CEO of 5 year-old company who raised $4mil enters pitch contests to win $15k - <AUTHOR>

Mastercard had pitch competition called Priceless Pitch at this weekend at the Mashable House in Austin / SXSW
From the site: How's it work? Have your pitch for a new business idea, solution or product prepared and our bellhop will escort you into the Priceless Elevator. Once the door closes, you'll have up to 60 seconds to pitch your idea for a chance at the grand prize of $15,000.
http://mashable.com/2015/03/11/priceless-pitch-brandspeak/
Now the spirit of the competition would seem to indicate that this was for new ideas or for younger startups who have not raised a ton of money.
So it is a little curious that they awarded it to Clearpath's CEO  Felice Gorordo. https://twitter.com/MasterCard/status/577239944357289984
Clearpath is 5 years old and has raised 4 million and is looking to raise 3 million more. http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-gate/2014/01/clearpath-names-felice-gorordo-ceo-moving-hq-to-miami.html
Seems bad form to me but wanted to get HN comments <comment><USER2> This tells me it was a poorly organised competition to begin with. The blurb clearly indicates it's for _new_ companies/ideas (for some definition of new). However, the eligibility criteria only states that you are a US (Mastercard?) cardholder (i.e. no restrictions).

I'm not much impressed with the judges either. How the fuck is a pitch for a new idea meant to compete with one that's already a going concern?

"sign up to pitch your _new business idea_ " and "... on the final day (3/15), the best Priceless Pitch will be awarded a $15,000 grand prize to help _bring the idea to life_." [1] -- emphasis added.

[1] [http://mashable.com/2015/03/14/priceless-pitch-mashable- hous...](http://mashable.com/2015/03/14/priceless-pitch-mashable-house/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think its less about the $15k and more about being able to say they got an award from Mastercard, publicity, networking with other businesses, which is always helpful.

Also, the CEO might just find these things fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's stated in the prompt that the pitch could be for a "new business idea, solution or product". That seems clearly inclusive of existing businesses regardless of age. i.e. A 5 year old business releasing a new product. Sounds like fair game to me.

</comment><comment><USER5> that means the business is still relevant. smart publicity by the CEO i say.

<comment><USER6> Since the official rules apparently didn't preclude them from entering, I have to agree that it was smart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> No.

<comment><USER8> no what? no you don't agree, no you don't care? no its not in bad taste? give me something more than no.

<comment><USER9> No. ;)</comment></comment></comment>


It's time to tax financial transactions - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-its-time-to-tax-financial-transactions/2013/03/04/d496d738-8516-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html

<comment><USER2> Offtopic: I can't really read those articles form New York Times and Washington Post. They have 1% of substance over 99% of bouillon of words. Maybe I'm alone here, but I just want articles to say what's going on in one sentence at the beginning and then maybe explain why is this happening and what are possible repercussions. But these kinds of texts are an insult to any thinking individual who values his time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree with niggler, I guess this tax would eliminate >95% of all trades. Therefore the expected tax income of 352 billion would be significantly lower (~ 20 billion) over 10 years. Still I do believe the tax would have a significant positive impact on the economy.

The tax would most effect arbitrage trades. Arbitrageurs get between buyers and sellers. When a seller offers a stock for $95 and a buyer is willing to pay $105 the arbitrageurs buy the stock for $95 and sell it to the buyer for a premium (~ $102.5). Arbitrageurs have trading algorithms which can do this millions of times per second, that's how they can buy faster than the "real" buyer. They behave like vultures fighting for the scraps (so to speak) and getting in the way of "real" market participants.

The act of arbitrage trades is taxing market participants already. The proposed tax of ¢3 might make buying stock cheaper on average. (I don't know the real numbers, this is just a guess) Further more I would rather see the money in the hand of the government, as there is a chance that some of the money is spend on better streets & health care. The alternative is to fund hoards of highly skilled engineers to improve algorithm that pick up the scraps. I personally know engineers at broker firms who feel their extremely well paid job provides absolutely no good to society.

EDIT: The main argument for the existence of arbitrageurs is that they provide liquidity to the market when there are not enough buyers & sellers. My personal believe is, they liquidity they provide today comes with a to high of a price. 20 years ago when it was a few guys yelling on the trading floor you could always count on one guy yelling (the arbitrageur). Today the number of market participants & electronic transactions make trades near perfect; The utility of arbitrage trades vanished almost completely.

<comment><USER4> I think you are misinformed about arbitrage. Arbitrage involves taking advantage of a price difference between two different markets. In the US for equities, there is a national best bid and offer which means that the prices stay in line. (Also see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_best_bid_and_offer>)

If someone in the US first wants to sell a stock for as low as $95 (places a resting ask order at $95), and then someone else comes in and is willing to buy the stock for up to $105 (places a bid at $105), their orders will match, and the transaction will occur at $95. They won't just sit around waiting for some arbitrageur to come around.

Let's say there is an arbitrage between an index fund etf and its component companies such that you can buy all the components for $99, and sell the etf for $100. In this case who is the poor real market participant who gets screwed by the arbitraguer? If the "real market participant" got his order filled, he will be happy.

"Today the number of market participants & electronic transactions make trades near perfect; The utility of arbitrage trades vanished almost completely."

I think you are confusing cause and effect. The reason why the markets are indeed much more efficient these days is because of the existants of many more people engaged in arbitrage. This is something you should be happy about. Those algoritms that pick up the scraps significantly decrease the cost of investing for everyday people huge amounts of invested pension and retirement fund wealth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the best ways to reform the current financial system. All traders will complain. Some professors will say it will grind the financial world to a halt. However, if the trading does not have any underlying meaning with respect to what something is "worth", what's the point? It should be some representation of underlying value. Non-transparent derivative products that do not have any intrinsic value or of which their value is incredibly hard to grasp, can just not be the way to go. But yeah, I'm an engineer, so perhaps I'm thinking too mechanical about the entire thing.

</comment><comment><USER6> "three pennies on every $100 traded."

That's enough to wipe out 95% of traders.

</comment><comment><USER7> This tax is both "too small to notice", "rounding errors", etc, but will also raise $352 billion over ten years‽ When you hear someone make rationalizations like that, run for the hills.

Further the worst part about "small" taxes is that they usually come with administration and enforcement costs far outweighing the benefits.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wouldn't this cause spreads on stocks to get very wide? Liquid stocks are a penny wide now, I could see that going up to five or ten cents with such a tax. While the average investor isn't going to get hit much, in aggregate it seems like it could cost average investors billions. I'm not saying that's worse than what HFT allegedly costs, but just a point of comparison. Not that I'd expect this tax to get enacted anyway.

</comment><comment><USER9> I like how they freak out about the services government did cut, but fail to notice that things like air force one, white house chefs, and other luxuries that cost millions of dollars, enjoyed by a few elite, are still in full swing.

The services they do cut, are the things they feel will extort the most people through emotional response, nothing close to the first things that could have been cut.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even at a mere three cents that's unfair to a working class person buying their first stock for their IRA vs. a billionaire who does multiple transactions. Also while it may be just three cents today it will rise over time. And not for nothing this is also a good way to offshore even more financial sector jobs which really does impact places like New York City.

<comment><USER11> Don't we _want_ to offshore finacial sector jobs? As I understand it, personnel costs are huge in the financial sector, with multi-million dollar year-end bonuses & etc.

If we can keep personnel costs down, won't that benefit the consumers of financial services, as the cost to the consumer will also either go down, or not go up so much?

<comment><USER10> That's already happened: In most of those firms everything that can be outsourced has been outsourced, so the next step would be the firm leaving NYC. And as someone in NYC I think that's a bad idea. Other cities like London are in the same boat in terms of how they treat their financial industry as well. By the way I say this not because I love that industry, but because it adds to the diversity of the local economy and really helps the tax base.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That has been tried in certain countries (e.g. Brazil), beyond the fact that it's yet another tax and solves little, it is debatable, even though it has its qualities.

But here's a proposal then. Abolish all other taxes and keep only this tax (at a higher rate). No more IRS enforcement al well since collecting will be automatic.

</comment><comment><USER13> Idiots</comment>


Why didn't electricity immediately change manufacturing? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40673694 <comment><USER3> This seems to be the "classic" story told whenever modern productivity growth is discussed - "electricity took a long time to show up in the productivity figures so it's not surprising {computers, internet} is taking a long time to show up also".

On the other hand, some technologies - especially military ones - <USER2> transformed specific sectors very fast. We go rapidly from the first powered flight to WWI dogfights, Dreadnought requires the world powers to rebuild their navies, penicillin transforms survival rates for bacterial infections, radar (in the UK) goes from a proof of concept in 1935 to a fully deployed system that changes the outcome of WWII in 1940. And these are just a few examples.</comment>


Logic Programming in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://intensivesystems.net/tutorials/logic_prog.html <comment><USER2> Besides The Reasoned Schemer, another _excellent_ logic programming book is _The Art of Prolog_ by Sterling and Shapiro. While it uses Prolog rather than Lisp, it's overall focus is more on Logic Programming than Prolog specifically. It starts with the big ideas in Logic Programming and what they're theoretically capable of, and then shifts to Prolog, the most mainstream implementation of an LP language, and the design trade-offs it has made. (There are other great books more specific to Prolog, if you find you like it.)

