Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting - <AUTHOR> http://trext.me <comment><USER2> Forgive me if I'm hyper-critical about the marketing.

The first thing anyone sees about your company is: "Texting for education, health, advertising, and much more. Start the conversation." What does that even mean? I want to understand what your product does, and more importantly how it can help me. "education health, advertising and much more" are completely random use cases, and are confusing and distracting. This is the first thing a customer sees; a lot won't even scroll down past that line. It _has_ to make sense.

I would say you should move up the "Software that engages large groups in automated texting" up, but that's a description of what you _do_ , not _how it helps me_. It really should say something like "Engage your audience in automated, responsive texting conversations in "x" clicks." Something like that. It's still off, I don't know how you'd convey that you make it easy, but that's what you're getting after. The benefit to me as a user would be easily engaging my audience in automated, responsive texting conversations. In fact maybe that's it. "Easily engage your audience in automated, responsive SMS conversations." Massage it. Don't tell me what you do, tell me what you can do for me.

Just some friendly advice. I wish you the best of luck!

<comment><USER3> > __ _...a lot won 't even scroll down past that line._ __

It really sucks that this is being reinforced. I read the tag line and was like "ok" \-- but then I watched the demo movie of setting up the ITTT text tree and thought it was pretty bad ass.

People need to stop being lazy and actually expend a small amount of effort to understand something.

Its a sad state that everyone expects every single piece of information spoon fed to them.

<comment><USER4> Why should I (or anyone else) spend 5 minutes (or about 1/50 of my free time today) figuring out what someone's product does? I don't care about every web app. Most of them are entirely useless to me. The likelihood is, this one is as well.

Is it really, actually, sad that everyone who clicks a link on Hacker News doesn't spend 5 minutes watching a video to figure out what a web app even does? I think we should celebrate the fact that most people live busy lives doing things that matter to them.

If you force your potential customers to do research _to figure out what you do_ you're going to lose most of the people who may actually use your service but couldn't figure out what you do in the 20 seconds they devoted to your site. It's the lowest of the low hanging fruit.

<comment><USER3> I'm willing to be you spent more time writing this response than it would have for you to have watched the demo vid that auto plays on their site had you just scrolled down.

You, appear to me, to have some sort of ingrained attitude against having patience and curiosity. I presume you're a type where you expect every post made to be backed up with links to information you'd be able to google yourself in under 30 seconds.

<comment><USER5> _some sort of ingrained attitude against having patience and curiosity_

Please. You assume too much.

In an attention economy, our most precious resource is our time.

If someone wants my attention, they have to do the work. If I gave everything the attention it deserved, I'd never get anything done.

I only looked at trext (at all) because another commenter said the demo video was great (and it is).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Texting for education, health, advertising, and much more. Start the conversation."

My mind kind of checked out after reading that; I assumed I would not find this interesting, but I scrolled down a bit, and saw the demo, which was really cool.

"Automate your Text Conversations" or something similar, really large, with your video right underneath should be the first thing someone sees on the site.

<comment><USER7> +1. Is your product for education, or health or advertising? Those are very different markets. Maybe pick one of those and highlight it. Or provide a use case for each if you really want to be in all 3 markets.

<comment><USER6> I don't even know if you have to highlight a market right off the bat? Automate Your Text Conversations, appeals to a ton of niches (including people with significant others who text them every night at the same time, asking the same questions!). Maybe develop several landing pages, and gear each text conversation at that niche?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what we're going to try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey guys, I was looking for something like this for a while (search ended a few weeks ago, sorry), but the pricing does seem a little steep. I'm working for a small firm (<60ppl), and while we have a pretty good budget for tools, this'd be a bit much for the ROI. One application I can see as being really useful is polling. I'd reply to a text more readily than talk to a pollster. Also, it'd be really good for getting information from populations in the developing world since they're infrastructure poor but SMS penetration is increasing. Wicked cool site and best of luck. If we have another use case for you guys I'll see if we can use it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like spam in an Eco package. I like the site design, the photography and you all look like nice, talented people, but I just cringe at reading about sending txt's to thousands of people. The reason for those statistics you quote (98% being read withing minutes) is because txt message are personal, 1:1, not batch sent from this spam engine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! A lot of the use cases we're looking at are reaching out to populations who want the messages. For example, high school students who've been admitted to a college and are looking for info on summer events; texting in for customer support... areas where bidirectionally is valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Site design is nice.

But points "1" "2" "3" need the language toned down a bit need something simpler to convey the point. Didn't pass the 1st read test of knowing what you are selling.

By the way don't forget to put effort into things other than YC. Not the only game in town or path to success in business life.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like this idea, but the pricing (to me) is astronomical.

I'm guessing I'm not in your target market, though. That is, someone who would use this for say, RSVPs to church events or something. Though, your demo would tell me otherwise. I'm a little confused about market fit, I guess.

<comment><USER12> We've been getting mainly B to E interest and our major competitors in those markets have starting plans of $1000/month. But we're interested in feedback. How would you revise the pricing?

<comment><USER8> My issue with pricing isn't the lower plan really, 60 doesn't seem so much, but the 10,000 text max plan seems to be too low for a lot of useful applications of this software. If I want to reach a 10,000 person incoming freshman class at a university then I would need to buy multiple plans just to serve them a multi-question conversation. The other thing is that you could provide higher priced (i.e. well over 1k plans) with TONS of texts available, and maybe subsidize the lower plans to increase first time adoption and increase the odds of being used for a bigger project/campaign/effort.

<comment><USER12> That's a great idea. We're giving a first month free for the $60 plan but subsidizing it could get people hooked. Do you think we should offer a much larger plan (hypothetically would 100,000 texts for 4k/month be plausible?)

<comment><USER8> I don't know your cost structure/margins, so I really can't give a specific set of numbers in good faith. In my relatively limited experience in polling/interviewing large numbers of people (a couple projects) I have gotten the impression that my example of engaging 1000-2000ppl/month is unusual. The tools we used seem to have been geared towards 1-2000/day or more (inferred/back of envelope). This makes me think there may be a market for you guys in the much higher volume brackets which might let you subsidize the lower end and draw folks in. First month free definitely cool idea though. I will definitely find a way to use this if possible.

<comment><USER12> We will make the first month free deal more obvious. I appreciate your feedback and honesty. Get in touch with us via email (on our site) and I'd love to chat more about your use cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like these types of businesses. Simple, useful technology for which the success of the business depends almost entirely on the grit and hustle of the team. Your greatest asset will be a killer sales team. All the comments on this page about pricing and "oh I could do this in a weekend" are not as relevant to your business because for the majority of your sales, your customers won't even KNOW the product they're looking for. They have a problem for which there are many kinds of solutions to. Your job is to sell them this _type_ of solution. If this _type_ of solution is less expensive compared to other types of solutions, you'll get the sale before your competitors (clones or otherwise) ever hear the letters RFP.

TL;DR: Get a great sales team

</comment><comment><USER14> I would propose a counterargument for those claiming the price is too high... for those still texting in 2013, less than 10 cents per text is a pretty good deal. Before I got my smartphone I was paying 25 cents per individual text, or I could have paid $15/month to have "unlimited" service but the real world limit was perhaps two or three per month for a cost of perhaps $5/text. These prices are why people don't use texting/sms anymore. Which is a problem for scaling...

<comment><USER15> _These prices are why people don 't use texting/sms anymore._

Huh? I honestly don't know a single person (other than my parents) who don't use texting as their primary medium of communication between phones. It's easy, it's reliable, it removes the possibility of awkward or lengthy conversations.

What makes you think nobody texts anymore?

<comment><USER14> Must be come cultural thing due to local network effect. My wife exclusively uses facebook on her phone as do all her friends. For two way conversations I exclusively talk on the phone.

<comment><USER16> my parents, aunts and uncles all usually call to talk or send emails, most of my friends gchat/text/tweet to communicate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Small typo in the phone picture. The text says "its fantastic" when it should say "it's fantastic". Not a big deal obviously, good luck with everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I didn't read the copy in the first section and instead scanned over to the video/demo. Maybe lead off with that or place it higher on the page.

... or integrate the step 1/2/3 into the animated demo to save on web page real estate.

...but also not something that's just a video capture of your desktop.

