Good books for deep hacks - <AUTHOR> https://begriffs.com/posts/2017-04-13-longterm-computing-reading.html <comment><USER2> This is more reading material than some Master's programmes.

Here's a shorter alternative:

Choose a few languages, play with them for a few months, get to the point where you can write some idiomatic code. Focus on SOLID code and what that means idiomatically in those languages. Learn strengths and weaknesses of each. It's never enough to just learn one language, I think, in the same way no good musician should only ever learn one genre. Do you really want to be like the woman in the bar in Blues Brothers ("We do both types of music, Country _and_ Western")?

Learn how to debug and profile. Ideally, learn how to write automated performance tests (along with unit and integration tests) that run on every build so you can keep track of what's going on for those critical pieces. Don't aim for 100% test coverage, aim for enough coverage to help you catch yourself from regressing working code.

Learn just enough git to create a repo, create branches, push and merge, and all that. Anything more complex? Google it when you need to like the rest of us.

Now go build something. Want to do something with chat? Sure, go read up on IRC and XMPP and Signal and Wire and all that. Want to do something with email? Sure, go read the RFCs and scramble around that area. Interested in UX? Go and read guidelines for your favourite app store and do that, even if you never plan to submit there: it's good advice.

The idea of reading 110+ books first in the hope you'll then start your epic hack sounds to me like epic procrastination.

Here is one of the most iconic pages from punk history: [https://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2...](https://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/5/23/1337810776607/sideburns940.jpg)

Code is punk. Go start a band.

<comment><USER3> > Learn just enough git to create a repo, create branches, push and merge, and > all that. Anything more complex? Google it when you need to like the rest of > us.

Bad advice. Learning git internals is surprisingly easy and has a lot of ROI. This tiny book has everything you need [https://github.com/pluralsight/git- internals-pdf](https://github.com/pluralsight/git-internals-pdf)

<comment><USER4> What's the ROI? I tend to agree with the author on this subject here. In my case I care for just enough git to get by so I can focus on the projects I'm using git to facilitate.

<comment><USER3> Learning "recipes" on the internet and copy pasting commands is a sure way to mess something up and could bring a lot of frustration. You only need to spend a few hours to understand how git works underneath to avoid any of that.

<comment><USER5> You should not have to learn the internals of any decent source control system to use it in a way that does not lead to a mess. An overview of _usage_ principles and examples should be enough and should provide enough insight to search for more information if needed.

User level documentation should be sufficient for user actions. If someone wants to learn internals, great; but this should be an option, not a requirement.

<comment><USER3> Lots of "should"s, but we're talking about advice on using git, not "any decent source control system". This is a problem I see with people not understanding git. They treat it like they think it should be treated. Like it or not, that's not going to work for git.

You don't give python advice to a C++ developer, regardless of how much you'd like C++ to be like python.

<comment><USER6> This logic also works on computers. Or, well, anything. You'd be surprised at just how useful people can find things while still making a mess of them.

So, yes, if you have the time, learn the internals. But no, that is not in any way a prerequisite. Nor should it be.

<comment><USER3> > You'd be surprised at just how useful people can find things while still > making a mess of them.

You mean like this? [http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/12/tatsuo-horiuchi- excel-...](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/12/tatsuo-horiuchi-excel- artist/)

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't have thought of that, but yes. :)

Most of my inspiration nowadays comes from my kids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Depending on the hack, I'll be using Haskell or C. Why mess with the things in between? (What's up with everyone nowadays using a misbegotten child of the browser wars as their main language?)_

What is it with so many Haskell folks being so full of themselves?

<comment><USER8> (Author here) sorry, I should work on my tone. Sometimes it feels fun to write strong statements, knowing in your own mind that you're just trying them on. Then when other people read the stuff I realize it doesn't sound daring, it just sounds arrogant. Realized this a few days ago when some podcasters covered an OpenBSD article I wrote, and when they read some of my statements _out loud_ it sort of made me wince.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The recommendations feels random...

K&R for C was very confusing for me and I really couldn't write in C until I discovered the Harrison and Steele book. This wasn't just a personal preference either, this was the book recommended on the C lang FAQ on Usenet 25 years ago.

I'd argue that today's reference to modern/advanced SQL is Markus Winand's book which isn't mentioned either.

<comment><USER10> > Harrison and Steele book.

I guess you mean Harbison

<comment><USER9> Yes. I can no longer edit my original message. Thanks for your correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Now i suspect that someone will come up with a totally different list - in ten years when you will be finished with this one. (i foreone still didn't get what those monads are all about :-) (nothing to be proud about...)

</comment><comment><USER12> >you can't beat the C language for intrinsic simplicity.

I like begriffs for his Haskell work, but I disagree with him on C. Simplicity is a good reason to prefer Wirth languages. They are similarly low-level, but beat C on safety and don't have C's abundance of undefined behavior. I suggest Free Pascal. It is similarly easy to write, compiles faster, helps you catch more bugs early and even has genetics. As I see it, there are only two major downsides to using Free Pascal: the syntax is more verbose and you have to generate and store bindings for C headers.

<comment><USER8> That's really interesting. I used Delphi back in the day to build little Windows GUI programs for personal projects, and it seemed fine. Subsequently haven't thought of Pascal much, so I guess I simply overlooked it while making The List. :)

Am I in a bubble, or is it true that C has become much more popular than Pascal? If so, why did it get popular?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nothing on compilers.

      Dragon Book
      LLVM Essentials

Nothing on machine organization and assembly.

      Computer Organization and Design
      ARM Cortex A72 Software Optimization Guide
      Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Optimization Reference Manual
      The microarchitecture of Intel, AMD and VIA CPUs

Parsing

      Language Implementation Patterns
      The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference

</comment><comment><USER14> I found this helpful not necessarily for the particular book recommendations, but for the topics it suggested looking into.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have 5 of the books on this list. I'll start with them this year.

</comment><comment><USER16> So much stuff to learn.

</comment><comment><USER17> Not a helpful list. It doesn't cover why some books are recommended.

<comment><USER18> Handily enough, the links go to goodreads where you can read reviews and determine that for yourself.

Consider the list as a discovery mechanism and then use your own judgement to determine whether it's worthwhile or not. The value is in the discovery, rather than a (non-existent) review.

<comment><USER19> So what value does this list have? Anyone can throw together a list of books, without explanation.

<comment><USER20> It's a list of books per topic that the author thinks are valuable books for some topic. With the link through to Goodreads, it actually probably doesn't really matter _why_ the author liked it - I don't know the author, so the authors reasoning would be the opinion of a random person, and Goodreads collects the opinion of a whole bunch of random people.

So why this article? Yeah, it is pretty much a discovery mechanism. To me, the author is saying "I liked these books," or "I think these books are good," and "Here's what other people said about these books." I knew of some of the books and I didn't know of others, so mission accomplished, to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nothing on PHP?

</comment><comment><USER22> A good list, but not for me. My interests are in general AI, specifically machine learning, and recently in a few open source blockchain platforms. The world would be a boring place if we were all into the same things.</comment>


Steve Jobs "Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/19/steve-jobs-android-porn/ <comment><USER3> Clearly, Steve Jobs is the only person in the world that believes privacy mode in browsers is for planning surprise birthday gifts for your spouse.

<comment><USER4> This is not about web browsers at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wouldn't it be funny if people did just that, by the millions?

<comment><USER6> Apparently Apple is feeling the heat, if he feels compelled to publically denigrate his competitors that way.

<comment><USER4> It's only denigrating if you yourself feel that porn is a bad association. If not, it's just stating a pretty reasonable suggestion: if having porn apps is important to you, buy a phone that supports porn apps. Don't buy one that doesn't.

