Faster Space-Efficient Algorithms for Subset Sum, K-Sum and Related Problems - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.02788 <comment><USER2> How much better is this than prior art?

<comment><USER3> In pure time terms it is worse, as the best prior was O$(2^.5n). However, that algorithm took O$(2^.25n) space. This algorithm uses only polynomial space but runs in O$(2^.86n) time. The naive solution runs in O$(2^n) and polynomial space.

I believe this top line result will mostly be of interest to Computer Scientists, as a practical matter these problems are rarely solved exactly because even the fast algorithms are far too slow for non-trivial problem sizes.

However, this part regarding the "list disjointment problem" may be of wider interest:

"Underlying these results is an algorithm that determines whether two given lists of length n with integers bounded by a polynomial in n share a common value. Assuming random read-only access to random bits, we show that this problem can be solved using O(log n) space significantly faster than the trivial O(n^2) time algorithm if no value occurs too often in the same list."

N.B. The HN parser won't let me use stars, so read star for each of the dollar signs in the first paragraph.

<comment><USER4> you could use the multiplication sign × or the middle dot ·

<comment><USER5> The star here is not a multiplication. A bit more info on O star [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/672281/what-is- the-d...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/672281/what-is-the- difference-between-the-big-o-and-big-o-star-asterisk-operator)

<comment><USER4> Ah well, then there's the mathematical asterisk operator O∗ (U+2217) which is separate from the ascii asterisk O* and you could also use the "combining asterisk above" O ⃰ (O, whitespace, combining char) although that's probably abuse of the characters.

The rules say

> Text surrounded by asterisks is italicized, if the character after the first > asterisk isn't whitespace.

But apparently noen of the zero-width spaces are not counted as whitespace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Subset sum is NP-complete ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subset_sum_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subset_sum_problem)), so wouldn't this imply that P = NP? Hence, I don't believe it.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, looking at the paper, they aren't claiming a polynomial time solution, so I retract my previous comment. They just claim "faster" than previous, but still exponential.

The previous best was O _(2^(n /2)) time and O_(2^(n/4)) space, which they improve to O*(2^(0.86n)) time and polynomial space.

<comment><USER7> I must be missing something obvious, but how is 0.86n better than n/2 and n/4?

EDIT: I just noticed the space/polynomial space distinction, so I guess that's the improvement, but I don't know what that means.

<comment><USER8> From a purely practical standpoint it means it is more tractable to solve large instances exactly. You can always wait for an answer but if you need more memory than you have you are out of luck. For instance, let's say before you had a problem of size 64. 2^64 bytes in gigabytes is 10^10 gigabytes. That is more ram than I have. However, a constant multiple (say 1,000,000,000) gives only 64 gigabytes. That takes an intractable problem to a tractable problem on a server with a large amount of memory. Yes, you still have to wait for the solution (maybe a long time) but at least you would have a hope of actually solving it.

<comment><USER9> > You can always wait for an answer but if you need more memory than you have > you are out of luck.

I'm not a practical programmer, so I may be off base, but it seems to me that one could as well say "You can always buy more memory, but if the answer takes more time than you have to wait then you're out of luck." (In both cases, super-rapid growth won't take too long to exhaust the age, and the information capacity, of the universe.) Is it really clear that it's better to err on the side of more time in the time / space trade-off?

<comment><USER10> No, because accessing memory also takes a lot of time. This is especially true on small machines like cellphones.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Inequality is exacerbated by the assumption that everyone has a mobile phone - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/lisackaplan/status/1143275350777978880 <comment><USER2> There are many more things like this:

\- mailing addresses

\- credit cards

\- bank accounts

\- transportation

\- parents (if you're a minor)

\- literacy

There's also a big, noticeable difference between organizations designed to serve the 90% of the population that generally has those things, and organizations designed to serve nearly 100%. The former can look like smooth modern startups like Airbnb or Venmo, surprisingly simple (for me) and low friction (for me). The latter can look like giant, impossible bureaucracies like the DMV or the IRS, who have trouble "modernizing" because all the old systems still have to be maintained for the people who depend on them.

<comment><USER3> Transportation is the big one. Transportation in American is so poorly designed that it basically forces an enormous (regressive) tax on everyone. Cars are an enormous cost for the average person, and are especially needed for service jobs of the poor. At the same time we pay huge amounts of money to maintain suburban infrastructure for the middle/upper class at the expense of public transit which could benefit everyone.

<comment><USER4> However, people in the suburbs pay for their infrastructure. Urban, rural, and bicycle transportation infrastructure is funded by suburban car drivers.

I live in California and ride a motorcycle, there's no way I wear out the road more than I pay for it and the infrastructure is shockingly bad, there are a few roads on my commute where I have to be really smart about my positioning because there are holes large enough to make me crash.

Fewer people can safely drive cars and we need more viable alternatives, but giving people the infrastructure they're paying for is important too.

<comment><USER5> Suburban drivers pay suburban property taxes which pay for the maintenance of suburban streets.

<comment><USER4> and suburban drivers pay gas taxes, vehicle registration fees, insurance fees, sales tax, etc. where does that go?

<comment><USER5> Highways

<comment><USER4> If only that were the case, often car users pay for pedestrian / bicyclist luxuries: [https://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/StateRevenueSourc...](https://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/StateRevenueSources_June2014%20%281%29.pdf)

<comment><USER6> What is this obsession with who pays for what? You all live in the same country and (broadly) pay the same taxes. Those taxes are used to fund all the things the country needs to exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are also assumptions that everyone with a mobile phone will have the same phone number for a long time, never have their phone stolen or destroyed, could easily replace it and restore from a backup if it were, and pay their phone bill in a way that never results in cancellation (and thus forfeiting a phone number).

I know someone who works at a public library and regularly interacts with folks who've found hard times. From the stories I've heard, it's a fairly common situation for someone to want to reset their password, then be told by the site that they will receive a text message on a phone number "ending in ####". This is a challenge for those who had to get a new phone number since they signed up.

<comment><USER8> On this note, I have an old google account that wasn't used for a while.

Tried to access it recently, signing in with the _correct_ password, and it whinged at me.

Offered to confirm that I'm "me" via SMS message to an old phone number (probably from the UK). No idea what that number would have been, as I'm not in the UK any more.

Alternatively, it offered to email a verification token to my email address. Did that, received token fine.

 _Still_ couldn't access the account. So now... no access to that account, and there's no avenue to follow up.

So, even with the _correct_ password, and _verified_ email, that account is now forever dead. :(

No wonder I fully agree with the "these tech giants are irresponsible morons" crowd. They've very much proven the case through their actions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ive been excluded from more and more shit lately just because I don't have a smart phone. I got a dumb phone for calls and SMS but even that is becoming inadequate. Even with mobile emulators many apps and signups don't actually work because there is no phone number registered to it and if I input my dumb phone number they just send me shit that I can't view to my dumb phone. Living in one of the poorest areas of the nation, I gotta save every penny I can, and a data plan that I would use once in a blue moon with garbage network service just isn't worth the cost. Not to mention the more expensive phone that will inevitably get destroyed on a job site while im climbing through rafters or jumping down in holes and shit. Google even discontinued their directions via SMS which should be a dirt cheap service to provide, so now im back to physical maps. Even the spammers now send me SMS messages I can't view.

Personally, I don't want to live in a world where I am forced to perpetually be networked up and tracked and spied on everywhere I go. Yeah you can circumvent a good bit of that if you really want to, but that is even more time and pain in the ass to do for every little thing, extensively researching every little app, and jail breaking all my devices so I have some sliver of control over it, while still paying out the ass to companies and practices I do not support. There are even government apps that require a smartphone app to access now with no PC equivalent.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a feature, not a bug!

Employers do not like the unemployed. This is a simple way of making it hard for the unemployed to apply. Whether it's good for society isn't their concern.

(Personally, I think we should be working towards hiding employment status from prospective employers. One thing I would like to see is dates should not be allowed on resumes. You list how long you worked there, not when. They can have the real data for a background check after making an offer of employment.)

</comment><comment><USER11> mail.com?

