Domain name valuations - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/domain+name+valuations

<comment><USER2> How much of each domain is worth depends on how it's being sold. For example, I was asking a domainer how much my domain eskimokissing.com would be worth the other day, and this is what he told me:

If it expires and drops, 300 - 600 dollars.

In a wholesale liquidation of an entire portfolio: 800 - 1200 dollars.

On it's own, with a list of 50 potential companies that you're willing to cold call, and you've put in the work to find the right person within each company: 6,000 - 20,000 dollars.

The above scenario, but if there is a bidding war between two or more companies: 15,000 - 40,000 dollars.

So the answer is basically it depends how much work you are willing to put in to sell them. With some of these domains it's clear that you can put together a list of 100 leads if you're willing to put in 10+ hours per domain, but with others I would guess that you would probably have to liquidate them at bargain basement prices to get any money back.

<comment><USER3> That's way more than it's worth.

That keyword term only gets 210 searches a month, and there is no real way to monetize it...short of just doing a blog.

I'd say that's worth 200 bucks tops...and that's with bidding to drive up the price...since you'll have a hard time finding people actually wanting to get it.

<comment><USER2> You may well be right, that's just what I was told. The logic was that it's a dictionary term, and so a company like Eskimo Pops might want it for a marketing campaign. Or maybe some sort of adult site targeted at women, that was the other angle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that business.com cost $345,000,000 makes me weep. I mean, look at it!

I guess the old real estate saying is true: "location, location, location"...

<comment><USER5> I'm still waiting for domain valuations to eventually plummet, as it just doesn't seem that people navigate to sites that way. The only thing that it provides is lower barriers to come back for a second visit.

<comment><USER6> I used to be more likely to click a link on Google if the domain name looked more authoritative. So, a lot of those common names with high prices would seem to be valuable for that reason. And, I think Google ranks sites higher if the domain name has the keyword in it.

These days with so much spam, I try to avoid domain names with my search keyword in them.

<comment><USER7> "And, I think Google ranks sites higher if the domain name has the keyword in it."

There is some effect, but it's not that significant. Bing, on the other hand, seems to weight domain names _very_ highly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One other data point for you. Groupon.com was purchased in May 2009 for $250,000. Source: <http://mixergy.com/domain-business-tip/>

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the valuable ones that I can spot is daz.com, "Daz" being a popular Procter & Gamble brand of soap powder (at least, in the UK): <http://www.dazwhite.co.uk/> \- I'd guess they'd quite like the .com for their brand.

<comment><USER10> FYI Even _entertaining_ an offer from P&G could open him up to the possibility of losing the domain under ICANN's rules.

<comment><USER11> It depends when the Daz trademark was registered.

The domain was regged in 1998, and if the TM was registered after this date then it should be okay.

There are pushes by some US law makers (e.g. the silly Senator Olivia Snow) to change this so that TM holders have much more rights over domains, even if the domain existed before the TM, but for now it should be fine.

Would be worth consulting a domain lawyer if an offer is made for it though.

<comment><USER12> Daz, as held by P&G, was filed for in 1941 in UK, class 3 - <http://www.ipo.gov.uk/domestic?domesticnum=614056>.

A company called Mills Brothers BV hold an internationally registered mark "Daz" in classes 18, 25 too.

I'm sure there are several others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I see these prices as a clear sign that the current DNS system needs to be replaced. It's ridiculous. They are driven up by "scarcity," but there isn't any real deficit. Names are just letters and numbers, and there is infinite number of combinations, there is virrually infinite number of relatively short combinations.

The biggest problem, as I see it, is that there are only a few TLDs, none of them are very meaningful, so it all effectively converges into a single namespace.

If there were TLDs like .games, .mag (magazine), .press, .news, .comp and so on, no single domain would hold so much "value".

For companies, you could have a reserved .corp TLD where every entry has to be verified (so only a registered business with matching name can own it). For products, you could have .prod.

<comment><USER14> They are working on that and I think it's a terrible solution. Here is why: consumer's want life to be easier. Remembering the name of every company and then adding .com is hard enough. Now I have to remember companyname.companyextension? There have been plenty of TLDs launched which all just failed. .biz anyone? .info?

The scarcity isn't artificial, it's the limited amount of recall a consumer has for information.

<comment><USER13> I don't think it's fair to say that they (ICANN) are doing what I've described above.

ICANN's policy: \- Create close to one new TLD a year. \- Either make it converge to the same logical"namespace" (what's the difference between .biz and .com?) or make the new TLD highly specialized and charge "premium" prices (.mobi).

This does not alleviate the "deficit". For example, if you own food.com and someone else buys food.biz, you're in conflict. Solution? Offer lots of money for food.biz. Oh, but there is also food.mobi! You company has a mobile app, right? So you try to buy buy food.mobi as well. The system encourages you to hog the domains.

What I've described: \- Make a large number of TLDs available at the same time. \- Make them describe the type of content the server works with.

This would create a multitude of logical namespaces, which _would_ drive the prices down. If you own food.review and someone else owns food.wholesale, you're not competing for the same name any more. This wouldn't completely remove contention, but it would reduce its intensity.

As for remembering domains, I don't see how adding meaningful TLDs would make it harder. Is food.review really harder to memorize than foodreview.com?

<comment><USER14> First off, there is a whole debate about launching hundreds of new TLDs going at ICANN. It's pretty much the hottest issue there is. They are trying to do exactly what you're suggesting, a registry free for all.

Second, yes, food.review is harder to remember than foodreview.com. Trillions of dollars have been spent branding .com into consumer's minds worldwide (also local ccTLDs in some country trump .com because of use/adoption). Wait, did I want food.review or food.guide? or was it...? People do get confused by URLs, having the same TLD (.com/or whatever your country uses) makes it easier to remember for average consumers. The biggest thing I think a lot of people here forget is, YOU'RE NOT NORMAL. Average consumers aren't hanging around at HackerNews, a site for the tech elite, and their behavior doesn't match this audience (you).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Domains are worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay, not what people in this thread or automatic tools on the internet believe/suggest.

I've had domains that I hand-registered in the last two years sell for 4-5 figures and other that according to experts/tools are very valuable, but that simply do not attract any buyer.

And I'm not even a regular domain investor (or domain squatter as people on YC seem to believe all domain investors = squatters).

Anyway, I think the blog poster has a pretty good idea of what his domains are worth, but he's just trying to raise attention and possibly start a bidding war on the 2-3 interesting ones. Some choose to do their auctions through auction houses, other uses more creative forms.

</comment><comment><USER11> Speaking as someone with a fair bit of domaining experience, unfortunately a lot of the domains listed are worthless, with the exception of daz.com which is a 5 figure domain, ww.com which is a 5 (possibly 6?) figure domain, secondhandcar.com which IMO is a 4 figure domain, webcamsoftware.com which is 4 figures, and a few others which hold a <$100 value. So there are some valuable domains, but the majority are worth $0 in my opinion. _(Note: I don't mean to sound insulting when I say they're worthless - indeed, I literally mean it that their valuation is $0)_.

It's also worth noting that the domain industry got hit a fair bit by the recession, and it's possible that some of the above domains would sell for slightly higher than the rough range I've given (espeically the two 4 figure domains I quote, which could go for low 5 figures in the right circumstances).

It's quite common to see people (as the blog post says) regging domains on a whim since they look good, but usually such domains regged on a whim are worthless. And unfortunately it does seem to be the case here.

Anywhoo, I'll send my semi-informed appraisals along to the blog author now. I've been a domainer since I was 16/17 (am 20; 21 next month), so whilst I'm not an expert or anything, I have a fair bit of domaining experience and hope my appraisals are somewhat useful.

And I'd possibly advise that he looks at DNForum.com and NamePros.com (the two big domaining forums; the former is paid-only though) a little bit to get a general feel of domain prices.

<comment><USER16> I have a few domains I would like to sell. Would you give me a quick valuation range like you just did with those?

<comment><USER17> ...I thought of posting a few I was curious about as well, but that would get silly pretty quickly.

Just about everyone here probably has 5-10 domain names (if not more) that they've registered somewhere along the way with a side project in mind that hasn't materialized yet.

I personally am wondering if anyone knows of a way to put a domain name in escrow -- I had an offer for one of my domains from someone with a side project, and tried to work out a solution where he could have it for free, but if his project hadn't gotten any traction after a few years, it would revert back to me (since maybe I'd have found time for my own project by then...). No dice, though; he didn't know/trust me, the legal aspects were too confusing, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> daz.com and ww.com are valuable (~$100k-250k), the rest he'd be better off keeping.

secondhandcar.com could be valuable to the right person. You could probably get $50k from the right buyer.