The subtext is that Apple is willing to lose customers over not being in the porn business, and he's willing to state as much. Maybe this could be seen as denigrating if you suppose that they probably won't lose very many at all over it, suggesting the availability of porn apps on Android does not really add much value to the platform. But that seems a bit indirect.

You'll note he did not say "people who want porn are bad people" or "people who want Android phones are bad people" or "porn is the only thing Android is good for".

<comment><USER7> He's also subtly lying. The implication in his statement is that porn apps are allowed in the Android Market, which is false and I'm sure Steve knows it's false. See the android developer content policy here: <http://www.android.com/us/developer-content-policy.html>.

<comment><USER4> _The implication in his statement is that porn apps are allowed in the Android Market_

...how? He doesn't mention the Android Market. He surely knows the Android Market is not the only way to get applications -- in fact, TechCrunch even quotes him elsewhere as indicating that there is a "a porn store for Android". Not anything like "There is porn in the Android Market".

Remember, the context is him responding to a request about _his_ product. Stating clearly that people who want what is being asked for should go elsewhere makes a lot more sense to me than it being some kind of vague underhanded marketing tactic. What else would you say if someone asks for something you're not interested in selling? Should he say "Oh well maybe we'll reconsider. Don't buy a product that does what you want."? Wouldn't _that_ be dishonest? I mean, if this is lying so subtle that you have to explain it I really don't think it's meant to deceive.

The whole thing is just silly and shows how little it really takes to get HN into a frenzy these days.

<comment><USER7> I'm _certain_ he's aware of it. I'm certain he's also aware that you can easily get to porn on an iPhone using Mobile Safari. Much more easily than installing an non-Market app like Mikandi and then using it to find porn. Hell there are even a rather astonishing number of porn sites that seem to specialize in iPhone optimized content.

So given all that, you have to wonder why does he even _bother_ to mention Android at all, especially considering that the Android Market prohibits porn just like the Apple App store. You've got to be incredibly naive, or deliberately disingenuous to claim it doesn't sound like a deliberate attempt to slander his competition. Kind of like the old political routine of asking your opponent when he stopped beating his wife. :-)

<comment><USER4> _You've got to be incredibly naive, or deliberately disingenuous to claim it doesn't sound like a deliberate attempt to slander his competition._

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I believe you're wrong in your interpretation. You won't hear anymore about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just to be clear. The Android marketplace doesn't allow porn either.

But due to the open nature of the iPhone a company created a "pornstore."

IMHO, the browser has been a pretty good porn marketplace for a long time - <USER2> don't see the need.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm all for porn. Larry Flint said it once: It's just sex.

So why make a big deal of it? There is no way you can take the morale high- ground by disallowing porn. Tell me, are apples customers conservatives that walk around playing golf all day?

<comment><USER10> Um, most porn is nothing like sex.

<comment><USER11> Yeah. In porn, people are having fun!

But seriously, the mentality that porn is dirty is misguided, especially alongside the death and destruction that are pushed in the gaming industry.

<comment><USER12> The problem with (most) porn is that they really aren't having fun. All they are doing is working through a list of positions.

<comment><USER13> I guess it depends on what porn exactly. I know a few people in the biz, both the indie side and the pro side, and they have a ton of fun.... I'm sure there's some folks who aren't, but I don't watch that stuff:)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What really bothers me about this particular aspect of the App Store approval process is how hypocritical it is. If Apple wants to make the App Store a clean place then that is their prerogative. However, to leave Sports Illustrated Swimsuit apps and sex position apps while talking all high and mighty seems rather hypocritical.

<comment><USER14> Are you asking why Apple allows the same stuff you can find in a Barnes & Nobles but refuses to allow porn?

Maybe Steve does the B&N test?

<comment><USER15> I still think comparing the App Store to physical stores is a flawed analogy:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1272433>

Jobs emphasizes this by pointing out that Android (or, non-Apple) is the only option available for mobile software if you disagree with Apple's app store policies. Why not allow people to download/install apps outside the App Store? They do own the phone, right?

<comment><USER16> >They do own the phone, right?

That's just a technicality.

They own the phone but for Apple it's more like a subscription: people will buy apps from Apple's AppStore, buy accessories that need Apple's approval (and where Apple gets a cut) and after maximum 3 years upgrade to the next Apple piece of hardware.

So the phone purchase isn't an atomic purchase, it's more like the first downpayment to "the Apple experience".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Isn't that what Sony/Betamax said about VHS?

</comment><comment><USER18> Well, thanks for the tip. Will do.

But what's really amazing about that guy is that he is apparently unable to understand the difference between a thing and an explanation of that thing. He has banned (or rather censored) a dictionary on the grounds that it included the words "fuck" and "shit" after all.

OK, it was fun writing that, but I actually don't believe it. He does understand that difference. He just thinks keeping the utmost distance from anything "dirty" regardless of the type of connection is beneficial to his franchise.

We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out in the market in the long run. Whilst waiting I'm going to buy an Android phone for hacking and other types of pleasure ;-)

</comment><comment><USER19> That's interesting. I haven't had a problem looking at porn on the Web using the iPhone. Okay, the screen's a bit small so it's pointless, but still. WTF would we want to _pay_ for it when the Web has so much for free?

</comment><comment><USER20> I have no real hangup over porn (indeed, I spend days looking at it for work..) but I can see his point.

Apple, understandably, don't want to be in the minefield arena of porn distribution via the App Store - it's a smoking gun in a sense.

This is just a closed product of the App store.

Though it appears Jobs also considers it a moral imperative; which is wrong.

<comment><USER21> To repeat what others have said: there is no porn in the Android Marketplace. There is a 3rd party adult appstore. There are also some "girlie" apps like swimsuit model calendars or whatever. Saying "Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone" is not Jobs defending the iPhone but attacking the Android platform.

<comment><USER20> To be fair; Jobs is commenting about Android - not the Android Marketplace. It feels a distinct difference.

(I wasn't commenting on that anyway tbh)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Who cares? That's what a browser is for. + vids+pics.

What utility would be added by making an 'App'?

<comment><USER23> Multitouch and GPU acceleration? E.g. fast pinch-to-zoom into hi-res originals.

<comment><USER24> Somehow "multitouch" and "pinch-to-zoom" sound really strange in this context... :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Except porn isn't allowed in the Android appstore either.

<comment><USER26> The difference is, the Android appstore isn't the only source of apps.

<comment><USER25> I completely agree.

It appears people are taking this statement the wrong way - Porn isn't allowed in the appstore, so his statement is bullshit. Of course we can install our own apps / porn on Android! That's one of the best parts.

But we (android community) get to dodge the THINK OF THE CHILDREN bullshit that Jobs is trying to stir up because it's not allowed in the default distribution method.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think he doesn't really believe it, except in the sense that he wants to avoid the brand being tainted by identification with porn.

That is, he doesn't want to see something on the TV news about how high schoolers with iPhones are watching porn in the cafeteria.

<comment><USER7> Err.. They already _can_ watch porn on the iPhon in the cafeteria. Do a quick google search for "iphone porn". There are a HUGE number of porn websites that do a perfectly fine job of streaming porn to the iPhone/iPod Touch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This seems to be a smart movie on Jobs' part. I'm not an Apple fan per se (I don't own any Apple products) but can see some definite advantages to Jobs' strategy.

1\. Every business guy I've talked to loved the iPhone's power and what they could do without needing to lug a laptop around everywhere. So the iPhone has a definite business appeal, and keeping porn out helps keep that ambiance. 2\. Clearly he is using the porn store for Android as a, "hey, Android is entertainment, iPhone is for professionals " type of message. 3\. I think the other smart thing, which no one in Apple will talk about is the reduced bandwidth consumption they will have by not having porn! It is an inherently bandwidth hungry system (presuming online, not stored in a DB) to be encouraging videos and images. 3a) This allows them to leave out a strategically bad (PR/Marketing-wise) niche that would strain an already strained infrastructure. 3b) This strain on the infrastructure would affect those business types that they have good appeal with.

