A LessWrong Crypto Autopsy - <AUTHOR> https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/MajyZJrsf8fAywWgY/a-lesswrong-crypto-autopsy <comment><USER2> Oh boy. For supposed rationalists, there's a lot wrong with this sentiment. Biggest issues:

1\. Confirmation bias. How many things were discussed on rationalist websites that people were sure were going to be yuge, petered out, and were forgotten? You can't claim victory for rationalists without factoring in the ratio of failed predictions.

2\. You can make a strong argument that the fundamentals of bitcoin itself are irrational (power consumption, transaction throughput, etc). Is accurately forecasting the irrationality of others itself rational? Maybe. But given how unreliable people are, feels more like augury than rationality to claim you saw it coming, post facto. Especially when your actual chain of reasoning turned out to be incorrect, despite a correct conclusion.

3\. I _did_ mine myself 20 bitcoins in the early days. But then I cashed out when they were $20 a pop and bought and iPad, and was well pleased with myself at the time. Obviously not a great idea in hindsight, but the point is that in order to make a 10000x return requires a strong belief that Bitcoin will actually go that high. Because to reach 10000x you have to resist the strong temptation to cash out at 10x, 100x and 1000x. I would argue that cashing out at 100x IS more rational in most scenarios than holding out for the moon shot (even if that eventually happened.) It could have just as easily crashed back down to zero.

<comment><USER3> > Confirmation bias. How many things were discussed on rationalist websites > that people were sure were going to be yuge, petered out, and were > forgotten? You can't claim victory for rationalists without factoring in the > ratio of failed predictions.

If there are indeed more than 10,000 of these, then I agree it's selection bias to only look at the successful one. Do you think there were? Personally, I'm having trouble coming up with even a single equivalent case, though I'm sure there are at least a few.

<comment><USER4> > If there are indeed more than 10,000 of these, then I agree it's selection > bias to only look at the successful one. Do you think there were? > Personally, I'm having trouble coming up with even a single equivalent case, > though I'm sure there are at least a few.

Isn't this basically every startup? If it grows up to become Google or Microsoft, you 10,000X your money. And then 10,000 of them don't.

<comment><USER5> The average person never gets the opportunity to be an early investor in startups. You could buy 10 bitcoins when they were $1. You couldn't buy Google stock until after they were successful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Scott argues that Bitcoin is an example of why rationalists need to be more confident in their results — I'd argue it's an example of where they should be much more modest. Hindsight bias is in play here.

The line of reasoning that "this investment has a 1/10000 chance of going huge, and a 9999/10000 chance of being at best a waste of time, so I should invest" is not a rational strategy by itself. If you applied this logic to every moon-shot investment you came across you'd barely break even between the few winners and thousands of losers. You need to know something more interesting about the investment than "this could go to the moon". Otherwise you're spending all your time buying and then losing money in penny stocks.

You also have to hold onto Bitcoin much longer than seems rational. It's rare to find that someone buys Bitcoin at $1 a coin, and doesn't sell at $1000/coin. A 1000x return is the definition of moon-shot. Scott claims that "most people" agreed Bitcoin had a more than 1/10,000 chance of achieving $10,000 a coin — but this is a totally non-obvious result to me. Maybe it's 1/1000 chance of a price of $1,000? A 1/100,000,000 chance of $100,000? In 2011, how could you reliably make such a precise prediction? For a community centered around epistemic modesty, such a finely calibrated probability like that seems unreasonable.

And for the record — Bitcoin was expected to grow in price proportional to its value as a currency, tool, technology, etc. Nobody said "I'm going to buy Bitcoin because it's going to enter into a giant speculative bubble and I want to be on the bottom". Nobody seems to know why Bitcoin has exploded in price, so I'm hesitant to award points to rationalists. Seems more like a case of "correct by coincidence". You made statistical inferences and acted on the result, and ended up being right, but not for any of the reasons that your statistical inference is based on.

<comment><USER7> > If you applied this logic to every moon-shot investment you came across > you'd barely break even between the few winners and thousands of losers

You would become... a VC

Their method is to just select the moonshots on the basis of some common characteristics with previous moonshots

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was active on LessWrong in '09-10 (and not-as-active until '14). Bitcoin was mentioned rarely. Hal Finney and Wei Dai themselves barely talked about it there, if at all. IIRC they didn't mention it until a few years later. My awareness of Bitcoin came from various other tech/programmer forums. I mined 0.7 BTC in early 2011 and held it until a few months ago. Not life-changing, but certainly the biggest ROI on anything I've ever had by a few orders of magnitude. But my point is I don't remember becoming interested in Bitcoin because anyone on LW was talking about it. They weren't. Even though I regularly interacted with Finney and Dai, I didn't even know they had anything to do with cryptocurrency until last year.

Edit: To be clear, I'm adding context, not arguing with the article. Yvain/Scott was certainly there.

<comment><USER9> I mean, the article claims the first mention of it was in early 2011 on LW, so your timeline makes sense. Maybe it was on IRC or something else that you heard about it at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Because this is Less Wrong, I'll say that they're making a logical fallacy. A prediction was made that Bitcoin would go well, and it did, but the fact that it went well doesn't mean that the prediction was rationally founded.

<comment><USER11> There aren't that many predictions being made on LW though. If you expect this has only come true by chance, there should be a large amount of similar predictions that haven't come true in the LW archives. Are there?

<comment><USER12> As another comedic twist, the LW community is probably the biggest proponent of publishing long-dated predictions and calibrating their confidence based on their results and priors. If ANY group of people has a defensible history of trying to make verifiable/actionable predictions, it is LW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > 3: Arguments-from-extreme-upside sometimes do work

I have seen a bunch of less wrong articles on pascal's wager and variants so I assume they are familiar with them:

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager)

\- [http://lesswrong.com/lw/kd/pascals_mugging_tiny_probabilitie...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/kd/pascals_mugging_tiny_probabilities_of_vast/)

\- [http://lesswrong.com/lw/h8k/pascals_muggle_infinitesimal_pri...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/h8k/pascals_muggle_infinitesimal_priors_and_strong/)

With that fallacy in mind, is bitcoin still a good call? It could've been any other cryptocurrency winning and they all satisfy the same tiny probability with astronomical returns. It doesn't make sense to dump all your resources onto every new coin that pops up. Just like how you wouldn't adopt every religion to guarantee that you will never burn in any hells.

<comment><USER14> Rationalists are familiar with Pascal's Wager, arguably to a fault. (There's a _lot_ of discussion regarding how it ties into strong AI. The darker theories look something like Stross's _A Colder War_.)

It's certainly true that long-odds betting isn't an inherent winner, and crypto better is long-odds betting. But BTC was the first blockchain currency, and is credited with being the first decentralized answer to the double-spend question. People who understood the tech and the importance of that idea at the beginning might well have made a prediction that this was different than your average investment bubble, and given that BTC and ETH are clearly the 'safest' cryptocurrencies they'd have a solid point.

It was still a long odds chance. It could have dried up regardless of technical merit, or crashed when the selfish miner problem was unveiled, or been supplanted by a more-usable version of the same insight. But it's quite reasonable to argue that 2011-2013 BTC was a much more justified bet than early-stage Ripple or Litecoin or other cryptos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find it really funny that even though the author of the original article from 2015 turned out to be fundamentally right about price movement, a lot of people here are nitpicking the reasoning to death.

One factor that has contributed to crypto's explosive growth that does not get mentioned as much as I think it should is how controversial it is. I can't remember if it was PG or Mark Cuban or some other VC-related person, but I remember a quote that says (roughly)-

If a new company is based on an idea I like, I want to buy. If it is based on an idea that makes me bored, I don't. But if it is based on an idea that I hate and can't stop thinking about how much I hate it, I want to buy.

Looking back, the "memetic contagion" of people debating the merits of bitcoin has only helped it. The fact that a lot of people hated it (and continue to hate it) and can't stop talking about it has only added fuel to the fire.

<comment><USER15> Friday is groundhog day. Phil might be right about his weather forecast, but it won't make me give any more credence to groundhog based weather prediction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having recently received a reasonable fraction of a bitcoin, I am interested in what the optimal ways to cash out on it from a theoretical perspective are. Say I have some guess as to what chance it will have X value in Y years and have some quantified percentages of risk/security. How much do I sell now, how much should I hold on to "in case", etc? I feel like there is some mathematical advice here that I don't know. I feel like the best strategy should be something like "sell 50% every year" where 50% will be dependent on what I expect future performance to be.

Edit: and ironically, it's the inconvenience of selling it that has kept me from doing so yet! The opposite of the author's problem.

</comment><comment><USER16> Can mods please use "cryptocurrency" or "cryptocoin" ? How on Earth am I supposed to know which links are about cryptography now ?

I was looking forward to a sweet post about cryptography failure, with possible advice relevant to my day-to-day work... but no, yet another Bitcoin analysis I really don't care about.

Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER17> > [...] one bitcoin purchased today (for 90 cents, last time I checked) [...] > My financial advice is to not buy more than ten [...]

That's a really strange proposition. "It might be worth a lot more than now but don't spend more than 10 bucks on it"?

I imagine, back then buying bitcoin wasn't easy (it's still not) so going through all that hassle for 10 bucks is odd.

I would have expected a recommendation of maybe $100 or even $1000 if one was adventurous.