There are plenty of free mail services that do not require a phone number. Yes, gmail and many others do, But a 30 second Google search will yield numerous options.

Feel like we just are looking for things to fit a narrative as opposed to real issues. One of those real issues being that the gig economy is almost completely off limits to those without a smart phone and data plan. And the people without those two things are some of the people that would most benefit from gig economy work.

<comment><USER12> To be fair, I didn't know about mail.com either, 100% I would have tried in this order:

Gmail Hotmail Yahoo ... Give up and go back to Gmail and put my phone number in and asked the lady to call me if anything came up and to switch it one day if she got a phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> And the more "AI" is involved, we'll see more people excluded in a variety of ways, the true negatives.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think one solution is to make sure it's possible for everyone to have a mobile phone. They are so important on so many levels.

In this situation in particular - needing to get an SMS without a number - google voice is a good solution for that issue. I used it for a while when my US bank required getting a code via SMS to a US number. I know it's a chicken and egg thing getting it going - but if there's a way to get a person in this situation a gmail account, a lot more stuff opens up from having that resource.

<comment><USER15> A free cell phone for everyone should be added to Yang 2020's platform.

<comment><USER16> Obama already created a programs for mobile phones. I have a friend who got a free smart phone from the federal government. It was android and could load Venmo and other apps.

<comment><USER17> And he got a lot of flak for it too, "Obama phones" as a four letter word early in his administration.

<comment><USER4> With good reason - a lot of people were hurting in the recession and watching the government pay for smart phones for lazy good-for-nothings must have been incredibly frustrating. If the government stopped favoring the unwilling to work over the down-on-their-luck, we may have a less toxic political culture.

<comment><USER18> If you keep posting flamebait to HN we will ban you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> think this is an instance of the general problem where everyone wants to outsource and/or automate identity verification because it's a cost center and they aren't liable for failure. In some cases it's simply impossible to validate your identity face to face with a competent human. This problem seems to be worst when a revenue model depends on scaling and automation.

A few examples:

\--Your free email got hijacked, and the attacker changed all the password reset stuff to lock you out. If you followed instructions, your real answers were easily discover-able. Instead of letting you show your state ID to a human, Freemail uses your phone number as 2FA, so instead of paying for labor, it's the phone company's problem. Also, you have basically lost all your photos and correspondence ever.

\--It's where all your other password resets for other sites are sent, so instead of paying a human, it's the email company's problem.

\--Credit card companies want spam instant lines of credit through the mail without paying a human to check your ID before lending, so it's the credit bureau's problem.

\--You can't answer the credit bureau's identity questions, but there's no human available, so it's your problem.

\--The credit bureau leaks the data used to validate everyone's identity, but they're not (substantially?) liable so it's the public's problem.

In a lot of these corner cases, there is no incentive for anyone to internalize the cost of fixing things when their own automation fails. What's especially frustrating to me is the case where private persons are liable to prove their own innocence when a company is negligent in lending or billing. This seems like a cooperation problem that the market is no danger of fixing any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER20> s/mobile phone/<x>/g with x being any of email, reliable ISP, physical address, bank account, at various points in our history.

Interestingly enough, around here it seems like many (most even) homeless people do have a mobile phone, save for those that actively reject societal norms.

<comment><USER21> Even some prisoners have cell phones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The world is hard for people with any aspect of their life more than one standard deviation from the cultural norm.

Also sticking with the current cultural norm, we only acknowledge the above to be a problem when we can find "inequality" to be a contributing factor. Everyone else can just be expected to conform unless their "why" also makes for good headlines.

</comment><comment><USER23> What I also don't understand is the assumption that people don't share phone numbers or have multiple of them.

If they want to restrict a service to a physical person, then at least in Germany there are identification services.

</comment><comment><USER24> Simplifying creating an account on behalf of someone else could help, it seems. Then the author could likely have helped out the woman directly, leveraging the trust accrued by her own account.

But if the author had her own mobile phone with her, it seems she could have used this plus existing account creation mechanisms anyway?

</comment><comment><USER25> In the UK you can sign up for a Gmail account without any other contact info - just an unverified name and date of birth. Is this different elsewhere?

<comment><USER26> If you try to register multiple Gmail accounts from the same location (such as a public library), at some point Gmail will start to ask you for a phone number verification.

This is something I saw a few years ago in France (before GDPR), there is no reason it has changed.

I suspect it is to avoid fraudulent accounts while still letting a few mails being registered without verification for first time users in a location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The cheapest way to solve this would probably just be to buy everyone a phone...

<comment><USER28> Though that wouldn't solve the privacy problem, since there are many privacy hostile countries in where you're required to verify your identity to buy a sim card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> how about having simless phones in libraries and people get to put their sim cards in? it's much cheaper or even free to get a simcard in some cases</comment>


Common Solecisms - Words you are almost certainly using incorrectly - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673903

<comment><USER3> I freaking hate prescriptive linguistics. The people who love to prescribe are so often prescribing incorrectly. I couldn't get past the first one in this article:

> Acronym: this is a word, like radar or NATO, not a set of initials, like the > BBC or the IMF.

Wikipedia:

> In 1943, Bell Laboratories coined the term acronym as the name for a word > (such as SONAR) created from the first letters of each word in a series of > words (such as SOund Navigation And Ranging). The terms initialism and > alphabetism are neither widely used nor widely known. The term acronym is > widely used to describe any abbreviation formed from initial letters.

First off, the word was created by a _corporation_ ; secondly, the term is widely used and understood to apply to words like "BBC" ("Three Letter Acronym"); thirdly, the "correct" alternative is not widely used or understood. So if you use the correct terms your communication would actually be _less_ clear, which is, as I understand, the point of studying grammar/linguistics in the first place.

For more on this exciting subject, see David Foster Wallace's excellent "Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage":

<http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html>

<comment><USER4> I agree.

That said, "performant" is not, has never been, and will never be a word.

(This is not directed at you, parent poster, but I see that .. group of letters .. crop up all the time in HN stories and comments)

<comment><USER5> _That said, "performant" is not, has never been, and will never be a word._

Well, it's certainly Not A Duck.

It's pronounceable, it has a widely accepted spelling and definition… Seems like a word to me. Time to get over it, I think.

<comment><USER6> Does it mean "fast" or "efficient" or something else? Both those words are shorter and more widely understood.

<comment><USER5> It means that something "performs well". The specific criteria of performance depends on context.

Both "fast" and "efficient" are more specific than performant, but are related concepts. Note that "speed" and "efficiency" are also often related, but not quite the same thing. They fill a different linguistic need.

Performant is pretty widely understood, in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is swimming upstream given the progress of the thread, but I loved this.

It's an opinionated style guide. If you disagree, that's of course fine - <USER2> part of the reason I liked it, I suspect, was that it fits well with my own idiolect - but there's a distinction to be drawn between _language_ (non- prescriptive) and _style_ (which you can be as prescriptive about as you like).

One of the best aspects of the Economist is its style; both of its prose and its design. Its politics I can take or leave, but at least it's honest about where it stands.

</comment><comment><USER8> "English is what English-speaking people speak." "Correct" English is a different matter - it serves no higher purpose than to keep you in your place.

I would like to see a guide that gives compelling reasons for how each rule increases clarity. George Orwell's guide comes to mind: <http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html>

_A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink._

Wikipedia summary: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langua...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language#Causes_and_characteristics_of_unclear_writing)

<comment><USER9> _"Correct" English is a different matter - it serves no higher purpose than to keep you in your place._

Using incorrect language, however, makes whatever you are writing about seem less thought-out or even just plain wrong.

Have you ever read 4chan? You can argue that that's English, since it's English speakers using the English language... but you will surely agree that their version of English makes them look like uneducated morons, even without considering what they are trying to say.

Anyway, the style guide here suggests that authors use the clearest word to describe a given situation or quality. I don't see anything wrong with this -- clarity is always good. (Your writing could still be understandable without using the words correctly, but _why_ use incorrect words just because some other people are also wrong?)

<comment><USER10> The thing that comes to mind here is the notion of a "controlled vocabulary" from library science. When you're building a hierarchical model of concepts (Library of Congress, or Dewey Decimal Classification) it helps to have a relatively small and consistent set of identifiers so that you can consistently refer to the same thing.