FWIW - I think people claiming that Apple is socially conservative is absurd. They have a former VP candidate for the Democratic party on their board. And I bet if people looked into it, they'd find a health balance of board political donations go to liberals.

<comment><USER7> Jobs is also lying and I'm sure he knows it. Personally I'm not sure I see how that's a _good_ move. The Android Market doesn't allow porn apps either (see the developer content policy here: <http://www.android.com/us/developer- content-policy.html>).

The bandwidth consumpsion argument is also total bullshit. Do a quick google/bing search for "iphone porn". There are a _lot_ of porn sites ready, willing, and able to stream porn videos to Mobile Safari.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> maxklein said it best:

Do you really think Apple wants porn apps in their Top 25 Grossing, Paid, and Free lists?

"I'm an app store developer, and if Apple opens the doors, let me tell you what will happen : First of all, there will be hardcore porn immediately. Boob apps will flood the store, because that's what makes money."

<http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1110804>

<comment><USER7> Just to be clear, the Android Market doesn't allow porn apps either (see the developer content policy here: <http://www.android.com/us/developer-content- policy.html>). But it _is_ relatively easy for an Android user to load apps from outside the Android Market. One of these apps _is_ a porn market: [http://phandroid.com/2009/11/27/android-porn-market-from- mik...](http://phandroid.com/2009/11/27/android-porn-market-from-mikandi/)

Bit of a tempest in a teapot really, since any user who could figure out how to download and install mikandi (or the equivalent) could also just search for any of the NUMEROUS porn web sites that work just fine on either Android or iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> honestly, who is he to dictate what we oughta do and dont

</comment><comment><USER31> wasn't it steve-jobs who had earlier potificated : 'i would rather be a pirate than be in the navy...' why so serious ?

</comment><comment><USER32> 3 years of having arguments with the public will make some people lose their patience. That's how I see it.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is another brilliant marketing move by Steve and an attempt to influence the news media's view of the Android phone.

If the news media starts talking about Android phones as "porn" phones then the iPhone will be presented as the shiny white alternative to that.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure how a completely obvious lie is a brilliant marketing move. Granted, lying has worked for some companies before, but personally I think this is likely to do more to _hurt_ Jobs reputation than to help it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> done</comment>


A Startup About Nothing - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepeoplestartup.com/

<comment><USER2> This really looks like a some kind of a scheme. Only reason someone would be interested in buying this start-up is for collected emails (They openly acknowledge that in their terms of use). So in essence, at best, people joining provide all the value, while getting at best marginal benefit later on. At worst, this is going to be scam with millions of auto generated emails joining diluting real value (And scamming anyone that would be silly enough to purchase this `startup`).

<comment><USER3> You are making a few assumptions. Terms are there to create users and legally protect both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok, I'll bite. Reading the terms of service, which were definitely, um, funny?... was interesting. They are going to collect a bunch of emails on a list, sell them to a big company, and split the proceeds with the people on the email list. They are of course taking the costs associated with splitting a large sum of money with an even larger list of emails out of the portion of money going to the really large list of emails. And of course "big" companies are going to buy an email list from this company even though there is an already large and cut throat industry for creating email lists to sell to large companies? Sounds Awesome!

Business Plan 1) Make quick website 2) Make funny(?) Terms of Service 3) People Sign Up with Email ... 4) Umm... ... 5) Are we profiting yet? ... ...

</comment><comment><USER5> In case this crowd is missing part of the parody here, this is a Seinfeld startup: the "show about nothing", where George runs "The Human Fund", a fake charity.

"The Human Fund. Money for People".

<comment><AUTHOR> You nailed it!

<comment><USER6> Humor, smart way to collect HN Karma :o)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You _really are_ the product this time.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is clearly a piss-take on the state of web 2.0.

</comment><comment><USER9> someone watched Seinfeld last night</comment>


Show HN: Data Commandr – As Easy as a Spreadsheet, as Powerful as SQL - <AUTHOR> http://conceptoriented.com <comment><USER2> How do I schedule my transformations so they happen on a recurring basis?

I would like to try the tool but keep getting a "Server Error" message which appears to prevent it from fully loading.

<comment><AUTHOR> > How do I schedule my transformations so they happen on a recurring basis?

Currently formulas are evaluated only when the user _explicitly_ presses Evaluate button (or using explicit API call).

The logic of automatic evaluations is work in progress and it is needed more for data integration or stream analytics. It is assumed that the formulas will be evaluated under certain conditions on regular intervals (say, one time per second), on certain events (after 10 appends) and so on.

> I would like to try the tool but keep getting a "Server Error" message

Hm, I have just checked and it works. It uses JSESSION so cookies must be enabled or may be some problem with the old session id so try to open new clean browser window.

It is MVP so there defenitely can be some technical problems. Sorry for that and thanks for testing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > it could be applied to tasks where Spark is normally used

How does it relate to Spark? Is it able to read from HDFS, translate to Spark map-reduce jobs or integrate somehow with Spark jobs?

<comment><AUTHOR> It could be a technological (column-oriented) _alternative_ to what map-reduce in general and Spark with RDDs in particular are doing. It might be easier to define a data processing workflow as a number of column definitions rather than as a graph of collection transformations. And such a column transformation workflow could be also more efficient at run time.

Here is my implementation of this column-oriented approach as a Java library for server-side transformations: [https://bitbucket.org/conceptoriented/dc- core](https://bitbucket.org/conceptoriented/dc-core)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Data Commandr: [http://conceptoriented.com](http://conceptoriented.com) (Version 0.6.0, 2017-05-14)

Data Commandr (DC) is a web application for working with _tables_. Its goal is to make complex operations with data tables as easy as working with classical spreadsheets (but it is not a spreadsheet application) for producing reports, data integration, data migration and other _data wrangling_ tasks. Its main distinguishing feature is that it does not use traditional (set-oriented) queries but rather relies on _column formulas_ to derive new data.

I would like to get your option about Data Commandr from three points of view:

\- [As developers] How do you like the current UI and general design? How it can be improved?

\- [As users] Can such a tool be useful for working with tables?

\- [As investors] What other tasks can be solved by using this approach? For example, I want to pivot in the direction of stream analytics. Or it could be applied to tasks where Spark is normally used (DC might have much higher performance and much simpler data processing language.) Other applications: data dictionary and data catalogs.

Thank you in advance for testing the app and your feedback.

COMPARISON:

\- [Spreadsheets] In spreadsheets, a cell is defined as a _function_ of other cells so we get a functional model where the result of each cell (one value) is computed by evaluating other cell formulas. In contrast, DC uses _columns_ instead of cells so that a model is a number of _column formulas_.

\- [Set-oriented approaches] In set-oriented approaches (RM, Hadoop, Spark etc.), new data is derived by applying an operation to input sets and producing an output set. Data transformations are represented as a graph of set operations. In contrast, data transformations in DC are represented as a graph of _function operations_.

\- [Research] Formally, Data Commandr relies on the _concept-oriented model_ of data [2]. In particular, DC does not rely on such difficult to use and understand operations like join and group-by. Instead, it uses _link columns_ [4] and _accumulate functions_ [1], respectively.

\- [Competitors] When I started this project [5] I knew only one similar product which is Power BI and its DAX language. Now there exist such relatively new products like airtable, fieldbook and rowshare.