Also, this sounds cool for IT Operations like if you integrated with Nagios or PagerDuty.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hi, congratulations to the launch. A little bit of nitpicking on the site UI: The most prominent button is the "Get trexting" button. Once someone clicks it, there is no further info about the product and no way back. The logo won't take you back to the product page and the signup alone might be a blocker. Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops! Thanks. Just added a link back from the signup page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think this is an awesome idea, and the implementation of the conversation designer is beautifully simple (although it should support collapsing threads of conversation for complex interactions).

At the risk of sounding a bit harsh, anyone dismissing SMS has their head too far up Silicon Valley. Only half of the adult population in the US has a smartphone, and SMS is the best communication method for low-income, rural, and elderly communities. On top of that, something like 95% of text messages are read within minutes of being received. For the given use cases, this solution is right on.

I think the pricing is dead wrong, and there should be more emphasis on instantly signing up for free. Also, I think you should tone down the eco imagery and messaging.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the feedback. We strongly believe in the accessibility of SMS. We're actually working on the collapsing threads feature. We'll make the free trial more evident. Our initial customers haven't objected to our pricing, maybe we're getting lucky. Why should we revise it?

<comment><USER20> If you already have customer feedback, I think you need to first assess whether the customers you have now make up a strong segment of the types of customers you'd like to continue converting. Hopefully you have data about how you acquired those customers, and the effort and cost involved with that acquisition and whether or not it's something you can replicate at scale. If it's what you want, then that trumps anything you'll hear on HN. :)

My thought, however, is that there's a long tail pricing strategy that's being missed. Your plans right now are $60, $175, and $500/mo, which I feel eliminates a lot of folks in the sub-$60/mo region. I'm not sure what the low number should be, but I'd rhetorically ask if you think six $10/mo customers are worth more than one $60/mo customer -- the answer in my mind is no. Building six relationships means that as those companies or groups grow, they'll grow into your bigger packages. As someone at one of those companies leaves their employment and moves to a new job, they'll insist on implementing your technology. They'll tell their friends and colleagues. If you lose one of those six customers, you still have $50/mo coming in. That becomes even more clear when you start thinking about 50 customers at $10/mo versus one $500/mo customer. (I'm not saying $10 is the right number)

I'd also argue that there's a difference between a trial and a free account. If I'm thinking of using this service for some business use case, I personally am not going to let my mind be creative about really thinking how your service can intertwine with my needs if it's just a trial account. I'm not going to invest my time into something ephemeral. But, if there's a free service that I can actually test with a customer and use for a few weeks without that ephemeral feeling, you're starting that relationship building early. Free accounts will absolutely cause you to lose money, which is why it takes testing and analysis to determine the right balance. But if you're actually charging $60/month to send 650 texts, you're already making a profit of 90% after SMS fees and card processing charges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The tree manager is beautiful. It's the much prettier interface I didn't want to have to build for my educational SMS-based text adventure. All it would need to be ideal for me would be:

* a way to assign 'expected words' in responses, with intelligent dictionary/thesaurus lookups to assist (so a free text response that asks 'where's the meat?' will be handled by the 'where's the beef?' path in the tree)

* a way to add nodes to the tree in real time as responses come in that don't have a valid mapping yet (so someone who attempts something completely bizarre like 'screw bear' can get a custom response)

* a simple way to handle game state, probably in another tree accessible in each node.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting! Couple of things. We're actively working on SMS to live chat, which might take care of editing tree in live time.

We've thought about the thesaurus and are thinking of going in that direction in the future, but right now it texts back the possible options. Does this seem good for the moment?

I'm not 1000% clear on your third bullet. Are you interested in nodes that you can access from any point in the tree, or are you interested in nodes that transfer you to another tree?

<comment><USER21> If live chat responses were auto-saved as new nodes, that would meet my requirements. The goal would be that any new input could be either manually directed to an old node or auto directed to a new node.

Imagine a 'choose your own adventure' book that accepted arbitrary input and could create new paragraphs on the fly. If your input maps to an existing paragraph, you're texted it immediately. If the book never heard of someone trying your input before, you're told to wait a bit and get a response once the book writes it. A very few commands do something special. 'inventory' spits out your current inventory state.

There are a few levels of game state. Characters carry around a small amount of state (alive, healthy, ugly, etc.). Locations carry around some state. (on fire, dark) Other state might be held in a calendar (May 1st, 9:00 am, the world will end) or the world itself. Each 'paragraph' in the imaginary book should be able to look up and/or update any of those states when entered.

Ideally, any input that comes in would be autocorrected and analyzed for parts of speech. If a new noun comes in, it could be compared to nouns mentioned in previous 'paragraphs' to figure out what the user meant. 'get brown tote' and 'get brownish bag' should resolve to the same thing.

My third bullet boils down to allowing a user to:

        You are standing before a door.
        > open door

        The door resists your furious pushing and pulling. What's that thing people open     doors with? A....key?
        > get key

        Who said anything about a key? There's no key here.

...later, after finding a key...

        You are standing before a door.
        > open door

        The door rattles, but appears to be locked.
        > use key on door

        *click* The key fit, the door unlocked.

without having to add hundreds of similar nodes at different points in the tree. You'd just make the 'standing before a door' node check 'player.inventory.hasKey' and have it send you the correct 'paragraph'. (Also, 'use key on door' would update 'rooms.boring.door.locked'.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting. We already track "errors" (responses that don't have connections) and we could make a real time error corrector. Let's say you have a yes/no question and someone says "nah." If you didn't want them to recieve a text saying "the options were yes and no," we could _maybe_ make it so you could click on the node you wanted it to go to... But, I'm not sure if there's much demand for this type of feature in general. I think most users won't want to have real time people sitting in the trext app. I'd be interested in talking about it more though!

<comment><USER21> Right, mine is a pretty specific use case. However, if a thesaurus lookup can figure out that nah is close enough to no that it should just normalize the response to no, that's a win for the user. (Scraping urban dictionary to act like a thesaurus would be a decent way to decipher txt spk and euphemisms as well.) Yes/No questions could be special cased to accept more oddball responses off the bat..'for sure', 'totally', 'no way', etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I'm not a natural language expert by any means, but from the research I did a little while ago, it seemed like the thesaurus apis matched "yes" to "affirmative" and not to "yeah." Maybe I haven't found a good one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady As others have said you need to make it much more clear what the product does. I understand immediately once I scroll down but the tag line "Texting for education, health, advertising, and much more. Start the conversation." tells me nothing.

>> "Texting is already seen as more personal than email"

This is true but I don't think it's a plus for your product. Personally I despise getting texts from companies asking me questions and replying back to me, precisely because it's personal and unexpected. I don't want that kind of interaction from a business. It's an invasion of my personal life (ok a bit dramatic, I know).

Have you done much research on this? I'd be interested to know what you discovered.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't have awesome data on this. But, we're working on it. Personally, I think it really depends if the texter wants the interaction. It can have great utility or be somewhat annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, if I set up a back-and-forth conversation where I asked five questions and got sent five responses, would that count as one text or ten texts towards the monthly limit?

I can think of a case or two where the pricing might make sense. But if we're really being honest, I'd probably just use the service to test my assumptions and prove out the model. Then, if the numbers looked good, I'd do the Twilio integration myself to save a little money and remove the additional dependency.

This is probably exactly the wrong group of people to ask about pricing, though, because many of us know what Twilio costs and can do the integration ourselves. It's the normal business owners who'll think your product is black magic.

<comment><USER12> I think you're absolutely right about the HN audience. In terms of your question, it would be ten texts, so we count texts bidirectionally.

Hopefully you're right about business owners. We anticipate that they'll see the value. Trext is designed to make SMS app creation accessible to non- programers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just signed up. One suggestion. Improve the "Phonebook" feature. Entering one contact per line? No excel/csv import? And no way to bulk add contacts after a group has been created? Not fun when I need to add 2000 contacts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. You are right!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Good job on the launch! I'll second what jeremymcanally said: the pricing seems absolutely out of control. Other than that, its an interesting concept. Best of luck to you guys.

A couple of UI problems I noticed:

I keep my secondary monitor vertical—which makes your banner image look like this: [http://imgur.com/3MGDYel,sxRuvJY#0](http://imgur.com/3MGDYel,sxRuvJY#0)

Also, the text on the first section below the banner clips a bit: [http://imgur.com/3MGDYel,sxRuvJY#1](http://imgur.com/3MGDYel,sxRuvJY#1) (but only on my vertical screen).

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch! How much do you think we need to worry about vertical monitors?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nice to see someone using the free stock photos site posted a while ago.