I think of good English usage as being similar. When what you mean is X, use the word for X. So these sorts of lists of usage can be thought of as a mapping from concepts to words.

English is dynamic, true, but you have to remember that when you talk about "English is what English speakers speak" I think you have to also consider, to avoid a grave disservice to history, that "English speakers" mean not only those walking around today, but all the vast collection of written words through the ages.

<comment><USER8> Nice point. It's backcompatibility with legacy uses ( _use_ is a synonym for _application_.) And so the familiar battle between current usage and backcompatibility plays itself out in this arena, with the familiar casualties of irregular special cases, unconceived foundations and unretractable experiments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Anarchy means the complete absence of law or government. It may be harmonious or chaotic." I was glad to read that. I'm so tired of people who believe that anarchy implies chaos.

<comment><USER4> I'm so tired of people who insist that it doesn't.

<comment><USER10> "Anarchy" (the word) isn't a political argument, it just means "an-" without, "-arkhos" leader.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Gender is a word to be applied to grammar, not people. If someone is female, that is her sex, not her gender. (The gender of Mädchen, the German word for girl, is neuter, as is Weib, a wife or woman.)"

That's doing some pretty hard core identity theory without a license. What would Judith Butler say?

<comment><USER13> That's not identity theory; it's just a definition. That said, you can use "gender" in situations where using "sex" would cause uncomfortable atmosphere, correctly or no, so there's no way we're getting that distinction back.

<comment><USER14> There's another context: gender can mean the psychological and social aspect of sexual identification. I believe that's what the "identity-theory" bit refers to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My favorite: Actionable

It used to mean: "affording grounds for legal action" -- that is you can be sued for it.

Now, marketing folks (and politicians) use it to mean "something they can do".

<comment><USER16> To me actionable means "something I can act upon," not necessarily something I can do, e.g., a specific piece of information that makes the next decision obvious.

If I meant "something I can do" I'd say "possible."

<comment><USER15> That's just my point. It doesn't mean that.

<comment><USER16> If it means that to me and everyone else who uses the word in the same way, how can it not "mean that?" Because that's not what's in the dictionary? Because that's not what someone who lived 100, 50, 25 years ago would have meant when they said it?

I don't buy it. Language is defined by its usage, not the other way around. If I say "actionable" and everyone understands what I mean by it -- yourself included, if only begrudgingly -- then what does it mean if not the thing which everyone understands?

<comment><USER15> Maybe you misunderstood the words in my answer because they didn't mean what you think you read...

You are free to redefine the meaning of any word you want. But that's what the article was about -- misusing words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >Appeal is intransitive nowadays (except in America), so appeal against decisions.

Americans make up 67% of the world's native English speakers!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:English_dialects1997_modif...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:English_dialects1997_modified.svg)

Furthermore, second language learners get far more exposure to Hollywood and US television than they do to RP or whatever the Economist considers to be "standard" language. I can respect their pride in their language, but American, or more accurately North American English, is more than some minority dialect. It's the defacto world standard.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Aggression is an unattractive quality, so do not call a keen salesman an aggressive one (unless his foot is in the door or beyond)."

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - there are no supporting arguments for the idea that aggression is always unattractive. Like much of the rest of the article this is also prescriptive.

</comment><comment><USER19> Educational but I think some of these proscriptions are a little stodgy. For example, I know what "alibi" really means but the usage of the word has expanded to conveniently include more explanations than only proven ones, because it is typically used in situations of alleged guilt over some crime.

</comment><comment><USER20> I knew that if I read long enough I'd find some error and I surely did: "Thus a dilemma offers the choice between two alternatives, each with equally nasty consequences." The department of redundancy department seems to have written about the two alternatives.

<comment><USER21> I don't see any error.

<comment><USER20> The definition of 'alternative' in the article is "strictly, this is one of two, not one of three, four, five or more" and as such, the phrase 'two alternatives' is unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Many of these are perfectly good points, and others are stylistically pleasing (like the "don't _get_ a verb, verb it" one), but some are just strange, particularly the hostility to metaphors and other figures of speech ("epicenter" and "bellwether").

<comment><USER22> Agreed. Not only that, but a literal epicenter isn't even necessarily underground.

Any geologists care to chime in on this one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Worth reading, but note that it has a slight british slant, and some of the words are different in the US. (For example a Keen salesman.)

</comment><comment><USER24> This begs the question, when are people going to stop misusing that horrible phrase?

</comment><comment><USER25> _Aggression is an unattractive quality_

In certain delineated contexts, it is most certainly attractive, as my girlfriend would attest. It's unattractive if it leaks. One could argue that it's not true aggression, unless it is so.

 _Autarchy vs. Autarky_

Good one!</comment>


Show HN: First app to rank cryptocurrencies in real-time - <AUTHOR> I just published an app that ranks 500+ cryptocurrencies in real-time and lets you quickly check how your favorite coins are stacking up against the rest of the field. I made it because I wanted to see the real-time ranking of every coin and nothing existed that would let me do that. With CryptoLadder you can actually watch as coins move up and down the ladder in real-time. In addition to price and rank, it also calculates and adjusts market share, market cap, and global market cap all on the fly and in real-time. The whole point is to give everyday traders quick and easy access to real-time information so that they can make better decisions. My hope is that tools like this will empower the average person and level the playing field from the really big dogs out there. Anyways, here are the links:
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/cryptoladder-real-time-cryptocu...
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.willchrist...
The app is free to download and I would love to hear your suggestions/feedback. <comment><USER2> Downloaded. Very clean. Feels streamlined

Will use this over Coincap

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad you like it. Thanks for your feedback!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Crushify.org - <AUTHOR> http://crushify.org/about <comment><USER2> Props for your effort!

What I dislike (not specifically about your project, that is!) is the idea that, as a society, we're incentivized to increasingly hide behind our screens instead of growing some balls an actually live in the "real life". Here, we're talking about dating. The other current topic: how we intend to fight democracy-destroying mass surveillance by (apparently) simply sitting behind our screens.

<comment><USER3> You could also argue that this project helps society move in a way you prefer. Once you get to "mutual crush" and ideally start dating, my assumption would be that those dates would be in "real life".

<comment><USER4> most people will still hide behind their screens and not do anything about their crush. I actually had a concept that might solve this problem - in order to 'unlock' more options, you have to go on a date first and exchange passkeys with the other dater.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This used to be extremely common as a naturally viral way to harvest email addresses, the prompt was "put in the email addresses of your crushes".

What's your twist that sets it apart from the usual variants? (Sure, building it on top of Facebook could potentially provide some additional benefits, but what are they?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, frankly I wasn't expecting frontpage HN. This was just a sideproject that I was doing to get acquainted with golang. With respect to your concern about email address harvesting, the facebook graph api doesnt not give the app access to friends' email addresses. We only know the emails of the people who sign up, and it's used for notification purposes only. :)

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

There are more examples of apps just like this that came before (this is the only one that comes to mind at the moment), the only way I would be remotely interested is if they figured a way to solve the inherent problem of selecting all/some of your friends as crushes to see who had you as a crush, and then what happens when someone legitimately adds the person who was just checking everyone's crushes.

<comment><USER7> I've heard that this is a problem with real-life speed-dating as well.

<comment><USER8> I guess speed dating is always a conflict between making the most sincere matches, and making sure everyone has fun.

If that one person says "yes" to everyone, no doubt their intentions were to game the system, but if they avoid attendees going away thinking "no one liked me", then they've actually benefited the event's success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't this a PG version of bangwithfriends?

<comment><USER10> What does Paul Graham have to do with this?

<comment><AUTHOR> I dont think he means Paul Graham. More likely, PG the movie rating.

<comment><USER10> Sorry I was being a bit sarcastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why not limit it to say 3 friends? You can't have a crush on every friend (you might want to bang them, but not crush?)?

<comment><USER12> I like this idea, but perhaps it'd be better to rate limit to say 1 crush a day

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I really don't have any rate limiting features built in at the moment, but I will look into it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems similar to bang with friends. Except the bang part.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Crushify" is a really awkward name. And I really wish this "-ify" trend would end...it's lazy and utterly lame.

