This must be Google's Facebook clone. It sure looks like it. - <AUTHOR> https://profiles.google.com/

<comment><USER2> I don't think google will ever win at social, every site that started small changed and adapted to what the users wanted, google can't do that, they launch a new site and bam millions of users instantly; yet all these users want different things, so instead of shaping the experience around what they need to _get_ users (what Facebook did) they're catering to what they _think_ will retain users. They have to find out what users want without the access to "organic" information, market research is proven time and time again to be worthless.

The problem of getting users is often one that defines a site, when you don't have that problem it becomes a battle to stop users leaving to better more "mature" pastures. I think the next big social site (if there ever is one) will be a no-name small-gone-big site, but even then with how everyone (users) is about social now (they want to be instantly in on the next big thing) I doubt that can happen. I think that maybe Facebook is the end of social sites, which feels strange and ridiculous to say, but maybe.

Google will never "get" social, there is nothing _to_ get.

Edit: in fact I think a great example of this is Google Wave. It was a fantastic product for a variety of tasks, project management was one, yet Google pitched it as the "next big thing" to users so they all joined with ridiculous expectations of what it was and wasn't and now look what happened... Tumblr is another great example in the other direction, what the site is now is very community orientated, yet from the interviews I've seen with the founder (David something) it didn't seem as if this was intention from the get go, yet users used the site like that and so they adapted and enabled users to use it like that. Now look, they're _huge_. Does anyone know of any products launched by big companies (Google, Microsoft etc.) that did go big? I can't think of any off hand, would be interesting to look at how they grew and developed.

<comment><USER3> I thought Orkut (by google) did amazingly well in some parts of the world?

[http://www.labnol.org/wp/images/2008/02/social-networks- popu...](http://www.labnol.org/wp/images/2008/02/social-networks- popularity.gif)

<comment><USER4> Google did not create Orkut, it was acquired.

<comment><USER5> No, Google created Orkut.

 _In 2003, Google offered to purchase the social network Friendster, but the offer was declined by that company. Google then internally commissioned Orkut Büyükkökten to work on a competing independent project. The result was Orkut. The product launched on January 24, 2004._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut#History_of_orkut>

(If it isn't clear from that quote, Orkut Büyükkökten was a Google employee)

<comment><USER6> They named it after an individual? How odd. It's like Facebook being called Zuckbook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No, it's the updated Google Profiles as discussed previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2282094> ([http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2011/03/decide-what- worl...](http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2011/03/decide-what-world-sees- when-it-searches.html))

And as I said in the previous discussion, the reason profile pages tend to use the same layout is because it's an established design pattern now. People already know what to expect when they see a page with that layout.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for the links. I saw this post and thought, "Isn't this old news?" Maybe not, but I could have sworn I saw something in this vein weeks ago.

<comment><USER9> To be fair it happened 4 days ago.

<comment><USER10> This is the internet, damnit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If the headline "Decide what the world sees when it searches for you." means that when someone search a name+surname profiles.google.com will always be top I see this as quite powerful!

<comment><USER12> That has be Google's social trump card. If they ever pull the trigger on that, that is a real Facebook competitor (Actually, seems more like LinkedIn competitor now that I think about it). I always like the rumored branding of Google Me for this reason.

Of course, they are getting some heat for the OneBox stuff they do, so there is some danger there.

<comment><USER13> Only if you want everyone Googling your profile straight up. In an era when people worry about colleagues, employers and stalkers discovering their public profiles and photos too easily, I'm not sure if this will be useful for everyone rather than self-promoters, SEOers, etc.

I think your mention of LinkedIn is closer to the mark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Google's ubiquitous and omnipresent ways of doing things will win it's way on social.

It's kinda crude, but I think Google's plan is to make Google Profile (aka Facebook clone) ubiquitous and omnipresent blurring the line going to a social networking site and just searching for that person.

Kinda like Microsoft's thing with Windows 98 when everything can be used as Internet Explorer.

<comment><USER15> I think you're onto something. Google won't "win at social" by setting up something that looks like Facebook and being a "better Facebook." And neither will anybody else, most likely. But they _can_ "win at social" by simply continuing to link their various services together more and more and more, and gradually introducing more "social" features.

When you look at what Google have with GMail, Google Calendar, Reader, Buzz, Docs, and their other properties, they have a great foundation to build useful "social" stuff. But remember, "social" doesn't necessarily mean "just like Facebook" (or Twitter, or whoever.)

And I still think that a few fairly minor (IMO) tweaks to Buzz would make it an awesome product that could gain a lot more traction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The reason I don't use Google profiles is that I have no reason to. A public facing, Facebook like site? No thanks.

I wasn't interested in Facebook until a real life friend from another state invited me. That's Facebook's draw for me; interaction with real friends and family.

</comment><comment><USER17> public profiles have existed for a long time. this isn't new.

<comment><USER18> Although the feature itself is not new, the new design does seem to be highly inspired by Facebook's.

<comment><USER19> actually, if you go to this video from a year ago, you can see that this year's Facebook redesign was rather reminiscent of the old Google profiles: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYf5iSA6t6g&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYf5iSA6t6g&feature=player_detailpage#t=25s)

<comment><USER20> They all seem to be reminiscent of MySpace, er I mean Hi5, or maybe I mean Friendster. Point being, a "profile" page has a standard design, the same way a e-commerce catalog page has a general layout that nearly every shopping cart employs.

<comment><USER19> yeah, I went for the snark, but I think your point is much closer to the truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I logged in to check out my own, ancient Google profile (which I just about barely set up—bare minimum of info and hadn't logged in since the day I'd heard of it) to discover that has a picture in it that I'd never given Google permission to use. I'm sure they got it from Adium (I use gchat with Adium), but I found it creepy to have my profile given a picture without my knowledge or permission.

<comment><USER22> I'm fairly certain that Google does not pull the picture from Adium, rather, Adium pushes the picture to Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Google is for search. That's what people know.

As long as Google published apps under their Google brand, they will not fly.

The popular servics Google has (Blogger, YouTube, etc) run all under their own brand.

If Google seriously wants to make a social network, it must run under its own brand/domain. And they should give it a little more attention than they did with Orkut.

I don't think the problem it Google not "getting" the "social". Its about not creating a distinguishable brand. Google is search.

</comment><comment><USER24> Now if only I could import my downloaded facebook info into there...

</comment><comment><USER25> Is it not a terrible name "Google Profiles" for facebook killer ?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I posted this because I was shocked by how facebook-like it is. The buzz tab is there if buzz is enabled it seems. You prob have to turn it off entirely to kill the tab.

I turned buzz off the day it launched. So I was more surprised that it now look exactly like a facebook wall.

Some nice differences. You don't have to choose between male and female. But the relationship field has the same choices. Sadly, there is still no "X is currently shagging | fucking | etc Y" option. That's more like what I want to say. Pick your own damn transitive verb.

It's got the lame and prudish "X is in a relationship with Y" as ever.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think "decide what the world sees when it searches for you" is a very good concept. You can expose yourself without having to worry about privacy. I wouldn't want to make my Facebook profile available to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER27> The problem is Google isn't hungry. They don't make these things work because they don't have to. AdSense will always put food on the table, so they don't have the sense of urgency to fix this. It's a common problem for companies that already have a cash cow and then try to develop or acquire secondary services, e.g. Yahoo with Delicious. They don't have the sense of urgency, executive focus and the commitment to make them work.

<comment><USER28> Hunger has little to do with it. Actually, to understand why Google is unable to succeed, you have to understand Facebook's incremental approach to integrating real life social groups. Facebook started out by targeting the college demographic, then established organizations (companies and other organizations) and eventually opening to the public.

[ Another reason for Myspace's failures - after the initial inbound success, they didn't focus at all. On anything. ]

I can't see Google treading down the same road using the same old approach, i.e. building an app, releasing it as a beta to try out with the masses, etc. They would have more success trying social out with the organizations which use their Enterprise apps. Disclaimer: I don't use Google Enterprise offerings, so I have no idea if they already have one there.

<comment><USER29> my company uses Google Apps. It absolutely astounds me that both Buzz and Wave weren't launched first as Enterprise Apps, _only_. They both would have been useful as enterprise collaboration and communication tools, and having it be entirely within an organization solves the "who can I talk to" problem -- much like Facebook did by targeting college campuses. As a average schmoe -- I have zero reason to use Buzz, for anything. Get everyone in my company on it, and I'd be using it every day. Everyone would. And it's actually a great tool for that, it would solve problems that aren't addressed well by either email or the various internal wikis.

I'm actually still a little pissed Buzz hasn't shown up...more than a year after Google said "Yes, Buzz is certainly coming to Apps."

It's just a little bit mind boggling to me -- it seems so obvious. From what I understand, Buzz was (is?) used inside of Google for internal communication/discussion. THAT is _the_ use case for it. But they launched for something else, and ignored what would have been a great starting point for the product to gain some momentum and a community of users who would go out and sell it later on.

<comment><USER30> Buzz is one of the most mismanaged products I've ever seen.

In particular its presence on Android is laughable which is just ... inexplicable. Other than being afraid of a law suit of some kind (which would be bizarre given what else Google puts on Android) I just can't understand why they haven't put Buzz front and center there.

