Valve seems to be working on tools to get Windows games running on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/08/valve-seems-to-be-working-on-tools-to-get-windows-games-running-on-linux/ <comment><USER2> So basically their own fork of Wine? A DirectX Linux wrapper backed and supported by Valve. And most likely it will come with SteamOS 3.0 which is rumored to be launched soon (pending Valve Time)

[https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/looks-like- steamos-30...](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/looks-like- steamos-30-is-on-the-way-codenamed-clockwerk.12208)

It's also important because Valve drops the support of XP and Vista in January 2019.

[https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1558-AFC...](https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1558-AFCM-4577)

<comment><USER3> So we're relying in Valve's ability to count to 3.

We are doomed.

<comment><USER4> You could say we're left 4 dead

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope such games are marked in the store to differentiate them from games made by developers who actually make an effort to support Linux. Relying on a shim made by Valve to support a game on an OS that developers did not target sounds like a recipe for a really bad, unstable time. I'd also rather not give money to developers who make a decision not to support Linux.

<comment><USER6> I imagine that they'll do it on a case-by-case basis, with a custom configuration for each one, testing to make sure it works. (Possibly they'll also detect games that use unity, c#, java, dosbox, but only officially support window, and make a shim for those.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To me, the article reads like Steam Play could be a wrapper over WINE and maybe DXVK (or similar).

That would be awesome! Tools like PlayOnLinux and Lutris already exist, and are met with so much love from anyone I introduce to them.

The community around windows on linux gaming could use support from a large player like steam. If it increases adoption of linux as well, it will help improve wider adoption of native Linux gaming further.

I have been using WINE for gaming exclusively since I started gaming a couple years ago. It has always been a pleasant experience for me.

I am excited for the future and optimistic about this speculation. It's not "year of the linux desktop" (cellphones might mean that never comes), but it is always nice to see better, user-friendly resources.

</comment><comment><USER8> Many new titles seem to support Linux. Old titles largely don't.

Even if a Wine-ish compatibly layer adds some performance overhead, the PC that sits behind my TV is losing Windows pretty quickly once this comes out. Managing Windows is a PIA compared to slapping Xubuntu on a system.

<comment><USER9> Newer titles tend to use newer engines, almost all of which include Linux export as a one-click build option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is really great. I've been worried that Valve might drop their linux support that was only really there in the first place to spite microsoft for the app store. I don't think they'll ever succeed in getting 10%+ steam users over to linux but damn am i glad that they are doing it anyways

</comment><comment><USER11> Valve knows the threat of S-mode and Microsoft's desire to creates its own walled garden with its own 30% tax on all software.</comment>


McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/koba_des_neiges/status/1225926716926963713 <comment><USER2> It might be a stunt, but stuff like that happens. Many years ago I used to work for a large European company that ran a booking system for several hundreds of airlines. The system was used as a back-end by more than one famous online booking site. Currency rates were updated automatically. Once, on a new year's eve, at midnight, a glitch slipped into the Canadian dollar conversion rate, setting 1 CAD to 0 EUR. All of a sudden, all Air Canada flights were for free for European customers, at what might be the worst time of the year : "\- so, this year's resolution : we take time to travel. \- hey look honey, Canada looks cheap. \- deal done, book right away, and let's open one more bottle of champagne !" I don't know how many AC flights were booked before someone realized and an on-call guy fixed the conversion rate. However, I know that all those free bookings remained valid, and were offered by my company who payed all of it directly to Air Canada.

<comment> yoz-y Amadeus?

I remember at some point the French computer retailer had an issue when running a "buy 2 get 1 free" offer on blu-rays. One could remove the two bought items from the cart and the free one would remain. Repeat ad-libidum.

Last year Amazon ran an offer where all photographic gear cost $94. All of it, even lenses which retailed for over 13k. [https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/07/19/amazon- prime-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/07/19/amazon-prime-day- error-sold-13-000-camera-equipment-94-report/1775314001/) If there is one regret I have in my life, it was not checking the prime day that fateful morning.

<comment><USER3> I won the lottery on a similar issue. I was looking at monitors on Amazon using a business account, which sometimes offers volume discounts. Instead of a $10 discount, someone had set the unit price to $10 if you bought more than one, for a $1100 monitor. I bought five. I expected the order to be cancelled, but a week later five monitors showed up.

<comment><USER4> Along the same lines, I was shopping for fuel injectors and someone listed a particular part number at like $1.50ea. So now, years later, I have a peanut butter jar fulled of 24lb/hr EV1 injectors that are not the right flow rate for anything I own but hey, maybe I'll use them eventually. It's nice to find a pricing error but it's rare to be in a position to actually use or be able to re-sell multiple units.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More details: if you ordered a "Golden Menu" with a "McFirst" sandwich on the mobile app or on the self-service machine, almost everything you add would have been for free. The bug was first reported on Twitter and it took about 7 hours for restaurants to refuse to give orders.

<comment><USER5> Interesting that they had the exact same issue on both platforms. It's also the kind of thing where some people might just guess that the behavior is intentional and take advantage of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's always interesting to me that so many people seem to completely lose all compunction about stealing once technology is involved.

If they were ordering from a cashier at McDonald's and the cashier got distracted for a minute and somehow forgot to charge them before finishing the order, most of the people that abuse a bug like this would tell them about the mistake. I've been in similar situations plenty of times, where I easily could have gotten something without paying because of a staff oversight, but I always tell them I haven't paid yet. Most people won't suddenly decide to steal something just because they're handed an easy opportunity.

But when the transaction is through an app or a website or something, people are completely willing to abuse errors, and will even go through an obscure process deliberately to _cause_ errors so they can abuse them. When Amazon accidentally sells expensive camera equipment for 99% off on Prime Day, people clamor to steal as much as they can, even though it's a blatant mistake. None of those people legitimately believe the price is intentional, they know they're taking advantage of an error. The ones that get away with it brag about it, and others that missed the chance are jealous that they didn't manage to steal anything.

It's really a fascinating piece of psychology to me, that once there's a "system" in place, abusing holes in it feels like a reasonable thing to do, even if the end result is effectively shoplifting.

Edit: the replies to me are a perfect demonstration.

<comment><USER7> Can you please explain concretely what your definition of stealing is?

To most sane people, it is not stealing when a transaction price is set, and that price is paid.

If you buy a car and complete the transaction and as you're driving off the lot the dealership says, sorry, that car is 200,000 not 20,000; would that be stealing? Why or why not?

<comment><USER8> Could it have been obvious the price was 10 times higher than you paid? If yes, then it's stealing. If no, then no.

<comment><USER9> I see this as a negotiation between man and machine. The machine in this case was bad at negotiating.

<comment><USER10> These sorts of "cutesy" arguments don't hold up in a court of law.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21534526/ns/technology_and_science...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21534526/ns/technology_and_science- security/t/woman-admits-exploiting-glitch-qvc-site/)

<comment><USER11> That wasn't a glitch in negotiating. The system knew that the purchase was cancelled but sent the items anyway. It makes perfect sense that the system can legally ask to get those items back.

<comment><USER7> It depends on what the cancellation policy is, if the cancellation policy says that the responsibility to return is on the buyer, then absolutely it's stealing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There was one evening in a small town is England where my fellow students convinced the staff in the local McDonald's that the student offer of one free hamburger did not require a purchase. We ate a lot of free hamburgers that night. Guilt aside, dare say they were the best McDonald's I've ever tasted

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems like a good way to promote the app specifically and McDonald's in general. I wonder what the ROI on something like this is vs a more traditional marketing campaign.

<comment><USER14> Their franchisees bore the entire cost of giving out the free food. McDonald's corporate paid nothing except for paging someone in to fix the bug.

<comment><USER15> I don't know if McDonald's food is that expensive. I would expect that most of the costs are the employees, the building, and the equipment.

<comment><USER16> Well, their employees had to do all the work to make that food without the franchise getting revenue for it, but the employees were presumably still paid

<comment><USER17> But the people were already there, it only happened over the course of a single day; it's not like they paid the people more because they were busier or making more orders.

<comment><USER18> They can only handle so many orders in a given hour. If too many people took advantage of this, then queues probably got longer, discouraging potential customers.

<comment><USER19> Customers, who would've paid nothing anyway, presumably

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was another one I saw where you could order a dollar burger, then order another ten burgers without the burger, and because of how the kiosk software calculated the "no burger" modifier, the total came out to $0.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/04/08/11-free- burge...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/04/08/11-free-burgers- these-friends-reportedly-hacked-mcdonalds-kiosk/3398623002/)

<comment><USER21> > There was another one I saw where you could order a dollar burger, then > order another ten burgers without the burger, and because of how the kiosk > software calculated the "no burger" modifier, the total came out to $0.

This looks like the software was missing some internal sanity checks. For example, it was hammered into us at Caltech that any answers we derive need to be sane. If an energy value turned out to be negative, we would have to note on the solution something like "the negative value is clearly wrong but I don't know where my mistake is" or we'd get not just zero credit on the solution, but a negative credit.

Software should have the same sort of checks. It's called "contract programming", the simplest manifestation of which are asserts.

<comment><USER22> > Software should have the same sort of checks. It's called "contract > programming", the simplest manifestation of which are asserts.