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

</comment><comment><USER26> Good title of the post. :) Sms sounds ancient though, there must have been people that tried this 10 years ago. Why did it not work for them?

I would have thought this plugs into whatsapp though, but maybe the messaging market is too fragmented and it wouldn´t be worth for you building it for every single platform (Facebook, Gmail, sms, whatsapp ...)

</comment><comment><USER27> Having built an sms/web decision tree application for healthcare information ([http://sxt.org.uk](http://sxt.org.uk)), my first question would be are there plans to build in any database searches?

I can see entring each option being tiresome for larger applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're thinking webhooks would be a good way to achieve this. A texter gets to a node which does a webhook to your server which provides the options or the response. Perhaps some sort of database could be built in the future if we see demand for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What's the name for this style of background? I've been looking for how to do it, but I have no idea what to even search for. I'm undecided as to whether it's nice or distracting and want to play with it a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean the one behind the video of the screen? Its just the corner of a photo we shot. Its a little out of focus. Not sure what its called.

<comment><USER28> Sorry, I worded that awfully the first time around. What I meant is the section under "Why Trext" that slowly reveals a different part of the laptop.

Thanks and good luck! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh... I don't know what that's called either. Sorry

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think you need some strong narrative examples of use. Show us a user with a problem that you solve. Show us something that a user can use to sell this to their boss.

Alternatively, use testimonials from actual users.

</comment><comment><USER30> Cool! There is just a weird depth effect on the picture... Or is it just me? The left side of the screen is bigger whereas it should be smaller.

</comment><comment><USER31> How is this different from SendHub[1]?

[1] [https://www.sendhub.com/](https://www.sendhub.com/)

<comment><USER12> We allow users to design an interactive conversation with branching logic. Sendhub focuses more on marketing through unidirectional texting. We focus on use cases where bidirectional information exchange is valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This looks like an excellent idea!

</comment><comment><USER32> This is cool. How does legal compliance work with people who do not want to be contacted?

<comment><USER12> We're working on some SMS best practices white-papers. Ultimately our customers are responsible for complying with rules and regulations. But, we advise them to provide an opt-out in the first message (text STOP at anytime).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The changing fixed background trend is on the rise.

</comment><comment><USER34> good idea. wrong pricing.

</comment><comment><USER35> not sure what it does..</comment>


Macbook air or thinkpad? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnOCUkbix0& <comment><USER2> Interesting, but I think it misses the point of the MBA. Note the "Ultra" in the designator "Ultra Portable". From the very beginning, the MBA has been positioned as a sort of elite machine for the portability crowd.

This video misses all that. If you need to carry a DVD player and all that other gear with you all the time, then the MBA is probably not the machine for you. Perhaps the Lenovo is, and for the Windows crowd it might represent the best ultra-portable choice. Of course you are paying for the X300 in terms of size, weight and price.

To me, the X300 is more of a competitor to the standard MacBook, not the MacBook Air. I think Lenovo's positioning of this is just an attempt to ride the coattails of the MBA's press.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just love how the envelope gets torn apart. The Thinkpad still looks chunky and they don't even show what it offers.</comment>


Using Adderall to Get Ahead, Not to Fight A.D.H.D - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/21/using-adderall-to-get-ahead-not-to-fight-adhd

<comment><USER2> I don't see anything wrong with this. However I would not do it myself. I have no issues being productive throughout the day.

Can this drug be abused? If there are no harmful side effects all should be good to go!

<comment><AUTHOR> Any drug can be abused. Although that doesn't mean it shouldn't be used, it does mean you have to be careful. There is also the question of short-term effectiveness versus long-term consequences. Strong stimulants are definitely effective in the short term, but they come with costs. Actually, in the short- term, smoking helps users focus, and quite effectively. The damage doesn't show up immediately. And short-term effects are much easier to see and research than long-term effects. So benefits might be easier to see than damages.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is There Neural Network as a Service? - <AUTHOR> Hi,<p>Is there anything like Neural Network as a Service? Creating NN using an API, POSTing training dataset, and then GETing value for some test data? <comment><USER2> Yes, we're building a ML as a Service platform right now, that will include the ability to do exactly that. We're not ready to launch yet, but if anyone is interested, drop me a note and I'll keep you informed. Or you can sign up for our mailing list on the site:

[https://neuralobjects.com](https://neuralobjects.com)

Edit: just to expand on this... when we're all done, you'll be able to use NN's, as well as a lot more. And we'll have both pre "canned" algorithms you can use "out of the box" as well as the ability to define your own algorithms based on a variety of different platforms. We're also looking at expanding the service offerings to encompass a very broad swathe of what's available in terms of technical & scientific computing. I'm hoping we can go into beta of at least the basic functionality in another month or so.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would not be cost effective for a NN-as-a-service using current GPU technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's still so expensive?

I have no idea about the hardware costs, especially GPU. Could anyone, please, provide some example costs for that? Like how much for XYZ GPU cluster per hour and example thing that XYZ GPU cluster can perform in an hour.

Correct me, if I'm getting it wrong or such example is hard to provide.

<comment><USER3> Amazon charges $0.65/hr for a single GPU, 4x that for a 4x cluster.

Either a) you can only address one customer at a time, meaning it won't scale or b) you charge a high price to make a profit, which will dissuade customers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Azure ML Studio is exactly what you're looking for. Exactly.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's from MS, yuck! I'm not the fan of their products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> i have the same question??? :)</comment>


Elon Musk Likes Anime and Says It's Time to Build a Giant Robot - <AUTHOR> https://www.rt.com/usa/441242-musk-anime-mecha-robot/ <comment><USER2> Obviously just a humorous tweet, but with Elon-chan one never knows. There is always some underlying tone of _" well, maybe actually this makes sense and I'm gonna do it"_ in his outlandish ideas. Next thing you know he founds mecha-oriented boston dynamics.

Also, catgirls.

</comment><comment><USER3> im all for Kuratas 2 Vs Megabots 2 Vs Tesla-Mech</comment>


PewDiePie reaches 50M YouTube subscribers - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie <comment><AUTHOR> Apparently he will delete his youtube account tomorrow 5pm GMT in protest to the latest round of youtubes suggestion changes.

[https://twitter.com/pewdiepie/status/806981139399405569](https://twitter.com/pewdiepie/status/806981139399405569)

</comment><comment><USER2> He needs YT a lot more than they need whoever this guy is. Colour me cynical but this sounds like shameless advertising on his part, just hitches his wagon to the latest 'protest'.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is probably true for the platform as a whole but if there is another platform for content creators and he moves there and brings other major content creators with him their traffic would take a large hit. This is directly related to advertising where google makes all of its money.

I see room for another platform for this kind of creator much like how twitch.tv is to game streaming. Youtube has always seemed out of place for this offering. There is always room for many sub categories of videos to branch away from the one fits all platform that is youtube.

<comment><USER3> I mean sure this is one of the larger players, but there are lots of large players.

If you owe the bank 1 million, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank 1 trillion, you own the bank (the metaphor works great when you compare the US to China).

Even with his revenue stream gone, Google will still be fine with YouTube being a platform they control. It would take several content creators of his influence to make a dent.

(I honestly never heard of him until today. 50 million subscribers? Cool story bro).

YouTube is a walled garden and a double edge sword. It's very difficult to get that kind of audience without using their platform just due to their market share.</comment></comment></comment>


Procedural world generation: C++11 library with highly customizable API - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/reinterpretcat/utymap <comment><USER2> I predict that with the success of Pokemon Go, there's going to be a gazillion "real world" and augmented reality games and apps over the next couple of years. Pokemon Go is the very low-hanging fruit; it's a map with artificial points of interest laid on top, with a snapshot of the real thing. So, a "welcome to Springfield" sign becomes a Pokestop, but the game doesn't really know what is there, it just has a picture of it and knowledge that there's some kind of landmark there. This is cool in and of itself, but if the game actually had more awareness of the world, it'd be even cooler to have real buildings and terrain represented in-game.

Pokemon Go is kinda the Pong (or maybe Donkey Kong) of augmented reality gaming. It's so novel that people forgive that it's extremely limited (and there's a regular non-augmented reality game underneath to keep it interesting and make it more interesting...it's kinda like the old board games that shipped with a VHS tape of scenes or whatever or the video games that came with a bunch of cool ancillary materials like operations manuals and such).

