Parsing: the solved problem that isn't - <AUTHOR> http://tratt.net/laurie/tech_articles/articles/parsing_the_solved_problem_that_isnt <comment><USER4> About packrat parsing...

At my office I implemented Warth, Douglas and Millstein's left-recursion algorithm, and ran into two things. First, the algorithm described in the paper is kind of a mess, as the authors admit. Second, it doesn't actually work as advertised, as the OP discovered. What become a simple implementation taking a few days turned into many weeks of trial and error, because with each change I naively thought I was almost there. Now I know better than to go around trusting strangers with algorithmic candy.

The idea is to introduce a notion of what left-recursions are allowed and which ones aren't. Say we have a rule R which matched input M. Call M the "match". Say M has a sub-match, M' which also depends on rule R. Then M is allowed if and only if the submatch M' is in a certain sense smaller than M-- either it is smaller in size, or M' and M depend on the same choice rule, except M-prime's choice is ordered after M's. In implementation, we take a "growing the seed" approach described in Warth et al, but with the ability to track multiple left-recursion points, and the left-recursion seed parses that every match is dependent on. For a pathological grammar this may end up exponentially slow.

I'm willing to bet this curtailment process is essentially the same as the process described in Frost, Hafiz and Callaghan's paper on left-recursive parser combinators[1], but I haven't looked too closely at it. I discovered Frost et al's paper only after I was done.

I may have done a bad job of explaining this, but our unit tests have some pretty arbitrary grammars like

S ::= /

A ::=  'a' /  / 'a'

B ::=  'b' /  / 'b'

and our parser handles these admirably and with excellent greed.

I've been wondering what to do with this information; I drafted an e-mail to Warth/Douglass/Millstein but haven't sent it.

[1] [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&v...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.89.2132%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&rct=j&q=Parser%20Combinators%20for%20Ambiguous%20Left- Recursive%20Grammars&ei=H4B_TaKPB8fegQeRi42TCA&usg=AFQjCNHufySC9dCnMyMT_jwv4kyGkRPAyA&sig2=V84mqs_KHEtky4m8E6_CkA&cad=rja)

<comment><USER5> It actually sounds more like cancellation parsing than frost's approach

(which iirc was more that left recursion is bounded by input length)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a couple of loosely connected points and links:

You want to buy 'Parsing Techniques 2nd Ed' -- this book is fantastic and will give you the understanding and clarity you seek. It is wonderfully comprehensive.

And schmitz' thesis is an excellent read on tools and techniques to deal with ambiguity <http://www.lsv.ens-cachan.fr/~schmitz/papers>

and the non-canonical parser that results is quite interesting too :-)

PEGs vs Boolean Grammars: I think adding negation and conjunction to a grammar is the same as positive and negative lookahead

PEGS + Ambiguity: Like other people, I solved this in my last top down parser by attaching both precedences _and_ relations to terms

i.e E[50] :== E[< 50] + E[<= 50]

so you can force a left or right associative operator.

That said, although determinism is nice, I think ambiguous parses are inevitable once you have a sufficient level error handling within the parser

parsing theory is pretty developed and established but in reality many parsers are cobbled together top down parsers.

you can't use existing parse libraries to handle HTTP for example.

(That said, yakker is an approach with earley parsing to handle data dependent grammars)

<comment><USER5> and while i'm here - the original earley paper is full of bugs.for a modern treatment you may find aycock & horspool's work on 'practical earley parsing' interesting, as well as the work on the Marpa Parser in perl.

to me: the earley parser and the packrat parser are similar in nature - <USER2> are both chart parsers. one is depth first, one is breadth first.

my question: can you engineer an earley parser that supports ordered choice and exploits this to avoid broadening the search too early -- ie can earley parsers support PEGs

I think it is possible and when i'm not drowning in my startup work i'd like to take a longer look at it.

fwiw my terrible attempts at an earley recognizer are here <http://pastie.org/private/uezi1mxiur8dymdbh2scw>

i've tried to use some ideas from the aycock and the aretz variants of the earley parser - avoiding lists of earley items at a character - <USER3> storing the reductions/completions seperately from the scanning items, and using a driver rather than the predictor/completor loop (still need to add nullable support...)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure the Earley paper "is full of bugs" - to the best of my knowledge, it has only one bug (albeit a biggy), which is in its description of how to create a parse tree.

<comment><USER5> it isn't cubic time either iirc

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's part of the same bug, as I understand it anyway (to be clear: I'm not sure that anyone's claiming that there are problems with Earley's recogniser, which is really the core of his paper). Scott's "SPPF-Style Parsing From Earley Recognisers" gives an overview of the bug and its implications.

<comment><USER5> I can't remember off hand if it dealt with nullable terms or hidden left recursion properly either.

don't get me wrong: I like the earley parser :-) I just think the original paper has some omissions and the treatment of earley parsing in 'parsing techniques 2nd ed' is thorough and includes substantial references and explanations of further work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Speaking of composeable grammars, if you were not already aware JetBrains (maker of the wholly incredible, and now Open Source, IntelliJ) has a language platform which is targeting just that kind of thing.

They call it Meta Programming System (<http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/>) and it is also Open Source.

Be forewarned that MPS is almost a closed system. One must develop the grammar only in MPS (no textual grammar to speak of), and the editor for the language described by that grammar is then defined using this bizarre form-layout language (also edited in MPS). One cannot (that I am aware of) take the newly created MPS system for that language and point it at your favorite source code text file. It does have a seemingly powerful code generation system, so it _might_ be possible to generate the textual grammar if you were so inclined. However, the text generator also uses a bizarre language so that is likely more pain than one would wish to endure.

The advantage of a system such as that is that there is only The One True Brace Style(tm) because the "braces" and other punctuation are merely icons to please the eye; they are not "editable" like in Emacs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, the allusion to syntax directed editing in the article is due to MPS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd also say that the hardest part isn't the parsing itself per se, it's error reporting and recovery. Showing parse errors as someone types in an IDE, for example, requires an order of magnitude more sophistication than simply handling valid productions does.

<comment><USER8> This is where recursive decent parsing really shines. When an invalid sequence is detected deep in the recursion, you don't have enough context to generate the best error message but as you unwind, you can add additional context such that by the time you're at the top of the call chain, you can generate very high quality error messages.

Of course, you have to be careful about dealing with recursion that's too deep. Large input files and/or grammars that require a lot of back tracking can make it a very slow parser too.

But for quite a lot of things, it's very appropriate. It's pretty much my go to mechanism when I need a custom parser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Derivative parsing <http://mjtsai.com/blog/2010/12/13/derivative-parsing/> looks interesting.

It has several nice properties, including being composable and incremental. And it supports modifying the grammar on the fly.

<comment><USER5> It has several bad properties too. The algorithm they outline is exponential.

The challenge to make it run in cubic time will certainly turn it into a GLR or an Earley parser. (They can be formed from each other)

To me: it is just another way of looking at Dotted LR-Items used within earley parser. Earley parsers keep a state made up of grammar rules with a dot indicating where in the rule the parser is at.

(I wrote an earley recognizer that uses a derivative style interface to grammar rules.)

It has novelty, and some utility but it is not the holy grail you are looking for.

<comment><USER9> > The algorithm they outline is exponential.

They claim that it's actually roughly linear (given some fairly obvious optimizations) and provide a table of measurements that support said claim.

<http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1010/1010.5023v1.pdf>

Number of tokens Parsing time

4,944 10 ms

42,346 43 ms

390,553 326 ms

5,049,213 3.9 s

22,155,402 17.1 s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree completely with the premise, which is that Parsing looks like a solved problem but really isn't.

One thing that should be a red flag is that lots of people still write parsers manually instead of using tools. GCC migrated _from_ a yacc/bison-based parser _to_ a hand-written recursive descent parser. I used to work in the same office as Bob Jervis who wrote Turbo C back in the day, and he said he never uses parser generators. Clearly something is wrong if the tools that have all the weight of the theory and formalisms are losing to coding parsers by hand.

I disagree that because computers are so much faster we should use less- efficient parsing algorithms that can handle all grammars (like Earley, GLR, etc). One reason I disagree is the ambiguity problem given in the article. The very process of building parse tables for a more restricted language subset like LL, LR, etc. can tell you that a grammar is not ambiguous, which is hugely beneficial. If you do not restrict yourself to such a subset, you never know whether your grammar has ambiguities or not. To me, this would be like programming in a language that doesn't give you syntax errors when you make a mistake. Sure, the syntax errors are annoying, but they are your only way of knowing you need to fix something!

(By the way, PEGs have the same issue -- by using prioritized choice, you never know when you're covering up an ambiguity. An example of this is C's famous "if/else" ambiguity. It's important to know that this ambiguity exists, because you have to tell your users about it.)

Instead of using our extra CPU power to parse with less efficient algorithms, I think we should use our extra CPU power to integrate parsing more deeply into our editors/IDEs. With a fast parsing algorithm, you could parse as a programmer types, unlike the current syntax highlighting editors which use only rough pattern matching instead of having a real parse tree. Imagine seeing syntax errors the moment you type them. Imagine having your cursor inside a struct and having a little "inspector" pane off to the side that says "sizeof(struct MyStruct) = 96". Imagine getting real, context-sensitive completion even for complex languages like C++. _That's_ what we should be spending CPU cycles on IMO.

The biggest thing that could be improved about parsing IMO is for grammars to be reusable. There is no reason that people should have to roll their own parser for a common language. There's no way you're going to get all the edge cases right unless you spend a LOT of time on it, but why should you have to do that? IMO there should be a "grammar library" the same way that platforms like the JVM or .NET have a "class library." You should be able to take a C++ parser off-the-shelf and use it in your program, thereby saving yourself literally man-years of work.