A wrong answer is wrong, but the correct response isn't always to fail. Imagine you added this and that caused 0.01% of orders to fail for 10 days while you debug the issue. Perhaps your assert is only stopping a 1 cent deviation from the correct order total - is it better to prevent 0.01% of orders in their entirety or have the absolute correct order total?

Also a value of $0 is a perfectly valid cost for food - maybe they are using a voucher, or some loyalty points, or something else. The Uber eats integration with McDonalds seems to print an order that costs £0.

<comment><USER21> Detected failures should bounce it to the cashier to ring it up. All the McD's I've been in with a kiosk also have a human cashier to help anyone with problems.

> or something else

Easy to account for it.

BTW, the entire reason for the invention of double entry bookkeeping is to detect errors, not throw up hands and say it can't be done.

<comment><USER22> > Detected failures should bounce it to the cashier to ring it up

Assuming a minor deviation from the real order cost that ends up being more expensive than swallowing the difference and continuing with the order, and it also increases the number of abandoned orders at peak times.

Either way you're paying a dollar to save a cent.

Because you don't know what the true value should be (else you have no bug) it's very hard to choose the correct course of action. I'd argue that attempting to detect unexpected deviations and adding friction to fast food orders could backfire massively at McDonalds scale

<comment><USER21> Using sanity checks in software is normal practice, especially in software that calculates critical things. It works.

> I'd argue

I'm sure if you put some effort into thinking about how to make it work, you'll be successful.

<comment><USER22> > Using sanity checks in software is normal practice, especially in software > that calculates critical things. It works.

Literally the whole point, that I've repeated to you 3 times now, is that a single cent is not critical if it means losing the entire order.

This isn't a rockets trajectory or a an MRI scanner, it's a glorified tablet selling high-volume impulse food at a good markup, so stop pretending as if the context doesn't matter when discussing things.

<comment><USER21> > that I've repeated to you 3 times now

I explained how to deal with that.

BTW, crooks have stolen millions of dollars by adjusting software to shave off a penny here and there. The idea that McDonalds can afford to be unaware of a missing penny in a transaction, when they have billions of those transactions, is wrong.

In accounting software, it's critical to be accurate to the penny. Having the POS software be off by a penny calls into question the entire reliability of the software. Especially when normal accounting controls are not followed and the penny error is not detected.

I once read a story where a prospective engineering hire was given a plant tour at Ford. He noticed an inefficiency that was costing Ford 5 cents per car. He was promptly hired.

Edit:

> rockets trajectory or a an MRI scanner

I've heard the same arguments from people who vigorously insist that it's correct for rockets and scanners for the software to ignore bugs and soldier on. I hope the people who do write that software do not agree with those arguments. I suggest that re-evaluating this merits an investment of your time.

<comment><USER23> > I once read a story where a prospective engineering hire was given a plant > tour at Ford. He noticed an inefficiency that was costing Ford 5 cents per > car. He was promptly hired.

This seems implausible at best, unless it was long enough ago that 5 cents was a meaningful amount of money. Ford only sells about 5.5 million vehicles per year, so even an inefficiency which affects every single vehicle would only cost $280,000 / year, which is almost certainly not an amount that justifies a process change across all ford assembly lines.

It's important to keep in mind what the acceptable margin of error is. It's very easy to say "no discrepancies are acceptable," but in sometimes you have a legacy system that mostly works and it's not worth the person-hours to stamp out every inconsistency.

<comment><USER24> Disregarding the point op was trying to make; the ability to spot the inaccuracy might have had more to do with the hiring decision, than the monetary value of the bug itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I ordered a MacBook Pro (though Pink/Rose Gold) for 29999.99 RSD (255.46 €, 279.63 $). It was supposed to cost 299999.99 -- 2,796.29 $ or 2,554.55 € (extra 9). The order was cancelled with no explanation, obviously. Laws in Serbia do allow for a sale to be cancelled before delivery if the merchant entered the wrong price, or the device is not available in the warehouse, etc. It was funny :)

<comment><USER26> That kind of thing happens in Australia and the sale must go ahead by law. The advertised price is the price, end of story.

<comment><USER25> I know, it's like that in the USA and a lot of the world, I think even European Union, that's why I mentioned it. Not in Serbia, yet.

I think I've read about people in USA suing companies for refusing to sell, or requesting return, of products that were advertised with "incorrect" prices and ordered/purchased by the customer.

<comment><USER27> It's actually not like that in the USA. Amazon and other retailers have made numerous price mistakes in the past that were canceled without shipment. If you ask customer service, they might offer you a small gift card as a consolation. It's rare for companies to honor their price mistakes, especially major ones that incur them significant losses.

If the retailer charges you a different rate than advertised, that's a different issue, but it generally doesn't happen.

<comment><USER25> You can sue for false advertising, at least in the USA. Well, unless the company has "prices and specification subject to change without notice" and mandatory arbitration.

<comment><USER27> If the retailer cancels your order and refunds you the amount you paid (or releases the authorization hold on your payment card, since most retailers don't charge until the item is shipped), you won't have any damages to show. Price mistakes happen all the time, and I'm not aware of any US court case that penalized a retailer after they issued a refund.

<comment><USER25> I understand, I'm misremembering it then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> a few years ago there was a local promotion for packs of nestea, where each case contained a coupon for a free case of ice tea. The coupon didn't say you couldn't redeem it for the same box (which contained another coupon)

A bunch of people (me included) went around and basically cleaned out all the stores that sold it. There was a hilarious thread on red flag deals where people posted pictures of SUVs packed to the brim with ice tea.

</comment><comment><USER29> Back in 2014 EA issued a discount code for Origin that granted you $20 discount, with no minimum value and reusable. Myself and a couple friends managed to snatch 20 or 30 games before they deactivated it. It was pretty funny, and since it's just a digital product I don't think there's a reason to feel bad about it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Here in Australia, the app has placed several phantom orders which I have paid for but did not actually order.

Have tried to contact McDonalds but they did not respond.

It was only 4 or 5 coffees so I deleted the app. Should've chased it harder but didn't have the time.

<comment><USER31> Just give them a call, they credit you immediately. I had the same thing happen at Sydney International Airport a few months ago - I placed one order but it went through five times. It didn't show up on the app and didn't show up on their registers, but I was definitely billed for it.

A two-minute phone call and they refunded it all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is there any proof other than the picture of someone with a ton of McDonalds food and a caption?

<comment><AUTHOR> [video] [https://twitter.com/LeRoiLeBg/status/1226133445346316288](https://twitter.com/LeRoiLeBg/status/1226133445346316288)

<comment><USER32> I suggest we change the post link to this instead of a simple photo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> IP payment-->> French fries

</comment><comment><USER34> I still wouldn't want to eat any of that pile of garbage food even for EUR0.

</comment><comment><USER35> Through the magic of software, McDonald's has allowed its customers to live out their fantasy of becoming real-life Hamburglars.

<comment><USER36> Well said sir

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Even for free I will not eat that processed garbage

<comment> frosted-flakes I have friends like you. They decry McDonald's food as super bad for you—and then turn around and eat at the fancy burger place where a single burger and fries sets you back $20. Even though it's literally the same food: beef patty, white bun, ketchup, processed cheese, onions, and lettuce. And they get the pop and greasy fries too.

What's bad about McDonald's is not that the food is unhealthy (it is, but no more than most restaurants), but that the food is so cheap that so many people regularly eat it instead of proper home-cooked meals. Also, it's easy to get way too much food and sugary pop.

I eat at McDonald's a few times a month, but I don't view it as an unhealthy habit. My typical meal is two sandwiches, either McDoubles or Junior Chickens. That's less than 800 calories in total (I usually drink water). I rarely go for the combo meals or the big sandwiches.</comment></comment>


Berlin Wants to Freeze Rents for 5 Years. Can It Do That? - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/11/berlin-rent-control-legal-challenges-horst-seehofer-emails/602260/ <comment><USER2> Price-control (which is what a rent freeze is) distorts market values badly. The biggest drawback is that when the price-freeze is lifted, prices revert extremely quickly to where the market would have been without the freeze. i.e a sudden huge jump in prices instead of a slower gentle rise which is more able to be accommodated to.

There is no good side to rent freezes. It's very bad for business. When imposed, property prices are depressed and nobody want to invest in rentals leading to a shortage of available properties for rent. When lifted, tenants can be squeezed to oblivion and forced to close down in order to move out, away from unaffordable expenses.

</comment><comment><USER3> Europe seems pretty determined to have no future at this point. Imagine spending time on this rather than creating authentic economic growth so people can afford to keep paying more as the market dictates.

<comment><USER4> I am against rent controls, but dont you have it in San Franscisco?

<comment><USER5> Yes, and now statewide in CA</comment></comment></comment>


A Tale of Two CEOs - <AUTHOR> http://twitpic.com/1snr7r

<comment><USER2> The scaling on the graph makes it difficult to tell, but it looks like the stock price fell soon after Balmer took over and has gone up and down since then, but mostly held steady. Why would he be sacked now, if he's survived almost 10 years with similar performance?

<comment><USER3> Because investors' patience isn't infinite?

In Ballmer's defense, MSFT has outpaced NASDAQ over the past 10 years, and has been paying dividends the whole time, so the performance isn't quite as bad as the flat-to-sinking stock price suggests.

<comment><USER4> Pedantic note: MSFT started paying dividends in 2003, 1/3 of the way through the Ballmer period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe Gates simply timed his exit and Microsoft's stock price was going to fall anyway. Classic endogeneity problem:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogeneity_(economics)>

</comment><comment><USER6> A more accurate title might be "A tale of two eras."

