Understanding and explaining accuracy in machine learning systems - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.wootric.com/understanding-accuracy-in-ml-systems <comment><USER3> What are other metrics that can help validate the F1 score? I'm asking because I believe having a small sample size can skew the number or hide a flaw in the classification algorithm it's scoring.

In other words, what else should I ask to validate that a 70% F1-score is better than a 90% F1-score but on a smaller data set?

<comment><USER4> That is a good point. It helps to think of Precision and Recall (so by extension F1-Score) from your test data as random variables sampled from a distribution modeling the probability of getting each value in your sample based on a "True" precision/recall value. I won't go too deep into the math, but this was part of the approach in the confidence calculations towards the end of the paper: being able to factor in the uncertainty of your classification metrics to confidence calculations.

To formally answer your question, the main things that matter in determining how stable your F1-Score from your test set is are: \- Size of the test set \- % of test set that has the label (in our case feedback tag) \- the values found for precision and recall

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you have a large dataset and you train your data accuracy till 100%, what about the noisy data? Will this classification system will reduce the noisy values in the system? Machines during training or runtime prediction do have some amount of noises. Can we reduce those through this classification?

<comment><USER4> That depends on what you mean by noise. In the case of text classification, a lot of the noise in training is disagreement between human labelings. Unfortunately, classification systems will only be as good as the labels they are trained on.

However, if you are referring to noise as in typos and misspellings - <USER2> yes, depending on the training and/or preprocessing steps, classification systems could potentially reduce the noise in the input data to still achieve good results.

<comment><USER5> By noise I mean to say that overfitting your data which means it starts to take your wrong input data and plot the graph involving those input data as well. Anyway, I got your point. Thankyou</comment></comment></comment>


Karl Marx's Long Shadow in Eastern Europe - <AUTHOR> http://american.com/archive/2011/october/karl-marxs-long-shadow-in-eastern-europe

<comment><USER2> The numbers are interesting, but I'm not as sure about the conclusion that this is specifically about Marx. If it were, why were views so different in the 1990s? In any case, it'd be interesting to see numbers from places that are neither the U.S. nor former Soviet-bloc countries, like South America or Japan (or, heck, Canada or Spain), to get more data points for the legacy-of- communism hypothesis.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree.

I think it would also be interesting to take a bunch of these statements -- from all over the spectrum -- and ask, say, a thousand successful entrepreneurs whether they agreed or not. Sort of create an "attitude metric".

I'm not sure how useful it would be. If I understand correctly, the current consensus may be that you can be too smart for startups, ie, you think too much. But still, it would be an interesting exercise. I'd be curious as to what the answers were.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a borderline submission. I don't want to troll with political articles but I found the following quote worthy of interest over here:

 _... According to a 2009 survey of more than 26,000 people in 36 countries conducted by the Gallup Organization, only 31 percent of Americans agree with the statement that "entrepreneurs exploit other people's work." By contrast, 70 percent of Bulgarians, 72 percent of Estonians, 54 percent of Latvians, 79 percent of Lithuanians, 70 percent of Poles, 63 percent of Romanians, 73 percent of Slovenians, 73 percent of Slovakians, and 69 percent of Croats agree...._

Many times when we talk about the Silicon Valley we talk about how the culture is so important because it fosters entrepreneurship. It's interesting to see some stats related to entrepreneurial culture in other places.

<comment><USER3> Actually, you know, in a lot of these places "enterpreneurs" do, in fact, exploit other people's work. After the fall of communism, formerly state owned enterprises, most of them nowhere near as worthless as they were made out to be, were sold for barely nothing to system cronies who then made obscene amounts of money when it turned out quite a few of these enterprises were, in fact quite profitable indeed. To which profitability the new owners contributed very little, if anything at all.</comment></comment>


What Facebook Is Doing to Your Brain? - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=714351161919710

<comment><USER2> Ironically posted on facebook?

Also, knowing that something is addictive and negativ does not stop one from continuing to abuse it.

Social rehabilitation centers, the next big thing?</comment>


Why Apple won't dump Intel x86 for its own ARM chips in MacBooks and the Mac Pro - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/187513-why-apple-wont-dump-intel-x86-for-its-own-arm-chips-in-macbooks-and-the-mac-pro

<comment><USER2> It is amazing how defensive (perhaps necessarily) the Intel crowd are, especially around the problems caused by the ISA. If the ISA really is insignificant to power consumption then why exactly have x86 devices struggled against ARM, especially on the same manufacturing process? They've been saying, literally, for years that they're going to sort it with the next batch but it just isn't happening. As the rest of the industry has narrowed the process gap the squeeze has got worse, forcing them into premature advances in order to stay competitive.

It's tempting to start drawing comparisons between Intel of today and IBM or Motorola of 2005. It's bizarre how much of the tech media seem to think PowerPC to Intel somehow lacked any of the problems an Intel to ARM transition might have, when Apple's frankly amazing execution of it made it look remarkably simple. The reality is a lot of the so called problems, especially around software, not only have theoretical solutions, but solutions the same company has used for almost exactly the same purpose in the not too distant past.

<comment><USER3> All the "research" is also misleading. Atom can barely keep up with ARM in CPU and GPU performance as well as power consumption, but with one and a half process nodes advantage (22nm Trigate vs planar 28nm). Plus, Atom is being heavily subsidized. It's even worse from a price/performance point of view with the bigger chips. Core i5 is 3x more powerful (I think more like 2x if we're comparing the one in Macbook Air), but costs 10x as much.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can someone point to a good Swift repository for example? - <AUTHOR> Looking for a good example Swift based project repository to learn from.  Can anyone make a suggestion as to what to take a look at?  Happy to hear about any good resources too, book, tutorials etc.<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> Apple has a few Swift repo's on their company Github account: [https://github.com/apple](https://github.com/apple)

Since the Objective-C code of the AFNetworking library was very well written, I expect the Swift version to be of similar quality: [https://github.com/Alamofire/Alamofire](https://github.com/Alamofire/Alamofire)

Apple also published a Swift book: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/book- series/swift-programming-se...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/book-series/swift- programming-series/id888896989?mt=11)

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the link. Hadn't seen it before

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Josh Smith has several very good ones on GitHub [1], including one related to the development of a Swift based tic-tac-toe game as an end to end process, which he blogged about [2], which is the first article in the series.

[1]: [https://github.com/ijoshsmith](https://github.com/ijoshsmith)

[2]: [http://ijoshsmith.com/2015/11/27/developing-tic-tac-toe- in-s...](http://ijoshsmith.com/2015/11/27/developing-tic-tac-toe-in-swift/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome thanks. I will take a look

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Plenty of examples and resources in the Awesome Swift repository:

[https://github.com/matteocrippa/awesome- swift](https://github.com/matteocrippa/awesome-swift)</comment>


Ask HN: What has been your biggest learning from this Covid-19 situation? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The biggest lesson I learned is how dependent extroverted or party people are seemingly on outside action going on, events they can go to, friends with whom they can go anywhere, birthday parties they can celebrate and more. I would have thought, that people can get a hold of themselves and be reasonable, but no. I've heard of at least 2 people doing birthday parties, one of which was actually not legally allowed and the other allowed but unwise, because it was not family (contact limitations in Germany). People act as if they cannot possibly move that party to another date. Unimmaginable, that for once you would not celebrate a birthday.

Basically, in such a situation do not trust such people to act according to what's best for society, but in self-interest or unknowingly unwise or even egocentric. They seemingly cannot help themselves and their needs or instincts or lack of disciplin.

The other thing I learned maybe is, gow even in my own family after a few days, new agreed upon rules for hygiene water down and people go on like usual, increasing risk of transmission, if anyone in the household is infected.

With these things people quickly lose sight of the bigger picture, when thinking (or not thinking) about their own actions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've noticed that too. Needing to stay busy or be distracted. It's probably low self-awareness and discipline. Something they have an opportunity to cultivate during lockdowns, hopefully.

I think people are not used to thinking about how their actions affect others on a bigger scale unless the effects are right in-front of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> To not trust my company.

I'm part of the team-leaders group, but sometimes the organizer keeps randomly removing or adding me to his meetings, based on the importance of the news to be shared.

It was really amplified during Covid-19 and WFH. Before that, working in a full-office setup, split in different buildings, you wouldn't have noticed this kind of stupid behaviour..or best said, you were aware of it, but in a smaller form.

<comment><AUTHOR> Important lesson.

Now that there's less distractions it's way easier to spot political BS... so much more obvious. What's on your mind now? Are you leaving?

<comment><USER3> Planning to. I hate political BS, even if I'm aware of its importance to "go up the ladder".

But if I'm part of the lead group, but being kept apart, only called when I'm needed..well, it's not a good feeling and my trust is almost gone

<comment><USER4> Do you see a pattern in which meetings he/she is excluding you from?

