What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/what-happens-to-the-brain-when-you-meditate-and-how-it-1202533314 <comment><USER2> If you are particularly fidgety and have trouble concentrating, here is a thought experiment that might help:

Sit in a room with minutes to spare and task yourself this: to get to the market and back from your house. Maybe you shop for some fruits or something.

Step into your mental realm imagining every step you have to do in this task. Changing your clothes, tying your shoe lace, locking your door...everything. Not in frames but in a continuous motion as in a movie. It could be boring and I have felt the strong need to snap out of it. It still is difficult to power through, imagining every step and "looking" at the trees and shrubs along the way, picking up and inspecting an apple and putting it in the basket, paying for the goods, etc.

The whole thing is much more difficult than it sounds if you are the kind of person who gets restless easily. With practice, it gets better. Hopefully this helps you get in the productive zone. Good luck!

<comment><USER3> That's a great tip. I occasionally sit through a somewhat exotic variant: I imagine I can take to flight like a bird (slow flight only, not like Superman) and mentally take off from the balcony and imagine what the town would look like from above. The end of the exercise would be taking a full trip and 'returning' home.

It's a bit more engaging to figure out the aerial view of a place you normally navigate only by road. It's very hard to sustain this practice for even a minute or two initially.

<comment><USER4> See my other response above (wrote that before I read this, though well after you'd made the comment): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6286046](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6286046)

I wonder how many people use flight for this kind of thing.

<comment><USER3> I can tell you I came by it because I'd commonly see kites (as in birds of prey) drifting by, for hours on end, and I wondered what things would look like from their POV. Then when I actually tried to think like that (or imagine, I should say) in a sustained manner, it was unexpectedly hard; so I kept it around as an informal practice.

edit: it's interesting that we both mention "not like Superman". For me it's about going as slow as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You don't need no fucking App to start.

Sit down in comfortable position, close your eyes, _try_ to concentrate on your breathing in and out (your mind will start to wander - keep coming back to the breathing). Repeat everyday.

You'll have the chance to "optimize" and "improve" your meditation experience later on. First, build the habit.

<comment><USER6> Swearing is bad for your energy levels.

<comment><USER7> Swearing is bad if you think it is bad. Nothing is bad.

<comment><USER8> Downvoting you for a hollow false aphorism [second sentence], is that bad?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have done meditation for years now and found it to be very beneficial.

However, I find this article to be very Cargo Cult and am disturbed that nowhere in this entire thread has it been called out as such.

"Look! Meditation must do things because we can make these colored charts telling you about beta waves. What are beta waves? Well, it doesn't really matter, just think of them as bad, because look, meditation does things to your brain, okay??"

The benefits of meditation to mood, creativity, etc are pretty easy to verify for yourself, subjectively. It disturbs me that we feel that adding scientismic mumbo-jumbo gives it credibility somehow. What is presented in this article is not actual science.

There is actual science involving meditation and the brain, but it is in extremely early stages and is hard to draw conclusions from. Our understanding of the brain, in general, is very early! Please be suspicious of pretty colored charts showing brain activity.

<comment><USER10> > There is actual science involving meditation and the brain, but it is in > extremely early stages and is hard to draw conclusions from.

IMHO the best place for information on the science of meditation is the Buddhist Geeks podcast. There are talks on YouTube from their annual conference, which is are also great. The talk this year from Willoughby Britton does a pretty good job outlining the current state of contemplative science:

[http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2012/10/bg-266-mindful-binge- dr...](http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2012/10/bg-266-mindful-binge-drinking-and- blobology/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I belong to a religious group where initiation into meditation happens at about 10-12 years of age for boys. This initiation ceremony is an important ceremony (called thread ceremony) in a male's life. After initiation, every male has to perform a ritual called Sandhya Vandanam [1] thrice every day for the rest of their lives. The ritual has different components. The two important components are Praanaayamaa (breath control exercise) and mantra meditation. A mantra is a Vedic Hymn that is chanted/repeated again and again (for pre-specified # of times). In the Sandhya Vandanam ritual the mantra that is chanted is the famed Gayatri mantra. The mantra is chanted with the following schedule:

Morning at sunrise - Praatah Sandhya - 108 times

Midday - Maadhyanika - 32 times

During evening twilight - Saayum Sandhya - 64 times

The Vedic definition of mantra is "mantaaram traayate iti mantrah". In English this translates to "That which protects the mind is called mantra".

When I was young, I used to perform this ritual regularly. Though I performed the ritual regularly, I used to wonder about the requirement of such a ritual. Over the past few years I have come to know some fascinating things about the ritual and also the Vedas. After gaining the insights, it is ironic that nowadays I do not perform the ritual regularly at all. This article has come at the right time for me to get back into the meditation routine.

[1] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhyavandanam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhyavandanam)

<comment><USER12> As far as I know, sandhyavandana is not a kind of meditation. Sandhyavadana is mostly japa. Meditation is dhyana. When people cite benefits of meditation, they are usually citing studies of mindfulness meditation. Perhaps you'll see some benefits from sandhyavandana/japa also, I doubt it, but that's not what the studies that laud meditation are talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mindfulness in Plain English is a readable and accessible introduction to meditation, available online at [http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html](http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> I find it helpful to think of a muscle as an analogy for my brain. Thoughts are like contractions - sometimes they are purposeful when they are part of a movement, an extension of my will. But sometimes they are not; in that way the incessant chatter of the internal monologue, or worse yet, stress, is similar to a cramping muscle, a flood of contractions that come unbidden. Meditation, then, is similar to relaxation exercises, doing stretches or posture training - teaching your muscles how to be at rest. This can then also translate into efficiency and economy of motion when you choose to move, not to mention more energy, because all the useless contractions/thoughts haven't worn you out beforehand. Also, yoga makes a lot of sense when you think of it this way, because you literally do this for both your body and brain at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is reducing beta waves actually a good thing? It might allow for focus and relaxation, but I wonder if that might do something like clear your working memory and make you less able to make connections between things. Could anyone that has a good grasp on this comment on whether this might be true?

<comment><USER16> "I wonder if that might do something like clear your working memory and make you less able to make connections between things."

Your list is sometimes in internal conflict with itself. I have excellent conscious concentration ability and food memory leading to sometimes getting stuck in local maxima for a given situation. Clear the working memory, remove the "stuck" and suddenly free to snap onto the global maxima for a given situation. Or sometimes not. Complex tools are not like screwdriver; sometimes you can't even tell what the right tool for the job is, much less expect it to work. Often enough, using a different tool works better than trying harder with one thats already not working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > More grey matter

Well as study shows [1] meditation not only thickens cortex in some parts of the brain but also makes it thinner in other parts. Just saying.

[1] [http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/1/27.long](http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/1/27.long)

<comment><USER18> Interesting because this is a rarely reported consequence. It seems no one would object to have denser grey matter, but if it is thinner somewhere, it feels like you lost something.

<comment> hippee-lee Perhaps it's because there is only so much expression in our genetics. Don't think of it as if you lost something. Think of it as if you are investing and building up in the areas with max rio. By max rio I mean it on all levels of genome. Individual, your family & our society. I also believe the results can compound over time.

As a side note, I was raised Roman Catholic. Although I have not gone to church since college I hear interesting sciency things now and then. One, which I don't have a citation for, is that nuns who are experienced at prayer exhibit similar fMRI results when they pray.

<comment><USER18> I don't really think you are 'losing' something in the literal sense when meditating. It is probably more akin to exercising/reshaping it. I was just commenting on the public perception.

<comment> hippee-lee What I was referring to was that our bodies can only produce and manage so much brain tissue. This is dictated by genetics. So if connections are managed in one area they will strophe in another.

I think lose is an ok word but not quite right for what's really going on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm skeptical of articles like this because they tend to draw conclusions from studies that only provide weak correlations. The only concrete evidence I can find is that meditation can help some people relax and temporarily reduce their stress levels. My experience confirms this but I prefer other means of achieving the same effect (like exercising).

<comment><USER16> "I prefer other means of achieving the same effect (like exercising)."