Also, it has been out of print for a while, and the second edition can be pretty expensive ($90-100ish used). The first edition is much cheaper ($2-5), and while the second covers a newer version of Prolog and greatly expands on the "projects in Prolog" chapters, the first still covers the core LP concepts pretty well.

<comment><USER3> Strongly seconded - I started with The Art of Prolog a few months ago and also enjoyed it. Having seen both, I think I'll probably go through the Reasoned Schemer and then return to the Art of Prolog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _A list can be defined using square-brackets, '[' and ']'._

I thought it was funny to do this in Lisp and not represent lists with parens, but I guess it's only syntatic sugar anyway.

<comment><USER5> A list is represented with parens. [] is a vector. There are behavior and performance differences between lists and vectors.

<comment><USER4> I don't quite follow, but I'm also new to mini-Kanren. They're called lists in the article and said "to group values or variables so that the collection may referred to as a unit", which sounds like a generic list to me. He compares them to Lisp lists just a couple paragraphs lower. Could you elaborate please?

<comment><USER6> Most likely it's a "list" in the DSL, but implemented using Clojure's vectors, which are represented with square brackets and have convenient evaluation semantics (items are evaluated, but it's not a function call), so that it's much more common to use vectors in clojure where one would often type (list foo bar) in CL or perhaps Scheme.

Often vectors are used in Clojure DSLs to differentiate from the "operator syntax" which uses actual lists. There are some exceptions in even clojure.core macros, but often you can assume that any unquoted list is evaluated as a function or macro call, even if it is a macro parameter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> K, upvoted simply for mentioning The Reasoned Schemer, a book that I'm having great fun simply picking up occasionally. Time to really start cranking on it.

</comment><comment><USER7> The port of mini-Kanren to Clojure is a great contribution - thanks!</comment>


AWS London – Network connectivity issues? - <AUTHOR> https://status.aws.amazon.com/#EU_block <comment><AUTHOR> Nothing on status board, but having serious issues with EC2/ECS Fargate and Network connectivity.

Can't start EC2 instances, and failed tasks for multiple production accounts in London.

Anyone else experiencing issues?

</comment><comment><USER2> Yes, having major issues getting into any London based EC2 instances here (fargate) and seeing connection timeouts to third party services from those instances. Slack not handling image uploads too.

They've since now posted:

 _3:21 AM PDT We are investigating instance connectivity issues in a single Availability Zone (euw2-az2) in the EU-WEST-2 Region._

</comment><comment><USER3> Slack appears to be having issues too: [https://status.slack.com/2020-08/960bbb3c9d49a3cc](https://status.slack.com/2020-08/960bbb3c9d49a3cc)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm seeing issues with EC2s and with our ConfluentCloud service.

We are getting timeouts all over the place, even when connecting to CCloud locally.

We are also seeing unresponsiveness with Slack.

</comment><comment><USER5> AWS status board has now: 3:21 AM PDT We are investigating instance connectivity issues in a single Availability Zone (euw2-az2) in the EU-WEST-2 Region.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have an ELB API operations issue on my dashboard, the two together means new tasks can't get healthy. So we lost tasks in the failed AZ and new ones in a healthy AZ can't receive traffic.

<comment><USER6> Yeah same here, and I'm also seeing troubles querying my Redshift cluster -- I'm guessing it is a more widespread issue, potentially with the datacentre itself (eu-west-2a).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm seeing issues with multiple services. Slack uploads also not working, not sure if related.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have issues with Slack also, people not receiving messages in channels.</comment></comment>


Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45685870/ns/world_news-christian_science_monitor/#.TupV-yP--vk

<comment><USER2> There is an Australian company that made terrestrial GPS transmitters capable of very long ranges. They had been doing trials with the USAF. I wonder if that $47m contract referred to them.</comment>


Apple's Response to Hey Showcases What's Most Broken About the Apple App Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/apples-response-hey-showcases-whats-most-broken-about-apple-app-store <comment><USER2> Apple's response is a start but simply being able to challenge the rules doesn't ensure a fair hearing when you do so. In many cases fairness will only be achieved if Apple actually changes their rules. Let's see what they actually say when GOG and Steam and Epic and YouPorn and Mozilla and Microsoft and Google wish to publish their forbidden apps and marketplaces, when Netflix wants a registration and payment form like the Apple Music app on Google Play, when someone wants to publish an Electron app on the Mac App Store etc. They've already had ten years to listen and they already know every major gripe.</comment>


Ask HN: Can we take investor capital and keep our lifestyle business culture? - <AUTHOR>

We (two founders) work on a project that requires an investment of 350k-500k until it should be making enough profit to sustain daily business and growth (3-5 employees). We do have some, but not all of that money and will need an investor.
Currently, our company is run like a lifestyle business: two founders working each (very productive) 30-40 hours per week on this project. We do not want to sacrifice this culture.
Should we even bother to find an investor? Has anyone taken early-stage outside money but kept a moderate work/life-balanced business culture? <comment><USER2> Institutional capital (eg, VC) - no.

An individual investor - maybe.

The VC game is pretty much a "hit driven" business; these guys expect most of their investments to return nothing, and count on 2 of 10 investments being big hits that return 10x or more, to keep their overall portfolio returns positive. As a result, VCs are not interested in funding a "lifestyle business" \- they want to fund high-growth businesses.

That said, I think you should be clear on whether you really mean to say you're building a "lifestyle business" or if you're building a high-growth business where you just want to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Those two statements aren't necessarily equivalent.

The equation changes a bit for individual investors. They still want big returns, of course... who wouldn't? And they have to consider opportunity cost like anybody else - if they can invest in your company and get a 2% return, or put their money in a CD and get 3%, then why would the invest in you? Well, some might, because they are human beings and not cold, calculating machines who optimize solely for the maximum ROI. But if you aren't pitching a high- growth scenario and you want an individual investor to invest in your company, you may find that it comes down to them simply liking you on a personal level, or a desire to promote entrepreneurship in general, or other "soft" factors. And the investor probably won't be the kind of person who is part of an "angel network" (eg, a "VC lite") and focuses on tech startups... I'm guessing you'll have more luck with "random rich person I know, or somebody in my family knows" than somebody who thinks of themselves as a professional investor.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your thoughts. to clarify: we intend to build a growth business while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

based on what we read so far, the early-stage company cultures seem to be split pretty much in the bone-crushing startups (with a lot of outside cash to burn) and the more mellow lifestyle business cultures (pretty much bootstrapping themselves). we have not yet seen the growing startup with a moderate work style backed by outside money (but are far away from the startup hubs to have a representative sample).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What are you working on?

<comment><AUTHOR> A niche product for small businesses in the Natural Language Processing area (sorry for being so vague -- could not check with my co-founder how stealthy we still are at this point).

Our core feature is non-trivial, and much of the capital required is for hiring 2-3 good developers to get the technology right. It's not realistic to build it on our own as a side-project and our own funds would be burned until we got a MVP out (= way too short runway if we just use our own cash).</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Udacity is deprioritizing its app and will eventually remove it - <AUTHOR> Udacity is getting ready to kill its mobile app. I got following email from them today. I think its a good thing. Mobile apps should die..for they add little value but cause massive privacy problems. I hope this means less intrusive "download our app" requests on websites
When we launched the Udacity app over 4 years ago, we were pleased to offer Udacity students our learning experience from the convenience of a mobile app. Ultimately, ten percent of Udacity students downloaded the app, and many enjoyed using it as an additional learning path.
In 2019, we are prioritizing massive upgrades to the Udacity classroom and service experience. We are focusing our efforts to support, motivate, and drive not only learning and career success for our students, but also to provide a world-class online learning experience.
Because the Udacity app has not significantly advanced students' ability to achieve their learning and career goals, moving forward we will not support many of these product upgrades on the mobile app and will sunset the mobile app as of January 9, 2019. After this point you won't be able to download or use the app anymore. The Udacity classroom experience, including Knowledge and Student Hub will remain supported on mobile web as it is today.
If you have questions, view the FAQ doc or reach out by responding to this email.
Your Udacity team <comment><USER2> > Mobile apps should die..for they add little value but cause massive privacy > problems.

Mobile apps that are a bad fit for the platform should die. Not everything needs to be a mobile app but some products and services absolutely benefit from being mobile and native.

<comment><USER3> I'd also love to see video games on mobile devices running through a browser with the same level of immersion and capability as, say, Infinity Blade, Gear.Club, Flatpack, or, heck, Minecraft.

I know I've only cited one category of mobile app, but it illustrates the point that anybody who tells you "xyz needs to die" might have a very myopic view of what xyz actually is.

<comment><USER4> Take a look at [http://bitplanets.com](http://bitplanets.com)

It's a game that works on phone

<comment><USER3> Not even vaguely comparable. A rather ugly 2D browser game doesn't match the titles I suggested, nor even the most shovelware games that make the top lists on the App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When you lay off 30% of your staff you have to deprioritize lots of things.

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/29/edtech-unicorn-udacity- lay...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/29/edtech-unicorn-udacity-lays- off-125-people-in-global-strategy-shift/)

<comment><USER6> that's right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm going to miss this. I was one of the 10%. I would download a video so I didn't have to download it over mobile for my commute. Then I could watch it on the bus while working problems on my laptop.

This isn't a huge loss as 4 years ago I didn't have as much data as I do now. I'll get over it, but I'm still sad.