I've been working for a long time on a project that seeks to achieve this goal. It's tabled right now because of my work on a protocol buffer implementation (the two will be related in a deep way; protocol buffers are an ideal way of specifying parse trees, which are the output of a parser), but I am extremely motivated to return to it.

<http://www.reverberate.org/gazelle/> <https://github.com/haberman/upb/wiki>

<comment><USER11> It's nice to see such optimism yet I have to (hopefully respectfully) criticize to your approach.

 _I used to work in the same office as Bob Jervis who wrote Turbo C back in the day, and he said he never uses parser generators. Clearly something is wrong if the tools that have all the weight of the theory and formalisms are losing to coding parsers by hand._

When a number of really smart people do something, there might just be reason for it. They might be wrong too but if you're going to call them wrong, perhaps you should first take the time to figure why they do what they do first.

 _One thing that should be a red flag is that lots of people still write parsers manually instead of using tools._

Wait! People write programs _manually_ too instead of automatic program constructors. It might be OK.

The thing about "manually" constructing a parser is that it not a terribly difficult task once one has a strong grasp of the relation between languages specification and recursion. Manually constructing a recursive descent parser also doesn't involve throwing out the formal specification of the language. Rather, you transform your language specification until you shape it into a set of productions which can be captured by a series of recursive function calls (essentially taking the language to Greibach Normal Form but there are a number of short cuts you can take once you're comfortable with this process). It is not a ad-hoc affair but it does allow you make add ad-hoc optimizations for the particular actions that are needed or not-needed in the results of your parsing.

The road block to any reusability in parsers is that a language's grammar exists at a different _logical level_ than a single function, object or piece of data.

Specifically, two programs that parse the same grammar would likely need to do different things at different times in the parsing process. The simplest thing to create the code for each of these programs separately and then let the compiler optimize the code, tossing out the things I don't need.

But any "general purpose" parser library more or less has taken the code and fully compile it - turn it into an AST or the equivalent and then let the programmer deal with the results (the way Python or Ruby do reflection). Such an approach work for some things but it inherently isn't going to be very fast because it doesn't which parts of the code the final user is not concerned with.

Just consider. The simple way of removing a single "i" tag from strings like "help me he said" is never going to be _"load XML parser, issue commands, close XML parser"_. A single loop removing the offending character is going to beat this "algorithm" a thousand times over. Manual parser generation more or less allows you to boil down your parser to this.

Qt creator finds syntax errors as I type and I remember Visual Studio doing the same. I don't think either uses the same parser as their respective compilers because they have to be more forgiving - otherwise they would fail to arrive at the piece of code you're actually editing but I could be wrong. I know most syntax highlighting is custom written but again, isn't that hard to custom write.

<comment><USER12> > Just consider. The simple way of removing a single "i" tag from strings like > "help me he said" is never going to be "load XML parser, issue > commands, close XML parser". A single loop removing the offending character > is going to beat this "algorithm" a thousand times over. Manual parser > generation more or less allows you to boil down your parser to this.

However, the parser-way might enable you code to handle tricky XML stuff. E.g. namespaces: "help me".

<comment><USER11> Either can be useful depending on the situation.

A just-in-time compiler would be able to do the quick loop also if this loop ran somewhat frequently.

The point is each of these approaches makes sense in a given context and so you can't say that any of them are relative "hacks" or "stone-age" or whatever.

I could imagine a future language/system that would allow a few XML-parser commands on a line to be translated into a single loop. But we aren't there yet - the solution isn't in just algorithms but the whole development. Haberman's "program" of improving parsing is noble. The problem is he's articulated as simply bolting algorithms in and you need more than that (ie, you need a language that can lots of compile-time futzing about).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> On a more theoretical point: The source points out that parsing of CFGs is still not solved. But CFGs are themselves pretty narrow types of grammars; fully general parsing is even further away, since we are probably going to need a near-human specialized AI for that.

<comment><USER14> I could argue that if you are, for any reason, creating a formal computer language which requires more than just a CFG to parse, something has gone wrong somewhere. CFGs are narrow in comparison with general grammars but that doesn't stop them from being (1) exceptionally powerful and (2) exceptionally well-understood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm designing a programming language and I totally embraced the PEG paradigm. I don't care about left recursion. My grammar is simple and clear without it.

A great benefit of PEGs is that I can easily reason about how the parsing will be done as I write the grammar, which will be the same if it's done by the compiler or by the programmer in his head!

Those who say that the ambiguities still exist when using PEGs say so because they still reason in terms of CFGs. There is no ambiguity in PEGs, period. If the language is defined in terms of PEGs, there's no worry about that, as long as the reader of the language spec understands about prioritized choices.

</comment><comment><USER16> A wonderful, human survey of the field, with pleasantly little jargon. Thanks ltratt!

</comment><comment><USER17> What mature tooling is around for PEG investigation?

<comment><USER18> PEG for Lua is pretty easy to use and experiment with: <http://www.inf.puc- rio.br/~roberto/lpeg/lpeg.html>

<comment><USER5> notably: lpeg uses backtracking over packrat parsing

<comment><USER19> Packrat parsing has fairly horrible memory usage. LPEG is amazingly frugal in terms of code size, run time, and memory usage.

It's worth noting that the PEG ordered choice operator leads to much more restricted backtracking than occurs in most regex implementations, so LPEG has much more predictable performance. And unlike a DFA matched you still get straightforward capture handling.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sony's RED Agrees to Price Music Reasonably: 15 Cents and Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/sonys-red-agrees-to-price-music-reasonably-15-cents-and-up/

<comment><USER2> If there is anything that would put a major dent in piracy it is a reasonable pricing scheme for music. 15 cents is 'in the ball park', iirc there was some study done which found that at general availability and 25 cts piracy would drop drastically.

Now for a unified catalogue and a one click style shopping interface where I can browse all the music ever made.

Believe me I would have to cut up my credit card.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. I think if music was sold at the rate of 1 cent per album, there would still be piracy. In fact, I think there would still be piracy if music was free behind a sign-in wall, just like I still click off nytimes.com any time it presents me with a sign-in page EVEN THOUGH I HAVE AN ACCOUNT. It simply isn't worth my trouble. Similarly, people who copy whole mp3 players worth of music will continue to do so, because it's a heck of a lot easier than going online to a website (because presumably ads would be the last hope of making money on music if it was free) and picking songs or albums out one by one.

2\. Any song that people actually care about downloading will, by defintion, quickly reach 98 cents at Amie St. Sure, you can snag song that 15000 people care about for less, but then again, only 15000 people care. The songs people actually download en masse (such as Michael Jackson lately), will be no different from any other buck-a-song site.</comment>


Video Shows U.S. Navy Run-In with UFO - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a19421807/video-shows-us-navy-run-in-with-ufo/ <comment><USER2> looks like a laser beam aimed at the sea, but then, it's cooler than the sea?</comment>


The Hidden Wealth of Nations: Tax Havens - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/510520/the-global-economy-has-giant-vortex-that-is-sucking-away-the-worlds-wealth-its-called-switzerland/ <comment><USER2> I read a fascinating book on tax havens and their pernicious influence on global affairs. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand more about how such systems work -- especially those who don't think tax havens are an issue.

[http://treasureislands.org/](http://treasureislands.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's weird how the article cuts off at "And after this, they became subject to the French tax law—which makes sense." and then suddenly you're reading about gaming energy ratings on TVs thanks to infinite scroll... It started out interesting, but there's no conclusion.

</comment><comment><USER4> The world needs a WTO type organisation to set minimum tax benchmarks in key areas. Then if a country wants to do an Ireland/Luxembourg etc they are welcome to but this comes with other trade/visa type restrictions. Without this it's simply going to be a race to the bottom for countries and tax rates.

Another other option is to get rid of company taxes and raise revenue purely at the personal level. Though this will only increase the cost of labor and skew the market in other negative ways.

<comment><USER5> _Without this it 's simply going to be a race to the bottom for countries and tax rates._

I don't understand this concern about a "race to the bottom". This "race to the bottom" is why you can buy a computer for $200 that would have cost $10,000 fives years ago. Manufacturers were in a race to provide the most value for the least money.

There _should_ be pressure on gov'ts to keep tax rates low. I consider each country as it's own business where the price is what you pay in taxes and the product are the gov't services you recieve.

Do you really wants gov'ts banding together to collude and keep tax rates high? What do you think that will look like in the end? I assume massively inefficient gov'ts and crushingly high tax rates.

<comment><USER6> One mans consumer is anothers employee.

Races to bottom only benefit the independently wealth in the long run.

<comment><USER7> A more efficient government catering to the needs of the citizens is a good thing for everybody. Only competition can ensure that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Easy Deployment with Heroku (Screencast) - <AUTHOR> http://samsoff.es/post/easy-deployment-with-heroku/

<comment><USER2> Is there anything like this for Python? I know there's Google App Engine, but to deploy a Django app it seems like you need to specifically write your app to work there. Where as this appears to be a solution to deploy any rails based app as is.

<comment><USER3> Well, almost. You may have to modify existing apps to deal with having a read- only filesystem, e.g. anything that accepts user uploads.

<comment><USER4> and it has to run on postgres

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> heroku is sweet. You can do a lot for free there if you don't need much database space and all your requests are quick (or you can use http caching effectively).</comment>


Cost of a thread in C++ under Linux - <AUTHOR> https://lemire.me/blog/2020/01/30/cost-of-a-thread-in-c-under-linux/ <comment><USER2> That's why we have Thread Pools _.

_ ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_pool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_pool))

</comment><comment><USER3> This guy has a sweet job, Professor of Profiling Code.</comment>


My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/nick.moore.7140/posts/3600186133211 <comment><USER2> This is mildly fascinating. Though not entirely unexpected.

A quick Google for "pet sitting dog died" turns up a number of these stories. It seems a number of them are through these dog sitting services like Wag or Rover.

Here's an interesting one I found not through a dog sitting service but just a roommate that had been asked to sit the dog while the owner was away.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/t7kv7/currently_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/t7kv7/currently_dog_sitting_for_roommatedog_was_just/)

It must be awful for everyone involved. I suspect it's nothing unique to dog sitting services but that it occurs with a certain (albeit low) frequency as a phenomenon but that it's showing up through dog sitting services because there is a (1) a paper trail of the transaction and (2) a stable, visible entity on which to lay the blame.

In the pre-sharing economy days this still happened. Only you vetted the sitter first and so you feel less justified blaming them because on some level you know you signed off on them. You also couldn't really go public and say "14 year old Jenny from Ashmore killed my dog" because you can't make a common enemy out of her and while people will feel for both of you, it's not actionable information for anyone.

It's fascinating what phenomenon our society is making visible through new structures made possible by technology.

It's awful for all involved to have this happen.

<comment><USER3> I have to say that the problem is accountability. With this Wag incident, it appears the person selected through the platform was not the person who was caring for the pet. When I select someone to care for my pet, I know who they are, and can use my own signals to determine if they're trustworthy and responsible. Wag doesn't care, they're just out to "crush it" (cost of business), and the contractor doesn't care because it's just another crap minimum wage job.

Stop trusting platforms and acting shocked when the trust model breaks down. They are not designed for safety or trust, but to skim as much volume as possible from transaction flow.

<comment><USER2> It definitely seems they could and need to do more to tighten up the accountability on the platform. No doubt about that.

I don't know that it's accurate to say the contractor doesn't care. If they were a psychopath I could agree with that, but most people have had the experience of having either a pet, friend or relative die and know how deeply it affects people emotionally and to know you were responsible for that would likely generate a strong, negative visceral reaction.

Edit: Platforms don't kill dogs; people do. Stop trusting people.

Actually this is the part that fascinates me. On some level people expect things to never go wrong. Yet things going "wrong" is kind of the default. It's extremely hard to engineer a situation in which no one ever experiences a negative outcome. To the extent that you can attribute a cause to an outcome, you do.

Infact, it's not at all clear whether the frequency of dogs dying while being sat by pet sitters is higher on platforms or higher when not through platforms. You'd actually have to do quite a lengthy, expensive analysis to compute the truth value of that.

What can likely agree on is that we want the most safe and convenient system. I'm fascinated by thinking about the various trade-offs made when organizing a system one way vs. another. Are we trading more convenience for less safety? Or are we actually getting both more convenience AND more safety, but also increased observability is skewing our perception of the risk such that we think we have got a less safe system when in fact the opposite might be true?

I don't have the answers. But damnit it's important to attempt to look at things the right way in an attempt to compute that actual reality.

<comment><USER4> > Edit: Platforms don't kill dogs; people do. Stop trusting people.

I disagree with that notion. Trust has always been a big problem. But when a two way market is built on a platform you trust the platform to carry out it's due diligence on your behalf. Situations like:

 _The walker that was with Winnie when she was killed had a different name in her bio paragraph than was shown on her profile—which makes me wonder if Wag is monitoring whether or not the people walking your dog are who they say they are. Sara asked the walker what her name was, but the walker did not provide an answer._

shouldn't happen at all.

But it's seems that most of the time platforms forgo the need for verification and think trust should solve itself because "people". It takes a harassment case (in case of Uber) etc for companies to open their eyes and realize "people" are not so simple. It takes a good and concentrated effort to run a clean platform.

<comment><USER5> >> you trust the platform to carry out it's due diligence on your behalf

Isn't one of the central points of gig economy service provision that services are cheaper since the "red tape"/regulations aspect gets significantly less focus than before?

If I wanted to drive a taxi in London, UK, there are some fairly onerous requirements[0], which come with a cost.

So why did Uber and friends decide _not_ to use the same list of requirements?

Isn't it about saving money (and time) so you can keep prices low and margins high?

[0] [https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private- hire/licensing...](https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private- hire/licensing/apply-for-a-taxi-driver-licence)

<comment><USER6> Those onerous requirements were actually pretty ridiculous, and included having to basically memorize an entire street map of the city. That may have made some sense 40 years ago, but today we have GPS navigation, so we don't need cabbies to know how to get to any address off the top of their head. Uber/Lyft work well because instead of having your cabbie take you on some overly-long route just to jack up your fare, they have to follow the route prescribed by Lyft/Uber's GPS app, which takes the most optimal route.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We had a similar (but thankfully, less serious) thing happen with Rover. We booked a dog sitter for 4 days with a woman named "Leslie". When we showed up to "Leslie's" place, the lady who we met did not match the person in the photo, and barely spoke any english. We were on our way to the airport, so I really didn't have a choice at that point but to leave our dog (I realize now I should have done more vetting, or met this individual in-person ahead of time, but the person I booked - Leslie - had dozens of positive reviews). After dropping off our dog, we received extremely vague updates/text messages over the next few days, and no photos. Things like - "Your dog is doing great", "he is behaving so well", etc... Whenever I asked for a photo, they would say they'd send one the next day.

Needless to say, it became obvious that whoever was watching our dog was not the person we were communicating with. Thankfully, our dog doesn't have special medication, or a specific diet that we needed to monitor. Who knows what would have happened if there was an emergency, and we needed to get in touch with one another.

These services like Wag and Rover have literally one job, and that is to make sure you trust the individuals watching your pet. The response from Rover was completely thoughtless, and it was clear they were going to do nothing to investigate the situation. The fact that they don't care that people like this woman who clearly has some sort of questionable scheme going on just shows how little they care about protecting their customer's pets.

<comment><USER8> Why not put an IP camera on your pooch and front yard for the peace of mind and to verify they are actually doing their job?

<comment><USER6> As another poster said, this wasn't house-sitting, this was basically boarding. This is the problem with dogs as pets: you absolutely have to board them when you go away, or else you have to pay someone to come to your place _several times a day_ to walk them and clean up after them. That's not cheap, and is why boarding exists (the boarding person/company can have a bunch of peoples' dogs all in one place and take care of them all at the same time).

Why anyone wants a pet that costs so much and can't be left alone for a couple of days, and on top of that needs regular bathing and grooming so they don't stink up your home, I have no idea. These animals made a lot of sense for working on farms and living mostly outside (and still do for people who still live that way in rural areas), but for urban environments they really don't.

<comment><USER9> The pet sitting situation isn't bad at all if you have a strong family or friend network and live near each other and all like dogs. People just casually bring their dogs over to each others house when they won't be home. When I was a teen when my aunts and uncles with pets go on vacation I'd spend the week at their house taking care of their pets.

Without that sort of network, yeah, I don't understand owning a dog either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This happened recently:

Wag! dog walker charged with animal cruelty; customers concerned about industry background checks

[http://www.ktvu.com/news/wag-dog-walker-charged-with- animal-...](http://www.ktvu.com/news/wag-dog-walker-charged-with-animal- cruelty-customers-concerned-about-industry-background-checks)

EDIT: and the settlement letter sent from Wag: [https://www.scribd.com/document/397139013/SNews- Copie1901081...](https://www.scribd.com/document/397139013/SNews- Copie19010815010)

<comment><USER11> Wow. The walker kicks and whips the dog until it vomits blood and Wag offers a refund and a $100 credit as settlement.

Who in the world wants Wag credits after an experience like that. If Wag wants to buy these folks' silence, shouldn't they at least make a non-insulting offer?

<comment><USER12> This is terrifying behavior both on part of the walker and Wag. I don't blame Wag for having occasionally sketchy immoral actors that don't care about animals--that's essentially impossible to entirely prevent, especially as they continue scaling. However, their responses to these issues are extremely concerning and do not indicate a company that's managed well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Streisand effect strikes again. This is what happens when the legal department has no customer empathy, and to these lawyers, everything is a nail to their hammer of a contract.

Some people mentioned that Wag should have offered more and demanded less -- absolutely!

But think about if Wag even said "sorry this happened, that's all we can say for your terrible loss" even _without_ a compensation offer and _without_ an insulting NDA. It probably wouldn't have pushed the owner to post this and for it to end up on HN -- and now the world knows.

I honestly believe Wag and Rover and other large companies that offer pet walking services should put up a very high liability bond for pet injury -- on the order of $10K or more. That way they have skin in the game to vet their walkers better. Most owners value their dogs above that, and that incentive is the only way to get these corporations to listen.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps have the walkers be bonded as well?

Even if it's 1k that's a pretty serious amount of money to lose, but low enough a barrier of entry that you still have people making a go at it.

Obviously it gets returned to you when you close your Wag Walker account.

<comment><USER15> I don't think you understand how little these gig apps pay. 1k deposit would exclude a very large percentage of the workers. And frankly - who in the hell in their right mind would PAY a company a grand so start working for them? That's sketchy af.

<comment><USER16> > who in the hell in their right mind would PAY a company a grand so start > working for them?

In order: A bond isn't paying them. It would ideally go to a reputable third party. Anyone that works for uber paid a whole lot more for that car, sometimes specifically for the job.