[1] A. Savinov. From Group-By to Accumulation: Data Aggregation Revisited. Proc. IoTBDS 2017, 370-379, 2017. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316551218_From_Grou...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316551218_From_Group- by_to_Accumulation_Data_Aggregation_Revisited)

[2] A. Savinov. Concept-Oriented Model: the Functional View. arXiv:1606.02237 [cs.DB] 2016. [https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.02237](https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.02237)

[3] A. Savinov. DataCommandr: Column-Oriented Data Integration, Transformation and Analysis. Proc. IoTBD 2016, 339-347. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301764506_DataComma...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301764506_DataCommandr_Column- Oriented_Data_Integration_Transformation_and_Analysis)

[4] A. Savinov. Joins vs. Links or Relational Join Considered Harmful. Proc. IoTBD 2016, 362-368. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301764816_Joins_vs_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301764816_Joins_vs_Links_or_Relational_Join_Considered_Harmful)

[5] A. Savinov. ConceptMix: Self-Service Analytical Data Integration Based on the Concept-Oriented Model, Proc. DATA 2014, 78-84 [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265301356_ConceptMi...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265301356_ConceptMix_Self- Service_Analytical_Data_Integration_based_on_the_Concept-Oriented_Model)</comment>


Cloudflare have launched a censored DNS product that blocks LGBTQ support sites - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/1245374377757040640 <comment><USER2> They should have just figured out a way to add a user id parameter to the DNS resolver and let users configure which sites they want to censor, ublock- style. They would have able to get better-than-google level of analytics data collection since DNS covers stuff like apps and local software beyond browsers too.

Since DNS already have some id fields, here's how they can potentially implement it:

When the user sign up and add devices, have them visit a unique subdomain to "activate" the device. On the load balancer level the device should be fingerprinted and stored, I think their VPN product already does this so it should be quite straightforward. Every DNS query can now be matched against a custom block list. Of course this would take more server resources. Cloudflare can turn this into a business opportunity by offering tiered plans, with higher level plans so that users can choose what to censor based on their own brand of politics, instead of a third party corporation. Or perhaps they can simply recover the additional server costs through selling analytics.

</comment><comment><USER3> What an evil product. It's not just "oops, what a cock up". Sarah's brief testing shows it clearly blocks gay support sites en-masse, but permits most well known nazi sites.

Clearly no diligence was done at all at Cloudflare. The entire idea of filtering for "adult" content at the DNS is fundamentally flawed, and clearly they just assumed they could buy something instead of realising no such list exists that isn't irredeemably toxic.</comment>


Ask HN: Mentoring for equity - <AUTHOR>

I have a proposition/question for the HN community:
Would you be willing to Mentor For Equity?
The idea is this - There are tons of people (like myself) who have ideas they want to build out, but don't have the development chops to implement.
Rather than joining as a technical co-founder -- would you be willing to be a mentor with stake?
You meet on a regular schedule one to two times per week for two hours.
The goal is that the non-tech founder shows up with an agenda, and a goal. You provide guidance, tutorial help and technical knowledge but no development work.
Instead you teach the founder to code towards his goal.
In return, you get some advisory % of the company. Think of this as a personal incubation effort - a MYCombinator.
Does this sound of interest to anyone? If so, meet with me. <comment><USER3> To tell the truth, the best way to learn to develop something is to go and do it, mess up, read some article, and do everything possible before asking for help. If you can figure out how to solve the problem yourself, then you not only learn how to develop, but also learn how to tackle a problem in the future. If someone is "coaching" or "mentoring" you, you wont ever learn, and both of you will be frustrated. I recommend start small and grow your dev chops. Make the development of your idea the way to learn to do it and keep the motivation for learning.

</comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, to me, it sounds maddeningly frustrating. If you've ever been the guy telling someone else to type something while waiting over their shoulder, it's like nails in my soul if they make a typo. I usually have to fight very hard to not say something like "JUST LET ME TYPE IT PLEASE!"

This is that same thing, but on a much grander scale.

There may be somebody interested, and I certainly hope that you can get somebody qualified, but I guess the main question I have is why you wouldn't just bring on a technical founder and let them develop it? You'd still have the opportunity to learn by osmosis, and they could give you small chunks of coding tasks to offload some of the stuff that's less important, and you'd probably be done in a quarter of the time, if not less.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sure it would be faster to take on a technical founder -- but it seems as though there is a shortage of them available these days.

I am trying to find a workable solution to a lot of peoples problems - <USER2> they don't have full-time/interest to be a technical founder and others don't/cant contribute enough hustle to make technical founders take the jump.

Mentor someone for a few hours though, for an advisory % (between .5 and 2%) and it might work out.

If you meet with someone who you feel merits more time/interest/stake -- then go for it.

This might be a way for hackers and hustlers to meet up and speed-date.

The hacker gets to see the idea's vision and can determine if its something he wants to be a part of.</comment></comment>


Apple tight-lipped on removal of Freedom and other content-blocking apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90236881/apple-tightlipped-on-removal-of-freedom-and-other-content-blocking-apps <comment><USER2> This isn't new: [https://www.macrumors.com/2017/07/14/apple-ad-blocking- app-c...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/07/14/apple-ad-blocking-app- crackdown/)

Apple has said that they're not permitting VPN-based content blockers for a while now.</comment>


Indian Payments Startup MobiKwik Nabs $25M from Tree Line, Cisco, AmEx - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/07/mobikwik-series-b/ <comment><USER2> Today is the day for Recharge Startups in India! First Snapdeal acquired Freecharge for 2800 Crore INR And then MobiKwik nabs $25M from Tree Line, @Cisco, @Amex and @Sequeoia.</comment>


The more bits you use, the more you pay": Comcast CEO justifies data caps - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/the-more-bits-you-use-the-more-you-pay-comcast-ceo-explains-data-caps/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10704732](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10704732)</comment>


Apple 'Netbooks', Eh? - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2008/12/apple_netbooks_eh <comment><USER2> I can't imagine Apple producing a netbook. What I _can_ imagine is Apple producing a foldable iPhone with a 7" screen and video chat capability: a small laptop with a 3G (and therefore ubiquitous) Internet connection, an App Store, and an in-facing camera. It would be a transitional step toward a hypothetically even more tumultuous change: an App Store for OSX itself.

<comment><USER3> Who is going to get developers to write 3 versions of their app -- one for the iPhone, one for the iPhone Mega, and one for normal OS X? It won't be hard, but a lot of testing will be required. Will developers be willing to do it?

<comment><USER4> This in my opinion is why Java Me on mobile phones is a terrible platform to develop for... It's incredibly annoying to try and produce an application for several different handsets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In terms of portability, I don't see the value of taking a few inches off a Macbook Air.

The MBA already fits into all backpacks, briefcases and even those funny bags women carry around. It's very thin and light. You can't make it small enough to avoid the need for a backpack/briefcase, ie. it won't fit in your pocket, so what are you trading the screen real-estate for?

The only sensible answer would be 'money', ie. if it'd be less expensive, but Apple / S.J. says they don't know how to make it cheaper.

<comment><USER6> The point of netbooks is that they are cheap; being small is just a side effect. There are different kinds of small: reducing width/height makes it cheaper, but reducing thickness makes it more expensive. If Apple was going to make a netbook, the Air wouldn't be the place to start. It would make more sense to start with the MacBook and reduce the screen/keyboard size, remove the optical drive, replace the unibody with plastic, and keep the thickness the same (or even increase it).

<comment><USER7> "The point of netbooks is that they are cheap; being small is just a side effect."

Precisely why Apple won't enter that market.

<comment><USER8> The iPod Shuffle might be a good counter argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice analysis. A friend mentioned to me that the macbooks have gotten bigger over the years and there was on that was 12 inches (?) that they no longer make. I wouldn't be surprised if they announced a new small notebook with a heavy price tag targeted at filling that void.

A netbook would be cool, but I doubt it would come cheap from Apple. They also tend to be a little think (proportionally), so if they made a netbook Air _that_ would be amazing.