My pet conspiracy theory is that Google has done some kind of deal with Twitter whereby they have agreed not to compete in certain ways in order to get favorable treatment wrt search.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think they should have gone for an about.me/flavors.me presentation . If anything, just to pull away from the facebook look.

<comment><USER32> But then all the comments on HN would be about how Google is copying the *.me sites and squishing poor innocent startups. :(

<comment><USER33> Besides that, the look they have now is a little more fitting with the spartan Google theme than a big flashy about.me knockoff would be. It works.

<comment><USER31> No doubt, it works. Just that the resemblance with facebook is so strong, (right down to the grid placements), that it looks 'weak'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In Brazil, it was translated as "Google Perfis". Bad bad bad. Facebook is a single brand across all countries. Google should keep a single brand as well, even "Google Profiles" would be better than "Google Profiles" translated in every language possible.

</comment><comment><USER35> My Buzz tab was completely public by default. That's annoying.

<comment><USER36> "This does not change who can see the posts - private posts stay private."

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Facebook already serves as a personal wiki for name searches. Will Google rank Google profiles higher than Facebook results for a given name?

</comment><comment><USER38> Speaking of which, has anybody tried google.com/health? Or how about the cool WebGL-powered site bodybrowser.googlelabs.com?

</comment><comment><USER39> i thought orkut was google's facebook clone?

<comment><USER40> Orkut launched a month before facebook, not that it matters now.

[http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=facebook%2Corkut...](http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=facebook%2Corkut&date=1%2F2004%2049m&cmpt=q)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Do I see a "Buzz" tab?

 _shakeshead_

<comment><USER7> Why should Google not have a Buzz tab?

Edit: Also, you can show or hide the tab. So if you don't use Buzz and you don't want that tab shown on your profile, just hide it. However, this way Google can let their users that still use Buzz display it on their profile.

<comment><USER41> Buzz symbolizes everything wrong with Google's social strategy. They need to move on.

Linking to dead properties and adding a few fields isn't going to fix social.

<comment><USER40> What does it mean for a product to "symbolize" something? Is it the product you are objecting to or the branding?

(There are also pockets of really high quality activity on buzz. See Terence Tao's very active feed for instance: <https://profiles.google.com/u/0/114134834346472219368/buzz> )

<comment><USER41> It's a product with very little traction and an inferior experience to what's already in the market(twitter, fb).

Unfortunately pockets of traction for a product as old as Buzz means very little. Social for big guys like fb and google is about scale, not niches.

<comment><USER19> it depends on what you mean by "experience." I think buzz is easily superior to twitter, but I use twitter because the community I engage with is there.

does the existence of picasa's online albums somehow harm google because only some people use them?

<comment><USER42> Here's my discussion on the Buzz user experience, from a year ago. <http://alanhogan.com/buzz-is-already-dead>

(tl;dr: Too distracting, not very skimmable, awkward social aspects including too many non-friends showing up.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tolerant San Francisco fed up with dirty, smelly streets - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tolerant-San-Francisco-fed-up-with-dirty-smelly-12875527.php <comment><USER2> In the past week I've been assaulted and threatened twice by crazed homeless men. The first grabbed a glass bottle from his cart and raised it up as if he was going to hit me in the head (this was by Civic Center BART). The second charged angrily at me near Lake Merritt. I'm really fed up personally with the "homeless advocates" who are willing to overlook this violent and scary behavior in the name of social justice... We all have the right to live in peace.

<comment><USER3> I've worked in homeless shelters and for public health. The major mistake uninformed advocates (not all advocates) make is they think: this is a person, just like me, down on their luck. It happens because that's how we naturally sympathize with people -- we put ourselves in their shoes.

Unfortunately that only describes a small minority of homeless people. The majority have serious psychiatric and/or personality disorders and/or drug abuse and/or health problems -- there's a lot of collinearity here too so it's hard to analyze the percent variance explained by each. Thus, their needs are different. Instead of just more opportunities (and the requisite services to bridge them to those opportunities), many are in need of a heavily structured mental health-oriented program.

In the past there was instituionalization, which of course failed because we treated these individuals as subhuman, rather than human with disability. I'm not sure what the best solution is but providing free gyms and needles ain't it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In China, in some parts, you can rent super cheap apartments for 80$ per month in some cases: they may not be super lavish or durable or even have electricity everywhere, but it's better than living out on the street.

I think SF should declare a state of emergency, throw the entire Rulebook/lawbook out the window and work with several developers to build at least 10,000 units as cost effectively as possible. We need more options between the current 2 extremes: 2 million dollar condo vs 20$ tent. The 240 million dollars per year they're currently spending to help the homeless will go a LOT farther that way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm glad people are finally speaking up.

It was a really weird situation. What scared me wasn't the homelessness, but that nobody felt comfortable acknowledging it or saying anything about it (positive, nor negative) for fear of being insensitive. I don't think anybody actually thought the situation was acceptable, it was just an Emporer's New Robes situation.

It disgusted me that so many people could disconnect themselves that much from reality.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the photos and additional info in these links add some context:

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16893415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16893415) [2] [https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Breed-Wiener- workin...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Breed-Wiener-working-to- ease-destructive-12597752.php)

</comment><comment><USER7> So SF's finally figuring out why "compassion" doesn't work?

</comment><comment><USER8> There's one small trick that makes homelessness disappear: Housing.

<comment><USER9> San Francisco homelessness has almost nothing to do with housing. For the most part, as people mentioned, it is either related to addiction or deinstitutionalization that caused a lot of mental people end on the streets.

<comment><USER8> You can still provide some sort of housing to those people. Just taking them off the streets will improve everyones quality of living (if it's as bad as described in the article). Most of them would certainly be capable of some kind of work too. However to me this article reads like a campaign of a "conservative" candidate. "Look at what those tolerant liberals did to us, we need to be more intolerant and start using violence and jails."

The solution clearly isn't to ignore the problem but they don't seem to offer a solution to the problem, only a way to push it to someone else's back yard.</comment></comment></comment>


Uranium: The new 'foreign oil' - onreact-com http://www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/uranium-the-new-foreign-oil

<comment><AUTHOR> There is plenty of uranium to be found in peaceful democracies. It is just that we don't want the uranium mines in our back yards. The cost of the fuel even a sharp price spike is still a negligible part of the cost in nuclear power.</comment>


Ask HN: How to learn Backbone - <AUTHOR>

Backbone Tutorials isn't up to date, a simple "Backbone tutorial" search brings up results from 2011, early 2012. I need to learn 0.9.2 Backbone, not an older version.<p>Can someone provide me a single resource or multiple great resources to learn Backbone, start to finish (preferably quickly but not mandatory) <comment><USER2> I learned Backbone just about 3 months ago and the first project I built (still in developing) with it was a commercial eCommerce web application for a major client. This is how I learned Backbone:

—— 1. I downloaded a copy of the following book and followed all the examples:

<http://addyosmani.github.com/backbone-fundamentals/>

Note that the following incomplete sections in the book you will very likely need (I did). The answer to each can be found on StackOverflow.

\- Sub-Views And Nesting

\- Managing Models In Nested Views

\- Views Triggering Other Views

\- Cleanly Disposing Views

\- [Communicating effectively between views (particularly subviews)]—I added this because I was not sure how to do this after reading the book, I found help on StackOverflow.

By the way, the book is very good and Addy Osmani is a thorough writer, he does not shy away from detail, which I love. Detail is very good, it prevents you from getting stuck later and allows you to have a thorough understanding of the subject matter.

—— 2. Follow these 3 tutorials, they are easy, but very helpful:

[http://coenraets.org/blog/2011/12/backbone-js-wine-cellar- tu...](http://coenraets.org/blog/2011/12/backbone-js-wine-cellar-tutorial- part-1-getting-started/)

[http://coenraets.org/blog/2011/12/backbone-js-wine-cellar- tu...](http://coenraets.org/blog/2011/12/backbone-js-wine-cellar-tutorial- part-2-crud/)

[http://coenraets.org/blog/2011/12/backbone-js-wine-cellar- tu...](http://coenraets.org/blog/2011/12/backbone-js-wine-cellar-tutorial- part-3-deep-linking-and-application-states/)

— And this one, which is incredibly important for improving your Backbone skills and using Backbone efficiently. These are the things the author later learned on how to improve his preceding 3 tutorials that I listed above:

[http://coenraets.org/blog/2012/01/backbone-js-lessons- learne...](http://coenraets.org/blog/2012/01/backbone-js-lessons-learned-and- improved-sample-app/)

—— 3. And StackOverflow will be your God send when you start to develop with backbone and realize that some simple things like communicating beween subviews is not immediately apparent. I also got a few excellent tips from this blog to help me on my way:

<http://ricostacruz.com/backbone-patterns/>

The commercial application I built is almost complete, I will post a link to it within a few days.

If you follow my guide above, I am confident you would be as equipped as I was to build a serious Backbone.js application without any experience in Backbone.

All the best with your learning and developing.

</comment><comment><USER3> If the question here is _How to learn Backbone_ , my suggestion would be to take one of the to-do app examples and just build and hack on that until you develop the app you want. Try doing it with just built-in backbone functionality; don't override any of the defaults. Use hacking an already built-app to get a feel for the limitations of the framework, which in turn will show you some interesting (for me, at least, coming from MVC world) design patterns.

