The Hacker News Habit - <AUTHOR> https://hackernewslater.com/posts/the-hacker-news-habit/ <comment><USER2> There's no doubt that I spent a lot of time on HN, but there have been at least a few times that I've learned of things that directly impact my work first here. Off the top of my head, I knew that Sentry had rolled out hosted instance that were HIPAA-compliant when my team was about to install it and host it internally. That knowledge let us outsource it to them and ultimately save a good deal of time and money.

More often, I'll come across a problem and remember something that I've read that's applicable well enough to at least find it later when I need it.

I consider my time on HN and similar outlets at least partially "professional development."

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I haven't quantified it but I would ballpark I come across 25+ things per year that directly save me significant hours of work, lead me to much better solutions to a problem, provide a lead that would help me with investing/employment/helping a friend/etc. That in addition to the intellectual stimulation and enjoyment from the other articles is why I don't feel bad about spending ~30 minutes a day here everyday. Warren Buffett supposedly has read the WSJ for decades every morning. I think to many of us here this is our WSJ.

Finally, for years I've used HN as the fastest way to check my internet connection. :)

<comment><USER4> I'm glad I'm not the only one who tests internet connectivity via HN!

<comment><USER5> It even works through the GreatFirewall! A great tool :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Impressive that you went "Android first" even though you were already familiar with iOS development! Kudos for that.

I often click to read the HN comments _first_ , because they are often full of insight and interesting links. (This is also why I read HN from a custom #newsyc channel in our work Slack that posts links once they hit 20 points: it allows time for initial comments to accumulate, and Slack helpfully keeps track of "new" posts.)

Simply bookmarking the article itself to read later would not be as useful to me _personally_ , but I bet there are lots of people who would find your approach helpful.

<comment><USER7> I read the comments first as well. It's often a good indicator of whether or not the article is worth reading. And more often than not there are better references in the comments than the original source.

Would be really interested in that Slack bot if you have the source handy.

<comment><USER8> I read the comments because HN is a lightweight and quick site and I don't know how slow the target page might be.

<comment><USER9> I up voted all of the ancestors of this comment because I agree with all of them. Pretty much hit the nail on the head there. To add to the slow page load bit, I often read the comments to get an intelligent discourse as well as find out of the article is pay walled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I scrolled some paragraphs without reading and read "Unfocused Reading is a Terrible Thing to Do". Oops.

<comment><USER11> Hahaha, how meta. Scrolled through the comments and read this. Ok I'll read more than the article title now

<comment><USER12> quite often I read the comments before reading the article. Often in the comments there are insightful things on parts of the article and then when you read the article you can pay attention to the right spots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I too had this issue of spending too much time on HN till I built a Chrome extension that inserts random items from my todo list at the bottom of each page, and by the time I click on "More," the incomplete todo starts bugging me.

<comment><USER14> Do you have source for that available? I'm assuming it's pretty specific to your list, but it sounds like it'd be easy to adapt.

<comment><USER13> I open sourced an old version of this for reddit a few years ago here, if it helps: [https://github.com/hackpert/dooly](https://github.com/hackpert/dooly).

The one I use currently picks things from my org-mode agenda and inserts them across various places, but that should be fairly easy to change and integrate with any other todo list app with an API. I'll try and clean up personal information from the code sometime this week and update the project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I kicked my habit by installing a host block script in my Tomato router. Just added reddit and HN to blacklisted hosts (I know I can undo it but it's too much work and it disables ad blocking too).

Now anytime I want to visit HN i have to switch to slow 4G and it makes me concious of my decision and slow internet also makes it less fun.

I haven't visited reddit in almost 6 months now (used to refresh it every hour). HN too is 10% compared to what it was before. As other users have commented the reason I still check it 3 4 times a day is because there is often news that relates directly to my business (launch of Google wavenet for example) and benefits me.

<comment><USER16> I also keep them blocked on my computer and only check them on my phone. I keep my phone in grayscale mode so it's much less engaging.

Another thing that worked for me was writing a custom js script to filter out posts I hid without loading other content to replace it. That way I could filter things down so that there's only 1 or 2 threads left that I'm interested in and there's no need to keep scanning the same headlines over and over.

<comment><USER17> Who is engaged with their phone for colors rather than content? If anything, text seems MORE engaging in greyscale.

This entire concept seems to allow phone providers to not implement real controls over eg actually providing access to a host file or concerted network blocking software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I believe Chrome's auto-complete has a lot to do with how many times I check HN and other websites. It's automatic... I open a new tab and three key strokes and I'm here.

Does anyone know of an existing way to disable auto-complete just for some websites? I still need it for work related stuff, but I bet that if I had to type everything all the time it would be easier to prevent constant checks.

<comment><USER19> On Firefox, I disable autocompletion from browser history, but keep it enabled for bookmarks. __So __much easier to avoid unwanted side-tracks.

<comment><USER20> But Firefox's 'awesome bar' autocomplete is how I find things in my history.

"I went to a web page sometime in... February? Or November? It was something about widgets... _types in 'wid'_ Oh there it is."

<comment><USER21> Firefox is smart enough by now to manage it in almost 1 keystroke on average.

Even more fun, when I type "you", Firefox not only suggests youtube but also the github page for a small script that extracts the rss feed link from youtube channels and playlists. I use that maybe once every few months. It's amazing really.

<comment><USER22> Firefox awesome bar took a lot of (unfair IMO) criticism back a few years back.

I have the same experience as you guys, and on one occasion I think it saved me days of work by helping me recover a certain _almost_ ungooglable resource I knew I had seen at some point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > While on the site, within a span of five minutes, I typically attempt to > skim everything I've marked with interest. Afterward, I return to my work > not feeling like I've read anything substantive, and by the end of the day, > I forget about the links I've opened up, including the ones I meant to > revisit.

This is so on-the-mark for me it's unreal! :) I feel I'm in a sizeable segment of the HN population in that I spend more time in the comments than on articles, so something that helps provide wholesome access to more article content is a great initiative.

Thanks for creating something that attempts to solve this 'problem'. Kudos to you for shipping an Android build!

</comment><comment><USER24> I fixed my addiction by simply signing up at [https://www.hndigest.com/](https://www.hndigest.com/) and setting to only send 5 links daily. I usually end up just reading 1 or 2 of those if they interest me.

PS: no affiliation with that website. Just a happy user.

<comment><USER25> Hey, developer of hndigest here, thanks for being a happy user, and great to hear that it's helping you :)

Anything I can do to make it even better?

<comment><USER24> Not sure. I Haven't given it much thought. I guess it's work well enough :)

<comment><USER25> Hehe, good news I guess! Just hit reply on the digest if/when anything comes to mind :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interesting idea, and I think I suffer from the same thing. I just save stories to Pocket and read them later, I'm not sure if this email based delivery has many advantages over that?

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm in the same boat and I don't think it's a waste, I learned quite a bit in the last couple of months from HN. And it's the comments that make it hard to close a tab for a few days, there is a lot of wisdom here. I want to thank all for your contribution.

</comment><comment><USER28> I made 'lesshn' to filter out the feeds containing certain words that I am not interested in. You can create your own filters(via REST API) and bookmark it. [https://lesshn.microapps.xyz](https://lesshn.microapps.xyz)

</comment><comment><USER29> Great idea! I guess I'll throw out a shameless plug for my side-project, [https://hackernewsletter.com](https://hackernewsletter.com), which is a weekly newsletter filled with the posts I thought were worth a read.

</comment><comment><USER30> I learn a lot from HN, and I believe every profession should have its own HN.

<comment><USER31> I totally agree. All I know is datatau.com for data science but nowhere near as active as HN. I guess other professions may not be sitting in front of their computers all day (e.g. doctors).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I personally use two Chrome extensions for this;

1- Reading List[1]: Allows you to save current tab to your reading list, later from which you can search and mark as read. A nice bonus is you keep your article history at the same time.

2- Tab Snooze[2]: This extension closes current tab and prompts you with options on when to pop it back in the future.

[1]: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reading- list/llocc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reading- list/lloccabjgblebdmncjndmiibianflabo)

[2]:[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab- snooze/pdiebia...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab- snooze/pdiebiamhaleloakpcgmpnenggpjbcbm)

</comment><comment><USER33> I think this is more the author's remaining twitter habit dying hard than a hacker news related habit. I like hacker news because it gives decent posts for focused reading rather than the twitter no-focus skimming or the reddit meme fest.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'd love an alternative frontpage view with different time weight. Something that you could visit weekly without losing any big news.

<comment><USER35> Have you tried [https://hckrnews.com](https://hckrnews.com)?

<comment><USER36> I never use the true HN site other than for comments now, the hckrnews.com interface is just so good!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I love your mechanism to fund your app (or at least how I understood it), by letting people by credits to let them break rules.

You could tweak it so that every user can set their own amount per credit (so that the app plays fair to all income groups) and this way the user is satisfied and understands that the payment is both a donation to your app _and_ a penalty for their instant gratification.

More apps should try this model. The key is to also let the user set their own penalty otherwise it will not work.