Other than the obvious muscle workout aspect, I found weightlifting to be highly meditative. Highly structured repeated form every other day, breath control, counting reps/sets, stare at the wall, repeat.

I do a fair amount of hiking / snowshoeing and that can be somewhat meditative. If you relax as you stroll down the trail and let your mind wander intentionally into pure nothingness rather than getting stuck on something specific...

My wife does Tai Chi and from what I see from the outside and from occasionally playing long, its basically slowly moving meditation.

Obviously if you define exercise as "soccer" or "bouldering" then this analogy is not going to work terribly well.

<comment><USER20> I agree with you about weightlifting and its meditative properties. I've also found that going against what you usually seen in a gym and NOT wearing headphones actually helps even more. The background noise is just that, background noise, as opposed to a focused sound.

I also rock climb, and I have found that it is possible to achieve the same state while bouldering or rope climbing, as long as the route is below skill level by a decent margin. I'll run the same bouldering route 4x and not even think about it, I just kind of "zone out" and let my body do the work.

<comment><USER21> I always enjoyed doing archery, alone, at dusk. With no other shooters, you can go at a pace that feels good, and let your thoughts settle only on one's actions at hand. This is something which I sorely miss doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can highly recommend reading the Relaxation Response for a scientific treatment of meditation.

Much like exercise, if it came in pill form, everybody would take it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Somewhat related:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_ha...](http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> Or, bring so called "mediation" in every aspect of your life. Pretend life is one big "meditation". And pretend you need no more.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you are interested in meditation but wary of the eastern mumbo jumbo, I suggest checking out Jon Kabat-Zinn and his works on mindfulness from a scientific perspective.

<comment><USER16> Not to put words in your mouth but staying on topic you probably want his book titled "The Mind's Own Physician" in comparison to his book on mindfulness as applied to parenting, or his other books. He has written quite a few books on related topics.

He may have (recently?) written a book more specifically on topic than the one abov,e that I'm not aware of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of the biggest publishers of meditation products is MindValley ([http://mindvalley.com](http://mindvalley.com)). The story of its founder, Vishen is well documented, and really inspiring. He bootstrapped and grew his business to seven figures without external funds. His purpose is not only monetary; he seeks to "push humanity forward" with his groundbreaking programs.

<comment><USER27> That MindValley guy seems shady at best. After digging around their site for hours, you will be hard pressed to figure out exactly what do they do.

<comment><USER26> Not difficult at all - for example, Omharmonics is a set of mp3s based on brainwave entrainment that aid meditation. About $100 for five songs, which sounds expensive, but if they do what they claim to do then it's a downright bargain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I know this is asking a lot, but would anybody like to weigh in with some explanation/evidence for the descriptions of those four parts of the brain?

<comment><USER29> The descriptions are generally accurate, although very broad. The reticular formation is part of the brain stem, responsible for supporting breathing, cardiac function, and other somatic functions. The most relevant function is it's control of alertness and circadian rhythms.

The thalamus does function as a 'gatekeeper', although that's a bad term, the level to which the thalamus processes sensory input isn't fully understood / agreed upon. It's more like a transit hub connecting all the various parts of the brain and sensory tracts. It receives a lot of sensory fibers from the eyes, nose, ears, tongue.

For the parietal lobe, 'orienting you in time and space' just means that the parietal lobe creates a 3D grid system that helps in coordinating muscle movements. This system is supported by sensory input (auditory and visual). The parietal lobe will receive input from other lobes as well as the thalamus.

The frontal lobe is fairly well described, it basically handles higher level thinking, moral decisions, etc. It receives input from other lobes, the thalamus, and the brain stem.

An important take away is that these are really non-specific anatomical regions, the thalamus has ~30 distinct regions all handling different things. The frontal lobe has numerous gyri (regions) with different functions ranging from executive to motor skills.

What he's saying is pretty bs too. The logical conclusion is not that meditation specifically reduces brain activity, it's more that any lack of sensory stimulation will cause brain activity to slow down because less neurons are firing, this can be achieved with other techniques as well, simply staring at a wall will do the same thing.

I can post sources if you'd like but this information (about the compartments of the brain) is very well accepted by those in the medical sciences.

<comment><USER30> Also, surely the presence of beta waves (12-30Hz) needs to be detected by an electroencephalogram (EEG), not fMRI? I thought fMRI has a much lower temporal resolution (~1Hz).

<comment><USER31> I think the image was mischaracterised. The fMRI will show changes in activity and if the image is actually from an fMRI post meditation then the authour may have just extrapolated from 'reduction in beta waves' to 'less activity on this colour gradient image'.

Perhaps the authour isn't really that familiar with the material?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The app is just to help you to get into a rhythm. I downloaded the app and really liked the user flow. Will definitely use to begin my meditation.

In my experience, I have seen a sea change in people who have started meditating. They are much more calmer and happy. There is a flip side as well. Many people get into a happy mode and start giving up in life.

<comment><USER33> I think those people are the ones who are getting into in an extreme way, for long periods at a time. And if they are "giving up on life", then they are probably using the euphoria it can cause to hide their problems the same way people use drugs or religion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Maybe a good place to mention the book that got me started on meditation: [http://www.amazon.com/Minute-Meditation-Quiet-Mind- Change/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Minute-Meditation-Quiet-Mind- Change/dp/0399529950)

</comment><comment><USER35> Practice Preksha Meditation [http://preksha.com](http://preksha.com)

It's free to learn.

<comment><USER36> Isn't everything free to learn? The learning material is the only part that costs anyhing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Meditation, such a scam. I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it. It's nothing more than a relaxation technique and that's it.

The studies about meditation are mostly of dubious quality and origin, and people draw unwarranted conclusions from them.

[http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/21/quacks- eve...](http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/21/quacks-everywhere/)

<comment><USER38> Oh well.. you have a blog to backup what your are saying... pro-meditation "quacks" have been told! Internet: 1 Meditation: 0

I think you have to pause and reflect for a minute when you say things like: "I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it". Maybe _they_ aren't the ones being foolish... ?

<comment><USER37> I think, just like a religion, it's not really the skeptics job to 'disprove' the theory. I think the job of the ones promoting it is to prove it.

A link to skeptics dictionary: [http://www.skepdic.com/tm.html](http://www.skepdic.com/tm.html)

TM recruiting literature is full of charts and graphs demonstrating the wonders of TM. Things like metabolic rate, oxygen consumption rate, bodily production of carbon dioxide, hormone production, brain waves, etc. are measured and charted and graphically presented to suggest that TM really takes a person to a new state of consciousness. Some of the studies done by TM scientists simply show that some of the same physiological results you can achieve by relaxing completely are achievable by TM. Nevertheless, according to TM advocates, tests have shown that TM produces "neurophysiological signatures that are distinctly different from relaxation and rest "[Judy Stein, personal correspondence]. Critics disagree.* The particular value of these physiological changes one can achieve by meditation have not been shown to be unique to transcendental meditation.

EDIT: Another interesting read: [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross- check/2013/03/08/r...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross- check/2013/03/08/research-has-not-shown-that-meditation-beats-a-placebo/)

"The Transcendental Meditation movement publishes scores of "peer-reviewed" articles in minor journals attempting to prove the medical benefits of their seated chanting. Reputable studies show that there are, however , no benefits beyond standard relaxation techniques." Source:[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation)

<comment><USER38> Umm... what about non "Transcendental Meditation"? Or are you just finding one perceived misuse and applying it to everything? (Does skepdic.com have an entry on that particular fallacy?)

<comment><USER37> TM is one of the most widely practiced, and among the most widely researched meditation techniques.[7][8][9] Source: Wikipedia

So it just makes sense to talk about that one. The others ones aren't really researched that well. Which variation would you prefer?

<comment><USER39> If you're going to call meditation a "scam," it's your responsibility to survey the field and know what you're talking about.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple to launch ARM Mac without Intel CPU in 2021, says Kuo - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2020/02/24/apple-to-release-first-arm-mac-without-intel-processor-in-next-18-months-predicts-kuo/ <comment><USER2> Wouldn't this mean a great number of apps no longer working on new macs?