If the question here is _Where is a good Backbone tutorial_ , I encourage you to look at the tutorial on Backbone-Relational (which is a plugin for Backbone):

[http://antoviaque.org/docs/tutorials/backbone-relational- tut...](http://antoviaque.org/docs/tutorials/backbone-relational-tutorial/)

<comment><USER4> Yes! Coincidentally I was using that tutorial to learn backbone yesterday morning. I found it was a great all-round illustration of how everything ties together. One thing I found quite lacking in other tutorials was how you wire up your front-end backbone app to backend web services. This tutorial demonstrates how you do that very well.

<comment><USER3> Totally sympathize with that difficulty. If you have access to Safari Books Online, they have a really good chapter that also goes through the Backbone wiring-up process in their MongoDB book (which has a chapter about Backbone).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Backbone has some of the clearest, most self-explanatory source of any project I've ever worked on. Also, at around 1500 lines of commented code it's a quick read that you can take in all at once (and again later). Also, make sure to read the source in the master branch as well as the annotated docs from the website to keep you informed on the upcoming changes.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't read tutorials, guides, and docs, but you should concentrate most of your effort on taking in the source.

</comment><comment><USER6> Step by step from jQuery to Backbone

[https://github.com/kjbekkelund/writings/blob/master/publishe...](https://github.com/kjbekkelund/writings/blob/master/published/understanding- backbone.md/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Getting there! This is the most useful link so far! Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't believe no one has suggested Peepcode.

<https://peepcode.com/products/backbone-js> <https://peepcode.com/products/backbone-ii> <https://peepcode.com/products/backbone-iii>

It's not free, but you get way, _way_ more than what you pay for ($9 per screencast).

<comment><USER8> Maybe it's just me, but watching Peepcode screencasts puts me to sleep, even at 1.5x speed.

<comment><USER7> Hah, that might be due to Geoffrey's voice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can start with Addy Osmani's (Backbone fundamentals) <http://addyosmani.github.com/backbone-fundamentals/>

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks like a great page, bookmarked, will read in a few hours when I get up

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe have a look at Backbone.js: Hacker's Guide: <http://dailyjs.com/2012/08/16/mvstar-6/>

</comment><comment><USER11> Although this isn't a tutorial, but I thought it was worth mentioning. pragprog.com has released a screencast series on Backbone, by Derek Bailey, the creator of Backbone.Marionette and various other Backbone extensions. I've personally watched the series and gained lots of insight on Backbone thanks to it. (<http://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-dback/hands-on-backbone-js>)

</comment><comment><USER12> It isn't quite start to finish, but I've been enjoying Code School's Anatomy of Backbone.js: <http://www.codeschool.com/courses/anatomy-of-backbonejs>

(Really, in general, I'd highly recommend Code School. Likely too basic for most here, but great to pass along to that person you know just starting out or in the early intermediate stages.)

<comment><USER13> Agreed. I read a lot of tutorials, docs, and other info about Backbone. Code school was the first to help me "get it." Soon after walking through the first two chapters, I went and read the infamous annotated todo and everything made sense. Highly recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ton of good resources here: <http://backbonetraining.net/resources>

As for the todo example, I found it a bit convoluted, so I tried to create a minimal backbone app here:

[https://github.com/backlift/backlift- templates/tree/master/m...](https://github.com/backlift/backlift- templates/tree/master/minimal)

</comment><comment><USER15> Also have a goal in mind. It's probably easier if you want to build X with backbone rather than learn backbone then try and build something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I have a very specific goal in mind of what to build, friends are telling me it's perfect for Backbone which is what led me here

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Make composed views, paginated collections, filtering forms, and the like. Although there are now opinionated plugins for these setups, I found that building them myself helped me develop a sense of how to structure views in order to avoid complexity and ambiguity.

The Backbone Docs and it's listed examples are really the best resource out there.

</comment><comment><USER17> The best way to learn something is to use it.

<comment><USER18> Yep. I was baffled by backbone tutorials before I actually sat down and decided to get stuck in and try something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> You can get a good resource collection here: <http://backbonetraining.net/resources>

</comment><comment><USER20> Highjacking the conversation, but can anyone recommend good Backbone or modern JS training in London / south-east England?

<comment><USER21> There is an upcoming AngularJS meetup in London

<http://www.meetup.com/AngularJS-London/events/78531572/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I found this online book about Backbone and Coffeescript really useful <http://www.scriptybooks.com/books/backbone-coffeescript>

</comment><comment><USER23> Look at and read the annotated source, every now and again

</comment><comment><USER24> For me, this was the tutorial that finally locked it in: codebyexample.info/2012/03/06/backbone-baby-steps/</comment>


Feedback Requested: Superlatives, a Facebook App - How can we make this better? - <AUTHOR> http://www.esgut.com Who's Most Likely To Burn in Hell? Get Arrested for Streaking? We'd like your opinion on how Superlatives could be a better app and any other suggestions you may have. Thanks guys.
<comment><USER2> some misc stuff...

-Implement network-based functionality right now ("your networks", or actually "within <your network name>", should be one of the tabs at the top, between "your friends" and "across facebook")

-One of the links from the profile page, 'burn in hell' is broken (leads to <http://apps.facebook.com/Superlative/>)

-Your icons are both important and problematic. I think it's a good idea to have icons for each superlative, especially if they are as sweet as the "badass for life" one. However, but some of them are bad -- the "streaking" one looks like a turtle. I would say concentrate on fewer suggested superlatives with better icons. Make icons for very popular user-generated superlatives (should you be so lucky as to have that many users). Don't suggest any superlatives unless you have a icon for them (no more orange stars).

-Similarly, some of your suggested superlatives are (imho) lame (I'm looking at you, "Most Likely To Think Music is the Most Beautiful Thing in the World"). Grab some friends and ask them to pick the x superlatives that they would use most on the list. I actually think this is really important -- I think your target audience is under 22 and will bolt at the first sign of lameness.

-The "Make me the happiest person ever" superlative goes contrary to the aim of your app, afaict. It sounds explicitly designed for lovebirds, and each nomination will get exactly one vote. Ditch it. Nobody will install your app to make the equivalent of a wall post.

gl! (edit: formatting.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Shawn, thanks for your detailed feedback, we believe you're dead on about the points you discussed. We're making changes now. Thanks again - Jamal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Funny idea. I think it could catch on with the younger generation. For me ,personally, I wouldn't dare put this on my profile :) But I guess I'm not your target user.</comment>


Debunking the Duct Tape Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/debunking-the-duct-tape-programmer/ <comment><USER2> Joel Spolsky, like all frequent writers, can be full of a great deal of hot air but the case study in his piece is 'a guy who was instrumental in writing and _shipping_ the first widely usable web browser'. The 'debunking' is supported by someone's comment on twitter and a reference to a guy who writes books rather than software. Spolsky might have oversimplified, glossed intricacies over but you're hardly going to refute his point by oversimplifying further, digging through your tweets or summoning the persuasive power of a popular methodology to your aid. Because, you know, the other guy wrote Netscape.

<comment><USER3> Kent Beck and Robert C. Martin are both programmers. They don't just "write books rather than software" so their input is valuable. On the other hand, this blog post was written by by someone employed by a software consultancy company that prides itself from their Agile practices. So I can hardly blame him for defending his employer's practices.

<comment><USER4> The article includes a quote "never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman", and I think the same entertaining aphorism holds true for methodology consultants.

Both have too much invested in you listening to their advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It'd be easy to take this post seriously if the author's resume talked about shipping product, as opposed to 2 paragraphs of methodology and certifications and passing mentions to two not-very-good open source ASP.NET projects ("CodeCampServer", featured in his bio, is hosted at Google Code).

<comment><USER6> This is an ad-hominem argument. Consider his arguments for their merits. Not because you don't feel he has a good enough resume.

<comment><USER5> I know you read about Ad Hominem Arguments on several Important Internet Web Guides To Arguing, but in the real world the credibility and authority of an author does bear on their persuasive power.

If Michael Arrington, Steve Ballmer, or Ashton Kutcher wrote an article about "duct tape programming", you'd have no trouble recognizing the dissonance. You only have trouble with it here because it hits close to home: you don't yourself want to be disqualified from the discussion. Which, nobody is going to do that, so relax.

Besides, fully expecting at least 2 HN'ers to jump out from the bushes shouting "ad hominem!", I made some effort to keep my criticism relevant: it's not that he hasn't shipped real product, it's that he has a bio that makes it clear (to me) that he doesn't think shipping is as important as methodology.

<comment><USER7> While you guys sort out whether the source of information _should_ matter vs _does_ it matter to us humans, it should be pointed out that the article itself endorses a quote which hits out against Spolsky for being a "bug tracking system salesman".

Although, I'm writing enterprise code in MS technologies all day long so I'm clearly not to be trusted.

<comment><USER5> But that quote was, at least, funny!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This type of "programmer" makes me want to jump off of a bridge. The guy gives the acronym for standard operating procedure in the last paragraph of his post. Acronyms are for efficiency, but apparently this guy is using them to try to look smart. Also, the fixation with software development methodologies is very telling. How often do you hear master writers talk about the 5 paragraph essay? I know I'm being a bit harsh, but it's programmers like this that kill programming as a craft.