In short: I think tools like this are mandatory for augmented reality to become a really good medium for telling stories. It's extremely basic, still, but given the improvements in public data sets (I remember reading that there's POI data sets coming along now, including information about the size and shapes of buildings and such, too) and frameworks for turning it into a game world, I think it'll get better fast.

If someone wanted to be at the forefront of some area of the future of gaming, I think this would be one of those areas. It's not getting as much attention as VR, but I think it's got every bit as much potential to change the world and to change gaming.

<comment><USER3> I don't think this is true. There's nothing new or interesting about Pokemon Go that we haven't had for years. The only new thing is the branding.

The lesson is more that to get mass appeal, it's the story that counts, not the technology. Technology is just a method to connect the story to people. Pokemon Go is popular because it is 'real world Pokemon' and lets you catch 'real world Pokemon'. Without that story, the game simply doesn't work. It's the user filling in the lack of an actual game with their own imagination.

<comment><USER4> Which part are you disagreeing with? The fact that Pokémon Go is not that interesting technically is exactly that person's point. And yes, I too suspect that there will be hundreds of me-too AR games now that Pokémon is such a phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks very useful. But it's not really procedural world generation, right? I'd call this geographical data visualisation instead. Generation would be creating new worlds with just a seed and an RNG. Was kind of hoping to see that because that was actually an idea I had for my graduation project. I eventually killed that idea because I just couldn't get a good design of how such a library would work (that would be useful in real games). It's a funny coincidence that I also wanted to make the library with a C++ core and a Unity interface.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this library does not generate random shaped buildings or terrain regions. Instead, it generates them from real geographical data and allows you specify some noise parameters, e.g. :

canvas|z16 {

        grid-cell-size: 5%; /* affects triangulation*/

        max-area: 0.05%; /* affects triangulation refinement */

        color-noise-freq: 100000; /* color of each vertex will use this noise value */

        ele-noise-freq: 100000; /* height of each vertex will use this noise value*/

        color: gradient(#dcdcdc 0%, #c0c0c0 10%, #a9a9a9 50%, #808080); /* color gradient*/

}

Also, some objects can be randomly generated for specific place, e.g. trees in forest. I found this idea where you have real geodata as input for randomization more interesting than having yet another planet generator with manual setting of various parameters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is it generating the 3D Building objects (like the cathedral)? Does it just pull from a object library tied to that geo like google maps?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, all 3D buildings data is provided by OpenStreetMap. This wiki page describes the model:

[http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Simple_3D_buildings](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Simple_3D_buildings)

In short, all complex buildings are defined via multiple simple polygons with height, height under ground, colors, etc.

For example, you can check how Saint Basils Cathedral is defined (take a look at Members list):

[https://openstreetmap.org/relation/3224486](https://openstreetmap.org/relation/3224486)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> slick!</comment>


David Karp's Tumblr raises $4.5 Million - <AUTHOR> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081211/who-said-web-20-was-rip-microblog-tumblr-raises-45-million-expectations/

<comment><USER2> I was browsing the image bookmarking site, weheartit.com and noticed that a lot of people are using Tumblr for redistribution of porn. I'm not passing judgement on that but if they start to do bizdev deals, they're going to have to find a way to curb it IMHO. Some of it is really, really graphic. That aside, they should be proud of their trajectory.

<comment><USER3> Tumblr is pretty open and let people do nearly anything they want to. And they're still making money, so I don't think that the bizdevs are staying away. Considering their eventual plan for profit is selling Pro accounts, I think they can get away with that without killing their business model.

<comment><USER4> I didn't think they had a biz model yet...(?)

<comment><USER3> They've mentioned having a pro model with more features for a long time now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congrats David, prove them wrong! I'm amazed that this story don't get much traction on HN.

<comment><USER3> HN isn't a big pro-Tumblr site. I know the Tumblr founders are pretty separate from YCombinator (I read Marco's blog, and the only time he's ever mentioned a HN company was when he dismissed Posterous out-of-hand a few months ago), and perhaps it's just disinterest in a company that's so distant from the seed funding mentality that we find here.

Oh, well. Tumblr's an excellent service and this is great news for them.

<comment><USER6> Posterous are going to stop growing then start losing users if they just stick to all these technical fixes and don't fix the social part of their site.

<comment><USER7> We got lots coming in the pipe. Thanks for the feedback -- had a great discussion here a few weeks ago with unalone about the social aspect of reblogging. I think that will move the needle.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. I've got nothing bad to say about Posterous whatsoever. And I doubt Marco does, for that matter. He was irritated at how TechCrunch announced Posterous as the new Tumblr, which is a fair thing to be irritated at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What on earth does a little app like tumblr need 4.5 mil for? You could run the company for >10 years off that without ever charging anyone a penny. But how is that a sound investment level?</comment>


Scientific Method to Analyze Travel Results - <AUTHOR> http://www.volunium.com/ Dreaming, Researching, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing. Sound familiar? These are the five steps in the travel cycle that every traveler goes through. While there will never be a website that will be able to improve upon dreaming, we at Volunium have been able to improve on the researching and booking stages of this process. In fact, not only have we improved them, we have combined them into one smooth, efficient and simple process. <comment><USER2> Good one. So does this scientific search do NLP on review comments?</comment>


WebGL and CreateJS for Firefox OS - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/01/webgl-createjs-for-firefox-os/

<comment><USER2> Its crazy how much EaselJS has been cleaned up in the past year. Everything is _so_ crisp now, and the API has finally been synched across the board. The last couple projects I've worked on have been with it and I've not run into a single snag. Good work team :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Pixi.js has already been doing WebGL with Canvas2D fallback for the last year. A performance comparison would be telling.

Having just converted a normal canvas/dom app to Pixi, I agree that mobile web UI is definitely headed in this direction. The Pixi/WebGL "just worked" on practically every platform and is extremely performant.

<comment><USER2> Except when it didn't work, or the documentation or API is outdated. I don't intend to compare the two platforms, as one has two devs and the other an entire team, but my god have we been bitten by pixi in the past, and all I have to say is thank god that the demo game they released wasn't quite minified --for everything we needed, yet could not find, we found in there by digging.

That said, I'm definitely interested in a performance comparison, and even though I gripe, I was really happy when Pixi was released. Its on a good track.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yay! That's the clincher for me in deciding on a 2d scene library in browsers.

I like EaselJS's API the most, but only other libraries had a WebGL backend so far.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I know when I should pivot my startup? - <AUTHOR> I've been working on something for a while; I launched it about a month ago.  I had publicized it ~two years ago when I began working on it.
People think the idea is cool but haven't begun interacting with my product really at all.  There is quite a high bar to interact with it.
I want to pivot the idea to a way larger market, but want to retain the original vision for my original product. The pivot will help me develop the original vision if it works (market/product may be too early).
How do I know when I should pivot?  Basically when should I give up on a product? <comment><USER2> A larger market doesn't solve the inherent problem: people aren't interacting with your product. So first off, why aren't people interacting with your product? If you strip away all the supplementary features, you're left with the minimum viable product.

Are the MVP features getting interest & engagement? If so, it sounds like you need to double down on that and rethink those supplementary features. If not, you need to rethink your core features and figure out if it's due to execution or a false premise. If the MVP is solid on its own, you should have people wanting to use it and possibly even pay for it. If that's not the case even remotely, you might consider a pivot and maybe even a hard pivot. If you publicized it 2 years ago and launched 1 month ago, it sounds like your timing is off and you need to get that in order before you try to pivot.

</comment><comment><USER3> Since the product is launched you should really provide the actual product that way we can give you specifics instead of vague wantrepreneur sound bytes.

Regarding pivots, there is a large body of reading that might help you create your own rubric for how or when to pivot. I would recommend starting with some of the literature out there.

</comment><comment><USER4> As far as I'm concerned, "pivoting" is just a different way to say "making changes when what's current in place is not working".

There is your answer.</comment>


Your biases are awesome - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@andraganescu/your-biases-are-awesome-7b37927448c9

<comment><USER2> What you're calling _bias_ , I call _caching_. Caching is indeed an awesome property of the memory, so you don't take time computing whether fleeing from the danger in front of you is a good idea or not, for instance.