<comment><USER3> Likely, but I guess many people wouldn't care. We have been there before (32 bit clean apps, 68k apps, PowerPC apps, 32 bit apps, Carbon apps, non-signed apps. I may be missing a few)

Apple presumably would sell it with Safari, Photos, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Microsoft would port Office or happily sell you Office 365 in a browser. Firefox would be ported. It would run the WhatsApp, Facebook etc iOS apps.

I could like something like that, depending on the hardware. It could be a cross between iPad and MacBook; easier to be productive in than the former, cheaper and longer battery life than the latter.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft already had office for arm done for their arm surface way back.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: The combination of WYSIWYG editor and grid system - <AUTHOR> http://www.cakeresume.com/resumes/new

<comment><USER2> Very simple interface.</comment>


Jeff Bezos Is The Next Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-kindle-steve-jobs-2011-09?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+%28Silicon+Alley+Insider%29 <comment><AUTHOR> When I read the title, I thought this was crazy. After reading the article and watching the Amazon Fire presentation, I am very much convinced, that Bezos, could definitely take that spot, if the spot is even free to take.

</comment><comment><USER2> Is the video with his presentation available online?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep here it is: [http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-kindle-fire- keynot...](http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-kindle-fire-keynote- video-2011-9)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is an acceptable Registered users to Attempted registration ratio? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I find registered users/attempted registration on my site is ~ 4/5. On the first day itself 45 users attempted registration. Only 36 completed it. The trend seems to continue for past 1 month.
Registration process:
1.Enter username, password, email and complete recaptcha. 2. They will be taken to a page which says 'confirm the email id by clicking on the confirmation email sent to your email firstname.lastname@example.com'
3.Click the 'confirm email' link sent to the registered mail.
Type of site: Community. (Think Stack Exchange)
Is this ratio high/low? Google search provided no clues. My assumption is that this is high. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> The ratio seems pretty good to me. A lot of people just don't want to give out their email address.

1\. Many will try again later with a throwaway email account they created just for their new account. You could check by setting a cookie when they try to sign up and correlate with subsequent attempts.

2\. You might not be upfront enough about needing to verify email address. Many people assume you will just use the email for marketing and give a bogus email.

<comment><USER3> Good advice @golem14. Similar thoughts. I wouldn't have espoused techniques for passive identity mining though. But that said, the more dark patterns discussed, the better precautions people can take. Whatever of the technical possibilities, clearly and truthfully declaring why a service requires certain authorization steps is generally best practice IMHO - ethics before profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please explain this better.

Is this: a) the ratio that complete the form and don't confirm email b) those that view the signup page but don't submit the signup form?

<comment><AUTHOR> Those that do not confirm their email

<comment><USER4> 1) Have you checked what number of the emails bounce? (Incorrect or non existent addresses)

2) Have you thought about skipping password setup and using magic links instead?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like a reasonable amount. What do the email addresses look like from the attempted but not completed ones? Are they maybe emails that are fake or incorrect? How many of them are possibly repeat attempts using different email addresses? Maybe a few are people who used the wrong email or made a mistake. There could also be people who don't realize they need to activate it. How many became active at some later date?</comment>


Stripe Issuing – An API for creating physical and virtual cards - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/issuing <comment><USER2> This is really impressive, like the rest of the Stripe API! Although many people here are asking about creating virtual banks and issuing cards to customers, it appears that the intended audience of this API is a business that has a Stripe account, that wants to be able to issue cards to employees/trusted officials that charge against that single Stripe account. There is no mention of issuing cards to external customers that link against their own, external accounts, right?

I ask because the webhook that Stripe fires at purchase time is fantastic, and you could build some great things if their API gave you access to authorized real-time purchase data for customers. This doesn't appear to facilitate that though.

Does anyone know of an API that would allow a Credit Card user the ability to grant real-time webhooks to a 3rd party as they swipe their card? The closest I've ever found would be setting up spending email spending alerts (that certain banks allow), and then forwarding the emails to said 3rd party. It's clunky, and would only work with a few banks. Something like this issuing API would work if Stripe allowed you to issue a card that was linked to a customer's existing card/account. They'd basically be saying, "If I swipe _this_ card that you sent me, I'm agreeing to let you get notified." The other way I've considered would involve creating your own bank and issuing your own cards, but that's real work on both the developer and the customer's part :)

<comment><USER3> (I work on Stripe Issuing.)

We've been primarily focused to date on companies where issuing cards is core to providing their business to customers, for example a startup that provides expensing customers, or a platform that needs to purchase goods in the real world. We're less focused on a business just using it for their own expensing (as we don't have receipt upload functionality, etc).

To your two other questions though:

(1) Could users approve things in real time? Sort of. We provide the ability (as you noticed) through API, but it needs to be responded to in < 2s, which means it's not possible for a human to be in the flow.

(2) Could this be linked to an external bank account? Again, sort of. To get in the weeds: as soon as we approve an authorization, we're on the hook for those funds. A debit to an external balance (or bank account) may fail and Stripe would be on the line. This is why we typically require funds to be in a Stripe account prior to purchases taking place.

<comment><USER4> As a credit card customer it would be nice to be able to generate one or more temporary cards (physical or not), which are authorized for one transaction only, but are otherwise identical to my main card. That way I can use it with a merchant I simply don't trust to have their act together, then safely toss it in the trash.

<comment><USER5> Been waiting for something like this for a while. Much nicer if you can keep a ledger of these auth'd cards and revoke if need be.

<comment><USER6> I've wanted something like this for a long time as well. The ability to generate and discard one-off card numbers. Much less worry about those card numbers leaking, unauthorized transactions, etc.

<comment><USER7> Privacy.com does this

link: [https://privacy.com](https://privacy.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats to the teams at Stripe for getting this out. This opens up a lot of potential for innovation with these kinds of cards. Well done!

Stripe and Twillio lower barriers to entry with products like this. This eliminates a powerful moat that other companies have built. Starting a digital bank or expense report software like Divvy are now much easier. What companies will be at greater risk because this is now an API?

<comment><USER9> Not sure if you know, but Bank of America, Paypal and others have tried this a long time ago (in Internet years). They all abandoned this idea, iirc because of the upkeep costs (?) and massive amount of fraudulent use.

<comment><USER10> Fraud is what I keep thinking about. Hopefully Stripe put in place some robust tracking, or it will get messy.

<comment><USER8> I suspect the key fraud deterrent is that funds must be available in Stripe in order for the card to accept the transaction. In other words, if I issue a card via Stripe and you attempt to use it fraudulently, I'm on the hook for the transaction either way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A couple of very important questions, which are not addressed on the landing page:

1\. Who is the back-end issuer of the cards?

2\. Are we talking credit, debit, or both?

3\. What are the associated fees (issuance, re-issuance, branded issuance, charges)?

4\. Is there any interchange revenue-sharing and if so, in what percentage?

<comment><USER12> On the landing page, you can see that it's debit.

<comment><USER11> Really? It may be an A/B test with different copy, because I don't see anything.

<comment><USER13> I think they were referring to the little card animation on the side, that shows a card with Visa debit at some point. (Note sure if that also answers backend issuer. There's also one with Mastercard in the animation.)

<comment><USER11> Mostly, as a user, the main thing that I'm looking at is interchange revenue sharing (the main thing that makes a difference). This can vary for personal and business cards and can be a non-trivial revenue source. If this is not competitive, having the well-known Stripe integration convenience doesn't go that far. I'd rather suck it up and work with an old-school CC vendor if this means the company gets a better interchange rev-share.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So the question then begs. Is this the beginnings of a digital bank?

Will they start to do things like:

\- Virtual Accounts / Ledger support.

\- Micro Loans.

There doesn't seem to be a digital bank that does end to end payments in the US, that businesses can plug into with an API and have everything taken care of.

There is Railsbank[0], yet they are located in the UK and US support may be in Q4 this year. But they aren't an acquirer.

This is a very interesting development for sure!

[0]: [https://www.railsbank.com/](https://www.railsbank.com/)

p.s if anyone does know of an end to end fintech service provider for the US. Let me know. All of the ones that I have found, unfortunately are EU only.