I think I'll take the word of Peter Norvig on this one: "One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub."

<http://norvig.com/21-days.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> I think he's actually agreeing with Joel, but he's just decided to ignore blatant conditionals in the original article.

For example, claiming that "misapplying duct tape solutions in serious software development [ends up] creating unnecessary additional complexity" is in no way antithetical to Joel.

And inserting stuff like "i've said it before, @jbogard : never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman" has zero shock value anymore and hardly makes readers sympathetic to your argument.

<comment><USER10> > inserting stuff like "i've said it before, @jbogard : never take software > advice from a bug tracking system salesman" has zero shock value anymore and > hardly makes readers sympathetic to your argument

Yeah, much better to take advice from people parroting methodology consultants. :) [Beck et al]

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> While Joel writes for "hits", I honestly think he also believes in the DTP. I mean, they write in a custom language which compiles to a lot of other languages.

For many shops, DTP is VERY important. For other shops, it's a very bad idea. For my company, DTP is good for some products, but not for others.

Like all tools, it's important to use it when it is the right tool for the job. Joel unfortunately did not specify when that is.

</comment><comment><USER12> Oh god. When will it end?

<comment><USER7> The meta-discussions and navel gazing? Never.

As an aside-- do you think Accountants sit on forums and blogs all day and say "there are two kinds of Accountants in the world..." or is this something unique to software people?

<comment><USER13> _do you think Accountants sit on forums and blogs all day and say "there are two kinds of Accountants in the world..." or is this something unique to software people?_

I think almost every profession gets together and starts a conversation "There are two kinds of ___ in the world," however nearly all of the others are introducing a self-deprecating joke whereas programmers seem oblivious to the ridiculousness of trying to classify such complex activities, teams, and people on such simple lines with so few discriminants.

<comment><USER14> A programmer's primary job is the act of classification. Encoding a range of behaviors into functions/methods/objects in a way that we can keep track of and use over and over is what we do. So it's not too surprising that in our profession the notion of every idea having a "correct" box to fit into is so pervasive.

<comment><USER7> It's an interesting point you make.

You think we'd learn from the Google example where they came in and blew away the guys trying to create a massive ontology of the web (Yahoo).

ref: <http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html>

<comment><USER15> Good article.

A good example of the ontology problem is the Venn diagram. Unspoken in every Venn diagram is the white space that stretches as far as the eye can see. That's the world that isn't categorized yet. Anything could lurk out there.

The more Venn circles you draw, the harder it is to introduce new territories that intersect with all the territories they need to. Along comes the purple Malaysian wolfhound with an eyepatch and the scheme falls apart.

And that's with true/false categories. What authority can decide what's music and what isn't?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GiftPush: Send promotional gifts to your customers with a tweet - <AUTHOR> http://www.giftpush.com/

<comment><USER2> I love this concept. For a while, I've thought about a solution to reward customers or users - for instance, people who report bugs - without the need for having access to their personal information.

This might make that a lot less painful.

By the way, as a Windows user, the image link buttons remind me of the Close Window button. Maybe you could change the button background to green instead and fix the worst part that way. It's the `background` rule in `hows .how .screen .in a div`.

You also need a newsletter, RSS and/or Twitter feed. I probably won't remember you in 24 hours, so I need something to remind me, when you roll out the final service.

<comment><USER3> According to the last screenshot on the page (Gift Dashboard), the person who is paying for the gift still gets to see the address of the receiver.

<comment><USER2> So it seems. So the selling point is actually ease, not privacy. I guess it's not that interesting to me after all. But it obviously still has its applications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would definitely use this. I especially like the idea of having an API. I'm really interested to see pricing details.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool. I could use this. Gifts are cheap advertising. I signed up for my app, selfcompete.com</comment>


DHS Goes Biometric, Says Travelers Can Opt Out of Face Scans by Not Traveling - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170713/07133237778/dhs-goes-biometric-says-travelers-can-opt-out-face-scans-not-traveling.shtml <comment><USER2> American bioethicist Jacob M. Appel has argued that "treating human beings differently, simply because they were born on the opposite side of a national boundary," is inherently unethical. According to Appel, such "birthrights" are only defensible if they serve "useful and meaningful social purposes" (such as inheritance rights, which encourage mothers and fathers to work and save for their children), but the "birthright of nationality" does not do so. Economist and writer Philippe Legrain argues that the countries of the world need migration to help global trade and reduce the occurrence of regional wars.

Open borders cannot be dismissed as a utopian idea, argues Harald Bauder, because they do not propose an alternative way to organize human society but rather are a critique of closed or controlled borders.

Restrictions on mobility can only be justified if it can be shown that those restrictions prevent significant harm. Since research indicates that open borders will be better for both the natives and the migrants, and at the very least have not been shown to cause major harm, those restrictions are unjustified.

Free migration is the most effective way to reduce world poverty. Migrants from developing countries can earn higher wages after moving to a more developed country, usually lifting them from 'developing world poverty' to 'developed world poverty'. They also send remittances to relatives in their home country, the flow of remittances being estimated to be around three times the global foreign aid spending reported by the OECD.

A literature summary by economist Michael Clemens leads to an estimate that open borders would result in an increase of 67-147% in GWP (gross world product), with a median estimate of a doubling of world GDP.

From a human rights perspective, free migration may be seen to complement Article 13 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

<comment><USER3> What would prevent a tragedy of the commons-like effect where en-masse people migrate from one place to a new one, deplete it, move to new pasture, deplete, move to new pasture, asf?

When you sleep in the same place you shit you take care of it better, or suffer the consequences of squalor. Regulation against pollution, water quality, land use, acceptable norms, etc.

With open systems, no longer the state but but corporate entities would weild power. I'm not sure that is a well thought out argument. Nevermind that this would lead to a coalescing toward culture of China and the West dominating everywhere. Not generally what progressives seek as an endgame.

Moreover, the trend is to split further. See Pakistan, India Bangladesh. They used to be one country but split. Costa Rica, panama, Mexico used to be one place, but split up, former USSR split up. They want to self agglomerate, go ahead. Do it, you share culture, values, language, but instead they split up.

The proposal would result in a different kind if colonialism not too dissimilar from the Dutch east India co where corporate entities wielded enormous power but this would be worldwide.

<comment><USER4> In the modern world migrants tend to enhance, not deplete, an area.

Your model works best for agricultural societies with no land ownership. I'm not sure how many historical examples we have of that.

In general, in the modern world, population density tends to increase economic activity and have a growth effect on GDP.

In the modern world borders also prevent competition for citizens by different social and political structures. Most tyrants and despots might be completely defanged by the loss of their populace to more just and humane regions.

It is possible open borders could create a "market system" for the greatest resource in the world: human capital. Which I guess could theoretically render war obsolete.

<comment><USER3> "In the modern world migrants tend to enhance, not deplete, an area."

You realize that's the result of controlled migration, not uncontrolled migration.

But your proposal sounds like a paradox. On the one hand you have no borders but on the other hand someone is enforcing "state actor" laws. Without borders corporations become the de facto government.

Why pay Japanese auto workers 1800 yen an hour when I can just put a factory in the middle of the Indian countryside and pay 120 rupees? But instead of just autos, do that for everything!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the end-game of the war on terror? What victory condition do we need to achieve to get terrorists to stop attempting massacres, so we can unwind these security measures?

<comment><USER6> Oh, that's the beauty of it all.

There is no end. No end to the war, and thus no end to the profitability of the U.S.'s contracted armament/defense manufacturers. And no end to the citizens' willingness to trade away their essential freedoms for a feeling of safety.

<comment><USER7> I probably will never visit USA. I am only worried as this might set a precedent for others and contribute to the pro-surveillance governments round the globe. Can't Trump be tricked into disapproving this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With Global Entry and Precheck (which required partial fingerprinting), I mostly avoid the hassles of the US security theater. However, I'm looking at greatly increasing international flights (mostly in and out of the USA), and this is a ridiculous invasion.

With the advent of Clear (the retina-based alternative to Precheck, seemingly a harbinger of this DHS decision), I wonder how long until most of the frequent travelers _willing_ submit all of their biometrics for a smoother and simpler travel experience.

<comment><USER9> While I have GE (I would have a Clear if I flew more) my intelligence still feels insulted every time I travel. I pay a fee to the TSA every time I travel. I paid again to get the GE which is because the fee they charge me apparently doesn't cover an adequate number of screeners to ensure a quick trip through security. All this hassle and expense and I am pretty sure that they are unable to perform their job.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/new-tsa-chief-vows- im...](http://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/new-tsa-chief-vows- improve-96-failure-rate-weapons-detection-n401011)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This happened to us in mid May 2017 coming back from Germany to Philadelphia. Lock step herded in snake lined queue, camera kiosks posted as confused passengers deciphered touch screen directives to scan their passports and stand for a photo. Each machine had what appeared to be cat5 cable and power routed to the wall. After what appeared to be a cheap thermal printout of your mug shot, passengers were instructed to take it to a human agent for further processing. The most interesting aspect of this was the big sign of NO cameras or smartphones allowed despite it being quite easy to see passport information from adjacent stations. I assumed this was the new National ID effort to put an end to any enemies of the State. After all this, there was the CBP agricultural inspection and a security check all this from direct debarcation. Basically you are trapped and there is no way of escape from these processings. Welcome to the new State.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's nice to see other government agencies doing their part for the environment as the US withdraw from the climate accords. In this case we have the DHS making a valiant effort to reduce international flights. /s

</comment><comment><USER12> This would get resolved quickly if face recognition were democratized: Is the public official ordering you around a known asshole? What's his Yelp rating? Suddenly, privacy would become a thing.

