Meetup Golf - a game I play to keep myself from networking wrong - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ledwards.com/blog/2013/07/28/meetup-golf/ <comment><USER2> I've personally found most networking events to be terrible when it comes to making meaningful connections.

I've found it's much more effective to just email someone you're interested in connecting with, introduce yourself, and invite them meet up sometime for a coffee (or beer, depending on the time of day).

If they say yes, it's because they are also interested in what you're doing, and this acts as a quality filter to ensure you're both moderately aligned in your interests and not wasting each other's time. Plus, the one-on-one setting lends itself to more interesting and personal conversations, which tends to have the friend-building effect the original author appeals to.

Networking doesn't come naturally to most people, but being friendly and personable usually does. I find that combining the two removes some of the awkwardness, and makes your efforts that much more effective.

<comment><USER3> The one-on-one aspect is huge. Our startup is trying to facilitate these kinds of informational coffee meetings:

Treatings: www.treatin.gs

We think there's something special about dating sites as compared to, say, Facebook or LinkedIn: everyone who has signed up has implicitly opted in to the possibility of being contacted by strangers to possibly meet up offline (though they aren't guaranteeing anything). Knowing that people have opted in like this makes most people more comfortable reaching out to strangers.

<comment><USER4> "Treatings account created! We are currently beta testing in New York City and will notify you when we open elsewhere."

I'm based in Portland, ME but am often in NYC. I presume there is no simple way to use the site yet for me?

<comment><USER3> not yet - we'll be in touch with you in the next month or so about it opening everywhere. thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Aco- I prefer my method of "meetup golf", it's a little different than this one.

In my version of 'meetup golf' you basically go play golf, meet people who enjoy golf while doing so, ask them what they do for work, and 1/2 the time they are in tech or some form of tech (YMMV depending on where you live & play golf). At the end of the round you shake their hand and say "It was nice meeting you. Hey, listen, if you ever want to play golf in the future or need anything at all feel free to contact me" \-- hand them your business card, 9 times out of 10 they will connect on linkedin or shoot an email thereafter.

You now have more in common with them than just your profession, you also share a hobby. Also consider there is a 19th hole in golf. This is a far better way to meet, befriend, and build a network that holds some weight.

<comment><USER5> I wonder where you live. Golf is very unpopular with most tech people I know.

<comment> Aco- NY/NJ, I didn't say they were very young :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One thing I've wondered -- rather than spending so much effort building an extensive network, why not build a very small network of solid connections... with people who have lots of connections?

In any industry there are those individuals who seem to "know everyone," have been next to many industry-shifting moments one way or another, have worked at a half-dozen of the most important companies, etc etc. It's clear that a large part of their time is spent networking (after all, it's a hard job), and a large part of their value is as a connector. As an added bonus, because they're a connector and value having lots of connections, they should be open to the idea of getting to know you and forming another connection.

Why not just make connections with 6,7,8 of those people and then be done? You'd be one hop away to almost everyone in your industry with far less effort than actually getting to know everyone in your industry. Anyway, just theorizing at a more efficient way of networking. Agreed on the article's premises that a real network is with people you know as human beings.

</comment><comment><USER7> All this requires I "go with a friend or two" to make more friends ... where do I find the initial friends :(

<comment><USER8> Not neccesairily. I did some small stints in the whole nightlife, promoting, etc. buisiness when I was 15, and knew noone. With 16, I considered myself pretty well connected in that crowd. You really have to go out your way to be "awesome", but it will get positive attention, and you'll slowly get to know the whole social circle around a given metier.

In retrospect, i had a weird childhood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lee - I love this article. I think everybody should read it just to get the idea that this whole 'networking' thing can get pretty lame at times.

I like the way you explain it - but basically, just, "go make friends" is the advice, right? In case you're interested in the writings of someone with a similar point of view, I wrote a similar post, slightly rantier, a year or so ago: [http://danielhough.co.uk/blog/human-business-card- jar/](http://danielhough.co.uk/blog/human-business-card-jar/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Dan. Great article as well. Love the title ;)

Yeah, I think my basic message is to be a little more human in your dealings at networking events. In that way, I think we're both talking about the same thing. I'm embarrassed to admit that before I knew any better, I could have been Percy in your story. Thanks for the good read.

<comment><USER9> The key thing I was trying to say was that Percy needs to be less zealous :)

We've all been there - I'm still learning, too, and I definitely learned something from your words!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree with the author's criticism of LinkedIn. My biggest problem with the service is its default placeholder text for connection requests ("David Smith would like to connect with you...").

To me this takes all of the fun and excitement out of networking, not to mention the clarity. When I network with people face-to-face, I always get a sense of how they may want to work with me in the future. E.g. Maybe they're a designer; I'm a programmer; we could collaborate on X kind of project.

LinkedIn's placeholder text makes connections seem generic and less useful. Today I received five networking requests, but, unlike with real-life networking, I have no clear idea of why the people are reaching out to me.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was about to drop 600 quid on a membership to a local networking group (BNI).

This has reminded me that networking is primarily a peer group thing, and otherwise it's, well, marketing

So, coffee mornings I guess

</comment><comment><USER12> Excellent article. I'm certainly not an expert networker myself, but I would agree that being friendly with your business associates is very important to future business. It doesn't mean you necessarily need to hang out with them - even just chatting a little bit about personal stuff once in a while helps to oil the wheels of business. People are human after all, and most people prefer doing business with people they like.</comment>


Richmond Italian restaurant waging war on Yelp - <AUTHOR> http://richmondstandard.com/2014/09/richmond-italian-restaurant-waging-awesome-war-yelp/ <comment><USER3> This is a better article: [http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/09/17/richmond- res...](http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/09/17/richmond-restaurant- owner-encourages-bad-yelp-reviews/)

It has the full emails back and forth between yelp and company, which are the most telling part.

Basically the company doesn't want to be on yelp, but yelp won't remove them. Now they are "buying" bad reviews, so yelp has threatened to take action and the restaurant basically says "bring it on" since that is exactly what they want.

<comment><USER4> It's interesting that Yelp refer to their terms of service in their letter to the restaurant. Since this is all being done behind the restaurant's back, and they will not have signed up to any terms of service, that is completely irrelevant. Yelp has no legal contract with the restaurant.

<comment><USER5> Yelp is pointing out to the restaurant that they're asking customers to violate _the customers '_ TOS with Yelp. Nowhere is it insinuated that they themselves have an agreement with yelp.

It is not being done behind the restaurant's back. The restaurant is paying the customers (in free pizza) to leave the feedback.

<comment><USER6> It's not the restaurant's responsibility to enforce Yelp's terms of service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just a note about the "Richmond Standard": it exists for the sole purpose of publishing press releases from Chevron, as well as op-eds by Chevron-supported public figures, as a propaganda tool in the ongoing fight for political control of Richmond, California. They trick people into reading the Chevron PR as "news" by hiding it among stories like this one and hoping people don't read the fine print.

<comment><USER8> This has been going on for what, 100+ years? Is there any newspaper that is not owned by some rich company or individual with their own motivations? I'm still waiting to see how far Bezos plans to go with the Post.

<comment><USER9> _The Tampa Bay Times_ [ formerly the _St Petersburg Times_ ] is published by Times Publishing Company which is wholly owned by the Poynter Institute.

The Poynter Institute is dedicated to journalism.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Bay_Times](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Bay_Times)

[2] [http://www.tampabay.com/](http://www.tampabay.com/)

[3] [http://www.poynter.org/](http://www.poynter.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The main issue here is the idiotic customers writing asinine comments and reviews. I can't count the number of times I've seen things like :

"I ordered that pair of running shoes, I really wanted a toaster, one star" or "The packaging was broken when I received my game, 0.5/10".

When you accumulate "reviews" like these where people are totally unable to dissociate their internal state of mind and the quality of the product at hand (and basically using the system to vent their personal frustration), the value you get out of it is basically non-existent.

<comment><USER11> isn't the solution to that metamoderation a-la amazon?

i.e. "was this review useful?" gets "no" for both the above reviews.

Seems to work IMO.

<comment><USER12> The problem with Amazon's system is that unless you know to look to see if the review is helpful, you may think it legit.

StackExchange solved this problem. I don't know why more sites use that approach to reviews.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> LINKS. IT'S 2014. DEAR ALL THAT'S HOLY IN JOURNALISM, WHERE ARE THE DAMNED LINKS?