<comment><USER8> As someone who relies on udacity's app to follow a couple of courses in scenarios where I don't have internet access (say, in a flight) this news is very disapointing. It feels like a sort of bait and switch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just because Udacity is withdrawing their app, it does not mean that mobile apps are dying, or should die. I have passed several courses on Udacity and other MOOCs, and I cannot imagine following a programming course from a mobile device. I need to try out the things by myself, eg.: type code in an actual IDE, install a server on your machine, use command line tools, etc, things that you can't do from a mobile app.

"ultimately, ten percent of Udacity students downloaded the app". - this makes sense, why to develop and maintain an app that is barely used?

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, an app that was further developed and maintained might have been used more. The app, as it is, probably shouldn't have existed in the first place. There's room for an app at Udacity, but not what they made.

<comment><USER8> What's wrong with udacity's app? It enables users to buy course subscriptions and follow courses even when offline, and does so painlessly and efectively. What else is it missing?

<comment><USER3> It's not missing anything, really. It just doesn't do more than the website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used their mobile app because I wanted to download the videos for later viewing in a place with a poor connection. But even basic feature like downloading videos did not always work correctly. It was quite frustrating. So that's why I abandoned their mobile app.

I think maintaining a mobile app with basic functionality like downloading videos should not take much effort. We don't need a fancy mobile app where you can learn programming by dragging blocks of statements.

Anyway, I still love Udacity. I already graduated from two nanodegrees.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't think this is a good use case for "mobile apps should die", quite the opposite - how will I download the content and watch it on subway, airplane, etc?

I don't do much video when connected, prefer written format, so without offline capability I literally have no need for video classes etc (even Netflix won me over once I could download for offline viewing).

As well, ten percent of your user base ain't nothing!

</comment><comment><USER3> > Because the Udacity app has not significantly advanced students' ability to > achieve their learning and career goals

This is oddly worded. It's not the app's fault that Udacity didn't put enough oomph behind it.

I'm not saying that it was necessarily feasible or even possible to put more resources behind it, but the wording is irksome.

<comment><USER12> I read it as more "students tend to prefer sitting at a real computer to learn".

<comment><USER3> I know that's what it means. The point (as I said twice) is that it's not worded that way; the agency is in the wrong place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sounds like the right business move for Udacity. They've had to lay off a significant fraction of their workforce so it makes sense to focus on the platform 90% of their students use.

But this doesn't have much to do with the general question of app vs web site. It really depends on what you're doing. Also, apps and web sites have the same potential for massive privacy problems. Either way it's up to what data is collected, how it's secured and who it is sold to.

</comment><comment><USER14> In my opinion, if only 10% of your students downloaded the app, that means you never had significant traction outside western countries. Mobile traffic is through the roof for developing Countries, often the only device owned by a learner.

</comment><comment> laurynas-s For non-programming subjects that do not require writing code I found the app really useful for watching the courses offline.

As that content is mostly free, I see why you decided to discontinue the app.

</comment><comment><USER15> I did use the mobile app to watch lecture videos on the go. Would it be possible to put the videos in a course-wise playlist on Youtube for easy viewing?

<comment><USER16> Why is that better than using Udacity's web site?

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Downloading so you don't have to use cell data?

<comment><USER17> I think so. Even better: drm free mp4s

<comment><USER8> Mp3s don't support video, and video is of vital importance to the vast majority of courses, specially IT.

<comment><USER17> ? I said mp4 not mp3

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like abandoning React Native didn't save it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps they should think about cutting features and going back to "Minimal maintainable product".

</comment><comment><USER20> You have just killed Udacity in India

</comment><comment><USER21> Not sure how it's today but yesr ago udacity website was slow af. To be short: make your website fast before deleting app.

P.s. its friendly hint, i don't care actually</comment>


The Face of Ruby on Rails - <AUTHOR> http://secretgeek.net/Ruby_On_Rails_face.asp

<comment><AUTHOR> Blue Steel</comment>


A useful flex regex tool - <AUTHOR> http://gskinner.com/RegExr/

<comment><USER2> here's some more

<http://www.fileformat.info/tool/regex.htm>

<http://www.rexv.org/>

<http://www.txt2re.com/> (this one's particularly good for your next acid session)

<http://brosinski.com/regex/> for eclipse

<http://www.weitz.de/regex-coach/>

<http://regex.larsolavtorvik.com/>

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

(this one costs a few $)

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

(... and the one in activestate Komodo. i don't use any o these, i have my Friedl book and i try to understand the edge and cornder cases, build a test suite)</comment>


Hipmunk for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipmunk.com/hipmunk-for-iphoneipod-touch

<comment><USER2> I'm gonna get downvoted for this, but I really don't find Hipmunk any easier to use than the traditional flight booking service.

In fact, quite the opposite--I find the splash of colors and symbols across my screen confusing. Attempting to match the rows and columns with each other just makes my head hurt.

Compare the same search on Travelocity ( <http://i.imgur.com/PlX0d.png> ) and Hipmunk ( <http://i.imgur.com/1eh47.png> )

It may be just me, but the Travelocity results are much clearer. I don't have to click on each flight to view basic details about it. Additionally, Hipmunk charges a higher fee for their bookings than bigger name travel sites.

<comment><USER3> The Hipmunk display is really aimed at making it easy to pick the best option time-wise when there are multiple options at roughly the same price.

OTOH, what really put me off Hipmunk was not finding cheapest flights, compared to Kayak. I put in a multi-hop international flight, and Hipmunk is giving me $4479 vs $1786 on Kayak. That basically means "do not use" to me.

My search: NYC  DXB on Sun, Mar 20 DXB  MEL on Thu, Mar 24 MEL  NYC on Mon, Apr 04

<comment><USER4> We don't have Emirates at the moment. We should have the same prices as everyone else in the US, but we're still growing our international coverage.

<comment><USER3> That is the thing that worries me with all these meta search sites. No one is announcing who they don't search. So when someone like Kayak gets in a fight with AA, and they disappear from the listing, you better hope you notice it and do your search somewhere else that has AA. Or all this fancy technology is for naught.

<comment><USER5> There are still holdouts like Southwest so the whole search one and done mantra has not been fulfilled. I do appreciate that Hipmunk is trying to do something different and they recognize clearly that the status quo was "not good enough".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really nice app.

It's not immediately obvious to me what the agony ranking is for though, and there's no help menu?

(Obviously it's ranking flights from least agony-inducing to most, but what's the metric?)

<comment><USER7> This image: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/crankyflier/4929727281/> shows a tooltip that describes it as "A combination of price, duration, and number of stops" which sounds about right for a flight's agony-factor.

<comment><USER8> I don't have an iphone, so forgive me, but how does a tooltip work on the iphone?

<comment><USER9> Tooltips are not typically seen in iPhone apps. The screenshot was from the hipmunk web application.

Perhaps hipmunk assumes that anyone using their iPhone app is already familiar with the web app and shouldn't be treated as a novice user. Or perhaps they have so much confidence that their agony ranking is what you want that they don't feel compelled to explain it. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am all for services that help us find plane tickets in a lower price bucket, but how exactly is this different from ITA's new matrix interface and OnTheFly app? I guess understanding how you position yourself differently from ITA will help.

</comment><comment><USER11> When will you also provide this on Android devices?

</comment><comment><USER12> I downloaded this immediately, loved it, then remembered that they don't have Southwest results, so I sighed and realized that I would hardly ever use it. It looks great though!

</comment><comment><USER13> I love Hipmunk except for that it only gives me limited options for purchasing at the end. I'm guessing this is to maximize their referral revenue, but I have status on an airline and only purchase from their site directly. If I purchase from another site I have less control over changes to my itinerary after purchase. That's my preferred airlines fault, but other sites like Bing Travel let me click through the results right to my airlines' web site.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm glad to see Hipmunk have an app, this could make searching for flights even more fun.

I was interested if they had any problems with selling tickets via an iPhone app using the browser for paymentsm not the in app purchase API. But obviously they did not, as the app was approved.

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't seem to find Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)

<comment><USER16> Thank you. A fix is in the pipe. In the meantime, you can select that blank cell that turns up as the first result when you type "AUS". Dumb display logic decision on my part. Sorry.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A mailing list that reminds you to wash your hands (Covid-19) - sam-hedron https://scrub-a-dub-dub.org <comment> sam-hedron Handwashing is an important component of slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, but not enough people remember to regularly wash their hands.

We spun up a little mailing list service that periodically sends you email notification reminders to wash your hands.

Sign yourself up (or even better, spread the word and refer your friends) at [https://scrub-a-dub-dub.org](https://scrub-a-dub-dub.org)!</comment>


Strava users remain frustrated by switch from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap - <AUTHOR> http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/09/strava-users-remain-frustrated-by-switch-from-google-maps-to-openstreetmap/ <comment><USER2> I, for one, welcome this change. OSM brings many benefits including the ability to improve the map layer.

That said, route planning in Ride With GPS is better because you can switch between different maps -- and even use Streetview whilst exploring Open Street Map!

Ultimately, Strava is a great tool for segment & performance comparison but routing is streets ahead in Ride With GPS.

</comment><comment><USER3> The great thing about OpenStreetMap is that you can improve the map. We mappers have mapped and tagged the vast majority of tracks in my area for cycling, and it makes Strava a lot better.

Checking the smoothness on street view? That's a waste of time if that information is on the map already.</comment>


Ask HN: Does a Skype work for you on mac? - <AUTHOR>

The whole day today my skype is crashing on mac, is it just me or it happens to somebody else? <comment><USER2> Probably just you. Working fine here with version 126.96.36.1993 and Mac OSX 10.8.4

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it...will investigate further. All of a sudden stopped working and crashing on launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> skype crashes for me when i forget to reconnect my external webcam. I hope you find a fix.