<comment><USER11> I think it's consistent with the rest of the post. The claim is that long-term bitcoin is either going to be worth a shitton, in which case having 10 is enough, or 0, in which case having more than 10 is pointless.

Buying more makes sense if you're planning to sell somewhere between, like if it gets to $10k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this about cryptography?

<comment><USER19> No, it's about crypto.

<comment><USER18> www.cryptoisnotcryptocurrency.com

<comment><USER19> See the world for my retort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was logically onboard back then, but the notion of Proof of Work mining seemed ridiculous and wasteful, so I didn't bother. I didn't even consider its purchase, which in retrospect would've been a good idea?

I'm happy to hear the field is moving to Proof of Stake. I would've been on board from the beginning most likely.

</comment><comment><USER21> I had a bit of Bitcoin back then-- maybe 10 BTC. Some I mined back when you could CPU mine. I set up a process to mine in a pool whenever my 2011-2012 era MacBook was plugged in and had Internet, keeping it alive even when the lid was closed with another hack.

I spent it on various things between then and the big Bitcoin pumps: coffee (there was a spot that would take BTC in SoCal), open source contributions, etc., and cashed a little out just to see Coinbase work.

I never thought it would go anywhere near this high for the rational reason that Satoshi's Bitcoin is really not a very good currency. It's a significant innovation in distributed systems and the Bitcoin code base is a good proof of concept, but I expected it to stay semi-niche or to eventually crash if/when major technical limits were found.

I saw three killer problems with it:

(1) Proof of work inherently promotes centralization due to industrial economies of scale. I expected some miner to eventually have 51% and behave badly, or a government that felt threatened by it to invest in >=51% hash power (or nationalize a few miners) and wreck it. The latter would be cheaper both politically and monetarily than a full frontal assault, especially if done semi-secretly.

(2) It doesn't scale and won't scale. It's far too heavy. Some of the issues are merely Bitcoin's choice of parameters and some are deeper problems with the implementation.

(3) Hyper-deflationary behavior is not a desirable characteristic for a currency. (Hyper-inflationary isn't either, but Bitcoin will never have that problem.) A currency needs to have at least a somewhat stable price and the ability to grow in quantitative base if needed to act as a good medium of exchange. Bitcoin is far more deflationary than gold. Not only does it have a strict known global limit, but it's subject to breakage (loss of coins) to a much greater degree than gold.

So I didn't "hodl" because I thought it would probably top out at around $100/coin. I underestimated the irrationality of the rest of the market.

Moral of the story? Markets are not rational and are therefore pretty tough to predict using purely rational models that don't delve into emotionally driven human behavior, herd dynamics, and game theory.

Second moral of the story: I agree with point #3 here that sometimes extreme upside arguments do work. I should have held because I didn't need to cash out and there was the remote chance that... this... would happen.

The latter works with startup investing too. I've talked to some angels and several said they made their biggest exits on companies they'd mentally written off. In one case when it came time to cash out he forgot where he put his certificate info or how many shares he had.

<comment><USER22> > or a government that felt threatened by it to invest in >=51% hash power (or > nationalize a few miners) and wreck it

Well, AFAIU they will wreck their fork, fine by me.

> Hyper-deflationary behavior is not a desirable characteristic for a > currency.

It is a desirable characteristic for a store of value though. And eventually, every hyper-deflation stops and it might become a currency.

<comment><USER21> Bitcoin is a poor store of value too. It requires a lot of power simply to maintain it. It's a dissipative structure. Gold on the other hand can be buried in the ground and can just sit there for free. There are costs associated with moving and guarding or hiding it, but they're less than the cost of maintaining a vast network infrastructure and lot of energy-consuming hash computers.

To me the whole "store of value" thing is goal post moving. It was originally intended to be a currency but it's not very good for that, so people have decided to punt on that goal and redefine its objectives.

I also forgot to add that Bitcoin in its current incarnation is not quantum hard and will die when practical QC arrives. It could be rev'd to support post-quantum crypto, but the way it's dealt with scaling issues so far does not inspire confidence that it will get ahead of the curve.

<comment><USER22> > To me the whole "store of value" thing is goal post moving.

I agree and the bet is currently on LN to get that currency aspect back. But it troubles me and many others.

On the mitigating side, many people think that it it's not a currency, even with low transaction fees, because it's so volatile. Therefore, those people have never bought it in the first place and cannot exert downward price pressure right now either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Page not loading for me.

<comment><USER24> Cached: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FWjBUR...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FWjBUR-t1QsJ:https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/MajyZJrsf8fAywWgY/a-lesswrong- crypto-autopsy+&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=de)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> You can always place low risk, high reward bets on the stock market using options.

</comment><comment><USER26> Missing from this post: no matter how smart you think you are, the future is still unpredictable, because it involves other people and people are mostly gooey and not perfectly rational game theory state machines.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow. This is a very Wrong post. As much as I like crypto and bitcoin (and I'm an early investor), this post gets it all wrong.

Bitcoin is kinda like a ponzi scheme. It can only benefit a few that bought in early. If most of LW readers bought in, the price to get them all in will be much higher thus making their investment less rewarding.

Remember, in crypto we are not building houses but convincing the other guy to buy in. We are yet to have reliable instant and cheap transactions. We are yet to have stable non-volatile crypto. So from a usability point of view crypto is still not usable.</comment>


UK telecomms access hatch covers - <AUTHOR> https://null.53bits.co.uk/index.php?page=uk-grid-covers <comment><USER2> as youd expect from the good old UK, theyre dull as dishwater, not quite the lovely intricate designs you see in places like japan</comment>


Ask HN: Need advice for starting freelance biz and eventual startup life. - <AUTHOR> [Note: I'm using a throwaway account for anonymity]
I'm currently working at a small development agency and things are looking grim. It looks like the company may have 2 to 3 more months before it goes under (due to circumstances outside of my control. Poor business decisions.)
In my off-time I've been working to develop a few freelance connections and have lined up several projects for the next few months. Until now freelancing has been just a way to supplement my (low) income from my development job, but I would like to switch over to freelancing fulltime and eventually work on my own application. While I'm not generating enough freelance income to live yet, I'm confident that if I was focusing full-time I could.
I'm sure this has been asked several times in the past, but what should my next steps be? I haven't set up any formal business for myself. Is an LLC the best bet for a freelancer who wants to release an app eventually? <comment><USER2> I'd recommend finding an accountant (ask other local freelancers for references) and have them handle all the business incorporation issues (LLC vs S-corp, payroll taxes, etc, etc). It will cost more than doing it yourself, but they may end up saving you money, and you'll definitely sleep a little better.

No offense to anyone in particular, but beware the legal/accounting advice you receive here on HN. Just like you shouldn't ask an accountant for programming advice, it's not a great idea to take accounting advice from a programmer. Pay an accountant to handle things, at least at first. Have them teach you how to handle payroll taxes and quarterly filings and all that stuff. You may find it's easy enough that you can do it on your own. Or, you may find that it's complicated and you're glad to have an accountant handle it.

<comment><USER3> While taking this approach, does it make sense to read and familiarize oneself, to the level of layperson, in advance, to the extent possible? The purpose being to make those meetings as efficient as possible and maximize knowledge transfer.

If so, does anyone recommend particular resources?

My biggest concern is liability. I don't want any more potential attachment to present and future personal assets than necessary.

EDIT: I'm seeing some references/recommendations in the other comments. So thanks, and sorry if my query begged repetition.

<comment><USER2> Educate yourself, sure. But don't get any ideas about how much you know. When you do meet with an accountant, go in with ears open and mouth shut. You probably don't know half as much as you think you do. Plus, their knowledge is what you're paying for. If you don't utilize that, you're not getting your money's worth.

Finally, it's probably a good idea to at least get a cursory second opinion. From what I've seen, accountants are a lot like programmers. Where one is adamantly behind Ruby on Rails, another will recommend PHP. There probably is no single right answer, but it never hurts to hear opposing viewpoints.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Create an LLC (not sure in what state you are, but in florida it takes about 10 minutes, it's an online form)

2\. With step 1, you can get a Business Checking account (some banks have free, I've used chase)

3\. Get an account on freshbooks for your billing (invoicing, bookkeeping, accounting -- it will help when taxes comes around and in general to keep track of the financial health of your company)

I highly recommend you do freelance with your LLC in case you start signing contracts and there is a dispute, they'll go after the LLC, not after your personal assets.

Some things can be logged as business expenses, and some as personal expenses, just use common sense, and do talk to an accountant when you have to file taxes. The LLC itself does not pay taxes, you pay the taxes as income when the money goes from your LLC to you.

About explains it better:

"The tax implications of an LLC differ from those of corporations. LLCs use "pass-through taxation," which means the LLC does not pay taxes. Income from the business is instead passed down to the company's owners, who are called members in LLCs. They claim the profits or losses on their personal tax forms." <http://sbinformation.about.com/od/ownership1/a/llctax.htm>

IANAL

<comment><USER5> Be sure to setup that business bank account quickly. It can take a few weeks to get everything in order. I believe you can do it as long as you have your Employer Identification Number (EIN).

<https://sa1.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp>

This means you can do get the bank account and apply for the LLC in parallel.

<comment><USER6> In Florida for me, both the biz bank account and the llc were extremely fast. Llc was an online form with instant results, and biz bank account just required a visit to the actual office of my credit union. I needed the llc first in order to get the bank account in that name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _While I'm not generating enough freelance income to live yet, I'm confident that if I was focusing full-time I could._

What exactly would you do differently working full-time that you can't do now while still at your job?