Pardon the all caps. Shame on you, Richmond Standard. This is just absurd for 2014.

pesenti has the link to the yelp page, which I won't replicate, but here's the Botto Bistro FAQ page, which they went to the effort to take a screen shot of and cut into pieces and upload into their content system (which had to be at least five minutes total) but couldn't be bothered to link to (at about five seconds): [http://www.bottobistro.com/FAQ.html](http://www.bottobistro.com/FAQ.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Link to the yelp page: [http://www.yelp.com/biz/botto-italian-bistro- richmond-3](http://www.yelp.com/biz/botto-italian-bistro-richmond-3)

</comment><comment><USER15> Some of these Yelp reviews are priceless! I like the self-referential ones (or is it self-anticipatory?) where people write predictive reviews based on their expected dislike of the restaurant in advance of actually visiting it. Also priceless is the one referenced in the article where the restaurant manager steals away the reviewer's girlfriend, so he goes and sulks there once a week in a dark corner booth.

Yelp's fundamental flaw is the fact that you can't tell real from fabricated reviews. You have to read with a skeptical eye and any overly gushing praise or overly nasty criticism of a particular business is suspect. I tend to trust the three and four star reviews over the 1's, 2's, and 5's.

Amazon at least has the advantage of identifying people who actually bought the product, and there is the option to comment on a review. It's not perfect but can be useful. Yelp's reviewers seem a bit under-vetted by comparison.

<comment><USER16> They are what they are. I think the mistake is imagining people care about the Yelp rating. Do folks look at the number, or read the reviews? Most of us can spot a rankled-reviewer-rant and ignore it. Sensitive restaurant owners are getting upset over very little.

<comment><USER17> I was in Boston a few weeks ago visiting a famous bar by Fenway called the "Cask n Flagon." This place is a gigantic sports bar and one of probably only five or six bars that sits around the stadium.

I got to talking with the bartender and he told me a story about a customer who became irate that the bar was closing early and that they were scared that she would go on Yelp and write a bad review. I laughed because I thought he was joking, thinking that nobody would ever base the decision to visit this place on a Yelp review. However he told me that the reviews matter a lot. I still doubt that he is correct about that, but it does show you the perception and fear restaurants large and small have about Yelp.

<comment><USER18> I don't know about Yelp, but I've met people working in hotels who live in genuine fear of bad Trip Advisor reviews.

And I can understand that - if I'm going somewhere I don't know and have little time for research you just go somewhere like Trip Advisor and skim read. A couple of very negative reviews might make a real difference for smaller places which only have a couple of dozen reviews in total.

<comment><USER19> ... But sometimes a bad review works in the company's favour. Someone can have a bad experience and not be happy with efforts the business takes to sort things out. I might think the company did everything reasonably possible and so that "bad" review become evidence good practice.

<comment><USER20> More likely some jerk says one made up thing about rats in his trip report and your business shrivels up in no time at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Underdog story, or arrogant owners who don't want to listen to feedback? The Yelp review process is certainly flawed, but I find their FAQ troubling.

"Q. Have you heard that the customer is always right? A. Yes and we find it hilarious. A business owner who believes that deserves to deal with the monsters he has created. We don't belong to that club, but if you do...bravo!"

[http://www.bottobistro.com/FAQ.html](http://www.bottobistro.com/FAQ.html)

Update: A couple people have asked for my clarification on why this is "troubling." I worked in the service industry before. I also have travelled extensively outside the U.S. in other Western countries. I have found that what differentiates the American service industry from other countries is that we do have this ingrained notion that "The Customer is Always Right." If I'm handing over my hard earned money to a business, I do expect the business to bend over backward for me. If it doesn't there are plenty of other business that are willing to. That's one of the great things about a free market - <USER2> can choose where to shop in a non-monopoly market based on how well a business treats us. Businesses that don't get that deserve to lose customers (and do). In short: You're not the only suitor for my business and I don't need to feel bad about having high expectations.

<comment><USER22> Troubling why? Some people are dicks. I find the widespread service industry attitude that you must bend over backwards to treat them well while they're treating you like dirt quite troubling.

I can't speak for this place because I've never been there. However, I definitely wouldn't hold it against a restaurant that chose to treat customers with the same level of respect that the customers gave their serving staff.

If the restaurant is thriving in spite of its bad yelp reviews that suggests that it has a loyal customer base. That would suggest that they are doing something right.

<comment><USER23> _" I find the widespread service industry attitude that you must bend over backwards to treat them well while they're treating you like dirt quite troubling."_

Exactly. For an eye-opening view of what kind of shitty customer behavior restaurant and retail employees have to put up with on a daily basis, see the "Not Always Right" blog:

[http://notalwaysright.com](http://notalwaysright.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I honestly don't bother with online restaurant reviews anymore. No matter how good of a place it is, you can always have an off night or a challenging customer. These generate negative reviews in an indistinguishable manner from any other restaurant. The only positive reviews I see look suspiciously like what employees would write so those aren't helpful either. 1-5 star ratings are meaningless.

But movie reviews (a la Rotten Tomatoes) work somehow. Possibly because they aren't just flaming rants about how there was a hair in their popcorn. Maybe if the reviewing community were asked "what restaurants do you frequent and why?" and you could follow active citizen reviewers in your area it might generate more constructive feedback.

</comment><comment><USER25> Google Cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.richmondstandard.com/2014/09/richmond- italian-restaurant-waging-awesome-war-yelp/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I always find this flaw in yelp which I think might become a bigger problem for them. They allow pretty much anybody to write any kind of review for any business. There is no validation that the yelp user have had interacted with the business unless the business owners takes a notice and claims that its otherwise. I was at a a small business hackathon and not even a single SMB owner was happy with yelp. Even the ones who had good reviews do not think that it contributed a lot to their business. Has this thing ever crossed your mind?

</comment><comment><USER27> Somewhat off-topic, but the Real Actors Read Yelp series on Youtube is priceless. [http://goo.gl/mlsTWQ](http://goo.gl/mlsTWQ)

</comment><comment><USER28> Not sure why but Yelp always seems inaccurate to me. I also tried to write a review once but it flagged it for some reason and it never appeared. It was a 3 star review too, neither exceptionally positive or negative.

I use TripAdvisor to find local places to eat. Usually the top 1 or 2 places are good for a given type of food. Anything under that is a mixed bag.

</comment><comment><USER29> On the other hand, I dealt with a company that was really deceptive and then looked at the online reviews (not on Yelp). They were all glowing. But when I looked more closely they all followed the same template and seemed to be posted at 9:xx am every morning - like its somebody's job.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder what Yelp's recourse is for buying reviews? If it's de-listing, well, that's exactly what the restaurant wants.

It would be interesting to see whether Yelp decides to exercise the power to change someone's one-star review into a four-star review based on its content.

<comment><USER31> For some businesses, Yelp puts a big consumer alert on their business page when they catch the businesses soliciting reviews on craigslist or whatever: [http://officialblog.yelp.com/2012/10/consumer-alerts- because...](http://officialblog.yelp.com/2012/10/consumer-alerts-because-you- might-like-to-know.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What's silly about this whole thing is that the solution for Yelp is so obvious: Just acknowledge what everyone knows already -- that the current system for managing and aggregating ratings has been a total flop -- i.e. that 99.99% of their users use Yelp for address search, NOT recommendations -- and let business opt out of having their ratings listed (at no charge, of course) -- until they come up with something that actually does work.

<comment><USER33> Wouldn't it be a better business model to charge businesses to opt-out? Doing this would provide them with more runway to come up with a sustainable business model to leverage and monetize their crowdsourced reviews in a creative manner. Seems like it would be more in line with their values, too.

EDIT: /s

<comment><USER32> _Wouldn 't it be a better business model to charge businesses to opt-out?_

Most people would consider that blackmail. But the folks over at Yelp would probably like that kind of thinking. Ever consider applying for a job with their marketing team?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> what's amazing to me is people still read the reviews on yelp. they're completely worthless. it's a bunch of kids and wannabe snobs preening for each other. i went through that phase - that's how i can recognize it.

now i just use it to search and get directions. its interface is still superior for a quick lookup on my phone when i'm headed somewhere.

as soon as they require a login to use the mobile app, i'll probably stop using it.

<comment><USER35> You remember that girl in high school who was always talking about how Becky was totally giving her this _look_ earlier, seriously you guys she's such a bitch?