<comment><AUTHOR> guilty of laziness.

<comment><USER15> Lazify might be your new project!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember this exact crush feature was on Orkut about 13 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hmm, looks like the web-version of Tinder which has already been available for a while and is pretty popular [http://www.gotinder.com](http://www.gotinder.com)

</comment><comment><USER18> Solve two nearly insurmountable problems and you have a winner:

1) Make it impossible to game. 2) Chicken and egg.

I have no idea how to solve these problems, but it's a concept ripe for disruption if you do.

<comment><AUTHOR> It sure is. Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> why not just ask the girl/boy out?

<comment><USER20> this

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Showstopper for me: Log in with Facebook

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. There is no other alternative. It cannot be built without access to a social graph. I didn't think of including Twitter because of the user limits.

<comment><USER21> I see. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Jesus! Just go talk to her!

</comment><comment><USER23> "login with facebook" "Sorry"

<comment><USER24> It needs a social graph to do what it does. Do you have a better option for that than Facebook?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what is scaring away most of the site visitors. Each permission has a reason for being asked for: "&scope=email,friends_about_me,user_about_me"

email: to notify you when a match is found. an access_token grants us knowledge of only the users email and not his friends'. This cannot be used for viral email harvesting.

friends_about_me: To seperate views based on gender.

user_about_me: to help decide which view is to be "initially " displayed based on the users' gender.

<comment><USER25> Why do you need to segregate based on gender, anyway? Boys can crush on boys, and girls can crush on girls. If they discover that they are a mutual crush, why deny them the fun?

If you really want to filter views, let the user make a explicit decision to filer view based on gender, using a drop-down menu or something.

<comment><USER26> There comes a point where you're going overboard about privacy.

<comment><USER27> And that point is same sex crushes?

<comment><AUTHOR> We dont limit you to same sex crushes. There is a toggle button to switch between genders

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Adds a whole new dimension to 'fraping'.</comment>


Database Schema Refinement: Functional Dependencies - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dancrisan.com/intro-to-database-systems-schema-refinement-functional-dependencies <comment><USER2> Just feedback if you want to improve the discussion.

1) The example rows use first name and last initial for Client primary key attribute (e.g James H.). No one uses this in the real world for a name-based primary key. In fact, in a sufficiently large enough system, you would _never_ use a name for a primary key since names are not guaranteed to be unique.

2) Functional dependencies are interesting ideas. The discussion says that studID (student id) determines address. It would be beneficial to further discuss how we know that. For instance, more than one student could live at the same address. And a student could live at more than one address. So does studID truly determine address? Does the dependent attribute have to be unique? Does the determinant set?

3) The discussion moves from Data(studID, studName, ...) to breaking it out to three entities and says "The following structure is considerably better." But what criteria make it better?

4) It states that "Each student has his own address", but in the real-world that's not _always_ true. There will be cases when a student does not have an address, or the address is still unknown. Also, mailing address and physical addresses can be two different attributes. I'm being picky, right? But these things come up all of the time (so much so it gives me heartburn). So using good examples will help prevent future bad designs I believe.

5) courseID is supposedly functionally dependent on courseName. Again, courseNames can be non-unique in a real school. And courseID domain and range would be important to know whether courseID is unique. For instance there are many 101 courses out there. So is this a sequentially generated ID, a GUID? Only then can we know if it's truly unique.

6) Now to the really good stuff. Functional dependencies are abstractions that exist outside of the database logical and physical design and implementation correct? What if we identified all of the functional dependencies in our entities? Could we generate a good table design automatically from that? How do we prevent from modeling the entire universe and how do we prove that we've over-modeled? (I think one of the stated benefits of relation models is that once, you get to 3NF you can expand the model as needed. So how do we use FDs to determine whether we are 3NF)?

Interesting reduction of FDs to mathematical concepts, but to make it useful to a practitioner, more to go.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to add that there should also be a consideration for names that change over time. People get married and divorced, or courses might change their name but not their number, or maybe there was just a data entry error but we need to keep record that the error was in place at that certain time (if you've ever had to deal with Sarbanes-Oxley compliant systems, you'll know what I mean).

There are physical entities in the world and what we call them is almost always completely arbitrary. So almost all databases that deal with real people and things over time need to be Temporal Databases[0].

It can be a pain in the butt to have to emulate a TRDBMS on a RDBMS, but if you get the design down right it will also _save_ your butt way down the road.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've never heard this called "refinement" before. The term I've always used was normalization[0]. I'm rather surprised that there is no mention of normalization at all in the article. There are several "normal forms" that are quite well known and understood in relational databases.

Also, I've never heard this called "functional dependencies". The term I've always used is "relational algebra"[1]. For lay-people, the set-theory notation might be a bit off-putting, but take the time to learn the language and the concepts become a lot more intuitive.

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

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

<comment><USER4> C.J. Date uses the term "functional dependencies" in the section about various normal forms (at least he did in the second edition of "Introduction to Database Systems" from 1977). In fact, they are part of the definition of some of the normal forms.

<comment><USER3> I guess my point is that it's just a little weird to see a discussion of relational algebra without actually using the word "relational algebra".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good description. It might be important to point out that the decision has to be made carefully; whilst normalisation typically improves write performance, a normalised database can absolutely munch _read_ performance, especially when it comes to things like aggregations.

Furthermore, there are some redundancies that you can't eliminate without also necessarily losing the ability to represent functional dependencies, which kinda buggers that one.

</comment><comment><USER6> Am I missing something, but isn't this normalizing the database...</comment>


Array Layouts for Comparison-Based Searching - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.05053 <comment> c-rack Link to the GitHub repo: [https://github.com/patmorin/arraylayout](https://github.com/patmorin/arraylayout)

</comment><comment><USER2> Some utility code for working with eytzinger layout:

[https://evilpiepirate.org/git/bcachefs.git/tree/fs/bcachefs/...](https://evilpiepirate.org/git/bcachefs.git/tree/fs/bcachefs/eytzinger.h)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great example of how to properly use software pre-fetching.</comment>


MagicJack's Next Act: Disappearing Cell Phone Fees - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=9511411 <comment><USER2> At the very least I hope these go to Market. This doesn't seem all that useful (at least not to me), but a USB device that can communicate via GSM sounds like it would be very fun to play with.

</comment><comment><USER3> I want one of these, but open, so I can use my own VoIP SIP information and integrate with my pbx.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone actually have a good experience with MagicJack's service? The idea of this device is cool, but people I know who've tried the conventional MagicJack, and reviews I've read of it, are both in agreement that it sucks pretty badly.

</comment><comment><USER5> Uh, _Borislow said the device is legal because wireless spectrum licenses don't extend into the home._ sounds a bit suspicious. If the cell carriers radio signals extend to the home, do they suddenly become unlicensed? I think not. Smacks of regulatory action upcoming.

Consider the illegal cellphone jammers. Those use licensed spectrum, yet they are illegal because they are not licensed.

<comment><USER6> No, they're illegal because FCC regulations specifically ban any device that interferes with other transmissions, _especially_ transmissions over reserved frequencies. By the letter of the law, this is actually kind of a gray area, IMO. I think if it does get nailed down, it will only be because the cell phone companies retaliate against users because of some license agreement loop-hole. I'm not sure how the FCC actually stands on the issue of in-your- home, but as long as the device doesn't transmit a disruptive signal outside of the house, I think the MagicJack people are in the right here.

(full disclosure: I'm not a lawyer, but an amateur radio enthusiast - so I've read a fair bit about the issue)

<comment><USER5> Interesting point. I know there are exceptions to licensing for certain services--as is noted elsewhere in this thread the FM transmitters for mp3 players and the like, but I was under the impression that was specifically included by the regulations. What is interesting is whether that applies to any frequency.

<comment><USER7> My high school radio station's transmissions could only reach to the near side of the school parking lot, and I'm pretty sure that was to avoid having to deal with the FCC. Isn't this pretty much the same thing? If your transmission peters out at a small radius, I think the FCC doesn't get involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is listening illegal? Or just transmitting?