Edit: Would the downvoter care to explain? I'm not even saying it's definitely a good idea, I'm just disagreeing with the particular arguments given.

<comment> pure-awesome Not the downvoter, but my thoughts are:

It doesn't really matter whether the bond is going to the company or a third party. The point is you're out of pocket for a large amount of money before starting to work, ostensibly to earn money.

Most people simply aren't in a position to put down that kind of deposit in order to start earning, especially not for a low-paying contract-based "gig" job like this kind of pet-walking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I stopped using Wag due to their terrible customer service. I had an incident where a walker, despite explicit instructions, did not put my young puppy (~6 months) back in her crate and left her free in the apartment unsupervised. The walker report card said "I saw you said to crate her but she looked thirsty so I left her out!".

I called several times where they said "we tried to contact the walker but couldn't so we can't help you". So I had to leave work early and still came home to a torn up couch and plenty of chewed up plastic that had to be surgically removed by a vet. Wag compensated for this by trying to offer me a "5 dollar credit for your next walk!"

</comment><comment><USER18> Incredibly stupid decision to respond this way by Wag.

How bad to you have to be at PR to screw this up? It's not hard. Liability in the case of harmed pets is extremely limited, so you just pay it all and apologize profusely. There's no way the bad press will be worth saving a couple thousand maximum.

Absolute idiots.

<comment><USER19> > _Absolute idiots_

Agreed. You do three things in a crisis:

1) Acknowledge the problem.

You killed someone's dog. This hits like losing family. "We're opening an investigation" is a chickenshit message.

2) CEO needs to speak.

Personal call from the top. If a dog is seriously injured or killed while on your watch, the CEO must make the call. This shows seriousness to the customer. It also ensures top brass feels the pain. That pain prevents future mistakes and is a real emotional tool for correcting cultures.

3) Over-correct.

You'll pay for cremation. You'll pay for counseling. You'll refund every Wag bill they ever incurred. If the family decides to get another dog, you'll offer to pay for their shots and food for a year and pet insurance for life.

The message must be we are sorry, this is unacceptable, and we intend on making this about as difficult for us as it is for you.

(Checklist from a video (with unfortunately and unrelated political content) by Scott Gallaway [1].)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB- AyvgE8Ns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB-AyvgE8Ns)

<comment><USER20> There was a comment that is now removed that said:

> Spoken like someone who's never lost family.

in reply to the parent's comment that said:

> You killed someone's dog. This hits like losing family."

My comment will probably be flagged as well, but fine, I'll sacrifice some karma to show my support. I lost my mother due to cancer when I was eleven and I personally find it _offensive_ when someone tells me they know "what it is like" because they lost a pet.

Sure, there are people who have horrible family members that mistreated or abused them, so the loss of a dog means more than the loss of that relative, but if you're going to claim that it is comparable to lose a _human being_ that meant everything to you because an animal died, then we just have a totally different set of moral axioms and are fundamentally incapable of seeing the world in the same way.

<comment><USER21> As someone who has lost friends and family members, as well as pets, it feels the same.

I see this dichotomy quite a bit in the public discourse, regarding dogs especially, where 1/2 the world treats dogs as family and the other half thinks they are some play toy/object.

We have been living with wolves/dogs for a long time now, we're responsible for how they have evolved, and part of that is how they have evolved to bond with humans. It's not surprising to me that losing a dog feels like losing a child for some people.

<comment><USER20> I appreciate you responding and explaining your perspective, even though we may disagree on the issue.

> 1/2 the world treats dogs as family

Do you think that half the world, if given the choice between saving _either_ their dog or a stranger's child in a disaster situation (e.g. a house fire), would choose their dog?

<comment><USER22> I'm going to say after reading some of the other responses that there's something seriously fucked up about the idea that you would save your dog. If you even, for a minute, thought that saving a dog with a life expectancy of 10-20 years tops living as a pet for someone's indulgence is remotely comparable to saving a child - who might live to 80 as an independent being - give yourself an uppercut. I'm a dog lover and love my dog, but I would sacrifice her in a heartbeat for a child - any child, regardless of whose it is.

<comment><USER23> This is exactly it!

Why don't people feel that they should sacrifice themselves and carry their grief and their emotional loss, and save the child?

I agree with some others in this thread, those that would save their pet are selfish beyond my wildest imagination. To save themselves the grief of losing a subjective family member they sacrifice human life for what is to outside observers just an animal.

Be as you want to be, but in this I feel justified in judging those people most harshly indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was going to reply with a reply about this being "statistically bound to happen", until I read this:

> If we wanted to be compensated we had to agree not to tell anyone what > happened, we could not leave any negative reviews, we could not make posts > on social media, we could not hold Wag or the walker responsible, and only > then would Wag reimburse us for Winnie's cremation. When we responded that > we would not sign the agreement, we were told that the agreement would > remain available in case we changed our minds. The next day, we received an > email stating that the agreement was now "null and void."

What assholes. (Wag) All these gig economy apps are super shady.

<comment><USER25> I feel like part of why they're shady is because some of the people that partake in them are shady. It's relatively easy to get accepted to them (especially services like this).

<comment><USER26> From my experience, people signing up for these type of work range from generally ok (most Uber drivers) to absolutely desperate for money (living out of car, signs up for petsitting while owner is vacay).

It seems the lower the bar of entry in terms of capital, the shadier it is. Ie Uber at least requires you to have a car, which involves some kind of credit check which is embodied in the car procurement before it even hit Uber. Dog walking? Not so much.

<comment><USER27> >From my experience, people signing up for these type of work range from generally ok (most Uber drivers) to absolutely desperate for money

Come on down to Miami, where it's not unusual for the actual uber driver to be different than uber drivers profile.

You can't really get more shady than exploiting undocumented immigrants who can't get a DL, and having them illegally without a DL by driving under someone else's uber account for a fraction.

<comment><USER28> That's no different than traditional taxi services. Getting a taxi license is time-consuming and expensive in most places (as sometimes you have to buy from an existing license-holder)

Taxi drivers will therefore try to maximise their investment, so they have people driving their car 24/7, on shifts.

<comment><USER27> That is significantly different than having People without drivers licenses driving (a criminal offense in most jurisdictions) the taxis and fraudulently misreprenting the drivers to the public (again typically a criminal offense).

There would be nothing wrong with having two uber drivers with two legitimate uber accounts splitting the car...not allowing an unlicensed person driver for uber under someone else's account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I admittedly wasn't a huge fan of Wag ever because it always seemed like taking the lowest available bidder to walk your dog (instead of someone who truly loves dogs and has years of experience training them), but I'm curious how much of an influence Softbank has been since their investment.

Everybody talks about how Softbank is the smartest money in Silicon Valley. Obviously time will tell, but I feel like Softbank is actually the dumbest money and just has more cash to throw around than anyone else.

That said, this is really an unnecessary tangent to what is truly a horrible incident and I grieve for the dog owners.

<comment><USER30> Haha a little off topic but I'm curious. I work in a Softbank invested startup (not Wag). Could you elaborate about Softbank being the most silly part? Is it silly in this case, or in general about companies Softbank invests in?

<comment><USER29> I'm just unimpressed by their investments, and their ridiculously large sums of money thrown into companies which may not need it. I worked at a Softbank company before, and while the fundraise was heralded as a brilliant move at the time the few in the know realize that the company likely would have shut down had Softbank not put up their ridiculously large sum of money (the public and media still love this company and knows nothing of this).

Obviously this is just my opinion on their investment strategy and time will tell - they make money or they don't. But I have insider information that at least one of their bigger deals is definitely going to fail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I went on a few dates with a girl who was a walker for Wag. She had just moved to the town I'm from, and she was between jobs. She had a background as veterinary assistant, was great with my dogs, and seemed over qualified for the work.

One day she was upset and I asked her why. She said it was because Wag had terminated her employment and deleted her profile, with over 100 high reviews. (She had been very proud of the number of perfect reviews she had gotten.) She said it was because she called animal control on one of the clients.

At first, I was like, "Holy hell, don't narc on your customers... no wonder they banned you... anyone who pays for a dog walker would surely be a good dog owner..." But then she showed me the pictures of what was clearly an puppy mill. My friend was only there to walk one or two of the dogs, the dogs that were used for photos, and there were 20+ other dogs locked in cages.

She did the humane thing, documented the issues, reported it to Wag... Wag did nothing, didn't even bother to move her to a different client, or block her from being sent back to that client. So on like the third visit, she escalated it to animal control. Naturally the client got mad and complained to Wag, and that's when Wag fired my friend. But... seems like the right thing to do in that situation.

I saw these pictures on her phone, dogs that looked so sad. Penned up in cages where they could barely turn around, and all very pregnant. Anyone with a heart would have done what my friend did. And anyone working as a dog walker should have a heart. Wag is a business, they only care about the bottom line. It's not a service I would ever use for my own dogs.

Edit: Went from +7 to -2 pretty quick. Hmm, maybe Wag PR is listening in?

<comment><USER32> HN has been getting a lot of coordinated down votes lately.

<comment><USER33> You will notice it always coincides with when the techbros on the West Coast wake up.

<comment><USER32> I feel like people don't just downvote you once and move on, I feel that they go into your whole history and just downvote you as much as they can to wound your reputation, then they tell their friends. Sickening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is a fantastic way to completely destroy your business. What a naive way to try and cover for a lack of investment in safety.

My heart breaks for that dog and her family. Absolutely unbelievable.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've never heard of Wag, but my wife signed up to be a pet sitter for a competing site Rover and they never did any evaluation or background check.

