18> Sorry, what is "MVP"?

<comment><USER19> Minimum Viable Product: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Have you thought of approaching someone else at your work if side projects are allowed? Add me to the list of interested but not quite sure what it is, if you're looking for a hand, let me know - contact details in profile - <USER2> finished an MVP for a client and about to start another.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've looked within my group of friends but not at work. My colleagues have side projects but they tend to be products & services and not tech based. It'd be good to discuss further if you're interested. I'll drop you a mail.</comment></comment>


TextRiley: Text-message-focused real estate service for realtors - <AUTHOR> http://www.textriley.com/brokerSignup

<comment><USER2> I developed almost exactly this in the pre-smartphone era for a company that wanted to be the "MLS of MLSes". I think the infrastructure is better for the idea this time around. Best of luck!</comment>


Download your Twitter archive when account is suspended - <AUTHOR> Long story short: Twitter blocked my account for posting some guy's email address (a Gmail address, so who knows if it was his real address or not) after he wrote it to me to talk in private, and then he deleted that message.
I don't care much for Twitter suspending my account, they got their reasons, they are wrong in my opinion this time, but I don't think social platforms as they are now are places of justice.
What I care about is my personal data on Twitter.
Apparently you can't download you archive if the account is suspended.
I thought of downloading my archive and then delete the account, but I can't, I can't even remove my phone number from the profile.
I can't even remove the account!
Is it even legal?
p.s.: I'm in Europe and my rights as owner of my personal data are protected by the GDPR.
Can Twitter violate it?
Should I report it to the authorities? <comment><USER2> contact a GDPR lawyer</comment>


Graph Search's Dirty Promise and the Con of the Facebook "Like" - <AUTHOR> https://stevecheney.posterous.com/graph-searchs-false-promise-and-the-con-of-th <comment><USER2> I say this all the time to my clients. Your end goal should not be more likes. They are worthless. The goal should be more actual interactions with your app or website or product.

The same goes for people focusing on getting people to click the big green button on their homepage that says "learn more" which takes them to another page (?!?). The buttons should encourage interaction and progressing that user to use, experience, and depend on your product.

</comment><comment><USER3> I dunno.

I don't use Facebook much these days except as a way to log in to other web sites. I didn't have a day when I decided that "I hate Facebook", I just drifted away.

My profile is full of all the anime I was watching two years ago. It's pretty thin, and when you consider that it intersects with a population of friends and family I knew 20 years ago, I don't know if anything useful is going to come out if it, at least for me.

Some people might be in a more thickly connected part of the graph and get better results.

</comment><comment><USER4> Another issue with Facebook is that content is created for consumption by all of your connections. It's social preening. It's what you aspire to be, but wholly incomplete as a medium for search.

A few of the missing items:

-All the dirty stuff you won't show your grandmother. "Watch what you post" is part of raising kids today.

-What you fear. Do you post that you need an abortion or that you might have cancer?

-Gross stuff. Nobody posts that they have hemorrhoids. Or any number of things that you don't want girls you might date to see.

-Things we're ashamed of.

-Things that make us different. If you're a gun-toting neanderthal in SF or a gay man in the bible belt, you might not want everyone on facebook knowing that.

-Things the government will read. Reading revolutionary ideas, means of destruction, might be interesting and educational. However, posting on these topics or having a traceable record of them is a wholly different level. Think about prosecutorial misconduct.

I think FB will have a reasonable degree of success in search. However, it's badly gimped.

<comment><USER5> The problem with Facebook is that it drags all the social bullshit that people perpetuate into a larger forum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How many people actually care whether their friends like (whatever "like" means) Coke or Pepsi? The most useful graph searches would most likely be job or travel-related queries like "friends who live near San Francisco" or "friends who work for Google". Such truly personal data will never be polluted by advertising campaigns.