</comment><comment><USER12> just for peoples FYI, there are multiple ways to consume HN, quite a few people have built various tools for getting the best out of HN, I've been tryin to keep track of various ones here [https://github.com/keithn/HackerNewsCommunity](https://github.com/keithn/HackerNewsCommunity) ( also updated with ones linked to in the comments here )

<comment><USER38> you could add the Android app Materialistic

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > To note, I did use coroutines, which as of Kotlin 1.1 is still an > experimental feature.

Mostly unrelated to the post at large, but coming up in 1.3 they are no longer experimental: [https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2018/07/see-whats- coming-i...](https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2018/07/see-whats-coming-in- kotlin-1-3-m1/)

</comment><comment><USER40> I've been working on an Addiction Blocker for this site and many others. It's not ready for primetime yet but I offer it as a preview to the addicted participants of this thread

[https://github.com/a13o/disengaged](https://github.com/a13o/disengaged)

<comment><USER41> Really cool that Kenney designed the logo. I've been learning game development lately and have found his asset packs very useful. Small world!

<comment><USER40> It wasn't designed for the plugin I just used to do a lot of game jams and used his art packs so they're my goto for placeholder art. Before I officially launch the plugin I'll get something more customized

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> To cure your HN problem on a macbook, open a terminal:

$ sudo su;

$ echo "127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com" >> /etc/hosts

<comment><USER43> I've tried this. The problem is I also know

$ sudo vim /etc/hosts

Gdd:wq

<comment><USER44> GddZZ

Saves a few keystrokes!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I handle it by saving all the articles into pocket then never actually reading them. One Day.

</comment><comment><USER46> It's a good idea, being more mindful of the content we consume is the key.

Last year I made a little website to control how much time I want to spend on HN. For instance I have one page where the 10 most upvoted items for the week are listed, and I hide them as I read them. When the list is empty it means I'm done for now.

[https://news.vinc.cc/search?q=hn+sort:top+time:week+limit:10](https://news.vinc.cc/search?q=hn+sort:top+time:week+limit:10)

(open sourced here: [https://github.com/vinc/news.vinc.cc](https://github.com/vinc/news.vinc.cc))

Also work for Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER47> > At the moment, a user can't read the items on the app unless they penalize > themselves by buying credits. Although the app is about breaking the bad > habit of reading the items immediately..

I think there can also be an issue with always saving things to read later. I often end up saving more articles to pocket than I actually end up reading. It may be a good idea to reduce overall "unfocused" browse-and-click time too...

</comment><comment><USER48> You can like a story, and then look at your upvoted submissions from your admin page.

You can write an app if you want though, but I like simple.

<comment><USER49> Similarly, I star things in my rss reader when I'm skimming, and then consume them when I have time to properly digest. Then unstar so they drop out the queue.

Works well, works simple, and works for many more sources besides hn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I follow @HNTweets on Twitter (pretty much only thing I follow) and I scroll through it every time I have a free moment that would be wasted otherwise (bus rides or long queues come to mind). I find it easier to follow because every post that hit front page goes there but posts are added only once and are ordered by time.

</comment><comment><USER38> I use Materialistic, an Android app on my phone. When i skim the headlines 1-30 i just swipe to save em. Has several themes, a black one which saves energy on amoleds and solarized too. Found it via F-Droid but i am pretty sure it is in the play store. Working and reading hn are separated that way.

</comment><comment><USER51> If you're already familiar with iOS, you might enjoy using Kotlin Native. KotlinConf has a demo app for iOS written in Kotlin Native: [https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlinconf- app](https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlinconf-app)

<comment><AUTHOR> Man, how did I miss this? I'll check this out! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment> jani-boy The way I've done it is schedule an IFTTT that will search for a post with X points. This then will be served to my Pocket account so that I can read it later.

By the end of the day, or while commuting, the Pocket app has links with X points that I can then consume.

</comment><comment><USER52> Like most of you, I come here regularly and I go to the comments first (most of the time), but I add most of the articles that I'd like to read to Pocket (a read-it-later tool) so that I prioritize what I want to read at a later time when I have more time.

</comment><comment><USER53> I too have the same habit of browsing HN on a daily basis. Normally I browse through the list of articles that I might be interested in and add them as favorite so I can revisit them later.

Anyway, good job on coming up with a solution to fix the addiction.

</comment><comment><USER54> After trying several approaches what I found more useful is to have thumbnails[0] to skim HN faster..

[0] [https://hnews.xyz/](https://hnews.xyz/)

</comment><comment><USER55> Shouldn't this be prefaced with "Show HN"?

</comment><comment><USER56> Anyone else here use the noprocrast setting built in to HN? Surprise not to see it mentioned

I have my HN set up so that I need 3 hours between each 20m visit.

<comment><USER57> But it's still so easy to just clear cookies or open it in an incognito tab...

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Cool, I use hnrss to generate an rss feed of stories with more than 30 comments. Works well on every device.

</comment><comment><USER59> I spend a lot of time here as well, but I find the things I gain from hackernews to be worth it

</comment><comment><USER60> I use an RSS aggregator, Feedly, for hackernews and many other sites. Works like a charm.

</comment><comment><USER61> hehe. I always read every single link on the front page every morning. check this out: [https://github.com/Bunchhieng/hnreader](https://github.com/Bunchhieng/hnreader)

</comment><comment><USER62> Interesting monitization strategy. The app asks for $5 to read an article now.

</comment><comment><USER41> There are certainly worse things you could be doing with your time.

</comment><comment><USER63> Here I am on hacker news, reading about my hacker news habit...

</comment><comment><USER64> I definitely have this.

</comment><comment><USER65> It is a tremendous time sink, but I generally enjoy it. I don't spend a lot of time shooting up on Facebook, Instagram, etc. so I think on balance I'm largely okay.

</comment><comment><USER66> I don't think you can really code or tool your way out of a discipline problem, you just need to work on the discipline directly. That being said, I am terrible with will power/discipline/etc</comment>


$50k bounty pool for breaking a blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://battleofnodes.com/?hn=1 <comment><USER2> I thought breaking a blockchain would be worth a whole lot more than that. Especially given how much processing cost would be involved.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a very good way to secure your network. Nice going ! Let the battle begin.

</comment><comment><USER4> How much of the code can be altered? Are all attack possible, like social hacks?

</comment><comment><USER5> I am already contracting my hackers, hope you guys are ready. ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hope people will not join, keep the prize pool for myself... $$

<comment><USER7> :))

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Look at all the new accounts made to prop this up artificially

</comment><comment><USER9> Kyc: check, form filled: check, standing by with my validator!

</comment><comment><USER10> Limp Bizkit - Break stuff playing in the background

<comment><USER9> Ha ha, nice one! Count me in!

<comment><USER11> +1

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> $50k for breaking stuff! Count me in

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow! This is great count me in

</comment><comment><USER14> Alright, game on!

</comment><comment><USER15> How to join?

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool!

</comment><comment><USER16> woot woot</comment>


Aracna: An Open-Source Quadruped Platform for Evolutionary Robotics - <AUTHOR> https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/alife13/ch051.html <comment><USER2> It seems the Dynamixel servos they are using make up a main component of the cost. Does anyone have experience with cheaper/alternative servos? Could cheaper servos be used if better sensors on the joints are employed?</comment>


Ask HN: What's going on in your head when you program? - <AUTHOR> My interest in this was re-sparked after reading through the comments on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11162927. When you code, do you hear an internal voice, see the program's structure in your mind's eye, translate directly from some internal abstract structure, or a mix? What about when doing other forms of problem solving, technical thinking, or writing?
I do a mix and have noticed different strategies work well for different types of work. For example, rubber duck debugging (using an internal voice) seems to allow me to slow down and think through all of the reasons something can be broken, whereas writing boilerplate code seems to be the least painless when I "turn off" the internal monologue.
I hope that gathering a variety of experience can not only show the spectrum of differences but allow people to experiment with different strategies. <comment><AUTHOR> Some background links:

\- Talking to an imaginary friend as a way to increase understanding: [http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...](http://the- programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/)

\- Rubber duck debugging: [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking)

\- Characteristics of an effective internal dialogue: [http://journalpsyche.org/articles/0xc091.pdf](http://journalpsyche.org/articles/0xc091.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> I see the final form, across x levels of inheritance and threads, and just mash c++ with some loud trance music + lots of coffee.

Debugging though, that takes very carefully selected quiet music, zen thoughts, and even more coffee.

:)</comment>


Ask HN: If you had access to a dataset of your choosing, which one? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The Vatican archives.

I'm not sure if they'd be as interesting as I assume, but at least I'd know.

</comment><comment><USER3> Assuming I can dream about somehow getting the capacity to handle them too:

High-res satellite photo archive, from whoever has the best of those.

Or a feed of packet information from some central internet point.