<comment><USER13> Funny how things don't seem to work that way. What with police officers arresting people who film them. Somehow privacy has become a privege.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The worst part for me in that the DHS likely spent billions of dollars on this solution that is likely riddled with software and hardware bugs and will ultimately catch less then a dozen petty criminals in its lifespan. Meanwhile the raw data on innocent citizens will be harvested and at best analyzed and stored indefinitely by the NSA and similar agencies, at worst it will be sold to the highest bidder - and then shortly after to any bidder.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's what they didn't say...

DHS shares all data with other groups. If those groups don't erase them then, well... they at least can say they delete them.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why do they want to store the image at all?

Compare against the stored values and discard the captured image. That should be enough.

<comment><USER16> > Why do they want to store the image at all?

If the scanners are upgraded to 3D (likely at some point), it'll make for a good source of model data for future fabrication efforts.

Along the lines of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14786863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14786863)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a foreign observer, to me USA are shooting themselves in the foot.

What made USA great in the first place is now being relentlessly attacked by the USA itself. That's how it seems to me as a non-expert.

</comment><comment><USER13> I suppose we can all opt out of the surveillance state by not staying alive?

<comment><USER18> Zoom, bang! Straight to the endgame!</comment></comment>


Real-Time Shared Editing - Google Tech Talk - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfeUCT-tRJQ Three weeks ago I gave a talk at Google on my real-time shared editing project, which in its first incarnation materializes as a set of eclipse plug-ins.
A couple of posts on Google's Open Source blog and my blog respectively provide a little more insight concerning the event at which I presented the algorithmic details for the first time. http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/06/eclipseday-at-googleplex.html http://codesurgeonblog.com/2008/05/eclipseday-hosted-by-google-attendee.html
If you don't care too much for the inner workings but would rather like to see the shared editing in action, I have put together a screencast, available via http://www.vimeo.com/1195398 <comment><AUTHOR> Three weeks ago I gave a talk at Google on my real-time shared editing project, which in its first incarnation materializes as a set of eclipse plug- ins.

A couple of posts on Google's Open Source blog and my blog respectively provide a little more insight concerning the event at which I presented the algorithmic details for the first time. [http://google- opensource.blogspot.com/2008/06/eclipseday-at-...](http://google- opensource.blogspot.com/2008/06/eclipseday-at-googleplex.html) [http://codesurgeonblog.com/2008/05/eclipseday-hosted-by- goog...](http://codesurgeonblog.com/2008/05/eclipseday-hosted-by-google- attendee.html)

If you don't care too much for the inner workings but would rather like to see the shared editing in action, I have put together a screencast, available via <http://www.vimeo.com/1195398></comment>


Sellfy found way how to sell files - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/03/09/sellfy-lets-you-sell-your-digital-goods-through-twitter-and-facebook/ <comment><USER2> Interface looks nice and the innovation here is deep links into social networks.

Many of us have been selling digital files for a while. I originally came here to post how expensive 5% seemed, but after looking into it, it's not a bad deal at all.

Here's my setup: <http://www.bengarvey.com/2011/04/27/my-e-commerce-stack/>

My eproduct ( <http://kidsdungeonadventure.com> ) sells for $5.99 and I pay a flat $5/month for most of the functionality provided by Sellify. 5% of $5.99 is $0.2995. My break even point between the services is 16.7 sales per month. The other great thing about sellify is that with no other fees, you can safely run it alongside with whatever setup you currently have.

Overall, I am definitely better off with the flat rate, but the appeal of a no-cost plan is pretty enticing to newcomers.

Still, it's way better than Amazon, scribd, or other services I looked into a year ago. Glad to see some more competition in this space.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your comment! In future we will plan to introduce some additional plans for established sellers as well.

<comment><USER2> I don't think you need special plans for established sellers. Here's what would get me on board: Convince me that your social hooks can sell more for me or lower fees at various levels (ie. drop to 4% after 50 sales in a month)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Incentivizing people via money discounts to share via social networks is in direct violation to their the terms of services. It's very obvious why they don't want this kind of spam and they all enforce this hard. They will be shut down.

</comment><comment><USER5> Has anyone had success selling e-goods with this service or similar services? And how do they stop people from selling things they have not created?

<comment><USER2> Can't ever prevent it.

Treat your customers with respect, put a human face on the product, and remind yourself that your overhead is so small you don't need to worry about it.

<comment><USER6> ok, what if one customer is emailing me all angry and cursing he claims that another is stealing his work? which one do I respect more? and which one do I believe if both telling me "its my work".

<comment><USER2> I don't understand the question. This is about you selling digital goods that you created. Why would your customers argue?

<comment><USER7> As I understand the question it is about a person who finds their work being sold through Sellfy without their permission.

<comment><USER8> No, it's a guy who wants to start a service LIKE this one talking about what happens as a customer support issue when somebody claims someone else is selling their IP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another gumroad clone? Although this appears to have more fancy features, also instant payment, the embed buttons look great too.

</comment><comment><USER10> How do they ensure that PayPal do not do chargebacks, as they do with other electronic goods, once the buyer has recevied it?

<comment><USER11> That is something that really sucks with digital good selling with Paypal as the payment gateway. They get my digital goods and then chargebacks or claims a refund. I don't want to get in with irritants, so I refund them but they get the download.

<comment><USER12> Has this been an actual problem for you?

I decided to skip the chargeback shenanigans by offering my customers a no- questions-asked money back policy. So far, less than 1% of my customers have asked for a refund. I suspect that those who want to get my product for free will simply torrent it rather than weasel around with chargebacks/refunds.

<comment><USER11> Well, it's less about the money and more about the irritating attitude. Yes, I just refund them and find it to be easier to deal with than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So I have to make a "secret" link on my website (or use a "private" link on SoundCloud etc.) right? And Sellify just sells the URL?

<comment><USER9> I just tried it out and no, they host it. You upload a file, set a price and then when the payment is made the customer is given a download link (with a 5 download limit).

<comment><USER14> That seems surprisingly reasonable.

<comment><USER8> Pretty much all of the digital goods sales platforms work this way. This is nothing new. Please don't credit them with inventing it. This technique has been around for literally a decade or more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Oh great. Now half the links on Twitter and Facebook will be spam for useless digital crap.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Guys I from my experience I created <http://indriks.com/io> in 2hours using sellfy. But of course you can use other tools such as shopify or whatever but that is more complicated.

<comment><USER16> I go to that page and see a bird in the background and some social widgets. Is there supposed to be more?

<comment><USER9> He typoed, he forgot the s on the end:

<http://indriks.com/ios>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So did megaUpload

</comment><comment><USER8> Tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of people have been selling digital files for years and years and years. Ever heard of Clickbank? No? Well that's because you're not doing enough research.

The moderately interesting part is the social aspect but considering how many times a person has to be exposed to a thing before they actually buy it, I doubt it will make that much of a difference.

If you're serious about selling digital goods, I'd really look into a different platform. You want something solid that's been around the block for a while, when you're talking about creating a new business based on it. You want more than a couple glossy social gimmicks.

(Note: I do NOT recommend ClickBank, for the skeeve factor. They are a totally legit, well-behaved business, but they LOOK too skeevy for YOUR customers to interact with. There are more modern, classy alternatives.)

FWIW I have sold probably around $200k of digital goods in my career so far. I know whereof I speak.

<comment><USER18> For others who are wondering what you _should_ use, just Google 'Amy Hoy selling digital goods' (;

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sellfy provides a platform that is allowing for a further integration of digital content into the social networks. This is the future direction of publishing. Eventually, the models of distribution & access to information will be further changed from what we have currently known. Authors will be much more greatly empowered as will end users (the readers) who will have a greater access to information as the future is reshaped by entrepreneurs.</comment>


Turkish Lira Rates Blow Out to 1000% After Currency Intervention - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-04/turkish-lira-rates-blow-out-to-1000-after-currency-intervention <comment><USER2> The Turkish Lira experienced runaway inflation in the period 1990-2005; in 1990, one USD = 2500 TL. In 2005, one USD = 1,350,000 TL. A loaf of bread cost 200,000 TL or so.

Erdogan became PM in 2003; in 2005 the Turkish government introduced the "new Turkish Lira" ("YTL") by dividing the currency by 1,000,000.

Around the same time, Erdogan invested heavily in infrastructure projects, boosting the lira.

IMO, this is how he largely rose to populist power -- the economy grew for a short while, and he solidified his base early on.

But since then he's continually blocked the central bank from adjusting rates, presumably to maintain the appearance of a strong economy. This once again caused an inflationary economy.