<comment><USER15> Have a look at:

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

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

[https://www.marqeta.com](https://www.marqeta.com)

<comment><USER14> Thank you for posting the first link. I know BBVA are behind many companies such as Simple, Azlo, Holvi; either as investing in them or buying them outright.

But I hadn't come across that link when searching on google. I am highly appreciative! I'll send them an email in the morning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't even imagine how much work went into this. Stripe does a great job of tackling the toughest problems and making it looks easy!

<comment><USER17> I actually think they might just be proving how easy it really is... compared to the longtime incumbents who do their best to make it look hard (or do it the hard way), and charge appropriately. Which doesn't take anything away from the accomplishment.

<comment><USER18> Considering how slow banks move on tech, I think this is exactly right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Will keep an eye out in the coming weeks for:

        Setting the balance or editing it (could find nothing on it, maybe it was by invite)
        Are the funds reduced from your income? Guess there will be API's to move funds between acceptance and issuing
        Webhook on the settled amount of every swipe (for several MCC's this changes considerably)
        I see active/inactive which block the card, maybe a call to disable/enable transactions will help
        Requesting Stripe to considering getting the CVV/CVC as a separate GET call for security reasons
        a lambda'esque authorization code editor with custom logic rather than setting mcc rules may open up more use cases

And Stripe - please ping me when you launch this in India or start issuing with an international BIN :D For anyone looking for a service like this in India, checkout

        https://platformdocs.bon.pe/

It also has an API to create "paylater" cards. In which case during the authorization of every swipe - an auction takes place between lenders to decide who gets to fund that transaction based on a custom credit score, mcc, and interest rate bids for that mcc. Bon works with a bunch of gig economies here already.

~Bosky

</comment><comment><USER20> Any word on pricing? fees? cashback?

</comment><comment><USER21> This looks really intriguing. I wish it provided some clues on pricing (e.g., order of magnitude numbers on what it will cost to issue a card, monthly fees per card?). That would help one better determine what kinds of business models could use it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Are CC numbers always unique? Or can there be multiple people with the same number but different expiry codes (or others).

I always wondered if we'd run out of cc numbers. 10^16 is a big number, but take out the checksums and unused blocks I'd guess we're down to only a few thousand per person.

<comment><USER23> Each issuer has 1 trillion possible account numbers.[0]

[0][https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card- app...](https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card- appearance-1268.php)

<comment><USER24> I don't think that refutes OP's point. 10^12 is not that much, actually. That would mean that everyone in the world today gets only ~100 numbers (not even including offspring situations).

<comment><USER23> This is _per issuer_ , so each issuer has a trillion card numbers at their disposal. Plus, the population that is eligible for credit doesn't equal total population of the planet.

<comment><USER24> I see, by issuer do you mean "Visa", "MasterCard", etc.? Because there are only a handful of those.

> Plus, the population that is eligible for credit doesn't equal total > population of the planet.

True, I'm talking about a hypothetical "maximal usage" future.

<comment><USER23> There may be only a handful that are well known, but that doesn't mean that there aren't more possible issuer numbers available. The first six digits make up the issuer identifier, so there are 10^6 possible issuers.

Sure, it's not ipv6 level address space (2^128), but ~10,000,000,000,000,000 possible card numbers seems like it should last many lifetimes, especially if you consider that card numbers could be recycled/reassigned, and if we ever approached the point where running out of numbers was within imagination, we would come up with a new scheme that allowed for a few new digits. My guess is the credit card itself as a concept will be long gone before the numbers are all used up.

<comment><USER24> If the first 6 digits make up the issuer, since there are only 10 remaining digits, wouldn't that mean there are only 10^10 numbers per issuer? Where's the other factor of 100 coming from (IIRC, OP said there were 10^12)?

> My guess is the credit card itself as a concept will be long gone before the > numbers are all used up.

I agree. Products like "privacy.com" hint that we could be approaching a "new number per purchase" meta. Even in that edge-case, if one million issuers get to have 10 billion numbers each, that would leave tens of concurrent purchases per person per issuer for an issuer with a billion users. A monopoly-level media site that lets you open a paid-subscription to multiple people could easily end up needing tens of concurrent cards per user. It seems like issuer- to-issuer number recycling would be required for sure.

<comment><USER23> You're right, I added an extra zero. It's one trillion numbers per issuer.

Credit card is 18 digits, which is where the 10^12 comes from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Would these cards work with more vendors than Privacy.com cards? Many web services, for example, reject Privacy cards because they show up as "prepaid" cards.

<comment><USER3> It depends on the type of card issued/use case, but prepaid cards issued through Stripe Issuing would still have that same challenge :-( We agree it's a pretty sub-optimal user experience.

(That said, given many of these businesses may be on Stripe, we should have more ability to work with them to improve the experience for customers...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google (and likely others) tend to block these types of virtual cards, similar to how they block Twilio generated phone numbers from being used in registration.

How do you ensure the card numbers will be respected?

Last time I asked this in another thread I got one response that indicated it may be to prevent card number inception, of sorts...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524398)

<comment><USER26> I believe Visa and MasterCard merchant agreements prohibit retailers from denying specific cards. That's why AMC theaters can't block MoviePass customers from purchasing tickets, because they are regular MasterCard credit cards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've had pretty bad experiences with Stripe in the past, which is why I switched to Braintree. Stripe has abysmal support for square use-cases that don't fit their circular criteria.

Nevertheless, this is one development that makes me interested in Stripe again. I'm looking forward to using this at some point in the future when they open this up out of friends-frist mode.

<comment><USER27> Hrm, I'm really sorry to hear about these bad experiences. Could you share more with me? I'd like to look into them. firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does this make something like Monzo seem trivial?

Like it seems like everything Monzo has done as easy to replicate (not to do, im sure a lot of time and effort went into the guys at Stripe making this).

<comment><USER29> It's not really the same. Monzo's a bank capitalising somewhat on UK Open Banking legislation[1] and the fact that traditional banks are very slow to move with the times. It's not a SaaS product, they're likely one of if not the first movers in the market. There are competitors (Monese, Tide for business, N26 is coming at some point soon). UK fintech is pretty vibrant.

You would hope that Monzo is easy to replicate well because that means you have more modern banks to choose from.

[1] [https://www.openbanking.org.uk](https://www.openbanking.org.uk)

<comment><USER30> Monzo's first competitor is Revolut.

<comment><USER31> I would say Starling is more comparable. Both are licensed banks with FSCS protection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Cue a plethora of startups popping up where the main business model involves harvesting the transaction data via such cards. Probably most interesting for shopping sites since it gives you insight into all the transactions made with competitors (only just realized that that's probably why Amazon issues credit cards).

<comment><USER33> Also why uber did their own credit card, gotta imagine. Using that data for where people are going and where they are ordering from (UberEats) has got to be extremely valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if this would be a good replacement for GPS for new digital banks. I would love to say goodbye to their unstable service and SOAP API.

<comment><USER35> As someone who's been integrating with a major card provider's virtual card SOAP API, this. This looks like magic in comparison, shaving off pounds of SOAP bloat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Would this work in conjunction with Stripe Connect? E.g. for a marketplace- like service but instead of sending payouts, issue custom cards?

<comment><USER18> That would be a great use case for this.

<comment><USER37> Especially if it resulted in a lower Connect transaction fee when payouts are issued on Card.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> That's awesome. I wonder how easy would it be to code an easy service that generates a different card for every subscriptions. No more hassle to cancel this gym membership!

<comment><USER39> Look at [https://privacy.com/](https://privacy.com/)

<comment><USER40> Can you use privacy.com without installing the chrome extension?

<comment><USER41> Sign up for Privacy.com seems to be only in the app or with the extension, but after you sign up, you can sign in just in the browser and view your virtual cards. (I hope this comment will soon be outdated - a fix for that would be nice.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've been on the site for five minutes and haven't found the pricing. Not a good sign.

<comment><USER43> if you have to ask it's probably not for you

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Does Stripe bypass card networks when processing these cards for Stripe merchants? That would be very cool.

</comment><comment><USER45> Excellent, but invite only and I couldn't change my country in the country dropdown so not sure if I will ever get an invite...