I ask because I thought the same thing when I first considered quitting my full-time engineering job to freelance. But then I came to the conclusion that it was just a justification that would allow me to immediately do what I wanted (quit) while putting off the tedious part (find more freelance work).

In the end, I chose to be a bit more prudent, and actually line up enough work to comfortable quit without worrying too much. So I went out and found enough work that would allow me to make as much as I was making at my full-time job for at least 3 months (noting that my rate was significantly higher, so it only amounted to finding about 25hr/wk of work for 12 weeks). Even then, I was still nervous as hell when it came time to give my 2-weeks notice.

By far the easiest way I found to line up a solid 3-months of freelance work before I was actually doing things full-time, was to find a full-time development firm and work out a subcontracting agreement with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had steady work for the past few months and I'm working with other design firms/agencies that seem to have a steady flow of work. They're impressed with what I do and I'm having to turn down work because I don't have time to complete it. I realize that I need to put away a nice amount to be ready for dry periods, but I have that.

To answer your question, I could spend more time freelancing than I can while still at my current job.

<comment><USER6> If you're having to turn down work at a comfortably livable pay rate (considering additional taxes, health insurance, etc.) for lack of time, and this is an ongoing situation, not a one time fluke, then I agree it's likely you'll be able to do just fine going freelance full time. And if your current job is approaching the end of the line, it's probably a good time to make that jump. Not worth all the energy you'd have to invest in finding another job and getting up to speed only to quit N months later.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose I should have mentioned I'm already paying my health insurance (current employer doesn't offer it). Thanks for your help!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Assuming you're in the US, it doesn't take any paperwork to do business as a sole proprietorship. You and your business are legally the same, you have unlimited liability (unlikely to be an issue for you) and you pay taxes the same way you do now.

Read as, spend all of your energy finding income-generating projects at this point. You're safe as you won't run into any tax issues down the road you forgot to prepare for.

<comment><USER9> no you pay 15.3% more taxes on your salary. This is you a portion of your taxes that your employee and now you will be responsible for. As well, never do business under your own personal liability, while software is low risk, if you get into a litigious contract dispute you could loose everything. You want to limit your liability and you want to form a S-Corp. Go to an accountant or attorney, not doing this correctly could be a costly mistake, if you truly can't afford one then educate yourself and file online for $50 bucks or whatever they charge now.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly the type of advice I'm looking for. Does anyone have any easy to understand/comprehend resource that lays out step by step what I should be doing? Maybe that just doesn't exist. I am located in the US.

<comment><USER10> Your local Small Business Administration, and probably state- and local-level organizations of the same type, has someone sitting by the phone absolutely freaking _eager_ to mail you a pamphlet or two designed to be comprehensible by fifth graders. Make that guy's day.

<comment><USER11> Agree. Type this in Google:

small business development center <<state name>>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lots of good advice about corporations and I thought I'd throw in my two cents about finances.

\- Find a CPA and a lawyer you can work with. Choose supporting professionals that match your risk tolerance. The self-employed can be very aggressive regarding taxes, litigation, and financial engineering (and likewise accept more risk of audits and penalties.) If you want to be aggressive, choose an aggressive CPA and an aggressive lawyer. If you're more conservative, do the opposite. Don't expect that a professional will be conservative just because she works for a larger firm. In fact, the opposite is often the case.

\- Get a business checking account and a business credit card. Many banks offer free checking and no fee credit cards to small businesses. Try to be good about using the business accounts only for business expenses and you'll be much better off at tax time.

\- Open a high-yield money market or savings account. Don't let your cash sit around in the checking account. Even with today's crappy interest rates, you can make a few bucks each month. Your bank might have good rates or you can look at Everbank or Capital One. (Costco members get a rate bonus at Capital One.)

\- Set up a retirement plan. A solo 401(k) or SEP-IRA is simple to set up and you can save a ton of money for retirement and help save on your taxes. A solo 401(k) lets you contribute the most (up to $49,000/year,) but it's a more of a pain to maintain, especially if you plan to have employees. Talk to your CPA about which is right for you. T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, and many of the other big financial firms offer cheap or low-cost small business retirement accounts.

\- Talk to a CPA and ask them to explain how to pay yourself a regular salary, withhold taxes, withhold retirement contributions, etc. Actually doing the payroll yourself is not hard, but there are plenty of companies that will administer your payroll for $30 - 60/month if you don't want to do it.

\- The more clients and expenses you have, the more you need some sort of accounting package. If you have one or two clients and few expenses, a spreadsheet is probably fine for bookkeeping. If you have more clients or lots of purchases and expenses, a simple accounting program will help a ton.

</comment><comment><USER13> Pick up a copy of "Working for Yourself: Law and Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers and Consultants." It's an excellent book that provides detail on legal forms (LLC, S-Corp, etc), tax issues, insurance, record keeping, client agreements, etc. I highly recommend the book for someone just getting started as a freelancer.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been in a similar place. When my wife lost her job a couple years ago and we lost our housing (came and went with the job), I went full-time with my freelance work and became our sole income.

Think of the business entity as a form of insurance. You have to go through some hassle to set it up, and you have to maintain it at a minimal financial cost and possibly more significant paperwork time cost. If properly maintained it provides some legal protection of your personal assets if you are sued, but less than you'd think for a freelancing business. You decide whether it's worth the bother. I went ahead and did the LLC--it just seemed like a good idea to me, and it helps my brain a bit to have a separate legal entity for the business. When you get ready to actually release software, you may want to have a lawyer help you revisit your decision, whatever it was.

A separate business bank account is essential regardless of your organization you will need an EIN from the IRS. Just google for how to get one. It's free.

I use fresh books but have not found it to be really adequate for forming a solid financial picture. I'm currently using a beta version of gnu cash, but it won't be just right until I get around to enhancing it with some reports of my own.

Your tax situation will change. You will have no withholding, so you'll need to make quarterly payments. IRS interest charges are not out of line, but they can really add up over the year if you don't pay attention to this at all. Google "estimated payments safe harbor". Of course you're also going to be responsible for self-employment tax, which looks like it will be considerably more than my income tax this year. Use the google for calculators to estimate both so you know how much to be saving along the way.

Good luck, and ping me via letterblock.com if you want.

</comment><comment><USER14> Create an LLC

Get a forwarding number now (google voice, twilo, etc)

File for a business checking account

File your taxes as an S Corp (there is a form with the IRS, you only have a certain number of days after you start doing business to do this).

California is expensive to do an LLC. Nevada, Delaware and Georgia are much less so.

Here is an old blog I did about when I setup the company I now do product development through (although I work with other people, you sound like you're going solo).

It goes through the steps of setting up your business, etc (but is slanted heavily towards Georgia): [http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods/archives/2006_...](http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods/archives/2006_10_01_pitchtothegods_archive.html)

I suggest Google Checkout/Zoho Invoice for invoicing.

I suggest cash method of accounting (accrual method is a LOT of paperwork and its a pain to switch to cash later, but not hard to switch to accrual later).

</comment><comment><USER15> IANAL: If you just want some personal liability protection, an LLC is a good move. Also, you should have a business checking account and do not co-mingle funds to maintain the separation. If you plan on having investors in your company, you'd probably want to consider a corporation at that point. For more information, checkout the Nolo resources online, at your library, or on Amazon. [http://www.nolo.com/legal- encyclopedia/faqEditorial-29070.ht...](http://www.nolo.com/legal- encyclopedia/faqEditorial-29070.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Just remember that if you create an LLC (in any state), but operate that LLC primarily in California, you are required to pay this ridiculous "tax" of $800 per year (due within 90 days of when you first setup shop).

<http://nolonow.nolo.com/noe/popup/NNLLCCABAS_faq.html#topic5>

Also, I setup my LLC by just filing a few government forms instead of something like LegalZoom and it wasn't much trouble at all.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi. I am a freelance web designer. I am starting a distributed web design firm. Basically its a couple of freelancers, who are collaborating together so everyone can benefit from everyone else's skills and local reach.

If you are interested then email me at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER11> IANAL/IANAA: I believe an S-Corp is cheaper to set up and should work well for your consulting/contracting business.

You could then incorporate a separate LLC whenever you're ready to work on an actual product and are planning to raise money from investors.

<comment><USER17> LLCs are easier. You can file a petition to request your LLC to be taxed as an S-corp if needed.

<comment><USER11> I think I meant cheaper, or got confused for a minute. But that's interesting, I didn't know your LLC could be taxed as an S-Corp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My advice is to not go LLC until you fully understand what you're doing and why you need it.

Also, when you incorporate, get close and personal with an accountant.

Your next step would be to get some business cards printed out and start beating on the doors of local business owners. The conversations you have with them will be very informative and point you in the direction you need to go (and hopefully get you some clients).

Best of luck to you.</comment>


Scientists use laser to mind-control flies and turn them into sex maniacs - <AUTHOR> http://www.techtimes.com/articles/4023/20140308/scientists-use-laser-to-mind-control-flies-and-turn-them-into-sex-maniacs.htm <comment><USER2> Because why wouldn't you do that if you could...</comment>


Piper Pied Imitates HBO's Silicon Valley and Creates Lossless Image Compression - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/03/ppiper-pied-imitates-hbos-silicon-valley-and-creates-lossless-compression-for-online-images/

<comment><USER2> "The algorithm detects the face and then from there it can compress everything else but the face so that you keep the quality of the face while technically lowering the quality in a way that is not noticeable to the human eye."