Now those chickens are coming home to roost. The Turkish lira has been falling steadily against the dollar, and this seems like a move on Erdogan's part to continue the farce and maintain appearances of a strong economy.

He's very scared of the economy being weak, because that was his original source of power with the populace.

This is only an armchair analysis. Take it with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER3> It is only armchair analysis. But my arm chair has better overall texture and victorian motives and comes with a tea table carrying a huge pile of salt.

If you take a look at GDP graphs of eastern europe, russia and the middle east, you will see that every GDP in the region rose dramatically over the period of a few years in the early 2000s. This increase in GDP in the region was not caused by turkey's investment in infrastructure, it was caused by foreign investors (mainly by the US and major players in Europe) trying to bolster their own economy by supporting emerging markets. And it worked. Turkey's istanbul stock market went from 20K to 70K points and foreign investors made a lot of money. There was a period where USD and EUR were on par with the YTL.

When the hot credit finished, Turkey started experiencing inflation again, because not enough of the money was spent on infrastructure.

It was partially spent on better healthcare and education, which won the popular vote for a second time. At this point, government was running on fumes, domestic debt went rampant.

Authoritarianism, nepotism, militarism, conservatism, religiosity, nationalism and xenophobia worked part of the way to support this sort of economy. Seeing success in its ways, and still having some popular support, the government parted ways with its next leader and changed the law to get its leader elected a third time.

At this point there were enough dissenting voices that the mayorship of istanbul was lost in an election. Government forced another election and lost again.

Where are we now? We are at a point where whoever wins, the whole population will lose. Not that different than the 90s, but at least we've got iphones and macbooks.

<comment><USER4> > _started experiencing inflation again, because not enough of the money was > spent on infrastructure_

I don't get it. Why would more infrastructure spending protect against inflation?

<comment><USER2> Investing in an economy increases production. If productivity increases, but currency circulation remains the same (or at least doesn't outpace productivity), the value of the currency will increase. This is only one of the various modes of inflation, but that's the idea w.r.t infrastructure spending.

<comment><USER5> I follow up until the last sentence. If the value of the currency increases, then that's _deflation_. So you explained reasonably lucidly why we should expect what I guess we agree didn't happen.

<comment><USER2> I was describing deflation on purpose, because deflation [is supposed to] happens after solid infrastructure investment.

My last sentence was misleading because I said "this is one of the various modes of inflation", but what I really meant was "this is one of the various modes of an inflationary/deflationary economy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I'm reading this correctly, the rate in question is an _overnight_ rate, but quoted _annually_. A better way of looking at it is probably the overnight premium -- which looks like it's somewhere around a 1% cost to borrow money today to be paid back tomorrow.

EDIT: And this is specifically in the _offshore_ market. The article doesn't mention high interest rates for _Turkish_ banks to borrow Lira. This sounds like more of a matter of currency controls and market manipulation rather than an indicator of a currency collapse or the return of hyperinflation.

<comment><USER7> Interest rates are almost always quoted in the annualized rate (eg. APR)

<comment><USER6> Sure, but that's not necessarily a useful way of looking at the overnight rate in this case. Annualized interest rates are useful when you're looking at the _value_ of an investment changing over time; but in this case the _nature_ of the investment is changing -- because the critical property "can be delivered to close a contract today" is satisfied by today-lira but is not satisfied by tomorrow-lira.

<comment><USER8> Uh, all interest rates are quoted annualised, thats to make them directly comparable... to get the notional change just divide it by (365/tenor). Your other points are flatly nonsensical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The exchange rate during the past 12 months is shown here, [https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=TRY&to=USD&view=1Y](https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=TRY&to=USD&view=1Y)

and doesn't look as bad as the headline.

<comment><USER10> Back to roughly where the TRYUSD pair was in August 2018.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Governments, businesses, and households in emerging/developing economies have been borrowing like drunken sailors since 2010. It's well documented. For instance, in late 2019, right before the economic shock of the pandemic, a team of academics at the World Bank published a comprehensive study of debt issuance by governments, businesses, and households around the world, titled "Global Waves of Debt" (available at [https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/waves- of-d...](https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/waves-of-debt)). Let me quote their key findings:

* "The global economy has experienced four waves of debt accumulation over the past fifty years."

* "The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging and developing economies."

* "The latest, since 2010, has already witnessed the largest, fastest and most broad-based increase in debt in these economies."

* "Debt distress... [is] more likely."

The pandemic has inflicted the largest economic shock in half a century to emerging-economy governments, businesses, and households that had borrowed the most ever in proportion to GDP prior to the pandemic. Turkey, I'm afraid, may be only the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

</comment><comment><USER12> Thanks to Erdogan and his actions, Turkish Lira hasn't been any weaker before. The gap will increase for sure.

<comment><USER13> Seems like everything Erdogan does is to ensure his future reelections but after a while he can't hide the truth. To be fair he's been in office for 17 years so his actions have helped his career but can't say the same for Turkish economy and its long term international relations.

<comment><USER14> I'm not so sure about Turkey taking any long term damage. All they need to do is elect a new leader who will ask for forgiveness. The Russians don't care at all, the US see more than enough military value in Turkey to not care, and the EU does not believe in punishment as a deterrence ergo they will quickly switch back to business as usual as well and help by pumping in money. What remains? A successful territorial expansion, an economic boom with others footing the bill in the end. I'm sure they can imagine worse outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this related to the explosion in Lebanon?

<comment><USER16> How did you come to this question?

Turkey's Inflation and Lebanon Explosion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> And some people say Bitcoin is a scam because no government backs it! Yeeeeshhhhh</comment>


Conservatives purge old speeches from online archives - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24924185

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps of interest to those here involved with PR. Note the OA's potential misunderstanding of the role of the Internet Archive (I'm checking how they use the robots.txt files now).

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a little disturbing if this wasn't an accident, though not surprising sadly.</comment>


J. L. Austin: A return to common sense - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/j-l-austin-return-common-sense/ <comment><USER2> I think Austin would consider the "I take it that I'm sitting before a desk" in the second sentence of this article to smuggle in the offending suggestion right at the start. We say "I take it" when we have a general working assumption about things, likely based on second-hand evidence, and on topics about which we are not ourselves experts. On the Austinian view, scepticial doubts tend to rely on intimations like this one: that sitting right in front of something and looking at it is somehow just like hearing about something and then building out some unreflective inferences. And then no doubt it is hard to certify the chain of evidence. But why start there?

Anyway Austin is great, and funny too.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've long been an Austin fan -- "How To Do Things With Words" is dazzling.</comment>


Is China Outsmarting America in A.I.? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/technology/china-us-ai-artificial-intelligence.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Go is an Asian game. US company, Google, created AI to best player in world. Kind of sounds like the US or Google ahead in the AI space?</comment>


Google Releases Colaboratory - <AUTHOR> https://research.google.com/colaboratory/unregistered.html <comment><USER2> I know its free. This is begging, not ranting. For those of us who code/automate for our business and who are not data/ml scientists, can we PLEASE have real world examples and an abstraction layer or two so we can start using these tools as part of our workflows?

I have two classifiers running for my business with about 70% accuracy. Good enough for my purposes. So grateful to the bloggers kind enough to provide real world examples and sample code that helped me understand and apply this stuff to my business.

Anything that makes ML less of a walled garden is most appreciated.

<comment><USER3> Colaboratory is just a collaborative version of Jupyter/iPython, which is just a notebook-based editing environment. It's not specific to ML. Presumably, you can run just about any Python code in Colaboratory, such as these examples: [https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter/wiki/A-gallery-of- interes...](https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter/wiki/A-gallery-of-interesting- Jupyter-Notebooks), [http://nb.bianp.net/sort/views/](http://nb.bianp.net/sort/views/)

<comment><USER4> IPython is uppercase I. We don't charge $999 for IPython X :-)

<comment><USER5> Nobody would pay that price because IPython X doesn't have animoji.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While you're on the waiting list: [https://notebooks.azure.com/](https://notebooks.azure.com/)

Supports more than Python 2.7: [https://notebooks.azure.com/help/jupyter- notebooks/available...](https://notebooks.azure.com/help/jupyter- notebooks/available-kernels)

(disclaimer: work for Microsoft (though not Azure)).

<comment><USER7> I really like the Azure notebooks, and its hard to see what extra Google are bringing here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The implications of this for education are huge! I've often wanted a way to write and share tutorials in Python.

If anyone else has access already, here's a tutorial I wrote on generating L-system fractals:

[https://colab.research.google.com/notebook#fileId=1pftvKmXYN...](https://colab.research.google.com/notebook#fileId=1pftvKmXYNtAd6FTdfFNkZRuOoyAp3ZL_)

(This is the first time I've used colab outside of Google so let me know if it doesn't work!)

<comment><USER9> You have head of Jupyter Notebook / Jupyter hub, right?

<comment><USER10> Those don't have Google docs style collaborative editting.

<comment><USER4> Well actually... [https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-google- drive](https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-google-drive)

<comment><USER11> This is not new. Check: [https://github.com/jupyter/colaboratory](https://github.com/jupyter/colaboratory)

Colab is the "mature" verison of Jupyter Colaboratory, which was previously only used internally at Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The VM used for Colaboratory appears to have 13GB RAM and 2 vCPU when checking using psutil (so a n1-highmem-2 instance). Not bad for a free product.