The problem is that cached thoughts are treated as facts by the brain. That's perfect if the thought is accurate, and it helps you interacting with the world. Now, what I call _bias_ , is when the cached thought is out of sync with reality. The speed is no longer useful, as your brain is actively pumping falsehoods to your consciousness. That's the evil thing that needs to disappear.</comment>


Obfuscating Python - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/shakna-israel/03172c2c06e1f6622764541dc8b4246b#file-prose-md <comment><USER2> FTA:

      > def _(n):
      >   if n <= 0:
      >     return n
      >   else:
      >     return (_(n - 1) + _(n - 2))
      >
      > for i in range(0, 20):
      >   print(_(i))

> It's fairly simple and recognisable code. A simple recursive algorithm for > printing the first 20 Fibonacci numbers.

That's obfuscated enough to confuse the author; that program doesn't print the first 20 Fibonacci numbers, but their negatives :-)

Some simple fixes:

\- change line 2 to " _if n <= 1:_"

\- change line 3 to " _return -n_ "

The obfuscated version ([https://gist.githubusercontent.com/shakna- israel/03172c2c06e...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/shakna- israel/03172c2c06e1f6622764541dc8b4246b/raw/2d1258e1ea8d25786fc092c3728884e149e937d0/obfuscated.py)), for me, is worse. It prints

      -3
      -4
      -7
      -11
      …

(tried both _python 2.7.16_ and _python3 3.7.4_ )

<comment><AUTHOR> Darn, but I thought that might happen - it's why I laid out each of the individual pieces you need to construct the final function first.

I probably replaced a magic number instead of the 2 in _(n - 2), from memory. My editor was starting to have a panic attack trying to trace definitions when I was finishing it.</comment></comment>


The secret to 4 letter domains: include one (and only one) digit - <AUTHOR> http://semmyfun.blogspot.com/2010/09/get-that-4-letter-domain-youve-always.html

<comment><USER2> If you decide to do this, save yourself some headaches by also registering the spelled out version of the number as well (if it's going to be pronounced as a number).

This doesn't matter for domains like al3x.net, but it does matter for domains like ftw1.com. There will inevitably be users that try to go to ftwone.com (and possibly ftwwon.com as well).

</comment><comment><USER3> _"The results surprised me. Apparently the optimal number of digits to include is 1, and the more digits you have the more likely it is to be registered. In fact, it appears that someone has registered every dot-com combination of 4 digits."_

It shouldn't be completely surprising. The more characters (c) than digits (d) in a name, the more options available. 3c1d has more options (26x26x26x10=175760) than 4d (10x10x10x10=10000).

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

EDIT: And also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_theory>

<comment><USER4> for 3c1d i think a better count is four times higher: you can have aaa1, aa1a, a1aa and 1aaa, which your count of 26x26x26x10 only includes one of these options.

i don't think factorial is relevant here: combinatorially, factorial represents the process of sampling without replacement: so if you were to be able to only use each letter once in each domain, then you would get 26!/4!26! possibilities for 4c.

this is combinatorics: the art of advanced counting, not probability, really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ugh domain squatting is possibly the most morally bankrupt web-based business practice I can think of.

<comment><USER2> How does it differ from real-estate speculation in your mind? Do you develop every domain name you purchase?

<comment><USER6> There's quite a lot of difference between buying a domain with the intention or prospect of putting something of value it and buying up a large array of domains without any intention whatsoever to ever put any content on it or make any use of it besides squatting. The second is a blatant waste of preciously limited resources and should not be allowed in my opinion.

<comment><USER2> What would you propose? Require an essay declaring your intentions for every domain prior to purchase?

How is it less valuable if the purchaser wants to make $100 from selling the domain versus making $100 on it selling trinkets?

I own a lot of domains that I may or may not do something with in the future. What should the cutoff point be? Should I be penalized after my 10th domain? 30th? 100th?

(I don't like squatters in general, but that doesn't mean I think they should be outlawed.)

<comment><USER6> In my opinion, the difference between trinkets and domain names is that you can manufacture an unlimited number of trinkets, however, there is a very limited number of useful domain names. Normally, very limited resources (such as radio frequencies) are regulated so this is not an entirely new concept.

Obviously it's hard to come up with a definition of what should and what shouldn't be allowed because chances are that it would be either unfair, easily circumvented or both. None the less, I believe there should be some way to take away domains from obvious squatters.

<comment><USER2> Some of the newer TLDs seem to have reduced the prominence of squatters by increasing prices enough to make squatting prohibitively expensive. I guess that would be one solution to the "squatting problem" for the more mainstream TLDs... Although, I don't think there will ever be a fair system to take domain names away from one entity and give them to another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Probably other than some URL shortening service what are the reasons to be so desperate for a 4 letter domain name?

Fancy URLs for personal use can be reason I suppose. <http://al3x.net/> comes to mind.

<comment> X-Istence I own my nickname (0x58) as a .com and .org. I forgot to register .net when I registered .com and I have regretted it ever since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you really want a 4-letter .com, plenty of people sell them for relatively little money. I own dufz.com, ikxr.com, izkc.com, liwk.com, puzd.com and I don't remember paying more than $10 for each. I also own vjot.com, a more readable name, which I think I paid around $100 for, but this was a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER9> I'm interested in a couple domains that appear to be unused, but I'm having trouble contacting the owner. How do you go about making the offer? I've emailed a couple contacts now obtained off of whois and it seems they never reply.

<comment><USER10> As a domain owner and frequent recipient of such requests, here are a few tips:

First of all, don't assume the domains are unused. You have no way of knowing this. I have domains that are critical to my infrastructure but don't necessarily have a web site (or even public DNS records). I'll never sell them. I have others that are look-alike domains that aren't activated in order to prevent conflict with my other domains. I'm unlikely to sell these, either.

Secondly, and this is _really_ important, make your offer as professional and informative as possible. I never reply to offers from freemail addresses that amount to something like, "Hey, I'm interested in buying a domain that you don't appear to be using for an awesome project I'm working on. Please reply ASAP. George". You don't have to divulge your business model, but at least include the name of the domain you're interested in, your FULL name, a phone number, and preferably a company name and/or related URL. Consider including your offer in the email, since it's more likely to get a response if it's at all worth considering. Serious offers are much more likely to get a reply, even if it's to say, "Sorry, not interested."

If you call and leave a message, include the same information. But keep in mind that I probably won't return a long distance call, so consider saying that you'll call back at a certain time, and _do it_. This will help to show that you're seriously interested.

Whatever you do, don't file a complaint with the registrar or try to initiate an unauthorized transfer. This will only annoy the domain owner and could destroy your credibility.

Finally, understand that the domain owner has no obligation to respond to your offer in any way. If you really want a response, follow up a couple of weeks later, and be prepared to make a serious offer. If you don't want to be considered a pest, stop after 3 attempts and give it a reasonable long rest before trying again (6 months to a year).

<comment><USER11> _First of all, don't assume the domains are unused. You have no way of knowing this. I have domains that are critical to my infrastructure but don't necessarily have a web site (or even public DNS records). I'll never sell them._

How does this work? I'm not following you. It would seem that the less people/systems that know about a name, the less critical it is.

<comment><USER12> My question is: if there are no public DNS records, how is the domain name being used? Not doubting, I just don't get it.

<comment><USER13> He could be using a public-facing DNS server that only responds to queries from certain hosts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Read my short guide to a good domain elsewhere on HN and for your own sake avoid domains with digits.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659674>

<comment><USER15> Unless the digit actually plays into the name.

I put up the Web 2.0 Validator site: web2.0validator.com (now on vacation until I get around to updating some code).

Interestingly, someone wrote to me asking how I managed to get such a domain; I pointed out the domain is simply 0validator.com, nothing magical.

Which of, course, means I can plan on web3.0validator.com :)

<comment><USER14> Domain hacks are funny but counterproductive and problematic in the long run. Domain hacks involving digits are a marketing problem squared.

See the reasoning behind the switch from del.icio.us to Delicious.com:

 _So why did we switch to delicious.com? We've seen a zillion different confusions and misspellings of "del.icio.us" over the years (for example, "de.licio.us", "del.icio.us.com", and "del.licio.us"), so moving to delicious.com will make it easier for people to find the site and share it with their friends._

<http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2008/07/oh-happy-day.html>

<comment><USER16> Also known as "We wanted delicious.com from the beginning, but couldn't afford it. Now we are big enough to pay for it." ;)

I always liked the hack (I still us it; it's shorter), but I'm obviously not an average user. You are completely right that being "clever" in your domain (or really anything regarding your product) is often not a great plan.

<comment><USER17> Actually, we'd bought the domain in 2005. It seemed like the right thing to do later on.