And if "friends who like Restaurant X" doesn't turn out to be a reliable way of getting a good restaurant review, people will quickly stop using it. Or they'll send a message to their friend to confirm whether they really recommend the restaurant or they just liked it for a coupon. Eventually they'll figure out which of their friends are reliable reviewers and which just click on every "like" button.

</comment><comment><USER7> > The truth however is that the link between query intent and your social > interactions for interests and places is much weaker than FB wants you to > believe.

i must diasgree with this line. facebook is not the place that you could search for a specialized query (for example algorithms or scientific data). instead it is a place to search for people, restaurants and other day to day subjects that people tend to talk about in daily chats, and they may share links or write status about them in social networks. yes, maybe number of likes is a bad measure to rank the results, but it definitely is a measure.

</comment><comment><USER8> Facebook increasingly feels like hanging out at the mall...

</comment><comment><USER9> Even an ineffective Graph Search is still probably a net win for Facebook, however. The ineffectiveness itself could be a kind of lure for less-popular businesses who want more exposure (and perhaps have some interests in appearing more popular than they are)... it doesn't fit every business, but it is certainly a non-empty market.

</comment><comment><USER10> But it _is_ a good bet - people I know are more likely to Use services I will also want to use.

There is dirty data in there, but I would suggest the people who like coke to get a token are the kind of people I will happily ignore recommendations from anyway

<comment><USER11> But do you know why they chose to like something? With Coke, it's possibly a fair bet that it was because of a competition. But for a local restaurant, even if they've gone there and liked it, that could simply be because they saw a "get a 10% discount on your bill if you like us on Facebook",

<comment><USER10> Its a simple catch-22 - a "like" has no downside cost to me, so I will happily trade it in for 10% of my bill (Hell I wish more UK restaurants did this!)

However in the new graph search world (and indeed before this really) the downside cost was that I am seen as a like-whore trading my affections.

The more facebook becomes real the more the cost of like will increase.

There will be a virtual rate of exchange - as indeed there is today. Some of my friends tell everyone everything, some play their cards close to their chest. I judge their recommendations accordingly. Somehow social graphs need to do the same - and frankly that is pretty easy weighting really.

<comment><USER11> I'm still not sure how you (or Facebook) is meant to be able to tell the difference between a genuine like and a 10% discount like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It would be great if there was a new notification introduced: "Joe decided to eat at Ray's Pizza after seeing you liked it." #notgonnahappen</comment>


With $2 Gas, the Toyota Prius Is for Drivers Who Stink at Math - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-10/with-2-gas-the-toyota-prius-is-for-drivers-who-stink-at-math <comment><USER2> First, they are comparing the wrong cars: they take the Chevy Cruze and Nissan Leaf -- both compact cars -- but compare them against the midsize Prius, rather than the compact Prius C (which not only has better gas mileage than the midsize Prius, but also a sticker price in the same range as the Cruze.)

They also call gasoline + initial price "total cost of ownership", ignoring maintenance costs, and -- critical to the all-electric Leaf -- _electricity_ costs.

Further, assuming $2 gas over any extended time is, well, dubious. Sure, prices are falling now, but while short-term drops happen, we haven't seen an extended period (> 1 year) of $2 gas (overall US retail prices are closer to $3 now than $2) since 2004, and there's no sign of any kind of long-term change that would return us to an extended period of sub-$2 gas.

Its not clear to me if this is just ludicrously incompetent, or if this is just a Nissan ad (with the kind of deliberately misleading comparisons and assumptions one might expect in an ad) dressed up to look like a news article.

[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=em...](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=w)

</comment><comment><USER3> IF gas remains at $2 for 8 years</comment>


The Perils of Naming Your Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.erickarjaluoto.com/blog/the-perils-of-naming-your-company/

<comment><AUTHOR> We've named a number of companies/groups over the years. A couple of weeks back, when 53 was frustrated by Facebook's use of the name Paper, I thought I should post some notes on the topic.

This is by no means a definitive post on naming companies. That said, I think a lot of the notions presented are useful ones to consider. (And I know that a lot of the folks on HN have likely wrestled with some of these challenges as well.)