Does anyone knows an _easily accessable_ version of this product for the UK and/or EU? So far either it's not available in the EU or you have to jump through a lot of hoops with the existing providers I tried to even make a simply PoC. Not even for rollout but an entirely, no risk to them, PoC. I am looking for a B2B solution; I am not a consumer looking for virtual cards; I need this for my clients.

Anyone knows any API that will let me do a PoC so I can test it out in the real world? I have clients looking for this kind of solution, but haven't been able to find anything that I can even check if it works at all.

This looks perfect though.

</comment><comment><USER46> I would love an app that would allow me to dynamically generate business credit cards for use with paying stuff online. Whenever one of my 20+ recurring payments get compromised, I then have to spend half a day going through all my recurring payments providers and re-issuing with a new card. I would much rather have one card for each one.

There was a startup working on this but unfortunately they closed down before they launched. I still think this is a really interesting idea and someone should implement it. I suppose you could just use the Stripe API for most of the heavy lifting. I would actually start this company, I think it's that good of an idea, but unfortunately I'm little busy at the moment.

<comment><USER47> Check out privacy.com. they're debit cards technically, but most places accept them as credit with no issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I wonder why this isn't standard service from every credit card provider, ideally as an app.

It would make the CC numbers from database leaks a less valuable target since users could easily compartmentalize for every transaction.

<comment><USER15> It's a massive undertaking for very little benefit. And there's a large group of card holders who hate when their number changes.

<comment><USER6> They hate it when they have to change their card number and have to update it on a ton of places. If that ton of places have their own numbers, you don't have to update them all when you have to kill one number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Congrats on the new product!

Do you have any timeline on when you'll start offering your services in Poland? I'm always amazed at the quality of your offering, but always sad that I can't use them.

</comment><comment><USER50> What's in it for them? Where's the business model for Stripe?

I find it extremely annoying that companies - any company - just can't be totally upfront about this.

"We earn money from this by you having to fund these cards using an account you must have with us, where we get interests. Also by the merchants where the card is used, which have to pay from 1,5% to 3,5% in processing fees" etc.

Shouldn't be too hard - I guess they already have this in some PowerPoint laying around.

</comment><comment><USER51> Having worked in the payment industry I'm not "too" impressed they did this from a technical standpoint (I've seen small startups do similar) but to make it easily available via Stripe's awesome APIs is pretty great.

I would love to see details on pricing. How much a card costs, how much a virtual number costs, how if at all issuers can monetize (i.e. do I get a cut of the transaction fees?), etc.

</comment><comment><USER52> Very cool.

Any chance Stripe lifts some restrictions on prohibited businesses soon? Virtual cards can be particularly useful in travel, but that use case on Stripe has long been considered prohibited: [https://stripe.com/us/prohibited- businesses](https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses)

Also, any chance for custom prints on the cards?

<comment><USER3> Absolutely happy to talk about travel use cases -- we are supporting it today. We also (only) support custom designs.

<comment><USER53> Wow interesting company being kept in the high risk businesses section. Travel is lumped in with hate groups, wonder why

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Some more insight into how cards are fulfilled would be nice, virtual I get but how are we going to be able to customize card design (kind of don't want an ugly card for my users), since there are many card types and will he card support NFC? This seems very early and lots of stuff needs to be thought out, for our use case we need details before evaluating this.

</comment><comment><USER55> Wow! This is so cool that I am a little sad for currently not having a problem to solve with this yet! I really like Stripe.

</comment><comment><USER56> Is this what Marqeta does?

<comment><USER57> Almost - Marqeta's offering is more advanced and mature. I don't doubt that this is causing some waves there though. Stripe is now a very serious competitor of theirs.

<comment><USER45> Marqeta is US only currently; they say end of the year maybe EU. They have not been very helpful so far either; when talking with them, it feels like talking to a huge, stodgy bank.

<comment><USER58> They are in the US, Canada and I know they are in Europe. Will launch in a few months because we are working with them. They're awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> A service like this has been avaliable in Portugal from "Multibanco" as "MBNet" or "MBWay"

</comment><comment><USER60> Is it just me or the card animation has rendering issues when scrolling? Using latest MacBook Pro 15"

<comment><USER61> I'm on an iPhone X, and when the animation is visible the scrolling performance is awful, seems like ~10 FPS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I wonder if it would be feasible to use this as personal service, ie issue a card for each online shop or service I use and generate myself the bills and reports for that... Though I don't think it's meant to be ~~ab~~used for personal gain...

</comment><comment><USER63> How is the balance of the card established? Is it just paid from a connected bank account similar to a chargeback after a payout has been already paid into a bank account?

<comment><USER3> (I work on Issuing.)

The cards draw from a Stripe balance, which can be funded from a connected bank account (or ordinary Stripe charges).

<comment><USER64> If I use my normal VISA card at a retailer they pay an interchange fee right?

If I create a physical card through stripe, and I use that card at a retailer does the retailer still pay a interchange fee? If so who does that go to? How does that system work?

<comment><USER15> Normal interchange would apply to the merchant but for debit cards it's pretty small. Interchange accrues to the issuer which in this case appears to be Stripe (and/or its issuing partner).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Are these credit or debit cards? Asking because I've previously had issues with virtual debit cards where merchants "force posted" transactions through.

<comment><USER66> Have only spent 10 minutes skimming through various docs.

Seems like it's upto the businesses to treat an issued card as debit or credit. I can even see use cases for overdraft.

Below is a snippet from their doc[1]

> Any use of an issued card that results in funds entering or leaving your > Stripe account

Here's what I've understood so far.

1\. Businesses create, maintain and own customer accounts. It's upto the businesses to figure out how to get money from the customers. Could be prefunded (i.e., debit card) or postpaid (i.e., credit card).

2\. Said business then creates cards and associates them with the above customer accounts and issues them that card.

3\. Customers are now enabled to use those card wherever credit/debit cards are accepted.

4\. Businesses need to maintain balance with Stripe. Stripe deducts from this account upon successful authorisation.

5\. Now as I've mentioned in #1 it's upto the business to figure out a way to charge the customer.

Money movement is happening in two steps.

1\. Business account -> Merchant (via stripe).

2\. Consumer -> Business (Stripe isn't involved here).

Whether #2 happens before or after determines if the card is a debit card or credit card respectively.

So, what Stripe has done essentially is connect accounts holding money with rest of the world. I.e., anyone can now become a bank, in a sense.

In my previous job my team worked with a similar third party provider to launch a virtual card product[2]. But what Stripe has done is game changing.

[1] [https://stripe.com/docs/issuing/transactions](https://stripe.com/docs/issuing/transactions) [2] [https://www.freecharge.in/mobile/freecharge- go](https://www.freecharge.in/mobile/freecharge-go)

Edit: Minor correction.

<comment><USER65> That doesn't answer the question of which network and what rules the transaction is governed by.

<comment><USER66> About the network they are quite clear right upfront.

> "Stripe Issuing is certified directly with all major card networks as an > issuing processor, which ensures reliability and rapid feature releases"

As for the rules I guess the business needs needs to adhere to the rules of whichever country it operates out of. Don't see Stripe helping there. They have built the roads, it's upto the driver to procure valid license.

<comment><USER65> That literally gives zero information about whether it's processed as debit or credit. There are very different sets of rules depending on which one it is.

<comment><USER3> (I work on Issuing.)

The technology we've built is agnostic to debit or credit -- it really depends on your use case. That said, force posts (or transactions cleared without an underlying authorization) can happen on any card type.

For what it's worth, we have an API to initiate disputes (which you would be able to on a transaction initiated without a valid authorization) which you could use to recoup funds.

<comment><USER65> So who determines whether it's run as debit or credit? The business creating the card at time of creation? The merchant?

<comment><USER3> We do :-) But it's based on quite precise Visa / Mastercard rules.

<comment><USER67> Is this determined as issuance time or purchase time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> This is pretty cool. But I would like to know more about the penalty interest rate and the credit card bill payment (which the docs completely didn't mention)

<comment><USER69> As I understand it, the debits come from an existing stripe balance attached to a bank account. You can't take on a negative balance so there's no interest rate or bill to pay (outside of the fees and whatnot associated with using the API, top ups, etc)

<comment><USER68> I see the man. So technically, it is a debit card instead of a credit card. Anyway, thanks for your reply.