This will be interesting, no doubt.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does it make a call to every cellphone in range?

That would be a cool way to spam.</comment>


Crypton – Secure Anonymous SMS in the Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://crypton.sh/ <comment><USER2> I noticed that their canary [0] has not been updated and it should have been updated at the latest on 21st of February.

[0] [https://crypton.sh/canary](https://crypton.sh/canary)

<comment><USER3> Interesting and concerning find. I think it would be useful to have a 3rd- party service that reliably alerts when canary conditions aren't fulfilled, along with a diff history.

<comment><USER4> canarywatch.org existed until Q3 2019 [0]

> The coalition of organizations which created Canary Watch explained their > decision to discontinue the project by stating that it has achieved its > goals to raise awareness about "illegal and unconstitutional national > security process, including National Security Letters and other secret court > processes." The Electronic Frontier Foundation also noted that "the fact > that canaries are non-standard makes it difficult to automatically monitor > them for changes or takedowns."

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pricing in the list can be implemented with a static dictionary in Javascript being served with the HTML on page load. It's not optimal at all ( as well as it returns 429 at the moment, for me ) to call an API to just get back a single price per country.

Another option you may think is a global refresh button which reloads this dictionary. But the lookup should be immediate.

Aside of this, great service. Well done :)

</comment><comment><USER6> This sounds like an interesting service, but I'm not sure I understand why is it so expensive. 8 EUR per month to send/receive texts sounds a bit much in my opinion. A more apropriate price for this would have been, I speculate, some 3 EUR.

But maybe I'm missing something essential here?

<comment><USER7> Their closest competitor seems to be [https://smsprivacy.org](https://smsprivacy.org) who are similarly anonymity friendly (supporting Tor and cryptocurrency, and not requiring personal data for signup) and don't filter incoming registration messages. Price: 0.0015 BTC per day(!), which is ~$400 per month at the moment. And they don't support outgoing messages.

So Crypton.sh looks like an excellent deal. Wish they didn't require an e-mail address.</comment></comment>


Show HN: ChildFlare, an iBeacon based child safety service built at AngelHack - <AUTHOR> http://childflare.com

<comment><USER2> I'm so confused about what exactly this is. Is it common that parents don't know who is taking care of their child?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback - I'll take a look at how we can improve the copy. The idea is that yes, in general you know who is looking after your child - being able to call the with one click is just a convenience. However, in the abnormal case where your child is away from their carer for some reason then the ability to be notified immediately and establish contact with the carer could be the critical difference that stops your child from being another of the thousands of children that go missing every day.

Once you add in the complexity of two working parents and a reasonably large care network - then the conveniences become more valuable as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My mother would love this! I'm 30.

<comment><USER4> Would you like some mini-pizzas?

<comment><USER3> No, I already told you I'm not hungry..

<comment><USER4> Don't forget to dress the big coat, I hear it's chilly down there.

<comment><USER3> I'm FINE. _storms off_

<comment><USER4> That's my boy!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wikipedia's Definition of a Software Bug Is Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.yegor256.com/2015/06/11/wikipedia-bug-definition.html?2015-23 <comment><USER2> obligatory xkcd: [http://xkcd.com/386/](http://xkcd.com/386/)</comment>


Amazon, Facebook and Google can all be beaten - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/lightspeed-venture-partners/why-amazon-facebook-and-google-can-all-be-beaten-f2b3ee48feaf <comment><USER3> I think the most surprising vulnerability for Google is web search. Google has been pushing away from web search for years now, with moves like AMP, vertical searches and quick answers that keep you on their domain.

If you look at the mission statement for their search team it is now something like "answer your questions" \- which is great 90% of the time, but what no longer exists (with most people not realizing) is a good general search engine for the WEB, meaning the collection of websites out there.

There is no longer a sense of serendipity or of finding a cool new website, and maybe finding web pages on the web is just a nostagic thing with no real benefit, but there's no doubt that Google has moved away from that as real objective. The reality is that the web has become overwhelmed by listicles and minimum pages that go one inch past Google's definition of spam, but otherwise muck up the web. It would be amazing for a search engine to sift past all that cruft and low-effort material to find actually interesting and unique content.

In a way, simply by not being Google is already an advantage because everyone is catering to Google. If you use a different standard you can easily get different results - it's just a matter if those would be useful for anyone? Everyone mostly wants to see the "right" answer and Google has conditioned us to expect it.

<comment><USER4> If someone nailed discussion search, I'd have no use for Google for 90% of my searching. As it is, most of my searches are a series of:

site:<reddit/ycombinator/stackoverflow/tripadvisor/random niche forum.com> "something someone interested in the same question/topic would say"

.. all in an attempt to filter over-commercialized bullshit. There's an opportunity here for a startup to capture an audience hungry for real information and leverage them into becoming the next hub for over- commercialized bullshit.

<comment><USER5> That's been the most annoying part of search for a while now. Most searches result in hyper commercialised results, with SEO heavy sites winning out, and of course SEO heavy sites are going to be sites selling you stuff.

If you're searching for a real human's thoughts on a particular mountain bike for one example, it will be nothing but product pages. Add in the word Reviews and you get the productized review sites. Even searching for "Best trails in {my area}" gives me an ecommerce site's blog laden with product links and not- so-subtle sells.

Want to read a discussion about a book? Google will only show you product pages with review sections on the first page, on the next page the search results have already devolved into unrelated nonsense or spin sites.

It's hard to find the humans on the internet through all the commercial pages. I can't blame Google entirely of course, they are helped by the SEO industry's incessant bombardment in the 2010ish era that filled the web with so much pointless crap, and the ongoing efforts of e-commerce stores with deep pockets to be the only heard voice for particular subjects.

<comment><USER6> Hey, I work on Google search. For any of the search queries you mentioned, would you be able to share examples of webpages you would have rather seen in the results?

<comment><USER7> If you want a specific example, here's one that came up in the news recently. Try searching for "rasberry ketones", a nutritional supplement. It's filled with hyper tuned SEO pages with very little content. Many suggest they are informational, but are really article/adverts tuned for search engines. Even those that appear on ostensibly legit websites have ridiculously click-baity titles like "What They Don't Want You to Know About Raspberry Ketones", which in my mind raises red flags that BS is ahead.

If you read a newspaper, you clearly know when someone is trying to sell you something, but on Google search, you don't. I don't mind being marketed to, but I would like to know when I'm marketed to, and the vast majority of google results are organic search marketing.

<comment><USER6> Interesting, thanks. Did you ever manage to find better-quality material on raspberry ketones that you think should have been in the search results instead?

<comment><USER7> Yes, I did, although it took quite some time.

<comment><USER6> Would you mind sharing a link or two?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Amazon is in a weird place right now. In the recent past, Amazon was _the_ place to get stuff online - cheaper than most places and Prime shipping was a big win. I don't think they're going anywhere, but there's still an awful lot of stuff you can't buy on there, or is difficult to find.

Now some departments are getting more like Etsy - a Shenzhen marketplace. This is good, because there's a lot of random stuff you can get that you don't need to import. It's also bad because it's virtually impossible to know what you should buy if you don't know the brand reputation (and that matters to you).

Take 'usb cable' for example, have a look: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=usb+cable)

Brands include Rephoenix, Luoriz, Ugreen, Syncwire, RAVPower, Rankie, Benestellar, Onson, Jecent, Emmabin, Brightsnow, Maxteck, choetech, Volutz, Kinps, the list goes on. I got to page 3 before I gave up.

What about headphones? Mpow, OneOdio, BienSound, Alihen, Sephia, ZIYE, Sadon, OMORC, etc.

I'm genuinely curious as to when sellers decided that they _must_ have a brand name for every product, and to hell with the meaning. It's like they all read those "how to sell on Amazon by importing" tutorials.

Even though deep down I know that they're probably just as good as anything you can buy on the high street, the sheer volume of random brands is really off-putting to me for some reason. A bigger problem is that you can miss stuff in the noise - e.g. if you didn't know that Anker have a good reputation, could you tell the difference from any of the other names in that list? Seller churn is also high, so it's not like you can rely on reviews either - <USER2> product might be gone in a month.