</comment><comment><USER4> yes. just used it today. mountain lion. latest version. try reinstalling.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just you.</comment>


Internet Explorer fee - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bk/internet-explorer-fee-ba2bf710c163 <comment><USER2> At least he's being clear about it, unlike big shops that silently display higher prices to users on iDevices compared to desktop/Android users.

<comment><USER3> Wait, is this actually a thing?

<comment><USER2> I remember seeing a report about this on German TV where they had a big shop's product page loaded on both an iPad and an Android tablet, showing clearly different prices. I don't exactly remember which shop it was. Might've been Amazon, but I honestly don't remember.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is hilarious. You're fighting the good fight, sir.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks :P now it's time to another experiment!

<comment><USER5> What were you selling them anyway?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not related the topic and I'm not proud of what I'm selling so better not share it :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So how about Edge?</comment>


It's time to talk about managed retreat from the coasts - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/9/14/16304730/hurricane-2018-florence-destruction-retreat <comment><USER2> Oh come on, if people as a huge and diverse group were capable of working together towards a single, mutually beneficial, yet difficult long term goal we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. People will leave a region _after_ it becomes impossible for them to live there, and. It a moment before. They'll roll the dice on their little slice of heaven not being too seriously impacted, and it is they'll scream and demand assistance. I mean, we can't even agree as a group that climate change is real, significant, and manmade!

I hate to come across as a dismal cynic, but I have very little hope in this area. People only seem to learn about fire after they're burned, and that's worked for us as a species until recently. Climate change, nuclear war, and some other relatively modern possibilities simply don't allow for that to work, but we as humans haven't changed. We'll burn.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about we start with a managed retreat from places where flooding is so common that insurance companies don't offer flood insurance?</comment>


Jankyscroll – a JavaScript library that doesn't need to exist - <AUTHOR> http://zweig.co/jankyscroll/ <comment><USER2> Congratulations on the amazing adoption rate! I've seen this live on hundreds on sites the last few years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Free Obfuscated Source Satire (FOSS)

The JS from [https://github.com/benzweig/jankyscroll](https://github.com/benzweig/jankyscroll):

<script>var jankyscroll=function(){"use strict";function n(){var n=Math.round(Math.random());return 1==n?-1:1}function o(){return(5 _Math.random()+8) /10}return function(r,t){function i(){a&&clearTimeout(a),a=setTimeout(function(){window.scrollBy(0,t_o() _n())},400)}r=r||400,t=t||20;var e,a,c=function(){var i=Math.floor(window.scrollY /r);e!==i&&(window.scrollBy(0,t_o()*n()),e=i)};window.addEventListener("scroll",c,!1),window.addEventListener("resize",i,!1)}}();jankyscroll(170,100);</script>

<comment><USER4> Switch to the master branch. :) it confused me too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me of the "smooth scroll" scripts that muck up so many websites ... it made me laugh out loud!

<comment><USER6> blame apple then

and cry out loud as well

<comment><USER7> blame "designers" who wanted to emulate this behaviour

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can see Jankyscroll is programmed in VanillaJS, which is another framework I highly recommend: [http://vanilla-js.com](http://vanilla-js.com)

</comment><comment><USER9> I am installing this by default in all my client projects from now on to give them something amorphous to complain about but easy to fix.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think I'm already having heart palpitations.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've combined this with fartscroll.js and Pride and Prejudice to form a horrible reading experience: [http://3till7.net/uploads/2015/08/pride-and- prejudice/](http://3till7.net/uploads/2015/08/pride-and-prejudice/)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's sad that this is actually more functional than the broken scrolling on many popular websites.

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh, it's like my iPad when scrolling through PDFs.

</comment><comment><USER14> That's actually a nice library, that could be use for april fools or something.

</comment><comment><USER15> Amusingly, my usage of PgUp/PgDown was unaffected.

I will live to scroll another day!

<comment><AUTHOR> def file an issue, that's an unacceptable lack of jank

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ah, that's what the guardian has started using!

</comment><comment><USER17> Hilarious!!

</comment><comment><USER18> I think this warrants a comment with a simple "LOL"</comment>


500,000 clones get you out of a 10x10 maze - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/krishnanraman/Parallel-Pathfinding

<comment><USER2> So ... I'm not familiar with path-finding algorithms, but is this the most efficient way to solve the problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not by a long shot. An astar will get you out of a 10x10 maze in 10 steps since this particular maze has no barriers... I asked my wife if she were trapped in a maze how she would get out. She thought for a while and said... if I could clone myself I would fill up the whole maze with me...and one of me would be at the maze door in no time!

I thought that was a pretty radical and creative algorithm... so I coded it up

<comment><USER3> So it's more of a 10x10 room than a 10x10 maze?

<comment><AUTHOR> adding barriers to make a room into a maze is trivial. So if you were forking my scala code, you see 4 filters -

          val res = Seq(x-1,x,x+1).map( a => Seq(y-1,y,y+1).map( b=> (a,b))).flatten
          .filterNot( ab => ab._1 == x && ab._2 == y)  // don't include me
          .filterNot( ab=> ab._1 < leftTop._1 || ab._1 > rightBottom._1) // don't include points outside the maze
          .filterNot( ab=> ab._2 < leftTop._2 || ab._2 > rightBottom._2)
          .filterNot( ab=> path.contains(ab)) // don't revisit points along your path

Now if you add 1 more filter, literally 1 more line of code, to eliminate paths that are prohibited because they intersect with a barrier, you are good to go. a room is simply a maze with zero barriers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Thousand Year Game Design Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/thousand-year-game-design-challenge.html

<comment><USER2> Thanks for linking! Here are the entry round-ups so far for the past four months.

January: [http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/thousand-year- ga...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/thousand-year-game-design- challenge.html)

February: [http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/thousand-year- ga...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/thousand-year-game-design- challenge.html)

March: No Entries

April: [http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/thousand-year- ga...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/thousand-year-game-design- challenge.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad you found us here. I should've posted a comment on your blog.

Anyway, I wonder if you might be able to give us some insight as a game designer as to what goes into creating a game. Do you start with a theme? Mechanics? A particular goal (like the one you've set out here to create a thousand year game)?

<comment><USER2> It was hard to ignore the 800% spike in traffic. ;)

Before I even get an idea for a theme or a mechanic (or a constraint), I look for inspiration outside of my head. I watch movies, read comics, and play games in other media. Oh! I actually documented this process on my blog for a recent game.

I got hooked on this web game: <http://www.tonypa.pri.ee/jorinapeka.html>

Then tried adapting it to tabletop with this prototype: [http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-lab- jorinapek...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-lab-jorinapeka- board-game-adaptation.html)

After several iterations, it became a very different game in its own right: <http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/utara.html>

Which had many enthusiastic players at a recent convention: [http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/playing-utara- di...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/playing-utara-dice-game-at- dreamation.html)

It was so well-received, I had dice professionally produced and documented the costs of the process: [http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/etched- utara-dic...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/etched-utara-dice- costs-of-custom-dice.html)

Anyhoo, hope all that helps if you decide to go into board game design. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you go to the update posts (there's one for each month), he lists the submissions he's received so far.

<comment><USER3> Do you have a link to even one of these? I tried looking for these and couldn't find one...

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/thousand-year- ga...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/thousand-year-game-design- challenge.html)

I found a tag too:

[http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/search/label/1000%20Year...](http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/search/label/1000%20Year%20Game%20Design)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I assume it would be cheating to create a game that takes a thousand years to _play_? :)

<comment><USER5> I initially thought that it would be a game that took a thousand years to make :)

<comment><USER6> Wolfenstein covers the Thousand Year Reich, that's gotta count for something...</comment></comment></comment>


Happy birthday APL - <AUTHOR> http://lathwellproductions.ca/wordpress/2010/11/27/happy-birthday-apl/

<comment><USER2> Boy, are you guys ever, OUT OF THE LOOP! APL rocks on.

[http://lathwellproductions.ca/wordpress/2010/11/25/thoughts-...](http://lathwellproductions.ca/wordpress/2010/11/25/thoughts- on-silverlight-apl-guest-morten/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anybody still use APL? I assume most of the tasks it was once used for could be done with R, with the added benefit of being able to read the damn code, and to not have to buy a new keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER4> APL is like that first girlfriend, no longer a possibility for romance, but remembered fondly.</comment>


Help Us Buy Yahoo - <AUTHOR> https://www.wepay.com/donate/buy_yahoo_or_failing_that_water

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of this (which I built a couple of years ago) - <http://zombievirusfund.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is funny, and leveraging the humor to donate to Charity: Water is brilliant. I donated just for that.

<comment><USER4> Didn't personally find it funny (I respect you and others may, however).

Clearly they're not going to buy Yahoo and it just reeks of shameless publicity stunt to me. Donating to Charity:Water just makes the thing viable - otherwise why would anyone want to actually put money in here.

<comment><USER5> Of course it's a shameless publicity stunt and their only goal is to give water to those in need. Good for them for being creative.

<comment><USER6> _their only goal is to give water to those in need_.

No. dotben's point is that they have an auxiliary goal of promoting wepay (their company), which is perhaps far more of a driving factor than their support of Charity:Water.