The stagnation in Microsoft's stock price has more to do with the market changing and the company maturing than with who's at the helm.

<comment><USER7> I'd argue that who's at the helm has a direct influence over whether a company follows a changing market and grows with it or stagnates (or fails).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Y axis on this graph isn't labeled. Moreover, it's scaled so that the rise for Bill Gates looks huge compared to everything else.

<comment><USER3> There's a Y axis on the right. From the numbers there it's clearly logarithmic. The rise in the Gates era is just as striking, if not more so, with a linear scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd love to see the NASDAQ on graph as well

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps Gates shall return, Jobs-like, as the founder-savior for MSFT?

<comment><USER10> He's saving _lives_ now.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Tad – A fast, free cross-platform CSV viewer - <AUTHOR> http://www.tadviewer.com <comment><AUTHOR> This died on the vine when initially posted two months ago; main comments then were complaints it was "mac only". Yesterday's release (0.8.4) includes binaries and installers for macOS, Windows and Linux.</comment>


Microsoft Is Acquiring London's AI-Driven Swiftkey for $250M - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/02/microsoft-is-acquiring-londons-ai-driven-swiftkey-for-250m/ <comment><USER2> Hitting the middle button on SwiftKey "neural alpha" repeatedly:

I have a few questions for you to see if you can get me a copy of the letter to the office and I will be in touch with you to discuss the position with you and your family are doing well and that you are not the only one I have to say that I am a beautiful person and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you

<comment><USER3> This is from my swiftkey.

I am a very good to see you guys and meet Steph said she needs to find her copy of Banjo Kazooie the same spending power of the beach and will be working with JavaScript as well as the anticipated time and additional fees involved in the future and to see our contact information please click here to help you with your app and activate Inbox by Gmail on that account I deploy to the repo if you want to take open source tools to handle it though I have a digitalocean account I deploy to the repo if you want to take open source tools to handle it though I have a digitalocean account I deploy to the repo if you want to take open source tools to handle it

My girlfriends.

I am trying to get a chance to win the game is at the cough and I will be assisting them in developing an online patient care system where doctors will have a secure system to access patient files outside of the office and I don't know if you need any more information on the landing page and the other hand I am not only hardworking but ready and excited to learn about the cosmetic chemistry field of study of the month of the month of the month of the month of

<comment><USER4> How often are you talking about Banjo Kazooie?

<comment><USER5> I'd assume a good amount if Steph can't find her copy of it ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a good acquisition in that it's a great product used by many people.

I can't help thinking about the privacy angle - Microsoft gets to capture everything you type into your Android keyboard.

And yes I wear my tinfoil hat often.

<comment><USER7> Last time I checked, SwiftKey had an explicit option to cloud sync your data, or keep it device-only. I am not sure if any newer versions of SwiftKey have removed it, but that's always been a specific choice I've made on SwiftKey installs.

<comment><USER8> Since it is a proprietary software, did you reverse engineer it to see if it really does what you think?

Or have you used some packet sniffer, like Wireshark and analyzed the network traffic extensively?

Unless you do those things, you're still at their mercy. Not that it matters too much, since Google already has access to anything you do on your Android phone, and I don't think Microsoft is "worse" than them...

<comment><USER9> On iOS the OS limits network access to keyboards unless you explicitly approve it.

Of course on Android, Google refuse to do anything about privacy controls.

<comment><USER10> Really? I've got quite a few permissions that I can allow or deny on a per-app basis. Admittedly, "network access" is not included in the default list which I assume is a way to keep people from breaking app functionality (for better or worse) but there are several third party apps that let you toggle network access permissions. Not quite as nice as something built in but if you're the type to go into settings and modify app permissions, you're probably also the the type who doesn't mind grabbing an app from the Play Store to do the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Financial Times says:

"Nonetheless, one person close to the company said the sale price was lower than investors might have hoped for a couple of years ago, when Swiftkey was among the most popular smartphone apps in the world."

It is an unfortunately timed exit.

If they had sold even a year ago, they could have done much better.

</comment><comment><USER12> Awesome exit for them but, darn it, there goes another great app. Destined to become a shadow of its former self.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, another entry for ourincrediblejourney.

<comment><USER14> Wow that was my first time looking at [http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/) . Is their some template you fill out for your blog whenever you get acquired?? Seriously: copy, past, repeat.

<comment><USER15> I would guess that startup founders have no idea what to say upon getting acquired, so they google around to see what other startups have said.

<comment><USER16> Accurate. I would bet most aren't even written by the startup founders themselves.

<comment><USER17> I would definitely take that bet. Startup founders for the most part, even ones accepting 9-figure acquisitions, don't tend to have people ghost-writing their blog posts. (Dedicated writers on their team maybe, but not authoring blog posts with the founders' by-line.) I agree with your parent though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it just me that I find Microsoft implementation of swype typing better than swiftkey on iOS (I haven't used Android). I hope they are using the buyout for swiftkeys spread on android and iOS, or to get more information about what users are searching/typing. And I hope we can see the AI on Windows 10 swype feature percolate into swiftkey products.

</comment><comment><USER19> There is no other keyboard out there which can predict multiple languages without clumsy language switching.

Fuck, now all the data will be mined by Microsoft. Another great product FUBARed, just like Sunrise.

</comment><comment><USER20> As a person who has and uses (lightly) a Windows Mobile phone running the Windows 10 beta, I'd love to see it become a/the keyboard option on there. The native keyboard isn't terrible once you learn some of the things it can do, but it still pales in comparison to SwiftKey, and I don't even make full use of the predictive buttons because I'm so used to sweeping.

I'll note that in the search / address bar of Firefox, if I type "ne" the three options it predicts are "ne", "news.ycombinator.com", and "news.google.com", where the same entry in a text field gives more expected values.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've honestly found my SwiftKey experience getting significantly worse over time to the point where I'm ready to drop it entirely.

The predictions/autocompletes just seem completely batshit crazy compared to when I first started using it.

Although if Microsoft are the new owners of the software then I'm definitely going to drop it anyway.

<comment><USER22> Why would you leave just because Microsoft bought it?

I really like their Android launcher - Arrow: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.launcher&hl=en_GB) and so I'm confident that they can make a good go at it.

<comment><USER21> I've been really turned off by the way they have behaved lately, in particular the way they handled the push for people to adopt Windows 10. I upgraded myself (I'm a gamer, so basically just for DX12).

1) Autodownloading it to people's machines ignoring any user choice not to do so.

2) Auto-starting the the install/upgrade process without any input from the user.

3) Making user-hidden Windows 10 (and Windows 7/8 telemetry) updates available again, over and over.

4) Resetting privacy settings after Windows 10 updates

5) Refusing to clarify what is actually in Windows 10 updates,

6) And just flat out refusing to allow their users to turn off the telemetry and advertising in Windows Store apps altogether.

Every once in a while Microsoft seems to start behaving themselves and improving on their old, shitty image. Then stuff like this happens, where 'honest mistakes' that just happen to be _very_ much in their interests occur over and over again in a short space of time over the course of the initial adoption of their new software.

I get that they stand to make a _lot_ of money having as many people as possible on their new platform but when it comes at the cost of ignoring user choice, siphoning off their data and just not telling them what updates are doing to their systems then it's time to call bullshit.

They're completely full of it and they haven't changed at all.

I'm 100% convinced SwiftKey will become the next tool in their new user data- based business model, so I won't use it anymore. Just like I stopped using WhatsApp when Facebook acquired it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. People don't talk about it too much in the same breath as all of the new trendy AI stuff, but Swiftkey has been doing incredibly smart input work for years, and is probably the most actually-useful AI app available for Android. I think I had it since it's earliest days, like 2009 or 2010?

<comment><USER23> In what way is it better/different, compared to the default Google keyboard (which is not too bad, either)?

<comment><USER24> It's hard to tell exactly without knowing what's going on under the hood, but what has significantly got better in recent months for me is:

\- Individualized predictions (it clearly picks up things I often write, including slang and abbreviations)

\- Multi-words predictions ("What time" completed by "is it" instead of "is", "it")

\- Context dependent predictions: predicts email addresses when I'm in the "To" field of an email, predicts an URL when I'm in the browser's omnibox, etc.

\- Multi language support (I can mix English and French in my texts... Happens all the time)

<comment><USER25> > \- Context dependent predictions

Actually, that's not a feature of the IME/Keyboard.

The dev of the app has to set textUri, or textEmail, or textShortMessage on each field.

Here's a list of all contexts possible: [http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextVi...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html#attr_android:inputType)

<comment><USER26> The app provides the context id, SK provides the predictions, using context- specific models.

<comment><USER25> Yes, but that's not much of a feature. You don't have to detect anything, you can just use a different prediction model for each context, and train each separately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm using SwiftKey constantly for normal typing, and it's got a great autocorrect feature. Not using the AI (word suggestion/prediction) at all. Yet it drives me regularly insane, especially when typing technical terms, abbreviations and http addresses, because it just refuses to accept that there sometimes just has to be NO space after a dot. Also writing uppercase seems to be a hard task for SwiftKey. I'd like them to enhance the AI this way: if SwiftKey recognizes permanent violations of their built in rules, just ask the user if he wants SwiftKey to ignore certain rules. I assume something can be configured, but I didn't even bother searching for it (because lazy and afraid to get lost in the huge settings menu).