<comment><USER3> When some big customer or important event is upcoming, then I'm excluded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For me it's been seeing the clear skies.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds peaceful.</comment></comment>


Why are you using Google Plus for Blogging? - <AUTHOR> http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/12/2/why-are-you-using-google-plus-for-blogging.html <comment><USER2> You could make the same argument about Tumblr or Posterous, really. Fact of the matter is, there are huge benefits to meshing community and long-form commenting. Commenting systems like Disqus just aren't all the way there in terms of fluidity. If you don't have a platform of a certain size, your comment threads can look awful bare with the wrong kind of audience. G+ encourages commenting — and really intelligent commenting, too. In fact, it works almost like a hivemind at times, allowing users to build relationships in new ways.

Look at the issue less as one of ownership and more as one of friction. The reason why platforms like G+ are desirable is because they take away a lot of the friction that a thousand non-centralized platforms create. If someone figured out how to efficiently remove the friction from decentralized blogs, I'd eat my hat because that's how impressed I'd be.

I look at G+ as a supplement to blogging rather than a main outlet, however. I actually think it's better for longer thoughts, while I prefer shorter comments on my Tumblr site.

<comment><USER3> If trackbacks actually worked, they might help solve this in a distributed way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think not enough emphasis is being given to audience management. If I write a blog entry, it's public for all the world to see, and, more importantly, it's public for all the world to comment on. With Google+, I can limit who can see and comment on my posts.

With traditional blogs, you don't get that sort of fine control. Either you have a post visible to everyone, or it's private and only visible to you. Either you have comments open, or comments closed. Yes, you can moderate comments, but that gets to be troublesome for anything more than a trivial number of commentators.

Google+ takes away all those problems. Your posts are visible to only those whom you're addressing in that post. In essence, Google Plus allows you to multiplex a single blog among multiple audiences by making posts only visible to certain circles.

<comment><USER5> The same can be said about Facebook, so what makes Google+ unique in that regard?

<comment><USER6> Discoverability.

It's a lot easier to find other people on Google+ based on interest. When I started using it, very few of the people I knew already were on there. I was able to search for other people interested in videogames, anime, programming, etc, and rather quickly I was part of a fairly large group of people reading and commenting on each others posts.

Discovery in Facebook is centered around groups and pages, which have a higher UX cost compared with posting a status update. On Google+, you can be found by anyone right away. And people use the sites differently because of this.

People make public posts on the assumption that what they write will be found by people they don't know yet who are interested in what they write. Facebook status updates on the other hand are usually always intended for people that the poster already knows, whether posted publicly or privately.

In the time I've been using Facebook, I can't recall once being friended (or now subscribed to) based on interests (as opposed to some existing connection). On Google+ however, I receive a new asymmetrical follow almost daily - and I'm someone with a rather low posting frequency.

This is what makes Facebook and G+ different.

<comment><USER7> This comment thread is the first thing I've ever seen that actually made me want to use a social networking site. I might sign up for a G+ account based on this.

<comment><USER8> Based on Leynos's well-written post, I initially thought the exact same thing.

Then, I realised that Google runs Youtube, remembered all the recent changes in particular, my face turned green and I puked up a little inside...

If they can mess up such good service when it was handed to them on a plate, I have zero confidence in them in any new endeavours online, especially when the cost is my privacy for perpetuity.

So, thanks but I'll continue to stay well away from social networking sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use Google+ fairly extensively for mid-sized "blogs" of a few paragraphs at a time (usually anywhere from 2-4). I do maintain an actual blog, but lately I've started to copy paste any blog entry I make into Google+.

There are many advantages to using Google+: \- Most notably, the audience is just much bigger, and the engagement is much greater because there is nearly zero friction to posting. I've been blogging for few years and G+ing (is that even a word) only since it came out, but I have ~40 subscribers to my RSS and ~1400 followers on G+. Audience is a big deal. People don't really use RSS. I get much more interaction on G+ than on my blog, and I like it.

\- you and your (presumably good) content are much more discoverable, which allows you to grow your network and find more interesting people. It can also act as a nice easily discoverable portfolio. How often will a random person stumble by your blog? vs. How often will someone land on your G+ page? This will only become more and more likely as Google integrates G+ with Every thing.

\- maintaining a blog has some weird connotations that I can't quite put a finger on. People sometimes ask me if I have a blog, and I always feel a little awkward inside saying yes. These connotations are somehow absent when I tell people I'm on G+. Maybe it's just the term and the way I hear it used, I really don't know.

I don't understand your concerns about who _really_ stores the data, or the like. Thank god I don't have to go through all that trouble just to be in charge of some text boxes on the internet. And so what if Google can use my posts to learn more about me and give me more targetted ads? I just see that as a win on my side once again-- I don't want to see mortgage ads on my banners or something.

<comment><USER10> "And so what if Google can use my posts to learn more about me and give me more targetted ads? I just see that as a win on my side once again"

Wow, so mind numbingly scary.

<comment><USER9> I think I just don't share the same fears as you do, or I misunderstand your comment. If Google gave me a 5-page questionnaire with drop down menus and fields to fill about me, and what I like, I'd want to fill it in. In my experience systems that know more about me can always produce a better and more targeted experience. It's a no brainer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there any difference between Wordpress hosting your blog vs. Google+?

If anything, Google+ gives me some additional flexibility like audience control. For example, I could write general long form content on Google+ for mass consumption and also use it as platform for sharing content with a specific set of people (in one or more circles). Why go to (and expect) other people to follow you to each different social site for content (images, status updates, etc.) when I can compose all of them from a single place and have fine-grained control over who sees each piece of content?

Just because I can set up a personal blog site (whether hosted myself or by others) doesn't mean I want to spend the time doing so. If creating content and making it available are my top priorities, Google+ appears to be a good, centralized place to publish.

EDIT: Removed a dangling "Having".

<comment><AUTHOR> I answered your Wordpress/Google+ question in part 2 of this article: [http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/12/3/part-2-why-are- you...](http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/12/3/part-2-why-are-you-using- google-plus-for-blogging.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find myself using more and more for smaller (than usual) blog posts. If I felt like doing something expansive, I'd write it on my blog and add a link to it in G+. Primarily, it's because there is an audience there. The ease of building up networks of circles makes it X times efficient to gain followers of your content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough point, but I don't necessarily agree with that view. Why wouldn't you want to focus on building an audience on a site you control? You can link out to Twitter or Google+.

Like I said, the short pithy comments have their place too, but for me this strategy is what I prefer. Also, I haven't seen solid evidence that people are building larger audiences on Google+, unless you're someone like Robert Scoble. You have to have an established name in your industry, or at least that's the trend that I've seen thus far.

<comment><USER13> I have a blog. I even wrote my own blogging engine. But it's not part of anybody's habits to go to it. Most people don't understand RSS.

I could post to my blog and then throw links on G+ (earlier buzz), but the extra friction of clicking on a link caused comments (and therefore, I think, reads) to go down. So I need to put some thought into putting some content next to the link. But at that point the effort suddenly seems prohibitive for a short post. Far simpler just to throw it directly on G+.

I've tried twitter, but I don't have many followers and there's just too much attrition due to people just missing my tweets. Friendfeed/buzz/G+ have fewer longer posts, and so there's less churn on people's streams and less attrition. Posting something on them is less meaningless than on Twitter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I tend to disagree with the post.

Yes you can use Disqus for commenting, but it happened more than once to me when I commented and totally forgot about it because I dont have that nice notification coming from the google or facebook bar. Sure you can have email notifications, but thats just not a nice way do handle it.

In a way, blogging a lot of times is not much more than just a comment/post itself and seeing what happens on google plus, discussion is vital. I don't think the system of blog-linking etc is really scalable.

In a way, Google Plus (and to a certain extend Facebook, Posterous, and Tumblr) present a more coherent solution with content hosting, commenting platform, notification system, following etc. in one place. And we know how people love convenience and a good user and consistent experience.

</comment><comment><USER15> What i want when blogging?

\- Free Hosting (free as in really for free, not cents and not having to setup some Jekyll or whatever)

\- Posts

\- Comments

\- Gallery

\- "About me"

I get all this plus the benefit of a locatioan-aware posts on my mobile, social network, groups, messaging, single sign on with my mail, calendar, docs, youtube, etc.

Also, in my experience my Google+ stream has a pretty high quality of posts.

Oh, and as i said, the Google Buzz-like location thing is nice, too.

And i get Twitter like public posts/streams. Following particular persons is nice. Befriending some page on Facebook is 90% of the time a subscription to advertisement in your stream. I, for example, follow a lot of photographers on google plus and it's nice, because the photo capabilites are nice, the posts are excellent and it makes my personal stream even better. On the other hand, i "follow" some pages of bands or cities or games i like on facebook and it's basically ads in my facebook stream with the occasional interesting post. Why not follow these photographers on facebook? Because it didn't "just happpen". On Google plus some people share the circles and voila, there we go with interesting persons (persons, not companies!). Now i have also quite a lot of googlers and musicians i'm following and it's mostly been only interesting personal posts.

Why not facebook? It's security/sharing settings are just too cumbersome. Setting up how my plus account looks like for friends, workmates and the whole world was intuitive, easy and fast.