Yeah, she's 25 now and likes to write angry Yelp reviews whenever her water glass level falls below 50%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I understand it does suck to have one or two idiot customers that will flip out about something stupid and write a terrible review of your great restaurant. But I think it would be better just to have no reviews at all on Yelp. Is there anyway to ask yelp to remove your business. Can you not tell yelp that the phone number and address they have listed are personal and no longer a business and that yelp should remove them?

<comment><USER37> It would break their court-approved business model, i.e. apply any algorithmic filter that generates revenue for Yelp.

<comment><USER38> ie. blackmail

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've used yelp reviews with great success when traveling. The signal noise ratio in urban areas is good enough to weed out the occasional bad review. I look out for the really low rated ones and avoid. People aren't stupid, and read online reviews with a certain amount of skepticism.

If they can survive with regulars thats fine for them.

I would avoid any place thats fighting any kind of reviews.

</comment><comment><USER40> I like the part at the end of the article where they ask is this Italian restaurant any good anyhow(their reviews on Yelp being unhelpful at this point, worthless).

I couldn't help but think if only there was a place on the web to find out whether a business is worth the money or not.

</comment><comment><USER41> Is the restaurant claiming all review systems are broken? Do the owners ever read reviews on Amazon or the general web? I don't think you should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

<comment><USER42> No, in the article it clearly states that the owners are getting "blackmailed" by Yelp and have decided to retaliate, but otherwise think it (I assume a rating website) is actually a good idea.

Edit: my apologies for any snark above, I just realized that the article I was referencing was the one posted by jedberg.

[http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/09/17/richmond- res...](http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/09/17/richmond-restaurant- owner-encourages-bad-yelp-reviews/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> That's a pretty good (and unorthodox) way to promote yourself and get some free press. Never really trusted Yelp anyway, too many stupid people pretending they're experts.

<comment><USER44> It is untrustworthy when a restaurant has only 4 or 5 reviews, even if they're written by "Yelp Pros". But when hundreds of people have "Checked In" at a place, you can usually rely on the star count to give you a fairly accurate estimation of how good it's going to be.

I've also noticed some cities are way more into it than others, making it more reliable. Everyone in Halifax, NS depends on it, but when I visit my home Little Rock, AR, it's worthless, even though Little Rock is technically a larger city.

<comment><USER45> Yours seems like anecdotal evidence.

I've had great experiences without reviews or guides, and also with places that aren't supposed to be good.

McDonalds is really popular, but I don't eat there.

<comment><USER44> Well, luckily, I don't go to Yelp for fast food reviews. You are aware that hundreds of people can review a local restaurant, yes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> wait a minute, you can't force Yelp to remove your restaurant?! and I thought we had retarded Internet laws in my country... here in Colombia, no business can have your information without your consent. If they do, you can force them to remove any records they have on you –it's a principle called Habeas Data.

</comment><comment><USER47> This won't work on people like me who may look at the star rating but have no desire to read user reviews. You'll just be a one-star place and I'll dismiss you out of hand..

<comment><USER48> but with all the publicity surrounding their actions, will they become more well known which will in fact counteract their star rating on Yelp? My guess is yes.

<comment><USER49> I think there's also an appeal to certain types of businesses like restaurants when they don't act like corporate profit-maximizers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> A large population of diners in this country do this when trying to find new eating establishments:

1\. Searches google for a restaurant name 2\. Checks the number of stars Yelp gives it in the Google result

or

1\. Searches "dinner" on yelp 2\. Clicks on the highest rated Yelp pages

For a popular restaurant with a fan following the Botto pizza strategy might work. Generally speaking, ignoring your customer's needs and wants is a fast path to complacency. And hopefully you're all aware that:

COMPLACENCY WILL BE THE ARCHITECTURE OF YOUR DOWNFALL.

Internalize that statement. While Botto's is cool today, adaptation is the key to long term success.

Inevitably after serving each of their loyal customers many times over, the customers will have a bad meal here or there. With an attitude of "The customer is not always right", disagreements will leave customers disenchanted one by one, and slowly these loyal customers will become less loyal. Or another good Italian pizza place will open up. Or the italian food wants of the neighborhood will change. Or Yelp's powerhold on connecting diners to restaurants will grow stronger.

<comment><USER49> Option 1: pay attention to what popular and busy restaurant owner is doing to promote his business.

Option 2: take advice from random HN commenter.

How to choose, how to choose...

<comment><USER50> Option 1: Listen to the words of 1 successful business Option 2: Listen to the words of many successful businesses

Yeah, I guess you're right that _thinking_ is too hard and we should simply listen to a population with a sample size of 1.</comment></comment></comment>


Deep Learning for Electronic Health Records - <AUTHOR> https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/deep-learning-for-electronic-health.html <comment><USER2> I believe that creating new subdermal/wearable sensors, collecting their data to a center, and analyzing the data of the entire population will potentially uncover medical conditions long before they manifest themselves.

The incentive for the public to accept these sensors and the data collection will be lower premiums for their health insurance since early-stage/preventive treatment is likely much cheaper than late-stage.

The only road blocks I can foresee are:

1\. Government regulations: too strict and this can't happen, too lax and people's privacy won't be respected

2\. Raising the capital and taking the risk

<comment><USER3> > ubiquitous health-surveillance

of course -- what could go wrong ?</comment></comment>


VMWares Acquires AirWatch. What it Means and What it Doesn't - <AUTHOR> http://www.kidozen.com/vmwares-acquires-airwatch-what-it-means-and-what-it-doesnt/

<comment><USER2> (S)he has spelt VMware wrong. Not sure how well they know the company.</comment>


Meet the Man Who Sold His Fate to Investors - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/ipo-man/all/?1

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion on HN: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5454147></comment>


BITCASA: REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST YEAR AND OUR GREAT LEAP FORWARD - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bitcasa.com/2015/10/13/reflections-on-the-past-year-and-our-great-leap-forward/ <comment><USER2> The users "felt betrayed" because they _were_ betrayed. Isn't that a fair statement when a company makes a promise it can't keep about possibly precious data?

I'm not understanding how they feel they can face consumers again after what happened in 2012.</comment>


Android changes for NDK developers – API 24 will block private API usage - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2016/06/android-changes-for-ndk-developers.html <comment><USER2> Is there any way to force to run only apps that abide by some api level?</comment>


The first U.S. Bitcoin debit card - <AUTHOR> https://www.shiftpayments.com/card <comment><USER2> Definitely a milestone in Bitcoin becoming more widely accepted.</comment>


Virgin.com - Are hackers the new rockstars? - <AUTHOR> http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/blog/are-hackers-the-new-rockstars App Developers make more money than Doctors and Lawyers globally, according to an infographic commissioned by the Application Developers Alliance and designed by infogr8.
Why?
It so happens that many of those 'app developers' happen to be the core participants of what is now known as the hackathon, hackfest, or hackday.  And they are proud to call themselves Hackers.
They are at the helm of an industry we call the app market which was worth £3.5bn in 2011, and is expected to grow tenfold to £30.5bn by 2016. <comment><AUTHOR> Don't believe me?

App Developers make more money than Doctors and Lawyers globally, according to an infographic commissioned by the Application Developers Alliance and designed by infogr8.

Why?

They are at the helm of an industry we call the app market which was worth £3.5bn in 2011, and is expected to grow tenfold to £30.5bn by 2016.

It so happens that many of those 'app developers' happen to be the core participants of what is now known as the hackathon, hackfest, or hackday. And they are proud to call themselves Hackers.</comment>


Erlang Ecosystem Foundation - <AUTHOR> https://erlef.org/ <comment><USER2> Have anyone read bylaws section?

> Section 4.8. Fellows. To be eligible for membership as a Fellow, a member > must be nominated by a Fellow of the corporation [...] Upon election, a > Fellow shall remain a Fellow for the remainder of such person's natural > life, subject to any limiting provisions of this document. _Fellowship does > not continue during any extension of life by non-natural means, such as > zombification or vampirism._

<comment><USER3> Would non-natural include medical interventions, or is it clearly meant to mean "supernatural?" What if someone says they were saved by a faith healer? It is only a matter of time before these claims are tested in the courts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like elixir adoption is pumping back more life into the Erlang ecosystem ... Good news anyways.

</comment><comment><USER5> Who founded this? Who is behind this organization? Is it just a random person?

Before people downmod this, I'm an Elixir developer - just curious who wrote it. It doesn't _seem_ official.