<comment><USER28> Correctly configured/tagged text input fields usually don't have these issues (Android) and makes SwiftKey behave correctly.

But in Chrome (for example), the address bar is not only for URLs, so your mileage may vary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is frustrating, Microsoft announced that they were going to port the excellent Windows Phone keyboard to iOS and I was hoping it would come to Android too.

<comment><USER7> Windows Phone's predictions was nothing much, though. SwiftKey is capable of supporting multiple keyboard layouts, their magic is that prediction software. It's entirely possible/likely that Microsoft will take their layout that people like, and offer it with SwiftKey as the predictive text feature attached to it.

<comment><USER30> I find the windows phone keyboard suggestions much better than any other I've used. Despite now having an iPhone 6s from work I still use a WP as my daily go to because it's much better at writing a whatsapp or email message, even if the 'other' apps suck.

I'm also heavily dyslexic, so I might be an outliar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> IMHO, the stock keyboard on Surface devices is barely functional. It looks nice but lacks a lot of features that I am used to from my (non Microsoft) mobile devices. I am hoping this acquisition is a move to improve that technology.

</comment><comment><USER32> For me Swiftkey was a favourite until it broke in so many subtle and not so subtle ways: insisting on changing i to I (i is the local word for in so incredibly frustrating), other times it will split combined words making me look like an English-speaking or worse, local teenager. No amount of tweaking, correcting, updating or even filing bugs seems to work.

So now I use the default keyboard.

<comment><USER28> Just uncheck Autocorrect. Makes it so much more useful (for Scandinavian languages and multi-language modes), even though it requires a bit more mental presence when typing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Here's how SwiftKey works:

That video was not the explanation I was hoping for, but a voiceover ad...

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if this is going to have implications for Swiftkey's privacy policy and data mining etc. if Windows 10 is anything to go by...

</comment><comment><USER35> Okey. I'm trying Fleksy then.

</comment><comment><USER36> Congratulations to the team at SwiftKey!

I know there's a high concentration of awesome engineering talent there. So I wonder whether this acquisition is primarily for the talent or for the potential monetisation opportunities?

</comment><comment><USER37> Ahhh I can't stand swift key. Windows flo or what ever it is kills this already. Swift key doesn't learn and consistently suggests wrong words even after 2 years of use.

Personal opinion.

</comment><comment><USER38> Sad that after all those years Apple/iOS still doesn't have a keyboard with swypeing and voice input combined, or did I miss anything?

<comment> k-mcgrady ...SwiftKey. It's available on iOS as are many other third party keyboards although admittedly the integration isn't great. As for voice input iOS has had that in the built-in keyboard for 3 or 4 years.

<comment><USER39> Yeah, but all iOS Keyboards have serious stability problems. I'm sure that it's Apple's API's fault first, and hope that MS's resources help iron things out, but its really frustrating.

Integrating Cortana into the keyboard could be interesting though, would like to give it a spin if more convenient than it is today in comparison to Siri.

<comment> k-mcgrady You're right the integration of third party keyboards is awful. I spend more time trying to get the right keyboard to show that actually using the thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Absolutely ridiculous price for something most people don't even know about.

</comment><comment><USER41> Just uninstalled it.

</comment><comment><USER42> If you have the app installed I would suggest turning off auto-update from the store so that you can keep the keyboard as-is before Microsoft starts meddling with it.

<comment><USER43> Eh. Microsoft hasn't really messed up the previous Android apps they have bought. I feel people have more issues with all data going to Microsoft now.

<comment><USER7> They've made it clear they want to be a viable presence on Android. Ruining an app like SwiftKey isn't in their best interest. But hating on Microsoft is still popular for some people.

<comment><USER42> Yea I'm an irrational "hater". I'll just leave this here [http://appadvice.com/appnn/2015/10/microsoft-announces- plans...](http://appadvice.com/appnn/2015/10/microsoft-announces-plans-to- discontinue-the-popular-sunrise-calendar-app)

You never know what these giant companies will do. But whatever, it was just a suggestion. I don't care if you install the new Microsoft Swiftkey updates.

<comment><USER44> That's not really evidence of your rationality, if that's what you were hoping to prove.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook should ban campaign ads - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/13/ban-facebook-campaign-ads/ <comment><USER2> The fact that a candidate can tell obvious, blatant, and easy fact-checked lies with impunity isn't Facebook's problem, it's America's problem. (And the rest of the world's too.) In any functional democracy, a candidate telling blatant lies under their own name should be political suicide. It somehow is not, and that's stupid, but I'm not sure banning campaign ads is the right solution.

Banning political ads not directly paid for by a campaign that had to put a candidate's name behind their words seems reasonable. But banning ads from the actual campaigns themselves seems like an overreach.

<comment><USER3> That's true with TV ads. You can't tell a huge whopper in a TV ad without lots of people seeing it and saying "WTF? I can't vote for this guy."

You can, however, promulgate specific conspiracy theories in highly targeted ads that the majority of people never see. If 0.1% of people believe some crazy theory, you can show them ads linking the opposing candidate with it.

Perhaps almost everyone believes _some_ crazy theory.

In the future, everyone will be fooled for 15 minutes.

<comment><USER4> You can thank Facebook and their wonderful innovations: algorithmic news feed and social graph.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Traditional media should ban compaign ads too. They have been lying for a century.

<comment><USER6> Totally agree but traditional media was never as ubiquitous as internet based media companies. Their pervasiveness is just at completely diff level. Hence the effects are much more impactful compared to traditional media.

I agree with the mallorean below. Lobbying should be eliminated. It's just a legal way to bribe and it has corroded the democratic system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article makes a reasonable argument that the US would benefit if Facebook were to unilaterally refuse to run political ads, but unless I missed it, it made no mention of why Facebook as a profit driven company would benefit from refusing to accept money from political campaigns. This would seem to be a glaring omission, because unless Facebook stands to benefit, it seems unlikely that Facebook would voluntarily make such a change.

So: how can we better align the incentives of the social media companies with the goals of the public as a whole?

<comment><USER8> As the article said the TAM for political ads is only a few hundred million dollars. That's not worth the increased scrutiny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They should go one step further and shut the whole site down

<comment><USER10> Why's that?

<comment><USER9> [https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2018/3/21/17144748/c...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2018/3/21/17144748/case-against-facebook)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This post was just on the front page of HN. Why did it disappear all of a sudden?

</comment><comment><USER11> Ban all political advertising everywhere.

publicly finance all campaigns. Every candidate gets the same public funds to run their entire campaign.

ban all lobbying. eliminate the government -> private sector job pipeline.

eliminate the concept of "money is speech" \- speech is speech, and that's it.</comment>


The Node.js Project Introduces Latest Release Line: Node.js 10.x - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nodejs/the-node-js-project-introduces-latest-release-line-node-js-10-x-bf07abfa9076 <comment><USER2> Good to see that they are adding promisified versions of more core function like fs. It makes things even simpler for new users especially with async/await support.

I _really_ wish they would add a promise based version of the http/https client. The current version uses events rather than the standard callback signature so it can't be automatically converted using util.promisify().

They don't have to modify the existing low-level http client, just add a new API. They could even use the existing fetch() API that users are already familiar with on the client side.

It really should be dead simple for a new user to make an http call in Node without having to npm install a 3rd party library. I recently created an AWS Lambda function (directly via the console) and I just wanted to check to see what the outside world thought my IP was. In theory, with Node.js 8 It should only take a two liner like this:

      const response = await fetch('https://httpbin.org/ip');
      return response.json();

Instead I had to wrap it in a promise myself using untested code that I cribbed from StackOverflow[1].

1.[https://gist.github.com/talawahtech/f8c4452dbb543297a008d385...](https://gist.github.com/talawahtech/f8c4452dbb543297a008d3856ef47adb)

<comment><USER3> There's a module named `node-fetch` that mirrors the client Fetch API. Might make for a better solution. (but I agree it would be great for it to be built in)

<comment><USER4> I would not recommend `node-fetch', it's pretty crappy in term of performance if you are hitting a same host and expect some kind of keep-alive / pipelining. Switching to `make-fetch-happen' fixed all my issues.

<comment><USER5> Also if you're not intentionally looking to use a low level API, axios is much better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having async_hooks in an LTS release is going to be awesome. The v10.x docs aren't live yet but I'm assuming it'd be similar to the v9.x functionality[1]. There's a lot of interesting use cases for it and I think it's the long term replacement for one of the major use cases for domains[2], namely continuation local storage. Domains have been available but deprecated since v0.10 so great to see a path forward to finally switch off them.

[1]: [https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v9.x/docs/api/async_hooks.htm...](https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v9.x/docs/api/async_hooks.html)

[2]: [https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v9.x/docs/api/domain.html](https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v9.x/docs/api/domain.html)

<comment><USER7> Are domains removed from this release?

<comment><USER6> I haven't see the latest docs yet but I don't think so. They're still there as of the latest v9.x release so I'd imagine there still in v10.x as well.

<comment><USER7> That's what I thought and good news.

We use domains as continuous local storage. This gives us enough time to have a stress-free migration to async hooks.

<comment><USER6> Yep it's still there. Looks like we're good until at least the end of that LTS release, Nov 2020!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No mention of ECMAScript Modules?