<comment><USER69> From the perspective of the business issuing the cards, basically. But, from the perspective of the customers of _that_ business, it depends on how they set up the rules.

<comment><USER68> Haha, that mean I can lending loan to somebody now without any government regulation lol....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I've worked extensively in the card manufacture business. Does anyone know who manufactures and fulfils the card orders?

</comment><comment><USER71> Similar to what privacy.com does for consumers

</comment><comment><USER72> Fedora 28, Firefox 61. The linked page is too webscale for my browser, the tab crashes after a dozen seconds of scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER56> Very cool. I'm wondering if the future of banking is actually online credit unions created using something like this.

</comment><comment><USER73> On a side note, the card animation is interesting. I thought it would be some GIF but the text is actually selectable!.

</comment><comment><USER74> Will these cards work at ATMs? If so, I can imagine that they'd be quite useful as a way to distribute petty cash.

</comment><comment><USER75> Will this be opened up for all stripe customers or will it remain invite only? If so, is there a planned date?

<comment><USER3> (I work on Issuing.) Our product philosophy is making things as widely available as possible; we won't be shy about letting the world know when we do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Congrats team!

</comment><comment><USER77> Awesome! Now it's official. I worked on MVP with Stripe Issuing API. That was a cool experience.

</comment><comment><USER78> this is really cool and I have a couple of good ideas about how I could use this. Question is - how much does it cost for the card? Minimum volumes ?

When a card is issued - do we get the card number back? e.g Could I use the card number for something else like a loyalty card.

</comment><comment><USER79> Love it, unfortunately it is currently by invitation only though. Anyone have any information about what the qualifying criteria is?

<comment><USER3> Glad to hear you like it! We're looking for a range of customers who have various use cases and experience levels with issuing before we're ready to make this available more broadly. (Sorry I don't have much more in the way of specifics to share here, we'll do our best to get back to you quickly.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> What gap in the market is Stripe filling? I'm not entirely sure what Stripe does.

</comment><comment><USER81> Very off topic (sorry): does anyone have Steam VR launching when opening the linked story in latest stable Firefox on Windows 10?!

It's annoying because it pops out multiples modals on my desktop (and complaning my HMD is not connected) and my mouse cursor starts to shutter....

Latest Steam Stable with Steam VR beta module on Windows 10 x64 Pro 1803

Edit: formatting

Edit: found a way to disable: dom.vr.openvr.enabled in about:config (why does it trigger openvr?)</comment>


Ask HN: Exclusive startup coverage  TechCrunch vs Mashable? - <AUTHOR>

If you had a startup that is the type that these two sites cover, who do you choose for exclusive coverage?
Some things to consider: Type of readers, how sticky are they (historically), which gives better feedback, etc.
Background info: I read that TC won't cover you if mashable or other sites have covered you. <comment><USER2> We tried to get coverage on TC and Mashable for Twitalbums.com but none listened to us (I lost count how many times I wrote them). I also wrote to The Next Web and nothing. Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb.com picked up on the story and she did a wonderful job reviewing our startup. The review sent a ton of traffic and gave us a good initial boost. Needles to say we love RWW :-)

<comment><USER3> +1 for RWW. The quality of comments is much better on RWW, and their coverage is usually more in-depth than either TechCrunch's or Mashable's. With Mashable in particular, updates are so frequent that I don't think you'd stay on the front page very long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Techcrunch has the most power today. Actually, they pretty much have a monopoly on covering launching startups before anyone else.

So go with TC coverage as exclusive, and then go with more substantial repeat coverage from other places.

[I have been through that discussion with many CEOs who launched with many different strategies - I'm giving you a quick summary of what could be hours of discussions]

</comment><comment><USER5> Having been first on both sites, I can offer a bit of clarity.

Go with Techcrunch if you want to have VC's and other business's take notice of you. Go with Mashable if you want lots of users to read about your product and actually use it. Techcrunch is written for people in the biz. Mashable is written for people who enjoy using the tools biz guys make.

Also, Readwriteweb is a great blog and will likely still write about you even if they dont get the exclusive. Just make sure you save some info thats "just for them", So dont give the whole kaboodle to mashable/tc.

<comment><AUTHOR> thats exactly my hypothesis. TC crowd have different usage patterns. i read that Mashable has surpassed TC in traffic or is about to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In 2008 we sent an email to TechCrunch asking if they wanted an exclusive on our launch. After 2 weeks with no response, we emailed Mashable who promptly responded and wrote an article. The same day the article ran we received a snarky email from TC stating that they expected exclusive coverage and that because Mashable ran us first, TC wasn't going to touch the story. We politely referred them to our original email, they said oops and we all went on with our lives.

</comment><comment><USER7> I get the impression these days that TC and Mashable aren't super psyched about covering startup launches anymore unless said startup has a pre- established relationship or part of their sponsored events.

If both of them give you the cold shoulder, I'd definitely go for ReadWriteWeb. I'm always impressed by the quality of journalism over there, and I feel that they really value their community and staying true to their focus.

And that "TC won't cover you" stuff, I dunno. If you are getting a lot of buzz, they'll have to cover you eventually. Who's to say either TC or mashable will even honor your exclusive? Chances are they won't even shrug until someone else starts buzzing about it at a lower level. Unless you have a guaranteed home run, I'd play it safe and hit up individual writers, build buzz from the ground up.

<comment><USER8> >I'd play it safe and hit up individual writers, build buzz from the ground up.

This. The lower tier writers of today are the big cheeses of tomorrow. It often pays dividends in the future to give them exclusives today and make their job a little easier.

Besides, There are quite a few of the bigger named bloggers who subscribe to some smaller name blogs. If your site is good enough, like cream it will eventually float to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You don't rate ReadWriteWeb or The Next Web? Read somewhere that RWW drove more traffic to a startup's website than TC. TNW has grown a ton over the last year.

Anyway, i suggest email them all and see who bites first.

<comment><USER10> That's bad form if you're negotiating to get an exclusive. You're also less likely to get anyone to cover you if your pitch is general rather than directed at a particular writer or editor.

<comment><USER9> Possibly, but going with one particular blog could very leave you only getting coverage from that one blog.

If your start-up is exciting enough, emailing them all should have them all racing to write about you first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If I could choose, Techcrunch, for sure.

</comment><comment><USER12> Mashable is the obvious choice:

-unbiased coverage -nice people -fair

Techcrunch going by visitor counts has no power anymore.</comment>


Algeria shuts down internet to prevent cheating during high school exams - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/21/algeria-shuts-internet-prevent-cheating-school-exams <comment><USER2> God school administrators are some of the dumbest people I've ever met. Like legit malicious, petty and straight up terrible people.

</comment><comment><USER3> In college I was taking a course on MATLAB. Traditionally the tests had been taken on paper, but my professor wanted us to be able to use the documentation for part of the exam. His solution? Unplug the fiber cable connecting the switch for the lab to the rest of the network.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hilariously and disgustingly dystopian.

The US will probably start mandating cell phone jammers to be purchased by every school district for "national security reasons".

<comment><USER5> The problem with jammers is that if you don't shield the building where you're using them, you're going to interfere with the outside which is a potential public safety risk (it's illegal for a reason).

Of course, if you bother shielding the building, you don't even need jammers, because there's no signal going through anyway.</comment></comment>


The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Software-Developers-Career-Guide-ebook/dp/B073X6GNJ1/ <comment><USER2> Got my copy. Not sure why it was so hard for people to buy it. Thank you so much for the tremendous discount price of $0.99. Hoping that this investment in my career in software development pays off.

</comment><comment><USER3> Grabbed this 2 days ago and really enjoying it. And you can't beat $0.99 for a price :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Just read the "contractor" section well worth the $0.99.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great book. I wish I had this when I was straight out of Uni with a COMSC degree.

</comment><comment><USER6> John is an subject matter expert and I've learned so much from him.