That said: For me, Google Plus is so much better then Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook combined.

<comment><USER16> """- Free Hosting (free as in really for free, not cents """

Yes, because a few cents, or, god forbid!, a dollar a month are totally too much for having total control over your content.

<comment><USER15> No, but the hazzle to pay and setup and maintain a server/software is worth more then a few cents, at least for me.

Especially if what i would build with Jekyll wouldn't hae the benefits of a hosted service elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't use it, and prefer to host my own content. And because of that, my (non-techie) wife, who does read the posts that are conveniently collected and displayed to her in G+, doesn't read my blog.

You can talk about Reader and how she needs to set up another app and copy various URLs into it, but she's busy and lacking patience. G+ is a big red light on her Google search page; it's hard to not read.

</comment><comment><USER18> Alex brought up a great point, which he may have thought was a throw away line:

"Let's leave the pithy comments for disposable social networking services like Google+, Facebook and Twitter."

This is exactly how I see and use G+. I use it to scan multiple stories and bylines, looking for interesting content and stories. I'm not looking for long winded blog entries. Those just slow me down.

I feel the people who are using G+ do so the same way they do with Twitter and other social media platforms. They can consume large quantities of content quickly - which does not mix with long, detailed blog entries. The two are simply incompatible in my view.

</comment><comment><USER19> One downside to Google+ for this kind of thing is that it seems to use a lot of memory on the client. Not a big deal for people reading on desktops, perhaps, but it can be a killer on mobile.

On my first generation iPad, long Google+ posts that have a lot of comments just kill it.

I assume enough people at Google use iPads that they are aware of this, so I haven't bitched about (this is the first place I've mentioned it) on the assumption that they'll figure out some way to make it work well on mobile. But until then, if I get the urge to blog I'll do it elsewhere and just post a link on Google+.

<comment><USER4> I think the default assumption with Google Plus is that if you're using it on mobile, you're using the mobile app, rather than the mobile website. At least, that's the way it appears to me, at any rate.

<comment><USER20> The problem is that there currently is no iPad app for Google+ so we're forced to choose between the scaled up iPhone app, a stretched mobile layout on the site or the only partially functional desktop layout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I totally agree with hosting your own content or least aggregating it in a place you own/control after the fact.

Here's the thing: one's personal web space will likely never be a dashboard or natural hub for thier audience. Posting direct to social nets like G+ ensures more visibility and interaction than what the majority of people will get back on their blog. I think it has less to do with technical considerations and more to do with "where the action is at."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate all of the insightful comments. All of you have very valid points of course. Do what you feel is right for you. I'm thinking long-term goals though. I've been burned by using services like Tumblr and Posterous, but not in that they're bad services, just that it's much harder to migrate your data to a self-hosted solution after the fact.

<comment><USER22> I just migrated my WordPress blog to Jekyll recently without much difficulty. Data can be exported to Jekyll from Tumblr and Posterous as well (I'm not sure how well those migrations work though): <https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/wiki/Blog-Migrations>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I wish I had known about Jekyll back when I used Tumblr and Posterous. I gave credit to you for that suggestion in my part 2 follow up to last nights piece: [http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/12/3/part-2-why-are- you...](http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/12/3/part-2-why-are-you-using- google-plus-for-blogging.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > I see the appeal in it though, with the real-time commenting it supports and > the level of engagement you get with it. That being said, there's no reason > why you can't augment your own blog with Disqus commenting to get the same > kind of features and results.

I don't see nearly as many comments on my site (with Disqus) as I do on my Google+ page. This is to some extent an apples-to-oranges comparison, but given that a lot of stuff that shows up in my Google+ stream is meant to go into my site, it's not that bad, and the disparity is like 4:1 or higher.

</comment><comment><USER24> A few weeks ago I started thinking of Google+ as a blog for occasional posts due to high engagement levels. However, since Google Reader integrated with Google+, I've found that my G+ feed has a lot more noise as I share a lot of small tidbits through the +1 button of reader.

I'm now considering creating a commentless blog elsewhere to host relevant posts, but cloning content to G+ for comments.

</comment><comment><USER25> You can use Google+ to write and manage your blog, but also host the content, with a simple tool I made: <https://github.com/lylepratt/Plusify>

As a part of serving the blog, it backs up all your G+ posts to an SQLite database. You can set how frequently you want to check Google for content updates.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Obviously the immediate benefit is owning your own content from the top of the page to the bottom." - I guess. I keep a copy of my G+ posts locally (even though Blogger posts from ten years haven't gone away). Posting it on a blog or G+ doesn't affect the copyright. I still own the content.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Awesome discussion on this folks. I wanted to address some of the questions and comments, but I felt a more detailed reply on my weblog would be more appropriate: [http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/12/3/part-2-why-are- you...](http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/12/3/part-2-why-are-you-using- google-plus-for-blogging.html)</comment>


I'm not saving ninety percent of my income for myself - <AUTHOR> https://www.thecut.com/2019/06/how-im-saving-for-my-parents-retirement.html <comment><USER2> I'm honestly so jealous of the husband's situation. 7-figure networth before hitting 30, a 4-bedroom home in a major tech hub, and a compulsively frugal wife who is obsessed with financial planning and amplifying your shared incomes/networths. The dream.

This article just feels like a vector to drive traffic towards her sites, though.

<comment><USER3> Once he placed the ring on her finger he accepted her terms .. as an American who hasn't grown up with Asian cultural norms I would never marry someone with an obligation to take care of their parents also in America.

<comment><USER4> What kind of American? Multigenerational living is still routine among African Americans and Hispanic Americans, and pretty common among rural white Americans. The median distance an American lives from their mom is just 18 miles.

<comment><USER5> Upper middle class American. People who focus on accumulating and spending wealth on themselves tend to draw their circle quite narrowly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think about this a lot, as another frugal but high-earning household that earns way more than we spend, even after maxing out 401(k) contributions. Most people in our position save more than they need partly as a means of hedging personal risk (higher-than-typical retirement and medical expenses, children who grow up unable to financially self-suffice), and partly (IMHO) just because they gain some satisfaction from seeing numbers climb and because hoarding wealth is not seen as having any downside. However, at least the first of these reasons could be much more efficiently managed by having social (rather than individual) safety nets, for the same reason that insurance works. Some people also save with the thought of giving away a ton of money at death, but this again holds money out of useful purposes until decades away. With these thoughts in mind, and with the example of religious folks with much less disposable income than us who tithe, we annually give away whatever money we don't have use for after sensible but not excessively conservative allocations for immediate and future needs. To be clear, I'm not certain this is the right thing to do; ask me how I feel about it in a few decades!

<comment><USER7> > Some people also save with the thought of giving away a ton of money at > death, but this again holds money out of useful purposes until decades away.

What makes you believe that? The overwhelming majority of savings are held in bonds, stocks and real estate, not in paper notes in a vault. You might quible over the usefulness of savings and investments vs other allocations, but assuming is useless is pretty extreme.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for writing this. Saving is not storing money. It is delaying your right to "use" it, thus allowing others to "use" it now (which is why you expect a return interest).

That is why banks are not evil. On the contrary: they are the basis of a healthy economy.

<comment><USER9> Nothing is black/white. Banks which operate like your grade school basic economics classes are providing a healthy/necessary service for the economy.

OTOH, it might be debated that banks which take your money leverage it out and get huge returns while giving you a fraction of a percent, banks that charge 2-4% transaction fees for basic transfers for merchants, or fee harvesting people for more than their net worth are more economic parasites than useful service providers.

Much of modern banking in countries like the US are basically shifting wealth from the economic value creators to a few vampires growing their own personal fortunes which dwarf that of the other 99.999% of the population. The idea that they might return some of that to their customers though interest bearing checking accounts, removing low balance fees or any of their other abusive practices never comes up.

<comment><USER8> Well, I was referring to the institution, not to specific instances of it. I should have said "banking", probably. You have a point (that corruption is almost ubiquitous nowadays in the large banking corporations) but my argument was intended as an abstract.

And precisely because banking is so essential to economy, its corruption is one of the worst events in an economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just to be clear, this is a story of a person who has been traumatised by a combination of the worse parts of US and Chinese poverty. It's not a nice story, at all...

Also, the two websites she runs, as linked at the bottom of the page - one of them is a blog/content site about living frugally, one is about making money any way you can. They're part of the same problem that the article (probably inadvertently?) illustrates.

<comment><USER11> Yes, this is being overlooked by most readers... this article is a woman plainly describing her mental illness.

<comment><USER9> Hard to describe that as mental illness, I might go the other way and say people so consumed by their social status that they throw away their perfectly functional year old iphone/cloths/cars/etc to buy the latest version are suffering far more harmful mental illness. And that might just be the surface, people who throw their lives away going into massive debt to buy the largest house and nicest car they can afford are clearly harming themselves.

Its an ugly cycle, people who check out of it are definitely not mentally ill IMHO. Average US consumerism is an addiction.