That's the exact opposite of lossless compression. It is a creative way to implement lossy compression for a limited subset of images, though.

<comment><USER3> I was hoping it was just a bad title - but it doesn't appear to be as the founders use the word lossless themselves.

It's concerning because it either means they don't actually know what lossless compression is and believe they are doing it - or they are engaging in borderline fraudulent marketing.

Given they actually built an impressive product for subset of images it works with, I'm going to assume it isn't the former.

I can see their reasoning: "it doesn't appear to be any lower in quality because our brain focuses on the face to determine it, so you get the same effect as lossless compression ergo: lossless compression" \- but that still feels rather slimy to me and is a great example of marketing trying to repurpose actual technical terms to fit their product.

<comment><USER4> > the founders use the word lossless themselves.

Where? (I probably just missed it but I don't see it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you tried it? It's not lossless, it's lossy [https://www.dropbox.com/s/5c3g220rrzzsdov/%D0%A1%D0%BA%D1%80...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/5c3g220rrzzsdov/%D0%A1%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%88%D0%BE%D1%82%202015-05-03%2020.59.53.png?dl=0). Seems like dummy reason for a post.

<comment><AUTHOR> The post's title is taken from the article title (in keeping with HN guidelines).

<comment><USER6> The HN guidelines ask you to use the original title _unless it is misleading or linkbait_. For some reason people tend not to remember that latter bit, but it's just as important.

<comment><AUTHOR> > For some reason people tend not to remember that latter bit

Indeed - but a reminder from dang should prevent that from happening again :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ah yes, the TechCrunch hackathon, where they make a big deal out of ideas that have been done at pretty much every hackathon.

For instance some variation of Split is made at every hackathon I've been to, since Venmo or Dwolla is usually a sponsor: [http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/03/split-lets-you-split-the- bi...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/03/split-lets-you-split-the-bill-fairly- not-equally/)

<comment><USER8> but if they didnt... they wouldnt have anything left to show.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://220.127.116.11/uploads/](http://22.214.171.124/uploads/) Full access to everything uploaded. These guys need to secure their shit.</comment>


I want to start a synthetic biology company, now what? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> How much research have you done so far? How committed are you to achieving this?

I ask because your question is worded in such a way to suggest you've just had the idea and want other people to provide some answers. If that is the case then you have a bigger question to answer - if the first thing I do when I've had my grand idea is to want other people to tell me how and what to do, how passionate am I about this? Because you'll need passion to see you through the long road.

<comment><AUTHOR> I apologize for my noncommittal question. I currently hold a master's degree (that I recently completed) in bioengineering. I am completely committed to making this a reality. I am only unsure of how to move forward in regards to governmental regulations, patent concerns, and if I should further my education in the field or not. What are your thoughts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What is required to start synthetic biology company from 0 depends on what problem you are trying to solve commercially. If you do not have a problem in particular, then you need to evaluate the current research and commercial synthetic biology space, approximate the gaps in services and identify a problem you would like to address. Once you have a better idea of the problem, then you will have an idea of where to start. What did you have in mind ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply, and I apologize for my tardy response. I'm interested in the whole field of Synthetic Biology, with no particular research focus. From my understanding, synthetic biology is able to solve many world problems. This includes creating machines from synthetized components to solve the "particular problems" of the world, including ending world hunger, curing disease, solving our energy crises, and uplifting the human condition.

To add to my ask HN response: I have an master's degree in bioengineering, so I am no stranger to the field. I am unsure of where to focus my studies to maximize my contribution to the field. I hope that helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd get a PhD first or hook up with a PhD-trained co-founder.

<comment><AUTHOR> I currently have a masters degree in bioengineering, do you believe that a PhD is required to create a SynBio startup?

<comment><USER4> It's a much less mature engineering field than any of the others, so it's still a lot of R&D to get anything done. PhD is a big help in teaching you to do that well. I still recommend it, though at some point in the future it won't be necessary.</comment></comment></comment>


Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/04/15/internetorg-withdrawal_n_7071532.html?utm_hp_ref=india <comment><USER3> After limited protest/outrage in communities like /r/india, the news finally hit big when a comedy group AIB decided to make a video explaining what Net Neutrality is: [https://youtu.be/mfY1NKrzqi0](https://youtu.be/mfY1NKrzqi0) and then it finally hit mainstream media. Amid pressure from everywhere, Flipkart finally withdrew from the Airtel Zero deal which would have been a blow to Net Neutrality in India.

Of course, next step was Internet.org and similar initiatives, which on paper sound like a fantastic idea until you look deeper and begin to see the NN violation problem. This is welcome news indeed. Btw, this was Zuckerburg's response when posed this question: [https://i.imgur.com/PAwf6e3.png](https://i.imgur.com/PAwf6e3.png) "Some connectivity is better than no connectivity, hence the violation of NN is justified"

Last few days have been a mixture of anxiousness and excitement. :)

<comment><USER4> "Btw, this was Zuckerburg's response when posed this question: [https://i.imgur.com/PAwf6e3.png"](https://i.imgur.com/PAwf6e3.png")

Bullshit. Facebook cannot become AOL (which is what all the platforms desperately want to become) unless they can vertically integrate with the network.

They cannot currently do that in the US and most of the global north because of antitrust and the growing support and knowledge of net neutrality (thanks, Tim[1]).

But maybe they can get away with it in the global south ... plenty of market share there ...

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu#The_Master_Switch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu#The_Master_Switch)

<comment><AUTHOR> Lots of factors at play here. Till a few months ago, India didn't even have a competition commission. We have no anti-trust laws.

You also have to understand the history of telecom in India, especially the Value-Added-Services on mobile. They killed startups ( [http://rashmiranjanpadhy.com/2015/04/12/airtel-kills- startup...](http://rashmiranjanpadhy.com/2015/04/12/airtel-kills-startups-and- innovation-a-real-story/) ), they activated services without users' consent and so on. Can you imagine how big this fraud was in India where 40% of the people are not even literate? It was plain and simple fraud.

Everyone and his uncle learned to curse the telcos in that era. Now they're coming for the web, disparagingly calling it "Over-The-Top services".

<comment><USER5> India has a Competition Commission since 2002.

[http://www.cci.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view...](http://www.cci.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12)

<comment><USER6> Denzil - we have bodies and committees for every thing but no action takes place. Our CCI is a joke. There is no anti-trust. And less said about our courts & justice system the better.

Just a small eg: Satyam chief, Ramalingam Raju, picked up the phone and gave himself in to SEBI (US version of SEC) confessing to financial fraud of INR 4000 crores+ massive job losses, massive losses/harakiri in pension/taxes owed to the govt (due to inflated employee #) to the extent of he had one of the big4 auditors in his pocket who signed over falsified bank balance statements. This resulted in govt having to take over the co and auctioning it out to TechMahindra. At the time Satyam was the #3 Software services company in India by sheer revenue and employee size. Raju gave detailed proofs of each of his wrongdoings ("when he could not ride this tiger anymore") and yet it took our courts 7 years + to impose a rap-on-knuckles 7 years of imprisonment and 5 crores of fines. An amount which he could've made bamboozled off in one day of stock manipulation on the exchanges.

So my point is it's one thing to have all these fancy bodies and titles and quite another to have them act on anything.

This recent action against zero-rated apps by one of our telcos, Airtel, is a heartening move which ofcourse morphed into heat brought upon FB's internet.org which is a bigger culprit on net neutrality front.

Way to go online activism in India! (Disclosure: I'm a member of the #SaveTheInternet volunteer group)

<comment><USER5> I do understand that most of these bodies are toothless but we do have a CCI. The parent comment mentioned that we don't have one and I thought I would mention the fact that we do. As we speak, the CCI seems to be probing Indian telecoms.

[http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/cc...](http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/cci- probing-indian-telcos-violating-net-neutrality/46854200)

I'm not in favor of zero rating or violations of net neutrality as we know it.

Disclosure : I'm a passive member of the #SaveTheInternet volunteer group (anonymously) too. I really appreciate your efforts and work. I am trying to tell all my colleagues and friends about you guys. Keep going!

<comment><USER7> These commissions are set up here, only after someone from a global body like UN, World Bank, IMF etc complains about their absence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Today was phenomenal. The campaign has sent more than 620,000 email to TRAI (Indian equivalent of FCC) who wanted public opinion on whether Internet (or as they say, "Over-the-top services") should be regulated or not.

Cleartrip showed courage in being the first one to opt out of Internet.org. A few more soon followed.

Tomorrow could be amazing!

Edit: Very similar to US, comedians played a pivotal role in popularizing this issue. Here is the video that went viral: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfY1NKrzqi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfY1NKrzqi0)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for doing this, guys :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing to note is that there's no EFF like organisation and this is mostly done by volunteers [1].

This has also been largest response to any consultation by Indian government having received 600K+ responses through campaign sites[2][3]. Previous highest was 20000 mails in 1999.

[1]: Disclaimer: I am associated and helping the group.

[2]: [http://savetheinternet.in/](http://savetheinternet.in/) People can submit response here.

[3]: [http://netneutrality.in/](http://netneutrality.in/) Info site.