<comment><USER10> They used to make a 12" _PowerBook_ that is still regarded as one of the best form factors Apple ever made. I doubt they'll start that again, though, or trend any smaller because as the article mentions, Apple already has too many competing products. In addition to the Macbooks the article lists, I think the other end of the spectrum is the iPod/iPhone. These are essentially tiny netbooks; able to do most of what I would want a netbook for in an even smaller form factor. So I too strongly doubt that Apple will release a netbook.

<comment><USER11> His friend was talking about the 12" iBook.

The 13.3" Macbook Air is perfect form factor. As an aside, Apple is not going to make any laptops in the 12" factor.

<comment><USER12> There was both a 12inch powerbook and ibook. I owned the 12 inch PB, and it was pretty great, but no better than any of the current 13.3 inch models.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but Macbooks and iBooks are both white. Just a point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nah, this guy does not know what he's talking about. An iPhone is a phone. The OS was built for the hardware, it was designed to communicate.

The NetBook is for the web. I can also install any OS, as it is a PC, not a phone with a built in OS.

</comment><comment><USER14> Finally, someone with some sense about this netbook rubbish.

<comment><USER15> Apple netbook rubbish, or plain netbook rubbish?

Small, lightweight, cheap computers are a great idea, it's just not the business Apple is in.

</comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill IMHO all they need to do is make a really cool portable keyboard that works via BlueTooth with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Instant netbook functionality.

</comment><comment><USER16> Quote from the article: _By controlling the software that can be loaded and the hardware that can be attached, Apple's device will be simpler, easier to use and more reliable than a PC_

This smells like the dreaded "Trusted Computing" with its hardware engraved DRM.

Until people are free to install whatever apps they want to install & use any operating system of their choice; Apple or any company that controls what software can be installed isn't going to derive much success from their computers.

<comment><USER6> No, it just means that an OS that only allows you to install apps is going to be more reliable than an OS that allows app installers to overwrite parts of the OS itself.</comment></comment>


Drinking from an open container in microgravity (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/sots/ <comment><USER2> You know, a lot of tech news is about how some company is evil, or how the government is trying to control the internet, and it can really start to depress you. Something about space though, it just makes me optimistic. Thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><USER3> What I wonder: do they always align in the same body orientation, or is that just for the benefits of the cameras?

<comment><USER4> During shared meals I suspect they do. It'd be awkward to hang out with an upside-down person.

<comment><USER3> So it seems, but perhaps after a while they would get used to it and new constellations could evolve :-)

Likewise I wonder if the ISS was designed with specific sides for up and down in mind of if all sides are created equal. In the video some signs are visible which seem to be all aligned in the same direction, but what about tools and furniture?

<comment><USER5> There are different sections. Most is pragmatic, but the crew areas have a "down" to make the people feel better when they stay there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kind of sad that these guys get so excited about something as simple as "sharing a meal/toast just like normal humans would." Must be lonely up there.

<comment><USER7> Or, conversely, you could read this as a really happy video about the triumph of human ingenuity in an extremely challenging environment. I guess it's a capillary-cup half empty / half full kind of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm ready for space tourism.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does it still count as "first world problems" if you're not on "the world"?

</comment><comment><USER9> The International Space Station really is the pinnacle of human achievement.

As the crew members make a toast drinking from their rocket propellant inspired cups the entire planet can be proud.

<comment><USER10> Dont know if you are ironic or not.

<comment><USER9> Not. But I can see how it could be read -

"How much did we pay for that sippy-cup toast?"

I was more referring to the fact that we have a functioning space station through international cooperation.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Target demanded candidates for your apprenticeship - <AUTHOR> http://recruitly.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Listen, I am terrible marketer so like Thomas Edison it will be probably take 10,000 iteration before I get it right.

Kindly have another look at it, and provide any feedback you may have because communication is my weakness.</comment>


Intel dismisses 'x86 tax', sees no future for ARM or any of its competitors - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/130552-intel-dismisses-x86-tax-sees-no-future-for-arm-or-any-of-its-competitors <comment><USER2> _There is nothing in the instruction set that is more or less energy efficient than any other instruction set_

Oh, come on. The problem with x86 is that it's a variable length instruction encoding that isn't self synchronizing. That is, you can start reading at byte 0 and read one set of valid instruction or you can start reading at byte 1 and read another completely different set of valid instructions.

This means that the logic to decode more than one instruction in a clock cycle is really complicated, and complicated means power intensive. For instance, in AMD's Bulldozer chip the instruction decode unit uses more power than the integer execution cluster. Now, ARM has its troubles too (instruction predication on every instruction means another logical dependency, meaning that if you go out of order your scoreboard is more complicated) but they're not as bad and don't really exist in alternate encoding like Thumb2 or the 64 bit one.

Intel is able to compete so well because they tend to have better fabs, they tend to reach a given node like 22nm before everyone else, and their performance on that node tends to be better than other players too. But x86 does have intrinsic disadvantages.

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer: I'm a software guy @ Intel.

I feel that a lot of sw folks have a lack of imagination when it comes to hw. A lot of very smart people here work on making an efficient, fast front-end. There's lots of research in this area. To my eyes, the implementations are stunning.

To say that a variable-length CISC instruction set can never be as fast or effecient as ARM is sort-of like saying that an interpreted language can never be as fast as C. And we all know how that goes over on HN.

<comment><USER2> I'm sure the front end has had a lot of work and cleverness put into it, and I'm sure that it's able to, say, correctly guess where instruction boundaries are more than 99% of the time without knowing for sure and then remove those instructions from the queue if it turns out that the guess was wrong. But that just means that 4-wide decode is only on the same order of power consumption as execution, instead of being an order of magnitude more like if you'd done thing the naive way. I'm sure that the work they do _is_ stunning, but its work that doesn't even have to be done on more regular instruction sets.

It's not a problem with being variable length or CISC, its a problem with the lack of self-synchronization. If you, say, had 8 or 16 bit blocks were first bit of each block told you whether it was the beginning of an instruction you wouldn't have this problem at all. I'd generally say that for a modern general purpose computer variable length instructions and a large number of op-codes are a good idea, though a large number of addressing modes seems to still be a disadvantage. Its probably no accident that ARM, the "CISCiest" of the RISC processors is so popular right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On a somewhat unrelated note, Intel's cleanroom ad [1] that is reproduced in the article really sets my teeth on edge because of the sheer level of misogyny involved (little girl with toys in a pink bedroom vs. grown men in blue high-tech room).

Could it possibly send a stronger message that women don't belong in tech?

(That the ad designers may not have intended that message does not mean that it's not there.)

[1] <http://cleanroom.net/?p=966>

</comment><comment><USER5> Android is no problem because of the Dalvik byte code engine but Apple is a whole other matter. Apple has over 600,000 apps in the App Store that are all coded for ARM. Moving to a new instruction set architecture is going to problematic.

If Intel had taken low power seriously back in the days of the Newton and the StrongARM (which Intel actually owned for a while) they might have won the Apple business instead of ARM back in 2007 but now it is probably too late.

Apple has switched CPU architectures before but never with the number of applications that they are currently dealing with in the App Store.

<comment><USER6> I would think that there would be few problems porting your source from ARM to x86. Heck, if you use the iOS simulator, it compiles to x86! Maybe a Rosetta like shim could be used for apps where the authors do not update them.

<comment><USER5> I don't think it would take much to recompile existing apps but there are so many apps, just approving them would take Apple years.

Then think of the all the apps that are tuned to take maximum advantage of the platform. That code may work but it doesn't mean it will work optimally.

Intel is going to have to do a lot better than "we win some, lose some" on battery and performance to convince Apple to switch.

<comment><USER7> The last time Apple did this apps didn't _have_ to re-compile - the Rosetta translation layer did a pretty decent job. If Apple were to switch architectures (rather unlikely, but still) I imagine they'd be providing a similar sort of translation layer for most apps to use.