The rest are nice, but not "must haves". Unless a domain is rare and generic its not worth > $10k. Color.com, Mint.com, Tires.com are rare and generic, most of these are not.

</comment><comment><USER19> PSA: the "historical domain sales" are _wildly inaccurate_.

I suspect there was a bug in the script/procedure he used to scrape, because they don't match up to the sources below.

Edit: here's a decent list [http://www.webcooltips.com/the-most-expensive- domains-sales-...](http://www.webcooltips.com/the-most-expensive-domains- sales-ever-big-list.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone recommend a good domain name marketplace or auctioneer that doesn't have some kind of volume requirement? I merely want to unload a single domain name that I think stands a chance to chip in on my DSLR habit.

</comment><comment><USER21> It seems that the jury is still out on domain name value in this new age of panda-monium. If I had a trendy green biz the greenbits one would be nice.

ww.com is the aesthetic winner though.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am surprised to see ww.com in the list there. Unless I missed something in the recent past, wasnt it the webcam based venture he was working on?

<comment><USER23> They are not for sale, from the article:

"Ww.com and reocities.com are there for 'curiosity value' only."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Are you doing "silent auction" on us, trying to figure the value by the Law of large numbers?

</comment><comment><USER25> Could you get similar types of valuations for non .com domains? For example .me?

</comment><comment><USER26> I'll give you an unopened copy of NHL 94 for Sega Genesis for ww.com.

</comment><comment><USER27> Just throwing it out there, if any of you are looking to get into the gay business I'm the owner of MeatGalore.com and it is looking for a good home.

:( it was the bastard child of to much beer.</comment>


Show HN: Helm - A Flutter app that gamifies stress/anxiety/depression management - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chuabingquan/helm <comment> Funes- We should be able to aid each other, in person, on learning how to manage these ailments, which are frequently associated to a lack of social fulfillment, as I've personally experienced on myself. Gamifying it is literally the last option I would recommend to anyone suffering from anxiety, stress or depression, as blindly following an app's dictates goes essentially against the hard, introspective, and highly critical work one needs to put in in order to start leaning towards being at peace with oneself.

I'm not even going to elaborate on how the "reward" function is plainly ill- conceived, for intance.

Please, talk to those you love about their suffering; talk to them about yours. Put yourself in the hands of a professional, if you need it. Stop looking for crutches.

<comment><USER2> I have an anxiety disorder. Mine's co-morbid with ADHD, but even if it weren't ADHD-like symptoms are well-known secondaries of anxiety and depression. For people like me, gamification helps greatly with incentivizing participation until a habit is built. I have no idea if this particular app would be what'd do it for me, but you're down on the concept in general in a way that doesn't represent my own situation well.

I do hear what you're saying, and nothing replaces social interaction, but I think you're making an assumption about this being a be-all-end-all. Maybe it would be for some, but those are probably the people who wouldn't adequately find in-person on their own anyway. Maybe this gets them far enough to do so, since just being functional enough to get help in the first place is often one of the biggest problems.

On another note, everyone's different. It's one thing to say what works for you, but your social fulfillment will likely be higher if you don't tell everyone else what will and won't work for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a person with anxiety and depression, its easy to come up with dep/anx fueled narratives about how this could go wrong:

1) The app might stress me out and make it worse

2) I might become obsessed with the app and not do stuff I should be doing

3) My employer might get the data somehow and fire me

4) A future employer might get the data and use it as a reason to not hire me

5) Google might get the data and add it my shadow profile, which will then be sold to advertisers. I won't even know and won't be able to delete it.

6) A health insurer will use this as a reason to deny me insurance or charge a premium.

Those are just off the type of my head. Don't want to think about what my brain would come up with at 3AM.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not a fan of the "Buy something nice" one. It seems like it might feed a harmful coping mechanism.

<comment><USER5> I suffer from several of the conditions listed in the target group, and have done impulse purchases online when the lows get low.

Definitely a bad coping mechanism - not helpful for feeling better (tend to feel worse when the product arrives), and definitely a waste of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> SEO clash with the popular artifact packager or k8s helm

<comment><USER7> There's also an open source digital synthesizer named Helm

</comment></comment><comment> tom-thistime This comment turns out to be a tangent. But has anyone looked at whether gamification increases stress/anxiety/depression among social app users?

<comment><USER8> for:

[https://www.amazon.com/SuperBetter-Living-Gamefully-Jane- McG...](https://www.amazon.com/SuperBetter-Living-Gamefully-Jane- McGonigal/dp/0143109774)

[https://tim.blog/2015/07/28/jane- mcgonigal/](https://tim.blog/2015/07/28/jane-mcgonigal/)

against:

[https://mental.jmir.org/2019/6/e13717/](https://mental.jmir.org/2019/6/e13717/)

<comment><USER9> Your "against" seems to be an actual study, your "for" links are from Jane McGonigal who's been criticized for making claims not backed up in any way and who makes money selling "betterness" through apps, TED talks, and books.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for your productive contribution to the discussion

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice idea, but I don't think gamification works in this context. [https://mental.jmir.org/2019/6/e13717/](https://mental.jmir.org/2019/6/e13717/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm a simple man -- I see an open source Flutter app, I upvote it.

Thanks for publishing this, I always appreciate seeing examples of full- fledged Flutter apps for reference! The app looks really well built and intuitive to use.

<comment><USER12> It is not technically open source, but 'source provided' until there is an OSS license provided.

<comment><USER13> True it may not technically be open source, but certain rights are granted because the author published on GitHub, according to the ToS:

> If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you grant each > User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and > perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your > Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for > example, through forking). You may grant further rights if you adopt a > license. If you are uploading Content you did not create or own, you are > responsible for ensuring that the Content you upload is licensed under terms > that grant these permissions to other GitHub Users.

[https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github- terms-o...](https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-of- service#d-user-generated-content)

<comment><USER14> That doesn't grant any meaningful rights at all.

Notably, it doesn't given any right to download or use the code.

<comment><USER15> I think it does allow download, although it is a little unclear; from the previous sentence:

> By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow > others to view and "fork" your repositories (this means that others may make > their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they > control).

If I clone a Github repo to my local machine this is 'making my own copy in a repository I control'. But this clause doesn't grant any further right, e.g., to compile code in the repo. This isn't an unheard-of situation: e.g., Knuth allows distribution of the TeX source to the TeXbook but not compiling the source with a TeX engine.

<comment><USER14> It later clarifies with "through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking)."

That seems to deny any local rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't know, gamifying stress/anxiety management sounds extremely stressful.

<comment><USER17> I can't wait to be ranked #1 most stressed in US servers

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for contributing a nice piece of work particularly appropriate for tough times! I've been wanting to learn Dart and Flutter on a real-life but manageable project.

</comment><comment><USER19> Real question:

Who can accurately assess and answer the question: "How anxious are you?"?

Just reading this question triggers a bit of anxiety, as I go into self- analysis mode to figure out what signs I've been exhibiting that may indicate that I am "anxious".

"Well, I have been a bit jittery, so...7? But I just finished a coffee, so maybe a 5?"

I would have a very difficult time answering this question accurately.

</comment><comment><USER20> Oof, I thought Flutter was supposed to make programmatic UI more readable/easy?

        body: Stack(
              children: <Widget>[
                LayoutBuilder(
                  builder: (ctx, constraints) => Container(
                    width: double.infinity,
                    height: constraints.maxHeight - 67.0,
                    padding: const EdgeInsets.fromLTRB(20.0, 20.0, 20.0, 0.0),
                    child: Column(
                      mainAxisSize: MainAxisSize.min,
                      crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
                      children: <Widget>[
                        Column(
                          mainAxisSize: MainAxis
                         ....

<comment><USER21> You can hide that in a smaller widget called SomethingWidget(param:...) to make it more readable.

From my experience, using the above style with its data binding is nicer than hunting through XML or whatever GUI you use and seeing how that relates to your code.

Easier to navigate and debug. But I agree it can look overwhelming if it's not split into smaller widgets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> To get points users should be doing the self-care tasks that fall by the wayside with depression. e.g. shower, brush teeth, laundry, cleaning your home/apt/room/car, grocery shopping, etc. Social interaction also. Things like watching online videos and playing mobile games isn't going to pull anyone out of that hole.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why don't you provide builds?

<comment><USER24> Seconded, would love to send this to a friend to try out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Just guessing here - I'd think a lot of stress/anxiety/depression problems are linked in some way to screen time and using an app to help with them is just lonely and more depressing.

</comment><comment><USER26> How do you like flutter? What are your impressions of the platform.