 __Edit __: Corrected URL #3.

<comment><USER10> Having no organization like EFF is something that needs to be fixed. Depending on volunteers for such activity may not always be feasible in long term fights like this. #Sec66A fight took 3 years of dedication by many individuals to reach some conclusion and we can be sure many such fights will come in future. [https://wethegoondas.in/](https://wethegoondas.in/) is such issue which still hasnt got enough attraction. Are there efforts in forming a non-profit organization which will work on such issues on long term basis. Crowd funding for the same when the issue in limelight seems to be the best thing if we have committed people coming forward to work and lead the organization.

<comment><USER5> > Having no organization like EFF is something that needs to be fixed.

I think the closest organization to EFF that India has is the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). Though, the aim of CIS isn't about digital civil rights like EFF. It is more to study Internet related policy with respect to India. Many times, CIS does take similar stands to that of EFF would given the situation.

[http://cis-india.org](http://cis-india.org)

<comment><USER11> Because there is no tradition of funding civil society organisations in India, CIS is mostly foreign-funded. That puts them under the purview of FCRA, which means they are explicitly forbidden from lobbying and politics, at risk of having their funding cut off. They necessarily have to limit themselves to policy research.

CIS is not and will never be the EFF of India until the FCRA rules change. We need another organisation.

<comment> bjelkeman-again Are there not enough people interested in this type of thing today in India to try to start an EFF equivalent?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Facebook's internet.org plan to be somewhat hypocritical, given their (correct) stand in favor of net neutrality in the US.

internet.org isn't about the internet at all - it's more a proprietary network similar to Compuserve or AOL.

It's the same brand of philanthropy that Microsoft practices when it offers discounted Windows and Office to schools.

<comment><USER12> I'd say Facebook's moves here are more sinister than Microsoft's (or Apple's - they do the same thing). In the MS/Apple cases, it's simply about pushing product. In FB's case it's about pulling up the ladder after they've climbed it (balkanized Internet means dominant services like FB stay dominant).

After the fwd.us debacle and now this, why should anyone trust Zuck and Facebook in terms of "philanthropy"?

<comment><USER13> It really isn't surprising for anyone who has read his history that he is not a very moral person.

He made the precursor to Facebook by hacking servers and stealing people's pictures.

Then he lied to the Winklevoss twins that he would build their website for them to stall them for as long as he could so he could release Facebook before them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Internet.org is offering a free service to people who would otherwise have no access to the Internet. Net neutrality on a free service in a developing country is an entirely different issue than net neutrality in developed countries with high Internet access rates.

I see similarities between this and GMO in developing countries, where rich, well fed people in developed countries oppose gmo in countries that can't feed themselves because "corporations evil".

People for whom Internet access is a normal part of society are in an ivory tower on this issue.

<comment><USER15> If internet.org was really about providing internet access to people who otherwise can't access it, what is stopping Facebook from making it open? In current form lets say internet.org allows access to 100+ websites. I assume speed will be slow anyways. So make it open. Speed and data cap will be a deterrent for people wanting to abuse the platform (and things like torrent etc can be blocked anyways)

But I guess that will not serve facebook's interests. As an Indian, I actually prefer no internet at all compared to a moderated list that I am allowed to access. The way things are moving - Govt. has to act to provide internet in India for the last mile consumers anyways. With curated access there is a danger of wanting to maintain status quo because that kind of access - <USER2> a tickbox.

<comment><USER16> I believe the price is stopping it. Getting a telco to give you massively reduced rates on a few domains is drastically different than paying for internet access for everybody. Also, please correct me if I am mistaken, but I.org doesn't prevent you actually paying for full internet access?

<comment><AUTHOR> They could put data caps. They could support it with ads. Both of which give neutral access to full open internet. If it has to be _few_ domains only, they could let the user chose his preferred domains on the 1st of every month.

But no, they want to sell the poor out to the highest bidders.

<comment><USER17> adding ads will just make the already slow internet slower. loading content + ads is not good for the customer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Only if the ads are loaded in parallel with the content. The ads can very well be like TV or YouTube ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Indian regulator's egregiously biased consultation paper (which sparked this protest) has been exposed on reddit as being written by the telecom industry's lobbyist:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/32o00z/proof_the_tra...](https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/32o00z/proof_the_trai_consultation_paper_was_written_by/)

Apparently they even doctored an alleged quote from The Economist, inserting text that was not in the original article, to make it more biased towards operators.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! That's unbelievable! I hope the media takes TRAI to the task on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can someone give me a good argument as to why no internet is better than free limited internet with facebook + google search + wikipedia?

If Facebook will provide free limited internet (and as always, you can pay regularly to get full internet access) for a lot of basic service, it only seems reasonable they will package their facebook and messenger apps as well.

On the whole, do you think internet.org is a bad, negative effort?

<comment><USER19> Because it's the opposite of net neutrality. It's picking winners and losers. If Facebook is free, but you have to pay for local home grown Indian social networking sites, well then how will those businesses ever compete?

Personally, I'm torn. I'm all for free access to Wikipedia. The problem is, not all of the world's knowledge exists there, so you therefor are only giving people a taste of knowledge.

With Facebook and Google, you are choosing the silos for people, and making it very very difficult for competitors. And without competition, localized monopolies tend to stagnate, which ultimately hurts consumers.

<comment><USER18> I see the argument for competition, but I don't think that freedom is as important as the freedom of communication and education.

Imagine someone in the slums of India (there are tens of millions in these conditions) wanting to learn more about irrigation. Is it more important that they have no limited internet for the sake for competition, or limited internet?

<comment><USER20> Neither is important if they have offline-cached copies of Wikipedia (all the content of which is readily available for download and made available under a CC-BY-SA / GNU GFDL dual-license), which can then be distributed on optical media, thumb drives, or some other relatively-inexpensive data distribution medium.

This is something that's totally compatible with net neutrality while providing the same benefits you're advocating.

<comment><USER21> Poor people in India have cheap smartphones but they dont have PCs so optical media, thumb drives are useless to them.

<comment><USER20> Old PCs are actually much cheaper nowadays than even the cheapest smartphones of equivalent computing power, and typically include more than enough storage space for the entirety of Wikipedia. One shared PC in a community would solve that problem right quick.

Even without that, thumb drives are usable with smartphones via OTG cables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The only reason why Mark Zuckerberg is bold enough to make irrational statements about the benevolence of Internet.org is the lack of such strong opposition. I hope India becomes a model for the world in this issue.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm currently writing a series of posts dissecting the damning TRAI consultation paper (115 pages long).

You can follow that at [http://www.zodvik.com/2015/04/15/damn-trai- paper-1/](http://www.zodvik.com/2015/04/15/damn-trai-paper-1/) and contact me if you feel there are improvements to be made (or submit them via PR)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm all for net neutrality, but I wonder how the currently unconnected people who have a chance at free connectivity feel about this.

My guess-- limited Internet access is preferable to no Internet access and ideological purity.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, most of those 620K emails (which isn't a lot at Indian scale) by definition, come from people that already have internet access.

Its sad, whatever you think about FB, getting more people access to Wikipedia is clearly a good thing (fixing illiteracy would be better, clearly).

<comment><USER20> You can do that by distributing offline copies of Wikipedia.

<comment><USER21> How are you going to fit Wikipedia on a cheap smartphone which most poor/lower middle class Indians use. Most of them dont even have a PC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Very good for India that they finally realized what facebook plans to do, which is have all the next Billion people coming online having free access to its site and therefore increase its revenue on Ads and other means. Its absolutely unacceptable any government sign up on this, this defeats the entire idea of internet being open to everyone. Last week Mr. Zuckerberg met with the Brazilian President to announce that he intends to bring this to a number of places in Brazil, and the dumb idiot(Brazilian President) was all proud to be announcing that she is making another American billionaire even more billionaire by delegating the work that should be done by her government. I really hope that this "partnership" of them won't last too long, otherwise facebook will have even more leverage and power, than they already have, over anyone who wants to build products that may compete with their apps for consumer's time.

</comment><comment><USER27> Zuckerberg's sly attempt to sneak in free Facebook through Internet.org not gonna work in India.

<comment><USER28> Oh no! Giving something away for free! The travesty!

<comment><USER9> Internet.org is currently offered on only one carrier (Reliance) and this is a clear net neutrality violation. Even if it were offered on all carriers, this is a violation. Also, this is hypocritical since FB supports NN in US!

What's worse is that some companies are using this as an example to push for legalisation of zero rating. This is worsened by our regulator's stancce which is pro telecom companies.

<comment><USER29> Even worse is that a lot of decision makers in our country's administration can be misled into accepting the practice as digital status quo, because a large company like facebook says so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Happy that someone wrote about this. We don`t need Facebook's walled garden. It is surprising to see "Wikipedia" aka champion of free speech part of internet.org.

<comment><USER31> If a company wanted to provide aid and give away food, we don't claim that it is creating an unfair market for the local food industry.

If Wikipedia want to give away free access to information, suddenly its an unfair advantage in the market of free information?

<comment><USER3> Because the access to information is extremely constrained. The Internet is much bigger than just wikipedia. There have been studies which showed that people in such situations who used these so called "Free services" didn't even realize they were actually a part of the much bigger Internet, and just considered them standalone. I guess a similar situation would be people in the old days thinking AOL was synonymous with the Internet.

Do you want to live in a world where your access to information is constrained to one site only?