</comment><comment><USER4> User stories, tasks and beginning and end dates for as may projects as possible. In order to do simulation and predictions.</comment>


What's next in this number series? - <AUTHOR> http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/310276/whats-next-in-this-number-series

<comment><AUTHOR> I liked this particular answer, <http://math.stackexchange.com/a/310450>

Quote: _it should be noted that there are an uncountably infinite number of "correct" answers which can be attained from 4th-degree polynomials_</comment>


Evolution could explain the placebo effect - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528812.300-evolution-could-explain-the-placebo-effect.html <comment><USER2> Because the submitted article mentions the placebo effect, in the usual manner of popular articles, perhaps I should share here some links that are helpful for understanding what placebo effects are all about. Some of these online links cite quite a few useful scholarly publications.

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/michael- specte...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/michael-specter-on- the-placebo-effect/)

"In other words, the best research we have strongly suggests that placebo effects are illusions, not real physiological effects. The possible exception to this are the subjective symptoms of pain and nausea, where the placebo effects are highly variable and may be due to subjective reporting."

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/angells- review...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/angells-review-of- psychiatry/)

[http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-rise-and- fa...](http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-rise-and-fall-of- placebo-medicine/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo- effect...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo-effects- revisited/)

<http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html>

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/revisiting- dan...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/revisiting-daniel- moerman-and-placebo-effects/)

The statement in the article kindly submitted here, "Someone suffering from a low-level infection will recover just as nicely whether they take an active drug or a simple sugar pill" should be interpreted as "Animals have a lot of capacity for recovering from infections, and some treatments for infections are indistinguishable in outcomes from doing nothing" until a citation for a specific study involving infection in HUMAN subjects is brought into the discussion. Usually the "placebo effect" is just the no-op effect of the body healing over time with the body's own healing mechanisms, and the ONLY reliable findings of placebo effects in human medicine, according to the sources I am citing here, are self-reported subjective symptoms like pain and discomfort, not physiologically verifiable improvement in disease states.

So let's not rush too fast to assume an explanation for a phenomenon until the phenomenon is better defined. The submitted article goes on to discuss some animal studies related to seasonal patterns of light and darkness. These studies are related to the idea that the immune system is costly to maintain, drawing on many physiological resources of the living organism. That's a reasonably important point and is indeed the subject of much ongoing research. But human beings, with their very complicated behavior patterns for adaptation to many environments, probably have a system for regulating immune response that is harder to observe. I note for the record and for your reading enjoyment that the recent book he Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life by Robert Trivers

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Folly-Fools-Deceit-Self- Deception/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Folly-Fools-Deceit-Self- Deception/dp/0465027555)

includes a chapter, with some citations to scientific studies, about immune system interaction with the brain suggesting a theory of self-deception in the aid of bodily healing, on evolutionary grounds. The whole book is interesting, and there is better established findings in it, so it is well worth a read whatever other science says about placebo effects.

<comment><USER3> _"In other words, the best research we have strongly suggests that placebo effects are illusions, not real physiological effects"_

not true!

see:

" Recent research demonstrates that placebo effects are genuine psychobiological phenomenon attributable to the overall therapeutic context, and that placebo effects can be robust in both laboratory and clinical settings. Evidence has also emerged that placebo effects can exist in clinical practice, even if no placebo is given. Further promotion and integration of laboratory and clinical research will allow advances in the ethical harnessing of placebo mechanisms that are inherent in routine clinical care and the potential use of treatments to primarily promote placebo effects."

from:

Placebo Effects: Biological, Clinical and Ethical Advances (Damien G Finniss, Ted J Kaptchuk, Franklin Miller, and Fabrizio Benedetti

PMCID: PMC2832199 / NIHMSID: NIHMS169379

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2832199/>

<comment><USER2> I had better respond to this reply, which I see is NOT responsive to the references I supplied in my original post. The link shown here, to a paper co- authored by Ted J Kaptchuk, was surely submitted here in good faith, and I thank the user who submitted it for that, but in fact Mr. Kaptchuk (he is NOT a doctor and does not have good training in human physiology or research methods) is well known as a promoter of ideas about healing through thinking that have no factual basis and are not backed up by science. Basically all roads to strong statements about "placebo effect" lead back to writings by Ted J Kaptchuk, which are heavily promoted by press releases.

So I invite all readers of Hacker News to compare the references I supply in this thread to the references supplied for the proposition that there are clinically meaningful placebo effects that actually heal disease in human patients. I especially encourage everyone reading this thread to review all the cited studies with the checklist by Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

in mind as you read the studies. Statistically valid, carefully designed research studies do NOT show clinically useful placebo effects. Preliminary studies by researchers who promote "alternative medicine" occasionally show patient self-reports of benefits in subjective symptoms (pain or discomfort) from placebo. Those have not been replicated by independent researchers.

Careful studies do not show healing of disease from administering placebos or by other mind-over-matter processes. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the burden of proof is on people (people without medical training and clinical experience, let me remind you) who claim that anyone can cure serious disease with a mere placebo effect.

The reply above prompted me to rewrite my original comment here (the comment that is "grandfather" to this comment) as a FAQ file. I'll post that below.

Because the submitted article mentions the placebo effect, in the usual manner of popular articles, perhaps I should share here some links that are helpful for understanding what placebo effects are all about. Some of these online links cite quite a few useful scholarly publications.

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/michael- specte...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/michael-specter-on- the-placebo-effect/)

"In other words, the best research we have strongly suggests that placebo effects are illusions, not real physiological effects. The possible exception to this are the subjective symptoms of pain and nausea, where the placebo effects are highly variable and may be due to subjective reporting."

Despite the numerous press releases on the Web pointing to publications co- authored by Ted Kaptchuk, who has NO medical training or credentials,

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/dummy- medicine...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/dummy-medicine- dummy-doctors-and-a-dummy-degree-part-2-0-harvard-medical-school-and-the- curious-case-of-ted-kaptchuk-omd/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/dummy- medicine...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/dummy-medicine- dummy-doctors-and-a-dummy-degree-part-2-2-harvard-medical-school-and-the- curious-case-of-ted-kaptchuk-omd-cont-again/)

the statements typically found in those articles, such as "Recent research demonstrates that placebo effects are genuine psychobiological phenomenon [sic] attributable to the overall therapeutic context, and that placebo effects can be robust in both laboratory and clinical settings" are untrue.

[http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-rise-and- fa...](http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-rise-and-fall-of- placebo-medicine/)

"Despite the spin of the authors – these results put placebo medicine into crystal clear perspective, and I think they are generalizable and consistent with other placebo studies. For objective physiological outcomes, there is no significant placebo effect. Placebos are no better than no treatment at all."

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20091554>

"We did not find that placebo interventions have important clinical effects in general. However, in certain settings placebo interventions can influence patient-reported outcomes, especially pain and nausea, though it is difficult to distinguish patient-reported effects of placebo from biased reporting. The effect on pain varied, even among trials with low risk of bias, from negligible to clinically important. Variations in the effect of placebo were partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted and how patients were informed."

Fabrizio Benedetti, a co-author of one of the most cited papers who is also a medical doctor, sums up his view this way: "I am a doctor, it is true, but I am mainly a neurophysiologist, so I use the placebo response as a model to understand how our brain works. I am not sure that in the future it will have a clinical application."

[http://www.brainsciencepodcast.com/storage/transcripts/year-...](http://www.brainsciencepodcast.com/storage/transcripts/year-5/77-brainscience- Benedetti.pdf)

To sum up, despite claims to the contrary by a person without medical training who is often covered by the lay press, the best-considered view among medical practitioners with clinical experience is that the placebo response has no clinical application.

See also:

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/does- thinking-...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/does-thinking- make-it-so-cam-placebo-fantasy-versus-scientific-reality/)

<http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html>

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/revisiting- dan...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/revisiting-daniel- moerman-and-placebo-effects/)

<comment><USER3> > _"the best-considered view among medical practitioners with clinical > experience is that the placebo response has no clinical application."_

see -> "open-hidden paradigm"

"Placebo Effects are Inherent in Clinical Practice – even when no placebo is given

Some of the clearest evidence supporting the involvement of placebo effects in clinical care comes in the form of the open-hidden paradigm (Figure 3). In this experimental paradigm a treatment is given in a routine manner (the open administration), where the psychosocial context surrounding treatment administration is present, and a hidden manner, where the treatment is given without the patient's knowledge. In the case of drug therapy, the open administration mimics normal clinical care, where the doctor injects a drug in full view of the patient with verbal and contextual interactions. In the hidden administration, the drug is infused by a computer pump in the absence of the clinician and the therapeutic context. Patients receiving hidden administration are aware that at some stage they will receive a drug but they do not experience the expectation component or other contextual factors surrounding the administration. Because the hidden administration removes the psychosocial context of treatment, this paradigm defines the placebo component as the difference between open and hidden administrations, although no placebo is given

The open-hidden paradigm has been used in several clinical settings.

In pain, hidden administrations of five commonly used painkillers (morphine, buprenorphine, tramadol, ketorolac, metamizol) have been demonstrated to be markedly less effective than open administrations. ..." -> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2832199/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Evolution could explain the placebo effect"

Umm... what else could explain the placebo effect?