<comment><USER27> Personally, I wasn't a big fan of having to disable the telemetry in the SDK itself - thankfully there was a single, small footnote about it in the docs. Not sure what I expected from the Goog honestly, but it was enough to put a bad taste in my mouth. But hey, M$ does it too with the dotnet core SDK, so maybe that's "par for the course" these days. YMMV.

<comment><USER9> Can you explain more? What does "having to disable the telemetry" mean and what's the effect of that?

<comment><USER28> Telemetry is when companies measure and collect your usage of their product, in theory so they can improve it, know which features are used and which not, where users spend most time, etc.

As it is a kind of vague definition and you (almost) never know exactly what information is being transmitted, and given the fact that it is Google (or Microsoft, or Apple, or whatever), people sometimes rather just disable telemetry at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I would suggest renaming 'anxiety credits' to something else, reminding people they have anxiety won't help getting rid of it.

</comment><comment><USER30> 99

</comment><comment><USER31> This project name is so overused.

Helm - The package manager for Kurbenetes

[https://helm.sh/](https://helm.sh/)

Helm - A functionally reactive game engine

[https://github.com/z0w0/helm](https://github.com/z0w0/helm)

Helm - Emacs incremental completion and selection narrowing framework

[https://emacs-helm.github.io/helm/](https://emacs-helm.github.io/helm/)

Helm - A free polyphonic synth with lots of modulation

[https://github.com/mtytel/helm](https://github.com/mtytel/helm)

<comment><USER32> Who's heard of those? Should a project have a monopoly on such a generic word from the dictionary?

<comment><USER33> That's not what they're saying at all. Imagine if there was a line of blenders called Raspberry Pi, and a furniture line called Raspberry Pi, shoes branded as Raspberry Pi, a laptop model called Raspberry Pi (unrelated to Raspberry Pi or Raspberry Pi), etc. It's just confusing.

<comment><USER34> Raspberry Pi is a really unnatural combination of words. Helm is a pretty average noun.

<comment><USER35> This is a fine comment. But could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. [https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20community%20identity)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> No. The correct answer is "shit on its name" and not to encourage people to share cool projects. You fool!

Ed. note: I also upvoted for the same reason

<comment><USER36> I think the (currently top) comment about it's name is actually important ... I also wondered why it was named "Helm" once I read the title as it didn't seem to fit what the application does. But you're right in the sense a more constructive activity would be to recommend other names. Wouldn't a name like "Relax" or "Exhale" be better in line with "what's in the package"? (note that these were the first two names that came to mind).

<comment><USER17> I personally would prefer something like Burrito or Ossobuco

/s

<comment><USER19> I can see it now. The get-togethers where you ask your tech-illiterate friends and family, "have you heard of Burrito?" and they all look at you funny. As opposed to, "have you heard of Helm?", and only that one friend who worked on a boat for a summer gets excited that he can add something to conversation.

Language needs an upgrade

<comment><USER37> I'd be happy with cherry picking out all the marketing/semi-literate pop culture influences making a mess of it, but that's just as unlikely as any kind of upgrade.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Is Gobbling Up Failed Malls [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/video/why-amazon-is-gobbling-up-failed-malls/FC3559FE-945E-447C-8837-151C31D69127.html <comment><USER2> The WSJ video doesn't get into it, but the fall of US Malls has more to do with changing tax code [1] than with Amazon (though that's still a part). They were on the way out before Amazon + eCommerce got big.

FWIW - I'm actually from that region of Ohio and think this is a positive step. There's a lot of other factors that go into this of course (shifting demographics, overall population drain), but on the whole, this seems positive.

1 [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/death-and- rebirt...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/death-and-rebirth- american-mall-180953444/)

<comment><USER3> I've spoken to a number of retail execs and mail owners about this (the latter, like all real estate investors, are tax experts), and they definitely think it's mostly about e-commerce

<comment><USER4> Malls are failing largely because anchor tenants are dying.

Sears, JCPenny, and Macy's all had horrible management over the past decade. And the department stores have faced huge competition for decades, whether it's Walmart offering cheaper goods or stores like H&M or Sephora that specialize in a specific category. My experience of department stores have been of unorganized, more expensive stores with a confusing, mediocre selection; why would I want to shop there?

On top of all that, America is over-retailed compared to other developed countries: [https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5bb37815ac0a631473519...](https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5bb37815ac0a6314735194e8-960-758.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Yes as one RE exec likes to say, American retail is under-demolished

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good. As far as I'm concerned, all malls should (and will) die.

They are a scourge. Some hold nostalgic feeling for them because they were the only thing close to a social hub at the time (whereas malls are one of the reasons social hubs aren't there in the first place).

Go malls, go. I ain't shedding tears for thee.

After all, I'm in good company. The guy who invented the malls hates them too[1].

[1][https://qz.com/454214/the-father-of-the-american-shopping- ma...](https://qz.com/454214/the-father-of-the-american-shopping-mall-hated- cars-and-suburban-sprawl/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Sadly this came too late for Detroit's Northland, the first shopping mall in the country. Because it was built first they guessed at how a mall should look. They thought it would be important to resupply stores without getting in the way. So they built this huge basement that allowed dozens of semis to pull up to loading docks below the stores.

The basement was huge and had Amazon not wanted to use it to unload trucks they could have had a second warehouse as large as the one above. I remember thinking at the time this would make an incredible supply depot but Amazon didn't immediately come to mind.

The mall was torn down and in a twist of fate the land was offered to Amazon as a possible property for their HQ2 headquarters. My guess is it will end up as an apartment complex.

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

<comment><USER7> > the first shopping mall in the country

Northgate Mall in Seattle would dispute that: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northgate_Mall_(Seattle)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northgate_Mall_\(Seattle\)) . Northgate itself is older than Northland, but the claim "Northgate was the first regional shopping center in the United States to be described as a mall" is "[citation needed]"

<comment><USER8> It's also not going to be around much longer in its current form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great business logic for centralizing and automating retail distribution centers around existing infrastructure and transportation. The issue is only a small number of huge malls will be converted and competing small business shop fronts are being rendered non viable which is creating significant economic repercussions

<comment><USER10> > The issue is only a small number of huge malls will be converted and > competing small business shop fronts are being rendered non viable which is > creating significant economic repercussions

How is turning malls into warehouses affecting small stores?

<comment><USER9> centralizing delivery. It's no longer cost effective to go to a store, look for a product, pay for it and return home when it is cheaper to have it delivered at a specific time and day in both time and money. Small specialized businesses can't compete with this to charge the margin they need for rent and overheads. This is putting lot of shops out of business, redundancies etc

<comment><USER11> Why should we care if they go out of business? If they shutdown and bow out won't newer, useful businesses pop up in their place? I see no reason to treat a small shop like an endangered species that must be preserved. Preserved for what? Most people won't go there anymore.

Example: There was a fairly large Mom and a Pop retail store here that shutdown once Walmart moved in. What opened in its place? A massive rock climbing facility with 40 foot walls. It has enriched the community and given people something to do other than just roaming aisles looking for crap to buy and not talk to each other.

<comment><USER12> The general sentiment is that small businesses are owned and operated by our neighbors. Part of a healthy society is having a group of people with diverse backgrounds, interests, and jobs all living together.

Amazon's march towards a global monopoly is partially responsible for homogenizing our society.

<comment><USER9> The essential economic problem is that currently running small retail businesses isn't viable unless you sell through Amazon's distribution (also less centralized ebay). This means far fewer retail jobs, empty storefronts and malls, taxes levied on businesses, gasoline/petrol etc The centralizing of everything through Amazon is classic monopoly practice. I have a ladder being delivered by them today I ordered on Friday evening. No one can compete on price or efficiencies both on their side and from my perspective. I don't want to drive my truck to buy a ladder. Nothing is stopping this trend form rapidly increasing across the western world

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> TLDW: Old mall sites are very large, close to population centers, are typically located on interstates, and have existing large utility connections and so can be fast-tracked to converted distribution center.

</comment><comment><USER14> I remember popping into three Vallco Mall in Cupertino a few times between 2016-2018.

Low occupancy and eventual death.

It was like watching an elephant die in National Geographic documentary, in slow motion.

The "wrap" fake imagery on walls covering empty stores to make them look generically occupied were surreal.

Like something out of a North Korean Potemkin Village.

</comment><comment><USER15> Fascinating. Amazon is not only eating retail, it's eating logistics like UPS, cargo airlines, and trucking.

</comment><comment><USER16> This sounds like a Wendover productions video. Does he work for WSJ now?

</comment><comment><USER17> That all seems very happy-go-lucky. However, how many malls has amazon put out of business? How many malls has amazon bought for distribution centers? My guess is that ratio is not good.