<comment><USER25> Give the choice between that and no internet (Wikipedia alone could be transformative, conditional on literacy), then yes, I'd probably make that choice.

Its not ideal, but marrying the commercial incentives of telcos to get people paying for data and the gateway drug of free access seems more likely to get more people connected faster than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Can somebody explain what is going on here? I'm having trouble understanding what this story is about.

<comment><USER33> Facebook and mobile-phone companies in India got together to try a project.

The project aimed to provide cheap internet access... only to their "approved" websites. Anything else requires more money from the customer... Or perhaps money from the companies whose websites are blocked.

People are starting to realize/acknowledge that the arrangement is a bit of an anti-competitive conflict of interest with a tinge of "pay us or we'll block you" extortion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It is surprising that both Flipkart and Times Group pulled out of Facebook's initiative, but unsurprising that they pulled out in tandem. Both Flipkart and Times Group have taken multi-million dollar investments from early Facebook employees and some even sit on their board. They must have really felt the heat to take such an action. Ironically, a lot of awareness in India around net-neutrality spread through WhatsApp and Facebook!

<comment><USER3> Apparently Times Group hasn't really pulled out. They have announced that they will, provided their competition pledges to do the same.

<comment><USER11> They've completely pulled out for some services and conditionally for some others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think [http://savetheinternet.in](http://savetheinternet.in) did really save Internet from the stupid regulators who have absolutely no clue of technological implications of what the Big and dominant ISPs are doing to the freedom and Net Neutrality.

Indian ISPs are too opportunistic to divert the subject from Quality of Service to Issues to making more buck than what they are really worth.

</comment><comment><USER36> What if Mark Z framed it as 'free facebook + some educational site access' instead of 'free internet', then he could sidestep all these complaints easily?

"The perfect (NN) is the enemy of the good (free fb+wiki)".

I imagine farmers could improve their lives by sharing information on regional facebook groups. Best of luck with it Mark, although i know you'll likely never read this :)

</comment><comment><USER37> It is indeed heartwarming to see such mobilization for a just cause like internet neutrality.

One of the biggest hurdles in defending 'intellectual' issues like net neutrality, privacy or academic pay-walling is the general public's apathy towards such perceived niche issues while there are pressing issues to deal with closer to ground - poverty, hunger, vaccination come to mind.

I am reminded of Bill Gates' take on the Internet.org initiative [1] and while I certainly stand with him on that, I feel it is important to recognize what such intellectual issues represent: freedom to information, which is admittedly abstract, but fundamental nonetheless.

[1] [http://www.cnet.com/news/bill-gates-prioritizing-internet- ac...](http://www.cnet.com/news/bill-gates-prioritizing-internet-access- before-malaria-research-is-a-joke/)

</comment><comment><USER38> I think this is a very positive development. In the end, Internet.org and Airtel Zero are not very different in their scant regard for net neutrality.

It's also indicative of just how huge the public debate has become. Indian companies (and the media) have had to very publicly retract on their earlier stand on the issue.

</comment><comment><USER39> Awesome news and thanks for standing up to a dual-standards company and CEO. You can't be for NN in the US and against it elsewhere. Internet.org is purely a vehicle to get more users on to FB....not the internet.

</comment><comment><USER11> For everyone interested in tracking the campaign: stats are posted here: [https://twitter.com/bulletinbabu](https://twitter.com/bulletinbabu)

<comment><USER8> [Offtopic] The campaign provides a bcc address to keep track of the number of emails people actually send. However when I sent a response it bounced for this bcc address, although it was delivered to TRAI.

This happened on the first day of the campaign (the day the AIB video came out) and it is probably fixed now, but this count could be understating things a bit.

<comment><USER11> I think we're counting about 100k short of actual figures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> cant believe that Indians pushed these companies this much hard for Net neutrality..

<comment><USER41> Why? They gained independence from Great Britain without going to war.

There is a long history or nationalism in India.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Net neutrality is freedom of speech and liberty doesn't have a nationality.join the net neutrality club and support freedom of choice

</comment><comment><USER43> Great news big players opting out, more to come.

</comment><comment><USER44> Just trying to understand from the first principle:

If ISPs doesn't charge for facebook usage, then who _actually_ pays?

Someone has to...right? Just curious.

<comment><USER29> Facebook pays. And then owns the user.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, ultimately it's still the user who pays. But he pays relatively more, because now there is less competition (leveraging the network/access to acquire and retain users).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Reddit link : [http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/31vvf2/fight_for_net_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/31vvf2/fight_for_net_neutrality_the_way_forward/)

</comment><comment><USER46> Happy to see Cleartrip, times, NDTV, newshunt out of internet.org. Let's talk to every other Indian company which is there, request, cajole, nudge, whatever it takes to get them to withdraw. That's the best way to make this irrelevant in india.

</comment><comment><USER47> I really find it _very_ hard to believe that a company like Facebook with (probably) so many intelligent people on-board will launch such a project without considering the _serious_ downsides and the available better ideas (like the ones mentioned below in comments about free _capped_ internet) etc. I don't want to, but the more I think about it, the more it seems that they just want their own profit with this.

<comment><USER48> This shouldn't be, but it's indeed business as usual. They have their profitability/success to worry about, especially since they have trouble generating enough profits to justify their share price. They dream of AOL times, if only with some coolness factor to offset their consciences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> wondering, when facebook, google and twitter start opting out from internet.org

<comment><AUTHOR> Google and Twitter are not on internet.org. They are Facebook competitors after all. So much for Facebook's mission of "connecting the world". As ClearTrip said today in its statement: "it is impossible to pretend there is no conflict of interest".

<comment><USER18> Google search is on internet.org, so is Wikipedia.

<comment><USER50> What point is there to search without anywhere to go to from your searches other than the sites of those that join the club?

<comment><USER51> I'm not sure. But eventually they would rank sites from internet.org higher in their search results?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Ash-k Mark Zuckerberg on Net Neutrality in India

[http://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://gist.githubusercontent...](http://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://gist.githubusercontent.com/anonymous/57d41c0f1e6a06ac6f2a/raw/075e0e4c04cf8202bcf99734e71bfb0745fb5f30/MarkZuck- Response)

</comment><comment><USER52> I hope Facebook, Internet.org and Zuck give up their charade of philanthropy and come out clean because I can't seem to identify the so-called "poor" people of India from their ad. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s390lZ5UXc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s390lZ5UXc4)

</comment><comment><USER53> Really happy to see citizens standing up for principles and against corporate interests in the developing world. Great to see these principles in such a large developing country, compare to places like China where the population seems much happier to let "big brother" tell them whats best.

</comment><comment><USER54> Question: If I built a web site that I provide for free and then set up a cheap wireless provider in my town that only provides unlimited SMS and lets you connect to my web site, am I violating Net Neutrality?

</comment><comment><USER55> internet.org is a good idea to accelerate internet adoption in developing economies, but an honest one should be open to all companies, any company can join in by providing $x/GB and be part of the program, with x remaining constant for all and no special/hidden contracts. They may also favor startups by giving 1st n MB/GB free.

</comment><comment><USER56> Everyone is greedy once in a while. So were the Internet hotshots in India but good that sense prevailed finally.

</comment><comment><USER57> Really good job by the volunteers who put in the effort to the raise the awareness about this.

</comment><comment><USER58> _This_ is how net neutrality should work; driven by market forces, not the government.

</comment><comment><USER59> i think we need both Net Neutrality and internet.org. There should not be a choice of one over the other. Please let me know if I am missing something.</comment>


Chrome removing inline install for all extensions - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chromium.org/2018/06/improving-extension-transparency-for.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is a huge downer for me, since I own an SAAS app that is partially distributed as a Chrome extension. Getting rid of the option for inline install makes my user installation story much, much more difficult and will probably have a direct negative impact on my income.

The blog post says that it's because of sites using deceptive inline installers, so yet another example of "this is why we can't have nice things".</comment>


Salesforce Code Builder - <AUTHOR> https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2020/06/introducing-code-builder.html <comment><AUTHOR> Code Builder is a web-based development environment fully optimized for Salesforce development and powered by Microsoft's Visual Studio Codespaces.</comment>


Reasons to Use Elixir in Finance - <AUTHOR> http://blog.johnorford.com/2015/11/01/x-reasons-to-use-elixir-in-finance/ <comment><USER2> Elixir is a great project, I'm saying this as someone who wrote Erlang full- time in 2007-2009. It's attracting a lot of attention to an amazing platform (I don't get to write much Erlang anymore, but it's still my favorite language by far).

Articles like this one though are doing it a disservice in my opinion. It's heavy on hype and subjective opinion, light on facts and outright misleading in a few places, for example:

\- 1-1.5kb of memory per process is for a process that does nothing. It's less overhead than any other platform I know of, but I am not sure how that translates to: _" Want to keep track of a large portfolio of stocks? Easy. Want to keep track of the whole market? No sweat."_

\- 9 9s uptime is a function of architecture, not language. OTP makes it easier to build resilient systems, but it's not a silver bullet and there's a tonne to learn in order to just use OTP effectively. Elixir is not going to give you anything for free.

 _" Massive parallelism also results in massive redundancy."_ \- how exactly? My massively parallel application could be running on one machine. The author must have meant distribution which Erlang/OTP is indeed very good at.