Edit: I see Jose there, it's legit! [https://twitter.com/sheharyarn/status/1101306957531570176](https://twitter.com/sheharyarn/status/1101306957531570176)

</comment><comment><USER6> I hope this does well.

I read Joe Armstrong's Erlang book and really liked the language. I hope it gains more traction so there is more opportunity to use it.

<comment><USER7> I mean, have you used Facebook chat, Pinterest, Discord, RabbitMQ, CouchDB, SimpleDB, Riak, T-Mobile SMS, or GRPS/3G phone service? If so, you're using Erlang probably quite a lot!

<comment><USER8> Facebook chat doesn't use Erlang anymore, afaik.

<comment><USER9> WhatsApp was built using Erlang I believe.

WhatsApp is now owned by Facebook.

Are you saying they changed the tech stack for WhatsApp?

<comment><USER2> Facebook chat did use erlang (Ejabberd to be precise), but they migrated to something other. WhatsApp uses erlang and is even a member (logo in partners section). So, Facebook uses erlang, but not directly as Facebook, but they changed tech stack away from erlang.

<comment><USER4> Facebook Messenger is built with ReasonML

<comment><USER10> The frontend is built with ReasonML on the web, and some other stuff on mobile. What the backend is built with is separate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a really nice icon used as the favicon on their website, shame it's seemingly not used anywhere on the web page itself.</comment>


SmartMail- the first mobile optimized app with less clicks&no app switching - <AUTHOR> http://besmartmail.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Please go our website to get invite</comment>


Box, Dropbox and Hightail Pivot to New Business Models - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/technology/box-dropbox-and-hightail-pivot-to-new-business-models.html

<comment><USER2> In the case of Dropbox, 4 months ago, I speculated about the motivations behind the Carousel product: [http://kiyototamura.tumblr.com/post/82662241570/dropboxs- car...](http://kiyototamura.tumblr.com/post/82662241570/dropboxs-carousel-is- different)

While Carousel itself is considered to be a flop by some ([http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/04/why-standalone-apps-are- sup...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/04/why-standalone-apps-are-supposed-to- fail/)), I think the overall strategy seems correct, or at least, less wrong: go up the application stack based on their strong user base in the data storage layer.</comment>


What it's like building a real website in Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.travisglines.com/web-coding/what-its-like-building-a-real-website-in-node-js

<comment><USER2> Agreed. I spent the last few months building my first Node.js app (and MongoDB) and I resonate with a lot of what's being said here. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from exploring Node or Mongo, because I think both are amazing projects and have huge potential, but I do think anyone considering either should stop and think carefully before taking the plunge.

Things that stick out in my head:

1\. What the author says about the Node community moving fast is absolutely true. Be prepared to spend time upgrading to the latest versions often or deal with dependency hell as you try to ensure you've got matching legacy versions of libraries.

2\. Coding async is weird at first, but you may grow to love it (as I have). Over the months, I've discovered many cool tricks and patterns that help keep the nesting to a minimum.

3\. Be prepared to fill library gaps, and submit patches if necessary. This means not being afraid to dig into the source code of the libraries you're using. Most libraries have limited documentation so often the only way to figure out how to use them is to get in there and see how they work.

4\. Best practices may not apply. In the case of MongoDB, I had to redesign my schema in order to run certain queries now that MongoDB won't support until sometime in the future.

All in all, I'm really glad for the experience and will definitely consider both Node.js and MongoDB for future projects. What will really be interesting is seeing what I miss about Node/Mongo after jumping back into Python/MySQL. :-)

<comment><USER3> > 2\. Coding async is weird at first, but you may grow to love it (as I have). > Over the months, I've discovered many cool tricks and patterns that help > keep the nesting to a minimum.

Can you share a few? Either here or as a blog post?

<comment><USER4> If you have a function foo() that takes a callback as an argument i.e. something like:

      foo(..., function (n) {
         // closure over q, r, s
      });

Then what you can do is create a separate function, bar() that takes q, r, s as an argument, and returns a function:

      function bar(q, r, s) {
        return function(n) {
          // still has dependency on q, r, s
        }
      }

Once you have bar(), the foo() call above can be written as:

      foo(..., bar(q, r, s));

and you save one level of nesting. (This also makes the dependencies explicit, which is helpful.)

The main loop of

[https://github.com/ithinkihaveacat/node- fishback/blob/ce5f9c...](https://github.com/ithinkihaveacat/node- fishback/blob/ce5f9c308db6a12f15fb0d790c53dfb2f60eaf9c/lib/fishback.js#L313)

does quite a lot of this, if you want a real example.

<comment><USER5> Why not to write it in a much simplier way? Like this:

      function bar(n) {
        // still has dependency on q, r, s
      }
      foo(..., bar);

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that's nicer if bar() can be defined at the same "level" as foo() but if it makes more sense to move it somewhere else the closed-over variables need to be passed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This would have been helpful to me when I was starting out building <http://domainjig.com> \- which is a simpler site than the author's. That said, I'd offer these responses to those looking for some advice:

1) Yes, wrapping every database call with an asynchronous callback is a drag. I found a helpful library that made some of my workflow easier to express and maintain: <https://github.com/caolan/async> And I'm pretty sure I could simplify my code quite a bit more if I understood functional program patterns better already.

2) Libraries can be challenging, but I was able to find good ones for everything I needed. The author discussed version issues. To deal with that, I punted on all those node library managers and just jumped into the library code, checking it in to my repository and freezing it in time (in contrast to the authors point #9 about NPM being awesome for him). The other issue I found with libraries was that there are TOO MANY of them for any single thing. For example, there are at least a half dozen separate libraries to help with asynchronous workflow, and trying to choose which one would be "best" was difficult, and depended on freshness, documentation, and then actually test driving them. Github's encouragement of forking made this extra challenging, with many slightly tweaked variations for each separate library.

I found node.js lived up to its promises (for me): coding in javascript on both server and client was helpful in avoiding context switching inside my head, and encouraged me to invest more effort in writing better quality code everywhere. And node.js is plenty fast.

Another thing I'd add is that I used redis and tokyo cabinet as data stores and found the node.js interfaces to them to be mature and easy enough. It was convenient to use python's interactive shell to create and experiment with redis, and then port the routines to node.js.

To summarize, consider this a positive vote for node.js.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a great article but again, like the last article posted here about your MVC setup, I'd personally like to see examples. For instance whats an example of good asynchronous code?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey peregrine, I'm working on a solid example here: <https://github.com/tglines/throughexample>

I'm taking a bit of time with it to make sure its actually useful to people and not just a stub. Feel free to check out what I have up there so far.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for a good article, Travis.

Quick side note - you might want to add simple validation for sign up form for exipe.com - it currently accepts empty string as a valid value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was hoping to know more about what corner cases he hit where he had to write subjectively ugly code and what part of the ecosystem hasn't matured yet (libraries for certain problems missing, etc). For me, building real applications and solving real problems in any new stack comes down to those two things not being much of an issue.

I remember a friend and I hacking on a RoR app a few years ago where we spent more time trying to get Ruby Gems to play nice rather than actually writing the app. Now, those problems have been mostly shaken out and are a thing of the distant past. Is Node past this productivity immaturity hump yet?

</comment><comment><USER10> Great article. Writing my node.js project has exposed me to all of the things listed.

One thing I have to say is that NPM is good, but good be better with it's distro integration. The ubuntu install has broken permissions by default, which forces me to install stuff with sudo. I haven't had the time to try and fix it.

<comment><USER11> I dont think its worth using the Ubuntu install its just too old. At the moment easiest to install by hand, and script something for production.

<comment><USER3> His issue (though not too obvious) is that NPM assumes /usr/local is writable by unprivileged users, which isn't secure or common in Linux distros or OS X.

It's a bug in NPM, it should be fixed someday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have been running Node.js in production for a while, it is kind of a wild- west, Apache/PHP holds your hand for you and takes care of a bunch of things you might not realize.

If you come from a background of already writing javascript heavy apps, the browser is async so there shouldn't be as steep a learning curve.

Node is moving super fast, with some critical breaks between point releases.

I don't find the community crazy good, but Github is saving the day on node for me - being able to quickly browse through forks is a lifesaver

<comment><USER13> _If you come from a background of already writing javascript heavy apps, the browser is async so there shouldn't be as steep a learning curve._

People say this, but it's not really true. Yes, browsers are async in the sense that your code gets invoked by the browser as events occur. But once your client code gets control, it nearly always proceeds in a completely synchronous fashion. If all you're doing is changing a few dom elements in response to a button click, that happens quickly and all is well, but woe betide if you need to do some long-running computation in the browser... what are you going to do? Build your own event loop with setInterval and chop things up into short-running pieces? That's certainly uncommon. So client-side JS programmers typically don't have much experience with organizing their own code asynchronously, and the learning curve for doing so is still steep.