<comment><USER18> So what? They have become redundant so they are going extinct. Whats the problem with progress?

<comment> chroem- I wonder what the post-Bezos future will look like after we have a single source remaining for all our daily necessities, and Amazon enters a later stage of its corporate lifecycle and begins to go the way of IBM or GE. If we replace all other stores with just Amazon, that seems like an enormous risk to human life if Amazon starts to become mismanaged in the future.

<comment><USER19> We're not replacing all other stores with Amazon. The Amazon-takes-over-retail fantasy is not going to happen. Their online retail business is now a very slow growth business. For them to actually take over retail, they'd need to be seeing high rates of growth year after year for decades yet. At their rate of deceleration, they'll be at a mid single digits rate of growth within a couple of years. Their whole business - AWS, devices, online retail, physical retail - is going to struggle to stay above 10% sales growth in that same timeline as a matter of fact. The far bigger, more likely risk is that their traditional online retail business sees a near contraction stall four to five years out.

Walmart is still doing $500 billion in sales by comparison. Unless Amazon finds a magic way to turbocharge their online growth (1 day shipping isn't going to cut it), it'll still take 20 to 30 years to just match the size of Walmart in retail, and that's if everything goes well for Amazon.

What Amazon figured out, is that they can't kill Walmart via online retail (which is the sole segment that Amazon has any retail dominance). So they're increasingly exploring physical retail as their only way to grow. Wholefoods was Amazon being forced to buy their growth, it was a classic sign of a business that has lost much of its organic growth. Their days of serious retail growth online are dead.

<comment><USER9> Matured rather than 'dead' \- that cycle is now mostly complete

<comment><USER19> Dead was the right term. It refers to the high rate of former growth in their online retail business. That high rate of growth is dead.

The business is mature. I didn't say the business was dead.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gizmodo discovers magnets stick to metal things and calls it a story. - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/03/whoa-your-new-ipad-will-stick-to-your-fridge/

<comment><USER2> Dude, magnets do not stick to "metal things". They stick to magnetic materials, chiefly iron. When you find a magnet that sticks to copper or aluminium, it will be a story, you might get a Nobel even.</comment>


Akka Streams and HTTP 1.0 is live Why go async though? - <AUTHOR> https://www.voxxed.com/blog/2015/07/akka-streams-a…elease-is-here/

<comment><USER2> The current link points to a page that doesn't exist.

Here is the updated URL: [https://www.voxxed.com/blog/2015/07/akka-streams- and-http-1-...](https://www.voxxed.com/blog/2015/07/akka-streams-and- http-1-0-final-release-is-here/)</comment>


Atoms Share What Most Helped Them Transition to Remote Work - <AUTHOR> https://spin.atomicobject.com/2020/03/17/remote-work-hacks-survey/#.XnEQBx3JONI.hackernews <comment><USER2> I keep hearing teams finding success and camaraderie on Discord. Haven't tried it for myself yet, but it's impressive how popular it was for you all!</comment>


Textbook manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://greenteapress.com/wp/textbook-manifesto/ <comment><USER2> I'd say textbooks are not the best format of information for every field. Some fields need a different medium for information, that is not the same as others.

I'd argue that the most important resource people should know how to use is the internet, not a textbook.

When looking up information, you usually need some background, the basis for when the solution is applicable, and how to apply the solution.

Sometimes, in my opinion, you can get a better understanding of these elements from a textbook, but I'd argue that more often then not you will get the same information for free from the internet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Textbooks can be "free" and on "the Internet".

<comment><USER2> I understand this, but I am referring to the what is commonly known as a textbook.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you modify the corporate hierarchy? - <AUTHOR> Thoughts on how a modern company should be organized to succeed in all areas (economic and social)? <comment><USER2> I'll only add this one, it's the one thing that really grinds my gears, and that is the fact that nobody knows how to do "everything". Sure we can learn to do almost anything, but at any given minute on any given day most of us can't perform the big thing that needs to be done asap.

That's perfectly okay, don't let the company be so afraid to show weakness/stress/immaturity that you get a whole bunch of megalomaniac persons who incessantly lie about their own talents and lie just as much to cover their failures. Make them own up and grow up.

If not they will never strive to achieve more than protecting their own ego. Look at yahoo</comment>


The Not $0.99 Method - the DIY Alternative for Indie [e]Books, Comics - <AUTHOR> http://www.massivesqwertz.com/the-not-99-method-the-diy-ibookstore-alternative-for-indie-books-comics

<comment><USER2> This page was incredibly frustrating.. I read, and read, and it never quite clearly explained what the product is.

Landing pages need to convey information clearly and quickly, not tell a friggin story.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not a product. It's a description of a process.</comment></comment>


Stanford NLP and PGM courses delayed - <AUTHOR> http://deepankar.posterous.com/stanford-nlp-and-probabilistic-graphical-cour

<comment><USER2> Same thing (I think---it is not clear from the email I got) happened to the Anatomy class I signed up for. That at least had a date (March sometime; I forget) assigned to it. Sort of makes you wonder what is going on behind the curtains?

<comment><USER3> Based on some hiring e-mails I've seen it sounds like Daphne Koller and friends are trying to spin this off into a commercial venture (at least the means to offer such courses online). So it sounds like either a) they've gotten so much interest they're having trouble scaling (hard to believe) or b) they're held up trying to sort out ownership and terms of a partnership with Stanford.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Got the same email for ML and Model Thinking. You just got to wonder what's causing the hold up - lawyers, Stanford, system?

</comment><comment><USER5> Useful post, thanks. I am also signed up for those two classes and was expecting them to start on Manday. That said, free is free, so I can be patient :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> I suspect there's been an executive brain freeze, while they assess the impact of Apple's iTunes U or iText or whatever. Guys, it's a 1.0 Apple product. It won't make a difference until 2.0 next year, or 3.0 the year after. Apple's like Microsoft - they take 3 attempts to get anything right, but they limit the scope of 1.0 rather than making it suck.

</comment><comment><USER7> New commencement date appears to be in Feb. <https://twitter.com/#!/nlp_class/status/160538512947548161>

</comment><comment><USER8> I didn't get this email for PGM, even though I'm enrolled. Strange...

</comment><comment> brown9-2 "Cryptography" and "Design and Analysis of Algorithms" also. Wonder if the cause is higher than expected demand and a need to ramp up the service.

</comment><comment><USER9> The HCI course website says it's starting on January 30, and I haven't gotten any emails to contradict that.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm happy to wait and have a better course for sure!

</comment><comment><USER11> I got the emails for Model Thinking and Tech Entrep.</comment>


On Google's Acquisition of Nest - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2014/01/googles_acquisition_of_nest <comment><USER2> This touches back to Gruber's assertion that Google is getting better at what Apple does best (device design) faster than Apple is getting better at what Google does best (web services).

<comment><USER3> ...and soon robotics.

I'm a huge Apple fanboy but they _really_ need to get their shit together on the web services front. Siri still sucks almost unbelievably bad. It never works. Maps still leads me to random streets and goes in circles.

As we move towards smaller and smaller devices one has to assume more of the work is going to be happening in the data center. Not good news for Apple unless they start making some real strategic acquisitions stat. (They've started at least.)

<comment><USER4> Do you actually use Siri or Maps? Because I find your complaints about them absurd, I use both of these services every day and they work marvelously.

<comment><USER5> Do you? apple maps just led us 18 minutes out of the way _just this weekend_. It's apparently incapable of leading people to restaurants just off 80 in Auburn, CA. When we gave up and used decent software -- ie google maps -- it got us straight there.

<comment><USER6> And other times, Google Maps leads me astray or takes me down inappropriate roads while Bing Maps/Nokia Maps works just fine. It's almost like they're all getting their mapping data independently and as such have their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a hard time believing Nest sold due to scaling issues. I find an easier time believing that they did not have the money to achieve their (expensive) vision, and selling to Google was easier than raising a massive round. It's the classic "our product is good but doesn't make any money; solution: double down." Nest has a huge staff for what it currently sells.

<comment><USER8>
        Nest has a huge staff for what it currently sells.

I thought something similar. And then I worked there for a summer. Building hardware is much more difficult than you think, in ways that aren't immediately obvious.

Someone like Tony can easily raise capital in Silicon Valley, and Nest's products were selling extremely well across many retail locations. I'd be astonished if they were running out of money.

Why is it surprising that scaling is the issue? Tony's entire background is in devices and hardware, not large software systems.

They have a huge complex stack. Imagine building a system with tens (or hundreds) of thousands of connected nodes, all streaming realtime data that must be analyzed, and which _can 't_ ever go down. A Django app just won't cut it. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for Nest. The machine learning is surprisingly sophisticated.