Evolution can explain every biological aspect ever to have existed if you take it to a broad enough level

<comment><USER5> Not really. Evolution only explains the persistence of traits which influence survival and reproduction. It can't explain why those traits arose in the first place (random mutation), or the existence of traits which don't affect survival or reproduction. It also can't explain why some traits never arose at all (say, winged humans).

And to be really nitpicky, "evolution" is the observed fact that species change over time. It isn't an explanation at all. Natural selection is the explanation for evolution, both in general, and for specific traits.

<comment><USER6> Random mutation and natural selection. One's a generator, the other a filter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the Nicholas Humphrey paper cited in the post:

"My view is this. The human capacity for responding to placebos is in fact not necessarily adaptive in its own right (indeed it can sometimes even be maladaptive). Instead, this capacity is an emergent property of something else that is genuinely adaptive: namely, a specially designed procedure for 'economic resource management' that is, I believe, one of the key features of the 'natural health-care service' which has evolved in ourselves and other animals to help us deal throughout our lives with repeated bouts of sickness, injury, and other threats to our well-being".

in full here: <http://www.humphrey.org.uk/papers/2002GreatExpectations.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER8> "I'm pleased to see that my theory stands up to computational modelling,"

Was anyone else disturbed by that statement?

We all know that models are heavily dependent on parameters, and by tweaking them you can get whatever result you want. The only use a model has is when it shows a pattern of predicting observations in the real world. In other words, a model is essentially a theory about the way the world works.

So "stands up to computational modeling" strikes me as a very unscientific thing to say -- kind of like saying "my theory stands up to his theory". Theories should stand up against testing and observations in the real world.

<comment><USER9> Without reading the context, I expect that 'computational modeling' refers to a largely mathematical model that is potentially agnostic about underlying causes. You can run simulations that accurately reflect the real world using one set of variables, then run another model (or somehow test another model) that confirms the original simulation's results from a different perspective; ie, you have two theories, and you validate the second by proving its equivalent to the first, even though it uses a different set of variables, or looks at it using a different theoretical framework.

of course, you're right that this can be troublesome. just because you can validate a theory as accurately modeling reality doesn't mean that the components of the model are true or useful.

and necessarily, the first 'computational model' would have needed to be already validated before something else might be validated against it...in case that wasn't clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> FTA: _We subconsciously respond to treatment - even a sham one - because it comes with assurances that it will weaken the infection, allowing our immune response to succeed rapidly without straining the body's resources._

I wonder if there isn't an alternative explanation, that the placebo effect may be an elaboration of the human social instinct. Consider how a control patient in a drug trial must feel when they are not given any treatment. Perhaps receiving the pill is an act of symbolic inclusion in the tribe that cues the immune system that the individual has a better outlook because they will be cared for by others.

<comment><USER11> > I wonder if there isn't an alternative explanation, that the placebo effect > may be an elaboration of the human social instinct.

You read my mind. We're social animals. Hamsters may respond to sunlight, human beings respond to communal support. We have plentiful food stores when we are supported by our community and have none when we are abandoned. We're not hamsters.

Somebody bothering to place you in a study, ask you dozens of questions, then give you medicine ... at no cost to you ... doesn't that scream social support?

<comment><USER12> I wonder if a placebo would be just as effective if taken at home as a Tylenol or similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If we are to believe that triggering the full-force of the immune system is some sort of switch, then perhaps it would be possible to synthesize a drug to do this directly?

<comment><USER14> According to the article, that drug is sugar in a gelcap...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What can't evolution explain?

<comment><USER12> Well, abiogenesis, for one.</comment></comment>


Comparative Study of Caffe, Neon, Theano, and Torch for Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.06435 <comment><USER2> For those interested in learning about the field: focus on the concepts, not the frameworks. This is true especially of machine learning, which is highly conceptual. I don't think these frameworks are suitable for people not familiar with the concepts. For example, I think it's a good exercise for beginners to implement a basic (no convolution) two layer neural net in plain Python using matrix operations in numpy.

Regardless, these frameworks are more similar than different (one exception is Caffe, which is very focused on computer vision and makes it really easy to do stuff in that area, but makes it really hard to do anything else). In the course of exploring the area, you will probably touch all of them at some point (when you're trying to use a researcher's code).

<comment><USER3> This very much. Understanding the underlying concepts is crucial. Many people use out-of-the-box tools just plainly wrong, because they didn't bother with fundamentals. I know a guy who reinvented Naive Bayes and Laplace smoothing. Kudos for him, but he wasted about 3-4 months of company's time on it.

That said, I would start with Python based frameworks:

\- Caffe is more for production, and Theano and family for experimentation.

\- You can play with Theano or Tensorflow using Keras which abstracts them

\- Python scientific stack makes it easier to visualize the results later

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a bummer they published this just before TensorFlow release...

<comment><AUTHOR> True. But new "stuff" is coming out so fast in ML these days, that pretty much whenever you publish a comparison, a month later something new is going to drop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Torch, the scientific computing framework for LuaJIT, is based on the great Lua language. This makes it a good choice - LuaJIT per se is a faster than any Python interpreter/VM.

Caffe is C++, and the rest are Python (Neon, Theano and TensorFlow).

<comment><USER2> This is a bit misleading. No framework is doing computation in the language you write your model in. The code you write in any of these frameworks just calls wrappers around the underlying C/C++/Cuda implementation.

<comment><USER5> You are right, my statement was a bit misleading. These Lua and Python based frameworks call the high performance implementation which is coded usually in C/C++/Cuda/Fortran/etc. Nevertheless the Lua <-> C interface is lightweight and it certainly helps if the overhead is low.

I know a guy who wrote a fast SAT solver in C, though called it with various slow bash scripts. I asked him why he uses bash, he mentioned it doesn't matter. In the end Microsoft's SAT solver beat him, exactly because they cared about such details too.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Handling price objections correctly? - <AUTHOR>

So I am running into a lot of similar situations where:
Prospect loves my SaaS and the tool, sees a ton of value but says they won't pay more than low double digits per month for it.
Common reasons include their supervisor is stingy, they are able to use teams in India etc.
My software has already saved thousands of man hours for customers who are paying the full price, and for these folks they don't seem to object to the price, rather they understand that the software saves them time.
How do I respond to these price objectors who demand a whopping 86% in discount, yet interestingly enough they are the MOST demanding when it comes to support and feature requests.
"Oh but I can get someone in India doing it for $2/hr to do it for me"
Are these people simply not a right fit? Should I drop them? IF so, how would I tell them that they might not be a good fit in a polite way?
OR is does this signal a poor market-fit of the product and the price needs to drop?
I just don't understand why the current customers paying the full price are so happy while the new prospects seem very stingy and selective, even after claiming they see the value and the time it will save them.
If saving 100s of hours is worth very little to someone, doesn't it mean that their time is probably worth very little? Where as someone who's time is worth a lot (executives, managers) saving 100 of hours would pay off greatly? <comment><USER2> _" How do I respond to these price objectors who demand a whopping 86% in discount,"_

Say no…

 _" yet interestingly enough they are the MOST demanding when it comes to support and feature requests."_

… because of this ;-) If you have happy customers at the higher price point I'd be investing my time trying to find more folk like those — unless you think that a lower price point is going to give you a much, much larger market.

 _" would I tell them that they might not be a good fit in a polite way?"_

I dunno what & how you're selling — so hard to say. Me — I'd lean towards just saying "Sorry, no. We have a standard pricing structure for all clients." If you're offering just monthly pricing maybe offer them an annual plan with 12months for 11months of money. That would at least help cashflow.

<comment><USER3> > I dunno what & how you're selling

Yeah - link to it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you getting some customers? If so, I'd concentrate on them and finding others like them and simply forget the cheap ones.

> price objectors who demand a whopping 86% in discount, yet interestingly > enough they are the MOST demanding when it comes to support and feature > requests.

patio11 has written about the same thing: the people who are cheapest are often the biggest PITA in terms of "do it now! I want to talk on the phone right away! It doesn't do this - it sucks!".

<comment><AUTHOR> > Are you getting some customers?

Yes and they are quite happy based on our calls. They even said our price is good. However, they were still demanding. My biggest shock was when they said they were pitching to people they know.

> patio11 has written about the same thing

I vaguely remember it...would love to read that again.

<comment><USER3> I'd concentrate on improving the product and listening to those people who are happily paying for it.

> My biggest shock was when they said they were pitching to people they know.

I'm not clear what that means, exactly.

<comment><AUTHOR> basically they liked it so much they were introducing other people to it (their words).

the people who want the deep discount also seem to like the software.

both were quite demanding although the people who want deep discount seems to be way more.

<comment><USER3> > basically they liked it so much they were introducing other people to it > (their words).

That's awesome! Definitely concentrate on them and what they'd like to see improved.

> the people who want the deep discount also seem to like the software.

Most people like Ferraris, too, even if they don't buy them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about it hard today. It was tempting to give them a discount and offer a crappier version with crappier support but ultimately decided against it.

First time I said no

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You could, for those customers, give the software away for free but charge for each support request?

HN has some advice about "firing customers".