(There is of course one big exception to what I'm saying, namely communicating with the server via XHR. But not so big that it teaches you how to write a complex program in a non-blocking asynchronous style.)

<comment><USER12> What I really mean is JS Apps that use XMLHttpRequest or JSONP -

I found that prepared me pretty well for asynchronous disk reads and asynchronous http requests, I was already doing that in my browser code and it ported quite cleanly to node. (I use a wrapper method that chooses whether to use XMLHttpRequest or http.request based on the environment)

I should note one thing that tripped me up in the beginning is forgetting that I was in a shared environment for my scripts. I typically design server stuff to be 'shared nothing' by default, and you have to be a little careful in node as that is not the default way of running node services and at first I was sometimes sharing objects by accident.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great article.

In your opinion, is Node.js mature enough to use in production code ? Or should I wait a little longer ?

Also, what is the sate of the community (i.e. is it easy to find answers and tutorials) ?

</comment><comment><USER15> I just wrote TLS client certificate authentication for an internal systems API with node, in about 20 lines of code. Node's biggest power is a great abstraction for low level HTTP and socket stuff. You get direct access to everything, with a sane and elegant API.

For plain old websites, I'd still use something like Rails or Django.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wish we had s-node (s for synchronous) so we do:

      session.start()
      data.load()
      template.render()

instead of the cretan labyrinth it becomes coding for a-node

<comment><USER17> That completely defeats the point of using Node.js; that is, to use an evented model so your app isn't sitting around waiting for IO. s-node wouldn't be node at all.

FWIW any other runtime/framework will do what you suggest. For example, Rhino.

<comment><USER18> It would be nice of Node (or rather, v8 underneath it) supported generators and the "yield" keyword like Mozilla's Spidermonkey. Unfortunately, yield is a Javascript 1.7 extension for now, but there's hope for it in ES Harmony.

Anyway, with generators and promises you can write asynchronous code which looks like synchronous code but which under the covers is still completely async and callback-driven. We use it in gjs (a GNOMEy JS runtime built on top of Spidermonkey).

Instead of workflows like:

      function onServerRequest(req, res) {
          db.query("get filename", function(result) {
              fs.readContents(result, function (data) {
                  res.write(data);
              });
          });
      }

which can get pretty nasty if you're running things in serial, or want to run a couple of things in parallel but then run something serially, you can have a workflow more like this:

      function onServerRequest(req, res) {
          var queryPromise = db.queryPromise("get filename");
          var filename = yield queryPromise;

          var data = yield db.readContentsPromise(filename);

          res.write(data);
      }

The main difference between the two is that the async functions in the latter return promises instead of nothing. The db.queryPromise() function itself would probably look something like:

      function queryPromise(query) {
          var promise = new Promise();
          db.query(query, function(result) {
              promise.putValue(result);
          });
          return promise;
      }

I imagine you could probably write a function to automatically generate promise wrappers for existing async functions as long as they followed a certain schema, and Node's functions tend to do well with that.

Anyway, the onServerRequest() function would itself be wrapped in a function which took the generator values from it and returned its own promise. This way you could stack promises all the way up.

The gjs implementation of this is here: <http://git.gnome.org/browse/gjs/tree/modules/promise.js>

This is pretty similar to Twisted's inlineCallbacks if you're familiar with them in Python.</comment></comment></comment>


Hearing Sappho - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/hearing-sappho

<comment><USER2> Wow, I love this. I wonder how they found out about all those details in pronunciation. I imagine it would be interesting detective work.</comment>


Is "Ass" the Most Complicated Word in English? - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2019/10/slang <comment><USER2> I'll just leave this here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo&feature=youtu.be)

He also does a "clean" version for television, and I think he's done a version for "ass" as well. This was my favorite.

<comment><USER3> _and I think he 's done a version for "ass" as well_

That's literally what the whole article is about.

<comment><USER4> The article contains clips of the "Ass" version. For those that want a link to the whole thing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGcDi0DRtU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGcDi0DRtU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Micky Flannigan, a uk comedian, does a great routine about when he lived in America and people confused his cockney pronunciation of "house" with the American pronunciation of "Ass".

So at the end of a date he's on the doorstep with a girl and they are saying goodbye:

He says: I'd like to come in your house

She looks shocked. So he says: I won't try to kiss you, I just want to come in your house

<comment><USER6> Link: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=fNzuOxJ3iS8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=fNzuOxJ3iS8)

<comment><USER5> thanks - I didnt want to search for that from my work PC :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The word that surprised me the most when flipping through a dictionary as a child was probably 'set': [https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/set](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/set)

<comment><USER8> In a way it may be the same as the fictionnal word Kree from Stargate. One meaning a lot. [https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Kree](https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Kree)

<comment><USER9> Like, grok smurf, dude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I lived in Germany, I explained to someone (in German) that _ass_ means both _arse_ and _donkey_ and they cracked up.

Shrek: "I've got to save my ass" \-- meaning his donkey (named Donkey), but Fiona interprets that differently from his intended meaning.

Also, I would interpret _piece of ass_ as _sex object_ , not _beautiful._ It's about just being used for sex. A less ugly use of the expression is roughly "looking for no-strings-attached sex."

<comment><USER11> Interesting. As a bilingual/fluent but not native English speaker 'piece of ass' always contained at least an element of beauty. not necessarily, but usually.

<comment><USER12> > As a bilingual/fluent but not native English speaker 'piece of ass' always > contained at least an element of beauty.

As a native English speaker it does not contain that _in itself_ , though it's frequently _accompanied by_ a positive qualitative assessment of utility as a sex object (very often also dehumanizing by using wording traditionally used for objects rather than humans, e.g., "that's a fine piece of ass!"), which assessment is often based on appearance (and frequently accompanied by nonverbal communication or other context which clearlt—often lewdly—indicates that the qualitative assessment of sexual utility is based on appearance, often quite specific features of appearance.)

<comment><USER13> I'm a native English speaker as well, and I think you're conflating two different uses.

Yes. There is 'fine piece of ass' as one might hear one utter of an uninvolved person to a friend that matches what you are describing.

That changes significantly when the subject to whom the "fine piece of ass" belongs is a direct recipient of the comment. I.e. "Girl, you have/are one fine piece of ass."

In that case there is communicated the sense of appreciation of beauty between the speaker and receiver. There is the also the not necessarily explicit "that I'd like to try," which clearly distinguishes the "appreciative" form from the "sex objectification form."

Be aware this is not license to use the phrase carelessly. Aware of the norms of the company you're keeping must be taken into account. On the American side of the pond, careless banding about of that sort of thing has been growing increasingly problematic in any business casual up, or official social context. It is a solidly informal comment not intended for "polite company".

I'm a blast at parties. For the curious. (I'm really not.)

<comment><USER10> _Fine_ is the part of that sentence that expresses appreciation for beauty, not _piece of ass._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a famous scene in the Wire that is basically two detectives having a conversation at a crime scene using only the word 'fuck'

[https://youtu.be/XdfwFDZGnUk](https://youtu.be/XdfwFDZGnUk)

<comment><USER15> Spiritual 'Guru' Osho has an amazing breakdown of all the types of expression 'fuck' has:

Ignorance: Fucked if I know.

Trouble: I guess I am fucked now!

Fraud: I got fucked at the used car lot.

Aggression: Fuck you!

Displeasure: What the fuck is going on here?

Difficulty: I can't understand this fucking job.

Incompetence: He is a fuck-off.

Suspicion: What the fuck are you doing?

Enjoyment: I had a fucking good time.

Request: Get the fuck out of here.

Hostility: I'm going to knock your fucking head off.

Greeting: How the fuck are you?

Apathy: Who gives a fuck?

Innovation: Get a bigger fucking hammer.

Surprise: Fuck! You scared the shit out of me!

Anxiety: Today is really fucked.

[http://www.spiritualsatya.com/osho-meaning-and- versatility-o...](http://www.spiritualsatya.com/osho-meaning-and-versatility- of-the-word-fuck/)

<comment><USER16> In many of those it's just used as an amplifier. If you can remove the "fuck" and the sentence still makes sense, then it's not really doing anything.