<comment><USER9> >which can't ever go down.

The thermostats don't cease to function if they can't contact nest's website. I agree that it's important, but it's no more critical than any other day-to- day website.

<comment><USER10> They do have smoke detectors too though. 100% uptime is critical.

<comment><USER11> Presumably they'll still function like a normal smoke detector if Nest's servers go down.

Right? RIGHT?!

<comment><USER12> Of course. Interesting also is that the Nest Protects form a mesh network to set off the alarm across all of them, even if the wifi is down.

<comment><USER13> I believe that's a recent requirement in California for new or updated dwellings. See R314.5: [http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/firelifesafety/pdf/Smoke%20Alarm%20T...](http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/firelifesafety/pdf/Smoke%20Alarm%20Task%20Force/R-32%202010%20CA%20Residential%20Code.pdf)

Also interesting is that quite a few municipalities forbid connecting the fire alarm system to any external system, unless the external system is UL listed. Could be some regulatory hurdles in Nest's future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great way to get to know people's living habits, when people are home and at work. Add a little speaker and advertise right into the living room.

Then cancel the device after 2 years because it doesn't fit into Google vision anymore.

<comment><USER12> Our smartphones are already tracking our home and work addresses. And have much higher penetration.

<comment><USER15> Quite. And mobile phones were tracking locations in a police-surveillance friendly manner before there were smartphones.

<comment><USER14> Absolutely! And private detectives would follow people around before that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, it's almost as if Gruber is running out of negative things to say about Google.

<comment><USER17> Gruber calls both Google and Apple on their bullshit all the time. He just knows more about Apple.

<comment><USER16> That's not true, most of the stuff he posts about Google is negative and positive about Apple. This article is the first exception I see in years (and it's not even positive about Google, it's just neutral, which is already quite a departure from his usual prose).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Now all I see when I look at my Nest is a Google eye, that knows (because I told it!) when I'm "away". :(

(for more creepy fun, do a Google image search for "HAL 9000")

</comment><comment><USER19> I've been detecting a subtext of exasperation in some of Gruber's posts about Google vs Apple. Gruber, of course, is not an Apple fan-boy, per se. He's a tech fan-boy. He has displayed plenty of love for Amazon, and though he is very shy of Google's sleazy tactics, he clearly admires certain aspects of Google's enterprise.

But it's almost as if he's beginning to wonder about Apple's cojones.

</comment><comment><USER20> They just bought a ton of robot companies. Now they are buying a company who can do consumer products - home automation stuff, in fact. They have Ray and that 512 qbit quantum computer. I can see what they are doing, I think. They are creating Google Robot. They were always going to do this. Google-Bot. Android. The challenges to go to the moon.

Oh, and iGoogle.

<comment><USER21> The "quantum computer" is a good marketing gimmick, but the problem it solves is fairly uninteresting. See [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400) for some critical discussion of the D-Wave machine.

<comment><USER22> The Ising model Hamiltonian that the D-Wave computer "evolves" almost directly maps to the energy equation you have to minimize to train a restricted Boltzmann machine.

I wouldn't call this "uninteresting" given the rapid advances in leveraging Boltzmann machines for deep learning.

<comment><USER21> Ok, I agree that it can be interesting for some cases, but it is not at all what people expect when they hear "quantum computer".

In addition, the comparisons with traditional methods for solving that problem show that you may as well solve the problem on normal hardware. Then the problem it solves stated as "Ising model Hamiltonian using quantum computer" is fairly uninteresting given that it is cheaper and simpler to solve the "Ising model Hamiltonian using classical hardware".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> More than getting Google into consumer products, it'd be great if this pushed them to launch the platform of the internet of things. Just like Android unified the market like nobody else would, nobody else is going to give small consumer device makers a way into that internet of things and it'll end up horribly fragmented without something like Google providing a platform. Without that platform I can't see how it could go mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm getting old. Wasn't even aware of Nest. However, 5% of Google seems like a large amount of money to acquire a startup. What did I miss?

<comment><USER25> Beautiful understated home automation designed better than any other company has designed similar products in the past. You should really take a look, I'm surprised that it's possible to not have heard of them before.

<comment><USER26> for 99.99% of the population a simple thermostat works just fine. And nearly all of them don't even understand that the temperature setting doesn't actually change the temperature of the air, but rather the duration it remains on. NEST is pretty, but way over engineered for the task. Consumers just don't need it. I'm all for technology and am an early adopter and of course have heard of NEST, seen them etc. Like you say, it's hard to imagine some one here not having done so, but my guess is the commenter has seen them, but just didn't take it in because "home automation" has a long legacy of being utter crap. When you get past the pretty design, there's nothing really to the thing. It's just a massively over engineered pretty consumer device that very few people need. I'm pretty sure Apple didn't buy them because they could just as simply designed their own. I fail to see why the thermostat can't (if Apple were to design it) not have a UI at all but rather just be a little plugin thing, maybe "Thermoport Express" and you use your iPhone to make changes from anywhere, don't even need to get up and look at the device. Any hardware solution quickly looks old. The iPhone (to Apple) is the UI for everything.

<comment><USER27> > the temperature setting doesn't actually change the temperature of the air,

I am sorry... yes having a higher temp setting means the heat will on for longer (or ac for less) but it DOES change the temperature of the air. The thermostat measures the temperature and turns the mahcine on and off accordingly.

<comment><USER28> It doen not immediatly change the temperature. It acts by proxy.

If you never met one of those people that say "hey, it's too hot here, let me lower the thermostat" just after they turn the AC on, you are a very lucky guy.

<comment><USER27> just like the steering wheel does not turn the car, and the rocket engine doesn't put the rocket into space.

The controller controls the input. The state changes, because the control input is changed.

The thermostat is not a timer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> After all we now know about data being collected about us, against our will, and sooner or later used against our interests, is it smart to have Google also have data about your home?

<comment><USER30> This development can't be stopped. Since one company is reckless enough to push and benefit from it, others will follow and it will become the norm. It's not the first time that potentially malicious technology gets sold on apparent advantages for consumers. If that doesn't work, they can still bribe government entities / the EU commission (see smart meters).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wouldn't it have been far cheaper to just build their own Nest (and license any patents)?

<comment><USER32> Wouldn't it have been cheaper to buy Facebook instead of trying to build your own

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> At the end of the day it's all about money.

</comment><comment><USER34> > "People who are really serious about software should make their own > hardware." That's never been true of Google

What about the pluto switch or the custom servers? Sure, they don't make chips or maybe don't even do PCB layout and all of that stuff, but I'm sure they have great hardware designers and embedded software people, no? I didn't even mention the google glass, mobile devices, and self-driving cars.

EDIT: Got it. Thanks. Was too eager to respond..

<comment><USER35> He mentions that in the second-from-last paragraph:

> The software that Google was most serious about — web search, Gmail, and so > forth — ran in the cloud, and with the company's legendary data centers, > they effectively built their own hardware.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Here is my Minimal Product. Looking to make it Viable. Any suggestions? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN
Here is my M(V)P. I am looking for feedback concerning the site, the app and the Java application.
I am getting into marketing it, and while I created the app for myself, I would like to know what market you think would be interested in it :-)
Thank you very much
site: http://www.displayator.com
edit: It is an app for viewing high resolution images on the iPhone. You know, the ones that iTunes downsamples before syncing them on your iDevice. The java app is needed to transform the image in such a way that viewing a 20,000 x 10,000 pixel image on the device does not crash it. <comment><USER2> You just skipped MVP. It's not about the product, but building knowledge on your market and then acting on it. Since you just built it you are at a greater risk of failing :) See the article at [http://radoff.com/blog/2010/05/04/minimum-viable-product- ran...](http://radoff.com/blog/2010/05/04/minimum-viable-product-rant/) to get the irony in your post.

That said, it looks great, and will certainly appeal to photographers and anyone dealing with maps, art scans and the like. You just have to hope the market is actually there and reach them somehow!

I might be wrong, but I think the latest Macs aren't shipping with Java, it could be a problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link! Still working on the "somehow". Yeah, the irony is also that I build the Java application on a Mac.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a really cool app and I agree that photographers could be a target market.

One thing I've always wanted to see from apps like this: you should be able to push a button that 'pins' the image in virtual space, and when you move the phone, it acts like a window on that image. This can be done using the various movement sensors on the phones.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is really cool! Feel free to make an Android version!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :-) Well, if I can sustain myself with this app, maybe I will :-)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable : <http://www.displayator.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> It's really beautiful. I was surprised by the site. Your remarks made it sound to me like it was slapped together and incomplete. Perhaps you can elaborate on what you feel is needed to make it "viable"?