She signed up for an account, uploaded a photo of herself and our dog, and within a few days, she started getting petsitting requests.

</comment><comment><USER36> The most outrageous part to be always are the NDAs attached to settlements. Those should be illegal. It should not be for the two parties to decide to withhold information from the public. Usually it's the public who has an interest in this information becoming widely available and not the person agreeing to the NDA.

<comment><USER37> If it weren't for NDAs, most settlements would never happen. Lawyers and court fees are a bargain compared to extremely bad press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I realize this wasn't the point of the story, and I'm so sorry this happened to anyone's dog. But please do not buy dogs from breeders when there are plenty of amazing dogs waiting to be rescued at shelters.

<comment><USER14> While you're correct do note that not everyone can handle or wants to go through the pain of training a shelter dog.

A dog you've raised from 8 weeks old is very different than a dog someone else has already abused and abandoned. Even if they're only 6 months old the habits have been learned and they're hard to break.

Young puppies go instantly from shelters for that reason, and few people want to adopt a pit bull with behavior problems.

<comment><USER39> Yup. Both our dogs are shelter dogs and we love 'em, but in the newest dog's case--he's probably around three, we've had him for about six months--there are enough issues that a lot of people wouldn't want to deal with some people just couldn't, while still being very good caretakers of better-adjusted dogs.

In ours's case: he's not a barker and he's incredibly gentle, but he's both dumb as a post (not the shelter-dog problem, and also usually just hilarious) and _extremely_ timid (that one is) to the point of frustration. Speak excitedly? He'll slowly sink to the floor and look worried. Tape a cable to the floor with gaff tape? He won't go over it[0]--probably because he'd experienced an invisible fence, we think. Move a chair to the other side of the living room? He sits in the corner and quietly freaks out for two hours. Leave after such a traumatic furniture adjustment? You might come home and he's nervous-chewed something. (Like, to this point, five pairs of my shoes. I am literally bankrolling Nike by my re-purchases of Air Force 1's. It doesn't help that now he's figured out how to open the doors that don't latch in our house--we're doomed, I tell you. Doomed.)

He's a great dog. But we knew going into it that dealing with his issues would take some effort, and there definitely are people who could be enriched by having a dog (they're great!) but don't have the capacity to deal with even a relatively minor case like ours.

The downside to this sort of generosity of the benefit of the doubt, of course, is that then there are people who can't hack it and who _create_ more shelter dogs. I don't have a good solution for that, of course. But my intuition is more good is created than bad.

[0] - His pathfinding is just not good. He'll go the entire way around the house to avoid walking over a scary black tape line. He'll also squeeze under tables, chairs, benches, etc. to avoid innocuous spaces or hop over the couch to avoid going around it. And this dog is a mess of Labrador, Staffordshire, and German Shepherd, with legs like a greyhound--watching him accordion on down to squeeze under a foot-high bench is _hilarious_.

<comment><USER40> One of our dogs is a shelter dog and the other was given up on by it's original owner, but never made it to the shelter.

Both of them required training and care beyond what most people are prepared to give.

I love my dogs, but if I could have avoided the training to get them to where they are now I would have.

Yet if we adopt another dog it'll likely be from a shelter or rescue.

<comment><USER41> IME having other, well trained dogs around as part of your pack helps immensly when training a new addition so hopfully this gets easier with the next. Note this can work against you as well... I still remember the look of "oh shit, we can do that?" on (new rescue) Halo's face when Layla eagerly leaped the 5 foot fence twice in order to retreive a frisbee that had landed in the neighbors yard!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Seems to be something that, sadly, is to be expected from this generation of SV and SV-like companies that believe than any problem (usually a very First- World problem) can be solved with technology, and all the bad things, and negative externalities, can and should ber swept under the rug on the way to a billion dollar exit.

<comment><USER43> What you've described sounds like SV (but not just SV) "Techbro" culture to me...

<comment><USER42> Exactly that. Move fast, break things, and pretend it's a good thing.

Obviously not an SV-only thing, but the culture in SV glorifies it instead of making it something you should be ashamed of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> To be fair aren't most dog walkers paid extremely little? (Below minimum wage even)

Many of these services like uber are effective means to underpay people. It has upsides too, such as people having a job (beats having no job).

But I'm not surprised the walker didn't want to confront the client. Clients are very unlikely to be calm reasonable people in this situation.

<comment><USER45> What's your point? You seem to be defending the walker when all we know is that a dog was killed under the watch of this walker.

How is the walker's low wage relevant to this discussion? Just because they get a low wage doesn't give them a right to kill dogs?

<comment><USER44> I think I'm trying to suggest that people who walk dogs for a living might have a hard time -- and, thus, we should show them compassion.

We could also pay people a living wage -- but showing compassion and understanding is cheaper. (hints of sarcasm may occur)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Just looked up Wag's Terms and Conditions:

> _WAG!'S SERVICES MAY BE USED BY YOU TO REQUEST AND SCHEDULE PET CARE > SERVICES WITH PET CARE PROVIDERS, BUT YOU AGREE THAT WAG! HAS NO > RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY TO YOU RELATED TO ANY PET CARE SERVICES PROVIDED > TO YOU BY PET CARE PROVIDERS OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THESE > TERMS_

Obviously this does not excuse Wag's behavior here. They should obviously have given the owners information about the walker so they can find out what happened and bring suit against him/her if appropriate.

But it's not surprising Wag forces customers to disclaim liability here. I'd guess that we'd need to see several of these incidents in a short period before the backlash gets strong enough for Wag to modify the liability waiver. Hopefully they'll change how they handle cases like these just based on the justifiable outrage (assuming the author is fairly describing what happened) from this one case.

</comment><comment><USER47> How do the owners know the dog is dead and not stolen?

Wouldn't a successful dognapping look the exact same from their perspective?

<comment><USER48> I don't think cremation would be on topic if the dog was stolen or lost.

<comment><USER47> Wag offered to cover the cremation. The authors don't write that they got the dog's body back. You are just assuming that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> We had a nightmare story with Wag. My sister's dog was being walked by a new walker through Wag. The sitter brought our dog to a nearby fenced-in handball court and let him off leash, which he was not supposed to do. Her dog went to retrieve a ball that was stuck between the concrete padding and a chain link fence and in so doing severed several arteries in his paw.

The handball court looked, no joke, like a multiple murder scene. Dogs have 7 arteries iirc through their paws and so there was blood - everywhere.

I know this because I happened to have left work early and was eating dinner with my family nearby when my sister, away at work, gave me a frantic phone call that the walker called, freaking out, that her dog hurt himself and 911 refused to pick him up.

I ran to my car as far as I could, drove down to this park, wrapped up his paw, carried him into the car, and drove, breaking every light to the animal hospital. Along the way NYPD pulled me over and upon finding out what was going on, proceeded to escort us to the hospital, clearing the way (shout out to the 88th).

If I wasn't home, I'm not sure her dog would have lived. He needed several days in the hospital, blood transfusions and minor surgery. The walker could not have handled it poorer, he was hyperventiliating, completely freaking out, and couldn't get control of himself. I was nice to him, gave him water, calmed him down, but jeez he was a mess. No training, no proper incident response.

Don't use Wag.

</comment><comment><USER50> Having just got a puppy less than two weeks ago, this is terrifying. I can't imagine the feeling of helplessness and shock that they must have felt.

<comment><USER51> If you get ten more, at some point you realize that death happens, and all you can do is care the best you can for them... then get a new one.

Of course this doesn't change the fact that Wag requiring an NDA in order to take responsibility, is a total insult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Public response from wag [https://wagwalking.com/daily/an-open-letter-to-the- wag-commu...](https://wagwalking.com/daily/an-open-letter-to-the-wag- community?fbclid=IwAR0V5Dsk_PJR0Jeg_hMsbxe9POtpTxlhD03_S4zbxRe5Fx- IGr_YMRxsPFk)

In particular

>Separately, we've taken a close look at one of our standard processes when paying a claim. In the rare instance when there's an incident in which we need to work with the pet parents to make sure their needs are addressed, we've required them to sign an agreement — a common practice in the business world. It was so routine for us, in fact, that we didn't pause to see if it made sense for every situation...

How about admitting that trying to make you doing the right thing conditional on them agreeing to be legally gagged was a horrifically morally repugnant way to handle the situations. There is no situation where such an agreement is beneficial to society and as such should be wholly illegal in all possible cases.

</comment><comment><USER53> So, Wag is behaving appallingly here, but holy COW I would never trust this kind of effectively anonymous service with my pets. I'm fine hiring a rideshare, but for things that involve actual trust and stewardship of your precious personal items when you're not around, it's FAR FAR BETTER to find an actual human you can deal with consistently, and build a relationship with.

A somewhat lower-stakes (and older) version of this is hiring a cleaning/housekeeping service like Merry Maids instead of an actual human. Sure, maybe they're insured and bonded and have background checks and all that, but it still seems riskier to me than finding an actual human who does that work, and who comes recommended by a friend or colleague.

This is even more true of someone you'd trust your pets with.

</comment><comment><USER50> I hope they get a lawyer and keep us posted with updates.

<comment><USER54> The best they could hope for is compensation for lost/damaged property. It's messed up considering the human/dog bond, but AFAIK there isn't much they can do legally.