<comment><USER5> You aren't going to use Rosetta style software on a battery constrained mobile device. There would have to be a huge benefit to switching to make that kind of problem for users. The iPhone is already bashed for having battery issues. What would be the benefit of switching to Intel for Apple?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _I begin to wonder what this means for Apple_

There is no doubt in my mind that Apple will jump to Intel mobile chips as soon as Intel can meet Apple's needs.

Number one compelling reason: Samsung is Apple's foundry.

<comment><USER5> I can see Apple going with Intel as a foundry for ARM SoC but I doubt they will switch to x86.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Generally when a company dismisses a competitor in this way it usually finds itself on the wrong end of a disruptive collapse in 5 or so years. See Nokia, RIM, Palm.

While its difficult to bet against Intel, it will be interesting to see how quickly they can ramp up sales of their mobile processors as sales of their desktop processors decline. That will be the key to Intel's survival.

<comment><USER10> "as sales of their desktop processors decline"

Why will their sales of desktop processors decline?

<comment><USER9> People switching from buying x86 laptops or desktops switching to buying tablets instead.

If the iPad/Android/Windows 8 tablet doesn't have an Intel processor in it then that's money lost for Intel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And what else would you expect them to say? Even if they actually believe it, they're still seeing everything from their own eyes, from their point of view, and their market, just like an incumbent of an "old" technology would.

</comment><comment> excuse-me Who cares about a tablet/cell phone's CPU? It's the GPU that matters.

So I buy an Nvidia Tegra2 chipset, it happens to have an ARM tucked in the corner. I buy an Atom and it has the latest in a long line of Intel embedded GPUS stuck int he corner as an afterthought

<comment><USER12> The latest Atom SoCs have PowerVR GPUs.

<comment><USER11> Old ones. Almost 2 generations old. They can barely get half of the performance of any other current high-end chip, and Mali T604 and Adreno 320 should be out in a few months with another 2-3x increase in performance.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Build Your Own Google Docs (Without Google) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/04/firepad-firebase/

<comment><USER2> This is, or appears to be, a collaborative text editor, of which there are many available, and a fairly basic one at that. And not a google docs replacement. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER3> From www.firepad.io

How is Firepad different than other collaborative text editors?

Most collaborative text editors require special code to run on a server, making them impractical to use if you're not already using the right server stack. Firepad has no server dependencies and instead relies on Firebase for real-time data synchronization. This means that it's easy to add Firepad to any application, even static websites. All you need to do is drop in the JavaScript files and go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Direct link to the mentioned project: <https://github.com/firebase/firepad>

</comment><comment><USER5> I can build "my own Google Docs" with a series of many different document store databases. Why would I have a proprietary API back-end I cannot host myself as an alternative to Google? Let me host my own live text editor, text, editor, and all, xthxbai. The irony is pretty funny though.</comment>


The secrets of people who never get sick - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jan/24/secrets-of-people-who-never-get-sick <comment><USER2> Stay away from children.

Everyone with children in public schools, or partners that work in schools (there's a lot of software/teacher marriages...) that I work with are almost constantly sick with low-grade colds, flus, and other nagging viruses. I wouldn't discount the effect of stress at breaking down one's immune defenses, but frequent exposure to a breeding ground of disease like a public elementary school appears to dominate.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally what made a huge difference for me is not having a super stressful work where I couldn't stay at home to rest. So instead of having a cold for 2-3 days, it stuck around for weeks and I got them very frequently. I've old had a single cold this winter, it was pretty mild and over in a day or two.</comment>


Entrepreneur's Drug of Choice - <AUTHOR> http://modafinil.ca/entrepreneurs-drug-of-choice/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like it's better for you than Adderall but I wouldn't want to take it purely to work harder / faster / better. Unnecessary, prolonged brain chemistry modifications sounds scary, and the 'no negative mental side effects' theme from the marketing is BS (from 10 min of Googling).

<comment><USER3> Indeed; modafinil has quite a few side effects, at least according to a quick Wikipedia check ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil#Adverse_effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil#Adverse_effects)) (and while Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source, at least they bothered to cite their claims, so I'm more likely to trust _that_ then some unfinished marketing site).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this even legal? I thought Modafinil was a prescription only drug.

<comment><USER3> Depends on the jurisdiction. The site is based in Canada (at least according to the TLD), which doesn't classify it as a controlled substance. The U.S., however, _does_ classify it as such and therefore disallows importation unless you have a prescription.

Interestingly, adrafinil is completely unregulated in the U.S. (IIRC), and is sufficiently-closely related to modafinil that it basically has the same effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any reviews for this site? Any successful purchases?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you check avaialbility of domain names? - <AUTHOR>

Every once in a while there is a project that checks the availability of a large number of domain names at once. How do you go about this? Are their domain name registrars that offer an API (that allow a huge number of requests) - or are these people just doing piles of whois queries? <comment><USER2> I would guess they are doing whois queries, but be careful that you don't inadvertently get yourself blocked.

Another point of caution-- perhaps it is just urban legend, but I've heard that some shady registrars capture the domain you're looking up temporarily so you can't register it anywhere else.

That (possibly unreasonable) fear is why I find myself checking the existence of a domain from the CLI before I actually use my registrar of choice to register it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I will just do a DNS lookup, unless I can think of anything better. If a domain name hasn't been resolved then it probably hasn't been registered.

I heard that same urban legend... actually years ago that seemed to be true, but recently I've noticed that not happenning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been recently doing this using GoDaddy's Bulk domain checker. Checks up to 500 at a time.</comment>


The last unconquered sector of the web - <AUTHOR> http://seeinginteractive.com/newspaper-support-group/the-webs-final-frontier/

<comment><USER2> I work as a developer for the online arm of a yellow pages provider in Europe. Thanks to regulated data and a more conservative populace, it's still a very profitable sector for a fairly simple and well known business model. None of "we come from the Internet" players, be it Google, Facebook, Groupon or otherwise has succeeded in making any real dent _yet_, although they're making progress.

One point that article starts to make well but then spoils with the Monty Python reference is this;

> Part of the reason is that small business owners are already doing > everything they already know to stay afloat. Adding a whole new category to > what they need to understand and stay up-to-date with is just too much.

...it goes further than that even. The more tech-savvy small businesses know a fair bit about SEO, Adwords and how to present themselves online but _they don't have time_. Even if you have the knowhow investing, say, 3 hours a day for a couple of weeks, getting a campaign running when you're a dentist doesn't make sense when there's a queue of customers waiting.

Three fundamentals for tech startups wanting to provide software and services to small businesses are something like;

* Leads matter: it's not about clicks, it's about customers. If you're helping a dentist keep their weekly schedule full with _real patients_, they'll be happy to pay for it. Groupon's success is all about this.

* You need people on the ground. If you want to reach small businesses, you have to talk to them face to face, no matter how smart your algorithm is. You're competing for their attention against their real work - that which generates income - and while some are tech savvy, many more lack understanding of what technology can do for them. Again Groupon have figured this out <http://goo.gl/Zch2U>

* Be _genuinely_ trying to help them make their business a success. Many have a hard enough time just staying afloat and there are plenty of sharks already out there trying to take their money - Groupon may be one of them.

Finally, for tech startups, don't group them all as "small business" but instead look at specific "verticals". While there are commonalities, the needs of a hairdresser and a dentist are not the same. Take a look at some of the yellow pages provides business category listings for example <http://www.yellowpages.ca/business/> \- each one of those is a vertical with specific needs. Do you think a company selling farm equipment like tractors is interested in an online shopping cart?

OK - TL no one read ;)

<comment><USER3> We couldn't agree more with the points you're making. In the U.S., the Yellow Pages has lost more than half its revenue in just three years so it may be a bit different.