<comment><USER12> > My husband and I never really discussed the fact that I'd be supporting my > parents. It was just a given

> He doesn't mind the way I want to live — he just goes along with it.

> I once had a conversation with my husband about how if I died, he'd have to > keep taking care of my parents. It's a dark topic, I know, and he wasn't > thrilled about the idea. But he wouldn't kick them out.

> My dad is now retired, and when my mom retires she'll move in with us too. > The plan is to give them this house eventually, and get our own nearby.

She says her parents aren't pleasant people. Imagine how her husband feels about dedicating all his future earnings towards their happiness. She thinks this is normal.

<comment><USER9> Its getting a bit off topic, but in the US at least its still fairly common for children to take care of their parents in their last years. Particularly if ones parents aren't well off enough to afford some kind of senior living arrangement. Despite what you might think of medicare "Medicare doesn't cover custodial care, if it's the only care you need. Most nursing home care is Custodial care" [https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/nursing-home- care](https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/nursing-home-care)

Getting married basically means that if you haven't already discussed this there is a strong possibility that might end up living with your spouses parents during their last few years simply because its more convenient driving them to the doctor and generally taking care of them as they go downhill. About the only way you get out of this is if some other sibling is better off or has more free time, lives closer or any number of other situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm 100% the opposite way. My wife is very frugal, but I save nothing. What's the point of pinching every single penny? That's not life; it's survival. Even more ironic is the fact that this is multiple decades of mere survival all aimed towards one goal: ensuring survival in those decades when work is no longer possible. Perhaps I'm obtuse, but this isn't a life worth living. I want to enjoy my healthy years in the here and now. I like my disposable income, I like living in a nice neighborhood, I like taking vacations, I like eating out. I'm keenly aware that I'll be left penniless once I can no longer work, but I have a plan for that. Until then, I have a couple of good decades left, so I'll enjoy this time together with my family. I'll cross that other bridge when I get there.

<comment><USER14> One of the problems with this strategy is that it ends up becoming a burden to your family and others (who sacrificed to save for a rainy day). And it may happen sooner than you think.

> _I'm keenly aware that I'll be left penniless once I can no longer work, but > I have a plan for that._

What's the plan?

<comment><USER15> _What 's the plan?_

The post sounded to me like the Smith and Wesson retirement plan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not sure what to make of this.

Marrying a rich man was the deus ex machina.

I thought the talk about breaking the "cycle of poverty" was pointing towards a heroic use of frugality to overcome, but no, solution was marriage.

And then the extremely/uncomfortable frugality, as opposed to healthy frugality, after becoming rich points to pathology more than anything else.

<comment><USER17> > ...solution was marriage...

What if it's an important part of the equation? Stable marriages have rather strong inverse correlations to poverty levels. Maybe finding someone rich in this case was especially fortunate, but even marrying someone of similar economic means tends to be a boon (on average at least).

And pathology... most people are "pathological" in some way. It's hard for me to tut about personal inclinations too much.

<comment><USER18> The OPs point is marriage to a rich guy. Not just marriage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I read stories like this, I always think of the systemic factors that are creating this behavior; that America, and indeed many countries in the world, do not have the social safety nets to take care of its own people when they can't work anymore. It would be better and more efficient for a nation as a whole to take care of its children so that they can choose their own avenues of success rather than needing to choose between two hard choices. Imagine where mankind could be if we had everyone being able to have the basics, and ample free time to think, to explore, to experiment, to create. I dream to see such a world, and to see the human progress that results.

<comment><USER20> Point to evidence that free time leads people to do these wonderful things.

In a macro sense, biological life/evolution, economics, and production of goods points to innovation and efficiency gains being made by risking one's time/enengy/resources in hope of creating a new local efficient outcome.

Free time has nothing do with that.

<comment><USER21> Yeah,

I like our world isn't wonderful as is.

Imagine what a peasant from 300 years ago would think seeing what their work would be value at today.

Its peanuts in our perspective, but not starving is a start, eating meat would be a luxury, being able to see a doctor.

Hating ourselves is trending right now, sad.

<comment><USER22> I would certainly hope that 300 years of techonological progress would offer the basics to a "peasant".

<comment><USER21> I believe the peasant's king would be just as astonished.

Do you think our world isn't incredible, and by far the best a human could ever hope for so far?

<comment><USER22> > by far the best a human could ever hope for so far?

Wow. I am without words.

All I can say is, some people have bigger imaginations than others and being a slave to capital is not always paradise.

The bit about the king completely misses the point. Again, I would hope that in 300 years, technological progress UNDER ANY SYSYTEM would afford "miracles" in the eyes of kings or peasants. jfc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> She could buy her parents a condo in some nice retirement city for well under $200k, set them up with an annuity to pay for their food/clothing/etc, and easily have $1M left in the bank. But to each their own.

</comment><comment><USER24> Saved/invested money is stored freedom, i.e. ability to choose how to live. The social safety net provided (or not) by others can be changed or withdrawn by the perfidy of government. It can be great when it works, but when it doesn't, what are your options? What happens when the usually acceptable public health care system fails, and you need to get treated right now, or in a different way than the local system dictates? If you don't have savings and/or the ability to travel, you will have to take what's offered.

The social safety net may provide some degree of safety, but it often doesn't offer freedom to choose.

Freedom means being able to take the time to care for yourself or your loved ones if something happens.

That day came for my family several years ago, and my wife and I are constantly reminded how much worse things would have been (even here in enlightened Canada) if we didn't have that kind of freedom.

</comment><comment><USER25> This reminds me of the generation that were kids during the Great Depression. The trauma of food scarcity & poverty often resulted in extreme forms of frugality that lasted for the rest of their lives. It wouldn't surprise me if this author also saves/reuses food plastic wrap, scraps of aluminum foil & rinsed out plastic sandwich bags as my own grandmother did.

</comment><comment><USER26> The line about saving $1.7 million caught me off guard!

Btw, the woman's blog "Merry for Money" that's linked at the end of the article has a few extreme methods such as how to make money from PornHub: [https://merryformoney.com/make-money- pornhub/](https://merryformoney.com/make-money-pornhub/)

<comment><USER27> Make $100-$200k/yr from your equity compensation, have that same equity comp go up 2x (amazon) and you get 800k-1.6m for 4 years of work pre-tax. Add a few more years on top of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I come from a upper/mid class family and I am the only one in my family that lives frugally. Technically, I don't have to, but I just can't find any joy in material things.

As near as I can tell, luxury (think 50k+ $ cars, huge mansions, expensive clothing, jewelry) exists for one and one reason only: impressing others, and in particular, males impressing females in hopes of sexually attracting them. Either that, or people just "going with the flow" without thinking. I cannot come to any other logical conclusion.

I've noticed that people buying expensive things don't really want to admit that they are buying it just to show others that they can afford it.

If you can afford food, shelter and some medical/dental care, and you can pay your bills (electric, gas, internet, whatever) without worrying about them, I don't think money will improve your happiness. Especially if you need to endure additional stress for it.

The Western civilization has it extremely good. If only people read history and truly understood and appreciated what this world consisted of not a century ago, they'd celebrate each day on the streets. Voltaire says that the perfect is the enemy of good, and that's a deep message.

I salute these two! If it doesn't bother them, I see no issue with the way they live whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER29> Answer: it's to support her parents' retirement.

<comment><USER30> I do not think this is accurate. While she does provide them with support, the article states that they actually need very little. She's saving a lot more than what's needed to support them.

<comment><USER12> They need her to buy them a house. That's not needing a little.

<comment><USER31> Buy a house, or rent for 10-15 years of the rest of their lives?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> At some point it's not about financial independence anymore, but obsessive frugal behavior triggered by childhood trauma.

In my country the generation that survived German occupation in WWII (and huge poverty, starvation, etc), had what's casually called "occupation syndrome" \-- which we use to describe more or less the same kind of behavior.

</comment><comment><USER33> she is gonna drive that marriage into the ground. poverty is traumatic but being overly frugal is going to undermine your quality of life and will have consequences. she has no idea but her husband fucking hates it, trust me.

</comment><comment><USER34> > I once had a conversation with my husband about how if I died, he'd have to > keep taking care of my parents

This seems like life insurance could come in handy. For someone in good health and relatively young it can be pretty cheap too.

</comment><comment><USER35> I just went to a talk by a software engineer in SF who was talking about effective altruism and how he personally donates 33% of this income to charity every year...

The one thing about personal finance blogs that consistently bother me is that they always feel incredibly selfish. How much do they donate to charity every year? Given the attitude of scrimping every penny I'm guessing very little to none.

<comment><USER36> A group declares themselves a charity, gets a foolish government to go along with it, and suddenly they deserve, for free, the money that other people worked for? Okay...

Believe it or not, some people see through this rather obvious scam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Found the article very interesting and read some articles on the referenced blogs. More about her husband for those interested:

[https://www.thefrugalgene.com/husband-became-rich-young- no-m...](https://www.thefrugalgene.com/husband-became-rich-young-no-money/)

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm just waiting for the part where her husband divorces her and takes all their money and leaves the country.