[http://blog.aaronklein.com/post/59393862062/firing-a- custome...](http://blog.aaronklein.com/post/59393862062/firing-a-customer)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4045251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4045251)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3131372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3131372)

[https://www.groovehq.com/support/how-to-fire-a-bad- customer](https://www.groovehq.com/support/how-to-fire-a-bad-customer)

<comment><USER5> _You could, for those customers, give the software away for free but charge for each support request?_

This cannibalizes the primary value you're creating _and_ you're going to get people arguing about every single support request.

If a customer thinks they can get professional work done for $2 an hour you say "Interesting. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors." and write them out of your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As you've discovered, the cheap customers aren't worth the hassle - they cost you time you could better spend on other things.

Find a competitor in your space and suggest them to you problem customers.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are leads and there are prospects. A lead is anyone who might possibly become a customer. A prospect is someone who has been both qualified and expressed a reasonable interest in becoming a customer.

You want good customers. People who insist on not paying or only paying pennies on the dollar aren't good customers. Your price is a qualifying tool. It weeds out those who are ok if you go bust.

"Give me a good price and I'll tell my friends about you" is a red flag. People don't praise what they don't value to friends...control the message; you don't want more people like your bad customer.

Spend energy closing good prospects. Thank loose meat leads for their time and ask if they'd like to get your company's newsletter. Touch base quarterly or on some other periodically appropriate cadence.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER8> _How do I respond to these price objectors who demand a whopping 86% in discount, yet interestingly enough they are the MOST demanding when it comes to support and feature requests._

Don't.

You have a product. You've set the price. Not everyone has to like it, and as long as you're meeting your bottom line, you've no obligation to come down to the lowest bidder if that bid isn't worth it.

Once you start letting those kinds of customers drag down your scale, you'll go broke.

</comment><comment><USER9> A lot of the advice in this thread is good, so I'll stick to one point.

Let me tell you what a _qualified_ lead is :)

A qualified lead is a potential customer who fits all of these criteria:

1\. Is willing to use your service or your product at the non-negotiable price you set for it,

2\. Has long term financial resources such that #1 is a stable and basically unchanging reality each month,

3\. Understands that your product or service is premium, and while might not ultimately choose you, can be persuaded that you are worth your price,

4\. Is willing to negotiate on project scope (if you're a consultant) or enterprise plan terms (if you're a SaaS) instead of price,

5\. Will not spend more resources in customer support that they are paying you (or anywhere close to it),

6\. Understands your price as a percentage of the value you are either saving them or giving them, and

7\. Obviously, has a need for what you're offering.

Now, that's a qualified lead. How to find them is a different story, but you should not actively pursue a customer unless they fit all these criteria.

Understand that your price includes in the built-in cost of pursuing customers and making sales, be that as an individual consultant or SaaS company. You can't waste time with bad leads.

Once you find a single good lead, pursue referrals from that customer, because you've found a potential wellspring of good customers. You also should change the channels through which you're looking for leads.

Someone coming back saying that they can get $2/hr for what you're offering is not a qualified lead. That's...laughably opposite. My grandmother would offer to pay me more for a completely irrelevent service setting up her blog.

Let me give you an example of myself: I primarily cater to startups in the series A funding category - newly funded enough to be able to pay for security, but small enough that they haven't done so yet. Are companies outside this range prospective clients? Sure. Are they qualified leads? No. That's my successful market, the one I've determined my services are tailored to. So I'll talk with a company that approaches me _but not burn time with them, and only actively pursue my qualified leads._

Look at what you're offering, determine who your qualified leads are, and reach out to them. Make an offer. Be sincere with a decision maker and make a pitch for your services.

Finally, without knowing what your SaaS is, I can't say if the market is responding that you need to drop your prices, but if it is helpful as you claim, it's most likely an issue of approaching the wrong customers. I'd like to believe you entered this SaaS business understanding the market for it and an appropriate price point - if not, you need to analyze that immediately. That said...a SaaS needs to be sustainable, and about the lowest I could imagine one would be profitable at scale is $19 a month (maybe $10 for the basic price tier).

Read a lot of patio11's work on this. Don't use a gut feeling for price, have a rational motivation for the number you pitch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would having a form that filters out the bad ones make sense here?

Like I'm even thinking of getting rid of signing up form for a 30-day trial. It seems that people make up their minds within a day or two once they see it working.

I have a very good idea of what the target market which would be happy and I think from all the answers here this makes the most sense.

<comment><USER10> It's hard to tell if you should get rid of a free trial without knowing more about your SaaS, but if you can get away with a shorter period you definitely should. Use the shortest period of time that it takes for your customer to get value from you business.

You should A/B test these things.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any Open source application performance management system? - <AUTHOR> Similiar to new relic for PHP systems ? <comment><USER2> Not sure if this is what you are looking for but [https://getsentry.com/welcome/](https://getsentry.com/welcome/) is open source.

<comment><USER3> Might as well disclose that Sentry is commercial-ware with a limited free tier:

What happens when my free trial expires?

When your trial expires we'll downgrade you to our free tier. Our free tier is limited to a single user and 250 events per day.

<comment><USER4> And also open source. I've run my own sentry installation several times instead of paying for the SaaS one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are you just looking for a profiler? XDebug and XHProf both offer pretty sophisticated profiling but are harder to use than New Relic.</comment>


Ask HN: High level market analysis for entrepreneurs? - <AUTHOR> As an entrepreneur who builds software, it would be nice to know some high-level data like: 1) What are the different sectors of the economy ranked by GDP? 2) To what degree has software penetrated those sectors? 3) What barriers exist in those sectors? 4) Are those sectors growing, shrinking, or staying the same?
Obviously, (1) is answered and I'm sure people have written about the other questions in an ad-hoc manner, but has anyone done a top-level data-driven analysis?
I was thinking about this after hearing people at Stripe talk about "growing the GDP of the internet." I think the GDP of the internet will grow at the expense of GDP not on the internet over the next few decades. This will have broad implications on the economy that should inform where we choose to build software products.
Any resources would be appreciated, even if they're only pieces of the puzzle. <comment><USER2> (1) [https://oec.world/](https://oec.world/) \- Gives you pretty comprehensive and accurate macroeconomic data. (*) [https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/computers](https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/computers)

Rest of questions would require more thorough research on national level. However, software sector is also singled in macro data posted above.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's helpful, ty!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which are your favorite Apps(Apple, Android)? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Android:

1) FBReader, without which I would do much less reading and be much more bored waiting in lines. I'm currently reading my way through the Project Gutenberg SciFi section.

2) Web browser / feed reader (I use Google web-based reader, not their app- reader).

3) Calendar (without reminders, I miss meetings).

4) KeePassDroid.

5) Camera / photo gallery.

6) Contacts / Phone.

7) email, but mainly when I'm on the road and don't have easy access to a laptop + network.

8) Dropbox - probably should be higher in the list, but it quietly does its magic in the background so I forget about it.

Five of the eight came with the phone. Of the three add-on apps, I would sorely miss FBReader. I survived without KeePassDroid for a long time, but it is awfully handy to have sensitive information at my fingertips. Dropbox is very convenient, but only a convenience.

I have 29 add-on apps total, but I use most of them only occasionally.

</comment><comment> clark-kent Android:

Opera Mini

Flixster

Whatsapp

Google apps (voice,Gmail,maps, navigation,Docs,search)

Weatherbug

Github Viewer

SoundHound

SongBird

myxer

I spend most of my time in Opera Mini browser.

</comment><comment><USER3> iPhone:

      Byline
      Tweetbot
      news:yc
      Instapaper
      Dialvetica
      Calvetica
      Highlight
      Thoughtback
      Soulver
      OmniFocus
      Simplenote
      iPod
      Safari
      Carcassonne

<comment><USER4> Atomic Web Browser - Absolute best replacement for Safari. After using Atomic for awhile, safari makes me want to gouge my eyes out</comment></comment>


MH370: Four-year hunt ends after private search is completed - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44285241 <comment><AUTHOR> I guess maybe they'll find the thing in the future at some point when autonomous sea robot tech gets better?</comment>


General Magic documentary is finally getting a theatrical release - <AUTHOR> https://www.cultofmac.com/623402/general-magic-documentary-is-finally-getting-a-theatrical-release/?__twitter_impression=true <comment><USER2> The latest release on the list was in Austin, on 7/9/19, so sadly I think this article is a bit out of date.

Maybe if they had more information on the general release?</comment>


Giraffe chess is played with 68 squares - <AUTHOR> https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/with-four-more-squares-this-chess-game-has-a-sure-winner/article32595179.ece/ <comment><USER2> For those wondering: the extra squares are D0, E0, D9 and E9.

All are occupied by giraffes at start of play ([https://www.giraffechess.com/giraffe- chess/](https://www.giraffechess.com/giraffe-chess/)).

Giraffes are (1,3) leapers (that's in conflict with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe_(chess)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe_\(chess\)), where that's called a camel ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_(chess)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_\(chess\)) )

Pawn promotion on ranks 1 and 8 can't be to a giraffe; to have that option, promotion has to happen on row 0 or 9.