 _" Want to coordinate across markets or geographies?"_

You would certainly not want to distribute an Erlang cluster across two different data centers, much less geographies.

 _" Add more hardware, and Elixir's performance will increase almost linearly along with it."_

No it won't - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law)

 _" Moreover, whereas Erlang was built to run on telecom networks, Elixir is built to run websites, phone apps and web services. New and exciting stuff."_

What? Elixir runs on top of BEAM, the exact same VM that Erlang runs on. Moreover, using Elixir in your typical 12Factor web-app makes very little sense - you wouldn't be benefitting from any of OTP and taking a hit on development time due to lack of libraries.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord This is the first time I've seen someone refer to Java as syntactically beautiful compared to a supposedly "ugly as hell" Prolog.

None of the reasons with the exception of syntax (bikeshedding and arguable still, since the syntax can be a false friend when the semantics are so unlike what it implies), modern (which is simply crock, the libs for "websites, phone apps and web services" the author is talking about came from or have equivalents in the Erlang world - Phoenix uses Cowboy!), the pipe operator (bikeshedding: [http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang- questions/2015-July/subje...](http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang- questions/2015-July/subject.html#85101)) and young (this is considered intrinsically desirable?) are exclusive to Elixir in the slightest.

The Elixir users are doing themselves a disservice inundating with these trite, content-free articles that amount to "Erlang advocacy 101... but in Elixir". Might as well do the same for LFE.

Nothing wrong with Elixir advocacy if there's meat in it, but by and large the community just reeks of opportunism and bandwagon hopping.

<comment> nv-vn Other languages have the pipe operator as well, actually. As far as I know, these were introduced from F#, which has had the same |> operator (along with the analogous <|) since before Elixir existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No type safety? Not on the JVM, CLR, or C++? No statistical libraries? No FIX implementation?

In my world (derivatives market making) those four make the language complete non-starters. Firms in the trading world are quite risk-adverse, even F# and Scala can be steep asks. It's a shame though, Erlang would make a really nice home in the finance world.

</comment><comment><USER4> The whole piece is a straight 'wat' for me. For example:

"Elixir systems can achieve nine nines stability. Five nines is about 5 minutes of downtime per year and would be considered extremely good to anyone in the finance industry, right? Nine nines is 31 milliseconds! How? Massive parallelism also results in massive redundancy."

Wat.

</comment><comment><USER5> solid pr</comment>


Web 2.0 Expo Keynote: Amazon's Web Scale Computing Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_20_expo_keynotes_amazon.php <comment><AUTHOR> Funny how they sing the same song all the time. ie. We have the biggest data center in the world, now you can use it. We don't make money now, but we will make shit loads in the future. Sounds like web 2.0..</comment>


Show HN: A CLI for Google distributed as a ruby gem - <AUTHOR> http://kerrick.github.com/google/

<comment><USER2> This is a fantastic idea! Has some issues that I'll be posting to the github page.

Edit: upon further investigation, the error seems to be with parsing the specific page <http://www.test.com> (here's the full trace: <http://pastebin.com/Lqedy4eN> ).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Fixed the issue in v1.0.6. One of the libraries I was using, reverse markdown, couldn't handle strings that aren't UTF-8.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This really needs to parse the calculator results as well. That would be so useful.

<comment><USER4> echo "1+2" | bc

No need to go online for math. Unless that wasn't what you meant at all in which case, what did you mean?

<comment><USER5> "371633 hours in years" is a Google search I did earlier, because it was quicker than working out the appropriate divisors.

That could be done locally too, but I don't know what tool would do it and if it's installed on my computer by default.

<comment><USER4> Just for completeness sake:

      units '371633 hours' 'years'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sorry, but didn't Google deprecate the Google Web Search API two years ago?

<comment><USER7> Yes.

<https://developers.google.com/web-search/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool! Thanks for sharing. How long did it take you to develop?

<comment><AUTHOR> According to my commit log, 12 hours and 42 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Doesn't work really well with RVM. I can see the result list, but can't open one because the gem exits with a segmentation fault on nokogiri.

</comment><comment><USER10> Show "how you present the results" instead of showing the man page on your landing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, good idea. Should I put screenshots up, or a bit of the plaintext output?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So sad it's only for 1.9

</comment><comment><USER12> doesn't work with ruby 1.8, undefined method 'require_relative'

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER14> holllllllly smokes....will have some fun with this!</comment>


Hiring iOS developers: traits to look for, questions to ask - <AUTHOR> https://devsdata.com/hire-ios-developer/ <comment><AUTHOR> They have a similar article for Android, for whoever might be more interested in that:

[https://devsdata.com/hire-android-developer/](https://devsdata.com/hire- android-developer/)</comment>


OpenFEC - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/18F/openFEC

<comment><USER2> What kind of cleaning is being done here?

<comment><USER3> The data from the FEC is famously messy. Here's a bit of a description from one of the private orgs that try to clean it up and present it to the public in a usable form.

[http://influenceexplorer.com/about/methodology/campaign_fina...](http://influenceexplorer.com/about/methodology/campaign_finance)</comment></comment>


Confirmshaming - <AUTHOR> http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/ <comment><USER2> If anything, I get a little chuckle when I see this stuff. I'm sure we've all been there trying to make things clearer for the user.

That said, I'm more concerned with the fact that I can't go to any web page these days without getting one of these pop-ups.

It's even worse when the pop-up comes 20 seconds later since loading all of the Javascript takes a while on mobile - and then shows up halfway down the page.

It's even worse when being scrolled down the page prevents the widget from rendering correctly.

The internet is quickly becoming a ghetto, and other parts of the internet (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit) are getting incrementally controlled and censored.

... Sigh ...

<comment><USER3> > I'm more concerned with the fact that I can't go to any web page these days > without getting one of these pop-ups.

People use these pop-ups (Landing Pages, Optinmonster, etc) because they are extremely effective at capturing emails. Your average programmer or techie on HN is horrified when prompted to sign up via a pop-up, but many regular users will just comply. The site has now converted a random passer-by, into someone who might continue to receive new content (and marketing material) in the future. Nothing comes even close to the ROI that you get from people subscribing to your mailing list. Note that I'm not talking about whether this is right or wrong, just that it's done for a very good reason. Would I put a pop-up form on a programming blog? Obviously no. Know your audience. But on a regular site? Not doing so is literally leaving money on the table. And that's why they are ubiquitous. When you don't see one it's often either an ethical choice (the site owner decided to maximize user experience, not profit) or lack of knowledge of how effective these pop-ups are.

<comment><USER4> Exactly.

>>> Obviously no. Know your audience. But on a regular site? Not doing so is literally leaving money on the table. And that's why they are ubiquitous.

This.

Most (all?) of the mentioned ones are run by companies, not individuals who are not seeking any profit or anything. In terms of ethics, I wouldn't even call it unethical or a dark pattern. Some sneaky checkbox to receive spam is bad. Sneaky checkbox for addon when purchasing is horribly bad. But pop up with email field? Nope. Calling it ethical decision is a stretch. Worst case scenario - you close the tab and move on with your life. If anyone loses then it's the business, not you.

At the end, it's a business decision whether it's worth annoying some users in order to extract more value later from a fraction of them and it's the users choice to accept or not. It's a personal choice, to each their own.

You think the UX is so crap because of it and surely something better can be done? Take it as a business opportunity!

<comment><USER5> >In terms of ethics, I wouldn't even call it unethical or a dark pattern.

I disagree. Offering your user the option to get on your mailing list is fine. But when you a) shame them if they chose not to, and b) make it significantly harder to find the way to express their "No" choice, it becomes an unethical dark pattern. Arguably, blocking their access to the material you offered them until they make this choice is also dubious.

<comment><USER4> >>> shame them if they chose not to

It's not unethical to potentially harm your own business. I'd say it's just bad for the business, that's all.

Offline companies occasionally run silly/trying to be too clever campaigns. But no one really calls them unethical, as long as they stay clear from potentially discriminating topics. People mock them, but they don't call them unethical.

>>> make it significantly harder to find the way to express their "No" choice.

I see where you are coming from on this one. But, again, it's not preventing the user to quit using the standard way of quitting.

<comment><USER6> Obviously "No thanks", "Close", "Cancel" and so on are standard mechanisms for dismissing a form. You're arguing that it's standard to make the user read and understand that the funny or insulting quip is the mechanism to close the form. I disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of the canvassers on the street whose line is always "do you have a second for the environment?", "do you believe in equal rights?", "would you like to prevent puppies from dying?", etc.

<comment><USER8> What gets me is when the canvasser goes into mock-surprise mode when you tell them no.

Dude, you and I both know that your job here is to try to sell something to me, so don't be shocked if I'm not interested.

<comment><USER9> You and I both know their job is to feign surprise, why are you surprised?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is one of the reasons I still enjoy paper magazines and yes even catalogs. I remember being on a plane trying to read some article and just giving up and reading the SkyMall magazine the whole flight. The damn SkyMall magazine foisted on all delta fliers (and takes up valuable space) is less invasive than todays ad pop crap.

While magazines certainly have some annoying things (like the paper subscription post cards) and I suppose the eco unfriendliness these negatives are starting to look continuously better than the alternative. Ironical I think I was even shamed by a publisher recently for ordering "the paper copy". I know many banks do this as well... damn you for wanting paper... we must pop-up shame you and paper makes that difficult.

I suppose PDF is a good middle ground.