These optimizations you mention (and significantly more) are in our pipeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been thinking about this for years. I used to do a lot of small client work in the early 00s, and it was clear to me that high-quality custom work does not make sense for small businesses; the ROI just isn't there. At the same time, the services targeting this market just churn out crap.

Solving this problem is tough because small business owners are an extremely diverse set, and the needs of different types of businesses vary widely. Combine this with a general lack of internet savvy, a lot of folk wisdom picked up from friends and family about the web, and a do-it-yourself mentality means that an MVP is very difficult to sniff out.

The hardest part, though, is support. The price of the service needs to be relatively cheap, but it needs to have good support, preferably 12x7 phone support. Economically this won't scale unless the product is simple enough to minimize support needs. 10 years ago I think this problem was intractable, but with the internet becoming more and more ingrained in our daily lives, it's only a matter of time.

So yeah, personally I think this is a great market to be getting into.

<comment><USER5> "So yeah, personally I think this is a great market to be getting into."

Why do you think it's a great market to get into? Is it the size of the opportunity? Your first three paras outline why it's a difficult market.

BTW: Your description of the small business market is spot-on. I have also done small-client work (and still do) and agree with your assessment. It's just that your last statement seems out of synch with the sentiment of your comment.

<comment><USER4> It was meant to flow from the previous sentence. The market has been hard to get into, but it's inevitably opening up due to growing familiarity with the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Local business is a huge opportunity on the internet.

However, it far from the last 'unconquered' sector of the web. There will never be an end to vast opportunities on the internet, because new solutions create new opportunities that never existed before, ad infinitum.

For example, and idea like grubwith.us would have seemed bizarre before Groupon, but now it seems like a straightforward evolution (and something lots of people would like to do).

We still are working with very basic forms of artificial intelligence, but as it gets better, the whole internet will be reborn.

Carry on inventing everyone!

<comment><USER4> AI is the last unconquered sector of technology.

I'm really glad to live in a time before AI makes programming obsolete. I shudder to think about the potential crisis of purpose facing the human race if AI develops to the point to automate all our needs. But that's okay, I'll die and make room for the generations to whom that is simply the unquestioned nature of reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "They took their hard earned money and opened a pizza parlor or a garage or a gift shop. They never really wanted to be on the Internet."

There it is. That will be right up there with "They never wanted to be an accountant" and "They never wanted to be a marketer" and all the rest.

<comment><USER8> Of course, that isn't considered a valid excuse if they engage in subpar accounting or marketing practices, so why should it be acceptable in this case?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are a lot of small businesses out there that don't need to accept any payment on the site or offer phone support, they just need an easy to update, modern looking site that gives a good impression of their business.

'Local' businesses will often have their websites checked out by customers who have heard of them through word of mouth or other Real Life means. They google the name of the business to understand the service provided and to help them decide whether or not they want to give them their money. They will then physically go down there. That's often what 'local' means. In this situation simply having a simple, modern-looking, easy to use site with fast load times will create a vastly better impression on prospective customers. Better than 1998's leftovers currently do for a lot of these businesses anyway. If a business doesn't have a web site at all, customers basically don't really believe it exists in this day and age.

Wrap this up in a CMS that automatically pushes new content to twitter and facebook, does good SEO and has a mobile skin and you're on to a winner. Well, it'll pay the bills anyway.

This is essentially low hanging fruit, and modern development and deployment tools make it all the easier to pick.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even before launching our system in Beta in October, I did some trips in which I tried to sell it. I really needed to go out there and see what the market really wanted, not what was in my mind. In order to minimize risks, and because the system itself was not ready (and is not ready) for the big shots, I wrote emails to small business owners. I first did this in Morocco in May, during a two weeks trip (I mix personal travel and business all the time) and I wrote to Riads (local "garden" hotels) which are not apartments (my core business). I offered them "a riad dedicated website, easy to maintain and in 8 languages". I sold two, having sent maybe 40 emails and met 5 owners. One bought it because she was tech savy (did her own websites and so on) and immediately understood why it made sense, and the other one simply bought visibility. She wanted to be "first in google" and did not want to hear anything else. Did not care that she could edit her own prices and pictures, she could pay me for this. Did not care about 8 languages, she wanted to be first in google, that's it. I ended up selling her a "visibility results based" package and got the deal for a few hundres euros a year. First money on the project, I'd take any deal :)

Fine for me, but it made me realize that the less they know, the more they pay only for certified results. Make sense. As the system grew, so I could target higher, and it became much easier and profitable.

So, do I want to target the guys who "never wanted to be on the internet"? No, they will probably be go with a webdesigner who sells a joomla website for 2000-4000 euro (in Morocco they spend a lot, even more than Europe!) and then realize they are not "first in google" and spend 1000 more to be "first in google" with a local "SEO" firm. I have no time and no need to explain how things work to them, I better invest my time with the guys who, after 5 minutes, tells me "great idea, let's try it, how much?". There's many of them and they will appreciate my project more than anybody else.

</comment><comment><USER5> What is their differentiator from Yahoo! Web Hosting and similar ilk? IMHO, any technological advantage will eventually be copied (by companies who care to stay in the business).

Are they hoping to just take over as the new Geocities until someone else comes along? Is this market segment, with this kind of product, worth fighting over or does it get passed around when the current market leader gets tired of dealing with it?

</comment><comment><USER11> Strange that I've seen no-one actually side with the small businesses here.

It's true: small business are lagging behind in web presence, though it's mostly _our_ fault.

When such business took a sneak-peak in the web, 10 years ago, there was actually no strong reason to be on the web. The people behind the business themselves didn't use the web as a resource-for-everything as we see it today. They considered (and rightly so) a web presence just as a business facade.

Moreover, _that_ presence cost them a _fortune_ , for mostly what today we consider as a flash nightmare.

I'm sure that now people realize what they would like to see in their website, because that's the way they expect websites to be: an actual, useful service for the people that come to their business.

That means more money to be spent however, and if you want a nice, decently done website, probably with some sort of customized service behind it, and considering eventual maintenance costs, it probably means spending the same amount you spent 10 years ago, plus a yearly figure which is certainly larger that what you're spending now.

Of course, it also means expanding your business on the web, for the _first_ time, really. I think that many people realize that, and with time (read: money) they will move on. I don't buy the fact that people don't know what web means anymore.

However, I'm quite confident that whatever new website they're building now, it will require a complete re-do in another 5 years time due to changing trends and technologies (which in customer's minds reads as "no real reason"). And that's exactly the reason I agree with them. You _really_ need to have a strong business return in exchange for such a waste of time an money.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seeing Interactive has a branding problem:

"We want newspapers to make money; we want newspapers to own local."

If I own a small business that doesn't speak to me at all, and once I realize that 'local' means me, then it's even a little offensive.

I suggest that while the blog post is essentially correct, it should be on a separately branded site, lets call it 'bootsontheground.com' (a terrible name), with a more appropriate 'Manifesto.'

<comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't agree more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Absolutely, I see this all over. So many people want a web site, but they have absolutely no idea what to do. So many small businesses have websites, but they're very poor quality. Many have sites from about 2004 which are in serious need of updating. And, there's still a lot of businesses who think they don't need a website or it wouldn't be useful, and they'll be changing their minds within the next 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER14> If people are finding out about these places using Yelp, Google, Groupon et al. is there really a need for a SEO friendly website? Many of these businesses don't care about a web presence because its effect would be negligible.

I suppose you could justify the cost of building out a website for the local dry cleaner, but seriously, does that help it gain any new business? I doubt it.

<comment><USER15> It probably would. Remember that we're a very mobile society (in the US) and towns have new arrivals every day.