Draws are rare (I don't think they're completely avoided. End games with just two kings still could be a draw) because a king move onto one of the opponent's extra squares wins, because what formerly was a stalemate now is a loss for the player to move, and because there's a 50 move rule which says a piece must be captured at least every 50th move.</comment>


Startup Owners / Founders: When do you hire? - <AUTHOR> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/01/when-to-hire/

<comment><USER2> When you are so overwhelmed by work that you don't have a choice.

</comment><comment><USER3> When you get my resume.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe, you can try. :)</comment></comment>


IANA IPv4 Addresses "Officially" Exhausted - <AUTHOR> http://www.ipv4depletion.com/?page_id=326

<comment><USER3> iana.org still shows 7 unallocated blocks in the free pool... anything 5 or under will indeed trigger the final blocks to go to the RIRs, but I totally don't see any source that verifies that this happened yet.

Can someone provide a second source?

Block 39 still shows up as reserved:

      NetRange:       188.8.131.52 - 22.214.171.124
      CIDR:           22.214.171.124/8
      OriginAS:
      NetName:        RESERVED-39A
      NetHandle:      NET-39-0-0-0-1
      Parent:
      NetType:        IANA Reserved
      RegDate:
      Updated:        2002-09-12
      Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-39-0-0-0-1

      OrgName:        Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
      OrgId:          IANA
      Address:        4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
      City:           Marina del Rey
      StateProv:      CA
      PostalCode:     90292-6695
      Country:        US
      RegDate:
      Updated:        2004-02-24
      Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/IANA

The other remaining reserved blocks that are routable should be 102, 103, 104, 106 and 179.

We are close to this event, but to my knowledge it has not yet happened.

Quote ARIN: "When the IANA IPv4 free pool has only five /8 blocks remaining, they will be simultaneously distributed to the five RIRs in accordance with global policy. This means that only two blocks remain to be handed out under the normal distribution method." (From: <https://www.arin.net/announcements/2010/20101130.html> which is dated a few months, but I believe this policy still stands...)

<comment><USER4> How about 240/4, that's 2^28 addresses that are reserved for 'future use', that's still 256M addresses.

<comment><USER3> IIRC the reason we can't use those is many IP stacks deployed today will refuse to even try using the addresses in 240/4. They were for a future _version_ of IP, not for allocation later.

As a hack, it's quite possible someone will try allocating these and ask everyone to patch their systems over the next half a year to a year as things get more critical and the RIRs begin to run out of /24s. (The RIRs all still have enough /24s to last us for months after the IANA pool gets exhausted.)

We shall see. At the moment, there is no plans to use these. We could also arguably try to steal back the multicast ranges since it's so underused. :\

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the explanation! I ogled the multicast ranges too but I figured that would be even harder than using a chunk that was previously not allocated at all.

I think we'll be seeing a resurgence of NAT but for companies to relinquish their excessive blocks of routable IPS in return for a nice cash bonus from the new owners, a 'market for addreses' so to speak.

We'll see if that is the way things will go, it would to me seem that that is a logical short term solution that does not require force.

<comment><USER3> Right. For now everything is fine and will be for months and months. The RIRs will start getting more stingy, some amount of reclaiming will be made possible... but at some point market forces are going to start pushing things around and we will either end up on IPv6 or we will end up in a place where having real IP addresses will be a luxury.

I am hoping for the option where the end to end principle is not murdered. We shall see.

In any case, some of the software I'm developing as part of a research project will work even if the Internet becomes a NAT field. I hope we don't have to resort to that.

As for the multicast block... I think some of them haven't been allocated, so if we're going to patch all the systems to make 240/4 usable, we might as well throw in some of the unallocated multicast space...

<comment><USER5> I'm cynical enough to think we may not see widespread ipv6 (or any alternative to ipv4) for a _long_ time. Why not?

A) The entrenched power players "have theirs" B) It will cost a lot of money for the big players to upgrade. C) Instead of _spending_ money, the big players can _make money_ by charging for something that is a scarce resource.

This will be looked at as pure 'market forces' by many and there will be no major push for a long time.

It also requires a heck of a lot of coordination, or so it seems, between major players. Why do so few (none?) retail stores carry ipv6-capable routers? Maybe because so few ISPs support ipv6? Why don't the ISPs support it? Cause no consumers have the hardware for it? Extreme chicken and egg, and the only real downside for the next few years is some orgs are in control of resources that are becoming potentially more valuable by the day. What real incentive do they have to upgrade to ipv6 ASAP?

<comment><USER6> _A) The entrenched power players "have theirs"_

Not really; they have enough to support 1-2 years of customer growth. After that, they have to do something.

 _C) Instead of spending money, the big players can make money by charging for something that is a scarce resource._

If you have N million addresses and N+1 million customers, charging more per address (i.e. raising prices) doesn't really help you; all it does is turn away the cheapest customers. I don't think ISPs are eager to try the Oracle business model of squeezing your existing customers harder instead of getting new customers.

 _Why do so few (none?) retail stores carry ipv6-capable routers?_

Partly because they outsource the firmware to the lowest bidder and partly because the standard hasn't even been finalized: [http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-v6ops-ipv6-cpe- router-...](http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-v6ops-ipv6-cpe-router-09)

<comment><USER7> >all it does is turn away the cheapest customers.

which helps you....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The IPV4 depletion site, now IPV6 enabled? Did they seriously set up a website warning about the impending doom of IPV4 address allocations initially on IPV4 only?

If that doesn't paint a picture of the sorry state of the IPV6 transition, I don't know what does.

<comment><USER9> Making the warning page primarily accessible by the people that will actually be affected by the problem? Makes perfect sense to me.

<comment><USER8> I think you're underestimating the importance of leading by example - <USER2> of course that the purpose of the website is to do something about the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Good.

First, the world continues to turn on its axis (for instance, it is not the case that I am suddenly unable to procure a cheap Slicehost instance with a routable /32). But now there's one less hypoxic argument about the impending death of the Internet if we don't immediately cut over to IPv6.

Second, plenty of companies are holding on to /16s, or multiple /16s, or (contiguously routable) /15s, or (god help us this is apparently true) /8s. Those addresses will urgently begin to pick up a real market value. Fantastic: IPv4 addresses always _should_ have had a monetary value commensurate with their market value, and now some of those vanity allocations will get liquidated.

<comment><USER10> there are lots of companies with /8's that can't possibly be using all of the addresses. ibm has 9/8, xerox has 13/8, hp has 15/8 and 16/8, apple has 17/8, mit has 18/8, ford has 19/8, csc.com has 20/8, etc.

<comment><USER11> Regardless of whether or not they are using all of the addresses, they probably find it easier to continue holding onto them for future needs and convenience than to give any of them up for short term gain.

IT Departments hate having to manage these sorts of changes. Imagine all of the firewall rules that might have to be updated if suddenly part of a /8 range was to be considered "external".

<comment><USER10> i think arin/iana will have to start doing audits and make these companies justify their continued use of their entire /8s or else have to give parts of them back. ip addresses aren't owned, they're just leased from arin and companies have to pay yearly fees of thousands of dollars to keep using them.

arin has gotten pretty strict on giving out additional space to ISPs asking for further allocations due to the pool shortage. once the pool runs dry, the only thing they'll be able to do is break up previous allocations into smaller ones.

these companies with /8s only have them because they were given out in the mid '80s, not because they've ever shown a need for 16 million host addresses.

<comment><USER3>
      ip addresses aren't owned, they're just leased from arin and companies have to pay yearly fees of thousands of dollars to keep using them.

The legacy blocks were never owned by ARIN. It is unclear whether they have any right to claim anything over them. IANA may have rights to claim ownership, ARIN definitely does not. ARIN is merely one of five RIRs that ask for addresses from IANA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can I configure my laptop to only speak IPv6 so I can see what happens / how broken things are (or aren't)?

<comment><USER13> Sure, but the simple answer is that nothing will work (unless you've painstakingly set up public v6 already, in which case 0.1% of the internet will work)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If IP6 doesn't save us, then perhaps a policy of forcing ISP's to use RFC1918 addresses and NAT for their subscribers would help. It's ridiculous how many ISP's use dynamically allocated public blocks for their subscribers and then firewall them anyway.

<comment><USER15> Good luck trying to play Call of Duty or any other peer to peer video game behind a carrier NAT. ISPs are going to love the customer support calls they'll get from people whose xboxes don't work anymore.

<comment><USER16> It reassures me that there is commodity hardware out there that won't work behind a NAT.

Ten years ago I would have assumed they'd just jump to NAT; back then, setting up cross-network PC games was still mostly the realm of geeks (besides Battlenet-based games).

<comment><USER15> Something that I wish the "let's just be happy and NAT everyone" crowd would understand is just how different your run of the mill linksys NAT is from a centralized and managed NAT, which we already have to deal with in some places (like some apartment flats).

Among the marginal annoyances that we run into with centralized NAT are

-there is no UPNP IGD. We don't strictly _need_ UPNP, but it's nice when it's there because it's so much more reliable than STUN.