If this gets picked up in the news cycles tomorrow that'll be FAR more damaging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> im just wondering why get a dog if you don't have time for it. seems cruel in itself. a lot of people get dogs and can't walk them or have actual time for them, yet they say they are like family or kids.... i'm sure you do have time for them though :/

<comment><USER56> Why have babies if you are calling a babysitter ? Things happen, parents need to go to adult events etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Dogs are not people, people who have dogs have a responsibility... it annoys me, as it does with children when it comes to teachers and daycare, that abdication of this responsibility is largely monetary and comes with little consideration. You cannot tell me that an app is the only way out of these things. Try any number of normal human situations like paying a friend or neighbor you trust.

The dogs should be looked after, but you should also not be exploiting people who are worse off than yourself, for your own personal, convenient, cheap abdication of responsibility.

(If you can't pay a friend or neighbor, possibly you are asking too much for too little)

</comment><comment><USER58> There is obviously fault to be attributed to the walker by lying about what had happened but I think its worth thinking about how many animals are killed by cars on a regular basis. We probably all know someone whos pets were killed by cars and the local wildlife is regularly splattered across the roads. I think we need to seriously slow down the speed of our roads to avoid killing so many pets and endangered wildlife.

Its possible the walker was doing nothing terribly wrong and the dog was hit and then the walker panicked and made some wrong choices in communication.

<comment><USER59> My thought is that the text from the walker saying the dog was home safe wasn't the actual person who took the dog. In that case the vetted person subcontracted to someone else, and perhaps didn't know the dog had died at the time of the text.

<comment><USER60> This sounds likely to me. Maybe someone at Wag even suspects this happened but thinks it's better if Wag doesn't know about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Not the first time Wag has made the news for mishandling (and killing) pets[1][2].

[1]: [https://nypost.com/2018/05/14/embattled-dog-walking-app- lose...](https://nypost.com/2018/05/14/embattled-dog-walking-app-loses-yet- another-dog/)

[2]: [https://www.ajc.com/news/national/pet-dies-after-dog- walker-...](https://www.ajc.com/news/national/pet-dies-after-dog-walker- error/KbTHksxT6VuUdjXaFmySYJ/)

</comment><comment><USER62> Can't believe you naive people who put your trust in apps and these types of services. The responsibility is entirely yours. You have to understand what responsibility means.

</comment><comment><USER63> I think this is the problem with social media / networking... it used to be when I was a young kid that if someone wanted t heir dog walked ... you would find someone in your neighborhood that you knew.

Now we use online services and trust people blindly...

As far as the person who lost their dog; I am sorry. I know I did not cause the harm; but it's the only thing I can say.

As a pet owner I would be mortified. I also don't trust anyone with my pets (and they don't trust anyone). So it works out.

<comment><USER64> > Now we use online services and trust people blindly...

It's also so shockingly to create a fake profile and hire people off of reddit slavelabour to write you good reviews. And meanwhile the pet owners hiring randos off Wag to walk their dogs feel like they did their due diligence to vet these gig workers by scrolling through the reviews and selecting the highest rated person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I actively block any/all facebook domains for privacy reasons, is this mirrored elsewhere? The 'web' link here in HN is not showing anything useful.

<comment><USER66> [https://www.outline.com/AtNgH3](https://www.outline.com/AtNgH3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I was more surprised that service like Wag exists.

<comment><USER68> San Francisco was at one point inundated with their "Finally, an app for me to pee!" billboards and signs.

<comment><USER69> What was that, a bathroom rental service? Sounds like profiteering off basic bodily functions, in a way that was previously uncommon & often socially unacceptable.

<comment><USER70> It's Wag, a service that matches you with available dog walkers. The pee-ers in question were pets.

<comment><USER71> That said, there is actually an app for finding and paying to use a restroom: [https://www.good2go.global/index.html](https://www.good2go.global/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I can relate and no doubt fellow dog owners do as well. Random death of a family member can make a sane man mad. The author seems to handle it better than I would have.

For a company that seemingly specializes in this service, it should be, if not a dead blow, then a very painful lesson.

That said. Experian was never punished for what they did. Maybe if they killed a puppy, people would care.

</comment><comment><USER73> That's the problem with lawyers and administrators. Wag should have just ignored their lawyers and did the right thing. It's pretty easy to see what happened here, the executives/administrators/lawyers at Wag are cowards, and were too afraid to compensate these poor people without some sort of legal agreement covering their asses.

</comment><comment><USER74> Maybe if enough people cc the LA DA office they will investigate these complaints listed here and investigate. Just saying. It sounds like they're violating a lot of laws.

[https://twitter.com/p10q/status/1086188664563163136?s=21](https://twitter.com/p10q/status/1086188664563163136?s=21)

</comment><comment><USER75> I'll get in any car with any stranger with Uber, no questions asked.

I would never trust a stranger to walk my dog.

</comment><comment><USER52> Has wag or a rep actually responded to this?

[https://www.facebook.com/WagWalking/](https://www.facebook.com/WagWalking/)

</comment><comment><USER76> I feel really sorry that this happened but I am absolutely scared for the future because the next stop is babysitting apps that doesn't give a damn about users

</comment><comment><USER77> So incredibly sad, and disgusting behavior by Wag.

</comment><comment><USER78> Archived copy that works with JS disabled:

[https://archive.ph/nPkP9](https://archive.ph/nPkP9)

</comment><comment><USER79> I myself would only entrust my pet to someone I would equally entrust my child to and it wouldn't be from someone or service purchased on the internet or whatever means it was saught out without meeting the individual first and requesting a background check of said individual. I feel sorry for the owner of the pet but they also need to do their due diligence.

</comment><comment><USER80> Well, I never knew what Wag was before this, but I guess I won't be using them in the future.

</comment><comment><USER81> mirror / archive: [http://archive.fo/nPkP9](http://archive.fo/nPkP9)

</comment><comment><USER82> How rudely they responded.

</comment><comment> King-Aaron This makes my blood boil.

</comment><comment><USER83> Sounds like the dog was kidnapped to be sold for a profit.

</comment><comment><USER79> I agree losing a pet is like losing a family member and in certain circumstances much worse. I have had many losses in my life including family members best friends who have died in front of me as well as pets who have died from illness or old age. However never have I lost a pet through using a device that is supposed to make something easier for a pet owner to accomplish a set goal like walk a dog. I am not sure what this device is or why it was being used, if it was out of necessity or laziness. However regardless of either situation I agree and believe that a company that produced this product should show overwhelming support for the family that lost the dog and do whatever it is they can do to make it right. Since this company manufactures products for pets they need to take a stand showing how important animals are in there mission statement as well as their actions after this incident. Imagine how frustrated and pissed off people get when drug manufacturers raise prices on necessary drug just increase their profit margin. I believe this is both immoral and inhumane however people do have an option of where they will purchase their pet needs from and likely they will not choose a company that is not show a sense of compassion for the species they are creating products for. It would be a huge blunder on their image not take such a strong stance as stated in the comments above. Just like people not all pets mean the same thing 2 the same people. However when you do find a best friend in a four- legged creature there is nothing that differentiates them from other members of your family in my opinion. My dog was not only my best friend but he had helped me through many issues that my family had abandoned me on. Therefore when my dog passed away from cancer around the same time I had end-stage renal failure I felt a sense of relief that both myself as well as my best would likely die around the same time because for me there was no life without my dog. However unfortunately I did get better and my dog did not which I cannot hold anybody accountable for but I did suffer from severe depression and anxiety greater than any I have ever suffered from losing a fellow human being maybe that makes me a monster but that is honestly how I felt. To me a life is a life whether it is your dog your family a cat or any other animal. Not one species has more of a right to live then any other. I do understand that not everybody has the same experience or thinks the same way as I do in this situation or many others people often have conflicting morals or points of view which prove to be based on a specific person's experience , individuality and morality which another individual also commented below. What I do know for sure is that when given the choice of supporting a company or no longer supporting a company in effect boycotting them that should only be done when the company does not stand behind their product or the species they are manufacturing products for.

</comment><comment> black-tea So people are paying to get their dogs walked now? What is going on? We're supposed to be working less, not more.

</comment><comment><USER84> You should never be a dog owner. If you can't be there for them, you do not have them. I feel sorry for the dog, not you!

<comment><USER85> Yes. Also this

> Sara and I will welcoming a new puppy from the same breeder in February—Rory

Just go and get one from a shelter instead of encouraging animal breeding which is an unethical practice [0]

[0] [https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/pet- trad...](https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/pet- trade/breeders/)

<comment><USER86> By the same logic, no one should have biological children as long as there are children in need of adoption. I think that's actually a defensible position, but it's a pretty extreme one nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Trust is not bought or rightly earned through 5 stars.

Our technology is being used to perpetuate tragedies.

We have no ethics organisations, for encouraging ethical usage of Computer Science.

</comment><comment><USER88> Are we going to link FB posts on HackerNews now?</comment>


7 Really Good Unsubscribe Pages and Preference Centers - <AUTHOR> https://explore.reallygoodemails.com/7-really-good-unsubscribe-pages-preference-centers-dbf7e838aea5 <comment><USER2> Great to see some good examples rather than just getting pissed at people for unsubscribing and digitally saying "you are dead to me"</comment>


MongoDB 3.2 introduces new storage engines and left outer equi-joins - <AUTHOR> https://www.mongodb.com/mongodb-3.2 <comment><USER2> and it has compass a simple to use, sophisticated GUI</comment>


Ask HN: How can I promote my open-source project? - <AUTHOR> We just launched the beta about a month ago and we've been struggling to get any sort of traction - we want people to use it and give feedback.<p>https://github.com/service-bot/servicebot <comment><USER2> Your description needs work:

 _ServiceBot is a platform for a business to sell their services and automate the administrative tasks such as billing and invoicing._

This really gives me no idea what on earth you do. What problem do you solve? What value do you add?