<comment><USER5> Ah, yes, of course. Sorry. However, still good for them. Doing something different to get exposure and doing something good. Worth learning from I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Expect a call from the SEC shortly... ;-)

On a serious note, how much goes to WePay and how much goes to the charity? I didn't see an obvious answer on the website.

<comment><USER8> We (WePay) charge 3.5% for donations. See <https://www.wepay.com/about/fees>

<comment><USER7> Cool thanks for the pointer. Seems legit considering processing costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How much to be CEO?

</comment><comment><USER10> Who is "we"?

<comment><USER11> "We" looks like a bunch of Twilio people.

Jeff, it might speed things up to bring on Joe Stump as the next Y! CEO - he's applied in the past so they're already familiar with his style ([http://stu.mp/2011/06/dear-yahoo-hire-me-as-your-next- ceo.ht...](http://stu.mp/2011/06/dear-yahoo-hire-me-as-your-next-ceo.html)) He also looks a lot like this Sean McQuillan fellow. An awful lot alike. Weird...

Anyways I'll take 15% of his first year's salary to make the intro, and I'll donate half to Charity: Water. Deal?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is disingenuous.</comment>


Train to Nowhere - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/10/12411632/public-transportation-failures-america-cincinnati-subway <comment><USER2> More of these abandoned railways exist. The one in West Surinam [0] is "going from _nothing to nowhere_ " ;-) Some pictures [1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Suriname_Plan#False_start](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Suriname_Plan#False_start)

[1] [http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2014/05/the-unexpected- train...](http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2014/05/the-unexpected-train- graveyard-onverwacht-suriname/)</comment>


Show HN: Hearthstone-like card game builder for humans - <AUTHOR> https://dulst.com <comment><USER2> Looks interesting but it took me a minute to realize that you don't actually need to register to see the site's content. For some reason, the page ignores keyboard navigation (page down/up, arrow keys down/up, space bar) in Firefox (only) so, on my laptop, the page looks like it has no content except the register button.

Also, the page uses a background image blur that is supported by Firefox and Chrome, but not IE or Edge.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know. Will fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> CloudFlare is reporting '521 - Site down?!?'. Possibly the HN 'hug of death'?

<comment><USER4> Definitely one more victim of its popularity.

"Error 525 - SSL handshake failed"

One day we should do some stats about site going down on HN. That would make a nice narrative for why engineering matters and running a site on your own home server ain't real business.

<comment><USER5> Not everything needs to be real business... Solid infrastructure has an associated cost in both time and money that not everybody is willing to pay, especially for side-projects.

<comment><USER4> Not everything is costly. For instance a wordpress.com is free and takes unlimited traffic but your own wordpress instance costs money and has limited traffic.

<comment><USER6> You think wordpress.com has unlimited traffic? I doubt it would survive the front page of hacker news.

<comment><USER7> As a person who has front paged multiple times on HN, I can tell you my blog is self hosted WordPress on a $10/mo digital ocean droplet, and it has fared very well every single time, including almost 100k views in a single day. I'm pretty sure if my $10 stock instance can handle the traffic, WordPress.com can definitely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So this really only builds a game exactly like Hearthstone? I was hoping it was more of a generic game builder.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a generic game builder. Hearthstone is the first template that's available, but you are able to modify the rules to make any games you'd like. Check out the "rules" tab on the card list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there a guide somewhere? I haven't played Hearthstone.

<comment><USER10> it's a basic trading card game/collectible cards game, think magic, yu-gi-oh etc. Hearthstone is a simple version of it, with a lot of RNG thrown in for "casual gaming", and using the fact that it runs on computers only.

I don't think the OP is specifically HS-like, just TCG/CCG.

<comment><USER11> There are non-rng mechanics that preclude physical cards too, like abilities modifying the stats on cards in your deck and hand.

<comment><USER10> yes, sorry I wasn't clear that was what I meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who is currently building a card system in Unity I greatly appreciate the work that must have went into this project!

While I realize it is pretty early in the project, since your audience is hobbyists and indie devs, a few questions spring to mind that I think are important but I couldn't find answers for yet:

1) What rights do creators have over their project vs the dulst team? (And if you decided not to continue support for the project do you have a policy to allow creators access to the code base to keep their games alive?)

2) It looks like you plan to monetize through the coin system which it seems can be earned in game but probably also have a purchase function. What kind of split are you thinking of for creators?

3) Will there be some sort of support for PVE style battles so that players don't need to wait in match-making?

 _What I like_ :

1) It's great that you thought of a number of pre-defined special abilities/functions. Most card game templates are just raw battle by number.

2) It's clear you are trying to provide a ton of flexibility to the game creators not only in terms of their game, but the website, tooltip work etc.

3) It's really clever to allow users to suggest cards and then allow game creators to reward them for that. The community aspect of this will go a long way for some games.

4) You've added in help docs, wikis and forums for every games sub-site which will be very useful for making a more polished experience for end users.

 _General Feedback_ :

1) The game chat bar is rather garish and at least on Chrome pops-up over the content. Even though it is see-through it makes me think something is broken.

2) The grey on grey on white theme of the admin panel makes it feel very cluttered and hard to discern where different options are. You may want to break that out with more spacing, coloration on the titles and a darker text font.

3) The current "Gameplay" tab for admins is pretty overwhelming with options. It seems like something that could either be split out into further menus, or at least have drop down toggles for each section.

4) You've done a great job at explaining most of the fields and allowing me to add in tool-tip explanations for players, however, there are still a few fields that are unclear. For example, on "Gameplay" secondary property I can add in my own tag such as 'Potato' but there doesn't seem to be anywhere to define what that property is or what it would do. There also isn't a list to reference for existing properties.

5) The "Quests" tab doesn't load in the admin panel. Not sure if that is just unfinished or if it is a bug.

6) When you hit the button to create a card (noted in Chrome) sometimes the creation screen flashes and the card is created before you can enter details.

7) The UI to click on cards to edit them is not intuitive given the pop-up. I kept hovering over the card and trying to click into the pop-up version of it to edit cards.

8) Also when the create/edit card overlay is up I can navigate to other pages by clicking them on the background but it doesn't result in the overlay being removed.

8) It seems once again I can add properties to a card, but even in the Wiki there isn't a list of what elements I can add. Even if I add in "Potato" and set it to "2" this won't have any game impact.

9) The rarity mechanic is kind of odd. You've got it on a 100 point scale which makes me think it is percentile, but even if a card doesn't appear 99% of the time that may not end up being that rare?

10) It's also unclear from the wiki and help docs when a card 'drops' and rarity is used. The wiki mentions manually designing packs and says that they may break the rarity mechanic and make cards too common. In the packs menu you can only assign a cost, level, graphic and name to the packs, and in the card editing list you can't seem to assign cards to a pack so I assume that rarity is what is used here? There doesn't seem to be a way to define what rarity appears in what decks etc.

11) I like the board editor concept, but it is confusing as hell to open up and to move elements around. Even though you can create new elements, there doesn't seem to be a way to bind any code to them, so why not open this up as CSS for people to edit the layout of pre-defined elements instead?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, tremendous feedback. Seeing as you're making a card game system this feedback is invaluable to me. There are so many things I would want to ask you. Would you like to join our discord? [https://discord.gg/0q1HOSYDXzcJRg7h](https://discord.gg/0q1HOSYDXzcJRg7h) (Invite open to anyone btw, let's talk!)

These are all important questions and I'll be using this to help make our FAQ.

1) You own all rights to the game. We're just a host. The terms page will detail it. All cards and code is now available over the rest api and you can already export it. Check the network tab. There is a backend compiler for the dulst dsl that's our secret sauce, but if we ever end the project we'll open source that too. We're also planning on adding a "pro" mode with better/faster support, git based version control, and more code privacy so that your game can't be so easily copied. Right now the code is easily exportable.

2) 30-70

3) Yes, singleplayer is on the roadmap. Initially it won't be very sophisticated and we'll only support an onboarding / tutorialing process, however I expect it to get a lot better over time.

Thanks for all the compliments.

General:

1, 2, 3) Agreed. Thanks. Will send this to the designer. 4) Properties are used by rule cards. Rule cards are basically code but resides in the card effect building interface. You can find it on the rule cards tab when you go to the main card list. We'll improve the UI for this on the gameplay admin page, thanks.

5) Will fix thanks.

6, 7) Thank you will look into it.

8) The instructions for the new creator experience will be worked on. Right now the only way to understand it is to read the Rules.

9, 10) Rarity system will be improved and clarified with better docs. I'm unclear what you mean by decks in the last sentence. There is no way to precisely define what cards appear when, just higher rarities appear in higher packs on the market. This is the only place where rarity is used atm. Right now the rarity system is simplistic but I wanted to make the default experience somewhat fool-proof creators. I would love more feedback on what you would like to see so we can add more features for people that want advanced controls over card drops.

11) CSS editing is available. There's a button for it on the left in the board editor. Positioning the board elements is done in JS and not CSS. Hopefully it'll become clearer. We're going to be making some videos explaining this. Binding code to them is done in the Rule cards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So is there a Hearthstone-like card game builder for aliens? Robots? Replicants?</comment>


Ask HN: Which Emacs to use on OS X Lion? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to try out Emacs but I'm unsure of which Emacs version to use. AquaMacs, Emacs 23, Emacs 24, etc.<p>What does HN recommend? <comment><USER2> Gosh, I always use the Terminal-based Emacs because it's the same whether I'm on my machine or on a remote machine. (Including being OS-agnostic, so it's the same whether under Lion or on a remote Linux server.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I moved to AquaMacs when I upgraded to Lion because Emacs 23 developed a problem with file compare.