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Basically, I would really like to know who to market it to. Art students? Photographers? Globe trotters?

I got 3 sales (Italy, Sweden, China) when the price was 10$ at launch time, but as I haven't put analytics into it, I don't know what they do with the app.

<comment><USER5> I have a certificate in GIS (unfortunately, no related work experience). I was thinking how great it is for maps. You touched on that: _Keep a copy of all your favorite transport network maps in your pocket._ I think the wording is awkward and should be worked on. And you need to point out how/why this is such a great option for maps. Then target travel sites or some such? Not saying that should be your only market, just hoping it's a place for you to start.

Makes me wish I had the type device this works on. It looks really amazing (to me, but I don't get out much :-/).

Good luck.

<comment><USER2> PDF kind of already does that. I haven't tried the app though, might have better performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it definitely has better performance. Once you've saved your pdf at 300 dpi as a PNG and passed it through the Java app.

If I may say so :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


LTE in Apple Watch Series 3 Models Only Works in Country of Purchase - <AUTHOR> https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/lte-in-apple-watch-series-3-models-only-works-in-country-of-purchase.2067891/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to guess that persons who buy the AW3 w/ LTE are more likely to travel internationally.

Combine this with persons (like myself) who live in countries that are unlikely to ever get official support, and it is a bit frustrating to say the least.

Perhaps roaming, etc. will be a "feature" of the AW4...</comment>


What's the best web framework to learn in 2016? - <AUTHOR> What web development framework would you recommend that developers/engineers learn in 2016?<p>I won't say what framework I already know because I want to avoid bias. Ideally, I'd like to know suggestions on the best over-all framework to learn going forward. <comment><USER2> The framework(s) I always look to learn or recommend learning are the ones that I think are going to be big in 5 years.

Of course, consider front-end or back-end first, but I'll assume you are open to either.

I'm currently learning Play (scala) because the framework is a part of two projects I've been involved with at my current job.

I was learning Mercury.js because we selected it for a project, mostly because I wasn't a fan of Flux, but having said that, the community has voted for React, so I'll be moving to get more experience with React (we're not re- writing the Mercury stuff, but I probably won't recommend it for future projects, BUT, if you're not familiar with Mercury.js, check it out, I really like it).

I'm assuming you're already down either the Less or Sass road, so I'd look for the next thing in CSS, which just might be [https://github.com/css- modules/css-modules](https://github.com/css-modules/css-modules)

For testing, I'd check out Tape (unit tests) and nightwatch.

Make sure you're up on Webpack and/or Browserify

Oh the list goes on and on.

Out of curiosity, you mention web development framework, but do you have any interest in IoT? and would you want to use your web-dev skills in interfacing with hardware? The reason I ask is I've been building a framework which hopefully will allow web-devs to develop embedded code. I'd be keen to hear your feedback.

<comment><USER3> >web-dev skills in interfacing with hardware

I would love to check out what you're doing. This is exactly my profile, web- dev pivoted to IoT(embedded) engineering</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Anti-Mac Ads Are Starting To Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-anti-mac-ads-are-starting-to-work-2009-5 <comment><USER2> Where by "working" they mean "are making Microsoft look like a value proposition and Apple less so". In other words, they make Microsoft look cheap and Apple look premium ... this is not a message Apple is going to be upset by.

The entire campaign has struck me as strange. "Hey, we know you want a cool, desirable Mac, but you can't afford one -- so settle for us, we're cheap!"

Microsoft: Which second-best do you want to settle for today?

<comment><USER3> _In other words, they make Microsoft look cheap and Apple look premium_

I think the ads go further than that. They make Macs look _elitist_ \- in every ad the person representing someone real that the viewer could relate to to says something like "I'm not cool enough to have a Mac". Once they manage to get that message across to the majority of people that these Macs are elitist and PCs are more down-to-earth it might well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

<comment><USER4> It's actually in Microsoft's favor to cast the choice as "Mac vs. PC." There's plenty of room in the market for a premium brand and a value brand. The endless Mac vs. PC flame war has been tremendously profitable for both companies, and it keeps other competitors from gaining a foothold.

If Microsoft looks like a good value, the idea of a free OS or a browser-based OS can't penetrate the consciousness of the mass market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Research firm NPD Group says Apple's April Mac shipments were down 1.8% > year-over-year.

Isn't that well within the bound of random chance? 1.8% is not a tremendous difference, particularly considering the general economic slowdown.

I see other numbers are about some polling/brand perception thing, but sales are probably a more concrete measurement.

<comment><USER6> This AP article [1] (tech.yahoo.com seems to be having problems just now) says that the overall market fell by either 7.1% or 6.5% worldwide, depending on if you ask IDC or Gartner. US shipments were either down 3.1% (IDC) or <1% (Gartner). Also, the article mentions that Apple's market share increased, but doesn't have an estimate of its shipments.

So without knowing how NPD Group is counting, this 1.8% number is not very useful. If it's global, it makes Apple look pretty good. If it's US shipments, it's harder to say.

[1]: [http://220.127.116.11/search?q=cache:tw4QpCy8JFoJ:tech.yahoo....](http://188.8.131.52/search?q=cache:tw4QpCy8JFoJ:tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090415/ap_on_hi_te/tec_pc_shipments+npd+group+pc+shipments&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't see anything supporting the assertion that the shifts were due to Microsoft's advertising. Given the recession (and the media's mood regarding it), I'm not at all surprised that consumers are acting a bit more frugal.

<comment><USER8> The article did show a massive downfall of consumers thinking Macs are awesome, and a rise of consumers thinking PCs are.

<comment><USER7> Not exactly. The measurement was of "value-perception" -- Yes, consumers are starting to view Macs as luxuries, but there's no evidence of a causal relationship between that shift an Microsoft's advertising. For instance, a similar trend was seen when asking individuals whether or not household goods (microwaves, dishwashers, air conditioning, etc.) were luxuries or necessities. What would Occam say?

Link to the Luxury / Necessity study: [http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/733/luxury-necessity- recessi...](http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/733/luxury-necessity-recession- era-reevaluations)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg I just find it sad that a stupid software monopoly positions itself to speak on behalf of _all the PCs_.

In my world Microsoft has nothing to do with computers: I don't use their stuff. And my Thinkpads+Linux don't present "value proposition" - they're far superior to Macs in every way that matters to me: build quality, their military styling, Linux superiority over OSX, their full size "spill-through" keyboards, 5-button _precise_ touchpads with pointing sticks, huge batteries, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> I question their methods. First off, the Microsoft Ads suck. They aren't funny or interesting. I don't say 'ooh! A new batch of Microsoft ads' and run off to their website to check them out like I do with Apple's ads.

Second, their index says the index for Apple has fallen from 70 to 12.4? That's way too big of a shift for such a poorly executed ad campaign. As far as sales goes, haven't they noticed we're in the middle of a recession? Apple has been doing pretty darned well considering the skyrocketing unemployment rate and lack of consumer spending.

<comment><USER10> The fact that people do say 'ooh! new apple ads' is pathetic.Why would anyone care? it's an ad, if you have the product you don't need to see the ad, it only serves to stroke your ego and confirm your choice (which is an insecure thing to do). If you don't have the product why would you search for the ad rather than any actual information?

<comment><USER11> People have a long history of watching and enjoying advertisements, and they have become increasingly elaborate over the years. A lot of people watch the Super Bowl as much for the ads as the sporting event. Given the high budget for ads and the current trend of "funny" or "ironic" ads, it's neither surprising nor shameful that people like them.

The "ooh new Apple ads" could be in part because the ads have two excellent comedian/actors who help do the writing, and because most people find the current stance that Microsoft takes against Apple to be somewhat comical. Personally, I enjoy seeing John Hodgeman every chance I get, even if it is in an ad. He's a funny guy.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't call it a long history, and as much as an ad is ironic or funny, it is there to sell you something, it's just pretending not to be to get your attention and making you want to watch it. I find it worrying that people would spend $1000s on the basis of watching a funny anecdotal ad.

<comment><USER11> All ads do, for most people, is focus attention and create a "brand sense." IBM used to meticulously cultivate a very "professional" sense of their brand, for example.

As a basis for product awareness, there is nothing wrong with this. For example, I was drawn to Nikon DSLRs over their competition when I learned saw the Danny Choo Nikon ad (I read a lot of what Danny Choo produces and I like his writing). Once I started researching on my own I found the camera I wanted and bought it (D90, btw). All the ad did was provide a signpost, should I feel ashamed or manipulated? I definitely did research and agonized over the exact camera and model to get, so I don't feel like I was tricked into a bad, shameful purchase. Nor do I feel particularly manipulated by choosing this brand over any other, there were specific features (mentioned in the ads) that I decided I wanted to prioritize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So Apple's perceived value dropped and "Microsoft's" perceived value rose?