Remember that nobody had really done domain names like that (maybe cr.yp.to? i also have had burri.to for 15 years...) in a big way before, so it wasn't clear that it was a bad idea at the time.

Some of the other domains, like <http://delicio.us/> worked correctly too. I wonder if Yahoo! kept them all.

<comment><USER14> Hi Joshua, thank you for chiming in. Can you estimate how much users/visitors you lost due to the complicated domain name?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This tactic surprisingly works very well with Chinese websites. Most Chinese firms have reached the conclusion that a short domain name with letters and numbers work even better than a cute, clever wordplay. Those names don't work in Chinese anyway as Chinese is based off ideographs. Short combinations of letters and numbers (especially with 8s) work well.

</comment><comment><USER19> Give me an example of a 4 character domain with a digit in it and I will suggest a much better alternative. If you want to have a respectable web presence, use keywords or find a quality brand on the aftermarket.

If you must, the real secret to 4 letter domains is backordering as they expire or making an offer to existing owners.

</comment><comment><USER20> There always seem to be unregistered 4-letter .com domains when I look. When I bought awio.com it was simply unregistered. Taking a sample of 500 names and then saying all of the hundreds of thousands of other names must be registered is just wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried it with much larger samples for that character distribution and have yet to find a single unregistered name. You can't say with certainty that it must be that 100% are registered but I think that extrapolating from large random samples is a pretty good way of making inferences.

<comment><USER21> Faster to just scan the zonefiles. You run into a black swan problem with this technique. However, that said, all of them WERE registered, TWICE throughout history. Once way back and again more recently (someone wrote 2007, sounds about right). People have realized the cost of holding them is higher than the potential sales in many cases, especially at the bottom of the quality barrel. They weren't kept because they sucked but domain investors like all people like patterns and herding and get sucked into poor investments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another trick is to use .org or something. I got my four letter domain name a few years back, and it's even pronounceable! And it was pretty close to the kind of thing I wanted.

bluh.org, a great website name for pointless nonsense!

</comment><comment><USER23> loads of good true 4 letter domains around if you don't won't a .com just bought we.gd om.gd and whi.im all at standard price and none been regd before. try iwantmyname.com to find and reg 2 letter names but other registrars often sell them cheaper. I used modone.gd and domainmonster.com

(and before I get accused of squatting... we good is the name of an company I'll be opening after my current employment, thought om.gd will be perfect of url shortening with a twist... wait and see. whi.im is for 'things to do suggestions that poll your friends' ... lots of ideas planned at the moment just not got names for the others.

<comment><USER23> also eurodns.com sell .com.es for just $5 a year, not bad for doing hacks like here.xyz.com.es for(here xyz comes) hard to spell out but cheap enough not to care...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's an old report on how 3 letter domains got snapped up at the height of the .com bubble...

<http://www.honeylocust.com/trigraphs/>

</comment><comment><USER21> How to register the least valued domains algorithmically :)

I suspect where the 1 digit is makes a big difference LLLD being a decent combo or DLLL but LDLL or LLDL are probably almost all garbage.

</comment><comment><USER25> The real secret is to just register a .org name.

jjcm.org

</comment><comment><USER26> Thanks for the awesome advice. Just registered ob1e.com :)

</comment><comment><USER27> Awesome post! I just bought 4RE4.com for my little web shop, areastudios.com. I think I may actually use the 4 letter version from now on :)

</comment><comment><USER28> As far as i know 4 letter .com were all registered in 2007...

What you see now is people who didn't renew their 4 letter .com domains...

And for those who are down voting me, here's the proof:

[http://www.namepros.com/short-domain- discussion/161235-llll-...](http://www.namepros.com/short-domain- discussion/161235-llll-com-countdown.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> Mine is 8trk.com //we'll (re)launch later this year and I'll do a "rate my startup" post :)

</comment><comment><USER30> Just registered ftw1.com... I like this idea. I think there could be a few interesting applications.

</comment><comment><USER31> what are your favorite domain checker tools?</comment>


Show HN: Help refugees by providing used laptops and iPads - <AUTHOR> http://www.codedoor.org

<comment><USER2> I've a used laptop that I can pass along, how do I do it? There is nothing in the FAQs page, am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much! We will add the FAQs asap. We can either pick it up (depending on where you live) or you can send it to our non-profits address. Please send me an e-mail to: email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To all those who contacted us: Thank you so much for getting back to us! We are overwhelmed! We promise to get back to you asap.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately the site is completely broken and unusable on mobile (iOS).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing out. We are working on that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Hacking - Personal Use or Public/Repeatable - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious - when you hack together a solution to a problem (physical, digital, or both), are you more likely to focus on a solution that works just for your purpose or a solution that can be implemented for others too?<p>For those of you who do create personal hacks, what would it take to convince you to put in the effort to make your hacks repeatable (and/or public)? <comment><USER2> There can be two scenarios :

1) One hacks it for himself, and share it so that others having same problems can also use it for free/$, or improve it(open source).

2) One does it for others even if he isn't doing it for himself, because, he believes there are many prospective users for it and some kind of monetary/non-monetary benefits attached to it.

> For those of you who do create personal hacks, what would it take to > convince you to put in the effort to make your hacks repeatable (and/or > public)?

Is there anyone other than me who may pay attention for what so ever reason?</comment>


Backslashes (xkcd) - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/1638/ <comment><USER2> Yes, backslash hell. Every time I start using backslashes and quoting along with regular expressions, I make sure I've packed a big lunch because it's going to be a while before it gets sorted out.</comment>


Show HN: The Babel of Laws, 700,000 machine translated laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.global-regulation.com <comment><AUTHOR> Around 700k machine translated laws and 1.4 million laws from 62 countries.

The search engine is run off AWS, database by Google Cloud and indexing instances by Azure.

Pricing is done by purchasing power parity so the price is accessible for developing country institutions.

It's being used at many universities, a Big 4 accounting firm, the Ontario government, and a few other places. We let anyone do ten searches for free.

</comment><comment><USER2> Impressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm the developer.</comment></comment>


How to prepare for technical interviews - <AUTHOR> http://dandreamsofcoding.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/how-to-prepare-for-technical-interviews/

<comment><USER2> There are a number of programming books that I use to prepare for technical interviews. These are

1\. Programming pearls, [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Pearls-2nd-Jon- Bentley/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Pearls-2nd-Jon- Bentley/dp/0201657880)

2\. Effective C++, [http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Specific-Improve-Programs- De...](http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Specific-Improve-Programs- Designs/dp/0321334876)

3\. Programming Problems, [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Problems-Primer- Technical-...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Problems-Primer-Technical- Interview/dp/1475071965)

The reason for these texts is not because they are overtly insightful or well written, it is because they have a large number of problems with completely coded solutions. After working through these basics, programming interviews are much more enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER3> At least for mid-level and higher positions, read the job description and know enough about _every_ technology and concept they mention so that you could give an introductory lightning talk on it, AND why/when that technology is preferable over common alternatives A, B, and C.</comment>


Avoiding Overlaod Hell in C# - <AUTHOR> http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2008/02/26/avoiding-overload-hell-in-c/

<comment><USER2> [Snark]Ah, but is there a way to avoid typos in News.YC headlines?[/Snark]

Sorry, the pedant in me couldn't resist.

Interesting article, though. Just recently I took over a project with a .cs file called "ToStrings.cs". It was the file in which all the ToString() overloads were stored. It contained probably 100 or more. The author's closing comments, though, are unfortunately spot on:

"In a production environment, this might be too strange looking for some teams." If I replaced all the ToString() overloads with some kind of "nicer", but bizarre-looking solution, my coworkers, I imagine, would be less-than- appreciative. Sure, the overloads suck, but at least everyone knows the ways in which they suck . . .</comment>


Fair Use Is Not an Exception to Copyright, It's Essential to Copyright - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/fair-use-not-exception-copyright-its-essential-copyright

<comment><USER4> The EFF brings up potential new copyright modifications to tighten down on fair use. It's important to remember that in 1998, the US Congress extended copyright protection retroactively for 20 years, putting off new additions to the public domain until 2019. So all of us who care about copyright ought to be ready for a new copyright extension act coming in 2017 or 2018, to extend things even further. That will be the optimal time for the industry to push for another DMCA-style law that will complicate our lives even further and push more power into the hands of media conglomerates and out of our control. Be prepared.