<comment><USER9> There was no big change on the ESM side. They are still experimental and require the `.mjs` extension. The only change around modules that I am aware of is the update of the V8 engine. It adds support for `import.meta`.

There are still ongoing discussions around Node's ESM support, you can follow the modules repo [0].

[0]: [https://github.com/nodejs/modules](https://github.com/nodejs/modules)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OpenSSL 1.1 finally arrives at Node 10.</comment>


How Would You Teach Left from Right to an Alien Civilization? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/degrees-of-freedom/2011/08/28/handedness-galactic-challenge/ <comment><USER2> Feynmann discusses this problem in one of his lectures on symmetry. He seemed to suggest that chirality of any physical system was relative, though you may have to down to the subatomic level to completely reverse everything.

If I recall correctly, this segment ended urging listeners to beware of new friends who, after hearing about all our customs, reach out to shake with the wrong hand.

<comment><USER3> Yes, one of my favorite Feynman lectures I was going to comment on, it re- appears in written form in the symmetry chapter in "Six Not-So-Easy Pieces". (Originally from his massive Feynman Lectures on Physics.)

He starts from after you've described the basic exterior human anatomy, which is mostly symmetrical, then he starts with the interior and tells the alien to 'put the heart on the left'. But the alien doesn't understand the direction. So Feynman says:

"Listen, build yourself a magnet, and put the coils in, and put the current on, and then take some cobalt and lower the temperature. Arrange the experiment so the electrons go from the foot to the head, then the direction in which the current goes through the coils is the direction that goes in on what we call the right and comes out on the left."

For anyone who doesn't get the wrong hand joke, the physical reason to watch out is: "matter to the right is symmetrical with antimatter to the left."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article seems to ask how to define a referential term without using reference (i.e. left/right, up/down, clockwise/anti-clockwise, without reference to a static point). Using the example of radio waves, if I wanted to express a basic kind of reference I would start by using pitch (e.g. low pitches to high).

For direction (left vs right), I would broadcast a "beam", increasing in strength on one side, so hopefully an intelligent enough civilization could measure that from "left" to "right" the beam got stronger, perhaps again using pitch to help guide. The problem then would be conveying whether they should follow the broadcast "left to right" or the received "left to right" (i.e. imagine someone holding up their left hand, do they mean your left hand, as in match them, or your right hand, as in mirror them).

<comment><USER5> Exactly. How do you teach children left from right? "Left" and "right" are arbitrary names for a position relative to where the heart is. You have to point to it.

It's the same as teaching the difference between "tomorrow" and "yesterday".

<comment><USER6> There's a huge difference between tomorrow and yesterday! We can define yesterday as the stuff we can remember, and tomorrow as the stuff we can't. (Time asymmetry is huge.) But without common observation (or an appeal to parity violation in the weak force) there is no way to similarly define left and right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would use the phenomenon of the "right hand rule" from electrical engineering as the frame of reference. This is a universal chirality inherent in the use of electronics. And if we're communicating with them via radio waves, we can safely assume they're comfortable with the domain.

Of course, that is assuming that they don't exist in some sort of weird bubble of the universe that operates with antimatter instead of regular matter (and is therefore using some mysterious positron-based "electricity"). I suppose if that were the case, our rendezvous would be disastrous anyway, so destruction of the gate would probably be the best possible outcome...

<comment><USER8> But the direction of a magnetic field is an arbitrary convention. If we used the left hand rule consistently we would make all the same predictions for the forces exerted on particles thanks to two reversals cancelling out.

Now, if the aliens were sending us transmissions through circularly polarized waveforms that would be different, that's a matter of observation rather than communication.

Now, there is a phenomenon where if some particles decay in a magnetic field the products tend to have their products go in different directions depending on the magnetic field. This was a bit of a shock since physicists had assumed left-right symmetry until then. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetry>

<comment><USER9> Circular polarization is the solution I immediately thought of as well, but I'm actually replying to put up this link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_polarization> It has a nice animation of what it is.

Using some form of symmetry breaking works too but is a much worse solution from an engineering perspective since the circular polarization is so much simpler and more direct. But it would work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you can make the assumption that alien creatures have a concept of three dimensions (and later in his article he flips the question around and asserts they do [since they sent us 3d blueprints]) then it's a relatively simple task.

The author said you can't draw pictures, use gestures or images to show the aliens, but that doesn't mean you can't have the aliens use their own imagery.

So, to explain left handedness:

      Picture a 3D coordinate system. With X, Y, and Z axis.
      Vector is represented by the notation of (X, Y, Z).
      Draw a vector (0,0,1). This is the "Forward" vector.
      Draw a vector (0,1,0). This is the "Up" vector.
      Cross vector (0,0,1) with (0,1,0). The resultant vector (-1,0,0) is the "Left" vector.
      For all points Y, and Z of -X (not including 0) lie to the "Left" of the plane ZY.

We don't need to convey a sense of forward and upwards as to how it relates to the alien beings--only how it relates to the coordinate system.

</comment><comment><USER11> A simple solution might be to devise a test with non-expensive results for failure.

For example, we could teach them to construct and transmit a jpeg using their words for left and right. If the jpeg comes through flipped, we got it wrong, and switch the words. If it comes through correctly, we got it right.

<comment><USER12> for that to work you would have to have already communicated that the x-axis component in a 2-dimentional image increases rightwards..

<comment><USER11> Exactly, that we have sent that instructions correctly is what we are testing.

Then they take a picture of something that we both can see (like a star), and if the image is actually 'mirror flipped' of what they would see, we know the instructions were wrong.

You are testing the instructions, not the picture itself.

<comment><USER12> they would have to send the image back to us also encoded. if they misinterpret the instructions, why would we notice when they use the same encoding scheme to send us back a picture?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How do you explain it without _any_ common experience?

Well, that introduces a further problem - if you have _no_ common experience... how do you communicate with them at all?

<comment><USER9> We all live in the same universe with the same physics and have a great deal of common experiences and mathematics with which to _potentially_ have this sort of conversation with them. (Yeah, ye olde "they might be totally incomprehensible" is still there, but in this case we're talking about the flip side... it isn't impossible that we could in fact understand them.) Nevertheless, there are some fundamental symmetries that are so symmetric that we could understand vast swathes of their communication and still not know whether perhaps we inverted their entire communication, lock stock and barrel, because the difference between left and right is actually very, very subtle, subtle nearly to the point of nonexistence. (For a long time we thought they _were_ nonexistent, but we've since found some down at the base of physics.)

The "Contact" model of an enormous transmission that can be progressively decoded can not be ruled out, though we have experimental evidence that it's harder than it seems at first blush. (Still, those experiments tend to focus on having our 'top minds' decode pictures that amount to a few hundred bits; arguably it would actually be easier to decode an entire mathematical codex as we would have a lot more to work with, much like cyphertexts actually get somewhat easier to crack as they get larger.)

<comment><USER13> But if you have to work verbally only, and can never point to something to say "this is -foo-", how do you communicate? It doesn't really matter that we live in the same universe - how the hell do we say "Hey, you know DNA?" when we can't even make an arbitrary point. The article is saying that we can't communicate things about constellations or other simple-yet-arbitrary points, but that we can happily communicate about things we can't even sense ourselves (who knows about the aliens senses?). Sure, we can verbally define what a Volt is, but the words we use to make that definition require common experience at some point to make sense.

Remember that the rosetta stone was so useful because it provided a reference point to help decode a previously incomprehensible language. In order to communicate with someone, you must have a common experience somewhere.

<comment><USER9> We don't have to work verbally only. As I said, the "Contact" scenario is perfectly plausible and you can send diagrams just fine. Also recall as I said we're not talking worst-case scenarios where the intelligence is utterly incomprehensible, which frankly I'm pretty down on anyhow (I don't think "utterly incomprehensible" and "able to survive in our universe" work together, personally), we're talking about some reasonable alien that we actually can communicate with. And the idea that they might _not_ have a concept of diagrams isn't the point, the point is that they _might_ today.

The whole "But they might be incomprehensible and we might have zero common reference frames" is not really applicable here, just a fashionable knee-jerk reaction to "the alien question". As a possible outcome, sure, as the _only_ outcome, no way.

<comment><USER13> I'm working from the original article's demands, which deny diagrams or being able to point at something:

 _And imagine, moreover, that you had to do so in a purely verbal manner, that is, without drawing pictures or pointing at things or otherwise making gestures._

With diagrams or pointing, showing what left and right mean becomes trivial.

On the knee-jerk reaction thing, it's more pointing out that it's a matter of moving the goalposts as mentioned below. It's making an arbitrary line of what can be communicated

I agree with you that the incomprehensible alien form is pointless, but as soon as we have a common frame of reference, we can drill down to defining right and left. All you need is four points: Point A is 'up', Point B is 'down', put your viewing position so that Point C is between you and the line AB. With A being 'up', Point D is on the left side of the line AB. Whether you use stars, a mountainside, a tree, galaxies, or jellyfish, that's all you need - but you still need a common point to refer to.

I think a better way of phrasing the problem would be: You have a communications conduit to a parallel universe and we only have the ability to speak through it. The alien understands us but has no prior concept of right and left. We can't point or refer to bodies in our universe as they can't see them, but apart from that, all physical rules are the same and they have the same level of science knowledge as us. How do we tell them right from left in this instance? We can get the concept across with left- and right-handed molecules (though DNA may be out as they may not have it), but how to indicate _which_ is left and right in verbiage only, I'm not sure.