Life has a way of making a mockery of all your best laid plans.

What's the point of suffering like this? She has escaped poverty from a financial perspective but not a mental one.

</comment><comment><USER39> The only practical advise to anyone to not spend money you cannot pay off the next money, otherwise there is something wrong are about to go seriously wrong soon with your finances. Telling people to be Frugal is as ambiguous as the world

</comment><comment><USER40> I, too, am building up financial resources for the point where I have to take care of my parents. They did not plan for their financial future, and now that they have split up, they are in an even more precarious situation.

Although my mother was an excellent saver (to a fault?), she was not interested in learning how to amass/raise capital, nor in any type of investing, other than older, traditional CDs, etc. that are not financially viable in this age of debt and funny money in the US.

My father is a spendthrift, so there is always a hole in his pocket.

I see in them the reluctance (or refusal?) to shift from the "American Dream" (go to school, get a good job, save for retirement, your employer/the government will take care of you) to what it more realistically takes to grow any sort of wealth in the current US financial climate.

Consumption was the biggest negative factor, I think, as well as the inability to sacrifice some of the present for the future. It seemed necessary as a kid growing up, if we were going to keep up with the Jones'. I remember being envious of having an "Ocean Pacific" jacket as a kid, and the only pair of "Britannia" jeans I had came from a second hand store. I was very caught up in the whole name-brand thing... That was the 80's, for me.

Now I save up and invest in Real Estate, effectively short the US dollar, as that seems to be the vehicle I am most comfortable with. My wife and I are accelerating the process as much as possible, without scrimping too much, as her mother, likewise, has little to live on. And being at the mercy of governmental healthcare is the pits, as I watch both sets of our parents attempting to navigate those hoops.

So I understand the author's motivation from my own point of view, and I think she has adopted practices that will serve her well, as long as she also has enough consideration for taking care of herself, her husband, and any kids they may choose to have, as well as her parents.

It is definitely possible, although I find I have to ignore all of the "consume this now" messaging I perceive blasting at me from all angles in media.

Side benefit: Ignoring that media helps on the political front, though, as well. I used to become (still sometimes become?) the raving lunatic when I pay attention to what higher politicians (non-local) and larger government employees get up to, technically on my behalf.

I feel much more calm ignoring that and focusing only on what I have a chance of affecting: My home, family, friends, and immediate neighborhood. I have even served in local government, and although I did not enjoy it (the waste! the pettiness!) it helped me make more social contacts locally that have positively affected my life and immediate living environment.

I now volunteer more often, as well, as there is much need in the community, and few obvious answers (to others' points of view).

It seems to be working for me... YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm still trying to make up for studying economics and not CS so 5 years in (too much time spent in ops) I'm still a very junior dev making a junior dev salary.

Mad props to them for sure!

</comment><comment><USER42> She comes from a poor background. Now she is no longer poor, but pretends to be.

</comment><comment><USER43> A family of three living off of $1,000/month in Seattle?

What decade was this actually written in?

<comment><USER5> It's $1000/mo plus rent which she excludes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The article misses out on the math though. She saves 90% percent of her income? So does she earn 80k after taxes? She would need to earn about 130k+ after taxes to save 90% of her income, given that she is the one who pays all the expenses, which at 1000$ per 3 people is hard to imagine. Even in a small German town, where things are dirt-cheap compared to Seattle, 1000$ for 3 persons is almost impossible.

I don't like these headlines. Why does everything have to be clickbait these days?

<comment><USER45> It's not that hard.

She rents the house she lives in for more than the cost of her mortgage. She makes income from that there. They don't own a car. Her husband gets a free bus pass from work. No housing or transportation expenses. So what's left? Food?

Her husband works in tech (first Amazon, and now Google!) and saves 100% of his income. And they live off hers. They have like $1.7 million saved from his Amazon stock which should be a nice investment income too.

Their expenses are around $1000 per month.

Not that hard to imagine the math.

<comment><USER46> But it's incredible amounts of luck combined with having a partner who works for a series of big well paying public companies.

Being able to buy a house and rent it out for more than you pay is /hard/ because it's based on luck. No one in a major tech hub could start and do that right now. Houses in the bay regularly sell for $10k/month in total cost but rent for $5-6k. And then immediately say goodbye to 40%+ of your rental income to taxes. It's just not hard - it's luck.

<comment><USER47> I think they're saying doing the math isn't hard. Actually doing the saving and earning is a different matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> > A lot of Chinese people know this: It takes more than one generation to > build stability

A lot of every people know this. It's called "the American dream". You may have heard of it.

<comment><USER49> The American Dream is the polar opposite of relying multiple generations to achieve stability. The general interpretation of the American Dream is the notion that any one person can achieve success by working hard enough.

<comment><USER48> "Success" is subjective; for many it is providing opportunity for your kids you didn't have, e.g. first generation college.

Plus you don't work in a vacuum by yourself; mutual success is more likely if you have close relationships with friends and family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> In spite of all that her son may not be accepted in Harvard for being asian

<comment><USER50> Those down voting would mind commenting on why? It is bizarre that racism against Asians is tolerated because of "too much success". It is especially harmful to people from low income families.

Here some news stories about it: [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian- america/harvard-asian-ame...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian- america/harvard-asian-american-discrimination-case-opens-packed- courtroom-n920376)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harvards- discriminat...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harvards- discrimination-against-asian-americans-must- end/2017/08/08/446ebd6a-7bb1-11e7-a669-b400c5c7e1cc_story.html)

[https://www.foxnews.com/us/harvard-discrimination-trial- reve...](https://www.foxnews.com/us/harvard-discrimination-trial-reveals-ivy- league-schools-different-sat-standards-for-asian-americans)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian- enrollme...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment- applicants.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/15/harvard- su...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/15/harvard-sued- discrimination-against-asian-americans)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> If she wants to make good use of the money, why wait? The longer they're hoarding it, the longer it stays away from people who need it.

<comment><USER52> An alternative perspective: [https://meltingasphalt.com/wealth-the-toxic- byproduct/](https://meltingasphalt.com/wealth-the-toxic-byproduct/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> If you look back at any wealthy family's history they all have this story, especially in the USA. The story basically goes like this: "A long time ago our great great grandfather lived in a dirt floor home and the family worked really hard and was frugal and did without and eventually luck came their way and they made good investments, or happened to be in the right place at the right for a resource boom, and made a lot of money".

A lot of middle class Americans could take this path if they __did without __and the kids worked as soon as able for extra money for the family (you know like you have to when you have no other choice) but we have to have the nice home, white picket fence, big SUV, expensive sports, iPads and android phones, and as soon as the kids turn 16 they must have a car of their own, etc...

Modern life by design now (it is designed) requires more and more to get by. You need a car to get to work because of the awful thing called suburbia. You need a expensive cell to make sure you get the call for that job offer. Where you had to submit a PDF copy of your resume which you had to type on a computer somewhere and have access to Internet to send it.

The downside is you miss out on this fabled childhood luxury that has only been a thing for the last 80 years of human existence.

<comment><USER54> On one level all wealthy families have this history simple because not long ago _everyone_ was dirt poor.

<comment><USER55> Yup. The part of the story that is actually doing most of the work here is "and eventually luck came their way and they made good investments, or happened to be in the right place at the right for a resource boom".</comment></comment></comment>


How is critical 'life or death' software tested? - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-is-critical-life-or-death-software-tested

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9640086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9640086)</comment>


Ask HN: How Edward Snowden Do His Computing? - <AUTHOR>

	I recently read the "How I do my Computing" by RMS. And I wonder, is there any internet article which have information about which Software Mr. Edward Snowden uses? Operating System, EMail Service, Phone, Etc. I'm getting paranoic about all this privacy talk. <comment><USER2> I would imagine he uses Tails and TOR.

He used to use Lavabit for email. The founder of Lavabit chose to shut the company down rather than comply with subpoenas from the US government. There is probably pending litigation to this day. He's obviously not going to disclose his current email provider as it would suffer the same fate.

I'd be curious to know his choice of OS. It's probably a Linux distro, but it could also be a BSD.

If he uses a cellphone at all, it's probably a blackphone: [https://blackphone.ch/phone/](https://blackphone.ch/phone/) I believe Glenn Greenwald has talked about the Blackphone and was a beta user.

It's unlikely that Snowden would reveal any details about his computing as they could potentially be used compromise his comsec.

Here are some resources for surveillance self-defense: [https://ssd.eff.org/](https://ssd.eff.org/).

<comment><USER3> The founder of Lavabit was perfectly willing to cooperate with the US government, including giving up customers' data, until some point when he just reverted to childish behaviour.

<comment><USER2> He was forced to consent to having monitoring hardware installed. When the government demanded that he hand over the encryption keys as well he refused. You can read his side of the story here: [http://lavabit.com/](http://lavabit.com/)

I don't see anything childish about upholding his fiduciary responsibilities to his users and standing up to the agents of a surveillance state which far exceeds even the wildest dreams of the East German Stasi.