<comment><USER17> > it's not really doing anything

"fuck" is fascinating in part because it doesn't mean much beyond amplification. It's pure emotion

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think that the title should be qualified with "American English" since the colloquial uses of the word "ass" are not really a thing in British English.

<comment><USER19> I can't be arsed to disagree with you.

<comment><USER20> now your just making an ass of yourself

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I would think "dude" would be more confusing.

\- "Dude" = cool

\- "Dude" = come on man, really?

\- "Dude!" = WTF man, I should punch you in the face

\- "Dude!" = holy crap, I just got that girl's number!

\- "Dude?" = who's there, is there a killer in my house?

\- "Dude?" = no shit, for real?

\- "Dude!?" = why'd you sleep with my sister?!

\- "Dude" = hey Steve

\- "Dude." = not cool bro

\- "Dude!!!" = you're not gonna believe this!

\- "Dude" = stfu before the cop maces you, idiot.

\- "Dude..." = did we just see that car flip and roll 11 times down the hill, do you think anyone is alive, I can't believe that just happened

\- "Dude." = look man, you're really drunk and me and my girl are trying to have a nice walk and you really need to turn around and walk in the opposite direction of us.

Etc etc, I'm sure you get the point.

<comment><USER20> Is that north American wide or just certain groups in certain states though?

<comment><USER21> Bud Light had a commercial some years back where it's just them using 'dude' a bunch of different ways [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMSSe7cOvA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMSSe7cOvA)

I've also seen it used in stand up several times and I feel like at least one film.

<comment><USER22> > and I feel like at least one film.

"Dude, Where's My Car?"

Half the dialogue (ok, I'm probably exaggerating a _little_ bit) is the word "dude". Often repeated many times in different intonations.

<comment><USER21> They even poke fun of it some in it with the

"Dude, what's mine say?"

"Sweet, what's mine say?"

"Dude, what's mine say?!"

"Sweet! What's mine say?!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Slightly off topic..anyone else took a few minutes to figure out how the website navigation really works? I mean you need to move right to see continuation of a single video ?!

Not sure which ass dictionary this will fit in

</comment><comment><USER24> Don't even get me started about 'хуй' in Russian, okay?

</comment><comment><USER25> I noticed one missing in the 201 list at the bottom; it's a two-fer. "Riding one's ass", meaning either to tailgate in a vehicle, or also meaning to nag or irritate.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sure, it's complicated, but has anyone looked at all the definitions for the words 'take' or 'get'? Both have more than 100 definitions each.

<comment><USER27> A similar world I would put up there as well is 'run'. Run a business, run a program, physically run

<comment><USER28> I wouldn't say such phrases demonstrate a different meaning of the word 'run', though. The word 'run' just has an abstract meaning related to movement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The obligatory History of the English language episode

"In this episode, we explore the history of swearing and obscenities, and we examine Chaucer's use of bawdy language in the Miller's Tale"

[https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2019/09/25/episode-129-c...](https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2019/09/25/episode-129-chaucers- vulgar-tongue-explicit-language/)

</comment><comment><USER30> "Cast" has many meanings, some of them seemingly unrelated. Some time ago I tried to find out why type casting in programming is named as it is.

<comment><USER31> Casting from a mold seems near the top of the list and analogous to type casting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think "fuck" gives "ass" a run for its money...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck#Modern_usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck#Modern_usage)

</comment><comment><USER33> Basically any vulgar word ends up being overused by the (uneducated) masses by the definition of the word vulgar. I'm not sure why, probably because they don't have the vocabulary to precisely express their thoughts and end up reusing the handful of strong words they do know in new ways and contexts.

Like how a chef who only knows about cayenne and salt wouldn't be using subtle spices like paprika. He's just going to bludgeon every dish with salt and cayenne since those are the two spices he has used the most thus far. He might find some creative uses for cayenne, but that doesn't mean cayenne is suddenly the most versetile and complex spice.

<comment><USER34> If everyone else is using the word in a new way then who is wrong? The small minority or the masses who are evolving a language?

<comment><USER33> Well, "history is written by the victors", I suppose, but that doesn't make the masses who are "evolving" the language "right". Unless you think it's "right" for the ignorant to redefine words like "literally" and "nonplussed" to mean the exact opposite of their original meanings or to make "could of" a valid grammatical construct.

<comment><USER35> I really used to think like this. I thought there was a "proper" way to use words and evolution of language by the "uneducated masses" was a bad thing and they were "ignorant" for not sticking with dictionary definitions. I was insufferable.

<comment><USER33> So is there any value in studying or preserving English grammar and vocabulary at all if it is ultimately meaningless and can easily be redefined by people who have not studied English?

<comment><USER36> The idea that people who speak differently than you smacks of old-timey classism, right up there with phrenology. Shakespere was as "vulgar" as it got in his day, and to call what he did art what others are doing something else is just bias.

Language is nothing but a set of conventions which necessarily evolves with its userbase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Without the pauses: [https://youtu.be/r_2x1LrPZ64](https://youtu.be/r_2x1LrPZ64)

</comment><comment><USER38> I was not expecting that audio to kick in, wish there had been a warning

</comment><comment><USER39> What's up with all the weird-ass domains lately?

</comment><comment><USER40> obligatory xkcd [https://xkcd.com/37/](https://xkcd.com/37/)

</comment><comment><USER41> TL;DR no, "shit" is.

I think I saw a comedian doing such a routine with the word "shit" before...</comment>


Detecting crypto script kiddies - <AUTHOR> https://sysdig.com/blog/detecting-cryptojacking/ <comment><USER2> This is basically an advertisement for a product Sysdig offers. The name is mentioned in every other sentence.

<comment><USER3> Sysdig inspect (which does the Forensics in these examples) is open source. [https://github.com/draios/sysdig-inspect](https://github.com/draios/sysdig- inspect)

You can do the same rule - based activity detection through Falco which is also open source. [https://github.com/draios/falco](https://github.com/draios/falco)

Note that both of these open source projects originate from Sysdig as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I genuinely thought this would be about the trend of developers with no security mindset flowing into Ethereum building all kinds of insecure apps, or those who build very superficial "DApp"s to make some bucks overnight, flip, and disappear, or those who write just enough code (in most cases copy and paste an open source contract someone else wrote, just enough to receive Ether) to run a scam ICO and disappear.

It wasn't.

But I think it's a good term for that use case :)</comment>


Pegasus Mail, 30 Years On - <AUTHOR> http://www.pmail.com/30years.htm <comment><USER2> I like his comments on [http://www.pmail.com/devnews.htm](http://www.pmail.com/devnews.htm):

"I'll resist the urge to let loose, though, and simply say that (1) "Less- secure applications" is crude scare-mongering by Google that means little and is mainly intended to serve their political agenda, and that (2) OAUTH2 is among the most poorly-standardized and ill-considered hacks I've ever encountered in thirty years of serving the Internet."

I would like to read his full rant about OAUTH2 for email authentication!

<comment><USER3> It looks like their OAuth2 is compliant with OIDC which is way easier to deal with than vanilla Oauth2. OIDC makes things consistent and clear. In practice OAuth2 without the OpenID bits is loosely glued together vendor specific bits.

<comment><USER2> That is really good to hear. I hate working with OAuth2 (though working with SAML at present, I'm beginning to wish for OAuth2...)

<comment><USER3> OIDC is so much easier to deal with than SAML in almost every way. There's certain scenarios where I like SAML better but they're really rare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My company in 1996-99 used Pegasus mail extensively to manage emails besides mutt, Eudora mail.

Also provided mercury mail as a standalone small mail relay and newsletters servers to some companies as it supported mailing list management by a file which was generated from a web app.

Just in the subsequent jobs moved away from Pegasus as mutt and Thunderbird being open source were preferred by the team.

Later with Fortune 500 moved to lotus notes and outlook with exchange and both were a horrible experience.

Pmail is one of the best email client on windows, much better than outlook and lotus notes.

Congratulations to the author to be able to keep this client and server alive and constantly updating it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Admittedly, the developer has slowed down a bit - Pegasus Mail 5 has been announced since 2006 - and I wonder how the next incarnation will look and feel. But it is calming to know that the world where web browsers are not the best option to read and write e-mail messages is not going to go away soon.

<comment><USER4> Even though developer slowed down, he did not abandon the project and continue to develop it in spite of not making it open source.

This requires tenacity and persistence, which is at display in this project.