Phrased this way, you don't have to do silly logical twists to have the alien living in our universe yet still somehow preventing them from seeing the same things we do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting thought experiment. I see many overlap with existing questions from philosophy (of meaning and language), and I think at its core this question is a philosophical one, not about physics.

      The aliens' language does include words for "left" and
      "right" and for "left-handed screw" and "right-handed
      screw". But in all our communications with them, we were
      never able to figure out which was which. We need them to
      explain to us which of their words corresponds to our
      word "left," and which to our word "right." To do so,
      they will need to appeal to some common point of
      reference or phenomenon.

Eerily follows the Twin Earth Thought Experiment and its conclusion:

      Yet, at least according to Putnam, when Oscar says water,
      the term refers to H2O, whereas when Twin Oscar says
      'water' it refers to XYZ. The result of this is that the
      contents of a person's brain are not sufficient to
      determine the reference of terms they use, as one must
      also examine the causal history that led to this
      individual acquiring the term. (Oscar, for instance,
      learned the word 'water' in a world filled with H2O,
      whereas Twin Oscar learned 'water' in a world filled with
      XYZ.)
      ...
      Meanings' just ain't in the head.

This is at the core of semantic externalism. Relating Putnam's view to the OP question:

What if I don't know the difference between left or right? Maybe a brain lesion caused me to skew the concept so that everything would be "left" to me. When I say "move left to avoid hitting a wall" out of this ignorance, this statement can be true or false. If it is true or false, doesn't depend on my flawed concept of "left" or "right", but on those who hear my statement, and correctly know the difference between "left" and "right" and notice the wall on the left side. The true meaning of "Left" is filled in by the language community.

\- This could also mean that our community concept of "Left" is objectively false or obsolete. We deem it to be true and meaningful, the aliens don't.

\- Or that "Turn Left" could mean "Turn Right" when some time has passed (a dynamic rigid designator?)

\- Or that the researchers that communicate with the aliens have a different concept of "Left" than the language community majority.

\- Or that their concept of "Left" is simply incommensurable with our concept of "Left". If here on earth scientists "think differently, speak a different language, live in a different world.", imagine how badly alien thoughts, language and experience would translate, if at all.

\- If it is true that the structure of language affects the way speakers conceptualize the world, then that would mean that to learn "Alien Left", one would need to learn (some say experience) the entire alien language.

All these things an alien should take into account when entering our language field.

      So they begin to beam information to us in the form of a
      3-D technical drawing, encoded as a set of 3-D
      coordinates in space.

A (probably too) simple solution would be for the aliens to send us a 3-D model along with time data. Observing the resulting simulation already implies a perspective and we could reference the first state of the model.

</comment><comment><USER15> You don't. They will already know left from right. Right from wrong.</comment>


My Duck Duck Go reddit ad by the numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-reddit-ad-by-the-numbers.html <comment><USER2> Reddit doesn't allow targeting sub-reddits yet does it?

I'd be interested in advertising but even at $20 there doesn't seem reason to advertise on the main reddit page when I know my target audience will be on a subreddit and can get much better quality clickthroughs.

<comment><USER3> Please stand by. It is our most requested feature, and should be ready soon.

<comment><USER2> Sweet! I'll be trying that out as soon as you launch it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> i actually ran an ad this saturday too...but I actually wanted to test how it'd work for selling something so I used an affiliate link.

So for $20 I got 19,303 unique views, 63,473 total views, 199 unique clicks, 215 total clicks. And a grand total of 1 sales.

The click numbers were different though, the affiliate program I used reported lower click #s.

I'll make a proper blog post about this later today, since I've been waiting for the 24 hour window for reddit to finalize their numbers.

Edit: here is the post with all the numbers/screenshots. Surprisingly I had a lower CPM than Gabriel which is weird since he was spending a lot more money than me.

[http://blog.styleguidance.com/post/481918228/tried-out- reddi...](http://blog.styleguidance.com/post/481918228/tried-out-reddit-ads- here-are-the-results)

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience. One thing to bear in mind is that we (reddit) also run affiliate links, so you were competing directly with us. If they clicked on our link first, you won't get credit for it. They may also not count the click from that user twice, which could explain your lower numbers.

Our traffic numbers come from the same system we use to track our own website traffic, so we work very hard to make sure it is as accurate as possible, since we sell our own advertising based on those numbers, and if they were over-inflated, our other advertisers would complain vociferously.

I suspect the error lies in the affiliate program, who has an incentive to under-report.

However, if you'd like to provide us with the numbers you got from your affiliate program, we would be love to take a look and try to figure out what happened.

Edit: I forgot to mention that AdBlock blocks a lot of affiliate trackers, but a lot of reddit users specifically disable adblock for reddit, so that might also be a source of the discrepancy.

<comment><USER5> Reddit is one of two sites that have AdBlock exceptions on my computers; and it's largely because the ads are usually pretty interesting on reddit.

The self-serve advertising system has been a win for me, both as an advertiser and as a reddit reader; so until Coca-Cola and Viagra ads start showing up in the ad boxes, I'm sure that lots of redditors will still keep the AdBlock exception on their machines.

(I guess this is a roundabout way of me saying that I like the way ads work on reddit, so I didn't mind turning AdBlock off personally.)

<comment><USER6> I have wondered whether the poor response to online ads isn't simply because the ads are so bad. There might be many people like you who don't mind the ads _per se_ so much as the flashing, annoying ads for stuff you don't care about.

So a site that made "interesting ads" part of their brand and actively rejected boring and obnoxious ones, could potentially be valuable. Maybe reddit is consciously doing this.

<comment><USER3> > Maybe reddit is consciously doing this.

Maybe. :) In fact, we use reddit quite a bit, and the flashy ads annoy us just as much as the rest of you. We do our best to keep the ads relevant and non- annoying.

If we could afford it, we would just turn the ads off, but sadly, we have to pay the bills somehow.

<comment><USER7> jedberg, I'd first like to say thanks for weighing in on these conversations. It adds a great deal to these discussions having an insider to clarify things and offer a unique perspective.

> "If we could afford it, we would just turn the ads off, but sadly, we have > to pay the bills somehow."

This comment, however, isn't helpful, and obviously isn't true. Reddit built a really cool, useful site for sharing and discussing interesting things, and nobody begrudges them for trying to turn a profit. Reddit wasn't acquired by Condé Nast because they are interested in having a cool service, it was acquired because they intend to make a lot of money off of it.

The fact that Reddit has found a way to do this while keeping the ads relevant and non-annoying definitely impressive, but we're kidding ourselves if we call these ads a necessary evil instead of the core of the business model.

<comment><USER3> > This comment, however, isn't helpful, and obviously isn't true.

Sure it is true. We would love to run the site without ads. There are other business models besides straight ads, and we are working on moving towards those.

They just aren't profitable yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an aside, everyone should definitely try switching to DDG as their default for a day or two- in-line wikipedia info and the !bang system are really killer.

I've switched to it full-time, and just do !google blah when I need to do an image search. The !bang flexibility makes it fantastic, and !twitter searchterm and !flickr searchterm makes it feel like you have a half dozen search engines at your fingertips. Because you can still execute google searches, it's not really 'switching from Google'- it's just an improvement, plain and simple.

<comment><USER9> Does DDG have a cognate to the google "site:" keyword?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, site: should work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I also had a fairly solid experience with a Reddit ad.

My main problem came in that the first 48 hours (out of 96) that I ran the ad were great. A ton of impressions, comments and traffic. Yet the last 48 hours or so I got almost no impressions or clicks on it. For anyone at Reddit I can provide my account information (its all under 'tibbon') for you to see what I'm talking about.

What I personally took away from it was that you should run your ad for two days, and then not run similar again for a month or so.

<comment><USER3> > What I personally took away from it was that you should run your ad for two > days, and then not run similar again for a month or so.

Yeah, we try to tell people that. The problem is that once someone acts on your ad, we don't show it to them again. So your impressions are expected to drop off rapidly.

We need to do a better job of communicating that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Tangentially, a big, red circle with a face and some green and yellow in it is probably one of the most effective things you could possibly put in an online ad.

</comment><comment><USER11> I ran an ad about a month ago. Paid $20, got 81,196 total impressions and 2,922 clicks. Definitely a success.

<comment><USER12> ...wow, that is _really, really_ high. I've run a few ads on reddit and got clicks in the hundreds for that price, not the thousands.

That's less than $0.01 cpc...which, from what I understand, is completely unheard of.

<comment><USER11> I will blog about this later

<comment><USER3> Please send us the link when you do!

<comment><USER11> will do!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's interesting that reddit provides both good numbers, in _addition_ to a number of hard to quantify but tangible benefits.

<comment><USER14> I've got several ideas now on how to broadcast the availability of a side project to a wider audience once it's ready.

      HN
      Reddit Ad
      Craigslist
      Friends & Family

Other suggestions are welcome :) (Not the side project in my profile)

<comment><USER15> Some of my ideas from 2008 were quite popular here :-) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=341138>

I would still recommend Twitter, Reddit, Delicious, and the like, but would also focus heavily on guest blogging nowadays - its effectiveness has been proven a lot in the last couple of years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where are the best places to guest blog?

Edit: for something for consumers that is broad-based, like a search engine.