<comment><USER3> You're wrong.

He was perfectly willing to hand over customer data before Snowden.

<comment><USER4> Handing over specific user data when requested is a lot different that handing over your encryption keys though.

<comment><USER3> He handed over specific user data for other users, refused to do that in the Snowden case. Only then (and after long stalling) did the US government demand the keS, in order to get the data themselves.

Had he handed over the requested data, just like all the data before, noone would have demanded any keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For most of his work, he is probably using a PC without a video camera (webcam / mic) operating under a fake identity. Good chance he is just using a normal OS / setup.

Phone, I agree he probably has to have some sort of blackphone unless he is altering his voice.

Now, when he goes to communicate with his family / reporters I'm sure he has a whole setup with Tor / Tails and a whole lotta encryption.

If you watched the recent documentary you will see he did a lot of command line stuff and was a huge advocate of PGP.</comment>


1,000-year-old fishing trap found on Google Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5000835/1000-year-old-fishing-trap-found-on-Google-Earth.html

<comment><USER2> No, a plane discovered it and after being called in archaeologists used Google Earth to see what the plane saw.</comment>


Show HN: Make Your Own Custom Map Chart of World, Europe, United States and More - <AUTHOR> http://mapchart.net/ <comment><USER2> Really nice application, very clear and easy to use. My only gripe is that the homepage is a little unpolished, the selections jig about on the page as I hover over the different choices.

Is there any chance we'd be able to get these maps to download as SVG?</comment>


Network Naming Conventions - <AUTHOR> http://wetzler.me/network-naming/

<comment><USER2> This has been discussed extensively on Server Fault: [http://serverfault.com/questions/45734/the-coolest-server- na...](http://serverfault.com/questions/45734/the-coolest-server-names)</comment>


Show HN: Autogenerate Visual Sitemaps+Screenshots of any Public or Private Site - <AUTHOR> https://VisualSitemaps.com <comment><AUTHOR> {UPDATE}

1- We have a freemium model *50-pages/month

2- We just removed the Email Confirmation().. so you can just use any email (for now..to try us out faster).

Or just check out these demos:

(Public)

Xapo.com - [https://app.visualsitemaps.com/share/7b4fd8556b102ed739cc308...](https://app.visualsitemaps.com/share/7b4fd8556b102ed739cc308efdf78c9f)

NYTimes.com - [https://app.visualsitemaps.com/share/325c026c9e9c8125cb05a48...](https://app.visualsitemaps.com/share/325c026c9e9c8125cb05a481be392983)

(Private) Calendly's Dashboard [https://app.visualsitemaps.com/share/aa8c0d228e52aa867247dc3...](https://app.visualsitemaps.com/share/aa8c0d228e52aa867247dc39e31a01bc)

</comment><comment><USER2> Congrats on shipping it! I'm already using this for my client projects at [https://uxready.com](https://uxready.com) and it helped me find some errors and design inconsistencies when I clicked quickly through the screenshots. Very useful! Really looking forward to your next releases.

Thanks for building this!

<comment><AUTHOR> very happy to hear that! thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Awesome app and a big need in the UX world, glad someone is trying to fix that gap.

</comment><comment><USER4> Really nice app and a hardworking team that I know first-hand!

Best of lucks!

</comment><comment><USER5> Hella useful app from a talented team! Congrats !!

</comment><comment><USER6> Very cool! I can't believe no one built this before. I'll give it a try.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm Artur, and along with my co-founder Luciano, I wanted to share with you the platform we've been working on for the past 2 years: [https://VisualSitemaps.com](https://VisualSitemaps.com)

VisualSitemaps is a SaaS cloud platform that autogenerates visual sitemaps + high-resolution screenshots of any public or private website. With VisualSitemaps, performing in-depth website audits and planning UI, UX, SEO, and marketing research will now take 1/100th of the time at a fraction of the cost.

As a product designer, every time I had a new web-based project I kept having to manually create a visual sitemap for myself and my clients to get an idea of its scope, structure, and content. Then I had to take screenshots of key pages to use later as a reference, in proposals, wikis, and in long threaded convos with my clients. I looked for an automated solution that would marry the crawling power of SEO tools with delicate design output my clients were accustomed to expecting.

Sadly nothing even came close to what I needed.

I was eager to explore what was possible, and with my good friend Luciano emerging from leading the early engineering team at RING (which went on to a $1B exit), things began to get real fast!

After conducting one-on-one interviews with over 100 agency folks and web colleagues, we confirmed that I wasn't the only one with this problem. In fact, over many conversations, we realized this is a problem facing UX & UI designers, marketers, strategists, and developers, which opened our eyes to a plethora of possible uses for the platform beyond our original scope and made us envision many other strong use-cases.

Our Journey So Far We've only been public for about 2 months and have been overwhelmed by the response by early adopters. What makes this particular startup so pleasurable for us is the sheer quality of feedback and ideas from our highly experienced end-users, who are the best and brightest in a very fast-moving industry. It's almost like the product is making itself… and that's the great news.

Our challenge today (being only a 3-person bootstrapped team) is we still have a TON of work to do to meet the market's high expectations and needs...but we're inspired every day by the gorgeous maps we've seen created by thousands of users all over the world. One of our proudest accomplishments is our ability to crawl (almost any) password-protected site, which has proven to be very useful for staging sites and user-dashboard flows. It's not perfect.. and we have some ideas to cover more unique edge-cases, like using cookies and a browser plugin strategy.

So please give us a free spin and if you have any questions, ideas, or feedback, let it rip!

Thank you!

Artur & Luciano (firstname.lastname@example.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations guys, super product! Glad you brought it to life.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great product, easy to use!

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice product guys

</comment><comment><USER10> how do you handle the private crawling?

<comment><USER11> Today we require a set of credentials along with the login URL. We take the security very seriously and we made sure that these values travel and are stored encrypted; also, once the crawl is complete we redact the username and password provided.

While this solution works for most sites out of the box, we also added flexibility to this procedure: we support custom CSS selectors, two-step forms (i.e. enter username, hit next, then enter password and hit `sign in`) and forms inside modals that have to be revealed. From our own tests and from our users so far we feel we cover most regular login scenarios.

However, there are more cases that we want to cover in the future. For example two-factor authentication scenarios. One alternative that we've discussed for our next iteration is providing a browser plugin so you can "grab" the session data and send it to us so we can reuse it. That way there are no credentials being shared and we'd also get the benefit of getting more complex login systems to work :)

This has been one of the most difficult features that look easy on paper but then get more complicated as you work on them, so feedback and ideas are more than welcomed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great tool!

</comment><comment><USER13> Very cool!</comment>


What We Learned Raising $1.5M on Kickstarter in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.shopmoment.com/momentist/the-complete-guide-to-succeeding-on-kickstarter-in-2017-everything-we-learned-in-raising-1-5m <comment><USER2> I would gauge success on Kickstarter not by raising money but delivering product to the people who trusted you.

<comment><USER3> Typically, if you're patient, you can get the same product 1-2 years later for (sometimes) fractions of the KS price(s). Granted, you might miss out on some add-on swag, but the core product remains the same.

I find KS to be more about what kind of potential collector's item might one get by investing in an idea - at least in the things I'm interested in. For some, the collector's item (e.g. a custom art print that comes with a game) is worth the expense. For many others, patience is key. So many times successful products that make it to the marketplace are sold after the fact for very reasonable prices.

KS is brilliant at playing at our emotions and opening our wallets. I've gone down this path a few times with retro games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to be an avid supporter of kickstarter in 2013-14, however, I've experienced too many products which over promise and under deliver.

Now, I would rather pay the 10% more for a product after reviews come out than be an early adopter because in the long run it saves me money from buying bad quality products.

I think a lot of people are starting to realize this, and kickstarter itself is losing credibility.

<comment><USER5> >Now, I would rather pay the 10% more for a product after reviews come out than be an early adopter...

I think maybe this misses the point of kickstarter a bit. Its not really a place to "buy products". Its a place to fund a wild dream and see what happens. When I back a project, the product is secondary. I like to watch the process. Its _entertainment_. Hint: You'll get lots more backers like me if you seem extremely transparent and post project updates often. If I want products, its Amazon.com. I'm here for the journey. Some projects are triumphs, some tragedies. Don't hide it if it turns out the latter. I paid to ride along, even if its a tear-jerker.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, you may get more specifically looking for the journey or process, but you lose the other 90% of funders, as they soon realize that few kickstarters actually pan out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've learned that graphs with unlabelled vertical axes tell the reader less than nothing.

<comment><USER8> It tells you a lot about what the person who made the graph thinks about their audience's sophistication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Off shoot topic but does anyone know if there are any tips or best practices for a socially awkward dude to make a kick starter?

<comment><USER10> Make a good prototype, be honest about what it does, be realistic (= slightly pessimistic) about what you can do with the money you're trying to raise.

I don't think social skills matter as much as those.

<comment><USER9> Don't you have to be exciting and likeable in the video?