On a brighter note it really highlights how much you're being ripped off when you buy from a 'name brand' company that's just rebadging stuff from China.

<comment><USER9> > the sheer volume of random brands is really off-putting to me for some > reason

Your example of 'usb cable' is a very good one for highlighting this problem. You are seeing so many brands because of an army of "Amazon Associates Sellers" / FBA - Fullfilled by Amazon Sellers ( I like to refer to them as scam artists) who identify various electronic gadgets, household items, and other things that are in demand, that are light (so cheap to ship) and that are available in bulk in Alibaba or Alibaba Express. They simply slap on their brand logo / name on packaging, pay a few select reviewers to do a 5-star review on amazon and make a whole bunch of sale.

So in essence, the chances are that these 10+ brands you are seeing for 'usb cable' are all sourcing the same exact 'Made in China' product from the same factory in China through Alibaba. Do a search for 'Strawberry corer' and you'll see what I mean :)

This is a very real problem that amazon has been very slow to resolve.

There are even Fiverr gigs that do the product research for cheap. Source: [https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/amazon-fba](https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/amazon- fba)

<comment><USER10> Where is the problem? Should selling imported generic goods on Amazon only be allowed for major brands? That would make the cost go up as there would be less competition.

<comment><USER11> You don't see a problem with users being completely unable to predict with any accuracy how good the quality of what they're buying is?

<comment><USER10> If being able to predict quality without spending time reading the reviews is important, buy a name brand and pay twice the price.

<comment><USER8> Careful with that - there's another saying: buy cheap, buy twice.

Amazon reviews are a pretty bad indicator of quality. You often need to make educated gueses about whether the reviewer knows what they're talking about, whether their standards are the same as yours, whether they're a shill (which is very common on off-brand items), whether the review actually reflects the product and isn't referring to the shipping or customer servie experience, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally I wish Facebook to be destroyed, it's kind of a psychological cancer. I also guess Amazon can't be destroyed unless with a series of defeats within a very long period, it may be transformed into another Microsoft or IBM at worst but it won't be destroyed.

<comment><USER13> I wish someone could make Facebook get closer to becoming a strictly positive addition to people's lives. If it merely gets destroyed then something would just substitute it. It's already in a position to do anything it practically wants, and there's a lot of good that _could_ come of it... all it needs is a clear mind and willpower.

<comment><USER14> What if the substitute was specifically created to be as positive an addition as possible, with built in tools designed to help boost users' willpower and help them grow?

I'm not sure how viable such a thing would be given that most of facebook's negative aspects are a direct result of them monetizing the platform as much as possible. But I think it's worth thinking about!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "How did Snapchat beat Facebook to the youth market over the last few years? (Remember Poke?). How did Facebook beat Google in social media in the early 2000s? (Remember Orkut?) How did Google beat Yahoo and Microsoft in search?"

1\. It wasn't Facebook who beat Google. It was Google who lost to Facebook.

2\. It wasn't Google who beat Yahoo and Microsoft. It was Microsoft and Yahoo who lost to Google.

3\. Lastly, Snapchat LOST to Facebook. I don't know where he even pulls this out of.

Unlike his takeaway which is nonsense and will probably make you waste years trying to make something stupid happen, here's my takeaway--which is actually opposite of what he'saying--that's much more helpful:

Don't try to fight against a giant in their own turf. As Snapchat, you will never beat Facebook in their own game, Social. As Google, you will never beat Facebook in their own game, Social (This goes both ways. There have been many rumors about Facebook entering search engine arena, but that will never work). Microsoft and Yahoo (A portal whose business model used to be opposite to Google's) can never beat Google in its own game.

The lesson is, play your own game. Don't play into these VCs telling you it's ok to make these stupid attempts. In their eyes, you the founder is just a number. And even if so, this is a terrible advice because there are so many other ways you can win "against" google, facebook, amazon--You simply don't play against them. Google "beat" Microsoft by dominating their own category. Facebook "beat" Google by dominating their own category.

And lastly, Snapchat couldn't "beat" Facebook because they decided to follow stupid advice like this guy gave and fight against Facebook instead of dominating its own category. It had potential at first to invent a differentiated category of its own but went off rails becoming just another social media app, which Facebook then swiftly copied.

<comment><USER16> Snap is not a clear case of failing. Sure, they did not displace Facebook, but the founders and investors made a lot of money and while it isn't growing as fast as it should, it is still growing every day.

<comment><USER15> If you count how much the founders or investors made from the IPO as a measure of success of the company itself, I really can't help you there buddy.

<comment><USER17> So what is a measure of success?

<comment><USER15> Simple. Either revenue/profit or growth. That's all there is.

If your business model is network based, you can go for "grow now, monetize later" model. Then you need growth even if it means revenue sacrifice.

If your business model is not network based, then revenue/profit.

In case of Snapchat, they made personal gains for the founders and the VCs, but from company point of view, they don't make no money, their growth has stalled. The industry #1 has exactly the same app with larger user base and faster growth.

I can't think of a single reason why this would fall into a success category. If anything, the founders and VCs cashing out so much when the company is dying indicates failure rather than success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article doesn't inspire much faith in me as a reader. The first example of a start up beating a tech giant is Snap competing with Facebook. Snap did well for a while, but things are looking grim last I heard. Likewise, the author, in the comments, suggests that the big three priorities of Amazon are AWS, Groceries, and Prime. Seems to be forgetting the two largest categories of Amazon's business - foreign and domestic retail markets. Omissions like that make question the rigor of the analysis over all.

Speaking of being able to focus on three things, why? Why that number? Isn't Amazon, for example, competing in Cloud computing, e Books, retail, tablets, content, groceries, home assistants, advertising, and probably a few other major categories? Likewise Microsoft has game consoles, office, cloud offerings, Windows, search, and again, other areas.

I think the thesis, that you can compete with tech giants, is true, but the analysis of the article is brief and poor. The reason you can compete with tech giants is because they are looking for a way to grow their gigantic companies and so they will forgo relatively small markets even if they are promising. I would not bet on your startup to beat Amazon in making budget tablets, or Apple in making premium ones, but if you can identify a niche with a customer that needs to be served you can outcompete major companies because they won't be willing to focus on that niche.

For example, you can't make a better budget or premium tablet, but maybe you make a tablet that floats to serve fishermen. It's a hit, so you work on connecting it to their fish finders, now you're building custom sonar sensors because your brand has a reputation and you want to add features to the tablet. Before you know it, you have a self-driving boat, and you're entering the shipping market automating the work formerly done by seamen. With a big presence in shipping you use your connections in China to start up your own retail website, and now you can compete with Amazon directly because you can arrange cheaper shipping of goods from China to US marketplaces.

I also do think there is some validity to the article's point that you'll be competing against the C team. I'd add on to it that as a startup you'll be more agile. If you're competing against a tech giant they'll be held up by a lot of bureaucracy that won't afflict you. You can match their dev team for competence, move faster, and compete in spaces where they won't want to follow. That's how you won against big companies, not because they are magically limited to paying attention to three areas.

<comment><USER19> > forgetting the two largest categories of Amazon's business - foreign and > domestic retail markets

I don't buy much on Amazon nowadays but on about 50% of times when I do go there to buy a non-book product it has been reclassified as "Prime-only"

Normally that passes after a week or so but it does show that Amazon is prepared to sacrifice spontaneous retail sales in order to promote Prime.

<comment><USER20> Gonna be honest, Prime is incredible for me, I live in the UK and anything Prime comes literally next day, very few if any other stores can literally deliver next day. It's always a day for dispatch and a day for delivery. And Prime items are still considerably cheaper than what I can buy locally, if I can even find the item locally at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The problem never was that they can't be beaten. The problem is that they buy all the competition. Great if you're being bought, not so much if you're a part of society.

<comment><USER22> Not everyone can be bought. Walmart is booming massively online right now. They've got $15 billion per year in net income to play with (7x that of Amazon), nearly half a trillion in sales, hilariously more cash flow than Amazon, as well as having 3x the retail sales of Amazon. And with the current version of Amazon on the scene, Walmart is unleashed to behave competitively in a way they haven't been able to in two decades (while Amazon is in the exact opposite position due to emotion / fear of their potential; Amazon will increasingly be watched for anti-competitive abuses).