-tenants share mapped port space so there's no guarantee that protocols that require multiple mapped ports will be able to get some number of them (think BitTorrent or 16 player peer to peer video games).

-UDP mappings might expire after some ridiculously short interval, requiring another STUN set-up.

-many of these devices allow admins to set policies for mappings. You can be sure that someone is going to be playing your 16-player game behind a NAT managed by some eager beaver who decided to limit NAT mappings to 14 per flat.

-STUN just might not work very well at all, in which case you're stuck with a special-case connection through a packet repeater.

-Some will even do evil shit like fiddling around with your packet payload. One lesson I learned was not to ever include a player's RFC1597 LAN ip address or any binary data that happens to be the same as their LAN ip address in network packets. There are actually commercial NAT routers that will peer into your packet payloads and change anything that appears to be your LAN ip address to their own WAN address, probably in a an attempt to fix a NAT-broken protocol.

Commercial NAT devices are truly evil. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the primary 'value-add' for the majority of network library middleware packages in use in the video game industry today is NAT traversal for weird commercial NATs in apartment buildings.

This is your ISP NAT future. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My ISP won't do IPv6 without docsis3 cablemodem which are $40+ even if you had a IPv6 router (DD-WRT can _if_ you have a WRT54G model with 32M)

So many end users are very unprepared, unless major ISPs are going to run tunnels.

BTW, little known fact, Windows XP can actually support IPv6 if your equipment can by running this command

        netsh interface ipv6 install

Too bad the government can't do what they did during the DTV switchover and pay for consumer equipment upgrades by the offset of selling the freed-up bandwidth.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://maps.measurement- factory.com/gallery/Routeviews/20080...](http://maps.measurement- factory.com/gallery/Routeviews/20080301.png)

That was in 2008, is there an updated version?

</comment><comment><USER18> It's worth noting that the date given is an estimated date of IPv4 address exhaustion (which is probably the reason for Officially being in quotes). I would imagine that the recession might have had an impact on how many IPs have been bought within the last couple of years, and it doesn't seem that any of these models take that into account.

<comment><USER6> The models are recalibrated every day with real consumption data, so they took account of the recession long ago.</comment></comment>


Why do Programmers Hate Documenting? - <AUTHOR> http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=35336 <comment> deepak-kumar As quoted by "David Clayworth" that programmers tend to loose the interest after solving the problem in hand. It happens with me a lot of time.

However, I tend to write the comment and function signature when planning a solution to a bigger problem. In comment I mostly add what I want to achieve from the function or code block. There are more chances of putting a comment while developing a new feature from scratch.</comment>


Micromusic.net chiptune radio (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://micromusic.net/ <comment><USER2> If you like this, there are quite a few good internet radio stations that focus on video game and chip music. One of my personal favorites is rainwave.cc.

<comment><USER3> I enjoy listening to Nectarine Radio [https://scenestream.net/demovibes/](https://scenestream.net/demovibes/) which streams demoscene music, a significant portion of which is chiptunes.

<comment><USER2> Of course, we can't forget SceneSat, if we're talking demoscene.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Listening in and loving it. Probably going to listen to this all day.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a huge chiptune fan, this is perfect for me for coding. Thanks! :D

</comment><comment><USER6> Terrifying.

<comment><USER7> The bitrate, I assume? :)

<comment><USER8> It's funny; I wanted to upload a bunch of music from KeygenMusic.net into iTunes Match; but it wouldn't take them, because iTunes Match thinks that anything with a bitrate below, I think, 128kbps, is speech from a voice- recorder rather than professionally-mastered music.

In the end, I re-rendered all the music myself using a tracker program to FLAC, and from there to Q=256 constrained AAC. Each file was probably four times the size for no noticeable gain in sound quality, but at least they upload now. :)

<comment><USER9> Was it not possible to get the source modules themselves and actually record them at a higher bitrate?

<comment><USER8> That's what I said I did, in the second paragraph. "Render" is the verb for going from a digital sequencer file to an analogue output (just like going from SVG to PNG is "rendering.")

<comment><USER9> Ah, I see, sorry for the confusion. I've always personally used terms like re- encode because the end product is still a digital encoding.

I suppose a lot of people in the music world would prefer to call it bouncing. I think all these terms are valid.

<comment><USER8> > the end product is still a digital encoding

A digital encoding _of Nyquist samples_ , though—meaning that you've got something which, at that point, is a lossless description of the equivalent analogue intensities that would be cut into a depth groove. (Provided that none of the data is above the Nyquist frequency, which is usually true-by- design in the kind of chiptune audio being discussed here.)

There isn't really any difference between holding onto the digital data after rendering it, and holding onto an (ideal, lossless) recording medium containing the analogue waveform you got by putting that digital data through a DAC. There's a bijection—you can always recover one from the other.

So why not think of PCM audio as an "analogue medium"—just one that requires a blob of digital logic to turn it into a signal on a wire, rather than a stylus?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Support for parallel ECDSA / RSA certificates - <AUTHOR> https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/ticket/814 <comment><USER2> The linked ticket has more detail than this: [https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/ticket/814](https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/ticket/814)

Basically, allows ECDSA certificates alongside RSA.

<comment><USER3> Ok, we changed the URL to that from [https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/changeset/51e1f047d15d5602a8250...](https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/changeset/51e1f047d15d5602a8250dfe9192d0eae71e6fcc/nginx).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Curious to see how they handle Chrome on Windows XP advertising sigalg support for SHA-2/ECDSA but not being able to actually validate the certificate. We provided details[1] on the bug to Google and they agreed the behavior was incorrect, but Adam Langley felt that it wasn't worth making the change in BoringSSL:

> The code change in BoringSSL doesn't appear to be worth it. I think removing > the cipher suites means that our ClientHello here is not unreasonable and, > in the future, it sounds like we'll solve the problem by default by dropping > XP support.

So long as nginx is examining the cipher suites in the ClientHello (as well as the TLS 1.2 signature_algorithms extension) to determine if the user agent can support ECDSA, they should be in good shape. That's the subsequent check[2] we ended up implementing.

[1] [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=409901](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=409901) [2] [https://blog.cloudflare.com/tls-certificate-optimization- tec...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/tls-certificate-optimization-technical- details/)

<comment><USER5> Google stopped supporting Windows XP last month.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/04/chrome-50-ends- suppor...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/04/chrome-50-ends-support-for- windows-xp-os-x-10-6-other-old-versions/)

<comment><USER4> Right, but that doesn't immediately remove the millions of XP machines still in use. My question was how _nginx_ handles those inbound connections that falsely claim they can validate SHA-2/ECDSA signatures.

<comment><USER6> Can't we just put up a bounty for a computer worm that wipes out all the XP machines in the world, and then stop having this conversation? :)

<comment><USER7> X.org bugzilla quip: "with a non-multisync monitor, it would destroy.. the.. monitor.. so- Our job here is to make sure that there are no such monitors left in the world. --Keith Packard, LCA2007"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice! Here Apache 2.4 was faster. Now that Let's Encrypt supports ECC certs for a while you can use both to reap the benefits.

</comment><comment><USER9> does somebody know how an example config of this will look like in nginx 1.11.0 ?

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this SNI?

<comment> Fry-kun That can't be it, SNI certs had been supported for a long time already

<comment><USER10> That's what I thought as well. The title and commit message doesn't say much else though.

EDIT: Ah the other comment on this thread explains it. It's not multiple certs for different domains, it's multiple certs for different types of keys.

<comment><USER11> Right [https://blog.cloudflare.com/sha-1-deprecation-no-browser- lef...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/sha-1-deprecation-no-browser-left-behind/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Search/Compare all housing options at once (Craigslist, AirBnB and other startups) - <AUTHOR> https://www.brunoe.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello Hackernews community,

[https://www.brunoe.com](https://www.brunoe.com) is a location-based search and comparison tool.

It searches housing options from different sources at once and allows you to compare the listings based on price, distances and other options on a map.

For example, you will be able to view a particular apartment in San Francisco and see ads from Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and other home- share/roommate startups -- and compare its offerings and prices against each other or the traditional rent prices.

As of writing this, the app has just gone live. So right now there isn't a lot of listings yet (just a few dozen in San Francisco and the Bay Area). However if you feel nice, you can help me by clicking the "Add Your Website" button. Just put the URL in there and the listing will get indexed onto the app.

The goal of this tool is to provide the best ways to compare the offerings from all housing listings and help you discover new housing options that you may not have thought about (such as home-sharing or living in an airstream van).

In the next coming days, as I continue to work on the crawling/indexing system and process, the listings in the SF/Bay area will become populated pretty quickly.

I look forward to reading your feedbacks! Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER2> This is only for San Francisco. It would be nice if we could get that mentioned in the title, this is a more significant piece of info than the list of sources.</comment>


Grunya Sukhareva characterized autism nearly two decades before Asperger - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-history-forgot-the-woman-who-defined-autism/ <comment><USER2> _> And although her 1925 paper on autism traits appeared in German the following year, the translation butchered her name, misspelling it as "Ssucharewa."_

I just want to note that the double s at the beginning is the only mistake in the different spelling. Maybe some would call that "butchering", but I think that's a bit harsh.