I hope some of you here find the article useful. :-)</comment>


Julian Assange's Chances of Extradition - <AUTHOR> https://www.lawfareblog.com/if-assange-leaves-ecuadorian-embassy-what-next <comment><USER2> Russians poison him as an asset at the end of its life.</comment>


Augmented Reality Software Test Bed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.htmlfusion.com/holo-ui/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psW_osCT2nw <comment><AUTHOR> For a video demo checkout [https://youtu.be/psW_osCT2nw](https://youtu.be/psW_osCT2nw)</comment>


Ask HN: Best place to sell unused domains? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I have a couple of what I would consider to be high(er) value domains, and then a few lower value domains I would like to sell, but I'm especially interested in unloading the higher value ones because of their income potential.
I have them all listed at Namebox.io, but get no offers, & I see via Google that a site called Sedo claims to be the biggest domain reseller, but I've never heard of them.
What experience do HN'ers have with domain resellers? Which will get my 2 good domains sold for me? Is Sedo worth their 20% commission?
Please advise.
Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Regards,
-c <comment><USER2> Yes, Sedo is the biggest. Your domains are probably not very valuable though, unless you very regularly receive significant offers on them already. Most people drastically over value their domains.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Sadly that is very true.

There are sporadic posts on HN about people trying to sell domains. One of them jumped out at me as being "quirky", and although I didn't have a use for it I figured £200 would be enough.

The reply I received was "Sorry, I'm unwilling to accept offers of less than $50,000."

The post in question? Said "Make a reasonable offer". I guess we had different ideas of what was reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Godaddy auctions is huge too and they recently bought Afternic which was either the largest or 2nd largest domain reseller in the world. I own a handful of short, higher level domains and as they mentioned they're worth a lot less than you might think if you're not actively getting offers on them. Looking at those names, to be honest I wouldn't think they would be worth a whole lot.

</comment><comment><USER5> You could always donate them - [http://www.domains4good.org/](http://www.domains4good.org/)

I haven't used it personally but seems like something worth checking out.

</comment><comment><USER6> The value will probably drop when gtlds come out. Flippa and web hosting forums might work.

</comment><comment><USER7> What are the domains? Maybe someone here is interested...

<comment><AUTHOR> The 2 good ones are: subsonicsoftware.com & superspeedyservers.com

The others are: recordsafeapp.com, recordsafeapp.tv & superior-sound- systems.com

All have about 9 years left on their registration & are registered with Gandi.

<comment><USER8> With 9 years left, I'd:

1) Advertise them on Sedo/namebox/etc

2) Put up a "For sale" page along with a way to contact you

You've pre-paid for 9 years - so there's no rush. I'm a fan of putting a price on the page as well - a high price. Putting up a high price lets prospective buyers know that you are serious, even if you don't expect to sell the domain name for anything close to that. Anyone serious about buying the domain will ignore your price anyway and offer a low figure - at least then you have negotiation reference points (high and low). That said, some domainers say not to list a price and make the buyer submit an offer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://namebox.io/](http://namebox.io/)</comment>


Ask HN: How is Loopt doing these days? - <AUTHOR>

They were the hot stuff for a while but I havent heard anything from them for a while, anybody know the situation? <comment><USER2> We've been quiet in the press but hard at work. The three biggest things on our plate right now are 1) growing as fast as we can 2) integrating Facebook Places and doing interesting things with the data (eg, what places around me do my friends go to) and 3) figuring out this new real-time sales model ([http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/02/virgin-america-rides- loopt-...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/02/virgin-america-rides-loopt-taco- truck-special-to-fifth-largest-revenue-day-ever/)).

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to hear. I am rooting for you guys.</comment></comment>


Yes, many psychology findings may be "too good to be true" – now what? - <AUTHOR> http://retractionwatch.com/2015/08/27/yes-many-psychology-findings-may-be-too-good-to-be-true-now-what/

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion of related article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10131387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10131387)</comment>