</comment><comment><USER4> i've been very happy with the emacs available in brew.

/usr/local/Cellar/emacs/HEAD (3792 files, 113M) Installed with: --cocoa, --use-git-head

resulted in a very happy GNU Emacs 126.96.36.199

this also includes the nice full-screen patch. (note, it's not the standard lion full screen app).</comment>


Bonsai Slice: An iOS game by Francisco Tolmasky's new company - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/24/early-iphone-software-engineers-bonsai-slice-game-pushes-the-limits-of-motion-on-ipad/

<comment><USER2> Type in your title. The game is called Bonsai Slice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Fixed.</comment></comment>


The Internet is nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8560469.stm

<comment><USER2> How wonderfully fatuous.

Kissinger, Arafat, a newly-inaugurated president who justified the wars he was continuing in his acceptance speech, and now a _communications medium_.

Retire the Peace Prize. They clearly have no idea what to do with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This feels more like the Time Magazine "Man of the Year" than it does a serious attempt to highlight those who have provided the "greatest benefit on mankind".

The Nobel Peace Prize can serve a very real purpose; it can highlight someone working peacefully to overthrow an authoritarian regime. It can give those advocating for an improvement of the human condition a voice, international standing, a modicum of protection from government violence, and resources.

Using the Peace Prize (and the Economics Prize, for that matter) as a way to deliver short-sited political digs or kudos to one group or another is farcical. It should go to people who are on the ground, working right now, to make the world a better place.

</comment><comment><USER4> After they gave it to Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama, does it really matter who or what else wins it?

<comment><USER5> Did you read McCain's foreign policy plank? Obama gets it simply for not being McCain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now this is just getting ridiculous. There are people and organizations out there making the world better, saving lives, saving the world. Please stop with the theatrics.

<comment><USER7> Agree. I also think the prize should be given to organizations/people who specifically seek out to promote peace, not just produce it as a byproduct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow, another nomination for Al Gore, impressive.

</comment><comment><USER9> "It is unclear who would accept the prize if the internet were to win."

No doubt. The internet is a passive tool; it's the people and organizations using it for good who should be winning prizes. The Nobel Peace Prize should be less nebulous, and for concrete achievement. (Edited for grammar.)

<comment><USER10> Maybe the W3C? Tim Berners-Lee deserves it.

<comment><USER11> That's the World-Wide Web, not the Internet. The Internet enables email, IM & IRC, online gaming, SSH, online backups, voice & video conferencing, _and_ the World-Wide Web.

<comment><USER12> DARPA then?

<comment><USER13> Why not? The irony of giving a peace prize to a military organization would clearly escape the grasp of this increasingly irrelevant group of nominators.

<comment><USER14> > Why not? The irony of giving a peace prize to a military organization would > clearly escape the grasp of this increasingly irrelevant group of > nominators.

Western Europe was liberated by military organizations. The resulting several decades of peace had something to do with military organizations as well.

Short of Norman Borlaug, military organizations have produced more peace than anyone else.

<comment><USER13> Good point, and with a few qualifications I agree with you. But the actual intent of the prize, as expressed by Alfred Nobel himself, mentions the reduction of standing armies as a qualification for receiving the award.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it for all of the internet or only the parts that aren't censored?

<comment><USER16> The parts that are uncensored, minus the porn and lolcats.

<comment><USER17> So including 4chan?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How are they justifying this? The only answer I can think of is "to highlight the ways in which the internet is creating a difference in the world."

I hadn't noticed that the world is different due to the internet.

</comment><comment><USER18> I will be happy to accept the money on behalf of the entire Internet.

<comment><USER17> How gracious of you.

But, I want my 0.0013 of an SEK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> AWESOME!</comment>


Ask HN: Is craftsmanship a thing when it comes to building a company? - <AUTHOR> It's clear (albeit somewhat subjective) when it comes to product. We all (at least as users) can tell whether the product or the experience are delightful. But what about the company itself? How do you tell a masterpiece of a company from an OK one? Who should one ask to begin with? Shareholders, customers, maybe employees, or the society in general? Is it in principle possible to excel across all those dimensions? Should that even be the goal? <comment><USER2> I am currently building a company bootstrapped and craftsmanship is the last thing on my mind. I am focussed on improving marketing, customer service, sales, team building, streamlining operations, branding and many other things that will hopefully make this a sustainable and profitable business for the long term. If this is what you call craftsmanship, then sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Regardless of whether it's bootstrapped or VC funded, at any given day there are so many issues at hand that one rarely has time to think of anything else.

Good luck with your company!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If there were a modern version of Republic of Plato they would pose a question like this in there somewhere

</comment><comment><USER4> From my experience building a company I like to believe that there's craftsmanship involved in establishing processes (as described in Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited) that make the day-to-day run smoothly.

</comment><comment><USER5> From their customer support.</comment>


McKinsey's Company: Capital's Willing Executioners - <AUTHOR> https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/02/mckinsey-company-capitals-willing-executioners <comment><AUTHOR> It's an interesting piece, by an author who chose to be anonymous:

To those convinced that a secretive cabal controls the world, the usual suspects are Illuminati, Lizard People, or "globalists." They are wrong, naturally. There is no secret society shaping every major decision and determining the direction of human history. There is, however, McKinsey & Company.

The biggest, oldest, most influential, and most prestigious of the "Big Three" management consulting firms, McKinsey has played an outsized role in creating the world we occupy today. In its 90+ year history, McKinsey has been a whisperer to presidents and CEOs. McKinsey serves more than 2,000 institutions, including 90 of the top 100 corporations worldwide. It has acted as a catalyst and accelerant to every trend in the world economy: firm consolidation, the rise of advertising, runaway executive compensation, globalization, automation, and corporate restructuring and strategy.</comment>


Tim Armstrong wanting to merge with Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://Www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-09/aol-said-to-discuss-deal-with-yahoo-advisers.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A classic case of 1 + 1 = 0?

Been thinking recently, what internet brands have come back from the dead? (Not Apple, they are a hardware company.)

The Napster brand was acquired, but the new company never really made it.

I was chatting to a young dev on the Zaarly startup crawl who said he worked in 'gaming', but when pressed he said he worked for a startup acquired by Yahoo. He didn't like saying he worked at Yahoo. That is a very strong signal they are dying.

MySpace, Bebo, Friendster. It seems like once you hit the deadpool or are on your way down, there is no way back?

</comment><comment><USER2> I posted this to the other thread on this topic:

\---

I said the following here on Yahoo almost a year ago:

"Yahoo is dead.

I don't know how they can do a meaningful recovery. Sure - they probably have enough cash to stay alive for a while - but if I were yahoo, I would be focusing on investing in every single startup in the valley in an effort to own some % of future innovation, which they have lost.

I cant see anything revolutionary occurring with their web property - their IP is mostly uninteresting and I cant imagine a large % of their staff being of too much interest to FB or Goog. I am sure there are some top devs there that would do well to migrate out - but for the majority of their staff, they must have few options.

Seriously - Yahoo could do well just becoming a very prolific investor in everything happening around them, rather than thinking a new haircut and convertable will alleviate their mid-life crisis."</comment>


Incentives as Ideology - <AUTHOR> http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2016/04/incentives-as-ideology.html <comment><USER2> Incentives manufacture their own perversity. Take for example expensive signalling: any incentive system with strong incentives will trivially have paradoxical effects in any situation where expensive signalling is common (for example, within middle classes, teenagers will join social groups that involve explicitly avoiding gainful employment as a means of demonstrating group loyalty -- hence punks, goths, and stoners).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Incentives matter, but big incentives don't work as well as well-designed small incentives. Justifying massive inequality as a necessary incentive doesn't have any theoretical or empirical foundation in reality.</comment>


Inside the Dramatic, Painful, and Hugely Successful Return of Reddit's Founders - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/magazine/201810/christine-lagorio-chafkin/reddit-we-are-the-nerds-steve-huffman-alexis-ohanian.html <comment><USER2> Was Aaron Swartz a cofounder?

<comment><USER3> Depends on who you ask I believe. Both Reddit founders have gone on record stating that he was not a co-founder. Wikipedia says Paul Graham says he was, but he wasn't technically there since the beginning. He joined forces with them through a merger of his project called Infogami six months into Reddit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz) [https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Aaron-Swartz-and-Steve- Huffman...](https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Aaron-Swartz-and-Steve-Huffman-and- Alexis-Ohanian-not-get-along)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I were either of them, I'd be frantically doing whatever I could to disassociate myself from Reddit. Five years from now Reddit will have slid off the Alexa rankings. It will be replaced by two upstarts: one for moderate users, and one for "edge lords."

<comment><USER5> Wow, sorry but I strongly disagree! Reddit has good value as a customizable and personal web site. Over time I adjust the subreddits on my home page as my tech interests change and I enjoy seeing the community top ranked pictures every morning. I have met and talked with Alexis and this article provided interesting background on how he and Steve got back into running the company. He explained to me why he and Steve dropped the Lisp version of Reddit.

BTW, I gave you +1 Your honest opinion does not deserve to get downvoted.