<comment><USER11> Nah, just pay some cute girls to be that while you narrate.

Ed:

I may have phrased it snarkishly, but that's honest advice -- if you're not good on camera, find a film student to help direct brief bits you're in (so you perform better, are framed well, etc) and get other students to do most of the on camera work.

There's a reason most marketing materials use professional actors, and if your strength isn't presentation, you should too. There are lots of students looking for portfolio work (at very reasonable prices).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very good! Will be re-reading periodically to work out how best we should manage a campaign if we wake up our draft one!</comment>


Google Does A Barrel Roll - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/search?q=do+a+barrel+roll

<comment><USER2> This: [http://info.stylee32.net/Weapons%20and%20Military/Jets/ailer...](http://info.stylee32.net/Weapons%20and%20Military/Jets/aileron%20roll%20v%20barrel%20roll.jpg)</comment>


Show HN: Jumpcut – Chapters/Highlights for YouTube Videos (Feedback Wanted) - <AUTHOR> https://www.jumpcut.io

<comment><USER2> What I like : Feels like pinterest for videos

What I dislike: 1\. For adding a video, I had to 2\. Fetch the url by visiting youtube. 3\. Add a title 4\. Had to enter start time and end time You are asking a lot from the user ;)

What I would recommend: 1\. Get the user interests. 2\. Show videos related to their interests. 3\. Let them play the videos and select their 'cuts'. 4\. Create jump cut add-ons for browsers.</comment>


Ask HN: what is the most stupid line of code you saw? - <AUTHOR> Believe it or not, i just saw this:
`if (true === true)`
^^ Old PHP site. <comment><USER2> Old php site from year 2000.

Each line of HTML is generated like that :

$html.='';

$html.='';

$html.='The content';

$html.='';

$html.='';

The dev used this in every file, each file contain thousands of lines like that. Worst project i have ever seen, and i must work alone on it. FML.

<comment><USER3> I've seen this done with SQL queries all the time but... ouch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Saw the title. Immediately thought of something I saw today at work. Not too different from yours. 'if ('True' == 'True')'. I should note that this is javascript generated by a template file.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've actually used 1==2 and 1==1 to basically comment sections out or create an infinite while loop. Only really useful in C-style languages

Dumb mistakes I've seen include commented out error checking because of a reversed greater than sign and a SQL query that deletes the whole table before rebuilding the entire thing every day

</comment><comment><USER6> I remember in college, someone left his/hers C assignment source code in the lab (laptops were a luxury in that time).

The code was really awful, and that part hurt my eyes:

/* commented out code. <\--- Yep. That was the actual comment.

      and here was the code
      seriously
     */

At least (s)he knew what a block comment was.

</comment><comment><USER7> My personal favorite:

      $array = array('z'=>12, 'o'=>43, 't'=>32, 'th'=>85, 'f'=>91, 'fi'=>42);

Take a minute look at that and tell me what the keys stand for. When you figure it out you'll realize why this is the worst piece of code you've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER8> I do that sometimes during debugging. It stands out and I know to change it later. If 1 == 0, etc...

</comment><comment><USER3>
       <?php /* Start the Loop */ ?>

Followed by more php.

<comment><USER9> That's not bad code, it's just WordPress lingo you're unfamiliar with. <http://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop>

<comment><USER3> I wish I were unfamiliar with it....

I think it is bad practice at least then, if not explicitly bad code, because it's needlessly overcomplicated. Why use the end tag when you're not switching contexts between php and html? After this line there's just another open tag and more code... it's a pointless way of writing php that makes it aggravating to read and edit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This might make some sense if it wasn't for the comment at the end...

      enum BankID {
       ONE = 1,
       TWO = 2,
       THREE = 3,
       FOUR = 4
       // add more if needed
      };

</comment><comment><USER11> My Teacher used this code to explain conditions in class :

if( 1 == 1 ) cout << "it's true" << endl; else cout << "false" << endl;

Haha, 1==1

</comment><comment><USER12> Mine. From a long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away.

        #python SQL injection paradise.
        sql = 'SELECT * FROM %s' % table

</comment><comment><USER13> Java code

if (obj instanceof java.lang.Object)

<comment><USER14> First, your answer is why I almost never criticize people's code:

This is (was in Sun's time) an actual possible certification question and you are wrong, this CAN return false:

            Object obj = new Object() {{ System.out.println(false); System.exit(0); }};

            System.out.println(obj instanceof Object);

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> saw this a while back:

if (failed) { return SUCCESS; }

</comment><comment><USER16> i = j+++++k</comment>


Show HN: Build Your Own Newsfeeds and Share Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.prjswan.com <comment><AUTHOR> You can make bunches of sources into Newsfeeds you can follow by grouping together RSS feeds, trusted webpages (like an authors' from a trusted outlet), or get it updated from the articles you share on your own Twitter feed or YouTube account.</comment>


Uber for banking? Coins.ph turns people into ATMs - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/coins-ph-people-atms/ <comment><USER2> I spent some time this summer learning about some of these issues if anyone would like a little context about the Philippines.

Remittances are a way for overseas foreign workers (OFWs, think jobs like maids in Saudi Arabia) to send money back home to their families. This is typically (but not exclusively) the mother of the household who sends money back to the father and children for things like food and school tuition. It's not uncommon for this money to be squandered by those back home (i.e. used on material possessions or vices instead of education)

Most remittance money flows through pawn shops who have come to act like small banks for the unbanked. This works because low income people are typically high risk lendees. So, pawn shops take physical collateral against any cash loans. Naturally, these pawn shops got so good at making lending decisions and moving hard cash around the provinces (low income areas), they've effectively become the standard for low-income cash solutions.

Coins.ph effectively is throwing their hat in the ring to compete against pawn shops and payment providers, creating competition in the cash market which will (hopefully) increase distribution and lending transparency and decrease fees (Philipino payment settlement is very fragmented).

My own opinion is Coins.ph is a really good idea for small retail solutions, but not for P2P lending. The reason is crime is a huge issue in the Philippines and Coins.ph is essentially a map of people who would be able to be robbed if they carried substantial amounts of cash. Contrast this to small retail outlets who can now be enabled to lend cash to customers using already- established cash-handling processes.

I feel there would have to be substantial differences in norms put in place to allow for actual P2P lending. i.e. stringent identity controls and social features which de-risk the transaction for the lending party.

<comment><USER3> Great analysis. One thing thats worth adding is the lack of efficiency in the current system. The average cost of remitting money home for filipinos is about 8% (~1/12), or in other words, filipino migrant workers work about one month a year for free, just to pay off remittance fees.

<comment><USER4> Not only does it make people targets, it's highly conducive to money laundering - an oft forgotten, but EXTREMELY important purpose, that seems to be too often forgotten in the fintech community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. Apple patented getting cash from people around you (crowdsourcing ATMs) in 2013.

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/apple-patents- crowdsourced-...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/apple-patents-crowdsourced- peer-to-peer-mobile-banking-that-could-use-itunes-to-provide-cash-on-demand/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Please don't call things "Uber for X", it's a completely meaningless sentence most of the time. When you say "Uber for banking" to me I have to idea what you mean.

<comment><USER7> > I have to idea what you mean

Well you see, when you're carrying a lot of cash on your person, then you put your location on a website, so anybody looking for someone with a lot of cash can find you and...

...hmm.

<comment><USER4> Playing devils's advocate, when have people, in all history, carrying large amounts of cash not been strapped?

When I was in Nicaragua for awhile it was kind of known you don't fuck with the cash dealers. From my experience, especially in these lower-income countries where these services are targeted, you're either getting protection or you're providing it; if neither, you'll quickly find yourself needing one of the former.

I'm not sure how this would change with a Silicon Valley style startup, but given Uber drivers don't know each other or have any "loyalties" for lack of a better word, I'm inclined to think you'd be right. However, I can quickly seeing this leading to the "dealers" on this system organizing into a group for self protection. Or a gang, cartel, militia, party, or advocate group, whatever you want to call it. Dudes you don't want to fuck with. And that doesn't sound conducive to a banking revolution, although maybe in the sense that payments are a social system at their core could make this feasible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In Denmark, our MobilePay system is often used to provide cash between strangers when needed.

<comment><USER9> PAYM in the UK, too.

<comment><USER10> PayM (and MobilePay I gather) is basically a table of bank account details keyed by mobile phone numbers, so you can make a standard electronic bank transfer to someone's account number and sort code, with only knowing their phone number. It's handy, but seems a bit different from crowdsourcing ATMs and Bitcoin deposits?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fascinating idea. It's basically like writing a cheque to somebody in exchange for some cash, which used to be a thing.

I guess there's nothing to stop me doing this at the moment with PayPal or some other peer-to-peer mobile payment service, though.

<comment><USER12> The potential for charge backs is what would stop you with most payment methods currently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hmm, this sounds like the kind of idea that's great in theory, but flawed as hell in practice. I mean, the crime issue has already been brought up, but this sort of thing means you're a great target for the local muggers, gangs, armoured car robbing thugs, etc. You'd turn your users into the replacement for ATMs in more ways than one...