I moved away from this programs since MS Windows is not important for my company or my customers. My teams and I on personal level didn't touch any MS windows OS or machine for over 6 years now. No one in my team even wants to touch anything with Microsoft OS, they prefer either FreeBSD, Linux or Mac OSX (mostly used as unix with a good peripheral device support). In a rare case if some customer wants some support on windows the first thing to do is to install WSL with Ubuntu and then it becomes useable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh, pmail <3

My personal anecdote: In 1994, I was a junior PC/Novell sysadmin in the Israeli Airforce headquarters in Tel-Aviv (as part of my mandatory military service). Generally speaking, security was kind of a big deal, but somehow there was a copy of pmail running around, and it became the de-facto standard internal email communication tool across the entire airforce headquarters (and probably beyond?). I remember later even plugging it via SMTP into one of the mainframe systems, so we could send and receive messages from pmail to the mainframe.

I doubt the author got paid for all those copies, but he definitely deserved to be paid generously for it. pmail was simple and just worked. I don't remember the specifics, but I remember the joy of using it even now.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what had already (almost) killed Pegasus Mail a while ago: It is a freeware tool and donations for non-OSS are not really a thing anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, here's a name I didn't expect to ever see again (and neither did I realize that they have such a long history)

I never used Pegasus much but many moons ago worked at a place that used Mercury MTS as a mail server. It worked wonderfully, and of all the software that particular server ran, Mercury was the least fussy and fairly easy (for sysadmin me, anyway) to set up. (Though IIRC leave the server window open, I think it was easy to accidentally kill it by closing the window. Surely that's fixed now)

Nice to see that they're still being updated, and that the author is still around, cares about, and is supported by his work. Seeing stuff like this gives me hope for the future as jobs become seemingly more and more bureaucratic and proprietary cloud stacks swallow up many of the things that I enjoyed

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a product that has lasted for a little over a decade. I use it daily. Others use it daily. But I have had to keep up with the times.

A website from 12 years ago does NOT look the same as today's websites. There are navigation conventions/expectations for downloadable products. For example, screenshots? It would be good to update the website to follow modern conventions. For example, compare Microsoft from a decade ago to today: [https://web.archive.org/web/20080101150414/http://www.micros...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080101150414/http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/default.mspx) [https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/](https://www.microsoft.com/en- ca/windows/)

Unless it is purely a volunteer effort that is.

<comment><USER8> I find it kind of amusing that, although it's an old website, it's not really lightweight. That is, a request transmits 45 kb on the first visit. This could be drastically reduced by using some css instead of gifs for the hover effect in the menu (ieks!).

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, view source, and it's all there, and actually is rather readable for uninitiated...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still use it today on my main Win 10 machine. I used it first when netscape communicator announced end of live. Anyway - must be over 20 years now. Why not? Never change a running system - I guess...

</comment><comment><USER11> One has to tip his hat to a developer that keeps his project alive for three decades.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow. I used it on Win 3.1 on an old 486sx25. It was both powerful and lightweight. I loved it.

<comment><AUTHOR> It still is!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Until I switched to google for my email, Pegasus Mail was my go-to client. Amazing to see it still kicking after all these years, and still updating! Kudos to him for keeping up with it!

</comment><comment><USER14> I setup Pegasus Mail at a company in 1994, had no idea it was still around. Amazing dedication to keep it going all this time. NetWare came and went pretty quickly.

</comment><comment><USER15> This certainly brings back some nostalgia. The university group I worked with back in my college days in the mid 90's used Pegasus mail. Reminds me of simpler days of school work and a summer spent upgrading Netware from 3.x to 4.x and moving from Charon to Mercury Mail. Not seen those since I graduated, but glad to see the developer still has active development and support for those programs.

</comment><comment><USER16> Pegasus Mail is still alive? I worked for a small nuclear energy consultancy that used it circa 1998 on Windows 3.1 and 95 on a Novell Network.

</comment><comment><USER17> I had a couple of my larger clients in the 90's running Pegasus into the early/mid 2000's, especially since it worked so well with Netware. Seldom gave me any problems even if the UI grew to be a little dated. I'd learned all kinds of management tricks around the databases, most of which I have forgotten now but I'm so glad this project still exists.

<comment><USER18> It was fun times in high school when we learned how to use Pegasus mail to send scary red alerts to the less computer-savvy people over Netware.

Anonymously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thirty years of history should mean lots of screenshots over the years, but the author hasn't supplied any. Anyone can help?

<comment><AUTHOR> Pegasus Mail 3.12c: [http://screenshots.modemhelp.net/screenshots/Pegasus/Mail_v3...](http://screenshots.modemhelp.net/screenshots/Pegasus/Mail_v3.12c/Client/Index.jpg)

Pegasus Mail 4.12: [http://www.dwx.com/support/faqs/pegasus412/create/new00.png](http://www.dwx.com/support/faqs/pegasus412/create/new00.png)

Those are the only two ones I could find without spending more time than reasonable.

<comment><USER20> I didn't know anyone who actually used it on Windows back then. I remember it more like [https://twitter.com/soothron/status/1163555232636383233](https://twitter.com/soothron/status/1163555232636383233)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone still running it? I'd love to see the current screenshots. Unfortunately I couldn't find them on the page.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried running it a few years ago (it was a recent-ish 4.x version), but it crashed - so I chose The Bat! instead. The crash bug seems to be fixed by the way, but I'm happy with my current choice (which is Pandora Mail).

I'll probably try Pegasus Mail 5 anyway. :-)

It has not changed much over the course of the past few years: [https://windows-cdn.softpedia.com/screenshots/Pegasus- Mail_1...](https://windows-cdn.softpedia.com/screenshots/Pegasus-Mail_1.png)

<comment><USER22> From a UI perspective, I see no need to change anything from that screenshot. Glad he doesn't feel the need to fiddle with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> MDI is a big bonus!

<comment><USER21> wow it has been ages since I last saw MDI based apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the reasons why I use Pandora Mail, honestly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Oh, my first email program! On DOS (in a Win95 sub-system) connected to some Groupwise shit. Memories.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is Mercury Mail a reliable SMTP server for your personal domain with a few emails defined.

</comment><comment><USER25> oh wow.. I was a pmail user back when i was a Windows user :)

i wonder if there's a linux port!!!

<comment><AUTHOR> There is not, but Pegasus is said to run on Wine: [https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...](https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=34008#testdata)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone using this on Windows 10 in a corp environment?</comment>


My Not So Great Visit to the Apple Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/08/my-not-so-great-visit-to-the-apple-store/

<comment><USER2> This isn't a problem with Apple (although it reflects on them) this is a problem with a specific store manager.

I'm not an Apple fanboy, in fact my background is very similar to the author's - but overall the Apple store service is superior to any other retail experience I've had.</comment>


Show HN: Web code editor with live help from expert developers - <AUTHOR> https://habemus.io/learn.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hey there,

Our online code editor for web development has an integrated chat channel. It's a nice combo tool for frontend devs that are creating a project and need some help during the process.

Works on Chrome and FF.

</comment><comment><USER2> Neat idea</comment>


Show HN: Inky Mail – smart simple email client now on iOS - <AUTHOR> http://inky.com/ios <comment><USER2> "Availabe". Things like this have a serious impact on first impressions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops! That's fixed now. Thanks for the heads up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A bit off-topic:

I gave the mac version a try and tried to use it for weeks. It's not good. The app is slow on OSX, the team doesn't really respond to queries on Twitter, and you can't access your mail without an internet connection.

</comment><comment><USER4> Inky on OS X is nightmare. I tried it twice, only able to launch the app and then ---- updating ....... Takes forever to finish so i just quit.

<comment><USER5> Same on Windows. I tried using it some time back but it didn't feel fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I usually find these mail apps over simplified. One I did find recently that's been genuinely useful is Offline Mail [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/offline-mail-email-app- for/i...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/offline-mail-email-app- for/id470659075?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER7> By far, in my opinion, the best iOs email client is CloudMagic. I've tried most of them and they nearly all suck, but I've been enjoying CloudMagic for a while now.

<comment><USER8> It's free. How does CloudMagic make money?

<comment><USER9> We have plans to charge users. - Chirag, CloudMagic

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The page doesn't really sell the client to me at all if I'm not already familiar with the desktop version, which I'm not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it just came out so we're still fleshing out the page. The main [http://inky.com](http://inky.com) page and the App Store description / screenshots ([http://appstore.com/inkymail](http://appstore.com/inkymail)) give a more complete picture.