The ch and w are the normal German transcriptions of the Russian letters that get transcribed into English as kh and v, so they were appropriate for the German translation, but in English retranslations or reviews, such as this article, they should be retranscribed from the original.

<comment><USER3> The _double s_ is not actually a misspelling either. A single _s_ at the beginning of the word would be pronounced as the English _Z_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been struggling with understanding Ludwig von Mises' use of the term _autistic exchange_ published in 1949 in his book _Human Action_. I was thinking that as a non-native writing in English he had more or less invented the term from _auto_. I had already established the words _autism_ and _autistic_ came into the language in the first half of the 20th century. This article now makes it clear to me he had been keeping up with the literature in other social science fields, and the early literature on autism emphasized the _social withdrawal and detachment_. Hence von Mises identifies autistic exchange with an economic exchange a person makes with oneself. The example he gives is a hunter who expends a cartridge he possesses to shoot a deer in order to eat.

</comment><comment><USER5> _> All five also showed a preference for their own inner world, yet each had his own peculiarities or talents._

The way I understand it, this 'inner world' is really the outer world. Strictly speaking, it's one's _representation_ of the world. It's the only direct access one has to reality.

What is really meant by the 'outer world' is of course _social relationships_. Yet they constitute only a sliver of reality.

<comment><USER6> Not at all. The "inner world" is exactly the thing one seeks to annihilate when meditating or practicing "mindfulness." It is the world of _reflective_ thoughts, _trains_ of thought, _tangents_ , and _intrusive_ thoughts.

The "outer world" is a representation as well, yes, but it is the representation (and instantaneous interpretation) of directly-available sensory information. One might call this representation an _analogue_ of one's embodied reality.

A preference to live in one's "own inner world" is a preference—while doing some act "A" out in the world—to think about some other "not-A" thing (usually a continuous, long-standing "not-A" context that stays with you regardless of what "A" you're currently experiencing.)

People on the autistic spectrum tend to have exactly this preference.

<comment><USER5> This is very good, thanks. Two thoughts:

(1) the 'outer world' of one who reflects upon it deeply is going to be richer than the average 'outer world', especially outside the social parts

(2) whether and under what conditions the reflective thoughts are either free or 'intrusive'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "Sukhareva published more than 150 papers, six monographs and several > textbooks on topics as diverse as intellectual disability, schizophrenia and > multiple personality disorder, among other conditions."

Off topic, but what's the difference between an article, a monograph, and textbook? It seems there could be a Venn diagram of overlap— but perhaps is it just page length that is the characterizing difference?

<comment><USER8> The article needs to pass a peer review and other filters. In the case of a textbook it depends. Not necessarily. Monographies are often a compilation of published articles in the same theme (can have more than one author) or a review written for a recognised expert in that theme.</comment></comment>


Shutterfly to acquire Tiny Prints Inc. - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110321006813/en/Shutterfly-Acquire-Tiny-Prints

<comment><USER2> ...for $333mm.</comment>


Ask HN: Where to find good Application UI designers? - <AUTHOR>

I have looked at and worked with a few people over at themeforest.net for sites and web admin UI's.
I am making some desktop apps and looking for someone who can design the product for me.
Thanks <comment><USER2> <http://dribbble.com/></comment>


In-App browsers allow iOS app devs to steal user credentials and inject ads - <AUTHOR> https://krausefx.com/blog/follow-user <comment><USER2> One issue I see with this is custom browsers (e.g. Chrome). Since the only Apple-sanctioned way to implement a custom browser on iOS is WKWebView, there would need to be an exception for browsers. And then Facebook (and all the others) would just create their "Facebook Browser" apps, which the main app would redirect you to when you click a link.

Personally I wouldn't mind if Apple just killed off WKWebView altogether, but some people do rely on 3rd party browsers</comment>


We almost earned 12k per month from the appstore - <AUTHOR> http://appstore100k.com/blog/we-almost-earned-12k-per-month-from-the-appstore/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure, I think because we only got caught with 8 puzzles I guess they just decided to give us a chance. They're very hit and miss

</comment><comment><USER2> Why didn't Apple just delete your dev account?</comment>


Design, motherfucker, do you speak it? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nitrodesign.com/designforlife/?p=94 <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure there were some good points in there, it was just hard to notice them for all the swearing. Hmm.</comment>


On Nomad Flag Theory - <AUTHOR> https://nomadcapitalist.com/flag-theory/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think the use case for Flag Theory tactics are becoming increasingly evident, especially in these wonky times.

Autonomy is a tough thing to hash out in the modern world. It's not easy to do things like get a 2nd passport or residency, legally minimize your tax obligation, travel in accordance with various country's rules/restrictions so you can live such a lifestyle.

I may not yet be living the Flag Theory lifestyle and it may not it be easy but god damn it, it's going to be worth it!</comment>


Analysis of strengths/weaknesses of Apache Arrow - <AUTHOR> http://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2018/03/an-analysis-of-strengths-and-weaknesses.html <comment><USER2> Arrow has really taken off over the last year. I'm seeing it in tons of different projects.</comment>


Show HN: Fork recipes on the "Github for food" - <AUTHOR> http://www.cucumbertown.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> For the hacker in us, we've built a short-hand notation for writing recipes

<http://dnhk.me/xSkc>

I always wanted this as a cook & hacker. Not spend too much time writing a recipe from scratch. More importantly DRY.

</comment><comment><USER2> For those of you that are confused as I was, they are referring to the site as the "Github for food", and are not managing their content using Github as I wrongly inferred from the title.

EDIT: title was changed to make this clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, if it's confusing. What we meant is Cucumbertown allows recipes to be forked and changed upon.

<comment><USER2> No problem, I was just making sure people didn't misinterpret the title as I did. I think your new title is quite a bit more clear.

Great site & concept though. I'll be sure to bookmark it and look around later. I'm curious to see how you applied the forking (I like the pun) concept on recepes for people that aren't familiar with software version control systems.

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't see it since the post recipe is for the users under login.

But here's a peep. <http://d.pr/i/DB3L>

When you try to write a recipe, we figure out if the recipe exists and suggests a "Write a variation".

The variation is essentially a fork <http://d.pr/i/fG09> that allows you to delete ingredients, change prep methods etc.

You can manually "fork" a recipe too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't normally use recipe sites because they are so obnoxious. My team and I tried Cucumbertown based on the GitHub comparison and it was worked well. Check out the Chicken and Mushroom gratin we made here: [http://www.cucumbertown.com/recipes/55365/chicken- mushroom-g...](http://www.cucumbertown.com/recipes/55365/chicken-mushroom- gratin)

</comment><comment><USER4> Definitely make the Write a Variation more prominent. Also, on the main page you don't even mention that as a feature. To me, there's lots of recipe sites, and having the variation aspect is your differentiator, so shout it out! I'd encourage you to just rip off the Github fork ribbon, because after all, it is proven to work.

I assume you are working on design? Design will be really important. Having fun factor in the design combined with the social aspect of forking recipes could really do well, but you gots some work to do!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a UX battle that we'r trying to conquer. We are just getting started!.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It also appears that this site supports the hRecipe Microformat:

<http://microformats.org/wiki/hrecipe>

That's pretty slick.

</comment><comment><USER6> I had this exact same idea years ago. I think I had a better name too. What's the expression on HN? Was it, "Ideas don't matter, execution does"? :-)

Well done! (Only immediate thought is that you should make the "Write a Variation" more prominent the way Forking is more prominent on GitHub.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Execution truly does.

The name bit is a bit surprising to me. As an Indian the name struck with everyone. But when I came over to the US, the feedback for the name from the average user was – I'd say not so great.

<comment><USER7> First reaction I got from someone was "is that link SFW?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Talk about cultures.

We are a team of 4 people in 3 continents, none of whom have seen each other <http://www.cucumbertown.com/humans> and all through our dev process this never struck us. Guess we are the angels on earth.

There is a story behind the name Cucumbertown. <http://www.cucumbertown.com/faq/#whatupwithname>

I realized the name issue during my first dialogue at Sand Hill. The conversations went pretty well until there was a pause towards the end. A partner chalked in words together and politely asked me if I was open to changing the name. That's when it struck. But then we have a reason for it…

<comment><USER7> He was half joking. I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are you guys affiliated with yummly because your site looks so close to yummly's first iteration? [http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/original/0008/4777/8...](http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/original/0008/4777/84777v2.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> No

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It looks interesting and I found a couple promising recipes but why not let us create accounts so we can actually try it out? You'll get more specific feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. We just launched and is testing waters.

The site is in beta state and we approve people along the way.

I've approved on HN folks in queue now. I didn't see Tucker there.

Hop in…

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm quite impressed with what these guys have accomplished since only starting this company a few months ago. Looking forward to what's coming next!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dear community,

We just launched <http://tcrn.ch/REN2RU> our public beta.

</comment><comment><USER11> Leads to a 404 page at the moment. Please don't post links on HN unless they're ready.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, HN traffic crashed us. Back up now.</comment></comment>