However, the VM uses Python 2.7. (Per the FAQ, Python 3 support has no ETA)

<comment><USER13> What's wrong with Python 2.7? (real question, not flamebait)

<comment><USER12> See similar thread made yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15647727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15647727)

<comment><USER13> That didn't say anything about what's wrong with 2.7

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We use Colaboratory internally and it's wonderful. It especially makes teaching and learning ML quite a bit easier. :)

I'm excited to see others getting access to this tool.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wikimedia PAWS is similar, from what I gather.

[https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/PAWS](https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/PAWS)

I don't think it's a production service, but I've talked to a couple of people involved and it sounds like it's getting a good response when it's been introduced in educational environments.

</comment><comment><USER16> As u/halflings pointed out, the current version of Colaboratory offered was spun off some time ago (3+ years ago?) from this jupyter-associated repo: [https://github.com/jupyter/colaboratory](https://github.com/jupyter/colaboratory)

In another begging-not-ranting, I was surprised that Colaboratory currently only supports 2.7x. It looks like it began around 2014. IIRC most of Google's projects were 2.x upon public release (Tensorflow, the API client) but have since ported over. Jupyter notebooks and iPython, too. Anything particular about Colaboratory that makes a 3.x-port a time-intensive feature, or just something that was not needed during internal development?

(Asking as a casual Jupyter user with no knowledge about what code/features is specifically 2.x bound)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is huge! This is now the easiest way to show someone how powerful Jupyter Notebook is for data analysis.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is pretty cool! I know it's new and all, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself when saying that it would be nice if it supported other languages aside from Python. I know that iPython supports Ruby, Perl and Javascript, and there's a plugin for Julia, but it doesn't appear to be supported right now. I am still on the waiting list to play around with this however.

Also, integration with Google docs for the purposes of data processing and data handling would be incredible! But that's just me dreaming.

</comment><comment><USER19> Anyone know if we can beg/pay our way into a GPU backed instance?

</comment><comment> alex- Looks like it defaults to providing a python2 2.7.12 environment.

I don't see anyway of selecting python3, any one found the option? Or are they only supporting Python2?

<comment> alex- Looks like it is in the works

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46941308/python-3-suppor...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46941308/python-3-support- in-googles-colab)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Microsoft release Azure Notebooks. It works and it's available now. (I'm not MS assoc).

</comment><comment><USER21> IBM kinda has similar service called "Data Science Experience" and it's more than just a Jupyter environment.

[https://datascience.ibm.com/](https://datascience.ibm.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> A chrome-only jupyther notebook environment. Seriously? Did they put extra effort into making a browser agnostic html-app chrome only?

Just use Azures jupyter notebook environment if you need a no-setup in the cloud notebooks.

</comment><comment><USER23> I quite like the theme. Even though Anaconda 5 has finally upgraded Jupyter's look for me and I need Python 3, the visuals and look are... cute. I hope they get open sourced.

</comment><comment><USER24> nice. same as gryd ([https://gryd.us](https://gryd.us)) which is free for students and has a tight autograding integration + sharing etc. would like to see if colab will be maintained and expanded going forward or if this is it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Very old version of Tensorflow there (1.0). Even Azure Notebooks is more up to date (1.1).

</comment><comment><USER26> They still haven't said anything about the issues with Python 2.7?

</comment><comment><USER27> Doesn't work in Safari. Very disappointed.

<comment><USER28> Requires third-party cookies in Chrome. Also disappointed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> lol google and their releases with waitlists.

</comment><comment><USER30> The first thing I saw was:

      [ ] print 'Hello, Colaboratory!'

Ah, so this is apparently a Python 2 Jupyter notebook system. The lack of parentheses tells us so much about the service and the product's vision.</comment>


Could Earth's infrared emissions be a new renewable energy source? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/earth-infrared-emissions-renewable-energy/31101/

<comment><USER2> And this is better than photovoltaic solar panels because?

Everything in the article indicates that the power generated by both proposed methods is both negligible and difficult to achieve.

I'd rather they focus on improving something that's known to work rather than trying to resurrect technology that's been failing for 50 years.

<comment><USER3> Because it works at night. That's all I have ever heard...

<comment><USER2> I guess that is one valid point, assuming it can harvest more energy with day and night operation than solar panels during the day, which I doubt.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: VC insisting on early redemption event term - <AUTHOR> redacted the post <comment><USER2> There is a term of art in Silicon Valley called "market terms", which are things which are sufficiently well-understood, precedented, and facially not- screamingly-unfair that 2+ sophisticated adults could reasonably agree to them in a business dealing.

The term your investor has asked for is not a market term in seed rounds in Silicon Valley. I am understating for emphasis here. Seed stage investors typically accept the risk of the company blowing up; that's why they get to invest for cheap. There is no market term by which an investor gets to claw back seed funding.

Whether this is relevant to you in Europe is tougher to say. After all, you don't necessarily have the pick of every investor in the world to do business with. But if you have the pick of at least one other investor, I'd strongly consider going with another investor over accepting a deal with this term of it.

 _walking away is almost not an option given we had such a hard time with our fundraising_

Oof.

So you have something they want (equity in a company) and they have something you need (cash money). If you don't want their investment on these terms (and you don't), counterpropose something else. A first counterproposal is simply "We like the deal outlined in the term sheet, but aren't amenable to these targets. Strike them and we'll execute" and see where life takes you from there.

If they push back hard, then you're back to the negotiating table. (Which you shouldn't be, because you have a term sheet, but there are term sheets and there are term sheets.) What's the valuation at which they're happy taking risk commensurate with being a seed investor? If there is no valuation that they'll make a seed investment in, they're not a seed investor, and regardless of whether you think walking is an option or not you might have to consider walking.

A danger with non-market terms is that every investor you ever deal with forever is going to see that term and then either a) run out of the conversation with you, because it suggests that you're either struggling or a pushover or b) deal with you excessively aggressively, because you're either struggling or a pushover.

Another danger with accepting this term is that you're going to be dealing with this investor for the next 5 to 10 years of your life if everything goes well. Does this sticking you with this portend a healthy, mutually beneficial, cooperative relationship with this investor? I would suggest that it does not. Do you want this investor at the table when you e.g. have to go back to investors to organize a bridge round? When you need them to give a sliver back to secure a later investment? Heck, do you even want them at the table assuming you become an uncomplicated golden goose of a company, sure in the knowledge that they will not strangle you in attempting to extract their golden eggs?</comment>


Spam from Amazon SES (no way to report the issue) - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/sairam/3caa6f3ed64c5f42fbcf

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked at the FAQs of SES, there is no information on where to report the email to. All I could do is "Report Spam" on gmail.

</comment><comment><USER2> Why dont you just unsubscribe from the link in the email?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its not a valid link . it throws a 404</comment></comment>


Takeaways to Making $8,000 in a Month Teaching Watercolor Painting - <AUTHOR> http://blog.usefedora.com/post/110910479958/8-takeaways-to-making-8-000-in-a-month-teaching

<comment><USER2> Again, goes to show that content always be what will make or break your niche market.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by that?

<comment><USER3> yeah I don't understand the sentence s/he formed there personally.

<comment><USER4> He's saying that niche marketing is dependent on good content marketing, which is a fancy way of saying releasing free information to attract an audience.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should Black Techies Whitewash Their Resumes? - <AUTHOR> http://news.dice.com/2015/04/30/should-black-techies-whitewash-the-resume/

<comment><USER2> Fuck that. Do you want to mislead a racist into interviewing or hiring you?

Besides that, I'm really tired of the cancer that is the anticipation or expectation of racism.

I understand there are lots of examples of racism on a regionally wide scale, and that there are hotspots. For the localities suffering from racism: it's inexcusable, tragic that some are so far behind the 21st century and no doubt badly wanting of immediate remediation.

Absent some circumstance where this kind of conscious behavior modification is clearly required, why would anybody do this? It's disingenuous, dishonest and not a reflection of who you really are. Besides that, it frames the entire situation in this defensive "here comes the racism" posture that isn't healthy or likely to help anybody.

I truly believe the racism/sexism blinders are traps. That's not to say they don't exist but the existence of the concept sometimes itself harms the subject group. I completely understand that some people characterize others based upon origin, sex, belief system, or background. But so what? Those people lack the ability to reflect upon their own beliefs or have broken morals; neither of which makes them someone you'd want to befriend, work with or work for.

Wouldn't it be better to never show up for an interview because you weren't invited because you mentioned the NAACP, rather than have a bad experience at the interview?

Rather than believing in racism, believe in excellence and push yourself to excel. Any employer you'd want to work for will appreciate diversity in its staff, and they're not going to be looking for someone who's merely mediocre regardless of their race.</comment>


Show HN: This up votes itself - <AUTHOR> http://news.ycombinator.com/vote?for=3742902&dir=up&whence=%6e%65%77%65%73%74 <comment><USER2> This is why you shouldn't allow GET for performing actions. An image tag in an article could do the same thing (e: if it didn't check the referrer).

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone in the other thread pointed out it at least checked the referrer header.