<comment><USER16> That depends on what you're trying to promote. Your best bet is to find blogs ready by people who would use your service.

For example if you wanted to launch a site that listed the best places to rock climb, then you'd want to do some guest posts on popular rock climbing blogs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Duck Duck Go must have a pretty good ROI per user if it is worthwhile to pay people to come to the site.

</comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone outside the US had any luck running an ad yet? The T&Cs say you have to be in the US but I've signed up OK.. just not run an ad as I have nothing to promote yet.

<comment><USER3> We (reddit) are not currently able to take credit cards with addresses outside the United States. Hopefully soon we will be able to do so.

<comment><USER15> It's interesting you say that, as a sibling poster says they've been able to (not that we know all the details or if they have a US based card - I'll ask!).

That said, several years back I got around these restrictions a few times by putting in my valid address but then selecting, say, NY and zip 10001. Some card validation systems back then obviously just used the first line of the address and ignored the zip if the card wasn't actually a US one. I couldn't believe it worked either and hope payment systems are a bit more robust now ;-)

<comment><USER18> Didn't work with US address and Russian card :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love the logo. I'm going to use your duck. (the site, I mean).

Interesting info. We sell advertising and based on my experience, the Reddit offerings seem to be well priced and attractive.</comment>


Are Men Singing Higher in Pop Music? - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2019/08/register <comment><USER2> Haha, so the author actually found that 2019--like the last several years--has been one of the lowest-singing years of the last few decades, but they decided to torture the data until they could find a perspective that confirmed the opposite.

<comment><USER3> Don't be a pitch change denier. Part of the pitch increase problem is the increased volatility and one season of abnormally low tones does not change anything. Global consensus is that pitches are on the rise and we must act now before it goes ultrasonic and us old people can't even hear it anymore.

Oh wait, nevermind, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Um, perhaps it's because the entire entertainment industry views tenors as having talents that are worth developing, and baritones as disposable extras?

(Baritone here. We ARE disposable extras. But can't they pretend at least a little?)

<comment><USER5> What about country, blues, etc?

<comment><USER6> Country is mostly autotuned pretend singers now.

<comment><USER7> A friend called country "cowboy hip hop" in that it focuses a lot more on lyrical ability than actual singing skills

<comment><USER8> Lyrical ability?

Pick-up truck, tight jeans, down by the river, drinking whiskey.

Where's my grammy?

<comment><USER9> Ex took it, along with the dog

<comment><USER10> No, that's Blues

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I got out of this was how much better the top 100 music of the 70s-80s was compared to the 2010s. Oh wait, that's right, I'm old.

</comment><comment><USER12> This article is a hassle to read

<comment><USER13> Did you read it on a phone or on a large screen? On my phone, it worked great. My guess is that it was optimized for a small screen.

<comment><USER14> It's pretty obvious it was designed for a smartphone just by seeing the word "tap" as soon as you open it.

Viewing it on desktop was an awful experience, mainly because of the background videos taking up the whole browser window and no ability to adjust the volume

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Back in the 70s/80s, I remember opinionated people claiming that the higher the guys sang, the more commercialized the music was.

Sparks: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAzESJ62irI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAzESJ62irI)

<comment><USER16> Is it wrong to give upvotes based on the mentioning of Sparks?

I am unrepentent in my sins!

<comment><USER15> This thread is big enough for the both of us!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Perhaps everyone is?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennial_whoop](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennial_whoop)

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure this has anything to do with pitch, but thanks for the link anyway. As a late millennial, I was pointing this out to people around 2013-2014 as an example of how all new pop music sounded the same. The Lumineers and Of Monsters and Men (both mentioned in Metzger's piece) were bands popular with my crowd that are especially guilty of this repetitive riff.

It seems to have been dying out since then, though I'm sure pop artists will come up with something equally irritating to put in all their songs.

The name does seem a bit unfair to me. It's not a particularly millennial thing, it's just what's common in pop music right now. It also doesn't sound like a "whoop" at all to me, which makes the name doubly confusing.

<comment><USER19> Pop music has always sounded the same, commercial pressure tends to make it formulaic and apealling to the lowest common denominator.

I used to think that main stream success was a sign that the band I was listening to had either lost their originality and were no longer cool. My CD collection used to consist of a lot of 1st, 2nd and occassionally 3rd albums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was curious if this was related to the Vox Earworm video that just came out on the subject. Sounds like it was a collaboration. The video is much better than this pudding.cool article IMO. [https://youtu.be/qJT2h5uGAC0](https://youtu.be/qJT2h5uGAC0)

</comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of pitch inflation [1]. Time is a flat circle in the arts it seems.

[1] [https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/10388/what-is- the-...](https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/10388/what-is-the-reason- for-pitch-inflation)

<comment><USER22> Although pitch inflation is referring to changes about as large as a concert A changing from 440 Hz to 442 Hz, a change of around a tenth of a semitone. The pitch difference between Barry White and Frankie Valli is more like a few octaves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yeah, hard to imagine men singing much higher than Frankie Valli. That guy's got some pipes.

</comment><comment><USER24> Now I'm curious if they should do this for women's voices getting lower. It sounds like it to me that they are. Lady gaga and Lana Del Rey come to mind for recent examples.</comment>


Yes, Microsoft will use a popup to push users off of Windows XP  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2103495/yes-microsoft-will-use-a-popup-to-push-users-off-of-windows-xp.html <comment><USER2> Does Microsoft know just how quickly the average user closes a popup that they didn't expect?

When you provide support for an average user and they want to demonstrate you what problem they have, you almost have to wrestle the mouse away from them so you can at least read the various messages that popup before that user is able to close them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think that people who are EOL-ing their XP system are likely to migrate to Windows $CurrentVersion (whatever it will be at the time: 7,8,8.1,9); least of all because a popup tells them so.

I see four major paths ahead, listed in decreasing probability:

\- 1. "meh, it works, just ignore it" \- very cheap, not very secure, and gets you back to this decision after some time.

\- 2. "get a tablet/ipad/chromebook/whatever" \- reasonable for the user, disastrous for MS: very few of these people will opt for a Windows mobile device

\- 3. "get a new desktop/notebook with Windows" \- due to Win8's split personality, this might quickly turn into option 2 above

\- 4. "get a modern OS designed for older computers" \- I like LXLE a lot, but that will probably not be a statistically significant option - who knows that this is even possible? Yeah, you, me, and who else ;)

Also, the cost comes into play: you need to pay for the major upgrade paths (2+3) anyway, so why not get something cheaper and more portable, if the migration is inevitable?</comment>


Ask HN: How many candidates do those HN-Job posts for YC companies bring? - <AUTHOR>

How does it compare with your other channels? How many people have you hired through Hackernews job posting? <comment><USER2> I've heard surprisingly low, especially for roles that aren't a simple "frontend engineer at [real-]profitable startup with 20 staff." I think much of the reason is that (especially these last few months) the job board has rarely had fewer than 4-6 posts at any given time.</comment>


Hungary moves to criminalise the homeless - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/09/hungary-moves-criminalise-homeless-201392811941675642.html

<comment><USER2> Shelters are known to be full. This simply means if you are you are a criminal and need to be jailed.</comment>


Ready to Pay? Internet Providers want to meter Usage - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30229181/ If Internet service providers' current experiments succeed, subscribers may end up paying for high-speed Internet based on how much material they download. Trials with such metered access, rather than the traditional monthly flat fee for unlimited connection time, offer enough bandwidth that they won't affect many consumers — yet.
But as more people use the Internet to watch TV and stream movies, they could bump up against the metered rates' caps, paying expensive over-use fees. Watching a movie may then require paying two fees: one for the movie, another to the cable company.
More and more television programming and movies are available online, through sites including Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, YouTube and Amazon.com's Video on Demand.
"This time there is a real, viable alternative" to cable, said Bobby Tulsiani, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.
Most consumers probably don't realize how much bandwidth their Internet usage consumes, because they've never had to care. Time Warner, the nation's third-largest Internet service provider, in its five experimental markets if offering five gigabytes of downloaded Internet content for $29.95 per month. That translates to 15 hours of viewing standard-definition video, or 350,000 e-mails, or 170 hours of online gaming, or some combination of those activities, according to the company. A high-definition movie consumes about 7 GB of bandwidth. <comment><USER2> Here in .au well its kind of like this. Every account has a limit but its much much lower then in the US. And you pay for above that limit. A _large_ limit would be 25 gig or 50 gig per month (most people wouldn't have anywhere near that).

Thankfully, a lot of the good ISPs are making lots of content unmetered - specifically media stuff like tivo downloads and itunes etc (the stuff that would push the limits).</comment>


Kahneman: Nothing is as important as you think, while you are thinking about it - <AUTHOR> http://edge.org/q2011/q11_17.html#kahneman

<comment><USER2> A lot of fascinating ideas in this collection of essays - not just his.

Single-page:

for i in `seq 1 17` ; do curl <http://edge.org/q2011/q11_$i.html> >> edge.html ; done

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice. And on a mac without seq:

for i in `jot 17 1`; do curl <http://edge.org/q2011/q11_$i.html> >> edge.html; done

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the update. Didn't realize seq was just a GNU coreutils thing.

Sometimes I geek out on getting something like this all onto a single readable page which I save in my homedir, then make my default home/open page in my browser, for good offline reading.