<comment><USER5> Those extensions are known as the "Mickey Mouse protection act," since more or less their sole purpose is to ensure that Mickey never enters the public domain.

<comment><USER6> ...inasmuch as Mickey is a proxy for Disney's (some others, but mostly Disney's) mindshare which copyright protections are about to expire. I really wish the original copyright law stipulated that for a given work, controlling law is what's on the books at the time it was printed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Former Academic System's Librarian here. "Fair Use" when I was a librarian meant absolutely nothing. Librarians were the biggest defenders of copyright and would scold and threaten anyone that they felt was on the borderline of fair use. REASON? The fair use clause is horribly written and is legally provides zero protection from libraries or schools from litigation as told to us by lawyers.

So don't touch and don't get near anything that looks beyond showing a video in the classroom. Then a school was sued for students watching legal videos in "public areas" AKA lobbies and even outside on their laptops. This was when buy these viewing licenses to cover yourself for classrooms that show video content started.

<comment><USER8> It's too bad librians couldn't muster the mettle to pull a DMCA type of user- based accountability. I'm serious about this, as Fair Use does have significant implications when performed in an institutional setting, but by the use of individuals, it becomes much more easy to circumnavigate. One of the greatest misconceptions is the extent to which Fair Use applies - <USER2> an entire video? That's not Fair Use except perhaps in a Film Studies class by a vetted Professor. Showing a snippet of a video as a point within a broader presentation or lesson? That's the goal of Fair Use.

Showing videos as a general rule is a Performance Right issue, not Fair Use. The DMVs in my part of the world routinely broke the law by showing Disney VHS tapes in the lobby. I'm talking for years, not just an isolated incident. That's not a Fair Use issue in the least, and lawyers, with respect to the law, could reasonably pursue compensation.

Are you familiar with "independent coffee shops" coming under fire from ASCAP for hosting open mic nights and/or playing AM/FM/XM/Internet Radio without paying official dues? The poor widdle coffee shop owners claimed it was extortion, or they tried to muddy the water with some kind of Fair Use claim, but they didn't have a case and I have to admit that ASCAP was abiding by their legal rights. Now, coffee shops are more diligent in telling people to play originals, not cover songs.

Overall, my point is that Fair Use is so utterly abused as an argument by people who don't understand Copyright, Performance, and other nuances of (wholly butchered / Disney-lobbied) legal channels that it genuinely hurts those who understand the concept. I routinely have to counter the argument that Weird Al is an example of Fair Use (as a general principle of using other people's music) because it's a very specific issue that he is legally allowed to do - Parody. Showing Bambi or non-Public Domain documentaries in the lobby of your library isn't Parody, nor should it be argued that way. Besides, if librarians can't find enough Public Domain content or educate students enough to assist them researching a project, then the job is effectively wasted space, and should be tossed out of conversation with respect to utility and necessity.

<comment><USER7> Radio is a public broadcast and people get sued for tuning in. Like the NFL Super Bowl party limitation and screen size of the past. These rules drive me nuts and should be reviewed in my opinion.

So your recommendation to all the street performers? If open mics are "stealing" from the artist then street performers are at a whole new level. We will have no art or performance in our society if we continue these down these roads of copy right and performance.

Only one's that can do anything reflecting to society will be satire and that is only because of the Supreme Court.

<comment><USER8> IIRC Satire isn't legally protected, just Parody. There's a distinct difference. I think Hustler was a Parody ruling.

What you're failing to recognize is that the coffee shop owners are, for lack of a better term, profiting from the music being played in their establishment. In a more direct case I can speak to, I frequently purchase beer from the places where I've played open mics. They directly profit from hosting the event, and feel that they should be exempt from paying the compositing artist association dues...why?

Now, for street performers, they are providing a service akin to radio, insofar that they are publicising a song, not charging a cover, and further advancing the arts and society's respect for them (putting aside the quality of the performer). That's why my local city has ordinances actively supporting busking - provided no solicitation for compensation is put forward - <USER3> it makes life better. In turn, performers are allowed to have a tip jar or accept compensation as they are benefitting society and the arts through the "practice and performance of their craft" as the ordinance describes it.

<comment><USER6> Satire is a defense to defamation, which was what Falwell sued over, and Edward Norton, playing Larry Flint's attorney, did such a swell job of depicting in the movie, People vs. Larry Flint.

<comment><USER8> Ah! Nice to have that input. I'm with you in spirit, for sure. That stated, I think we are both on-track with some of the difficulties relating to Speech vs. Fair Use. Freedom of Speech seems to be the tenent by which Flint won against the Defamation charge. However, in Fair Use, where Parody has very clear protections, it seems Satire is not as supported as grounds for Fair Use. The Wikipedia citation regarding Campbell notes that Satire may be protected, but yet again, we run into erratic outcomes on the subject. Phew!!

<comment><USER7> From the American Bar Association:

The Satire/Parody Distinction in Copyright and Trademark Law— Can Satire Ever Be a Fair Use?

Supreme Court also ruled that Satire/Parody is Fair use protected due to their verdict in Campbell v. AcuffRose Music, Inc

[https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellect...](https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I support the EFF and the protection of fair use, but I don't think this article is well written enough to make a good case for it. It makes some coherent points near the end of the article, but the beginning is just a jumble of statements that introduce a fair amount of confusion.

For instance: "New technologies and services depend on the creation of multiple copies as a matter of course. At the same time, copyright terms cover works many decades old and copyrighted software appears in more and more devices."

That's just a mess of an argument. What does it even mean? "Copyrighted software appears in more and more devices." Hasn't every electronic device ever invented (from the Sony Walkman days, to VCRs, to every flat screen television on the planet) contained copyrighted software? How is that "more and more"? I don't get the argument here.

<comment><USER8> I agree; I was hoping for a more cogent explanation, but the whole time- shifting concept with respect to Fair Use is...weird? It's more of a "Terms of Service" type of issue, from my perspective, in that paying for the service should carry with it certain reasonable rights. It's not exactly a "transformative" notion from my perspective, but honestly, the courts have been so all over the map of reasoning that it takes me a while to figure out the logic. Sometimes, when I do figure it out, I get really, really mad with flashbacks to the crux of the Napster case which ruled "A home computer is not an audio device and therefore person-to-person sharing of audio copies as Fair Use does not apply" (paraphrased) and is so utterly shitty and wrong it has led us down the DRM wormhole.

At least Eminem successfully sued for his 50% cut. For those unfamiliar, the jist of the story is Eminem's label told users they were 'leasing' a song, which entailed a 50% royalty rate to Eminem, but they accounted each lease as a 'sale' and paid him closer to 20%...which was in violation of his contract. He sued, he won, and it's a thorn in the industry's side to this day. I blame the greed of "having our cake and eating it too" and the outcome pleased me on both fronts as an artist and paying consumer.

<comment><USER10> Time-shifting is not a "Terms of Service" issue, because fair use is a right under copyright law and signing a license cannot take that away from you.

Also, I think you misread the article: Time-Shifting was never ruled to be transformative. It was ruled to be fair use by the Supreme Court because it is for private use and does not affect the market for the original work.

<comment><USER8> Ah, indeed I conflated the "transformative" part from the book scanning, which makes them searchable. That's definitely a value-addition of the process, to me. Oh well, I'll leave the comment as it stands, flawed as it may be.

As far as signing a ToS / license, yeah you're right in principle, but I have no doubt that right will, as it was in this case, be under heavy legal artillery for the foreseeable future. Even the NFL hasn't bothered to change their tune with their "...is prohibited" disclaimer, which is fundamentally unenforceable. Maybe if that kind of dishonest truth stretching were an actionable offense, the stakes would be a little higher and cases more interesting.

<comment><USER10> Yes, misleading copyright notices are real a problem as they cause many people to think that they will violate the license by exercising their fair use rights. Fixing the language might help - but I'd like to see fair use more clearly defined, so that consumers can easily check if their activity is legal, regardless of the license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know a good lawyer for fair use issues? I've got a project that I'm fairly certain falls on the fair use side of the line, but it's important enough that I'd like a lawyer's opinion.

<comment><USER10> Lawyers are very good at identifying threats, but they will never offer you much assurance about an issue as subjective as fair use. There's always some speculative danger they can see that's technically, though maybe not realistically, justified.

What you can do is ask a lawyer if your idea is obviously _not_ fair use and you'll get a straight answer. But you're not going to find someone who is going to say to you "yes, this is fine" because the law covering fair use is so vague. Laywers need to protect themselves when giving legal advice.