There are two variables that need to be controlled for here:

1\. Apple hasn't made any major product announcements this year. Apple is a company that lives and dies by its carefully controlled press releases and a sense of "newness" and "cutting edgeness".

2\. There's no indication that the MS ads in question actually caused this shift. If they're talking to canny consumers, this switch could be around the perception of netbook sales alone. Those are skyrocketing, and a perfectly usable and incredibly portable machine for under $400 (after tax) _is_ a great value.

Still, take this with a grain of salt. People love to provide reports that Apple is suddenly failing or did not deliver on sales promises, with all kinds of conjured "data" to back it up. In the end, Apple has consistently delivered or exceeded on their projections and they've held up their sales significantly better than everyone else in the market during the economic downturn.

</comment><comment><USER12> So Windows is better, Apple computers are 'pretty but dumb' but you can put Windows on Apple hardware so...? - brain explodes - very Star Trek of you MS.

</comment><comment><USER13> When it says "anecdotal" right in the article... There are no facts here. It's all just link bait and trolling.

</comment><comment><USER14> frankly, I don't think the demographic that is buying Macs (mostly college- aged kids) hasn't changed and won't simply stop buying Macs because of some ad campaign by Microsoft. Windows Vista sucked before it was released, it sucked when it was released, and it still sucks at the point when Microsoft is trying to bury it. Macs offer a very different user experience from Windows, and it's like saying a Chevy is better than a BMW because it's cheaper. They are two entirely different products that both happen to have a screen and a keyboard.</comment>


Response to "Literate programming considered harmful" - <AUTHOR> http://johnwshipman.blogspot.com/2016/02/is-literate-programming-harmful.html <comment><USER2> The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before.

I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up with my own pattern that best fits the problem, but I can select from a list of pre-approved patterns in our framework and shoehorn the problem into it. We only hire people familiar with the framework, so no need to document.

It really comes down to laziness. A literate program demands you put forth the effort to understand it and read the docs and code. Whereas a with a framework program you can copy and paste code from blog posts and stack overflow without any clue what is really going on.

<comment><USER3> _> I can't come up with my own pattern that best fits the problem, but I can select from a list of pre-approved patterns in our framework and shoehorn the problem into it._

Generally only true for burger flipping software. If your problem is unique, there won't be a framework for it.

Want to be creative? Try seeking out creative problems.

Everything has exceptions, but this rule of thumb seems to apply well, in my experience.

<comment><USER4> If your problem is unique and requires creative solutions, and you work in an anti-documentation team, that's when things get truly nasty.

<comment><USER5> Elsewhere known as "Academia" ;)

<comment><USER6> Which also can create documentation without code :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recently ran across this piece, "Literate programming: Knuth is doing it wrong", whose author contends that

> the ends are insufficiently ambitious by focusing on a passive > representation [0]

After practicing literate programming seriously for over a year on a large project, I believe that our notion of _documents themselves_ is insufficiently ambitious, for the same reason.

Computer-based media should not be limited to the static forms imposed by paper. It's unfair to critique literate programming _per se_ until we have a truly dynamic mode of representation. ( _edit_ , yes, technically we have that now, but it's an order of magnitude more work to create. I'm saying that live, dynamic representations should be our tool for thinking, building, and writing about things in the _first place_ , not after the fact.)

[0] [http://akkartik.name/post/literate- programming](http://akkartik.name/post/literate-programming)

<comment><USER8> What tools did you use for this?

<comment><USER7> How long do you have?

This was for a project called "willshake." The system provides a rough overview of itself [0].

I was using Org for documentation, and I decided to try migrating to a literate codebase.

It was clear immediately that I needed a "real" build tool. After some research, I decided that was Tup [1]. Tup is a strict, "functional reactive" build system with extremely fast incremental builds.

So I run the Tup monitor, and everything gets tangled as I write. Great.

But tangling through Emacs/Org was way too slow. So I wrote my own gawk-based tangle [2] that supports the subset of Org Babel's features that I needed, but would tangle any file in 20-50ms.

But usually I want to _do something_ with the tangled code (you know, compile it, run it). So I also define _build rules_ inside of the documents (for example, [3]). I just extract the rules from the documents and feed them to Tup.

Now I can just write _whatever I want_ in a document, and stuff just happens as I write. This includes the removal of obsoleted build targets, which Tup handles. So I can "literally" remove a document file from the project and the feature is removed; return it, and the feature is restored.

But as the system grew, the build started to push 2 seconds. This is because Tup was reviewing thousands of rules whenever any file changed. So I decided (following Christopher Alexander), to treat _directories_ of documents as isolated _subsystems_.[4]

So I can create features and subsystems with continuous builds ~250ms, using only Org files and directories.

It still sucks. I'm taking a detour to explore dynamic documents, which I think precedes considerations about "programming."

[0] [https://willshake.net/about#more-about](https://willshake.net/about#more- about)

[1] [http://gittup.org/tup/](http://gittup.org/tup/)

[2] [https://bitbucket.org/gavinpc/willshake/src/default/bootstra...](https://bitbucket.org/gavinpc/willshake/src/default/bootstrap/tangle)

[3] [https://willshake.net/about/the_stylesheets#sec-4](https://willshake.net/about/the_stylesheets#sec-4)

[4] [https://bitbucket.org/gavinpc/willshake/src/default/bootstra...](https://bitbucket.org/gavinpc/willshake/src/default/bootstrap/rules.lua)

<comment><USER8> Finally had a chance to review your various links. That's a very impressive project, I like it quite a bit and have now shared your product (willshake.net) with several friends.

Thanks for the links and the resources. My target with literate programming is a bit different than yours, but you've given me some things to think about. I appreciate that.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, it makes my day to hear that. I think literate programming was ahead of its time in some ways, including ways that maybe Knuth didn't anticipate. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> lumpio- Even if it was "harmful" it wouldn't be such a big deal because I for one have never seen an actual program written in literate programming style.

<comment><USER9> You're in luck. TeX is written in literate style, and its documentation/source is available here: [http://brokestream.com/tex- web.html](http://brokestream.com/tex-web.html)

You can also read Knuths description of the Web system he under to write the code here: [http://www.literateprogramming.com/knuthweb.pdf](http://www.literateprogramming.com/knuthweb.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel bad to say this, but the practical world has burned me so many times that I simply can't trust anything said after a comment delimiter. If it's not in the code, it doesn't have any impact on what the code is actually doing, making it redundant at best, and misleading at worst.

For that reason, I find myself constantly reverse engineering code. If I am tracking down a bug and run across a bit of obfuscated code which has the comment "optimized hotspot sorting", I'm going to assume that it's wrong. I'm going to take the time to reverse engineer that obfuscated code, to make sure that the code is actually sorting, that it it an actual hotspot, and that it's not the cause of the bug I'm chasing down.

I guess I use it as a negative signal: "the comment says the code does X, I need to verify that it actually does X, correctly". "Optimized" code blocks and comments taken as the truth have pointed me at more bad code than good code.

</comment><comment><USER11> My new checklist for making programs easy to understand and work with in the future.

\- Make the program in complete slices of a functionality and put those into folders and files that are descriptive of what the code does: "web/login/facebook/always_ask_for_email.lang"

\- Do repeat yourself in different functionality areas.

\- Name your variables and functions as if they should never conflict/as specifically as you dare.

\- Use a functional and immutable programming language or write pure functions as much as possible.

\- Stop thinking that patterns are necessary to solve the problem of turning data from one form into another.

I might be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use literate programming for "research" projects - I use emacs org mode with org babel and ob-ipython. It is useful for that purpose, as I am usually chasing a few options in parallel and results later will need to be presented to the team.

When project wasn't that researchy in the first place (does not require significant experimentation to come up with the solution), or exits the research phase I move to standard programming tools.

</comment><comment><USER13> I definitely find literate programming intriguing.

I like stuff that's well documented and I find my own documentation crucial for understanding things.

I am however a bit at a loss about the practicalities.

Does writing a doc-string for each class/method/function and connecting to readthedocs count as literate programming?

<comment><USER14> "Does writing a doc-string for each class/method/function and connecting to readthedocs count as literate programming?"

I don't think so. It's like comparing the Lord of the Rings, the novel, with the index that contains descriptions of all the characters in the Middle Earth.

I mean both tell you the same story, but from a very different perspective.

I am personally not a fan of (what I understand as) literate programming, _unless_ you are writing a piece of educational code that is supposed to be read from beginning to end (like Jones Forth, for example).