<comment><USER3> That's not a good enough solution - there are decent reasons that a referrer header might be missing (some PC antivirus software strips out referrer headers for example). The only safe way to handle this is with a POST request protected by a CSRF token tied to a cookie.

<comment><USER4> GET with randomized ids and checking referrer should be good enough to keeps things simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Credits to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742742> (GreekOphion) for finding the bug.

<comment><USER5> Wow, your getting more votes than I did.

<comment><AUTHOR> "It's all about the execution", "Usability counts", "Ideas are worthless", yadda yadda... Joking aside, congrats on finding the bug. I would send you the karma if I could!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's amusing watching the vote count skyrocket upward as the curious click on it. It's getting more than a vote a second.

Side Note: I've always wondered why HN doesn't let you reneg on your upvote. I imagine this would have a good deal fewer votes if people could.

</comment><comment><USER7> This looks set to become the all-time #1-ranked submission soon. Compare it to other top-ranked submissions here: [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=+&sortb...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=+&sortby=points+desc)

[EDIT: corrected link. Thanks ma2rten!]

<comment><USER6> That list is clearly not comprehensive (For example, there were multiple Steve Jobs related submissions that got over 1000 points).

<comment><USER8> Yep, [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=+&sortb...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=+&sortby=points+desc)

EDIT: You are welcome. I am not sure this is comprehensive either, though. For one it will only include submissions with a space in the title, I think.

<comment><USER7> Still, much better than what I got with /over?points= ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> An interesting side effect may be to drive registrations, as it will appear to non logged-in users that they have to create an account before viewing the #1 item.

</comment><comment><USER10> The amount of people proposing POST as a solution, shows the need for this subject to be lifted. There are methods for auto-posting you know...

<comment><USER11> POST alone isn't sufficient. You need CSRF protection, too (which, in this case, would protect from same-site request forgery).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is officially the 2nd highest ranking post ever. [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=+&sortb...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=+&sortby=points+desc) (HN search is a bit delayed)

</comment><comment><USER12> If allowed to continue without intervention or a bug fix, this thread will stay at the top of HN forever.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting. It's almost like a view counter for the article

<comment><USER14> Yep, it was 130 as I read this comment. Going over 140 now. Click click click..

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> is OP a mod? how did he know what his postid would be before he submitted it? spraying [sequential] submissions all at once?

[edit]

<comment><USER16> IDs are sequential, you can predict them with ease. For example (without editing) I can tell you my comment ID (for this comment) will be: 3743005

(edit: nope, I was 3 off, you get the point though, apparently a lot of people are commenting at the moment, ha)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's how I did it. Took me about 3 attempts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A clever, temporary solution to this would be to change the link to downvote the article and watch it trickle back to zero. Do it, pg!

<comment><USER8> Genius plan, except that there is no downvote for submissions ...

<comment><USER18> I thought tere was a downvote for users with a high enough level of points.

<comment><USER17> Appears as though this may exist for comments only - not submissions. Though I wonder if a link would work just the same?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I saw the first one of these, I thought to myself that the front-page wouldn't be overwhelmed by these posts. The whole reason most of us are here is that it is a mature community. As the first post was enough to prove the point, why did OP post it again? (S)He apologize and give credit to "<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742742> (GreekOphion) for finding the bug", but why make the post at all? What good does it do? "I would send you the karma if I could!" just seems disingenuous.

<comment><USER7> zt: maturity has nothing to do with this. Hackers appreciate clever hacks, _especially_ those that are self-referential. That's all there is to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A slightly unrelated question: What's up with those non-votable non- commentable recruiting links that have been up on the front page recently? Was that another bug exploit?

<comment><USER19> YC funded companies can post such links. Most of them are also found at <http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bonus points for pointing out the bug, and not using it as a way to blast some rubbish marketing to the front page.

<comment><USER22> I can't help but wonder if someone discovered this before, and realised they'd need to put some sort of throttling in place to keep it under the radar…

(Maybe _that_ explains why so many TechCrunch articles make the front page?)

<comment><USER23> You can see what it's doing in the URL. You don't see that in other submission URLs.

<comment><USER24> You could send it to a link which is hooked to a script that swaps the links for one in ten views or what have you. The extra benefit of that approach is that you don't have to worry about getting the submission ID right when submitting. You can just edit it on your server retroactively.

Not that I'd ever be crazy enough try this for real of course.

EDIT: According to posts I've read the votes aren't valid if the referrer isn't Hacker News. So the only thing possible is what's on display.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I took care to click _comments_.

</comment><comment><USER26> I would have fixed my vote at least, but:

[http://news.ycombinator.com/vote?for=3742902&dir=down...](http://news.ycombinator.com/vote?for=3742902&dir=down&whence=newest)

"Can't make that vote."

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious as to whether this post will ever leave the front page. If it keeps getting points at an alarming rate, is there anything in the algorithm to eventually lower the ranking?

<comment><USER28> Moderators might take it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> so, we have 3 of these now ... on the front page ... I guess this is a side effect of the community not having anywhere to submit bugs to

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like it was removed from the front page by someone. Fun while it lasted...

</comment><comment><USER30> This could become the most voted up submission of all time.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder if this has been manipulated in the past.

<comment><USER32> I think I remember seeing a post just like this a couple of years ago, after which the bug was fixed. I wonder if there was a regression or if this is somehow different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is staying as #1 for a while.

</comment><comment><USER33> You can also secretly iframe it, always wondered if someone did it.

Also a good example of why you need to use POST for stuff like this :)

</comment><comment><USER34> I exploited this about 5 years ago. (I think it was called "Startup News" back then, though!)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27615>

I think you need to set "showdead" in your profile to see this. It got killed pretty quickly, but netted me ~150 karma which was amusingly nontrivial back then. And as a byproduct, I think I became the first "public member" to get a glimpse of Arc, which was closed-source at the time. I won't disclose how (since I haven't asked for permission to share the details) but it was pretty much one of the happiest days of my life, for some stupid reason. I was young and giddy and felt like I'd just won something special.

To give you an idea of how ancient this is, check out the id of the thread -- only #27,615. Man, time flies when you're watching a community grow, eh? It's like watching a child mature over years -- into an increasingly-annoying version of themselves while slowly getting fatter and fatter over the years, of course. (I kid, I kid.)

Bonus: I just now noticed that I'd gotten into a debate with Paul B in that thread. Hah. I was too cocky back then... I should have been listening and asking questions, not talking!

Man, I miss those days so much. I never knew how rare they were until they were gone. Like, my girlfriend (now wife) and I went on vacation, during which we prototyped and launched a whole webapp in Rails 1.0! Who does that? Not me, anymore -- At least, not until I lose my day job like a bad case of music. Makes me wonder if I still have my old "hey, I'm 18 and ignorant of my own flaws!" level of productivity...

====

EDIT: Oh, look. I have the attention of the majority of HN. Allow me to now exploit you:

To whomever has read upto here: you hereby implicitly agree my EULA, in which you swear to enjoy each of your scientific pursuits with intensity and to your fullest degree; and sometimes even to a dangerous degree, if the mood carries you thus. Additionally, you agree to never allow an employer, family member, or any other authority to break your intrinsic spirit; for they have no means of dominating your spirit except that which you subconsciously allow them. You shall be true to yourself and to your own principles, regardless of society (though in privacy). You shall hereby refuse to believe any scientific statement as "true", however benign, except those in which you alone have proven to yourself to be true, by your own hand and evidence. (Though it doesn't hurt to check out what other people have to say on the subject, from time to time; in fact, it turns out to often be a more valuable course of action, for the careful analysis of a close friend can often reveal subtle flaws in your process and in your logic, while occasionally forcing you to re- evaluate your core reasoning for choosing that process in the first place, which _always_ leads to the path of learning and thus improvement and satisfaction.) You agree to eventually die with no regrets. Let no one impose themselves upon your judgement without merit. You shall endeavor to enjoy life to the fullest extent of the law (where applicable), and to realize that money is merely a means, not an end unto itself. In your spare time, you shall research that which is impossible, but intriguing, in order to always have something to strive for, thereby improving your skill and your spirit. You shall follow your curiosity wherever it leads (but keep both eyes open for signs of danger).

Most importantly: thou shalt enjoy every week, else thou shalt fix your life's situation regardless of how immutable it may seem.

Go -- build something out of passion. Right now!

<comment><USER35> > Bonus: I just noticed I'd gotten into a debate with Paul B in that thread. > Hah. I was too cocky back then... I should have been listening, not talking!

OT but funny story: back when I was first getting into programming heavily (I had dabbled for about 4 years, but wasn't particularly good), I started learning perl, and got into a flame war on freenode with some random guy I had never seen on before (in the three times I had visited). It was weird - everybody sided with him, so strongly that I was really confused. His username was strange, too - something about "toady".

Yup, I, a perl programmer of 2 weeks, got into a flame war with Larry Wall. Didn't realize it for years, until I saw his IRC nick mentioned somewhere else. Ouch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER37> lawl

</comment><comment><USER38> You are ruining the sanctity of karma.

Edit: Lotsa serious folks on tonight.

</comment><comment><USER39> I wouldn't usually do this but.. _so brave_</comment>