<comment><USER11> I agree with OP. There is zero information as to why I should ditch the built- in mail app and head for Inky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks nice. Shame there's no Android version.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Android version is pretty far along and should be available later this year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> They nailed the one feature most "new" email clients fail at... IMAP. Unfortunately your accounts are accessible to the Inky developers due to "cloud sync."

<comment><AUTHOR> IMAP is definitely a complex beast, and we're excited to offer this over many of our competitors. We believe all email users deserve a modern client with innovative features.

As for the cloud sync, we do so in a completely secure way. Our employees _cannot_ access your accounts or read your mail. See [http://inky.com/faq/how- does-inky-store-my-passwords-and-oth...](http://inky.com/faq/how-does-inky- store-my-passwords-and-other-sensitive-information-securely/) and [http://inky.com/faq](http://inky.com/faq) for more details.</comment></comment>


Uncommon features of Einstein's brain - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/uncommon-features-of-einsteins-brain-might-explain-his-remarkable-cognitive-abilities?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1fec99653b-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email <comment><USER2> TLDR:

trance - knocking on my window

"Although the overall size and asymmetrical shape of Einstein's brain were normal, the prefrontal, somatosensory, primary motor, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices were extraordinary" "These may have provided the neurological underpinnings for some of his visuospatial and mathematical abilities, for instance."</comment>


Ask HN: My website is useful to me, but what would make it useful to you? - <AUTHOR>

I took my old read-it-later site and added text search and tags, and its turning out to be handy, at least to me.  I'm having difficulty getting feedback because of such a small user base.<p>http://wheatt.com (wish I knew how to make that linky) <comment><USER2> 1\. i don't think its a big deal for a site like yours to even ask for a registration and verify. Just enter in a unique name and password and let people go.

2\. Im trying to use your bookmark and its telling me i need to login, then when i login it says wrong.. do i need to register my email first ?.. if this is so.. I've already clicked away from your site, and forgotten about it.

3\. its confusing wheatt and links for later. which site am i using. just let me use one.

I don't think tagging links and saving them is enough anymore. I just gmail links to myself, enter in a bunch of keywords in the body, and put them under a links label. Which pretty much does a much better job than what you're doing.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well you have to sign up before you use it. And it doesn't require verification of email, thats why it says it ok to use a fake email address.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Junk Mail - <AUTHOR>

I get several pieces of junk mail per day. When asked to remove me from a list, they often ask my name or social security number. They should only need my address because that is what they use to send it, but they want all sorts of personally identifying info, which I am simply unwilling to provide. I have started recording these discussions and plan to post them publicly, but I am unsure of the ethical nature of doing so. Your thoughts? <comment><USER2> You should be able to remove yourself from their lists with just the information on the mail they sent you -- name & address and possibly an ID included on some catalogs.

There are also a couple of registries where you can add yourself to auto-clean yourself from lots of junk mailer lists. (I don't remember the exact details now).

I left the US in 2006, but set a forwarding address to a US remailer address -- I was able to successfully stop virtually all junk mail doing just what I listed above.

Your route sounds like you have a lot of free time on your hands -- if you actually do, and want to work on stopping the poor practices, that's great. But there are probably LOTS of them out there doing it wrong, and if you actually have better windmills to tilt at, I'd say just use the registries and go work on something else more important to you.

You can't fix everything that's wrong in this world; it's good to realize that and decide, really think about and decide, where you want to put your energies.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, if you must know, I am the "IT Guy" for 9 different construction outfits. I'm not even a real programmer, but I am trying to learn (currently erlang, lua, python, ruby, and javascript; also git, and vim). I am now recording all my calls with these companies. I intend to post them to reddit, once cleaned up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In some jurisdictions it is illegal (civil offence) to record a phone conversation without informing the other party (which is why whenever I phone my bank I am told my call "may be recorded for training purposes" long before I am put through to a human).

<comment><AUTHOR> My understanding is that in Colorado, it is perfectly ok to record with one- party knowledge.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't Y Combinator have a separate link for teams? - <AUTHOR>

Granted there are sites to find a co-founder but why doesn't YCombinator have a link like "TeamUp" where people post what they're ideas are, what they can do etc.  It'll be helpful in forming a team, especially if you know that they're already a YCombinator Junkie so there's already some sort of a connection.<p>There are other entrepreneur networks but it seems like everyone is scattered among the networks. <comment><USER2> We've found that startups are much more likely to succeed when the founders have known one another for a while. If we set up something like this, we'd be implicitly encouraging people to go down a path we know tends to result in failure.</comment>


Ask HN: Why most of the great websites are so simple design-wise? - <AUTHOR>

I have noticed a huge number of posts concerning the aesthetics and the design of websites and web-apps.
At the same time when I think about most of the  big websites of our times(or the websites that I spend most of my time during the day) I observe simplicity or even over-simplicity in the layout and the design:
- Google ( the main page cannot get simpler than that)
- Facebook (blue and white in boxes, I am exaggerating a bit here)
- Craigslist (no comment here!)
- Ebay
- Scientific Journals
- Hacker News
- Gmail ( not a wwebsite in the standard use but still minimal in the design, even when it offers themes I tend to choose the simplest one)
- Banks
The list is really long
What do you think about that? Is there really a pattern(not a recipe) here? <comment><USER3> Not sure I agree 100% with the list (banks ? eBay ?) but much of the complexity in sites for larger companies is due to design-by-committee - <USER2> number of stakeholders/clients/managers have to have their bikeshedding input and the end result is a mess.

Small companies/startups aim for simplicity because they have fewer stakeholders to please and they are concentrating on a single idea and brand. In the case of Google, that simplicity has become a brand in of itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess simplicity is something relative. And your simple may by my complex. I do not do much with online banking but just some money transfers are one password and 2-3 clicks away.

I agree google (and craigslist) are also using the simplicity of the interface to emphasize the utility of the website.

The more I think I find that almost all the websites that are successful ( and my preference is only one data point) tend to have a simple interface. For example youtube has only one search box , minimized options, with two or three clicks you can access the content

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You'll have to define "simple" because there's just too much variety in the sites listed. I don't find Facebook's design simple by any means. That doesn't mean it's ugly or unusable, but it has much more going on, requiring much more deliberate action on my part, than the Google search page, or HN.

And HN is simple in some ways, but not others. Why, for example, if I want to see my own comments, do I have to click "threads", not "comments"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Simple in the sense of interface and layout, not so much in the sense of possibilities. If for example you try to make a new profile in Facebook you will see how simple the template is.

Design from the artistic or decorative point of view is almost zero for all these sites or at least does not come on your way as a user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's probably because flashy websites distract you from the content. Most of the websites you listed are content heavy, and although some of them could use a facelift(ex:craigslist), their design doesn't overshadow the information that's displayed.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a consequence of trying to minimize cognitive load[1].

Edit: Please let me know what's your bank!

[1] <http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/cognitive-load/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Funny how you should post this a day after google decided to change the homepage to 'igoogle' for me when I'm logged in.

<comment><AUTHOR> hopefully they will not punish me that way too :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is Zygna failing? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Their r&d expense quintupled last year. They went from 100 employees to 3k employees within a short time. Maybe they had to do this, maybe it was hubris. Zynga's administrative expense also sharply increased leading to strong losses.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have no idea what the user stats are, only anecdotal evidence from friends.

But their aggressive monetization approach to their -ville games led everyone I know to stop playing them. The games weren't fun, so burnout came fast.

That said, a fair number of my friends still play Words With Friends and/or Scramble, though largely in their mobile app forms. I suspect these games do not monetize very well.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's built on a platform of sand (Facebook), and it's trying to monetize in the completely wrong fashion, and it's trying to run the company like an AAA studio when all it does is sell freemium web games.

</comment><comment><USER5> Poor leadership, flimsy/parasitic business model, lack of long term engagement path for users, chasing trends rather than creating them, PR failure.

Zynga is a company that is that high school most popular jock that hops in front of all others and excels based on a small advantage in physique and looks and personality and bullies the others out of the spotlight only to be the 20-something failure who is realized as having stole al their charm from observing others' talents and mimicing them - and ultimately winding up a washed up meth head in modesto constantly claiming how great they would have been.

<comment><USER6> Trust HN to come up with a jock/nerd analogy to refer to a failing game start- up.

<comment><USER5> Whats worse, my analogy or your snide remark about how cliche you feel that analogy is?</comment></comment></comment>