You don't want to say something like "This tablet has an 8 inch screen." You want to say stuff like "This tablet fits handily in your pocket while having a larger than average screen size and is easily readable in full daylight." Your current description is the "8 inch screen" type description. It is not informative and it is not compelling.

You need to find a way to convey to people what you do for them. Time saved. Money earned. Problems solved. Convenience. Portability. Reduced headaches.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps provide an example (screenshots/video) of your project in action. Otherwise, people will not see how your project can impact them, and they don't understand how to use it, regardless of how much explanatory text that you give.

This is the very problem that I'm facing on my project ([http://bedefiant.io](http://bedefiant.io)). Because i don't have a working example yet, it is hard to communicate my vision of how you can use my project. Of course, my project is still under development (I'm working on developing the minimally demonstrable features now), but the situation is the same for both: If you want people to use your software, then you have to show them _why_ they need it and _how_ you can solve their problems.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I read the whole README.md and I still have no idea how the thing works. Is it bundling up complex implementation details like video and email and ssl (and the other stuff you mentioned) into composable functions that "defiant" applications are made out of?

I'm interested in contributing because if so, that's super cool and I want in!

<comment><USER3> Exactly... It's a very abstract concept, which is why I am working hard to get it to the point of having something concrete to demonstrate the capabilities. I'm working on it (actually, I'm working on a bit of documentation at the moment, because I don't have any of that committed yet!).

The intent is indeed to bundle the complex implementation details and configurations into something that us mere mortals can easily deploy, but that also allows for more complex configurations. My professional experience has lead me to be constantly thinking about dev/stage/prod rollout needs, while my personal experience drives a desire for out-of-the-box simplicity and functionality.

If you want to talk more, just hop on the slack channel (linked to on the github page), and I would be glad to explain and/or demo further.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> git-pull 1\. Consider a permissive software license: Not a big sticking point, but they are seen by some as more commercial-friendly. Also in the node-ecosystem they're more accustom to it.

2\. Link to the documentation ([https://docs.servicebot.io/](https://docs.servicebot.io/)) instead of the company page

3\. Any travis-ci up yet?

4\. Give reddit a try (for the open source project), /r/node, and /r/javascript

5\. Consider "spin-off" libraries of reusable components. Make them available via NPM. Give them documentation as well. Creating a popular dependency library attracts more interested users.

6\. Did you apply for Y Combinator yet?

7\. Try to contact AdWords to see if you can get free credits to advertise the corporate website. Bing has some too. It may not give much but even one or two clients would be a sign of momentum.

8\. Consider contacting startups and offering your service free / discount in return for feedback and a testimonial

9\. On the website, try an intercom.io widget. It makes it easy for people to open up a chat window to reach you.

</comment><comment><USER5> IMO what a lot of open source projects are missing is marketers. Developers build things, marketers market them. Its hard for one person to do the other because they aren't educated in it or have the necessary skills.

Honestly the best answer is to find someone to help market it. Since you're asking "How do I do marketing?" the answer probably won't be in an HN comment.. its in a 4 year degree or years of experience.

But apart from that, define your target market and reach them where they congregate. If you want to reach freelance developers, go to whatever website they congregate at and talk to them there.

This reddit thread [1] has lots of reading and some decent ideas. Maybe try writing a marketing plan.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/4p0mke/10_highly_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/4p0mke/10_highly_practical_startup_marketing_tips_that/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The open sourceness of it seems irrelevant to your target audience: businesses. So the question isn't how to promote open-source project, it's how do you promote the business benefits to the right people. Where do your customers hang out?

<comment><USER7> His target audience might be both in business and development with indie hackers/developers/entrepreneurs, why not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can't edit my previous comment. I was looking at the github page on my phone, and neither the URL nor the huge picture that says "Demo" was visible. I still think that a video explanation would be more effective in driving the understanding, but I can also now see (now that I'm on a computer, that is) that you have done work to show off your product.

</comment><comment><USER7> Your project looks good and I'm in need of something similar. I'm going to give a look at it and see if it have a fit. Nice job :) (and now you are promoting your project).

</comment><comment><USER8> What channels have you tried already? Reddit or other mediums can be helpful to get people looking at it.</comment>


Where can I find a decent primer for programming Artificial Intelligence? - <AUTHOR> I have about 5 years of coding experience, some of which includes python.
I want to get more involved in the AI space, and eventually make a career move towards that area.
What are some good books/videos/resources a coder with some experience can use to learn AI? <comment><USER2> [https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine- learning](https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning)

Not a book but excellent primer course

<comment><USER3> Everybody point towards this course. I started this few times but was never able to complete it due to commitment at work. Is there a guide/tutorial which gives a more gentle introduction to these topics and could be finished in a day or two?</comment></comment>


Top 25 Free iPhone Web Apps for Your Daily Life - <AUTHOR> http://iphonetoolbox.com/news/top-25-free-iphone-web-apps-for-your-daily-life/

<comment><USER2> Really great iPhone resources site. I am acutally the iPhone 3G user and found it very useful.</comment>


Ask HN: What Laptop Should I Buy? - <AUTHOR>

I need to buy a laptop and cannot figure out what to buy. My requirements:<p>- Windows - Supports dual monitors - lightweight and doesn't have to have a big screen - powerful, fast and reliable <comment><USER2> I just did a bunch of shopping two weeks ago, and ended up with a Dell Latitude E6500. Maybe a bit bigger than you want (15.4" widescreen), but very light for its size (5.x lbs depending on configuration). I got it for under $1300, very well equipped: 2.4GHz Core Duo, 4GB, 250GB 7200 RPM, LED-backed upgraded resolution display, 9 cell battery, Intel WiFi, nVidia Quadros 160 video, built-in webcam, Bluetooth, 1394, backlit keyboard, etc. The identical specs, with half the RAM and fewer ports, in a MacBook Pro 15 was $638 more (but it had a $150 rebate from Club Mac to bring it to a theoretical $488 more, assuming the rebate actually arrives...I've had very bad luck with rebates, and pretty much always get screwed, so I simply don't count them in my buying decision any more). It also came with a 3 year warranty at no extra cost.

I also got a Dell Mini 9 to go along with it for $50 more, as part of some promotion they were, and maybe still are, running. So, I have a tiny lappy for when I'm traveling light, and a big lappy for when I'm doing real work. I think it's an acceptable compromise for me. My prior lappy was a 12.1" widescreen model, and a little lighter.

I'm very happy with it, so far. Fedora 10 installed in a dual boot config without a hitch, and after installing the nVidia drivers suspend/resume began working. With the Open Source nv driver it failed to resume, though I read that's fixed in the next kernel release. Anyway, I opted to upgrade the WiFi to Intel to have Open Source drivers, so it worked out of the box, but the Broadcom WiFi it comes with by default is supposed to work with drivers from Dell; but they're closed source, and will always be something you have to add, which I didn't consider worth saving 30 bucks over. Even the built-in web cam worked in Linux right off. Since you're wanting Windows, you don't care about that, but Linux compatibility was vitally important to me, and this was the nicest new laptop experience I've ever had.

The chassis is really nice and simple. Some sort of alloy, so it feels quite sturdy. Massive metal hinges. Tremendous battery life with the 9 cell battery I upgraded to. Something like 8 or 9 hours when not working it too hard, though I haven't timed it out precisely. But, it's good enough that I don't even think about whether I have the charger with me when I take it places.

It feels as solid as the higher end ThinkPads I've used, and even has a nipple mouse. I haven't put enough time on it to know if it'll hold up like a ThinkPad, but I have an old Dell Inspiron that's over three years old and has held up well, including weathering a couple of pretty big drops. So, I feel pretty good about its reliability.

Comparing to the MacBook Pro, it is roughly the same weight (depending on configuration), roughly the same size (1" high vs. 0.95" in the Mac), and slightly less powerful on the video front (the nVidia Quadros 160 is roughly a 9300, though with lower power, and a few enhancements). Appearance-wise the Mac looks prettier, but only by a little. The black alloy with small silver Dell logo is very swish, and looks better in person than on the web.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know what you mean by "fast" or "powerful" but...

I own and use an inspiron 640m. It's about 340 dollars with shipping on eBay right now. It's a core duo, runs 3D apps pretty well, runs pretty fast once you put 2 gigs of ram in it.

Some of you might be thinking how slow it must be... but for text editing and compiling? Computers aren't getting much faster nowadays, just more cores. The primary slow down on most computers is the hard drive and RAM. In that regard, it runs more than adequately. I can do normal computing stuff: Code::Blocks/OpenOffice, play some low-end games, watch movies (it supports 720p). Boot time is very good on Ubuntu 9.04 - about 40 seconds. It's also very light at only 6 pounds. Battery life is good too, on full bright I can get about 5 hours still.

At this price, you could get 5 or 6 of these instead of one high-end computer. Hard to go wrong with that. I would even recommend getting this if you like the idea of a net-book but don't like the small screen. I love this computer :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Get the new macbook. 2.4ghz. Put Windows on it. Its a great machine.

<comment><USER5> I can honestly say I don't understand that. Why pay the mac tax, then do away with 50% of the reason for that tax? I love my MacBook and OS X, which made it worth paying more. I can't imagine paying more for a windows machine.</comment></comment>


The Louis CK Experiment was Great, but this approach is not sustainable - <AUTHOR> http://startupdispatch.com/opinion/what-you-can-learn-from-the-louis-c-k-experiment/

<comment><USER2> "Imagine what would happen if Jimmy Carr, Dave Chappelle, Zach Galifinakis, Will Ferrell, and every other comedian in town started dropping specials every two weeks. Would you still be as willing to rush out and whip out your credit card for the sake of an 'experiment'? Or would the medium's novelty soon wear off and every new release will be greeted with the same response as a new release in the real, physical world?"