So in this case I used wget to save as individual files, then did this to trim out the header and footer:

for i in `seq 1 17`; do grep -A999 'width="534"' q11_$i.html | grep -B9999 '<hr width="700" align="center" noshade size="1">' >> edge.html ; done

Now edge.html will be my homepage for a while. (I work offline most of the time.) Great stuff. Inspiring as hell.

<comment><AUTHOR> Edge.org really is amazing. I've been consistently impressed with it for years.

After I finish figuring out some Twitter and Facebook API stuff I'm going to head offline too, and try this out as my homepage. Several months ago I went without a computer for 3 weeks, and the clarity/deepness of thought I experienced really surprised me. I'm curious to find out how much was due to avoiding computers, and how much to avoiding the internet.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Idea Sunday - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The moderator, 'dang, has asked that these not get posted anymore:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7693262](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7693262)

("Something about having all these ideas in one place makes the whole less than the sum of its parts.", "Ideas are better in the wild. Let's discuss them as they come up organically, rather than try to organize an idea-fest.")

<comment><USER3> It'd be useful (to some people) if one account could post a once monthly thread for idea-dumping.

People often point out existing solutions, so that's useful. Restricting it to a single account and once per month avoids the other problems of those threads.

<comment><USER4> Only the 'whoishiring' account is allowed to make those threads and Dang has already rejected an idea one on that account.

<comment><USER3> I understand the idea has been rejected. I'm still gently, politely, mentioning that some people find the threads interesting fun and useful and hoping that the decision is changed.

I know that halfbaked covers some of the purpose, and there are probably reddit sub-reddits that do similar things, but still, and HN version would be good.

<comment><USER4> Ah okay cool, I agree that they were interesting - HN would be my preferred community to get ideas with I think. (Just say your karma, sorry if my original post was condescending!)

Will check out halfbaked, haven't heard of that. There's a subreddit /r/somebodymakethis which has occasionally had some interesting ideas (it led to RES) but there's probably better options.

There was a HN styled forum posted a while back too, (found it in the comments) [http://firespotting.com/](http://firespotting.com/) \- but it's definitely less active and a smaller community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An app that lets you track the last person to buy beer in a group of friends by taking their picture. With an in-app-purchase, you can ensure that the next time you meet that the app lists yourself as the last beer-monger (while still retaining the history accurately otherwise). Great for that manager or boss who never pays his share.

<comment><USER3> Don't buy rounds - they lead to excess drinking. People should be buying their own drinks.

<comment><USER6> But what about those of us who like things like lead to excess drinking?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An app that allows people to ask for favours from their friends and anyone within a certain radius. Could grow into a marketplace for local tasks (doing the shopping, giving advice, menial tasks etc). Any thoughts?

<comment><USER8> The Buy Nothing Project (started by a couple of friends of mine) is a successful model for this. It's not an app, but a network of Facebook groups.

From their 'About' page: "The Buy Nothing Project began as an experimental hyper-local gift economy on Bainbridge Island, WA; in just 8 months, it has become a social movement, growing to over 25,000 members in 150 groups, in 4 countries. Our local groups form gift economies that are complementary and parallel to local cash economies; whether people join because they'd like to quickly get rid of things that are cluttering their lives, or simply to save money by getting things for free, they quickly discover that our groups are not just another free recycling platform"

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

<comment><USER9> If I understand you correctly, this is for buying gifts for others and getting the same in return. I think the OP meant doing something for someone else, e.g. getting something from a store you're going to anyway, but being refunded.

I wouldn't be as inclined to gift something to a stranger as much as I'd be to grab something along for someone nearby. I don't need to be reimbursed for the effort, but I also don't want to loose money on it.

<comment><USER8> Buy Nothing Project (BNP) isn't about "gifts" in that sense. Here, the "gift economy" is "a mode of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy)

An aim of BNP is to build a hyper-local community where people give and receive goods and services with no money or bartering involved. You get to know the people involved in your group, because only people living within a certain area are allowed to be in the group. And yes, groups do indeed have people picking up things from stores for each other, or giving them rides, on occasion. Some groups including informal lending libraries, where you can borrow tools, equipment, household items an no charge.

Around here on Bainbridge Island, you often see tables on porches for BNB'ers (Buy Nothing Bainbridge members) to pick up stuff. The things (a garlic press; a pair of pants; a lawnmower) will have been listed on the group's FB page, probably with a photo, then there'll have been a few people saying they'd love to have it. Sometimes things go first-come, first-served; other times people get randomly selected.

<comment><USER10> I would advise against the acronym BNP - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> System for product/service idea evaluation. I spend lots of time talking with friends and other hackers about ideas and wish I had a system to create objective evaluations of ideas based on a series of metrics. Right now we use a shared google sheet but there is bias that occurs, for example if we score the potential for viral growth on a 1-10 basis, we see each others scores.

<comment><USER12> You mean judging an idea's viability by sitting around a table and guessing? When it comes to judging ideas errors by investors and "customers" during customer validation give prudence to the fact that no one knows which idea would really take off. A computerized system would make the mistake more difficult to accept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Since the mods asked that these not get posted anymore, I would love a website for easy idea sharing/discussing

<comment><USER12> Your circle of friends (even better if they could be potential users), and a Google or Excel spreadsheet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Accelerometer sensors to monitor natural gas fracking locations.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your website? I'll do a video review of it - <AUTHOR> Just started a new service where I do 5 minute website reviews, giving feedback on design, content and UX.
Comment with your URL below that you want me to review.
I'll review the first 5 sites posted.
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
EDIT: Since a few people have asked, here is the URL for SiteSesh: http://sitesesh.com/
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
EDIT EDIT: Seems like there are more people interested in a review. You can purchase a review on the site which would be appreciated :) or you can wait until I get through these reviews, and I might just give you feedback directly here on the comments.
Use the coupon STARTUP for 20% off a review. Thanks HN! </comment><comment><USER2> Hello and thanks a lot, I always appreciate those kind of initiatives. If you have not yet been flooded with requests, here are both my web apps: [https://www.printmosaic.com](https://www.printmosaic.com) and [https://www.everytimehq.com](https://www.everytimehq.com)

Many thanks in advance!

<comment><AUTHOR> Good stuff. You just missed out the free reviews but you can always order a review ([http://sitesesh.com](http://sitesesh.com)), and with a coupon code, it goes down to $8 :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you want to see previous reviews I've done, here's the Youtube channel. [https://www.youtube.com/c/sitesesh1](https://www.youtube.com/c/sitesesh1)

Also, here's our website if you want more information. [http://sitesesh.com/](http://sitesesh.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I know you said first five, but if you think there is at least a little chance to do more here is my web app [http://bgpatterns.com/](http://bgpatterns.com/)

Thanks)

</comment><comment><USER4> I liked it and for $10 I will for sure use it in the future.

One little "problem" is that my sites are sometimes in spanish, but for I would accept a design-only review in that case.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I've reviewed a site that wasn't in English before. I'm on Google Chrome and I use the translate feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like I'm too late for the first 5, but if you do decide to do more: [http://bulkresizephotos.com](http://bulkresizephotos.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://www.thebrewoutlet.com](http://www.thebrewoutlet.com)

While we are at it... what is your website url or are you youtube based?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll review your site :)

My website URL is [http://sitesesh.com](http://sitesesh.com)

Reviews are all posted on Youtube unless they select private on the review checkout screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. If you find the article, send me a link please.

<comment><USER6> Ahh Boom! Google Fu pays off.

[http://blog.ramen.is/design/we-lost-a-customer-this-is- how-w...](http://blog.ramen.is/design/we-lost-a-customer-this-is-how-we-found- out)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh, good find :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just in case you still need another site to review: [http://www.mosttalked.com/](http://www.mosttalked.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> You just missed out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thank you. My website is [http://www.qinmishu.org](http://www.qinmishu.org)

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://theapp.co.uk](https://theapp.co.uk) This would interest me Jadli

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's your review. Hope the feedback helps. [http://youtu.be/ad5zry0x7Wg](http://youtu.be/ad5zry0x7Wg)

1\. Adding more pictures of the actual app would greatly increase credibility of the website. Right now the website doesn't even look like it's done. It is greatly lacking in content. Users want to see what they will be joining before they join.

2\. I would suggest using better panoramic pictures for the rotating banner. It looks stretched out and pixelated. With the current content, I would consider condensing the whole website into one page.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for doing that Jadli

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why not review a few more?:)

[http://www.storycards.co](http://www.storycards.co)

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll see... Maybe if enough people ask ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sure why not: [http://darrelld.com/](http://darrelld.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, I'll review your site later today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am also too late. [http://buyfrom.farm](http://buyfrom.farm)

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://www.invitespring.com](https://www.invitespring.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like a cool service. You are the last website to be reviewed!

<comment><USER13> woot thanks! it's my MVP, would really appreciate the feedback!

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's your SiteSesh review. [http://youtu.be/iEn77zXmD44](http://youtu.be/iEn77zXmD44)

1\. Great overall first impression! Lovely logo, banner, and custom made images! The sections are spaced evenly and the content was well thought out.

2\. I would make the "Live Demo" link (the one in the middle), into a button and make it more appealing. It was losing attention next to the other well designed sections.

3\. Consider using a different image for the other sections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Please [https://textingpal.com](https://textingpal.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> [http://sudokuisland.com](http://sudokuisland.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Will be reviewing this site as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Brilliant idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!</comment></comment>