</comment><comment><USER7> $.99 is an easy buy even if I don't love it</comment>


Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal(2005) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal <comment><AUTHOR> Thing I couldn't believe in this was the company's response

> Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they > care about it?</comment>


Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21591872-resilient-ireland-booming-south-sudan-tumultuous-turkey-our-country-year-earths-got <comment><USER3> Apparantly Scotland is "foolhardy" if it opts for "secession", but Ireland, which already did opt for secession (less pejoratively, secession is typically known as independence once it is acheived), is a resiliant example to us all, with its HDI and economy miles above that of Scotland, and that despite a total lack of oil, and despite a bad housing bust.

Funny, that. You have to be very careful with the Economist because they nearly always seem to have utterly transparent motiviations for the nonsense they peddle. In this case it seems like it benefits them to prop up the city of london and UK with a nice secure oil supply, and they have to perform weird intellectual handstands to justify why Scotland would be a basketcase while Ireland is inspirational.

<comment><USER4> > while Ireland is inspirational.

This Ireland? [http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/eu-chief- barro...](http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/eu-chief-barroso-no- backdated-bank-debt-deal-for-ireland-29854504.html)

> _Europe did not cause of the problems for Ireland; Ireland caused a problem > for Europe, the head of the EU government said._

> _Following the bailout exit, the Government 's bid to get backdated funding > for the banking sector was dealt a spectacular blow as the head of the > European Commission blamed the Irish banks, regulators and government for > the difficulties in the country._

> _Categorically rejecting suggestions Ireland should now be helped by Europe, > at least in the short to medium term, European Commission President Jose- > Manuel Barroso cut loose on Ireland._

<comment><USER5> Barroso is far from a neutral observer in all this. Personally I think it is extremely disengeneous of him to say Europe wasn't a problem for Ireland (and indeed there were major efforts to row back on the above comments subsequently). While there's no doubt lax regulation of the banking sector was the major cause of Ireland's problems initially, it is now widely accepted that the Irish Government was told in no uncertain terms by the ECB that it must bail out the banks on its own and that private bondholders were not to be touched, so as to prevent further contagion in the wider European banking sector. Thus an Icelandic style solution to Ireland's problems was ruled out, on pain of withdrawal of all short term funding. Whatever the effects of burning private bondholders for Ireland's future reputation in the markets, it would have been a much more just solution (as well as being popular politically in Ireland). To completely ignore the hit Ireland was forced to take is thus a bit rich IMHO.

<comment><USER6> I agree that it would have been better to put more of the burden of the housing bust on bondholders. However, Ireland has benefitted tremendously from Europe over the past decades.

It has received tens of billions in direct financial aid (and I don't mean the loans that were part of the current bailout). Its European neighbors have tolerated Irish tax policies that have put Ireland squarely at the center of the most fanciful tax evasion schemes used by both European and US corporations.

But it hasn't just been shell companies and tax evasion that has made Ireland rich. There's also genuine success that wouldn't have been possible if Ireland hadn't become a gateway into the EU for US corporations like Google.

So before choosing a path that was possible for tiny Iceland, Ireland did have to ask itself whether a move that could have destabilized the global financial system and threatened the existence of the EU was consistent with the solidarity it owes to those who have supported it in the past.

Ireland made the right choice at the time, but I also think that as things stabalize, it would be a good idea to renegotiate some of the bailout terms. After all, some of the foreign counter parties that were effectively bailed out by the Irish government benefitted greatly from the Irish housing boom while it lasted.

<comment><USER5> Oh sure, I don't necessarily disagree with you, I was just trying to point out that Barrosso's comments are somewhat one-eyed and far from the final word on the matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like this bit of English wit from the article, on Uruguay's cannabis legalization:

"This is a change so obviously sensible [...] that no other country has made it."

The Economist doesn't normally bust loose like that. (Edit: or so I thought.)

<comment><USER8> _The Economist doesn 't normally bust loose like that_

Actually, it does. You just have to be aware of their style of humor to catch it.

<comment><USER7> Let's see some examples.

<comment><USER9> You clearly aren't a regular reader. The Economist is known for its dry wit, particularly with image captions.

Anyway, if you want examples, get a subscription..

<comment><USER7> I'm not a subscriber, but I read quite a few of their articles and I'm pretty sure I never noticed a sentence like "This is a change so obviously sensible that no other country has made it."

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but here's a random sampler: [http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/06/the_best_and_worst_of_the_...](http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/06/the_best_and_worst_of_the_econ.html)

<comment><USER7> Ok, those count!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Uruguayan here, be prepared to face security issues, bad education quality and very high prices in general if considering moving here.

<comment><USER12> Can you talk more about this? I have some cousins who moved there who reported feeling _very_ safe (and they were coming from Switzerland...). I had a contractor there for a while and the main issue he had with high prices was on imported electronics due to tariffs. Otherwise, everyone I've spoken to has said housing, food, etc are very affordable. What's the issue with education, IE: funding? access?

<comment><USER13> Depends on where you live. I was robbed twice this year (two laptops, a Kindle, and all my electronics, which as you mention are twice as expensive than in the U.S.).

Some neighbourhoods are really safe, I used to live in Punta Carretas for a while, and it's equivalent to an European city, but many others aren't - <USER2> ever go downtown after dark, and some other neighbourhoods are like the Brazilian favelas - police doesn't enter there.

Housing is in a bubble right now, it used to be affordable a few years ago but it's not right now (I had to move to a cheaper neighbourhood because I was priced out of my rent, went up 20% yearly). Food is a little more expensive than in Europe.

Education is universal, everyone has access. The country is doing consistently bad on worldwide tests (the PISA score) and that's being made a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Uruguayan here and proud of my little country.

We do have our fair share of issues like any other country on the world, but overall we are doing pretty good and life here is good.

<comment><USER15> Uruguayan here too. This makes me quite proud indeed too!

For people that aren't aware, we do have our fair share of problems, Uruguay is being being given a too romantic view by the international media IMO.

The main ones being IMO (no particular order, and many related):

\- Cases of extreme poverty and "slums" where a lot of people grow up in very negative environments.

\- Lack of security! Lots of problems with violence and violent robberies.

\- In many cases, not good enough education for the non wealthy, same for the public health system.

\- A big problem with drug abuse, specially with drugs like "pasta base", similar to crack.

Definitely gay marriage and cannabis legalization are steps in the right direction but we have a long way to go.

I agree with the OP though, life is pretty good over Uruguay, I've been living abroad for a year now and miss the hell out of my country :) It's a very unique little county, no place like home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article doesn't really explain much as to why they chose Uruguay as CoTY, merely compressing a few sentences at the end and then just saying "job done"

Did they writer want to get out of the office early for christmas treats or something?

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm from uruguay, and i don't really see this as a good thing. And don't }ook at our president Mujica as a great leader, he killed douzens during his youth.

<comment><USER18> You just proved the power of good PR and the most ppl forget the past very quickly.

<comment><USER19> "Those who cannot remember the past ..." are doomed. Full stop.

<comment><USER20> This quote is about "drawing wisdom from the past, to interpret current affairs". It's not about judging people by their past. In fact, if you research history you will find many examples of people who did grave mistakes and then went on to do great good later.

<comment><USER21> Mandela is a recent example of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The Economist sure are not too concerned about proper SEO (and probably don't need to be) - for an article titled "The Economist's country of the year", the URL is "resilient-ireland-booming-south-sudan-tumultuous-turkey-our-country- year-earths-got".

</comment><comment><USER23> I really hope other countries take note of this approach to tackling the drugs issue.

Luis Suárez has really pulled this one out of the bag.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Edinson Cavani gave him a hand on that one ;)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> About cannabis regulation: "This is a change so obviously sensible ... that no other country has made it."

<comment><USER24> Perhaps I'm mistaken, but.. The Netherlands? I thought it was regulated there (although I'd have to check on what the state is these days).

<comment><USER25> Production isn't regulated, only its sale, in small amounts. It's better than nothing, but it's still screwed up. If you want to run a coffee shop, you can safely _sell_ weed without fear of getting in trouble (as long as you don't sell to minors and don't sell large amounts). However, you still need to buy what you sell. Growing it is illegal (and prosecuted), buying it is illegal (and prosecuted). Worse, if you decide not to grow it yourself (and that surely is the safest option), the only place you can buy it from is organised criminals.