As it stands right now, Amazon has a very serious problem brewing with Walmart's online business. It's the only serious competitive threat Amazon has seen in the last 10-15 years. Instead of seeing contracting sales, Walmart's overall retail business is actually holding its ground; and at that scale, it's an extraordinary thing; their same store sales growth has been positive for 13 straight quarters, even as Amazon has grown vastly larger in the last 3-5 years. Amazon is taking share from other retailers and they're failing to strike a meaningful blow to their biggest retail threat.

<comment><USER23> Which is why them buying Jet.com just to get Marc Lore was a very reasonable bet. He hates Amazon as well and now has the resources to fight them. Look at all the acquisitions they have made into brands in the last year. It is always great to have three competitors in a space but two is better than one (like Comcast in most markets).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> a frontal assault on any of these will prove futile...ask Snap, ask Jet.com (who wisely got acquired before Amazon could be bothered to vaporize then)

they're still rising...but even if they stopped rising, they have amassed the financial resources of nations, and they have the credit to borrow much more. Apple in particular is basically a G8 nation...their cash pile may literally span centuries and they may actually need to hedge against the expiration of the governments whose currency they hold. unlike oil, we will not "run out" of data...these companies will eventually dwarf anything from the industrial age

if you want to "beat" them, (what does that even mean?) do what Elon Musk is doing and create new markets and industries

<comment><USER25> Jet.com was basically engineered to be sold, never was a serious contender.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's a bit arbitrary to say that a company is only good at three things.

Also, the bad hiring A -> B -> C players only makes sense if the "three things" are all in the same business domain because then the A listers from the same domain are used up.

But, when Google is doing things like Android, Self Driving Cars, Youtube, Glucose Sensing Contact Lenses etc. Each domain is different and interesting enough to attract top talent. (When we say Google, we mean Alphabet, right?)

Amazon is such a wild thing and always iterating on new ideas (Alexa, AWS, Etc) I highly doubt they will be limited to "3" things. Also, Amazon have a great trick of commercializing all the services they create for themselves, which seems like it will just keep adding hedges and more surface area of revenue.

Microsoft, still huge. Sure they didn't win search but they have so many other strings to their bow (Xbox, Surface, Windows, etc)

Funny thing is, Microsoft didn't exactly own the search market and then "get beaten" by Google. Google just aced that from the get go and essentially created that market growth by making it possible to search the web so well.

Slack is a great example of how that works. There were lots of players making team chat and the market was not so huge. Then along comes Slack and makes something that is a delight and useful for many people, so much so, that it creates a new outsized market that didn't quite exist in that way before.

So, rather than "get beaten" I think the most likely scenario is that new players will continue to come along and create versions of "products that don't suck" and as a result markets that were once small will, all of a sudden, become huge.

I also think blockchain, right now, is like the internet was in say, 1998, and there will be some huge companies emerging from that tech.

<comment><USER27> > I also think blockchain, right now, is like the internet was in say, 1998, > and there will be some huge companies emerging from that tech.

Why do so many people seem to think this? As someone with a background in crypto, I just don't see the resemblance. Blockchains are useful for proof-of- work and Merkle Trees give you a way to compress many individual signatures, but those things are inherently made for distributed decision making and this comes with a lot of overhead. The exact opposite of what a corporation needs.

<comment><USER26> In the same way that one couldn't have predicted Facebook or Airbnb by looking at TCP/IP and HTTP in 1998, I think it's difficult to predict where the blockchain and associated technologies and concepts will take us. The point is it's a substantial new layer and has a lot of potential.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I got so excited from the title. I also want Amazon, Facebook, and Google to be beaten. I am however _not_ excited about just another hypergrowth-driven, capture-the-whole-market-or-die, walled garden, more-of-the-same traditional startup. I want the _forms_ of these companies to die, and a patchwork economy of more medium-sized firms each providing a piece of the puzzle without trying to capture the whole thing.

That's just me, though.

</comment><comment><USER29> While I appreciate the optimism of the post, I think it doesn't matter so much if Google gets beaten when it comes to "C team priorities". Google search is still unbeatable and still gives Google a giant advantage over startups in many areas besides search. To steal an example from the EU: flight price aggregation.

<comment><USER30> I don't think Google is unbeatable at Search. I think Amazon's Alexa is a real threat. They don't need to be better than Google as long as they're can be good enough and convenient. Though it's also worth noting that what make Google money is commercial search, which is a niche you could theoretically win in one vertical at a time.

<comment><USER31> Alexa is awful for search as in answering questions and when you include mobile it has a tiny share compared to Siri and the Google Assistant.

But Google keeps adding at a rate it will be very difficult to compete. It is a moving target. The latest is Google Lens. Basically adding a new type of image search that will be tough to compete with as the resources and algorithms necessary will be tough to match.

<comment><USER30> I think Siri is a good example of how vulnerable Google is. As of this year it's powered by Google, but until then it was powered by Bing and Google is paying billions of dollars a year for the privilege of being Siri's backend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Here's an example of how to beat Facebook:

Make a social network for children. Facebook has too much political inertia to be trusted with such a thing.

Then, as those children grow, continue to come out with services useful to them. They have to be new enough and cool enough that the kids will switch to the new service as they get older.

If you can manage to make your service useful throughout all stages of a person's life, starting with childhood, then you can eventually displace Facebook by refusing to sell.

It won't be easy, and it would take a decade. But it's doable.

You may question the ethics. That's valid. Unfortunately, ethical questions tend to go out the window: Every time a technology becomes possible, it seems to be _inevitable_. Bitcoin is a perfect example.

Either you build this, or someone else might. And if you care about the ethics, this is an opportunity to build something less draconian than Facebook from first principles.

<comment><USER33> I see an interesting parallel in this side of the Great Fire Wall. You know Tencent has its WeChat which nowadays requires identification and cell phone number to use due to Gov. policies. This discourages WeChat's usage in teenagers and children. To cover that front, Tencent actually uses its other IM product, QQ, and caters more for the children's needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Over 4 decades I've watched many unbeatable high-tech juggernauts disappear practically overnight. These will be no different, including the relentless claims of "but it's different this time!" for each one.

<comment><USER35> Worlds largest ICT companies by revenue, category and year founded:

      1.  [2] Apple (1976)
      2.  [2] Samsung (1969)
      3.  [4] Amazon.com (1994)
      4.  [2] Foxconn (1974)
      5.  [4] Alphabet Inc. (1998)
      6.  [2] Microsoft (1975)
      7.  [1] Hitachi (1910)
      8.  [1] IBM (1911)
      9.  [3] Huawei (1987)
      10. [1] Sony (1946)
      11. [1] Panasonic (1918)
      12. [3] Dell (1984)
      13. [2] Intel (1968)
      14. [1] Hewlett Packard (1939)

Apple revenue $229.2B, Hewlett Packard $50B. (FYI: Facebook revenue is just $30B)

categories:

[1] old electronics, 70-100 years old companies.

[2] founded few years before or after the invention of microprocessor (1971)

[3] founded at the dawn of the PC era (80s)

[4] founded at the dawn of the internet era (90s)

From each revolution few companies may eventually join the list, but the old rule.

<comment><USER36> I'm honestly surprised that Hitachi is even on that list!

<comment><USER35> Only 30% of Hitachi revenue comes from ICT and electronics.

Their consulting and services business sell mostly to Japan. Electronics division is very specialized. Semiconductor processing equipment, test and measurement and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I can actually imagine a new search engine. The thing about google is that it's not power user friendly. Give me some query language. And let me somehow search for things related to the swift language without getting results about the singer.

<comment><USER38> Power users don't watch ads, as they have ad blockers.

<comment><USER37> Make me pay then. Like by giving me more power, I'm reducing the expectations on the product. I dont want magic, I want power.

<comment><USER39> If I'm going to pay for search it's better be a _lot_ better than google. And google has a twenty year head start and a gazillion dollars and can rapidly implement any clever feature you might think of.