<comment><USER9> SkyMall no longer publishes printed catalogs to airplane seats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can almost smell the "growth hacker" desperation.

<comment><USER8> Every app does this, and I hate it. What grinds my gears is the negative review dark pattern funnel (i.e., ask a user if they like the app, if not, keep them in the app and get feedback. If they do like the app, forward them on to the app store).

I was in the middle of using your app, don't bother me.

<comment><USER12> I will on occasion go out of my way to visit the app store and leave a 1 star review when this happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's another Tumblr collecting passive-aggressive opt-out messages: [http://cruelestoptouts.tumblr.com/](http://cruelestoptouts.tumblr.com/)

<comment><USER14> "To submit a cruel opt-out form, click here!"

Very deceptive! I thought it's a live example of such form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This was the original: [https://www.google.com/search?q=national+lampoon+puppy&safe=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=national+lampoon+puppy&safe=off&client=ubuntu&hs=6qh&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0kr_QuZbNAhUPKFIKHbkDAW8Q_AUIBygB&biw=1873&bih=983)

</comment><comment><USER16> > No thanks, I'll stick to the latest Adam Sandler films.

Okay, Esquire, that one's kinda good.

<comment><USER17> While somewhat egregious and dark, the Duolingo language bird one made me laugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Related to [http://passwordshaming.tumblr.com/](http://passwordshaming.tumblr.com/).

<comment><USER19> When a site insists that certain characters are not allowed in passwords, that is strong indication that they are storing them clear-text in text files.

Those characters are disallowed because they would cause delimiting issues for the shell/sed/awk/perl/php crap they are using to process those files, or db injection attacks.

A proper password hashing function takes any byte string.

<comment><USER20> It's often just a reflexive behavior on a website. Fields which have to be displayed back to the user naturally tend to have reasonable restrictions on what characters they can contain (no linebreaks is a common one, for example). The fact that passwords will never be displayed back to anybody (ideally) is no deterrent to your typical business analyst writing a hundred page spec for the account management pages, and just like every other field on the site they will place some arbitrary length restriction on the field, and pronounce that certain special characters are off limits. Programmers will then implement the restrictions because hey, it's an easy two points.

There are, actually, a couple of reasonable UX reasons for placing some restrictions on the characters someone can use in a password. If you hope that they will be able to enter the same password from another device later, you want to encourage them not to exploit all the wonderful input possibilities afforded by their plug-in emoji keyboard on their phone. Sadly I don't think this kind of reason underlies any restrictions I've ever seen in the wild.

<comment><USER9> Password has to be compatible with phone input -- legacy 0-9 phone, not mobile computing devices.

<comment><USER21> Why would this need to be restricted to A-z 0-9? Isn't it safe to assume that nobody will be typing in passwords from their land line?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure that Duolingo one is photoshopped. The mascot's name is "Duo", not "Language Bird." (The image, however, is what you get if you get too many words wrong: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bc9NiTxCUAA1Qek.png](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bc9NiTxCUAA1Qek.png))

<comment><USER23> That was the only one up there that I thought was reasonably humorous and good natured.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, that doesn't belong there.

If I understand it right, the emails are trying to convince you to practice... as one needs to, when learning a language. That's like the only acceptable reason to annoy/spam people, "COME ON JOHNNNN, WHEN YOU GONNA PRACTICE YOUR SPANISH LIKE YOU SAID YOU WERE GONNA"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting how many of them are literally true for me, with no shame whatsoever, because it's hard-won personal wisdom, which is a source of pride, not shame.

Examples: I don't want to know about power breakfasts. I'm not interested in delicious recipes. (I already know how to cook the things I like.) I'd rather be sleeping. (True dat.) Continue with boring old email. (It's fine.) I reject my free issue. (And all subsequent ones. Really just, don't encourage them.) I do not want to get the most important news in my inbox. I prefer to pay full price. (And thereby be free of a lot of bullshit.)

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://imgur.com/iIK58E0](https://imgur.com/iIK58E0) (From dsfba.com)

<comment><USER27> Wow, someone messed up the button sizing there. Unless they both go to the same place and the tiny text below is the opt out

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Reminds me of mobile apps that periodically ask if I like the application. If I say yes, then they inevitably ask for a review on the app store.

<comment> squeaky-clean There's no winning with some of them. If you select 4 stars or higher "Great, please continue to the app store and review us!". If you answer with 3 or fewer, "Oh no! Please visit our contact page and tell us how we can make it better!"

<comment><USER27> The sad reality is that you can have thousands of users and no reviews if you don't do that stuff. And because the (apple) app store wipes reviews every update, it also encourages devs to never update, lest they go and nag all their users again. All around difficult situation for apps, especially if you go about it as a solo dev.

Also sad that the most effective way to get a bunch of 5 stars is to say in your app: Have a free X item if you rate us 5 stars! <link to app store>, nevermind that there's no way of actually verifying that they left you any feedback, nonetheless plenty of people actually do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think a fair majority of these exit-intent popins are designed and delivered by BounceExchange, or at least influenced by what BounceExchange has set as the standard. They specialize in implementing this kind of stuff and have a wealth of data and a/b tests to back up their use and this type of "confirmshaming".

</comment><comment><USER30> Curious: has confirmation shaming increased conversion? Can someone confirm or provide some insights?

</comment><comment><USER31> Earliest I remember seeing this was the defunct mobile gaming platform OpenFeint. Every time you launched an OpenFeint integrated app, you'd get the splash screen and the dismiss button was "No thanks, I don't want these awesome features".

</comment><comment><USER12> Idea: browser extension that transforms the confirmation text to something more .. colorful.

<comment><USER32> Yeah but instead transform the modal into something more.. invisible..

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Seems to me this is the kind of behaviour that's going to have people reaching for technical solutions so as to never see the popover in the first place...

</comment><comment><USER34> Is there anything that blocks these modal dialogs on mobile? I absolutely hate these things, but they don't seem to be blocked by uBlock.

</comment><comment><USER35> Does adblock catch these? Shouldn't it?

</comment><comment><USER36> First Round Capital does this on their blog.

Reject subscribe popup requires clicking "No I don't want to learn more"

</comment><comment><USER37> On Esquire: "No thanks, I'll stick to the latest Adam Sandler films."</comment>


In Defence of 'Academic Freedom' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/04/rightwing-academic-freedom-policy-exchange-thinktank <comment><USER2> The biggest problem with this article is the sneering and sarcastic tone.

The problems the author outlines are legitimate - in particular the issue of quality.

It can simultaneously be the case that being known for 'right wing views' causes career damage, _and_ that the solution proposed by the think tanks would make things worse.

Because of the sarcasm, it's hard to actually evaluate whether the statement that 32% of right wing academics only evaluates to 10 individuals.

If this is true, then it's clearly the case that academia is completely unrepresentative of the general politics of the country.

Perhaps there are good reasons for this and it's not a problem, but the sarcastic and dismissive tone of the author indicates that he doesn't take it seriously, which ends up confirming the charge of bias.

If he can't see this, that's a problem. If he can see it, it's also a problem.</comment>


Clang++ now has a finished implementation of C++'03 - X-Istence http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/cfe-commits/Week-of-Mon-20100517/030540.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, as usual, things around Clang/LLVM tend to get wrapped up right before WWDC so the boasting can happen. ;-)

And more power to 'em! Fantastic work.

</comment><comment><USER2> Whoa, that was fast. (C++ is notoriously hard to implement.)

<comment><USER3> the llvm hackers at Apple are insanely good

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The big news is <http://blog.llvm.org/2010/05/clang-builds-boost.html> ... Boost is notoriously complex C++ code. Being able to compile it to valid code is remarkable progress for Clang.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there a possibility/experiment, that the linux kernel be built using llvm ? As I understand, there is a lot of GCC specific code.

<br>

<comment><USER6> As I understand, LLVM has been adding support for GCC extensions for quite a while to make such things possible one day.

You can already/soon build a FreeBSD system with it.

<comment><USER7> As of last month: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.current/124678>

<comment><USER8> does make world also builds the kernel? It's been a long time since I last used a bsd and I seem to recall that "world" was only userland, but I may be completely wrong

<comment> X-Istence world is only userland, make kernel builds the kernel. People have successfully built the kernel with clang and booted it, but it is not yet known if all of the code paths are correct and there may be hard to find bugs, also certain code does not yet compile and has to be commented out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Portland Incubator Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://siliconflorist.com/2009/08/05/creative-wieden-kennedy-wk-launches-portland-incubator-experiment-pie/

<comment><USER2> Ah, 5 years too late! I used to live 3 blocks from there (in the Honeyman building.)

You forgot to mention the two best perquisites of working there: Powell's books a few blocks one direction, and the Low Brow Lounge a few blocks the other. I don't thing YC or Techstars can beat that!

<comment><AUTHOR> Especially Powell's Technical bookstore...everytime I go home to Portland I go broke buying books there.

<comment><USER3> I found a very effective way to limit my spending at Powell's Technical. The rule is simple; you have to leave the store after picking out the books you want. The ones you still want to buy after having lunch or walking around the block are the ones you can buy.

I actually follow this rule approximately two visits of every three.</comment></comment></comment>


Simple block flappy bird in less than 250 lines of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://makaroni4.github.io/flappy_block_js/

<comment><USER2> Please give it a bit more upward boost when clicked... currently it's nowhere near the real version,</comment>