If I just moved to a new town, I probably don't know where the nearest dry cleaner, or Thai restaurant, or carpet cleaner is. Rather than spend valuable time driving around searching, my first inclination will be to google it. If they get my business and do a good enough job, odds are I'll continue to patronize them for years. People rarely change service providers unless they move or there's a major problem.

<comment><USER14> If you Google it, you'll get a comprehensive list of dry cleaners/Thai restaurants with an accompanying map. And that list usually shows up at the very top rendering everything below meaningless. Try it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How did this even get on the front page of HN?

It doesn`t convey anything useful and is a blantant promotion for themselves. I `don`t mind blantant promotions as long as there is something valuable for me to look at while I`m there.

All they ramble on about is an untapped small business market. Hmm, or maybe businesses that are becoming obsolete because they can`t keep up with the rapid change in the business world.

The final frontier, I think not. How about a dying set of businesses making way for the new small businesses that are changing with the times.

</comment><comment><USER17> Completely off-topic (perhaps not) but at the top of the sidebar of SeeingInteractive's site, there is a sign-up section for a support group. The fields are _incredibly_ tiny. Checked on both Firefox 3.6 and Chrome.

Not to knock them but it doesn't really inspire confidence in them helping small businesses conquer the web.

<comment><USER3> We have the very classic problem of working so much for newspapers and our small business customers that our own website isn't nearly our best foot forward. We've known it for months and we're in the process of doing a redesign... so problems like this have gotten bumped.

Most of our small business customers have no idea who we are since we use the newspaper brands. Way less than 1% of all Seeing Interactive traffic will ever pass through this site.

We hear you loud and clear and this and whole bunch of other stuff you probably didn't see will be fixed early in the new year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> To be fair, I think it's only in the last couple of years that there's been a sea-change in the quality of web aesthetics. Before that, hardly any websites looked 'good.' They were either decent, or ugly. Nowadays I see a lot of genuinely beautiful sites, but lots of people are still catching up.

</comment><comment><USER10> We are doing something very similar for apartments websites. My assumptions where exactly the same but after two months it turned out the the easy sales were those made with the advanced business owners, not the ones who never really wanted to be on the Internet. The tech savy ones saw immediately the wisdom of a dedicated website builder compared to the great but too general wordpress or joomla. The others were still asking for a guaranteed first place in Google with no keywords specified :)

So, as the system grows we will more and more target the ones who know what we are talking about. It will be interesting to know how it goes and I'll be happy to share our experiences!

Luca

Www.adormo.com

<comment><USER19> Other (small) changes I'd make: 1\. Don't say "sign up" -- say something like "Join free." In any case say something that indicates value to the consumer vs. signing up, which indicates value to the site owner.

2\. For the signup button use a color that contrasts more strongly with the rest of the design, e.g., red or green (vs. blue)

3\. Don't redirect me to another, context-free page when I click the signup button

4\. More importantly, get a native English speaker to proofread your copy. "Create easily your advanced apartments website right now" is very awkward, and both "easily" and "advanced" are essentially meaningless words.

Solve my problem, don't sell me features.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great stuff. We should start a former-YC-company consulting arm :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The majority of my family are small brick & mortar business owners and an interesting observation is how much they've become users of popular web apps like facebook and google (for personal uses) and how much that has impacted their openness to using the web more in their business. They are coming to a state of mind that opening a browser and clicking things is easy while their desktop apps are a major pain in the ass to use, maintain and backup.

</comment><comment><USER21> In the UK, A few companies like Google and BT have come together to solve this problem. <http://www.gbbo.co.uk/> They offer a free service (until 2011) for businesses to create their own websites managed by Google Sites, integrating with Google maps, places, etc.

I think in future Facebook pages will also play an important role in getting small businesses online.

</comment><comment><USER22> I agree would agree with this based on our experiences dealing with local real estate businesses. However, local small businesses are sector specific, a pizza shop has different needs than a hair salon than a real estate agency, etc.

In order to break into this, I think it needs a combined effort of different sector specific providers + companies like yours and weebly.

</comment><comment><USER23> _But small businesses are still behind. Way behind. See<http://buddingtonsphoto.com/> as an example._

What a great way to acquire new customers. Post the worst websites you can find on Hacker News, bombarding them with hits and laughter, and embarrassing them into upgrading.

(I'd call them and ask why they haven't engaged Seeing Interactive, but I just don't have the heart.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Trust me, we have way more examples than this.

The truth is that we do not sell directly to SMBs. We work through local newspapers and they sell using their brand. If you called any of our SMB customers, they probably have never heard the name "Seeing Interactive"--which is how we can get away with using such a terrible name. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "They need a good solid website that has been created with SEO principles in mind and they need to be able to easily update it."

What small businesses really care about is cost effective customer acquisition.

A new website without a marketing engine attached is a tougher sell and is a crowded marketplace - you'll wind up selling against Intuit, Yahoo and other giants that have a virtually unlimited inbound flow of leads (small biz that buys QuickBooks etc).

SEO is effective, but slow.

Google's new hyper-local search features are perhaps a faster payoff for SEO but there are plenty of localized SEO / SEM companies already out pushing that pitch like Real Local.

All that naysaying notwithstanding, there's a great opportunity to build something incredible in the small business space but it's not unconquered from lack of trying.

<comment><AUTHOR> It works a lot faster than you might think. Sure, if you're setting up a new site in San Francisco or Austin this kind of thing will be a much harder sell. But in small-town USA where no one knows what SEO means, it's actually really fast.

We've had people jump to #1, #2, and #3, of target keywords in under a week (we don't advertise this, btw, because it's unrealistic), but 30-45 days is very common.

There are millions of businesses in markets less than 25k people, and those people are our targets.

<comment><USER25> This is directionally accurate in my experience. 90% of ranking for Ogaki Dog Care is showing up. (It is the same story as "American presidents bingo cards", essentially, except you'll have inlinks direct to that page.)

<comment><USER26> And that comment is now ranked first on Google for Ogaki Dog Care :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> +1

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think it is a bit shortsighted to imply that every sector of the web besides small businesses has been conquered.</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone have experience with ICANN deletions? - <AUTHOR> I've been checking up on a domain every once in a while I've wanted that's been squatted on, and noticed this week that it's been put into "pendingDelete" and "redemptionPeriod" status.
Is there any way to check when it'll be open again? The redemptionPeriod status description says that the domain will be deleted 30 days after the redemptionPeriod is set, but doesn't tell when it was set. I'd rather not wake up to find it's been squatted on by a different person after it's deleted, so is there any way to be notified when it's been cleared, or see when statuses for domains were set? <comment><USER2> If this domain has any potential value whatsoever, you will wake up to find it's already been taken unless you "backorder" it. Domain backorder services are when you pay to purchase the domain the moment its registration drops. They fight to be milliseconds faster than the other services trying to make the same purchase. You won't beat the bots by checking WHOIS once a day.

</comment><comment><USER3> I got a successful backorder for a .com through snapnames.com ~6 years ago, and a .org through pheenix.com this year.

There are some other providers listed here too; [https://www.expireddomains.net/article/howto-backorder- expir...](https://www.expireddomains.net/article/howto-backorder-expired- domains-15102.html)</comment>


High on fat, low on evidence: the problem with the keto diet - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/07/high-on-fat-low-on-evidence-the-problem-with-the-keto-diet <comment><USER2> "Recent research found that, after three weeks of following a LCHF diet, young and healthy adult participants recorded a 44% increase..."

The _Guardian_ keeps grasping for pieces to fit their narrative; this one is particularly weak.

The important lipid numbers are the amount of _small-particle_ LDL, the _ratio_ of HDL to LDL, and triglycerides. The first two weren't even measured, and the third was no worse for the LCHF group.

Worse yet was the ridiculous sample size, which was _at most_ 15 subjects and may be as few as 6! (9 quit)</comment>