Well, I'd certainly be more willing to pull out my credit card for a $5 charge than I am for a $20 charge, which means it'd still be more successful with me than it is on the shelves at Walmart. And since I've never purchased a comedy DVD from anyone but threw down $5 without hesitation for Louis CK's special, it's infinitely more successful than the physical model in my case already.

How often would I do that? No idea. Depends how many comedians I really wanted to support, how often they put stuff out, and how my finances were looking at the time. But all three of those factors equally impact their chances at my money in "the real, physical world" (which is an utterly stupid phrase in this context, btw - he made $250,000 very real dollars in 4 days), and I'm still more likely to spend $5 than $20.

The only variable here is exposure. Can Louis (or other people who want to try the same) reach enough people using non-corporate-media methods to make up the difference between a $5 sale and a $20 sale, or can't they? Obviously a brand new talent isn't going to have the success with it that Louis CK does, but a brand new talent, with the rarest exception, isn't getting shelf space at Walmart either.

This strikes me as a lot of doom and gloom over nothing. He paid for production costs with ticket sales for the live show. He made back his money on putting the thing online more or less instantly. Will it work for everyone? Of course not, nothing works for everyone. But I bet it'll work for him again the next time he does it.

<comment><USER3> Nice reply. Here is some additional food for thought: _make up the difference between a $5 sale and a $20 sale_ This implies that Louis CK makes all $20 form that DVD sale. He stated in an NPR interview that he normally sees zero dollars from a TV special.

The author seems to assume that content owners _aren't_ out to screw the talent and pay fair royalties, etc. This isn't the case. What we can learn here is that the Internet levels the playing field a bit. Contrary to what the author would have you think, all kinds of bands are making more money selling music directly to their audience than they ever could being jerked around by a record label. Yes, they aren't making as much money as a well established act, but _they weren't going to anyway._

<comment><USER2> True. I'm also a little confused by the "every two weeks" part of his initial question that I quoted.

Would I buy a $5 special every two weeks? No, but I wasn't going to buy a $20 special every 8 weeks, either, and Louis made $250,000 PROFIT in FOUR DAYS. He doesn't need to do this every two weeks or every month or even every six months (nor could he; he edits it all himself). Would I pay $5 every year for a new special from Louis CK? I certainly would.

Now, I guess the more logical way to interpret what the author wrote is "what if, between all the comedians, these things were dropping every 2 weeks?", but that's no different than what you have now, except it's physical media, a higher price, and a slightly more spread out timeline. In both cases, people will buy the stuff from the people they really like and want to support, and prioritize their spending along those lines.

Though actually I would argue that if 4 comedians get $5 out of me, that's better for all 4 of them (assuming I'm part of a larger audience) than if one of them got some cut of $20.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> First off - _most_ people in any entertainment industry - music , books , comedy etc. are not making megabucks. Most of them earn somewhere between an ok wage and a pretty rubbish one.

However there are plenty of people experimenting like Louie C K is up and down the spectrum. I buy lots of stuff from people who are doing their own thing. To pick some random smaller examples - <http://www.dgmlive.com> \- King Crimson and Robert Fripp, Matt Stevens <http://www.mattstevensguitar.com> and Richard Skelton <http://www.sustain-release.co.uk/>

Do they make megabucks? of course not but they are making a living.

The question actually is - are they getting more return for their work than if they used more traditional channels and I think all would argue that they are.

Not only is this approach sustainable - it's going to become essential for all but the most mainstream. Louie CK and Radio head possibly suggest that even the more mainstream will do better doing it on their own terms.

</comment><comment><USER5> It doesn't have to provide the same money for non-famous comedians - it just has to provide at least as much as they would have got selling their show in other ways.

As they would have sold less if they'd gone the DVD route, they'll sell less in this route too. The only question is whether they come out of it as well.</comment>


Design for a universal plug - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.4brad.com/design-universal-plug

<comment><USER2> I don't think one universal connector is a good idea. Even if it happened, you would have some power sources that were say "5v DC only", and some that would only provide AC for lighting and such. Having a connector fit, but not work because the voltage isn't provided doesn't make a lot of sense.</comment>


The NSA Just Released 136 Historical Propaganda Posters (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43548d/nsa-historical-propaganda-posters-foia <comment><USER2> (2018)

Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17222827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17222827)

</comment><comment><USER3> The "Saturday Night Fever"-era John Travolta one is quite good. So is the one where there are combination lock dials over peoples' mouths. Like adult pacifiers.</comment>


N.Y. Attorney General Tells Daily Fantasy Sports Companies to Cease Operations - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/n-y-attorney-general-tells-daily-fantasy-sports-companies-to-cease-operations-in-the-state-1447197512?alg=y <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10543315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10543315)</comment>


CloudFlare Raises $20 Million to Bring Performance and Security to Every Website - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/cloudflare-raises-20-million-to-bring-performance-and-security-to-every-website-1536886.htm

<comment><USER2> I haven't implemented it on any high-profile sites, but the few blogs I've turned it on for have seen anywhere between a 95-100% drop in their commentspam count, and the sites _seem_ faster, but we haven't measured, and the traffic generally hasn't been high enough to serve as a real test.

Still, it's worth signing up for a free account if you have any sort of self- hosted site or blog.

<comment><USER3> LulzSec had their website behind Cloudflare's reverse proxy protective system ...

<comment><USER4> To the benefit of all, I assure you.. <http://blog.cloudflare.com/58611873>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My experience so far is that it has made things faster. However, according to BrowserMob monitoring there have been several times during 1 day where my site is completely unavail.

So YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use CloudFlare and it has improved my site performance tremendously and their DNS manager is awesome too.

</comment><comment><USER7> What does cloudflare DO?</comment>


Brain-computer interface to control virtual reality system - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/neurable/announcing-the-worlds-first-brain-computer-interface-for-virtual-reality-a3110db62607 <comment><USER2> I wonder what the entropy (bits per second) is.</comment>


Revolt of the six-figure Wall Street coders - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2010/07/30/high_speed_frequency_tradiing_programmers/index.html <comment><USER2> The article refers to the original from Forbes, which was submitted here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1560072></comment>


How We Got from Twinkies to Tofu - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/books/review/hippie-food-jonathan-kauffman.html <comment><USER2> One thing that Pollan (the reviewer) doesn't discuss here is the degree to which food culture and food habits intersect with regional and class identity formation and tribalism.

Food habits and trends seem to work both for and against those tendencies. On the one hand, foods once associated with hippies like tofu or almond milk can be bought anywhere there is a major grocery store. Even the taste for spicy/piquant food has become quite normalized and not anymore uniquely characteristic of particular ethnic communities.

On the other hand, the kind of places you actually buy your food are highly tribalized, with some socioeconomic classes preferring local and uniquely branded food and groceries, while others prefer chain type fast food and more "common" grocery stores.

It's fascinating that food has both the power to bring people together and also to polarize and separate them.

</comment><comment><USER3> The book's author was interviewed on the Bite podcast: [https://www.motherjones.com/food/2018/01/thank-hippies- for-t...](https://www.motherjones.com/food/2018/01/thank-hippies-for- these-6-food-trends).

</comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps this has been discussed in the past, but it would it be reasonable to mark reviews/promotions as such? It's certainly clear once landing on the page, but I still went in expecting a discussion of the title, rather than a nudge to read a new book.

<comment><USER5> It's a book review: the article is a discussion of a new book. That's not the same as an ad. No one paid the NYTimes to publish this and it could have just as easily been a negative review.

<comment><USER6> > No one paid the NYTimes to publish this and it could have just as easily > been a negative review.

NYTimes is primarily ad supported, of course they were paid to publish it.

<comment><USER7> > NYTimes is primarily ad supported, of course they were paid to publish it.

This is not true.

"The company said on Thursday that it added 157,000 net digital-only subscriptions in the fourth quarter of the year, pushing overall subscription revenue to more than $1 billion for the year. Subscription revenue now accounts for 60 percent of the company's total revenue."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york- times-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times- company-earnings.html)

<comment><USER6> I mean maybe not for last quarter specifically, but look at the last fifty years overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My personal account:

[http://www.sampenrose.net/sprouts/](http://www.sampenrose.net/sprouts/)

which I deliberately paralleled with Free Software:

[http://www.sampenrose.net/tools/](http://www.sampenrose.net/tools/)

<comment><USER9> _Why does a busy software engineer cook dinner for his children on a weekday instead of purchasing affordable ready-to-eat meals the way most sensible parents do?_

In my case, it's because it really doesn't take that long to put together a simple meal, and living in a rural area far from good grocery stores & restaurants, I don't have many good eating-out choices anyway.

Maybe it's also because I learned to cook at an early age and I'm trying to encourage my sons' interest in cooking by showing them it's not this complicated, time-consuming task it's often made out to be.

I like good food. I raise chickens, the beef I eat is raised by a relative of a friend, I have a garden in summer, but I'm not a foodie. I like basic, peasant food.

But I think that above all, it's because I really just want a simple, relaxed life. Cooking the meals myself is both a means to that end and a way to keep my family happy and fed.

<comment><USER8> That all makes sense. One of the themes of my piece is how things look when you stand outside of your own perspective and ask how _people like you_ came to behave in the ways _characteristic of their culture_.</comment></comment></comment>