And that's not even getting into the issues if this system has a security flaw that criminals can exploit.

It's a neat idea, but perhaps an example of a service that doesn't really work out well when done in a 'peer to peer' way.

</comment><comment><USER14> So, Paypal with the ability to accept and dispense cash without a bank account.

The biggest problem they have is that they are using Bitcoin instead of USD. It's going to make it difficult and expensive for dealers to extract their value in less used currencies. What will end up happening is dealers will need to exchange BC for USD ($$), then exchange USD for their currency (more $$). At that point, it won't be cost effective for dealers.

The volatility of BC is going to hurt dealers even more. Unless coins.ph is willing to eat the costs of this volatility themselves.

</comment><comment><USER15> Seems like a Silicon Valley idea.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.goabra.com/](https://www.goabra.com/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Yeah, that's not going to end well.

</comment><comment><USER18> This feels like a terrible idea.</comment>


Writing an API for conceptual relationships - looking for feedback - <AUTHOR> http://www.strongapi.com/src/documentation/ Hey, I'm a software student with a side project I thought I'd share with you guys.  It's a RESTful(ish) API where you can input a number of concepts and the output will be a JSON object describing how those objects are related to each other.  Let me know what you guys think of it.  I'm interested to know what features you think I should add to it, and what I can improve on.<p>Thanks,<p>- Robert <comment><USER2> Wow, that's interesting.

One thing that confused me in the API documentation that it seems to use "concepts" and "words" to mean the same thing. "word" made me think it has some kind of linguistic proximity check, though I'm quite sure that's not what what your API is about. Later examples use phrases instead of words, so it seems that 'word' is the wrong word here - please ban it completely.

From a quick skimming I didn't find if the relationships for all API keys are stored separately, or if all the data is meshed together in one central place (I guess it's the latter, but I'm not sure).

I'm also a bit confused that the examples indicate client side Javascript, and still one needs an API key, but if one uses that API key, it'll be available for the user, and thus not a secret, which seems to defeat the whole purpose. What's the point?

I hope that gives you some ideas for clarifications.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks for your comments

To answer your question about words and comments, you can input a word or a simple concept like a person's name ex: "George Bush".

As for the API keys every user currently has access to the same information via their API key. You are correct about the security flaw in the javascript API key model, however since nobody uses this but me, I figured it's OK to let it slide for now and once I need to start scaling I can figure out something else. Right now I just want to get people interested and start playing around with it.

<comment><USER3> This is cool. You should show it to the TinkerPop/Gremlin graph users group (<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/gremlin-users>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the approach too: You may think of using entities along the Linked Data mantra to compare not only by characters, but with the complete meaning of the term. (e.g. compare "Palmyra" with <http://dbpedia.org/page/Palmyra> ) In the Linked Data world you can use the SKOS vocabulary to define/store relationships like the ones you mentioned. ( <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/> ) To ease the task on linguistic checks you may check the WordNet datasource. ( <http://wordnet.princeton.edu/> )

</comment><comment><USER5> Why I haven't seen more user-focused applications of graphs is really beyond me (PersonalBrain being a rare, if woefully inadequate, exception). Despite how much effort is expended in the infrastructure, I really don't think we need to build out the semantic web before people can benefit hugely from creating personal ontologies, organizing their thoughts and lives without the useless intermediary of linear text.

</comment><comment><USER6> Do you have any uses of it so far that are really cool? (other than your lighting/thunder example)

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.strongapi.com/src/celebritymatching/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the idea. Will watch.</comment>


5 Latest Android App Development Trends – Endive Software - <AUTHOR> http://www.endivesoftware.com/blog/44/5-latest-android-app-development-trends <comment><USER2> Sorry. Couldn't make it past the first sentence. Was that written by a random word generator?</comment>


Isochronous Curves - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautochrone_curve <comment><USER2> Adam Savage builds a brachistochrone curve, which is the same curve as an Isochronous, just with potentially different starting/ending points, with Vsauce's Michael Stevens. It's a pretty bizarre phenomenon: [https://youtu.be/skvnj67YGmw](https://youtu.be/skvnj67YGmw)

<comment><USER3> They should build tautochronous pendulums. Or just add a spring bouncer on the end of the tracks so to enjoy multiple simultaneous bounces of different heights.

<comment><USER4> For small displacements, pendulums are already approximately isochronous.

<comment><USER5> One of the first definitions of the meter was a pendulum with a period of 1s afaik

<comment><USER6> Surely you mean 2 seconds?

      T = 2*pi*sqrt(L/g) = 2*pi*sqrt(1 m / 9.81 m/s^2) = 2.01 s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this off the back of a video of a 1970s Open University style presenter showing the properties of isochromus curves - i loved watching it and realised that these are national treasures of programs - and also was quite stunned by the assumption one would have a round empty tobacco tin lying around to do the experiment with - times do chnage :-)

<comment><USER8> I suspect it is... It turned up in my YouTube suggestions yesterday. Here's a link:

[https://youtu.be/eBc827pwKf0](https://youtu.be/eBc827pwKf0)

<comment><USER9> I think we three are in the same Google Bubble as I've just finished watching that glorious Open University video. If the algorithm wills it, I think it means we have to be best friends!

Seriously though, I would be weirdly fascinated to see what else you guys subscribe to and if there are any correlations to my subscriptions. I find this channelling people into little boxes fascinating, and those curves are also very cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Engineer guy, slow mo guys, motherboard vice, primitive technology, smarter everyday

<comment><USER9> We have a winner! I'm subscribed to all of those.

<comment><USER7> It strikes me that, as YouTube puts its hand into the bag to pull out a marble, there are probably just a lot less marbles than we think, and certainly less marbles worth watching than we think, and far far less worth watching that have been made in the past week?

Additionally, if youtube was forced to only play videos where copyright was proven to belong to the owner of the channel, would it collapse completely.

Is that perhaps what is shrinking the bag of marbles ?

Which interestingly suggests that if we force youtube to actually respect IP, it would reward new creators of quality work more proportionately

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ur-whale Variation calculus is a great lens through which to look at many physics and CS problems. It is IMO under-taught and under-utilized, especially in the machine learning discipline.

The framework is basically minimization in functional space (as opposed to R^n or a subset thereof, the more common case).

The (to me) surprising thing is that finding an extremum in functional space (i.e. infinite-dimensional space) can be reduced to solving a differential equation, via Euler–Lagrange.

The first problem feels intractable, while the second is "just" numerical integration.

<comment><USER10> Feynman on Calculus of variations:

"When I was in high school, my physics teacher—whose name was Mr. Bader—called me down one day after physics class and said, 'You look bored; I want to tell you something interesting.' Then he told me something which I found absolutely fascinating, and have, since then, always found fascinating. Every time the subject comes up, I work on it. In fact, when I began to prepare this lecture I found myself making more analyses on the thing. Instead of worrying about the lecture, I got involved in a new problem. The subject is this—the principle of least action."

The rest at: [http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_19.html](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_19.html)

<comment> ur-whale If physics is your thing, and it certainly was Feynman's, it'd be hard not to be fascinated by the calculus of variations, it shows up all over the place:

       - principle of least action (lagrangians)
       - adiabatic cycles in thermodynamics
       - quantum mechanics
       - etc..

and I'm probably missing another 100.

Looks like it's a fairly fundamental thing in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The same term has been adopted in transportation planning, for the curves of equal commute time to a job location, etc. Google has an incredible amount of data about this, but I don't know that it has been made available in any usable form.

<comment><USER12> Google offers it on a bilateral basis for cash. Resources of [http://iso4app.net](http://iso4app.net) are great and prices are ok.

<comment><USER13> This comment is pretty interesting, it's almost indistinguishable from the "I work from home and make $10k a week!!" facebook posts plaguing comment sections... but it might make legitimate sense in context!

The only way to find out is to click the link.

edit: And it's legit!

<comment><USER14> Aren't half the comments on HackerNews basically "I work on a similar project, check out my project"? Although extra suspicious when it's a green user.

Which to be fair, I'm entirely fine with as long as the projects are legitimate. In the world of programming, there are so many cool and useful libraries, services and tools out there that you have little hope to find out about them otherwise.

<comment><USER13> I actually wasn't even thinking about whether the poster I replied to was the owner of that project or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> An important related question you dared to ask: [https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/348242/can-a- cyc...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/348242/can-a-cycloidal- pendulum-be-extended-to-make-a-full-swing)

</comment><comment><USER16> What is the relationship between involute and isochronus curves?

</comment><comment><USER17> hmmmm. I hadn't been here since Friday, and now I see this link shared after I was randomly on this wikipedia entry 30 minutes ago... That's odd.

</comment><comment><USER18> Applications?

<comment><USER19> This is a toy application of the calculus of variations, which is the mathematical theory behind the equilibrium of continuous structures and many other things. How can you build the strongest bridge with a given amount of material? A similar computation to that of isochronous curves gives you the answer.</comment></comment>