The sad part here is that the majority of current big parties appear to lean towards criminalizing drugs entirely again, rather than follow Uruguay's lead and regulate or nationalize marihuana production.

<comment><USER24> That's sad about the attitude of the political parties - I always had the Netherlands pegged as a quite progressive, open-minded country.

<comment><USER25> That's a dated, but sticky image of us you have there. Fortunately, our leaders are doing their utmost best to rid ourselves of it, so it shouldn't take long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Let's see, Uruguay. I'm from California but i've spent a few years living in Uruguay and started and ran a tech business in Uruguay. The country is a special unique place, but it's far from perfect.

Let's start with the good things:

Good Tech Policies

      * Laptops for every public school child (over 1 million distributed)
      * Free basic (64k 1 gb per month) internet on every phone line
      * Good 3G/4G coverage over the country
      * Fiber to the home finally provides good broadband
      * No taxes for tech companies profits (there are pay roll taxes)
      * Free education through university, no exams to get in.
      * Goal of %95 renewable electricity production by 2015
      * Lots of small startups / exits (about a dozen a year under $10 million USD)
      * Strong freedom of information laws
      * Good open source / open formats laws for all government data.

Other Positive things

      * Very little corruption (i never came across any, but people complain)
      * Legal Gay Marriage, Abortion, Marijuana, etc... Socially progressive
      * Walkable cities, sidewalk cafes, beaches
      * GMO's are banned, food is natural and unprocessed.
      * Good electoral system, proportional representation
      * Politicians care about building consensus and getting stuff done.
      * Fantastic & cheap health care system
      * Not consumerist, people care more about friends & family than things.
      * No traffic / pollution problems related to cars.
      * Uruguayans trust their institutions (banks, government, union, church)
      * Atheist! Uruguayans are not religious and the state is officially atheist.

But Uruguay's not perfect. There's a lot wrong. The bureaucracy is complicated with more crazy rules than you can imagine. There's lots of paperwork. There's a lack of local credit and asset markets to get investment. You can get a new company easily, but opening a bank account is a real PITA. Credit card processing and things like that re very hard. Inflation has become a major problem in Uruguay and when combined with real productivity gains and a strong currency it means that real prices have risen a LOT. Pay roll taxes are high but salaries are low. That means many Uruguayans are broke. Car's are very expensive, gas is expensive, keeping traffic down, but it's a pain. The quality of things you buy in Uruguay are very very low. Things constantly break, the market is tiny and customs duties are high.

Uruguay's biggest problem, ironically enough given their being very socially liberal and open about good public policy, is that Uruguayans are very conservative. There's no desire to try something new or different. This makes Uruguay feel like it's living in the past. Stable families, sunday diners, stay at home housewives, summer vacations in the family beach house or camping in the same place every year, banks are open from 1 to 4pm, multigenerational house holds, etc... Uruguay feels like an alternate history version of the 1950's.

Uruguay's a great place to retire. It's not a place with people who want to change the world, or change their own country to keep up with the Joneses. It's got it's own path driven by good public policy and a desire not to rock the boat. It's definitely much better off than any of the other countries in the region. Few poor people, no rich people, decent quality of life for everybody.

PS, ignore then trolls. The right wing in Uruguay lost power because they mismanaged the country and are upset that things are getting better.

<comment><USER27> You're wrong. The majority of Uruguay is religious.

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

<comment><USER26> Not like the US, Uruguayans never say they're celebrating easter, they call it tourism week. People say 'christmas' but the government calls it 'family day'!!!

Compared to the rest of latin america or the US, Uruguayans are much more like Europeans in terms of being very secular. That said, Uruguay is culturally catholic.

The link you provided shows that %40 of the population claims no religion at all, the highest numbers of any country in the americas. Then on top of that, looking at church attendance, most 'Catholics' in Uruguay haven't attended mass in years, and then only for christmas and easter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Seems like Uruguay exports a lot of IT services kinda like India does. Any Uruguayan here that would like to comment about this firsthand?

<comment><USER29> Far from the same scale, but providing IT services (software development and testing for the most of it) is pretty big here.

<comment><USER13> I was going to say much the same thing. We're 3 million people , not a billion like India :) .

But we do have a lot of people working in IT (about 15.000), we export 2% our GDP in Software, and Indian companies like Tata Consultancy Services have offices here, serving the US market.

I hope it will grow even more. One positive for uruguayans but negative for exports is that salaries are much higher than in India or some parts of Eastern Europe (but a LOT lower than in the U.S.), so we are not so competitive in the "lowest bidder outsourcing", we should aim to be a high-end and niche provider, but don't have the culture yet.

Graduates from both public and private universities are very capable but we need some more training to match U.S. expectations.

I've heard Google doesn't recruit much here because of the lack of PhDs in computer science (which is a definite lack), and there's a lot of emphasis on Java and .NET which doesn't help if the market is looking for iOS or Android or Ruby developers (the Java and .NET outsourcing market being cornered by indians?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If the Economist had any gravitas or courage, they should have chosen Iceland. :)

</comment><comment><USER31> You have to take this from the point of view of the source - the Economist is the most Classically liberal (libertarian) source out there. As such they are pro-personal freedom and market freedom. So Uruguay gets it largely on the back of allowing gay marriage and legalized drug use. It also helps that the current leader is neither corrupt, nor a strongman.

Their comment about gay marriage was great - that it's a free way to increase mass happiness. Very profound economics on what I perceived to be a moral issue!

</comment><comment><USER32> Why post stuff from a website that is paywalled? I think this is a bit a shame toward the Hacker News etiquette (does it need to be written?)...

</comment><comment><USER33> Can you guys please invade Argentina? I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.</comment>


The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth - <AUTHOR> http://mags.acm.org/communications/200807/?pm=2&zin=169&u1=texterity&pg=36&z=106

<comment><USER2> Also this is amazing

 _Then a startup came to me and said 'Don, write compilers for us and we will take care of finding computers to debug them. Name your price.' I said, 'Oh, okay, $100000,' assuming that this was [outrageous]. The guys didn't blink. He agreed. I didn't blink either. I said 'I'm not going to do it I just thought that was an impossible number'. At that time I made the decision in my life that I was not going to optimize my income._

</comment><comment><USER3> The thing these interviews never really convey is the kindness and "gentlemanliness" of this great man. I didn't know him well (I worked at a start-up (Imagen) in the early 80's that was a spinoff of the TeX project), but saw him around Stanford and work to form a strong impression of a true giant among men, and not just because of his brainpower.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's great that the CACM decided to run these excerpts in print form, but for the full experience, you really ought to check out the videos at the People's Archive: <http://www.peoplesarchive.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> Can you guys identify any books in Knuth's room? I just spotted _Hackers Delight_ (on his left) :)

<comment><USER5> Well, I can see: "The C?????? Oxford English Dictionary", bellow the clock. "Graph Theory", just behind the humidifier thingy.

A pity the resolution is not better.

<comment><USER2> Ya, also there is Cormen's book & Unicode 1.0 (I guess--not sure) :)

<comment><USER6> That's Unicode 3.0 if you are referring to the shelf on the left, above the stereo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the posts thus far, it's good to see the appreciation of this man. Not many of my computer books are as well-worn as my set of 'The Art'. His contribution of TeX alone would have assured his stature; just another side effect the good doctor. I just wish folks would leave him undisturbed so he can finish up v.4!!</comment>


Lies Startup Founders Tell You - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/excitingrole/lies-startup-founders-tell-you-ab5fc3caf943 <comment><USER2> _Sorry but 99% of startups fail because 99% of founders don't know waht they're doing, which is why picking the right founders and team is most important._

The implication of this is that most startups fail because the founders are not capable. That assumes some sort of binary situation where a founder will succeed or not depending on whether they're good enough. That's nonsense. Startups are based on a long series of complex decisions where you fail if you get something wrong (or two or three things wrong if you have decent funding), and often the decisions have to be made based on very little information, very quickly. The suggestion failing even after getting a lot right means you don't know what you're doing is decidedly unfair.

A failure is an event, not a person.</comment>