<comment><USER4> There's plenty of positives to Reddit. The trouble is that the prevailing philosophy behind Reddit (and FB, Youtube, etc) doesn't accomplish what everyone thought it would. We have been operating under the assumption that "filter bubbles are bad" and that private businesses should uphold "free speech" the way the judicial system does in the public realm.

In practice, it looks as though online conversations aren't constructive unless the participants share a certain amount of common ground (eg: "first principles" like whether the strong should dominate the weak, or whether all "MSM" are part of a conspiracy and untrustworthy). I think in the future social media startups will have a "point of view" and not try to cater to everyone.

<comment><USER6> >We have been operating under the assumption that "filter bubbles are bad"

The entire premise of Reddit is that filter bubbles are the solution. You get to create bubbles for your own views called 'subreddits' where you can moderate out any wrong-think until the remaining subscribers reinforce the correct-think with their upvote/downvote mechanisms.

A system that operated under the assumption that "filter bubbles are bad" would not allow its members to upvote/downvote each others' content so simply.

<comment><USER4> I worded that poorly. I mean filter bubbles are the right idea, but don't go far enough. A site should should hold specific enough values that its users can debate each other _in good faith_ , and so that admins can stamp out (what they consider to be) toxic behavior without shocking half their users.

<comment><USER7> >specific enough values that its users can debate each other in good faith

you agree with me? great. wonderful debate thanks guys

<comment><USER4> Just because two people are, say physicists or atheists or believers in liberal democracy, doesn't mean they agree about everything (or even much at all).

The past few years make me think that without sufficient common ground, rational debate is impossible:

•Alice: "Rosemary's Baby is the best film ever." •Bob: "Devil woman! Satan is speaking through you. But you can't fool me!"

•Alice: "My father just died. Everyone, give your dad a hug. You'll miss him when he's gone." •Bob: "Cry me a river, loser! Cow farts. Cow farts. Hitler was right!"

•Alice: "I didn't vote for Trump, but I am glad he's talking to North Korea" •Bob: "Of course you are, Russian bot! I hope your handler is happy"

•Alice: "I used to be a cop, and this video is way over the line." •Bob: "Antifa scum! How much does Soros pay you to write this BLM propaganda?"

•Alice: "Just a reminder that you can get a free vaccination today, if you live in Charleston." •Bob: "Great, free autism everybody! Bet you'll trot out your MSM 'facts' now. Science is the new religion."

The web is so full it's bursting with "debates" like these. They are not worth having. They do not change anyone's mind. They cause people to dig in. They just further divide society.

<comment><USER8> In all of those cases, Bob is being a dick. A rule to not be a dick is pretty straightforward and can be enforced by moderators.

<comment><USER9> Moderators don't scale very well though. Those filter bubbles are really just letting the users do their own moderation. This reduces the scope of the site moderators job down to enforcing the rules.

If you try to do everything through the global site moderators you immediately get pulled into arguments like this: User 1: You need to ban User 2 because he is a racist. User 2: I only said that User 1's views are not supported by evidence. User 1: My views are well supported by my life experiences, and there is no good evidence because the government outlawed funding for research into them.

It's a no win situation, and neither side is going to change their mind and there's no clear winner. They're going to bicker and raise your noise floor constantly though. It's much better for site health if they can be isolated from one another, and better for your moderator's health if they do it automatically by themselves.

This is the messy messy world of real life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> An interesting question: how did the founders of Reddit make it worth their time to return to Reddit after having sold to Conde Nast? There must not be many startups where founders have sold and then returned, right?

<comment><USER11> Apple and Dell are two off the top of my head

<comment><USER12> I believe Skype was another

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ...

<comment><USER14> To be fair and a little blunt, this is about founders returning to their product and gives a backstory about those returning. Aaron can't really return, so it makes sense he's not mentioned in this article.

I believe he's mentioned in the book the article is excerpting, "We Are the Nerds".</comment></comment>


Automatically calibrating a computer projector image - <AUTHOR> http://dalpix.com/blog/automatically-calibrating-computer-projector-image

<comment> robert-boehnke Reminds me of the work by Johnny Lee on projector calibration. His appears to be a bit faster.

<http://johnnylee.net/projects/thesis/>

<comment><USER2> According to this page, it's related work:

"This project is an update on a previous rig I did in 2011. The original project was inspired ("Reverse-engineered") from a paper published in 2004 by Johnny Chung Lee"

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For a more technical description of the best algorithms to do this (and more advanced compensation) automatically, see:

<http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/pr_any/>

BTW, these algorithms have been well understood and described by the research community for many years now. I think some companies targeting the high-end segment have incorporated some of these techniques, but I'm not sure why it's not filtered down into low-end consumer tech yet.

Actually, I think there's easily a startup or two in using your smartphone to calibrate a projector. The math would only have to be slightly modified, and if you could make this process seamless, it would be pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER4> I almost don't see why this can't be realtime. I imagine from here, all you need to do is throw more computing power at it? It's very cool. Imagine this plus a head-mounted pico-projector - any scrap of paper or wall could become an interface. Very excited about this technology.

<comment><USER5> It can be done in real time. Here is a demonstration from Float4 Interactive : <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_YOTZ4MCuA>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You might also be interested to see a tree projection mapped: <http://www.kimchiandchips.com/littree.php>

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't really need an active board. You could have a camera + projector and a board with fiducal marks.

</comment><comment><USER8> Really awesome technology, unfortunate soundtrack to the _entire_ video.</comment>


Bing landing page to convert users with Google-Safari privacy breach - <AUTHOR> http://www.bing.com/privacy-protection <comment><USER2> does Bing redirect to that page if you are on Safari? Didn't find any links to it from the landing page</comment>


ASP.NET Core 1.0 Schedule - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aspnet/home/wiki/roadmap#schedule <comment><AUTHOR> 1.0.0 (Tools Preview 2) should be out the week of the 27th of June (in a fortnight's time).</comment>


The Trouble with Teaching Rape Law (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trouble-teaching-rape-law <comment><USER2> FTA: _" Imagine a medical student who is training to be a surgeon but who fears that he'll become distressed if he sees or handles blood. What should his instructors do?"_

Tell said student to either find a means to deal with the sight of blood, or find another career? Have the sensitivities of students taken priority over the needs of future clients?

 _" Instead, though, many students and teachers appear to be absorbing a cultural signal that real and challenging discussion of sexual misconduct is too risky to undertake—and that the risk is of a traumatic injury analogous to sexual assault itself."_

Apparently so.</comment>


A Food Shortage Revealed the Cause of Celiac Disease - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-celiac-disease <comment><USER2> Stunning it was this hard to pin down an autoimmune disorder which is effectively a food allergy.

My daughter has celiac which we caught early (concomitant with T1D) although she is not as hypersensitive as some people I have met, it is still crucial to avoid all gluten as even without overt symptoms it effects overall growth and nutrition.

But some of our friends are so sensitive that even minuscule levels of gluten exposure cause intense distress within an hour.

You have a "wasting" disease which is clearly non-contagious. Is it not obvious to test various strict diets? I guess in advanced cases it takes months of a gluten-free diet for the intestine to start healing (years for full recovery) so short-term test diets would not have led to full recovery, but even if you just experiment with carb-free that would reduce gluten so much I would think someone would have caught onto this sooner!

<comment><USER3> In the beginning, nothing was obvious. New things become obvious every day.

<comment><USER2> Definitely it's not obvious that gluten specifically would be the cause, but seemingly obvious to test specialized diets?

So I guess I'm surprised people didn't discover "avoid wheat" a lot sooner even if it took until the late 20th century to actually understand the mechanism.

<comment><USER4> Wheat was such a fundamental part of European diets until relatively recently that I suspect most serious celiacs died in childhood in earlier times.

<comment><USER5> Or just lived with minor discomfort, as plant strains were different and were consumed in much lower quantities anyway.

<comment><USER6> Celiac disease is _far more severe_ than what's now called "gluten intolerance". But maybe they're related.

I get that "Celiac disease results from genetic abnormal immune response to gluten."[0] I'm not sure what that means, in detail. Perhaps there's a particular allele of one of the immunoglobulin genes. But whatever it is, perhaps other alleles cause "gluten intolerance" of varying severity.

0) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095159](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095159)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Original title of the submission (which corresponds to the title of the article): "How Famine Under the Nazis Revealed the Cause of Celiac Disease"

More about this "food shortage": [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944–45](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944–45)

<comment><USER8> Why was the title changed?

<comment><USER6> Maybe because involvement of Germany is irrelevant to the article's main point. And could generate boring conversation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cutting out gluten really changed my life. I went through a phase where I was only eating every other day because I felt so shitty when I did eat.

When you end up with a disease like this it really exposes our blind spots in medicine. I even somewhat resent that doctors didn't identify this in me when I was young. It was 23 years of sinus headaches until a girlfriend did the research and told me to do an elimination diet.

While I had some digestion issues (high fructose foods, probably fructose malabsorption from my small intestine being wrecked) my main problem was sinus headaches. There seems to be an association between chronic sinusitis and celiac, but no studies backing that up. [1]

At the end of the day I've cut out gluten, sugar, caffeine, msg, and sodium nitrites as triggers to my sinus headaches. I went back and forth on a lot of these so I am quite sure of the relationship. I really did love bread, sugar, and caffeine and went back to them more than a few times.

The best I can describe the symptoms related to the sinus stuff is a withdrawal. For example, I feel OK when eating sugar regularly, maybe a medium bad headache here or there, but when I stop fully I get a horrible one, sometimes accompanied by throwing up, cold sweats, shaking, etc.