What I think should be done instead, the code should be documented on several levels, each level more detailed by a constant factor. So each couple lines should have a comment, each function should have a comment what it does with what parameters, each class (or group of functions) should have a description of their purpose, each module should have a description of its architecture and interactions, and so on until you would get to the top level architecture. So it would be more like a tree of more and more detailed documentation rather than linear novel that you read from start to end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Literate DevOps (with Emacs, Org-Mode, Tramp) - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dljNabciEGg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dljNabciEGg)

</comment><comment><USER16> The value of literate programming is proportional to the novelty of the material it documents.

</comment><comment><USER17> You don't say....

</comment><comment><USER18> Is <insert whatever type of language /> programming harmful?

What question is that?! If you write malware with it, yes it is! Though not for you.

<comment><USER19> They're just using a headline derived from Dijkstra's "Go To Statement Considered Harmful". As with Dijkstra it's a bit clickbaity i.e. they really mean use with care rather than harmful.

Making it a question just gives the extra benefit of making it likely to conform to Betteridge's law. So a meme win-win really.

<comment><USER20> Of course, Dijkstra wasn't really clickbaiting, as clicks hadn't been invented yet.</comment></comment></comment>


Predicting Crime in Portland – data from the trenches - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/data-from-the-trenches/predicting-crime-in-portland-oregon-184453cccd5b <comment><USER2> just skimming through, it looks like she's using past data to try to predict the future (call time and location, etc)

this seemed flawed from the start

it is an interesting project though

<comment><USER3> Why is it flawed. Crime hotspots are usually cyclical varying with seasons and weather like she points towards the end. There are other factors. You might be thinking of stock markets which is a different thing.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't that assume a stable population and a consistent economy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > POIs are tagged with user-generated category tags such as "Amenity," > "Hotel," "Shop," "Restaurant," "Mailbox," etc. We found 11,000 labeled > points of interest in Portland in the 2016 dataset.

Did you use the API or the shape file in here ?

Can you share the list of relevant Census feature to get the names, re-writing them from the picture takes time.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hope they are thinking of the shortcomings of doing that: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg7w4x/canada- hub...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg7w4x/canada-hub-and-cor- policing-privacy-police)

</comment><comment><USER3> Good idea on using weather and holidays. I played with a similar dataset from local police for a machine learning class. And I remember how hotspots movement was correlated with seasons.</comment>


Show HN: No-code Browser Automation. RPA so non-coders can automate work - <AUTHOR> https://axiom.ai <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all (re-submitting after moderator suggestion, not spamming).

We built a no-code way to automate work in your browser.

It's in beta, and we've just made it public yesterday:

[https://axiom.ai/](https://axiom.ai/)

[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/axiom-browser- automation](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/axiom-browser-automation)

        What?

RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is a way to automate using the user-interface of applications, rather than APIs. It's been really popular in the enterprise for automating big processes.

We think RPA has great potential as a no-code paradigm for smaller processes.

        Why?

Not everything has an API and not everybody knows how to code. But everybody knows how to point, click and type. Everybody understands data visualised in a UI.

We see axiom as a novel way to introduce the principles of programming to non- coders, to automate more day-to-day tasks.

         Why would you not use APIs? This is a waste of CPU cycles!

Most of our beta-users are non-technical, in roles like sales or e-commerce administration. They have repetitive extract, transform, load (ETL) tasks primarily, and this gives them the opportunity to automate, where they could not before.

CPU cycles are still far cheaper than their time.

        Use-cases?

The primary use-case now is now ETL workflows in sales, e-commerce and customer support, but it's a general tool. Axiom's beta is not for large-scale data-scraping or automated testing.

        Why should I trust you with my data?

We don't touch your data. All data-processing and execution occurs client- side, on your machine. We only store the code for execution. For data-storage, we use your Google drive/sheets account.

        Other browsers?

We currently only support chrome.

        Feedback

We're interested in discovering new niches. This is still a beta product. If you come across bugs, our support on [https://axiom.ai](https://axiom.ai) is responsive.

Thanks!</comment>


Site deactivated because it causing performance problems (BlueHost) - <AUTHOR> https://cssfox.co/=maxim-aginsky/log/site-deactivated-because-it-causing-performance-problems-bluehost <comment><USER2> From the guidelines:[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> _In Submissions_

> _Please don 't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or > exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an > article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's > important._

<comment><USER3> The title may have been copied and pasted, it's in all caps at the head of the article itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is just a single article head style. The Log (main) page use regular characters.</comment></comment></comment>


It only takes the mistreatment of one customer. - <AUTHOR> http://penny-arcade.com/2011/12/27/just-wow1

<comment><USER2> I cannot fathom being the only one not wanting to split up discussion over this like crazy, so I would suggest keeping discussion of this event in the earlier posted thread[1] that also happens to have more upvotes and comments (at the time of writing).

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3395411>

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry, but that post left me thinking less of all three parties involved.

A supplier who cusses out his customer, a customer who cusses out a supplier, and an ego tripping blogger who not only publishes a private conversation but picks a side and joins the fight.

I see no winners.

<comment><USER4> The customer is always right - and when the customer is wronged, then they can be as frank as they want. It might not be classy to cuss out the supplier - but he wasn't wrong and is in no way wrong.

<comment><USER3> _"when the customer is wronged, then they can be as frank as they want."_

There's a difference between being frank and being abusive. If a customer talks to me that way, I immediately terminate the relationship. No one has the right to treat another person like garbage.

And let me reiterate: I feel that all three parties acted juvenile and tacky, lacking any common decency. The supplier should've communicated a realistic ship date, and when he found out that the products wouldn't arrive before Xmas, he should've apologized and offered a refund. The blogger should've stayed out of it and should not have posted a private conversation.

<comment><USER4> Correct - you can definitely terminate the relationship - but you can still do so in a professional manner and not lowering to or beyond the initial customers reaction.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Internet is Hard (RWW on users vs geeks) - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/open_thread_the_internet_is_hard.php

<comment><USER2> I read this with a cringe the whole time. I actually found it a little depressing. I just want to say "Really...?! REALLY?!"

It's easy to write these kind of users off as idiots, but this reminds me that any time you mess with a users' interface by trying to improve it, you have to tread carefully, or you'll confuse the kind of folks that can't tell the difference between a random blog and the _#2 website in the world_ (and who get there by typing "Facebook login" into "the internet").

I can't even try to make a serious comment without a tinge of bitter sarcasm. This _disappoints_ me way more than something like this should. It's so irrational to care that much.

But they're just so frustratingly dumb.

</comment><comment><USER3> I tried to explain to my wife why this story was funny yesterday. It was hopeless. She simply could not get it. Her sympathies were with the FB users, "Oh yeah. Facebook is constantly changing their interface. It drives me nuts too." Huh?

A few weeks ago, she really helped me understand this gap when she said, "I used to use email, now I use Facebook." I desperately wanted to explain the difference between a protocol and a web app, but then thought, why? She does not care. For her, FB is simply email plus.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think it's a mistake to generalize from those RWW commenters to "normal users." Of the millions of people who logged on to Facebook yesterday, many thousands probably got there via Google, and _fewer than fifty_ ended up commenting on that post (though there were probably many more who clicked the post but didn't comment). The commenters are not normal computer users; they are a very aggressively filtered 99.999th percentile of the users who have the most trouble navigating the web.

</comment><comment><USER5> And this is why phishing actually works...

<comment><USER6> This also shows that the phishing page doesn't even have to look like the original page. An username and a password field would do the trick.

<comment><USER7> As long as you have google referral juice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the funniest story I have read in such a long time. If you didn't believe it before believe it now. People are idiots.

</comment><comment><USER9> Those users generally don't pay, they are interested in wasting the rest of their time on the Internet and will run quickly from your site.

However, developers and techies have the money and will pay for great services you build (if it makes them more productive or help them handle awkward tasks).

<comment><USER10> I don't know. As sjs382 says above you, "normal" people are the reason that phishing works. Or spam still happens.

It's also about market, right? Even if 10% of non technologically inclined people buy something, it's probably more than if 50% of the techies did.

Also, these people are a great reminder of why the iPad is going to sell like hotcakes.

<comment><USER11> The iPad wouldn't have helped these people. They can obviously launch a browser successfully, but having done that they have no clue that there are sites other than Google and Facebook. Unless Apple's next brilliant innovation is to remove Safari's URL bar and have giant buttons mapped to the top 10 sites. And no you can't configure them, only geeks would want to do that...

<comment><USER12> The iPad is perfect for these people. They'll just download "Facebook", "Google" and "Amazon" from the App Store and never even _open_ Safari.</comment></comment></comment></comment>