<comment><USER37> Can they? They won't touch the interface whatsoever. Also a lot of times I care only about a subset of the internet. Google won't let me specify what subset.

<comment><USER40> 1\. Ban eHow (and the few other sites like it.

2\. Ban any site that shows different content to the Google bot vs the user. (looking at you Quora, with your login required to read, Pinterest...)

3\. Ban all the myriad of sites that do nothing but list out every possible phone number or random words. AI should have no trouble detecting those.

4\. Ban all the sites that do nothing but copy content wholesale from other sites. I thought they had a duplicate content penalty, but it doesn't seem to work.

Do those simple things and you've just made Google search 10x better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> And then what? There was a time that we thought MS could not be beaten. It did. And now we have Google and FB. Are they any better? Why do you think the ones who will beat FB and Google will be better?

If anything, I expect them to be worst, as SV tech geeks are being replaced by power and money seeking individuals.

<comment><USER42> MS is still kicking.

<comment><USER43> The parent post didn't say MS is dead just that it was beaten and indeed it was. MS was thought to be unbeatable as the "consumer facing OS". But mobile OSes came about from an entirely new market (this being mobile) that supplanted the desktop in consumer's daily lives.

<comment><USER24> Who beat Microsoft in what? Microsoft's primary business is Windows. Who has beaten Windows? Obviously new businesses have been born that Microsoft would love to own...but so far, there has still been no successful assault on the main business

<comment><USER43> Who: Apple and Google What: Enter a new Market that 'was' supplanting an existing market

I'm not sure what you meant by business here. Windows is a product from MS which is segmented by different markets. There's a business need and a consumer facing need. It got beat in the latter. It also didn't move fast enough to reach the mobile market so it got beat in speed as well.

The consumer facing product has been assaulted. Consumers are buying PCs, and by extension Windows, less. MS was impacted and Ballmer resigned. That was the whole pivot to the Cloud by Satya. All this is common knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The more relevant question is "can your startup succeed?" Google's C product is another big incumbent's A product. For your startup to succeed, you often times need to beat most other competitors, many of whom consider the product their A listing.

</comment><comment><USER45> They definitely can be beaten but not for the reasons stated in this article. Network effects cannot be undone without a fundamental shift in their business models. Right now Facebook and Google make their money off advertising and tracking their users. Break the business model and incentivize a Network and a new Network can grow.

</comment><comment><USER46> The biggest issue with a project under big tech giant is that they could afford to trash it at the moment notice.

There is super low commitment on new projects (say <1% of work force), compared to a startup that is betting all money and talent it could get on a chance that there is an overlooked market for product X. 100% focus, staying far from a comfort zone and taking the risk is what (in a very few cases though) makes it work.

Basically tech gaint doesn't have to "burn the ships" and therefore has lower commitment, poor focus, has no sense of (get big or go home) urgency and eventually drops the idea before it bears fruit.

It can offord to say "pass", but doesn't need to "bluf" and it doesn't have the same risk.

<comment><USER47> On the contrary, my experience on the enterprise is the exact opposite: the new projects where the commitment is a high % of workforce are the biggest failures: the pressure to "deliver value" so overwhelming, that you can't "fail your way to success". You've got one shot to succeed. Do you know any startup who succeeded from the first shot? (and it gets worse - since you have a lot of "resources", you also can't move fast, because there's a lot of synchronization overhead: you can only employ a significant workforce once you know _very well_ what needs to be done; on new projects, that's never the case.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Rome could be beaten, too, but before that happened, a lot of incumbents failed, and Rome bought quite a few others before they became too powerful.

And yes, there are multiple winners. Some nibbled at Rome's borders, carving out a sizable chunk for themselves, some conquered Rome (often not with much long lasted gains for themselves).

The big question is what made those who beat it winners. I would guess lucky timing is a huge factor there. That's what anybody trying to take (parts of) those giants head on should be worried about.

</comment><comment><USER49> What about Apple? Does anyone think that they can be beaten?

What makes Apple different from Google, Amazon & Facebook? Curious to hear what people think.

<comment><USER50> Paraphrasing from the book The Four by Scott Galloway: Apple is a company that has positioned itself as a luxury brand. Apple is about sex and signalling. Carrying an Apple phone signals more status than if you were to carry an Android phone, since it is more expensive, just like with other luxury items. But in addition to attaining this status, it has done something that many other luxury brands have not: low production costs in addition to premium pricing. Now, no other techbrand is a luxury brand, which puts Apple in its own league. Either it's going to take a very long time to unseat Apple, or they need to miss a big new market, that they didn't see coming. Now, most of us believe AR/VR and AI to be the next market, if they aren't able to get to market fast enough with products that we have come to expect from Apple, this can be an issue.

I recommend reading the book by Scott Galloway, it is insightful.

<comment><USER51> He has some insights, but also injects a lot of naive and grating political signaling into analysis, which makes him sometimes hard to take seriously.

<comment><USER52> I have never read _The Four_, but stopped by to make a quick complaint: can we please retire the verb "signalling" in political discourse?

As far as I can tell all "political signalling" means is "I cannot believe what you profess to believe, therefore I assume that you profess it merely to be trendy".

<comment><USER51> When talking about Facebook earlier this month, he posed this question: "If a firm wittingly or unwittingly becomes weaponized by Russian intelligence, isn't the responsible thing to do to shut the firm down?"

That is the kind of eye-rollingly partisan political "signalling" I'm talking about. If he thinks $100,000 of Russia linked ad-spend on Facebook flipped the votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida, and thus we should consider shutting Facebook down for this reason, I really can't take his analysis that seriously.

<comment><USER52> That is not signalling. Signalling is making a political statement for a social benefit. There is no particular indication of that here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Whether or not they can be beaten is one thing. The other thing is whether or not they'll fail to buy their competitor.

</comment><comment><USER24> forget about Schumpterian disruption, strap in for some real dystopia. Think about Apple with a standing army to protect it's assets. Think about Google governoring cities. Think about Amazon buying the interstate system. Think about Facebook having a seat on the UN Security Council.

At least one of the above will be true by 2040.

<comment><USER54> But then there will be competition in "army to protect company assets", "company governed cities" "company owned interstate system" and "company UN security council" ! Good news :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Standard Oil, AT&T and Microsoft can all be beaten -- just as soon as the government steps in and takes action against them. Capital tends to concentrate over time. It takes government action to break up monopolies. There are very few examples of monopolies fading away on their own.

</comment><comment><USER56> I think with many small countries outside US/Europe becoming developed, one needs a shopping site with wide variety of international products and minimal shipping rate.

</comment><comment><USER57> Anyone working on such startups? Secretly? :D

</comment><comment><USER58> And that's why companies get acquired all the time.

In fact, many startups are created with the purpose of being sold to larger companies.</comment>


Buttercal – The fastest way to schedule 1-1 meetings - <AUTHOR> https://buttercal.com/? <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

I was a huge fan of Sunrise calendar. It was amazing, in my opinion. I was pretty bummed out when they closed shop. I've been looking for an alternative ever since and haven't found anything good. I have found other options to be too clunky and not as effective.

So I kinda put together Buttercal as a weekend hack. You can test it out here without signing up - [https://buttercal.com/demo](https://buttercal.com/demo)

I'd love any feedback on how this can be made more awesome for you! :)

Thanks so much for your time!

-Zach</comment>


Bid for Access to Amazon Echo Audio in Murder Case Raises Privacy Concerns - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/business/amazon-echo-murder-case-arkansas.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=19&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F12%2F28%2Fbusiness%2Famazon-echo-murder-case-arkansas.html <comment><USER2> This is a dupe. This story was posted like 20 times in the last few days. Here are the most popular discussions...

* Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894)

* Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13269930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13269930)</comment>


Explore one of space travel's biggest ideas: the Dyson sphere - <AUTHOR> http://www.avclub.com/article/explore-one-space-travels-biggest-ideas-dyson-sphe-214318 <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr -> It's a no brainer that a solid shell of matter to enclose the Sun is a terrible and infeasible idea. However, like many other sci fi ideas, it has been inspiring the search for more down to earth (no pun intended) solutions.</comment>