There is some research into opioid like effects of gluten. [2] I originally came across the concept on some fringe science about the bodies of people with autism treating gluten as an opioid (and advocating a gf diet for them). It resonated with me because the symptoms I experience are very much like a withdrawal. It's hard to talk about though because there isn't research backing it up.

If any medical students are reading this and want to study it, it's a pretty undiscovered field.

1\. [http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease- sinusiti...](http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease-sinusitis)

2\. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5025969/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5025969/)

<comment><USER10> I had the exact same issue and solution. I don't think I am celiac and I ate gluten for over 20+ years. I used to get 3+ major sinus infections a year and doctors wanted to perform nasal surgery on me.

After having cut out dairy a few years earlier due to realizing I was lactose intolerant, I then experimented with cutting out wheat. All my sinus issues went away, my headaches went away, my depression went away, my brain fog went away.

I suggested this to a few family members, and it had the same affect when they cut the things out.

It is crazy that I did not have any doctors ever suggest this to me, and it was just a result of the food I was eating.

I wish there was more research and education that went into this, as I imagine it might be affecting quite a few people.

<comment><USER11> Medicine 200 years from now will be different. Doctors are largely ignorant of nutrition. When you go to the doctor, how often do they ask about the what you eat? Unless you really look unhealthy or you mention some correlation between the symptoms and a specific food, your diet is a lowly weighted factor in your unwell being. I think that will change, and many of the catalysts will be from patients who teased out the effects of nutrition on what ails them.

There is also a significant leakage of nutritional advise from sports science, and all this information is finding adherents/testers in the regular world and will eventually (after the pseudoscience is sorted out) have a corrective influence on medicine.

I think at some point Medical nutrition therapy (MNT) will be a lot more common and maybe even have specific practitioners, (like physical therapists) instead of being a doctor-nutritionist partnership. The practice will evolve and it will get standardised and taught to "specialists".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone with diagnosed celiac disease, it took a very long amount of time for me to get diagnosed.

Already when I was around 10 years old I would go to the doctor and he'd say I might have irritated bowel syndrome but really, no treatment would help. I have memories of stomach pains so severe I'd bend over in pain.

It got better in my teens, or I got used to the pain, I can't really tell which. Many years later, when I was 25, I got internal bleeding and a pain so severe my doctor sent me to the ER for suspected appendicitis. However, after an MRI revealed nothing I was sent home without diagnosis.

My doctor finally sent me to get a biopsy to figure out what caused this and it showed that I had celiac disease. I've since followed a gluten free diet quite strictly, but I never get immediate or obvious symptoms so it's very hard for me to tell how well I'm doing. Some times I feel an unexplained tiredness or stomach pain, which probably means I did somehow eat gluten.

This is all to say that celiac disease is a very "murky" condition. Doctors don't always seem to know how or when to test for it (I suspect it's getting much better than 20 years ago). The actual test is quite invasive (again, I've seen there's headway in this space). And even if you confirm that you have celiac disease, it's not always easy to monitor your track record because the damage to your insides is long term and at least in my case I only seem to be able to sense it in more severe transgressions.

The scariest part of it all is the long-term dangers of celiac disease. Eating gluten with celiac disease is linked to a long list of deficiencies and other issues, leading to fragile bones, tiredness and even nervous system disorders (numbness, seizures, headaches, anxiety, etc).

I hope we get better at diagnosing this, it might turn out to not be as rare as we thought!

</comment><comment><USER13> I can't seem to tell the difference between Celiac and gluten sensitivity. They are supposed to be different but I can't tell how. I've asked my GP and GI but they seem to think they are exactly the same.

Anyone following any specific diet for one vs the other. Its all very confusing.

<comment><USER4> One is definitely a real condition. The other... well, there's reason to be skeptical - whether it is actually gluten or whether it is psychosomatic. I'm more than half suspicious that most of the self-reported benefits of avoiding gluten are really benefits of also slashing carb intake.

<comment><USER14> Gluten free does not mean carb free or even carb reduced. What it does tend to mean is less processed food and more whole foods.

<comment><USER15> Both my father and my sister are coeliac, and find a lot of packaged gluten free foods (biscuits, breads, cakes, etc) have more sugar than the normal versions to compensate for frankly generally tasting worse...

Fresh food is fine, but in general people deciding to go gluten free because it's trendy and "healthy", without having done a proper elimination trial or having coeliac disease, aren't actually making a good choice.

<comment><USER16> You forgot having active anti-bodies in their feces. I don't have celiacs but I have done a fecal test and it showed sensitivity to gluten, oat, potato, and bean.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Windows 8 EULA Prohibits Class Action Lawsuits Against Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/05/30/windows-8-eula-prohibits-class-action-lawsuits-against-microsoft/

<comment><USER2> Wrong, the law determines if a Class Action Lawsuit can take place, not some flusy EULA made by Microsoft, they can try of course, but I think it wont hold.

</comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft is getting very ballsy about this and is on a trend to introduce this clause in all license agreements for their products. I hope someone takes them to Court over it and proves it unconstitutional.</comment>


Ask HN: Hacker book suggestions similar to founders at work - <AUTHOR>

Im going on vacation for a month and am looking for about 20 books to read (ideally with kindle versions)
So maybe Ive been living under a rock (doing enterprise software) but I only learned of ycombinator about a week ago. In doing research about ycombinator I read about founders at work which turned out to be entertaining and inspiring.
This community is great and so Im looking for hacker book recommendations about startups, or hacking. fiction or nonfiction would be ok
Id like to travel light so the recommendations should have kindle versions. <comment><USER2> Of a similar note, but comes off very different (to me at least):

Coders at work [http://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft- Programm...](http://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft- Programming/dp/1430219483/)

I'm more of a fiction kind of guy so I'll have to recommend this:

Cryptonomicon [http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal- Stephenson/dp/B004R...](http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal- Stephenson/dp/B004R96U4A/)

(The kindle edition is more than the paperback but if you do want to travel light the kindle edition will definitely be worth the extra bucks as it is one of those thick thousand page mass market paperbacks)

<comment><USER3> +1 for Cryptonomicon. It isn't the easiest book to get through, but it's very worthwhile.

Another couple of possibilities might be:

 _The Soul of a New Machine_ \- Tracy Kidder

[http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy- Kidder/dp/03164...](http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy- Kidder/dp/0316491977)

 _The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage_ \- Clifford Stoll

[http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer- Espionag...](http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer- Espionage/dp/1416507787/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301927142&sr=1-1)

 _Hackers & Painters_ \- Paul Graham (yes, _that_ Paul Graham)

[http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas- Computer/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas- Computer/dp/1449389554/ref=pd_sim_b_7)</comment></comment>


Stop Zoning Out in Zoom Meetings - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2020/05/stop-zoning-out-in-zoom-meetings <comment><USER2> I only zone out in meetings with no focus. Provide an agenda which describes what you want to talk about. This helps me identify my value and not begin to immediately wonder how long this aimless meeting will last. Describe the problem this meeting wants to solve and why you can't solve it by yourself. People schedule meetings and expect attendees to do the work on making the meeting successful.

It's not my responsibility not to be bored, it's the organizers responsibility to be engaging.</comment>


Pigeon beats broadband in data transfer race - <AUTHOR> http://www.programmica.info/2009/09/pigeon-beats-broadband.html

<comment><USER2> Everyone should know it's the latency that matters, not the throughput. However, this is proving to be a very popular story on HN.

<http://searchyc.com/pigeon?sort=by_date>

shows various comments already scattered through these HN items:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=816329>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815840>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815593>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815501>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814443>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813313>

<comment><USER3> _Everyone should know it's the latency that matters, not the throughput._

Depends entirely on the problem you are trying to solve. Sometimes DVDs in the post really is the best solution. I've done it on more than one occasion.

<comment><USER2> Of course. I was kind-of assuming everyone here would recognise and appreciate the reference to this article:

<http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/rants/Latency.html>

Perhaps I was wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Article with a little more info, and a picture of Winston (the pigeon):

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1212214/Co...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1212214/Company- enlists-Winston-homing-pigeon-carry-data-transfer--faster-broadband.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _...pitted a homing pigeon carrying 4GB of data on a USB stick against its broadband connection..._

Instantly double throughput with an 8GB USB stick.

<comment><USER5> Half of the time was spent getting the data from the stick onto the computer, while only half was spent with the pigeon flying.

So, it will go up, but with quickly diminishing returns.

<comment><USER6> > However, he admits the plan is not without its difficulties: "There are > other problems, of course. Winston is vulnerable to the weather and > predators such as hawks. Obviously he will have to take his chances but > we're confident this system can work for us,' says Rolfe.

They might need to retransmit once or twice a month too . . .

<comment><USER7> Redundant pigeons would reduce the data loss, although maintenance costs would rise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They also should have mentioned that transferring 4GB of data in South Africa will set you back ~$30.

</comment><comment><USER9> probably true for a lot of places <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet>

</comment><comment><USER10> If two pigeons had a line between them, they could carry a 1TB drive. Or maybe four pigeons. With something like a flying hammock.

I think the key question is: are pigeons migratory?

(I am really, really sorry, but this article was just too much for a Monty Python fan. And it's a Saturday too)

</comment><comment><USER11> Obligatory RFC 1149 reference: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149>

We may have to update the old "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes..." chestnut.</comment>