I'd recommend reading up on fair use and using your own brain. Case law is especially useful, i.e. many fair use cases regarding software have been to the supreme court - if you find a ruling covering something similar to your project then that is a good sign - Wikipedia and Google News are your friends.

<comment><USER12> >I'd recommend reading up on fair use and using your own brain. Case law is especially useful, i.e. many fair use cases regarding software have been to the supreme court - if you find a ruling covering something similar to your project then that is a good sign - Wikipedia and Google News are your friends.

I wouldn't do this for myself and I am lawyer capable of doing this sort of work for someone else.

You bias your own research when you are too close to the matter.

If you want a good rule of thumb for commercial fair use: Don't use copyrighted material at all unless you are doing a clear parody.</comment></comment></comment>


Docker 0.4.0 release note - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/wiki/Docker-0.4.0-release-note,-June-3-2013

<comment><USER2> TLDR: Docker is an open-source engine which automates the deployment of applications as highly portable, self-sufficient containers.

Version 0.4 introduces a remote HTTP api, a new Build functionality, and an experimental Openstack integration.

<comment><USER3> Would be nice if every post had a TLDR;

Maybe someone should hack a tool, point an URL and get a TLDR; version

<comment><USER4> I think that if post has so trivial amount of information that it can be shortened to TLDR, there is never any need to actually read it

<comment><USER5> A TL;DR is just a summary, it doesn't need to contain all the information in the original text to be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Many thanks to shykes, mdaniel, backjlack, and the many others that contributed to this terrific release. So much has been accomplished in just a few months, which augurs well for what Docker will look like by year's end. Bravo, everyone.

</comment><comment><USER7> Feels like there is some wheel-reinventing going on here. Maybe someone could help me out on why the build scripts here would be preferable over something like Chef to manage the repeatable builds within a new container? Or maybe I've totally missed the point.

<comment><USER2> Dockerfiles are not a replacement for chef or puppet scripts. They're a very lightweight way to assemble a container by running unix commands, and then freezing that container into an immutable, portable unit of deployment. Some of thos unix commands may be calls to Chef.

If you're a chef user, you can use docker to "just-in-time" compile your chef recipes into a container almost as portable as a static binary. You can then send that container to me, and I'll be able to run it regardless of what configuration management I like to use on my machine.

<comment><USER8> It seems to me that you should be able to roll back an built via a Dockerfile back to any step in the build, and then rebuild from that point. A deployment via another CM tool would probably lose that ability.

Perhaps it's my inexperience, but I find chef scripts to be very fragile because of the large amount of external dependencies they generally contain. All of these dependencies are very stable: nobody takes down tarballs and packages randomly, but a large number of low probability events can add up to a high probability.

That makes image based deployments appealing, but you still need to have a reliable, repeatable capture of the steps that went into building the image...

<comment><USER9> I've used Chef extensively and found this to be exactly the case.

In my experience, going back and running deploy scripts I wrote a year ago have about 10% probability of still working. Aside from chef's breaking changes (and versioning mess), there's a ton of things outside of my control that take things down. Debugging has been a nightmare.

I love the concepts and community around Chef, but I've found for my use case, it was an all around bad choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the reasons why I really enjoy while reading the notes is the fact that Docker does not shut itself into Linux world and promises working with alternative technologies, like BSD Jails. That's a great news and I am looking forward to see it happening!

</comment><comment><USER11> On my list of things to do: compare docker to zerovm to libvirt to ??? and figure out which one works will work best with rdma (infiniband) networks. Combined with nixos (maybe), this could work wonders for hpc data provenance.

<comment><USER12> What about OpenVZ? It isn't as light as Docker (you get a whole OS) and solves a different problem, but it is solid at providing a OS virtualized container.

<comment><USER2> OpenVZ is almost identical to LXC, which is what Docker uses under the hood. You could port Docker to OpenVZ very easily. In fact, there is a plugin planned to do exactly that.

Fun fact: before running on lxc, dotCloud (where Docker originated from) was initially based on OpenVZ (which was great). As the mainline kernel's support for containers improved (in large part, I believe, thanks to the pioneering work of OpenVZ), eventually we moved over to that.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the clarification. I'm working on a similar type of product, but involving heavy compute and data analysis. Since we aren't hosting web apps, we don't have the web routing complexity that you have, but we do share a lot of the backend pieces (OpenVZ and unionFS in our case).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure I'm asking this question correctly, but what kind of performance hit do I take by using a Docker container within an EC2 instance instead of just running straight on the EC2 instance's userspace?

I'm not looking for any kind of concrete number, but let's say I've got a Postgres running on an m1.large. Any idea how running Postgres under Docker would change my performance characteristics?

<comment><USER11> Almost nothing in most cases, but it depends on what you're doing. Take a look at the benchmarks for lxc.

[http://lxc.sourceforge.net/index.php/about/kernel- namespaces...](http://lxc.sourceforge.net/index.php/about/kernel- namespaces/network/benchs/)

Postgres is a beast tho (albeit a cute and friendly beast), it's probably doing something weird that lxc won't like.

<comment><USER2> That's correct, you can approximate the overhead of LXC (and any other similar containerization such as OpenVZ, Solaris Zones, BSD jails etc.) as zero. In terms of performance they are closer to chroot than to a virtual machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I interviewed one of the creators of Docker, Solomon Hykes, last week. Blog post is here. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5816622>

</comment><comment><USER15> So how does Docker compare to Vagrant (<http://www.vagrantup.com/>) ? They sound very similar.

<comment><USER16> Docker lets you run separate userspaces on the same kernel.

Vagrant provisions Virtualbox, which lets you run separate kernels, on various different virtualized CPU architectures.

<comment><USER17> It is possible to use docker/lxc as a Vagrant provider. This means when you run 'vagrant up', your 'machine' could be a lxc container instead of a VirtualBox VM.

<https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/issues/404>

[http://fabiorehm.com/blog/2013/04/28/lxc-provider-for- vagran...](http://fabiorehm.com/blog/2013/04/28/lxc-provider-for-vagrant/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been dabbling with docker quite a bit. I'm finding it solid despite the disclaimer against production use.

<comment><USER19> FWIW I've found precisely the opposite. I ended up having to roll my own lxc wrapper. Maybe in a few months docker will be there, but not right now.

<comment><USER20> I started off using my own implementation and was thinking about switching to docker... what made you switch away from docker?

<comment><USER19> It's poorly documented (so you'll need to dig into the source to figure out how to use it) and at least when I was using it did not play well when scripted (like sending commands to the container). It also wasn't terribly reliable (a command might work one but not the next time) and it seemed like it was in a state of transition. (moving towards a RESTful API?) I just think if you use it now you'll end up writing stuff (at least) twice.

Not that raw LXC is much better... It all seems very immature.

<comment><USER21> Can you give us some examples on where it is poorly documented so that we can fix those issues?

Also, if you can let us know what you were doing when the command didn't work the same way every time? Have you filed any issues for those yet? If not, can you, or tell me here and I can do it for you. If we don't know about your issues, it is hard for us to fix them.

Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Remote api is pretty cool and makes my life easier, but how much functionality does docker provide over running lxc-* style commands?

</comment><comment><USER22> The main question I have is since it uses LXC, which shares the kernel, I can't have Windows running in Docker or even a different Linux distro (presumably unless they happen to have the same Linux kernel)?

<comment><USER23> You are correct. You must run linux, but since most distros aren't too picky about what kernel version you run, you should be able to run any distro you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Please, please prioritize shared filesystems/storage with the host. I know it was hotly debated when talking about sharing data between containers, but sharing data with the host is very useful.

</comment><comment><USER24> Any plans for btrfs ?

<comment><USER25> Sounds like it: [https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/wiki/Docker-0.4.0-release...](https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/wiki/Docker-0.4.0-release- note,-June-3-2013#even-more-integrations)</comment></comment>


OS/2 2.0 build 6.605 restored - <AUTHOR> http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-2-0-summer-91-edition/ <comment><AUTHOR> Not the same as the old MS OS/2 2.0 SDKs from 1990, but very similar</comment>


PluginStash – A free curated directory of 'everything' to build your startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.maaxmarket.com/pluginstash-free-for-startup/ <comment><AUTHOR> A free tool designed for the startup community. Hope you like it

<comment><USER2> I laughed that you have MySQL under growth marketing.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the note. We have fixed it now</comment></comment></comment>